"Spell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their wont, there was more than womanly sweetness in the voice which so unconsciously modulated itself to the perfect expression of all she uttered. Towards the end, he could but yield himself completely to the spell, and, when she ceased, he, like Adam at the end of the angel's speech, did not at once perceive that her voice ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... instant. Then the ranchers took their spellbound eyes from the quivering Indian and looked at the pale face of the speechless Lamson. The store-keeper looked with the others, and it was his groan that broke the spell: ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... rehearsal. There was a lively scene, but the manager said he had received orders to produce the work of Gluck at once, and he must obey. On the 18th of May, 1779, the Gluck opera was first performed. It produced the greatest excitement and had a marvelous success. Even Piccini succumbed to the spell, for the music made such an impression on him that he did not wish his own work to ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... For they have told me all that I would know, Even as the violets their secret tell Unto the wistful spirits of the grove— Ay, more than this, for, in their tender glow, I've learned their secret, found their winsome spell, The sweet and simple ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove
... moments I was spell-bound—motionless—speechless. Clothed with terror and sublimity, yet in all the flush of the most perfect beauty, a strange—mysterious being stood over me: and I knew not whether she were a denizen of this world, or a spirit risen from ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... no Name too sweet to tell of her, For Love's sweet Sake and Domination. She hath me all; her Spell hath Power to stir My Heart to every Lust, and spur me on. Love saith: 'tis even thus; her Will no Thrall, But Touchstone of thy Worth in Love's Armure; They only conquer in Love's Lists that fall, And Wounds renewed for Wounds are captain Cure. He doubly is inslaved that gilts his Chain, ...
— Silverpoints • John Gray
... save poor children's souls. O, I knew your ladyship would agree with me. I am sure my mother was as good a creature as ever breathed the blessed air; and if she's not gone to heaven I don't want to go there; and she could not spell a letter decently. And does Mr. Gray think God took note ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... having by constant and unceasing watchfulness conquered his constitutional indolence, his voice has been raised in the senate of his country to defend the rights and privileges of our pure and holy faith—when men's hearts, spell-bound by his eloquence, have been turned from evil to follow after the thing that is good, memory has brought before me that conversation in the library at Heathfield; and, as I reflected on the effect produced on the character ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... three or four o'clock that we noticed any lessening in their efforts to retake the ridge. At the best this afforded us only a short breathing-spell. There were many warriors still hidden along the slopes drained by Crooked Creek. Our line was so long there was always danger of the Indians ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... less dull was her next desire. One reason why she had so seldom written was that she knew she could not spell, and Mademoiselle insisted on looking over her letters that they might not be a disgrace. I doubted whether M. le Comte would have discovered the errors, but when the Marquis praised some letters that I had written to amuse him from Nancy and Mezieres, she was fired with ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the silver screen—a smile reminiscent, tender, eloquent of adversities happily surmounted. 'Yes,' he said frankly in the mellow tones that are his, 'I guess there were times when I almost gave up the struggle. I recall one spell, not so many years ago, when I camped informally on the Holden lot, sleeping where I could find a bed and stinting myself in food to eke out my little savings. Yet I look back upon that time'—he mischievously pulled the ears of the magnificent ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... it up!" said Germain, stamping on the ground. "A spell has been cast on us, that's sure, and we shall not get away from here till daylight. ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... now been steadily at Oxford for six months without moving. Most people find such a spell of the place without a change quite as much as they care to take; perhaps too, it may do our hero good to let him alone for a little, that he may have time to look steadily into the pit which he has been so near falling down, which is still yawning awkwardly in his path; ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... 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. ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... Which hath no feet and ever nobly flies: Rich, lusty Sence, such as the Poet ought, For Poems if not Excellent, are Naught; Low wit in Scenes? in state a Peasant goes; If meane and flat, let it foot Yeoman Prose, That such may spell as are not Readers grown, To whom He that writes Wit, shews he hath none. Brave Shakespeare flow'd, yet had his Ebbings too, Often above Himselfe, sometimes below; Thou Alwayes Best; if ought seem'd to decline, 'Twas the unjudging Rout's ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher
... excel, When you vouchsafe to breathe my thought, That, like a spirit, with this spell Of my own teaching, I ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... you could not be surprised to find, in one of that family, a disposition to loquacity. He is, I believe, a very good boy, and his tutor is, they say, a very sensible man; but he has a most hideous name, and if you do not know how to spell it, I, for my part, can with difficulty pronounce it, the sound of it ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... your griefs and your joys, just like the people whom you envy and the people who envy you. As much as any of them, you have the capacity for pain and for pleasure, for loving and for being loved, that gives human beings a right to turn the leaves of the book of life and spell out its lesson for themselves. I know this; I know it well; I was beginning to find it out when I first came to that outpost suburb of New York, in the trail ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... out laughing, and said, "As for education, there were gentlemen of the army, by George, who didn't know whether they should spell bull with two b's or one. He had heard the Duke of Marlborough was no special good penman. He had not the honour of serving under that noble commander—his Grace was before his time—but he thrashed the French soundly, although ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... love—of her fair visions of felicity. But the keenest pang was imparted by the conviction that it was her own fault. He had told her so, dispassionately and deliberately. It was her own evil temper that had disenchanted him. It was her own dark passions which had destroyed the spell her beauty had ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... birth to and kept him locked in his own den with his miseries; and even then nature began to pall as a constant and sole companion, and her mind turned with ever-increasing anxiety to the one event which could possibly break this spell of monotony. Had her letter in fact miscarried? or could it be that the favored recipient had treated it with cold contempt, ruthlessly destroyed it or cast it into the wastepaper-basket? Many were the painful, blush-provoking thoughts that each ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... the midst of the fierce excitement—bred of the excitement perhaps—some curious spell fell upon the mind of Lysbeth. The race, its details, its objects, its surroundings faded away; these physical things were gone, and in place of them was present a dream, a spiritual interpretation such as the omens and influences of the times she lived in might well inspire. ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... the morning. The same conditions prevailed out of which a century before had come an Amos, a Hosea, a Micah and an Isaiah. Israel needed judgment and the North again stirred with its possibilities. Who would rise and spell into a clear Word of God the thunder which to all ears ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... suddenly turning to them both. "I reckon as how you two wanter talk over old times, and I'll just meander over to the claim, and do a spell o' work. Don't mind ME. And if HE"—indicating Madison with his finger—"gets on ter religion, don't you mind him. It won't hurt you, Safie,—no more nor my revolver,—but it's pow'ful persuadin', and you understand me? You ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... strength of his own human and religious nature; words that stilled Faith's heart as with the shadowing of peace; so that for the time she could not wonder, but only rest. They made her tremble a moment; then she rested as if the words had been a spell. But the rest wrought action. Faith drew back presently and looked up at Mr. Linden to see how he looked. And then she could not tell. Her puzzled eyes found nothing ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... between them; and the moment of his reckoning for the quarter of an hour he had spent with her that night was suddenly upon him. He met her eyes, which were darkly blue, stared down into them; and as he did so, the spell of her beauty treacherously closed round him, piping away his self-control, deadening him to the iron fact of who she was and who he was, shutting out all knowledge except that ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... a bold man thou wouldst find reason in this for being glad," replied Ada. "Is not the chance of a fight the joy of a true Norseman's heart? Surely a spell must have been laid on thee, if thy brow darkens and thy heart grows heavy on hearing of a stout enemy. It is not thus with Erling the Bold. His brow clears and his eye sparkles when a foe worthy of—But what seest thou, Glumm? Has the Dane appeared in the ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... prolonged spell of silence. I found myself watching him rather combatively, as who would anticipate the move ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... shot, Rob," broke in Tubby, who had, of course, immediately turned toward the spot indicated. "See the way he swings the light around and makes all manner of figures in the air with the same. Why, that was the letter N, as sure as you live. And there goes E, followed by W and S. What does that spell but NEWS? Hey! we're on the track of ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... camp for in the morning we aimed to start early and reach the water in the foothills. We thought we could do it if we started early, walked rapidly and took no resting spell at noon. Such a poor soil as this we were anxious to get away from, and walk once more on a soil that would grow something besides stunted sage brush. From all appearances the Jayhawkers were here in about the same predicament Rogers and I were when we lost the trail. ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... had, indeed, considerable to tell when the time came to justify the disclosures. He was worried as to how he should tell it, and to whom. Ralph sat down in the little vine-embowered summer-house in the garden, and had a good hard spell of thought. Then, as his hand went into his pocket and rested on the piece of cloth with its enclosure which he had found in Fogg's bunker on No. 999, he started from his seat, a certain firm, ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... and the energy of the Captain seemed to act like a spell on the men who had up to this time clung to the shrouds in a state of half-stupor. They clustered round Bluenose, and each gaining the best footing possible in the circumstances, seized ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... you like. There's just time," assented Miss Lever, consulting her watch. "I passed my Intermediate on ices during a spell of intensely hot weather. I can allow you exactly five minutes, so choose ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... man. "There wuz a lady in here a spell since who pinted a lot of 'em out to me. He looks a little too hard and stern to suit me. I like the kind that slaps you on the back and says 'Howdy.' Now Senator North, he never would: I know plenty that knows him. He's aristocratic; and I don't ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... inspiring—the great blear eyes rolling foolishly in his head; his tongue lolling helplessly from his mouth; his under jaw hanging down; his greasy cap hung on one side on a tuft of dirty hair—all so familiar, so characteristic of something I had seen before! Where could it have been? What potent spell was there about this fellow to attract me? In what was it that I, an embassador from Washoe, a citizen of California, a resident of Oakland, could thus be drawn toward this hideous wretch? A word in ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... to behold the spectacle. The friars were accordingly led to the most public square of the city, where a great fire was lighted up, into which friar Thomas endeavoured to throw himself; but a Saracen held him back, saying: "You shall not do so, old man, as you may have some spell or contrivance about you, for preventing the fire from hurting you, and you must allow another of your people to go into the fire." Then four of the Saracens seized upon friar James, intending to have thrown him into the fire, but he requested permission to walk ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... their husbands are generally strangers to them. It is great pity there should by no knowledge in a family. For my own part, I am concerned when I go into a great house, where perhaps there is not a single person that can spell, unless it be by chance the butler, or one of the foot-men. What a figure is the young heir likely to make, who is a dunce both by father ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... to the heading Pindarus found in certain MSS.[400] There is, however, an interesting though scarcely more fruitful problem presented by the possible existence of two acrostics in the course of the poem.[401] The initial letters of the first nine lines spell the name 'Italices', while the last eight lines yield the word 'scqipsit'. Baehrens, by a not very probable alteration in the eighth line, procures the name 'Italicus', while a slighter and more natural change yields 'scripsit' at the close.[402] Further, a late MS. gives Bebius Italicus ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... able, with clear and unfaltering conviction of our understandings and loving affiance of our whole souls, to repeat as our own the grand words in which so many centuries have proclaimed their faith—words which shed a spell of peacefulness over stormy lives, and fling a great light of hope into the black jaws of the grave: 'I believe in Jesus Christ, His ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... Carl, in a weak, thin voice, well knowing that it was not his line partner, but trying to break the spell ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... equal her," muttered Marilla, beating a retreat down to the cellar after potatoes. "She is kind of interesting as Matthew says. I can feel already that I'm wondering what on earth she'll say next. She'll be casting a spell over me, too. She's cast it over Matthew. That look he gave me when he went out said everything he said or hinted last night over again. I wish he was like other men and would talk things out. A body could answer back then and argue him into reason. But what's ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to Agostino, Vittoria, and Countess Ammiani for support, and as she certainly spoke sense, Carlo was reduced to gloom and silence. Laura then paused. "Surely you have punished your bride enough?" she said; and more softly, "Brother of my Giacomo! you are under an evil spell." ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... this time he had come to the vale once more, where for a spell he sat down and wept; but at last, as he cast a sad glance at the foot of the bench, he saw his scroll, which he caught up with haste, and put in his cloak. Words are too weak to tell the joy of Christian when he had got back his scroll. He laid it up in the ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... gayly, caressing her soft hand before his fingers closed over it. Then his face hardened. "Ah, Mr. Willits! So you, too, must come under the spell of Mr. Horn's voice," and without waiting for a reply continued as if nothing had interrupted the joy of his greeting. "You should sit down somewhere, my dear Kate—get as near to Richard as you can, so you can watch his face—that's ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Mansana followed his father's bones to their last resting-place, looking, even on that sad and solemn occasion, as though he would fain leap over the funeral-car, it was plain enough that he was under the spell of his first burning dream of love. Later on, in the course of that same evening, he took the train to Ancona, where his regiment was quartered. There lived the woman he loved, and nothing but the sight of her could assuage the fire of passion ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... "Well, the spell is broken of the Sphinx," he continued. "She can't talk to me with you there, and she can't talk to you with me near, so let us go and see something ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... father, and alone. No time was to be lost. Any moment the attendant might return. She threw herself on her knees beside the homely, narrow cot, seized his hand in hers, and looked him in the face. "Where are they, Will?" she pleaded. "Quick! I must have them now!" But well she realized that the spell was broken—that the old fascination had died its death. Then it was useless to hint at love; and in a torrent of impassioned words she bade him think of all he owed her, appealed to his sense of gratitude and honor, and there, too, failed, for, admitting ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... them contented, the poor Sakais drooped and pined for the vicissitudes of their wild life in the woods where comfort was unknown and food was sometimes scarce. Their thoughts, their very souls were always back in the remote forest, in that enchanting wilderness whose magic spell blinded them to its mortal perils and inconveniences. Up yonder there was perfect liberty of action; up yonder ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... Dreams lose their spell; hard facts we prize In our humdrum philosophy; But, could we change, who would not be A suitor for ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 16, 1914 • Various
... "I was Clorinda, now imprisoned here, Yet not alone within this plant I dwell, For every Pagan lord and Christian peer, Before the city's walls last day that fell, In bodies new or graves I wot not clear, But here they are confined by magic's spell, So that each tree hath life, and sense each bough, A murderer if thou cut one twist ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... him, and all thought of Edgar and of the purpose of his visit vanished out of his mind. Even he, one of the great nobles of his time, the accomplished courtier and life of the court, stood silent like a person spell-bound before this woman who had been to no court, but had lived always with that sullen old man in comparative seclusion in a remote province. It was not only the beautiful dignity and graciousness with which she received him, with the exquisite beauty in the lines and ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... love no woman, for love is a serious business, not a jest. Out of five hundred who speak glibly of love, not one can spell the first letter of his name. With such it is idleness, or fulness of bread, or fancy, masking in the guise of love. Love requires of his servants chastity in thought, in word and in deed. If one of two lovers is loyal, and the other jealous and false, how may their friendship last, ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... and very few women can be trusted to spell correctly every word in common use. I have seen the MSS. of many of the foremost women journalists of the day, and have found orthographic errors in nearly all of them. Of course spelling is not a matter of the highest importance—a certain ...
— Journalism for Women - A Practical Guide • E.A. Bennett
... were not in the habit of "marking her words," but on this occasion they looked thoughtful, for there was no denying that they were already more or less under the spell of ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... of the end of her seam, passed his finger along it as if examining the fabric and the stitches. "I took one glass," he said, with the curious quiet gravity which lay to-night like a spell upon all his words ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... unchangeable in his ways) | answered them and said, The kingdom doth infallibly continue and observe; that | of God cometh not with observation. is the felicity wherewith he hath blessed | an humility of mind, such as rather | see Novum Organum. I, 93; A.L. Sp. laboureth to spell and so by degrees to | III, 301,I, 29-302; also N.O. I, 129 read in the volumes of his creatures, than | (Sp. I,222,I.16 seq.) to solicit and urge and as it were to | invocate a man's own spirit to divine and | give oracles unto him. For as in the | inquiry ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... sunning himself like a luxurious lizard, as he watched the face that grew daily fairer in his sight, and listened to the pleasant voice that went reading on till all his ills and ennui seemed lulled to sleep as by a spell. ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... On a long-nursed household tree, What unwonted spell is shedding Thought of grief on bloom ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... Bess acted under the spell of a fortune-teller who predicted that death would be relegated to the distant future so long as she kept on her building operations. It was in 1607 that her end came when her masons could not continue their labours owing to a severe frost, although the urgency of the ...
— The Portland Peerage Romance • Charles J. Archard
... them boys better spell old Billy a little," suggested the slave, putting down his side of the chariot, and mopping off his face with his red bandanna. "Cart's kinder heavy when you carry it so fur. Hurts ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... and three days we remained in this way; during which my men had nothing to do but to exercise at the guns, and of that I took care they should have a good spell. On the fourth night the wind was a little fresher, but the water quite smooth. I had turned in about twelve o'clock, and had been asleep about an hour when Cross ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... modest virtues dread the spell, The honest loves retire, The purer sympathies of soul Far other charms require. The breathings of my plaintive reed Sink dying in despair, The still small voice of gratitude, Even that is ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... sit on the golden benches and long for a chance to break jail, With a shooting-star for a motor, or a flight on a comet's tail; He'll see the smoke rise in the distance, and goaded by memory's spell, He'll go back on the women who saved him, And ask ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... was called in for a witness, and the clergyman stood before them and made a little speech, and said a prayer, and then joined their hands together and pronounced the spell. The two trembled just a little, but answered bravely, "I do," in the proper places, and then it was over. They shook hands with the doctor, and promised to come hear one of his sermons; and with much trepidation they paid him two dollars, which he in turn paid to the sexton. And then they went ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... serious cares were permitted to enter this recess of enjoyment. His household was magnificent; the splendor of a numerous retinue, the number and respectability of those who surrounded his person, made his habitation resemble the court of a sovereign prince. A sumptuous hospitality, that master-spell of demagogues, was the goddess of his palace. Foreign princes and ambassadors found here a fitting reception and entertainment, which surpassed all that luxurious Belgium could elsewhere offer. A humble submissiveness to the government bought off the blame and suspicion which this munificence ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... relief and sympathy. And, in their swift passage, they encountered those of Corbin looking up at him, his eyes aglow with wonder, feeling, and sorrow. They seemed to hold him to account; they begged, they demanded of him not to break the spell, and, in response, the hot blood in the veins of the musician surged back, his pride flared up again, his eyes turned on Corbin's like those of a dog to his master's. Under their spell the music soared, trembling, ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... impulse—driven forward—haply downward—among rocks and dangerous channels, by the motives of ambition, by the fierce desire of wealth, or by the goad of want! But soon the mad career abates, for the first effect of haste is agitation, and the master-spell of power is calmness. Happy are they, who learn this lesson early—for, thence, the current onward flows, a tranquil, noiseless, but resistless, tide. Manhood, steady and mature, with its resolute but quiet thoughts, its deep, unwavering purposes, and, more ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... disappointed. "Mr. Jerry said she was under the spell of the wicked witch, Independence," she insisted. "Wasn't it good of him to take George Washington to board? It's such a relief to have found a pleasant place so near. I'm sure they'll be friendly ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... again, cannot be so with particular people. I have witnessed more than once the case, that a young female dancer, at a certain turn of a peculiar dance, could not—though she had died for it—sustain a free, fluent motion. Aerial chains fell upon her at one point; some invisible spell (who could say what?) froze her elasticity. Even as a horse, at noonday on an open heath, starts aside from something his rider cannot see; or as the flame within a Davy lamp feeds upon the poisonous ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... possible secession of the Pacific communities, the act of 1862 bears the evidence of a conflict of purposes in almost every one of its sections. It is evident, for example, that, with the tide of civil war beating fiercely around the national capital, Congress was still under the spell of the past, and severely distrustful of any avoidable increase of public obligations. Bonds were loaned to the enterprise at the rate of sixteen thousand dollars per mile for the easy work, with treble aid for the mountain division and double for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... Hossein, the sons of Ali. Then Mirza Ali Akbar, Burton's old munshi, called on them. As his visiting card had been printed Mirza Ally Akbar, Burton enquired insultingly whether his old friend claimed kin with Ally Sloper. In explanation the Mirza said that the English were accustomed to spell his name so, and as he did not in the least mind what he was called, he had fallen in ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... Nor is it too much to say that he would see himself surrounded by a world full of enchantment, and that his senses of wonder and admiration would rival the feelings excited in youthful minds under the spell of books like Jules Verne's Journey to the Moon, or the ever-entertaining stories of the Arabian Nights. It is true that he would find the operations of nature going on as before. The dewdrop and the blade of grass, sunshine and shower, the movements of the tides, and the revolutions ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... this mournful sight she wept, because her beautiful spell, which she was about to finish, was quite spoiled. And after a little while she went into her house ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... In one short spell, the whole tribe issues through this single opening and is soon wriggling about, perched on the surface of the caterpillar. The lens cannot perceive the hole, which closes on the instant. There is not even a haemorrhage: the bottle has been ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... here letter I'm holdin' in my hand came to me by to-day's mail—jest a little spell ago. It's frum Ireland—frum the town of Kilmare, where your people came frum. It was sent to me by a firm of barristers in that town—lawyers we'd call 'em. In this letter they ask me to find you and to tell you what's happened. It seems, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... or bewitching which is adapted to win others as by a magic spell. Enchanting, enrapturing, entrancing represent the influence as not only supernatural, but irresistible and delightful. That which is fascinating may win without delighting, drawing by some unseen ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... scarlet misery, glittering on the old spot! So it ever is, whether thus typified or no, that an evil deed invests itself with the character of doom. Hester next gathered up the heavy tresses of her hair, and confined them beneath her cap. As if there were a withering spell in the sad letter, her beauty, the warmth and richness of her womanhood, departed, like fading sunshine; and a gray shadow seemed to ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... flight ceased, there halted, also, Aymer. Not a man dared near him. He spoke not, none spoke to him, till a holy priest and palmer approached and sprinkled the good knight and the black barb with holy water, and exorcised both; the spell broke, and Aymer dropped to the earth. They unbraced his helm,—he was cold and stark. The fierce steed had but borne a ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... science, and metaphysics to boot. All that is beyond you—unattainable as the stars. But you needn't break your heart about it. She doesn't get much. Her wages are about equal to those of a kitchen-maid, who can't spell, but only peel potatoes. And the more learned she is, the more she is disliked and snubbed by her betters; and she never marries, in spite of what the Family Herald says, but goes on toiling until she is fifty, and then retires to live alone on fifteen ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... if still thou choosest rather Marble, be its spell on me; Let thy slumber round me gather, ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... days summed up with fears, And make them years; Produce thy mass of miseries on the stage, To swell thine age; Repeat of things a throng, To show thou hast been long, Not lived: for life doth her great actions spell. By what was done and wrought In season, and so brought To light: her measures are, how well Each syllabe answered, and was formed, how fair; These make the lines of ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... influence was gaining daily in power. As he became convinced that Marian was not an ordinary girl, ready for a summer flirtation with a wealthy stranger, he began to give her more serious thought, to study her character, and acknowledge to himself her superiority. With every interview the spell of her fascination grew stronger, until at last he reached the conclusion which he regarded as magnanimous indeed. Waiving all questions of rank and wealth on his part he would become a downright ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... a third), "better than that strange old book, with the queer name, poor Captain Brown was killed for reading—that book by Mr Boz, you know—'Old Poz'; when I was a girl—but that's a long time ago—I acted Lucy in 'Old Poz.'" She babbled on long enough for Flora to get a good long spell at the "Christmas Carol," which Miss Matty had left ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the corpses ready for it. We saw one single coarse yellow hair from Lucrezia's head, likewise. It awoke emotions, but we still live. In this same library we saw some drawings by Michael Angelo (these Italians call him Mickel Angelo,) and Leonardo da Vinci. (They spell it Vinci and pronounce it Vinchy; foreigners always spell better than they pronounce.) We reserve our opinion ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to give some account of the stages in the process from original chaos to present arrangements. The division into cold mist and warm ether first broke the spell of confusion. With increasing cold, the former gave rise to water, earth and stones. The seeds of life which continued floating in the air were carried down with the rains and produced vegetation. Animals, including man, sprang from the warm and moist clay. If these ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the meeting at Lynn. We are told that the men present listened in amazement. They were spell-bound, and impatient of the slightest noise which might cause the loss of a word from the speakers. Another meeting was called for, and held the next evening. This was crowded to excess, many going away unable ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... pictures, we manage to attract a few thousand more true lovers to the fountain-book, we shall have served our humble turn. The only real danger lies in neglecting it, in rearing a child who does not know it and has never fallen under its spell. ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... as he sped her in silence through the chequered moonlight of the Khanmulla jungle. But some inner force restrained her. She feared to break the spell. ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... showing it might be difficult to spell out the facts that the injury to the soldier was received in the line of duty or that any theory of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... she's in. She'll no say a word against Coberston for the next three months, I warrant ye. But, by my faith, it's as teuch a job as boilin' auld Soulis in the cauldron at the Skelfhill; and I hae nae black spae-book like Thomas to help my spell. Yet, after a', my Lord, what spell is like the wit o' man, when he has courage to act ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... birth, which is doubtful; nor his money, which is entirely negative; nor his honesty, which goes along with his money-qualification; nor his wit, for he can barely spell,—which recommend him to the fashionable world: but a sort of Grand Seigneur splendor and dandified je ne scais quoi, which make the man he is of him. The way in which his boots and gloves fit him is a wonder which no other man can achieve; and though he ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a man thrilled me with its subtle suggestion. He loved those beautiful horses. What wild rides he saw in his mind's eye! In cold calculation we perceived the wonderful possibilities never before experienced by hunters, and as the wild spell clutched us my last bar of restraint ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... want must wail: Thou bidd'st me be a fool and quit thee for her charms; * Allah forfend I leave The Faith, turn Infidel! Nay, by thy rights of side-beard mocking all her curls, * Nor mott nor maid[FN340] from thee my heart shall spell.' ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... reply. He could not have spoken if he had tried. Once more the spell had seized him—the spell of her weird fascination for him. As she sat typewriting, with her back almost toward him, he sat watching her and analyzing his own folly. He knew that diagnosing a disease does not cure it; but he found an acute pleasure in lingering upon all the details of ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... against the motion. It was not carried. For a few minutes all sat in silence, the air tingling with suppressed irritability. A word would have condensed it into cruel speech. It was Billy who broke the spell. ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler
... clear self-consciousness. So far as Lanfear could give reality to his occupation with her disability, he was ministering to a mind diseased; not to "rase out its written trouble," but if possible to restore the obliterated record, and enable her to spell its tragic characters. If he could, he would have shrunk from this office; but all the more because he specially had to do with the mystical side of medicine, he always tried to keep his relation to her free from personal feeling, and his aim single ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... Each countenance bore the agonised look which I had beheld before the fatal signal was given to the firing-party to perform the work of death. They stretched out their hands to me to help them, and moaned piteously, as I stood spell-bound, unable to move. One after the other they came gliding by, and then sank down into the water ahead of the schooner. I could stand the dreadful sight no longer, and shrieked out in an attempt to ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... story all the ladies rose from table, and thus the spell under which Bianchon had held them was broken. But there were some among them who had almost shivered at ...
— La Grande Breteche • Honore de Balzac
... opinions, I have no doubt that Mr Mitford was influenced by the same love of singularity which led him to spell "island" without an "s," and to place two dots over the last letter of "idea." In truth, preceding historians have erred so monstrously on the other side that even the worst parts of Mr Mitford's book may be useful as a corrective. For a young gentleman ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... much ash and little fire, put coals on very carefully. A mere handful of fire can be coaxed back into life by adding another handful or so of new coals on the red spot, and giving plenty of draught, but don't shake a dying fire, or you lose it. This management is often necessary after a warm spell, when the stove has been kept dormant for days, though I hope you will not be so unfortunate as to have a fire to coax up on a cold winter morning. They should be arranged over night, so that all that is required is to open the draughts in order to ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... hour, and then waited for some sign of her whereabouts—for we reckoned we must be close aboard of her—but it was that dark you couldn't see the length of your nose. After waiting a goodish spell—none of us speaking a word for fear of giving an alarm— we hears eight bells struck, somewhere away ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... Under the spell of Europe's ageless artistry and the rich-hued meadows of England's literary past he had grown humble. The song of 'Dollars' was less clamorous than the echo of the ocean in the heart of a sea-shell. When he wrote, which was seldom, he approached his paper-littered desk as an artist ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... on an empty barrel, lean and grave and patient. The living skeleton also uttered an exclamation. She and the circus-manager gazed at each other in a remarkable way, as if under a spell. ...
— The Very Small Person • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... the ancient castle, now the subject of many superstitions legends. It is firmly believed by the neighbouring peasantry, that the last Baron of Franchemont deposited, in one of the vaults of the castle, a ponderous chest, containing an immense treasure in gold and silver, which, by some magic spell, was intrusted to the care of the Devil, who is constantly found sitting on the chest in the shape of a huntsman. Any one adventurous enough to touch the chest is instantly seized with the palsy. Upon one occasion, a priest of noted piety was brought to ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... spell of thoughtfulness. "No, by George, I'll not turn tail at the first sign of danger. I'll stay here and assist Dangloss in unravelling this matter. And I'll go up to that Witch's hole before I'm a day older to have it out with her. I'll find out where the smoke came from and I'll know where that eye ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... urn. A few unwholesome dews on a summer night were mightier than all his science. For a time I struggled not with despair; but youth is buoyant, and habit is strong. Again I pored over the mystic scroll—again I called on the spirits with spell and with sign. Many a mystery was revealed, many a wonder grew familiar; but still death remained at the end of all things, as before. One night I was on the terrace of my tower. Above me was the deep, blue sky, with its stars—worlds filled, perchance, with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various
... with meruaile: Come: Ile fill your Graue vp: stirre: nay, come away: Bequeath to Death your numnesse: (for from him, Deare Life redeemes you) you perceiue she stirres: Start not: her Actions shall be holy, as You heare my Spell is lawfull: doe not shun her, Vntill you see her dye againe; for then You kill her double: Nay, present your Hand: When she was young, you woo'd her: now, in age, Is she become the Suitor? Leo. Oh, she's warme: If this be Magick, let it be ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... the occasion of the Emperor's visit. Charles allowed a month of awful suspense to intervene between his arrival and his vengeance. Despair and hope alternated during the interval. On the 17th of March, the spell was broken by the execution of nineteen persons, who were beheaded as ringleaders. On the 29th of April, he pronounced sentence upon the city. The hall where it was rendered was open to all comers, and graced by the presence of the Emperor, the Queen Regent, and the great functionaries ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Broken Straw, Witch Hazel and Colored Daisy—"Your folly and coquetry have broken the spell of your beauty." ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... in our sweet lullaby; Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby; Never harm, nor spell, nor charm, Come our lovely lady nigh; ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... sunken-eyed slip of humanity had a spell for those who heard him speak. There was no subject, moral, intellectual, or philosophic too remote or too profound for him to measure it at a moment's notice, with the ever-ready, fallacious plumb-line of his brilliant vanity. ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... "With wimmen that spells owl, a bird that pertends to great wisdom but don't know anything. Send your things C. O. W. by all means!" sez I wore out. "Send 'em along and spell your all, o-w-l. I think it is a highly figurative ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... the invitingly open door. The master was a poor, ragged, pale, careworn looking young man, seemingly half-dinned with the noise, but very earnest in his work. The children, all speaking at once, were learning to spell out of some old bills of Congress. Several moral sentences were written on the wall in very independent orthography. C—-n having remarked to the master that they were ill-spelt, he seemed very much ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... ART.—"Art," spell it with a big or little "a," can never come first in any well-educated person's ideas. "I am" must have the place of honour; then "Thou Art!" so ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various
... Edmunds-Tucker act took effect, making not the marriage alone but the subsequent acknowledging of the contract an offense punishable by fine or imprisonment or both. Under the spell of unrighteous zeal, the federal judiciary of Utah announced and practised that most infamous doctrine of segregation of offenses with ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage
... as they arrived, she was sportively intimate. Her bearing had gained a little in maturity during the past half year, but it was still with a blending of naivete and capricious affectation that she wrought her spell. Her dress was a miracle, and inseparably a part of her; it was impossible to picture her in any serious situation, so entirely was she a child of luxury and frivolous concern. Exquisite as an artistic product of Society, she affected the ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... it is presented as on the subject itself. One writer will make it attractive, another repulsive. For instance take a passage in history. Treated by one historian it is like a desiccated mummy, dry, dull, disgusting, while under the spell of another it is, as it were, galvanized into a virile living thing which not only pleases ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... some anecdotes of his childhood he goes on thus:—"Time passed on till I was about eight years old, and then in the summer I was lucky enough to be sent to school for three weeks; and as soon as I had learnt to spell and read a few words I conceived a mighty desire to learn to write; so I went in quest of elderberries to make me ink, and my first essay in writing was trying to copy on the sides of the leaves of books the letters of the words ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... have thought this would have been hint enough for my lady, but she fell to laughing like one out of their right mind, and made me say the name of the bog over, for her to get it by heart, a dozen times; then she must ask me how to spell it, and what was the meaning of it in English—Sir Kit standing by whistling all the while. I verily believed she laid the corner-stone of all her future misfortunes at that very instant; but I said no more, only looked ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... who were still kneeling, she stopped an instant, bowed her fair head towards them, and looked at them with tender solicitude. Then, giving them her hands to kiss, she glided away as slowly as she had entered—throwing a last glance upon Gabriel. The departure of this woman seemed to break the spell under which all present had remained for the last few minutes. Gabriel was the first to speak, exclaiming, in an agitated voice. "It is ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... Jerome K. Jerome's paper, and let me see THE EBB TIDE as a serial? It is always very important to see a thing in different presentments. I want every number. Politically we begin the new year with every expectation of a bust in 2 or 3 days, a bust which may spell destruction to Samoa. I have written to Baxter about ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for Antony, and but little admiration. I speak of such mad infatuation as a humiliating exhibition of human weakness. Any one under its fearful spell is an object of pity. But I have more sympathy for him than for Cleopatra, although she was doubtless a very gifted woman. He was her victim; she was not his. If extravagant and reckless and sensual, he was frank, generous, eloquent, brave, and true to ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... trunks of sycamores, but that rose sheer from the ground forty feet before branching, and then spread widely and calmly into mighty sprays of foliage. One could not walk under those trees day after day and year after year through life and not feel their spell upon his heart. "From the old grey trunks that mingled their mighty boughs high in the heaven," to those whose lives lay underneath, in busy and perhaps more or less sordid routine, must inevitably come "the thought of boundless power ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... a spell, but her mind never come back. She wasn't just to say plumb crazy, but she seemed kind o' dazed and lost like, and wouldn't take no notice of nobody. Acted all the time like she was expectin' him to come. And she'd stand out ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright |
