"Fascination" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is a fascination in the project, as we discuss a summer tour. There, we know, are mountains whose sides are nearly Alpine, whose shoulders are of snow and glacier, whose heads rise to ten and eleven thousand feet above the sea. There, we know, must be savage scenery,—ravines, cliffs, ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... Illustrated London News, those journals being posted to me regularly every week whilst I was still only a little chap at Eastbourne. Further, the career of my uncle, Frank Vizetelly, exercised a strange fascination over me. Born in Fleet Street in September, 1830, he was the youngest of my father's three brothers. Educated with Gustave Dore, he became an artist for the illustrated Press, and, in 1850, represented the Illustrated Times as war-artist in Italy, being ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... seriously, but gladly. To Botticelli, on the other hand, it brings a profound melancholy. This is so marked that at first sight almost every one is repelled by Botticelli, and yields only after long familiarity to the mysterious fascination of the sad-eyed Madonna, who holds her babe almost listlessly, as her head droops with the weight of her sorrow. Her expression is the same whatever her attitude, when she presses her babe to her bosom ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... mean, sir,' said Siegmund, very quietly, with a strong fear and a fascination opposing each other ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... there was hardly any guide to our artillery fire. Yet it is to the artillery fire that all the losses of the Boers that day were due. The cleverness of Cronje's disposition of his trenches some hundred yards ahead of the kopjes is accentuated by the fascination which any rising object has for a gunner. Prince Kraft tells the story of how at Sadowa he unlimbered his guns two hundred yards in front of the church of Chlum, and how the Austrian reply fire almost invariably pitched upon the steeple. So our own gunners, even at a two thousand-yard ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... study of history is that of the origin of names, and there is in it a wonderful fascination. The following brief statements will show from what a trifling incident a name may be ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... of the lighthouse there are only one or two families of poor fisher-folk, who sustain a precarious existence by their nets, and by the capture of cormorants and solan geese. This grim spot seemed to have such a fascination for Cowles that we engaged a room in one of the fishermen's huts, with the intention of passing a week or two there. I found it very dull, but the loneliness appeared to be a relief to my friend's mind. He lost the look of apprehension which ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... my heart throbbed as of old under the influence of her overpowering, indescribable fascination. 'I? Believe me, Zinaida Alexandrovna, whatever you did, however you tormented me, I should love and adore you to the end ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... rejects it therefore, and rightly rejects it. For as soon as one can say "because," one is no longer under the spell; one appreciates or weighs, and at least in principle one is free. If the empire of woman is to continue, love must remain a fascination, an enchantment; once her mystery is gone, her power is gone also. So love must appear indivisible, irreducible, superior to all analysis, if it is to retain those aspects of infinitude, of the supernatural and the miraculous, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... going out alone on long prospecting expeditions; sometimes he was away a week, sometimes a month, with the lure of the gold forever in his veins, but the laughter of his child, the love of his wife, forever in his heart. Then—the day of that awful home-coming! For three weeks the fascination of searching for the golden pay-streak had held him in the mountains. No one could find him when it happened, and now all they could tell him was the story of an upturned canoe found drifting on the lake, of a woman's light summer shawl caught ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... elegant Moralities was composed by Louise L'Abe; the Aspasia of Lyons in 1550, adored by her contemporaries. With no extraordinary beauty, she however displayed the fascination of classical learning, and a vein of vernacular poetry refined and fanciful. To accomplishments so various she added the singular one of distinguishing herself by a military spirit, and was nicknamed Captain Louise. She ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... in the tavern, amidst the gay and dissipated youth of the metropolis, to whom he was the 'wit, songster, and mimic.' That his convivial powers were extraordinary, is proved by the fact of one of his contemporaries, who survived to be a correspondent of Burns, doubting if even he equalled the fascination of Fergusson's converse. Dissipation gradually stole in upon him, in spite of resolutions dictated by remorse. In 1773, he collected his poems into a volume, which was warmly received, but brought him, it is believed, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... stony, steadfast eye; that looks at neither man nor beast in the face, but at something invisible a yard before him, through you and past you, at a fascination, a ghost of fixed purposes that haunts him, from which neither reason nor pity will turn him. I have seen such an eye in men possessed—with devils, or with self: sleek, passionless men, who are too refined ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... in the land. We have seen a highly intellectual and world-weary man, a cynic whose heart was somewhat embittered by its large experience of human nature, take up one of OLIVER OPTIC's books, and read it at a sitting, neglecting his work in yielding to the fascination of the pages. When a mature and exceedingly well-informed mind, long despoiled of all its freshness, can thus find pleasure in a book for boys, no additional words of recommendation ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... becomes a satire, and how the impervious will sinks into impotency when beset by intangible and inscrutable forces. It is enough to point out that in this book the author has planted his characters upon an elemental truth, and something of the efficacy of that truth gives a strange fascination and power ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... The fascination of choosing new garments for personal wear was upon Walter Hepburn, and he spent a whole hour in the shop, selecting an outfit which did credit to his taste and discernment. Before that hour was over he had risen very considerably in the opinion of ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... fatuous suggestions, to wonder, or merely to look on with feelings approaching awe and fascination. There was something uncanny here—a soldier and athlete weeping and screaming and going into fits at the sight of a harmless grass-snake, probably a mere blind worm! Was he a hysterical, neurotic coward, after all—a ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... on the part of Mr Carker, and her habit of often considering it with wonder and uneasiness, began to invest him with an uncomfortable fascination in Florence's thoughts. A more distinct remembrance of his features, voice, and manner: which she sometimes courted, as a means of reducing him to the level of a real personage, capable of exerting no greater charm ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... evening, perched on Mr. Gray's knee, and looking with his wondering, steadfast eyes into the face of that erewhile stern and impassible magistrate. The large justice-room, where the prisoners were examined, had an awful fascination to him; and so had the little "strong-room," in which sometimes they were locked up before being conveyed away to the county jail. Often, he wandered restlessly near it, looking at the door with strange, mournful eyes; and if by chance the culprit ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... who had not been born in Venice ever guess the strange fascination of that magic city for her sons, or dream with what a passion the blood of generations of Venetian ancestry surged in one's veins, compelling patriotism, so that it was not possible to do aught with one's ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... I had gained the impression that the Futurist was all that its name implied—not up to the minute, but decidedly ahead of it. There was an exotic flavour to the place, a peculiar fascination, that was foreign rather than American, at seeing demi-monde and decency rubbing elbows. I felt sure that a large percentage of the women there were really young married women, whose first step downward was truly ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... however, has been marked by certain great romantic passions that seem endowed with indestructible vitality. The romance of discovery, the fascination of the forest and sea, the sense of danger and mystery once aroused by the very word "redskin," have all moulded and will continue to mould the national imagination. How completely the romance of ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... fanatical black-browed aspect. After a few stolen glances in their direction, I had no doubt that he was in earnest. As to the lady, her gestures were unapproachable, better than the very thing itself in the blended suggestion of dignity, sweetness, condescension, fascination, surrender, and reserve. She interpreted her conception of what that precise sort of love-making should be with consummate art. And so far, she, too, no doubt, was in earnest. Gestures—but ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... action and energy. On the ground there was a valise, ready strapped as if or a journey, and on the top of it a bulky letter-case of stout pigskin, secured with a small steel lock. Juliette's eyes fastened upon this case with a look of fascination and of horror. Obviously it contained Deroulede's papers, the plans for Marie Antoinette's escape, the passports of which he had spoken the day before to his friend, Sir Percy Blakeney—the proofs, in fact, which she had offered to the representatives ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... lawyer, "in 1814, the time at which this fascination is supposed to have taken place, this woman was fourteen years younger; if she had been connected with M. d'Espard ten years before that, these calculations take us back four-and-twenty years, to a time when the lady may have been young and pretty, and have won for ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... where the girls are still on the tennis lawn. John walked through the town; he told the doctor he must go at once to the rectory. He walked to Leywood and left his letter with the lodge-keeper; and then, as if led by a strange fascination, he passed through the farm gate and set out to return home ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... stab, stab, stab, when he turned upon his feet as if upon a pivot, darting his weapon as if he were some fierce creature armed with a terrible sting. I seemed to see in imagination an enemy go down at every thrust; a strange thrill of horror ran through me, and an awful kind of fascination held me seated there on my horse, as the black warrior stabbed away till his back was completely turned to me and he delivered a tremendous thrust, uttering a horrible yell. Then I burst out into a hysterical peal of laughter, and nearly fell out of ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... Macdonald, the Judas of the cause; the Duke of Athol (Tullibardine), who had been out in the fifteen; Sheridan, the prince's tutor; Sir John Macdonald; Kelley, a parson who had been in Atterbury's affair; Strickland, an Englishman; and Buchanan. Young Lochiel was disinclined to join, but yielded to the fascination of the prince. With his accession the rising was a certainty. But Duncan Forbes of Culloden, the lord president, had influence enough to hold back the Macleods of Skye, to paralyze the shifty Lovat, and to secure the Sutherland house for the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... which we shall discuss at length under "Form." Now the pleasure of enumeration, like that of a refrain, is in part at least a pleasure in muscle pattern. My two-year-old daughter composed a song which well illustrates the fascination of enumeration. The refrain "Tick-tock" was borrowed from a song which had been sung ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... The fascination of fires even extends to the brute creation. Who has not heard of the dog "Chance," who first formed his acquaintance with the Brigade by following a fireman from a conflagration in Shoreditch to ...
— Fires and Firemen • Anon.
... there, not yet seen, but behind, coming on, pursuing the retreat of the batteries. Every now and then they found themselves looking up towards the turn. The grey, bending sweep and the screen of tall trees had a fascination for them, a glamour; and above the movements of their hands and feet their minds watched, intent, excited, but without fear. There was no fear in the village. The women came out of their houses carrying cups of water for the men's thirst; they seemed ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... reciting his poems, both while he was composing them and after they were completed, and especially of the remarkable beauty and charm of the poet's rendering of his own words and its powerful effect upon his hearers. "He read," says Suetonius, "at once with sweetness and with a wonderful fascination;" and Seneca had a story of the poet Julius Montanus saying that he himself would attempt to steal something from Virgil if he could first borrow his voice, his elocution, and his dramatic power in reading; for the very same lines, said he, which when the author himself read ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... disdainful, and impatient seclusion, the devil will keep you company there, and will do your sequestered soul much mischief. Bury evil affections in good works. Wherefore be accessible and affable to all, and all in love. Love is an endless enchantment, and spell, and fascination. ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte
... is, by all save one. Turnback Haynes, who had been watching Dick with a sort of wild fascination, noted Dick's latest move. ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... woman more charming—of more exquisite grace—of more perfect accomplishment—greater fascination of manner. She sang to us, and her voice was full of such sweet pathos it almost brought the tears in my eyes. I could not reconcile what I saw now with what I had seen on the Chain Pier, though outwardly the same woman I had seen on the Chain Pier and this graceful, gracious ...
— The Tragedy of the Chain Pier - Everyday Life Library No. 3 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... Mary gently disengaged the violin case from Charlie's clutch, tucked it under one arm and took firm hold of the youngster's hand. Charlie was still regarding Mignon's swaying ear-rings with childish fascination. ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... her appointment with her brother-in-law. She showed so much alarm and dread that Aurelia could not but utter assurances and encouragements, which again awoke that arch manner, partly bantering, partly flattering, which exercised a sort of pleasant perplexing fascination ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... compensates for all these defects—and defects they are—is the perpetual presence of the Montsalvat music: we are never long without hearing some of it. The Montsalvat music is the source of the charm and fascination of the opera, and its purity and freshness seem likely for ever to ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... and the fascination increased, far outweighing any discomfort of glare and dust and jolting roads, Meryl felt herself engraving the sight and the sound and the freshness of it upon her soul, that she might have hidden pictures to gaze upon with closed eyes when the ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... looked down at the man, he felt his own heart beating faster. He felt several other things that left him none too comfortable. Again that curious interest that made him want to listen, that held him with a weird fascination. ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... a "would-be-masher." How Judy hated his expression as he ogled her! But she thought utter disregard of him would discourage him, so she assumed a very superior air and looked the other way. The Frenchman was so certain of his powers of fascination that he could not believe her manner to be anything but coy, so he sank on the bench by her side and began in the most insinuating way to praise her beauty and style, her hair, eyes and mouth. The girl was furious, but determined to say nothing, hoping by her scornful ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... over it hung a map of Indiana. It was no unusual thing for Dan to find Bassett with his chair tipped back, his eyes fixed upon the map. The oblong checkerboard formed by the ninety-two counties of the Hoosier commonwealth seemed to have a fascination for the man from Fraserville. When Dan found him thus in rapt contemplation Bassett usually turned toward him a little reluctantly and absently. It was thus that Morton Bassett studied the field, like a careful ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... than the drops of dew. Their passions are seldom tempestuous, and even then they are kindled and extinguished easily; but generally they emit a peaceful light, like the morning star, Venus. Modesty is painted in their eyes, and modesty is the greatest and most irresistible fascination of their souls. In short, the Mexican ladies, by their manifold virtues, are destined to serve as our support whilst we travel through ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... of interest and significance is reached by JOINVILLE in his Vie de Saint Louis, written towards the close of the century. The fascination of the book lies in its human qualities. Joinville narrates, in the easy flowing tone of familiar conversation, his reminiscences of the good king in whose service he had spent the active years of his life, and whose memory he held in adoration. The deeds, the words, the ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... that this idea had a fascination for some right- minded people, in the promise it gave of doing away with the evils arising from competition, to ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... never quite at his ease with her. She was not calculable like the women he had known. What they wanted were things definite and almost always material, while her purposes were secret, subtle, and, as he sometimes half suspected, beyond his range. She was new. That was her fascination. She belonged to this strange world that was coming into being of discordant rhythmic music, of Russian ballet and novels, of a kind of poetry that anybody could write, of fashions that struck him as indecent, ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... change of residence. In all their young lives of varied length they had never before had an opportunity to witness the upheaval of a moving and this occasion was frought with a well-nigh insupportable fascination. The General's remaining at the post of family duty and his command of his henchman to the same sacrifice was indeed remarkable, though ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... while he never returned from an interview with Lucy that he did not contrast the two and sigh for the olden time, when Anna was his co-worker instead of pretty Lucy Harcourt. And yet there was about the latter a powerful fascination, which he found it hard to resist. It rested him just to look at her, she was so fresh, so bright, so beautiful, and then she flattered his self-love by the unbounded deference she paid to his opinions, studying all his tastes and bringing her own will into perfect subjection ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... the brink it makes huge curves over the masses of rock in its bed without breaking into the faintest ripple. As you stand on a giant boulder above it, and contrast the swift, silent rush with the thundering volume of amber-tinted spray which follows, you feel in its full force the strange fascination of falling water—the temptation to plunge in and join in its headlong revelry. Here, however, I must admit that the useful is not always the beautiful. The range of smoky mills driven by a sluice from the fall had better be away. The upper fall is divided in the centre ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... shoulders; and his thin, sharp, hooked nose, and prominent cheek-bones, surmount a long beard, bleached almost to whiteness. Peculiarly marking the physiognomy of this man is the wide open eye, with its tawny pupil ever encircled by a rim of white. This fixed, extraordinary look, exercises a real fascination over animals—which, however, does not prevent the Prophet from also employing, to tame them, the terrible arsenal ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... shelf, his thin blonde hair falling over his eyes as he did so. Markheim moved a little nearer, with one hand in the pocket of his great-coat; he drew himself up and filled his lungs; at the same time many different emotions were depicted together on his face—terror, horror, and resolve, fascination and a physical repulsion; and through a haggard lift of his upper lip, ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... master-artist and although his first Garhwal pictures are concerned with passionate romance, devotion to Krishna quickly becomes apparent.[107] The great Alaknanda River which roared through Srinagar, the capital, had a special fascination for him and just as Leonardo da Vinci evinced at one time a passionate interest in springing curls, the Guler artist found a special excitement in winding eddies and dashing water. The result was a sudden new ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... That name had been drummed into my ears for days. It seemed to have a fascination for me. I asked several men to describe ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... librarian bring him into an intimate knowledge of a wide range of books, or at least an acquaintance with authors and titles far more extensive than can be acquired by most persons. The reading of book catalogues is a great and never-ending fascination to one who has a love for books. The information thus acquired of the mighty range of the world's literature and science is of inestimable value. Most of it, if retained in a retentive memory, will enable its possessor to answer multitudes of the questions ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... girl said acidly, producing a handkerchief from somewhere and going to work on her face. "You just can't seem to wait to do it again. Would it do any good to tell you that the fascination with this form of greeting is not universal? Or ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... so small a room a speaker should be unconscious of the presence of strangers. David had noticed them at once, and his glance, after roaming about the room, invariably returned and fixed itself upon the face of the Fortune Teller. Their fascination was mutual. They were so drawn to each other by some inscrutable power, that it would not have been hard to believe that they had existed as companions in some previous state of being, and had now met and vaguely remembered ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... the old-world village of Blank." And I had been scrupulous in stating that we were a mile distant—situated in point of fact in a real village of our own, with church, post-office, ancient landau and all the usual appurtenances. And "old world"! What is "old world"? There must be some deadly fascination in the epithet, for no agent can refrain from using it; but what does it mean? Do American agents use it? It could have had no attraction for COLUMBUS. Such however is the failure of our modernity that it is supposed to be irresistible to-day. And "village!" The indignation of Blank on finding itself ...
— Punch, Volume 156, January 22, 1919. • Various
... of defeat came to her. She had anticipated many things. She had looked for difficulties. But she had not expected this. A feeling of cold fury surged over her at the way fate had tricked her. She had gambled recklessly on her power of fascination, and ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... held in a fascination of terror, felt that at any moment he might begin pumping shots into the supine body. She shook off the palsy that held her and almost hurled her soft young ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... still, however, her friends and well-wishers, many of whom thought, that as she was a lone woman, and known to be well to pass in the world, she would act wisely to retire from public life, and take down a sign which had no longer fascination for guests. But Meg's spirit scorned submission, direct or implied. "Her father's door," she said, "should be open to the road, till her father's bairn should be streekit and carried out at it with her feet foremost. It was not for the profit—there was little profit ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... fascination of horror, for now tiny tongues of flame were licking about. Blue tongues, licking the air, vanishing into ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... standards with certificates and even prizes; annexing toboggan slides, swings, etc., realizing that in both the preference of youth and in healthful and moral effects, probably nothing outranks this form of exercise. Such is its strange fascination that, according to one comprehensive census, the passion to get to the water outranks all other causes of truancy, and plays an important part in the motivation of runaways. In the immense public establishment near San Francisco, provided by private munificence, there are accommodations for ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... point of wasting precious hours in filling his boots with "trees" and folding his neckties. The girl's slovenly habits of dress indicated, to his mind, a similar recklessness as to her moral habits, and it sometimes happens that men of his stamp come to find a fascination in the elemental in human life which the ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... was I quite coxcomb enough to suspect her of the desire for a moment. But a man who has once made a fool of himself, especially about a woman somewhat older than himself, does not soon get over the soreness; and mine returned with the very fascination which made itself felt even in ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... the crowd that hovered about the countless shops under the encircling colonnade—pawnshops, old-clo' shops, butcher-shops, wherein black-bearded men with yellow turbans bargained in Hebrew! What a fascination in the tall, many-windowed houses, with their peeling plastered fronts and patches of bald red brick, their green and brown shutters, their rusty balconies, their splashes of many-colored washing! In the morning and evening, when the padlocked well was opened, what delight to watch the women ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... it all came home to me so sharply, after I had stood there at the doorway for a moment or two held fast by a sort of ghastly fascination, that I gave a yell myself as keen and as loud as any which the poor blacks had uttered; and with that I turned about and dashed up the companionway to the deck as hard as I could go. Nor could I bear to abide ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... gleaming lights of the doomed ship were waving lines that swept to and fro in the grip of those monstrous arms. The boat beneath Thorpe's feet was tossing in the waves that told of the titanic struggle. He had meant to look south for some sign of the oncoming destroyer, but in fearful fascination he stared spellbound where the masts of the trim yacht swept downward into the waves, where the green of her star-board lantern glowed faintly for an instant, then vanished, to leave only the darkness and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... glance, on the contrary, had that gentle, beseeching admiration in it which is the most propitiating of appeals to a proud, shy woman, and is perhaps the only atonement a man can make for being too handsome. The finished fascination of his air came chiefly from the absence of demand and assumption. It was that of a fleet, soft-coated, dark-eyed animal that delights you by not bounding away in indifference from you, and unexpectedly pillows ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... and incidents of the revolution which raised Sargon to the throne are unknown, but we may surmise that the policy adopted with regard to Karduniash was a factor in the case. Tiglath-pileser had hardly entered Babylon before the fascination of the city, the charm of its associations, and the sacred character of the legends which hallowed it, seized upon his imagination; he returned to it twice in the space of two years to "take the hands of Bel," and Shalmaneser V. much preferred it to Calah or Nineveh ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... watched her, with the fascination with which we watch a man performing some strange feat of skill—from whom first one support, and then another, and then another, falls away, until he is left with nothing to ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... and as artistically written as that little masterpiece of Lytton's, 'The Haunters and the Haunted.' He bears favourable comparison with Le Fanu. . . . A volume which has an extraordinary power of fascination."—Birmingham Daily Post. ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... his insinuating address; and others were grateful for the services which he had lately rendered to the party. But the leaders could not restrain their followers. Plain men, who were zealous for civil liberty and for the Protestant religion, who were beyond the range of Sunderland's irresistible fascination, and who knew that he had sate in the High Commission, concurred in the Declaration of Indulgence, borne witness against the Seven Bishops, and received the host from a Popish priest, could not, without indignation and shame, see him standing, with the staff ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... again, if he were to marry Maggie or Sally. All that was really alive and distinct in him was love of them; and this love thrived in a sensation of class which he would not acknowledge, even to himself, had any existence. The glass-houses, and swards, and laurels had a meaning and fascination for him that he could not account for or describe, and he found these feelings, which were mainly class feelings of an unusual kind, not only in the aspect of the country but in the accent and speech of his friends, in the expression of their eyes and very hands. The English ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... The people speak of him as "the officer who never leaves his regiment for pleasure," but devotes himself, with all his rich gifts of mind and heart, to their interests. It is not strange that his judicious kindness, ready sympathy, and rare fascination of manner should attach them to him strongly. He is one's ideal of an officer. There is in him much of the grand, knightly spirit of the olden time,—scorn of all that is mean and ignoble, pity for the weak, chivalrous devotion to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... household, then took part in the wedding festivities, and saw the bride pass out of the old mansion to become mistress of a home of her own, Dorothy was quick to perceive the important part played by man in a woman's life, and, young as she was, she felt within herself that power of fascination which was to be hers to so great a degree in the coming years. Dorothy had dark eyes which were wells of feeling when she was deeply moved, her hair was velvet smooth, and also dark, and the play of feelings grave and gay which lighted up her mobile face when in conversation was a constant ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... Pascal is to trace the influence upon him of the typical sceptic of the preceding century. Pascal's "Thoughts" we shall never understand unless we realise the under-texture in them of Montaigne's very phrases, the fascination the "Essays" had for Pascal in his capacity of one of the children of light, as giving a veritable compte rendu of the Satanic course of this world since the Fall, set forth with all the persuasiveness, the power and charm, all the gifts of Satan, the veritable light on things he has ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... dullness and palpable efforts to keep up a show of business; Kimberley, with its deadly respectability—both paled in interest beside their younger sister, so light-hearted, reckless, and enterprising. Before long, in spite of gloomy reflections on the evils of gold-seeking, I fell under the fascination of what was then a wonderful town, especially wonderful from its youth. The ever-moving crowds which thronged the streets, every man of which appeared to be full of important business and in a desperate hurry, ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... tea came he watched her in silent fascination while her hands flitted above the tray, looking miraculously fine and slender in contrast to the coarse china and lumpy bread. It seemed wonderful to him that any one should perform with such careless ease the difficult task of making tea in public in a ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... nine years old, how every evening, when I lay down to sleep, I used for about a year to picture myself lying dead, till I felt as though the coffin were closing round me. I used to read at that period, with a curious feeling of fascination, Blair's poem, "The Grave." But I never dreamed of telling anybody about these thoughts. I believe that thoughtful children keep most of their thoughts to themselves, and in respect of the things of which they think most are as profoundly alone as the Ancient Mariner ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... well-dressed servants, the punctual meals, the good and abundant food, the nice dresses, the parties, the solid education, the discipline so foreign to her own existence, all—all held their proper fascination. But although she listened with delight to these stories of a bygone time, she never envied her mother those periods of prosperity. Such a life would have been a prison to her; so she thought, although she never ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... The fascination of the ballroom was utterly lost on Craig. "Think of all the houses only half guarded about here to-night," he mused, as we joined Armand and McNeill on the end of the dock. I could not help noting that that was the only idea which the gay, variegated, sparkling ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... need have no fear, madam. I hope she will come and try it on. Fascination is a game that two can play at. For centuries the younger sons of the Highcastles have had nothing to do but fascinate attractive females when they were not sitting on Royal Commissions or on duty at Knightsbridge barracks. By Gad, madam, if the ...
— Augustus Does His Bit • George Bernard Shaw
... hoped, or said he hoped, that my stay in New Texas would be long and pleasant. He seemed rather less than convinced that it would be. His eyes kept returning in horrified fascination to my belt. Each time they would focus on the butts of my Krupp-Tattas, he would pull them ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... childhood to find the key concealed in a little slot beneath it; hidden behind a corner of green cloth beyond suspicion; that opened, for all that, when the edge was coaxed with a finger-nail. It had been her first experience of a secret, and a fascination hung about it still. That confused image of a second mother, growing dimmer year by year in spite of a perfunctory system of messages maintained in the correspondence of the parted twins, had never utterly vanished; and it had clung about this workbox, a present from ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... canopy in SS. Cosma e Damiano, dated 1153; fragments of an inlaid screen in the studio of the illustrious artist, Senor Villegas, etc. We are in the habit of asserting that only the Renaissance masters studied and were inspired by the antique; but the fascination of ancient art was equally felt by their early precursors of the twelfth century. The archway in the middle of the south side of these cloisters (opposite the one represented in our illustration) rests on sphinxes, one of which is bearded. The human-headed monsters, wearing the claft ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... under the roots of two large trees. From this point I could look back into the sunlit fields where the cattle were grazing; beyond, all was gloom and mystery; the trout were black, and to my young imagination the silence and the shadows were blacker. But gradually I yielded to the fascination and penetrated the woods farther and farther on each expedition, till the heart of the mystery was fairly plucked out. During the second or third year of my piscatorial experience I went through them, and through the pasture ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... day, they held their way, sustained by the renewed fascination of adventure, hardened and inured to risk and toil alike. The distance behind them lengthened so enormously that they began to figure upon the ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... cabinets—no miniature paintings of boudoirs and salons—no recital of conventional insipidities, interlarded with affected criticisms, and honoured by the name of dramatic dialogue, shall lend their fascination to these pages. Far other and far deeper aims are mine in stooping to delineate the customs and springs of polite life. The reader must give himself wholly up to me; he must prepare to go with me through the grave as through the gay, and unresistingly to thread the ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... deeps of black defilement men can plunge. The charnel houses of iniquity must ever be the workshops of the Salvationist. There we see of the havoc, the cruelty, the debauchment, the paralysis, the leprosy, the infernal fascination of sin. And we know there is only one hope—the Lamb that was slain, and rose again from the dead, and ever ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... of stories which delighted the young readers of the last generation and have still retained their old-world fascination. The volumes will be well printed on good paper, illustrated in colour, and ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... myself, and make friends through the hedge with Hallie Ferguson, who lived a block below us, I had come to accept this trick of the city as somewhat less extraordinary. It was developing other characteristics not so fearful to my mind and of far greater fascination; and I spent hours, when I could not be out of doors, watching it from the windows of my room. Father had built what was at the time one of the finest houses in San Francisco. It had a glass conservatory at the side, and a garden with a lawn and palm in the corner; and on ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... and he greets its appearance in Russian dress at a time when life is sordid and discordant as a thing inevitable, "cooling" in effect upon a too hectic world. He sees in its perfect grace, its calm and almost childlike simplicity, a power for individual and general good. "It combines all the fascination of a fairy tale and all the simple truth of human adventure, holding out the same allurement to every being, whether he is a noble, a commoner, a merchant, a literate or illiterate person, a private soldier, a lackey, ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... the lookout for such work are as plentiful all along the South American coast as commissionaires on the street corners here.' The ferryman was evidently surprised at the fascination possessed by this infamous topic for so lady-like a person; but having, as you see, a very ready tongue, it is probable that his delight in being able to give her information and hear himself talk were still greater. 'And then down ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... surveys Her plumy captive, as he leans to sing, Lo! while she smiles, the fascination stays The little heaven of ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... sailed up the Cydnus in a gorgeous bark, with a fantastic and brilliant equipage, and brought all her allurements to bear on the heart of the voluptuous Roman. Her success was complete; and he who was to have been her judge, was led captive to Alexandria as her slave. All was forgotten in the fascination and delight of the passing hour; and feasting and revelry found ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... to one of the verandas that the Countess led the way. As she chatted she laughed and looked up at Dan with her most engaging expression. There were other promenaders on the veranda, though not many, for the furious fascination of gambling tables kept nearly all the frequenters of ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... that among all his father's collection of drawings and engravings nothing had such fascination for him as an engraving of a picture of Andromeda and Perseus by Caravaggio. The story of the innocent victim and the divine deliverer was one of which in his boyhood he never tired of hearing: and as ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... was so curious, and of which he heard so much from his fellow-students. It was half-past seven, and people were beginning to crowd round the door, waiting for it to open. Tom, standing on the other side of the pavement, watched them with a painful fascination. ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... would. The conversation was not spontaneous, and the few pitiful attempts at joking were forced. Even Roy seemed to have lost his corklike buoyancy. And for Pee-wee, he could only sit gazing across the fire at Blythe with a kind of fearful fascination. Different, but equally intent, was the almost steady gaze of Warde Hollister. Roy ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... in her heart against Ellen, next time that young person became superior. Joanna did not really like wine—a glass of stout at her meals, or pale ale in the hot weather, was all she took as a rule—but there was a subtle fascination in putting her lips to the red glass full of broken lights, and feeling the wine like fire against them, while her eyes gazed over the brim at Hill ... he gazed at her over the brim of his, and somehow when their eyes met thus over their glasses, over the red wine, it was more than when they just ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... cousins repaired together to their grandmother's suite of apartments; where, in point of fact, Madame Wang had already gone through the ceremony of recognizing Hsueeh Pao-ch'in as her godchild. Dowager lady Chia's fascination for her, however, was so much out of the common run that she did not tell her to take up her quarters in the garden. Of a night, she therefore slept with old lady Chia in the same rooms; while Hsueeh K'o put up in ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... a quaint, bird-like air, and I began to be impressed with the curious fascination which emanates from this strange, small person. I am in her secret. I know she is a fraud, though of all else concerning her I am in ignorance—perhaps blissful ignorance. I have none too much respect for the ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... her feet, and seemed to gain in stature, to become a more commanding type. Her features suggested neither force of intellect or originality of character: but they had beauty, and something more. She stood a fascination, an allurement, to the masculine sense. Harvey Rolfe had never so responded to this quality in the girl; the smile died from his face as he regarded her. Of her skill as a musician, he could form no judgment; but it seemed to ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... though he knew that the good father was too cunning for him, and that he must give in at last. Nevertheless, like a rabbit who runs squealing round and round before the weasel, into whose jaws it knows that it must jump at last by force of fascination, he parried and parried, and pretended to be stupid, and surprised, and honorably scrupulous, and even angry; while every question as to her being married or single, Catholic or heretic, English or foreign, brought his ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... glow of the little oil-lamp covered all the strangeness of her complexion. But as soon as he met a stolen glance out of those eyes unveiled, his soul shuddered within him. Lovely face and craving eyes alternated fascination and repulsion. ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... my respects to the sisters of Niagara, or rather, to the islands of that name. To do so I had to leave the carriage and walk to the islands over little bridges, and again that feeling of fascination overcame me, and looking round to see that the driver was not following me a second time, I stealthily pulled out my verse and abandoned myself to my poetical inspirations. I had my eyes fixed upon three rocks in front of me, round which the waters, ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... London was again a temptation. He was quickly satisfied with green gardens and sea-breezes; the pavements of Piccadilly and Regent Street were more attractive. And for Roland, the last wish or the last plan held the quality of fascination. When he turned his back upon Burrell Court, Elizabeth faded from his thoughts and affections; it was Denasia who then drew him through every side of his vivid ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... 8, he paused to listen. He heard the whispered conversation about the stakes, and "nicks," "browners" and "outs." The gamblers were by this time highly excited by the game, and had not only become imprudent, but absolutely reckless, so intense was the fascination of their employment. Suddenly, but with a light step, he entered the mess room. Wilton sat in the berth, while his companions occupied stools outside and their heads were ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... you tell me you could paint like that?" She turned upon him fiercely. "Here you've sat and looked on at me daubing things up—and if I'd known you could do better than—" Looking again at the canvas she forgot to finish. The fascination of ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... trench. Morality, as well as misery, loves company. But Mr. Calthrop saw the Misses Pringle coming. He swiftly rose, passed them by with his face averted, and went aboard the Annabel Lee. It was evident that he believed that his fatal gift of fascination had attracted these ladies towards him in spite of himself. Elmer and the Misses Pringle sat gloomily on a clean plank in the trench while the dance ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... One altogether lovely." He is "the lily of the valley" for fragrance, and "the rose of Sharon" for beauty, and thus prepared He stands before us beckoning us on to a work which is indescribable in its fascination. Calling His disciples He said, "I will make you fishers of men." The same promise is made to us. Working His miracles He said to those about Him, "Greater works than these shall ye do." We have only to follow in His footsteps and walk sufficiently ...
— The Personal Touch • J. Wilbur Chapman
... flatter you in saying, that on no man in Upper Canada does the peace of our Church and of the Province so much depend, as on yourself. May all your powers be employed for good! Guard against the fascination of political fame. It will do no more for you on a dying bed than it did for Cardinal Wolsey. O! that your fine mind were fully concentrated upon the [Greek: politeuma] ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... assiduously encouraged by blowing at the embers with her mouth. Lancelot looked on in dull apathy, but as the fire rekindled and the little flames leapt up and made Mary Ann's flushed face the one spot of colour and warmth in the cold, dark room, Lancelot's torpidity vanished suddenly. The sensuous fascination seized him afresh, and ere he was aware of it he was lifting the ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... romances with scenes laid in the iron and steel world. Each book presents a vivid picture of some phase of this great industry. The information given is exact and truthful; above all, each story is full of adventure and fascination. ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... scornfully. "When did you see that picture on his breast?" I told her. "Ah! before THAT day?" she rejoined. I knew that she referred to the evening when I had yielded foolishly to the fascination of her presence. The blood swam hotly in my face. "Men are ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... civic rights. Turning down some dark alley and entering the portals of one of their halls, we are transported at once from the busy streets and din of modern London into a region of old-world memories which has a fascination that is all ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... the greater part of the night; and the next day, after the morning milking, set out to obtain another glimpse of Gertrude Lodge if she could, being held to her by a gruesome fascination. By watching the house from a distance the milkmaid was presently able to discern the farmer's wife in a ride she was taking alone—probably to join her husband in some distant field. Mrs. Lodge perceived her, ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... would gladly have had his support, and made him fair offers; but when the Rubicon was crossed, he threw in his lot with Pompey. He was certainly influenced in part by personal attachment: Pompey seems to have exercised a degree of fascination over his weakness. He knew Pompey's indecision of character, and confessed that Caesar was "a prodigy of energy;" but though the former showed little liking for him, he clung to him nevertheless. He foreboded that, let the ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... head to foot, her eyes fixed in terrible fascination upon Crowdy's face. Lee tossed the bag to the bunk across the room, whence it fell clanking to ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... whole private life of a family, or of a certain part of it, and even of a whole circle of families. The glaring exposure of matters usually kept close, and not even talked about, formed in fact the great fascination of these causes celebres. It was difficult at the first blush to see how in the Beecher trial Tilton's eccentric nocturnal habits could have thrown any light upon the question of Beecher's guilt; nor in the Tichborne case was it at all apparent that an answer to the inquiry ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... Its theme is the battle for power that goes on in an old New York family and culminates on the verge of murder. "This one deserves especial thanks and hearty praises. It returns us to expertness and fascination and fine mood in the theater." Gilbert Gabriel, in New York American. "At last a play has come to town that can be heartily recommended. Sturdy theater, compelling. Once you are within the radius of Double Door you will remain transfixed until you know what's behind ...
— Why the Chimes Rang: A Play in One Act • Elizabeth Apthorp McFadden
... off to his dormitory with fifty-five others, and lay for a long time listening with the fascination of innocence whilst Clem in a low voice described with much detail the scenes of "human nature" which he had recently witnessed down hopping with his people. Almost before he was well asleep, as it seemed, the strange new life began again with the bray of a bugle and ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... indeed, beautiful. A wave of light bursting upon the plate to a foamy whiteness, almost beyond the power of the eye to bear. But that which excited me most was the photograph of a star, which he had fixed after highly magnifying it. What a fascination there was about that little point ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... in France, having recalled to her the death of her mother, created in her the painful impression of which I have just spoken to you. During this evening, I remarked a circumstance which will, perhaps, appear to you puerile, but which has been to me a new proof of the fascination this young girl inspires in all. Her bandeau of pearls being a little deranged, the Archduchess Sophia, who was leaning upon her arm, was kind enough to be willing herself to replace the bijou upon her brow. Now, to one who knows the proverbial hauteur of the archduchess, such an act of ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... Symposium." Translated by Benjamin Jowett. This picture of Socrates is declared by Mahaffy to be the most wonderful of all pictures of him, inasmuch as it shows him "in all his ugliness, his fascination, his deep sympathy, his iron courage, his unassailable chastity." Mahaffy's enthusiasm has been shared by many writers and readers ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... rooms, banqueting-halls, etc. The gem of them all is the Salle Blanche, or White Hall, so called because the fittings and decorations are all in white and gold, by means of which an aerial lightness and fascination of effect is produced which is difficult to describe. It is in this apartment that the court festivals take place, and there are probably no royal entertainments in Europe which quite equal in splendor those given in ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... and stared with a peculiar fascination at Dan, who started to speak again. His voice 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 ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... of our own feather! As I went on, and my resolve strengthened, and my voice found new modulations, and our faces were drawn closer to the bars and to each other, not only she, but I, succumbed to the fascination, and were kindled by the charm. We make love, and thereby ourselves fall the deeper in it. It is with the heart only that one ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hundred dollars. I still held to my determination of going to college; so it was now a question of trying to squeeze through a year at Harvard or going to Atlanta, where the money I had would pay my actual expenses for at least two years. The peculiar fascination which the South held over my imagination and my limited capital decided me in favor of Atlanta University; so about the last of September I bade farewell to the friends and scenes of my boyhood and boarded a train for ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... Bonaparte, in France. I applaud a sufficient man, an officer, equal to his office; captains, ministers, senators. I like a master standing firm on legs of iron, well-born, rich, handsome, eloquent, loaded with advantages, drawing all men by fascination into tributaries and supporters of his power. Sword and staff, or talents sword-like or staff-like, carry on the work of the world. But I find him greater, when he can abolish himself, and all heroes, by letting in this element of reason, irrespective of persons; this subtilizer, and irresistible ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the world of spirits, which in those days were comparatively limited to the untutored minds of America, but which since have come to exert so singular a fascination for some of the most brilliant of George Eliot's younger friends (see iii. 204), she thought as any sensible Philistine among us persists in thinking ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 3 of 3) - The Life of George Eliot • John Morley
... offended the emperor by asserting that real merit lay, not in works, but solely in purity and wisdom combined. He therefore retired to Lo-yang, crossing the swollen waters of the Yangtsze on a reed, a feat which has ever since had a great fascination for Chinese painters and poets. There he spent the rest of his life, teaching that religion was not to be learnt from books, but that man should seek and find the Buddha in his own heart. Thus Buddhism gradually made its way. It had to meet first of all the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... hideous hybrid of man and beast, and as she gazed at it, too horror-stricken to move, a second and third form exactly similar to it crept out from among the shadows against the wall and joined it. And Tina, yielding to a sudden fascination, followed in their wake. In this fashion they crossed the hall and ascended the staircase, Tina keeping well behind them. She knew where they were aiming for, and any little doubt that she might have had was set ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... the reasons she couldn't care for me, she said, when I asked her. Now this fellow wins, who hasn't done anything either, except his one campaign. It's not that I ought to have her, but while I suppose it's a real fascination, I'm afraid there's a little glitter about being a princess. Even the best of our girls haven't got over that yet. Ah, well, about me she's right. I've been a pretty worthless sort. She's right. I've thought it all over. Three days before they sail we'll go down to Naples and hear ...
— The Beautiful Lady • Booth Tarkington
... diversion, something that would drive away a possible suspicion that this was a "plant." It was perfectly obvious to all that the Prince was becoming fascinated. Also, he was losing his head, for he was showing his fascination in a rather rude manner. His staring began to attract ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... hours (and all my hours were idle just then) noticed my preoccupation and chaffed me about it in a rather obvious way. They wanted to know whether she, whom I expected to see, was dark or fair; whether that fascination which kept me on tenterhooks of expectation was one of my aristocrats or one of my marine beauties: for they knew I had a footing in both these—shall we say circles? As to themselves they were the bohemian ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... before this living statue, he gazed into the wide-open eyes of the blind man. Those eyes which seemed to pierce to the bottom of his soul, and yet which did not, could not, see—exercised a sort of dreadful fascination over him. ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... self-respecting gentleman-like instinct, innocent at once and playful, keeps the voluptuary out of sight, teaches, as Imogen taught Iachimo, "the wide difference 'twixt amorous and villainous." Add to all these elements of fascination the unbroken luxuriance of style; the easy flow of casual epigram or negligent simile;—Greek holy days not kept holy but "kept stupid"; the mule who "forgot that his rider was a saint and remembered that he was a tailor"; the pilgrims "transacting their salvation" at the Holy ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... Eliot Leithgow and Hawk Carse were staring with horror at what the now brilliantly glowing liquid revealed the five shapes to be. As one man they rose, went to the cabinet and gazed with terrible fascination. ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore
... their lives without perceiving that sensible representation of the Deity. Such is the fascination of worldly trifles that obscure their eyes. Nay, oftentimes they will not so much as open them, but rather affect to keep them shut, lest they should find Him they do not look for. In short, what ought to help most to open their eyes serves only to close them ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... never failed to rouse and stimulate the noblest attributes of mind and heart. A year spent in her society had done much for him, and he loved her with a strange mingling of passion, reverence, and gratitude. He knew why Edith Snowdon came, he felt that the old fascination had not lost its charm, and though fear was unknown to him, he was ill pleased at the sight of the beautiful, dangerous woman. On the other hand, he saw that Lady Treherne desired her daughter to shun him and smile on Annon; he acknowledged that he had no right to win the young ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard
... of detail that give such charm to the works of Defoe. In spite of the fact that Cooper and Marryat had created a taste for sea-tales, this story never became popular. It is superabundant in horrors—a vein that had a fatal fascination for the morbid genius ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... do not know the fascination of these other things, I tell you that I do; and in one line at least have known it as deeply as any one could. But I have also known, that with the coming of Christ into my heart, with the new knowledge of his presence, the ...
— Tired Church Members • Anne Warner
... impression of immaturity and uncertainty on the part of the author. Even when some isolated phrase strikes one as fortunate, it does not tend to strengthen the drama as a whole. The later versions lack that sense of inner unity and that audacious touch which lend fascination and power to ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... to help hold him and Lake took the rope from Anders. He fashioned a noose in it while Bemmon struggled and made panting, animal sounds, his eyes fixed in horrified fascination ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... held a fascination for me. When we were under the mountains in Skagway yesterday, I almost told you of an odd faith which I have. I believe I have lived before, a long time ago, when America was very young. At times the feeling is so strong that I must have faith in it. Possibly I am foolish. But when the mountain ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... the historian of Whalley, is now "transferred to a gentler species of fascination, which my fair countrywomen still continue to exert in full force, without any apprehension of the county magistrates, or even of ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... its character. At first we stretch out our hands in very blindness of heart, as if trying to draw back again those whom we have lost. But, after a season, when the impotence of such efforts has become too sensibly felt, finding that they will not come back to us, a strange fascination arises which yearns after some mode of going to them. There is a gulf fixed which childhood rarely can pass. But we link our wishes with whatsoever would gently waft us over. We stretch out our hands, and say, 'Sister, lend us thy help, ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... in railway fares (At which no patriot cavils) Has chained us elders to our chairs And circumscribed our travels, I love to play the festive game Of astral gravitation To any neighbourhood whose name Is fraught with fascination. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 31, 1917 • Various
... simply refer them and him to the last work that has fallen from her pen, the Letters from the Orient, and bid them open it at the page which brings them to a Bedouin encampment—a scene described with the vigour that belongs to a masculine understanding, and all the fascination which a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... on the girl during this singular little lecture; she felt the fascination which is ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... miscellaneous, and even inferior works of Dickens there is, moreover, another use and fascination which all Dickensians will understand; which, after a manner, is not for the profane. All who love Dickens have a strange sense that he is really inexhaustible. It is this fantastic infinity that divides him even from the strongest and healthiest ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... in every normal person to want to investigate and know. The child looks out with wonder and fascination on a world he does not understand, and at once begins to ask questions and try experiments. Every new object is approached in a spirit of inquiry. Interest is omnivorous, feeding upon every phase of environment. Nothing is ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts |
