"Longing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... them out root and branch: they are as a cancer which, if the smallest fibre be left unexcised, will grow again, and kill any system on to which it is allowed to fasten. Mr. Wallace, therefore, may well be excused if he casts longing eyes towards Weismannism. ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... very early to confession, and Anielka was seized with an eager longing to gaze once more in peace and freedom on the beautiful blue sky and green trees, as she used to do when the first rays of the rising sun streamed in at the window of the little forest cabin. She ran into the garden. ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... largely on how deeply one has suffered. One's hard luck and misfortune form the measuring stick for future good luck and fortune. So it was with Baree. Forty-eight hours ago a full stomach would not have made him a tenth part as happy as he was now. Then his greatest longing was for his mother. Since then a still greater yearning had come into his life—for food. In a way it was fortunate for him that he had almost died of exhaustion and starvation, for his experience had helped to make a man of ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... and despondency; but another element had entered into his existence which was as unexpected as it was sweet. A deep, subtile exhilaration was growing out of his companionship with Mara. Every long, quiet talk that he enjoyed with her left a longing for another. She was learning to regard him almost as a father, but he did not think of her as he did of Ella. He loved Ella as his child, but her buoyant spirit, her intense enjoyment of the present, and her eager, hopeful eyes, fixed upon the future, separated her ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... the highest spirits, and only longing to have an opportunity of trying our strength with the enemy. From time to time, the sound of a cannonade reached us, and heightened our eagerness to advance. But Holland is proverbially difficult for any movements but those of a trackschuyt; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... lordship; and he no sooner made this discovery, than he resolved to withdraw himself from such a disagreeable participation of that young nobleman's favour. He, therefore, in spite of all his lordship's entreaties and remonstrances, quitted him for the present, alleging, as a pretext, that he had a longing desire to see Switzerland and the banks of the Rhine, and promising to meet ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... was the new religion completing its foundations. The desire to be healed did heal; the thirst for a miracle worked the miracle. A Deity of pity and hope was evolved from man's sufferings, from that longing for falsehood and relief which, in every age of humanity, has created the marvellous palaces of the realms beyond, where an almighty Power renders justice and distributes ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... sheathbill; and the shooting party returned to the house under the cliff as well satisfied with their own prowess as the home party were to welcome them, especially as they were now so plentifully provided with what all had been longing for since the last sheep had been washed overboard the Nancy Bell when she ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... nonsense!" jeered Mrs. Wickham, throwing herself pettishly into a chair. "I find it's always a very good rule to judge people by oneself, and I'm positive she was just longing for the old lady ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... one for me," remarked Evelyn, watching her uncle with wistful, longing eyes as he took out the letters and glanced over the addresses; "for I have heard but once from mamma ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... looked naturally to the water, and saw for the first time a prospect of gratifying my boyish longing for the sea. My funds were sufficient to enable me to purchase a pretty staunch little barque and part interest in her cargo of Wedgwood and Sheffield ware, and I sailed in her as a passenger for Naples and a market. It was a foolish venture, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... may be found in a single bend of the river to accomplish this result without the necessity of searching through the whole forest, and to that end he further prays that the river may never be satisfied, but continually longing for more. The same idea is repeated in the second paragraph. The hunter is supposed to feed the river with blood washed from the game. In like manner he feeds the fire, addressed in the second paragraph as the "Ancient Red," with a piece of meat cut from the tongue of the deer. ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... instant, nerveless reaction, and sorrow that "a child could slay Richelieu now!" He is not the intriguer of dark tradition, wily and cruel for low ambitious ends, but entirely great, in his protection of innocence and longing for affection, and most of all in that supreme love of France to which his other motives are subservient. Booth seizes upon this as the key-note of the play, and is never so grand as when he rises at full height with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... come; he is here, perhaps he is close by you every day, and he,—he is meaning the shot for you." She waited a moment drawing a breath of relief that she had begun. "You know he is your enemy?" she went on with a longing to be ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... the garden of the hotel, or driving slowly along the dusty roads—as was her habit each afternoon—the baby and its nurse were always with her, and by their presence put an effective check to the personalities in which he was longing to indulge. It would have taken more than a baby to discourage Sir Arthur, however: he cheerfully included the little girl in his attentions; and, as time went on, became known to the other invalids in the place by the ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... marriage, he was to leave in the morning. He fretted and fumed at the delay, but Eve dispelled his gloom and he went cheerfully after an affectionate parting. After his departure she sat in a disconsolate mood in the large room, longing for company. She wondered if she ought to make their engagement known. He had said nothing about it; perhaps better not until she heard from him. There was the satisfaction of knowing he loved her, that she was to be his wife. ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... I wish I could think of the pictures you mention, or had time to see Dr. Glynn and the master of Emmanuel. I doat on Cambridge, and could like to be often there. The beauty of King's College Chapel, now it is restored, penetrated me with a visionary longing to be a monk in it; though my life has been passed in turbulent scenes, in pleasures-or rather pastimes, and in much fashionable dissipation, still books, antiquity, and virt'u kept hold of a corner of my heart, and since necessity has forced me of late years to be a man of business, my ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... physician, know that a sound stomach excludes a good heart. Your woman of fashion feels nothing; her rage for pleasure has its source in a longing to heat up her cold nature, a craving for excitement and enjoyment, like an old man who stands night after night by the footlights at the opera. As she has more brain than heart, she sacrifices genuine passion and true friends to her triumph, ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... seen this which you craved to see, and have lived purely and unspotted from pride or evil, thy souls shall go with me when I shall depart. But you, my son,' he said, looking at Sir Bors, 'still find in your heart the love of kin, and a longing for battle, and so you shall remain, to fight for Christ while yet you ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... Miss Upton," Mrs. Barry laughed, "I do need a scolding, I know. I've allowed myself to be talked into something crazy—crazy. It's much worse than a zebra, but you know what a big disappointment Ben had last year—flapping his wings and aching and longing to go across the sea while Uncle Sam obstinately refused to let him go over and end the War? All dressed up and no place to go! Poor Benny!" Mrs. Barry glanced at her son, laughing. "He did need some consolation prize, and anyway he ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... sat down by the bedside, and commenced thinking of what Harry had told him. He was a little bit of a fellow, you know, and of course would believe what such a great boy would say. So he concluded it must be true that the fairies were still to be found; and at last his longing grew so intense that he cried aloud, "Oh, Fairy Benevolence! come quickly, and ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... also a very amusing little story, and turns on the experiences of a couple of ladies who, with a longing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... last great waste tracts of the country, were the people free to reach out after things immaterial and aesthetic; and only with the accession of wealth, which again these same causes produced, came the possibility of gratifying the craving for those things. And in the longing for self-improvement and self-culture, thus newly inspired and for the first time truly national, one of the things to which the people turned with characteristic earnestness was the improvement of the common speech. The nation has ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... but the battle of Pydna marks the real supremacy of the Romans in the civilized world. Mommsen asserts that it is a superficial view which sees in the wars of the Romans with tribes, cities, and kings, an insatiable longing after dominion and riches, and that it was only a desire to secure the complete sovereignty of Italy, unmolested by enemies, which prompted, to this period, the Roman wars—that the Romans earnestly opposed the introduction ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... mind is over-indulged in any way, it immediately demands more of the same indulgence, and even in stronger doses. Who does not know that too much wine makes one desire more? Who, after reading a novel, does not feel a longing ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... offices of an engineering firm in their home town of Gridley. After being graduated from the Gridley High School, Tom and Harry had done more work in the same offices. Then, in a sudden desire for advancement, and possessed by the longing for a wider field of endeavor, Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton had secured positions as "cub engineers" on the construction work that was being done to rush a new railway, system over the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. The stern, hard work that lay before them, the many adventures ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... rosary they must remain quiet, bored, or asleep. At each movement or antic that may soil their clothing they are pinched and scolded, so the fact is that they do not laugh or feel happy, while in their round eyes can be read a protest against so much embroidery and a longing for the old ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... States calmly awaited the time when racial vigour and the exigencies of commerce should yield to them the possession of the western prairies and the little townships of Arkansas and New Orleans. They reckoned without taking count of the eager longing of the French for their former colony and the determination of Napoleon to give effect to this ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... synagogue everybody and everything in it looked strange to me. Reb Sender was dearer than ever, but that was chiefly because I was longing for a devoted friend. I was dying to relieve my fevered mind by telling him all and seeking advice, ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... that in the least. Though he had so lately risen from his obscurity, he was longing to return to it. He found himself "exposed to that great light in which a man is lost among the many." There were too many people bothering their heads about him. He pondered ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... the morn comes, and the Real Once again resumes its sway, Scattereth these radiant fancies, Cloudeth o'er thy gentle glances, And still seeking my Ideal Through this life I take my way, Weary, heart-sick, longing, sighing, Praying much, yet no replying, Phantom Hope before me flying Leading ever back to thee, To behold thee in thy beauty, Feel that love is only duty, Meritless, save that so ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... any attention during her childhood, now persecuted her with slavish fondness, and tempted her by mingled entreaties and bribes to desert her father and live with them for the remainder of their lives. Her reserve fanned their longing to have her for a pet; and, to escape them, she returned to the Continent with her father, and ceased to hold any correspondence with London. Her aunts declared themselves deeply hurt, and Lydia was held to have treated them very injudiciously; but when ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... mother's, was in the heart of any man, it was in Dante's. But a man who does not know rigour cannot pity either. His very pity will be cowardly, egoistic,—sentimentality, or little better. I know not in the world an affection equal to that of Dante. It is a tenderness, a trembling, longing, pitying love: like the wail of AEolean harps, soft, soft; like a child's young heart;—and then that stern, sore-saddened heart! These longings of his towards his Beatrice; their meeting together in the Paradiso; his gazing in her pure transfigured eyes, her that had been ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... So I am longing for what I dread. I shall be dejected if I do not find myself in the presence of what makes ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... how much are our expectations disappointed! How often have we, with admiration and longing wonder, read the descriptions in the newspapers of the fashionable parties in this great metropolis, and thought of the Grecian lamps, the ottomans, the promenades, the ornamented floors, the cut glass, the coup d'oeil, and the tout ensemble. "Alas!" ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... will only be good we shall go up to Jesus, and be beautiful angels, and sing hymns. Would that it might be soon, soon; for you and me, and all!" And she draws the children, to her, and looks upward, as if longing to bear ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... close in the little cell, and Maria was glad of the coolness that came in through the open door. Her eyes were fixed on the sky with a longing look. Again the words of her song rose to her lips, but she checked them, remembering her aunt's presence, and with the effort to be silent came the strong wish to be free, to be over there upon those purple hills at evening, to look beyond and watch the ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... have only just begun. I think of Dore taking a sad farewell of his unfinished Vale of Tears; of Dickens tearing himself from the manuscript that he knew would never be completed; of Macaulay looking with wistful and longing eyes at the History and The Armada that must for ever stand as 'fragments'; and of a host besides. Life is often represented by a broken column in the church-yard. Men long, but long in vain, for the priceless ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... garments?' said he at last. 'Truly I should scarce have guessed it'; and he passed on, leaving hate and a longing for revenge in the ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... if a fibre be ruffled, cries, "I am no hypocrite." Accept that excuse, and revenge becomes virtue. But where the heart, if it give the offence, pines till it win back the pardon; if offended itself, bounds forth to forgive, ever longing to soothe, ever grieved if it wound; then be sure that its nobleness will need but few trials of pain in each outbreak to refine and chastise its expression. Fear not then; be but noble ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... support through prayer. It is faith that makes prayer possible, and living faith, the spirit of faith, that makes us pray aright. This kind of prayer need not express itself in words; it may be a habit, a long drawn out desire, an habitual longing for help coupled with firm confidence in God's mercy to grant our request. No state of soul however disordered can long resist such a power, and no habit of evil but in time will be annihilated ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... have I felt so deeply how sweet and merciful is the Lord. He did not send me this heavy cross when it might have discouraged me, but at a time when I was able to bear it. Now it simply takes from me all natural satisfaction I might feel in my longing ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... Serviss perceived the pulse of an interest which laid hold on the most secret hopes and fears of the youngest and shook the eldest with an elemental dread and longing. It was as if the flood-gates of a sea of doubt and wonder had been turned in upon a dozen minds hitherto as well kept as lawns. Questions popped like corks and answers were as vivacious as the gurgle of wine, but the topic remained ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... a minute; I've been longing to fix my books, but didn't dare to touch them, because you always shake your head when ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... form of intermittent fever, we not only act in strict accordance with the hom[oe]opathic law generally, but we fulfil all the requirements of the individualizing method. Apis is the universal remedy in intermittent fevers, for which every hom[oe]opathic physician has been longing, and which pure experiments, conducted according to the rules of hom[oe]opathy, have revealed to us;—another shining light on the sublime ...
— Apis Mellifica - or, The Poison of the Honey-Bee, Considered as a Therapeutic Agent • C. W. Wolf
... passed on sadly, and I knew That these had met and missed in the dark night, Blinded by blindness of the world untrue, That hideth love and maketh wrong of right. Then midst my pity for their lost delight, Yet more with barren longing I grew weak, Yet more I mourned that I had none ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... immediately; it was beautiful, finely chiselled and of classic line, without a hint of deformity or disease on its glowing health. The eyes were large, liquid, appealing, yet painfully watchful, as are the eyes of all the deformed. A yearning soul looked out of them, longing for sympathy, suspicious of pity—pity which is of all things most hateful to the cripple and the hunchback. As she stood in the doorway, there was a look of almost stern disapproval on her face, though the eyes softened with the tenderness ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... thermometer was 15 deg. below zero, the snow very deep, and Miss Anthony's friends saw her set forth on the journey to this cold western city with much anxiety. All their protests, however, were not sufficient to keep her at home; but she thought with much longing of the clean, beautiful streets of Washington, the mild climate, the Congressional committees, the crowds of visitors there from various parts of the country who always came to the convention, and she felt more strongly than ever ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... patience, and having first locked the door so as to make sure that Marguerite would not interrupt them, he watched Monsieur Bonelle attentively, and satisfied himself that the Excellent Opportunity he had been ardently longing for had arrived: "He is going fast," he thought; "and unless I settle the agreement to-night, and get it drawn up and signed to-morrow, it ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... on your all and say 'howdy,'" had been his first avowal, which was lucid as far as it went. Later he involved himself in explanations that were both obscure and conflicting. Once it was that he had felt a sudden great longing for the life of a gay city. Then it was that he would have been content in Montana City, but that he had undertaken the winter in New York out of consideration for ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... over her face, lighting it to the extreme corners under the temples and ears. As she stood there, humiliated, yet defiant of him and of the world, Sommers remembered the first time he had seen her that night at the hospital. He read her, somehow, extraordinarily well; he knew the misery, the longing, the anger, the hate, the stubborn power to fight. Her deep eyes glanced at him frankly, willing to be read by this stranger out of the multitude of men. They had no more need of words now than at that first moment in the operating room at St. Isidore's. They were man and woman, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... streets lined by the thousands who had gathered to see him, but who had been warned that his condition was such, that the excitement occasioned by any shouting would be perilous to him. Amid dead silence his litter passed through the crowds who were longing to welcome him to the scene of his old triumphs! Truly it was more like a funeral procession than one ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... history. I think that will be wise, as I am so much off work. And then, I suppose, Weir of Hermiston, but it may be anything. I am discontented with The Ebb Tide, naturally; there seems such a veil of words over it; and I like more and more naked writing; and yet sometimes one has a longing for full colour and there comes the veil again. The Young Chevalier is in very full colour, and I fear ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ever welcome glory of the spring comes back, and with it comes the natural human longing to make a garden, which is really, although we treat it lightly, a sort of humble first-cousin to the love of children. In your own breast you repress this weakness. Why taste of a pleasure which ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... spirit. Everywhere we see the seeds of the same growth that America itself has known. The American experiment has, for generations, fired the passion and the courage of millions elsewhere seeking freedom, equality, and opportunity. And the American story of material progress has helped excite the longing of all needy peoples for some satisfaction of their human wants. These hopes that we have helped to inspire, we ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... was put out at once. He fretted much, and he prayed that Dalice might be better, and he kept to his post, looking for the fleet of the foe. Evening after evening was this other fire lighted and then put out at once; and a great longing came to him to leave this guarding of the fire, and go to her—"For half a day," he said—"just for half a day!" But in that half day the fleet might pass, and then it would be said that Tinoir had betrayed his country. At last sleep left him, and he fought a demon night and day; and always he remembered ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... that the second state is inferior to the first—in this, at any rate, he is consistent; and he still casts longing eyes upon the ideal. Several features of the first are retained in the second: the education of men and women is to be as far as possible the same; they are to have common meals, though separate, the men by themselves, the women with their children; and they are ...
— Laws • Plato
... had listened to him all the time, and as he enacted the scene with the poor girl, with my heart moved by two conflicting emotions, I did not know whether to give myself up to the longing I had to laugh, or to a transport of indignation. I was distressingly perplexed between two humours; twenty times an uncontrollable burst of laughter kept my anger back, and twenty times the anger that was rising from the bottom of my soul suddenly ended in a burst of laughter. I was confounded ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... her request, giving them into her hand, though, stepping behind her, he carefully kept the ends of them in his own. He could now see her shining hair, the graceful oval of her head, and her white throat eagerly bent forward; an indescribable longing came over him to press a kiss on her head; but he forbore, for he remembered his friend's words that he would fulfil the part of a guardian to these girls. He too would be a protector to her, aye and more than that, he would care for her as a father ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... well, all the better, so much the better, well and good; it will do, that will do; it cannot be helped. Phr. nothing comes amiss. a heart with room for every joy [Bailey]; ich habe genossen das irdische Gluck ich habe gelebt und geliebet [G.] [Schiller]; nor cast one longing lingering look behind [Gray]; shut up in measureless content [Macbeth]; sweet are the thoughts that savor of content [R. Greene]; their wants but few their wishes all confined [Goldsmith]; might as well relax ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... a sort of command that I was to wait, and though longing to have it settled then and there, I braked myself up and answered her question. Now I see what a duffer I was—Madge told me afterward that she asked only because she was so frightened and confused that she felt she must stop my speaking ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... figure of the copra gatherer. Perhaps the loss of his sloop had condemned him to weary months or years of solitude upon the island, before the rare glimmer of a sail or the trail of a steamer's smoke upon the horizon gladdened his longing eyes. Hadn't he grown very tired of pork, and didn't his soul to this day revolt at a ham sandwich? What would he say if he ever discovered that he might have brought away a harvest of gold instead ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... sleep, they had talked solemnly with each other over the possible fate of poor Tom. Chafing from their forced inaction, they looked impatiently upon the ebbing water, which was leaving them aground, when they were longing to be floating on its bosom after their friend, and could scarcely endure the thought of the suspense to which they would be condemned while waiting for ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... at him curiously. There was the faintest accent of longing in the tone, which was ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... to this story, the young man was filled with a great longing to rescue the maiden from her dreadful fate. The mention of the chapel set him thinking of the scene of the previous night, and he went over all the details again in his mind. 'Who is Schippeitaro?' he suddenly asked; 'can any ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... pause now, longing to ask my comrade's advice; but I dared not whisper. So, feeling that probably there would only be about fifty yards of perilous ground to pass over before we had cleared the Boer lines, I did what I imagined was best—bore off a little to the right as I advanced—my idea ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... Devonianum, too delicate and beautiful for a flower of earth.' This and other references ... gave them, in my mind, a weird and mysterious charm ... which, I believe, had its share in producing that longing for the tropics which a few years later was satisfied in the ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... subject of expenditure a little less difficult to talk about with her husband. But if Carrie was going to think of running around in the beginning there would be a hitch somewhere. Unless Carrie submitted to a solemn round of industry and saw the need of hard work without longing for play, how was her coming to the city to profit them? These thoughts were not those of a cold, hard nature at all. They were the serious reflections of a mind which invariably adjusted itself, without much complaining, to such surroundings ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... was hanging there, So gay with turret and dome. You'd be sure a birdie would gladly make Such a beautiful place its home. But a wee little yellow-bird sadly chirped As it fluttered to and fro; I know it was longing with all its heart To ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II, No 3, September 1897 • Various
... all persuaded her to do that, and she promised she would; and after eight days she felt so great a longing to see her husband again that she made the wish the same night, and when she woke three hours after, she was in her husband's palace, and he himself was watching over her. There was great joy on both sides, and they were happy for ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... had he been permitted to experience the pangs of hunger, though the intimations thereof were familiar. No wonder, then, that after an evening, a night, and half a day of abstinence, he looked with a longing gaze on victuals, and, when opportunity offered, devoured them desperately. Olaf, though trained a little in endurance, was scarcely less energetic, for his appetite was keen, and his ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... entered into her at the sight, and she went mad, so that they let her go, being afraid to touch her afterwards. So she fled and took up her abode in the haunted glen; and this was the nature of her madness, that whenever she saw children, and more especially girl children, a longing came upon her to kill them as her own had been killed. This, indeed, she did often, for when the moon was full and her madness at its highest, she would travel far to find children, snatching them away from the kraals like a hyena. Still, ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... I should say that he has two pains; in his body there is the actual experience of pain, and in his soul longing and expectation. ...
— Philebus • Plato
... soul of the Ramblin' Kid. It breathed the unfathomable strife of life—of love, longing, hope, despair—almost, yet subtly, elusively, would not tell the eternal ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... left to walk down the dusty lane alone. Am I melancholy simply because I shall not see him for a month or a year? She whom I have loved for half a life lies dying. I kiss her and bid her good-bye. Is the bare loss the sole cause of my misery, my despair, breeding that mad longing that I myself might die? In all parting there is something infinite. We see in it a symbol of the order of the universe, and it is because that death-bed farewell stands for so much that we break down. "If it pleases God," says Swift to Pope, "to restore ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... presence which we all feel is in sympathy with us, and which, as it seemed to my fancy, was looking into my eyes, and through them into my soul, with the tender, tearful smile of a mother who for the first time gently presses back the longing lips of her as yet ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... week to every voter, the most effective of political harangues; but, unlike other party orators, they were not forced to stimulate the sluggish, or to convince the hostile, for from a people glowing with fanaticism, each elder picked his band of devoted servants of the church, men passionately longing to do the will of Christ, whose commands concerning earth and heaven their pastor had been ordained to declare. Nor was their power bounded by local limits; though seldom holding office themselves, they were solemnly consulted by the government on every important question that arose, whether of ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... uneasy consciousness was with him that the issue was after all only postponed, that decisions of this kind must be made again and again so long as opportunity and desire go together. And there were moments of reaction when his will was like a rope of sand, when the longing for her swept over ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... returning hand in hand with her compassion, and unable, because of the table, to see the length of Mrs. Wilkins's legs. All she saw was her small, eager, shy face, and her thin shoulders, and the look of childish longing in her eyes for something that she was sure was going to make her happy. No; such things didn't make people happy, such fleeting things. Mrs. Arbuthnot had learned in her long life with Frederick—he was her husband, and she had married him at twenty ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... wilderness, and as the statuary did not know I was looking at it, I sat back to take my fill of that vision framed in the open window. The statuary, unknown to itself, had full meed of revenge; for it presently brought such a flood of longing to my heart, longings, not for this face, but for what this face represented—the innocence and love and purity of home, that I bowed dejectedly forward with moist eyes gazing at ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... infinite object to rest upon, though it cannot grasp that object positively in its infinity. If this is the case even with the human mind, still wearing "this muddy vesture of decay," how much more ardent the longing, as how much keener the gaze, of the pure spirit after Him who is the centre and rest of all ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... depends on the sense impressions of the mother coinciding with the desire which forms the image—for instance, a spot on the body touched rather sharply at the moment. This has given rise to the idea that the "longing" is impressed on that part of the body which the mother is touching during her desire. When the image is particularly strong and persistent considerable modifications of the body have been obtained; in such cases, children are born with animal-like heads, and treatises ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... and honor meant so much To me, Dear Heart? Oh! I am full of tears To-night, of longing, love and foolish fears. Would I might see thee, know thy tender touch, For Time is long, and though I may not will To question Fate, ...
— A Woman's Love Letters • Sophie M. Almon-Hensley
... this end; that the Constitution has been disregarded; that abolition and arbitrary power, not Union and constitutional liberty, are the governing ideas of the administration. They are in no temper to be trifled with. They think they have been deceived. There is danger of revolution. They are longing ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... still dark to her. Of one obstacle that must keep her and Gavin ever apart she knew, and he did not; but had it been removed she would have given herself to him humbly, not in her own longing, but because he wanted her. "Behold what I am," she could have said to him then, and left the rest to him, believing that her unworthiness would not drag him down, it would lose itself so readily in his strength. ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... far too smooth for me here; my faculties get no exercise; I cannot satisfy my longing for activity ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... stunning green automobile!" I exclaimed. From my vantage point on the steps I could look down on him, and there came over me a great longing to run my fingers gently through that crisp blond hair, and to bring his head down close against my breast for one exquisite moment. So—"Landladies and oitermobiles!" I laughed. "Never! Don't you know that if they got one glimpse, through the front ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... sight of land,—Mariguana, a coral island, one of the Bahamas. Every one stood in silence to see it, it was so beautiful. The spray dashed so high, that, as it fell, we at first took it for streams and cascades. It was just at sunrise; and we cast longing looks at the soft green hills, bathed in light. Now it is gone, and we have only the wide ocean again. But a new color has appeared in the water,—a purplish pink, which looks very tropical; and there are blotches of yellow seaweed. Some of it caught in the wheel, and stopped it. The ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... the meagre sentinel and still more skinny cook bending under the weight of a dish crowned with an enormous sirloin of beef, no doubt intended to regale some newly-arrived John Bull, whilst a fat monk scans it with a longing eye. Next the bust of Eustache de St. Pierre awakes the attention, and the surrender of Calais and his devoted patriotism rises in one's memory. Another souvenir also must not be forgotten, namely, the print of the foot of Louis the Eighteenth, which ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... cut, I say, cut to a finish. That's fightin', an' fightin' dead fair. Ah!" and the hard lines of the scarred face softened into a look of infinite longing and regret, "if only I could find another man with nerve enough to ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... hurried away after breakfast, and Kate, in the luxury of convalescence, half-reclined in a great chair on the veranda and watched the dusky blue mist twining itself around the brown hills. She was not thinking of the babies; she was not worrying about home; she was not longing for anything, or even indulging in a dream. That vacuous content which engrosses the body after long indisposition, held her imperatively. Suddenly she was aroused from this happy condition of nothingness by the spectacle of an enormous bull-dog approaching ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... manifestation towards a "grand coucher" during the time I remained at Albany—this his attachment to Mary Wallace forbade—but, I discovered by means of hints and allusions, that he had been engaged in one or two such affairs, and that there was still a longing for them in his bones. It was owing to her consciousness of the existence of such weaknesses, and her own strong aversion to anything of the sort, that, I am persuaded, Mary Wallace was alone induced to hesitate about accepting Guert's weekly offer of his hand. The ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... clothes had tumbled off the bed, and that he supposed it was time to get up for chapel. I told him to shut his eyes and keep quiet, which he did without in the slightest degree realizing the position. As for myself, his reference to chapel made me reflect, with a sort of sick longing, on my comfortable rooms at Cambridge. Why had I been such a fool as to leave them? This is a reflection that has several times recurred to me since, and ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... eating and drinking, and covetousness, and cowardice, and laziness, and love for the things which they could see and handle—just such a nature, in short, as we have. And they had also a spirit in each of them which was longing to be free, and strong, and holy, and wise—such a spirit as we have. And to them, just as to us, God was revealing himself; God was saying to their consciences, as He does to ours, 'This is right, that is wrong; do this, and ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... the enjoyment of the present, and the good we see in prospect is never attained. When we were boys we longed to be men, with the strength and intellect of men; and now that we are men, with matured powers of body and mind, true to our organic restlessness and discontent, we look back with longing for the feelings and emotions of our boyhood. What a glorious thing it would be if we could always be young—not boys exactly, but at that stage of life when the physical powers are most active, and the heart most buoyant. That, to my thinking, would be a better arrangement ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... his life—a life filled to the brim with hope and energy and high ideals—on this futile quest? He knew quite as well as the General or the Colonel that his ride was but a forlorn hope. As he lay there, longing so, in the dangerous dark, he went about the library at home in his thought and placed each familiar belonging where he had known it all his life. And as he finished, his mother's head shone darkly golden by the piano; her fingers swept over the ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... devotions. Untoward circumstances, hastened, perhaps, by a wealthier suitor, brought this amour to a disastrous issue; and Father Jose entered a monastery, taking upon himself the vows of celibacy. It was here that his natural fervor and poetic enthusiasm conceived expression as a missionary. A longing to convert the uncivilized heathen succeeded his frivolous earthly passion, and a desire to explore and develop unknown fastnesses continually possessed him. In his flashing eye and sombre exterior was detected a singular commingling of the discreet Las ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... tipped with livid froth, and the dreariness of the surroundings intensified the girl's depression. There was something unpleasantly suggestive in the sight of the fog that hid everything, for she had of late been troubled with a half-apprehensive longing to see what lay before her. In the meanwhile, she noticed the look-out standing, a lonely, shapeless figure, amidst the spray that whirled about the plunging bows. By and bye she saw him turn and wave an arm apparently towards the bridge ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... down, though there was plenty of silence. Then when Mr. Smith said a few words, Ester whispered the same assurance to herself, with exactly the same result. The something decided for which she had been longing, the opportunity to show the world just where she stood, had come at last, and this was the way in which she was meeting it. At last she knew by the heavy thuds which her heart began to give, that the question was decided, ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... and whereas many ships are cast away: But it was a faire gift of God that we entred in it when the weather was cleare. We sailed all the night, supposing wee had bene shot into the narrow Sea betweene England and France, and by the next day to reach Diepe, but we were deceiued of our longing: for about two or three of the clocke after midnight as I walked vpon the hatches, I descried land round about me, whereat wee were astonied. Immediatly I caused them to strike saile and sound: we found we had not vnder vs past 8 fathoms of water, whereupon I commanded them to stay till ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... I remember, when she was a baby, how I used to hang over her, longing for her to awaken, that I might see ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... some pure neighbouring brook, Nor asks for sauce where appetite stands cook. When the dews fall, and when the sun retires Behind the mountains, when the village fires, Which, waken'd all at once, speak supper nigh, At distance catch, and fix his longing eye, Homeward he hies, and with his manly brood Of raw-boned cubs enjoys that clean, coarse food, 140 Which, season'd with good-humour, his fond bride 'Gainst his return is happy to provide; Then, free from care, and free from thought, he creeps ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... came, dragging his feet wearily and mopping his soot-blackened face with a handkerchief as black. He gave the hammock a longing look, as though he had been counting on easing his aching body into it. Seeing Marion there asleep, he dropped to the pine needle carpet under a great tree, and began to fan himself with his stiff-brimmed straw hat that was grimed with smoke and ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... the presence of a chest containing the robe of the mother of their Lord, the pious men begged leave to spend the night in prayer beside the relic, and while thus engaged were seized by an uncontrollable longing to gain possession of the sacred garment. Accordingly they took careful measurements of the chest before them, and at Jerusalem ordered an exact facsimile of it to be made. Thus equipped they lodged again, ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... of Janey Fricker, left with Miss Foster in the Rue St. Jean. She wished for Janey to walk with her in the rough sea-wind, to bathe with her, and talk with her. One morning when the sun was glorious on the dancing waves, she cried out her longing for her little friend. The next day Janey arrived by the diligence. Mr. Fairfax had given madame carte blanche for the holiday entertainment of his granddaughter, and madame was glad to be able to content her so easily. Luc-sur-Mer is not a place to be enthusiastic about. Its beauty ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... them, life is useless, so far as any life is useless. But while we work within them, we see beyond them an illimitable land, and thirst for it. This battle between the dire necessity of working in chains and longing for freedom, between the infinite destiny of the soul and the baffling of its effort to realise its infinitude on earth, makes the storm and misery of life. We may try to escape that tempest and sorrow by determining to think, feel, and act only within our limitations, ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... of these skins, and Jean wished to satisfy her longing for privacy. A tiny rabbit-bone, whittled to a point, and rabbit sinews, white and tough and secured with great difficulty, supplied the means. So, for several days, she sewed the skins together, and at last hung before her bed of boughs a ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... index where the heart's involved Deep as a mother's, pure as a virgin's, fiery as a saint's Foolish trick of thinking for herself Fortitude leaned so much upon the irony Grand air of pitying sadness Ironical fortitude Longing for love and dependence Love of men and women as a toy that I have played with Pain is a cloak that wraps you about She was sick of personal freedom Watch, and wait Went into endless invalid's laughter Why should these men take ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... barren talent, and is lost to society, like the miser's concealed hoard, by the death of the proprietor. His studies were also under the additional disadvantage, that, being pursued for the gratification of a desultory longing after knowledge, and directed to no determined object, they turned on points rather curious than useful, and while they served for the amusement of the student himself, promised little utility ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... Linton, cutting across Mrs. Hunt's protest. "Do come—I know Norah is longing to be asked to meet the family, and that will give you time to fix it up." He over-ruled any further objections by the simple process of ignoring them, whereupon the Hunts wisely gave up manufacturing any more: and presently they had discovered two taxis, Norah and ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... months' abstention, that I took the Sacrament for the last time. My mother had an intense longing to communicate before she died, but absolutely refused to do so unless I took it with her. "If it be necessary to salvation," she persisted, doggedly, "I will not take it if darling Annie is to be shut ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... obedience by suggesting that Wilson might by force take her back home when upon the eve of finding her father. She had looked again into the crystal and as always had seen him wandering among big hills in a region much like this. What did it all mean? She did not know, but now a deeper, more insistent longing was lessening the hold of the other. Her thoughts in the last few days had gone back more often than ever they had to the younger man who had played, with such vivid, brilliant strokes, so important a part in ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... of their ever-increasing numbers, the territory allotted to them by Kapchack was daily becoming less and less suited to their wants, and, in short, there were some signs of a famine. They, therefore, looked with longing eyes at the fertile country, teeming with wheat and acorns around them, and listened with greedy ears to the tempting prospect so graphically described by ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... say, "is not one of those feeble passions which grow dull by possession; its favors, which are never to be obtained without effort, never, on the other hand, cause disgust, and whoever can do without longing for fresh ones is unworthy of all he ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... boys are so afraid to acknowledge that they are ever homesick? Is it the fear that they may appear too dependent and less manly if they confess their longing for home? Certainly no boy who comes from a good home detracts from his own strength of character by acknowledging that he misses the home from which he has gone. Indeed, is it not a reflection upon the boy and ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... violence of the flame; so fell the heads of the flying Trojans, at the hand of Agamemnon, son of Atreus, and many lofty-necked steeds rattled their empty chariots through the ranks[367] of the battle, longing for their faultless charioteers; but they lay upon the earth, far more agreeable to the ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... Lambeth Conferences we need not consider; it is certainly no new mind in the Anglican Church, but is precisely its characteristic attitude of not claiming perfection or finality for itself, but of looking beyond itself to Catholic Christendom, and longing for the time when reunion of the churches which now make up its "broken unity" will enable it to speak with the same voice of authority with which it did in its primitive ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... which his ordeal made itself felt was in his great longing to have it over with. He looked forward to the cell which he believed awaited him as to relief. There at least he would be safe from the hard, inquisitive ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... plain they sat down to rest in the heart of a heap of shadows. After sitting for a while, each, looking up, saw the other in tears: they were each longing after the country ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... she has been at the Lensmand's now, and 'tis no little time, reckoned out in days and nights, but an eternity reckoned in longing and oppression. It had been bearable at first, Fru Heyerdahl looking after her kindly, giving her aprons and neat things to wear; 'twas a joy to be sent on errands to the store with such fine clothes to wear. Barbro had been in the village as a child; she knew all the village folk ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... country trader. He held communication with many leading citizens, as well as with apprentices and others with whom he could get into conversation in the streets and public resorts. He found that the vast majority of the people of London were longing for the overthrow of the rule of the Independents, and for the restoration of the king. The preachers were as busy as ever haranguing people in the streets, and especially at Paul's Cross. In the cathedral of St. Paul's the Independent soldiers had stabled their horses, to the ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... flagrant form. Aileen, knowing full well what her parents would think, how unspeakable in the mind of the current world were the thoughts she was thinking, persisted, nevertheless, in so thinking and longing. Cowperwood, now that she had gone thus far and compromised herself in intention, if not in deed, took on a peculiar charm for her. It was not his body—great passion is never that, exactly. The flavor ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... inclination to repeat sin till it becomes a habit, are set forth with terrible force in these grim figures. What a menagerie of ravenous beasts some of us have at the doors of our hearts! With what murderous longing they glare at us, seeking to fascinate us, and make us their prey! When we sin, we cannot escape the issues; and every wrong thing we do has a kind of horrible life given it, and sits henceforth there, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... the gift, the vizier took the king's son and threw him into prison. Two long years Kralewitz lay there, longing for liberty and home. Then he learned that in a few days he was to ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... over her life. She was interested in everything about her, without a particle of cant, full of playful humor and bright fancies; but the love of Christ was the absorbing interest of her life—almost a passion, it might be called, so fervent and rapturous was her devotion to Him, so great her longing for communion with Him and for a more complete conformity ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... slow fever which I found it quite impossible to throw off. I had, moreover, got my stomach out of order to such an extent, that for the space of four months, as I verily believe, I hardly ate one whole loaf of bread in the week; and great was my longing to reach Italy, being desirous to die ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... need to be abroad, running or riding with all her might. She leaned out of a gable window, courting the moist chill of the starless night. While the hidden landscape seemed strangely dear to her, she was full of unspeakable homesickness and longing for she knew not what—a life she had not known and could not imagine, some perfect friend who called her silently through space and was able to lift her out of ...
— The King Of Beaver, and Beaver Lights - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... this digression, and returning to recollections of my own life, I may say that a longing had now come over me for a quiet term of life, and I accordingly settled down at home. Work was once more found for me at Messrs Lund's mill; indeed, I have often since thought that the late Mr William Lund must have stipulated in his will that ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... by your life. And yet,—how strange!—when I built up in my dreams the life that should be mine, you were ever my hero, though I knew it not. Now I understand it all—now know I what it was I felt. It was a foreboding, a mysterious longing for you, you only one— for you that were one day to ...
— Henrik Ibsen's Prose Dramas Vol III. • Henrik Ibsen
... with heavenliest harmonies! Ma'am, will any man persuade me that Handel at such a moment was athirst for fame? or that the desire to please a house full or world full of such as heard his oratorios, gave him the power to write his music? No, ma'am! he was filled, not with the longing for sympathy, and not even with the good desire to give delight, but with the music itself. It was crying in him to get out, and he heard it crying, and could not rest till he had let it out; and every ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... I am longing to see you, dearest Nance, and wish you could manage to meet me in New York before we sail, but if you can't, be sure to have a letter on the steamer for me. We are going on a slow boat to Antwerp. We think ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... innate means for determining the truth. But such reminiscences being, in their nature, imperfect and uncertain, we never can attain to absolute truth. With Plato, the Beautiful is the perfect image of the true. Love is the desire of the soul for Beauty, the attraction of like for like, the longing of the divinity within us for the divinity beyond us; and the Good, which is beauty, truth, justice, is ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... Mally the maid, is almost dead with longing, and thinks her very heart in pieces, scarcely knowing when the first Wedding-night will be ended, that she might carry up some water to the young couple, and have a feeling of those liberal gifts that she shall receive ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... shout I sprang past my aunt, and in an instant I had my lifelong foe by the throat. After so many years of waiting and longing, he was mine at last. I tore him to shreds and fragments. I rent the fragments to bits. I cast the bleeding rubbish into the fire, and drew into my nostrils the grateful incense of my burnt-offering. At last, and forever, my ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... fellowship with those of like mind and hope. The gradual separation taking place, which was throwing over their neighbors a coldness toward them, accentuated the question of which church they were going to join. Their hearts were hungry for soul-food, for spiritual nurture; there was a longing within which was acutely felt, but which was unsatisfied. The intensity of this desire for the fellowship of saints increased as Robert and Mary studied the Scriptures and beheld glimpses of the path which was being so ...
— Around Old Bethany • Robert Lee Berry
... perceived years ago that God called me to a life apart with Him, and to have detached my heart from all but Himself and His Church. Father, it is hard enough to realise the wreck of all a man hoped and longed for: yet it is harder to know that the very hope was sin, that the longing was contrary to the Divine purpose for me. Have I so misunderstood my life? Have I so misunderstood ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... life, and even a longing for death, so intense that nothing stands between Hamlet and suicide except religious awe. And what has caused them? The rest of the soliloquy so thrusts the answer upon us that it might seem impossible to miss it. It was not his ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... Absolute instead of being an indifferent and unmoved spectator to its own creation, is a thriving, longing, active, suffering, rejoicing, feeling Spirit, partaking of the feelings of its manifestations, rather than callously witnessing them. It lives in us—with us—through us. Back of all the pain in the world may be found ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... was a little disappointed with his hero, and wondered what could have come over him, that he should suddenly have grown as commonplace as Sir Joseph himself. He constantly looked back with curious longing, as the laughter from behind became more persistent, and it was only hope still undefeated that made him cling to ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... confusion in her sentiments, that she could only look the meanings of them all: Fillamour, however, found enough in this mute language to make him know, he was in as fair a way of happiness, as he cou'd wish; and returning her glances with others as languishing, as the most melting longing love cou'd teach the loveliest eyes in the world, they continued, for some moments, thus transmitting souls—" until their confidant hurries them ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... evils of civilisation is the longing for speed, which, within the past hundred years, has developed from a simple vice to a complicated mania. Long ago men were accustomed to use their legs in order to propel themselves forward, and, when greater ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... that all the world of little children at least was kin, and the grateful heart of the father felt that in mere decency of gratitude he must acknowledge so much. Poor little hungry babies. What if his darling were hungry! A sudden longing seized his soul to give them bread at once to eat. But at least he would shower his gratitude upon this one ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... a moment to look hungrily at Billy Mink's duck. Billy Mink cast a longing eye at Little Joe Otter's trout, while Jimmy Skunk stole an envious ...
— Mother West Wind's Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... given for this determination, but the most apparent is this; that the praetorian soldiers, as they are called, who serve as guards, not relishing the military discipline which they now had begun a little more to experience, and longing for their amusements and unwarlike life among the shows of Rome, would not be commanded, but were eager for a battle, imagining that upon the first onset they should carry all before them. Otho also himself seems not to have shown ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself—to offer violence to its own nature—to do wrong for the wrong's sake only—that urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... appear. Yes, he had long wanted to meet him. He had heard a great deal about him from the boys, but hitherto he had always maintained an appearance of disdainful indifference when he was mentioned, and he had even "criticized" what he heard about Alyosha. But secretly he had a great longing to make his acquaintance; there was something sympathetic and attractive in all he was told about Alyosha. So the present moment was important: to begin with, he had to show himself at his best, to show his independence, "Or he'll think of me as thirteen and take me for a boy, ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... her white face even at the Red Cross. She busied herself with writing checks for the snow-storm of appeals that choked her mail. Otherwise she pined in idleness, refusing more than ever the devotion that Jim offered her now in a longing ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... She wanted sleep and fresh air. Where could she get them? The mummer was in the spare room; but he would be gone to-morrow, and she would be left alone. The thought startled her, though she soon forgot it in her longing to get out of her husband's sight. Every moment this desire grew stronger, ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... some travel gives, and, in Oberlin, she had been where the race question was relatively negligible. Her mother's way of putting it jarred on her; yet the hungry craving she felt at this time for a touch of companionship with a girl of her own age, her longing for the beloved Ellen of her childhood, overbore all shrinking. That afternoon she brought the cards down in her hand, and, full of an unwelcome timidity, made her way to the side door of the Kendrick house and rapped. Mrs. Kendrick answered and received her with a certain ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... is, for the most part, very falsely assigned. Of learning, as of virtue, it may be affirmed, that it is at once honoured and neglected. Whoever forsakes it will for ever look after it with longing, lament the loss which he does not endeavour to repair, and desire the good which he wants resolution to seize and keep. The Idler never applauds his own idleness, nor does any man repent of the diligence of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... look decent. As soon as the marriage was settled, she made her arrangements, worked extra time in the evenings, and managed to put thirty francs on one side. She had a great longing for a little silk mantle marked thirteen francs in the Rue du Faubourg Poissonniere. She treated herself to it, and then bought for ten francs of the husband of a washerwoman who had died in Madame Fauconnier's house a blue woolen dress, which she altered ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... around us Christians are wearing themselves out in trying to be better. The amount of spiritual longing in the world—in the hearts of unnumbered thousands of men and women in whom we should never suspect it; among the wise and thoughtful; among the young and gay, who seldom assuage and never betray their thirst—this is one of the most wonderful and touching facts of ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond
... slip-panels down, it won’t matter much now, There are none but the crows left to see, Perching gaunt in yon pine, as though longing to dine On ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson
... The longing grew so irresistible that at last she succumbed to it; and one day, finding herself alone, she threw down the piece of work on which she was employed, and rising, snatched up ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... thus lay, between content and longing, a faint noise stole towards me through the pines. I thought, at first, it was the crowing of cocks or the barking of dogs at 5 some very distant farm; but steadily and gradually it took articulate shape in my ears, until I became aware ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... and Mrs. Dennistoun watched it till it disappeared; and—what was that that came over Elinor's face as she sank back into the corner of her carriage, not knowing her mother's anxious look followed her still—what was it? Oh, dreadful, dreadful life! oh, fruitless love and longing!—was it relief? The mother tried to get that look out of her mind as she drove silently and slowly home, creeping up hill after hill. There was no need to hurry. All that she was going to was an empty and silent house, where ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... N. desire, wish, fancy, fantasy; want, need, exigency. mind, inclination, leaning, bent, animus, partiality, penchant, predilection; propensity &c. 820; willingness &c. 602; liking, love, fondness, relish. longing, hankering, inkling; solicitude, anxiety; yearning, coveting; aspiration, ambition, vaulting ambition; eagerness, zeal, ardor, empressement[Fr], breathless impatience, overanxiety; impetuosity, &c. 825. appetite, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... always sought. But I recovered, for my hour is not yet. Moreover, for a long while as we reckon time, some years indeed, I obeyed the injunction and sought the Great White Road no more. At length the longing grew too strong for me and I returned thither, but never again did the vision come. Its word was spoken, its mission was fulfilled. Yet from time to time I, a mortal, seem to stand upon the borders of that immortal Road and watch the newly dead who ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard |
