"Will-o'-the-wisp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... vampire that attacks people in the dead of night and lays them prostrate. Lilu and lilitu are the spirits that flit by in the night. Of a specific character likewise are the conceptions connected with a demon known as ardat lili, 'maid of the night,' a strange female 'will-o'-the-wisp,' who approaches men, arouses their passions, but does not permit a satisfaction of them. Great importance being attached by the Babylonians to dreams, the belief in a 'maid of the night' was probably due to the unchecked play of the imagination during the hours of sleep. Bad dreams came at ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... himself capable of interesting her, and without in the most remote degree desiring or anticipating an intrigue, he was ready to go as far as she would allow in his devotion. He was constantly tormented by a vague phantom of conquest, which danced with will-o'-the-wisp fantasy before him, and from day to day he endeavored to discover how deeply in love she was willing he should fall. He was really fond of her, a fact that did not prevent his entertaining a half-hearted ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... some vague little rudiment of a hint of a ghost of a sunny, funny old French remembrance long forgotten—a brand-new old remembrance—a kind of will-o'-the-wisp. Chut! my soul stalks it on tiptoe, while these earthly legs bear this poor old body of clay, by mere reflex action, straight home to the beautiful Elisabethan house on the hill; through the great warm hall, up the broad oak stairs, ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... stirs her intellect. And he leads her, too, spellbound by that incomparable verve and intellectual agility of his; she surrenders herself to the illusion of his brilliant assurances, dancing like some triumphant will-o'-the-wisp over the obscure deeps and perplexities of things. In a hundred ways, evil and good, she will remain the pupil of Voltaire. He has his part in her social test of philosophical speculations; he has his part also, be sure of it, in her long devotion to ideals ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... nightmare, or, as we call it, Maren. There is also the tradition of gigantic dragons or serpents, called by us Lindorm, in which your story of St. George and the dragon prominently figures. There are also minor superstitions of the will-o'-the-wisp, the bird called in English the goatsucker, ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... "No will-o'-the-wisp mislight thee, No snake or slowworm bite thee, But on, on thy way, Not making a stay, Since ghost ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... do," said he, glancing into the glass above the fireplace. "I only wish that you could come with me, Watson, but I fear that it won't do. I may be on the trail in this matter, or I may be following a will-o'-the-wisp, but I shall soon know which it is. I hope that I may be back in a few hours." He cut a slice of beef from the joint upon the sideboard, sandwiched it between two rounds of bread, and thrusting this rude meal into his pocket he started off upon ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... unhesitatingly declare that existence is an evil. They would have us therefore exchange our hopes for insight, and warn us that even this is very circumscribed at best. For not only is happiness a mockery, but knowledge is a will-o'-the-wisp. Mankind resembles the bricklayer and the hodman who help to raise an imposing edifice without any knowledge of the general plan. And yet the structure is the outcome of their labour. In like manner this mysterious world is the work of man—the ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... north-west wind would lash into whistling, pelting and drenching gusts. It was wretched weather; and how I came to be out in it I am sure I forget; but perhaps it was that the morning had been a bright one, and that, beguiled by the clear winter sun, which threw its will-o'-the-wisp rays on my table like gold-edged invitation cards to be stirring, I had set out joyously in hopes of a good bracing walk on the hard, frost-dried roads, which, seen from my windows, gleamed smooth and glistening ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... as he disappeared into the wood, and after that, like a flitting will-o'-the-wisp, watched his flashlight moving about amongst the trees. Then presently the cheery blaze of a fire from where he was at work sprang up, and she heard the crackle of resinous pine knots—then a great crashing about, the snapping of branches as he broke them from larger limbs—and ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... as a masterpiece. It is a gigantic effort, of a kind; so is the sustained throe of a wrestling Titan. That the poem contains much which is beautiful is undeniable, also that it is surcharged with winsome and profound thoughts and a multitude of will-o'-the-wisp-like fancies which all ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... birds which passed, quite terrified and bewildered, in the squalls; then thick fogs which fell suddenly like a shroud and which, penetrating into the cloisters through the broken arcades, rendered us invisible, and made the little lamp we carried to guide us appear like a will-o'-the-wisp wandering under the galleries; and a thousand other details of this monastic life which crowd all at once into my memory: all combined made indeed this monastery the most romantic abode in ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... unsatisfactory countenance, from which he could extract nothing; the squire, looking as black as thunder in his study at Hazeldean; his mother trying to plead for him, and getting herself properly scolded for her pains; and then off went that Will-o'-the-wisp which pretended to call itself Thought, and began playing round the pale, charming face of Beatrice di Negra, in the drawing-room at Curzon Street, and repeating, with small elfin voice, Randal Leslie's assurance of the preceding day, "as to her affection for you, Frank, there is no ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... were little luminous spots in her mouth. I had heard somewhere that there is a phosphorescence appearing during decay of organic substances which once gave rise to the ancient superstition of "corpse lights" and the will-o'-the-wisp. It was really due, I knew, to living bacteria. But there surely had been no time for such micro-organisms to develop, even in the almost tropic heat of the Novella. Could she have been poisoned by these phosphorescent bacilli? What was it—a strange ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... spread like a silver-etched map far below in the moonlight. The flare and sough of the furnace at the iron-works came and went with regular intermittency; and just beyond the group of Chiawassee stacks a tiny orange spot appeared and disappeared like a will-o'-the-wisp. He was staring down at the curious spot ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... was no Berserk madness about the young Danishman; there was hardly even seriousness. Now his blade was a fleeing will-o'-the-wisp, keeping just out of reach of Edmund's brand with apparently no thought but of flight. Now, when the Ironside's increasing vehemence betrayed him into an instant's rashness, it was a humming-bird darting into a flower-cup. ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... positive error—a whole tissue of false notions to start with; and at a later date these actually spoil the schooling of experience, and put a wrong construction on the lessons it teaches. If, before this, the youth had no light at all to guide him, he is now misled by a will-o'-the-wisp; still more often is this the case with a girl. They have both had a false view of things foisted on them by reading novels; and expectations have been aroused which can never be fulfilled. This generally exercises a baneful influence on their whole life. In this respect those ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer
... drummer. She could hardly believe her senses—so good-natured and tractable had he invariably been. It was not for her to see the wellspring of human passion. A real flame of love is a subtle thing. It burns as a will-o'-the-wisp, dancing onward to fairylands of delight. It roars as a furnace. Too often jealousy is the quality upon ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... with the several copies made from it, brought her thirty thousand dollars! The Prince of Wales has a copy, the Duke of Hamilton also, and it has gone even to Australia and the West Indies. A companion piece is the "Will-o'-the-wisp." ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... reading is undisturbed by the ghost-creep of childhood and the adventuresome daring of boarding-school. Formerly we had the mere tale or story; now we feel in a small degree the soul-expression of the writer—an indefinable, will-o'-the-wisp sort of thing; a something not always caught, but that strange intangible something which lends the spark of immortality ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... saw the lights of the two carriages stand shining by the wayside. Scarce a word or two was uttered at our parting, and these regarded business: a silent grasping of hands, a turning of faces aside, and the thing was over; the horses broke into a trot, the lamplight sped like Will-o'-the-Wisp upon the broken moorland, it dipped beyond Stony Brae; and there were Macconochie and I alone with our lantern on the road. There was one thing more to wait for, and that was the reappearance of the coach upon Cartmore. It seems they must have pulled up upon the summit, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... China; but my arrival having been delayed by literary matters, this lady had finally lost patience, and, without my knowledge, had gone on to New Zealand, and thence, as it turned out, to Samoa. When I heard of the New Zealand episode there was nothing for it but to follow her there, on a will-o'-the-wisp expedition, as it turned out, but, fortunately, I was unaware of this at the time. I say fortunately, because had I known that she had already left Australia for Samoa, I should certainly have returned to England, in ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... SHELLEY. The career of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) is, in comparison with that of Byron, as a will-o'-the-wisp to a meteor. Byron was of the earth earthy; he fed upon coarse food, shady adventures, scandal, the ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... appears. It is absolutely impossible for him to keep to his subject, or any subject. It is as impossible for him to pull himself up briefly in any digression from that subject. In his finest passages, as in his most trivial, he is at the mercy of the will-o'-the-wisp of divagation. In his later re-handlings of his work, he did to some extent limit his followings of this will-o'-the-wisp to notes, but by no means always; and both in his later and in his earlier work, as ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... "except bootblacking and water-carrying, which latter my chest could not endure at present." Then he decided that fame and fortune awaited him, as they usually do, just over the horizon. The only trouble with the horizon, as with to-morrow and the will-o'-the-wisp, is that it ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... conquer if we lift up the voice of thanks for victory in advance, and go into the battle expecting to triumph, because we trust in God. The world's expectation of success is too often a dream, a will-o'-the-wisp that tempts to bogs where the beguiled victim is choked, though even in the world it is often true; 'screw your courage to the sticking point, and we'll not fail.' But faith, that is the expectation of success based on God's help and inspiring to struggles for things dear to His ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Serbonian bog, the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy, has been lately lit up as by the flickering light of a will-o'-the-wisp, by the almost simultaneous publication of an imaginary charge delivered to an equally imaginary jury by a judge of no less eminence than the late Lord Penzance (that tough Erastian) and of the still bolder jeu d'esprit, A Report of the Trial of ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... going to take this thing up bit by bit without trying to get a whole philosophy into the work," anchored him to the heaviest tasks as if he were a true- born plodder, while the "wild Irishman" with dreams and desires lighted the way with gleams of Will-o'-the-Wisp. The quicksilver in the veins of the patient Mercutio of railroad rates and demurrage charges lightened his work for himself and others. Just as in the five years when he served San Francisco, as City ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... Gagniere glided in softly, like a will-o'-the-wisp. He had come straight from Melun, and was quite alone, for he never showed his wife to anybody. When he thus came to dinner he brought the country dust with him on his boots, and carried it back with ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... raised his head and looked at the hills where his cattle would feed, and pictured it cluttered with gold-hunters, greedy, undesirable interlopers doomed to disappointment in the long run. Ward had seen the gold fever sweep through a community and spoil life for the weak ones who took to chasing the will-o'-the-wisp of sudden wealth. Tramps of the pick-and-pan brigade—they should not come swarming into these hills on any wild-goose chase, if he could help it. And he could and should. This was not, properly speaking, a gold country. He knew it. The ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... occurred to Hawthorne, that, if George Ripley, instead of following after a will-o'-the-wisp notion, which could only lead him into a bog, had used the means at his disposal to cultivate Brook Farm in a rational manner, and had made it a hospitable rendezvous for intellectual and progressive people,—an oasis of culture amid the wide ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... her guest, who had taken an aimless prowl round the house, returned once more like a wandering will-o'-the-wisp to the dining-room, then ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... Rosalie, our servant, did most of her cooking in the open air with the aid of a portable charcoal stove, which she placed in the shade of some noble plane-trees that were planted by accident on the day of Prince Louis Napolon's coup d'tat. They were already tall and strong when his Will-o'-the-wisp, which he had mistaken for a star, sank in the bloody swamp of Sedan. When the rising wind announced a storm, the swaying branches shed their dry bark, which was piled upon the hearth indoors, where a cheerful ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... has always been to see a Will-o'-the-wisp, and I am still hoping; but that hot summer, had I known it at the time, they were quite common within an easy walk of my house in the New Forest. There was some correspondence on the subject in The Observer, and the following is extracted from ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... intended to ship all the French out of Hudson Bay and to keep them out. The enthusiast had played his game with more zeal than discretion. The English had what they wanted—furs and fort. In return, Radisson had what had misled him like a will-o'-the-wisp all his life—vague promises. In vain Radisson protested that he had given his promise to the French before they surrendered the fort. The English distrusted foreigners. The Frenchmen had been mustered on the ships to receive last instructions. They ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... heavens a moon swung among her stars most queenly and sedate, careless altogether of this mortal world of strife and terrors; the sea had a golden roadway. A lantern light bobbed on the outer edge of the rock, shining through Olivia's bower like a will-o'-the-wisp, and he could hear in low tones the voices of Doom and his servant. Out at sea, but invisible, for beyond the moon's influence, a boat was being rowed fast: the beat of the oars on the thole-pins came distinctly. ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... There will your mind be drilled and braced, As if in Spanish boots 'twere laced, And thus, to graver paces brought, 'Twill plod along the path of thought, Instead of shooting here and there, A will-o'-the-wisp in murky air. Days will be spent to bid you know, What once you did at a single blow, Like eating and drinking, free and strong,— That one, two, three! thereto belong. Truly the fabric of mental fleece Resembles a weaver's masterpiece, Where a thousand threads one ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... friend, what can I say in answer except the cruel "It is too late" of that fool Lafayette to his royal master? Oh! my life, my sweet life, what physician will give it back to me. My own hand has dealt the deathblow. Alas! have I not been a mere will-o'-the-wisp, whose twinkling spark was fated to perish before it reached a flame? My eyes rain torrents of tears—and yet they must not fall when I am with him. I fly to him, and he seeks me. My despair is all within. This torture Dante forgot ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... lightning; chain lightning, fork lightning, sheet lightning, summer lightning; ball lightning, kugelblitz [German]; [chemical substances giving off light without burning] phosphorus, yellow phosphorus; scintillator, phosphor; firefly luminescence. ignis fatuus[Lat]; Jack o'lantern, Friar's lantern; will-o'-the-wisp, firedrake[obs3], Fata Morgana[Lat]; Saint Elmo's fire. [luminous insects] glowworm, firefly, June bug, lightning bug. [luminous fish] anglerfish. [Artificial light] gas; gas light, lime light, lantern, lanthorn[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Hesse about 1780-85? Did he, on the other hand, escape from the French prison where Grosley thought he saw him, during the French Revolution? Was he known to Lord Lytton about 1860? Was he then Major Fraser? Is he the mysterious Muscovite adviser of the Dalai Lama? Who knows? He is a will-o'-the-wisp of the memoir-writers of the eighteenth century. Whenever you think you have a chance of finding him in good authentic State papers, he gives you the slip; and if his existence were not vouched for by Horace Walpole, I should incline to deem of him as Betsy Prig ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... asseverations of freedom and equality were its only blessings claimed; and the commission of overt acts, beyond those named, were rare enough to prove the rule of force of habit. Lured from old service for a time, most of them followed not far the gaudy and shining Will-o'-the-Wisp; and almost all—especially the household and personal servants—soon returned to "Ole Mas'r" once more, sadder and wiser for the futile chase after freedom's joys. But, even these were partly spoiled and rendered of far ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... the bars of the gate he could see a well-kept, formal lawn and the peaked roof of the close- shuttered, green-balconied dwelling beyond. There could not have been a better abode, he reflected, for this mysterious personage who had called him hither on this fantastic, will-o'-the-wisp journey. Yet he pulled himself up with disgust. He dared not hope! He reproved himself sharply. No doubt he was to see presently a gushing or garrulous or ignorant young woman, whose pretended modesty ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... probably the commonest of all. He is a true Indian divinity, shining like the lightning and striking only when there is a storm, but appearing like the Aurora Borealis, or even the Robin Goodfellow-Will-o'-the-Wisp at others.] ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... fallen as they quitted Bagshot; and it was midnight as they entered the home park, and proceeded towards the fatal oak. It was pitchy dark, and they could only distinguish the tree by its white, scathed trunk. All at once, a blue flame, like a will-o'-the-wisp, appeared, flitted thrice round the tree, and then remained stationary, its light falling upon a figure in a wild garb, with a rusty chain hanging from its left arm, and an antlered helm upon its head. They knew it to be Herne, and instantly fell down before him, while a burst of terrible ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... she had," Aunt Frances' tone was fervent. "I can't see any future for Barry, unless he marries Leila. If he were not so irresponsible, I might do something for him. But Barry is such a will-o'-the-wisp." ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... prominent leaders had explained that the seventeen Democratic States which had voted at Charleston for the seceders' platform could, if united with Pennsylvania alone, elect the Democratic nominees against all opposition. This hope doubtless floated before their eyes like a will-o'-the-wisp until the October elections dispelled all possibility of securing Pennsylvania for Breckinridge. From that time forward there began a renewal of disunion threats, which, by their constant increase throughout the South, prepared the public ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... children or saying a word to anybody, she went to see Mademoiselle Josepha Mirah, prima donna of the Royal Academy of Music, to find or to lose the hope that had gleamed before her like a will-o'-the-wisp. At midday, the great singer's waiting-maid brought her in the card of the Baronne Hulot, saying that this person was waiting at the door, having asked whether Mademoiselle ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... poured from it a swarm of fat and filthy snakes. The fog that overspread the earth that morning seemed to blow by in human forms, the grave rolled like a wave after it had been covered, and after darkness fell a blue will-o'-the-wisp danced over it. A storm set in, heaping the billows on shore until the church was undermined, and with a crash it fell into the seething flood. But the curse had passed, and when a new chapel was built the old ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... whether in the prison or in the palace—one lonely hour wherein none could bear him company—and what was wealth and treasure to man's soul beyond it? Was it power on earth? Was it glory? Was it riches? Oh! glory of the earth—what could it be but a will-o'-the-wisp pursued in the darkness of the night! Oh! riches of gold and silver—what had they ever been but marsh-fire gathered in the dusk! The empire of the world was evil, and evil was the service of the ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... by rearing, his ears flattened, his teeth bared, his eyes terrible to behold. As the man raced close the stallion struck with lightning hoofs, but the blow failed of its mark—by the breadth of a hair. And the assailant, swerving like a will-o'-the-wisp, darted to the side of the animal and leaped upon its back. At the same instant the wolf left the ground with terribly gaping mouth in a spring for the rider; but Dan flattened himself along the shining back of his mount and the wolf ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... expression than even marble; but certainly I have seldom been more impressed by a piece of modern sculpture. Miss Hosmer showed us photographs of her Puck—which I have seen in the marble—and likewise of the Will-o'-the-Wisp, both very pretty and fanciful. It indicates much variety of power, that Zenobia should be the sister of these, which would seem the more natural offspring of her quick and vivid character. But Zenobia ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... her interrogatively through his circular glasses, as though she ought to be able to tell him if anybody could. Then a thought very much like that took definite shape in his mind. He himself had no time to give to mysterious problems and will-o'-the-wisp pursuits; his book and posterity claimed it all. This girl was familiar with the city; doubtless knew all the people; she seemed intelligent and capable, as girls went. He remembered that he had consulted ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... but dash down from their hills, and carry fire and sword through a district, and are off again before a force can be gathered to strike a blow. Then there are marches to and fro among their hills, but it is like chasing a will-o'-the-wisp; and like enough, just when you think you have got them cooped up, and prepare to strike a heavy blow, they are a hundred miles away, plundering and ravaging on our side of the frontier. They are half-wild men, short ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... betray them as having once been little children, or were compelled to join, the train of the wild huntsman, or mingle in the retinue of some other outcast, wandering sprite or devil; or, again, as some deceitful star, or will-o'-the-wisp, mislead and torment the traveller on moor and in bog and swamp, and guide him to an untimely death amid desert solitudes. Ploss, Henderson, and Swainson have a good deal to say on the subject of Frau Berctha and her train, the Wild Huntsman, ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... carry her away." Perhaps this was the cause of the guard in Jeanne's room, the ceaseless scrutiny to which she was exposed. The vulgar slanderer was allowed to escape after this valuable testimony. She comes into history like a will-o'-the-wisp, one of the marsh lights that mean nothing but putrescence and decay, and then flickers out again with her false witness into the wastes of inanity. That she should have been treated so leniently and Jeanne so cruelly! say the historians. Reason ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... eventful afternoon of the performance the road was gay with teams. David and Samantha Milliken drove by in Miss Cummin's neat carryall, two children on the back seat, a will-o'-the-wisp baby girl held down by a serious boy. Steve Webster was driving Doxy Morton in his mother's buggy. Jabe Slocum, Pitt Packard, Brad Gibson, Cyse Higgins, and scores of others were riding "shank's mare," as ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... near the theatres. Lady Davenant here presided over the Dorset Gardens Company; Shadwell, "round as a butt and liquored every chink," nightly reeled home to the same precinct, unsteadily following the guidance of a will-o'-the-wisp link-boy; and in the square lived and died Sir John King, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... season, going into that untracked region of romance and dreams where the call of his still sturdy manhood had beckoned him,—how long none might know. And at last he had heeded, laid down the staid, the sane, and followed the will-o'-the-wisp of conquest and adventure that took the current by ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... seasonable times the punchinello which makes children run after you without knowing the distance they run. We are all children, and women are all inclined through their curiosity to spend their time in pursuit of a will-o'-the-wisp. The flame is brilliant and quickly vanishes, but is not the imagination at hand to act as your ally? Finally, study the happy art of being near her and yet not being near her; of seizing the opportunity which will yield you pre-eminence ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... fir-tree: "Everybody Must accept the sphere he's born in, And fulfil his duties fully. So we think here in the forest; And 'tis well so, at least better Than to hop will-o'-the-wisp like, Playing pranks and doing mischief, Men and cattle oft misleading, And the stupid wanderer's curses As reward home with thee taking. Anyhow, no one cares for thee. For, at best, a peasant sayeth, Devil take this Meysenhartus! But they're others who write ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... going home one night along the shore toward the village with some nets on his back. He was of a callous nature, and did not hesitate to take the shortest way across the meadow; but when he got in among the dunes, he saw a will-o'-the-wisp following in his steps, grew frightened, and began to run. It began to gain upon him, and when he leaped across the brook to put water between himself and the spirit, it seized hold of the nets. At this he shouted the name of God, and fled like one bereft ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... where they were cool. They "stripped" him far oftener than he won from them, but it was these infrequent winnings that encouraged him. He believed that some day he would make a big "killing"; the thought of that was ever before him, beckoning him on like the dancing will-o'-the-wisp. He took no note of the fact that these bland gentlemen could pocket their losings as well as their winnings. It was part of their trade to suffer loss. They had everything to gain and nothing to lose, so they ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... was certain: He had just seen what had no existence. The twilight spectres were making game of him, poor wretch! The little man in scarlet was the will-o'-the-wisp of a dream. Sometimes, at night, nothings condensed into flame come and laugh at us. Having had his laugh out, the visionary being had disappeared, and left Gwynplaine behind ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... strange that I could gain no trace of the little girl. At the Fort they said she was with the Kinzies, at Kinzies' they told me she was at the Fort. It was, as Seth had prophesied, like seeking after a will-o'-the-wisp; yet surely she must be in the flesh somewhere. My plain duty was to find her at once; and I resolved to take up the task anew that day, and question every one I met till some trace yielded to my persistency. However, I needed first to sleep; but as I resolutely closed my ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... a very bewildering thing—and thoughts do sometimes play the very will-o'-the-wisp with one. And when somebody you know is at a party, there is a funny inclination to go through the motions at least, and be up as late as anybody else. So it was with a somewhat sudden recollection that Mr. Rollo bethought him of what his watch ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... run the affairs of Brians and McRae yourself these days. I hear Ed's off after another will-o'-the-wisp as usual. Let me see, I believe it's a temperance bee he's got in ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... pointin' right. Can't you see there's not a cent's worth of evidence against the man yet? Have you ever heard where he runs his cattle? Has anybody? Has any one ever seen under that mask? Has any one been found who could identify even his figure? No. Red Mask is a will-o'-the-wisp. He's a ghost; and it's our business to find the body o' that ghost. I'm not the fool to go around to Anton and say, 'You are Red Mask.' He'd laugh in my face. An' later on I guess I'd be targettin' a shot for him. What if I rounded to the gove'nor an' got him fired? It would be the worst possible. ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... the day sailed on, like a dainty boat with silent oar on a calm-flowing stream, to evening, when, as though it had been a new-born meteor or great will-o'-the-wisp, there appeared on the edge of the twilight, along the distant horizon, a silvery glitter, which, drawing nearer and nearer, presently disclosed a servant in a shining band mounted on a great coach, with horses in burnished harness; with champing speed, which it seemed ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... was another thing. Who was the silken-skirted woman he met in the darkness but an hour or so before,—the woman whom he had attempted to accost, but who slipped past him like a will-o'-the-wisp—in silence? How was it that the door to Hatton's hall was closed and locked, when Hatton told him it was always open? Why was it that the light in that lower hall was extinguished, and by whom was it done? Had ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... following that will-o'-the-wisp of a hand-sled track into the thick spruce forest. For the first nine or ten miles everything went well; then one of the dangers of the great Maine woods in winter suddenly ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... eyes to the future that Maggie and I must prove, But the only light on the marshes is the Will-o'-the-Wisp ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... We find in the eighteenth century, in nearly all the songs of the galleys and prisons, a diabolical and enigmatical gayety. We hear this strident and lilting refrain which we should say had been lighted up by a phosphorescent gleam, and which seems to have been flung into the forest by a will-o'-the-wisp playing ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... dark. The house was lit by the firelight only, which flashed like Will-o'-the-wisp on the hall window. Philip was surprised by unusual sounds. There was laughter within, then singing, and then laughter again. He bad reached the porch and his approach had not been heard. The door stood open and he ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... and distance by choosing comparisons from ancient history and mythology, or from those great and strange things in Nature which repel intimacy—the sun, the moon, the sea, planets in opposition, a shooting star, an evening mist, a will-o'-the-wisp, a vulture descending from the Himalayas, the ice-floes on the North-East passage, the sea-beast leviathan, Xerxes' Hellespontic bridge, the gryphon pursuing the Arimaspian, the madness of Alcides in Oeta, the rape of Proserpine, and a hundred more reminiscences ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... applied, we would get the property, which was worth about five thousand pounds. Weel, three or four years passed awa, and we heard something about the lawsuit, but naething about the money. I was vexed for having onything to say to it. I thought it was only wasting a candle to chase a will-o'-the-wisp. About the time I speak o', my mither had turned very frail. I saw there was a wastin' awa o' nature, and she wadna be lang beside me. The day before her death, she took my hand, and 'Davy,' says she to me—'Davy,' poor body, she repeated ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... her attachment to the cart-horse alone that Amabel disturbed the composure of the head-nurse and of Louise the bonne. She was a very Will-o'-the-wisp for wandering. She grew rapidly, and the stronger she grew the more of a Tom-boy she became. Beyond the paddock lay another field, whose farthest wall was the boundary of a little wood,—the wood where Jan had herded ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... would have been of comment upon the play, how he would have sat grinning with precious enjoyment at her merciless gibes during the whole of the interval. He had the sense of Jenny as all movement, as flashing and drawing him into quagmires of sensation, like a will-o'-the-wisp. Emmy was not like that. She sat tremulously smiling, humble before him, diffident, flattering. She was intelligent: that was it. Intelligent was the word. Not lively, but restful. Critically he regarded her. ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... dismounts from his steed, tethers it to a tree, and looks about for a bed of moss on which to repose. As he does so his wandering gaze fixes upon a beam of light piercing the gloom of the forest. Well aware of the traditions of his country, he thinks at first that it is only the glimmer of a will-o'-the-wisp or a light carried by a wandering elf. But no, on moving nearer the gleam he is surprised to behold a row of windows brilliantly lit as ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... own business a great deal better than her friends. She does not believe in the intellectual equality which she is always preaching about, and when M. Duruy offers it, a shriek of horror goes up from half the mothers of France. What she does believe is that, in seeking the educational Will-o'-the-Wisp, she may lose the solid pudding of domestic supremacy, and domestic supremacy is worth all the sciences in the world. Her position, as the Vatican suggests, is a religious, not an intellectual one, and her policy lies in an alliance ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... as many thoughts as a drowning man. How had he ever dared bring such a will-o'-the-wisp away from home? How had his mother consented to let him? His father had charged him, over and over, not to let go Fly's hand in the street. That did very well to talk about; but what could you do with a child that wasn't ...
— Little Folks Astray • Sophia May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke)
... just leaving the fur posts for the St. Lawrence. Frosts had already stripped the trees of foliage, and winter would presently lock all avenues of retreat in six months' ice. La Verendrye's men began to doubt the wisdom of chasing a will-o'-the-wisp to an unknown Western Sea. The explorer sent half the party forward with his nephew Jemmeraie and his son Jean, while he himself remained at Kaministiquia with the mutineers to forage for provisions. {208} Winter found Jemmeraie's ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... breeze, as it touched his cheeks, seemed to burn with fever. He stood there motionless, his arms folded, gazing fixedly into the half-darkness. A pale, watery moonlight cast an unearthly shimmer over the shadowy world before him, brightened every here and there by the will-o'-the-wisp fire points which marked the presence of the camped thousands waiting silently for his word. Only one spot—it seemed like a black stain—remained in absolute gloom, and it was thither the Rajah's eyes were turned. Every night he had come to the same place ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... household gods, and languishing under unjust persecution, I have already spoken. Count Cortina is a gentleman and a scholar, a man of vast information, and a protector of the fine arts. His conversation is a series of electric sparks; brilliant as an ignis fatuus, and bewildering as a will-o'-the-wisp. I have seldom heard such eloquence even in trifles; and he writes with as much ease as he speaks. We have seen three clever pieces of his lately, showing his versatile genius; one upon earthquakes, one upon the devil, and one upon ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... wild-mustard plants there appeared a moving luminosity, having an irregular, dancing motion, as of a will-o'-the-wisp singularly agitated. Sometimes it uplifted itself on high, then plunged downwards, and again jerked itself from side to side; occasionally it would quite vanish for an instant. Accompanying this manifestation there was a clawing and reaching of shadowy arms: altogether, it was ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne
... and history, and you have as your allowance for the year L200—a sum which is insufficient to pay the Dutch teacher employed to bring the children up to the required standard in that language. It is small wonder, then, that most teachers prefer to dispense with this Will-o'-the-wisp grant altogether, seeing that the efforts of some to earn it have resulted in pecuniary loss. The actual sum expended on Uitlander schools last year amounted to L650, or 1s. 10d. a head out of a total expenditure for education of L63,000, the expenditure ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... this so beautiful a chance Shields set forth down the eastern side of Massanutton, with intent to round the mountain at Port Republic, turn north again, and somewhere on the Valley pike make that will-o'-the-wisp junction with Fremont and stamp out rebellion. But of late it had rained much, and the roads were muddy and the streams swollen. His army was split into sections; here a brigade and there a brigade, the advance south of Conrad's Store, the rear yet at Luray. He had, however, ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... The spirit of wonder, like a will-o'-the-wisp, leads on through a fairy tale, enticing the child who follows, knowing that something will happen, and wondering what. When magic comes in he is gratified because some one becomes master of the universe—Cinderella, when she plants the hazel bough, and later ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... use a conveniently erroneous phrase, the variations arose spontaneously. The fruitless search after final causes leads their pursuers a long way; but even those hardy teleologists, who are ready to break through all the laws of physics in chase of their favourite will-o'-the-wisp, may be puzzled to discover what purpose could be attained by the stunted legs of Seth Wright's ram or the ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... weather I have seen the water swell up over the mid walls of the vats, till the whole range would be one uniform surface of frothing liquid, and on applying a light, the report has been as loud as that of a small cannon, and the flame has leapt from vat to vat like the flitting will-o'-the-wisp on the surface ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... together on a wharf one bright October day awaiting the arrival of an ocean steamer with an impatience which found a vent in lively skirmishes with a small lad, who pervaded the premises like a will-o'-the-wisp and afforded much amusement to ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... said Thurston, as he strode on through the park of Luckenough, "to fancy that any one with eyes, heart and brain, could possibly fall in love with the 'Will-o'-the-wisp' Jacquelina, or worse, that giglet, Angelica; when he sees Marian! Marian, whose least sunny tress is dearer to me than are all the living creatures in the world besides. Marian, for whose possession I am now about to risk everything, even her own esteem. ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... She had run away from a squalid home to the gorgeous freedom of stage-life, only to find that the stage also is squalid and slavish, and that the will-o'-the-wisp of gorgeous freedom had jumped back to home life. She left the cheap theaters for the expensive luxury of Sir Joseph's mansion. But that had its squalors and slaveries, too. She had fled from troubled England to ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... almost aloud. "After spending the night wandering about morasses like a will-o'-the-wisp, I approach a town at last. Thank Heaven again, and for all its mercies this night! I breathe freely. ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... at a time could his eyeballs, straining with agony, catch this will-o'-the-wisp, the boat's light. It groped the sea up and down, ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... gay little smile, shaking her bamboo crop at them. "You look like surprised conspirators. Major Carter, I'll have to claim your escort this morning. Casimir is still asleep. I'm afraid Lady Natalie danced him to death last night, the will-o'-the-wisp. His Majesty has his duties for some hours to come, as I can tell by that portentous frown on Sobieska's face. I, alone, once so busy, now find time hanging heavy on my hands. ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... ultimate possession is the motor which induces all human endeavor. No act is ever done except in obedience to this law of our nature which compels us to seek pleasure. Ignorance of the nature of true pleasure has led us after many a will-o'-the-wisp, and our unlearned race has soiled its garments many times in error, commonly called "sin." "Sinful pleasures," against which our parents, the clergy, and all moral philosophers have warned us, do not exist. There is no pleasure ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... I am Will-o'-the-Wisp. I float in a little pool of delirium, Phosphorescent velvet. My fire is like a breath That blows my illness in circles, Widening it so far That I cannot see the edge. It is one with the night sky. My fire has blown this vastness, But I strain and flicker trying to escape ...
— Precipitations • Evelyn Scott
... and Plunkett, McDonough and Hunt and Pearse See now why their hatred of tyrants Was so insistently fierce. Is Freedom only a Will-o'-the-wisp To cheat a poet's eye? Be it phantom or fact, it's a noble cause In which to sing and ...
— Main Street and Other Poems • Alfred Joyce Kilmer
... entered it was not shared by Charley, who was never ripe for anything but frolic. Had not Stephen been influenced by a desire to do good, and possibly by another feeling too embryonic for detection, he would never have dreamed of making an errand boy of a will-o'-the-wisp. As such, however, he was installed, and from that moment an anxiety unknown before took possession of Stephen's bosom. He was never at ease, for he never knew what the boy might be about. He would have parted with him the first fortnight, but the idea ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... the music has stopped. I think some elf just came to wake you up, and then flew away; so we won't waste any more time in looking here," said Wee, as she finished dressing Daisy, who flew about like a Will-o'-the-wisp ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... to wet the soul. The reek of damp clothes pervaded the gallery where he sat surrounded by clerks and shop girls, and he pictured to himself the dreary rooms from which they had emerged, drawn by the mysterious fire on that altar. Was it a will-o'-the-wisp? Below him, in the pews, were the rich. Did they, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... considerable but was certainly indirect. His plays on the other hand, in the production of which he spent the better part of his life, greatly outweigh his novel both in aesthetic and historical importance. To attempt to estimate Lyly's position as a novelist and as a prose writer is to chase the will-o'-the-wisp of theory over the morass of uncertainty; the task of investigating his comedies is altogether simpler and more straightforward. After groping our way through the undergrowth of minor literature, we come out upon the great ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... respecting the chair, I craned out of the window, watching his progress, and wondering with what sudden madness he was bitten. Indeed, I could not credit my senses, could not believe that I heard and saw aright. Yet there out in the darkness on the moor moved the will-o'-the-wisp, and ten yards along the gutter crept my friend, like a great gaunt cat. Unknown to me he must have prospected the route by daylight, for now I saw his design. The ledge terminated only where it met the ancient wall of the tower, and it was possible for an agile climber to step from it to the ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... made it, by that sympathy which he exhibits with those principles, is my brother in art to a greater degree than the painter who, with youthful arrogance, throws these to the winds "mistaking," as has been cleverly said, "the will-o'-the-wisp of eccentricity for the miracle working impulse of genius." In whatsoever degree more of the man and less of the mechanics appear, in that degree is the result a ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... Ralph could look at nothing else while she was about. She loved to lead him in a long, wild-goose chase across the island, dipping almost within reach one moment, losing herself at the zenith in another, alighting here and there with a will-o'-the-wisp capriciousness. Sometimes Ralph would return in such an exhausted condition that he dropped to sleep while he ate. At such times his mood was far from agreeable. His companions soon learned not to address ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... were several on that long journey in such a frail craft. One complete upset chilled me most thoroughly, as the water was about down to freezing point. At one place, where we tried to push on all night, we were tantalised by some most brilliant "Will-o'-the-wisp" lights, which our experienced Indians thought were decoy signals put out by wicked Indians to bewilder or injure us. Canoe travelling on this great lake is risky business. The storms come up with surprising rapidity, and the waves rise up like those of the ocean. However, ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... was to take off in a racing start toward the blue light. Rick had to stretch his legs to catch up, and saw the ghost begin its retreat again, always maintaining the distance between itself and the boys. It danced in the air like a will-o'-the-wisp, as though ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... unfortunates be a housewife, then she is continually "picking up", continually pursuing that household Will-o'-the-Wisp, "finishing the work." For it is the nature of housework that it is never finished, no matter how much is done. This overconscientious person, unless she is made of steel springs and resilient rubber, breathlessly chasing this phantom all day and into the night, gives way under the strain, even though ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... You've had a taste of the Kerr methods, but you're not satisfied yet that they're absolutely base and dishonorable in every thought and deed. You'll find it out to your cost, Duke, if you let that girl lead you. She's a will-o'-the-wisp sent to ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... like a constellation on the oily water. They become a company of dancing stars. Every now and then a boat moves off on a quest of its own. It is as though the firmament were shaken. One hears the kick-kick-kick of the motor, and a star has become a will-o'-the-wisp. These lights can no more keep still than a playground of children. They always make a pattern on the water, but they never make the same pattern. Sometimes they lengthen themselves against the sandy shore on the far side of the bay into a golden ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... separates one from the gods, the fairies, or the fiends. To be sure, we should have been glad if we could have got "light, more light" thrown on our steps, but, failing that, we tried to find our way as best we could in the mist. We loved that never-attainable Will-o'-the-Wisp, "Truth," for its own dear Bohemian sake; so, guided by Fancy and Fantasy, we made frequent inroads into the boundless land where unknown forces pick up our poor dear little conception of the Impossible, and use it as the starting-point ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... a twofold contact with such movements. His most natural interest is that of studying the mental makeup of those who chase this will-o'-the-wisp. Their mental vagaries and superstitious fancies are quite fascinating material for his dissection. But for the interests of society an entirely different effort is, after all, more consequential. The psychologist has no right to avoid the trouble of examining conspicuous cases which superficially ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... it were, it would be of no avail, for the pirating would then be carried on a little further off in the small German States; and if you drove it to China, it would take place there. We are running after a Will-o'-the-wisp in that expectation. The fault lies in ourselves; the books are too dear, and the question now is, cannot they be ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... make much headway in this quarter. Instinct indicated a delicate harmony between those events and the formless shadow to which Sally had all along been sensitive, of something equivocal in the pretensions of Mrs. Standish. But that clue played will-o'-the-wisp with her fancy, leading it ever farther astray in a bottomless bog of ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... as was their custom, up the Narrows. As they neared what is now known as Prospect Point they heard from the heights above them a laugh, and looking up they beheld the witch-woman jeering defiantly at them. They landed and, scaling the rocks, pursued her as she danced away, eluding them like a will-o'-the-wisp as she called out to ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... had never understood each other especially well. Esther always seemed to Polly far too sober and almost too unselfish and self-effacing, while Polly to the quieter girl had all the brilliance and unreliability of a will-o'-the-wisp. Before coming to New York for the winter their intimacy had been due largely to their mutual devotion to Betty; but now, both lonely and both in a new environment, they had been greatly drawn together. Polly's occasional visits had been one of Esther's ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... high o'er the ruined tower, When the night-bird sings in her lonely bower, When beetle and cricket and bat are awake, And the will-o'-the-wisp is at play in the brake, Oh then do we gather, all frolic and glee, We gay little elfins, beneath the old tree! And brightly we hover on silvery wing, And dip our small cups in the whispering spring, While the night-wind lifts ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... into the dim recesses of this awful past, we want the aid of some steadfast light which shall illumine the dark places without the treachery of the will-o'-the-wisp. In the absence of that steadfast light, vague conjectures as to the beginning of things could never be entitled to any more respect than was due to mere matters ...
— Time and Tide - A Romance of the Moon • Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball
... places and the smooth, the stir of its air and the possibility of wild beasts. To her it was night-time there, and where the ground seemed fair and the light to play, she thought of the marsh and the will-o'-the-wisp. She could not but be loyal to the old, trodden ways. She had married Lewis Rand, not his party or its principles. But to-night, as she listened, the light seemed to grow until it was dawn in the forest, and the air to blow so cold, strong, ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... in the dead o' the night, And he shuffles the shadows about As he gathers the stars in a nest of delight And sets there and hatches them out: The Zhederrill peers from his watery mine In scorn with the Will-o'-the-wisp, As he twinkles his eyes in a whisper of shine That ends in a ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... Cypremort, was not his affair. Surely no soldier is to be blamed, least of all in combined and complex operations, for choosing to obey the clearly expressed orders of those set over him, rather than to follow the illusory inspirations of the will-o'-the-wisp commonly mistaken ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... floor, a generous supply of lamps did little more than illumine the surface of the darkness, leaving unfathomed and unexplained mysterious shadows that brooded in distant corners, or, towering giant-wise to the ceiling, loomed ominously overhead. Will-o'-the-wisp-like reflections from our lighted candles danced in the polished surface of panel and balustrade, as from the hall we went upstairs, I helping myself from step to step by Atherley's arm, as instinctively, ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... the good behaviour of her younger son. 'Ted is such a saint, I'm afraid we are going to lose him. Is it Meg's sweet influence, or Daisy's fine cooking, or the pellets I catch Nan giving him on the sly? Some witchcraft has been at work during my absence, and this will-o'-the-wisp is so amiable, quiet, and obedient, ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... no chance for want of trouble. But Sir Philip had gone abroad, and it would be some time before I could receive an answer. So I followed my uncle's advice, to whom I had mentioned how wearied I felt, both in body and mind, by my will-o'-the-wisp search. He immediately told me to go to Harrogate, there to await Sir Philip's reply. I should be near to one of the places connected with my search, Coldholme; not far from Sir Philip Tempest, in case he returned, and I wished ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... was a surprise. I suppose that nature works on such a hopeful basis that we believe against ourselves that things will be as they ought to be, not as we should know that they will be. Transcendentalism is a beacon to the angels, even if it be a will-o'-the-wisp to man. Van Helsing raised his hand over his head for a moment, as though in remonstrance with the Almighty. But he said not a word, and in a few seconds stood up with ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... work. On the contrary, he roamed about the country occupying himself at odd times with such bits of light mental or physical work as came his way. Being without training and taking no real interest in his work, he never retained any job long. Sometimes, lured by the will-o'-the-wisp of some fancied opportunity to make a million, he gave up his work. Sometimes he merely got tired of working and quit. But most often he was discharged for his incompetence. It is difficult indeed for any man to attend properly to the cent-a-piece details of an ordinary job when he is dreaming ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... on the ridge now! and the rest is easy. Tell you what, though, boys, now we're all right, I don't mind saying that I didn't take no stock in that blamed corpse light down there. If there ever was a will-o'-the-wisp on a square up mountain, that was one. It wasn't no window! Some of ye thought ye ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... their circle, and their light and airy forms sped swiftly about him. Their faces, in the twilight, were dim and transparent; their tresses shone like the will-o'-the-wisp. They repeated: ...
— The Story Of The Duchess Of Cicogne And Of Monsieur De Boulingrin - 1920 • Anatole France
... who steals, with stealthy step and coward's mask, to filch good names away in the dead dark of irresponsible calumny; "they say," a giant murderer, iron-gloved to slay you, a fleet, elusive, vaporous will-o'-the-wisp, when you would seize and choke it; "they say," mighty Thug though it be which strangles from behind the purest victim, had not been ever known to touch ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... have good mental power and be able to think hard and efficiently on any one point, but lack the power to think in a straight line. Every stray thought that comes along is a "will-o'-the-wisp" to lead us away from the subject in hand and into lines of thought not relating to it. Who has not started in to think on some problem, and, after a few moments, been surprised to find himself miles ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... Stephen would be his large-minded, great-hearted, magnanimous self, and beg her to forget this fascinating will-o'-the-wisp by resting in his deeper, serener love. She had meant to be contrite and faithful, praying nightly that poor Claude might live down his present anguish, of which she had been the ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... end? He loved a will-o'-the-wisp; he had married a butterfly. Why continue to play the martyr and follow the fruitless path of rectitude? Hadn't she said, "I can only live once, and so I shall make life spin whichever way I want it to go?" He could only live once, and if life was not to spin with her, let it spin ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... plebeian strain, never so apparent as when he spoke, or in his gestures. He was a Member of Parliament for a Labour constituency, a shrewd and valuable exponent of the gospel of the working man. What he lacked in the higher qualities of oratory he made up in sturdy common sense. The will-o'-the-wisp Socialism of the moment, with its many attendant "isms" and theories, received scant favour at his hands. He represented the solid element in British Labour politics, and it was well known that he had refused a seat in the Cabinet in order to preserve ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... inadvertently writes), in a forthcoming article on the Records of Ireland, will, it is to be hoped, give the full details of this exciting record hunt, and thus exemplify the great utility, not to speak of the manliness, of real names and addresses, versus false names and equally Will-o'-the-Wisp initials. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various
... toward nine o'clock, Hans Goerner, the rural guard, having been ordered to bring the prisoner to the town house for another examination, repaired to the cooler with four husky daredevils. They opened the door, all of them curious to look upon the Will-o'-the-wisp. But imagine their astonishment upon seeing him hanging from the bars of the window by his necktie! Some said that he was still writhing; others that he was already stiff. However that may be, they ran to Petrus Mauerer's house ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... at Benda with wide-opened eyes. "Darkness? What do you mean? The fire then was merely a will-o'-the-wisp," she said, her eyes shining with pride, "I see him full of light." Daniel had heard what she said. "Really, Eleanore?" he asked with ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... footsteps of the traveller, and the distant rustle among the shrubbery, as he goes deeper and deeper into the seclusion, having by this time lost the deceitful track. No matter if he go astray; even were it after nightfall instead of noontime, a will-o'-the-wisp, or Puck himself, would not lead him into worse harm than to delude him into some mossy pool, the depths of which the truant schoolboys had known for ages. Nevertheless, some little time after his disappearance, there was the report of a shot that echoed sharp and loud, startling ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... friend, the editor, would say if he knew of it. And what about his search for the missing man, Henry Redmond? Instead of throwing himself earnestly and actively into the quest he was frittering away his time, following the will-o'-the-wisp of a fancy, and going daft over a mere slip of a girl who moved serenely apart from his world of thought and being. He called himself a fool and chided himself over and over again. But for all that, he was unable to tear her out of his heart and mind. ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... God would only be good and unmake me, and let darkness cover the place where once was me! That would be like a good God! All I should be sorry for then would be, that there was not enough of me left for a dim flitting Will-o'-the-wisp of praise, ever singing my thankfulness to him that I was no more.—Yet even then my deed would remain, for I dare not ask that she should die outright also—that would be to heap wrong upon wrong. What an awful thing being is! Not even my annihilation could make up for my crime, or rid ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... decade was merely a prolongation of the vain search for freedom, the boom that seemed ever barely to elude their grasp,—like a tantalizing will-o'-the-wisp, maddening and misleading the headless host. The holocaust of war, the terrors of the Kuklux Klan, the lies of carpet-baggers, the disorganization of industry, and the contradictory advice of friends and foes left the bewildered serf with no new ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... ravines, where the flashing cataracts tumble; away through the dark pine-forests, where the hungry wolves are howling away over the dreary wolds, where the wild wind walks alone; away through the plashing quagmires, where the will-o'-the-wisp slunk frightened among the reeds; away through light and darkness, storm and sunshine; away by tower and town, high-road and hamlet. Once a turnpike-man would have detained him; but, ha! ha! he charged the pike, and cleared it at a bound. Once the Cologne Diligence ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... joy of an entire home, you whose white or rose-colored scarf flutters in the summer through the groves of Wierzchownia, like a will-o'-the-wisp, followed by the tender eyes of your father and mother—how can I dedicate to you a story full of melancholy? But is it not well to tell you of sorrow such as a young girl so fondly loved as you are will never know? For some day your fair hands may comfort the unfortunate. ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... popular beliefs that have poetic capabilities, the kelpie, the will-o'-the-wisp, and second sight. He alludes to the ballad of "Willie Drowned in Yarrow," and doubtless with a line of "The Seasons" running in his head,[29] conjures Home to "forget not Kilda's race," who live on the eggs of the solan goose, whose only prospect is the wintry main, and among ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... hidden in every nook and corner of our mountains and forests, and in our nation's heart. I am one of the miners who have come to dig it out before time and oblivion shall have buried every trace of it, and there shall not be even the will-o'-the-wisp of a legend to hover over the spot, and keep alive the sad fact of our loss ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... would croon over him "with murmurs made to bless," calling him their "tender novice" "in the first bloom of his nigritude," their belated straggler from the "rear of darkness thin," their little night-shade, not deadly, their infantile Will-o'-the-wisp caught before his sins, their "poor Blot," "their innocent Blackness," ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... then while I relate the reason for my presence, why for months I have searched country after country for one who ever seemed to be just beyond my reach, like a will-o'-the-wisp dancing over the ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... been assailed by doubts and weariness; the path had seemed too long and arduous, and he had secretly pined for some swift issue from perplexity and delay. In such a moment was it that the voice of darkness gained his ear, and, like a will-o'-the-wisp, lured him to calamity. Verily, it is not easy to be God. Only builders of the Tower of Babel know the awfulness of ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... is not the attainment of happiness, yet if we attain the true object of life we find happiness. Those who are ignorant of life's true purpose and who seek happiness high and low, year after year, fail to find it. Like a will-o'-the-wisp, it for ever eludes them. On the other hand, those who recognize the true object of life, and follow it, attain happiness ...
— Within You is the Power • Henry Thomas Hamblin
... there is a great deal of something that calls itself Unionism; but I know nothing more like the apples of Sodom than most of this North Carolina Unionism. It is a cheat, a Will-o'-the-wisp; and any man who trusts it will meet with overthrow. Its quality is shown in a hundred ways. An old farmer came into Raleigh to sell a little corn. I had some talk with him. He claimed that he had been a Union man from the beginning ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... if the great globe itself were their private property; but upon this occasion it resolved itself into the swift and impetuous flight of a meteor. He shot from one angle of a street to another something in the manner of a will-o'-the-wisp, and it was almost as difficult to fix his course and follow him up. Thus hanging closely on his footsteps, I was not a little mortified to find, after all, that the trouble I had taken led to nothing. Striking out a different, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... elixir of life, but it had proved as delusive as a will-o'-the-wisp to him, and ever, just as he felt assured of success, the prize had slipped away from his grasp, leaving him further away from success than he had been before. But now it was not the elixir that he was seeking to find. From trying to ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... He was sometimes seen in the company of a half-drunken old guide named Shanks somewhere around Mount Tom district. And now we've come up this way in the hope of crossing his trail. Not that I've got much expectation myself that we'll be sure to find this same; Roland, who turns out to be a sort of will-o'-the-wisp to us; but since his old aunt was so kind as to finance this expedition, why we're bound to do all we can to make it a blooming ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... commentators have discussed the star of Christ's birth from various points of view. Some have thought it a real star; others have had enough astronomy to see that this was impossible, and have argued that it was a big will-o'-the-wisp, created and directed by supernatural power, like the pillar of day-cloud and night-fire that led the Jews in the wilderness; while still others have favored the idea of a supernatural illusion, which was confined to the wise men—and thus it was that the "star" was not seen or mentioned ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... associate with a gin-drinking Irish reporter, and to regard him as the mysterious apostle of a new creed; Brand only saw in O'Halloran a light-headed, imaginative, talkative person, as safe to trust to for guidance as a will-o'-the-wisp. It is true that for the time being he had been thrilled by the passionate fervor of Natalie Lind's singing; and many a time since he could have fancied that he heard in the stillness of the night that pathetic and ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... the great opponent of orthodoxy in his day, yet he led his followers to no goal more explicit than might be surmised from a study of Kant and Hegel. He was, however, sincere in his devotion to the will-o'-the-wisp that he conceived to be the truth, and he was courageous enough to admit that he never satisfied himself. There was chilly and austere attraction about the man; he was so elevated and superior that one could hardly help believing that he must know something of value, and this illusion ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... happiness all men are strangely alike. In their explanations of it and in their ways of seeking it they are singularly different. Shall we think of this wish as right, or wrong; as a true star, or a will-o'-the-wisp? If it is right to wish to be happy, what are the conditions on which the fulfilment of this wish depends? These are the two questions with which I would come to Christ, seeking ...
— Joy & Power • Henry van Dyke
... down, here and there, like following some will-o'-the-wisp went the boys. At times they thought they had lost the object of their pursuit, but again they would hear him hurrying ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... Neforis said it was all a mere will-o'-the-wisp, and my lord agreed with her. Then your uncle forbade Sebek to betray the matter to you, and sent word to me that he would possibly send Hiram to Sinai when the horse-fair was over. So take patience, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... most versatile writers of Sweden, was a man of strange contrasts, a genius as uncertain as a will-o'-the-wisp. His contemporary, the famous poet and critic ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Baffin Bay through Lancaster Sound and on westward to a great sea called Melville Sound, a body of water larger than the Irish Sea. The two lines east and west overlapped widely. All that was needed now was to find a channel north and south to connect the two. This done, the North-West Passage, the will-o'-the-wisp of three hundred and fifty years, ...
— Adventurers of the Far North - A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas • Stephen Leacock
... these circumstances, her conduct was somewhat erratic. For three days, perhaps, she would fly to the door at her husband's ring, and hang upon his every movement. Then, for the next three, she would be a veritable will-o'-the-wisp for elusiveness, caring, apparently, not one whit whether her husband came or went until poor Bertram, at his wit's end, scourged himself with a merciless catechism as to what he had done to vex her. Then, perhaps, just when he had nerved ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter |
