"Magnetism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... saw Tom's honest admiration for herself, and found that she enjoyed his visits and attentions, she believed it was only the magnetism of his good humour, and breezy, healthy nature that pleased her; she was sure it was ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... hath not only obtained a pure balsaamical blood, whereby for the future he is rendered free from any recidivation of the same evil, but also infallibly cures the same affection in his neighbour . . . and by the mysterious power of Magnetism transplants that balsaam and conserving quality into the blood of another." He was rash enough to go further and say that the cures effected by the relics of the saints were also due to the same cause—a statement which led ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... his hoarse miauling in all possible keys! May his unsightly face, and more hideous body dislocate itself in a deceitful ataxia (for they're still at these old tricks)! I'll be proof against it all, and merely flash the green magnetism of my magnificent eyes upon him. His brows will fall under their persistent insult, a shudder will run along his spine, he'll do a few steps of our ancient war dance—forward, back, forward again. But I'll stand—motionless as the ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... without our metaphysical hallucinations in America, I do not remember to have heard that "animal magnetism" was ever in vogue among us. A people who are not very quick to feel the poetry of sentiment, may well be supposed exempt from the delusions of a doctrine which comprehends the very poetry of physics. Still, as the subject is not without interest, and as chance has put me in the way of ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Dr. Watts came up and asked leave to present his friend Perry. The doctor, like all young men who knew Mrs. Waldeaux, had succumbed to her peculiar charm, which was only that of a woman past her youth who had strong personal magnetism and not a spark of coquetry. George's friends all were sure that they would fall in love with a woman just like her—but not a man of them ever thought of falling in ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis
... the extraordinary phenomena in the life of St. Teresa by animal Magnetism and similar obscure theories had already been exploded by the Bollandists, it has lately been revived by Professor Don Arturo Perales Gutierrez of Granada, and Professor Don Fernando Segundo Brieva Salvatierra of ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... they have become firmly attached to each other in the short period of their acquaintanceship. This is not to be wondered at, for there is a striking similarity in their temperaments. Each is endowed with keen perception and wonderful magnetism. Their combined influence has brought to their support the most contumacious of the delegates. On the issue of the following day the hopes of each are centered. Nevins has asked his young champion to visit him at his rooms in an unpretentious hotel on Clark street; there are details ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... of universal revolution. Anarchism as the end and terrorism as the means were thus injected into the organization at its most formative period, when the laboring classes of all Europe had just begun to write their program, evolve their principles, and define their tactics. With great force and magnetism, Bakounin undertook his war upon the General Council, and those who recall the period will realize that nothing could have more nearly expressed the occasional spirit of the masses—the very spirit that Marx and Engels were endeavoring to change—than ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... several "affairs of gallantry" which had slipped off his easy conscience like water off a duck's back,—not a highly cultured man by any means, because ignorant of many of the finer things in art and letters, and without any positively assured position. Yet, undoubtedly a man of strong physical magnetism and charm— fascinating in his manner, especially on first acquaintance, and capable of overthrowing many a stronger citadel than the tender heart of a sensitive girl like Innocent, who by a most curious mischance had been associated all her life with the ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... noble life and character. I am satisfied that one could not be in Miss Martell's society without being better, or wishing to be better. You might have the same influence, and to a greater degree, because you naturally have more force and quicker sympathies. There is more magnetism in your nature, and you could understand and help, if you chose, a wider range of character than she. I doubt very much whether Miss Martell could make herself much at home among the plain country folk that you quite ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... of the collarless kind girls of her age wear. It revealed the smooth, voluptuous yet slender column of her throat. And her arms, bare to just above the elbows, were exquisite. But Susan's fascination did not lie in any or in all of her charms, but in that subtlety of magnetism which account for all the sensational phenomena of the relations of men and women. She was a clever girl—clever beyond her years, perhaps—though in this day seventeen is not far from fully developed womanhood. But even had she been silly, men would have been glad to linger on and on under ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... the frequent result of this overcharged existence. To this region, however misunderstood, or interpreted with presumptuous carelessness, belong the phenomena of magnetism, or mesmerism, as it is now often called, where the trance of the Ecstatica purports to be produced by the agency of one human being on another, instead of, as in her case, direct from ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... more than they have muscles or digestive organs—respond to a variety of stimuli. They react to mechanical stimuli, as a touch or jar, to chemical stimuli of certain kinds, to thermal stimuli (heat or cold), to electrical stimuli, and to light. There are some forces to which they do not respond: magnetism, X-rays, ultraviolet light; and we ourselves are insensitive to these agents, which are not to be called stimuli, since they arouse ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... quintessential strength. These pictures also help us to realise the private life of our Royal Family. It must have spent a great deal of time in being painted. The family pictures are numberless, and the family taste is visible upon them all. And there must be some strange magnetism in the family to be able to transfuse so much of itself into the minds of so many painters. So like is one picture to another, that the Exhibition seems to reveal the secret that for the last fifty years the family has done nothing but paint ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... dramatist or a novelist professes to describe different actors on his little scene, but he is really setting forth the varying phases of his own mind. And so Dandie Dinmont, or the Antiquary, or Balfour of Burley, is merely the conductor through which Scott's personal magnetism affects our own natures. And certainly, whatever faults a critic may discover in the work, it may be said that no work in our literature places us in communication with a manlier or more lovable nature. Scott, indeed, setting ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... inherited. They have certain alluring attributes, such as their unpolluted mediaeval ideas on the sanctity of guests and the punctilious maintenance of their honour,[80] their readiness to die for freedom as well as for a quarrel about a sheep, and their not infrequent personal magnetism. They are very abstemious, their morals are pure, they have certain mental qualities, as yet undeveloped, and they are thrifty. But "they are so devoid of both originality and unity," says Sir Charles Eliot,[81] that acutest of observers, "that it is vain to seek for anything in politics, art, ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... replied. "And the most terrible thing about it is, that the villain is right when he defies me to force him to confess his crime publicly, for I see no means of obtaining a confession, none whatever. For a moment, I thought of magnetism, but who could magnetize that man with those pale, cold, bright eyes? With such eyes, he would force the magnetizer to denounce ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... woman, matrimonially, had a great deal to put up with; it took, at moments, all her belief in his genius to sustain her. She knew that he was very magnetic (that, in fact, was his genius), and she felt that it was his magnetism that held her to him. He had carried her through things where she really didn't know what to think; there were moments when she suspected that she had lost the strong moral sense for which the Greenstreets were ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... place in the world, for all things serve a brave soul. Combat difficulty manfully; sustain misfortune bravely; endure poverty nobly; encounter disappointment courageously. The influence of the brave man is a magnetism which creates an epidemic of noble zeal in all about him. Every day sends to the grave obscure men, who have only remained in obscurity because their timidity has prevented them from making a first effort; and who, if they could ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... been transformed, and Joyce was developing into one of those women who are inherent home-makers. Such women can accomplish more with the bare necessities of life than others with the world's wealth at their command. It is like personal magnetism, difficult to understand, ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... awaited him. And of the groups of power and rank about him, none seemed to fit that majestic council chamber so well as he. It was not the robe of costly stuffs he wore, nor the trappings of jewels, which if he moved never so slightly emitted a shower of frosty sparks—but a peculiar emanation of magnetism that at once repelled and attracted, and made him master over the monarch himself. He had never met repulse or defeat; he had never entered the presence of his peer; he had never loved, he had never prayed. He was a solitary power, who admitted death as his ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... know how. She shrank from it, and yet perhaps it would be so pleasant to him to know. No, on the whole, she did not think it would be pleasant. They had not talked of the meetings nor of religious matters at all; but for all that the subtle magnetism that there is about some people had told her that Charlie Flint would not sympathize in ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... and published, of a National Convention are always interesting, but lose much of the impression and force of actuality with which an auditor and spectator is affected. The gayety and magnetism of numbers, the scintillations of brain in special advocacy, followed by tumultuous accord. The intensity, the anxiety depicted, while results far-reaching and momentous are pending, furnish a scene vivid and striking that ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... her friends she spent her pocket money lavishly. She was not a pretty girl, but was a tremendously healthy one—strong, well developed, and tomboyish in her activities. Yet she lacked magnetism and the popularity that little Bobby Hargrew, for instance, attained by the exercise of the very ...
— The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross - Or Amateur Theatricals for a Worthy Cause • Gertrude W. Morrison
... 1856, was Lemaitre's second great creation. Those who saw him in this part in his younger days so rave about it that even Dickens's warm eulogy seems cool in comparison. Such unheard-of developments of passion and disorder! such incredible fire and magnetism! such subjugation of a vast audience to his will!—language fails to express the rapturous accounts which those old Frenchmen now living who saw him then will give you with many a roll upward of the eyes, many a hopeless shake of head and shrug of shoulder ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... of much ability, but he fell far short of measuring up with Selwyn, who was in a class by himself. The Governor was a good orator, at times even brilliant, and while not a forceful man, yet he had magnetism which served him still better in furthering his political fortunes. He was not one that could be grossly corrupted, yet he was willing to play to the galleries in order to serve his ambition, and he was willing to forecast his political acts ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... had fallen greatly, once she was out from under the magnetism of the old cobbler's glistening eye. Mr. Sorber was such a big, determined, red-faced man! How could the little cobbler overcome such an opponent! He was another ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... felt a warm glow of contentment in the consciousness that these lately enrolled members of the Revolutionary Committee were so far faithful to their bond. Signed and sealed in the blood of Lotys, they had responded to the magnetism of her name with the prompt obedience of waves rising to the influence of the moon,—and Sergius, full of a thousand wild schemes for the regeneration of the People, was more happy to know them as subjects to her power, than as adherents to his own cause. He was calmly ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... went on, "small portions of magnetism, as it were, are imparted to fractions of the steel wire as it passes between two carbon electric magnets. Each impression represents a sound wave. There is no apparent difference in the wire, yet each particle of steel undergoes an electromagnetic ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... foundation has also been laid for improvements in magnetism, for discovering the cause and nature of the polarity of the needle, and a theory of its variations, by the number and variety of the observations and experiments which have been made, both on the variation and dip, in almost all parts of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... how the labour of careful measurement has been rewarded by the discovery of new fields of research, and by the development of new scientific ideas. But the history of the science of terrestrial magnetism affords us a sufficient example of what may be done by Experiments in Concert, such as we hope some day to perform ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell
... us come back to Earth, and return to facts. My studies in physics led me to believe that all natural forces—gravity, centrifugal force, and even capillary attraction—are, like electricity and magnetism, both positive and negative in their action. If they do not normally alternate between a positive and negative current, as electricity does, they can be made to do so. Gravity and capillary attraction, as ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... practised religious ablutions; they knew the use of the magnet and of gunpowder. In short, they were in the enjoyment of a civilization nearly as high as our own, lacking only the printing-press, and those inventions in which steam, electricity, and magnetism are used. We are told that Deva-Nahusha visited his colonies in Farther India. An empire which reached from the Andes to Hindostan, if not to China, must have been magnificent indeed. In 'its markets must have met the maize of the Mississippi Valley, the copper ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... these opinions he spent forty of the best years of his life, and the greater part of a princely income. At first, and for a considerable time, such was the magnetism of his presence, and the contagion of his zeal, that his efforts commanded the sympathy, and even the approval, of the ruling classes of England,—the nobility and clergy. But in the full tide of his career as a reformer he deliberately placed ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... stake his fortune on their success. Burr took with him to Blennerhassett's his daughter, Theodosia, a charming woman, the wife of a South Carolinian, Allston. The attractions of the daughter, and Burr's own address and magnetism, completely overcame both Blennerhassett and his wife. They gave the adventurer all the money they could raise, with the understanding that they would receive it back a hundred-fold as the result of a land speculation which was to go hand ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... in the choir, standing side by side, and sometimes using the same book, and once or twice their hands met as both tried to turn the leaves together. Dorothy's were red and rough, and not nearly as delicate as those of Frank, who had been in a store all his life: and still there was a magnetism in their touch which sent a thrill through the young man's veins, and made him for the first time look critically ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... Electric Anomalies.—There have been certain persons who have appeared before the public under such names as the "human magnet," the "electric lady," etc. There is no doubt that some persons are supercharged with magnetism and electricity. For instance, it is quite possible for many persons by drawing a rubber comb through the hair to produce a crackling noise, and even produce sparks in the dark. Some exhibitionists have been genuine curiosities of this sort, while others by skilfully ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... are outside of nature. This is the demoniacal view, or that which supposes that evil spirits, departed souls, or spirits neither good nor bad, surround the earth, and can be reached by magic, witchcraft, sorcery, magnetism, or what is now called Spiritualism. This theory supposes that the works of Jesus were performed by the aid of spiritual beings. The objections to ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... peccadilloes. The writer has taken up almost every questionable fact and startling hypothesis, that have been promulgated by proficients or pretenders in science during the present century, except animal magnetism; and for this omission we have reason to be thankful. The nebular hypothesis, Laplace's or Compte's theory of planets shelled off from the sun, spontaneous generation,—some of these vagaries, we admit, are ...
— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen
... that makes it so hard sometimes to determine whither we will walk? I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright. It is not indifferent to us which way we walk. There is a right way; but we are very liable from heedlessness and stupidity to take the wrong one. We would fain take that walk, never ...
— Walking • Henry David Thoreau
... needlessly. Prudence he had, but no fear. His resolution to lead the charge at the Bloody Angle—rashness at once—shows fearlessness. Tender-hearted as he was, Lee felt battle frenzy as hardly another great commander ever did. From him it spread like magnetism to his officers and men, thrilling all as if the chief himself were close by in the fray, shouting, "Now fight, my good fellows, fight!" Yet such was Lee's self-command that this ardor never carried ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... nearest descending ladder. In the deserted lower room the bank of dials stood neglected. A score of dials and switches were here, governing the magnetism of different areas of the ship. There should have been a night operator, but he ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... consider his one or two young such a delicacy that they do not hesitate to cut down even large trees to get at the nests. The Mexicans shoot them because their plumage is thought to be beneficial to health. It is held close to the ears and the head in order to impart its supposed magnetism and keep out the maleficent effects of the wind. In the pairing season these birds keep up a chattering noise, which to my ears was far from disagreeable, but very irritating to a Mexican whom I employed. He used to shoot the ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... the age, which scientists are intently engaged in solving, is the correlation of the leading forces already adverted to. Thus far light, heat, electricity, magnetism, chemical action, vital action, cohesion, etc., have been proved to be parts of one great whole. Now, since the especial characteristic of the great earth-core is heat, it comes directly into relationship with the forces mentioned. How then are ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers
... misunderstandingly characterized as an "ARCHITECT." Certain faculties of man are directed toward the Unknown—thought, meditation, prayer. The unknown is an ocean, of which conscience is the compass. Thought, meditation, prayer, are the great mysterious pointings of the needle. It is a spiritual magnetism that thus connects the human soul with the Deity. These majestic irradiations of the soul pierce through the shadow ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... that, by the laws of a universal magnetism whose cause is still unknown, two bodies (no obstacle intervening) tend to unite by an accelerated impelling force which we call GRAVITATION. It is gravitation which causes unsupported bodies to fall to the ground, which ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... on us now, Roche. We must use that youngster to get at people. He must have some kind of personal magnetism. Did you notice how that fellow choked and sobbed when he told us how the youngster refused to leave him during the gale? A good sign that. We must have parties to meet him, and let him do the talkee-talkee lecturing business. I shouldn't wonder if ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... of the undulatory theory of light called for the extension of the same theory to heat, electricity, and magnetism, and this promptly suggested the hypothesis of a correlation, material connection, and transmutability of heat, light, electricity, magnetism, etc.; which hypothesis the physicists held in absolute suspense until very lately, but are now generally adopting. If not already established as a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the Egyptians had even recourse to animal magnetism, and that dreams indicating cures were the result of this influence; and (though the subjects erroneously supposed to represent it apply to a very different act) it is not impossible that they may have ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... could see, a hundred miles before we reached the continent, the radiance of its millions of magnetic lights, reflected on the sky, like the glare of a great conflagration. These lights are not fed, as in the old time, from electric dynamos, but the magnetism of the planet itself is harnessed for the use of man. That marvelous earth-force which the Indians called "the dance of the spirits," and civilized man designated "the aurora borealis," is now used to illuminate this great ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... caught and deflected on a beam of alternating-current magnetism that repelled it. It did not come nearer than half a mile to the ship. The third they turned their deflecting beam on—and something went strangely wrong with the beam. It pulled that torpedo toward the ship with a sickening ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... what anguish when, escaping from the magnetism of Sonia's blue eyes, he found himself alone, in his nightcap, alone with his reflections and his ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... windows; the clock still hung against the wall, tickless. Marcus's eyes glanced restlessly about the room for a moment, not daring to look at the spot where the old man had received his death blow. But an inevitable magnetism soon brought his eyes to it, and his heart was lightened as he saw that the blood stains had been ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... youth, beauty, personal magnetism, the power to charm, eyes that might wreck a life every day in the year. You need not scheme for love nor demand it. It is yours by natural right. Why is not your life one of wildest exhilaration, conquests, pleasures? Who could deny ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... there is such a thing as ether, not as gratuitously rounded out by the imagination, with various attributes of immediate experience, but just in so far as this concept is employed in verified descriptions of radiation, magnetism, or electricity. Strictly speaking science asserts nothing about the existence of ether, but only about the behavior, e. g., of light. If true descriptions of this and other phenomena are reached by employing units of wave propagation in an elastic medium, then ether is proved ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... have been, his death affected Adams strangely. The magnetism of the man's character had taken a strong hold upon him, fascinating him with the fascination that strength alone can exercise. And the man he regretted was not the ambiguous being, the amended Berselius, so obviously a failure, but the real Berselius who had returned ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... and beautiful sphere. So much is included in it. Electricity, galvanism, magnetism—those are all new faculties very little known; and as regards submarine telegraph the knowledge cannot be ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... from the open shirt-throat. The well-poised head. The prominent, high-bridged nose. The lantern jaw, whose rugged outline was but half-concealed by the roughly trimmed beard of inky blackness. And, the most dominant feature of all, the compelling magnetism of the steel-grey eyes of him—eyes, deep-set beneath heavy black brows that curved and met—eyes that stabbed, and bored, and probed, as if to penetrate to the ultimate motive. Hard eyes they were, whose directness of gaze spoke at once fearlessness and intolerance of opposition; spoke, also, of ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... Mesmer divined him, and ten years ago physicians accurately discovered the nature of his power, even before he exercised it himself. They played with that weapon of their new Lord, the sway of a mysterious will over the human soul, which had become enslaved. They called it magnetism, hypnotism, suggestion ... what do I know? I have seen them amusing themselves like impudent children with this horrible power! Woe to us! Woe to man! He has come, the ... the ... what does he call himself ... the ... I fancy that he is shouting out his name ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... proper interest in the church work at home. It seems as if I had always been holding myself in reserve for the foreign field,—by not making personal ties, I mean. If Gladys Farmer went to China, everybody would miss her. She could never be replaced in the High School. She has the kind of magnetism that draws people to her. But I have always been keeping myself free to do what Carrie is doing. There I know ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... she became suddenly conscious of the powerful magnetism of some human eye, and obeying its irresistible attraction she saw George Hyde steadily regarding her. He stood by the side of his father, as handsome as on that May morning when he had first looked love into her heart. She was enthralled again ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... its own substance and tissue, and continues there until it dies. This localization of Life in the individual is precisely the point where Vitality differs from the other forces of nature, such as magnetism and electricity. Vitality has much in common with such forces as magnetism and electricity, but there is one inviolable distinction between them—that Life is permanently fixed and rooted in the organism. The doctrines of conservation and transformation of energy, that ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... figure of whom all men spoke. My memory holds more than a film of him, rather a vivid picture, his stately height dominating my boyish inches, as I stood in his presence. He was spare to the point of being gaunt, every fibre charged with a magnetism which caused a throb in the by-stander. Over penetrating eyes hung a beetling brow, and his aggressive, resonant voice commanded even in slight utterances. I recall him in a public address. The newspapers were full of the Strassburg geese, which, nails being driven ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... reasons he did not fully explain to himself, to receive fresh assurance of Brigham's infallibility, of his touch with the Holy Ghost, of his goodness as well as his might; to be caught once more by the compelling magnetism of his presence, the flash of his eye, and the inciting tones of his voice. All ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... the miracle in the throes of its outworking; saw and felt it in his own proper person, and sought in vain to account for it. Was there some subtile magnetism in this great hulk of a man that made itself felt in spite of its hamperings? Or was it merely that the people, weary of empty rhetoric and unkept promises, were ripe to welcome and to follow any man whose apparent earnestness and sincerity atoned ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... many in France, and some in England, who underwent an enchantment without any divining rod at all, and believed themselves to be affected by an invisible agent, which the Enchanter called Animal Magnetism!] ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... the binding: the leather,—russia, English calf, morocco; the lettering, the gilding, the edging, the hinge of the cover! He opens it and shuts it, he holds it off and brings it nigh. It suffuses his whole body with book magnetism. He walks up and down in a maze at the mysterious allotments of Providence, that gives so much money to men who spend it upon their appetites, and so little to men who would spend it in benevolence ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Here the sick sought responses and the recovry of their health by sleeping in the temple. It has been inferred from the accounts that have come down to us, that the treatment of the sick resembled what is now called Animal Magnetism or Mesmerism. ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... while I smiled and danced over their sepulchre,—however it was, I know not,—but a new sparkle came into the blue eyes of the young militaire. He was positively entertaining. Conscious that he was talking well, he talked better. He recited poetry; he was even witty, or seemed so. With the magnetism of cordial sympathy, I called out from his memory treasures new and old. He became ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... Theory with Practice. Employment of MAGNETISM as a moving power—its impracticability. Relation of Coals and Zinc as economic sources of Force. Manufacture of Beet-root ...
— Familiar Letters of Chemistry • Justus Liebig
... who are acquainted with the history of animal magnetism during the present century know that it has nobly fulfilled its mission as a system of therapeutics, by alleviating or curing all forms of disease of both body and mind. That which cures bodily diseases and sometimes overcomes insanity has certainly power enough to modify ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various
... are beginning to get a little bit soft on the Princess. You may be all right when it comes to straight electricity, but I think you will admit that I have had more experience in this kind of animal magnetism than you. She is certainly a snappy little ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... ease of communication rather renders opposition of judgment fatal, than agreement probable; looking from England to Attica, or from Germany to Tuscany, we may remember to what good purpose it was said that the magnetism of iron was found not in bars, but in needles. Together with this adversity of number comes the likelihood of many among the more available intellects being held back and belated in the crowd, or else prematurely outwearied; for ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... of books exhaust his boundless energy and ingenuity, for in the five years preceding his death (1783-1788), he produced his "Natural History of Minerals" in five volumes, the last of which was mainly occupied with electricity, magnetism, and the loadstone. It is true that the researches of modern chemists have wrought havoc with Buffon's work in this field; but this was his misfortune rather than his fault, and leaves untouched the quantity ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... fluid magnetism in the rush of Jasper Ewold's junketing verbiage which carried the listener on the bosom of a pleasant stream. Jack was suddenly reminded that it must be very late and he had far overstayed the retiring ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... thoroughly acquainted with chemistry, with astronomy, with terrestrial magnetism; and as the investigation of one subject leads to all others, for the reason that there is a mutual dependence and a necessary connection between all facts, so Humboldt became acquainted ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... had ever denied his Caesarean attributes. He had the qualities and vices conspicuously absent in Dennis. He was Barker, of Barker's Inlet. The mere mention of his name in certain saloons was enough to put the fear of God into men even bigger than himself. A sort of malefic magnetism exuded from every pore of his skin. When he held up his finger Mamie crawled to him. She believed, probably, that she was escaping from a drunken father, and she knew that Tom could and would supply many things for which she had yearned—a parlour, for instance, possibly a piano, and ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... the year 1804, Laplace, at the Institute, proposed to take advantage of the means offered by aerostation to verify at great heights certain scientific points—as, for example, those which concern magnetism. This proposition was made at a favourable time, and was, so far, carried out in the best possible way. The aeronauts who were appointed to carry out the expedition were Biot and Gay-Lussac, the most enthusiastic aeronauts of ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... plans. Mr. Austin sat on a little camp stool, as he listened, and Ned noticed how pale and weak he looked. The boy's heart sank, and then flamed up again as he thought of Santa Anna. It was he who had done this. Away from Santa Anna and free from his magnetism he had a heart full of hatred for him. Yet it depressed him to see Mr. Austin who, good man, was obviously unfit for the leadership of an army, about to enter upon a desperate ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... auspicious at its opening as it was splendid in its maturity. At his entrance he won the vast audience at once by the grace of his figure and the modest bearing that was natural to him. Something of that magnetism which he exercised so effectively in late years now attracted all who heard him, and made friends even before ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... waste of magnetism. Five minutes' talk with a man who has notes to pay draws all the virtue out of me. It lowers my vital tone like standing in an ice-house. You feel such a man from afar like a coming iceberg. You don't have notes to pay? I thought not. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... the basis of sensation in matter, is animal magnetism; but this so-called mind, from which comes all evil, contradicts itself, 178:21 and must finally yield to the eternal Truth, or the divine Mind, expressed in Science. In pro- portion to our understanding of Christian ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... poor thing, talking and grinding her teeth in her sleep; and I went into her room to try if I could quiet her, in the usual way, by putting my cool hand on her forehead, and pressing it gently. (The old doctor says it's magnetism, which is ridiculous.) Well, it didn't succeed this time; she went on muttering, and making that dreadful sound with her teeth. Occasionally a word was spoken clearly enough to be intelligible. I could make no connected sense of what I heard; but I could ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... mounted; clear-skinned, brilliant, warm-voiced, yet always simple, direct, earnest; a storehouse of power, yet ornate; a source of refreshment both physical and spiritual to all within the field of his magnetism. ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... world a few days later with his wife's warm kiss burning his lips—faithful even in his unfaithfulness. She was cheerful for some time, thinking that he would return, but the magnetism which attracted him to the woman whom he had picked from among the swarming millions was of very ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... ascertained. He was blind as a bat, and did not care a button about any earthly boat-race, except the one in the AEneid, even if he could have seen one. However, nearly all the men of his college went to Henley, and perhaps some branch, hitherto unexplored, of animal magnetism drew him after. At any rate, there was his body; and his mind at Oxford and Athens, and other venerable but irrelevant cities. He brightened at sight of his doge, and asked him warmly if ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... The strange magnetism that seems to exist in all objects at sea slowly drew the submarine toward the ship. Its drift had been sufficient to bring the vessel to a point abreast the main rigging ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... INDUCED MAGNETISM. The magnetic action of the earth, whereby every particle of soft iron in certain positions is converted into ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... analyse her, or your relationship with her, and then—then you begin to think—and there you are!—Gustav, you are my friend. The only male friend I have. During this last week you have given me courage to live again. It is as if your own magnetism had been poured into me. Like a watchmaker, you have fixed the works in my head and wound up the spring again. Can't you hear, yourself, how I think more clearly and speak more to the point? And to myself at least it seems as if my voice had recovered ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... one elbow and responded languidly to his companion, half heeding, toying with his hands, and strumming on the table with his fingers, which were white, and supple, and full of magnetism. ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... the majestic deportment of the Queen of England opening Parliament, the prudish, affected behavior of a school-mistress on promenade; all this only incites his hopes. If it were love it might be seductive and dangerous, but it is nothing more than magnetism.... You may laugh, but it is surely this and nothing else; he acts as if he were under some spell of fascination; he looks at me in a malevolent way that he thinks irresistible.... But I find it unendurable. I shall end by frankly telling ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... personality,—or perhaps the magnetism,—of the "boss," again asserted itself. He made no allusion to the thing uppermost in his mind as he spoke hurriedly, emphatically to the tense throng. When he directed Randolph Fitts to take a few picked men with ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... Nuremberg, he was sent to be educated by and live with a schoolmaster named Daumer, and was studied by Feuerbach. They found, in Kaspar, a splendid example of the 'sensitive,' and a noble proof of the powers of 'animal magnetism.' In Germany, at this time, much was talked and written about 'somnambulism' (the hypnotic state), and about a kind of 'animal magnetism' which, in accordance with Mesmer's theory, was supposed to pass between ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... think he'll dare come here again," went on Helen. "He's exceedingly offensive, and yet he has about him a certain magnetism that compels your attention, even while his manner and look repels and irritates. ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... vermilion slit, working them gently so as gradually to again rouse all the lubricity of her nature. Within a couple of minutes a flood of sperm rewarded my efforts to please her, and she gasped in ecstasy: "What a boy you are! There is such a magnetism in your touch, I came directly. In fact, the idea of possessing you, my lovely boy, makes me spend continuously. I even kept coming in the short sleep I have just had, and when I awoke your precious prick was still standing hard in my ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous
... same city, in frequent personal contact with him, had utterly failed to measure his character and his intellect, or to get even a glimmering idea of what lay beneath that ungraceful exterior and that quaint and humorous speech. The elegant orator and polished man of the world felt no magnetism but that of repulsion; and his senses were so dulled by it that he never guessed the wisdom and the breadth, the subtle policy and the deep statesmanship, the luminous insight and the unfaltering purpose which now seem writ so plain in ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... many faces of all kinds of shape and colour; the motley heads of all sorts of size and hair; the shagginess of so many beards of all lengths and thicknesses; the vividness of double the number of eyes electrified by the magnetism of the southern cross; was one of those grand sights, such as are recorded only in the history of 'the ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... tell you without seeming to give the lie to reason,"—he answered, brusquely. "I believe to a certain extent in magnetism—in fact, I have myself tested its power in purely nervous patients,— but I have never accepted the idea that persons can silently and almost without conscious effort, influence others for either malign or beneficial purposes. In your presence, ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... humorous self-gratulation), he had personally stolen, and really, for my part, though I hope I would not have done it myself, I thought it no sin in him—such valuables being attracted by a natural magnetism towards such a man. He obeys, in stealing them, a higher law than he breaks. I should like to know precisely what portion of his rich and rare collection he has obtained in a similar manner. But far be it from me to speak unkindly or sneeringly ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... flights, weaving stories from the baldest materials, drawing allegories of the lives of her friends, the next—an irresponsible wisp, with no thought in the world but the moment's frolic; but whatever might be the fancy of the moment she drew her companions after her with the magnetism of a ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Moyna, its mistress, and Captain Sydenham, who had a fondness for Americans. Mona Everard owned any human being who looked at her the second time, as the oriole catches the eye with its color and then the heart with its song; and Louis had the same magnetism in a lesser degree. Life at the castle was not of the liveliest, but with the Captain's aid it became as rapid as the neighboring gentry could have desired. Anne cared little, so that her children had their triumph. Wrapped in her dreams ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... electricity, not even the talking from one hemisphere to another, is rightly the accomplishment of any one man, for the origin of the discovery can be traced at least as far back as the days of that barefooted shepherd boy Magnus, who first observed the phenomena of magnetism. ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... of the Holy Spirit, exquisitely called the Comforter, is a matter of actual experience, as solid a reality as that of electro magnetism." W. C. Brownell, Scribner's Magazine, vol. xxx. ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... sure it would be agreeable to you; and that you will thank me for adding to the number of those who from their knowledge of you must respect you, one who is both an ingenious philosopher and a most worthy, honest man. If anything new in magnetism or electricity, or any other branch of natural knowledge, has occurred to your fruitful genius since I last had the pleasure of seeing you, you will by communicating it greatly ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... causes could not escape the observation of a people who had, at an early period, attained so high a degree of civilization, but, satisfied with the practical part, they pushed their enquiries no farther. Of pneumatics, hydrostatics, electricity, and magnetism, they may be said to have little or no knowledge; and their optics extend not beyond the making of convex and concave lenses of rock crystal to assist the sight in magnifying, or throwing more rays upon, small ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... attitude toward Frank was difficult to define, more remarkable was her attitude of mind toward Jasper Cole. There was something sinister—no, that was not the word—something "frightening" about him. He had a magnetism, an aura of personal power, which seemed to paralyze the will of any who came ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... beautiful woman. I was looking well myself that night. All women like to see broad shoulders in a man. It suggests strength—something they have not. Several times this young woman's eyes met mine. Somehow, mine were always first to fall. There was a magnetism in hers mine could not withstand. Later, an attache came to me and said that he wished to present me to her Serene Highness the Princess Hildegarde of—let us call it Hohenphalia. He whispered that she had commanded the introduction. I expected to see some red-faced dowager who wanted ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... single squat building in its center—a low building of many funnels; and about it the black yawning mouths of shafts down into the ground—mines vomiting ore, broken chunks of the metallic rock coming up as though by the invisible magic of magnetism, hunting through the air in an arc to fall with a clatter into great ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... of his troops. It is up to Stopford and Hammersley to make those gestures. Stopford was not there, and is not the type; Hammersley is not that type either. How true it is that age, experience, wisdom count for less than youth, magnetism and love of danger when inexperience has to ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... peculiar magnetism which stirs the blood of soldiers to boiling-point. Few leaders have ever equalled him in his control of troops. His men had no questions to ask when "Old Jack" led the way. They believed in him as did he in his star; and the impossible ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... wizard of words Nature may have made him; no matter that he has the dark art of making the worse appear the better reason; no matter that his golden voice is like music, and his very appearance pleasantly thrills you with the strange and subtle magnetism of the man: if he have not ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... find ready for our needs. An American in an English house will soon adopt 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... shall exalt their limited, stained, and fragmentary humanity into 'the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.' Astronomers tell us that dead, cold matter falls from all corners of the system into the sun, drawn by its magic magnetism from farthest space, and, plunging into that great reservoir of fire, the deadest and coldest matter glows with fervid heat and dazzling light. So you and I, dead, cold, dull, opaque, heavy fragments, drawn into mysterious oneness with Christ, the Sun of our souls, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... expansion of all bodies by the slower diffusion of it in its uncombined state. Without heat all the matter of the world would be condensed into a point by the power of attraction; and neither fluidity nor life could exist. There are also particular powers of repulsion, as those of magnetism and electricity, and of chemistry, such as oil and water; which last may be as numerous as the particular attractions which constitute chemical affinities; and may both of them exist as atmospheres round the individual particles of matter; see Botanic Garden, ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... shall hear the reason all the same, my professional. The reason is that it takes two men—real men—men of heart, blood and honor—to make a genuine combat. I could no more fight with you than I could make love to an ugly woman. You've no magnetism: you're not a man, you're ...
— Arms and the Man • George Bernard Shaw
... the end of his short life, sternly self-restrained and self-commanded, gracious in a kind of melancholy, unconscious charm, a curiously unadorned, uncolored personality, that attracted where it did attract with a magnetism that was perhaps all the more potent for being somewhat difficult to explain. Fox was always a lover in many kinds of love, fugitive, venal, illicit, honorable, and enduring. Pitt carried himself ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... thrown into the vortex of our daily commonplace life. Every pure sentiment, noble aspiration, and manly instinct, every natural affection, gentle feeling, and religious principle, is tainted by his contaminating companionship. He infuses a subtle skepticism of the reality of goodness by the mere magnetism of his evil presence. Persons who have been guarded against the usual contrivances by which the conventional Devil works his wonders find themselves impotent before the fascinations of Densdeth. They follow while they detest ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... she should fix her hold on level-headed Foster? But he knew her kind. Feversham had called her a "typical American beauty," but there were many types, and he knew her kind. She was a brunette, of course, showing a swarthier trace of Mexican with the Spanish, and she would have a sort of personal magnetism. She might prove dramatic if roused, but those Spanish-California women were indolent, and they grew heavy early. Big, handsome, voluptuous; just a splendid animal ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... died on October 2, at the age of sixty-seven. Scientists remember him chiefly for his experiments and discoveries in magnetism and optics. He was one of the few men who championed Fresnel during the controversy which raged at the time when the undulatory theory of light was first announced. As a popular expounder of scientific facts, Arago had few equals. ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... In the magnetism of the bright presence of the young soldier, all the sad forebodings seemed to vanish into thin air. While listening to his brave words of hope, they forgot that the sunny hours of this most happy day were ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... was the debate at St. James's Hall that, while I angrily resented his injustice, made me feel that there was something more in practical Socialism than I had imagined, especially when I read it over afterwards, away from the magic of Mr. Bradlaugh's commanding eloquence and personal magnetism. It was a sore pity that English Socialists, from the outset of their movement, treated Mr. Bradlaugh so unfairly, so that his friends were set against Socialists ere they began to examine their arguments. I must confess that my deep attachment to him led me into injustice to his Socialist ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... there is a kind of magnetism in a fixed glance. I was looking at you, trying to identify Nurse Ursula with the elegantly-dressed woman before me, and somehow failing, when your eyes encountered mine. Their serious disapproval most certainly recalled ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... party, joining voices, detailed, at great length, the assumptions of phrenology and the marvels of animal magnetism. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... eighteenth century, and conceitedly talk as if human reason had not a manacle left about her, but that philosophy had broken down all the strongholds of prejudice, ignorance, and superstition: and yet at this very time Mesmer has got an hundred thousand pounds by animal magnetism in Paris, and Mainanduc is getting as much in London. There is a fortune-teller in Westminster who is making little less. Lavater's Physiognomy-books sell at fifteen guineas a set. The divining-rod is still considered as oracular in many places. Devils are cast out by seven ministers; ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... any thing she said was the subtle magnetism of character, for that has a universal language which all can understand. They saw and felt that a genuine woman stood down there among them like a sister, ready with head, heart, and hand to help them help themselves; not offering pity as ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... deal of money. He was a voracious reader, and was always hard on the heels of every new idea in philosophy, art, science, and politics: he had an amazing knack of finding out men of originality and independence of character: it was as though he answered to their magnetism. He was a sort of connecting-link between Olivier's friends, who were all as isolated as himself, and all working in their several directions. He used to go from one to the other, and through him there was established between them a complete circuit ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... the Determination of Physical Quantities connected with General Physics, Heat, Electricity and Magnetism, Light and Sound. ...
— Mr. Edward Arnold's New and Popular Books, December, 1901 • Edward Arnold
... unimpeachable integrity, with a remarkable capacity for labour. It could not be said of him, however, that he possessed the essential qualities of a leader. Not only was he destitute of that mysterious personal attribute known as 'magnetism,' but he was disposed to be arbitrary and dictatorial. His political supporters respected and perhaps feared him, but it cannot be said that ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... governor robbed them of their liberty. When Bacon's enemies tried to cast opprobrium upon him by calling him the Oliver Cromwell of Virginia, they did not realize that future generations would consider this an unintentional tribute. Certainly he must have been a man of great magnetism, power of persuasion, and sincerity, a man who had a cause to plead, who could arouse the devotion of so many thousands. But it was true, as one sorrowing follower ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker
... through the trees—and there are times when one must talk." He met her level glance of reproach with one of frank apology. "If I see a man whose face I like, I speak to him. Surely Nature does not flash that subtle sense of magnetism for nothing. If I am to live fully, then must I infuse into my insular existence the electric spark of sympathetic friendship. Why impoverish my existence by a lost opportunity? If I had not alighted that day upon the lake ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... through the water from his hole and compare the skill of the various anglers on the bank who were fishing for the rise. And he decided that morning, finally: 'Snyder shall catch me.' His previous decision to the same effect, made under the influence of the personal magnetism of Miss Foster, had been annulled only the day before. And the strange thing was that it had been annulled because of Miss Foster's share in it, and in consequence of the interview in Home and Beauty. For the more Henry meditated upon ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... written, in regard to what some have been pleased to call personal magnetism, but which, as is so commonly true in cases of this kind, is even to-day but little understood. But to my mind personal magnetism in its true sense, and as distinguished from what may be termed a purely animal magnetism, is nothing more nor less than the thought forces sent out by a great-hearted, ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... promise! He would give a hundred, and keep them all. The Captain was fine-looking at all times, every span of him a man and a seaman. But when his face was bright with eagerness, and his muscular body tense with anticipation, he was superb. To those less steeled against human magnetism than Mr. Fox, he was irresistible at such times. The Elder merely waved him ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... mistress; yet had he dreamed for one moment that there could be anything mysterious in her fascination he would have been appalled. He was of his day, and could not explain glibly the mysteries and marvels of personal attraction and repulsion, of will-power and dominion, by the easy word magnetism. He would have called it 'witchcraft, magic, devilry,' and he did later on, and trembled. But all this was only beginning when Wilhelmine sat listening to the silence that summer morning. A heavy footfall on the balcony without aroused her from her reverie, and her window was darkened for a flash ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... and mellow, as he stood at the window softly singing over to himself that haunting, tragic Famine Theme from The Death of Minnehaha. Fresh from its weeks of resting, low, yet suggesting an immeasurable reserve power, it had all its old throbbing magnetism; but a new quality had been added to it. It had always had moments of passionate appeal; now it had gained a sadness, a depth of melancholy which in the past it had been powerless to express. A year before, Thayer could strike the tragic note, never ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... held as lightly, and one loses one's respect for even the passion in the abstract. Of what value can a thing be which springs into life for a trick of manner, an atom or two more of that negative quality called personal magnetism, while wiser and better men pass by unnoticed? One naturally asks, What is love? A spiritual enthusiasm which a cold-blooded analyst would call sentimentality, or its correlative, a fever of the senses? Neither ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... of the school of Nelson and of Dundonald—a man, that is, with a spark of that warlike genius which begins where mechanical rules end. He was a man of singular physical beauty, with a certain magnetism and fire about him which made men willing to die for him, and women who had never spoken to him fall headlong in love with him. His whole career is curiously picturesque. He became a middy at the tender age of eleven years; went through ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... together when the day is born, So we two glided down the hall and stair, Arm clasping arm, into the parlour, where Sat Vivian, bathed in sunset's gorgeous light. He rose to greet us. Oh! his form was grand; And he possessed that power, strange, occult, Called magnetism, lacking better word, Which moves the world, achieving great result Where genius fails completely. Touch his hand, It thrilled through all your being—meet his eye, And you were moved, yet knew not how, or why. Let him but rise, you felt the air was stirred ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... could not have borne it; he could never have surrendered her. Moreover, a happy present effect was the result. He conjured up the anticipated chatter and shrug of the world so vividly that her beauty grew hectic with the stain, bereft of its formidable magnetism. He could meet her calmly; he had steeled himself. Purity in women was his principal stipulation, and a woman puffed at, was not the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... qualities, and worthless when it stands alone—But she had other resources,—weapons, at least, if not qualities; she had birth, wealth, ambition, decision, pride, perseverance, ingenuity; beauty not slight, though not equalling the superb Longuevilles and Chevreuses of the age; great personal magnetism, more than average cultivation for that period, and unsullied chastity. Who can say what these things might have ended in, under other circumstances? We have seen how Mazarin, who read all hearts but the saintly, dreaded the conjunction of herself and Conde; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... for the lovers of marvels and of mysteries. It contains an immense collection of anecdotes of spectral apparitions, of illusions of vision or of hearing, of striking phenomena exhibited in dreams, in insanity, in trance, or in magnetism, and furnishes many very valuable hints to aid in the solution of these mysteries, by which so many have been bewildered or affrighted. It is written in a style of great ease and elegance, and can not fail to find a very wide circle ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... those of the rank and file or from seniors whom he didn't like. In some, cases, especially among the enlisted men, they would appear to have been spoken for the captain's especial benefit. Devers, while a painstaking officer and not unmindful of the care of his men, was one who "lacked magnetism," to say the least, and never won from them the enthusiastic homage they often lavished on others among their superiors. The fact that Lieutenant Davies, finding Moore and Rupp actually so weak from lack of food that they could hardly ...
— Under Fire • Charles King |
