"Spell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Bridget that she was not at home, and just as she was in the most absorbing part of one of George Eliot's absorbing novels, a caller was ushered in. "Mrs. Brown! that missionary woman again! Was ever anyone so persecuted before?" Here she had just come to a breathing spell, where she had hoped to take a little rest and comfort, and now she must be annoyed. To go, was out of the question. It was too hot; and besides, she did not in the least feel like going to a meeting of any ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... 'Madam, what have ends of stage-plays, and the idle talk of a lovesick girl about her lover's name and the names of flowers,—I say, what have these vanities to do with a glorious divine thing like the Christian's Day of Rest? And believe me, there is much in names, too much in names. What a spell to conjure with is the name of King! and the name of Priest may make wild work in our ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... But no sad spell my spirit binds As when, in days on which it broods, October hunted with the winds Along the reddening sunset woods. Alas, the seasons come and go, Brightly or dimly rise and set The days, but stir no fount of woe, Nor ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... some cherished grudge or wrong and is harboring it, nursing it, dwelling on it, rolling it as a sweet morsel under the tongue, and quite determined to enjoy a miserable time in selfish morbidness and grumbling, it costs us no little sacrifice to throw off the morbid spell, to refuse the suggestions of injury, neglect and the remembrance of unkindness, to rise out of the mood of self-commiseration in wholesome and holy determination, and say, "I will rejoice in the Lord"; I will "count ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... tread that broke the spell. The black rat knew that tread well enough. He knew every tread in the warehouse; but to the invaders it was unfamiliar. Before the footsteps had resounded twice, he was left alone; the host had vanished as quickly ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... meaningless and vacant tracts of time. To him who feels their inner secret, they tingle with an importance that unutterably vouches for itself. I am sorry for the boy or girl, or man or woman, who has never been touched by the spell of this mysterious sensorial life, with its irrationality, if so you like to call it, but its vigilance and its supreme felicity. The holidays of life are its most vitally significant portions, because they are, or at least should be, covered with just this kind ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... the old cheat went again to the lady, who, believing her to be sincere, gladly accepted the offer, and she went on to say: 'The reason of your being childless is that a spell has been laid upon your husband, which can only be removed by the means which I will indicate to you. You must go at night to a clump of trees in the park. I will come to you there, and will bring with me a man skilled in incantations. You ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... joy. The thought was, that she must not show Keith that she loved him, because while she knew—she felt sure—that He loved her, she must not be the smallest fraction of time before him in confession. She was too proud for that. He would tell her that he loved her; and the spell would be broken. Her shyness would be gone; her bravado immediately unnecessary. But until then she must beware. It was as necessary to Keith's pride as to her own that he should win her. The Keith she loved would not care for a love too easily won. The consciousness of this whole ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... burning tears, Wilt long for home, and for thy native hills, And that dear melody of tuneful herds, Which now, in proud disgust, thou dost despise! A day when thou wilt drink its tones in sadness, Hearing their music in a foreign land. Oh! potent is the spell that binds to home! No, no, the cold, false world is not for thee. At the proud court, with thy true heart thou wilt Forever feel a stranger among strangers. The world asks virtues of far other stamp Than thou hast learned within ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... two chums started off for a walk, their pace a brisk one, because the air after that recent spell of rain was quite cool and invigorating, Indeed, once Thad even deplored the fact that Mr. Leonard had thought it best to call off practice ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... Kosmaroff, touching himself on the breast and standing at his full height. No one spoke, as if the silent spell of History were again for a moment laid upon ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... names of old masters is perfectly wonderful," continued poppa placidly. "Or Salviati, or Jesurum, or what. But there's a kind of local spell about this place——" ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... the two might have stayed at their affairs, for here I grew wearied and, coughing discreetly, slid my foot on the flags. The man looked up, stopped his play at once; the spell was broken. The girl, I noticed, stirred not at all, but sat on as she was with her hair about her clasping her shoulders and flooding her with gold. But Master Peter was a little disconcerted, I am pretty sure; ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... in his cell, Sensing a chill along the stony crypt, Might labour yet more gorgeously to spell The final, splendid entries of his script,— So with bright rubrics has the Autumn writ A coloured chronicle of things that pass, Thumbing a yellow parchment that is lit With brief, ...
— Ships in Harbour • David Morton
... give rules for making bread than for anything else; it depends so much on judgment and experience. In summer, bread should be mixed with cold water; during a chilly, damp spell, the water should be slightly warm; in severe cold weather, it should be mixed quite warm, and set in a warm place during the night. If your yeast is new and lively, a small quantity will make the bread rise; if it be old and heavy, it will ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... no longer a stockman, but a soldier of the King, he turned his back on the station, a home of pleasant memories, and travelled slowly the long road to the camp. His mare had come straight from a long spell of grass, and it was late in the afternoon of the following day before he dismounted finally in his squadron lines. Here already, in the middle days of August, were several thousand splendid men—a battalion of infantry, a regiment of mounted rifles, ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... begged him to explain how it chanced that among that festive and animated company I had read of, he alone had resisted the wicked godmother's spell. ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... you find 'im, son?' 'Yes mam,' Marse John say, 'I foun' 'im, all right.' Ole Miss pat de back of his han', croonin' in dat soft voice of her'n: 'You'se a great comfo't, an' always so 'siderate of others!' At dat, I jest bust plumb out a-laughin', but turned it to sich a wicked-soundin' chokin' spell dat dey's 'bleeged to lean over an' beat mah back; an' while Marse John wuz a-puttin' on de licks, an' mighty nigh killin' me, he whisper: 'You black rascal, ef you don' behave I'll shoot you nex' Sunday!' Oh, dem wuz days what wuz ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... paid little attention. In truth, his mind seemed to be taken up with other thoughts, and his friend was not much surprised, having come, as we have seen, to the conclusion that the Indian was under a temporary spell for which woman ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... not know what to say. The proud little head, the arched eyebrows, the cheeks faintly touched with a healthy tan, the little waist, the slender but perfect figure, and the toe of a dainty shoe held me in an aphasic spell. But the laughing eyes brought me out of it, and I made one of the most brilliant ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... too," Charley answered, "and I do not think we can do better than start our search there, if it proves to be an island. We will be there in an hour at this rate. I wish I could spell you, Walt, but it don't seem right for you to be doing all ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... uttered, or the solemn silence that fell over all, as her hand, rigid and white as that of a ghost's, slowly rose and pointed with awful question at the pallid brow upturned before her. It seemed as if a spell had fallen, enchaining the roughest there from answering, for the truth was terrible, and we knew it; else why those dripping locks and heavily soaked garments oozing, not with the limpid waters of the stream we could ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... continued blowing for several days. The ship laboured very much, and soon all hands were called to the pumps. She had proved a fortunate ship to us, and it was a fortunate circumstance for her that she had fallen in with us; for all hands had to keep spell and spell at the pumps, and even so we were only just able to keep the leaks under. Had she not had us on board, she would very soon, I suspect, have been water-logged. At length the gale abated, but we notwithstanding, had to keep the pumps going night and day. By the time ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... Interrupting a spell of warm, fine weather the night had set in wet and stormy. The squalid streets through which Stuart and Gaston Max made their way looked more than normally deserted and uninviting. The wind moaned and the rain accompanied with ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... ready our letters for the post. I announced my intention of writing to Salemina, left behind in London with a sprained ankle, and determined that the missive should be saturated with local colour. None of us were able to spell the few Welsh words we had picked up in our journeyings, but I evaded the difficulties by writing an exciting little episode in which all the principal substantives were names of Welsh towns, dragged in bodily, and so used as to deceive the casual ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... their character of avenging deities, and as relics of ancient magic, reproduced so strangely at other times and places, reminding us of the permanence of certain odd ways of human thought. A woman binds with her spell the person who seduces her husband away from her and her children; another, the person who has accused her of preparing poison for her husband; another devotes one who has not restored a borrowed [144] garment, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... is to find such spools as form a name. As the spools are found, the children see if the letters on them spell ...
— Games for Everybody • May C. Hofmann
... He watched the blank door open, and her slender shadow stand out for a moment against the yellow gas-light of the hall. She did not look back. Perhaps she too was spell-bound. The door closed with an odd sound as though the house had clicked its tongue in ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... suddenly a strange thought came to me on my pillow. I thought that I was dead. This took such possession of me that it shut out every other thought, and being able to think only that one thought, I must have been dead. It seemed but a moment's time when the spell of the thought was broken by an alien deep voice from the void of nothing about me, calling me by name, calling me to wake and see the day. With that came floods of my own old thoughts, like molten streams from AEtna, ...
— The Flutter of the Goldleaf; and Other Plays • Olive Tilford Dargan and Frederick Peterson
... Italy. Its only rivals are the roads from Castellammare to Sorrento, from Genoa to Sestri, and from Nice to Mentone. Each of these has its own charm; and yet their similarity is sufficient to invite comparison: under the spell of each in turn, we are inclined to say, This then, at all events, is the most beautiful. On first quitting Vietri, Salerno is left low down upon the sea-shore, nestling into a little corner of the bay which ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... Grecian warrior bear for the protection of his fragile bark; or those which, in more modern times, the Lapland wizards sold to the deluded sailors—these, the unreal creations of fancy or of fraud, called at the command of science, from their shadowy existence, obey a holier spell: and the unruly masters of the poet and the seer become the obedient ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... except—a chap whose name it ain't polite to mention before ladies. As for that preacher, he put me in mind of a minister my father used to tell of. He'd been to a wedding, and when he come home he couldn't light his lamp. After trying a long spell he found out that the extinguisher was on it. I told the deacon that ministers down South had put an extinguisher on their lamp, and couldn't be expected to raise much of a light from it ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... and west, But two cannot go abreast, Cannot travel in it two: Yonder masterful cuckoo Crowds every egg out of the nest, Quick or dead, except its own; A spell is laid on sod and stone, Night and Day 've been tampered with, Every quality and pith Surcharged and sultry with a power That works its will ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... reckon I didn't mean that," confessed Blue Bonnet after a moment's reflection. "But I'm glad we've met Knight Judson. Alec has had too many girls around him here. He needs a spell of roughing it," and then, as she saw an odd look on her grandmother's face, she asked quickly: "Isn't ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... at him still, half in fear, half in wonder, yet she could not feel any doubt of the man's miraculous powers. Somehow, while he talked to her and rested those cold eyes upon her, she was under the spell of the great scientist. Her son, before the trouble into which he had been dragged by the professor, had often hinted at the abilities of Ramsey Burr, given her the idea that his employer was practically a necromancer, yet a magician whose advanced scientific knowledge was correct and explainable ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... held, all went well; when the king ceased to follow, the spell was broken,—the Maid was martyred. In this sense the poet conceives the coming of Arthur, a sign to be spoken against, a test of high purposes, a belief redeeming and ennobling till faith fails, and the ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... Though she already can discern Her scholar is not apt to learn; Or wants capacity to reach The science she designs to teach; Wherein his genius was below The skill of every common beau, Who, though he cannot spell, is wise Enough to read a lady's eyes, And will each accidental glance Interpret for a kind advance. But what success Vanessa met, Is to the world a secret yet. Whether the nymph, to please her swain, Talks in ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... the men pushed on with the freshest of the animals, leaving Stapylton and the remainder of the party to spell for a while, and bring the knocked-up beasts ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... brings us at length to Him whose Sermon on the Mount was the very charter of liberty. It puts us under a divine spell to perceive that we are all coworkers with the great men, and yet single threads in the warp and woof of civilization. And when books have related us to our own age, and related all the epochs to God, whose providence is the gulf ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... in rocks, but shallow, as Lolita said. No shallower than ordinary, however; he would see on the way back if they gave signs of failing. No wonder if they did, with this spell of drought—but why mix up a plain thing with a lot of nonsense about a black cross down a hole? Genesmere was critically struck with the words of the tune he now noticed steadily running in his head again, beneath the random surface of ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... directly to it. Yes, the bark here is rubbed a little, where he stood. They gathered in a half circle before him, as their footprints show very plainly, and they listened to him respectfully. He, being white, was recovering from the superstitious terror, but the Shawnees were still under its spell. After hearing him they continued their flight. Here goes their trail, all in a bunch, straight ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... organ pealed forth, and voices caught up the murmuring words and lifted them and her with them to the great arched ceiling. As long as the music lasted, she sat spell-bound, but when the bishop began to read again, this time from a book resting on the out-stretched wings of a big brass bird, her attention wandered to the great stained glass window above the altar. The reverse ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... Irishman one day remarked, 'vvid nothing at all at all but looking-glass, my dear '—one of the most superb things of the kind that perhaps ever was seen—But come, I perceive it is getting late, let us proceed directly to Dolly's, take our chop, then a rattler,{1} and hey for the Spell."{2} ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... did not fail of flattery. Again the order to drive on remained unspoken. This speaker, whose foot was now close to the carriage step, and whose head, gravely bowed as he saluted the occupants of the vehicle, presented so striking a type of manly attractiveness, even that first moment cast some spell upon the woman whom he sought to interest. The eyes of the Lady Catharine Knollys did not turn from him. As though it were another person, she heard herself murmur, "And ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... exerts a magnetic spell. The sky is there above it, but not of it. Its being is apart; its climate; its light; its own. The beams of the sun come into it like visitors. Its own winds blow through it, not those of outside, where we live. The River streams down its mysterious ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... French heels obtain. Two ingenious young Kogmollyc belles had placed applique pockets mid-leg on their lower garments. When the walrus was passed round and conversation became general, the boots were slipped off quietly and one foot at a time was thrust for a resting spell into the pocket provided on the opposite trouser-leg. This act of easement was done deftly, and the neat action of instep boot-jack never lost its fascination ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... he knows nothing at all about the deaf and dumb alphabet, and could not spell out a single ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... perfectly frank, quite a few, were awkward and stepped on the toes of her dainty little white pumps until they were very nearly black, but she was so happy as to be absolutely oblivious of such trifles, while the awkward youths fell entirely under the spell of her sparkling, fun-filled eyes and the merry, bubbling laugh that seemed to overflow from ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... which our feet are set, Shall we find aught to make our hearts forget Earth's homely joys and her bright hours of bliss? Has heaven a spell divine enough for this? For who the pleasure of the spring shall tell When on the leafless stalk the brown buds swell, When the grass brightens and the days grow long, And little birds break out ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... me something to make me sleep. I tell you I'm nearly mad. I don't know what I say half my time. For three weeks I've had to think and spell out every word that has come through my lips before I dared say it. Isn't that enough to drive a man mad? I can't see things correctly now, and I've lost my sense of touch. My skin aches—my skin aches! Make me sleep. Oh, ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... they may see the change that has been worked upon earth's face. "A' the hills are covered wi' snaw," they sing, "and Winter's noo come fairly!" And the children, marveling at the silence and the white landscape, find a spell appropriate to the season in the words. The reverberation of the snow increases the pale daylight, and brings all objects nearer the eye. The Pentlands are smooth and glittering, with here and there the black ribbon ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I don't say that you have not the virtues—all of them, offensive and defensive, but the attractivenesses make life, don't they? And to be a health-giver is not merely to have charm. That is the spell- casting power, to be filled with witchery, to be a witch. Yes, I believe it is something like that—very much in fact, but the witchery must be balsamic, it must be radiant, it must go out in rays or circles or waves, because ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... the spell of that bloodstained black body all mixed up with grey-black mud. I was going back to baths and decent food and aeronautics and Beatrice. I was going back to Beatrice and my real life again—out of this well into which I had fallen. It would have needed something more than ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... half each day we spent with a priest, whom we were taught to call Father Darity (I do not know as I spell this and other names correctly, but I give it to the reader as it sounded to my ear). He appeared to take great pleasure in learning us to repeat the prayers and catechism required by Priest Dow. He also gave us a variety of instructions ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... Ermentrude caught herself drifting away from the moment's hazy charm to thoughts of her poet. It annoyed her, she sharply reminded herself, that she could not absolutely saturate herself with the music and the manifold souvenirs of the old hotel; perhaps this may have been the spell ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... madd'ning grace must have A soul, a consciousness of love and life Though tombed in pallor, with no epitaph But silence! What mighty spell with power rife Can wake thee into Being's passion strife? Yet if there be such, let it rest unsought; For every boon thou couldst from breath derive I would not wrest from thee that higher lot, The need of deathlessness, thou pale, ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... to take the lead. The art most characteristic of modern times, the one which most widely and poignantly appeals to us, is music. But in music we are not distinctly conscious of a meaning. Most of us in listening to music forget ourselves under its lulling charms, abandon ourselves to its spell, and by it are swept away, perhaps to the infinite, perhaps to an obliteration of all clear thought. Is it not largely because we are so hard pressed under the anxious conditions of modern life that music becomes such an enormous solace and strength? I do not say that no other factors have contributed ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... mourner? Rouse thee from thy spell; Art thou a sinner? Sins may be forgiven; Each morning gives thee wings to flee from hell, Each night a star to guide thy feet ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... cached my valise at the station and I wallered out there through the dust—it was June and a dry spell and hot. Judas priest! I thought I'd sweat my wad into pulp before I got there—me just down from the high country! On the way I got to wonderin' about Nancy. 'Is ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... lifting powder smoke, stood that little band of thirty men, a blaze of gay colours, a sheen of silken hose, their wigs curled and powdered, their costly ruffles scintillant with jewels; calm, and supercilious, mocking to a man. There was a momentary gasp of awe, and then the spell was broken by the aristocrats themselves. A pistol spoke, and a volley followed. In the hall some stumbled forward, some hurtled backward, and some sank down in nerveless heaps. But those that remained ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... soldiers of fortune, and friars. There will always remain a certain truth and propriety, a certain grace and charm in those costumes and that deportment, as also in the freedom of jest which characterises even the most modest of Shakespeare's heroines; and under the influence of their spell we shall feel that all has not been gain in the change that has gradually been operated. No doubt virtue is a victory over nature, and chastity a refinement; but among conquerors some are easy and good-natured, ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... the pretended art of forecasting events by the aspect of the stars, which was most elaborately and ingeniously developed, until the fame of the Chaldaean astrologers was spread throughout the ancient world, while the spell of that art held in thraldom the ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... standing in the middle of the road, front centre. Her face shows white and clear in the bright moonlight as she stares with anxious expectancy up the road to the left. Her body is fixed in an attitude of rigid immobility as if she were afraid the slightest movement would break the spell of silence and awaken the unknown. She has shrunk instinctively as far away as she can from the mysterious darkness which rises at the roadsides like an imprisoning wall. A sound of hurried footfalls, muffled by the dust, comes from the road she is watching. She gives a startled ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... mountains. 'Tis the voice Of infant FREEDOM,—and her stirring call Is heard and answered in a thousand tones (<) From every hill-top of her western home; And lo! it breaks across old Ocean's flood,— (oo) And "FREEDOM! FREEDOM!" is the answering shout Of nations, starting from the spell of ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... occasional awful form of hard cake which the woman cooked, and which was impossible to eat unless first soaked in something. In the long hours of waiting between selling the newspapers I learned to spell, and then to read, very slowly at first, but still I learned. Then one of the men employed at the newspaper office I collected papers from, although I should imagine a very poor man himself, found a few pence every ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... to music by John Farmer) began soon after I entered the school, and E. W. Howson's really touching and melodious verses succeeded Bowens' some ten years after I had left. Other song-writers, of greater or less merit, we have had; but from first to last, the thrilling spell of a Harrow concert has been an experience quite apart from all other musical enjoyments. "The singing is the thing. When you hear the great body of fresh voices leap up like a lark from the ground, and rise and swell and ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." The officers listen as the wonderful words fall from his lips, and they, too, become interested; their attention is enchained; they come under the same spell which holds all the multitude. They linger till his discourse is ended; and then, instead of arresting him, they go back without him, only giving to the judges as reason for not obeying, "Never man spake like ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... and louder, working up gradually but surely into a breathless crescendo that meant the end of the dance. It whirled them dizzily about. The sleepy spell of the dance broke in this final crash of noise, and as it broke a ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... the farmhouse peeping from among beehives and appleblossoms, the manorial hall embosomed in elms, would be given up to a soldiery which knew not what it was to pity old men or delicate women or sticking children. The words, "The French are coming," like a spell, quelled at once all murmur about taxes and abuses, about William's ungracious manners and Portland's lucrative places, and raised a spirit as high and unconquerable as had pervaded, a hundred years before, the ranks which Elizabeth reviewed at Tilbury. Had the army ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... descended the mountains at any points in the semicircle from Genoa to Mont Cenis. There has seldom been a case where the necessity and the advantages of a particular line of strategy have been so obvious; yet after crossing the Ticino the Austrians, above a hundred thousand strong, stood as if spell-bound under their incompetent chief, Giulay. Meanwhile French detachments crossed Mont Cenis; others, more numerous, landed with the Emperor at Genoa, and established communications with the Piedmontese, ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... flew up as he clutched the charms strung about his neck. I imitated the gesture mechanically, watching Kyral, wondering if he would turn and run again. But he stood frozen for a minute. Then the spell broke and he took one step toward the girl, ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... the rest of that curse dropped with raw pigment, like a painting of Sorolla. Prisms of English flashed with terrible attraction. It was a Homeric curse of all nations. Parts of it were dainty, too, as a butterfly dip. Cairns was hot and courageous under the spell. The whole train of mules huddled and fell to trembling. A three-legged pariah-dog sniffed, took on a sudden obsession, and went howling heinously dawn the gorge. Healy rolled a cigarette with his free hand, and the old gray ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... done for; and he knew it. He rose to his knees steadying himself on his Service axe. Then, it came again, the silver strip of mountain on the sky line with the cool lakes and the blue haze, and her face, the face in the Watts' picture of "the Happy Warrior," weaving the spell, receding from him, drawing him with the love light in her eyes and the passion kiss on her lips, beckoning, beckoning; he would rise and follow her from the dead if she beckoned with that light in her eyes. She was receding not along the trail of the fleeing Desert runners, but down the dragged ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... thoroughly tired, and more nervous than she had any idea she could be, leaned luxuriously back in her mother's chair, with a delicious sense of unresponsibility about her, and watched a magic spell come over the room. Down came the shades in a twinkling, and the low red sun looked in on them no more; the table-cloth straightened itself; pickles and cheese and cake got out of their confused proximity, and marched each to ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... tell God's revelations in this mighty Word, Nor how the mystery of life they spell, With which ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... themselves upon the ground in their path and obstructed them in a thousand different ways. Huge snakes, whose mouths distilled blood and black venom, kept clinging around their legs in the roughest part of the road, till they were persuaded to loose their hold either by the sword or by reciting a spell. In fact, there were so many horrors and such a tumult and noise that even a brave man would have faltered, yet the ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... frantic Tumults cease, Ambition, Sire of War! Nor o'er the mangled Corse of Peace Urge on thy scythd Car. And oh! that Reason's voice might swell 35 With whisper'd Airs and holy Spell To rouse thy gentler Sense, As bending o'er the chilly bloom The Morning wakes its soft Perfume ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... that would destroy the magic spell of the Liquid of Petrifaction and restore my wife and Unc Nunkie to life," said he. "It may be hard to find the things I need to make this magic compound, but if they were found I could do in an instant what will otherwise take six long, weary ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... wandered in the perpetual summerland of Jamaica; camped with him and the Strenuous One in the Yellowstone; looked in awe and wonder at that "Divine Abyss," the Grand Canon of the Colorado; felt the "Spell of Yosemite," and idled with him under the sun-steeped skies of Hawaii and by ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... opened the house last week; she's been shet up quite a spell but they're goin' t' open the mill ag'in. Jest now there ain't a soul in town. Those houses and the store are boarded up tight. The railroad agent stays here to run the water tank and sleeps in the station. Yep; ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... replied, "and there's an end. To turn to something that may spell business. Just before I got up this morning I saw a ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... step towards the enlargement of the great past, of one's little present, by criticism, by imagination. Then, the imprisoned souls of nature would speak as of old. The Middle Age, in Germany, where the past has had such generous reprisals, never far from us, would reassert its mystic spell, for the better understanding of our Raffaelle. The spirits of distant Hellas would reawake in the men and women of little German towns. Distant times, the most alien thoughts, would come near together, as elements in a great historic symphony. ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... that instinctively, only we cannot do it. Something holds us here. You will never persuade Denzil to go, and I—I cannot persuade myself to go. There is a clinging sweetness in the air for me; and there are vague suggestions, memories, dreams, histories—wonderful things which hold me spell-bound! I wish I could analyze them, recognize them, or understand them. But I cannot, and there, perhaps, is their secret charm. Only one thing grieves me, and that is, that I have, perhaps, unwittingly, in some thoughtless way, given you ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... Mrs. Behn probably meant to spell this word 'Quiyoughcto', the sound being identical. There is in Virginia a river which in the seventeenth century was called the 'Quiyough'. The inhabitants of the banks of this river had mysterious or supernatural properties ascribed to them. In the Voyages & Discoveries of Capt. John Smith (1606), ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... was, perhaps, so named in remembrance of the time when its owner had "sat down by the wayside like a man under enchantment." It characterized well, too, his mental attitude in maturity; though the spell that held him now was charged with happiness. The house itself was small, but the proprietor might have carved on his lintel the legend over Ariosto's door, Parva, sed apta mihi. In October, 1852, he wrote to Bridge that he intended to begin a new romance within ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... family in Scotland, the Sheplaws of Canfire, which she knew, as did the governor also, was a more ancient family than their own. Yet her kindness that day worked me no good, and I went far to make it worse, since, under the spell of her gentleness, I looked at her far from distantly, and at the last, as she was getting from the boat, returned the pressure of her hand with much interest. I suppose something of the pride of that moment leaped up in my eye, for I saw the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... filled the sail of the Phaeakian ship in which Odysseus lay asleep as in the dreamless slumber of the dead. The wild music of the waves rose on the air as the bark sped on its glistening pathway, but their murmur reached not the ear of the wanderer, for the spell of Athene was upon him, and all his cares and griefs were for ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... spoken, Mina's long spell of silence made me look at her. She had fallen back on her pillow asleep. She did not even wake when I had pulled up the blind and let in the sunlight which flooded the room. Van Helsing motioned to me ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... down his neck very steep; if he were to lift up his head, one sees that it would be carried far above all other peaks, and that the noble beast might gaze straight to his peers in the Adirondacks or the White Mountains. But the lowered head never comes up; some spell or enchantment keeps it down there amid the mighty herd; and the high round shoulders and the smooth strong back of the steed are alone visible. The peak to which I refer is Slide Mountain, the highest ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... sailing for a few minutes. The flinty excrescences were as numerous as ever, and he never paused in his ascent until prudence whispered that it was wise to take another breathing spell. It was a source of infinite comfort to feel that when he thus checked himself he was not compelled to do so for ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... arranged for twenty-four hours, so food must be provided. People will get hungry." This was how people reasoned in the town. I must admit that Yulia Mihailovna did much to confirm this disastrous rumour by her own heedlessness. A month earlier, under the first spell of the great project, she would babble about it to anyone she met; and even sent a paragraph to one of the Petersburg papers about the toasts and speeches arranged for her fete. What fascinated her most at that time was the idea of these toasts; she wanted to propose ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... think, be possible for English people to over-estimate the value of the gift God gave them in KING AELFRED. That is really the right way to spell his name, but as to most people it looks unfamiliar, we will adopt the more usual spelling and write of him ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... true.' I didn't expect he would, so was not surprised when no answer came. But I WAS rather amazed when Almiry told me she didn't care to keep on with the store now she was free. She wanted to visit her friends a spell this spring, and in the fall would go back to her trade in ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... illusion. Try to say things like Newman or Ruskin—big, beautiful, profound, delicate things, with an almost childlike naivete. That is the most exquisite kind of charm, when you find that half-a-dozen of the simplest words in the language have expressed a thought which holds you spell-bound with its truth and loveliness. That is what lasts. People want to be fed, not to be drugged: That, I believe, is the real difference between romance and realism, and I am one of those who gratefully ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... transparence, a closed system of concepts subordinated to and coordinated with each other. Science, understood as the system of concepts, will be more real than the sensible reality. It will be prior to human knowledge, which is only able to spell it letter by letter; prior also to things, which awkwardly try to imitate it. It would only have to be diverted an instant from itself in order to step out of its eternity and thereby coincide with all this knowledge and all these things. Its immutability is therefore, indeed, the ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... without thought, reflection, or judgment. One has not taught spelling efficiently until spelling is automatic, until the correct form flows from the pen without the intervention of mind. The real test of the pupil's training in spelling is his ability to spell the word correctly when he is thinking, not about spelling, but about the content of the sentence that he is writing. Consequently the test of efficiency in spelling is not an examination in spelling, although this may be valuable as a means ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... these convictions shall be sifted unsparingly and to the uttermost; and who think it a venture not unworthy of a Christian, to descend even to the depths to go through the thoughts of doubters, if so be that he may find the spell that shall calm them. We do not say that this book is the production of such a state of mind; we only think that it may be. One thing is clear, wherever the writer's present lot is cast, he has that in him which not only enables him, but forces him, to sympathise ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... know the state of the air here during the late cold spell, or rather the present one, for it is at this moment so cold that the ink freezes in my pen, so that my letter will ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... and repeated feature of all these Imrama is a belief in Atlantic islands fair enough or wonderful enough to tempt the shore dwellers of Ireland far away and hold them spell-bound for years. It is easy to ascribe these pictures to sunset on the ocean, or the wonders of mirage; but all the time, within long sailing distance, there actually were islands of delightful climate and exceeding beauty. These had been occasionally reached from the Mediterranean ever since early ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... intermittently—when under the necessity of working passage from port to port for other purposes. Escaping from a colonisation forced upon them, and quite uncongenial, they had thus made their way into California; and, after a run up the Sacramento, and a spell at gold-seeking, with but indifferent success, had returned to San Francisco; in the Queen City of the Pacific—finding ways of life they liked better than the hard labour of pick, pan, and cradle. Loitering ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... her face alight with anger and her eyes flashing with excitement, and so great was the power of her eloquence and beauty that it seemed to throw a spell of silence over the hearts of her fierce and turbulent audience, while Soa slunk back into the shadow ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... junction points. Sleepless, I think of my coming voyage, of the long months—years, perhaps—that will come and go ere next I lie awake hearkening to the night voices of my native city. My days of holiday—an all too brief spell of comfort and shore living—are over; another peal or more of the familiar bells and my emissary of the fates—a Gorbals cabman, belike—will be at the door, ready to set me rattling over the granite setts on the direct road that leads ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... Dorothy," he replied with fervor, "unless you wished it; but if you did, do you know I believe it would not be in your power to reverse the bewildering spell you have wrought, and make me hate you, for never before have I felt anything approaching this strange sudden infatuation. But do not keep me in suspense; tell me, I pray, what is this mystery in your life which you think would ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... sighed Sahwah luxuriously, leaning back in the cushioned rocking chair. "Can't you stay a spell, girls, and rest up?" said their ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... supposing that, if he had been such a man, he would have felt and acted as he does in the play. But he was newly married; in the circumstances he cannot have known much of Desdemona before his marriage; and further he was conscious of being under the spell of a feeling which can give glory to the truth but can also give ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... was a most subdued little sound of embarrassment, and her only answer. And partly the spell of that wonderful music, and partly her quaint worship of the man standing beside her, made her wish to get away from the crowd and their chattering talk of nothings ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... the spellin's as good as the readin'll be," he retorted, with evident irritation. "I bet I spell as well as any o' the folks thet takes ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... control of this language than the command of the phrase that perfectly expresses the thought. Every speaker's aim is to be heard and understood. A clear, crisp articulation holds an audience as by the spell of some irresistible power. The choice word, the correct phrase, are instruments that may reach the heart, and awake the soul if they fall upon the ear in melodious cadence; but if the utterance be harsh and discordant they fail to interest, fall upon deaf ears, ...
— Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases • Grenville Kleiser
... beating off of their infantry attack the Germans gave us a short breathing spell until their machine guns had been trained on our parapet and a school of light field guns dragged up into place. The aeroplane came out again, dropping to within three hundred feet of our trench, and with tiny jets of vari-colored smoke bombs, directed the ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... snivelling too! that my pulse was small, my nose had been profusely bleeding, and the blood had drenched me to the very boot tops, and I felt altogether as exhausted as one does who has had a month's spell of ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... fate, and squandering such booty as fell to his share, he bravely 'turned out' for more. Tottenham Court Fair was the theatre of his childish exploits, and there he gained some little skill in the picking of pockets. But a spell of bad trade brought him to poverty, and he attempted to replenish an empty pocket by the childish ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... seems as if someone ought to be aboard." He broke away from the spell: "I wish they had left us ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... silence that lay upon the waters. In the Casa del Mare the atmosphere was almost suffocating, although every window was wide open. The servants went about their duties leaden-footed, drooping, their Latin vivacity quenched as by a spell. Vere was mute. It seemed, since the episode of the Carmine, as if her normal spirit had been withdrawn, as if a dumb, evasive personality replaced it. The impression made upon Hermione was that the real Vere had sunk far down in her child, out of sight and hearing, out of reach, ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... backyard. Julia and Jim sat on the steps that ran down from the kitchen porch. It was a soft, hazy afternoon, with filmy streaks of white crossing the pale blue sky, and sunshine, thin and golden, lying like a spell over Julia's garden. ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... demanded it. He was often to be seen now in the park, the centre of an admiring and appreciative group, to whom he related thrilling adventures which were his own experience as a sailor and a surfman, holding his audience spell-bound, not only by their interest in the subject, but also by his quaint and ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... recalled that Clever Hans knew figures and letters, colors and tones, the calendar and the dial, that he could count and read, deal with decimals and fractions, spell out answers to questions with his right hoof, and recognize people from having seen their photographs. In every case his 'replies' were given in the form of scrapings with ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... voice rose and fell with wonderful expression, while the music served to accentuate every word that she uttered. Her audience sat practically spell bound, and when she uttered poor Enoch's death cry, "A sail! A sail! I am saved!" there were many wet eyes throughout the assemblage. She paused for a second before delivering the three concluding lines, and Eleanor ended on the piano ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... be a strong man whom the sudden stare of Penury does not daunt and, in some measure, debase. Tarrant, whatever the possibilities of his nature, had fallen under a spell of indolent security, which declared its power only when he came face to face with the demand for vigorous action. The moment found him a sheer poltroon. 'What! Is it possible that I—I—am henceforth penniless? I, to whom the gods were so gracious? I, without warning, ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... went to Bayreuth I had always believed that some magic spell rested upon the Franconian hills like a musical benison; some mystery of art, atmosphere, and individuality evoked by the place, the tradition, the people. How sadly I was disappointed I propose to tell you, prefacing all by remarking that in Philadelphia, dear old, dusty Philadelphia, ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... differently; the learned professors of that day crucified the demonstrator of this truth. It was Jesus Christ, and His students were called His disciples; later when they went forth to preach the Gospel, 'good spell,' (or truth), and heal the sick, they were called apostles. The rediscoverer of this Truth at the present time is Mary Baker G. Eddy, and her students are called Christian Scientists; and later, when ...
— The Pastor's Son • William W. Walter
... listened in silence to the recital, was the first to break the spell. She rose, fluffed up her hair, straightened her blouse, and ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... their story, and could appreciate their feelings, while not a word was spoken, to break the spell of so joyous a meeting, the joy of such ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... such a spell. One morning sounded out a bell; With tears I saw her brown eyes swim And knew that it was calling him. Time, the harsh master of us all, Was bidding him to heed his call; This shadow fell across life's pool— Our boy was ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest
... And that was why he wanted me here, this was his way of telling me the story of his business life—before I saw what lay at the end. And as in our work that story unfolded, though at times it cast its spell on me hard, revealing what a man he had been, there were other times when from somewhere deep inside of me a ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... conversable, on the best possible terms with themselves and mankind generally; the treacherous ship, meanwhile, undulating and heaving in the most graceful rises and pauses imaginable, like some voluptuous waltzer; and then to see one after another yielding to the mysterious spell! ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... listened in utmost silence, and with eyes that never for an instant left the speaker's face! When the spell was broken he drew a long sigh, and this was his ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... spell of grieving came a ray of hope. Perhaps Diego de Arana and his other friends were not all dead; perhaps the treacherous natives had merely driven them off. He had told Diego to keep the gold they gathered hidden in a ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... is like sorrow, or rather that is like me. Does it not always seem to mourn, and to mourn alone, but the moment that another star arises then the spell is broken, and it seems no more to mourn in ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... is a very remarkable book. We are painfully alive to the moral, religious, and literary deficiencies of the picture, and such passages of beauty and power as we have quoted cannot redeem it, but it is impossible not to be spell-bound with the freedom of the touch. It would be mere hackneyed courtesy to call it "fine writing." It bears no impress of being written at all, but is poured out rather in the heat and hurry of an instinct, which flows ungovernably on to its object, indifferent ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson |
