"Will-o'-the-wisp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that he feared that his two white friends, whom he loved so dearly, might be killed. They, accordingly, pulled on during the night, passing a large town, from which issued a loud noise, as of a multitude quarrelling. Once they fancied they saw a light following them, but it turned out to be a will-o'-the-wisp. ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... side; Galloping over the field and hill, Over the marshland, stalwart still, Into the forest's shadowy hush, Where specters walk in sunless day, And in dark pool and branch and bush The treacherous will-o'-the-wisp lights play. Out of the wood 'neath the risen sun, Weary we gallop, one and one, To a richer hope and a stronger foe And a hotter fight in the fields below— Each man his own slave, each his lord, For the golden spurs and ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... that said, "I am 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 and County Attorney, he labored to such effect that ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... 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 ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... "No will-o'-the-wisp mislight thee, No snake or slowworm bite thee, But on, on thy way, Not making a stay, Since ghost there's none ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
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