"Witch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and healthy appetite. It is not of the diseased imagination of drunken genius. But the greatest poem of this period, and one of Burns's biggest achievements, is Tam o' Shanter. This poem was written in answer to a request of Captain Grose that the poet would provide a witch story to be printed along with a drawing of Alloway Kirk, and was first published in Grose's Antiquities of Scotland. We have been treated by several biographers to a private view of the poet, with wild gesticulations, agonising in the ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... there, and not much more to hearken. The thieves shall be speedily judged, and not questioned with torments, so that they may be the lustier to feel what the hangman shall work on them to-morrow; then forsooth the show shall be goodly. But far better had it been if we had had in our hands the great witch of these dastards, as we looked to have her; but now folk say that she has not been brought within gates, and it is to be feared that she hath slipped through our fingers ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... You know that I made an appointment with that little girl at the end of the Pont Saint-Michel, and I can only take her to the Falourdel's, the old crone of the bridge, and that I must pay for a chamber. The old witch with a white moustache would not trust me. Jehan! for pity's sake! Have we drunk up the whole of the cure's purse? Have you not a ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... His relatives and friends then immediately set about requiting her with the just penalties of a perfidious breach of contract. Their threats induced her instant flight toward my house for the usual protection, but the enraged friends of the dead man gave hot chase, and overtook the witch just inside the limits of the garrison, where, on the parade-ground, in sight of the officers' quarters, and before any one could interfere, they killed her. There were sixteen men in pursuit of the doctress, and sixteen gun-shot wounds ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... is placed on a table so that the mother or a nurse may conveniently stand while administering the bath. Close at hand have a number of soft linen towels and a large bowl of tepid water which may or may not contain a small amount of alcohol, witch-hazel, salt, or vinegar, according to the doctor's directions. The upper portion of the body is partially uncovered and the tepid water is applied with the hands to the skin surface of one arm. The hands may be dipped in water from one to four times, thus ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... young Harry, with his beaver on, His cuishes on his thighs, gallantly armed, Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury, And vaulted with such ease into his seat, As if an angel dropped down from the clouds, To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, And witch the ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... morning with that tiresome Bergenheim on my hands, and I verily believe he made me count every stick in his park and every frog in his pond. Tonight, when that old witch of Endor proposed her infernal game of whist, to which it seems I am to be condemned daily, you-excused yourself upon the pretext of ignorance, and yet you play as good ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... than a sensible diet and some simple pure face cosmetic is needed. When the skin is merely inflamed—that is, red of color and very tender, there is nothing better than a soothing cream like this. Listerine, witch hazel and eau de cologne are all good as external lotions for pimples. A paste of sulphur and spirits of camphor, which should be put on at night and washed off the following morning, will do good work, provided the beauty patient knows the laws ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... W.W. McKean, more of interest occurred. The first collision was unfortunate, and, to some extent, humiliating to the service. A squadron consisting of the steam-sloop Richmond, sailing-sloops Vincennes and Preble, and the small side-wheel steamer Water Witch had entered the Mississippi early in the month of October, and were at anchor at the head of the passes. At 3.30 A.M., October 12th, a Confederate ram made its appearance close aboard the Richmond, which, at the time, had a ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... illustrations in penny journals, to the production of the pictures and statues which adorn the national collections, and a mighty new field of toil has opened before the anciently hunting and fighting male. Where once one ancient witch-doctress may have been the only creature in a whole district who studied the nature of herbs and earths, or a solitary wizard experimenting on poisons was the only individual in a whole territory interrogating nature; and where later, a few score ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... that her young face might peep out the fresher from under the cap; and so utterly in this way did she confuse and mix together the actual and the fantastic, that people thought they were living with a sort of drawing-room witch. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... works. Every one is, without the writer's intention, a disguised sermon of gigantic force on the benignity of death. As in classic fable poor Tithon became immortal in the dawning arms of Eos only to lead a shrivelled, joyless, repulsive existence; and the fair young witch of Cuma had ample cause to regret that ever Apollo granted her request for as many years as she held grains of dust in her hand; and as all tales of successful alchemists or Rosicrucians concur in depicting the result to be utter disappointment and revulsion ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... looked along the silent shore, flung off the chain, ran along the side of the boat, and took up his position at the helm. He looked at the sky, and as soon as they were out in the open sea, he shouted to the men: "Pull away, pull with all your might! The sea is smiling at a squall, the witch! I can feel the swell by the way the rudder works, and ...
— Christ in Flanders • Honore de Balzac
... the tale ran. This was not considered to be very distinguished. A crystal, or even cards, or the anatomy of a sacrificed fowl, would have been better than tea-leaves; tea-leaves were decidedly lower class. And yet, despite these drawbacks, when the question arose who should first visit the witch of Endor, there ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... the stairs he was confronted by what he took to be an old witch in a purple wrapper. She barred his way in a decidedly militant manner, her sunken black eyes flashing anger. She seemed about to spring ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... on the night of his departure for the new country. His reappearance in the flesh proved at least that that fierce instability of character, which betrays men in moments of disaster to the irreparable rashness, was not in him. So much was a comfort, for the witch fear had ridden Vivian in the silent ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... friend in dark disgrace sits down, The butt and laughing-stock of all the town, As one, eat up by Leprosy and Itch, Moonstruck, Posses'd, or hag-rid by a Witch, A Frantick Bard puts men of sense to flight; His slaver they detest, and dread his bite: All shun his touch; except the giddy boys, Close at his heels, who hunt him down with noise, While with his head erect he threats ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... that in there dwells a witch, who wants to put us unhappy little children into an oven and eat us. No, it is much better that we resist the sugar-panes and the pancake-roof, take each other by the hand, and go back into ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen
... By my shame observe What a close witch-craft popular applause is: 296] I am awak'd, and with clear eyes behold The Lethargie wherein my reason long Hath been be-charm'd: live, live, my matchless son, Blest in thy Fathers blessing; much more blest In thine own vertues: let me dew thy cheeks With my unmanly tears: Rise, I forgive thee: ...
— The Laws of Candy - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... that this expression evidently refers not to difference of opinion among themselves, but to a divergence of character from the pattern of feeling and life which he has been proposing to them. If in any respects ye are unconscious of your imperfections, if there be any 'witch's mark' of insensibility in some spot of your conscience to some plain transgressions of law, if in any of you there be some complacent illusion of your own stainlessness, if to any of you the bright vision before you seem faint and unsubstantial, God will ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... that the station break came, and the thirteen witches, trademark of the International Witch ...
— Prologue to an Analogue • Leigh Richmond
... of witch-work and magic; and had some wild Irish words he used to mutter over during a calm for a ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... care about Dame Hursey's visits even when his mother was at home. He was half afraid of the witch-like old woman, and to have a visit from her while he was alone was the last thing he desired, so he came in quickly and banged the door, hoping she would think they were all out and go away, if only he could keep Charlie ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 356, October 23, 1886. • Various
... of Tuscan straw, the customary female head-apparel; and, as every breeze blew back its breadth of brim, the sunshine constantly added depth to the brown glow of their cheeks. The elder sisterhood, however, set off their witch-like ugliness to the worst advantage with black felt hats, bequeathed them, one would fancy, ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and sets off. We will not spoil the story for you except to say that he spends some time on the way with a witch-doctor, who is able to conjure up for him a vision of where little Nell is. His adventures thereafter are many and various, and some of them are hair's-breadth escapes from ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... laughed. "That then will account for the unusual interest of Juan Cateras, and why he preferred being left in charge. A girl, hey, Merodiz! You saw the witch? What ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... novel, a romance glowing with imagination, adventure, and surging passions. The stormy days of Queen Elizabeth live again in this powerful tale of the "witch" and her lover. ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... about, in reel and rout The Death-fires danc'd at night; The water, like a witch's oils. Burnt green ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... beech, and maple yellow-leaved, Where Autumn, like a faint old man, sits down By the wayside a-weary. Through the trees The golden robin moves. The purple finch, That on wild cherry and red cedar feeds, A winter bird, comes with its plaintive whistle, And pecks by the witch-hazel, whilst aloud From cottage roofs the warbling blue-bird sings; And merrily, with oft-repeated stroke, Sounds from the threshing-floor the ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... he repeats them and seriously believes them. The stories of the nursery, in which there are no impossibilities, in which a man may visit the sun and the winds in their homes and find them at their broth, in which the beasts can speak, in which the witch or the fairy knows at any distance what is going on and can turn up just at the nick of time, in which ghosts walk, in which anything can be changed into anything, a hero going through half a dozen transformations to escape from so many dangers,—these ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... long ago, lived in the state of Kentucky One that was reckoned a witch—full of strange spells and devices; Nightly she wandered the woods, searching for charms voodooistic— Scorpions, lizards, and herbs, dormice, chameleons and plantains! Serpents and caw-caws and bats, screech-owls and crickets ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... Lilith, it is told (The witch he loved before the gift of Eve,) That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive, And her enchanted hair was the first gold. And still she sits, young while the earth is old, And, subtly of herself contemplative, Draws men ...
— The House of Life • Dante Gabriel Rossetti
... learn to be something by doing something! I could not endure the thought of going back, with so many beginnings and not an end achieved. The Little Ones would meet what fate was appointed them; the awful witch I should never meet; the dead would ripen and arise without me; I should but wake to know that I had dreamed, and that all my going was nowhither! I would rather go on and on than come ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... the faculty opposite to that of a witch, and canst lay a tempest. I should as soon have imagined one man could have stopt a cannon-ball in its full force ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... and then lying out-of-doors all night, and night after night—worst of all, from the consuming of the deathly fear, and the shame of shame, his sleep forsook him, and on the seventh morning, instead of going to the hunt, he crawled into the castle, and went to bed. The grand health, over which the witch had taken such pains, had yielded, and in an hour or two he was moaning and ...
— Harper's Young People, December 23, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... with me to Cap'n Kittridge's," said Miss Roxy, "and let her play with their little girl; she'll chirk her up, I'll warrant. She's a regular little witch, Sally is, but she'll chirk her up. It ain't good for children to be so still and old-fashioned; children ought to be children. Sally takes to Mara ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... and necks which gave that semblance of amorous vitality to her fruit. On the stall next to her an old woman, a hideous old drunkard, displayed nothing but wrinkled apples, pears as flabby as herself, and cadaverous apricots of a witch-like sallowness. La Sarriette's stall, however, spoke of love and passion. The cherries looked like the red kisses of her bright lips; the silky peaches were not more delicate than her neck; to the plums she seemed to have lent the skin from her brow and chin; while some of her own ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... is a regular witch! He made out so well in his first interview with Yvard, that no one can doubt his ability to overlay ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... larned, Abel, sartinly. But I'll never read like thee," he added, despairingly. "Drattle th' old witch; why didn't she give I some schooling?" He spoke with spiteful emphasis, and Abel, too well used to his rough language to notice the uncivil reference to his mother, said ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... beautifying of his capital, several are reflected in the waters of Vltava. There is, for instance, the bridgehead tower on the Mala Strana side, a graceful monument to Charles's gracious days. You may notice on passing under the gateway from the bridge the figure of a witch carved in stone, complete with broom and general air of nocturnal enterprise. I often wonder as I pass by here whether this figure inspired Marion Crawford when he was casting about for a title to his novel which you may have read, ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... ghosts as he didn't know of, I catches up a bit o' sailcloth that was lying on the ground, which he'd taken up there to sarve for his bed, and, I claps this over my head and shoulders, like a picter my mother had in the parlour at home of 'Samuel and the Witch of Endor.' Then, I lights the port fire and gives a yell to rouse up the darkey, and arter that—ho-ho! my hearties, you knows what happened. Ho-ho! it was as ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... moving to the sound of melody that thrills me with its sweetness and purity. But, although carried along its calm and evenly flowing current, the shapes are strange and frightful: an eating lichen gnaws at the heart of each. Not only the clergymen, but witch, maiden, judge, and Puritan, all wear Scarlet Letters of some kind burned upon their hearts. I am fascinated and thrilled, but I feel a morbid sensitiveness creeping over me. I—I beg your pardon." The Goblin was yawning frightfully." ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... protest, is excellently soft, thou wicked witch!' said the rascal. 'If thou wilt now try thy hand at fishing for the town market, thou shalt be entertained the while with the finest band of music in the world. Be good and pretty, and take up thy angling-rod. Trumpets and drums, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... amusement in his voice. "It is a good game—the finest game in the world, for the one who wins. And, indeed, I have it in mind to teach thee, thou pretty witch, the more so since I should have the methods of no other to unteach. See, then, I'll show thee the first move. Give me ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... but I have a queer feeling about that old witch's threat. She looked like three dead generations mummified. Her eyes were ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... of that. Nothing can stop him when he's interested. And you know you are a witch to-night; anybody would be caught in your snare. I didn't know you were such a clever thing at the game, though ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... vaguely troubled me—visions of horsemen riding, and of painted faces and dark heads shaved for war. Again into my dream a voice broke, repeating, "Thendara! Thendara!" until it grew to a dull and deadened sound, like the hollow thud of Wyandotte witch-drums. ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... the kiss of peace, in a slight embrace which was like the accolade given by a monarch to new knights.[308] The whole scene is ignoble. We seem to be watching an unclean cauldron, with Theresa's mother, a cringing and babbling crone, standing witch-like over it and infusing suspicion, falsehood, and malice. When minds are thus surcharged, any accident suffices to release the evil creatures that lurk in ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... Nap's cheery replies. Such a comfort as it was to me to see those two so fond of each other. You see I am, in a way, Fanny's father, and took no very great credit to myself when she half laid her hand in the extended one of Snowe. How curiously that witch Harry managed the thing, though! Dear little Fan; she stood in more than one twilight by the garden window, and whispered over: 'Addio, FRANCESCA! addio, CECCO!' and Snowe faded in the returning spring of her heart, and into the blooming ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... presumedly for religious purposes, and on receiving the same she commenced a series of gyrations worthy of the whirling dervishes of Cairo. It was impossible not to recall De Foe's couplet as applied to this witch-like creature:— ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... hateful, spiteful, masterful woman, that ever was!" Maria exclaimed; "too mean to live, and too cunning to breathe. She's an old witch!" ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner
... old witch would tell you anything! Bring her here, I say, Perkins. It's time the spirit of insubordination on this ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... who sat close beside her on the couch and whispered, "Judy is as nervous as a witch these days. She has probably thought of something ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... He is a good man. The women all love him." And she rocked herself to and fro, like some horrible old witch. Donald ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... believe there's many a cranny and leak unstopt in your conscience. If so be that one had a pump to your bosom, I believe we should discern a foul hold. They say a witch will sail in a sieve, but I believe the devil would not ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... forsake me now? Having so often sold thyself to me to work wickedness, wilt thou forsake me now? Thou horrible wretch, dost not know, that thou hast sinned thyself beyond the reach of grace, and dost thou think to find mercy now? Art not thou a murderer, a thief, a harlot, a witch, a sinner of the greatest size, and dost thou look for mercy now? Dost thou think that Christ will foul his fingers with thee? It is enough to make angels blush, saith Satan, to see so vile a one knock at heaven-gates for mercy, and wilt thou be so abominably bold to do it?' Thus Satan ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Queen, attempted to follow him by water; but, the people seeing her barge rowing up the river, and hating her with all their hearts, ran to London Bridge, got together a quantity of stones and mud, and pelted the barge as it came through, crying furiously, 'Drown the Witch! Drown her!' They were so near doing it, that the Mayor took the old lady under his protection, and shut her up in St. Paul's until the ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... I the Bitches catch, But in a Bowdy-house in Milford-lane? So going in a Passion home again, At twelve at Night my Doxie likewise came, Whom I in mod'rate Terms began to blame; Telling her that old Witch with whom she went, Abroad a Days by Rogues was only sent About to Wheedle young and tender Maids To Ruine, till they turned common Jades. You Lie, reply'd my hopeful graceless Dear, I'll have you know, I'll never sin in fear, Besides for she of whom you think, Amiss, That ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses from Men • Various
... absorbing topic of Queen's new hockey coach being exhausted for the time being, "Got any good stuff for the play in your cubicles, Cathy?" asked Eleanor; "looks to me as if they are a nice lively little bunch. What a little witch Sally May is, and what lovely eyes Judy has! I'm glad she and Nancy are such ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... casks upon his wharves increase and multiply; and on the dirty river his ships and barges lie in ever-lengthening lines; and round his greasy cauldrons sweating, witch-like creatures swarm in ever-denser numbers, stirring oil ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... sure, you are numb, you lovely little witch. Have you been firing snow-balls, or shovelling ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... already appeared in various journals, to whose editors I am indebted for kind permission to republish: 'Organization of Witch Societies' and 'Witches and the number Thirteen' in Folk Lore; 'The God of the Witches' in the Journal of the Manchester Oriental Society; 'Child Sacrifice', 'Witches' Familiars', 'The Devil's Mark', 'The Devil's Officers', ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... none of that human interest with which, according to this idea, the narrator of the poetic story must undertake to invest it. Nor can the unfinished condition in which it was left be fairly held to account for this, for the characters themselves—the lady Christabel, the witch Geraldine, and even the baron Sir Leoline himself—are somewhat shadowy creations, with too little hold upon life and reality, and too much resemblance to the flitting figures of a dream. Powerful in their way as ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... Burton back to Salem jail again. The escape of Captain Alden and the Englishes from the Bridewell in Boston, had caused a doubt in Salem as to its security. Besides, Lady Phips had taken ground so openly against the witch prosecutions, that there was no knowing to how great an extent she might not go to aid any prisoner in whom she ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... showy brown horses, harnessed in the most approved philanthropic, or rather philozooic style; no check-rein, no breeching, no nothing apparently, except a pole and Mr. Barker's crest. For Mr. Barker had a crest, since he came from Salem, Massachusetts, and the bearings were a witch pendant, gules, on a gallows sinister, sable. Behind him sat the regulation clock-work groom, brought over at considerable expense from the establishment of Viscount Plungham, and who sprang to the ground and took ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... his hands. "Ah, well, you will be all mine this time to-morrow. One kiss and I will let you go. You witch—you enchantress! I never thought you would draw old Monck too ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... pretty clever craft," mourned the Ancient Mariner. "Never were there more dainty and lovable topmasts on a three- masted schooner, and never was there a three-masted schooner that worked like the witch she was to windward." ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... long drawn out,' and must have cost the gallant Colonel a pile of stamps. Declining an invitation to visit the stables,—for our new millionaire is a lover of horse-flesh, as well as the narcotic weed—and leaving that gentleman to 'witch the world with wondrous horsemanship,' the 'Tattler' reporter withdrew, 'pierced through with Envy's venomed darts,' and satisfied that his courtly entertainer had been 'more sinned against ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... brave of you!" exclaimed Betty, patting Grace on the shoulder. "If you had let go we would have lost. We'll bathe your hand for you in witch hazel." ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope
... cried the Ober-Amtmann, with a feeling of sudden forbearance towards the wretched woman which surprised all present; for they could not but marvel at the slightest symptom of consideration toward such an abhorred outcast of humanity as a convicted witch; and as such the miserable Magdalena was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... bridge. The door was opened by Bryan, and the party entered without further ceremony. They found no one within except an old woman, with harsh, wrinkled features, and a glance as ill-omened as that of a witch, whom Bryan Bowntance told them was Fenwolf's mother. This old ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... in our own time; but I take it that if in Old Time such a power existed, it may have some exceptional survival. After all, the Bible is not a myth; and we read there that the sun stood still at a man's command, and that an ass—not a human one—spoke. And if the Witch at Endor could call up to Saul the spirit of Samuel, why may not there have been others with equal powers; and why may not one among them survive? Indeed, we are told in the Book of Samuel that the Witch of Endor was only one of many, and her being consulted by Saul was a matter of chance. ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... "She's a witch!" shouted Jack. "She rode in on a broomstick—she crept in through the keyhole. Where's the fire? Let's take her downstairs, and ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... a deep question. For, if administered, if so much as spoken of, must not, on the very threshold of the business, Witch Dubarry vanish; hardly to return should Louis even recover? With her vanishes Duke d'Aiguillon and Company, and all their Armida-Palace, as was said; Chaos swallows the whole again, and there is left nothing but a smell of brimstone. But then, on the ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... seemed determined to spit out all his venom. Well, says he, at any rate you will not deny that the English have not got a language of their own, and that they came by it in a very odd way. Of this at least I am certain, for the whole history was related to me by a witch in Lapland, whilst I was bargaining for a wind. Here the company were all in unison ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... a he-witch or something," chuckled Neil, as he propelled his steed toward the campus. "Maybe he will put a curse upon me and my right foot will wither up and I won't be ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... compared and weigh'd, The souls of men and souls of mice Quite different are made,— Unlike in sort as well as size. Each fits and fills its destined part As Heaven doth well provide; Nor witch, nor fiend, nor magic art, Can ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... With busy hammers closing rivets up, Give dreadful note of preparation. Proud of their numbers, and secure in soul, The confident and over-lusty[5] French Do the low-rated English play at dice;[6] And chide the cripple tardy-gaited night, Who, like a foul and ugly witch, doth limp ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... might have struck a chill to the heart of Childe Roland on his way to find the Dark Tower. On a rocky shoulder here and there crouched a sinister little hamlet, like a black cat huddling into the neck of a witch. Sometimes, among the stony pastures where discouraged goats browsed discontentedly, we would spy a human inhabitant of one of those savage haunts—a shepherd in a costume more strange than picturesque, with a plait of hair ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... of the false "front" she wore in the day, appeared to have become all forehead and beaked nose; her eyes had dwindled to mere points of blackness; her mouth, sunken and drawn over toothless gums, was like the mouth of a witch. The wind, blowing in gusts through the open door, inflated her gray shawl and the skirt of her dressing-gown, while, with each flutter of her garments, the grotesque shadow on the white wall danced and gibbered ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... the quick when she asked if I was sure that I was nursed by my own mother; on the contrary I was sure I was not; and I trembled, and looked pale at the very expression. 'Sure,' said I to myself, 'this creature cannot be a witch, or have any conversation with a spirit, that can inform her what was done with me before I was able to know it myself'; and I looked at her as if I had been frightened; but reflecting that it could not be possible for her to know ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... Cynthia, the Moon, though aware that his aspiration must remain for ever hopeless. Tellus, the Earth, herself enamoured of Endymion, jealously resolves to punish his indifference to her by deep melancholy. Accordingly she visits the witch, Dipsas, by whose magic aid the youth, found resting on a bank of lunary, is bewitched to sleep until old age. Not for this crime but for a minor one, Tellus is sentenced by Cynthia to imprisonment under the care of Corsites. Eumenides, the loyal friend ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... rushed out like one man. They saw the smoke, with a lurid flame licking out here and there amid the blackness, and seeing the Indian flying down the beach as if he were witch-possessed—as indeed he was—they uttered a united howl, and made off in ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... is," insisted Archibald. "Why, she flirts outrageously with me. I'm sure I don't know how many heads the little witch is going to turn when she grows up. And her sister, Margaret—I couldn't tell you which of the two I like the better—has quite an extraordinary talent for plastic art. I mean to give her a commission before I return to my place. I'd like for one thing to have a ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... voice of the Hunter-King, "you have brought me back to life. I am a man under enchantment. There is a witch-woman in the wood that I gave my love to. She enchanted me so that the soul was out of my body, and wandering away. It was my soul you followed. And the enchantment was to be broken when I found a heart so faithful that it would follow ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum
... the island. Charcoal braziers set upon the floors or in the dirt yards served all culinary purposes, and the process of preparing meals was conducted with an indifference that promised no savory results. About the glowing points of light wrinkled hags appeared irregularly, as if brewing some witch's broth, but they could not understand the phenomenon of Americans being hungry and signified no readiness to relieve them. In several instances Kirk and Mrs. Cortlandt were treated with open suspicion. But eventually they ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... brite and fair. my hens are laying buly now. i gess they dident have very good cair when me and Beany and Fatty was keeping Lady Clara. i tell you a feller witch keeps a horse cant pay mutch atention ...
— 'Sequil' - Or Things Whitch Aint Finished in the First • Henry A. Shute
... I do for a living?" repeated the slim dark-skinned young man in the next seat of the Earth-Moon liner. "I'm a witch doctor," ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... brought downstairs to- day as a special event, at a notable cost to her sister's and William Oliver's muscles, nearly choked over her cranberry sauce. Susan insisted that everyone should wear the paper caps that came in the bonbons, and looked like a pretty witch herself, under a cone- shaped hat of pink and blue. When, as was usual on all such occasions, a limited supply of claret came on with the dessert, she brought the whole company from laughter very close to tears, as she proposed, with pretty dignify, a toast to her aunt, ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... using the term of regard which is employed in the Belgian Congo, "this woman M'lama is a true witch and has great gifts, for she raises the dead by the touch of her hand. This I have seen. Also it is said that when U'gomi, the woodcutter, made a fault, cutting his foot in two, this woman healed ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... average reader would have guessed. The names of these hardy adventurers must by no means go unrecorded: shepherd's purse, wild pepper-grass, pansy, common chickweed (Stellaria media), mouse-ear chickweed (Cerastium viscosum), knawel, common mallow, witch-hazel, cinque-foil (Potentilla Norvegica,—not argentea, as I should certainly have expected), many-flowered aster, cone-flower, yarrow, two kinds of groundsel, fall dandelion, and jointweed. Six of these—mallow, cinque-foil, aster, ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... who issues out of the house on the false alarm, and is precipitated into the area. Or, to come to the actresses, she may be the fairy who resides for ever in a revolving star with an occasional visit to a bower or a palace. Or the actor may be the armed head of the witch's cauldron; or even that extraordinary witch, concerning whom I have observed in country places, that he is much less like the notion formed from the description of Hopkins than the Malcolm or Donalbain of the previous scenes. This society, in short, says, "Be you what you may, ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... back again; but why then did she make an appointment? She herself, the old witch, told me to come at this hour. And it's a long way to where I live. Where the deuce can she be? I don't understand it. She never stirs from one year's end to the other, the old witch; she quite rots in the place, her legs have always got something the matter ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... for all that he cast a shadow and tossed the dust with his hoofs. After him from the brake came a monstrous lout, a thing of horse and rhinoceros, chewing a straw as it came; then appeared the Swine-woman and two Wolf-women; then the Fox-bear witch, with her red eyes in her peaked red face, and then others,—all hurrying eagerly. As they came forward they began to cringe towards Moreau and chant, quite regardless of one another, fragments of the latter half of the litany of the Law,—"His is the Hand that wounds; ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... was an old woman who lived at first in the kitchen of "the other house" and afterward on the home farm. Tall and thin, with big, thoroughbred eyes, and long, straight hair, like a witch, turning gray, she was rather terrifying, but more than anything else ...
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy - By His Son • Ilya Tolstoy
... "Helen, you witch, you darling sister," says Frank, kissing her, "I will do it—yes, to-morrow I will set forth, like Coelebs, in search of a wife! Now you must help me farther with your lively imagination; you must choose me a profession to masquerade under. I must, ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... presented to the fire was still felt to be an obstacle to the complete success of the locomotive engine. Mr. Stephenson endeavoured to overcome this by lengthening the boilers and increasing the surface presented by the flue-tubes. The "Lancashire Witch," which he built for the Bolton and Leigh Railway, and used in forming the Liverpool and Manchester Railway embankments, was constructed with a double tube, each of which contained a fire and passed longitudinally through the ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... smiles, the silvery mist at morn Floats in loose flakes along the limpid river, The blue-bird notes upon the soft breeze born, As high in air he carols, faintly quiver. The weeping birch like banners idly waving, Bends to the stream, its spicy branches laving, Beaded with dew, the witch elms' tassels shiver, The timid rabbit from the furze is peeping, And from the springing spray the squirrels ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... Buddy's arms were full of gray moss that he was wrappin' round your chair. But we were just as polite to her as we could be, and asked her to take a seat. And we all thought she sat down; but she went, Momsy, and no one saw her go. Buddy says she's a witch. She left that flower-pot of sweet-basil on the table. I s'pose she brought it for a present. Do you think that we'd better send for her to ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... every day for twenty years, but I've always thought she's the plainest-headed woman in England!" Fewer still would wish to emulate the sturdy plain-speaking of the "gudeman" in the Scottish ballad, who, when his witch-wife boasted how she bloomed into beauty after drinking the "wild-flower wine," ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... therefore to be rumoured up and down among the people, that I was a witch, a Jesuit, a highwayman, and ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... will go clad my body in gay garments, And lull myself within a lady's lap, And witch sweet ladies with my words and looks. Oh monstrous man, to harbour such a thought! Why, love did scorn me in my mother's womb; And, for I should not deal in her affairs, She did corrupt frail nature in the flesh, And plac'd ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... beautiful Greek virgin, though noted for his abilities elsewhere, found himself quite another man with his wife, and could by no means enjoy her; at which he was so enraged, that he threatened to kill her, suspecting her to be a witch. As 'tis usual in things that consist in fancy, she put him upon devotion, and having accordingly made his vows to Venus, he found himself divinely restored the very first night after his oblations and sacrifices. Now women are to blame to entertain us with ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... thinkers who worship the Devil, whether in the swamps of Jamaica or the salons of Paris, always insist upon the shapelessness, the wordlessness, the unutterable character of the abomination. They call him "horror of emptiness," as did the black witch in Stevenson's Dynamiter; they worship him as the unspeakable name; as the unbearable silence. They think of him as the void in the heart of the whirlwind; the cloud on the brain of the maniac; the toppling turrets of vertigo or ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... Democrat has "put a head on." He indulges in an inarticulate speech, which is warmly applauded by the gallery. Then the Weird Sisters meet MACBETH and BANQUO on the heath, and Mr. HIND howls at them until the Worldly-Minded auditor blesses the memory of the Salem witch-burners. Then the King brevets MACBETH. Then Lady MACBETH reads a letter from her husband with the demonstrative energy of a Chicago Wild Woman reading the decree that divorces her from a kind and honorable husband. Then the King arrives, and MACBETH and his wife agree ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... sickness in animals, as do all persons of her race, and she was not so bad, either, at conjuring away styes and boils and ringworms; but for other ailments one would scarcely think of consulting her. It was hardly the thing to expect help from a witch doctor ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... own, would have highly disapproved. The most grateful names to Allah are Abdallah (Allah's Slave) and Abd al-Rahman (Slave of the Compassionate); the truest are Al-Harith (the gainer, "bread winner") and Al-Hammam (the griever); and the hatefullest are Al-Harb (witch) and Al-Murrah (bitterness, Abu Murrah being a kunyat or by-name of the Devil). Abu al-Shamat (pronounced Abushshamat)Father of Moles, concerning which I have already given details. These names ending in -Din (faith) began with the Caliph Al-Muktadi bi-Amri 'llah (regn. A.H. 467 1075), who ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... on the other hand, not a gnome, witch, Norna's Head, or other intimation of the underworld. The shore looked like many other Italian shores. It looked not very unlike what we Yankees call salt-marsh. At all events, we should not break our ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... was a little too much breadth, perhaps, in the picture. Her pointed cap, however, with the little bow of ribbon on the top, gave her a piquant air, and did away with the heavy appearance of her costume to some extent; in fact, Edith looked like a fat little witch. But if she looked fat before being wrapped up in the sledge furs, she looked infinitely fatter when thus placed, and nothing of her visible except her two twinkling eyes. So grotesque was she that the whole party burst into a loud laugh as they surveyed her. The laugh made Chimo start off at ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... heads. It seemed as if the wonderful Indian Summer night were trying to steal in among the guests through that small opening, to bid them be still. To look up at that vitreous, transparent roof was like gazing into the enchantment of a witch's mirror, so imminent was the mysterious depth of the night beyond. Miss Wycliffe emitted the ghost of a sigh, as if to express her relief and sense of escape, perhaps her weariness. Leigh, following her glance upward, caught sight of a solitary, brilliant star peeping through the triangular ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... I answered, laughing. 'I used the word impersonally. I will be more cautious. One would think we had been talking about a witch—or a demon-lady—you are so frightened at the notion of her ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... a smart girl," said Germain, "and you can make a fire like a little witch. I feel like a new man, and my courage is coming back to me; for, with my legs wet to the knees, and the prospect of staying here till daybreak in that condition, I was in a very bad ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... replied the priest, 'except for the good of the Church!' Now, this priest must be descended from some of those who attempted to blow up a river with gunpowder, in order to drown a city. Or he must have taken her for a witch, whereas, by his own confession, she 'was no heretic.' A gentleman whom I know declared to me, upon his honor, that he heard Mr. Wesley repeat, in a sermon preached by him in the city of Cork, ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... lesser trees. You would have said the forest's every knight and lady, dwarf, page, and elf—for in this magical seclusion all the world's times were tangled into one—had come to the noiseless dance of some fairy's bridal; chestnut and hemlock, hazel and witch-hazel, walnut and willow, birches white and yellow, poplar and ash in feathery bloom, the lusty oaks in the scarred harness of their winter wars under new tabards of pink and silver-green, and the slim service-bush, white ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... endeavored to persuade Philip to hire the services of a witch-hazel professor of that region, who could walk over the land with his wand and tell him infallibly whether it contained coal, and exactly where the strata ran. But Philip preferred to trust to his own study of the country, and his knowledge of the geological formation. He spent a month in traveling ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner |
