"Witching" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... exterior as calm as the repose of death, he took his hat, and went toward the parlor. Mr. Lockhart was reclining on one of the sofas, Pauline sat on an ottoman near him, looking over a book of prints, and Mrs. Chilton, tastefully attired, occupied the piano-stool. Witching strains of music greeted her brother, as he stopped at the door and looked in. In the mirror opposite she saw his image reflected, and for an instant her heart beat rapidly; but the delicate fingers flew over the keys ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... true-pac'd numbers and their holy lays, Which makes them worthy cedar and the bays. But why, why longer do I gaze upon Thee with the eye of admiration? Since I must leave thee, and enforc'd must say To all thy witching beauties, Go, away. But if thy whimpering looks do ask me why, Then know that nature bids thee go, not I. 'Tis her erroneous self has made a brain Uncapable of such a sovereign As is thy powerful self. Prithee not smile, Or smile more inly, lest thy looks ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... penny-a-liner for" New-York), you find the dinner postponed to three; and some gentlemen, with English education and English habits, dine in New-York at five; while others, whose business keeps them at the bank, or court, or counting-house till three, have the witching time adjourned to four. These are, however, only exceptions to the rule, and as lawyers say, exceptio probat regulam; the legitimate, healthy, fashionable hour for dining—that in which the Knickerbockers, who know no ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... Another witching time is the period of twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany. Hence in some parts of Silesia the people burn pine-resin all night long between Christmas and the New Year in order that the pungent smoke may drive witches and evil spirits far away from house and homestead; ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... the witching time for Story-telling. "Our whole life, Travellers," said I, "is a story more or less intelligible,—generally less; but we shall read it by a clearer light when it is ended. I, for one, am so divided this night between fact and fiction, that I scarce know which ...
— The Seven Poor Travellers • Charles Dickens
... we turned away To gaze upon a poet's home; 'Twas near the close of that bright day, And golden sunlight on it shone; Perfume of flowers, and birds' songs low A witching spell about ...
— Within the Golden Gate - A Souvenir of San Fransisco Bay • Laura Young Pinney
... know thee well, thy songs and sighs, A wicked god thou art; And yet, most pleasing to the eyes, And witching to the ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... up toward him, a happy bird of gay, fluttering plumage, pressing her fingers almost caressingly along the swelling muscle of his arm, and gazing with earnest admiration up into his face. Beneath the witching spell of her eyes the man's cheeks reddened. He took the way of savagery out ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... by fame This day; and watching, witching, condescending To the consumers of fish, fowl, and game, And dignity with courtesy so blending, As all must blend whose part it is to aim (Especially as the sixth year is ending) At their lord's, son's, or similar connection's Safe conduct through ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... whose smiles shed light on My weary lot last year at Brighton, I talk of happiness and marriage, St. George's and a travelling carriage. I trifle with my rosy fetters, I rave about her 'witching letters, And swear my heart shall do no treason Before the closing of the season. Thus I whisper in the ear Of Louisa Windermere— If she cares for what I say, She's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various
... he recalled again that tantalizing perfume, the shy tones of that mischief laughter. He began to long intensely to behold the author of this music-magic, to behold her just once, for imagination graced her with a thousand witching forms. He wished ardently, also, to speak with her about this miracle, this hidden thing called melody, for the which he had ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... a pillow part And by a touch, of cunning art Adorn the casket of the heart, Where every grace, Half hidden by its witching fold, Seeks to betray a charm untold— How envies each admirer ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... grim and grey, With sling and crutch, I am but fit to watch the fray Where, in the world-old, witching way, In other hands your fingers stay With lingering touch, That may mean nothing, or it may ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 14, 1893 • Various
... she said, "men, as I have known them, are men. He has been shut up for a long while with that minx, who is very fair and witching, and it was scarcely right to watch him through a slit in a tower. If he were my lover, I ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... once again the child's birthday gifts had been appropriated by its elders; but as a matter of fact the Parks of Steeplechase and Luna were, I imagine, designed deliberately for adults. Judging by the popularity of the chutes and the whips, the switchbacks and the witching waves, eccentric movement has a peculiar attraction for the American holiday-maker. As some one put it, there is no better way, or at any rate no more thorough way, of throwing young people together. Middle-aged people, too. But the ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... the fascination of that little creature's countenance. It was a face to attract, to charm, to delight, to draw you in, and rivet your whole attention, until you became absorbed and lost in the study of its mysterious spell—a witching face, whose nameless charm it were impossible to tell, I might describe the fine dark Jewish features, the glorious eyes, the brilliant complexion, and the fall of long, glossy, black ringlets that veiled the proud little head; but the spell ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... credit her story that she was concerned only as an innocent associate. And it was not difficult to do, sitting there beside her in the subdued light, under the witching tones of her voice, and the alluring fascination of her face. The face was not perfect; far from it, if by perfect is meant features accordant with one another and true to type. Her hair was flaming red; her eyes were brown, dark brown, ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... spirit of Aphiz seemed to her to be ever by her side, and she would talk to him as though he was actually present, in soft and tender whispers, and sing the songs of their native valley with low and witching cadence; and thus she was partially happy, for the soul is where it loves, rather than where it lives. From childhood she had been taught to believe the Swedenborgian doctrine, of the presence of the spirits of those who have gone before us to the better land; and she ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... Black Eagle went up to it and pushed the door farther open. An odour came forth—a damp, rancid, familiar, musty, intoxicating, beloved odour stirring strongly at old memories of happy days and travels. Black Eagle sniffed at the witching smell as the returned wanderer smells of the rose that twines his boyhood's cottage home. Nostalgia seized him. He put his hand inside. Excelsior—dry, springy, curly, soft, enticing, covered the floor. Outside the drizzle had turned to a ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... remarking, that if he was not tried by his dinners, he hoped to be always tried by his deserts. In conclusion, he drank the health of Mr. Galt, whose literary talents shed a lustre on the west of Scotland, with which he was particularly connected. It was now, however, near the witching hour of night, or we might say of night's black arch, the key stane; and many from the lower parts of the hall had crowded up to the top; so that regularity of speech, or bumper, or song, there could be none. Galt's thanks died in embryo; and the concluding ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various
... sounds from below, and the wild character of the region, have produced a legend that the place is haunted by a beautiful but wicked water nymph, who lured the voyager, by her witching voice, to the rocks and the whirlpool, where his boat ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... so fair, so full of witching wiles— Of fascinating tricks of mouth and eye; So womanly withal, but not too shy— And all my heaven was ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Notre Dame awoke him, and, starting from his reverie and listening, he counted the hours to the full score of midnight. Struck, then, by the weird aspect of the scene and singular silence, a vague sense of horror stole through him, and he exclaimed hoarsely: "This is the very witching time of night, when churchyards yawn and spirits walk abroad!" and scarcely had the words escaped his lips when a wild tumult rose near him, and he perceived a bacchanalian and disorderly troop of both sexes ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... classes. Every element of present and future usefulness slowly makes headway against the current of mere adventure. Natural obstacles yield to patient, honest industry. California begins in grains, fruits, and all the rich returns of nature, to show that Ceres, Flora, and Pomona are a trinity of witching good fairies. They beckon to the world to wander hither, and rest under these blue-vaulted balmy skies. Near the splendid streams, picturesque ridges, and lovely valleys of the new State, health and happiness may be ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... the gorgeous city of a consummate civilization, and the miserable wigwam of a heathen barbarism! Who, then, can wonder—if the theme of Love be universal—that it should have evoked the rude and iron eloquence of the Scandinavian Scald as well as the soft and witching poesy of the bards of more genial climes, or that its praises or its sorrows should be sung on the banks of the Arno, the Seine, or the Thames, as well as amidst the pathless forests of America, or the burning sands of Africa, or in the far-off ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... win promotion," he said to himself, rather bitterly. The picture of that winter night, the witching face of Lisbeth and her mocking laugh as she rode away, kept recurring to his mind. What a girl she had been, the best playmate even a boy might wish; always ready for a lark, daring, mischievous, ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... oars kept time to "aria" or "chorus," heard above the witching melody the solemn minor of "St. Mary's," or the ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... 'Tis that enamoured nightingale Who thus gives me the reply:— To his partner in the vale Listening on a bough hard by Warbling thus his tuneful wail. Cease, sweet nightingale, nor show By thy softly witching strain Trilling forth thy bliss and woe, How a man might feel love's pain, When a bird can feel his so. No: it was that wanton vine That in fond pursuit has sought The tall tree it doth entwine, Till the green weight it hath brought Makes the noble trunk decline. Green ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... lounges with deep cushions, the perfection of upholstery, invite to rest and repose. Aquaria alive with fins and strewn with tinged shells and zoophytes. Tufts of geranium, from bead baskets, suspended mid-room, drop their witching perfume. Fountains gushing up, sprinkling the air with sparkles, or gushing through the mouth of the marble lion. Long mirrors, mounted with scrolls and wings and exquisite carvings, catching and reflecting back the magnificence. At their doors merchant-princes dismount from their carriages; ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... seers are anxious when they feel the vision beginning: they do not, however, regard the power as unholy or disreputable. Another informant mentions a belief that children born between midnight and one o'clock will be second-sighted. People attempt to hasten or delay the birth, so as to avoid the witching hour; clearly then they regard the second sight as an unenviable accomplishment. 'It is certane' says Kirk, 'he sie more fatall and fearfull things, than he do gladsome.' For the physical condition of the seer, Kirk describes it as 'a rapture, transport, and sort of death'. Our contemporary ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... could dwell With safety on her dark and hazel gaze, Nor find there lurk'd in it a witching spell, Fatal to balmy nights and blessed days? The peaceful breath that made the bosom swell, She turn'd to gas, and set it in a blaze; Each eye of hers had Love's Eupyrion in it, That he could light his ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... nodding, ox-eyed daisies that popped up pertly on either side, staring at them from amidst wastes of wild hyacinths and forget-me-nots that were bluer than Nellie's witching eyes. ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... have made the American girl unique among the women of the world. Consequently, a book with a Bell heroine is sure of a hearty welcome. What, therefore, can be said of this book, which contains no less than four types of witching and buoyant femininity? There are four stories of power and dash in this volume: "The Last Straw," "The Surrender of Lapwing," "The Penance of Hedwig," and "Garret Owen's Little Countess." Each one of these tells a tale full of verve and thrill, each one has a ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... his own footfall, the wavering of his own shadow, afraid of his own thoughts, would breathe the suppressed invocation, "Angels and ministers of grace defend us!" as the idea crept curdling over his brain and through his veins, "It is the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... before Christmas brought trouble for Joe, A thousand times worse. 'Twas a terrible blow To hear that old Santa Claus, god of his dreams. Would not come that year with his fleet-footed teams. He'd seen them. Why, once, of a night's witching hour He saw them jump over the cross on the tower And scamper away o'er the snow-covered roofs, His heart beating time to the sound of their hoofs. Not coming this year? Santa Claus must be dead, He thought, as with sad tears he crept into bed. And, as he lay thinking, the long ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... last the dreadful chase, Till time itself shall have an end; By day, they scour earth's cavern'd space, At midnight's witching hour, ascend. ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... understood the terms of that one-sided contract with Satan, the Time of Witching would have lasted longer—you may be sure of that. But how was I to tell? It just happened, and has never happened again, though I've tried the same preliminaries as far ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... by chance descried, The Sultan's daughter, witching fair; Love's high control was not denied— He sought to gain the beauty rare. Before the Sultan lowly bent His mother, and the jewels spread; The Prince, astonished, gave consent, And all ...
— Aladdin or The Wonderful Lamp • Anonymous
... the printed page a mere mist before his eyes. Then as he wended his way by swamp and stream and awful woodland, to the farm-house where he happened to be quartered, every sound of nature, at that witching hour, fluttered his excited imagination,—the moan of the whippoorwill from the hillside, the boding cry of the tree-toad, that harbinger of storm, the dreary hooting of the screech-owl, or the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... drew her thoughts to higher things, Than merely graving what from fancy springs. Her lover and the place, at once assured, That such a secret would be well secured; A tempting bait, which made her, with regret, Resist the witching charm that ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... without regard to their feelings; especially as Madrid is essentially a city of late hours, and the various members of it would have to scamper away from opera, or in fact any entertainment, as if some malignant fairy were wanting to cast a spell at the witching hour of midnight. There are some curious superstitions, however, about being abroad when the clocks strike twelve, which we must suppose do not ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... lent thy polished Muse a blink Of saving humour for her crambo-clink, Then never-dying fame had fallen to her. Yet Heaven be thanked for what it has bestowed On thee of what is tunefullest and best: The trim epistle, the heart-stirring ode, The witching freshness of a Prince's Quest, The soft romance that dreams of years gone by, Bright noons ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... by the heat from the balm-of-gilead and the pine-trees in the forest, added greatly to our sense of enjoyment as we floated past scenes so wild and lonely—isles that assumed a mysterious look and character in that witching hour. In moments like these, I ceased to regret my separation from my native land; and, filled with the love of Nature, my heart forgot for the time the love of home. The very spirit of peace seemed to brood over the waters, which were broken into a thousand ripples of light by every breeze ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... to and fro in rich tides which met and broke and flashed out dainty explosions of enchanting color. I think it was most like opals washing about in waves and flashing out their splendid fires. But there is nothing to compare the wine with. We drank it, and felt a strange and witching ecstasy as of heaven go stealing through us, and Seppi's eyes filled and ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... initiative in an affair of this kind—smiled upon the willing and ready-looking fellow; not exactly at him, but as it were in his direction, you know; and he caught the faint glint of sunshine on her lips, and then—but in the witching hour when the twilight and sunlight kiss and part, after the smile and look of ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley
... soon distracted from this witching scene— the exquisite beauty of which is not to be described in mere words—by a noise of singing and shouting on Merlani's island. Presently a feeble flickering fame became visible on the sandy beach, which, quickly increasing ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... great clock chimed a single stroke, freighted sore with melancholy. It knelled the passing of the half-hour after midnight; a witching hour, when every public shuts up tight, and gentlemen in top-hats and evening dress are doomed to pace the pave till day (barring they have homes or visible means of support)—till day, when pawnshops open and such personal effects as watches and hammered silver cigar-cases ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... straight a snowycloth disclose Of samite, which she placed upon a chair: Then, smiling like a freshly-budding rose, She gazed upon me with a witching air, As mote a Cynic anchorite ensnare. Eftsoons, as though her thoughts she could not smother, She hasted thus her mission to declare:— 'Please, these is your clean things I've brought instead of brother, 'And if you'll pay the bill you'll much ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... darkened earth and air; Then feasted they before that cliff-like wall, Ceteian men and Trojans: babel of talk Rose from the feasters: all around the glow Of blazing campfires lighted up the tents: Pealed out the pipe's sweet voice, and hautboys rang With their clear-shrilling reeds; the witching strain Of lyres was rippling round. From far away The Argives gazed and marvelled, seeing the plain Aglare with many fires, and hearing notes Of flutes and lyres, neighing of chariot-steeds And pipes, the shepherd's and the banquet's joy. Therefore they bade their fellows each ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... in wrath, Each beneath her own dear tree Parting her hair that she may see How queens put on their sovereignty? All are come of Pan's own race, Nymphs and satyrs fill the place, Necks outstretched and ears a-twitching, That Pan may know of all this witching. Heedless stumble the goatfeet Till four-footed things retreat. Cries of Ah! and Ay! and Eh! Scare the forest birds away, And their notes that rang so clear At dawn, you now shall rarely hear: Only a robin ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... shine to-night; That tales of desolation and of wars, Of struggle and of blight, Like the low mutterings of a troublous dream, Flitting across the still and peaceful night, Glanced o'er my heart and thine! The music of the pine— The silver, witching stream An impress deeper, left upon our hearts. The murmuring song fell soothing on our ears; The silver stream with beauty charmed our eyes; And so we bade the tales of spears and darts, With all ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... it was not the welcoming smile Of frank surrender. As a witching maid In gorgeous garments cunningly arrayed Might smile and draw them closer, hers the guile To let men hope, pray, labor in love's stress Ere they ...
— A Woman's Love Letters • Sophie M. Almon-Hensley
... pray what art thou? Art thou of pleasure born? Does bliss untainted from thee flow? The rose that gems thy pensive brow, Is it without a thorn? With all thy smiles, And witching wiles, Yet not unfrequent bitterness ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... Health, of Piety, and Peace; The kind Samaritan that heals our woes, The nurse of Science, and, of future fame The gentle harbinger: her meek abode Is that dear home, which still the virtuous heart, E'en in the witching maze of Pleasure's dance, In wild Ambition's dream, regards with love, And hopes, with fond security, to pass The evening of a long-protracted ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham
... magic power lend me Aid to stay the witching tone, Art to pain the beauteous picture Ere its impress swift has flown. * ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... birds came. A cat-bird first, with witching low song, eying me closely with that calm, dark eye of his, the while he poured it out from ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... blest with beauty and with grace, And blest be He who shaped and fashioned forth his face! All rarest charms that be unite to make him fair, His witching loveliness distracts the human race. Beauty itself hath set these words upon his brow, "Except this youth there's none ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... base of the big rock on which we played "King on the Castle,"—the big rock so pitifully dwindled of late years. No matter what he facts are. Sing 'of "The Little Old Red Schoolhouse On the Hill" and in everybody's heart a chord trembles in unison. As we hear its witching strains, we are all lodge brethren, from Maine to California and far across the Western Sea; we are all lodge brethren, and the air is "Auld Lang Syne," and we are clasping hands across, knitted together into one living solidarity; and this, if ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... nightfall, curfew, dusk, twilight, eleventh hour; sunset, sundown; going down of the sun, cock-shut, dewy eve, gloaming, bedtime. afternoon, postmeridian, p.m. autumn, fall, fall of the leaf; autumnal equinox; Indian summer, St. Luke's summer, St. Martin's summer. midnight; dead of night, witching hour, witching hour of night, witching time of night; winter; killing time. Adj. vespertine, autumnal, nocturnal. Phr. midnight, the outpost of advancing day [Longfellow]; sable-vested Night [Milton]; this gorgeous arch with golden worlds ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... re-animated; galvanism had given token of such things: perhaps the component parts of a creature might be manufactured, brought together, and endued with vital warmth. Night waned upon this talk; and even the witching hour had gone by, before we retired to rest. When I placed my head upon my pillow, I did not sleep, nor could I be said to think. My imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me, gifting the successive images that arose in my mind with a vividness far beyond the usual bounds of reverie. I ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... uplift thee; not yet; Walk through some passionless years by my side, Chasing the silly sheep, snapping the lily-stalk, Drawing my secrets forth, witching my soul with talk. When the sap stays, and the blossom is set, Others will take the fruit; ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... is one of the most beautiful, serene, witching places that ever was seen. High overhead are ranges of green rustling arches; through which the sun's rays come down to you in sparkles. You seem to be wandering through illimitable halls of pillars; everywhere you catch glimpses of stately aisles, intersecting each other at all points. A strange ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... her sourly or scornfully, or with malicious amusement or some stirrings of pity, drew their breath and gave ground a little. Where was the shrinking, frightened, unbidden guest of a moment before, with downcast eyes and burning cheeks? Here was a proud and easy and radiant lady, with witching eyes and a wonderful smile. "I am only Audrey, your Excellency," she said, and curtsied as she spoke. "My other name lies buried in a valley amongst far-off mountains." She slightly turned, and addressed herself to a portly, velvet-clad gentleman, of a very authoritative ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... Oh, witching as its scenes, and bright As is its cloudless summer light, Be still its maids, the soul's delight Of every truthful callan'! Be health around it ever spread, To light the eye, to lift the head, And joy on every heart be shed That beats by Brig ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... disguise his love of the good things of this world under the semblance of a sanctified exterior. The friar and Matilda had often sung duets together, and had been accustomed to the baron's chiming in with a stormy capriccio, which was usually charmed into silence by some sudden turn in the witching melodies of Matilda. They had therefore naturally calculated, as far as their wild spirits calculated at all, on the same effects from the same causes. But the circumstances of the preceding day had made an essential ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... nothing more or less than a rival and an enemy, notwithstanding his seeming courtesy and civil self-restraint. As a matter of fact, he, Denzil, was left alone to face his fate: to dare the brilliant seduction of the witching eyes of Ziska,—to win her or to lose her forever! And consider every point as he would, the weary conviction was borne in upon him that, whether he met with victory or defeat, the result would bring more ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... away from him; she stood just in front of him, looking into his face with the witching eyes ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... thy fine discourse Foretold not half life's good to me; Thy painter, Fancy, hath not force To show how sweet it is to be! Thy witching dream And pictured scheme To match the fact still want the power; Thy promise brave From birth to grave Life's boon may ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... true atmospheric colour. A feeling of exhilaration comes while contemplating one of his open-air scenes with jockeys, race-horses, and the incidental bustle of a neighbouring concourse. Unexcelled as a painter of horses, as a delineator of witching horsemanship, of vivid landscapes—true integral decorations—and of the casual movements and gestures of common folk, Degas is also a psychologist, an ironical commentator on the pettiness and ugliness of daily life, of its unheroic aspects, its comical snobberies and shocking hypocrisies; and ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... pearly streams, The streams in sunbeams flashing, The murm'ring streams, the gentle streams, The streams down mountains dashing, Have been the theme Of poets' dream, And, in wild witching story, Have been renowned for love's fond scenes, Or some great ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... it now slowly, studying it critically as the light fell on its rich colouring. The painted lady had a wonderfully attractive face,—the face of a child, piquante, smiling and provocative,—her eyes were witching blue, with a moonlight halo of grey between the black pupil and the azure iris,—her mouth, a trifle large, but pouting in the centre and curved in the 'Cupid's bow' line, suggested sweetness and passion, and her hair,—but surely her hair was indescribable! The painter of Charles the Second's time ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... Graydon went in search of Stella, but she was nowhere to be found, nor had the warm evening lured Mrs. Wildmere from her room. He had learned that Arnault was still at the house, and he inferred, from the surpassing beauty of the moonlit evening, that his rival would not let such witching hours pass without an effort to turn them to account. With a frown he retreated from the music, dancing, and gayety of a full house, and went up ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... a look to see. There was a witching mingling of the frank, the childlike, and the womanly, in her troubled face; frankness that would not deny the truth that her monitor seemed to have read, a childlike simplicity of shame that he should have divined it, and a womanly self-respect ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... front row of spectators, while behind us the crowd packed as closely as matches in a box. The champagne I had taken had again aroused in me that vivid sense of joy and strength and colour. Again the lights were effulgent, the music witching, the women divine. As I swayed a little I clutched unsteadily at the Youth. He looked ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... ages. But poor people are now living in the palaces of noblemen and merchants. These new inhabitants have walled up the fair arched windows and slender portals of the ancient dwellers, spoiling the beauty of the streets without materially changing the architectural masses. In that witching hour when the Italian sunset has faded, and a solemn grey replaces the glowing tones of daffodil and rose, it is not difficult, here dreaming by oneself alone, to picture the old noble life—the ladies moving along those open loggias, the young men in plumed ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... weird—that is, wild, unnatural, and witching. They would appear in both calm and ...
— Lord Dolphin • Harriet A. Cheever
... came flushing back into Patsy's cheeks, turning them the color of thorn bloom, and her eyes deepened to the blue of Killarney, sparkling as when the sun goes a-dancing. She smiled—a fresh, radiant, witching smile upon that clay lump of commercialism—until she saw his appraisement of her treble its ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... the dreadful chase, Till time itself shall have an end; By day, they scour earth's caverned space; At midnight's witching ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... voice of the announcer as the jingle muted, "Which witch do you really wish? Witch is the modern method of cleanliness, using the best of modern technology, and the Witch witch is witching through the world...." ...
— Prologue to an Analogue • Leigh Richmond
... sang to him with witching wile, "My brood why wilt thou snare, With human craft and human guile, To die in scorching air? Ah! didst thou know how happy we Who dwell in waters clear, Thou wouldst come down at once to me, And ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... tripped downstairs and, bestowing a witching smile upon her sire, waved away his request for an explanation and hastened into the kitchen, whence Annie shortly ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... Pine and barked and barked until his throat was sore. Every night old Mother Fox had warned him that noisy children would come to no good end, and every night Reddy had promised that he would bark no more. But every night when the first silver flood of witching light crept over the hill and cast strange shadows from the naked branches of the trees, Reddy forgot all about his promise. Deep down under his little red coat was a strange feeling which he could not explain. He simply must bark, so up to the Lone Pine he would ...
— Mother West Wind's Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... river's slippery edge, Witching to deeper calm the drowsy tide, Whispers and leans the breeze-entangling sedge; 115 Through emerald glooms the lingering waters slide, Or, sometimes wavering, throw back the sun, And the stiff banks in eddies melt and run Of dimpling light, and with ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... man with winsome witching art, Who touches at his will the kindly human heart, 'Till it throbs with joy like pain and tears begin to start; He so tenderly touched ours With his melting magic powers, Made feelings which he felt within our bosoms spring, Where he wished ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... at a salary of two dollars a week! Comment trouvez-vous ca? I am also in a conspiracy with the American editor, a French restaurant-man, and an Italian fisherman against the Padre. The enclosed poster is my last literary appearance. It was put up to the number of 200 exemplaires at the witching hour; and they were almost all destroyed by eight in the morning. But I think the nickname will stick. Dos Reales; deux reaux; two bits; twenty-five cents; about a shilling; but in practice it is ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of times Bertha perused that letter, or if we may draw an inference from her wearing it about her person (probably that she might be able to refresh her memory with its information concerning her cousin), the epistle was either very difficult of comprehension, or it had some witching spell which drew her eyes ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... myself, sallied forth in a bunch, pretty well inclined for a lark, you may guess. There are no lamps in the streets of Kingston, and as all the decent part of the community are in their cavies by half— past nine in the evening, and as it was now "the witching time o' night," there was not a soul in the streets that we saw, except a solitary town guard now and then, lurking about some dark corner under the piazzas. These same streets, which were wide and comfortable enough in the ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... in herself, that she bore about her an impure and scorching heat. The fiery dart with which Satan had pierced her was still there, and, as through a baleful lamp, shot forth a wild, but fearfully witching sheen. Shrinking from her, you would yet stand still, with a strange trouble ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... fellows—all men of uncommon talents—are now all under the turf." And in 1821, John Struthers, a Scottish poet little known, but of great worth and some genius, thus recurs to Currie's words:— (p. 111) Nae mair in learning Willie toils, nor Allan wakes the melting lay, Nor Rab, wi' fancy-witching wiles, beguiles the hour o' dawning day; For tho' they were na very fou, that wicked wee drap in the e'e Has done its turn; untimely now the green grass waves ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... possessed herself of some powers of witchcraft and that he felt considerable uneasiness on his own account, as well as on his brother's, in connection with it; for he seems to have consulted some other sorcerer, with the object of out-witching the witchery of Lady Purbeck. In some notes[75] by Archbishop Laud for a letter to Buckingham, the following cautious remarks are ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... tender Silvery light Luna peeps the clouds between, And 'spite of dark disastrous night The radiant sun is also seen When the wavelets murmuring flow When oak and ivy clinging grow, Then, O then, in that witching hour Let us meet in ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... the vague vista of the successive rooms, brought objects into view and added to their dignity. Strether found himself in possession as he never yet had been; he had been there alone, had turned over books and prints, had invoked, in Chad's absence, the spirit of the place, but never at the witching hour and never with a relish quite ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... for an instant with her slender fingers in facetious demonstration, and he trembled in painful rapture. And she played on her lute, too, on the lute he had given her of old, those slender fingers making ravishing music on the many-stringed instrument, though her pose as she played was more witching still. What a beautiful glimpse of white shoulders and dainty lace her straight-cut ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... inheritor of an ancestral curse (details of which are explained later) has gone to close his account. The new Count de Luizzi knows what he has to do, which is to summon Satan by a certain little silver bell at the not most usual but sufficiently witching hour of two A.M., saying at the same time, "Come!" After a slightly trivial farce-overture of apparitions in various banal forms, Luizzi compels the fallen archangel to show himself in his proper shape; and the bargain is concluded after some chaffering. ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... Forth comes the moon, night's joyous, sylvan queen, With one lone, silent star, attendant by Her side, all sparkling in its glorious sheen; And, floating swan-like, stately, and serene, A few light fleecy clouds, the drapery of heav'n, Throw their pale shadows o'er this witching scene, Deep'ning its mystic grandeur—and seem driven Round these all shapeless piles ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various
... rises steeply a grand hillside forest, in which lie, mantled with moss and lichens, and deep buried in undergrowth, boulders as large as a "cracker's" hut; romantic glens abound, and a little run comes noisily down a ravine hard by,—it is a witching back-door, filled with surprises at every turn. Beeches, elms, maples, lindens, pawpaws, tulip trees, here attain a monster growth,—with grape-vines, their fruit now set, hanging in great festoons from the ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... a devoted friend. "I have saved myself in time," said my thought, as I stood up and went away from the window, "a day might have come when to give him up would be to renounce the happiness of my whole life—that day that I had sometimes fondly, though vainly, dreamed of, with all its witching possibilities and which now lay crumbled to dust at ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... carved dog, curled in his arms, awoke, Barked forth a smoke-cloud that whirled and broke. It piled in a maze round the ironing-place, And there on the snowy table wide Stood a Chinese lady of high degree, With a scornful, witching, tea-rose face . . . Yet she put away all form and pride, And laid her glimmering veil aside With a childlike smile for Chang and ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... and the witching hour—the keystone of night's black arch, twelve o'clock—was approaching. To go to bed on such an occasion, would have been held no better than for a jolly toper to shirk his bicker, a lover to eschew the trysting ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... centerpiece go the dainty glass candlesticks, which cost 35 cents apiece, coming up to 91 cents with the candle lamp, candle, mica chimney, and shade complete, the shade matching the flowers in color. The lesser light which thus rules the night casts a witching glamour over the table, shadowing imperfections, softening features, warming heart cockles, and loosening tongues. Yellow is always good, green cool in summer, red heavy, and pink of the right shades genial. Lace and ribbon have been banished from the table as being inconsistent with simplicity, ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... things. Abbie's watch lay ticking softly in its marble and velvet bed, and had to be examined and sighed over; and Abbie's diamond pin in the jewel-case also demanded attention—then there were some blue and gold volumes to be peeped at, and Longfellow received more than a peep; then, most witching of all, "Say and Seal," in two volumes—the very books Sadie had borrowed once, and returned, before Ester had a chance to discover how Faith managed about the ring. Longfellow and the Bible slid on the table together, and ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... taught my willing tongue, The songs that Braga fram'd and sung? Who was it op'd to me the store Of dark unearthly Runic lore, And taught me to beguile my time With Denmark's aged and witching rhyme; To rest in thought in Elvir shades, And hear the song of fairy maids; Or climb the top of Dovrefeld, Where magic knights their muster held: Who was it did all this for me? O, who, ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... excepted me, But I will bring May Margret to a Laidly Worm's degree; I'll bring her low as a Laidly Worm That warps about a stone, And not till the Childe of Wynde come back Will the witching ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... Tattiana thanks to all returned, But, when Oneguine's turn came round, The maiden's weary eye which yearned, Her agitation and distress Aroused in him some tenderness. He bowed to her nor silence broke, But somehow there shone in his look The witching light of sympathy; I know not if his heart felt pain Or if he meant to flirt again, From habit or maliciously, But kindness from his eye had beamed And ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... witching goes muffled rumour mine dark silent unfortunate richmond existing great hotly brute select mooted ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... flash of fireflies among the undergrowth that were like the lanterns of the fairies a line came into his mind that he liked and repeated several times, rather whimsically pleased with himself for having found it at exactly the right moment. It was "the witching hour ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... came in later, wearing her new house-dress, she drew her chair close to her brother's and resting her elbows on his knee and her chin in her open palms she looked up and said with a witching smile: ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... may, the spot in question was, at all events, so situated as to be only visible, and then but vaguely, under certain witching conditions of light ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... night, but she feared Miss Thusa would be displeased and think her ungrateful. Notwithstanding Mittie's unkindness and violence of temper, she did not like to have such dreadful ideas associated with her. When, however, she heard the whole story, at the usual witching hour, she felt the same fascination which had so often enthralled her. As it was summer, the blazing fire no longer illuminated the hearth, but a little lamp, whose rays flickered in the wind that faintly murmured ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... contribution of a noble duke was particularly mentioned, which alone appalled the heart of Brooks'. The matter was put before Neuchatel, as he entered the club, to which he had been recently elected with acclamation. "So you are a little frightened," he said, with a peculiarly witching smile which he had, half mockery and half good nature; as much as to say, "I will do what you wish, but I see through you and everybody else." "So you are a little frightened. Well; we City ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli |
