"Fain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for me Than the air may have of thee, Or the earth's warm woodlands girdling with green girth Thy secret sleepless burning life on earth, Or even the sea that once, being woman crowned And girt with fire and glory of anguish round, Thou wert so fain to seek to, fain to crave If she would hear thee and save And give thee comfort of thy great green grave? Because I have known thee always who thou art, Thou knowest, have known thee to thy heart's own heart, Nor ever have given light ear to storied song That did thy sweet name sweet unwitting ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... influence the followers of individual branches of study. The Divinity, for example, must be an avowed believer; and as this, in the present day, is unhappily considered by many as a confession of weakness, he is fain to choose one of two ways of gilding the distasteful orthodox bolus. Some swallow it in a thin jelly of metaphysics; for it is even a credit to believe in God on the evidence of some crack-jaw philosopher, although it is a decided slur ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... even and morn Speak no vain things of love or scorn, Fancies and passions miscreate By man in things dispassionate. Nor holds he fellowship forlorn With souls that pray and hope and hate, And doubt they had better not been born, And fain would lure or scare off fate And charm their doomsman from their doom And make fear ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... to an eternal dwelling constructed after the plan which I have here described with its successive modifications; but the poorer folk were fain to do without those things which were the necessities of the wealthier dead. They were buried wherever it was cheapest—in old tombs which had been ransacked and abandoned; in the natural clefts of the rock; ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... Sue only made Jude the more miserable that he was unable to woo her, and he left the cottage of his aunt that day with a heavy heart. He would fain have glanced into the school to see the room in which Sue's little figure had so glorified itself; but he checked ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... that so much distinction, talent, and grandeur of soul could have sprung from all the vices, from the cruelty and corruption which one would fain attribute now to the Southern people? The laws of inflexible logic refute these false imputations. And—strange coincidence—while Southern men presided over the destinies of the Union, its gigantic prosperity was the astonishment of the world. In the hands ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... half opened bell of the woods! Sole comfort of my dark hour, when a world Of traitorous friend and broken system made No purple in the distance, mystery, Pledge of a love not to be mine, farewell; These men are hard upon us as of old, We two must part: and yet how fain was I To dream thy cause embraced in mine, to think I might be something to thee, when I felt Thy helpless warmth about my barren breast In the dead prime: but may thy mother prove As true to thee as false, false, false to me! And, if thou needs must needs bear the ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... thy father and mother and Ephraim!" MacLean began impetuously. "But you do right to chide me. Once I knew a green glen where maidens were fain when paused at their doors Angus, son of Hector, son of Lachlan, son of Murdoch, son of Angus that was named for Angus Mor, who was great-grandson of Hector of the Battles, who was son of Lachlan Lubanach! But here I am a landless man, with none to do me honor,—a wretch bereft ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... simple delight in the trivial matters of fishing and sporting, formerly, as might have inspired the muse of Homer or Shakspeare; and now, when I turn the pages and ponder the plates of the Angler's Souvenir, I am fain ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... dashing without verging on extremes; youthful in temperament and inspirational.' Some of us, it appears, remain self-conscious and a little afraid to snap; and there the tailor catches us with his cunningly conceived 'sprightly without conspicuousness.' Unlike the vers-libre poetess who would fain 'go naked in the street and walk unclothed into people's parlors,'—leaving, one imagines, an idle but deeply interested gathering on the sidewalk,—we are timid about extremes. We wish to dash—but within reasonable ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... the one, and our ears of the other. Although not by love, yet by fortune, I am a distressed gentlewoman, as sorrowful as you are passionate, and as full of woes as you of perplexed thoughts. Wandering this way in a forest unknown, only I and my page, wearied with travel, would fain have some place of rest. May you appoint us any place of quiet harbor, be it never so mean, I shall be thankful to you, contented in myself, and grateful to whosoever shall be ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... a horrible doubt fall upon the soul that would fain love, trust and believe; a darkness, of which this that surrounded you was a symbol. It doubts the truth of Revelation, its own spirituality, the very existence of a beneficent God. It asks itself if it is not idle to hope for any great progress of Humanity ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... exacted by duty; but his intellectual apprehension of what is possible infinitely outruns his power, not of execution only, but even of power to attempt. He lies under the weight of incubus and nightmare; he lies in sight of all that he would fain perform, just as a man forcibly confined to his bed by the mortal languor of a relaxing disease, who is compelled to witness injury or outrage offered to some object of his tenderest love: he curses the spells which chain him down from motion; he would lay down his life if he might ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... should I have been with him in the wildest desert of our native country, the woods affording us our only shelter, and their fruits our only repast, than under the canopy of costly state, with all the refinements of courts, with the royal warrior" (the Duke of York) "who would fain have proved himself the conqueror of France. My conqueror was engaged in another cause; he was ambitious to obtain other laurels. He fought to liberate, not to enslave nations. He was a colonel in the American army, and high in the estimation of his country. His victories were ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... the old homes of Asiatic civilization, countries associated with the immortal names of Sennacherib and Sardanapalus, Cyrus, Darius, and Alexander. The career of Alexander had an attraction for him, which he was fain to confess; and he pleased himself by imitating, though he could not hope at his age to equal it. His Eastern expedition was conceived very much in the same spirit as that of Crassus; but he possessed the military ability in ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... place; some six or eight capitalists who lived on their wits, and a nameless herd of that set which the French call bad "subjects;" a title that is just now, oddly enough, disputed between the dregs of society and a class that would fain become its exclusive ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... highest terrace of this house, as this spot affords the best view of the magnificent mosque of Omar, standing in a large courtyard. With this exterior view the traveller is fain to be content; for the Turks are here much more fanatical than those in Constantinople and many other towns, so that an attempt to penetrate even into the courtyard would be unsuccessful; the intruder ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... London, he accompanied him, and was placed under the famous Dr. Walker, master of the Charter-House-School. His exercises here never failed of being distinguished even among those who had the approbation of that excellent master, who would fain have persuaded his father to place him at one of our English universities; but how honourably soever Mr. Rowe might think of the learning of those noble feats of the Muses, yet not having the same advantageous notions of their ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... that leaps sheer down from rocks a thousand feet high, thundering forth the praise of its own beauty as it tosses in the air triumphant crowns of silver spray. How the living diamonds within it shift, and change, and sparkle! Fain would I linger to watch this magnificence; but the coil of roses still unwinds before me, and the fairy voices still cry, "FOLLOW!" I press on. The trees grow thicker; the songs of the birds cease; the light around me grows pale and subdued. In ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... this new stage they preserve the bias of their original utilitarian function, and carry this mark with them everywhere, leaving it upon the fresh tasks which we are fain to make them accomplish. ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy
... smothered cry of horror, In an agony of sorrow, She would fain have lingered near him, But that Man-te-o urged onward. If discovered, flight was futile, Weakness now meant worse disaster; She must save her helpless baby Though her ...
— The White Doe - The Fate of Virginia Dare • Sallie Southall Cotten
... out well? It was the established method in that matter; method not of George's inventing, nor did it cease with George. As to Domestic Politics, except it were to keep quiet, and eat what the gods had provided, one does not find that he had any.—The sage Leibnitz would very fain have followed him to England; but, for reasons indifferently good, could never be allowed. If the truth must be told, the sage Leibnitz had a wisdom which now looks dreadfully like that of a wiseacre! In Mathematics ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... negotiation; and lieutenant-general Hamilton agreed that the army should halt at the distance of four miles from the town. Notwithstanding this preliminary, James advanced at the head of his troops; but met with such a warm reception from the besieged, that he was fain to retire to St. John's Town in some disorder. The inhabitants and soldiers in garrison at Londonderry were so incensed at the members of the council of war, who had resolved to abandon the place, that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... variety of this form is given in Fig. 96. It is from a small piece of pottery exhumed from a mound on Fain's Island, Jefferson County, Tennessee. The threads of the woof are quite close together, those of ...
— Prehistoric Textile Fabrics Of The United States, Derived From Impressions On Pottery • William Henry Holmes
... and pleasure to undertake the sole charge of my education. Fain would I have gone like other lads of my age to public school and college; but on this point, as on most others, he was inflexible. Himself an obscure physician in a remote country town, he brought me up with no other ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... in some cases, but I have no right to believe it applies to me. He loved the child, I would fain believe; for I dare not think of her either as having ceased to be, or as alone in the world to which she has gone. You do think, Miss Clare, do you not, that we shall know our friends ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... my best," replied Hardy in the same subdued tones, "but he is bold of spirit, full of imagination and adventurous, and, though I would fain keep him out of the war, I cannot. Yet if I were his age I would go ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... weeding out here alone by the garrulous water, under the silence of the high wood, broken by incongruous sounds of birds. And take my life all through, look at it fore and back, and upside down,—though I would very fain change myself—I would not change my circumstances, unless it were to bring you here. And yet God knows perhaps this intercourse of writing serves as well; and I wonder, were you here indeed, would I commune so continually with the thought of you. I say "I wonder" for a form; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was still young and of attractive appearance, but his business affairs were in a bad way. For long he had been pretending not to understand the marked advances of the widow, and he treated her with a reserve and respect she would fain have dispensed with, and which sometimes made her doubt of his love. But it was impossible for her as a woman to complain, so she was forced to accept with resignation the persistent and unwelcome consideration with which he surrounded her. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... view joy peeping from my eyes, The casements open'd wide to gaze on thee? So Rome's glad citizens to windows rise, When they some young triumpher fain ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... our Hive is so pinch'd, both for room and for honey, The industrious Bees would fain kick out the Drones: But expose not your Life, for victuals nor money; 'Tis better you supperless sleep with whole bones, Then shuffle, and hustle, Keep clear of the bustle, Step out of the way-when they kick up a breeze: Preserve your own Life, Till the end of ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... annoyance? I do: I am now in that unenviable frame of mind; my humour, I think, is too soon over- thrown, too sore, too demonstrative and vehement. I almost long for some of the uniform serenity you describe in Mrs. ——'s disposition; or, at least, I would fain have her power of self- control and concealment; but I would not take her artificial habits and ideas along with her composure. After all I should prefer being as I am. . . You do right not to be annoyed at any maxims of conventionality you meet with. Regard all new ways in the light of fresh experience ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... sinking on his knee before it, in an attitude of supplication, "by whom I was renounced, but by whom I am revisited (in which, and in whose milder aspect, I would fain believe I have a gleam of hope), I will obey without inquiry, praying that the cry I have sent up in the anguish of my soul has been, or will be, heard, in behalf of those whom I have injured beyond human reparation. But ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... peace, which seems to me to leave us in a worse position than before the war; but I agree with you that it cannot last, and that ere long the Huguenots will be driven again to take up arms. Francois and I have become as brothers and, until the cause is either lost or won, I would fain remain." ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... as I told you, another kind of folk, who fain would be comforted. And yet are they of two sorts too. One sort are those who in their sorrow seek for worldly comfort. And of them shall we now speak the less, for the divers occasions that we shall afterwards have to touch upon them in more places than one. But here ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... MOSES,—I have not yet had the pleasure of hearing from you, but I would fain hope that my ...
— Notes on the Diplomatic History of the Jewish Question • Lucien Wolf
... are said of the horse:—It is wanton, it delights in the strife of war, it is high-spirited, it despises sleep, it eats much and it voids little. There are some that say it would fain kill its own master. ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... Roy was deposed from his petty authority, and all men were at peace, with the exception, possibly, of Mr. Peckaby. Mr. Peckaby did not, find his shop flourish. Indeed, far from flourishing, so completely was it deserted, that he was fain to give up the trade, and accept work at Chuff the blacksmith's forge, to which employment, it appeared, he had been brought up. A few stale articles remained in the shop, and the counters remained; chiefly for show. Mrs. Peckaby made a pretence of attending to customers; but she did not get ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... portraiture of its Proteus-like beauty in the mirror of genius alone. Evident, however, as this may seem, we find a sort of levelling principle in the inferior order of minds, and which, in fact, constitutes one of their grand characteristics—a principle that would fain abridge the scale to their own narrow capabilities—that would cut down the vastness of nature to suit the littleness of their own conceptions and desires, and convert it into one tame, uniform, mediocre good, which ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... fault with the matrix of this opal is probably blasphemous. But I own that I could do without the Shandean prologue and epilogue of the narrator and his man-servant Daniel Cameron. And though, as a tomfool myself, I would fain not find any of the actions of my kind alien from me, I do find some of the tomfoolery with which Nodier has seasoned the story superfluous. Why call a damsel "Folly Girlfree"? What would a Frenchman say if an English story-teller ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... utterly extinct, and his carbuncles exhibited a livid appearance, as if a gangrene had already made some progress in his face; his hand began to shake, and his whole frame was seized with such trepidation, that he was fain to swallow a bumper of brandy, in order to re-establish the tranquility of his nerves. This expedient, however, did not produce the desired effect; for he aimed the ball at the lead with such discomposure, that it struck on the wrong ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... mighty art thou, Lady, and so great, That he who grace desireth and comes not To thee for aidence, fain would have desire ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... archer. These random shafts for which no interposing shield makes ready are sure to find the joints in our harness. A tough hard nature such as constitutes the true fighter only presses more doggedly to the front, but gentler spirits are fain to turn aside out of the battle, and go home to die. There came a dimness before Simon's eyes, and a ringing in his ears. He scarcely heard his companion, ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... evolutions without being shaken in its organism. It was in vain that the Latin literature sought to maintain its position by harking back to the writers anterior to Cicero, those that Hellenism had not touched, and presenting them as models of style; and thus a new school very fain of antiquity had sprung up, with Fronto for its acknowledged chief—a school pre-occupied above all things by the form; obsolete words set in a new setting, modern words introduced into old cadences to freshen them with a bright and delightful varnish, in a word, ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... lately received a Letter from my Kinsman Cpt. Abijah Willard expressing his tender concern for his soldiers who are exposed to ly in Tents in this cold season now coming on and their cloath now worn out. I would fain use any Interest I could make that may contribute to the Relief of these and other the Provincial soldiers in Nova Scotia in the like circumstances, but I am a perfect stranger both to Governor Lawrence & Coll. Monkton. But the acquaintance ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... I was for a good hour, watching the chickadees and red squirrels that found me speedily, and refusing to move for all the peekings and whistlings of a jay that would fain satisfy his curiosity as to whether I meant harm to the deer, or were just benumbed by the cold and incapable of further mischief. When I went on I left some scattered bits of meat from my lunch to keep him busy in ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... hard after him. But ever and awhile the boar made a stand, and many a champion of Arthur's did he slay. Throughout all Wales did Arthur follow him, and one by one the young pigs were killed. At length, when he would fain have crossed the Severn and escaped into Cornwall, Mabon the son of Modron came up with him, and Arthur fell upon him together with the champions of Britain. On the one side Mabon the son of Modron spurred his steed ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... affection for his Mother. When his Mother addressed him as "Your Majesty," he answered, as the Books are careful to tell us: "Call me Son; that is the Title of all others most agreeable to me!" Words which, there can be no doubt, came from the heart. Fain would he shoot forth to greatness in filial piety, as otherwise; fain solace himself in doing something kind to his Mother. Generously, lovingly; though again with clear view of the limits. He decrees for her a Title higher than had been customary, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... a Southern woman commonly received at the North and abroad, is not true to the life, being neither so perfect nor so imperfect as their eulogists, on the one hand, and their detractors, on the other, would fain make it to be, there is yet much, very much, to elicit both love and admiration ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... with his day's work. Attending to the affairs of such gentlemen as Mr. Hart and Captain Stubber,—who well know how to be masterful when their time for being masterful has come,—is fatiguing enough. But he had another task to perform before he went to bed, which he would fain have kept unperformed were it possible to do so. He had written to a third friend to make an appointment for the evening, and this appointment he was bound to keep. He would very much rather have stayed at his club and played billiards ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... their best stilted French ensued between him and Ammiani. It was pitched too high in a foreign tongue for Captain Gambier to descend from it, as he would fain have done, to ask the lady's name. They exchanged cards and formal ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... envious and sneering world said that she was tired of the country, and wanted to marry again; but she little heeded its taunts; and Anne, who hated her step-mother and could not live at home, was fain to accompany her sister to the town where the Bluebeards have had for many years a very large, genteel, old-fashioned house. So she went to the town-house, where they lived and quarrelled pretty ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... fell in so cheerily. O dear me! it is a scrap of old Ephrem the Syrian, if they did but know it! And when, after this, Harry would fain have driven on, because two carols at one house was the rule, how the little witches begged that they might sing just one song more there, because Mrs. Alexander had been so kind to them, when she showed them about the German stitches. And then up the ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... himself and his horse, all the time, in cloth of gold and goldsmith's work, more like a duke than a poor baron's son." He likewise took a particular aversion to the religious orders, "shamefully beating their tenants and servants, in such wise as some whole towns were fain to keep the churches both night and day, and durst not come at their own houses."—Whilst engaged in these ignoble practices, less dissonant, however, to the manners of his age than to those of our's, he wooed, and won, and married, a daughter of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 354, Saturday, January 31, 1829. • Various
... age to ride to the court, the people saw him gladly, and wedded wives and maids were alike fain that he should tarry there. By order of Siegmund and Sieglind he was richly clad, and without guards he was suffered not to ride abroad. They that had him in charge were wise men versed in honour, to the end that he might win ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... over, he was led back to the Tolbooth, where his gaoler kept him free from the ministers who would fain have thrust their sermons and reproaches on the ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... is all alone Like a dog-picked bone, The poor old crone! She fain would groan, But she cannot find the breath. She once had a fire; But she built it no higher, And only sat nigher Till she saw it expire; And now she is ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... nor Acton allowed herself for one moment to sink under want of encouragement; energy nerved the one, and endurance upheld the other. They were both prepared to try again; I would fain think that hope and the sense of power was yet strong within them. But a great change approached: affliction came in that shape which to anticipate, is dread; to look back on, grief. In the very heat and burden of the day, the laborers ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... astonishment of the knight, his words provoked a burst of merriment from the barons round, in which the two kings and the prince were fain to join. Sir Nigel blinked mildly from one to the other, until at last perceiving a stout black-bearded knight at his elbow, whose laugh rang somewhat louder than the others, he touched ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... heart uprise Against fain ears and full-fain eyes, Upon your lips, that cannot err, I ...
— Eyes of Youth - A Book of Verse by Padraic Colum, Shane Leslie, A.O. • Various
... sentiments as are delivered there at present. It would be a rallying point for the timid, and an attraction of the wavering. In a word, I conceive it to be of immense importance at this crisis, that you should be there; and I would fain hope that all minor considerations will be made to yield to ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... most honoured among the guests. One winter's day, at the opening of a new palace, the Empress Onakatsu danced to the music of the Emperor's lute. Onakatsu had a younger sister, Oto, of extraordinary beauty, and the Emperor, fain to possess the girl but fearful of offending the Empress, had planned this dance so that Onakatsu, in compliance with the recognized usage, might be constrained to place her sister at his disposal. It fell out as Inkyo wished, but there then ensued a chapter of incidents in which ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... of rage and spite, and died of suffocation. Mien-yaun was then satisfied. He went to the dinner. The noble and the mighty again lavished their attentions upon him, but he turned from them with disgust. He saw through the flimsy tissue of flattery they would fain cast over his eyes. The most appetizing delicacies were set before him, but, like a true poet, he refused to take anything but biscuits and soda-water. As neither of these articles had been provided, he consented to regale himself with a single duck's tongue. In short, he behaved ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... the valley by the wildwood, When day fades away into night; I would fain from this spot of my childhood, Wing my way ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... leisure to enjoy their daughters' talents. There were happy family evenings, now that the men of business had time for domestic enjoyments. There is another side to the picture. There were homes over which Carsons' fire threw a deep, terrible gloom; the homes of those who would fain work, and no man gave unto them—the homes of those to whom leisure was a curse. There, the family music was hungry wails, when week after week passed by, and there was no work to be had, and consequently no wages ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Coralie, fain to delight in the beauty of a man whom all other women should envy her, took Lucien back to Staub. He was not dressed finely enough for her. Thence the lovers went to drive in the Bois de Boulogne, ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... could no more see the sea; yet no place fit for our feet had come to view, for everywhere the mud, grey and black, surrounded us—encompassing us veritably by a slimy wilderness. And so we were fain to pull on, in the hope that we might come ultimately ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... found himself upon the wide stone flagging in front of the Hall before he awoke to a realisation of another meeting, now imminent, whose importance was far less conjectural than that upon which his fancy would fain have lingered. ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... thy word with love, And I would fain obey; Send thy good Spirit from above To guide ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... Bildad, so named because he was a pessimistic Job's comforter, like Bildad, the Shuhite, of old—like a flock of German spies reconnoitering Allied trenches. Hearing the house, with Butch and Beef holding the helpless, but loudly protesting Hicks, who would fain have executed what may mildly be termed a strategic retreat, big Tug Cardiff boldly marched, in close formation, toward the door, when the portal ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... was filled with indignation and rage against Pelham, who had played off this trick upon him; but he was compelled to meet all who came, and go through the signs with them, while the "outsiders," scattered about the deck, stood watching the motions with intense delight. He would fain have fled, but he could not leave the deck; and he was afraid that any impatience, or a refusal to answer the signs, would involve ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... lover and soldier in so many breaths, and could show so much care for some pages of written parchment. Then Guido would have me go with him, but I was of a mind to see what Dante would do next, and was fain to watch him. Guido disapproved of this, and he would not share in it, saying that it was not for us to dog the heels ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... blessings upon Israel of old, and on the Christian church afterwards, which were fulfilled on neither:—in order to declare, and keep ever before us, what God has done and is willing to do for us: what he fain would do for us, if we would but suffer him; what divine powers are offered to us, and we will not use them; what divine happiness is designed for us, and we will not enter into it. Let us ponder ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... as temperate as it should have been, but we told that father something which we would fain repeat until every educator and every parent in the United States has heard it and written it on the ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... all the years that I have listened I have never yet come to the end of them, and I dare swear that there are more in your head than in all the great books which they showed me at Guildford Castle. I would fain hear 'Doon of Mayence,' or 'The Song ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... operations of Earl Richard were successful. After a short siege he obtained possession of Limerick, and his enemies were fain to demand a truce. Richard proposed a conference to be held on April 1, 1234, on the Curragh of Kildare. The conference proved abortive, for Geoffrey Marsh cunningly persuaded the marshal to refuse any offer of terms which the magnates would accept, and Richard found that ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... keeps me in these her borders. And now farewell, and still love thy child and mine." This speech uttered, while I wept and would have said many a thing, she left me and retreated into thin air. Thrice there was I fain to lay mine arms round her neck; thrice the vision I vainly clasped fled out of my hands, even as the light breezes, or most like to fluttering sleep. So at last, when night is spent, I revisit ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... But think of dungeons and of chains— Think of your violated fanes— Of your loved homestead's gory stains— Eternal thraldom for your dower! No love of country fires their breasts— The fell fanatics fain would free A grovelling race, And in their place Would fetter us with ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... immensity of the sacrifice that he made to it. Principle apart,—and principle wholly failed him,—all else that most appeals to man's self-respect and regard for the esteem of others was powerless to exert control. Loyalty to friendship, the sanctity which man is naturally fain to see in the woman he loves, and, in Nelson's own case, a peculiar reluctance to wound another,—all these were trampled under foot, and ruthlessly piled on the holocaust which he offered to her whom he worshipped. He could fling to the winds, as others cannot, considerations ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly." We know how little acceptable that compromise was to the God of Israel; and no illustration can be more apt than this narrative, which we may well, as we would fain, believe to be rather typical than historical. Typical of that indiscriminate and radical sacrifice, or "vastation," of our lower nature, which is insisted upon as the one thing needful by all, or nearly all,* the great religions of the ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... from human eyes. Here is a lofty tree, blossoming bright above all other trees, and on this tree the Phoenix builds his nest, on a windless day, when the holy jewel of heaven shines clear. For he is fain by the activity of his mind to convert old age into life, and thus renew his youth. He gathers from far and near the sweetest and most delightsome plants and leaves, and the sweetest perfumes that the Father of all beginnings has made. On the lofty top of the tree he builds his house fair ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... my second cargo on shore—though I was fain to open the barrels of powder, and bring them by parcels, for they were too heavy, being large casks—I went to work to make me a little tent with the sail and some poles which I cut for that purpose, and into this tent I brought everything that I knew ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... would here in closing fain address a few words to such of you, if any such are here, who like myself may nave been soldiers during the War of the Rebellion. We should never more be partisans. We have been a part of great events ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... and fresh for warriors, not having the sunburnt, warlike hue of our old Castilian soldiery. They were huge feeders also, and deep carousers, and could not accommodate themselves to the sober diet of our troops, but must fain eat and drink after the manner of their own country. They were often noisy and unruly, also, in their wassail; and their quarter of the camp was prone to be a scene of loud revel and sudden brawl. They were, withal, of great pride, yet it was not like our inflammable ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the sweetness lay in its expression, pure and placid, and innocent as a young girl's. But she saw not that; she saw only its lost youth, its faded bloom. She covered it over with both her hands, as if she would fain bury it out of sight; knelt down ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... the king hath displeased himself, In trusting every one that speaks him fair: For through fair words kings many times are fain To countenance knaves by their authority. I will not say ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... Ever would I fain be reading, In the ancient holy Book, Of my Savior's gentle pleading, Truth in ev'ry word and look. How to all the sick and tearful Help was ever gladly shown; How he sought the poor and fearful, Called them ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... should go beautifully;' personal excellence of some kind was in his eyes essential; but on this he would fain shed outward radiance and majesty. His imagination rejoiced in splendour—splendour of stately palace—halls where the columns were of marble and the entablature of wrought gold, splendour of temples of gods where ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... propose, in writing perpetually against the "Examiner": it is not to beget a better opinion of the late ministry, or with any hope to convince the world that I am in the wrong in any one fact I relate; they know all that to be lost labour; and yet their design is important enough: they would fain provoke me by all sort of methods, within the length of their capacity, to answer their papers; which would render mine wholly useless to the public; for if it once came to rejoinder and reply, we should be all upon a level, and then their ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... put it in that way," he answered, and turned again, "I will go with you. Heaven send that the good gentleman do not detain me, for I would fain ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... blood, but much improved its flesh; For from a root the ugliest in Old Spain Sprung up a branch as beautiful as fresh; The sons no more were short, the daughters plain: But there 's a rumour which I fain would hush, 'T is said that Donna Julia's grandmamma Produced her Don more heirs at love ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... Nor Gargarus his own harvests so admire. Why tell of him, who, having launched his seed, Sets on for close encounter, and rakes smooth The dry dust hillocks, then on the tender corn Lets in the flood, whose waters follow fain; And when the parched field quivers, and all the blades Are dying, from the brow of its hill-bed, See! see! he lures the runnel; down it falls, Waking hoarse murmurs o'er the polished stones, And with its bubblings slakes the thirsty ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... in, with an incredulous irony fain to be contradicted, "a girl in a village, poor, knowing nothing, seeing no farther"—she looked out towards Jersey—"seeing no farther than the little cottage in the little country where I ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the professor, who, startled by the sudden cold, had been fain to make a precipitate retreat from his observatory. Now would have been the opportunity to demand of the enthusiast whether he would like to prolong his residence indefinitely upon his little comet. It is very likely ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... a boundary between them and the English. The English, however, come very near to them, choosing to hold lands under the Hollanders, who ask nothing, rather than depend on the English Milords, who exact rents, and would fain be absolute. On the other side, southward, towards Virginia, its limits are the river which they call the South River, on which there is also a Dutch settlement,(2) but the Swedes have one at its mouth extremely ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... these sentences were ranted out together, and their respective utterers were fain to stop till the noise subsided a little. Barbara could only look from one to the ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Thy joys fain would I see; Come quickly, Lord, and end my grief, And take me home to Thee; Oh! paint Thy name on my forehead, And take me hence away, That I may dwell with Thee in bliss, And sing Thy ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... obedience? What intolerable presumption, to disqualify as ungodly and reduce to null the majority of the country, who preferred the Liturgy, in order to force the long winded vanities of bustling God-orators on those who would fain hear ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... sermon for the time. And now," he added briskly, "I must be going, for I have far to fare; but I shall pass by this way again, and shall inquire of your welfare; tell me your name and where you live." So Paul told him, and then added timidly enough that he would fain know how to begin to practise his art. "Silence!" said the minstrel, rather fiercely; "that is an evil and timorous thought. If you are worthy, you will find the way." And so in the hot afternoon he ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... To the human brotherhood; Scarcely have I asked in prayer That which others might not share. I, who hear with secret shame Praise that paineth more than blame, Rich alone in favors lent, Virtuous by accident, Doubtful where I fain would rest, Frailest where I seem the best, Only strong for lack of test,—. What am I, that I should press Special pleas of selfishness, Coolly mounting into heaven On my neighbor unforgiven? Ne'er to me, howe'er disguised, Comes a saint unrecognized; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... grunted the other. "But I do not care whether he be Brian Buidh or Brian O'Neill or Brian the devil—he is such a man as I would fain see sitting in Gorumna ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... He says many of the musique are ready to starve, they being five years behindhand for their wages; nay, Evens, the famous man upon the Harp, having not his equal in the world, did the other day die for mere want, and was fain to be buried at the alms of the parish, and carried to his grave in the dark at night without one linke, but that Mr. Kingston met it by chance, and did give 12d. to buy ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... full, conclusive, and satisfactory proof of the misery to which these people have been reduced. You will see before you, what is so well expressed by one of our poets as the homage of tyrants, "that homage with the mouth which the heart would fain deny, but dares not." Mr. Hastings has received that homage, and that homage we mean to present to your Lordships: we mean to present it, because it will show your Lordships clearly, that, after Mr. Hastings has ransacked Bengal from one end to the other, and has used all ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... place; and, that if he did not relieve them, they must either surrender to the English, or eat one another. Philip made one effort to give them relief; but they were so hemmed in by the English power, that he could not succeed, and was fain to leave the place. Upon this they hoisted the English flag, and surrendered to King Edward. 'Tell your general,' said he to the humble messengers who came out of the town, 'that I require to have sent here, six of the most ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... me, reel, and reel, O hearken; Fain would I become a streamlet, Where as fish my ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... Marna, Tarrying there and here! Just as much at home in Spain As in Tangier or Touraine! Shakespeare's Avon knows us well, And the crags of Neufchatel; And the ancient Nile is fain Of ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... fain believe that the experiment which your brother has made in the West Indies is not wholly a discouraging one. If a warm climate did nothing but only prevented him from getting worse, it surely evidenced some power; and perhaps a climate equally favorable in a country ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... as one of my most cherished possessions. I could not share his feelings about them at that time, whatever I may think of them now, and they formed a part of a scheme to make my essays less dull, and what I was fain to think even a little amusing. But apart from my opening sentence I had in this essay deprived myself of the pleasure of ornate phrasing and been as solid as possible. I had, however, taken great pains over my first words. I wished them to convey ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... remember that notion anywhere. Take care no enemy rake out of it something of materialism. Guard well thy empty hot brain; it may hatch more evil. As for those odd words, I myself would fain see no great harm in them, knowing that grief and frenzy strike out many things which would else lie still, and neither spurt nor sparkle. I also know that thou hast never read anything but Bible and history—the ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... Men who are fain to change, look wizenedly Into the flowing mirror of your thought And see on what strange reefs your joys are caught And contemplate your vexed variety: Grief that was hooded for eternity Casting the stole for spangled domino, Awe on its pinnacle jigging heel and toe. ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... want a good fiddle well strung, You must go to the man that is old while he's Young, But if this same fiddle you fain would play bold, You must go to his son, who'll be Young when he's old. There's old Young and young Young, both men of renown, Old sells, and Young plays, the best fiddle in town; Young and old live together, and may they live long, Young to play an old fiddle, old ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... absence she was often sending for her. "Play me a little song before you go," she would say; or, "Read a chapter in my book for me, will you not? You always make people seem so real." Consequently Sylvie had never left off going to the great house. Mrs. Eastman would fain have patronized her, but in her spirited way she shook off the faintest attempt. But Irene flew to her, and insisted upon a croquet-party or a drive, ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... clouds were banking, dark clouds like horses, with one ahead white and moontipped, the very riders he had watched with Leif from the firth shore. The Walkyries were come for the chosen, and he would fain be one of them. All fear had gone from him. His passion was to be by his father's side and strike his small blow, beside those mighty ones which ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... herself at the king's feet, embracing his knees with a passionate gesture of appeal. Her face was very pale, and the beauty of it seemed to grow by the unnatural lack of colour, while her soft blue eyes looked up into the king's face with such an expression of imploring supplication that he was fain to acknowledge to himself that she moved his heart, for she had never looked so fair before. She spoke no word, but held his knees, and as she gazed, two beautiful great tears rolled slowly from under her eyelids, and trembled upon her pale, soft cheeks, ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... daughter was right in calling it a mere 'girl's exercise'; because it is just that and no more, ... no expression whatever of my nature as it ever was, ... pedantic, and in some things pert, ... and such as altogether, and to do myself justice (which I would fain do of course), I was not in my whole life. Bad books are never like their writers, you know—and those under-age books are generally bad. Also I have found it hard work to get into expression, though I began rhyming from my very infancy, much as you did (and this, with no sympathy ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... the villages and smash the trenches in, And the Hun is fain for home again when the T.M.B.s begin, And the Vickers gun is a useful one to sweep a parapet, But the real work is the work that's done with bomb and bayonet. Load him down from heel to crown with tools and grub ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... rustic Muse Feels fluttering fain to tell her news, And paint her simple, lowly views With all her art, And, though in genius but obtuse, May touch ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... Marco Polo tells us he must, indeed, have seen. The impersonality of the greater part of the book is its one blemish, for we would fain know more of how he lived in China. There is some evidence that he consorted with the Mongol conquerors rather than with the Chinese, and that Chinese was not one of the languages which he learned. ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... confronted by a professional boxer, who demands, with an ominous squaring of the shoulders, what he meant by treading on his toes,—to which he, poor man, instead of replying that it was so obviously unintentional that no gentleman would think of demanding an apology, is fain, in order to escape the impending blow, to answer by assuring the bully in the most soothing terms that no insult was intended, that he never will do so again, and hopes that the occasion may serve as a precedent for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... humble apprehension to be almost insulting to the grim dignity and solemn character of any respectable and intelligent ghost. If, like Owen Glendower, or Mr. Home, I had the power to "call spirits from the vasty deep," and if the spirits answered the call, I—being a practical man—would fain make a practical use of their presence. Methinks I should feel grossly tempted, for example, to ask such of them as had the necessary foreknowledge, to rap out for me, in the first instance, the exact state ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... released, upon our narration of the circumstances (with some comments from Dupin) at the bureau of the Prefect of Police. This functionary, however well disposed to my friend, could not altogether conceal his chagrin at the turn which affairs had taken, and was fain to indulge in a sarcasm or two, about the propriety of every person ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... his sovereign in the style in which I am now about to address your Majesty. It is well known to you that one of my worst crimes in the Cardinal's opinion is that I foretold all these things, and that I have passed for the author of events of which I was only the prophet. Your Majesty would fain extricate yourself with honour, and you are in the right; but permit me to tell you, as my opinion, that it can never be effected so long as your Majesty entertains any thoughts of reestablishing ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... forget for how many years you have been associated with her beloved husband in the promotion of objects which were dear to his heart; and she would fain mark her sense of the valuable assistance you have ever given him in his labours in some manner that would be gratifying ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... inflaming passions. The longest connected war known to history—the Thirty Years' War—is generally acknowledged to have been signalized by the greatest and most continuous inhumanity of any on record. But whether military crime has the effect claimed for it or not, we may fain hope that public opinion in Europe will insist upon giving the "humane" commanders who "mercifully" endeavour to "shorten" war by drastic methods of this sort a severe lesson. A few such treated to the utmost penalties the ordinary criminal law prescribes to the crimes of arson, ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... am well, my lord; but I will go with you," replied the young knight, slowly, as if collecting strength ere he could speak. "I am wearied with the turmoil of the last twelve hours' fighting against fire and sword at once; I would fain see the noble Hereford, and with his permission rest me ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... Count, to estimate men's beauty by men's deeds, and therefore the Count of Charolois hath long been known to us—who, alas, have seen him not!—as the fairest gentleman of Europe. My Lord Scales, we must here publicly crave your pardon. Our brother-in-law, Sir Count, would fain have claimed his right to hold you his guest, and have graced himself by exclusive service to your person. We have taken from him his lawful office, for we kings are jealous, and would not have ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... rabble rout; That those that are out, would fain get in; And those that are in, would fain ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... I first began To be that curious creature—man, To travel thro' this life's short span, By fate's decree, Till ah fulfill great Nature's plan, An' cease ta be. When worn wi' labour, or wi' pain, Hah of'en ah am glad an' fain To seek thi downy rest again. Yet heaves mi' breast For wretches in the pelting rain 'At hev ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... wild Of o'er-head clouds melting the mirror through. Upon a day, while thus I watch'd, by flew A cloudy Cupid, with his bow and quiver; 890 So plainly character'd, no breeze would shiver The happy chance: so happy, I was fain To follow it upon the open plain, And, therefore, was just going; when, behold! A wonder, fair as any I have told— The same bright face I tasted in my sleep, Smiling in the clear well. My heart did leap Through the cool ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... but negative character of Osmyn there was little room for effective declamation; our actor was fain to content himself with being interesting, through the misfortunes of the Prince of Valentia, his woful lawful love, and the besettings of an unreturned passion. In this he succeeded so well, that the feminine portion of his audience grew tender with Almeria, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... turn from such investigations wearied and disgusted. Many of these persons, perhaps most of them, need only a little patience and perseverance to comprehend all the more familiar phenomena, but they cannot command even that much of the two qualities named to obtain the knowledge they would fain wish to possess. Mrs. Budd did not belong to a division as high in the intellectual scale as even this vapid class. Her intellect was unequal to embracing anything of an abstracted character, and only received the most ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... regarding the rifle doubtfully, and not offering to take it into his own hands: "I like it not; take it away, I will not touch it; the thing is more dangerous than a she leopard robbed of her cubs! Yet I would fain see what it can do, therefore bring it with thee, white man; it may be that, as we go, we may meet a leopard, or a lion, or a ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... a bad job," said Chobei, who felt pity for the lad. "However, if you will excuse my boldness in making such an offer, being but a wardsman, until you shall have taken service I would fain place my ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... do, sir," said the lad. "I would fain run and romp and be gay like other boys, but I must engage in constant manual exercise, or we will have no bread to eat, and I have not seen a pie since papa perished in the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... with joy inexpressible! The brave and enterprising British Admiral Nelson has obtained a most signal and decisive victory. My heart would fain give wings to the courier who is the bearer of these propitious tidings, to facilitate the earliest acknowledgments of our gratitude. So extensive is this victory in all it's relative circumstances, ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... seen thy steely eye, Sheath'd with a look of tender love, As if thou saw our mortal woes, And fain would help, but ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... by on this occasion, although the boys looked very disappointed, for they would fain have listened to song or legend till midnight, ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... something is troubling me—something that can never be set straight in this world; but not even to you can I speak of it." Then she knew, and in her innocent love she would fain have comforted him. ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... first slowly and awkwardly, but becoming more fluent as he warmed with his subject; while the expression of his listener's face gradually changed from incredulous bewilderment to one of uncontrollable mirth. He became so uproarious that he was fain to push the captain away from him, and lean back in his chair and choke and laugh until he nearly lost his breath, at which crisis a remarkably pretty girl appeared from the back of the house, and patted him with ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... of those whose actions are nobler than their thoughts; nay, it may be said that those who think nobly have a better acquaintance with virtue, while the others make a better practice of it. Full of zeal for the good and for the beautiful, they would fain fly up to heaven in a straight line; but the grosser elements of this earth oppose their flight, and they sink back again. They are like born artists, who have no knowledge of technique, or find that the marble is too hard for ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... good yill, Mr Keelevin, he'll drink the better,' was the reply; 'but I hae come to consult you anent a bit alteration that I would fain make in my ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... a true personal regard for Charles XII., a man made in many respects after his own heart; and would fain have persuaded him into softer behavior. But it was to no purpose. Charles would not listen to reasons of policy; or believe that his estate was bankrupt, or that his towns could be put in pawn. Danes, Saxons, Russians, even George ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... strange woman," he said, teasingly, "and plain black or grey silk for me, though I am fain to believe that you love me best. Why ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... confining night shut us in as Leopold Dessauer and I rode out of Plassenburg. Our horses had been made ready for us at the little water-gate in the lower garden. Fain would I have taken also Jorian and Boris, but on this occasion the fewer the safer. For to enter Thorn was to go with ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... how moral it is to yield unreservedly to enthusiasm, to the impression which great objects would fain make upon us, and to embody that impression in worthy language. It is rare to meet now even with young people who will abandon themselves to a heroic emotion, or who, if they really feel it, do not try to belittle it in expression. Byron's poetry, above most, tempts and almost compels surrender ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... could think of nothing but the horror of having her name—yes, and her character—discussed in that public place; and it seemed to her, if she listened, she could hear a clatter of tongues throughout the length of Brampton Street, and that she must fain stop her ears or go mad. The few ladies who called during the day out of kindness or curiosity, or both, only added to her torture. She was not one who could open her heart to acquaintances: the curious ones got but little satisfaction, and the kind ones thought her cold, and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Alon. I wou'd fain shed a Tear, But from my Tears so many Show'rs are gone, They are too poor to pay your Sorrow's Tribute; There is no Remedy, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... simple enough in contemplation, but the actual doing of it presented complications. The simplicity of the plan vanished with the sighting of those two scouting planes that persisted in paralleling his course and herding him away from the line he fain ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower |
