"Fascinating" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for Chesterton, is that he makes kings out of common men: those folks who are the ordinary people of this strange, fascinating world, those who have no special claim to a place in the stars, those who, when they die, do not have two lines in any but a local paper, those who are common but are ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... It was Manuela's fascinating smile that came hardest on our poor hero. When she looked grave or sad, he could regard her as a mere statue, an unusually classical-looking bronze savage; but when she smiled, there was something so bewitchingly sweet in the lines ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... There was something fascinating about the man; an air of good-humor, of comradeship, of strength, of purpose. My eyes were caught by his stodgy, nervous hands, as he held the match to his cigarette; then they wandered to his face—to ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson
... uncanny. "I know not why Japan should not become the Sardinia of the Mongolian East," he writes in 1875. To the political student these Volumes will be almost as fruitful a field as BURKE; for myself, I have found them more fascinating ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 30th, 1920 • Various
... of the Alexandra, which opens on the Gut, is my home comedy. It is strangely fascinating; sad in a way, but very human; for nothing on earth, except one or two of the very great things of life, is so democratic as the back-door of a public house. Soon after breakfast, or even before, the tradesmen sneak round for their pick-me-ups. Then ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... gained celebrity as an author; but as a critic, upon whatever subject, his qualifications have rarely been surpassed, though in literary matters and the fine arts they were only exhibited in conversation. His colloquial powers were impressive and fascinating, though he generally seemed a listener rather than a talker; but never failed to say a proper thing in ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... were extended; his movements had a lithe grace that was irresistibly fascinating to the eye. Slight though he was, he might have been a young god descending on a shaft of sunshine from Olympus. But the thought that darted all unbidden through Anne's mind was of something far different. She banished ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... opposite Ringtail a strange yellow radiance streamed out over the glade. In its brightness a number of rabbits were disporting themselves, jumping about as if in some queer dance, pausing occasionally to stare into the center of that fascinating glow. Now and then one would vanish into the darkness to right or left, but another was sure to ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... that, Joan. Men Scryfa marks the memory of a good Briton—one who knew King Arthur, very likely. I love the old stones too. You are right to love them. They are landmarks in time, books from which we may read something of a far, fascinating past." ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... movement, came forward to the door, and gave him her hand with all the warmth and candor of her noble nature, the pique vanished from his mind, and in an instant, he, like Elmsley, evinced that devotion and regard for her, which her fascinating manner could not fail ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... pleasantly. I had never seen Augusta Darrell so agreeable, so fascinating, as she was that night. She touched the piano for the first time since her husband's death, and sang and played with all her old fire, keeping Angus Egerton a prisoner by the side of the piano. Hers was not music to be heard with indifference by ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... F. was some tender, lovely, fascinating fair-creature, I make no doubt,' observed Mr Blandois, as he snapped on the case again. 'I adore her memory on the assumption. Unfortunately for my peace of mind, I adore but too readily. It may be a vice, it may be a virtue, but adoration ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... which have been transcribed in extenso up to 1573 by Rev. J. Erskine Binney (Exeter, 1904). The garrulous old vicar here, Christopher Trychay, who wrote the parish accounts himself for more than a generation, and always punctiliously styled himself "Sir," is a fascinating figure. Thanks to his chatty explanations on all subjects, bits of the daily life of this little Devonshire parish from Henry VIII's, from Edward VI's, from Mary's, and from Elizabeth's reigns are brought down to us with great vividness. Cf. James Stockdale, Annals of ...
— The Elizabethan Parish in its Ecclesiastical and Financial Aspects • Sedley Lynch Ware
... mind since; and now, with all a woman's unreason, she conceived a sudden and violent dislike for him because she had treated him too kindly in her thoughts. I liked Adan Menendez; there was something manly and sure about him,—the latter a restful if not a fascinating quality. And I liked his appearance. His clear brown eyes had a kind direct regard. His chin was round, and his profile a little thick; but the gray hair brushed up and away from his low forehead gave dignity ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... duped by a woman whose chief attraction had, for me, consisted not so much in her surpassing loveliness of person, though doubtless that had had its effect upon me, as in that angelic purity and fascinating simplicity and truthfulness of character which I now discovered to be a mere worthless sham. It was evident enough that Merlani had been her lover—most probably her accepted lover—when I appeared upon the scene; and that, dazzled by my appearance of superior wealth, she had in the most ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... Whig.—The author displays much constructive and descriptive power. He is most felicitous in his word pictures of scenery, and imparts a fascinating dash ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... extended further than this—it embraced an extraordinary knowledge of the sea, and in particular of naval warfare. It is tantalising that we have but the slenderest evidence of the mode in which this particular schooling was obtained. The western ocean was, all through the youth of Raleigh, the most fascinating and mysterious of the new fields which were being thrown open to English enterprise. He was a babe when Tonson came back with the first wonderful legend of the hidden treasure-house of the Spaniard in the West Indies. He was at Oxford when England thrilled with the news ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... too, from the admiral downward, came about him, and though too weak as yet for much talk, he acknowledged their kindness by a charming and fascinating smile. ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... he was even more wonderful than she had expected or remembered, and that she did not know him at all—that she had no knowledge of this tall, handsome, well-built young fellow with his sunburnt features and his air of smiling aloofness and of graceful assurance, almost fascinating and a trifle disturbing. ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... Mrs. George awfully jealous of her husband when he had such a fascinating beauty for his ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... object I have in view will be accomplished, if the hints and instruction contained in it, tend to aid the diversion, and promote the amusement of those who wish to be proficient in the art of a pleasing and fascinating recreation. ...
— The Teesdale Angler • R Lakeland
... the depths of her heart, for his face grew even milder, and his smile more fascinating. "Your majesty has hated me intensely, I suppose?" he asked, in a low voice. "Oh, do not deny it; I have been portrayed to you ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... declared. "Mr. Lessingham is a most fascinating person. We are all half in love with ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... fascinating evil, part vampire, part Mephistopheles, whose grand manner and heroic abilities might have made him a great and good man but for 'the malady of not wanting,' is the light and meaning of the whole book. Innocent and benevolent lives are thrown in his way that he may mock or distort or shatter ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh
... up the theme and give us of the rich treasure-store of his knowledge and observation. In the American Journal of Science and Arts, Third Series, for 1875, he discussed the very field we are now interested in, and his fascinating and illuminating explanations render the subject perfectly clear. ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... and sometimes even creating, apt poetic words or phrases, is one of his special charms. Matthew Arnold says: "No one else in English poetry, save Shakespeare, has in expression quite the fascinating felicity of Keats." Some of his descriptive adjectives and phrases, such as the "deep-damasked wings" of the tiger-moth, have been called "miniature poems." In the eighty lines of the Ode to a Nightingale, we may note the "full-throated ease" ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... devoid of concern for the honor and happiness of their offspring. However they may have themselves conducted, while in the pursuit of worldly objects, or under the influence of appetite or passion, when they come to stand on the brink of another world, the fascinating charms of this, lose their power—the infinite difference between time and eternity appears; and the true value of objects is seen and estimated. Then the counsel which is given is that of wisdom—it points to duty —to peace and ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... before: it is the problem of reconciling unity with liberty and variety; of combining nationality and self-government with imperialism, without impairing the rights of either. And beyond any doubt the most tremendous and fascinating political question which now awaits solution in the world, is the question whether the political instinct of the British peoples, and the genius of self-government, will find a way out of these difficulties, as they ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... by Thomas, Parker and Rice, of Baltimore, presents a fascinating study of colonial architecture in its reproduction of "Homewood," built by Charles Carroll of Carrollton in 1802. The present aspect of "Homewood" has been imitated in appearance of age given to the brickwork and the timbering. The contents of the building are no less delightful, historically, ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... of his fascinating researches, obtained by the introduction of new methods, in another remarkable volume—"Researches on Irritability of plants"—which was ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... gardens of all the houses on either side sloped either up or down another and a steeper hill. Dr. Trenire's house was on the left-hand side of the street, as one walked up it, and it was the steep slope up of the garden behind it that made the old wall so fascinating. ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... himself feared, at a ball as well as in a meeting of his Ministers. At an entertainment he won as much glory as on the battle-field. Even those who hated him had to admire him, for he had a most wonderful power of astounding and fascinating every one. His aide, General de Narbonne, had an old mother, who maintained her allegiance to the old royalty. "See here, my dear Narbonne," the Emperor said one day, "it's a bad thing for me that you see your mother so often. I understand that she doesn't like ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... in sending and receiving—telling how small and large amateur sets can be made and operated, and how some boys got a lot of fun and adventure out of what they did. Each volume from first to last is so thoroughly fascinating, so strictly up-to-date and accurate, we feel sure all lads will ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield
... beckoned far below them, a dancing blueness; and to the golden cliffs, laughing in the sunlight far and near. The path was quite steep and winding and unexpected, and Yassuh scrambled about a good deal; but he managed to keep hold of the step and the bag. As for Sara, she had never seen a more fascinating place, and she supposed these great cliffs must form a part of the walls of the amphitheatre she had seen from Schlorge's stump. Presently, at one especially wild, golden place, where the path followed the edge of a chasm, Pirlaps paused ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... fascinating as Dickens, to be consulted as an authority along with Britannica, and even fuller of practical hints than the latter's articles. I do not know how you can print its ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... hastened to spend it in the society of those to whom we were ardently attached. Our greatest favourite, if we loved one more than the other, was our sister Nina, for she was the youngest. She was the most fascinating and lovely, though we confessed that if she had a fault, her disposition was too yielding and confiding—guileless herself, she could not credit that guile existed in others. Hers was one of those characters ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... Nell, who had promised her sister to finish Judith's shopping, made haste to introduce the fascinating question as to whether taffeta or crepe would be best for the afternoon frock, and how many sweater coats ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... the fascinating story of Coronado and his three hundred Spanish knights in their long weary march over a silent desolate level waste day after day, pushing grimly to the northward in their fruitless search for gold. ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... are so fascinating like they almost tempt one, though they ain't quite the proper thing," he said. "I've always dearly loved to be watching yours, sir. I must get her some of these big ones, too, some day. They're like the Limberlost in January, ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... with mud, arose in height every hour. The climate was growing delightful. It was like a June day in the northern states. Each soft breeze of the balmy atmosphere seemed to say, as I felt its strange, fascinating influence, "You are nearing the goal!" The shadows of the twilight found me safely ensconced behind the lower end of Island No. 33, where in the bayou between it and the Tennessee shore I lazily watched fair Luna softly emerging from the clouds, and lending ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... the dinner he discussed his private affairs in this manner, deferring to Ravenel, flattering him by asking opinions on weighty subjects, listening to the answers with gloomy attentiveness, bewildering, fascinating, dominating, by a perfectly conscious use of ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... Servigny, and there, sure enough, is Yvette with a fringe. The purest of painters becomes historical by accident. He expresses the unalloyed sensibility of an artist in terms of delicious contemporary life and gives us, adventitiously, romance. A fascinating period, ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... the brothers of Alboni were gallant soldiers in the Italian war of independence, and received medals and other distinctions from Victor Emanuel. Mme. Alboni in private life is said to be one of the most amiable, warm-hearted, and fascinating of women, and to take the deepest interest in helping the careers of young singers by advice, influence, and pecuniary aid. In social life she is quite as much the idol of her friends as she was for so many years of an ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... They are so rapid in their work, that if a dress without flounces is tacked together, it can be made easily by the machine in a morning: a lady here showed me how the machine is used; she told me it is so fascinating that she should like to sit at it all day. She works for her family, consisting of a husband and nine sons, and takes the greatest pleasure in making all their under clothing; and working as she does, not very constantly, she can easily do as much as six sempstresses, while the machine, ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... personal discussions with horse thieves, some border frays, and even a chance encounter on a narrow trail with a giant grizzly, have tried his nerve. But he braces with a good stiff draught of cognac now. He fears the wily and fascinating Natalie. He is at heart a would-be lady's man. Roughness is foreign to his nature, but he will walk the grim ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... conversation in any of the rooms but the mystery of the golden bullet and the doors closed from the inside. The attendants and the policeman gathered whispering in the corners, and strangers who came in on their own business forgot it in their excitement over this new and fascinating mystery. ...
— The Case of the Golden Bullet • Grace Isabel Colbron, and Augusta Groner
... shelter of a big boulder, Garth first spreading a rug which he had brought from the boat for Sara to sit on. Then he unstrapped the tea-basket, and it became evident either that Mrs. Judson had a genius for assembling together the most fascinating little cakes and savoury sandwiches, accompanied by fragrant tea, hot from a thermos flask, or else that she had acted under instructions from some one to whom the cult of afternoon tea as sublimated by Rumpelmayer was not an ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... as a World Power" (Stokes, 1916) is a fascinating volume that combines the history, science and politics of the plant and does not ignore ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... to her father, as he entered the room an hour after the incidents of the chess-board; for the obsequious minister had followed Ericson in his rapid retreat, and now returned radiant with joy, as if his guest had been the most fascinating of men. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... where it was succulent, and piled their plates high. Mr. Cahill insisted on sirloin, but admitted that he had made a mistake later on. He and Evie soon fell into a conversation of the "No, I didn't; yes, you did" type—conversation which, though fascinating to those who are engaged in it, neither desires nor deserves the ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... without "trimmings," is told in the Journal itself.[462] The poor creature is as different as possible, not merely from the usual heroine, but from the grisette of the first half of the century and from the demi-mondaine of Dumas fils, and Daudet, and even Zola. She is not pretty; she is not fascinating in any way; she is neither good- nor ill-natured in any special fashion; she is not even ambitious of "bettering" herself or of having much pleasure, wealth, etc. If she goes to the bad it is in the ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... at Arcis, was anxious to pick up the Paris style. This man, one of the outer stones of the Chamber, was forming himself under the auspices of this delicious and fascinating Madame Marneffe. Introduced here by Crevel, he had accepted him, at her instigation, as his model and master. He consulted him on every point, took the address of his tailor, imitated him, and tried to strike the same attitudes. In short, ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... familiar with when this story reaches your hands, and I hope by the time it does so we shall be far beyond our present stage of experiment and that you will have come naturally to play your part in this most fascinating business of maintaining an onward intellectual movement in the world, a movement not simply independent of but often running counter to all sorts of political and financial interests. I tell you this much here for ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... from his grasp a suff'ring world: Gasca, the guardian minister of woe, Bids o'er her wounds the balms of comfort flow 280 While rich Potosi[B] rolls the copious tide Of wealth, unbounded as the wish of pride; His pure, unsullied soul with high disdain For virtue spurns the fascinating bane; Her seraph form can still his breast allure 285 Tho' drest in weeds, she triumph'd to be poor— Hopeless ambition's murders to restrain, And virtue's wrongs, he sought Iberia's plain, Without one mean reserve he nobly brings A massive treasure, yet unknown to kings: 290 No purple ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams
... into his arm, cast another searching glance over her shoulder for a partner who had been too tardy in finding her, and yielded to the temptation to have this first dance with "the most terribly fascinating man there"! Lee slipped his arm about her, felt her sway with him, and lightly they caught the beat of the dance and lost themselves in it. And still, again and again turning away ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... feature, the sense of wandering in strange new lands untrodden before of man's foot; the beings who move in these lands are gracious, barbarous, magical, monstrous, superhuman, dreamy, or prophetic by turns; they are all different and all fascinating. The reader is further introduced to the life of the dead as well as of the living and the memory of his visit is one which he will retain for ever. Not many stories of adventure can impress themselves indelibly as does ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... break them one by one and cast them in the old man's face. Like all imaginative people, he was at times the prey of morbid self-suggestions, whose nature can scarcely be stated without excess. The more monstrous the thing appeared to his mind and conscience, the more fascinating it became. Once the mere horror of such a conception as catching a comely parishioner about the waist and kissing her, when she had come to him with a case of conscience, had so confused him in her presence as to make him answer her wildly, ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... Huske, the second in command, saw Lord John Drummond's advance, and sent an urgent message to his superior officer. He, however, refused to take alarm, sent a message that the men might put on their accoutrements, and sat down to dinner with his fascinating hostess. At two o'clock, General Huske, looking anxiously through his spy-glass, saw the bulk of the Highland army sweeping round to the ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... half her possessions for the one possession of beauty. That she was jealous of her fascinating rival there is little doubt, but that she was exasperated at her pretensions and at the audacious plottings against her life and throne is not strange. In fact we wonder that, with her imperious temper, she so long hesitated to ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... duplicates, if you will be so generous, but nothing unique, I insist." He finally accepted one gem in the collection,—a towering structure of feathers that formed "a most delightful head-dress, quite irresistibly fascinating," tried it on before a mirror that gave back faithfully the comical reflection, and incidentally delivered a lecture on the head-ornaments of many savage and civilized nations of every age, though not at all in the style ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... form, not from the posed, professional model, who will sit like a stone; try it with children, two years old or so; the despair of it, the exhaustion: and then, in a flash, when you thought you had really done somewhat, a still more captivating, fascinating gesture, which makes all you have done look like lead. Can you screw your exhaustion up again, sacrifice all you have done, and face the labour of wrestling with the new idea? And if you do? You are sick with doubt ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... saved a penny, he was a most persuasive borrower, he was in debt to every pilot on the river, and to the majority of the captains. He could throw a sort of splendor around a bit of harum-scarum, devil-may-care piloting, that made it almost fascinating—but not to everybody. He made a trip with good old Captain Y——once, and was 'relieved' from duty when the boat got to New Orleans. Somebody expressed surprise at the discharge. Captain Y—— shuddered at the mere mention of Stephen. Then ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... she pointed out, "that is just the fun of it? It might be anybody. It might be you, or me, or Ella Buller. Though I would much prefer to think it was some one we didn't know so well—some one strange and fascinating, who will presently go slipping out the Golden Gate in a little junk boat, so that no ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... Computer Club, and Robert T. Morris (see {RTM}, sense 2) . Markoff and Hafner focus as much on their psychologies and motivations as on the details of their exploits, but don't slight the latter. The result is a balanced and fascinating account, particularly useful when read immediately before or after Cliff Stoll's {The Cuckoo's Egg}. It is especially instructive to compare RTM, a true hacker who blundered, with the sociopathic phone-freak Mitnick and the alienated, drug-addled crackers ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... of the most graceful and polished orators. To his conversational style he added an exceptional vocabulary, a clear and flexible voice, and a most fascinating personality. ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... author's faithful historic treatment of the mighty stream of migration which had begun to spread through the jagged channels of the Alleghanies over the then unknown illimitable West as to his power to tell an absorbing story. When "The Choir Invisible" appeared, this perhaps most fascinating period of early American history had not been used as a background of his story by any great master of fiction, and it requires no very keen literary insight to discover the sources of the popularity which has been accorded to the four or five recent novels, each of which has for its setting ...
— James Lane Allen: A Sketch of his Life and Work • Macmillan Company
... laid a paper over the little watch and chain, as if to cover its fascinating sparkle ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... he might have forgotten all; but she had come, and all was revived. She had come, too, in a shape which was adapted in the highest degree to stimulate all the passion of Dacres's soul—young, beautiful, fascinating, elegant, refined, rich, honored, courted, and happy. Upon such a being as this the homeless wanderer, the outcast, looked, and his soul seemed turned to fire as he ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... audience not to be lured by the aesthetic movement into having beautiful things about them, Mr. Whistler concluded his lecture with a pretty passage about Fusiyama on a fan, and made his bow to an audience which he had succeeded in completely fascinating by his wit, his brilliant paradoxes, and, at times, his real eloquence. Of course, with regard to the value of beautiful surroundings I differ entirely from Mr. Whistler. An artist is not an isolated fact; he is the resultant of ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... beneath whose tower two figures were standing, so deep in shadow that little more could be made out concerning them save that they were young persons of the opposite sex. The elder and taller, however, was the fascinating Lord B; the younger (presenting a strong contrast to her companion in social position, but yet belonging to the true nobility of nature) was no other than the beautiful ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... 'Angiolini.' There, too, is Solomon's seal, with waxen bells and leaves expanded like the wings of hovering butterflies. But these lists of flowers are tiresome and cold; it would be better to draw the portrait of one which is particularly fascinating. I think that botanists have called it Saxifraga cotyledon; yet, in spite of its long name, it is beautiful and poetic. London-pride is the commonest of all the saxifrages; but the one of which I speak is as ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... he has to teach. Don't you think such a man should be free to devote himself to original work? He might in England, you know, if he were a fellow of a University. But we're proud of him at Barnard; and the laboratory—oh, it's the most fascinating place!" ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... our aunts, I am sure.' And, indeed, great must have been their ascendency over him in youth, for up to a late date he entertained a very high respect for their capacity and judgment. Great indeed must it have been to have prevailed against all the seducing allurements of a beautiful and fascinating young bride, whose amiableness, vivacity, and wit became the universal admiration, and whose graceful manner of address few ever equalled and none ever surpassed; nay, even so to have prevailed as to form one of the great sources of his aversion to consummate the marriage! Since the ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... monstrosity during the period of its power is simply to expose one's self to popular jeers. Having immense respect for majorities in this country, we only venture obscurely to hint, that, of all arts, none before has ever been so threatening, curious, and fascinating a monster as that of printing. We merely suggest the hypothesis, novel since some centuries, that old Faustus and Gutenberg were as much inspired by the Evil One as they have been fabled to be, when they carved out of a mountain of ore the instrument yclept type, to completely ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... vivacious" Miss So-and-so. That "caught." Every woman likes to be thought accomplished or interesting, just as every man delights to see himself paraded in the papers as a "public-spirited citizen." Then the press grew bolder and introduced the adjectives "charming," "fascinating," "beautiful," etc. That "took" still better. The next step was the "write up" in extenso; next the portrait. Thus, in a ratio of geometrical progression, the bad habit has grown from the daring but courtly compliment to its present disguising proportions, and the vanity and folly of the ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... irrevocable solemnity; and that there is generally time for a man to recollect himself in the space between the heated over-night, and the cooler next morning; or I know not who could escape the sweet gypsies, whose fascinating powers are so much aided by ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... reap on—and what a harvest it yielded accordingly!—the dear friends! the dear native hill! the honour of suffering for the truth! (political martyrdom!) the mother that bore him—(and a good deal besides)—his helpless children! (a proper number for the occasion,)—all these fascinating themes were dwelt on, one by one, till, moved apparently at our emotion, he dropt his menacing attitude, and, mitigating his voice, assumed a resigned demeanour, of which many of his audience had long since set him the example. He began to look down mournfully, whereas he had a minute ago looked ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... somebody into his confidence, although he knows that the act is likely, even almost certain, to lead to his undoing. I know that I am playing with fire, and I feel the thrill which accompanies that most fascinating pastime; and, back of it all, I think I find a sort of savage and diabolical desire to gather up all the little tragedies of my life, and turn them into a practical joke ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... DAZEY'S well-known play, which has been listened to with thrilling interest by over seven million people. "A new and powerful novel, fascinating in its rapid action. Its teaching story is told more elaborately and even more absorbingly than it was upon the stage."—Nashville American, 12mo, cloth. ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... extraordinary faculty for assimilating and retaining historical knowledge, and by the vividness of imagination and mastery of words which enabled him to present his facts in such attractive guise as made them fascinating far beyond romance. His "History of England from the Accession of James II," whereof the first volumes appeared in 1849, remains a colossal fragment; the fulness of detail with which he adorned it, the grand ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... in other—and, if I may say so, inferior—words what Comrade Parker said to us. I did not object to giving up valuable time to listen to Comrade Parker. He is a fascinating conversationalist, and it was a privilege to hob-nob with him. But if you are merely intending to cover the ground covered by him, I fear I must remind you that this is one of our busy days. Have you no new light to ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... both priests and evolutionists bitterly denied this heresy, but what they affirmed or denied in 1860 had very little importance indeed for 1960. Anarchy lost no ground meanwhile. The problem became only the more fascinating. Probably it was more vital in May, 1860, than it had been in October, 1764, when the idea of writing the Decline and Fall of the city first started to the mind of Gibbon, "in the close of the evening, as I sat musing in the Church of the Zoccolanti ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... distinctive freshness, a distinctive beauty. He could not understand how men could live ignoring this one predominant interest, this wonderful research into personality and the possibilities of pleasing, these complex, fascinating expeditions that began in interest and mounted to the supremest, most passionate intimacy. All the rest of his existence was subordinate to this pursuit; he lived for it, worked for it, kept himself ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... pictures, are his 'Assumption of the Virgin,' now in the Academy, Venice, where 'the Madonna, a powerful figure, is borne rapidly upwards, as if divinely impelled; .., fascinating groups of infant angels surround her, beneath stand the apostles, looking up with solemn gestures;' and his 'Entombment of Christ,' a picture which is also in Venice. Titian's Madonnas were not so numerous as his Venuses, many of which are judged excellent examples ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... she replied, speaking the universal language with a sibilant accent that was very fascinating, "to speak ...
— Priestess of the Flame • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... superior contemplation, beating gently with his feet against the bars of the chair, and holding his hands folded on his lap. But, for all that, his eyes kept following the Doctor about the room with a thoughtful fixity of gaze. Desprez could not tell whether he was fascinating the boy, or the boy was fascinating him. He busied himself over the sick man: he put questions, he felt the pulse, he jested, he grew a little hot and swore: and still, whenever he looked round, there ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was a new art, but when he had followed the fascinating process through all its stages until the white grains boiled up in the popper and threatened to burst the cover, his ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... The most fascinating "watering-place" story ever published. Four friends, each a brilliant girl in her way, tired of Saratoga and Newport, try a fortnight at the new summer resort on Chautauqua Lake, choosing the time when the National Sunday-school Assembly is in camp. ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous
... help showing, of the strange fisherman's tools. He cautiously felt the weight of the ringed and polished rod, and snapped it lightly over the water; he was permitted to examine the book of flies and to handle the reel, things in themselves fascinating, but to Tommy's mind merely a hindrance and a snare to the understanding in the real business of catching fish. Still, he admitted, where a man could take a whole day all to himself like that, without ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... the case before us may well serve to suggest the consideration:—Might not more of that large and possibly increasing number of unmarried clergy in England be drawn to take part in a work of such fascinating interest—"a work," if I may once more quote the words of our Bishop in Japan, "that must be done at once if it is to be done ...
— Religion in Japan • George A. Cobbold, B.A.
... episodical to the main design, there may be much that may seem to thee wearisome and prolix, if thou wilt not lend thyself, in a kindly spirit, and with a generous trust, to the guidance of the Author. In the hero of this tale thou wilt find neither a majestic demigod, nor a fascinating demon. He is a man with the weaknesses derived from humanity, with the strength that we inherit from the soul; not often obstinate in error, more often irresolute in virtue; sometimes too aspiring, sometimes too despondent; influenced by the circumstances to which he yet struggles ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... football. He was a little bright creature with a rather large head, but a delicate face and a sweet voice, and there was a perfect charm in him. All he said was so free from effort and spontaneous and was said with such a captivating gaiety that it was fascinating to hear him talk. Being of a more slender figure than Mr. Jarndyce and having a richer complexion, with browner hair, he looked younger. Indeed, he had more the appearance in all respects of a damaged young man than a well- preserved elderly one. ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... the Bible, that fascinating record of a whole people's search for God and their changing concept of Him. Note that, wherever in its records evil seems to be made real, it is for the purpose of uncovering and destroying it by the vigorous ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... spend the afternoon at the Libby Glass Works and at the Beauty show. Once in the works, where glass is wrought into the most curious and costly designs, a few hours seems only too short for a good appreciation of the work done. The art, as illustrated there, is as fascinating as a romance. Three hundred people are employed there daily in showing what can be done with glass. Entrance is to be had to the blowing-room, in the center of which is the huge cruciform. In this there are placed the crucibles, ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... rival leaders. The same phenomenon had been seen, from time to time, in the days of Queen Anne and in the days of the Georges; and it was seen again, at intervals, during some of the most vivid and fascinating passages of Parliamentary history in the ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... and school-teacher eye-glasses, and clear cheeks set off by comely mourning. But she was seizing New York. She said over and over, "Why, I can go and live any place I want to, and maybe I'll meet some folks who are simply fascinating." She wasn't very definite about these fascinating folks, but they implied girls to play with and—she hesitated—and decidedly men, men different from Walter, who would touch her ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... fanatic. She hated his Calvinism, and thought that the spirit of scornful denunciation everywhere prevails when Cowper reprehends the errors of mankind. Still, in answer to a request for her opinion of Cowper, she wrote, “He appears to me at once a fascinating, and a great poet; as a descriptive one, hardly excelled;” but she would not allow that his constitutional melancholy was any excuse for his misantrophy. She writes, “Dante is the only poetic author of high reputation, whom ...
— Anna Seward - and Classic Lichfield • Stapleton Martin
... prepared to state harsh truths bluntly, and was ready to meet any sort of anger or opposition with a perfect frankness of intention. But he certainly had not come prepared to find the smart-tongued and fascinating American widow, of whom he had heard so much, a quiet, self-possessed and gracious young lady, of singularly winning manners and clear and resolutely honest eyes. Had Lavender been quite accurate, or even conscientious, in his garrulous talk about ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... Sidney, with a mock bow. "But nobody can deny that our recent religious history has been a series of dissolving views. Look at that young masher there, who is still ogling your fascinating friend; rather, I suspect, to the annoyance of the young lady in pink, and compare him with the old hard-shell Jew. When I was a lad named Abrahams, painfully training in the way I wasn't going to go, I got an insight into the lives of my ancestors. Think of the people who built ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... One of the most fascinating subjects of controversy since the time of Herodotus was the problem of the source of the Nile. Poetry, from the description of the Garden of Eden and the writings of Ptolemy to the Kubla Kahn of Coleridge, ran rife over the four fountains out of which flowed the wonderful river. To Livingstone ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... coiled serpent in the pathway of mankind, Brother John, fascinating, but poisonous. There can be no good ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... side glances, which I bore with an equanimity that much belied the tempest of doubt, repugnance and horror that were struggling blindly in my breast. But she did not renew the subject of the grave. Instead of that, she opened one of her most fascinating conversations, endeavoring by her wiles and graces to get at my confidence and ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... Spain, which was prolonged till September, 1829, was the most fruitful period in his life, and of considerable consequence to literature. It is not easy to overestimate the debt of Americans to the man who first opened to them the fascinating domain of early Spanish history and romance. We can conceive of it by reflecting upon the blank that would exist without "The Alhambra," "The Conquest of Granada," "The Legends of the Conquest of Spain," and I may add the popular loss if we had not "The Lives of Columbus and his Companions." ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to the wide east, lies Boston Harbor, decked with islands so various, so fascinating in contour and legend, that more than one volume has been written about them and not yet an adequate one. From the point of view of history these islands are pulsating with life. From Castle Island (on the left) which was selected as far back as ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... Fontaine came Mdlles. Roland and Prevost; the famous Camargo and her rival Salle, of whom some mention has already been made; Mdlle. Marie Madeleine Guimard, exquisitely graceful and fascinating, but of such slender proportions that she obtained the surname of "le squelette des Graces," while witty but malicious, perhaps jealous, Sophie Arnould described her as "the spider;" Mafleuroy, who married Boeldieu, and Mercandotti, who married Mr. Ball Hughes, otherwise "Golden ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... solicitor, Rita Esden, at the age of seventeen, from a delicate and rather commonplace child began to develop into a singularly pretty girl of an elusive and fascinating type of beauty, almost ethereal in her dainty coloring, and possessed of large and remarkably fine eyes, together with a wealth of copper-red hair, a crown which seemed too heavy for her slender neck to support. Her father viewed her increasing charms ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... love problems, human problems, better even than problems in chemistry, and they are fascinating enough. ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... came to him most frequently and stayed with him longest was one connected with the great roll of fat under Losson's right ear. He noticed it first on a moonlight night, and thereafter it was always before his eyes. It was a fascinating roll of fat. A man could get his hand upon it and tear away one side of the neck; or he could place the muzzle of a rifle on it and blow away all the head in a flash. Losson had no right to be sleek and contented and well-to-do, ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling |
