"Spell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Poor Charley, though he made his living by ministering to various abject vices, gave credit for their food to many a piece of white wreckage. He was naively overjoyed at the idea of his old bills being paid, and he reckoned confidently on a spell of festivities in the cavernous grog-shop downstairs. Massy remembered the curious, respectful looks of the "trashy" white men in the place. His heart had swelled within him. Massy had left Charley's infamous den directly he had realized the ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... mending-time we find them there. I let my neighbour know beyond the hill; And on a day we meet to walk the line And set the wall between us once again. We keep the wall between us as we go. To each the boulders that have fallen to each. And some are loaves and some so nearly balls We have to use a spell to make them balance: "Stay where you are until our backs are turned!" We wear our fingers rough with handling them. Oh, just another kind of out-door game, One on a side. It comes to little more: There where it is we do not need the wall: He is all pine and I am apple orchard. My apple trees ...
— North of Boston • Robert Frost
... trail, for twice I have seen it. Listen, Fox, I ask this of you—I, Kaydessa, who am eldest daughter to the Khan—for you are like unto us, a warrior and a brave man, that I believe. It may be that you cannot be governed by their machine, for you have not rested under their spell, nor are of our blood. Therefore, if they come close enough to send forth the call, the call I must obey as if I were a slave dragged upon a horse rope, then do you bind my hands and feet and hold me here, no matter how much I struggle ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... well knew, were akin to the Yankee's. Indeed, even in Frederick's soul, many of the same notions, implanted by birth and education, remained unshaken. For the first time since he had fallen under Ingigerd's spell, he realised that he was inwardly independent of her. The one question that still troubled and occupied him was how to rid himself outwardly as well as inwardly from the degrading liaison. Without fully admitting it to himself, he had suffered a disenchantment in Ingigerd's ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... must mean a group of qualities, by being champions of which in alternation, different men may all find worthy missions. Each attitude being a syllable in human nature's total message, it takes the whole of us to spell the meaning out completely. So a "god of battles" must be allowed to be the god for one kind of person, a god of peace and heaven and home, the god for another. We must frankly recognize the fact that we live in partial systems, and that parts are not interchangeable ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... however, but several of the ordinary village girls in a group—some steadily walking, some in a mood of wild gayety. He quietly asked his landlady, who was also in the garden, what these girls were intending, and she informed him that it being Old Midsummer Eve, they were about to attempt some spell or enchantment which would afford them a glimpse of their future partners for life. She declared it to be an ungodly performance, and one which she for her part would never countenance; saying which, she entered her ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... a moment what kind of tales science has to tell, and how far they are equal to the old fairy tales we all know so well. Who does not remember the tale of the "Sleeping Beauty in the Wood," and how under the spell of the angry fairy the maiden pricked herself with the spindle and slept a hundred years? How the horses in the stall, the dogs in the court-yard, the doves on the roof, the cook who was boxing the scullery boy's ears in the kitchen, and the king and queen with all their ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... ready, John, and there's plenty of mackerel. I thought you would not be getting them again, for a spell. ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... so, I suppose, consider you are authorised to be flighty. What is it you want? Do you want a body of capitalists that shall be forced to purchase the works of all authors, who may present themselves, manuscript in hand? Everybody who writes his epic, every driveller who can or can't spell, and produces his novel or his tragedy,—are they all to come and find a bag of sovereigns in exchange for their worthless reams of paper? Who is to settle what is good or bad, saleable or otherwise? Will you give the buyer leave, in fine, to purchase or not? Why, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... December, last year, being at the hacienda of X-Kanchacan, where are situated the ruins of the ancient city of Mayapan, a sick man was brought to me. He came most reluctantly, stating that he knew what was the matter with him: that he was doomed to die unless the spell was removed. He was emaciated, seemed to suffer from malarial fever, then prevalent in the place, and from the presence of tapeworm. I told him I could restore him to health if he would heed my advice. The fellow stared at me for some time, trying ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... had caused the startling alarm. He saw too, the hulking beast drawing nearer and nearer to Stacy Brown, and knew that only some sudden shock to his mind would break the spell that seemed to possess ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... before the signal bell rang on the electronic brain. Both Tom and Bud dashed over to the machine as it began to spell out the incoming message ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton
... which the horses were protected from the sun while they were being shod. But the smith had not been to the preaching, because Alric, the Saxon groom, had brought him Gilbert's horse to shoe just when he was going, and had forced him to stay and do the work with the threat of an evil spell learned in Italy. And now, peering through the twilight, he stood watching the long procession as it came up to his door. He was a dark man, with red eyes and hairy hands, and his shirt was open on his chest almost to his ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... said the Harvester. "Thank God, I am now in a position where I can tell you 'why'! I do it because you are the girl of my dream, my mate by every law of Heaven and earth. All men build as well as they know when the one woman of the universe lays her spell on them. I did all this for myself just as a kind of expression of what it would be in my heart to do if I could do what I'd like. Put on the easiest dress you can find and I will go and set out something ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... the wandering thought to frame New themes of sorrow, sought in distant lands? Enough the example that before me stands; For here are smoke-wreaths seen, and glimmering flame, And hoarse lamentings on the breezes die; So doth the mighty ruin cast its spell On those who near it dwell. And under night's still sky, As awe-struck peasants tell, A melancholy voice is heard to cry, "Italica is fallen!" the echoes then Mournfully shout "Italica" again. The leafy alleys of ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... myself in a sense as a member of the family, as a child of the house, and you don't call it theft when children pick a few of the berries that load down the vines. [His passion is aroused once more] Miss Julia, you are a magnificent woman, and far too good for one like me. You were swept along by a spell of intoxication, and now you want to cover up your mistake by making yourself believe that you are in love with me. Well, you are not, unless possibly my looks might tempt you—-in which case your love is no better than mine. I could never rest satisfied with having you care for nothing in me ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... offered to show him the grounds—an offer which, with his desired end in view, he eagerly accepted. They commenced their walk in silence, and seemed as if both were suddenly under the influence of some secret spell. At last, in a hoarse voice and a constrained manner, Mr. Dalton abruptly inquired, "Pray, madam, may I ask—though I fear the question may seem an unceremonious, perhaps a strange one—if you have any relations of the name ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... here for a spell now:—kind of seeing to things. My name isn't Polly. It's Mrs. Mary Grundy, and somehow folks have got to nicknaming me Polly, but it'll look more mannerly in you to call me Mrs. Grundy; but what ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... ancient moralists was a contemporary of Paul's. He would have re-echoed from his heart the Apostle's directory, but he knew nothing of the Apostle's motive. So his exhortations were powerless. He had no spell to work on men's hearts, and his lofty teachings were as the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Whilst Seneca taught, Rome was a cesspool of moral putridity and Nero butchered. So it always is. There may be noble teachings about self-control, purity, and the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... bottom-lands of Redley Creek, and easily descry, on a clear day, the yellow front of Dr. Deane's house in Kennett Square, he now beheld a dim twilight chaos, wherein more and more of the distance was blotted out. Yet still some spell held up the suspended rain, and the drops that fell seemed to be only the leakage of the airy cisterns before they burst. The fields on either hand were deserted. The cattle huddled behind the stacks or crouched disconsolately in fence-corners. Here and there ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... and halted his panting horse. Here a new idea which had been haunting him since he entered the wood took fuller possession of him. He had seen or known all this before! There was a strange familiarity either in these objects or in the impression or spell they left upon him. He remembered the verses! Yes, this was the "underbrush" which the poetess had described: the gloom above and below, the light that seemed blown through it like the wind, the suggestion of hidden life beneath this tangled luxuriance, which she ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... a magnificent afternoon, so wonderful that Leslie hated to break the spell. Reluctantly she unrolled herself from the Indian blanket, from which she emerged like a butterfly from a cocoon, draped it over her arm, picked up the book she had not once opened, and turned for a last, lingering look at the ocean. A lavender haze lay lightly along the horizon. ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... dear, who was so exceedingly attentive to me. Though his services were rendered quite gratuitously. Until the Day of Judgment. I mean THE judgment that will dissolve the spell upon me of the mace ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... child's and a shy smile curved her pink lips adorably as she spoke. Such mere simplicity would not in itself have cast a spell over Maxwell, but it came to him as a new, surprising phase of the eternal feminine in her; and it had the additional charm that it caused that subjugated feeling resembling fear, with which Mildred could inspire him, to disappear entirely. He was once more in the proper dominant attitude ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... lions—that is an almost daily pastime. For it was so, that when he first made his appearance, and as he moved toward the centre, turned and looked round upon the crowded seats rising to the heavens, the people neither moved nor spoke, but kept their eyes fastened upon him as by some spell which they could ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... I have preferred to spell Di@nnaga after Vacaspati's Tatparyatika (p. I) and not Dignnaga as it ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... the newspaper once a week,) says as how some of them great speakers in the Parliament House, are no better than ninnies when they gets upon paper; and that's the Corporal's case, I sispect: I suppose as how they can't spell all them ere long words they make use on. For my part, I thinks there be mortal desate (deceit) like in that ere public speaking; for I knows how far a loud voice and a bold face goes, even in buying a cow, your honour; and I'm afraid the country's ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... shuttlecock, la grace; pall- mall, tipcat^, croquet, golf, curling, pallone^, polo, water polo; tent pegging; tilting at the ring, quintain [Mediev.]; greasy pole; quoits, horseshoes, discus; rounders, lacrosse; tobogganing, water polo; knurr and spell^. [childrens' games] leapfrog, hop skip and jump; mother may I; French and English, tug of war; blindman's bluff, hunt the slopper^, hide and seek, kiss in the ring; snapdragon; cross questions and crooked answers.; crisscross, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... 'artless' in a lovely sense;—nay, not only artless, but ignorant, and unscientific, in a beautiful way? You would be afterwards remorseful, I think, and angry with yourself—seeing the effect produced on her face—if you were to ask this little lady to spell a very long word? Also, if you wished to know how many times the sevens go in forty-nine, you would perhaps wisely address yourself elsewhere. On the other hand, you do not doubt that this lady[AK] knows very well how many times the sevens go in forty-nine, and is more ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... an Egyptian princess in disguise, waiting for a barge to come down the river, rowed by black slaves and conveying a prince all glittering with jewels, who is bringing a ring cut with mystic letters to break the spell—as such things are managed in ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... spell my spirit binds As when, in days on which it broods, October hunted with the winds Along the reddening sunset woods. Alas, the seasons come and go, Brightly or dimly rise and set The days, but stir no fount of woe, Nor kindle hope, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... spirit doth dwell, Whose heart-strings are a lute; None sing so wildly well As the angel Israfel, And the giddy stars, so legends tell, Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell Of his voice—all mute." ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... since that time I have been afflicted, now and then, with that same disease of the eyes, inclining them to close. In fact, I am rather of the opinion that the affliction must be one of the ear, too, for I hear some curious things while the spell is on. Either that, or else something has "gotten into" the furniture about my house. It beats all, the time I had the other day. It was a cold, wet October day, the wind whistled through the key-holes and shook the sash violently, while ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... it?" Uncle Peter said, breaking the spell. "Couldn't be any nicer, now, could it?" Then he went over and stood near ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... spell, the words fell upon the farmer-soldiers. Dropping every other topic, they began to argue over the crops; and after that they could not pass a harmless calf tethered to a crab-tree that they did not quarrel over the breed, nor start a drove of grunting swine out ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... things no nation of the Continent possesses—Spring, and middle-aged people. You may be young for a good long spell—some have been known, by the judicious appliances of art, to keep on for sixty years or so; but when you do pass the limit, there is no neutral territory—no mezzo termine. Fall out of the Young Guard, and you must serve as a Veteran. The levity and frivolity, the absence of all ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... a spell of fine, warm weather, and as there was no snow on the ground, Bert, Nan, Dorothy and Harry decided to take a long walk one afternoon. Nan wanted to get some views with her ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Snow Lodge • Laura Lee Hope
... strangeness of the scene and the noise and laughter of the people all about, Fleurette set up a wail of woe which developed rapidly into a storm of screams and sobs,—indeed, it was a first-class crying spell,—a thing which the ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... was ill. Mary's death was slowly, surely bringing her own near. We had had a long talk that afternoon. Her visions of life were rare and beautiful. She was like Mrs. Wilton, the embodiment of all that is purely woman. She had wrought a solemn spell over me,—made Eternity seem near. I had been changed since that prayer on the sea-shore, fourteen months before, but now I felt a longing to go away. Earth seemed so drear,—mother was sick,—Abraham unhappy,—my father deep ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... entirely independent of all experience (so much so that they first make experience possible), they are yet confined in their application within the bounds of possible experience. They "serve only to spell phenomena, that we may be able to read them as experience," and when applied to things in themselves lose all significance.[1] Similarly the principles which spring from them are "nothing more than ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... through which they wandered, the book of the Mirabilia in their hand, exercised its profound spell upon them. Besides the recollections of antiquity other memories of the deeds of popes and emperors, from the time of Charles the Great, animated this classic theatre of the world in the year 1300. Every mind, alive to the language of history, must have felt deeply the influence ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... on calm and starry. I sat by the window till evening deepened into night, and as the moon rose I still looked a reluctant farewell to the lovely lake and the grand woods, till the sound of H.'s horse at the gate broke the spell. ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... to leave you for a spell," said Mr. Opp, "in order to attend to the proper putting up of the horse. If you'll just consider everything you see as yours, and make yourself entirely at home, I'll come up for you in about ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... and happy and careless that for some time he did not like to break the spell of her restful beauty. Nor did he until his pipe was quite finished, and he had looked carefully over the notes in his "day-book." Then he said in slow, even tones, "My child, listen to me. This summer my young kinsman Judah Belasco ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... Dawes meant well; but she's getting into years, and the care of two children is a good deal for her, with her cooking and her rheumatiz. I don't deny she did neglect 'em for a spell, but she does well by 'em now, and I wouldn't wish ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... given me half thy lands, Thou couldest not have pleased me so much as with This man of thine. My infant thoughts do spell: Shortly his fortune shall be lifted higher; True industry doth kindle honour's fire. And so, kind master ...
— Cromwell • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... she announced. "I'm going to stay here and rest for a spell. I don't want to go to Gull Point. You go on yourselves; I'll wait ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... thess took him about ten minutes to bu'st all the little things his gran'ma give him to play with, 'n' then he nachelly called for the clock; 'n' when she wasn't forthcomin' immejate, why, he thess stiffened out in a spell. ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... obeyed mechanically, in a stupefied sort of way, and placed several of the sheets and a quantity of string upon the table. Laroque, silent, sullen, under the spell of Jimmie Dale's automatic, watched the proceedings without ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... in to fetch away the body she was still sitting there, gazing as if spell-bound at the papyrus; but she sprang up, shook herself, and then bid farewell to the cold rigid form of the mother on whose warm heart she had so often rested, and to whom she had been the dearest thing on earth—and even then the solace of tears ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... favourite element, especially the clear, green water of the baths. I loved to feel that it was covering every part of my body. With my breast nearly touching the tiled bottom, I swam under water for a long spell. And, moving down there, like a young eel, I compared this dip with that in the beautiful Fal of a year ago. Certainly there was still pleasure, glorious pleasure, in complete submersion, but on that bejewelled ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... away; though Desmond frequently spoke of trying to get a ship, the admiral always replied that there would be time enough by and by, and that a spell on shore would do him no harm. They were one day walking across Southsea Common, intending to go to some shops in the High Street, when Desmond caught sight of three officers, whom he saw by their uniforms were commanders, ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... laugh indignant at the schemes Of magic terrors, visionary dreams, Portentous wonders, witching imps of Hell, The nightly goblin, and enchanting spell?" ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... No tuneful echoes, ambush'd at my gate, Catch the blest accents of the wise and great. [l] Vain of its various page, no Album breathes The sigh that Friendship or the Muse bequeaths. Yet some good Genii o'er my hearth preside, Oft the far friend, with secret spell, to guide; And there I trace, when the grey evening lours, A silent chronicle of happier hours! When Christmas revels in a world of snow, And bids her berries blush, her carols flow; His spangling shower when Frost the wizard flings; Or, borne in ether blue, on viewless wings, O'er the white ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... don't lie there and cry for the devil." But I said, "You don't know what trouble I am in." But they said to me, "There is nothing the matter with you. Get up and rebuke the devil, get up and sit on that chair and we will talk to you." Then Bro. Reardon said, "The Lord used you to break the spell in the meeting and there were seven possessed with devils at the altar. The devil became enraged at you and was determined to ruin you." Then I resisted ...
— Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag • S. O. Susag
... AMBITION! what are Ye, With all your wasting passions' war, To the great Strife that, like a sea, O'erswept His soul tumultuously, Whose face gleams on me like a star— A star that gleams through murky clouds— As here begirt by struggling crowds A spell-bound Loiterer I stand, Before a print-shop in the Strand? What are your eager hopes and fears Whose minutes wither men like years— Your schemes defeated or fulfill'd, To the emotions dread that thrill'd His frame on that October night, When, watching by the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... breath, hesitated, and reached for his smoking material. It was not till he had licked his cigarette into shape and was feeling in his pocket for a match that he spoke. "I've drawed wages from the Double-Crank for quite a spell, and I always aimed to act white with the outfit. It's more than they're doing by me, but—I'll stay till Jim comes." He smoked moodily, and stared at his boots. "Yuh ain't going back ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... If you were to travel for a spell, down about Boston or Salem in Massachusetts, or at Meriden in Connecticut, you'd hear tell of the Yankees quite different. If you believe what the people say thereabouts, you'd think there was no sich people on the face of ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... I will spell out in greater detail the way I propose that we achieve these six great goals. I ask this Congress to be responsive. If it is, then the 92d Congress, your Congress, our Congress, at the end of its term, will be able to look back ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Richard Nixon • Richard Nixon
... mighty poor, and they've nowhere else to go—and I reckoned to take 'em in here for a spell and say nothing ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... The spell of the book strong upon you, you see in your mind's eye, thousands of plantations covering a fourth of a continent of a new and virgin land. The toilers "Black Folk"; men, women ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... banks of little streams, when the azaleas and rhododendrons, lovely and delicate as orchids, blaze a bed of glory, and the modest little oxalis has thrust itself up through the brown carpet of pine-needles and redwood-twigs, these wonderful forests cast upon one a potent spell. To have seen them once thus in gala dress is to yearn thereafter to see them again and still again and grieve always in the knowledge of their inevitable death at the hands ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... imperatively necessary to get the ship under canvas again without a moment's delay; moreover, despite the fact that the shot-holes had all been plugged, it was found that the battered hull was still leaking so seriously as to necessitate a quarter of an hour's spell at the pumps every two hours. The hands were therefore kept at work, watch and watch, all through the night, with the result that when day broke next morning we had a pair of sheers rigged and on end, ready to rear ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... to Achitophel, Rouze his great Soul, use every Art, Charm, Spell: For Absolom thy utmost Rhetorick try, Preach him Succession, roar'd Succession cry, Succession drest in all her glorious pride, Succession Worshipt, Sainted, Deify'd. Conjure him by Divine and ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... responded Father Nicholas in a perplexed tone. "I never came across any of the evil race—holy Mary be my guard!—and if I had done, I should have crossed over the road, lest they should cast a spell ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... wrong," she said, pointing to "steel." Chad blushed. "I can't spell when I write," he said. ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... how it affected her "like an evil potion," and stirred her whole being with a tempest of excitement, till finally she, with equal weakness, flung it aside, "resolved to read that grand poetry no more, and broke through the thraldom of that powerful spell." The confession brings before us a type of the transitions of the century, on its way from the Byronic to the anti-Byronic fever, of which later state Mrs. Norton and Miss Martineau are among ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... lazy enjoyment, Kirk found himself thinking how good it was to be young and free, and to be set down in such a splendidly romantic country. Above all, it was good to be heart- whole and unfettered by any woman's spell—men in love were unhappy persons, harassed by a thousand worries and indecisions, utterly lacking in poise. It was a lamentable condition of hysteria with which he decided to have nothing to do. He did not care for women, anyhow. One could ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... thought that we live there with some one else. It is "our" home. The home is a tryst—the place where we retire and shut the world out. Lovers make a home, just as birds make a nest, and unless a man knows the spell of the divine passion I hardly see how he can have a home at all. He ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... is speaking in his gracious, winning way. That was the day he said, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." The officers listen as the wonderful words fall from his lips, and they, too, become interested; their attention is enchained; they come under the same spell which holds all the multitude. They linger till his discourse is ended; and then, instead of arresting him, they go back without him, only giving to the judges as reason for not obeying, "Never ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... moment, I stood spell-bound, staring down at that jaded and passion-stained countenance; then Godfrey sprang forward and lifted the ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... brought her back from hell, But could not keep the law the fates ordain: Poor wretch, he backward turned and broke the spell; So that once more from him his love was ta'en. Therefore he would no more with women dwell, And in the end by women he ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... that he is an angel exiled from heaven!" thought the tall stranger. "Which of us all has a right to undeceive him? Not I—I, who am so often lifted by some magic spell so far above the earth; I who am dedicate to God; I who am a mystery to myself. Have I not already seen the fairest of the angels dwelling in this mire? Is this child more or less crazed than I am? Has he taken a bolder step in the way of faith? He believes, and his belief ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac
... reanimated their spirits. The carpenter had often sounded the well. He now reported that the ship had sprang a leak; the pumps must be manned; the demand on the energies of the crew was increased. Still they worked cheerfully. Even some of the wounded insisted on coming up to take their spell at ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... to men's fears, she scares men into penitence and devotion. Do you think that that is a fair explanation? I do not think so. I can conceive how she might frighten people for one generation, or for two, but I can not conceive how she could frighten a dozen generations. One would suppose that the spell would wear off by and by. There is a deeper explanation than that The explanation is to be found in the spiritual nature of man. The Roman Catholic leaders, notwithstanding their blunders and their awful sins, have always seen that the central fact ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various
... were observed in this hospital. His own statements concerning this are, like everything else he said, quite totally unreliable. But in repeated examinations he persisted in his statement that he had had but one "spell" in his life, but that he frequently suffered from fits of melancholy. In all probability this one seizure was hysterical in nature, phenomena of which type not infrequently manifest themselves in the pathological liar, as will be seen in the ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... careful to paint with colors from that palette every day. On this depends the success of the charm. You will find that it will soon give grace to your figures and beauty to your coloring; and I promise you that, if you do not break the spell, you shall not only in a few years be able to produce as beautiful a copy of these flowers as can be wished, but your name shall become known to fame, and your genius shall be honored, and your pictures admired ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... the months of September, when Roger was accustomed to take her to Bellefeuille and spend the delightful days which seem to combine the charms of every season. Nature is equally prodigal of flowers and fruit, the evenings are mild, the mornings bright, and a blaze of summer often returns after a spell of autumn gloom. During the early days of their love, Caroline had ascribed the even mind and gentle temper, of which Roger gave her so many proofs, to the rarity of their always longed-for meetings, and to their mode ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... some bosky knoll, Your feet by ancient myrtles beautified, Or seem, like fabled dragons, to unroll Your swarthy grandeurs down a bleak hill-side, Still on your savage features is a spell That makes ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... peradventure, been deserted by the population, through fear of the Hessian marauders, the threat of whose coming has long hung like a portentous cloud, over the Berkshire valley? Not at all. It is not the fear of man, but the fear of God, that has laid a spell upon the place. It is the Sabbath, or what we moderns call Sunday, and law and conscience have set their double seal on every door, that neither man, woman nor child, may go forth till sunset, save at the summons of the meeting-house bell. We may wander all the way from ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... respect. I laughed at this fad, and, not thinking him incorrigible I took him into my service. If it had not been for that odd notion of his I should probably have merely given him a louis, and no more. He said that spelling was of no consequence, as those who knew how to spell could easily guess the words, while those who did not know were unable to pick out the mistakes. I laughed, but as I said nothing he thought the laugh signified approval. In the dictation I gave him the Council of Trent happened to occur. According ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... energy of his utterance there had been found the potency of a spell—the huge antique panels to which the speaker pointed, threw slowly back, upon the instant, their ponderous and ebony jaws. It was the work of the rushing gust—but then without those doors there DID stand ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... and we allow His tipsy rites. But what art thou That but by reflex canst show What his deity can do, As the false Egyptian spell Aped the true Hebrew miracle? Some few vapors thou may'st raise, The weak brain may serve to amaze, But to the reins and nobler heart Canst nor life nor heat impart. Brother of Bacchus, later born. The old world was sure forlorn Wanting thee, that aidest more The god's victories ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... under the judicious sway of her Emperor, is constantly advancing in the road of science and improvement, while France, guided by the counsels of her wise Sovereign, pursues a course calculated to consolidate the general peace. Spain has obtained a breathing spell of some duration from the internal convulsions which have through so many years marred her prosperity, while Austria, the Netherlands, Prussia, Belgium, and the other powers of Europe reap a rich harvest of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... the Thames—the Maelstrom of the bulwarks of the middle arch—a grisly pool, which, with its superabundance of horror, fascinated me. Who knows but I should have leapt into its depths?—I have heard of such things—but for a rather startling occurrence which broke the spell. As I stood upon the bridge, gazing into the jaws of the pool, a small boat shot suddenly through the arch beneath my feet. There were three persons in it; an oarsman in the middle, whilst a man and woman sat at the stern. I shall never forget the ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... good deal, I believe, for our sakes, and to keep near us. She was a coarse woman; and, unlike her race in general, exhibited but few outward demonstrations of attachment. When her work was done in the evening she sometimes taught us the alphabet and to spell words of three letters; the rest we mastered for ourselves, and taught each other, and so in process of time we were able to read. The like with writing: Nelly pointed out the rudiments, and Gabrielle, endowed with magical powers of swift perception, speedily wrought out lessons both ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... me all about it. She was quite hurt at the aspersions upon her home, and entered the dining-room in a breathing spell to sit at my table, a rather unusual honor I deeply felt. I pledged my love for her in Pol Roger, but she would have ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... ruins that interested me chiefly. There seemed to come up from its waters and its vine-clad hills and valleys a hushed music as of Crusaders departing for the Holy Land. I floated along under the spell of enchantment, as if I had been transported to an heroic age, and ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... eyes that had captivated a million hearts, were dimmed and bloodshot; the once noble brain, which had used its hundred gifts with equal success and ability, was deprived of all power of acting; the tongue, whose potent spell had entranced thousands, was scarcely able to articulate. Alas, and a thousand times alas! that man can thus mar his Maker's work, and stamp ruin and wretchedness where a wealth of mental power had been given ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... you have had two more years' regimental work than I have had. It would have been much better for me if I had had a longer spell of it, too. Of course, I have been extraordinarily fortunate, and it has been very jolly; but I am sure it would have been better for me to have had more experience as a subaltern, before all ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... rather dubiously to see if his hearers were preparing to spring upon him, but they seemed as if held in the spell of an awful fascination. So he took courage and ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... remarkable change of front in respect to Roxbury Medcroft before the breakfast was over. It may have been due to the spell of her eyes or to the call of her voice, but it remains an unchallenged fact that he no longer thought of Medcroft as a stupid bungler; instead, he had come to regard him as a good and irreproachable Samaritan. All ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... from A'y[n]in[)i]'s book, is used to separate two lovers or even a husband and wife, if the jealous rival so desires. In the latter case the preceding formula, from the same source, would be used to forestall this spell. No explanation of the ceremony is given, but the reference to tobacco may indicate that tobacco is smoked or thrown into the fire during the recitation. The particular hawk invoked (giyagiya) is a large species found in the coast region but seldom met with in the mountains. ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... ban and spell: The wood-tick has kept the minutes well; He has counted them all with click and stroke, Deep in the heart of the mountain oak, And he has awakened the sentry elve Who sleeps with him in the haunted tree, To bid him ring the hour of twelve, And call the fays to their ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... reference to my mother's side of the house. As I have already said, she was a Lambton—Lambton with a p, for some of the American Lamptons could not spell very well in early times, and so the name suffered at their hands. She was a native of Kentucky, and married my father in Lexington in 1823, when she was twenty years old and he twenty-four. Neither of them ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... longest. Curve, colour, and substance are the three essentials of the lips, but these are nothing without mobility, the soul of the mouth. If neither sculpture, nor the palette with its varied resources, can convey the spell of perfect lips, how can it be done in black letters of ink only? Nothing is so difficult, nothing so beautiful. There are lips which have an elongated curve (of the upper one), ending with a slight curl, like a ringlet at the ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... enveloped in an atmosphere of moral grandeur which no pageantry of moving men nor splendid pile can generate. Nightly on the plain of Marathon—the Greeks have the tradition—there may yet be heard the neighing of chargers and the rushing shadows of spectral war. In the spell that broods over the sacred groves of Vernon, Patriotism, Honor, Courage, Justice, Virtue, Truth seem bodied forth, the only imperishable realities ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... stripped of their fittings. They sold bladders of oil for the lamps, and it was found that they were often partly filled with water, but this was winked at in order to get on a thoroughly friendly footing. This being a favourable opportunity to put the two vessels in order and to give the crews a spell of rest ashore, a good anchorage was sought out, and the observatory set up. On 4th April, whilst wood and water was being got in, the natives, who had given no trouble beyond their stealing, were observed to be arming, and precautions ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... all on their own, and didn't give the show away even to ask how to spell the hardest words, like "library" (which might just as well be "lybary," or "librurry," or "lieberry"). Of course, library, in some form or other, came into all their letters, because they all wanted to tell about the adventure ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... education he ever received was obtained at a school at Brentford; but he could never write or spell correctly. It is probable that his passion for art absorbed his every thought. Not that he succeeded with his perspective studies, however, for Mr. Malton brought the boy back to his father as a pupil quite beyond ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... Wotan that Merglitz and Betty should meet on earth and hate each other like poison, but Zweiback, the druggist of the gods, has disobeyed and concocted a love-potion which has rendered the young couple very unpleasant company. Wotan, enraged, destroys them with a protracted heat spell. ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... Pegram, with a deliberation which confirmed his words, "but it's pretty nigh nine, and Sally she ast me not to be later than nine to-night, for our hired girl's gone home for a spell, and that makes it kind of lonesome for Sally: the baby don't count for much, only when he cries, and I'll do him the justice to say ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... the most bewitching and fascinating creature the Colorado sun ever shone upon. There was always a mystery about you, and it bound me with a magic spell. The years since I saw you last have made that spell more potent ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... that; but these words, few though they were, seemed to take her breath away, and to overwhelm her with overpowering emotion. She sat staring at the miserable scrawl as though the letters were potent with some mighty spell, and then, throwing the paper on the table by her, gave way to ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... other side of this big continent there's another sea rolling in. I loved the Pacific in the days when I was at Monterey, and perhaps now it will love me a little. I am going to meet it; ever since I was a boy the South Seas have laid a spell upon me." ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... be a witch, and the magical spell She has woven about me has done its work well, For the morning grows brighter, and gayer the air That my landlady sings as she sweeps down the stair; And my poor lonely garret, up close to the sky, Seems something like heaven ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... to realise what was the nature of the spell which Pope threw over the literary conscience of the eighteenth century. Forty years after the revolt of the Wartons, Pope was still looked upon by the average critic as "the most distinguished and the ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... mine—Mr. Nashville Cory's his name—he kind o' coaxed me into it, and he's right comical when he's with ladies, and he's good company—and he says, 'Claudine, we'll dance the light fantastic,' he says, and I kind o' wanted something cheerful—I'd be'n workin' steady quite a spell, and it looked like he wanted to show me a good time, so I went, and that's what started it." Now that she had begun, she babbled on with her story, at times incoherently; full of excuses, made to ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... playing!' cried Stasiek in great excitement; he was flushed, and trembled with emotion, even Jendrek was affected. Slimak took off his cap and said a prayer for deliverance from the evil spell of ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... amounted to nothing more than the mental process of association. It would not have given him the faintest presentiment that at that very moment the Little People were busy pressing their cloth-o'-dream mantles and reblocking their wishing-caps; that the instant the sun went down the spell would be off the faery raths, setting them free all over the world, and that the gates of Tir-na-n'Og would be open wide for mortals to wander back again. No, not one of the board remembered; the trustees ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... and then had a coughing spell. He coughed so violently that the black cord suspended from his nose-glasses became tangled about a button on his great coat, and his glasses fell from his nose. In his awkwardness, intensified by his short-sightedness, he fumbled the button and the cord with his bony ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... with its one eye fixed on darkness was an eddy in which a single human mind resisted that century's current of superstition. Marie sat ready to judge and destroy whatever spell the cunning old Hollandais had left on a girl to whom he represented ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... without foundation; for the stockholders have actually been considerable sufferers: all the industrial projects mentioned have been stopped short; and the gold-diggings still continue to attract to themselves, as if by a spell, the labour of the country. The panic, however, has now subsided. It is seen that the result is not so bad as was anticipated, and hopes are entertained that the evil will go no further. A stream ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... a mettlesome, warm-blooded creature, full of the energy and audacity of youth, to whom as yet life was only a frolic and a play spell. Work never tired her. She ate heartily, slept peacefully, went to bed laughing, and got up in a merry humor in the morning. Diana's laugh was as early a note as the song of birds. Such a nature is not at first sympathetic. It has in it some of the unconscious cruelty which belongs to ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... "what be there good in teaching a lass to spell? There's twopence, run down to the corner shop and buy a spelling-book; we'll ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... quite sincere. She would have liked to see Swann and Tansonville again; but the mere wish to do so sufficed for all that remained of her strength, which its fulfilment would have more than exhausted. Sometimes a spell of fine weather made her a little more energetic, she would rise and put on her clothes; but before she had reached the outer room she would be 'tired' again, and would insist on returning to her bed. The process which had begun in her—and in her a little earlier only than it must come to all of ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... He spoke slowly. If it cost him an effort none was discernible. "Coming into the barn tonight," he went on, very haltingly, "I had a kind of dizzy spell." He paused again. "I've been eating too much meat lately, anyway. They say—I fell off my horse; leastways I bumped my head. I'll be all ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... for her smile too and so was every one of the staid and grown-up people in the car. I don't know when we would ever have come out from the spell of that ten-months-old baby girl if just then the conductor had not called out reproachfully—"Central Avenue—Central Avenue." Then the pepper-and-salt man jumped and looked nervously out and rushed ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... is a living, breathing allegory of Want Children were clothed in nothing but sunshine Contempt of Court on the part of a horse Feared a great deal more than the almighty Fertile in invention and elastic in conscience Give one's watch a good long undisturbed spell He was nearly lightnin' on superintending He was one of the deadest men that ever lived Hotel clerk who was crusty and disobliging I had never seen lightning go like that horse Juries composed of fools and rascals List of things ...
— Quotations from the Works of Mark Twain • David Widger
... the qualities of objects, the reflections of phenomena, the vibrations of aboriginal power, pass in blessed freedom, without deflection or jar, and on which the mysterious attraction of the Infinite exerts its supreme spell. To be there in a superlative degree is to have a mind which is an infinitesimal mirror of the All, and a heart responsive to that mind, every perception of truth in the realm of the intellect generating ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... in an irresistible manner; those painted eyes which had lived, or which were perhaps still living, threw over me a strange, powerful spell. Oh, what an infinite and tender charm, like a passing breeze, like a dying sunset of lilac rose and blue, a little sad like the approaching night, which comes behind the sombre frame and out of those impenetrable eyes! Those eyes, created by a few strokes ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... it no difficult task to eat the dainty little supper she brought. She had broken the malign spell he was under. As we have seen, his was a physical nature peculiarly subject ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... martyr, he is under the spell of a fixed idea. No reasoning avails against it. If he has assured himself that he is made of glass, no amount of argument will convince him to the contrary. He will always regard himself as being as brittle as glass. That is a fixed idea which ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant
... as he returned to the house in quest of Maude, with whom he had a long and most delightful interview, for old Hannah, in unusually, good spirits, expressed her willingness to see to everything, saying to her young mistress, "You go along now and court a spell. I reckon I haint done forgot how I and Crockett sot on the fence in old Virginny ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... to play. She believed in fairies with all her heart and had no doubt but that every one else did. Under the spell of her music and her loveliness, imaginary elves stole from the solitude of the summer night, to join their tiny hands and dance to the rhythm ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... me, love,' replied Lady Annabel; 'it seems a spell-bound place. But, Venetia, I have often told you there are ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... also?" he demanded, a faint, serious smile curving his lips as he spoke, . . "If only for the space of some few passing moments, was not thy soul ravished, thy heart enslaved, thy manhood conquered by her spell? ... Aye! ... Thou dost shrink at that!" And his smile deepened as Theos, suddenly conscience-stricken, avoided his friend's too-scrutinizing gaze.. "Blame ME not, therefore, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... long winter nights, when the "boys" gather about the fire in Old Steele's General Stores at Hall's Harbor, their hard gray life becomes bright for a spell. When a keg of hard cider is flowing freely the grim fishermen forget their taciturnity, the ice is melted from their speech, and the floodgates of their souls pour forth. But ever in the background of their talk, unforgotten, like a haunting ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... she stopped the horse and acquiesced by slipping her arms into the coat, and he felt upon his hand the caress of a stray wisp of hair at her neck. Under a spell of thought and feeling, seemingly laid by the magic of the night, neither spoke for a space. And then Victoria summoned her forces, and turned to him again. Her tone bespoke the subtle intimacy that always sprang up between them, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... himself remained to her. Seeing the matter in this light, Dick was dumb before Morewood's challenge to him to say, if he dared, that he hoped a long life for Alexander Quisante. Yet neither would he wish his death; for Dick had been an enthusiast, the spell had been very strong on him, and there still hung about him something of that inability to think of Quisante as dead or dying, something of the idea that he must live and must by very strength of will find strength of body, which ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... prove that it was not one of those lying certificates of marriages that had never taken place? Again, what kind of registers could posterity expect from these parson-adventurers, very few of whom could spell, and most of whom lived in a chronic state of drunkenness? They married people sometimes by their Christian names alone—very often under assumed names. What consideration had they for heirs-at-law in the ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... low dull dirge that ever rose and died, Recurring without pause or change or close, Like one verse chaunted ever in sleepless brain, Still drew her to the shore. It drew her down, Like witch's spell, that fearful endless moan; Somewhere, she thought, in the green abyss below, His body, at the centre of the moan, Obeyed the motions whence the moaning grew; Now, now, in circle slow revolved, and now Swayed like a wind-swung bell, now swept along Hither and thither, idly to and fro, ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... College of Surgeons, at a time when W. Clift was curator. Through the influence of Clift he was elected a fellow of the Geological Society early in 1834. Proceeding afterwards to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, he came under the spell of Sedgwick, and henceforth devoted all his leisure time to geology. Entering the church in 1838, he was curate at Wylye in Wiltshire, and for a short time at Steeple Claydon in Buckinghamshire, becoming later rector of Down Hatherley in Gloucestershire, and finally (1855) vicar ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... unattractive to my trivial mind. This time, however, my eye fell upon a poem full of light and beauty, and of that subtle grace which seems so incomprehensible, so uncreated—a lyric by Mr. Alfred Noyes. It was like a spell which banished for an instant the weariness born of a long, hot, tedious committee, the oppression which always falls on me at the sight and sound of the cataract of human beings and vehicles, running so fiercely ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... as a whole was the policy of Grenville seen to spell disaster. Each new law seemed carefully designed to increase the burdens imposed by every other. The Sugar Act, for example, taken by itself, was perhaps the most grievous of all. The British sugar islands, to which it virtually restricted the West Indian trade of the Northern ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... when there came that long in-drawn breath—that "a-a-h!" that from the auditorium always means mischief—and a sudden bobbing of heads this way and that in the front seats. In an instant the great actor felt the broken spell, knew he had lost his hold upon the people—but why? He went on steadily, and then, just as you have seen a field of wheat surged in one wave by the wind, I saw the closely packed people in that wide parquet sway forward in a great gust of laughter. With quick, ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... was a mean little room, not as tidy as it might have been, and far from as clean. There on the low pillow was a pale face, with golden hair disordered about the brow; a face so wasted that it was not easy in the first moment to identify it with that which had been so wonderful in its spell-bound beauty by the sea-shore. But it ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... I say: 'Mr. Beale. Dear Sir. Will you please take me on tramp with you? I 'ave no father nor yet mother to be uneasy' (Can you spell 'uneasy'? That's right—you are a scholar!), 'an' I asks you let me come alonger you.' (Got that? All right, I'll stop a bit till you catch up. Then you say) 'If you take me along I promise to give you all ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... uniform came in brandishing a bulletin. "We have taken a Russian harbour," he cried excitedly. "The place is in flames." An involuntary shudder went through me. The Russians were England's allies. Was this the first letter of the awful alphabet Europe was to be called on to spell? Was this the first of the ...
— An Account of Our Arresting Experiences • Conway Evans
... perhaps here was a case of attempted bird-charming on the part of the snake, so I looked on from behind the fence. The birds charged the snake and harassed him from every side, but were evidently under no spell save that of courage in defending their nest. Every moment or two I could see the head and neck of the serpent make a sweep at the birds, when the one struck at would fall back, and the other would renew the assault from the rear. There appeared ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs |
