"Magic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and now I must tell you about a great amusement he had the other day. There came an English ship of war in the harbour, and the officers very good naturedly gave an entertainment of songs and dances and a magic-lantern, to which Arick and Austin were allowed to go. At the door of the hall there were crowds of black boys waiting and trying to peep in, the way children at home lie about and peep under the tent of a circus; and you may be sure ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... celebrated by the muse of Pushkin, the Russian poet; in fine, it is not possible to do justice to its charms, which seem to have powerfully impressed our traveller's susceptible imagination. "It is no easy task," she exclaims, "to describe the magic of this superb and mysterious abode, wherein the voluptuous Khans forgot the trials and sorrows of life: I cannot do it, as in the case of one of our Western palaces, by analyzing the style, the arrangement, and the details of its splendid ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... world was young With alchemies of fire and witches' oils And magic. But he never ...
— The Wild Knight and Other Poems • Gilbert Chesterton
... flowers, too, were a never-ending delight to the heart of the young woman. She knew some of them by name, but many were peculiar to the prairie. The first few warm days of spring had clothed all the wilderness with a magic carpet of pale-purplish blossoms, and the advancing season brought new blooms to view with every passing week. On Sundays, when there was total relaxation from their regular labours, the two, arm in arm, would stroll along the bank of the ravine, or walk, ankle-deep in strawberry ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... got to shoot Putney or Battersea," said Travers with a grim smile, as he stood shaping her course by inches with his magic-like steering, in the midst of a little covey of pleasure boats: "with this wind we might ha' brought either on 'em about our ears like ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... darkness seemed to swallow us up bodily, and the heavy oak door might have belonged to a prison. The sharp clang of the bell made me shiver, and Dante's lines came into my mind rather inopportunely, 'All ye who enter here, leave hope behind.' But as soon as the door opened the scene was changed like magic; the long hall was deliciously warm and light: it looked almost like a corridor, with its dark marble figures holding sconces, and small ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... have known that his magic-making, as he led the little blind girl through the forest of his romancing, was at the mercy of those two that knew him for what he really was; except for queer, wild, threatening looks now and again, he gave ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt
... the knight, starting back, "here be manifest sorcery! Ha! by the sweet blind boy, 'tis black magic!" and he crossed himself devoutly. But Beltane, laughing, put back his hood of mail, that his long, fair hair fell a-down rippling to ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... it, and the advance were walking their horses into the fringe of Lexington—this was home-coming for a good many of the men sagging in the saddles. Morgan's old magic was working again. Escaping from the Ohio prison, he had managed to gather up the remnants of a badly shattered command, weld them together, and lead them up from Georgia to their old fighting fields—the country which they considered rightfully theirs and in which during other ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... who would gladly have given him every information. But he never once intimates the least suspicion of such a thing—never questions the Gospels as books of history—nor denies the miracles recorded in them, but attributes them to magic.[70] Here, then, we have testimony as acceptable to an Infidel as that of Strauss or Voltaire—in fact, utterly undeniable by any man of common sense—that the New Testament was well known and generally received by Christians ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... as she purposed. The young Connlaoch defeated champion after champion till Cuchulain himself went down, and was recognised by his son. But the pledge tied Connlaoch's tongue, and only when he lay dying, slain by the magic throw which Aoife had withheld from his knowledge, could he reveal himself to his father, the great and childless hero, whose lament for his lost son is written in the song that I set out to secure, on a day of sun and rain, last summer, when great ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... service. Owing, however, to the bitter cold which prevailed that winter, many of the birds perished on the return journey, and thus the despatches they carried did not reach Paris. Whenever any such communications arrived there, they had to be enlarged by means of a magic-lantern contrivance, in order that they might be deciphered. Meantime, the aeronauts leaving the city conveyed Government despatches as well as private correspondence, and in this wise Trochu was able to inform Gambetta that the army of Paris intended ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... wide-open eyes and hard, flushed cheeks, lay tossing on the big bed in the room off the parlor, which had seldom been used since Frances was born there. "Mother's bed" the Madigans always called it, and they crept into it when ailing, as though it still held something of the old curative magic for childish aches, though all but Kate had forgotten the mother's face as it was before she lay down there the last time. Split had a big hot silver dollar in one hand,—Francis Madigan's way of recognizing ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... distance of this magic ground, though not so near it as that the song trolled from tap or bench at door, can invade its woodland silence, is a little hostelry which no man possessed of a penny was ever known to pass in warm weather. Before its entrance, are certain pleasant, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... can form his opinion as to the religion of the White Kendah and their pretensions to a certain degree of magical skill. Of this magic I will make only one remark: If it existed at all, it was by no means infallible. To take a single instance, Harut and Marut were convinced by divination that I, and I only, could kill Jana, which was why they invited me to Kendahland. ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... contributed in no small degree to the pleasures of the festival. The curtains at the doors of this hall could at any time be lifted up so as to permit access to this oasis of verdure. One might have thought a magic ring had transported to this corner of Paris, all the riches of the vegetation of southern climes, and might have, in imagination, strayed beneath the jasmin bowers, amid the roses and orange-groves of Italy, so delicious was the perfume which filled this garden. Its peculiar physiognomy ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... this was all done through the magic of the gipsy mother; for the horses took fright instantly, plunged and reared, and dashed off with the carriage, which was over-turned some yards from the spot, and the baker's daughter had her leg broken. Hearing her screams, the Duke and the whole party ran to the spot; and his ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... Double-quick!" is the ringing order, and, by magic, the line concentrates in a solid phalanx ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... "My mother had the same feeling." He looked closely at Charlotte's face, as the bright sunlight of the Southern spring morning fell upon it. "You are very tired," he said, and his voice was like a caress. "Not in body, but in mind—and heart. I wish, by some magic, I could secure for you two ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... they, too, were poor. The Deacon, among other things, sawed wood for a living, and Lloyd hardly turned eight years, followed him in his peregrinations from house to house doing with his tiny hands what he could to help the kind old man. Soon Fanny Lloyd's health, which had supported her as a magic staff in all those bitter years since Abijah's desertion of wife and children, began in the battle for bread in Lynn, to fail her. And so, in her weakness, and with a great fear in her heart for her babies, ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... sufficiently explains the necessity of the great oath against magic taken by both parties in a wager ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... wall, just to my right; the fingers clenched gently upon one-half a newly broken cheese; the hand moved silently in my direction, cheese and all, pausing when perhaps six inches from my nose. I took the cheese from the hand, which departed as if by magic; and a little later had the pleasure of being joined at my window by The Zulu, who was brushing cheese crumbs from his long slender Mandarin mustaches, and who expressed profound astonishment and equally profound ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... found Mozart at home in Vienna at work on a magic opera to help his friend Salieri, who had taken a little theater in the suburb of Wieden. One day he was visited by a stranger, a tall man, who said he came to commission Mozart to compose a Requiem. He would neither give his own name nor ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... Poet! whose undoubting mind Believed the magic wonders which he sung! Hence, at each sound, imagination glows! Hence, at each picture, vivid life starts here! Hence, his warm lay with softest sweetness flows! Melting it flows, pure, murmuring, strong, and clear, And fills the impassion'd heart, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... universal revelation of the year. There are days for the deep woods, and for the open fields; days for the beach, and for the inland river; days for solitary musing beside some secluded rivulet, and days for the companionship and movement of the highways. Each day is fitted by some subtle magic of adaptation to the place and the aspect of nature which it is to reveal with a clearness denied to other hours. There came such a day not long ago to me; a day of tonic atmosphere—clear, cloudless, inspiring; there was no audible invitation in the air, but I knew by some ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... references to the vampire superstitions, and to the case of Osiris, who returned after death to Isis and became the father of Horus. And, following Uhland, he compares the sleep-thorn, with which Odin pricked the Valkyrie, Brynhild, and so put her into a magic slumber, to the stake which was driven into the corpse suspected of being a vampire, to prevent its rising any more from the ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... his life! At that moment, it was a sort of instinct that told him they were alone; for who has not felt—in those few and memorable hours of life when love long suppressed overflows the fountain, and seems to pervade the whole frame and the whole spirit—that there is a magic around and within us that hath a keener intelligence than intellect itself? Alone at such an hour with the one we love, the whole world besides seems to vanish, and our feet to have entered the soil, and our lips to have caught the air, ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... eluding you. If you venture a remark to your neighbour, there comes a trite rejoinder, and there it ends. No subject you can hit upon outlives half a dozen sentences. Nothing that is said excites any real interest in you; and you feel that all you say is listened to with apathy. By some strange magic, things that usually give pleasure seem ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... magic romance, this, into which she had stumbled over the threshold of a venial misdemeanour! Who now would dare contend that life was ever sordid, grim, and cruel, indigestible from soup to savoury? Who would have the hardihood to uphold such contention when made acquainted ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... and the first Elaine (who became Lancelot's mistress by art magic), then vows himself to the Quest, and, after the vision in hall at Camelot, the knights, except Arthur, follow his example, to Arthur's grief. "Ye follow wandering fires!" Probably, or perhaps, the poet indicates dislike of hasty spiritual enthusiasms, ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... got cast ashore on this desolate island, where they lived together. But once, when a ship was going by on the sea that had his wicked brother and his son—a real good, handsome young prince—in it, why then he made a storm by magic arts." ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Cabalist, had written a book on Goetic Magic and soon after becoming a member of the "Golden Dawn" set to work with another "Frater" on magical experiments, including evocations, the consecration and use of talismans, divination, alchemy, etc. In 1900 Crowley had joined Mathers in Paris ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... violation? The test act had ever been conceived the great barrier of the established religion under a Popish successor: as such it had been insisted on by the parliament; as such granted by the king; as such, during the debates with regard to the exclusion, recommended by the chancellor. By what magic, what chicane of law, is it now annihilated, and rendered of no validity? These questions were every where asked; and men, straitened by precedents and decisions of great authority, were reduced either to question the antiquity of this prerogative itself, or to assert, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... inclination to sociability. But in the case of Miss Irving she had found it impossible to refrain from sundry kindly acts which were not included in the terms of the contract. Certain savoury dishes found their way mysteriously to Miss Irving's menage, and flowers appeared in her room as if by magic, and in various other ways the good heart and intentions of Mrs Connor were unobtrusively expressed toward her favourite tenant. Joy had taken a suite of four rooms, where, with her maid, she lived in modest comfort and complete retirement from the social world of Beryngford, save ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the "Flower City," receives only a passing allusion in this record of various impressions that gleam and glow through the days after several visits to the Magic Land, is due to the fact that in a previous volume by the writer—one entitled "The Florence of Landor"—the lovely Tuscan town with its art, its ineffable beauty, and its choice social life, formed the subject matter of that volume. Any attempt ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... magic spell to roll The thrilling tones, that concentrate the soul! Breathe through thy flute those tender notes again, While near thee sits the chaste-eyed maiden mild; And bid her raise the poet's kindred strain In soft empassioned voice, ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... image of her own elfish figure, or pretty, witching face, with its round, polished forehead, its mocking eyes, its sunny, dancing curls, its piquant little nose, or petulant little lips—but contemplating, as through a magic glass, far down the vista of her childhood—childhood scarcely past, yet in its strong contrast to the present, seeming so distant, dim, and unreal, that her reminiscence of its days resembled more a vague dream of a pre-existence, than a rational recollection of ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... philosophy," "divine teacher," "new law," "freedom," "repentance," "sinless life," "sure hope," "reward," "immortality," the ideas, "forgiveness of sins," "redemption," "reconciliation," "new birth," "faith" (in the Pauline sense) must remain words,[454] or be relegated to the sphere of magic and mystery.[455] Nevertheless we must not on that account overlook the intention. Justin tried to see the divine revelation not only in the sayings of the prophets, but in unique fashion in the person of ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... their shallow, turbid waters, the sombre flux of immemorial forests under the crescent cone of night, and undergrowth overlapping the banks, the tragic chaos of rising storms, hordes of clouds sailing low on the horizon, the silhouettes of lazy, majestic mountains, the lugubrious magic of the tropical night, the mysterious drums of the natives, and the darkness that one can feel, taste, smell. What a gulf of incertitudes for white men is evoked for us in vivid, concrete terms. Unforgetable, too, the hallucinated actions of the student Razumov the night ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... to lightest lay An unpedantic moral gay, Nor less the dullest theme bid flit On wings of unexpected wit; In letters as in life approved, Example honour'd and beloved; Dear Ellis! to the bard impart A lesson of thy magic art To win at once the head and heart,- At once to charm, instruct, and mend, My guide, my ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... with soft wool-fillet bind These altars round about, and burn thereon Rich vervain and male frankincense, that I May strive with magic spells to turn astray My lover's saner senses, whereunto There lacketh nothing save the power ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil
... knock the quiet man down and fly, but he felt a restraining power on his other arm, and, looking round, observed a tall policeman at his side. As if by magic, another tall policeman appeared in front of him, and a third behind him. He suddenly bent down his head and suffered himself to be led away. Seeing this, the Bloater and Little Jim wrenched themselves from the grasp of their respective captors, dived between ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... collar. They change their habits and their methods. They have been used to cheap clothes, coarse fare, and to associating with their fellow workers. After they have been elevated to official position, as if by magic they are recognized by those who previously scorned them and held them in contempt. They find that some of the doors that were previously barred against them now swing inward, and they can actually put their feet under the mahogany of ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... and a quarter that has passed since then, a great change has come over the world. By the magic of the railroad, the telegraph, and the telephone, all the nations of the earth are bound more closely to one another now than were the scattered communities of a single county in those days, or than the states of the Union before the ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory
... Jimmie tried his magic formula: "Botteree Normb Cott." But the man waved his hands frantically and grabbed Jimmie by the arm—the very incarnation of that Monster of Militarism which the little machinist had been dodging for four years! He pushed Jimmie towards the gun, and the other ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... gestures, sounds, and articulate words had a mysterious but irresistible effect upon these invisible beings. How the effect was produced no one asked, but that it was produced no one doubted. The highest of the sciences was magic, for it held the threads by which the denizens of the invisible world were controlled; the master of the earth was the sorcerer who could compel them to obey him by a nod, a form of words, or an incantation. We can form some ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... gazed absently at the pair in front of the piano. And it appeared incredible to her that she was the mother of that tall womanly creature, that the little morsel of a child which she had borne one night had become a daughter of Eve, with a magic to mesmerise errant glances and desires. She had a glimpse of the significance of Nature's eternal iterance. Then her mood developed a bitterness against Millicent. She thought cruelly that Millicent's magic was no part of the girl's soul, no talent acquired by loving exertion, but something ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... man, went, when none spied him, to the ship, where he found the Tarnkappe, and he did it on swiftly, that none knew. Then he hastened back to the crowd of knights, where the queen gave order for the sports, and, by his magic, he stole in among them, that no man was ware of him. The ring was marked out in the presence of armed knights to the number of seven hundred. These were the umpires, that should tell truly who won in ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... of Egypt is still widely practised, and many of the formulae used in modern times are familiar to the Egyptologist. The Egyptian, indeed, lives in a world much influenced by magic and thickly populated by spirits, demons, and djins. Educated men holding Government appointments, and dressing in the smartest European manner, will describe their miraculous adventures and their meetings with djins. ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... was strong on me to tell Mrs. Blake my good news. I got on safely until Daniel Blake's light was in sight, when, just before me, I heard rough voices talking and laughing. I turned and was about fleeing for home, when a similar crowd seemed to have sprung up, as if by magic, just behind me. In my terror I attempted to climb a fence, but fence-climbing was a new accomplishment, and in my ignorance and fright, I dragged myself to the top rail and then fell over in a nerveless heap ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... art it is remarkable—almost, indeed, a gallery in itself, comprising as it does portraiture, design, topography, and the delineation of one of the most spirited episodes in religious history. After the magic words "One Pound," it is, of course, to St. George and the Dragon that the eye first turns. What Mr. Ruskin would say of the latest version of the encounter between England's tutelary genius and his fearsome foe, one can only guess; but I feel sure that he would be caustic about ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... avoided. For the same reason, by this process positive impressions can be obtained not only upon wet paper, &c., but also upon hard inflexible substances, such as porcelain, ivory, glass, &c.,—and upon this last, the positives being transparent are applicable to the stereoscope, magic ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 194, July 16, 1853 • Various
... effects. The scrolls and the roses on the cheap yellow curtains that hung in the windows, were changed to hideous faces of variable size and ugliness. Their grotesque shadows on the floor mingled with other faces—horrible as antique masks—wrought by the magic of the moon from the gigantic flowers that adorned the narrow strip of carpet by the bedside. Her dresses, suspended from a row of hooks in the corner—and showing, in gentle swells and curves, the lithe, graceful form of the little ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... the Italian cities looked upon their conqueror as a liberator—such was the magic of the word liberty, which resounded from the Alps to the Apennines. On his way to Mantua the General took up his residence in the palace of the ancient dukes. Bonaparte promised the authorities of Mantua that their ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... leaving it they all sat and talked in the large piazza, or wandered about the garden in the starlight, with their ears full of those sounds of strange insects which, though they are supposed to be, all over the world, a part of the magic of summer nights, seemed to the Baroness to have beneath these western skies an ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... Throughout the day barricades were demolished by the national guards and gardes mobiles, but only after fierce and deadly conflict. During the night of the 23rd new barricades were raised as if by magic, and on the morning of the 24th, a system of ingenious and powerful defences existed through a large extent of Paris, behind which and commanding which, from the windows and house-tops, well-armed and determined men were placed. Happily the government consigned to General Cavaignac, minister ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... while she did nothing but rave of me, and the secret terror of her heart was disclosed—that I should cease to care for her, that her beauty and love might pall upon me so that I should leave her, that 'the flower maid,' for so she named Lily, who dwelt across the sea should draw me back to her by magic; this was the burden of her madness. At length her senses returned and she ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... vicinity to a great city. It has a singular effect, after travelling for some days through a wild country, seeing nothing but a solitary hacienda, or an Indian hut, to enter a fine city like Morelia, which seems to have started up as by magic in the midst of the wilderness, yet bearing all the traces of a venerable old age. By moonlight, it looked like a panorama of Mexico; with a fine square, portales, cathedral, broad streets, and good houses. We rode through ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... gradually accustomed herself to do without food, and that she lived twenty years in total abstinence. We know of several examples of prolonged sleep during which the sleeper naturally took no nourishment. In his Magic Disquisitions, Delvis cites the case of a countryman who slept for an entire autumn and winter. Pfendler relates that a certain young and hysterical woman fell twice into a deep slumber which each time lasted six months. In 1883 an enceinte woman was ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... buffoon stood telling tales To a sedate grey circle of old smokers, Of secret treasures found in hidden vales, Of wonderful replies from Arab jokers, Of charms to make good gold and cure bad ails, Of rocks bewitched that open to the knockers, Of magic ladies who, by one sole act, Transformed their lords to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... if the monkish writers are to be trusted. "They added to their company, during a sojourn of some time in England, only one girl (muliercula), who, as report says, was fascinated by magic." Perhaps their work was of more value than appeared on the surface. After seven years of this quiet evangelising, the King and the clergy interfered. Considered as a "foreign sect," they were cited before a council held at Oxford in 1166, the King stating his desire neither to dismiss ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... be there. She made no attempt to hide it, laughing as she slid out of her coat and tossed her hat on a chair. With her feet in their worn, high-heeled shoes held out to the fire, her hands rosily transparent against the blaze, she filled the room with a new magic and charm, sent waves of well-being through it. They warmed and lifted Mayer from his worries, and he was nearly as glad that he had asked her to come as she was to obey his summons. In his relief that she was able to dissipate his gloom, ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... by magic; the foremost vessel swung broadside toward us, and bringing her guns into play returned our fire, at the same time moving parallel to our front for a short distance and then turning back with the evident intention of completing a great circle which would bring her up to position once ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Stevenson was happier, as a small boy with a bull's-eye lantern at his belt, than any king upon his throne. The secret of enjoyment is to learn to look about us, to value what our destiny has given us, to transform it into magic by some contributory gift of poetry or humor, to consider with contentment the lilies of the field. The zest of life is in the living of it; and "to travel hopefully is a better thing than ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... off the mask covering a metaphysical love, which could not reach or satisfy the light of intelligence or the sentiments and emotions of the heart, and which appeared to her to possess as little reality as the enchanted castles, marvels of magic, and monsters depicted in poetry and romance. To her, love finally became a mere thirst, and a desire for pleasure to be gratified by indulgence like all other pleasure. The germ of philosophy already growing in her soul, ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... was not the beauty—Oh, nothing like this, That to young Nourmahal gave such magic bliss; But that loveliness, ever in motion, which plays Like the light ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... trial. Be thou my magic book, which reading o'er Their counterspells we'll break; or if the King Will not by strong hand fix me in his Throne, But that I must be held Spain's blazing star, Be it an ominous charm to ...
— The Noble Spanish Soldier • Thomas Dekker
... was a lieutenant. But alas! his wishes, thus realized, filled him only with disgust and bitterness, like those golden apples, which, at a distance, shine brightly in the branches of magic trees, and under the touch of the hand turn ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... powerless. The "obstupui" was perfectly realized in me, for, with the exception of a single groan, which I gave on first seeing the object, I found that if one word would save my life, or transport me to my own fireside, I could not utter it. I was also rooted to the earth, as if by magic; and although instant tergiversation and flight had my most hearty concurrence, I could not move a limb, nor even raise my eyes off the sepulchral-looking object which lay before me. I now felt the perspiration fall ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... The Magic Spokes (Fig. 143).—Place a design like this on the gramophone and let it turn at high speed. The radial lines seem but a blur. Now punch a hole one-eighth of an inch in diameter in a piece of blackened card, and, standing well away from the gramophone, apply your eye to the hole ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... All ordinary employments were laid aside. Ships were deserted by their crews, who ran to the mines, sometimes, it is said, headed by their officers. Soon streets were laid out, houses erected, and from this Babel, as if by magic, grew up a beautiful city. For a time, lawlessness reigned supreme. But, driven by the necessity of events, the most respectable citizens took the law into their own hands, organized vigilance committees, and administered a rude but prompt justice which ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... kings, thy fear of Sakra will soon be dispelled, and I shall soon remove this terrible pain by means of my magic lore (incantation); be calm and have no fear of being overpowered by India. Thou hast nothing to fear from the god of a hundred sacrifices. I shall use my staying charms, O king, and the weapons of all the gods will avail them not. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Never before did it enter the heart of a Missouri to seek the blood of a Sioux! Our messengers went to your camp smoking the sacred calumet of peace. They were sons of the Mandanes. They were friends of the white men. The white man is like magic. He comes from afar. He knows much. He has given guns to our warriors. His shot bags are full and his guns many. But his men, ye slew. We are for peace, but if ye are for war, we warn you to leave ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... the tone in which the progress of Christianity is traced, in comparison with the rest of the splendid and prodigally ornamented work, which is the radical defect in the "Decline and Fall." Christianity alone receives no embellishment from the magic of Gibbon's language; his imagination is dead to its moral dignity; it is kept down by a general zone of jealous disparagement, or neutralized by a painfully elaborate exposition of its darker and degenerate periods. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... maiden sweet, In the fairy bower, while yet you may; See in rapture he lies at your feet; Rest on the truth of the glorious youth, Rest—for a summer day. That great clear spirit of flickering fire You have lulled awhile in magic sleep, But you cannot fill his wide desire. His heart is tender, his eyes are deep, His words divinely flow; But his voice and his glance are not for you; He never can be to a maiden true; Soon will he wake and go. Well, well, 'twere a piteous thing To chain forever that ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... fancies wander! O landscape! O stage fit for a desirable life! a helpful land, gallant woods, meadows full of music, groves propitious to the sports of Echo! cradling trees hung with baskets of flowers! desert places far from the jealous world, touched by the magic brush of a Servandoni, refreshed with fountains, peopled with marbles and statues, and Naiads, that spot the trembling shadow of the leaves! jets of water suddenly springing up in the midst of farm-yards! an amiable and radiant countryside! Suns of apotheosis, beautiful ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... was nothing of melancholy in it, nor in the expression of the New Englander as he sprang, cutlass in hand, through the gap. Slow to take fire, when Toley's anger was kindled it blazed with a devouring flame. The crowd of assailants dissolved as if by magic. Before the last of the crew of the Hormuzzeer, lascars and Europeans, had passed into the inclosure, the men of the Good Intent and their Bengali allies were streaming over and under the ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... pained at his uncle's kindness,—kindness stronger in its effects than reproof,—still lingered, as if to watch some change of expression on his uncle's countenance, as he left the door. His face changed into pallid gloominess, and again, as if by magic influence, filled with the impress of passion; it was despair holding conflict with a bending spirit. He felt himself a criminal, marked by the whispers of society; he might not hear the charges against him, nor be within the sound ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... "It wont do, sir! step out directly, and don't let us have any nonsense." The "Dodger" groaned again, this time from his heart probably, shook himself, and, leaning well forward in his big collar, stepped out without a murmur. The lameness had disappeared by magic, nor was there even the slightest return of it until he saw a new driver, and considered it safe to try ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... his mouth covered by an enormous black mustache which must have received a bath every morning in coffee or something stronger, came forward pompously. I don't know to this day what magic word he said, but the inspectors took never a peep into his belongings. Doubtless they knew him, and that his word was as good ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... who made to live Past kingdoms, with his vivid brain! Who could such warmth to shadows give, By the mere magic of his pen, That Charles and England rose again! Well sleeps he 'mid the Abbey's dust: And, Laureate! thy funereal verse Shall have such echo as it must From hearts just wrung at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... The Italian Government kept men under arms to be ready to take advantage of any successes obtained by the Garibaldian volunteers, and at the same time to suppress the republican tendencies of the latter, which broke out afresh with every new advance, and disappeared, as by magic, under the depressing influence ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... the "war color" now in vogue in the United States navy, will disappear as if by magic when dusk comes on. The lead color makes any object covered with it invisible in half light or ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... Trail, The Silent Places, Conjuror's House The Westerners, The Claim Jumpers The Magic Forest, The Forest ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... The magic bean The divine fruit Fragrant berries Rich, royal berry Voluptuous berry The precious berry The healthful bean The Heavenly berry The marvelous berry This all-healing berry Yemen's fragrant berry The little aromatic berry ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... slain.—Taraka engages the principal gods and defeats them with magic weapons. When they are relieved by Kumara, the demon turns to the youthful god of war, and advises him to retire ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... plunge into a wady, and immediately the ground is clothed with under-growth and shrubs, and the birds of the air sing among the branches. And so, says Ezekiel, wherever the river comes there springs up, as if by magic, fair trees 'on the banks thereof, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... the charm; perhaps a magic was working stronger than I knew; but words came to my lips that I stubbornly refused to speak. I fought against them; they, too, fought with grim insistence; so as a compromise, looking straight ahead and pretending to jest even while I accused, ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... very extraordinary! Do you think that your going to sleep is caused by the meadow or the book?' 'I suppose by both,' said my new acquaintance, 'acting in co-operation.' 'It may be so,' said I; 'the magic influence does certainly not proceed from the meadow alone; for since I have been here, I have not felt the slightest inclination to sleep. Does the book consist of prose or poetry?' 'It consists of poetry,' ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... different an appearance will things wear! The magic circle round the hearth will be filled with beaming faces; a score of hands will be luxuriously chafing the palpable warmth dispensed by a social blaze; some more privileged feet may perchance be basking in the extraordinary recesses of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... the North American Review pointed out recently "their spontaneous power and freshness, their imaginative vision, their lyrical magic." He adds: "Mr. Noyes is surprisingly various. I have seldom read one book, particularly by so young a writer, in which so many different things are done, and all done so well.... But that for which one is most grateful to Mr. Noyes in his strong and brilliant ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... to conceive by what magic the mere surcease or renunciation of an interest in a subject of property, by an individual possessing that interest, can alter the essential character of that property with respect to persons or communities unconnected with such renunciation. ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard
... when I at last found time from the hospital work to visit my friend, the old folk-lorist, in his country isolation, and I rather chuckled to myself, because in my bag I was taking down a book that utterly refuted all his tiresome pet theories of magic and the powers ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... Defoe's extraordinary ingenuity in putting a respectable face upon the most disreputable materials—he had another proof of the avidity with which people run to hear marvels. He followed up this clue with A System of Magic, or a History of the Black Art; The Secrets of the Invisible World disclosed, or a Universal History of Apparitions; and a humorous History of the Devil, in which last work he subjected Paradise Lost, to which Addison had drawn attention by his papers in the Spectator, to very sharp criticism. ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... I cried, and my tears, if they were there, vanished away like magic. 'Oh, granny, that would be too lovely. ...
— My New Home • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... refers in specific terms to the Christian religion), they must have been well known to each other, and their antagonism is of the kind which grows out of strong similarities of nature. Apuleius passed for a magician: Tertullian was a firm believer in magic, and his conversion to Christianity was, he himself tells us, very largely due to confessions of its truth extorted from demons, at the strange spiritualistic seances which were a feature of the time among all classes. His conversion took place ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... sea, that is the Enchanted Sea, whose Queen is Rabesqurat, Mistress of Illusions. Now when my soul recovered from amazement at the marvels seen, I arose and went from the starry roofs to consult my books of magic, and 'twas revealed to me that one was wandering to a junction with my destiny, and that by his means the great aim would of a surety be accomplished—Shagpat Shaved! So my purpose was to discover him; and I made calculations, and summoned them that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... mused Alan Hawke, and therefore, he very delicately played his wary fish, the sybaritic young swell of the staff. Captain the Honorable Anson Anstruther's reserve soon melted under the skillful bonhomie of the astute Alan Hawke. An easy-going patrician of the staff, he was in the magic circle of the viceroy. The heir to an inevitable fortune, and already vested with substantially stratified deposits at "Coutts" and Glyn, Carr and Glyn's, he would have been envied by most luckless mortals the heavy balances which he always carried at "Grind-lay's," ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... health. All my other works (of which there are many) are either arranged (by R. L. Stevenson) for the manly and melodious forefinger, or else prolonged and melancholy croppers. . . . I find one can get a notion of music very nicely. I have been pickling deeply in the Magic Flute; and have arranged LA DOVE PRENDE, almost to the end, for two melodious forefingers. I am next going to score the really nobler COLOMBA O TORTORELLA ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... life paid the forfeiture of his folly, acknowledged, before he died, that his reasons for believing in a mine were extracted from the lips of a sibyl, who, by looking in a magic glass, was enabled to discover the hidden treasures of the earth. Such superstition was frequent in the new settlements; and, after the first surprise was over, the better part of the community forgot the subject. But, at the same time ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... passed in review all these and other wines, of many various qualities, offered besides to place before his guests, without having any recourse to magic, and not as one marks down places on a map, but in all their vivid reality, Madriga, Coca, Alacjos, and the imperial, rather than royal city—that favourite abode of the god of smiles—Ciudad Real. He furthermore offered Esquibias, Alanis, Cazalla, Guadalcanal, and Membrilla, without forgetting ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... who, in other public places, are to represent the people, about 1,000 bawlers and claqueurs, "two-thirds of which are women." "While I was free," says Beaulieu,[34179] "I closely observed their movements. It was a magic-lantern constantly in operation. They traveled to and from the Convention to the Revolutionary Tribunal, and from this to the Jacobin Club, or to the Commune, which held its meetings in the evening.... ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Hal, as Hal was to gain from him the instruction he needed, and they expected to get much enjoyment from working together. Louis would be with us through the holidays, and Mr. Benton would, I knew, enjoy that, for he insisted that it was the magic of his hand that had saved Hal's life, and he looked on him as a real blessing. The two artist souls blended as one, and drank daily deep draughts from the fountain of an inspiring genius, and as I watched the work grow under their hands, ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... mountains, that had so long been the inspiration of her most cherished thoughts, and that now glowed before her eyes, soft and beautiful as her dreams on her virgin couch. Then, overpowered by the artless thoughts and innocent recollections which on the magic wings of Nature and Night came wafted over her mind, she bent down her head upon her lute, pressed her round, dimpled cheek against its smooth frame, and drawing her fingers mechanically over its strings, abandoned herself unreservedly ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... advice, but Mary held her purpose, and persevered till all had left the room except Richard, who quietly took the crimson tangle on his wrists, turned and twisted, opened passages for the winder, and by the magic of his dexterous hands, had found the clue to the maze, so that all was proceeding well, though slowly, when the study door opened, and Harry's voice was heard in a last good night to his father. Mary's ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Civ. Dei xxi, 6): "It was not possible to learn, for the first time, except from their" (i.e. the demons') "teaching, what each of them desired or disliked, and by what name to invite or compel him: so as to give birth to the magic arts and their professors": and the same observation seems to apply to idolatry. Therefore idolatry had no cause ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... loss had been much heavier than theirs, for, active as our men were, they were no match in speed for these mountaineers, who were as nimble as their own goats, knew everything of the country, and could appear or disappear, as it seemed to us, almost by magic. It was a wretched business, and once or twice, when our parties were caught in the narrow ravines, they were overwhelmed by rocks thrown down from above; so that, on the whole, we lost almost as many men as we should ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... and on momentous occasions, and at other times to deliver his oracles only to a few favored votaries, who were suffered to make pilgrimages to his shrine. If such were his object, it was for a time fully attained. Never was the magic of his name so powerful, never was he regarded by his country with such superstitious veneration, as during this year of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... slaves in the West Indies. It might perhaps be enacted, as Mr. Vaughan had suggested, that their punishments should be moderate; and that the number of lashes should be limited. But the colonial legislatures had already done as much, as the magic of words alone could do, upon this subject: yet the evidence upon the table clearly proved, that the only protection of slaves was in the clemency of their masters. Any barbarity might be exercised with impunity, provided no White person were ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... horror have frequently been described, and castles, filled with spectres and chimeras, conjured up by the magic spell of genius to harrow the soul, and absorb the wondering mind. But, formed of such stuff as dreams are made of, what were they to the mansion of despair, in one corner of which Maria sat, endeavouring to recal her ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... What was this drinking-cup, and who sent it to Arthur? We have "Le Lai du cor" (ed. Wulff, Lund, 1888), which tells how a certain King Mangount of Moraine sent a magic drinking-cup to Arthur. No one could drink of this cup without spilling the contents if he were a cuckold. Drinking from this cup was, then, one of the many current tests of chastity. Further light may be thrown on the passage in our text by the English poem "The Cokwold's Daunce" (in C.H. Hartshorne's ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... "This isn't magic, Colonel. You don't change a nobody into a physical and mental giant by saying abracadabra or by teaching him how to ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... he really as sublimely free from anxiety as he wished her to believe, she wondered? It was difficult to think otherwise, even though he had admitted that they were governed by circumstance. She began to think that there was magic in him, some hidden reserve force upon which he could always draw when all ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... unattainable splendours, or too easily attainable impostures, cannot maintain itself in the wearying mind of the populace, and I find my charitable friends inviting the children, whom the streets educate only into vicious misery, to entertainments of scientific vision, in microscope or magic lantern; thus giving them something to look at, such as it is;—fleas mostly; and the stomachs of various vermin; and people with their heads cut off and set on again;—still something, ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... from whose offer of money to the Apostles the offence derives its name, denying that there was any similarity between his sin and the act of purchasing an advowson or presentation, remarked that it might just as fitly be called magic as simony.] ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... the light shot out in rays that faded toward the ends until they vanished. It shed hardly any light around it, although in itself it was so bright as to sting the eyes that beheld it. Wonderful stories had from ages gone been current in the mines about certain magic gems which gave out light of themselves, and this light looked just like what might be supposed to shoot from the heart ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... hope that Rome might be restored to the same freedom it had enjoyed under the great king. Then they would dwell together in the sacred city. That, too, was Veranilda's desire; for on her ear the name of Rome fell with a magic sound; all her life she had heard it spoken reverentially, with awe, yet the city itself she had never seen. Rome, she knew, was vast; there, it seemed to her, she would live unobserved, unthought of save by ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... frighten me that way," declared Ruth Fielding. "I am not afraid of your spells, or your fortune telling, or any of your foolish magic. If you believe in any of it yourself, you have not gained much wisdom all the ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... pensive mood, Taught by thy kind twin-sister, Certitude, Yon puzzled crowd, whose tired intent Hunts like a pack without a scent. And now come home, Where none of our mild days Can fail, though simple, to confess The magic of mysteriousness; For there 'bide charming Wonders three, Besides, Sweet, thee, To comprehend whose commonest ways, Ev'n could that be, Were coward's 'vantage and ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... again, scores, and even hundreds, of shots being aimed at him, but, as it chanced, none of them struck him. Seeing that he remained untouched amidst this hail of lead, they cried out that he was 'tagati,' or magic-guarded, but the indunas ordered them to continue their fire. They did so, and a bullet passing through his hips, the Englishman fell down paralysed. Then finding that he could not turn they ran round him and stabbed him, and ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... delight in the sort of all but conscious certainty that it was so. Curiously enough, I never remember feeling the slightest nervousness while I was there, but rather an immense excitement in the idea of such invisible companionship; but as soon as I had emerged from the magic circle of the huge black cedar trees, all my fair visions vanished, and, as though under a spell, I felt perfectly possessed with terror, and rushed home again like the wind, fancying I heard following footsteps all the ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... you are such a child that you cannot wait till night, they shall be brought to table now; but, remember, I will not order any more to be made, and you shall provide for your playmates out of the money put by to purchase the magic-lantern and ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... was the cunningest girl in matters of love, and she knew well the arts of women, with which they bring men to nothing. Nevertheless she was cold at heart, and desired power and wealth greatly, and she studied magic much, of which her mother Groa also had a store. But Swanhild, too, loved a man, and that was the joint in her harness by which the shaft of Fate entered her heart, for that man was Eric Brighteyes, who ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... cannot remove the effects of error. Discomfort under error is preferable to comfort. In no instance is the effect of 101:30 animal magnetism, recently called hypnotism, other than the effect of illusion. Any seeming benefit derived from it is proportional to one's faith in esoteric magic. ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... and expected a clashing of races on election day in Wilmington, but that which took place on the 10th of November was far more than he was prepared to grapple with. The dawn of that fatal day found the streets of Wilmington crowded with armed men and boys, who had sprung, as it were, by magic from the earth. Aroused by loud noises in the neighborhood of his residence, the minister arose early, dressed and hastened into the street. A large crowd of colored citizens, mostly women, stood upon the street corner half a block away, excitedly talking ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... work of magic," answered Mr Sedgwick, "and scarcely likes to enter the circle." Mr Sedgwick then spoke a few more words to Tanda, who now came forward with greater confidence. We had left a small opening on one side for going in and out, and by ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... atmosphere which seemed to indicate that the expected change was now imminent, and, springing up the companion-way to the deck, I found a most extraordinary scene awaiting me. The thickness that had hitherto pervaded the atmosphere had vanished, as if by magic, leaving the air astonishingly clear and transparent right to the boundary of the horizon, and revealing a vast expanse of dense, livid, purple-grey cloud, which had overspread the north-western half of the heavens, and was at the precise moment passing over and ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... Not for some days. Our garrison I'll post Distributively on the distant hills; While from the Vulture half a thousand men Land in the darkness. Thus without a blow, But with the magic of a countersign, West ...
— The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold - A Play for a Greek Theatre • John Jay Chapman
... it is magic. But I am no fool. I know John Gaviller make the laktrek in an engine in the mill. Me, I have seen that engine. I see blue fire ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... narrow incision in the cruel clouds the sun peeped out with a nervous timidity, and a tiny patch over yonder, in a flash illuminated with gold and purple, across which the lightning danced in heavenly rivalry, displayed the magic touch of the Artist of the skies. Then came a rainbow of sweetest multi-color, of a splendor glorious and exquisite, delicate as the breath from paradise, stretching its majestic archbow athwart the waning gloom from range to range. As one drank in ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... see the Roman urchin standing in the market-place, chanting the magic formula, and opposite him the row of youngsters on tiptoe, each one waiting for the signal to run across the intervening space and be the first to touch their comrade. What visions of early days come back to us—days when we clasped hands in a circle ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... the restaurant of the Bristol, new, clean, smart, and cheap, with a French maitre-d'hotel in command, is commended and recommended. When the Bristol restaurant at night has all its electric lights in full glow it looks like the magic cave ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard
... had the "second sight" that means the deeper sight, the magic eyesight which made him see through a stone wall, or read men's thoughts. King Solomon had fayland ears; which means, he could hear all sounds from A to Z; while common ears, like yours and mine, hear only the middle sounds ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... the "Coursing Hound," began to climb that hill beyond which lay the London of his dreams. Therefore as he went he kept his eyes lifted up to the summit of the hill, and his step grew light, his eye brightened, for Adventure lay in wait for him; Life beckoned to him from the distance; there was magic in the air. Thus Barnabas strode on up the hill full of expectancy and the blind confidence in destiny which ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... homage. Fair women, yes, and Frank would look upon them all and see reflected in them but a tithe of the glory of one woman, and that woman Claire Lessing. He roused himself and laughed again as he tapped the magic envelope. ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... fair fight!" he cried, turning on those who jeered him. "That gray beast wrought by magic. Thou hast played a trick!" He shook his fist ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... forlorn little tramp had no shoes; his feet were bare, red, and swollen, and when he walked he limped with both legs. As to clothing—ah, you would hardly have had the skill to name any single garment that he wore, or say by what magic he kept it upon him. That he was cold all over and all through did not admit of a doubt; he knew it himself. Anyone would have been cold there that evening; but, for that reason, no one else was there. How Jo came to be there himself, he could not for the flickering ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... same—crushed so deeply into her heart that it can never show itself more. The latter is perhaps the truest theory. She who has once been woman, and ceased to be so, might at any moment become a woman again if there were only the magic touch to effect the transfiguration. We shall see whether Hester Prynne were ever afterwards so touched, and ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Brittany, which took place a few days after that of his parents, completed the consternation into which the court was thrown. The most sinister rumors circulated darkly; a base intrigue caused the Duke of Orleans to be accused; people called to mind his taste for chemistry and even magic, his flagrant impiety, his scandalous debauchery; beside himself with grief and anger, he demanded of the king to be sent to the Bastille; the king refused curtly, coldly, not unmoved in his secret heart by the perfidious insinuations which ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... etiquette, prosody, how to win the affections of the opposite sex and evade a malignant case of breach of promise, the ten commandments, every man his own tooter on the flute, croquet, rules of the prize ring, rhetoric, parlor magic, calisthenics, penmanship, how to run a jack from the bottom of the pack without getting shot, civil engineering, decorative art, kalsomining, bicycling, base ball, hydraulics, botany, poker, international law, high-low-jack, drawing and painting, faro, vocal music, driving, breaking team, ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... radical acquaintance, whom I had resolved to convert triumphantly; but John Locke disarmed me, without, however, having gained a convert: he made me drop my weapon as Prospero with Ferdinand; but the fault lay with Ferdinand, for want of equal power in the magic art. ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... has taught us that in many primitive societies religion—a sense of man's dependence on a power higher than himself—is preceded by a stage of magic—a belief in man's own power to influence by occult means the action of the world around him. That the ancestors of the Roman community passed through this stage seems clear, and in surviving religious practice we may discover evidence of such magic in various ...
— The Religion of Ancient Rome • Cyril Bailey
... large, melancholy eyes which seemed to say you knew not what; there were long monks in the Franciscan habit or in the Dominican, with distraught faces, making gestures whose sense escaped you; there was an Assumption of the Virgin; there was a Crucifixion in which the painter by some magic of feeling had been able to suggest that the flesh of Christ's dead body was not human flesh only but divine; and there was an Ascension in which the Saviour seemed to surge up towards the empyrean and yet to stand upon the air as steadily as though it ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... midst of a sad silence, (for the children were now quite still, and were looking at Charley, with their eyes full of love and tears,) I went up to a table, at which he had pointed, and saw what looked like a large tin box. It proved to be a splendid magic lantern! The children had saved all their money for many months to be able to buy it, and the little mother told me, that when they came in a body that morning and gave it to Charley, with their dear love and many kisses, their faces glowing with pleasure, it was the sweetest ...
— The Little Nightcap Letters. • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... Jules Laforgue might have said—quotidienne. But, however it may come to be ranked, there are few, I think, who will not recognize here an accent that is personal and unique, a peculiar ecstasy, a pervading and influential magic. ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... while the steam of that train yet snorted in his ears, walking out of the station, a wealthy man, come into a proud inheritance, the inheritance of his fathers. In the first moment of tumultuous thought, Lionel almost felt as if some fairy must have been at work with a magic wand. ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... one Syrian soul that dwelt among alien men, Germans and Romans, in the bodily tabernacles of Heine and of Lucian. But he was fallen on evil times and evil tongues; while Lucian, as witty as he, as bitter in mockery, as happily dowered with the magic of words, lived long and happily and honoured, imprisoned in no "mattress-grave." Without Rabelais, without Voltaire, without Heine, you would find, methinks, even the joys of your Happy Islands lacking in zest; and, unless Plato came by your way, none of the ancients could ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... cut out for literary work. I have not sufficient imagination, nor am I sceptical enough for this fanciful and scientific age. The world only cares for impossible adventures and magic stories, or stories which undermine their religion or upset it altogether, and I am not clever ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... as those of ancient Sparta, and, though in a different way, quite as repugnant to the essential principles of our nature. The institutions of Lycurgus, however, were designed for a petty state, while those of Peru, although originally intended for such, seemed, like the magic tent in the Arabian tale, to have an indefinite power of expansion, and were as well suited to the most flourishing condition of the empire as to its infant fortunes. In this remarkable accommodation to change of circumstances we see the proofs of a contrivance that ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... speaking my mind quite plainly. "I had no idea any child could be so neglected. Did they suppose the school was a place where any parent might send a child merely to get it out of the way (of course they do, you know, most of them)? Was it possible that a child could be made good as if by magic there, when it learns nothing but wicked words at home? Do you think you can or ought to get rid of the duties you owe your child? Do you suppose that God will not require from you an account of the way you have behaved towards him, you who have never taught him to know who God ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hurried and slovenly manner. The habit of mind thus cultivated continued through life; so that however complicated his tasks and overwhelming his cares, in the arduous and hazardous situations in which he was often placed, he found time to do everything, and to do it well. He had acquired the magic of method, which of ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... celebration of the Holy Communion, when more than that number participated. The service was followed by a feast, at which whole pigs were deftly carved and carefully apportioned, with their share of corn and kumeras, to each tribe: "In a few moments the whole vanished as if by magic. All was animation and cheerfulness, and even those who had come four and five days' distance seemed to forget their fatigue in ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... the opinion that the English are the very kindest people on earth, and will retain that idea as long, at least, as he remains on the inner side of the threshold. Their magnetism is of a kind that repels strongly while you keep beyond a certain limit, but attracts as forcibly if you get within the magic line. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... A duchess accused of magic being interrogated for a commissary extremely unhandsome, this was beg him selve one she had look the devil. "Yes, sir, I did see him, was answer the duchess, and he was like ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca
... comprising the Metamorphoses, or Golden Ass; the Death of Socrates; Florida; and his Defences, or Essay on Magic. A New and Literal Translation. To which added, a Metrical Version of Cupid and Psyche; and Mrs. Tighe's Psyche, a Poem in Six Cantos. Fine Frontispiece. Post ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... was speaking, the vast crowd preserved the most profound silence. From the confident manner in which he spoke of the intention of the Indians to adhere to the treaty of Greenville, and live in peace and friendship with their white brethren, he dispelled, as if by magic, the apprehensions of the whites—the settlers returned to their deserted farms, and business generally was resumed throughout that region."[A] This incident is of value, in forming an estimate of the character of this chief: it exhibits the confidence reposed in him by he white inhabitants on the ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... packets of dried herbs to which he gave terribly long names, and which he declared acted as an antidote to the poison. Another had small leaflets on which directions were given for applying a certain ointment to the plague spots, which at once cured them as by magic. The leaflets were given away, but the ointment had to be bought. Those, however, who once read what the paper said, seldom went away without a ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... it might freeze, and without, it might storm, Within, there was welcome all glowing and warm. And oh, but the warmth in the hostess's eyes Made up for the lack of that same in the skies! And fain is the poet such magic to sing: Without, it ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn |
