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Attraction   /ətrˈækʃən/   Listen
Attraction

noun
1.
The force by which one object attracts another.  Synonym: attractive force.
2.
An entertainment that is offered to the public.
3.
The quality of arousing interest; being attractive or something that attracts.  Synonym: attractiveness.
4.
A characteristic that provides pleasure and attracts.  Synonyms: attracter, attractive feature, attractor, magnet.
5.
An entertainer who attracts large audiences.  Synonyms: attracter, attractor, draw, drawing card.



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"Attraction" Quotes from Famous Books



... The chief object of attraction was a small boy, who had attained considerable proficiency in musical knowledge, not of any particular instrument, but anything and everything; consequently a large assortment of instruments had been collected, upon which he played. As music had called ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... canvas, and, giving it to Mr. Popham, stood by the fireside while he deftly fitted it into the place prepared for it. The family had feared that he would tell a good story when he found himself the centre of attraction, but he was as dumb as Peter, and ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... Koenigsberg, in Prussia, on 22nd April, 1724, of humble parentage. He was apparently destined for the Church, since his first efforts were directed towards the study of theology in the university of his native town. But natural science and philosophy proved of far more powerful attraction, and, abandoning Divinity, he earned his livelihood, first of all, by acting as a private tutor in the neighbourhood of Koenigsberg, and afterwards by assuming a similar office in his own university. He subsequently, at the ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan

... the Vice, with numberless virtues, is Mr. JUSTIN MCCARTHY, M.P., whom if it be JUSTIN Pater (not JUSTIN MARTYR), we should like to have seen in spectacles in the Tavern Scene, as Francis the Drawer,—a drawer would have been an immense attraction. If JUSTIN Junior could play the other Drawer, the attraction would be doubled. "Sure such a pair!" But we must not jest in too Shakspearian a manner. We hope the Actors' Benevolent will benefit largely by the acting of the Benevolent Amateurs. Let the Benevolent Public too go and see Henry ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 22, 1890 • Various

... heard that young men do say things which mean nothing. But to her, living in the solitude of Gangoil, the one word had been so much! Her heart had melted with absolute acknowledged love when the man had been brought through into the house with all the added attraction of a broken bone. While her sister had watched, she had retired—to rest, as Mary had said, but in truth to think of the chance which had brought her in this guise into familiar contact with the man she loved. And then, when she had crept ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope

... time, in a far-off fashionable toy-shop, his price had been prohibitive; and he, the central attraction behind the gleaming shop-window, had plumed himself on his expensiveness. He had been in no hurry to be bought. It had seemed to him a good thing to stand there motionless, majestic, day after day, far beyond ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm

... sympathetic reader it was evident from the first that Mr. Moore was not greatly enamoured of his work for its own sake, and that he chose his themes, not because of any imperative attraction they had for him, but simply and purely for the use to which he could put them. His choice of subject has always been the result of a deliberate search for the effective. The mental process which gave rise to ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray

... luck would change shortly, but I held on. And now the others surrounded me in a small crowd and began to stake on the numbers I chose. Put the clasp where I would the needle stopped in front of it. They brought a magnet to see if this curious piece of metal had any power of attraction, but our hostess only laughed and assured them at any rate there was no steel in the pointer, as (she added) some of them ought to know by this time. When eight times I had put the buckle down and eight times had found a fresh heap of ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... flattered as well as pleased. He had always noticed, of course, the very particular attraction and beauty and the early cleverness of his son, but he had not guessed that the little beggar had so impressed that ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton

... to follow the bent of his mind, when fancy seized him. They must make allowances—he had no doubt, in time, everything would turn out well—yes, Verty would be an honorable member of society, and see the graces and attraction of the noble profession which he had elected ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke

... said to be a surprise to Little Bel; for she had not been woman, had she failed to recognize on the previous day that the rugged Scotchman's whole nature had gone out toward her in a sudden and overmastering attraction. ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson

... name of Afghan in the Western market. Well-toned shades of red, blue, tan, ivory, and an occasional green are the usual colors. Sometimes a Khiva has a long panel centre, with a prayer niche. In many fine specimens the lustre is an added attraction. ...
— Rugs: Oriental and Occidental, Antique & Modern - A Handbook for Ready Reference • Rosa Belle Holt

... there was nothing for it under these circumstances but to comply, and so the colored military were disbanded. They were succeeded by a company of white volunteers, who wore white blanket uniforms trimmed with blue. They used to drill on Church Hill in the evenings, and were a great attraction. This was the beginning of the volunteer rifle movement, which was eventually merged into the Canadian militia. I was one of the ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett

... for the first time he began to feel jealous, really jealous, of Don Carlos de Ruiz. Myra danced three times with the Spaniard, and "sat out" two more with him in the conservatory, flagrantly flirting with him, exercising all her powers of attraction and fascination, continually tempting Don Carlos to break ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage

... among its writers to distinguish between fact and fable, have hitherto failed to speak a reasonable word. Of the attempt in our own day to revive an interest in them we shall say little in this place. They have no form or beauty to give them attraction in themselves; and for their human interest, the broad atmosphere of the world suited ill with these delicate plants which had grown up under the shadow of the convent wall; they were exotics, not from another climate, but from another age; the breath of scorn fell on them, and having no root in ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... theory be true, may not the antecedent type of that strange force which in the material world we call electricity be a spiritual magnetism. As yet, we know extremely little of the laws of electricity, and we know nothing of those laws of spiritual attraction and repulsion which are perhaps the cause of electricity. There may be subtile and as yet unexplained causes, connected with the state of the nervous system, the state of the mind, the accord of two souls under peculiar circumstances, etc., which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various

... fellowship in his college been attainable, it would not have had much attraction for Milton. A fellowship implied two things, residence in college, with teaching, and orders in the church. With neither of these two conditions was Milton prepared to comply. In 1632, when he proceeded to his M.A. degree, Milton was twenty-four, ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison

... for a lost woman, that he heard on one occasion among the boys at school, opened to him a vista of incredible wickedness, but now after the first moment of revolt the thing began to seem less horrible. There was even a certain attraction about it. Vandover soon became filled with an overwhelming curiosity, the eager evil curiosity of the schoolboy, the perverse craving for the knowledge of vice. He listened with all his ears to everything that was said and went about through the great city with eyes open only to ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris

... village is a great event. There is but one other attraction that approaches it in importance, and that is the ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey

... elasticity; gravity, electricity, magnetism, galvanism, voltaic electricity, voltaism, electromagnetism; atomic power, nuclear power, thermonuclear power; fuel cell; hydraulic power, water power, hydroelectric power; solar power, solar energy, solar panels; tidal power; wind power; attraction; vis inertiae[Lat], vis mortua[Lat], vis viva [Latin]; potential energy, dynamic energy; dynamic friction, dynamic suction; live circuit, live rail, live wire. capability, capacity; quid valeant humeri quid ferre recusent ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... individual as myself had gone in there. Being answered in the negative, he had no further curiosity, not even looking into the interior, but turned away to pursue his search! so that Mr. C. left York, without beholding, or wishing to behold, the chief attraction of the city, or being at all conscious that he had committed by his neglect, high treason against all architectural beauty! This deficiency in his regard for edifices, while he was feverishly alive to all the operations of mind, and to all intellectual inquiries, formed a striking and singular ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... when he was in his normal state this was considerable. Also it served to prevent him from breaking out. But when he did break out, Bess Catton alone could deal with him. Naturally it would be thought that there was some mutual attraction between these young people. Yet this was not so, at any rate on the part of the girl, who had been overheard to tell Anthony to his face that she hated the sight of him and "would cut him to ribbons" if ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard

... our eyesight on that journey! The appeal to the eye was constant—the color and form of scenes unfamiliar offering views of compelling attraction and delight. Each unadorned car window and door became the frame of pictures not a Millet nor a ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy

... live with the noble, dignified, high-bred, self-respecting Spaniard; let all share in their easy, courteous society; let all admire their dark-eyed women, so frank and natural, to whom the voice of all ages and nations has conceded the palm of attraction, to whom Venus has bequeathed her magic girdle of grace and fascination; let all—sed ohe! jam satis—enough for starting on this expedition, where, as Don Quixote said, there are opportunities for what are called adventures ...
— A Supplementary Chapter to the Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... the air. Bobby was greatly puzzled at the nuthatch, watched her hammerings from the top of the cage, walked round it, surveying the provisions inside, and at last he made up his mind to get in somehow and partake of the longed-for dainties. I could see quite plainly the attraction, the hesitation, the pros and cons, and then, finally, the resolve, and felt very curious as to how the birdish mind would carry out its intention. There was only one place, where the bars were rather widely apart, so that the nuthatch could have got out if she had possessed ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen

... unweakened by purism, as Daniel. Whatever unfavourable things have been said of him from time to time have been chiefly based on the fact that his chaste and correct style lacks the fiery quaintness, the irregular and audacious attraction of his contemporaries. Nor was he less a master of versification than of vocabulary. His Defence of Rhyme shows that he possessed the theory: all his poetical works show that he was a master of the practice. He rarely attempted and probably would not have excelled in the lighter lyrical ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... The great attraction now of all Is the 'Bazaar' at Faneuil Hall, Where swarm the anti-slavery folks As thick, dear Miller, as your jokes. 10 There's GARRISON, his features very Benign for an incendiary, Beaming forth sunshine ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... Even orders for Queen Victoria and many of the English nobility were then in hand; at least I so heard at Manila. Those who are actually present have, notwithstanding, the privilege of selecting what they wish to purchase; for, with the inhabitants here, as elsewhere, ready money has too much attraction for them ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... you are going to rob us of our one attraction," and having bowed to the lord he turned round and ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope

... the house possessed much attraction for those whose taste savoured of the antique. No time-worn turrets were there, or angular gables, or crooked eaves, or mullioned Gothic casements, so chary of glass that modern eyes can scarcely see in or out; neither was the edifice constructed of gray stone, or of bricks gone black ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... the sciences which have puzzled the sons of men, none had such an attraction for the learned Professor von Baumgarten as those which relate to psychology and the ill-defined relations between mind and matter. A celebrated anatomist, a profound chemist, and one of the first physiologists in Europe, it was a relief for ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... woman (that is, if you call the middle thirties young), with an intelligent, homely face, which probably got the attraction some people surprisingly found in it from the fact that she thought nothing about its looks one way or the other. It was rather red when Betty came in, and she was making it rapidly redder with the vigorous ministrations of a ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.

... could give to this sketch anything of what it ought to represent. The only thing that might have helped towards a satisfactory impersonation of Venus would have been the artist's confidence in her own great physical attraction, and in the effect it would help to produce by appealing to the purely material sympathies of the public. The certainty that these means were no longer at her disposal paralysed this great singer, who could hide her age and matronly appearance no longer. She therefore became self-conscious, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... her nature to be. Somehow at this time the vision of Rythdale Priory was not the indemnification it had seemed to her before. Eleanor liked Mr. Carlisle, but she did not like to be governed by him; although with an odd inconsistency, it was that very power of government which formed part of his attraction. Certainly women are strange creatures. Meanwhile she tugged on at her work with a hot cheek and a divided mind, and a wisely silent tongue; and M. Carlisle sat by and made himself very busy with her, finding out ways of being both pleasant and useful. Finally he put a stop to the embroidery and ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner

... from their disputes and cogitations what came back most vividly—what seemed to fall upon one almost in a hush of terror—was that paralysis or dread balance of desire they imagined; the predicament in fact of that philosophic quadruped, who, because he found in each of them precisely the same attraction, stood, unable to move, between two bundles of hay, until he perished ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith

... presented his solvent, serious, well-known vaudevillian face at the box-office window of a rival attraction and got his d. h. coupon ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry

... that dangerous cruiser's bow guns. They might not be quite so dangerous, however, if her gunners should be unable to see a mark at that distance through the mist. The fifth light, dead ahead, now became itself only the fourth, and it was immediately the sole attraction for the watchers in the rigging of the several war police-boats. This stranger was going westwardly, at a fair rate of speed, and its light was exceptionally brilliant. In fact, it grew more and more so ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard

... he had been impelled to go home. Now that he was fairly away from home again, he had no idea what to do with himself. A place where he could warm his feet and his hands, where he could get a bite to eat, possibly,—this last would be an immense attraction, but was not a necessity, and he did not expect it,—but warmth, at least, he felt that he must have. Where would he find it? What place had been provided for such as he? He ought by this time to have been earning his own living, to ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden

... that there was some force of attraction attached to this family and name of Colbert. Treasures arose from the earth to give themselves up ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... principal men, as they style themselves, were introduced to compliment them on coming to their country, although their true and only motive for visiting their quarters was the expectation of obtaining rum, which is the great object of attraction to all of them. They had been annoyed during the greater part of this day by a tribe of ragged beggars, whose importunity was really disgusting. The men were in general old, flat-headed, and pot-bellied. The women skinny and flap-eared. To these garrulous ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... lounged away, the exhibitions in some sort supply in the afternoon what the Opera and parties do in the evenings. Nearly all through the summer-day, they are crowded with a softly-rustling, humming, buzzing crowd, coming and going perhaps, taking little heed of the nominal attraction, but sauntering from room to room, or ensconcing themselves in colonies or clusters of chairs, and lounging vacantly in cool lobbies. At energetic sight-seers, who are labouring away, catalogue and pencil in hand, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various

... genuine Kentucky plugs. Buyers go home wiser, sellers richer. But not everybody on this day was discussing "Abdallah" and "Hambletonian." Long before the appointed hour, a stream of people began moving to a part of the city where two pikes intersect, the point of attraction being a fine three-story red brick structure known as the "Chandler Normal Institute." This building occupies a commanding position on a hill which overlooks the city. It was erected and furnished by the liberality of one esteemed lady, Mrs. Phoebe ...
— The American Missionary — Vol. 44, No. 4, April, 1890 • Various

... began to perform her conjuring tricks with Mr. Jubber and one of the ring-keepers on either side of her, officiating as assistants. These tricks, in themselves, were of the simplest and commonest kind; and derived all their attraction from the child's innocently earnest manner of exhibiting them, and from the novelty to the audience of communicating with her only by writing on a slate. They never tired of scrawling questions, of saying ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins

... on a higher plane. Married people live in such close relations that each becomes absorbed by the other, and then having nothing fresh to give, what was once attraction becomes repulsion. I see these things so plainly myself that the criticism, and may be, censure of a multitude, jealous of personal freedom, affects me no more than the passing breeze. I know that if I stand upon a mount and behold a beautiful scene beyond, that it is there, although ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams

... suspended on the English prisons, holding forth the prospect of high wages as the final stage of transportation. The execution of public works in the colonies, except at an equivalent price, was strictly prohibited. By improving the settled parts of the colony, the crown might have increased its attraction to capitalists, and by diverting an excess of laborers excited the competition of masters. The governor was desirous of allaying colonial irritation by some substantial boon: the orders of Lord Stanley were, however, rigid. The ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... was used in some mysterious way. I cautioned him not to handle it carelessly, but found that this caution only made him the more eager to handle it, since the prospect of an accident found an irresistible attraction. I would not let it go out of my own hands, however; and the Kohen, whose self-denial was always most wonderful to me, ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille

... most of the little happenings that occurred. They were friendly with many of the village people, almost all of whom were their uncle's patients at one time or another, and the Saturday expedition over the moor from Durracombe was to them the central attraction of the whole week. ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil

... lasted some months; which is not surprising when we remember the sort of attraction presented by such a struggle. It is life. And that is preferable, with its wounds and its anguish, to the gloomy darkness of disgust, to the poison of contempt, to the void of abdication, to that death of the heart which is called indifference. ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac

... effigy of a prior of the abbey who died in the time of Edward I. Below the church again, and about one hundred and fifty paces from it, was the vicarage, a comparatively modern building, possessing no architectural attraction, and evidently reared out of the remains ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... 'March!' to see if the long row of houses would not begin to move. However, we liked the old part of Berlin better, where the streets, with their capricious and serpent-like windings, reminded us of the crooked alleys of Moscow. The streamlets of the Spree exercised a powerful attraction over us. Blondchen thought they played hide-and-seek with children, who would run through the streets to search for them. They came suddenly into sight where one would least expect to see them, in the yard of a house in the Werderschen ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... ingenuous spirits feel when doubt first mars their faith and dims the innocent beliefs still left from childhood. He had been expecting this and knew that what the girl just began to perceive and try modestly to tell had long ago been plain to worldlier eyes. The heiress was the attraction to most of the young men whom she met. Good fellows enough, but educated, as nearly all are nowadays, to believe that girls with beauty or money are brought to market to sell or buy as the case ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... the modern attraction of ugly subjects (not when the wish to remedy gross evils makes it a duty to study and live among them; but as common talk between young men and young women), I feel very strongly that the contemplation of God, and all that is God-like in the souls that ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... proposition of the booksellers. He was versed in the whole body of English poetry, and his rules of criticism were settled with precision. The dissertation, in the life of Cowley, on the metaphysical poets of the last century, has the attraction of novelty, as well as sound observation. The writers, who followed Dr. Donne, went in quest of something better than truth and nature. As Sancho says, in Don Quixote, they wanted better bread than is made with wheat. They took pains to bewilder themselves, and were ingenious ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson

... saw the bridegroom's eyes fastened on the light form of the bride, as the latter went swiftly up the retired wharf where the ship was lying, on her way to Front street, accompanied by her young friend. But, no sooner had Bridget turned a corner, and Bob saw that the attraction was no longer in view, than he thought it becoming ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper

... family leave us in no doubt as to the high place it holds in His conception of life. Marriage, upon which the family rests, is, according to Jesus, the divinely ordained life-union of a man and woman. In His quotation from Genesis He makes reference to that mysterious attraction, deeply founded in the very nature of man, by which members of the opposite sex are drawn to each other. But while acknowledging the sensuous element in marriage, He lifts it up into the spiritual realm and transmutes it into a symbol of soul-communion. ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander

... for a considerable distance, the men were ordered to spread out over the neighbouring ice-fields, in order to multiply the chances of discovering tracks; but there seemed to be some irresistible power of attraction which drew them gradually together again, however earnestly they might try to keep separate. In fact, they were beginning to be affected by the long-continued march and the extremity ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... known him long enough not to take offense at his reminding me, in this considerate way, that I was a poor man. The proposed change of scene tempted me. What did I care for the Channel passage? Besides, there was the irresistible attraction of getting away from home. The end of it was that I ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins

... his tall suite. I felt that I was looking on at a far bigger tragedy than any I had seen in action. Here was one that had loosed Hell, and the furies of Hell had got hold of him. He was no common man, for in his presence I felt an attraction which was not merely the mastery of one used to command. That would not have impressed me, for I had never owned a master. But here was a human being who, unlike Stumm and his kind, had the power Of laying himself alongside other men. That was the irony of it. Stumm ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... welcome the Life of Mrs. R. L. Stevenson (CHATTO AND WINDUS), not only for the exceptional attraction of the environment in which she lived for many years, but because under any circumstances she would have been a remarkable woman. Once, when asked to write her own life, she refused because it seemed to her like "a dazed rush on a railroad express;" she despaired of recovering "the incidental ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 1, 1920 • Various

... of Wauna was chafing under the trying associations. Men and women alike regarded her as an impossible character, and I began to realize with a sickening regret that I had made a mistake. In my own country, in France and England, her beauty was her sole attraction to men. The lofty ideal of humanity that she represented was ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley

... a great "take in." Women thought it full of romantic sentiment; the face of one easily moved to love, and whose love would be replete alike with poetry and passion. But he remained as proof as the youthful Hippolytus to all female attraction. He delighted the Parson by keeping up his practice in athletic pursuits; and obtained a reputation at the pugilistic school, which he attended regularly, as the best ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... from the snare. No; for when a young man begins to suffer from what the doctors call hebephrenia, the farther he draws away from such snares the nearer he gets to them. And these lusty Syrians could not repel the magnetic attraction of the polypiosis of what Shakib likens to the aliat (fattail) of our Asiatic sheep. Surely, there be more devils under such an aliat than under the hat of a Jesuit. And Khalid is the first to discover this. Both have been ensnared, however, and both, when in the snare, ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... man, as spirit, can control an- 73:9 other man, as matter, upsets both the individuality and the Science of man, for man is image. God controls man, and God is the only Spirit. Any 73:12 other control or attraction of so-called spirit is a mortal belief, which ought to be known by its fruit, - the repe- ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... the storm," or "the roar of the waves," as poetical hyperboles; whereas they are very literal and expressive renderings of the sounds of horror incessant throughout a gale at sea. Our cabin, though very nice and comfortable in other respects, possessed an extraordinary attraction for any stray wave which might be wandering about the saloon: once or twice I have been in the cuddy when a sea found its way down the companion, and I have watched with horrible anxiety a ton or so of water hesitating which cabin it should enter and deluge, and it always seemed to choose ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker

... very little attraction to the young men of the early eighties, who, viewing our social system with the fresh eyes of youth, saw its cruelties and its absurdities and judged them, not as older men, by comparison with the worse cruelties and greater absurdities ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease

... recent calamity," Duperrey observes, "wore an aspect of desolation which was rendered still gloomier by the barrenness of the land and the dark rainy weather prevailing at the time of our visit. Nevertheless, it had for us an inexplicable sort of attraction and left a melancholy impression on our minds, which was not effaced till long after we had left the Falkland ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... picked his way up that dangerous place was known only to himself. Jack could form no theory to explain it. But he did not forget the dispute of the three Indians in front of the break and the start which one of them made to follow the footsteps of the white man. There must be some attraction in the canyon for ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis

... meditative solemnity of Jiggins, not to speak of others whose names need not be mentioned. Amid the crowd the face of Captain Corbet was conspicuous, and the dark visage of Solomon, while that of the mate was distinguishable in the distance. To all these the good schooner Antelope formed the centre of attraction, and also of action. It was on board of her that the chief bustle took place, and towards her that all eyes ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille

... Augustina babbled beneath him, began to take increasing notice of Miss Fountain, and of her relation to the Bannisdale household. For a girl who had "no training, moral or intellectual," she was showing herself, he thought, possessed of more attraction than might have been expected, for the ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the massive piles of masonry, the filling up of valleys, the perforated hill, the arch bestriding the river or the morass, the attraction of towns towards the line of transit, the creation of new markets, the connection of inland cities with the coast, the interweaving of populations hitherto isolated from one another, the increase of land-carriage, ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne

... shadow blotting it out, and advancing swiftly. Only a third of the star was visible now. Then, like a flash, the solution of this extraordinary phenomenon revealed itself to me. The star was sinking behind the enormous mass of the dead sun. Or rather, the sun—obedient to its attraction—was rising toward it,[12] with the earth following in its trail. As these thoughts expanded in my mind, the star vanished; being completely hidden by the tremendous bulk of the sun. Over the earth there fell, once ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson

... self-respect. I set my head to think as hard as possible on Latin verses (my instinct must have drawn me to them as to a species of intellectual biscuit steeped in spirit, tough, and comforting, and fundamentally opposed to existing circumstances, otherwise I cannot account for the attraction). They helped me for a time; they kept off self-pity, and kept the machinery of the mind at work. They lifted me, as it were, to an upper floor removed from the treacherously sighing Priscilla. But I came down quickly with a crash; no dexterous management of my mental resources could ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the two become fellows of the road, the one with a sermon, the other with a story, and their fortune with their audiences is related. The only adventure of note, however, is the appearance of the Story-Teller as an attraction of a traveling theatrical company, by special engagement, announced by posters, which also bear on a pasted slip of paper a notice of Eliakim Abbott's religious meeting. On this occasion he recited with great applause the tale of ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry

... use it like a young lady, and in no other way. But it always strikes me as a proof of ignorance and a want of refinement when the uses of things are confounded. A pocket-handkerchief, at the best, is but a menial appliance, and it is bad taste to make it an object of attraction. FINE, it may be, for that conveys an idea of delicacy in its owner; but ornamented beyond reason, never. Look what a tawdry and vulgar thing an embroidered slipper is ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper

... than to the attraction of the steamer, Bert gave way, and spent the rest of the morning playing about, until it was the usual time for ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley

... overran their distance. Chronometer must have been 'way out. I talked to the one who navigated, and found that he'd never thought of allowing for local attraction,—didn't happen to run against the boat's deviation table,—and so, with all that railway iron below hatches, he fetched clear o' Nantucket, and 'way ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson

... coquette, you can very well make fun of B——-, to whom your virtue seems to be of little importance. But as you have plenty of lovers in society, I beg you that you will leave me my husband. He is always at your house, and he certainly would not come unless you were the attraction." ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... a strong attraction for Etienne. In three months the mother and daughter, with the help of the cook from Sancerre and of little Pamela, had given the apartment a quite changed appearance. The journalist found his breakfast ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... were entranced, and the Prioress, seeing that books had an attraction for her younger guest, promised her on the morrow a sight of some of the metrical lives of the saints, especially of St. Katharine and of St. Cecilia. It must be owned that Jean was not fretted as she expected by chapel bells in the middle of the night, nor was even Lady Drummond summoned ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge

... in Sonoma after Company H was disbanded, and observing ones remarked that the attraction was Miss Fannie Vallejo. Yet, not until 1851 did the General consent to part with his first-born daughter. Weeks before the marriage day, friends began arriving at the bride's home, and large orders came to grandma for ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

... middle-class girls still sat on by the fire, but Hester Thornton now, not Annie, was the center of attraction. It was the first time in all her young life that Hester had found herself in the enviable position of a favorite; and without at all knowing what mischief she was doing, she could not resist improving the occasion, and making the most ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade

... earths, but being only one-quarter as dense, it has a mass of only 326,800 earths. It has seven hundred times the mass of all the planets, asteroids, and satellites put together. Thus it is able to control them all by its greater power of attraction. ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren

... with himself what it was that made certain great sights of the world famous, and what it is that keeps others hidden. This would be especially interesting in the case of mountains. For there is no doubt that there is a modern attraction in mountains which may not endure, but which is almost as intense in our generation as it was in that of our fathers. The emotion produced by great height and by the something unique and inspiring which distinguishes a mountain from a hill has bitten deeply into the modern mind. ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc

... experiences are in harmony with the common human experience. All forces and all events, in all ages, have been working for the welfare of individuals, society, the whole world. A steady, unfailing, universal attraction has been drawing the human race away from animalism, error, sorrow, war, separation and division, toward righteousness, truth, love, brotherhood, the life of the Spirit, and the unity and happiness ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford

... pilgrims have fallen, is passed without much attention; but that precipice, within one inch of which a traveller has passed unconsciously in the dark, first tracing his peril along the snowy margin on the next morning, becomes invested with an attraction of horror for all who hear the story. The dignity of mortal danger ever after consecrates the spot; and, in this particular case which I am now recalling, the remembrance of such a danger ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... followed every allusion to the proposed amendment from the audiences that packed the spacious Taylor Street Church to overflowing. Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper, the noted San Francisco philanthropist, was a special attraction and made many converts to woman suffrage by her beautiful ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... is that, obeying the law of opposites, the saddle has an irresistible and fatal attraction for the poor chaps. They take to it on every possible and impossible occasion. You can see them playing alleged polo at Malta, riding each other off at right angles and employing their sticks as grappling irons. You can see them over from the Rock ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various

... Amos, is tender and intense, xi. 3, 4: as Amos pleads for righteousness, he pleads for love (Hos. vi. 6), hesed, a word strangely enough never used by Amos; and it is no accident that the great utterance of Hosea—"I will have love and not sacrifice," vi. 6—had a special attraction for Jesus (Matt. ix. 13, ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen

... from the lightest of Italian heroines to the most dramatic characters of Meyerbeer. After a career of fame and honour, she left the stage and devoted herself to teaching, and it is in that period of her life that her compositions appear. Her house in Baden-Baden was the centre of attraction for a circle including not only musicians, but artists, poets, and nobility of the highest rank. There she produced her operettas, "Le Dernier Sorcier," "L'Ogre," and "Trop de Femme." At first arranged for private performance, they succeeded so well ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson

... million of miles wide of the earth and scarcely affect it. But near its destined path, as yet only slightly perturbed, spun the mighty planet Jupiter and his moons sweeping splendid round the sun. Every moment now the attraction between the fiery star and the greatest of the planets grew stronger. And the result of that attraction? Inevitably Jupiter would be deflected from its orbit into an elliptical path, and the burning star, swung by his attraction wide of its sunward rush, ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells

... which we give the name of Land's End is not the grandest piece of coast in these parts; but it has the prestige of a deep sentiment attaching to it, and there is no other spot in England that draws visitors with such a powerful attraction. In one sense the Scillies are the true Land's End, beyond which the deeper gulfs of ocean lie; and, again, there is another land's end at the Lizard, the southernmost point of England, and yet another at Lowestoft, the most easterly. But Lowestoft ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon

... powerful impulse is this Love? It is nature-wide. The rushing together of the chemical elements; the attraction of suns and planets—all are Love. See how even the plant casts its pollen abroad on the winds, that it may somewhere reach and rest upon the loving bosom of a sister-flower; and there, amid perfume and sweetness ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... observable that he lingered on his milky way, and was more in evidence in the dairy than his duties appeared to warrant. We concluded that he was attracted by the cook. One day my wife said to another maid: "I can't think why the shepherd spends so much time in the house. I suppose cook is the attraction?" The girl blushed, hesitated, and looked down, but finally courageously murmured: "Please, mum, it's me, mum!" They were married in due course, and we lost an ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... of Representation is the strongest and most powerful center that can be devised for a nation. Its attraction acts so powerfully, that men give it their approbation even without reasoning on the cause; and France, however distant its several parts, finds itself at this moment an whole, in its central Representation. The citizen ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... rapidly than I had expected. I betook myself with enlarged faculty to my book-mending, and more than ever enjoyed making my uncle's old volumes tidy. When I returned to school, it was with real sorrow at parting from my uncle; and even towards my aunt I now felt a growing attraction. ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... was assembled in an apartment opening into the garden; and the queen, who had just made her appearance in all the splendor of her regal beauty, was the cynosure of attraction and of admiration. She stood in the centre of the room, her eyes fixed wistfully upon the setting sun, whose dying rays were flooding park, terrace, and even the spot on which she stood, with a red and golden light. By her side stood ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... heroism displayed upon this occasion, thrilled through the length and breadth of the country like an electric shock, and the name of Grace Darling became for the time as well known as that of the greatest in the land, while the lonely lighthouse on the Longstone became a point of attraction to thousands of warm admirers, among whom were many of the rich and the noble. Letters and gifts flowed in upon Grace Darling continually. The public seemed unable to do enough to testify their regard. The Duke ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne

... the principal place of attraction in New York, but it has so often been described by visitors, that it is a work of supererogation to comment much upon it here; as, however, every tourist can see and describe differently the same objects, I must not pass it in silence, especially ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell

... the eyes of the Parisians by a splendid ceremony. He had appointed it to take place on the 'decadi', Pluviose 20 (9th February 1800), that is to say, ten days before his final departure from the old Directorial palace. These kinds of fetes did not resemble what they afterwards became; their attraction consisted in the splendour of military dress: and Bonaparte was always sure that whenever he mounted his horse, surrounded by a brilliant staff from which he was to be distinguished by the simplicity of his costume, his path would be crowded and himself greeted with acclamations ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... rarefaction, is perfectly transparent, or of small solid particles individually separated by intervening spaces through which the light of a star can pass without obstruction, and which, held together by mutual attraction, as well as by gravitation toward a denser central conglomeration, moves through space like a cloud of dust. In any case the connection lately noticed by Schiaparelli, between comets ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... it everything then? And if it was so much to her already, in a night and a day, what would it be when she knew it, what would it be to her after many nights and many days? She began to feel a sort of terror mingled with the most extraordinary attraction ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... to most women, his gifts were his attraction. He danced well; he talked well; he did everything well. He appealed to a side of Ruth's nature which Kirk scarcely touched—a side which had only come into prominence in the ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse

... acquaintance of the Owl's Club under so many names that I recognise it at once. I am aware that its members refuse to turn out in cold weather; that they do not turn out in wet weather; that when the weather is really fine, it is impossible to get them together; that the slightest counter-attraction,—a hockey match, a sacred concert,—goes to their ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock

... and earth and tree top, following blind instincts, her myriad children were seeking their mates. And here, in the odorous sunshine of the May morning, these two young, impressionable and ardent beings, yielding themselves unconsciously to the same mysterious attraction which was uniting other happy couples, were drawn together in a union which time could not dissolve and eternity, perhaps, ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss

... part of the State of Maine, and with some heat said, that "the Ashburton Treaty was the most foolish treaty ever made." He replied to the argument about the past commitment of other Governments, by describing it as "not possessing much attraction for an existing Government." Here Howe made him laugh much, by saying, "At least, my Lord, it might have an influence with your conscientious Chancellor ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin

... glorious Navy of England: I perhaps scarcely knew myself, till the sensations which the suggestion conjured up in my bosom told me. Even the idea of quitting the sea and following some occupation on shore had not the attraction for me which might have been supposed. Still I had resolved to adopt the latter alternative if her father would bestow her hand on me. He had been absent for some time, attending to public affairs. At length he returned. I explained to him my position. I thought he looked grave ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... seeking his own best interest he was doing the best for himself and for all. Economic society was conceived of as a number of freely competing units held in equilibrium by the force of competition, much as the material universe is held together by the attraction of gravitation. Any hindrance to this freedom of the individual to compete freely with all others, any artificial support or encouragement that gives him an advantage over others, is against his own real ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney

... irresistible propensity in this direction, which was as much a necessity of their constitution as web-spinning is to the spider, or singing in the woods is to the birds. Once launched in matrimony, the men and women guests lost all attraction for the Senoritas de Mere. Their attention was immediately turned to the fresh young people who came and took refuge under their protecting wings. But there was one who caused them such bitter disappointment that a little more ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds

... me on, confound her!" he thought. At the same time his head whirled and his heart beat a little faster. "You shouldn't," he said, "if you are tired. There's more of an attraction at Velvet ...
— The Purple Parasol • George Barr McCutcheon

... by drawing her out of her chair and making her stand between his knees, leaning against him while he passed his arm round her slimness. The child fixed her eyes on Isabel with a still, disinterested gaze which seemed void of an intention, yet conscious of an attraction. Mr. Osmond talked of many things; Madame Merle had said he could be agreeable when he chose, and to-day, after a little, he appeared not only to have chosen but to have determined. Madame Merle and the Countess Gemini sat a little ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... very difficult to prevent the Indians going to Chouaguen; the brandy that the English give out freely is an invincible attraction. ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... meadow-slope to the, broken land below, Henrietta had view of the earl's hard white face, and she hastened to say: 'You have altered that, my lord. She is devoted to her brother; and her brother running dangers . . . and danger in itself is an attraction to her. But her husband will have the first claim. She has her good sense. She will never insist on going, if you oppose. She will be ready to fill her station. It will be-her ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... in attraction for scientific observation, were attended also with the varied pleasures which delight a passenger on the waters of the glorious Mississippi. Fresh scenes are continually disclosed by the frequent ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... disturbance of equilibrium is due to the action of the individual Purushas or souls on Prakriti, but this action is mechanical and due to proximity not to the volition of the souls and may be compared to the attraction of a magnet for iron.[744] Thus at the beginning of the evolutionary process we have quiescent matter in equilibrium: over against this are souls innumerable, equally quiescent but exerting on matter a mechanical force. This upsets the equilibrium ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... instinctively his eyes turned to the Latin South. And first to France—France, the eternal refuge of Germany in distress. How often had German thought turned to France, without ceasing to slander her! Even since seventy, what an attraction emanated from the town which had been shattered and smoking under the German guns! The most revolutionary and the most reactionary forms of thought and art had found alternately and sometimes at once example and inspiration there. ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... granted to them. Some few who are seeking notoriety make a feeble clamor for the right of suffrage, but they do not represent the sex to which they belong, or I am mistaken as to the modesty and delicacy which constitute the chief attraction of the sex. Do our intelligent and refined women desire to plunge into the vortex of political excitement and agitation? Would that policy in any way conduce to their peace, their purity, and their happiness? Sir, it has been said that "the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world"; and there ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... for supplies, and for the purpose of a little private speculation, with which the custom-house was not troubled. Dame Juanita's shop, being rather the largest in St. Blas, and possessing, moreover, the additional attraction of her own buxom countenance, and that of a pretty daughter behind the counter, was visited daily by the mates and crews of these ships; and of them she inquired, by direction of Isabella, concerning the officers of the Orion, without success ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames

... reside. As the birth of Clifford was known but to few, and his legitimacy was unsuspected by all except, perhaps, by Mauleverer, Lucy succeeded to the great wealth of her uncle; and this circumstance made her more than ever an object of attraction in the eyes of her noble adorer. Finding himself unable to see her, he wrote to her more than one moving epistle; but as Lucy continued inflexible, he at length, disgusted by her want of taste, ceased his pursuit, and resigned himself to the continued ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... who filled an important church position in Leipsic when the composer went there to assume his duties as cantor of the St. Thomas School, his purpose being to introduce into the Reformed Church a service which should be a counter attraction to the Mass as performed in the Roman Church. It was produced for the first time at the afternoon service on Good Friday, 1729, but was not heard again until the young Mendelssohn revived it in Berlin, March 12, 1829. ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton

... Egnemo, over our old ground, which, wanting the attraction of novelty, appeared to us rather longer than on first acquaintance. The sun, too, was more powerful than ever and the deep soft sand more trying, so that we were glad enough to get under shelter at our journey's end. Here we found the apricot trees, ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight

... general and the statesman, contracted itself to the most minute details of naval architecture and naval discipline. The chief ambition of the great conqueror and legislator was to be a good boatswain and a good ship's carpenter. Holland and England therefore had for him an attraction which was wanting to the galleries and terraces of Versailles. He repaired to Amsterdam, took a lodging in the dockyard, assumed the garb of a pilot, put down his name on the list of workmen, wielded with his own hand the caulking iron and the mallet, fixed the pumps, and twisted the ropes. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Stanhope's great mental powers, but we can find no trace in the records of her conversation of such extraordinary genius as is here indicated. No doubt, she talked very well; but like all great talkers, she sometimes talked very ill. The great attraction of her conversation was its reflection of one strange personality: she glassed herself in it as in a mirror; and as she had seen much, and known many great men, and gone through a vast variety of experience, she had always something to ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... elegance that we ascribe to conquerors of feminine hearts. I wondered what might be his hid den charm. Was it mental? I never had heard of a clever saying of his. In his glance? Perhaps. Or in his voice? The voices of some beings have a certain irresistible attraction, almost suggesting the flavor of things good to eat. One is hungry for them, and the sound of their words penetrates us like a dainty morsel. A friend was passing. I asked him: ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... than he started, he ascended the Teoughe to the hill Sorila, and crossed over a swampy country to the eastward. Pursuing his course onward to the low-lying basin of the Leeambye, he saw that it presented no attraction to a pastoral tribe like his, so he moved down that river among the Bashubia and Batoka, who were then living in all their glory. His narrative resembled closely the "Commentaries of Caesar", and the history of the British in India. He ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... girl answered to my lead! and to-morrow—you'll own me right—I must double the attraction. I shall have to hand her back to her people for twenty-four hours, and the dose must be doubled to keep her fast and safe. You see I read her flatly. I read and am charitable. I have a perfect philosophical tolerance. I'm in the mood to-day of Horace ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... apron-string, and his greatest pleasure was in being with Trevor. I think Trevor's own influence never did any harm. Poor Joel Lea had trained him well, and he was a conscientious, good boy, who often hindered Alured from insubordination; but the attraction to Spinney Lawn was a mischievous thing—for there was no doubt that the heads of the family would set him against us ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge

... anxiety and bitterness. Anxiety comes principally from the conflict of psychical tendencies, which result from the same person being both loved and hated. The correlative to the denying action of the mother is to commit rape on her. Another cause of the attraction towards the mother besides the erotically toned one, is the desire for her care, called forth by the hardships encountered elsewhere in the world. It is an indolence opposed to the duties of life. The propensity towards ease is psychologically a very important factor. The home is in general ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer

... to have no bearing on his conduct here. That disembodied he might spend eternity with the divine, or, absorbed into the divine essence, become himself divine—such ideas, though not unknown or without attraction to rarer spirits, were wholly impotent to combat the vivid interest in life and the lust of strenuous endeavour which were bred in the small worlds ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth

... the hours that elapsed before the boat touched at a point in the Highlands of the Hudson, his destination. Making a better dinner than he had enjoyed for a long time, and feeling stronger than for weeks before, he started for the place that now, of all the world, had for him the greatest attraction. ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe

... no more than some sixty-five thousand miles from the moon's surface. The Planetara presently would swing upon her direct course for Mars. There was nothing which could cause passenger comment in this close passing of the moon; normally we used the satellite's attraction to give ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various

... attraction for excitable, excitement-loving Violet; yet even she, interested for the moment, presently forgot them again, as something reminded her of the dear little sister, who was not lost but gone before ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley

... soon. The evils of the new court were those of the old, and while equally oppressive were not so easily excused. Even Galba's age seemed comic and despicable to a populace that was used to the young Nero and compared the emperors, as such people will, in point of looks and personal attraction. ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... the idea of going about incognito had its charms, it became a little dull after awhile. The adventuring was fine, although a little rougher than she'd thought it would be; the sight of the Queen's Own FBI in action was still a powerful attraction for Her Majesty. But the peace and quiet and dignity of Her Own Royal Palace won out without too ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett

... Where the tidal force elevates and depresses the sea-water on a shore, through a vertical distance of say eight feet, about once in twelve hours, the waves of the ocean will perform the same work during moderate weather once in every twelve or fifteen seconds. It is true that the moon in its attraction of the sea-water produces a vastly greater sum total of effect than the wind does in raising the surface-waves, but reckoning only that part of the ocean energy which might conceivably be made available for service it is safe to calculate that the waves offer between two and three thousand times ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland

... a sincerely pious man. The sceptical and sarcastic Halifax lay under the imputation of infidelity. Halifax therefore often incurred Burnet's indignant censure; and Burnet was often the butt of Halifax's keen and polished pleasantry. Yet they were drawn to each other by a mutual attraction, liked each other's conversation, appreciated each other's abilities, interchanged opinions freely, and interchanged also good offices in perilous times. It was not, however, merely from personal regard ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... in the midst of the column was the other attraction. His head was bare; otherwise he was in full armor. At his left hip he wore a short sword; in his hand, however, he carried a truncheon, which looked like a roll of white paper. He sat upon a purple ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... all the wealth, honor, and luxury it gives, seem a sufficient aim for men's efforts only so long as they are unattained. Directly a man reaches them he sees all their vanity, and they gradually lose all their power of attraction. They are like clouds which have form and beauty only from the distance; directly one ascends into them, all ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... lose, was mingled with the rest, vague, ignorant, pure with the purity of blindness, unconscious, celestial, angelic, divine; less like a sentiment than like an instinct, less like an instinct than like an imperceptible and invisible but real attraction; and love, properly speaking, was, in his immense tenderness for Cosette, like the thread of gold in ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... convents and altars he flatters it (though he acknowledges sometimes a certain ease in finding the matter thus settled for him) with no better a title. He was no democrat though the most independent of citizens. The vulgar crowd had at no time any attraction for him. ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... Norfolk may become the rival of the great seaports and centres of capital, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston, is without the field of discussion. It is not more possible than that a magnetized knife-blade should exert a more powerful attraction than the largest ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various

... are still so strangely mediaeval in their aspect, or in country places which are worth seeing only because of their connection with some event in history—Nature has done so little for them. Thus the interest and the attraction of Flanders and the Flemish towns are chiefly historical. But it would be impossible to compress the history of such places as Bruges, Ypres, Furnes, or Nieuport within the limits of a few pages, except at the cost of loading ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond

... at threats, he was fully resolved to maintain his convictions and fight the matter out. As to what he had done, he appealed to a General Council; what he was going to do he made clear by exhorting the German Princes to stop their tributes to Rome. The advice had a natural attraction for the German Princes though they might lack enthusiasm on questions of theology. Leo issued a Bull condemning Luther. Luther answered by publicly burning the Bull ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... the author called it, has had a special attraction for inquisitive biographers, because it has been supposed in some dark manner to reveal the secrets of his prison house. Its lines have been tortured, like the witches of the seventeenth century, to extort from them the meaning of the ...
— Byron • John Nichol

... to begin with the youngest, consists, in acting as steward on Owen's property. The routine of my duties has never lost its sober attraction to my tastes, for it has always employed me in watching the best interests of my brother, and of my son also, who is one day to be his heir. But can I expect our fair guest to sympathize with such family concerns ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins



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