"Will-o'-the-wisp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 ...
— Time and Tide - A Romance of the Moon • Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball
... the right kind of a night for a ghost story," said Melissa, her eyes going over the group with a strange, sweet compassion in their depths. "The wind ought to be howling with blood-curdling glee and the will-o'-the-wisp ought to be a-hoppin' in the swamp. There ought to be a graveyard close by—and some skeletons standing just outside the winders, trying to look in upon us ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... in their various places. Atkinson was leaning against a tree with a listless face; Quinton's wife was still at her window; the doctor had gone strolling round the end of the conservatory; they could see his cigar like a will-o'-the-wisp; and the fakir still sat rigid and yet rocking, while the trees above him began to rock and almost to roar. Storm was ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... 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
... long time to come. But the whole was sickening to look at, and still more so, if possible, to reflect upon; for this was the price which so often has been, so often will be, paid for the alluring dream of liberty, and for the pursuit of that mischievous will-o'-the-wisp - ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
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