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Fascinate   /fˈæsənˌeɪt/   Listen
Fascinate

verb
(past & past part. fascinated; pres. part. fascinating)
1.
Cause to be interested or curious.  Synonym: intrigue.
2.
To render motionless, as with a fixed stare or by arousing terror or awe.  Synonyms: grip, spellbind, transfix.
3.
Attract; cause to be enamored.  Synonyms: becharm, beguile, bewitch, captivate, capture, catch, charm, enamor, enamour, enchant, entrance, trance.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Fascinate" Quotes from Famous Books



... apparatus that goes with the belief in question. A philosopher across the way who should use the same technical apparatus, making the same distinctions, etc., but drawing opposite conclusions and denying free-will entirely, would fascinate the first philosopher far more than would the naif co-believer. Their common technical interests would unite them more than their opposite conclusions separate them. Each would feel an essential consanguinity in the other, would ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James

... mother of the Church, and dreams of your conversion," said the doctor, maliciously, for he now wished to tranquillize Adrienne at any cost; "but let us think no more about it. Your fire eyes must shine with all their lustre, to fascinate the minister that we are ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... no mercy from Stumm. That large man was beginning to fascinate me, even though I hated him. Gaudian was clearly a good fellow, a white man and a gentleman. I could have worked with him for he belonged to my own totem. But the other was an incarnation of all that makes Germany detested, and yet he wasn't ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... had changed—not greatly, for its pitch was the same and the drawl was the same—but there was a purr in it that made every man stiffen in his chair and make sure that his right hand was free. The ghost of his former smile was still on his lips, but it was his eyes that seemed to fascinate Sandy. ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand

... undershirt, with a bale hook hung in his belt, is a figure to fascinate the eye. When he works—which is to say, when he is out of funds—he works hard. He will swing a two-hundred-pound sack to his back and do fancy steps as he marches with it up the springy gangplank to the river steamer's deck, uttering ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... him. Should he accept that, and in its acceptance take up his life as valetudinarian, his life forgotten of the world which he had loved to conquer, barren of interest for the woman whom it had been his strongest passion to win against her instincts, to hold as it were against her will, and to fascinate in face of her distaste? Such were the terms offered; Alexander Quisante lay long hours open-eyed and thought of them. There had come into his head an idea that attracted him mightily and suited well with his nature, so ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope

... outline, and that her cheek possessed the polish and the roundness of early youth, or, thus robbed of a softening shade, the contours might have lost their grace. But what mattered that in the present society? Neither Calypso nor Eucharis cared to fascinate Mentor. ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... he said. "The poem has a certain power, it seems to me. It might repel—it might fascinate. I should like to buy it just to give the poor fellow a little lift. The lovely eyes of that fragile ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard

... scrambled up the loft ladder—practice had made this once difficult feat easy for them—and for a half hour jumped about in the clean, sweet hay, forgetting their game. The smooth, slippery hay, piled in such masses, never failed to fascinate them. ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm • Mabel C. Hawley

... you fascinate me as a panther fascinates by its lithe grace, and your mind has the light ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... To fascinate, and make a fool of, a man who was strong and cunning in his own sphere; to have a hand—gloved in officious friendship—in other lives, furnished the zest of her unemployed life. She could introduce discord into a family without even acknowledging to herself that she had done ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland

... horror. He reached the river, and in a third poor little boat, again he sailed down the passage. There was the swift-leaping current, the ugly tusk of rock staked with wreckage. A moment, a few feet, a turn of the oar-blade, and he would have been past. But, no! The rock seemed to fascinate him as the eyes of a snake fascinate a bird. He stared at it fearfully, a look of terror and despair. Then for the third time, with a hideous crash, his frail boat was piled ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... distinct and splendid, had the power to fix and fascinate my vision—never felt before—as they shone above me, clear and crystalline as enthroned in space—judges, and spectators, cold and pitiless as it seemed to me, in the strangeness and forlornness of my condition—Arcturus, and the Ursas, great and little, and Lyra, and the Corona Borealis, ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... that delight and fascinate the wide awake Girls of the present day who are between the ages of eight and fourteen years. The great author of these books regards them as the best products of her pen. Printed from large clear type on a superior ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson

... celebrated constellation, the "Southern Cross,'' has found a place in all modern literatures, although it has no claim to consideration on account of association with ancient legends. This most attractive asterism, which has never ceased to fascinate the imagination of Christendom since it was first devoutly described by the early explorers of the South, is but a passing collocation of brilliant stars. Yet even in its transfigurations it has been for hundreds of centuries, and will continue ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss

... which has given its name to a great American State, is a fairly interest- ing town, but I confess that I found in it less than I expected to admire. My expectations had doubtless been my own fault; there is no particular reason why Le Mans should fascinate. It stands upon a hill, indeed, - a much better hill than the gentle swell of Bourges. This hill, however, is not steep in all direc- tions; from the railway, as I arrived, it was not even perceptible. Since I am making comparisons, I may remark that, on the other hand, the Boule ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James

... these women there is no pressing necessity, and in Paris they are of the bourgeoisie, whose desires are always a little beyond their means, who have ungratified caprices, ardent wishes to shine like women in the rank above them, to dress, and to fascinate. They are the wives and daughters of petty clerks, or employes of one order and another, of small government functionaries and the like, who embroider or sew three or four hours a day, and sell the work for what it will bring. The money swells the housekeeping fund, gives ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell

... than another; If of a dirty grub or two (Dressing them up in royal blue) You make so many shining Demoiselles,[3] Change me as well; Uplift me also from this narrow place, Where life runs on at such a petty pace; Give me a human form, dear Dame, and then See how I'll flit, and flash, and fascinate ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... The doll seemed to fascinate everybody. "Let me take it," motioned Ruth; but Sarah Jane shook a wise head, and slid Lily Rosalie back in her pocket. She was not going to run the risk of having her confiscated by the teacher. But when recess came Sarah Jane was soon the proud little centre ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins

... results are inestimable. By the spectacle of this august society, countless ignorant men and women are induced to obey the few nominal electors—the Ll0 borough renters, and the L50 county renters—who have nothing imposing about them, nothing which would attract the eye or fascinate the fancy. What impresses men is not mind, but the result of mind. And the greatest of these results is this wonderful spectacle of society, which is ever new, and yet ever the same; in which accidents pass and essence remains; in which one generation dies and another succeeds, ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot

... the author has boldly faced the problem of constructing a story out of the materials available from purely native society, the stock themes and characters of Anglo-India being entirely discarded. Bijli is a professional dancing girl, whose grace and accomplishments so fascinate a great Mohammedan landholder of North India, that he persuades her to abandon her profession and to abide with him as his mistress. This arrangement is correctly treated in the book as quite consistent ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... Nature; but there are very few whom we may term philosophers of Nature. In other words, there are those who are charmed with the external world, its landscapes, its beauteous forms and tints, and all its various adaptations to fascinate the senses,—and those who delight in deciphering and describing all the details of individual objects, and their wonderful fitness to the role they have severally or unitedly to play; and there is the man who, endowed with all this, seeks to go still farther, and from myriads of observations ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... but, for all that, it is more seemly for an eagle to mate with an eagle than with a screech-owl. Thou wilt see her anon; thy pet slave waiteth without for her mistress. Now go to her for me and bid her come; and, love-sick boy, be sure she does not fascinate thee that thou be so transfixed to her side that passers-by think they see two statues by Scopas, dressed by some wanton wit to imitate ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short

... all his heart: but he looked upon the Chevalier Grandison to be a man of art; and he was sure he must have entangled his sister by methods imperceptible to her, and to them; but yet more efficacious to his ends, than an open declaration. Had he not, he asked, found means to fascinate Olivia, and as many women as he came into company with?—For his part, he loved not the Chevalier. He had forced him by his intrepidity to be civil to him: but forced civility was but a temporary one. It was his way to judge of causes by the effects: and this he knew, that he had lost a sister, ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson

... known—the common or "striped hyena" (Hyena vulgaris), and it was about this one that so many false stories have been told. Perhaps no other animal has held so conspicuous a place in the world of mystery and horror. Neither vampire nor dragon have surpassed him. Our ancestors believed that he could fascinate any one with his glance, lure them after him, and then devour them—that he changed his sex every year—that he could transform himself into a comely youth, and thus beguile young maidens off into the woods to be ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid

... turn the head, magnetize; lobby. persuade; prevail with, prevail upon; overcome, carry; bring round to one's senses, bring to one's senses; draw over, win over, gain over, come over, talk over; procure, enlist, engage; invite, court. tempt, seduce, overpersuade[obs3], entice, allure, captivate, fascinate, bewitch, carry away, charm, conciliate, wheedle, coax, lure; inveigle; tantalize; cajole &c. (deceive) 545. tamper with, bribe, suborn, grease the palm, bait with a silver hook, gild the pill, make things pleasant, put a sop ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... I faced Timour, ready to force him backward through the door into the night-quarters, something in the blank glare of his eyes seemed to fascinate me. I had an absurd sensation that he was slipping away from me—escaping; that I no longer dominated him nor had authority. It was not panic, nor even fear; it was a faint paralysis—temporary, fortunately; for at that instant instinct saved me; I struck the lion a terrific blow across the nose ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... business papers. The cipher was no longer there. I searched among all the other papers to find it, but in vain. I then concluded that he had destroyed it. For several days I continued to examine that desk, but with no result. It seemed to fascinate me. At last, however, I came to the conclusion that ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... did not try to hide from himself the fact that Mrs. Dangerfield had lost some of her charm: she was the mother of the Terror. He found, too, that his instinctive distaste for the company of Erebus was not ungrounded. She was a nuisance; she would talk about wet boots; the subject seemed to fascinate her. Then, when at last he recovered his spirits, grew once more humorous, and even rose to the proposing point, there was no getting rid of her. She was impervious to hints; she refused, somewhat pertly, to pause and gather the luscious blackberries. How could a man be ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson

... that gave us one whole day and afternoon with the geysers. Our colored cook was simply wild over them, and would spend hours looking down in the craters of those that were not playing. Those seemed to fascinate her above all things there, and at times she looked like a wild African when she returned to camp from one of them. Not far from the tents of the enlisted men was a small hot spring that boiled lazily in a shallow ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... Both in manner and person he is said to have greatly resembled the Earl of Chesterfield, and his diary as well as his portrait show him to have been at once sensitive and virile; quite the man, indeed, very effectually to fascinate the low-born beauty he had taught to ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford

... especially by the French, which says that a girl should not let herself go when she marries, should not neglect her accomplishments, should be even more careful of her appearance than when she was unmarried, and should fascinate her husband as much as she did before he became her husband. Natasha on the contrary had at once abandoned all her witchery, of which her singing had been an unusually powerful part. She gave it up just because ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... gentleman even to think that it was love which shone in her eyes and trembled on her lips—love which made her voice falter and die away—love which caused her to exert every art and grace of which she was mistress to fascinate him. He was delighted with her—his heart grew warm under the charm of her words, but he never dreamed ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)

... out all that encumbers the heart, all that impedes the free action of the Holy Spirit within—longings after an imaginary perfection or well-being, unreal sentiments that trouble us in prayer, in work, in slumber, that fascinate us, but the result of which is ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.

... the familiar. "To them it is every thing. They care neither for splendid mansions, nor wealth, nor youth, nor beauty. If they did, they could have them all. They care only for the dread and mysterious power they possess, to be able to fascinate with a glance, to transfix by a gesture, to inflict strange ailments by a word, and to kill by a curse. This is the privilege they seek, and this ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... erase the intuitive feeling of distrust that had tinged her thoughts of him earlier in their acquaintance, while his heroic act in descending into the forecastle in the face of the armed and desperate Byrne had thrown a glamour of romance about him that could not help but tend to fascinate a girl of Barbara Harding's type. Then there was the look she had seen in his eyes for a brief instant when she had found herself locked in his cabin on the occasion that he had revealed to her Larry Divine's duplicity. That expression no red-blooded girl could ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... man, an anti-Mason, and was now thoroughly a Whig. The policy of more extensive and vigorous internal improvement had no more zealous champion. By nature, genial and averse to pomp, ceremony, and formality, few public men of his early prime were better calculated to attract and fascinate young men of his own party, and holding views accordant on most points with his.... Weed was of coarser mould and fibre than Seward—tall, robust, dark-featured, shrewd, resolute, and not over-scrupulous—keen-sighted, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... old tenement was known to all the twelfth arrondissement, on which Providence had bestowed this lawyer, as it gives a beneficent plant to cure or alleviate every malady. Here is a sketch of a man whom the brilliant Marquise d'Espard hoped to fascinate. ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac

... of smoke, seeming almost to fascinate the General, who would often stop speaking to follow them with his eyes until they broke or were lost in the darkness in the corners of the room. This was an old trick of his to divert the attention of his adversary, ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney

... do not menace me. I could have faced, Methinks, a Sylla's menace; but they clasp, And raise, and wring their dim and deathlike hands, And with their thin aspen faces and fixed eyes Fascinate ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... and companion. He was educated, cultured, and witty, although evidently lacking in humor. Possibly this came from the fact that he had so long and so earnestly regarded and meditated on the somber side of life. He seemed to fascinate Juanita, who listened intently whenever ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish

... one of the most trenchant indictments that has ever been penned. Its logic, its brave, though courteous, appeal for justice and magnanimity, and above all the echo of motherly love which characterises it, stamp it as a document worth cherishing. The last paragraph will fascinate the imagination of generations yet to come, and heavy judgment will be laid on those that ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman

... at nothing," repeated she, fixing her eyes upon Miss Portman, to fascinate her by terror. "Friend or foe! peace or war! Take your choice. Come to the ball at Harrowgate, I win my bet, and I'm your sworn friend. Stay away, I lose my bet, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth

... represent? Simply an old, worn, peril-tried, battle-scarred man, who had fought grislies and Indians,—walked leagues with his canoe on his back,—camped under snow-peaks,—dined on his rifle's market,—had nothing but his heroic pluck, patience, and American individuality, to fascinate people,—and now, under a rough fur cap of his own making, showed a face without a line that was Greek in it, and said to Launt Thompson, "Make me, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... exceedingly beautiful, able to fascinate the minds of the religious; now then, keep your recollection straight! let wisdom keep your mind in subjection! Better fall into the fierce tiger's mouth, or under the sharp knife of the executioner, than to dwell with a woman ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... how Diane de Poitiers first came to fascinate Francois, or how or why her power waned. At any rate at the time Francois pardoned her father, the witless Comte de St. Vallier, for the treacherous part he played in the Bourbon conspiracy, he really believed her to to be the "brightest ornament of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various

... him," she said. "Is he shy before strangers? I heard you whispering with him on the other side of the door. Are you jealous, Anne? Are you afraid I shall fascinate him ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... repeat sin till it becomes a habit, are set forth with terrible force in these grim figures. What a menagerie of ravenous beasts some of us have at the doors of our hearts! With what murderous longing they glare at us, seeking to fascinate us, and make us their prey! When we sin, we cannot escape the issues; and every wrong thing we do has a kind of horrible life given it, and sits henceforth there, beside us, ready to rend us. The tempting, seducing power ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... beginning to lose faith in her future,' answered Lady Maulevrier. 'There seems to be a fatality about the career of particularly attractive girls. They are too confident of their power to succeed in life. They trifle with fortune, fascinate the wrong people, and keep the right people at arm's length. I think if I had been Lesbia's guide in society her first season would have counted for more than it is likely to count for under Lady Kirkbank's management. I should have awakened ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... have stopped where they did. Every new acquaintance with the etymology or primary use of words would have entangled them in some new embarrassment, would have required a new purging of their vocabulary. 'To charm,' 'to bewitch,' 'to fascinate,' 'to enchant,' would have been no longer lawful words for those who had outlived the belief in magic, and in the power of the evil eye; nor 'lunacy,' nor 'lunatic,' for such as did not count the moon ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench

... affairs of the senses only; episodes that are a secret detachable part of their lives. They want love as an experience, and to provide the always desired excitement, but they want as well to remain free to take up other aspects of life. And while condescending to fascinate men while deliberately seeking attention, they still hold themselves in hand; intending to exploit life to the uttermost, they find sex amusing, but they fight always ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... so absorbed in watching the approach of the boat that they were unconscious of her presence, and suddenly it began to fascinate the Countess de Mattos also, as if it were one of the discs which hypnotists give to their patients. She, too, bent over the rail and gazed at the boat as the rowers brought it nearer and nearer, but she could not see ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson

... little shudder. "Don't talk about admiration, uncle; that is not the word for it; I don't know what it was like. They say snakes fascinate birds before they eat them by fixing their eyes upon them. I should say it was something ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty

... from his seat in front of me, glance hurriedly about as if for a way of escape, then moving unsteadily round the pier, to my surprise he shuffled off in the direction of the organ. The music seemed to fascinate him, to paralyse his will, even as the sphex paralyses ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease

... return without a murmur. Flirt, fribble, and shrew as she was, Julia Vickers had displayed, in times of emergency, that glowing courage which women of her nature at times possess. Though she would yawn over any book above the level of a genteel love story; attempt to fascinate, with ludicrous assumption of girlishness, boys young enough to be her sons; shudder at a frog, and scream at a spider, she could sit throughout a quarter of an hour of such suspense as she had just undergone with as much courage as if she had been the strongest-minded ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... Against these conclusions the whole soul of Plato rose in revolt. To reconstruct religion, he was driven back upon metaphysics; and elaborated at last the system which from his day to our own has not ceased to perplex and fascinate the world, and whose rare and radiant combination of gifts, speculative, artistic, and religious, marks the highest reach of the genius of the Greeks, and perhaps of mankind. To attempt an analysis of that system would lead us far from our present task. All that concerns us here, is its ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... to fascinate her, as she stood before it a few moments later. The spell of tradition enwrapped her. The mighty sentiments and motives which had actuated the framers of the Constitution seemed to loom before her like monuments of eternal stone. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... Lizzie quickly; "but, strangely as it seems to fascinate you, it has always repelled, and even terrified me. It's the only object of the beautiful harbor that has ever cast a shadow across the loveliness of the sea. I hate it; and I have often wished the sea would draw it silently into its ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott

... manner and conversation. She could save them by justifying his description of her—by using a woman's art to lessen instead of enhancing her natural beauty, by putting away her natural charm and power to fascinate all who ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson

... Or, The Parkhurst Treasure Depicts life on a farm of New York State. The mystery of the treasure will fascinate every boy. Jerry is ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.

... I have given Caroline a distaste for every other kind of person. She has met him, you know, once or twice here, and that was sufficient to fascinate her. She thinks him the handsomest and most delightful man she ever knew. It is enough for Mr. Hamilton to see him a friend of papa's to be attracted towards him; in all probability he will be introduced at his house, and then my scheme will be still easier. It will not be difficult to ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar

... infinite, it pours upon the dust that love and worship which is due to God alone. No one who has thus sinned, will refuse to acknowledge their force and truth. Fearful in their Medusa-like beauty, they fascinate the heart, only to turn its warm pulses into ice. They are actually withering in their despair. Poor Byron! did he never, never cry with the repentant but happy St. Augustin: 'Oh, eternal beauty! too late ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... be in some swift, clear-sighted way taking my measure, and labeling the visible marks of my personality. Then she came graciously forward, her step reminding me, in its smooth, gliding motion, of some graceful animal of the jungle that might both fascinate and slay you. ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter

... glass, and inhaled the smoke of his excellent cigar with all the enjoyment of a satisfied connoisseur. His glance played from one article of furniture to another, from the floor to the ceiling, from bookcase to bookcase, from picture to picture. The very plainness of the room seemed to fascinate him. His gaze sought out the ugliest picture, and became fixed on it. Tranter turned over all the cards, ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming

... my hunt!" muttered Jimmie Dale; then, with a shrug of his shoulders: "Queer the way those headquarters chaps fascinate and give me a thrill every time I see them, even if I haven't a ghost of ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... "Only you mustn't fascinate him," protested the elder woman, with a burlesque of maternal anxiety. "I want somebody else to do that." She gave Jane a ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller

... tones. "We don't believe in that fascinating beauty of hers—whatever you may do. Our lips don't burn to kiss those smooth cheeks. Our arms don't long to be round that supple waist. We see through her smiles and her graces, and her stays and her padding—she can't fascinate us! Put a woman in her way, Mr. Noel! Not a woman in my helpless situation, who is only a servant, but a woman with the authority and the jealousy of a Wife. Make it a condition, in your letter to the admiral, that if Mr. George is a bachelor at the ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... gilds the chain of slavery, and detracts nothing from its weight or power. The thought that men are made for other and better uses than slavery, thrives best under the gentle treatment of a kind master. But the grim visage of slavery can assume no smiles which can fascinate the partially enlightened slave, into a forgetfulness of his bondage, nor of the ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... illusions, for they answer too deep a need of the soul to be reduced to that level. If we blot them out of our existence, we sink back to a mere natural or mechanical stage. When the soul concentrates its deepest attention on these norms or ideals they fascinate it, they draw hidden energies into activity, they give inklings of immortality. Is it not far more conceivable that such a vision of meaning, of beauty, and of enchantment is a new kind of reality—cosmic in its nature and eternal ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones

... varied powers to fascinate and amuse me. Again I listened, and struggled, as formerly, against his wiles, and finally bent a too willing ear to his soft words of praise and admiration. With secret pleasure I reveled in his ardent language, ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn

... own eyes. She fought against them. She beat them down as though she were battling with serpents that rose up out of the dust to lash themselves around her and sting her. The look at them had an almost paralyzing effect. If she did not use great effort they would fascinate her, and draw her on till they filled her whole mind and lured her ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

... believe, it was the effect of the skies. I am rather subject to the influence of atmospheric conditions. There are not many things that I would rather watch. No matter what the aspect of the skies may be, they fascinate me. I have heard people say, "What a dull day!"—or, "What a sleepy day!"—and that when I was enjoying my own little paradise in yielding to the moods of cloud and sky. To this very hour I am convinced that the skies broke my nerve ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove

... meeting with Coleridge, and of the soul's awakening that followed, Hazlitt has left an account (My First Acquaintance with Poets) that will fascinate so long as English prose is read. 'Somehow that period [the time just after the French Revolution] was not a time when NOTHING WAS GIVEN FOR NOTHING. The mind opened, and a softness might be perceived coming over the heart of individuals beneath "the scales ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... the glimmering lights of a poor fishing-village to fascinate me? Far below, a mile perhaps, I behold them in the darkness and the storm like some phosphorescence of the beach; I see the pale tossing of the surf beside them; I hear the continuous roar borne up and softened about these heights; and this is night ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry

... either side, surpass anything of the kind that I have elsewhere seen, though in many respects vividly recalling the scenery around Rio de Janeiro: nor do I know any spot in the world more calculated to fascinate the naturalist who, while appreciating the elements of which a landscape is composed, is also keenly alive to the beauty ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... a strain and burden he tried to do. He encouraged her to find work among the poor; he tried in the tenderest ways to interest her in the great spectacle of London life which was already, in spite of yearning and regret, beginning to fascinate and absorb himself. But their standards were now so different that she was constantly shrinking from what attracted him, or painfully judging what was to him merely curious and interesting. He was really more and more oppressed by her intellectual ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... to 'fascinate' or 'bewitch' a man," I cried, "I should not choose one old enough to be my father, nor one who was as uninteresting, awkward and stiff as Dr. Elliott. Besides, how should I know he was not married? If I thought anything about it at all, I certainly thought of him as a middle-aged ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss

... his enthroned Madonna and victorious Judith; Angelico's favourite hillsides with blossoming fruit trees and pointing cypresses; the mysterious firwoods—more mysterious for their remoteness on the high Apennines—which fascinate the fancy of Filippo Lippi; all this is here, and through it all winds the procession of the Three Kings. There are the splendid stuffs and Oriental jewels and trappings, the hounds and monkeys, and jesters and negroes, the falcon on the wrist, the lynxes chained to the saddle, all ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... domestic happiness, they may be supposed to be jealous of every thing that appears to them to be likely to interrupt it. But they consider dramatic exhibitions, as having this tendency. These exhibitions, under the influence of plot, dialogue, dress, music, action, and scenery, particularly fascinate. They excite the person, who has once seen them, to desire them again. But in proportion as this desire is gratified, or in proportion as people leave their homes for the amusements of the stage, they lose their relish, and weaken their powers, of ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... thus addressed the swine: "My house and garden both be thine; Feast on potatoes as you please, And riot 'midst the beans and peas; Turnips and carrots, pig, devour, And broccoli and cauliflower; But spare my tulips—my delight, By which I fascinate my sight." ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay

... couple left alone, What fairer field could truly have been shown? The belle now wore a smart becoming dress, Designed, in ev'ry view, to prepossess. 'Twas NEGLIGENCE, so requisite to please And fascinate, with airy, careless ease, According to the taste which I pursue, That made her charms so exquisite to view. No gaudy tinsel: all was flowing light; Though not superb, yet pleasing to the sight; A neckerchief, where much should be concealed, Was made so narrow,—beauties ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine

... the fireflies seemed to fascinate Ned so much that he became quite silent at last, while the Malays sat huddled together chewing their betel, and talking in a low subdued tone. Then Murray struck a match to light his pipe, and the flash showed ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn

... gallantry the order of the day. Marie de Rohan was naturally vivacious and dashing, and, yielding herself up to the seductions of youth and pleasure, she had lovers, and her adorers drew her into politics. Her beauty and captivating manners were such as to fascinate and enthral the least impressible who crossed her path, and their dangerous power was extensively employed in influencing the politics of Europe, and consequently had a large share in framing her own destiny. A portrait in the possession ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... "Girl, you do not fascinate—you do not charm me, but you bind me to you in a way I did not think it in the power of any human ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... of my time to-day upon the apes. They fascinate me more daily. They look exactly like familiar demons, and certainly anyone having them about him two hundred years ago would have been burned as a wizard. When Mr. Low walks down the veranda, these two familiars walk behind him ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... tentatives, and coquettings and nibblings of your practised lovers, who have been in love a dozen times, would be as a trickling rill to an ocean wave, compared to what might be expected from the passion of a heart first strongly moved at the time of life the Marchese has reached. Fascinate such a man as that, and in such a position, bambina mia, and all the governors, and all the Cardinals that ever mumbled a mass, won't avail to prevent him ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... Besides, there was frequently something so inconceivably picturesque in the varying gestures of unrestrained passion, so irresistibly comic in their sallies, or so heart-piercingly pathetic in the little airs they would sing, frequently bursting out after an awful silence, as to fascinate the attention, and amuse the fancy, while torturing the soul. It was the uproar of the passions which she was compelled to observe; and to mark the lucid beam of reason, like a light trembling in a socket, or like the flash which divides the threatening ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft

... bracelets, ate from silver, was dressed in silk and carried the fire of youth in her eyes. While the woman thought of that young man who could fight like a hero; was ready to work like a day laborer, to throw money away like a noble, to fascinate women like an angel, and to blaspheme the powers that ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... power of evoking the spirits of saints by the might of their enchantments. But Tertullian[172] is bolder, and maintains that no magical art has power to bring the souls of the saints from their rest; but that all the necromancers can do is to call forth some phantoms with a borrowed shape, which fascinate the eyes, and make those who are present believe that to be a reality which is only appearance. In the same place he quotes Heraclius, who says that the Nasamones, people of Africa, pass the night by the tombs of their near relations to receive oracles ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... design, with no definite determination, she felt within her heart a growing desire to fascinate him, and yielded to it. She had foreseen nothing, planned nothing; she was only coquettish with added grace, as a woman always is toward a man who pleases her more than all others; and in her manner ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant

... laughed, "Do not puzzle yourself over such difficulties to-night, at any rate. Leave me to think of those. I will tell you what you must do. Make up your mind to be as charming as possible when you see my father, and fascinate him in spite of himself; for, I assure you he will not very readily forgive us for deranging his plans. Good-night now, I shall be ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill

... days, tramping over the country leagues and leagues away, making the earth tremble with his heavy tread, and distancing everything with his long, untiring stride. Then, on his return, he would be the prince of good-fellows once more, and fascinate the merry revellers with the witchery of his tongue. Even when a boy, he had won a bet by walking six miles in two minutes less than an hour. He once dined in Grosvenor Square, and made his appearance at Oxford at an early hour the next morning, having walked the fifty-eight miles at a tremendous ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various

... soothes us not. "She kept me awake all night, as a strain of Mozart's might do," Keats wrote of his Charmian. There was no song this special songstress sang which she did not make her own by a peculiar and powerful effort. Her instinct was to rouse, charm, fascinate her little audience. Not to move her hearers was to her not to sing, and when she sang as she wished she could sweep away his world of ideas from her listener and recreate a new one. In one song, an Italian ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various

... spellbound for the afternoon. It is possible, however, that no great harm would have been done if the visit had come to a natural end the following day; Rose would certainly have thought no more of Tom, and Tom might very possibly have come to his senses when she was no longer there to fascinate him. But on the Sunday evening when the toils of the day were over, and they were all enjoying the restful home quiet which did not come very often in their busy lives, Rose's visit was ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... he had in mind one of the boldest projects he had yet attempted and needed, to insure success, every scrap of knowledge that she possessed. In the meantime, while she waited for him to seek her out, she resolved to show him the extent of her power to fascinate others; and from that moment never had she seemed more attractive and alluring to her admirers, in all of whom she appeared to excite the fiercest of passions. In fact, one word whispered in an ear by those voluptuous ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco

... fascinate by the grace and charm with which it is written, by the delightful characters that take part in it, and by the interest of the plot. The scene is laid in a magnificent Austrian castle in North Italy, and that serves as a background for the working out of a sparkling love-story ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young

... with a great scar, and wearing an expression of horror trying not to look horrible. His fear threatened to turn him into clay, but he met it with scorn, strove against it, would not and did not yield. Still the figure stared, as if it would fascinate him into limpest submission. Slowly at length it rose, and with a look that seemed meant to rivet the foregone stare—a look of mingled pain and fierceness, turned, and led the way from the room, whereupon the spell was so far broken or changed, that he was able to rise ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... detesting their crimes, Rodney began to admire the skill and success with which they were perpetrated. The excitement and freedom, and wild, frenzied enjoyment of such a life, as depicted by the young knaves, began to fascinate and charm his mind. Something seemed to whisper in his ear, "As you are now disgraced, without any fault of your own, why not carry it out, and make the most of it? They have put you into jail, this time, for nothing; if they ever do it again, let ...
— The Runaway - The Adventures of Rodney Roverton • Unknown

... glow—the French picture "vibrates." If other works are finished, these have finesse. There is similar spirit in the Italian galleries, with a variation due to national characteristics rather than to difference of opinion or method. The Italian pictures fully occupy the mind and eye; the French often fascinate by something more than skill and color. Both countries have placed their older art, and some of its best, ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber

... still be read for information as well as for pleasure. The 'Zanoni' species is undeniably interesting. The weird traditions of the 'Philosopher's Stone' and the 'Elixir of Life' can never cease to fascinate human souls, and all the paraphernalia of magic are charming to minds weary of the matter-of-factitude of current existence. The stories are put together with Bulwer's unfailing cleverness, and in all ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... they present themselves half in the reptile state, half erect; their eyes and their heads in the erect posture appear to great advantage: the former display a fire which I have often admired, and it is by these they are enabled to fascinate birds and squirrels. When they have fixed their eyes on an animal, they become immovable; only turning their head sometimes to the right and sometimes to the left, but still with their sight invariably directed to the object. The distracted victim, instead of flying its enemy, seems ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

... She saw it plainly. He did not love her, but he saw that he could fascinate her, and he hoped to use her as an aid to his escape. She ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White

... offering to Kitshi Manid[-o] of tobacco and a Mid[-e] song with rattle accompaniment. The manner of using this powder will be described under the caption of "descriptive notes." It differs entirely from the powder employed in painting the face by one who wishes to attract or fascinate the object of his or her devotion. The latter is referred to by the Rev. Peter Jones[16] ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various

... weeks. The interval was spent by Waverley with great satisfaction at Glennaquoich; for the impression which Flora had made on his mind at their first meeting grew daily stronger. She was precisely the character to fascinate a youth of romantic imagination. Her manners, her language, her talents for poetry and music, gave additional and varied influence to her eminent personal charms. Even in her hours of gaiety, she was in his fancy exalted above the ordinary daughters ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... it was not possible to be jealous of his host. Whatever truth there was about his past failure, he could never fascinate Sylvia. She appreciated too fully the plastic side of life; she was a romanticist, and therefore she attached immense importance to the material. (Are not all romantic heroes and heroines beautiful to look at, and always either beautifully or picturesquely dressed?) Sylvia cared far ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson

... her curiosity, and, in such a country, was well adapted to suggest to a lively fancy the outlines of a romance. No doubt, she thought, the pavosk contained a young and beautiful Circassian, whose charms would fascinate some Oriental prince, and place a queen's diadem upon her brow. At an inn, in Stavropol, Madame de Hell again fell in with the Circassian and his mysterious charge, but the latter was veiled from head to foot "The young mountaineer," she says, "prepared a divan with ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... that considering the modest costumes of these Indian ladies and their bashful and shrinking disposition, it does seem strange that they should fascinate one like myself of the Saxon race. To be sure the sight of the bared shoulders and necks of society belles when undressed in the decollete fashion of their ball gowns ravishes and gluts our sensuality, but a momentary glimpse of the Indian maid's brown knee flashing by ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann

... down in an easy-chair, and he began to look at her fixedly, so as to fascinate her. I suddenly felt myself somewhat uncomfortable, with a beating heart and a choking feeling in my throat. I saw that Madame Sable's eyes were growing heavy, her mouth twitched and her bosom heaved, and at the end of ten minutes she ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... that gentlemanly philosopher from Sweden, a great friend of the Governor, you know. But, alas, I might as well have tried to fascinate an iceberg! I do not believe that he knew, after a half-hour's conversation with me, whether I was man or woman. That was ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... which have careers as well as men, or, perhaps it may be more happily said, as well as women. Mere words breathed on by Fancy, and sent forth not so much to serve man's ordinary colloquial uses, apparently, as to fascinate his mind, have their debuts. their season, their vogue, and finally a period in which it is really too bad if they have not the consolation of reflecting upon their conquests; for conquests they certainly have. The great captivators—the Cleopatras of the vocabulary—one ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various

... affection of a man who hardly cares for her, desperately enamoured. Alone in the group Franklin is endowed with the ordinary human revulsion from folly and wickedness, but his character is sketched too lightly to relieve the darkness. Such creatures may fascinate us by their defiance of the laws that bind us. Alice, particularly, does so. She possesses—as Michael does, to a less degree—at least a few natural traits; her conscience is not quite dead, and her love is strong, although even this is represented as a huge ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... I mean what I say. If I do admire a person I say so. Now, I admire our darling Martha West. She has always been kind to me. Martha is a dear, a duck; but, of course, she doesn't fascinate in the way you do. Several of the other girls in my form—I'm in the upper fifth, you know—have been talking about you and wondering where your charm lay. For you couldn't be called exactly pretty; although, of course, that very black hair of yours, and those ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade

... fascinate every one. He must be satisfied with Nastasya Karpovna's being in love ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev

... the strong-box, she produced from her work-basket a white scarf, which she had begun to embroider, and set to work on it. At once industrious and a coquette, she knew instinctively how to ply her needle so as to fascinate an admirer and make a pretty thing for her wearing at one and the same time; she had quite different ways of working according to the person watching her,—a nonchalant way for those she would lull into a gentle languor, a capricious way for those she was fain to ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... couldn't very well marry without his approval. And though I knew he wouldn't have any objection to Florence, having known her father since they were at Oxford together, I hadn't wanted to take any chances; so I had told her to make an effort to fascinate ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... be so indignant, please. I am an artist—honestly. But some of these men I've met over here—well, they fascinate me. Such boundless energy and drive ought to go into a symphony. Plenty of drums and crashing brass. Good-bye, Mrs. Lanier," he added. "This has been ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole

... her as she was then, with her brilliant English complexion, her eyes so full of poetry and passion, her perfect features, and, more than all, the wondrous smile, which would have made a plain face handsome. She was full of life and spirits, with enough of coquetry about her to fascinate and turn ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... she cried to Birkin, who was watching the water on the steps, to see if it would get any lower. It seemed to fascinate him. He looked at her ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... a woman, however for a time she might fascinate him; and afterwards there would only be the nausea and the memory that was like an unpleasant taste. Such a woman might teach him many things it is no harm for a man to know; but she would never call to the best in him, nor help ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... The paper seemed to fascinate his eyes. He stared at it fixedly, and augured ominously of Barker's intentions, since that worthy obviously alluded to his having smiled in form, and chose to interpret it as an intentional provocation. He felt that he was in for it, and that Barker meant to pick a quarrel with him. This puzzled ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar

... book which lay open on the lady's knee. Her face was turned toward the visitor, and her eyes examined his face; calmly and with no surprise in them, but not without a look of interest. Their expression was at once so unusual, so disquieting, and yet so inexplicably attractive as to fascinate the Wanderer's gaze. He did not remember that he had ever seen a pair of eyes of distinctly different colours, the one of a clear, cold gray, the other of a deep, warm brown, so dark as to seem almost black, and ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford

... fleur of our aristocracy, a maker of tender rhymes, a singer of tender songs, a good swordsman, a brilliant wit, a perfect courtier, a lucky gambler—in a word, just that fortunate combination of noble and ignoble qualities most likely to fascinate Madame de St. Andre," and a shadow settled for a moment on the debonair face of ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe

... to say, the episode is narrated with as brutal a realism as if it were a satire of Lucian, and its style is belittled with petty affectations of rhetoric. It is the enduring beauty of the conception that has continued to fascinate. Hence we may say of 'The Golden Ass' in its entirety, that whether readers are interested in esoteric meanings to be divined, or in the author's vivid sketches of his own period, the novel has a charm which long centuries have ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... But Watts had benefited much by the sousing of the spray, while his recovery was expedited by the forcible ejection of the salt water he had swallowed. He raised himself on one hand, and looked about with an inquiring eye. The Brazilian officer's uniform seemed to fascinate him. ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... gamble, too. I mean every word I am saying, Phil. It may go against the grain at first to associate with such cads as Chad and his crowd; but perhaps that'll wear away in time, and I may come to enjoy what I now abhor. As these low pleasures have fascinated you, so they may fascinate me." ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus

... be uneasily aware that he is valued for his simplicity and innocence. Then he resolves to break with the past, to put away childish things, to forgo affection, and to earn respect by imitating the activities of his elders. The strange power of words and the virtues of abstract thought begin to fascinate him. He loses touch with the things of sense, and ceases to speak as a child. If his first attempts at argument and dogma win him praise and esteem, if he proves himself a better fighter than an older boy next door, who has often ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh

... by English style and method. Vigorous, fluent, crisp, and clear, it shows how well our language is adapted to description and narration. It is written for the people, and in the picturesque and poetic strain which is always certain to fascinate the Celtic mind. The introduction to each Vision is evidently written with elaborate care, and exquisitely polished—"ne quid possit per leve morari," and scene follows scene, painted in words which present them most vividly before ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... fascinate and influence those more powerful than she—though operant in Elfride, was decidedly purposeless. She had wanted her friend Knight's good opinion from the first: how much more than that elementary ingredient of friendship she now desired, her fears would hardly allow her to think. In originally ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... always taciturn, listened to all that was said, but took no part in the conversation. Benito quietly and attentively watched him. The eyes of Torres, with a peculiar expression, constantly sought his father. One would have called them the eyes of some wild beast trying to fascinate his prey before he sprang ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne

... border-land between the Byzantine of Venice and the Lombardic of Verona. The superb domes of St. Anthony's emulate those of St. Mark's, and the porticos of other Paduan churches rest upon the backs of bird-headed lions and leopards that fascinate with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... of the affections which have been noted to fascinate or bewitch, but love and envy. They both have vehement wishes; they frame themselves readily into imaginations and suggestions; and they come easily into the eye, especially upon the presence of the objects; which are the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey

... and pretentious sign seemed to fascinate Colonel Witham. He walked past it once, reading it out of the corner of one eye; but he went only a little way beyond, then turned and stopped and surveyed it once more. He edged up to the canvas, sidled into ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith

... Before the battle was decided, Cleopatra fled, and was followed by Antonius. When the latter approached Alexandria, Antonius, deceived by the false report that Cleopatra had destroyed herself, threw himself upon his sword and died. Cleopatra, finding herself unable to fascinate the conqueror, but believing that he meant that she should adorn his public triumph at Rome, poisoned herself (30). Egypt was made into a Roman province. The month Sextilis, on which Octavianusreturned to Rome, received in honor of him the name of "August," ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... of the day in the library of Trinity College with Sedley Taylor. Years before, I had explored its treasures with Aldis Wright, but there were new things to fascinate me. Dining at King's College with Waldstein, met Professor Seeley, author of the "Life of Stein," a book which, ever since its appearance, has been ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... The Tempest fascinate with the witchery of untrammeled existence. Two lines of a song from Twelfth Night give an attractive presentation of the Renaissance philosophy of the present as ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... fascinate more than beautiful ones! My laughter died away. It is difficult to keep on laughing by oneself. I was tired, and had been giving out sympathy all day; depression clutched me, and a restless irritability. At this auspicious moment ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... come out. Your courting has been clandestine, behind the back of her family. It seems perfectly obvious that you're trying to lure her into a runaway match. She has grounds for believing that you do not trust her and, because of that, although you fascinate her, she finds it impossible to trust you in return. She trusts you so little that she did not dare to risk facing you and sent me in her stead. She's so sure that a marriage with you would be unfortunate that, in order to save ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... of the soothing effect of music upon wild animals. A graphophone, with records of Melba, Sembrich, Caruso, and other operatic stars, made the rounds of a menagerie. Many of the larger animals appeared to thoroughly enjoy listening to the melodious strains, which seemed to fascinate them. The one exception, proving the rule, was a huge, blue-faced mandrill, who became enraged at hearing a few bars from "Pagliacci," and tried to wreck the machine. Of all the animals, the lions were ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence

... pessimism, in puzzled revolt against the wrongness and cruelty of a shadowy world, the brooding thought too whimsical to be bitter, the fancy too refined to be boisterously merry—all these conspired to fascinate us as we came to perceive and appreciate them beneath the rather stiff little verses. To read Miss Coleridge's poems was to make acquaintance with a charming and delicate soul that wished to be understood and was willing to be intimate. Life astonished ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell

... begins to talk of a man in this way, he is an ass who does not win her; and, for my part, I used to follow her about, and put myself in an attitude opposite her, 'and fascinate her with my glance,' as she said, most assiduously. Lord George Poynings, her former admirer, was meanwhile keeping his room with his wound, and seemed determined to give up all claims to her favour; for he denied her admittance when she called, ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... are now two Black-Artists, of the first quality, busy on the unconscious Friedrich Wilhelm; and Seckendorf, for the next seven years, will stick to Friedrich Wilhelm like his shadow; and fascinate his whole existence and him, as few wizards could have done. Friedrich Wilhelm, like St. Paul in Melita, warming his innocent hands at the fire of dry branches here kindled for him,—that miracle of a ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... beyond the smoke and the flames will ever urge them to call up the ice-bound will, that it may obey; that the torturing spirit of God in them will keep their consciences awake, not to remind them of what they ought to have done, but to tell them what they must do now, and hell will no longer fascinate them. Tell them that there is no refuge from the compelling Love of God, save that Love itself—that He is in hell too, and that if they make their bed in hell they shall not escape him, and then, perhaps, they will have some true presentiment of the worm that dieth not and the fire ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... in love before since I was ten; so the sensation was quite exciting, like picking up a lovely jewel on the street, which you aren't sure won't be claimed by somebody else. I was trying to think what else I could say to fascinate him when the car lost its breath again, and—"r-r-retch" ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson



Words linked to "Fascinate" :   matter to, appeal, seize, fascination, work, grab, interest, enamour, hold, attract



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