will-o'-wisp

• “The lame girl was very sorry to lose this little will-o'-wisp neighbor who had brought so much sunshine into her life during her short stay at the parsonage, but Elizabeth was to visit her every day, and the”

  The Lilac Lady

• “Sometimes it seemed to her as if this solemn-eyed child purposely misunderstood, and mocked at her attempts to lead unwilling feet along the path of learning, and she was at a loss to know how to deal with the sprightly elf who danced and flitted about like an elusive will-o'-wisp.”

  Heart of Gold

• “She is the Fenella of the fireside; the will-o'-wisp of our souls; our gaiety; the life of the house.”

  Women in the Life of Balzac

• “I say dissipation, comparatively with the strictness, and sobriety, and regularity of Presbyterian country life; for though the will-o'-wisp meteors of thoughtless whim were almost the sole lights of my path, yet early ingrained piety and virtue kept me for several years afterward within the line of innocence.”

  Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) Authors and Journalists

• “The ideal impetuosity of youthful movements aiming at emancipation is depicted by anti-democratic writers as a pious illusion, as the pursuit of a will-o'-wisp, arising from the need to make the particular good assume the aspect of the general good.”

  Political Parties; a Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy

• “From gloom where mocks that will-o'-wisp, Freewill,”

  Songs of a Sourdough

• “That he should care so, that he should have set his hopes on her, his star -- a will-o'-wisp of devious ways!”

  The Good Comrade

• “Followed stream down to very shoal bay of our big water, which like the will-o'-wisp has led us on.”

  Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador

• “He begins generally well, but long ere the close, quibbles, conceits, and the temptation of shewing off recondite learning, prove too strong for him, and he who commenced following a serene star, ends pursuing a will-o'-wisp into a bottomless morass.”

  Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete

• “For the rest, that the Manchester Insurrection could yet discern no radiance of Heaven on any side of its horizon; but feared that all lights, of the O'Connor or other sorts, hitherto kindled, were but deceptive fish-oil transparencies, or bog will-o'-wisp lights, and no dayspring from on high: for this also we will honour the poor Manchester Insurrection, and augur well of it.”

  Past and Present

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