Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Desire   Listen
verb
Desire  v. t.  (past & past part. desired; pres. part. desiring)  
1.
To long for; to wish for earnestly; to covet. "Neither shall any man desire thy land." "Ye desire your child to live."
2.
To express a wish for; to entreat; to request. "Then she said, Did I desire a son of my lord?" "Desire him to go in; trouble him no more."
3.
To require; to demand; to claim. (Obs.) "A doleful case desires a doleful song."
4.
To miss; to regret. (Obs.) "She shall be pleasant while she lives, and desired when she dies."
Synonyms: To long for; hanker after; covet; wish; ask; request; solicit; entreat; beg. To Desire, Wish. In desire the feeling is usually more eager than in wish. "I wish you to do this" is a milder form of command than "I desire you to do this," though the feeling prompting the injunction may be the same.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Desire" Quotes from Famous Books



... very pleasant old Fellow this: faith, I cou'd be very merry with him now, but that I am damnable sad.—Madam, I shall desire to lay the Saddle on the ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn

... Great Britain this measure was a voluntary act, wholly uncalled for on the part of Regicide. Suits of this sort are at least strong indications of a desire for accommodation. Any other body of men but the Directory would be somewhat soothed with such advances. They could not, however, begin their answer, which was given without much delay, and communicated on the 28th of the same month, without a preamble of insult and reproach. "They doubt the sincerity ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... unanimously except that Dr. Jeffreys Myers, who wished to retire as second auditor, was replaced by Mrs. Mary S. Sperry of San Francisco. Mrs. Avery, for twenty-one years corresponding secretary, had returned from a long sojourn in Europe and the desire was so strong to have her on the board again that the office of second vice-president was created. At Mrs. Florence Kelley's insistence she was allowed to yield the first vice-presidency to Mrs. Avery and take the second place as having ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... was a little softened. I thought of his mother back in our wee hoose at Dunoon. And the thought of her, bereft even as I was, sorrowing, even as I was, and lost in her frightful loneliness, was pitiful, so that I had but the one desire and wish—to go to her, and join my tears with hers, that we who were left alone to bear our grief might bear it together and give one to the other such comfort as there might be in life for us. And ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder

... some occasion to be comick; but in comedy he seems to repose, or to luxuriate, as in a mode of thinking congenial to his nature. In his tragick scenes there is always something wanting, but his comedy often surpasses expectation or desire. His comedy pleases by the thoughts and the language, and his tragedy for the greater part by incident and action. His tragedy seems to be skill, his comedy to be instinct." As a theatre-goer, Johnson could ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson

... now returned to her mind with horrible force. A murderer, a double, a treble murderer—(for was not Christian dying from the consequences of his guilt?); she felt at that moment no resignation, but a fierce desire to push aside all the cruel, complete, false evidence, and force justice ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill

... does a woman often let her reasoning in favour of the worthier stand in the way of her perverse desire for the less worthy at such times as these? She murmured some soft words, ending with 'Do ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... and he was rather finely haggard, with the dark hollows round his black eyes and the fall of the muscles on either side of his chin. He had forgotten to take his soft, wide-brimmed hat off; and Beaton felt a desire to sketch him just as ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... half averted eye; His heart's distraction, and his boding fears She heard, and answer'd with a flood of tears; Precious relief; sure friends that forward press To tell the mind's unspeakable distress. Ye Youths, whom crimson'd health and genuine fire Bear joyous on the wings of young desire, Ye, who still bow to Love's almighty sway, What could true passion, what could Walter say? Age, tell me true, nor shake your locks in vain, Tread back your paths, and ...
— Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs • Robert Bloomfield

... placed in the center of the table, threw its gleams upon the faces of each, and exhibited a singular variety of expressions. That of the stranger was downcast, sinister, and suspicious, combined with an evident desire of appearing exactly the reverse. Occasionally, when he thought no eye was on him, he would steal a glance at Ella; and some times gaze steadily—like one who is resolved upon a certain event, without being decided as to the exact manner of its accomplishment—until he found ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett

... friend, in order to make an apology for having offended him; but he happened not to be at home. On arriving at his office, he found a note from Arnest, couched in the most offensive terms. The language was such as to extinguish all desire or ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur

... said that in your berth, you would have been laughed at by all your messmates," observed Mr Leigh, "Come, come, I cannot listen to such nonsense. While you remain on board the prize, treat him as I desire, and when we rejoin the 'Sylvia' Captain Stanhope will see to it." Ashurst walked away, muttering something which Mr Leigh did not hear. All day long the weather continued the same as before, and night came on without ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston

... Arthur Rushton's emotions flashed upon her. I also heard her express herself several times, as overtly as she could, upon the impossibility there existed that she should, however much she might desire it, settle in England, or even remain in it for any considerable length of time. All this I understood, or thought I did, perfectly; but Rushton, bewildered, entranced by feelings altogether new to him, saw nothing, heard nothing but her presence, ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren

... early when Ham Morris and Dabney Kinzer were stirring again; but they had both arisen with a strong desire for a "talk," and Ham made an opportunity for ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard

... alliance with a princess of France, or Burgundy, or Holland, whichever would best harmonize with the political schemes that they wished to promote. The Earl of Warwick seems to have belonged to the former class. He had two daughters, as has already been stated. It would very naturally be his desire that the king, if he were to take for his wife any English subject at all, should make choice of one of these. Of course, he was more than all the rest irritated and vexed at what the king had done. He communicated ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... from the "Ingoldsby Legends," together with numbers of sanguinary verses in the Old Testament, sprang up in my brain like mushrooms in the dark; my blood, which hitherto had been half-frozen with horror, went beating through my veins, and there came upon me a savage desire to kill and spare not. I glanced round at the serried ranks of warriors behind us, and somehow, all in an instant, I began to wonder if my face looked like theirs. There they stood, the hands twitching, the lips apart, the fierce features instinct with ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard

... and some other Appetites, not many. The rest, which are Appetites of particular things, proceed from Experience, and triall of their effects upon themselves, or other men. For of things wee know not at all, or believe not to be, we can have no further Desire, than to tast and try. But Aversion wee have for things, not onely which we know have hurt us; but also that we do not know whether they will hurt us, ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... she could hire one, with a chauffeur we had often taken for short runs, and at Los Angeles, Riverside, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, and other places, she had friends who would shower invitations. The trip would take from two to six weeks, according to our own desire. Then, when we were tired of motoring and country-house visiting, the car would be sent home, and we could have the fun of going East together by the "Limited," which, Kitty said, was one of the most wonderful ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... I am awfully sorry— indeed, I am disgusted— but the facts are too plain." Miss Day then in a few eager whispers, which Maggie in vain endeavored to suppress, gave her chain of evidence. Rosalind's distress; her passionate desire to keep the coral; her entreaties that Miss Day would lend her four guineas; her assurances that she had not a penny in the world to pay her debt; her fears that it was utterly useless for her to expect the money from her mother. Then the curious fact ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade

... separated from the world, he was able to forget the lofty dreams to which a smooth career had pointed, and which fate, at his first steps, had mocked. He had given up the idea that the world should acknowledge this title: "a great patriot, who is the holder of a high office." He who does not desire this should keep to the ploughshare. Ambition should only have well-regulated roads, and success should only begin with a lower office in the state. But he whose hobby it is to murmur, will find a fine career in field labor; and he who wishes to bury himself, ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... superstition, and that the Loutea fauoured them, they began to forbid wholy the eating of swines flesh. But all these countreymen and women chosing rather to forsake father and mother, then to leaue off eating of porke, by no meanes would yeeld to that proclamation. For besides the great desire they all haue to eate that kinde of meate, many of them do liue thereby: and therefore the people complained vnto the Magistrates, accusing the Moores of a conspiracie pretended betwixt them and the Loutea against their king. In this countrey, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt

... but afterward; and you have done this good to me. I say over your words, "Contentment with Renunciation," and believe that at this last hour I have gained something like what you would wish me to feel. For I do not think that I desire it otherwise now. My life would never have been of service, I am afraid. You am the last person in this world who has spoken serious words to me, and I want you to know that now at length I value the peace of Santa Ysabel as I could never have done but ...
— Padre Ignacio - Or The Song of Temptation • Owen Wister

... It is a mistake to begin in that way. Very exact finger movements must be learned in the beginning. As I said before, technic is such an individual matter, that after the first period of foundational training, one who has the desire to become an artist, must work out things for himself. There should be no straight-laced methods. Only a few general rules can be laid down, such as will fit most cases. The player who would rise to any distinction must work out his ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower

... see him do it again,' said he who had been kicked into the corner, rising as he spoke, apparently more from the fear of John Browdie's inadvertently treading upon him, than from any desire to place himself on equal terms with his late adversary. 'Let me see him do ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... "Sophonisba" was first read in the green room he appropriated to his own use the dignified character of Scipio. His egotism and foolishness had their full reward. For two nights successively, as Davies tells us, "Cibber was as much exploded as any bad actor could be. Williams, by desire of Wilks, made himself master of the part; but he, marching slowly, in great military distinction, from the upper part of the stage, and wearing the same dress as Cibber, was mistaken for him, and met with repeated hisses, joined to the music of cat-calls [notice, ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... partly in response to the instances of the Cardinal of Segovia, partly spurred by the desire to avenge the death of his child, and he ordered Rome to be ransacked for the assassins; but, although the search was pursued for two months, it proved ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini

... cloudless sky, was reflected on the bosom of a stagnant and glistening ocean. It was their constant hope that at some point the land would be found to roll back and disclose an ocean pathway round Africa to the East, the goal of their desire. Year after year they advanced farther, until at last they achieved a momentous result. In 1487, Bartholomew Diaz sailed round the southern point of Africa, which received the significant name of the 'Cape of Good Hope,' and entered ...
— The Dawn of Canadian History: A Chronicle of Aboriginal Canada • Stephen Leacock

... memories of our summer's sufferings at the hands of the hotel proprietors, their head clerks, and the rest of the rapacious crew. What an attractive picture it presents! A hotel where guests are treated with courtesy! Really, if anything could seduce us into making a visit to Boston, the desire to actually witness this surprising innovation upon our national customs would prove too strong for the reverential fear which keeps us distant worshippers of that ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 36, December 3, 1870 • Various

... German bogey is very silly?" was Bob's retort. "I was in Germany last summer with my mother, and we had a great time. She knew some German families there, and we became great friends with them. They don't want war any more than we do. All they desire is to develop their own resources and to live their ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking

... qualities to a conclusion that might prove offensive to so loyal an admirer. One inclining to suspicion would have seen, or thought he saw certain equivocal glances from the stranger, while he was thus lauding the vivacious qualities of the restored monarch, which should denote a desire to detect how far the eulogiums might be grateful to his host. He acquiesced however in the wishes of the Puritan, though whether understandingly, or without design, it would have been difficult to say and ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... what I am seeking, too," said the stranger, smiling. "I am a Greek, and I desire wisdom. Let us see if we can get it from this ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke

... through slavery; so they felt no pressing need of reform. The Yearly Meetings, therefore, like many modern congresses, dextrously dodged the grave issue of Negroes' rights, and merely expressed an opinion meekly opposed to the importation of the blacks, and a desire that "Friends generally do, as much as may be, avoid buying such Negroes as shall hereafter be brought in, rather than offend any Friends who are against it; yet this is only caution and not censure."[172] Not until ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... confessed, fear had once or twice during this campaign tugged at her heart; when Cyril had urged home, her greatest desire had been to flee. But Betty never quite knew herself—was never in any crisis of her life absolutely certain what this second terribly ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner

... and force him to fight with me; I turned my back on him while he was talking; then he came to me with a look of surprise on his face, holding out his hand. When I was alone in the night and every one slept, I felt a strong desire to go to Brigitte's desk and take from it her papers. On one occasion I was obliged to go out of the house in order to resist the temptation. One day I felt like arming myself with a knife and threatening to kill them if they did not tell me why they were so sad; ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset

... appears that, if the said trade should cease, the annual departure of ships and people, as it is at present, would cease; and that would be a greater incentive to the natives who are peaceful, and those who until now have had no desire for peace, to rise and rebel, seeing that the gain which they derive from trade is taken away from them, and ships and Spaniards go thither no longer—through fear of whom they dare not rise from the subjection and obedience ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair

... ever face did so, declared a brave and loyal spirit. She was not joyous, she was not sad; but in her eyes, as I looked at them again and again, I read the profound thankfulness of one to whom fate has granted her soul's desire. ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... that the birds do not open the pods; that a sort of blast, apt to come after rain, splits the pods, and the birds then eat the peas. It may be so. There seems to be complete unity of action between the blast and the birds. But good neighbors, kind friends, I desire that you will not increase, by talk, a disappointment which you ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various

... matched its desire for wildness in poetry with a like craving in gardens. The symmetrical and architectural garden, so magnificent in Italy, and stately though more rigid and less glorious in France, was scorned by the eighteenth-century poet-gardeners. Why? Because it was "artificial," and the eighteenth ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell

... You give from one to three sous, according as the subject be simple or compound, upon wood or upon copper:—Saints, martyrs, and scriptural subjects; or heroes, chieftains, and monarchs, including the Duke of Wellington and Louis XVIII. le Desire—are among the taille-douces specified in the imprints. Madame did me the honour of shewing me some of her choicest treasures, as her husband was from home. Up stairs was a parcel of mirthful boys and girls, with painting ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... one is permitted to invite any of the archduchesses or foreign princesses of the blood who may happen to be present to dance. It is they who have the privilege of taking the first step in the matter. Whenever they desire to dance with any man they cause him to be notified of their wish by their chamberlain in attendance. The cavalier thus honored is obliged to consider this intimation in the nature of a command, and all engagements ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy

... condition of the suspension of hostilities. This proposition, as soon as it was understood, seemed to afford the most extravagant delight; the shower of missiles ceased at once, and Barton was immediately surrounded by as attentive and breathlessly expectant an audience as artist could desire. Taking his stand upon a moss-covered fragment of rock, he drew an enormous Jew's-harp from his pocket, and handed it to me, gravely requesting me to 'accompany' him upon it, while he sang. Then, after clearing his throat, with quite a professional air, he commenced ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... not to another. Robertson said, one man had more judgment, another more imagination. JOHNSON. 'No, sir; it is only, one man has more mind than another. He may direct it differently; he may, by accident, see the success of one kind of study, and take a desire to excel in it. I am persuaded that, had Sir Isaac Newton applied to poetry, he would have made a very fine epick poem. I could as easily apply to law as to tragick poetry.' BOSWELL. 'Yet, sir, you did apply to tragick poetry, not to law.' JOHNSON. 'Because, sir, I had not money ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... of the words is, Forasmuch as the law could do us no good, by reason of the inability that is in our flesh to do it—for the law can do us no good until it be fulfilled—and because God had a desire that good should come to us, therefore did he send his Son in our likeness, clothed with flesh, to destroy, by his doing the law, the tendency of the sin that dwells in our flesh. He therefore took our flesh, that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... feature. In that way I shall be able to hold out for quite a while, you see—counting my fingers as separate features! Oh, you've given me a taste of it; it's your own fault, Captain Selwyn, and now I desire more if you please—in ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... should we grant that all those (and they are not few) who have made these statements against him have spoken what is untrue, yet we cannot assert that Demosthenes was not the character to look without desire on the presents offered him out of respect and gratitude by royal persons. But that Cicero refused, from the Sicilians when he was quaestor, from the king of Cappadocia when he was proconsul, and from his friends at Rome when he ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... is to endeavour to lead a better life, to regret the vileness of our present ways, to seek ill for none, to desire truth and purity and honesty, to despise this selfish civilisation and to comprehend what living might be. Understanding Socialism will not make people at once what men and women should be but it will fill them with hatred ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller

... my suburban neighbours desire the information, must be my excuse for troubling you," ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 17, 1892 • Various

... looked at the clock on the mantel. I had been in the room twenty-seven minutes, but I didn't agree with Selwyn that Miss Swink was in love with his brother. Her engagement to him was due, I imagined, not so much to her literalness as to her mother's management. An unholy desire to demonstrate that the latter was not of a scientific kind possessed me, and quickly my ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher

... lady! We must not be as headlong as some people would kindly wish to be. If this young man really has a proper desire to rise into a higher station, and I find him a fit object to be assisted in that praiseworthy ambition, why, I think he ought to go to some training college; St. Mark's, I should say, on the whole, might, by its strong ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... doctrine prevalent among the Jews in the time of Jesus appears to have been built up little by little, by religious faith, national pride, and priestly desire, out of literal interpretations of figurative prophecy, and Cabalistic interpretations of plain language, and Rabbinical traditions and speculations, additionally corrupted in some particulars by intercourse with the Persians. Under all this was a central spiritual germ of a Divine promise and ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... scarcely, indeed, an artist or a patron of art, of any eminence, who has not his own "story of a picture." Like all things of beauty and of fame, the very desire of possession which a painting excites, and the interest it awakens, give rise to some costly sacrifice, or incidental circumstance, which associates the prize with human fortune and sentiment. I ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... sure of it. And the difficulty is, what is she to do? If she goes to Bannisdale, she exiles Mr. Helbeck. Yet, if his sister is really in danger, Mr. Helbeck naturally will desire to be at home." ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... necessaries for war, and with proper tools for working the mines which he expected to conquer. He sailed up the river Cuama, called Rio de los buenos Sennales, or river of Good Signs; by the first discoverers, and came to Sena or the fort of St Marzalis, according to the desire of father Monclaros; whence he proceeded to the town of Inaparapala, near which is another town belonging to the Moors, who, being always professed enemies to the Christians, began to thwart the designs of the Portuguese ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... married, and he knew that she was to be his wife. It was all decided, and nothing which either of them could say or do would have any influence on the result. Neither of them, however, seem to have had any desire to change the result. Mary pitied Francis on account of his feeble health, and liked his amiable and gentle disposition; and Francis could not help loving Mary, both on account of the traits of her character and her ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... windows yielded; the long glass door gave inward, and he stepped on the carpetless floor of the library. Then the fact of the change that must have passed upon the whole house enforced itself, and he felt a passionate desire to face and appropriate the change in every detail. He lit one of the little taper matches that he had with him, and, hollowing his hands around it, let its glimmer show him the desolation of the dismantled and abandoned ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... instructions. Now that the very crisis of their fate had arrived she was nervous, shaken, conscious only of a desire to sink on ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... of it if by losing it I should never die. But all men die, and no brave man lets death frighten him from his desire. Die thou, ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various

... rises above Bull Run. But as between the party of advance and the party of defence, between the would-be spoilers of New York bank-vaults and Philadelphia mint-coffers, and the more prudent who desire "to be let alone," there is already an issue created. There are State jealousies, and that impatience of control which is inherent in the Southern mind, as it was in that of the Highland chieftains. There will be, as events move on, the same feud developed between the Palmetto of Carolina ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various

... to say, in plain Anglo-Saxon, and I desire you to understand, that Salome is no longer a child; and that she loves you, my dear boy, better than she will ever love any other human being. These things are very strange, indeed, and girls' whims baffle all rules and disappoint ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... in the society shall be open to all persons who desire to further nut culture, without reference to place of residence or nationality, subject to the approval of the committee ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifth Annual Meeting - Evansville, Indiana, August 20 and 21, 1914 • Various

... less extent—for example, ergotism, lead poisoning, uremia, parturient apoplexy, colic, and other affections associated with cramps, or spasms, etc. Disease of the ovaries or of the spinal cord, by reflex irritation, may cause estromania (see "Excess of venereal desire," p. 148, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... course, the ladies first. We ought to study the ladies. But do you know, Roberts, I'm not a ladies' man, and I feel an intense desire to have ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn

... Texas was literally filled with game, and the region in the immediate vicinity of La Pena contained its full proportion of deer, antelope, and wild turkeys. The temptation to hunt was therefore constantly before me, and a desire to indulge in this pastime, whenever free from the legitimate duty of the camp, soon took complete possession of me, so expeditions in pursuit of game were of frequent occurrence. In these expeditions I was always accompanied by ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... America, where they roost; but, at sunrise, leave these situations to repair to the dry woods, in search of berries and acorns. They perch on the boughs of trees, and, by rising from branch to branch, attain the height they desire. They usually mount to the highest tops, apparently from an instinctive conception that the loftier they are the further they are out of danger. They fly awkwardly, but run with great swiftness, and, about the month of March become ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... be already dead, although the physicians seemed to think he would live for another ten months, or perhaps a year. Being in this case, suddenly he has grown fond of his relations, or rather relation, for I am the only one, and expressed a desire to see me, to whom for many years he has never given a single penny. He has even announced his intention—by letter—of making me his heir 'should he find me worthy,' which, to succeed Caius, whatever my faults, indeed I am not, since of all men, as I have told him in past ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard

... nothing to do in the matter. What was my horror, then, when Hawk ordered me into the boats, and my old enemy—for I cannot call him my friend—Mark Anthony, was told to keep me company! I do not know whether this was Hawk's wish, or the desire of the men, who did not like to trust me till I had been guilty of some piratical act. At first I hesitated about obeying; but I soon saw, by the angry looks which were cast at me, that I was doing ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... happiness, as it is most assuredly for mine, that you overlook the fault, receive me again, and trust to the lasting effect of the bitter lesson I have learned? Forgive me, if I seem too bold,—if the desire to atone for the past makes me sue for pardon with unbecoming zeal. If I were less urgent, it would be because I was not sensible of the wrong, and careless ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various

... historic truth. It may be allegorical truth. It may be a parable, representing how every little child comes into an Eden of innocence, and is tempted by that wily serpent, the sophistical understanding, and is betrayed by desire, his Eve, and goes out of his garden of childhood, where all life proceeds spontaneously and by impulse, into a world of work and labor. If it be such an allegory as that, it teaches us quite as much as if ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... Something?—"What was the veiling cover of everything?"—they themselves ask. And they answer with another question—"Was it the water's deep abyss?" They think of it as "an ocean without light." "Then (say they) from the nothingness enveloped in empty gloom, Desire (Love) arose, which was the first germ of mind. This loving impulse the Sages, seeking in their heart, recognised as the bond between Being and Non-Being." How deep the plunge here into the sphere of abstract thought! ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer

... sea-beat archipelago; its fields of dark mountains; its unsightly places, black with coal; its treeless, sour, unfriendly looking corn-lands; its quaint, gray, castled city, where the bells clash of a Sunday, and the wind squalls, and the salt showers fly and beat. I do not even know if I desire to live there; but let me hear, in some far land, a kindred voice sing out, "Oh, why left I my hame?" and it seems at once as if no beauty under the kind heavens, and no society of the wise and good, can repay me for my absence from my country. And though ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... all you desire at present, creeper on! insinuator! [What words she has!] But will not t'other man flame out, and roar most horribly, upon the snatching from his paws a prey ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... having already greatly the advantage, and the mouth of the bay clear before us, we rehoisted our sails, and without waiting for further evidence of Chilian hostility, stood out to sea; thus escaping attempts upon our liberty, the real motive of which, perhaps, was a desire to employ our ships in the transport of troops to Chiloe. The two English whalers had already been taken possession of for this purpose, without the consent of ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue

... at length to consider myself as it were at home in this singular country of Aheer—without, however, experiencing any desire to dally here longer than the force of circumstances absolutely requires. It must be confessed, as I have already hinted, that the town of Tintalous,[1] in front of which we are encamped, does not at all answer the idea ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson

... Pastor Lindal," said Mrs. Hardy, "and, moreover, he is a sensible man. He is certain to desire that his daughter should be well and happily provided for; besides, he has seen enough of you, John, to value you, and I see he likes you. I think you are right not to speak to Helga on the subject; leave it to ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary

... predicting a favourable reception to a book which no condition of life can render useless, which may contribute to the advantage of all that make or receive laws, of all that buy or sell, of all that wish to keep or improve their possessions, of all that desire to be rich, and all that desire ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... duty and his responsibility to her, and constantly desired to be furnished with accurate and detailed information about all important matters, keeping a record of all the reports that were made to her, and constantly referring to them; e.g., she would desire to know what the state of the navy was, and what ships were in readiness for active service, and generally the state of each, ordering returns to be submitted to her from all the arsenals and dockyards, and again, weeks or months afterwards, referring to these returns, ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling

... to the master and mistress, and to no one else, to desire their guests to eat, and, indeed, carving belongs to nobody but the master and mistress, and those whom they think fit to desire, who are to deliver what they cut to the master or mistress, to be by them ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... was to deal his adversary a long lunge; but, weak as he was, his rearward foot failed him, and he sank upon his knee. Guise advanced upon him and set his foot upon his sword, in such manner as though he would have said, "I do not desire to kill you, but to treat you as you deserve, for having presumed to address yourself to a prince of such birth as mine, without his having given you just cause,"—and he struck him with the flat of his sword-blade. Coligny, furious, collected his strength, threw himself backwards, ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... around with them. I had room at the back of the big house. You know, Madame Duhon was my grandmama. She was good to me. The only thing I did was look to my master's horse and be coachman for Madame. Master had four sons. They were Ragant and Jaques and Lucien and Desire. Desire was ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration

... feel I have done something worth while. You shall not leave here until—you see I am speaking plainly—you have overcome all desire to steal." ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates

... Omer's. Lord Rockingham repeated these tales to Burke, who of course denied them with indignation. His chief declared himself satisfied, but Burke, from a feeling that the indispensable confidence between them was impaired, at once expressed a strong desire to resign his post. Lord Rockingham prevailed upon him to reconsider his resolve, and from that day until Lord Rockingham's death in [v.04 p.0827] 1782, their relations were those of the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... annoyance to find, a few days after his arrival, that she was no longer in the house. He questioned his wife as to the cause of her absence, and told her she was utterly heartless in refusing her leave to go and nurse her friend; whereupon Hesper, neither from desire to do right nor from regard to her husband's opinion, but because she either saw or fancied she saw that, now Mary did not dress her, she no longer caused the same sensation on entering a room, resolved to write to ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... 'tis true, these Eyes confirm my Fate. Yonder he is—and that fair splendid Thing, That gazes on him with such kind Desire, Is my blest Rival—Oh, he is married! —Gods! And yet you let him live; Live too with all his Charms, as fine and gay, As if you meant he shou'd undo all easy Maids, And kill 'em for their Sin of loving ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn

... can inflict is not long in falling. His row becomes filled with very sharp-edged stones indeed, and roots which tear his hands painfully. Nearly always these boastings are fathered by an absurd vanity—a desire ever to appear what they are not, and while they think they are deceiving others they ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... went down, and darkness stole over the surface of the ocean. Clouds were gathering in the sky—there was no moon, and the stars were completely obscured. It was in a short time as dark a night as we could desire. The Hercules, looking like some huge monster stalking over the deep, now ranged up past us, and a voice from her ordered us to tack to the westward, and keep close to her. This we did, though we had no little difficulty in keeping together without ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston

... son: its happy issue: Solomon's prayer and the answer of God: Solomon's riches and fame: the queen of Sheba's visit: her country ascertained: such solicitude for wisdom not common: she proves Solomon with hard questions, her desire of knowledge worthy of imitation: Solomon's conduct: his buildings: the queen's congratulatory address: reflections: her presents to Solomon, and his to the queen of Sheba, Christ's application ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... people a visit, to help them to dismiss any lingering doubt that he was the boy's guardian legally appointed. To their own common sense indeed it became plain that, except some such story was true, there could be nothing to induce him to come after Gibbie, or desire to take charge of the outcast; but they did not feel thoroughly satisfied until Mr. Sclater brought Fergus Duff to the cottage, to testify to him as being what he pretended. It was a sore trial, but amongst the griefs of losing him, no fear ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... glad for you to stay as long as you please. That his son has a commodious house just opposite his, unoccupied, partially furnished; that you could, if you prefer, take that, bring up servants and what you desire, and remain there as independent as at home.... I must now leave the matter to you, and pray that God may guard you. I have no time for more. I know and feel the discomfort of your position, but it cannot be helped, and we must bear our trials like Christians.... If you and Cousin ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son

... benefits received is the part of persons of good birth, and one of the sins most offensive to God is ingratitude; I say so because, sirs, ye have already seen by manifest proof the benefit ye have received of me; in return for which I desire, and it is my good pleasure that, laden with that chain which I have taken off your necks, ye at once set out and proceed to the city of El Toboso, and there present yourselves before the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, and say to her that her knight, he of ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... much more of the pictures than he can of the books.' Mr. Cambridge, upon this, politely said, 'Dr. Johnson, I am going, with your pardon, to accuse myself, for I have the same custom which I perceive you have. But it seems odd that one should have such a desire to look at the backs of books.' Johnson, ever ready for contest, instantly started from his reverie, wheeled about, and answered, 'Sir, the reason is very plain. Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... her hand out to him, and almost at the same instant became insensible. In a moment he placed her, by her mother's desire, on the sofa, and rang the bell for some of the servants to attend. Indeed, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to look upon a more touching picture of sorrow and suffering than that pure-looking and beautiful girl presented as she lay there ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... same manner, and this is still more significant, for it clearly proves that the pressing of literature into the service of political ideas is the result of a decided will, and of a preconceived plan, and not of chance. The chroniclers do, indeed, write by command, and by express desire of the kings their masters. One of them begins his history of England with the siege of Troy, and relates the adventures of the Trojans and Britons, as willingly as those of the Saxons or Normans; another writes two separate books, the first in honour of the Britons, and the second in ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... shore by many friends, they knowing that he was soon to leave them, he put out his hand, ready to embrace them in much love, and in a tender frame of spirit, saying gladly that the Lord had answered his desire, and brought him home to lay his bones among them. From the windows of the dusky library I can see the spot now, where, after his long journey, he rested for a happy day or two, looking upon the dear familiar faces and waving trees and the sunny April sky, and then gladly and ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various

... was equal. You now, at the last moment, propose that I should run it a second time, and in a manner to cause instant scandal. I must decline to do so, or to reopen the subject, which had received my careful consideration before I decided upon it. I have burned your letter, and desire you will burn mine." ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley

... four Spanish tragedies, the materials of which were so ingeniously interwoven that the mosaic seemed a single piece. The characters were always Moors and Christians, and the action centered in the desire of Moors to marry Christian princesses or of Christians to marry Moorish princesses. The Christian appears at a Moorish tournament or vice versa. The hero and heroine fall in love but their parents oppose obstacles to the match. To ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair

... IMPORTANT NOTICE | | | | If you can not conveniently raise subscribers enough to | | entitle you to a machine, as a premium, send what you can, | | with two dollars for each subscriber so sent, and the | | balance in cash for such priced machine as you so desire, | | when the paper and the machine will be sent as directed. | | | | For example, where thirty subscribers and $60 are sent, it | | will require $26 in cash in addition to the subscription | | money to purchase a $56 machine; or, for forty subscribers | | and $80, sixteen ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various

... bringing in a few heads just as our Indians used to get scalps. When a Dyak youth wanted to marry a nice young Dyak girl to whom he had taken a fancy (and I can assure the reader that some of them are as beautiful as Rodin's bronze statues), he didn't even dare mention his desire for that young bronze beauty until he had brought in five or six heads. After that he had some standing in the lady's sight. Without the heads he had no more chance of winning either the girl herself or her pa or ma or any of the Dyak family than the proverbial snowball ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger

... Indians have been notified and informed by Her Majesty's said Commissioners, that it is the desire of Her Majesty to open up for settlement, immigration, and such other purposes as to Her Majesty may seem meet, a tract of country bounded and described as hereinafter mentioned, and to obtain the consent thereto of her Indian subjects inhabiting the said tract, ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris

... as possible. Add to this a pint of water and the grated rind of an orange. Boil ten minutes, add the juice of one lemon and two oranges, freeze about fifteen minutes until of a smooth, even, cream-like texture, and serve after the meat course at dinner. If you desire a granite which is frozen as hard as ice cream, but should be of a rough-grained consistency, set the mixture away packed in ice and let it remain there for two or three hours. Scrape the frozen part occasionally ...
— Good Things to Eat as Suggested by Rufus • Rufus Estes

... disposition of my constituents that these disabilities should longer be retained. We are desirous of being magnanimous: it may be that we are so to a fault. Nevertheless we have open and frank hearts towards those who were our former oppressors and taskmasters. We foster no enmity now, and we desire to foster none, for their acts in the past to us or to the Government we love so well. But while we are willing to accord them their enfranchisement and here to-day give our votes that they may be amnestied, while we declare ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... whose own heart bare its load of grief Remembering his own son Antilochus: "O mighty Agamemnon, sceptre-lord Of Argives, from wide-shrilling lamentation Refrain we for this day. None shall withhold Hereafter these from all their heart's desire Of weeping and lamenting many days. But now go to, from aweless Aeacus' son Wash we the foul blood-gouts, and lay we him Upon a couch: unseemly it is to shame The dead by leaving them ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus

... this book has been prepared for schools that desire a brief course free from mathematics. It is based upon the author's Elements of Astronomy, but many changes of arrangement have been made. In fact, everything has been carefully worked over and re-written ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams

... parallel to one another, shows us how to complete in imagination the "Apollo" of Thera and other mutilated members of the series. Greek sculpture even in its earliest period could not limit itself to single standing figures. The desire to adorn the pediments of temples and temple-like buildings gave use to more complex compositions. The earliest pediment sculptures known were found on the Acropolis of Athens in the excavations of 1885-90 (see page 147) The most primitive of these is a low relief of ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell

... (says she) whether a woman may be acquitted for endeavouring to sum up a character so various and important as his lordship's; but if the attempt can be excused, I don't desire to have it pass for a decisive sentence. Perhaps few men that dealt in poetry had more learning, or real wisdom than this nobleman, and yet his stile is sometimes so dark and mysterious, that one would imagine he chose rather to conceal, than illustrate his meaning. At other times ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber

... is the Fellow distracted?—Desire Sir George to walk up—Now for a Tryal of Skill that will make me Happy, and him a Fool: Ha, ha, ha, in my Mind he ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre

... unmitigated desire. The woman had disposed of half of her dainty fare, taking up each triangular piece by the crust, and biting off the point, dripping with cherry-juice, first, when her wandering gaze alighted upon the boy. She had another piece just poised, but she slowly lowered it to the plate, and stared at the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various

... but, for various reasons, had not been availed of in the present war. They were men of an unusually high mental and physical standard and had received additional training under German officers. Their ages were from 35 to 40, and they numbered from 700,000 to 800,000. On the desire of the German War Office this new army, which should have been sent to the Italian frontiers, was diverted to Galicia toward the last of April, and since then has been the backbone of the Teutonic drive against ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... deceived about them. Most of us have tried lying. Since we were very small we have tried in every possible fashion—now in one way, now in another—to see if lying could not be made to work. By far the majority of us, and all of us who are the most intelligent, are not deceived now by our desire to tell lies. Perhaps we have not learned that all lies do not pay. A child tells a lie at first as if a lie had never been thought of before. It is as if lying had just been invented, and he had just thought what a great convenience it was, and how many ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee

... special subject of the theorems and topics does your desire for vocality seem to be connected with?' ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry

... history from the first few days they were at sea together, which is the explanation of the visible intimacy that had caused Mulford so much surprise. Jack's motive in making his revelations might possibly have been tinctured with jealousy, but a desire to save one as young and innocent as Rose was at its bottom. Few persons but a wife would have supposed our heroine could have been in any danger from a lover like Spike; but Jack saw him with the eyes of her own youth, and of past ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various

... practical purposes, absorbed the passenger traffic, there still remains a small residue of the travelling public who, either for health or economy's sake, choose a well-found, well-built sailing clipper when they desire to make a ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood

... beneath the trees of her old home; and then, while still young and with enough money left to keep herself in comparative affluence, she turned her back for ever upon the profession which she loathed and devoted the rest of her life to the careful rearing of an orphan girl, whom the desire for a child of her own and the memories of her own youth urged her to adopt. When she died, the child who had grown up and under her guidance had married a respectable merchant, mourned for her as one mourns for ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.

... her story eagerly, and he saw the wish to please this friend who had shown such an interest in her was a strong incentive. But she had a desire for knowledge beside that. So many of the children were stupid and hated study. He would watch over her and see that she progressed. This, no doubt, was the friend ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... of his going stealthily up-stairs the moment her back was turned, that after hurrying out of sight, she returned to the gateway to peep at him. Seeing him still on the threshold, more out of the house than in it, as if he had no love for darkness and no desire to probe its mysteries, she flew into the next street, and sent a message into the tavern to Mr Flintwinch, who came out directly. The two returning together—the lady in advance, and Mr Flintwinch coming up briskly behind, animated with the hope of shaking her before she could get ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... Nisus: "Is it that the Gods inspire, Euryalus, this fever of the breast? Or make we gods of but a wild desire? Battle I seek, or some adventurous quest, And scorn to dally with inglorious rest, See yonder the Rutulians, stretched supine, What careless confidence is theirs, oppressed With wine and slumber; how ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... half reveal thy will And gracious ends to their desire, Behind the dawn's advancing fire Thy tender day-beam ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... the Chairman, "Mr. Cox, maybe ye'd kindly desire them to step forward in order that the court may be able to estimate from their appearance the nutritive qualities of the ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... narrative to its modern form of an investigation and reconstruction of the past. The new interest which attached to the bygone world led to the collection of its annals, their reprinting and embodiment in an English shape. It was his desire to give the Elizabethan Church a basis in the past, as much as any pure zeal for letters, which induced Archbishop Parker to lead the way in the first of these labours. The collection of historical manuscripts which, following in the track ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green

... 'Templer und Juedin' had been recently produced at Leipzig, which was then Wagner's headquarters, also appealed very strongly to the young musician's plastic temperament. 'Die Feen' consequently has little claim to originality, but the work is nevertheless interesting to those who desire to trace the master's development ab ovo. Both in the melodies and rhythms employed it is possible to trace the germs of what afterwards became strongely marked characteristics. Wagner himself never saw 'Die Feen' performed. In 1833 he could not persuade any German ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... of apprehension to his Friends. For although the Duke of Wuertemberg undertook nothing that was hostile to him, and his Family at Solituede experienced no annoyance, yet the impetuous Prince might, any day, take it into his head to have him put in prison. In the ever livelier desire after a securely-hidden place of abode, where he might execute in peace his poetic plans and enterprises, Schiller suddenly took up an earlier purpose, which ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... dislike. Let him be scarified," and forthwith the painted and feathered young braves drew forth their axes and scalping-knives, and the work of slaughter went merrily forward. Youth, modesty, honest effort, genuine merit, a manifest desire to range apart from the loud storms of literary controversy, these were no protection to the selected victim. And of course the operations of the Chepstowe-ites, like the "plucking" imagined by Major Pendennis, were done in public. For they had their organ. Week by week in ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, Sep. 24, 1892 • Various

... or France or Germany or Italy, or any other country, desire to ascertain the number and character of the inventions patented to the citizens of their respective countries, it would require but a few hours of work to get exact statistics on the subject, but not so with the colored inventor. Here, as elsewhere, ...
— The Colored Inventor - A Record of Fifty Years • Henry E. Baker

... strong desire I sigh For a frozen land afar, Under a cold gray sky, Where glistens the northern star; Where a winter of rest and sleep Embraces mountain and plain, And meadows their secret keep To tell ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris

... longs to know the meaning of the stars over her head or the flowers under her feet. Neither will the finer opportunities of college life appeal to one who, until she is eighteen (is there such a girl in this country?), has felt no passion for the service of others, no desire to know if through history or philosophy, or any study of the laws of society, she can learn why the world is so sad, so hard, so selfish as she finds it, even when she looks upon it from the most sheltered life. No, ...
— Why go to College? an Address • Alice Freeman Palmer

... disagreeable situation. Two boats were hoisted out, and sent a-head to tow; but they would have availed little, had not a breeze sprung up about eight o'clock at S.W., which put it in my power either to stand out to sea, or up the inlet. Prudence seemed to point out the former, but the desire of finding a good port, and of learning something of the country, getting the better of every other consideration, I resolved to stand in; and, as night was approaching, our safety depended on getting to an anchor. With this view ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... year. He waited in the antechamber outside Josiana's heart; and this suited the convenience of both. At court all admired the good taste of this delay. Lady Josiana said, "It is a bore that I should be obliged to marry Lord David; I, who would desire nothing better than to ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... down the room. He had failed all round; even love and desperate desire had not been able ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres

... morning, just as the party in the cabin had finished breakfast, and were dallying with the last few morsels of the repast, as men who have more leisure than they desire are wont to do, there was a sudden shock felt, and a slight tremor passed through the ship as if something had ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... you can give me some minutes to get a neighbour to take charge of George and Anne." And away she went to get this family arrangement completed, while I sat panting with desire to free my friend from ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various

... friend,—The desire you express of attempting those researches which seem necessary to promote the further attainment of moral truth, is appreciated as truly laudable; and did I feel myself adequate to your wishes, I should enjoy a peculiar ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou

... taste and propriety suggest," said Lothair. "You will of course make a drawing and an estimate, and send them to me; but I desire dispatch." ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... universe should be concerned, and with that fretful self-exaggeration came that other unutterable yearning that attends the first proof that we are coheirs with others to the ills flesh is heir to, weary homesickness and childish desire ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... girl was reprimanded. Next week she disappeared. To one of her companions she had confided a great desire to see Paris. So good Father Delette was summoned, and, after a talk with the Superioress, started post-haste for the capital. He found no signs either of poor Renee or of Banin, who had also disappeared. The Cure was nearly heart-broken. Each day, they told ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various

... passed the youth and early manhood of a poet who no sooner began to think for himself than he began to think things most discordant with his father's principles and ideas. He believed in neither the religion nor the politics of his race; he cherished with the desire of literary achievement that vague faith in humanity, in freedom, in the future, against which the Count Monaldo had so sternly set his face; he chafed under the restraints of his father's authority, and longed for some escape into the world. The Italians ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells

... fact, but this incident affected Erik's spirits more than the shipwreck had done. He saw in it a sure sign of a persistent desire to prevent the ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne

... mine. The facts forbid that your pen-feathered saint should decamp with some of my costly travel-scrapings! 'Pious' indeed! 'Edna,' forsooth! No doubt her origin and morals are quite as apocryphal as her name. Don't talk to me about 'her being providentially thrown into your hands,' unless you desire to hear me say things which you have frequently taken occasion to inform me 'deeply grieved' you. I dare say the little vagrant whines in what she considers orthodox phraseology, that 'God tempers the ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... thrilling and profound melody—not of those which simply caress the ear—but of those intimate harmonies which stir the whole man to the depths of his being, as if each key of the key-board were connected with a fibre of the heart. He has surrendered to the desire to depict all those fanaticisms, all those superstitions—maladies to which religion is subject at certain epochs; to the longing to "make playthings of all these men," as Hamlet says. To set in array about and below Cromwell, himself the centre and pivot of that court, of that people, of that ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... it in a thousand ways; or as she expresses it, "I will tell you what I am, a silly goose, who, far from wishing to stand forward to assert myself in any way, now that I am alone in the world have but the desire to wrap night and the obscurity of insignificance around me. This is weakness, but I cannot help it." Neither does Mary consider that the time has come to write Shelley's life, though she her-self hopes ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti

... The physician can do but little, because he can know but little. It is the intelligent women of America who must realize the evil, and must right the wrong, if we would see our girls what we most earnestly desire them to be—perfectly healthy ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... just that, he is returned no doubt—and as he is your friend, I take the opportunity of mentioning the course I shall pursue with him or any other friend of yours I may meet,—(and everybody else, I may add—) the course I understand you to desire, with respect to our own intimacy. While I may acknowledge, I believe, that I correspond with you, I shall not, in any case, suffer it to be known that I see, or have seen you. This I just remind you of, lest any occasion of embarrassment should arise, for a moment, from your not being quite ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... his most effective peculiarities, in inviting the attention of his hearers, is the exceeding earnestness of the manner of his address. This earnestness is not like that of rant. It is the result of his own strong conviction and his desire to impress others." That is a fair and unprejudiced estimate of Froude as he appeared to a trained observer who took neither side in the dispute. Many Irishmen shook hands with him, and thanked him for his plain speaking. ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... aesthetic feeling will always prefer ownership of the mental image to ownership of the tangible object. And any desire for material appropriation or exclusive enjoyment will be merely so much weakening and adulteration of the aesthetic sentiment. Since the mental image, the only thing aesthetically possessed, is in no way diminished or damaged ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee

... wind rose from the sea and shook the branches, and the bright, sweet berries fell into the boat until it was filled with them, and they fell upon the prince's hands, and he took up some to look at them, and as he looked the desire to eat them grew stronger, and he said to himself it would be no harm to taste one; but when he tasted it the flavor was so delicious he swallowed it, and, of course, at once he forgot all about Eileen, and the boat drifted away from him and left ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy

... smiling, and watching her, "the old and staid folk have no desire to lose their sleep, and—well, the conventions are apt to stand in the way ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore

... You speak of him as a young Hamley, who went to Africa. Answer this question, pray, for Helen is most anxious to know.' This P.S. being in Helen's handwriting. In her exultation at the general success of everything, and desire for sympathy, Mrs. Gibson read parts of this letter to Molly; the postscript among the rest. It made a deeper impression on Molly than even the proposed kindness ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... and drew away, for he caught the odour of the doctor's breath, and a cold perspiration broke out over him. He felt the old desire for drink sweeping through him. "I will do ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... their love, and the dawn and sunset the coloured hangings by the way. They ceased to be beings of flesh and blood to one another and themselves; they passed into a bodily texture of tenderness and desire. They gave it first whispers and then silence, and drew close and looked into one another's moonlit and shadowy faces under the infinite arch of the sky. And the still black pine-trees stood about them ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells

... that my childish longing was almost forgotten, I had it, I and my children. Together we played under the bee-haunted lindens, and looked at the sunset through the scarlet and yellow leaves of the sugar maples, and I learned that "every desire is the prophecy of its own fulfilment;" and if the fulfilment is long delayed, it is only that it may be richer and ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall

... seems to you a delightful place: the river is there to give you its freshness, the trees to lend you their shade, the whole country to speak to you of tenderness, the heavens themselves to kiss those horizons that you are searching with hope and desire. The spring belongs to fellows of your age. It is it that teaches the boys how to give young girls ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... it as little as I wish it for them," said Mrs. Percy, smiling; "and as little as my daughters, I believe, desire it." ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... should know too, who shot them, replied the husband, and I am convinced that I have not seen a woodcock this year; however, though I know I am in the right, I submit, and the potted partridge is potted woodcock if you desire to have it so. It is equal to me, says she, whether it is one or the other; but you would persuade one out of one's senses; to be sure, you are always in the right in your own opinion; but your friend, ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding

... But Alexander had no desire to return to the house where he had passed those last terrible weeks with his mother, and Mrs. Mitchell begged him on her knees to forgive the invalid, and sent him to the house in Christianstadt, where he would be alone until December; by that time, please God, Tom Mitchell would ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... floor they danced, on man-trapping and dinner-getting intent, two fresh young things that undeniably danced well and that were delightfully surprised when the music stranded them perilously near to their desire. ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... look in her eyes, however, as she realized the discomfiture of the King. He was annoyed, indeed. His manner plainly betokened his desire to stay and ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.

... naturally to depravity of mind, he would reject even evidence based on his beloved laws of probability; that his 'wicked and adulterous generation seeketh "in vain" after a sign,' and that if he will not accept Moses and the prophets, neither would he believe though one rose from the dead. Still the desire of the student of science to base his faith on convincing evidence (in a matter as important to him as to those who abuse him) does seem to have something reasonable in it after all. The mental qualities ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor

... her singleness of purpose; her one great desire so evidently being that her writings should help others to know and to love Christ and His truth, that she thought little or nothing of ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... as I tell it now, unaccountable to me. I go back into these remote parts, these rarely visited uplands and lonely tares of memory, and it seems to me still a strange country. I had thought I might be going to some sensuous paradise with Effie, but desire which fills the universe before its satisfaction, vanishes utterly like the going of daylight—with achievement. All the facts and forms of life remain darkling and cold. It was an upland of melancholy questionings, a region from which ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... answered meaningly. "I wrote to him. Did the English Government desire to send a message to Claridge Pasha, if the relief was accomplished? That is what I asked. But there is no word. Malaish, Egypt ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker



Words linked to "Desire" :   quest, bloodlust, hungriness, greed, yearning, desire to know, physical attraction, seek, craving, eros, temptation, rage, lust after, whim, impulse, lust, urge, passion, bespeak, take to, long, aspiration, hope, wish well, thirstiness, sexual desire, call for, envy, concupiscence, fancy, ambition, begrudge, want, hunger, care, thirst, lech after, longing, inclination, like, crave, yearn, feel like, go for, materialism, tendency, dream, trust, caprice, desirous, request



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org