"Wile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... person of discernment in Muirtown had any doubt about the Count's sex. It was, however, freely said—and that story was never contradicted—that he wore stays, and every effort was made to obtain the evidence of his landlady. Her gossips tried Mistress Jamieson with every wile of conversation, and even lawyers' wives, pretending to inquire for rooms for a friend, used to lead the talk round to the Count's habits; but that worthy matron was loyal to her lodger, and was not quite insensible to the dignity of ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... seem to me adapted for convincing parents that their children need instruction, I commonly mention the following: Lowry's "False Modesty" and "Teaching Sex Hygiene," Howard's "Start your Child Right," Wile's "Sex Education," Galloway's "Biology of Sex," March's "Towards Racial Health," Lyttleton's "Training of the Young in Laws of Sex," and pamphlets by Dr. Prince Morrow. See also ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... broken pot we used, ter tell 'bout de war. But warn't ole Miss hoppin' wen she foun' out you war goin' to de war! I thought she'd go almos' wile. Now, own up, Robby, didn't you feel kine ob mean to go off widout eben biddin' her good bye? An' I ralely think ole Miss war fon' ob yer. Now, own up, honey, didn't yer feel a little down in de mouf wen yer ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... stem of moly, If thou touch at Circe's isle,— Hermes' moly, growing solely To undo enchanter's wile. When she proffers thee her chalice,— Wine and spices mixed with malice,— When she smites thee with her staff To transform thee, do thou laugh! Safe thou art if thou but bear The least leaf of moly rare. Close it grows beside ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... with blood, his lips trembled. Suddenly her eyes opened ever so little between their lids, and looked at him. And the perception that she was not really going to faint, that it was a little desperate wile of this child Delilah, made him wrench away his hands. The moment she felt that grasp relax she sank down and clasped his knees, pressing them to her bosom so that he could not stir. Closer and closer she pressed them to her, till it seemed as though she must be bruising ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... can stand away from Politics and Literature—for the two were always involved in those days, so that unless you approved a man's party you couldn't allow that he wrote tolerable verse—they can wile away a winter evening very pleasantly. Christopher North had an eye for character, a sense of humour, and knew and loved the country. He was country bred. He is at his best when he combines his loves, as he does in the person of the Shepherd. ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... one the whole profession agree in pronouncing incurable, and to travel would be torture. No, be content to let me die at home, with you and this beloved daughter to smooth my dying pillow, our wee precious pet to wile away the pain with her pretty baby ways, and my own pastor to comfort me with God's truth ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... heard their calls and blows. Of food he had a simple store, And when the churls the chase gave o'er, And evening sunk upon the vale, With rubbing head and upright tail, Pacing before him to and fro, Puss lured him on the way to go— Coaxing him on, with tender wile, O'er heath and down for many a mile. Ask me not how her course she knows. He from Whom every instinct flows Hath breathed into His creatures power, Giving to each its needful dower; And strive and question as we will, We cannot trace the inborn skill, Nor ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cheap novels have their use, it is certainly on board ship. Soaked with salt water or rain, it matters not; they most assuredly help to wile away many an hour, and even the usually non-novel reader is not ashamed to seize the tell-tale yellow-covered volume, and lose himself in ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... Yellett, undoubtedly filled a long-felt want. Presiding over a school of six-imp power for a week, however, had humbled Mary to the point of seriously considering a letter to the home government, meekly asking for return transportation. But this was before feminine wile had struggled with feminine vanity, and feminine wile won the day. School still continued to open at six, from which early and unusual hour it continued, without recess or interruption, till noon, when dinner pleasantly invaded the scholastic monotony, to the ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... she smiled no more, She looked a sadness sweeter than her smile, As if her heart had deeper thoughts in store She must not own, but cherished more the while For that compression in its burning core; Even Innocence itself has many a wile, And will not dare to trust itself with truth, And Love is taught ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... And truly 'tis a rare subtlety, a notable wile, and thou a right cunning witch and wise. But how wilt achieve ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... rendered it impregnable to their combined exertions to demolish it; while the vigilance and caution of the inhabitants, convinced them, that it would be fruitless and unavailing to devise plans for gaining admission into the fort, by stratagem or wile. Still however, they kept up a war of ravage and murder, against such as were unfortunately found defenceless and unprotected; and levelled combined operations ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... perils, mark our path, Thou who art 'the life, the way;' Rend each fatal wile that hath Power ...
— Beechenbrook - A Rhyme of the War • Margaret J. Preston
... standing on deck near the skylight, which Captain Leicester had been using during the day, and poor Ritson thought how pleasant it would be to rest his tired limbs in it for a few minutes. Then he took a stroll round the decks, just to wile away the time, and to make sure that the watch—and especially the lookout—was not "caulking." The shadowy figures scrambled somewhat hurriedly to their feet on his approach, giving rise to just the faintest suspicion that perhaps after all they might have been "shutting their ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... juvenile voluptuaries, females, many of them under fourteen years of age, offering themselves to indiscriminate prostitution, in a state verging on absolute nudity, alluring the passengers, by every seductive wile, to the haunts of depravity, from which retreat was seldom effected without pecuniary exaction, and frequently accompanied by personal violence. The nuisance has been partly abated, but entirely to remove it would be a task of more difficult accomplishment ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... taught me such wholesome lessons as I might have expected, I should have shown the impudent rascal the door. Alas! I began to be weary of my experience and the fruits of it; I began to feel the horrors of a great void; I had need of some slight passion to wile away the dreary hours. I therefore made this Mercury welcome, and told him I should be obliged by his presenting me to some beauties, neither too easy nor ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... and it was resolved to make a truce at once, and then quietly to go and secure provisions; and Clearchus said: "I agree to the resolution; still I do not propose to announce it at once, but to wile away time till the ambassadors begin to fear that we have decided against the truce; though I suspect," he added, "the same fear will be operative on the minds of our soldiers also." As soon as the right moment seemed to have arrived, he delivered his answer in favour of the truce, and ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... many a winsome smile I'd witch and woo; With gay and girlish guile I'd frenzy you— I'd madden you with my caressing, Like turtle, her first love confessing— That it was "mock", no mortal would be guessing, With so much winsome wile I'd witch and woo! ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... he received his mother's letter, had not seen Harry since his return from Clavering. He had been inclined to be very angry with him for his long and unannounced absence from the office. "He will do no good," he had said to his wile. "He does not know what real work means." But his anger turned to disgust as regarded Harry, and almost to despair as regarded his sister, when Harry had been a week in town and yet had not shown himself ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... well-whet, though kind to him were he, This weed of the breast. Do thou brook it full well. On these fretworks, so heard I, four horses therewith, All alike, close followed after the track, Steeds apple-fallow. Fair grace he gave him Of horses and treasures. E'en thus shall do kinsman, And nowise a wile-net shall weave for another With craft of the darkness, or do unto death His very hand-fellow. But now unto Hygelac The bold in the battle was his nephew full faithful, 2170 And either to other of good deeds ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous
... girl, With an unromantic style, With borrowed colour and curl, With fixed mechanical smile, With many a hackneyed wile, With ungrammatical lips, And corns ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... round me in the dazzling sunlight. A little further on I come upon a whole brood of nineteen little wild ducks. The old mothers are a good deal tamer now than they were in the shooting season. Many a time have they got up, just out of shot, when I was trying to wile away the time during the great frost with a little stalking. A kingfisher shoots past; but I have given up trying to find her nest. There is a brood of dabchicks, and, a little further on, ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... prayers for you in the churches, that the Mohammeden hosts may be repelled from you." After which the old woman, Zat al-Dawahi, came to Afridun and said to him, "O King, verily the Moslem hosts are many, and we shall never overcome them save by wile: wherefore I purpose to work upon them by guile and repair to this army of Al-Islam, haply I may win my wish of their leader and slay their champion, even as I slew his father. If my stratagem succeed in his case, not one of the host he leads shall return to his native land, for all are strong ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... abyss, but as a barrier to keep from rising to a great good; 'for God doth know, that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods.' These are still the two lies which wile us to sin: 'It will do you no harm,' and 'You are cheating yourselves out of good by ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... sit on a rock, murmuring the words over and over, and dabbling his bare feet, small and delicately formed, in the translucent green of a tide abandoned pool. But oftener in a soft dusky wind, he might have been heard uttering them gently and coaxingly, as if he would wile from the evening zephyr the secret of his birth—which surely mother Nature must know. The confinement of such a man would have been in the highest degree cruel, and must speedily have ended in death. ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... the reader understand what it is you can do on the Estimates, and therefore bring home to your mind the wile of the Ministerial Whip. For his second reason for putting down the Estimates until after vacation is, that he knows there will be a very small attendance of members, and that thus he will be able to sneak through his Estimates more ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... stood firm, and the forest battle began. The Indians numbered not less than thirty, and both Braxton Wyatt and Coleman were with them, but the value of skill was here shown by the smaller party, the one that attacked. The frontiersmen, trained to every trick and wile of the forest, and marksmen such as the Indians were never able to become, continually pressed in and drove the Iroquois from tree to tree. Once or twice the warriors started a rush, but they were quickly driven back by sharpshooting ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... wisdom and gravity, and is the head of the house; and for fair Miss Alice, she has gone to her place. Yes, she was a beauty, Miss Alice; she could play on stringed instruments like the heavenly harpers, and speak many tongues, and work till the flowers grew beneath her fingers. She learnt to wile men's souls from their bodies, if nothing more, in the outlandish ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... And on the third returning day Recall them to debate. Then this shall be the plan agreed, That damsels shall be sent Attired in holy hermits' weed, And skilled in blandishment, That they the hermit may beguile With every art and amorous wile Whose use they know so well, And by their witcheries seduce The unsuspecting young recluse To leave his father's cell. Then when the boy with willing feet Shall wander from his calm retreat And in that city stand, The ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... to cut the cable. Him they nam'd Eurypilus: so sings my tragic strain, In which majestic measure well thou know'st, Who know'st it all. That other, round the loins So slender of his shape, was Michael Scot, Practis'd in ev'ry slight of magic wile. "Guido Bonatti see: Asdente mark, Who now were willing, he had tended still The thread and cordwain; and too late repents. "See next the wretches, who the needle left, The shuttle and the spindle, and became Diviners: baneful witcheries they wrought With images ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... Cure Hardy, the fourth was Uwaine les Aventurous, the fifth was Sir Agravaine, the sixth Sir Mordred, brother to Sir Gawaine. When Sir Dinadan had seen these six knights he thought in himself he would bring King Mark by some wile to joust with one of them. And anon they took their horses and ran after these knights well a three mile English. Then was King Mark ware where they sat all six about a well, and ate and drank such meats as they had, and their ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... tell the insect tribe that every month doth bring, And with a curious wile we know to mock its gauzy wing; We know what breeze will bid the trout through the curling waters leap, And we can surely win him from shallow or from deep; For every cunning fish can we a cunning bait provide, In the sport that we court by the ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... my couch, stretched at my ease, I'm found, Then may my life that instant cease! Me canst thou cheat with glozing wile Till self-reproach away I cast,— Me with joy's lure canst thou beguile;— Let that day be for me the last! Be this ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... loins So slender of his shape, was Michael Scot, Practised in every slight of magic wile." Inferno, XX. ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... kind, Thou know'st not her all-penetrating mind. But, should she conquer thee by female wile, Thou shalt not fall a victim to her guile. To-morrow's high divan shall seal her fate; Her wit may free her; or she'll be thy mate. Enough of blood's ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... ground, and shook his graceful head, as conscious of his princely burden, magnificently attired, but in the robes of peace, with a circlet of gold and gems enwreathing his black velvet cap, his countenance breathing this day but the kindly emotions of his more youthful nature, unshadowed by the wile and intrigue of after-years, King Ferdinand looked the mighty monarch, whose talents raised his country from obscurity, and bade her stand forth among the first of European nations. But tumultuary as were the shouts with which he was recognized, they were ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... finesse, invention, stratagem, blind, cunning, fraud, machination, subterfuge, cheat, device, guile, maneuver, trick, contrivance, dodge, imposture, ruse, wile. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... great lord brought before him a dance or show of young ladies with bared bosoms who were to dance in that guise before the king, perhaps to prove him, or to entice his youthful mind. But the king was not blind to it, nor unaware of the devilish wile, and spurned the delusion, and very angrily averted his eyes, turned his back upon them, and went out to ...
— Henry the Sixth - A Reprint of John Blacman's Memoir with Translation and Notes • John Blacman
... upon the enthusiasm for Ristori by no means as an unmingled tribute to superior genius. We make no question of her actual womanly charms. Even if appearance of generosity, of simplicity, and sweetness were only deep Italian wile, and assumed, upon profound observation and consideration of human nature and the circumstances of Rachel's position in Paris, merely for the purpose of exciting applause, that applause would still be genuine, and would prove the loyalty of the public mind ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... unaccustomed eyes Daphnis stands rapt before Olympus' gate, And sees beneath his feet the clouds and stars. Wherefore the woods and fields, Pan, shepherd-folk, And Dryad-maidens, thrill with eager joy; Nor wolf with treacherous wile assails the flock, Nor nets the stag: kind Daphnis loveth peace. The unshorn mountains to the stars up-toss Voices of gladness; ay, the very rocks, The very thickets, shout and sing, 'A god, A god is he, Menalcas "Be thou kind, Propitious to thine own. ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil
... enters his service for a year under the name of Reynold Greenleaf. While the sheriff is hunting, Little John fights his servants, robs his treasure-house, and escapes back to Robin Hood with 'three hundred pound and more.' He then bethinks him of a shrewd wile, and inveigles the sheriff to leave his hunting in order to see a right fair hart and seven score of deer, which turn out to be Robin and his men. Robin Hood exacts an oath of the sheriff, equivalent to an armistice; ...
— Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series • Frank Sidgwick
... so That the other squaws did with envy glow. And each said to the other "Now what shall we do To spoil the beauty of Michikee Moo?" "We'll lure her away to the mountain top, And there her head we will neatly chop!" "We'll wile her away to the forest's heart, And shoot her down with a poisoned dart!" "We'll 'tice her away to the river side, And there she shall be the Manitou's bride!" "Oh! one of these things we will surely do, And we'll spoil the ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... unaffected grace, His looks adorned the venerable place; Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray. The service past, around the pious man, With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran; Even children followed with endearing wile, And plucked his gown to share the good man's smile. His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed; Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed: To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, But all his serious thoughts ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... he lacked that terrific energy which distinguished his principal colleague. But he was, nevertheless, a first-rate partner. His steady, cold brain would carry into effect with precision an intricate, delicate, and bold plan of operations. He had hardihood. Every wile in public life was known to him. He had strong will-power. And in sheer brain of what may be called the purely intellectual type he was miles ahead, not only of Lloyd George, but of all the other politicians of the day. I should say here that he undoubtedly felt deeply the ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... prisoned bower, None ever soothed his most unguarded hour, Yes—it was Love—if thoughts of tenderness, Tried in temptation, strengthened by distress, Unmoved by absence, firm in every clime, And yet—Oh more than all!—untired by Time; Which nor defeated hope, nor baffled wile, Could render sullen were She near to smile, Nor rage could fire, nor sickness fret to vent On her one murmur of his discontent; 300 Which still would meet with joy, with calmness part, Lest that his look of grief should reach her heart; Which nought removed, nor ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... spread some net or woven wile; But since of singing she doth take such pleasure, Without or other art or other guile I seek to win her with a tuneful measure; Therefore in singing spend I all my leisure, To make by singing this sweet bird ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... the final hour Arrives of long-contested Power; Each crafty wile thine ends to aid, Party and principle betray'd; The subtle speech, the plan profound, Pursued for years, success has crown'd; To-night the Vote upon whose tongue, The nicely-poised Division hung, Was thine—beneath that placid brow What feelings throb ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... ban We prostrate the man, Who with smooth-woven wile, And a fair-faced smile Hath planted a snare for his friend. Though fleet, we shall find him; Though strong, we shall bind him, Who planted a ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... the King in penitence Weep dole for these two dead. Some slight remorse had pricked his sense That he through wile had wed His best knight's love; alas, to prove Such end, ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... me! For a long time I sat perfectly still, waiting till it should reappear, and fearful that the slightest motion, or even the flutter of my breath, might frighten it away. Thus have I often started from a pleasant dream, and then kept quiet, in hopes to wile it back. Deep were my musings, as to the race and attributes of that ethereal being. Had I created her? Was she the daughter of my fancy, akin to those strange shapes which peep under the lids of children's eyes? And did her beauty gladden ...
— The Vision of the Fountain (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... came from the priest. He hastily sprang up and then flung himself down again. Temptation had just assailed him afresh. Into what paths were his recollections leading him? Did he not know, only too well, that Satan avails himself of every wile to insinuate his serpent-head into the soul, even when it is absorbed in self-examination? No! no! he had no excuse. His illness had in no wise authorised him to sin. He should have set strict guard upon himself, and have sought God anew upon recovering from his fever. And ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... grasped hands. The two forces fused at the same time and raised a tremendous cheer. They had beaten the allied tribes once more, and had formed the union which they believed would make them invincible. A thousand foresters, skilled in every wile and strategy of Indian war were indeed a formidable force, and they had a thorough right to rejoice, as they stood there in the wilderness greeting one another after a signal triumph. Save for the fallen, there was no longer a sign of the warriors. All their ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... appearance of a man who is utterly unwilling to be happy. Corkey has regarded this demeanor as a political wile. ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... the inquiries and listen to the sad forebodings of the neighbors, who came to offer help and sympathy; for all loved little Button-Rose, and grieved to think of any blight falling on the pretty blossom. To wile away the long hours, Cicely fell to dusting the empty rooms, setting closets and drawers to rights, and keeping all fresh and clean, to the great relief of the old cousins, who felt that everything would go to destruction in their absence. She read and sewed now, having no heart ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... is witchery; it is the wile of Beelzebub waiting to snatch your soul, and if you hearken to it you shall pass through the fire—through the fire to Moloch, if not in the flesh, then in the spirit, which is to all eternity. Oh! not in vain do I fear for you, my son, and not without ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... feeling a kind of awesomeness about every form in the room, he stepped softly to the bureau, applied its key, and following carefully the directions the earl had given him, for the lock was Italian, with more than one quip and crank and wanton wile about it, succeeded in opening it. He had no difficulty in finding its secret place, nor the packet concealed in it; but just as he laid his hands on it, he was aware of a swift passage along the floor without, past the door of the room, and apparently up the next stair. There was nothing ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... also appeared, incessantly; but now the fever had left me. Good. It was fever, they thought, which had held possession of me. But those who said so did not know what power it was that nerved my arm, and then, having worked his devilish wile, flung me away like a broken toy. Fever! They did not know that it was a 'fever' that had cursed me for ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and longer space I have abode your dev'lish drifts, While you have sought both man and place, And set your snares, with all your shifts, The faultless foot to wrap in wile With any guilt, by any guile: And now you see that will not be, How can you thus for shame agree To keep him bound you ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... sunny noon, whene'er I see this fair, this fav'rite flower, My heart beats high with wish sincere, To wile it frae its bonnie bower! But oh! I fear to own its charms, Or tear it frae its parent stem; For should it wither in mine arms, What would ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... pretending piety, Full well I know your each and every wile! The Jewess struck your fancy—don't deny! And, by my mighty word, she's beautiful, And only with ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... espouses, Thus uniting the two Houses. This Henry Seven of Tudor line To misers' habits did incline; Twelve millions stated to possess, A tidy little fortune! Yes! Star Chamber Much he managed to extort By means of a Star Chamber Court From the rich nobles; A new wile For adding to the kingly pile. With cash in hand he could attain His wish as Autocrat to reign; As sole possessor of the guns The King no risk ...
— A Humorous History of England • C. Harrison
... ses I, "wid the shawl An' cotton umbrella an' basket an' all? Would ye not wait for McMullen's machine, Wid that iligant instep befittin' a queen? Oh, you wid the wind-soft gray eye wid a wile in it, You wid the lip wid the troublesome smile in it, Sure, the road's wet, ivery rain-muddied mile in it—" "Ah, the Saints'll be kapin' me ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... then his gifts in vain; Suns, that set, may rise again: But if once we loose this light, 'Tis with us perpetual night. Why should we defer our joys? Fame and rumour are but toys. Cannot we delude the eyes Of a few poor household spies? Or his easier ears beguile, Thus remooved by our wile?— 'Tis no sin love's fruits to steal: But the sweet thefts to reveal; To be taken, to be seen, ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... on his way to fish, he had happened to meet Geordie, who was herding his cattle near the stepping-stones. Geordie was a clever angler, and could wile more trout out of the river than most people, and Walter had been delighted with his information as to the fishing capabilities of the Kirklands river. Since that day they had always been friends when they chanced to meet. Walter could ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... a voyage they often take with them lap-dogs or monkeys as pets to wile away the time. Thus it fell out that a man returning to Athens from the East had a pet Monkey on board with him. As they neared the coast of Attica a great storm burst upon them, and the ship capsized. All on board were thrown into the ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... a wile of the enemy,' said Stopchase. 'Truly, it were no marvel to me were the good mare at this moment eating her oats in the very stall where we have even but now in vain sought her. I will go and search for her ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... th' enchantress practised to beguile Some new admirer in her well-spread snare; Nor used with all, nor always the same wile, But shaped to every taste her grace and air: Here cloister'd is her eye's dark pupil, there In full voluptuous languishment is roll'd; Now these her kindness, those her anger bear, Spurr'd on or check'd by bearing frank or ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... The luv va-ligh TIN yew rise, Life cooed not hold a fairrerr paradise. Geev a-mee the righ to luv va-yew all the wile, My worrlda for ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... wile-cat, de wile lynx-cat, suh." The aged negro rose, hat doffed, juicy traces of forbidden sapodillas on his face which he naively removed with the back of the blackest and most grotesquely wrinkled ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... am but just come off from a walk in the garden, and have deposited my letter by a simple wile. I got some horse-beans; and we took a turn in the garden, to angle, as Mrs. Jewkes had promised me. She baited the hook, and I held it, and soon hooked a lovely carp. Play it, play it, said she: I did, and brought it to the bank. A sad thought just then came into my head; and I took ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... authentic sleuth-touch, and their detection of those implicated in the murder is a very ingenious piece of work. There is so much padding in this book that if Sir Herbert had worn a tithe of it no stabber could even have scratched him; but with judicious skipping it will wile away two or three idle hours. And, as I said, the solution is a really ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... was who loved his king Too well to suffer such strange thing,— The chieftain of the host was he, Next to the monarch in degree; And, fearing wile or stratagem Menaced the king, he followed them With noiseless tread and out of sight. So on they fared the forest through, From evening shades to dawning light, From damning to the dusk and dew,— The unseen follower and ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... as smile On these neglected songs, Nor deem that flattery's needless wile My opening bosom wrongs; For who would trample, at my side, A few pale buds, ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... bouts, I would not cuff nor flout him, could we sight In the old way, with fanfaron, the boars On the old battlements, our ancient badge. That lie to Zanthon on the Volga's banks, When Amine sent the wild rose by his hand, Was Satan's wile. I played the Cossack well. With shame my mustache bristled when I said, "Troopers must forage where the grain is grown: I share my kopecks with the village priest, Who winnows peccadillos by the sheaf." Then Zanthon, ...
— Poems • Elizabeth Stoddard
... 'Say it again, you wile, owdacious fellow!' said Mr. Bumble. 'How dare you mention such a thing, sir? And how dare you encourage him, you insolent minx? Kiss her!' exclaimed Mr. Bumble, in strong ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... Save one, they all were odious to the fair; A handsome youth, with smart engaging air; But whose attentions to the belle were vain; In spite of arts, his aim he could not gain; His name was Atis, known to love and arms, Who grudged no pains, could he possess her charms. Each wile he tried, and if he'd kept to sighs, No doubt the source is one that never dries; But often diff'rent with expense 'tis found; His wealth was wasted rapidly around He wretched grew; at length for debt he fled, And sought a desert to conceal ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... must look like to her husband, this weak recourse to the protection of Augustine's presence; it looked like bashfulness, a further feminine wile, made up of self-deception and allurement, a putting off of final surrender for the greater sweetness of delay. And as the reading of him flashed through her it brought a strange pang of shame, for him; of regret, for ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... and an exhausted body? His hands and feet were like ice, his brow like fire; his ears rung with supernatural roaring; a nausea had seized upon him, and death he would have welcomed. In vain, in vain he courted repose; in vain, in vain he had recourse to every expedient to wile himself to slumber. Each minute he started from his pillow with some phrase which reminded him of his late fearful society. Hour after hour moved on with its leaden pace; each hour he heard strike, and each hour seemed an age. Each hour was only a signal to ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... 14. Wile baffled wile, and strength encountered strength, Thus long, but unprevailing:—the event 245 Of that portentous fight appeared at length: Until the lamp of day was almost spent It had endured, when lifeless, stark, and rent, Hung high that ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... pleasured mysel'; which set them a' again a barking worse than before; whereupon, seeing no likelihood of an end to their stramash, I turned mysel' round, and, taking the door on my back, left them, and the same night came off on the Fly to Edinburgh. Since syne they have been trying every grip and wile o' the law to punish me as they threatened; but the laws of England are a great protection to the people against arbitrary power; and the letter that I have got to-day frae the nabob, tells me that the ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... theme of the comedy, and, although the development is rapid, as befits a play, it is nevertheless by graduated stages. Each meeting of the lovers fans the flame, and the need of secrecy but stimulates their wit, until, at last, by a cunning wile, Harlequin gains possession of the fairy's wand and with it, of her power. This, of course, brings about the natural denouement, and the play ends to ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... brilliancy. For this feeling he can hardly be blamed, for the most important condition of successful work by a male choir is probably permanency of membership; and the leader must exercise every wile to keep the boys in, once they have become useful members of the organization. But in justice to the boy's future, he ought probably in most cases to be dismissed from the choir when his voice ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... "Yes; I will wile away the morning at Godolphin Street with our friends of the regular establishment. With Eduardo Lucas lies the solution of our problem, though I must admit that I have not an inkling as to what form it may take. It is a capital mistake to theorize in advance ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the Clough, With a wile we will us in bring; Let us say we be messengers, Straight come now from ...
— The Book of Brave Old Ballads • Unknown
... not his aim to give his foes the least chance to fight back, the slightest hope of battle. He would use any advantage, descend to any wile. This was not to be a sportsmen's war, but a grim battle to the ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... is just nix for explanations as Mama and Aunt Jess would hear everything and thought I might seem cold to you not saying anything sweet on account of them listening and you would wonder why I was so cold when telling you good-by for a wile maybe weeks. It is this way Uncle Purv wired Aunt Jess he has just taken in a big touring car on a debt and his vacation starts to-morrow so if they were going to take a trip they better start right way so Aunt Jess invited me. It is going to be a big trip up around the lakes ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... let us leave Queen Mab awhile (Through many a gate, o'er many a stile, That now had gotten by this wile), Her dear Pigwiggen kissing; And tell how Oberon doth fare, Who grew as mad as any hare When he had sought each place with care And found his Queen ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... left me! For a long time I sat perfectly still, waiting till it should reappear, and fearful that the slightest motion, or even the flutter of my breath, might frighten it away. Thus have I often started from a pleasant dream, and then kept quiet in hopes to wile it back. Deep were my musings as to the race and attributes of that ethereal being. Had I created her? Was she the daughter of my fancy, akin to those strange shapes which peep under the lids of children's eyes? And did her beauty gladden me for that one moment and then die? Or was ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... in a maze of perplexity, as he stood for a long time in silence, studying the fair picture of femininity there offered to his gaze. In his breast, various emotions warred lustily. He was a-thrill with elation over the possibility of outwitting the foes who had used every wile and subterfuge of trickiness to ruin him. He was moved to a profound admiration for the intelligence that had originated and carried out a counter plot so instantly effective in his interests. But underlying these was a grievous hurt to his egotism. ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... of their rapid approach. The situation was desperate, and the loss of Mother Mayberry's faith in her seemed inevitable to the nonplussed singer lady as she leaned against the fence with Teether over her shoulder. Then the instinct that is centuries old presented to her the wile that is of equal antiquity and, raising her purple eyes to the defenseless Doctor, she murmured in a voice of utter helplessness, into which was judiciously mingled ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... face was hers to brighten light, And give back sunshine with an added glow, To wile each moment with a fresh delight, And part of memory's best contentment grow! Oh, how her voice, as with an inmate's right, Into the strangest heart would welcome go, And make it sweet, and ready to become Of white and gracious thoughts the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... escaped from her intellectual dilemma by a simple and purely feminine wile—she refused to believe that he ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... be well-meant. Since our prophets demand him for the purpose of destroying Troy, entrust not that to me. The son of Telamon will be better to go, and by his eloquence will soften the hero, maddened by diseases and anger, or by some wile will skilfully bring him thence. Sooner will Simois flow backward, and Ida stand without foliage, and Achaia promise aid to Troy, than, my breast being inactive in your interest, the skill of stupid Ajax shall ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... sight to be! And yet I thought I had saved her. I appealed to Rome: It seems I simply sent her to her death. You tell me she is dying now, or dead; I cannot bring myself to quite believe This is a place you torture people in: What if this your intelligence were just A subtlety, an honest wile to work On a man at unawares? 'Twere worthy you. No, Sirs, I cannot have the lady dead! That erect form, flashing brow, fulgurant eye, That voice immortal (oh, that voice of hers!) That vision of the pale electric sword Angels go armed with,—that was not the last O' the lady! ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... for admerashun. Betwene these heathen men and ye followers of Christ their is all ye differenc betwene a slave and a servent of a kind Master. Eche bears the same burden; butt ye servent knows he will recieve just wages for his work, wile ye slave hopes for nothing, and so conkludes that to escape work is to be happy!' I could but aknowlege the wisdomm and pyety of this speche; yett whenn I see ye peopel going bye in their black rayment, I envy the young Gennerel his gloreous deth, and I wish I was laying amongst ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... pearls, her breath a rare perfume. Men died with love on entering her room. Poised 'twixt the world and her—acme of joys! Antony took her of the double choice. The ice-cold heart that passion seldom warms, Would find heat torrid in that queen's soft arms. She won without a single woman's wile, Illumining the earth with peerless smile. Come in!—but muffle closely up your face, No grateful scents have ta'en sweet ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... yassuh; wid dem and dey young leadeh. Y'see, dey be'n so long aboa'd ship dey plumb stahve fo' gyahden-sass an' 'count o' de sickness de docto' won't 'low 'em on'y some sawts. But back yondeh on sho' dey's some wile mulbe'y trees hangin' low wid green mulbe'ys, an' comin' away f'om de grave dey make a break fo' 'em. But de mate he head' 'em off. An' whilse de leadeh he a-jawin' at de mate on sho', an' likewise at de clerk on de b'ileh deck an' at the cap'm ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... the sofa-back was his hunter's camp. At Vailima he, like Ibsen's Peer Gynt, received "a race gift from his childhood's home." He had in olden times played at being a minister like his grandfather, to wile away a toyless Sunday. When he grew into his unorthodox dark shirt and velvet-jacket stage, he had been a rebellious, rather atheistical youth; but at Samoa, maybe to please his truly good, uncanting mother, or the ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson
... was young, dear, wi' the bonny glint o' youth in my e'en, and little I dreamed I'd ever be tellin' ye this, an auld, lanely, rudas wife! Weel, Mr. Erchie, there was a lad cam' courtin' me, as was but naetural. Mony had come before, and I would nane o' them. But this yin had a tongue to wile the birds frae the lift and the bees frae the foxglove bells. Deary me, but it's lang syne. Folk have dee'd sinsyne and been buried, and are forgotten, and bairns been born and got merrit and got bairns o' their ain. Sinsyne ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... still cold, touched with gold all the surrounding crests and ridges and filled with a yellow but luxurious haze every gorge and ravine. He was compelled to admire its wintry beauty, a beauty, though, that he knew to be treacherous, surcharged as it was with savage wile and stratagem, and a ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... is a smile But the hypocrite's wile, To mask detestation, or fear; Give me the soft sigh, Whilst the soul-telling eye Is dimm'd, for ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... Venetian subtlety, was now as much at fault as everybody else. In vain had they deliberated together, day after day, upon his probable purposes; in vain had they schemed to intercept his person, or offered high rewards for tracing his retreats. Snares had been laid for him in vain; every wile had proved abortive, every plot had been counterplotted. And both involuntarily confessed that they had now met with ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... The shoemaker did not wish to be the first one to speak, and only replied, "Leulero! leulero!" and his wife "Picici! picici! picicio!" Then the soldier got mad in good earnest, seized the shoemaker's head, and was going to cut it off. When his wile saw that, she cried out, "Ah, don't, for mercy's sake!" "Good!" exclaimed her husband, "good! Now you go and carry the pan back to my godmother, and I will go and cut the ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... Down kneeled the Graeme to Scotland's lord. "For thee, rash youth, no suppliant sues, 830 From thee may Vengeance claim her dues, Who, nurtured underneath our smile, Hast paid our care by treacherous wile, And sought, amid thy faithful clan, A refuge for an outlawed man, 835 Dishonoring thus thy loyal name. Fetters and warder for the Graeme!" His chain of gold the King unstrung, The links o'er Malcolm's neck he flung, Then ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... point after point against her schoolmate, without ever revealing a sign of the eagerness she felt for the fray. In addition she made herself a great favourite of the wealthy baronet, and recognising in him a means of possibly exercising some power over Denis, cultivated his affection by every wile of which her ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... an enterprise has become accepted and popular! Then, of all times, should the man or the society be humble. Then, of all times, should they beware. Then, of all times, the hosts of Satan are marshaled that by every possible insidious wile and open warfare they may overcome. The weakest hour in the history of great enterprises is apt to be when they seem to be, and their projectors think they are, strongest. Take heed lest ye fall in the hour of your strength. ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... of her kind and her time. To allure a man by every wile she knew, and having won him to keep him uncertain and uneasy, was her perfectly simple creed. So she reduced love to its cheapest terms, passion and jealousy, played on them both, and made ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... had been seen by a small knot of wagoners and farm-hands, who were drinking and gossiping on the benches before the Fish and Anchor, to wile away the time of waiting for the King's arrival. At first they thought the royal cavalcade must be in sight, though not expected for an hour or more; and hurried ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... not long before I had drawn his history from this village alderman, an Alsatian by birth, and his tales of the war of 1870 helped to wile away the time we were obliged to spend idling along the roadside while our chauffeur repaired our first puncture. The emergency wheel clapped on, we were soon en route again. My companion duly uncovered as we passed the monument ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... Grandier was calumnious and false, and that all her actions had been done at the instigation of the Franciscan Pere Lactance, the director, Mignon, and the Carmelite brothers. Pere Lactance, not in the least taken aback, declared that her confession was a fresh wile of the devil to save her master Grandier. She then made an urgent appeal to the bishop and to M. de Laubardemont, asking to be sequestered and placed in charge of other priests than those who had destroyed ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - URBAIN GRANDIER—1634 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Emily, leaning upon the arm of her husband, met the party at the lower gate, with a thousand welcomes. After the ceremony of introduction had been gone through, much abridged by the ease and excellent breeding of Lady Emily, she apologized for having used a little art to wile them back to a place which might awaken some painful reflections—'But as it was to change masters, we were very desirous ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... Eliza vent to Fetch the beer, devoid of sin, This etrocious Charley Thompson Let his wile accomplish him. ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... Pharo's lean kine hung on for seven long year,— But when't was done, we didn't count it dear. Why, law an' order, honor, civil right, Ef they ain't wuth it, wut is wuth a fight? I'm older 'n you: the plough, the axe, the mill, All kinds o' labor an' all kinds o' skill, Would be a rabbit in a wile-cat's claw, Ef't warn't for thet slow critter, 'stablished law; Onsettle thet, an' all the world goes whiz, A screw is loose in everythin' there is: Good buttresses once settled, don't you fret An' stir 'em: take a bridge's word for thet! ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... near you when you least suspected my presence. But that crafty old scoundrel was possessed of the ingenuity of Satan himself, combined with all the shrewd qualities that go to make a good detective; hence in every movement, every wile, and every action he was careful to cover himself, so that he could establish an alibi on every point. For that reason the work was extremely difficult. He was a veritable artist in crime. Yes," he added, "of the many inquiries I've taken up, the most curious and ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... And the rowdy girl, And the girl that's always late; There's the girl of style, And the girl of wile, And the girl ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... at their 'cute nicety, And thought,—all this is done but for a wile; They fancy that no man can them beguile: But, by my thrift, I'll dust their searching eye, For all the sleights in their philosophy. The more quaint knacks and guarded plans they make, The more corn will I steal when once I take: Instead of flour, I'll leave them nought ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... long head on those narrow shoulders of yours, neighbor," declared Ethan Allen, striking the old ranger heartily on the back. "That little wile finished them. And this is the boy I saw trailing through the bushes, is it?" and he seized Enoch and turned his face upward that he might the better view his features. "Why, holloa, my little man! I've ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... in love that men and women differ most vitally. Now Nature, being extremely wise, gives the man in love the wisdom of the serpent and the wile of the dove (which is a most alluring bird in its love-making). A man in love brings to it all his intelligence. And men ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... took possession of his savage heart. For years he matured his plans, and watched the favorable moment to crush every living stranger at a blow. He took all his people into counsel, and such was their fidelity, and so deep the wile of the Indian chief, that, during four years of preparation, no warning reached the intended victims. To the last fatal moment, a studied semblance of cordial friendship was observed; some Englishmen, who had lost their way in the ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... hellish slough, and many a subtle wile Was his to seem a heavenly spirit to man, First, he a hermit, sore subdued in flesh, O'er a cold cruse of water and a crust, Poured out meet prayers abundant. Then he changed Into a maid when she ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... that council, surely he did; But the wile has now succeeded—he wanders from his path; The cloud its lightning sendeth, and its bolt the stout oak rendeth, And the arbutus back bendeth in the whirlwind, as a lath! Now and then the moon looks out, but, alas! its pale face hath ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... enemy work upon the weak part in me, as to persuade me that in these things I ought to make a difference between my father and all other men; and that therefore, though I did disuse these tokens of respect to others, yet I ought still to use them towards him, as he was my father. And so far did this wile of his prevail upon me, through a fear lest I should do amiss in withdrawing any sort of respect or honour from my father which was due unto him, that being thereby beguiled, I continued for a while to demean myself in the ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... her impossible, for did he not expose himself to instant vengeance by entering Fougeres? While studying in her mirror the effects of a sidelong glance, a smile, a gentle frown, an attitude of anger, or of love, or disdain, she was seeking some woman's wile by which to probe to the last instant the heart ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... unaffected grace, His looks adorned the venerable place; Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray. The service past, around the pious man, With ready zeal, each honest rustic ran; E'en children followed, with endearing wile, And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile: His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed, Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed; To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. As some tall cliff that ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... the resurrections we see around us in nature. Look at the death that falls upon the world in winter. And look how it revives when the sun draws near enough in the spring to wile the life in it once more out of its grave. See how the pale, meek snowdrops come up with their bowed heads, as if full of the memory of the fierce winds they encountered last spring, and yet ready in the strength of their weakness to ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... the landlady Stared at me. With a kind of smile They hesitated awkwardly: Their silence gave me time for guile. Had anyone called there like me, I asked. It was quite plain the wile Succeeded. For they poured out all. And that was naught. Less than a mile Beyond the inn, I could recall He was like me ...
— Last Poems • Edward Thomas
... I grant, your art was too fine for that; you shunned me that I might seek you to ask why. In interviews that seemed to come by chance, you tried every wile a woman owns, and they are many. You wooed me as such as you alone can woo the hearts they know are hardest to be won. You made your society a refreshment in this climate of the passions; you hid your real self and feigned ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... her sleight and hidden guile You partly wot, her acts and arts untrue, How to your camp she came, and by what wile The greatest lords and princes thence she drew; You know she turned them first to monsters vile, And kept them since closed up in secret mew, Lastly, to Gaza-ward in bonds them sent, Whom young Rinaldo rescued as ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... womanly wile was put in practice by Ellis Pritchard and his daughter, to render his visits agreeable and alluring. Indeed, the very circumstance of his being welcome was enough to attract the poor young man, to whom the feeling so ...
— The Doom of the Griffiths • Elizabeth Gaskell
... adroit commander but one who hath a facility for disguising the truth? When, at the battle of Senlac, William the Norman ordered his men to feign flight in order that they might break his enemy's array, a wile much practised both by the Scythians of old and by the Croats of our own day, pray what is it but the acting of a lie? Or when Hannibal, having tied torches to the horns of great droves of oxen, caused the Roman Consuls to imagine that his army was in retreat, ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was no doubt of it; now, as the actress, skilled in every wile, hid the hand holding the ring, as well as the other empty one, behind her back, she would know how to manage so that she could use the garland which ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... me o' a distant isle Where summer suns for ever smile; But frae my heart they 'll never wile My love for Caledonia! And what are a' their flowery plains, If fill'd with weeping slav'ry's chains? Nae foot o' slavery ever stains My ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... brow brightened—it was as if she were promising to give the lady a thorough frightening. The Duke just showed her a purse—and then bade the huntsman take her to the "lady left alone in her bower," that she might wile away an hour ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... son to Al-Sahl, O of forbears vile! * Come forth and fight me sans guile or wile; Thou hast hurt my heart; O of deed misdone, * So thou com'st to contend with ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... their own and put their clasped hands across her lap. They became in a way hallowed by their attitude, and the world seemed good to her again as she looked down at the two children, beautiful as only children can be, innocent of wile, of hardship and of crime, safe at home and praying to their heavenly Father from whose presence ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... live to see The fatal time when that could be!) Have even increased their pride and cruelty. Woman seems now above all vanity grown, Still boasting of her great unknown Platonic champions, gain'd without one female wile, Or the vast charges of a smile; Which 'tis a shame to see how much of late You've taught the covetous wretches to o'errate, And which they've now the consciences to weigh In the same balance with our tears, And with such scanty wages pay ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... particular attention. Anyhow, I am strongly against the visitation of Providence theory, as being unscientific, primitive, and conducive to unashamed laissez-aller. A man can be master in his own house. If he cannot be master by simple force of will, he can be master by ruse and wile. I would employ cleverness to maintain the throne of reason when it is likely to be upset in the mind by one of these devastating and ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... of love a smile can bring, No kiss wile back the breath To cold lips: I no answer wring From ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... deere love, his wile was something like, And then tis no unheard of treachery, That was enacted in a goddes Eye: Acontius worthy love feard not Diana Before whom he ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... prodigal with sighs, Or they laugh; Or they cast adoring eyes As they quaff. They exert their every wile Her attention to beguile. Do they ever win a smile? Not ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... woman who lived on what she got by wile from her relatives and neighbors. Her husband's brother lived alone with his only son, in a house near hers, and when the son brought home a wife the old woman went to call on the bride. During the call she inquired of the ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... He hfth nu gemearcod anne middangeard thr he hfth mon geworhtne fter his onlicnesse; mid tham he wile eft gesettan heofena rice, mid hluttrum saulum. We ths sculon hycgan georne, tht we on Adame gif we fre mgen, and on his eafram ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... Thy Spirit's gracious wile The sullen brow of gloom beguile, That frowns on sweet ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble
... That might be an innocent girlish wile to lure on the true lover; but what I refer to was not flirtation: it was a look marking mutual and secret understanding—it was neither girlish nor innocent. No woman, were she as beautiful as Aphrodite, who could give or receive such a glance, shall ever be sought in marriage by me: I would rather ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... doubt; but there were even pious souls who, in strictest confidence, went so far as to hazard the opinion that the lady was not quite "canny"; she might, they thought, quite possibly turn out to be an imp of the Evil One sent with her gold to wile Bryan's soul to perdition. The belief was not more fantastic than many another that prevailed at that day, and later; and the fact that she was never known to go to mass, nor had been seen to cross the threshold of a sacred building, lent some weight to it. This was the kind of "clash" that floated ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... for the garret was on a level with the cathedral's crown on High Street. It brought to him again a vision of the Midlothian slopes, but it reminded Bobby that it was dinner-time. He told Auld Jock so by running to the door and back and begging him, by every pretty wile at his command, to go. The old man got to his feet and then fell back, pale and shaken, his heart hammering again. Bobby ate the bun soberly and then sat up against Auld Jock's feet, that dangled helplessly ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... by, since she began to deceive the minds of the Achaeans in their breasts. She gives hope to all, and makes promises to every man, and sends them messages, but her mind is set on other things. And she hath devised in her heart this wile besides; she set up in her halls a mighty web, fine of woof and very wide, whereat she would weave, and ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... appearing to recognize him. Babington's blood began to resume its normal position again, though he felt that this seeming ignorance of his identity might be a mere veneer, a wile of guile, as the bard puts it. He remembered, with a pang, a story in some magazine where a prisoner was subjected to what the light-hearted inquisitors called the torture of hope. He was allowed to escape from prison, and pass guards and sentries apparently without ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... every each. And childe Leopold did up his beaver for to pleasure him and took apertly somewhat in amity for he never drank no manner of mead which he then put by and anon full privily he voided the more part in his neighbour glass and his neighbour nist not of this wile. And he sat down in that castle with them for to rest him there awhile. Thanked be ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... damned by that devil's wile, - So sometimes burns in my weary brain The thought that you loved me ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... weal to mortals who may win by wicked wile, Sorrow brings no shame to mortals who are free from ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... consonant with the Puritan temper to abolish a practice than to elevate it and clear away abuses: and the half-instructed mind is taught with fatal facility to condemn use and abuse in a lump, to believe carol-singing a wile of the Evil One because Bill once went around carol-singing and ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... wile the champeen scorns to make reply; 'E's taken tickets on 'is own 'igh worth; Puffed up wiv pride, an' livin' mighty 'igh, 'E don't admit that Night is on the earth. But as the hours creep on 'e deigns to state 'E'll fight for all the ...
— The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke • C. J. Dennis
... wile away my heart. All those men together would not equal such a one as you, whom I loved and longed for. I do not wish to live—I was really ill in Paris, though you will not believe a word of it, and will not trouble to learn that I speak the truth—so ill that I sat at death's door and the peeping ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... Dress Balls, and yer lectures by ANNIE BESANT, All about Hastral Bodies and Hether, seems not always quite wot yer want To wile away time arter dinner. So thanks to that gent—six-foot-four!— Who fair cuts the record as ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various
... will remember. It was the first service I ever did for him." It may have been an innocent wile to anchor him fast there and helpless. . . . At any rate she knelt, and drew off his shoes and carried them to a little distance. "Next, my lord shall eat," she said; and having rinsed her hands in the stream and spread them a moment to the flame ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... free from artifice and wile: And in your eyes I read Encouragement to my unspoken thought. My heart is eloquent with words to plead Its cause of passion; but my questioning mind, Knowing how love is blind, Dwells on the pros and cons, and God ...
— Poems of Purpose • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... 'To wile away the time till your father comes,' he said,—'pray is there much robbing and murdering of seamen about the ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... and a long life of gnawing fear and remorse. But it was only to be a last refuge of course. Helen withdrew to the dressing-room, laid herself on her bed, and began to compass how to meet and circumvent the curate, so as by an innocent cunning to wile from him on false pretences what spiritual balm she might so gain for the torn heart and conscience of her brother. There was no doubt it would be genuine, and the best to be had, seeing George Bascombe, who was honesty itself, judged the ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... Never feel, and never think; What's love? what's fame? a sigh, a smile. Friendship? but a hollow wile. If you've any thought or woe, Drown them in the goblet's flow. Yes! dash them in this brimming cup; Dash them in, and drink them up. Drink, drink, deeply drink, ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... thereby Which head should lose its crown, and lie Stricken, though loth he were to know That either life should wane and fail; Yet most might Arthur's love avail, And still with subtly tempered tale His wile held fast ...
— The Tale of Balen • Algernon Charles Swinburne |
