"Wisp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... between Kells and his lieutenant, Jim Cleve sat on the edge of the table, one dusty boot swinging so that his spur jangled, a wisp of a cigarette in his lips. His face was white except where there seemed to be bruises under his eyes. Joan had never seen him look like this. She guessed that he had been drunk—perhaps was still drunk. That utterly abandoned face Joan was so keen to read made her bite her ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... about it. The pain was too great, and she felt too bewildered for argument. Leslie was enveloped in rose-colored tulle, with touches of silver, and looked like a young goddess with straps of silver over her slim shoulders and a thread of pearls about her throat. The white neck and back that the wisp of rose-color made no attempt to conceal were very beautiful and quite childish, but they shocked the sweet soul of Julia Cloud inexpressibly. She stood aghast when Leslie whirled upon her and demanded to know how she liked ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... her was a bald-headed man with a lone wisp of hair directly over his forehead whom the hotel-keeper introduced as "Mr. Shapiro, a counselor," and who by his manner of greeting me showed that he was fully ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... relatives of Nimni. They were slender as sky-sail-poles; standing in a row, resembled a picket- fence; and were surmounted by enormous heads of hair, combed out all round, variously dyed, and evened by being singed with a lighted wisp of straw. Like milliners' parcels, they were very neatly done up; wearing ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... my eyes to the future that Maggie and I must prove, But the only light on the marshes is the Will-o'-the-Wisp of Love. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... No Will-o'-the-wisp mislight thee, Nor snake or slow-worm bite thee! But on, on thy way, Not making a stay, Since ghost there is none to ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... mountain ridges. Endlessly they circled through dusky canon and sun-baked arroyo. Always Rhoda looked forward to each new camping-place with excitement. Here, the rescuers might stumble upon them! Always she started at each unexpected shadow along the trail. Always she thrilled at a wisp of smokelike cloud beyond the canon edge. Always she felt a quiver of certainty at sudden break of twig or fall of stone. But the days passed and ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... tedious, only a little coming away at a time, and, rarely, dizziness and faintness will require the patient to lie down for a while. The water should always be removed from the ear after syringing by twisting a small wisp of absorbent cotton about the end of a small stick, as a toothpick, which has been dipped into water to make the cotton adhere. The tip of the toothpick, thus being thoroughly protected by dry cotton applied so tightly that there is no danger of it slipping off, while the ear is pulled backward ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... a passion of tender pity. Poor little, simple Rosy, too! The tide had crept around her also, and had swept her off her feet, tossing her upon its surf like a wisp of seaweed and bearing her each ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... I do?" said Billy, and he went back to the earth, where he and the piece of the devil's nose melted into a ball of fire, and he roves the earth till this day as a will-o'-the-wisp. ...
— Welsh Fairy-Tales And Other Stories • Edited by P. H. Emerson
... Foissac, M. Dupotet, M. Chapelain, and M. de Geslin. It would be but an unprofitable, and by no means a pleasant task to follow the commissioners in their erratic career, as they were led hither and thither by the four lights of magnetism above mentioned; the four "Wills-o'-the-Wisp" which dazzled the benighted and bewildered doctors on that wide and shadowy region of metaphysical inquiry — the influence of mind over matter. It will be better to state at once the conclusion they came to after so long and laborious an investigation, and then examine ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... being so charmingly and neatly expressed. What they say about joy being the bribe that achievement offers us to get itself realized may be true in a sense. But they are wrong in speaking of the bribe as if it were an apple rotten at the core, or a bag of counterfeit coin, or a wisp of artificial hay. It is none of these things. It is sweet and genuine and well worth the necessary effort, once we are in a position to appreciate it at anything like its true worth. We must learn not to trust the beautiful writers too implicitly. For there is no more treacherous guide than ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... whispering of the leaves outside. The darkness was full of mystery and charm to the lonely child, but fear had no place in her thoughts concerning it. What could these lights be—lights that moved about when every one else was asleep? Could they be the will-o'-the-wisp that Peter had told her about? Could they perhaps be angels with beautiful white wings and stars on their foreheads—guardian angels watching over the house ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... Doctor Watsons of this world, as opposed to the Sherlock Holmeses, success in the province of detective work must always be, to a very large extent, the result of luck. Sherlock Holmes can extract a clue from a wisp of straw or a flake of cigar-ash. But Doctor Watson has got to have it taken out for him, and dusted, and exhibited clearly, with a ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... The wisp of old woman in mourning dress, with blown white hair and out-stretched hand; the crackling hearth, and coziness of the room beyond—these are hostess and haven enough to any waif of winter tempest; and Molly ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... from his case and gave it to him. Then, striking a match, held it for him, till the wisp of paper and tobacco was well alight; while he lay back, drawing in the fragrant smoke, with a sigh in which contentment ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... the first place, I found a bead-purse, about half done; there was, however, no prospect of finishing it, for the needles were out, and the silk upon the spools all tangled and drawn into a complete wisp. ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... she drew the girl to the end of the porch where the wistaria vine, a whispering maple and the crimson rambler shut them in from the eyes of all the world save the spirit of Providence Nob, which brooded down over them in a wisp of cloud across its sun-reddened top, "here's the place and time and heart strength to tell you that your Lord have laid the hand of affliction on you heavy and have tooken back from you the beautiful voice He gave you to use for a time. I'm a-praying for you to be able ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... years after the girl went to prison, the fisherman was going home one night along the shore toward the village with some nets on his back. He was of a callous nature, and did not hesitate to take the shortest way across the meadow; but when he got in among the dunes, he saw a will-o'-the-wisp following in his steps, grew frightened, and began to run. It began to gain upon him, and when he leaped across the brook to put water between himself and the spirit, it seized hold of the nets. At this he shouted the name of God, and fled ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... She was touching her fringe, giving little pats and pulls to her dress, preparatory to descent, and Sophia whispered, 'Just see, Caroline, that wisp of hair near my ear—so tiresome! I can never be sure ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... of these unfortunates be a housewife, then she is continually "picking up", continually pursuing that household Will-o'-the-Wisp, "finishing the work." For it is the nature of housework that it is never finished, no matter how much is done. This overconscientious person, unless she is made of steel springs and resilient rubber, breathlessly chasing ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... "give a good deal to have him taken." Tarleton is affectionately invoked to this pleasant duty, by the sincere hope that he would "get at Mr. Marion." This, however desirable, was no easy matter. Marion was a very "will o' the wisp" in military affairs, almost as difficult to find, at times, by his own followers, as by the enemy. He was the true model of a partisan in a country, like ours, of swamp and thicket; leading the pursuing foe, like Puck, "through bog and through briar," till he wearied out his patience, ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... ringing their first warning for the morning service when Mandy peeped into the spare bedroom for the second time, and glanced cautiously at the wisp of hair that bespoke a feminine head somewhere between the covers and the little white pillow on the four-poster bed. There was no sound from the sleeper, so Mandy ventured across the room on tiptoe and raised the shades. The drooping boughs ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... narrow little paths wound immediately out of sight. Sometimes we saw a wisp of smoke rising above the undergrowth and eddying in the tops of the trees. Long vine ropes swung from point to point, hung at intervals with such matters as feathers, bones, miniature shields, carved sticks, shells and clappers: either as magic or to keep off the birds. From either side ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... low doorway of the Double Cross ranch house and gazed down the sun-baked road to where, in the far distance, a little wisp ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... the great opponent of orthodoxy in his day, yet he led his followers to no goal more explicit than might be surmised from a study of Kant and Hegel. He was, however, sincere in his devotion to the will-o'-the-wisp that he conceived to be the truth, and he was courageous enough to admit that he never satisfied himself. There was chilly and austere attraction about the man; he was so elevated and superior that one could hardly help believing that he must know something of value, ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... beheld lights, not camp lights, but electric lights, and cheered by these, we quickened our pace. Alas! they seemed to play us a sorry game, and mocking, Will-o'-the-Wisp-like, retreated as we advanced. Then, too, we cursed those once blessed electric lights. Finally we reached the outskirts of the town, and seeing a closed store, with rifle butts and threatening tones persuaded ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... clustering to the hilltop—and over the far-reaching slopes I could see the awaiting throngs. My guide pointed to the constellation of Perseus, and I could discern a nebulous mass of considerable diameter from which proceeded a wisp-like exhalation, just a phantasmal fan ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... Wisp was a little daunted, as I judged by his fidgeting somewhat, but put a bold face on it and said, "Why ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James
... electioneering address, 1894, ranges promising pupils in the order of workers, plodders and bright ones. The last are frequently overrated, the memory more quick than retentive. "Wie gewonnen, so zerronnen," "Lightly come, lightly go," mere quickness may prove a will o' the wisp, and may be peculiar to one subject, but the capacity for patient, honest, painstaking work is a vastly more valuable quality, which can be applied with fair success to any pursuit. It gives earnest of the sense of ...
— The Aural System • Anonymous
... of life caught her sisters and swept them out, she did not know to what. She never even wondered. She had not been taught to care. She had never been taught anything. The knowledge that she must be famous danced through her dreams like a will-o'-the-wisp; had grown within her in the shape of a great pain that never ceased; only eased a little as she ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... under such conditions, the straw is not very inviting. It soon becomes verminous, and this deplorable state of affairs becomes worse the longer the straw is in use. In fact it becomes alive with lice. In one instance I saw a dropped wisp so thickly encrusted with the parasites that it actually moved along the ground under the united ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... young man of affairs, with errands abroad—this in itself of significance; and he had to do with politics, a subject that had begun to interest Sylvia. The cowlick where his hair parted kept a stubborn wisp of brown hair in rebellion, and it shook amusingly when he spoke earnestly or laughed. His gray eyes were far apart and his nose was indubitably a big one. He laughed a good deal, by which token one saw that his teeth were white and sound. Something of the Southwestern ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... mad; that was certain: He had just seen what had no existence. The twilight spectres were making game of him, poor wretch! The little man in scarlet was the will-o'-the-wisp of a dream. Sometimes, at night, nothings condensed into flame come and laugh at us. Having had his laugh out, the visionary being had disappeared, and left ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... with a wavering smile. She was a strange wisp of a girl, and Polly was not in the least disappointed when she made no answer, only watched the fingers that were untying ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... birds which passed, quite terrified and bewildered, in the squalls; then thick fogs which fell suddenly like a shroud and which, penetrating into the cloisters through the broken arcades, rendered us invisible, and made the little lamp we carried to guide us appear like a will-o'-the-wisp wandering under the galleries; and a thousand other details of this monastic life which crowd all at once into my memory: all combined made indeed this monastery the most ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... held up the bag and looked at it. It must have been unfastened, for the next instant there was an avalanche on the snowfield of the counterpane—some money, a wisp of a handkerchief, a tiny booklet with thin leaves, covered with a powdery substance—and a necklace. I drew myself up slowly and ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... yet, in a sense, fascinating. His thick, brown hair, scarcely touched with gray, lay about his great head like a lion's mane. He raised a hand and gently pushed it back over the lofty brow. Then he bent and offered an arm to the slender wisp of a girl ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... the money thus made available, all possible work was done for the next twelve months, on shaft, levels, cross-cuts, drifts, winzes, and raises. For two long years he pursued underground promising indications of wealth, which like the will-with-the-wisp evaded him, until every prospect of silver and gold in the "Hidden Treasure," and "Monte Christo" disappeared, and ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... him, her face curiously blank, as though to say, 'Why are you so cruel?' He offered her the wisp of paper. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... rushed again to the door to find it locked. In sheer despair she made for the window, threw open the casement, and ere Sir Hugh could seize or stop her flung herself headlong into the court below. When the horrified husband looked down into the darkness, a wisp of white garments, a bruised and lifeless body, was all that remained ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... come to him. He lay for an instant contemplating it, then he crept from the bunk and the sheep wagon into the open. It was a frosty, star-lit night. The river rushed like black oil, silver cakes of ice grinding above the roar of the current. The Moose was munching on a wisp of alfalfa. Douglas saddled him and led him softly out of hearing of the wagon, then sprang upon his back and ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... braziers lighted them with weird red and flickering flames. In their depths, cast in black and red shadows, toiled half-guessed figures; from their depths, mounting a single steep plank, came an unbroken procession of natives, naked save for a wisp of cloth around the loins. They trod closely on each other's heels, carrying each his basket atop his head or on one shoulder, mounted a gang-plank, discharged their loads into the side of the ship, and descended again to the depths by way of another plank. ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... smoke of a wisp, or like a stream in a valley, or like a whirling wind on the top of a hill, every tribe of ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... has been. You've had a taste of the Kerr methods, but you're not satisfied yet that they're absolutely base and dishonorable in every thought and deed. You'll find it out to your cost, Duke, if you let that girl lead you. She's a will-o'-the-wisp sent to lure you ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... related which the chronicler thought to be curious, though he did not comprehend it. The Princess Clementina brought from her confessional box a wisp of straw which clung to her dress at the knee. Until Wogan had placed the King's ring upon her finger, she did not apparently remark it; but no sooner had that office been performed than she stooped, and with a friendly smile at her makeshift bridegroom, she plucked ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... my best," said Paul coldly, but the reproach cut deep. He was a failure. No nervous or intellectual effort could save him now, though he spent himself to the last heartbeat. He was the sport of a mocking Will o' the Wisp which he had ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... a busy scene, empty trucks being pushed off, full trucks being pushed on, all the men carrying lighted lanterns, that wavered and glinted like "wills of the wisp." Presently a bell rung, and a portion of the men, to whom this was a signal, left off work and began to put on their jackets and to await the descent of the cage to take them up in parties. At this moment Hope met, to his surprise, a figure that looked like Ben Burnley. He ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... back, pushing her chair with her feet. She rose and trailed sulkily across to the stove. As she moved a wisp of red hair, loosened from its coil, clung to her sallow neck. She was slip-shod ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... Mr. Wood, grimly, "that there wasn't a wisp of hay inside that shanty, and that where the poor beasts were tied up the wood was knawed and bitten by them in their torture for food? Wouldn't he have sent me that note, instead of leaving it here on the table, if he'd wanted me to know? The note isn't dated, ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... it free from the halliard to hang for a wisp on the Horn; I have chased it north to the Lizard — ribboned and rolled and torn; I have spread its fold o'er the dying, adrift in a hopeless sea; I have hurled it swift on the slaver, and ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... every evidence of similar practice; but his proficiency was the result of years of painstaking effort. Unaided he had worked out a method of his own for putting an edge upon the shell—he even tested it with the ball of his thumb—and when it met with his approval he grasped a wisp of hair which fell across his eyes, grasped it between the thumb and first finger of his left hand and sawed upon it with the sharpened shell until it was severed. All around his head he went until his black shock was rudely ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... she said; 'poor ignorant, inexperienced baby! For what a Will-o-the-wisp are you ready to sacrifice my regard, and all the privileges of your position as my granddaughter! No doubt this Mr. Hammond has said all manner of fine things to you; but can you be weak enough to believe that he who half a year ago was sighing ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... made that life was a quantitative energy; that it is less or more dynamic according to the measure in which the individual seizes it. But once more the Caucasian has stultified the meaning of Jesus of Nazareth by evaporating it to the tenuous wisp which he understands as spiritual. Between the pale ghost of such spiritual life as he has evoked from the Saviour's words and manly and womanly vigour in full-blooded exercise he has ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... sexes, who alternately frolic, lament, and sing songs. Arrived at its destination—a field outside the village—the figure is stripped of its clothes and ornaments; then the crowd rushes at it and tears it to bits, scuffling for the fragments. Every one tries to get a wisp of the straw of which the effigy was made, because such a wisp, placed in the manger, is believed to make the cattle thrive. Or the straw is put in the hens' nest, it being supposed that this prevents the hens from carrying away their eggs, and ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... impossible. The aridness, the desiccation, the lifelessness of everything about was somehow shocking. Bordman found himself straining his eyes for the merest, scrubbiest of bushes and for however stunted and isolated a wisp ...
— Sand Doom • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... days we coasted thus, never out of sight of shore, and usually with islands between us and the main body of water. In all that time we had no sign of man—not even a wisp of smoke, nor heard the crack of distant rifle. About us extended loneliness and desolation, great waters never still, vast forests grim and somber, tall, menacing rocks, bright-colored in ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... loosened his girths, and rubbed him down with a wisp of straw. Then she hooked about her for hay; but the place was bare of feed, and smelt damp and unused. She went to the house, thankful for the respite, and got some clap-bread, which she mashed up in a pailful of lukewarm water. Every moment was a respite, and yet every moment made ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell
... walking up and down along a piece of level sward yonder, waving the light, to attract notice from the opposite side of the bay. But though it was seen from the windows of my own house by an attached relative, it was deemed merely a singularly-distinct apparition of Will o' the Wisp, and so brought us no assistance. Meanwhile we had carried out a kedge astern of the Betsey, as the sea was flowing at the time, to keep her from beating in over the rocks; and then, taking our few movables ashore, we hung on till the tide rose, and, with our boat alongside ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... a little wooden cross, with a name penciled on it; and often the comrades of the dead man had hung his cap on the upright of the cross. If it were a French cap or a Belgian the weather would have worn it to a faded blue-and-red wisp of worsted. The German helmets stood the exposure better. They retained ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... dead of night and lays them prostrate. Lilu and lilitu are the spirits that flit by in the night. Of a specific character likewise are the conceptions connected with a demon known as ardat lili, 'maid of the night,' a strange female 'will-o'-the-wisp,' who approaches men, arouses their passions, but does not permit a satisfaction of them. Great importance being attached by the Babylonians to dreams, the belief in a 'maid of the night' was probably due to the unchecked play of the ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... their private property; but upon this occasion it resolved itself into the swift and impetuous flight of a meteor. He shot from one angle of a street to another something in the manner of a will-o'-the-wisp, and it was almost as difficult to fix his course and follow him up. Thus hanging closely on his footsteps, I was not a little mortified to find, after all, that the trouble I had taken led to nothing. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... then dropped lightly into a big wicker chair, conscious that Koltsoff had not withdrawn his gaze. She leaned forward and flicked her skirts over her ankles, nervously pulled a stray wisp of hair from her neck. Then she slowly met the eyes of the man standing at her side and propounded an inquiry having to do with nothing less banal than his views of America thus far. Prince Koltsoff ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... John's Court? One evening, when he returned home, Dion found that old phenomenon in the house paying his respects to Robin. He was quite neatly dressed, and wore beneath a comparatively clean collar a wisp of black tie that was highly respectable, though his top hat, deposited in the hall, was still as the terror that walketh in darkness. His poor old gray eyes were pathetic, and his long, battered old face was gently benign; but his nose, fiery and tremendous as ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... little towards him. A long wisp of her hair blew in his face. A moment of madness came to him with the gust of wind which blew her almost into his arms. For one exquisite moment he held her. The violets at her bosom were crushed against his coat. Then ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... temper, disagreeable to contemplate, and distressing to be obliged to admire. One of the missions in society of Skye Terrier—who, when going before a high wind, bears no unapt resemblance to a mop or a wisp of tow—was to mop up Pug, and polish him off the hearth-rug of Fashion; a mission which he appears to have at least partially accomplished. For now the black muzzle of Pug is but seldom to be seen protruded from carriage-window, biding his time for a snap ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... Benda with wide-opened eyes. "Darkness? What do you mean? The fire then was merely a will-o'-the-wisp," she said, her eyes shining with pride, "I see him full of light." Daniel had heard what she said. "Really, Eleanore?" he ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... evaporated by the sun. This efflorescence, together with sand and other impurities, was scraped from the earth with large mussel shells. It was then placed in earthen-ware vessels containing about five gallons. There were pierced with holes in the bottom, which were covered with a wisp of straw as a strainer. The jars, being full of salt and sand, were watered occasionally, and the brine accordingly filtered through to a receiver. The contents were boiled, and produced the ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... method appertains to the ordinary and the obvious alone, and cannot be applied to the outre. What definite idea can a body attach to such expressions as "methodical Jack o' Dandy," or "a systematical Will o' the Wisp"? ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... times lodging in the curve of it and obscuring her eye. As the lady's hands were both employed, one in holding up the train of her florescent garb, the other in supporting her weight against the tent-pole, she had no free fingers to tuck the blowing wisp in place. So, when it lodged she blew it out of the way, slewing her mouth around to do so, and shutting one eye ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... faces began to peep in to see ha Molly wor gettin on an' to taste ov her drink. When ther'd getten abaght a hauf a duzzen on em Jim slipped aght an' sammed up all he could find i'th' shape o' buckets an' had em filled wi watter an' not o' th' cleanest sooart,—then he lit a wisp o' strea just aghtside o'th' pighoil door an' waited wall th' smook had begun to curl nicely up:— then he darted into th' haase an' bawled aght "Heigh lads! do come,— somdy's set ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... humble, and so wistful, and so tired. There was one lying quite flat, who had not even raised her head to see who had come in. That slumbering, pale, high cheek-boned face had a frailty as if a touch, a breath, would shatter it; a wisp of the blackest hair, finer than silk, lay across the forehead; the closed eyes were deep sunk; one hand, scarred almost to the bone with work, rested above her breast. She breathed between lips which had no colour. About her, sleeping, was a kind of beauty. And there came over the girl a ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... down upon the field with the boys after him. They soon were so close to him, as he hopped and fluttered along the short grass, that the poor little fellow felt their hands would presently be upon him, and as a last chance of escape, he crept and hid himself under a wisp of hay. ...
— The Goat and Her Kid • Harriet Myrtle
... had anything about me I could sell to get him bread!" thought Nello; but he had nothing except the wisp of linen and serge that covered him, and his pair ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... again to myself, the monster had pulled himself together, his crutch under his arm, his hat upon his head. Just before him Tom lay motionless upon the sward; but the murderer minded him not a whit, cleansing his blood-stained knife the while upon a wisp of grass. Everything else was unchanged, the sun still shining mercilessly on the steaming marsh and the tall pinnacle of the mountain, and I could scarce persuade myself that murder had been actually ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to wear the look of a nightmare, a harassing, feverish dream. We seemed to be fascinated hither and thither by an ignis fatuus, enticed into quagmires and quicksands by an altogether illusive, mocking, malicious Will-o'-the- wisp. ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... without drawing rein for one second until the band stopped, when a dishevelled and utterly exhausted damsel collapsed limply into a chair, whilst a deliquescent brass-buttoned youth, with a sodden wisp of white linen and black silk round his neck to indicate the spot where he had once possessed a collar and tie, endeavoured to fan his partner into some semblance of ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... the threshold—the Oldest Trustee in advance, her figure commanding and unbent, for all her seventy years, and her lorgnette raised. As she was speaking a little gray wisp of a woman detached herself from the group and moved slowly down the row ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... monster, turning up the white of his undersides, made a dart at a black bottle and a wisp of hay which had been thrown overboard in the morning. Down they went into ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... drew back with a gasp of surprise. The bag was lined with heavy purple silk, and elaborately fitted with toilet articles of shining gold. Mrs. Cary plunged her hands in and tossed out an embroidered white satin negligee, a pair of white satin bed-slippers, and a nightgown that was a mere wisp of sheer silk and lace; then drew forth three trunk-checks, and a bundle an inch thick of crisp, new bank-notes, and pulled one ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... insufficient to pay the Dutch teacher employed to bring the children up to the required standard in that language. It is small wonder, then, that most teachers prefer to dispense with this Will-o'-the-wisp grant altogether, seeing that the efforts of some to earn it have resulted in pecuniary loss. The actual sum expended on Uitlander schools last year amounted to L650, or 1s. 10d. a head out of a total expenditure for education of L63,000, ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... it never once entered Jervis Whitney's mind that so fantastic a thing as a pair of red moccasins was to be found in the Old Dominion, or anywhere else outside of a monkey show, though he might search the world, with a will-o'-the-wisp, from Big Bone Lick to the Land of Nod. So, in saying, "let me but find them, and you shall have them," he thought he was hazarding his word no more than were he to say: "Let the man in the moon but give me the moon, and the moon, my ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... magic. The spirit of wonder, like a will-o'-the-wisp, leads on through a fairy tale, enticing the child who follows, knowing that something will happen, and wondering what. When magic comes in he is gratified because some one becomes master of the universe—Cinderella, when she plants the hazel bough, and later goes ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... you workers— Clinging to your stable And your wisp of warm straw— Let the fires grow cold, Let the iron spill out of the troughs, Let the iron run wild Like a red ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... his thumb, he made superhuman efforts to understand his nephew's character and to win his confidence. The poor gentleman might just as well have tried to understand the character of an asymptote, or to win the confidence of a Will-o'-the-wisp; and nothing but misery can come of it when a middle-aged city merchant, born without even a rudimentary sense of humour, suddenly determines to cultivate that gift for the benefit of a boy who can detect humour in the wording of ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... her out two dozen upon the moss of the rock-ledge, unwinding the wisp of hay from each as it came safe out of my pocket. Lorna looked with growing wonder, as I added one to one; and when I had placed them side by side, and bidden her now to tell them, to my amazement what did she do but burst into ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... call Part pagan, part papistical. If unto me all tongues were granted, I could not speak the saints here painted. Saint Tit, Saint Nit, Saint Is, Saint Itis, Who 'gainst Mab's-state placed here right is; Saint Will o' th' Wisp, of no great bigness, But alias called here Fatuus ignis; Saint Frip, Saint Trip, Saint Fill, Saint Fillie Neither those other saintships will I Here go about for to recite Their number, almost infinite, Which one by one here set down are In this most curious calendar. First, at ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... appear upon the scene is Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, whose brilliant mercurial figure flashes for a moment across the wild and troubled stage of Ireland, only the next to vanish like some Will-o'-the-wisp into an abyss of darkness ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... complacent and stealthy. Or, she might have kept Jim at her heels till she was rid of Cheever and then have married him. She would have saved him at least from floundering through the marsh where that Kedzie-o'-the-wisp had ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... The Will-o'-the-wisp is called kitsun['e]-bi ("fox-fire"), because the goblin-fox was formerly supposed to create it. In old Japanese pictures it is represented as a tongue of pale red flame, hovering in darkness, and shedding no radiance upon the surfaces over which ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... of the Alimentive is one where there are plenty of refreshments. A dinner invitation always makes a hit with him, but beware that you do not lure a fat person into your home and give him a tea-with-lemon wisp where he expected a ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... wisdom and foresight of Charley and myself, I should like to mention that we had entrusted that valuable evidence of our status to the keeping of a worthy stranger dressed in an old red jacket and a pair of corduroy trousers fastened with a wisp ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... munched stolidly away at his oats. She put the tempting wisp against his nose, at which he laid back his ears and looked vicious. She turned to Mr. Yocomb, and the old barn echoed to a laugh that was music itself ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... at Sinkhole for awhile. Why, he could ride in an hour or two to Mexico—and see nothing more than he could see from the door of his cabin. He wished he could see something. A fight—anything that had action in it. But the revolution, boiling intermittently over there, did not so much as float a wisp of steam ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... denounce their rage, In boot of wisp and Leinster frise engage; What would you do in ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... phenomena of consciousness, some vague image suggests itself to him whereby he identifies these phenomena with a light and subtle principle escaping from the nerve cell, something which resembles an electric effluve, or a will-of-the-wisp, or the flame ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... stop at one of the mountain stations, and Lieutenant Allison wakened with a start. The echo of the laugh that he had heard in his dream still sounded in his ears, a tantalizing, compelling note, elusive as the Pipes of Pan, luring as a will-o'-the-wisp. Above the bustle of departing and incoming passengers, the confusion of the station and the grinding of the wheels as the train started again that haunting peal of laughter still rang in his ears, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... a batch of bread occasionally, but not all that was required. Cicely superintended the baking, passing the barm through a sieve with a wisp of clean hay in it. The hay takes off any sourness, and ensures it being perfectly sweet. She knew when the oven was hot enough by the gauge-brick: this particular brick as the heat increased became spotted with white, and when it had turned quite white the oven was ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... border life, on the confines of a world into which I make occasional and transient forays only, and my patriotism and allegiance to the State into whose territories I seem to retreat are those of a moss-trooper. Unto a life which I call natural I would gladly follow even a will-o'-the-wisp through bogs and sloughs unimaginable, but no moon nor fire-fly has shown me the causeway to it. Nature is a personality so vast and universal that we have never seen one of her features. The walker in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... a tall thin girl, with a flat dirty face, that would have been pale, if it had not been burnt to a yellowish brown with the sun, till it was only a shade lighter than the old battered straw hat that had let a wisp or two of yellow hair through a great slit in the back just above the brim. She wore a tattered cotton frock that had nearly all the pattern washed out, which must have been a long time before, because it was so stained and worn, so thin that it ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... take away one grain of their holiness, and you blast the blossom from which wholesome fruit can spring. When love and truth dies out of marriage, its vitality is gone. God forgive the men and the women who dare to hold the most beautiful tie that links soul to soul, as a wisp of flax, to be rent or burned at the will of ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... article of clothing and ornament, and placed them in the hut. The fire had gone out, but, after raking about deep down in the pile of ashes, he found a few embers still alight. These he placed carefully on a bent wisp of dry grass which he pulled out of the roof, and which blazed up in a few seconds. He then set fire to the hut in several places, and went outside. In a few minutes the hut, being built of wattles and grass, all now ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... but it told Nan how he wished the door would open and let him in to persuade her to her own well-being. She looked at him a moment, as he stood staring down at his feet where a ragged wisp of yellowed brake came through the snow, looked as if he hurt her beyond endurance, and yet she had to probe ill circumstance to its depths. Then she spoke, but in her old voice ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... in a corner of the room he takes a pile of manuscript, and weary as he is, adds several pages to it. The dream of his boyhood has grown with him—that delightful dream of authorship! How this will-o'-the-wisp of the brain entices one into mental fogs! How it coaxes and pets one, cheats and ruins one! And so that appalling pile of closely-written manuscript is Mortimer's romance? Wasted hours and wasted thought—who would ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... to the garden-gate to meet me, no longer the perversely tempting, sorrowful, wisp of white mist drifting in the complicated bad dream of existence: Neither did she look like a forsaken elf. I stammered out stupidly, "Again in the country, Miss ... Mrs.." She was very good, returned the pressure of my hand, but we were slightly embarrassed. ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... and Dick, resolved, though independently of each other, to behave their best, and Dick, in excess of social virtue, shut the library door, so that no wisp of talk would float that way and settle on them. Nan confronted Raven ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... catch him to-night. The lugger is a celebrated French privateer, that we have six cruisers in chase of at this moment, our own ship included. She is called le Feu-Follet, which is not Wing-and-Wing, but Will-o'-the-Wisp, or Jack-o'-Lantern, in English; and which you, in Italian, would call il Fuoco Fatuo. Her commander is Raoul Yvard than whom there is not a greater desperado sailing out of France; thought it is admitted that the fellow has ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... dispirited wisp of breeze stirred in its head-growth its branches gave out only the flat hoarseness of ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... lift that box for ony sake, man. Sall, ye 're no' feared," as Carmichael, thirsting for action, swung it up unaided; and then, catching sight of the merest wisp of white, "A' didna see ye were a minister, an' the ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... never seen an evening of better promise," returned Chayne, with a smile at her eagerness. The brown cliffs of the Aiguille du Chardonnet just across the glacier glowed red in the sunlight; and only a wisp of white cloud trailed like a lady's scarf here and there in the blue of the sky. The woman of the chalet came ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... stolen it to the last wisp and flung it all into the chasm that yawned for hundreds of feet beneath ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... the window, watching his progress, and wondering with what sudden madness he was bitten. Indeed, I could not credit my senses, could not believe that I heard and saw aright. Yet there out in the darkness on the moor moved the will-o'-the-wisp, and ten yards along the gutter crept my friend, like a great gaunt cat. Unknown to me he must have prospected the route by daylight, for now I saw his design. The ledge terminated only where it met the ancient wall of the tower, and it was ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... with His methods. Let my cousin go his way . . . he will learn something which he wanted, I doubt not, on his present path, even as I shall on mine. "Se tu segui la tua stella" is my motto. . . . Let it be his too, wherever the star may guide him. If it be a will-o'-the- wisp, and lead to the morass, he will only learn how to avoid morasses ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... of Madgy Burke. She scrambled on a high jut of rock in the cavern; she had a bundle of straw under one arm, and a light flickering in the other hand, her grizzled locks streaming, her garments loose and tattered, all which became suddenly visible as she set fire to a great wisp of straw, and another and another she plucked from her bundle and lighted, and waved the light above and underneath. It was like a scene in a melodrama of Cavern and Witch—the best cavern scene I ever beheld. ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... followed her about like a dog ever since he could run; in fact, the only taming he had ever had, had been done by Ramona, with bread and honey. He was intractable to others; but Ramona could guide him by a wisp of his silky mane. Alessandro also had nearly as complete control over him; for it had been one of his greatest pleasures, during the summer, when he could not see Ramona, to caress and fondle her horse, till Baba knew and loved him next to his young mistress. If only Baba were in the corral, ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... agreed in its dictates, could we base morality upon it? Even, however, if conscience led us all in the same direction, would that prove its authority? Perhaps we should all be following a will o' the wisp, and foolishly sacrificing our desires to an idol of the tribe, a universal superstition. Must it not show its credentials before it can legitimately command our allegiance? It is but one specific type of impulse among many; why should it be given ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... travelling-bags. Antonia's figure, with its throat settled in the collar of her cape, slender, tall, severe, looked impatient and remote amongst the bustle. Her eyes, shadowed by the journey, glanced eagerly about, welcoming all she saw; a wisp of hair was loose above her ear, her cheeks glowed cold and rosy. She caught sight of Shelton, and bending her neck, stag-like, stood looking at him; a brilliant smile parted her lips, and Shelton trembled. Here was the embodiment of all he had desired for weeks. He could ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... precipitous walls, or in high mountain meadows, and, again, down by the gray sand-dunes with a wreath of billows at their feet, or afar on some volcanic tropic isle where waterfalls descended and became mist, reaching the sea in vapor veils that swayed and shivered to every vagrant wisp of wind. But always, in the foreground, lords of beauty and eternally reading and sharing, lay he and Ruth, and always in the background that was beyond the background of nature, dim and hazy, were work and success and money ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... talking, was persuaded stiffly to dismount, to give Pluto's bridle into Stafford's hand, and to enter. There were other occupants, two rows of them. Stafford saw his old friend laid in a corner, on a wisp of straw; then, finding Fontaine in the ranks, gave over the grey, and joined the staff creeping, creeping on tired horses through ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... Charley, who was never ripe for anything but frolic. Had not Stephen been influenced by a desire to do good, and possibly by another feeling too embryonic for detection, he would never have dreamed of making an errand boy of a will-o'-the-wisp. As such, however, he was installed, and from that moment an anxiety unknown before took possession of Stephen's bosom. He was never at ease, for he never knew what the boy might be about. He would have parted with him the first fortnight, but the idea of the prison had passed from Sara's ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... was still burning on the wall, and groaned. The young fellow who was generally to be found there was a great friend of his, and they attended the same chapel together. A little farther an open cupboard was noticed with a wisp of spun yarn hanging out from it—inflammable stuff, quite untouched. But about thirty yards farther they came upon the first signs of mischief. A heavy fall of roof had to be scrambled over, and beyond ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... doubt, being emitted from a British submarine, who are known to frequent these waters. He was proceeding away from us, and was, even then, six or seven miles away, so an attack was out of the question. The engineer, who had joined us, drew my attention to the thin wisp of almost invisible blue-grey smoke from our own stern. The ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... wisp of song played softly in the twilight, Such a happy little song—and oh, the dusk is gray! Such a joyous little song, and oh, the night is coming— Coming with the bitter chill that marks the death ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... of his stride and the spring of his step, it was clear that he had not yet lost the fire and activity of his youth. His fierce hawk-like face was clean shaven like that of a priest, save for a long thin wisp of white moustache which drooped down half way to his shoulder. That he had been handsome might be easily judged from his high aquiline nose and clear-cut chin; but his features had been so distorted by the seams and scars of old wounds, ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... another affair," and he jumped into his wagon and rattled away in the darkness, his lantern looking like a "will-o'-the-wisp" that might ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... chapel long before this. Well, I'll have a wash at the spring, and away to church.' Saying which, he carefully picked the straw from his coat, cleaned his dusty shoes with a wisp of dry grass, and after a thorough washing of face and hands, he took up the worn felt hat of the stranger, and set off down ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... they will continue growing. As soon as the heads begin to form, they should be protected from sunlight by either half breaking off the outer leaves and bending them over them, or by gathering these leaves loosely together and confining them loosely by rough pegs, or by tying them together with a wisp of rye-straw. ...
— Cabbages and Cauliflowers: How to Grow Them • James John Howard Gregory
... came repeated notes from the horn, the baying of hounds, and the screams that celebrate with orthodox excitement the death of a fox. The rat-hunt was over. Joker lifted his spare, aristocratic head from the grass, and listened, with a wisp of dewy green stuff in his mouth. Christian looked at her watch. It was early still, not eight o'clock. A grey horse and its rider came forth from the dark grove of laurels. Larry was looking for her. She sighed; she ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... high o'er the ruined tower, When the night-bird sings in her lonely bower, When beetle and cricket and bat are awake, And the will-o'-the-wisp is at play in the brake, Oh then do we gather, all frolic and glee, We gay little elfins, beneath the old tree! And brightly we hover on silvery wing, And dip our small cups in the whispering spring, While the night-wind ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... touches of her hands are like the fall Of velvet snowflakes; like the touch of down The peach just brushes 'gainst the garden wall; The flossy fondling of the thistle-wisp Caught in the crinkle of a leaf of brown The blighting frost hath turned ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... Henry, and the lady had halted on the path and were standing deeply absorbed in their conversation, when I was suddenly aware that I was not the only witness of their interview. A wisp of green floating in the air caught my eye, and another glance showed me that it was carried on a stick by a man who was moving among the broken ground. It was Stapleton with his butterfly-net. He was very much closer to the pair than I was, and he appeared to be moving in their ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... in," he said. "Ah'll sen' one o' the boys to look after yo' horse. Tom!" he called, "yo' take the gen'leman's horse to the stable, rub him down with a wisp, an' give him some hay. In half an hour water him, an' give ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... it was all a mere will-o'-the-wisp, and my lord agreed with her. Then your uncle forbade Sebek to betray the matter to you, and sent word to me that he would possibly send Hiram to Sinai when the horse-fair was over. So take patience, sweetheart. What are two ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... while the boy carried out his freak, for such they judged his bit of reconnoitring to be. Cautiously George crept towards the mill, the sloping roof of which came almost down to the very hill side. Tying a wisp of long grass and weeds round each boot, he crawled noiselessly up till within a foot or two of the ridge. He paused a moment to gaze down the dingle. There, well seen from his vantage point, a couple of miles away, ran a far larger valley, which was filled with tents. "The ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... to conclude that there is no such thing as Causality, that in searching for a cause of everything that happens, we are pursuing a mere will o' the wisp, using a mere vox nihili which has {36} as little meaning for the reflecting mind as fate or fortune? Surely, in the very act of making the distinction between succession and causality, in the very act of denying that ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall
... The wind caught him and whirled him away. He noted that it had hauled around to the east. With a great effort he threw himself on the sand, crouching and holding his own. Captain Lynch, driven like a wisp of straw, sprawled over him. Two of the Aorai's sailors, leaving a cocoanut tree to which they had been clinging, came to their aid, leaning against the wind at impossible angles and fighting and clawing every inch of ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... matter, that will-o'-the-wisp, known as "the cost of production." It is hard for any man who has ever studied economics at all to restrain a cynical smile when he is told that an intelligent group of his fellow-citizens are looking for "the cost of production" as a basis for tariff legislation. It is not the same in any ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... feel, that this "will o' the wisp" phantom of your brain, can prove no guide to either of us in the pilgrimage of life? Perceive you not that the unworthy spirit in which you approach the Book of GOD'S Law must effectually prevent you from getting any wisdom from it? Why, the pages which you look so coldly and carnally ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... Wits to his feet, and then the two went to where the hunt had passed. At one point the dogs were entangled in the silver wire, and were unable to free themselves. A little farther in, they found a thick wisp of gray hair which the wire had cut from the head of the grinning old woman who rode the Stag. The little old man clapped his hands with delight and cut some joyful capers, for ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... abnormal linguistic aptitudes, was amazing. Nor was that all. He somehow contrived, almost automatically it seemed, to imitate the very gestures and the elocution of the speakers. M. Thomas is troubled with a rather unruly wisp of hair which, when he gets wrought up in fiery moments, will tumble down over his brow into his eyes, to be swept back every now and again with a thrust of the hand accompanied by a muttered exclamation, presumably a curse. ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... corpse, and her thin, blue lips were pressed together as if in death. There was life in her eyes—a gloomy, wild, fanatical fire flashed from them. Her glance was glaring and uncertain, like a will-o'-the-wisp, and filled those upon whom it fell with a shivering, ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... she was romping with Octavia in the play-ground, and was surprised to find what a vivid picture he retained of her lingering in the porch to put it up; her rounded arms held above her head, her pretty shoulders, full throat, and glowing face thrown back, and a wisp of the very hair between her white teeth! He ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... nestles in his tottering frame, like a swallow that builds in a tumble-down chimney. He is a professed Squire of Dames. The rustle of a silk gown is music to his ears, and his imagination is continuallylantern-led by some will-with-a-wisp in the shape of a lady's stomacher. In his devotion to the fair sex,—the muslin, as he calls it,—he is the gentle flower of chivalry. It is amusing to see how quick he strikes into the scent of a lady's handkerchief. When once fairly in pursuit, there is no such ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the meantime, while various observers were building up our knowledge of the morphology of bacteria, others were laying the foundation of what is known of the relations of these organisms to fermentation and disease—that ancient will-o'-the-wisp "spontaneous generation" being revived by the way. When Pasteur in 1857 showed that the lactic fermentation depends on the presence of an organism, it was already known from the researches of Schwann (1837) ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... lamp, and held it to the opening. There was a slight report; and a little red flame, rather blue at its outline, flickered over the rock like a Will-o'-the-Wisp. ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... midnight as they entered the home park, and proceeded towards the fatal oak. It was pitchy dark, and they could only distinguish the tree by its white, scathed trunk. All at once, a blue flame, like a will-o'-the-wisp, appeared, flitted thrice round the tree, and then remained stationary, its light falling upon a figure in a wild garb, with a rusty chain hanging from its left arm, and an antlered helm upon its head. They knew it to be Herne, and instantly fell down before him, while a burst of terrible ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... in a soothing tone; "just tell the ladies when you get home that it was all an accident. Here, rub down your clothes wi' this wisp o' grass, an' I'll see if my missis can't coax them Cochins to lay some more eggs ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... glanced at him from time to time, became impish and Will-of-the-Wisp-ish. Sometimes he laughed to himself loudly, sometimes he wept to himself quietly; sometimes, neither laughing nor weeping, he seemed absorbed in reflection. Twice as they came nearer to the town of Tor-Hadham, Kenelm nudged the boy, and said, "My boy, I must talk with you;" and twice the boy, ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... may live in the Golden Age, but our bodily life moves on slow feet, and needs the lantern on the path and the staff struck carefully into the darkness before us to see that the path beyond is not a morass, and the light not a will o' the wisp. ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... recollection, and I was determined to lose no chance for want of trouble. But Sir Philip had gone abroad, and it would be some time before I could receive an answer. So I followed my uncle's advice, to whom I had mentioned how wearied I felt, both in body and mind, by my will-o'-the-wisp search. He immediately told me to go to Harrogate, there to await Sir Philip's reply. I should be near to one of the places connected with my search, Coldholme; not far from Sir Philip Tempest, in case he returned, and I wished ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... they cast your "horoscope." We are aware that many commentators have discussed the star of Christ's birth from various points of view. Some have thought it a real star; others have had enough astronomy to see that this was impossible, and have argued that it was a big will-o'-the-wisp, created and directed by supernatural power, like the pillar of day-cloud and night-fire that led the Jews in the wilderness; while still others have favored the idea of a supernatural illusion, which was confined to the wise men—and thus it was that the "star" ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... only a crowd of men and boys, who jeered and hooted. This was a sight not new; but in their midst he caught a glimpse of a crested helmet and the black cloak of a slave-driver. And then the crowd parted, and Nicanor saw a girl, a lean wisp of a thing, with burning eyes and a gray face framed in straight black hair, with chained wrists and a ragged frock which slipped aside to show a long red welt across her brown shoulders. The slave-driver held the end of the chain, his heavy whip ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... Now, by all the gods, I am at my wit's end. I'm beginning not to care who this owner is. Be he man, will-of-the-wisp, or the devil Beelzebub in person, ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... and solitary, was the massive blue-white shape of old Ruapehu, his fires quenched these many years, and, near him, the active cone of Ngaruahoe, whose angry, ominous smoke-clouds rained ashes sometimes on the surrounding country, but more often his wisp of yellowy-white smoke trailed lazily to leeward, or mounted heavenwards in cumulous shape. Occasionally, on his rounds, Mac dismounted on the summit of a ridge, threw the rein over a stump and settled down for a smoke, his back against a log, his dogs at his feet, a wild ravine below ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... did this when there was not a person in sight and what frightened them was nothing but a wisp of hay, blown down by the wind. Afterward, when anything moved, they sprang at it, held it down with their sharp little claws, and chewed on it with their pointed white teeth. When they were tired of this game, they played hide-and-seek, and when they were ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... recurring duties of her household, Ann Leighton awoke with a gasp to the day that Natalie's hair went into pigtails and the boys shed kilts for trousers. At the evening hour she gathered the children to her with an increased tenderness. Natalie, plump and still rosy, sat in her lap; Shenton, a mere wisp of a boy, his face pale with a pallor beyond the pallor of the tropics, pressed his dark, curly head against her heart. Her other arm encircled Lewis and held him tight, for he ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... of a morose and surly disposition, not easily moved to anger, but having an uncommon gift of sullen, implacable hate. His father was quite otherwise; of a sunny, jovial disposition, but with a quick temper like a sudden flame kindled in a wisp of straw, which consumes it in a flash and is no more. He cherished no resentments, and his anger gone, was quick to make overtures for reconciliation. He had a brother living near by who was unlike him in respect of all this, and it was a current ...
— Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories • Ambrose Bierce
... had not made her protest loudly and, perhaps, cleverly enough. Life had behaved very meanly to this woman. When she was young and sweet her sweetness had been violated and crushed by something harsh and reckless; and now she was not sweet any longer, but just a wisp of an old woman, and nobody would ever bother about her again; and life gives one no second chances. Yaverland lamented, as Ellen had done, the fate of those exceptional people who are old ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... doorsteps, much to the wrath of Salemina, who finds the poetry of existence much disturbed under the new conditions. All is life and motion now. The men are stripped naked to the waist, with bright handkerchiefs on their heads, and, in many cases, others tied over their mouths. Each has a thick wisp of short twine strings tucked into his waistband. The bags are weighed by one, who takes out or puts in a shovelful of grain, as the case may be. Then the carrier ties up his bag with one of the twine strings, two other men lift it ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... von Weber was still a babe, Franz Anton started once more after the will-o'-the-wisp of theatrical fame, with his "Weber's Company of Comedians." Genofeva, sickly and melancholy, dragged herself about with the troupe until Carl Maria was ten years old, when her health gave way, and the travel ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... fashion she had of twisting and winding it tightly around a tin spoon, or a match stem, to "pull her palate up." The colored people suffer from a mysterious ailment known as "having your palate down," for which the one specific is to take a wisp of your hair and wrap it as tightly around a tin spoon, or a match stem, as you can twist it; that pulls your palate up. It is, of course, absolutely necessary for you to have your palate up, even though you scalp yourself in the process of making it stay up. Emma generally ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... afternoon of the performance the road was gay with teams. David and Samantha Milliken drove by in Miss Cummin's neat carryall, two children on the back seat, a will-o'-the-wisp baby girl held down by a serious boy. Steve Webster was driving Doxy Morton in his mother's buggy. Jabe Slocum, Pitt Packard, Brad Gibson, Cyse Higgins, and scores of others were riding "shank's mare," ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the inevitable "Ha! ha!" and vanished darkly, eating pea-nuts. The ubiquitous Mr. Sharp seemed to pervade the whole theatre; for his voice came shrilly from above or spectrally from below, and his active little figure darted to and fro like a critical will-o-the-wisp. ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... is like the pursuit of happiness in that you do not always know when you have either. It may furthermore be likened to chasing a will-o'-the-wisp that ever keeps a few safe paces ahead of you. The thought that I had to keep busy at something calculated to promote my health was a habit that I could not easily relinquish. So now I began to read up and practice physical culture—which ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... draw your attention to the word 'Will' in the English word will-o-the-wisp; it must not be supposed that this Will is the abbreviation of William; it is pure Danish, 'Vild'—pronounced will,—and signifies wild; Vilden Visk, the wild or moving wisp. I can adduce another instance of the corruption of the Danish vild ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... faint, far cry came drifting down the river-wind—a long, thin cry, like the wavering screech of an owl—a shrill, high, ugly sound; the lights began to wink, wink, wink, to dance, to shift, to gather into one red star. Out of the darkness came a wisp of something moving in ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... Medical-Surgical Officer Kelly Lightfoot was sitting on the deck, stowing sterile bandage packs into a lower locker. She looked up at Clay and smiled. "Well, well, you DID manage to tear yourself away from your adoring bevies," she said. She flicked back a wisp of golden-red hair from her forehead and stood up. The patrol-blue uniform coverall with its belted waist didn't do much to hide a lovely, properly curved figure. She walked over to the tall Canadian trooper and reached up and grabbed his ear. She pulled ...
— Code Three • Rick Raphael |
