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English citations of would
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1843 1861
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- Would – Used to indicate a wish or desire:
- (Might wish; often used in the sense of “if only”)
- 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, book 3
- ch. II, Gospel of Mammonism
- Consider, for example, that great Hat seven-feet high, which now perambulates London Streets; which my Friend Sauerteig regarded justly as one of our English notabilities; “the topmost point as yet,” said he, “would it were your culminating and returning point, to which English Puffery has been observed to reach!”
- ch. VII, Over-Production
- To the idler, again, never so gracefully going idle, coming forward with never so many parchments, you will not hasten out; you will sit still, and be disinclined to rise. You will say to him: “Not welcome, O complex Anomaly; would thou hadst staid out of doors: for who of mortals knows what to do with thee? ”
- (call to a deity or other higher power, followed by to)
- 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present
- Would to Heaven, for the sake of Conservatism itself, the noble alone were left, and the ignoble, by some kind severe hand, were ruthlessly lopped away ; book 1, ch. 2, "The Sphinx"
- Would to Heaven that we had a sieve; that we could so much as fancy any kind of sieve, wind-fanners, or ne-plus-ultra of machinery, devisable by man, that would do it! ; book 1, ch. 5, "Aristocracy of Talent"
- 1861, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Early Italian Poets, Albertuccio della Viola, Canzone. Of his Lady dancing.
- Oh! would to God that I had never seen
- Her face, nor had beheld her dancing so!