"Captivate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... portrayed. We see the Arab Knight, his prowess and his passion for adventure, his love and his revenge, the craft of his wives, and the hypocrisy of his priests, as plainly as if we had lived among them. Gilded palaces, charming women, lovely gardens, caves full of jewels, and exquisite repasts, captivate the senses and give variety to the panorama which is passing before our eyes. Yet we repeat that, though there is much in the excellent version now begun which is very plain speaking, there is nothing intentionally demoralising. Evidently, however the translator is prepared to hear ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... vast whole it pours supplies, Spreads joy through every part: O, may such love attract my eyes, And captivate my heart! ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... comely countenance, but rather the expression which might have suited the hero of courts and tournaments, than the chief of a brigand's camp. The aspect, manner, and bearing, of the Provencal were those which captivate rather than awe,—blending, as they did, a certain military frankness with the easy and graceful dignity of one conscious of gentle birth, and accustomed to mix, on equal terms, with the great and ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... behold that lowering brow, Which indicates the mind within, I marvel much that woman's vow A man like that could ever win! Yet it is said, in rustic bower, (The fable I have often heard) A serpent has mysterious power To captivate ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... remnant of affection for any human being, it is for you. When I consented to leave you to bear the sentence which should have fallen on myself, sure I am that I was less basely selfish than absurdly vain. I fancied myself so born to good fortune!—so formed to captivate some rich girl!—and that you would return to share wealth with me; that the evening of your days would be happy; that you would be repaid by my splendour for your own disgrace! And when I did marry, and did ultimately get from ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the character of secret societies in the sixteenth century. A more atrocious confederacy than this the human mind could hardly have conceived. It was, however, peculiarly calculated to captivate the multitude in those days of darkness and blood. Though at first formed and extended secretly, it spread like wildfire through all the cities and provinces of France. Princes, lords, gentlemen, artisans, and peasants rushed into ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... language, and finish of diction, when even ideas fail, words come to his aid—arranging themselves, as it were, so completely, that they not only captivate, but often deceive us for ideas; and hence the vacuum that would necessarily occur in the address of an ordinary speaker is filled up, presenting the same beautiful harmony as do the lights and shades ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... that, which I, in the space of many years, and with many sufferances and dangers, have made proof and gaind the knowledge of. And this work I have not set forth either with elegancy of discourse or stile, nor with any other ornament whereby to captivate the reader, as others use, because I would not have it gain its esteem from elsewhere than from the truth of the matter, and the gravity of the subject. Nor can this be thought presumption, if a man of humble and low condition venture to dilate and discourse upon the governments ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... practically unknown, except of course by repute. That a man of his sagacity would quickly make his weight felt was never in doubt; but few at that time can have anticipated the extent to which a stranger—with an accent proclaiming an origin south of the Boyne—was in a short time to captivate the hearts, and become literally the idolised leader, ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... Exactly the sort of thing to attract a man who likes to take a sporting chance. Look at the difficulties of it. Go to a strange town where there are thousands and millions of strange children, locate Mary, isolate her, make friends with her, coax her to the yacht—captivate her, capture her! How are we to do all that, you ask? I reply, the Lord knows. That is where the sport comes in. We are forbidden to use force. We are forbidden to use Mrs. Carstairs or bring her into it in any way. We are forbidden, of course, to let the child know who we are. Everything ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... class of women, however, who as a rule are likely to become fretful and ill-tempered as they grow in years: girls who are allowed to grow up with uninformed judgments, who are taught that the chief end and aim of woman is to captivate and please the opposite sex, who are taught to think a pretty face and delicate figure of more importance than good sense or a thorough education. And yet it is a fact worthy of notice, that those who most eloquently assert their ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... especially interesting to younger visitors to Abdul Baha. One of them writes thus: 'He was a venerable, smiling old man, with long Persian robes and a spotlessly white turban. As we had travelled along, the Persian ladies had laughingly spoken of a beautiful young man, who, they were sure, would captivate me. They would make a match between us, ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... Constitution was initiated and pressed by him:" of Rufus Choate, who combined in more majestic and graceful proportions than any other American lawyer, the ripe scholar and the successful advocate; who with the beauty and power of his language could captivate a jury, a popular audience, or the American Congress with equal facility; who gave to English literature some of its most brilliant gems, and who in his immortal eulogy upon Webster, in the opinion of competent judges, gave to the world one of the most finished and impressive examples ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... in adversity than in prosperity. For tribulation having nothing in itself that is lovable, save that it is God's gift, it is much easier to go by it straight to the will of God, and to unite ourselves to His good pleasure. Easier, I say, than by prosperity, which has attractions of its own that captivate our senses, and, like Dalila, lull them to sleep, working in us a subtle change, so that we begin insensibly to love for its own sake the prosperity which God sends us, instead of bestowing all our grateful love on God Who sends it, and to Whom all ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... of taking upon him the title of physician, under which he did not despair of insinuating himself into the pockets of his patients, and into the secrets of private families, so as to acquire a comfortable share of practice, or captivate the heart of some heiress or rich widow, whose fortune would at once ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... and scar as usual, but in Roman dress. Cleopatra seems to me, for all her Oriental dress, and although she wears a black wig, to be meant for Medea da Carpi; she is kneeling, baring her breast for the victor to strike, but in reality to captivate him, and he turns away with an awkward gesture of loathing. None of these portraits seem very good, save the miniature, but that is an exquisite work, and with it, and the suggestions of the bust, it is easy to reconstruct the beauty of this terrible being. The type is that most admired by the ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... heritage revere All learning, and all thought. The painter's fame Is thine, whate'er thy lot, who honorest grace. And need enough in this low time, when they, Who seek to captivate the fleeting notes Of heaven's sweet beauty, must despair almost, So heavy and obdurate show the hearts Of their companions. Honor kindly then Those who bear up in their so generous arms The beautiful ideas of matchless forms; For were these not portrayed, ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... further efforts to captivate Perigal, and persuade him to fulfill the desire of her heart. Now, he was constantly about her on any and every excuse, when he would either kiss her or caress her hair. After dinner, they sat by the fire, where they drank coffee and smoked cigarettes. Presently, ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... of genius has in the same degree that brilliancy, that glory which is at once patent even to the most ignoble beholder. Thus, certain pictures by Raphael, such as the famous Transfiguration, the Madonna di Foligno, and the frescoes of the Stanze in the Vatican, do not at first captivate our admiration, as do the Violin-player in the Sciarra Palace, the portraits of the Doria family, and the Vision of Ezekiel in the Pitti Gallery, the Christ bearing His Cross in the Borghese collection, ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... think neither Rachel nor I could have thought of anything so sure to captivate a shallow mortal like ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... us, which is the poetry of love. Nothing intellectual, no intoxication of thought or feeling is mingled with that sensual intoxication which those charming nonentities excite in us. Nevertheless, they captivate us like the others do, but in a different fashion, which is less tenacious, and, at the same ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... liked the taste of the foreign liquor, and their eyes were not insensible to the charms of coined gold, of which they had before seen but little. The epaulettes also and stars and ribands were such baubles as were well adapted to captivate the fancy of semi-civilized chieftains; and the Russian fabrics were a temptation to all, especially to the women; but to the honor of the Circassians, the tribes with few exceptions disdained to sell their birthright of independence for a mere mess of pottage. Relations of trade and amity could ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... have the best opportunity of judging, and that they are slow in forming a judgment. The good opinion and confidence of the members of the same profession, like the King's name on the field of battle, is "a tower of strength;" it is the title of legitimacy. The ambition to please the people, to captivate jurors, spectators, and loungers about the court room, may mislead a young man into pertness, flippancy, and impudence, things which often pass current for eloquence and ability with the masses; but the ambition ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... adorns herself to captivate Jove, her zone is fringed with a hundred tassels, and her ear-rings are described in terms corresponding exactly to the triple leaves ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... caused, doubtless, by your looks, for which you ought not to quarrel with Heaven. If the feeble charms which my countenance displays have exposed me to the misfortune of my lover abandoning me, Heaven could not better soften such a blow than by making use of you to captivate that heart. I ought not to blush for an inconstancy which indicates the difference between your attractions and mine. If this change makes me sigh, it is from foreseeing that it will be fatal to your love; amidst the sorrow caused by friendship, I am ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere
... officers of the court of Oswi, the religious king of the Northumbers: he was very dear to his prince, and was beholden to his bounty for many fair estates, and great honors; but neither the favors of so good and gracious a king, nor the allurements of power, riches, and pleasures, were of force to captivate his heart, who could see nothing in them but dangers, and snares so much the more to be dreaded, as fraught with the power of charming. At the age therefore of twenty-five, an age that affords the greatest relish for pleasure, he bid adieu ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... my mind his father had been fool enough to indoctrinate the same, which was no wise beginning: and when I looked upon the man before me, still so handsome, so apt a speaker, with so great a variety of fortunes to relate, I saw he was the very personage to captivate a boyish fancy. John Paul had left only that morning; it was not to be supposed he had been altogether dumb upon his favourite subject: so that here would be Mr. Alexander in the part of Dido, with a curiosity inflamed to hear; and there would be the Master, like a diabolical Aeneas, full of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... charm by the most exquisite strains, by the harmony of the choir. These powerful incentives are repeated in a hundred different places; the metropolises, parishes, the numerous religious houses, the simple oratories, sparkle with emulation to captivate all the powers of the religious and devout mind. Thus a taste for the arts becomes general by means of so potent a lever, and artists increase in number and rivalry. Under this influence the celebrated schools of Italy and Flanders flourished; and the finest works which now ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... Cinderilla fair, Whom she instructed with such care. She gave to her such graceful mien, That she, thereby, became a queen. For thus (may ever truth prevail) We draw our moral from this tale. This quality, fair ladies, know Prevails much more (you'll find it so) T'ingage and captivate a heart, Than a fine head dress'd up with art. The fairies' gift of greatest worth Is grace of bearing, not high birth; Without this gift we'll miss the prize; Possession gives us ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... favored, and treat him to a disquisition on the nature of government and the "beauty" of nullification, striving to make a lasting impression on his intellect. Clay would rise, extend his hand with that winning grace of his, and instantly captivate him by his all-conquering courtesy. He would call him by name, inquire respecting his health, the town whence he came, how long he had been in Washington, and send him away pleased with himself and enchanted with Henry Clay. And what was his delight to receive a few weeks after, in his distant village, ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... that you are very fond of gold. Now, how is it that you don't barter your virtue for gold sometimes? I am a philosopher, Ursula, and like to know everything. You must be every now and then exposed to great temptation, Ursula: for you are of a beauty calculated to captivate all hearts. Come, sit down and tell me how you are enabled to resist such temptation ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... much beauty?" This beauty, indeed, was possessed by different lovers; a subject on which the modern hero had many refinements, and seemed to soar in the clouds. He adored at a respectful distance, and employed his valour to captivate the admiration, not to gain the possession of his mistress. A cold and unconquerable chastity was set up, as an idol to be worshipped, in the toils, the sufferings, and the combats of ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... bent forms and tattered garments, sit patiently awaiting a demand upon them. Perhaps they could afford better clothing; but they have an eye for artistic effect, and a true sense of the fitness of things. The children, waiting here for the same purpose, captivate our attention by their large black eyes and gypsy complexions. How graceful and kitten-like they are, in their lazy, lolling motions! The young girls are such as are not seen out of Italy, with large, beautifully ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... remain unknown. He would not relinquish her. She should be a daughter to him. He realized that he had a curious love for the child, that she had attracted him from the first. In the years to come her beauty and winsomeness would captivate a husband, with the ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... ability and less morality was the opinion generally entertained, though probably not often expressed. Hence it was not unnatural that the sentimental dandies and high-toned villains of Bulwer's earlier novels should have been the heroes to captivate all hearts. ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... the last degree. Sometimes the invaders showed great audacity. Early in June Colonel Fitch at Albany scrawls a hasty note to Winslow: "Friday, 11 o'clock: Sir, about half an hour since, a party of near fifty French and Indians had the impudence to come down to the river opposite to this city and captivate two men;" and Winslow replies with equal quaintness: "We daily discover the Indians about us; but not yet have been so happy as to ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... summat about loading and firing, d'ye see, but as for working ship? why, a corporals guard of the Boadishey's marines would back and fill on their quarters in such a manner as to surround and captivate them all in half a glass. As there was no one to deny this assertion, the marines of the Boadicea were held in a corresponding degree ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... the dear old poet felt, and then put them together at the table. Lowell laid himself out to captivate Bryant, and did so completely, for his tact was such that in society no one whom he desired to interest could resist him; and our dinner was a splendid success. Of all present at it only Durand ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... enjoyment more intense, Shall captivate each ravish'd sense, Than thou could'st compass in the bound Of the whole year's unvarying round; And what the dainty spirits sing, The lovely images they bring, Are no fantastic sorcery. Rich odours shall regale ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... affected with anything, he did not confide the execution of his design to the languid and precarious operation of our reason; but he endued it with powers and properties that prevent the understanding, and even the will; which, seizing upon the senses and imagination, captivate the soul before the understanding is ready either to join with them, or to oppose them. It is by a long deduction, and much study, that we discover the adorable wisdom of God in his works: when we discover it, the effect is very different, not only ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... the most ferocious. The author does not boast, like Abyssinian Yakoob, "of no ungracious figure": nor does he, like another beau garcon, Mr. Gibbon, prefix his pleasing countenance to captivate the ladies. ...
— No Abolition of Slavery - Or the Universal Empire of Love, A poem • James Boswell
... is the curious characteristic of the ill-fated House of Stuart that, through all their misfortunes, through all their degradations, they have contrived to captivate the imagination and bewitch the hearts of many generations. The Stuart influence upon literature has been astonishing. No cause in the world has rallied to its side so many poets, named or nameless, has so ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... life, no doubt I shall one day do this; but the plan is not yet ripe. Put that aside, then, and since on the other hand Jeanne de Matel does not captivate me, perhaps I had better think of another abbess even less known, and whose career was one of more tranquil endurance, less wandering and more concentrated, and at any ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... swarms, it is customary to take the shovel from the grate, and the key from the door, and to produce therewith a species of music which is supposed to captivate and soothe the winged tribe. If the bees do not settle on any neighbouring tree where they may have the full benefit of the inharmonious music, they are generally assailed with stones. This is a strange sort of proceeding, but it is orthodox, and there is nothing the villagers despise more than ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 237, May 13, 1854 • Various
... to captivate the fancy with a pretty or striking figure than to move the judgment with sound reason.... His (the speaker's) picture appeals to the mind's visible sense, hence his power over us, though his analogies are more apt to be false ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... would tell thee! List to thee o'er and o'er when near; Yet passioned glances thou dost silence— My words bind to my lips in fear. How, by mere homely speaking, can I E'en hope to captivate thine ears? I swear it would be food for laughter— If it were ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi
... to every people and kindred by signs; no other discourse, indeed, being needful, than such as the mackerel-fisher holds with his finned quarry, who, if other bait be wanting, can by a bare bit of white rag at the end of a string captivate those foolish fishes. Such piscatorial oratory is Satan cunning in. Before one he trails a hat and feather, or a bare feather without a hat; before another, a Presidential chair, or a tidewaiter's ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... with English people now and after. Where Baltimore first picked him up, I know not: but they have been to Russia together; Baltimore by twelve years the elder of the two: and now, getting home towards England again, they call at Reinsberg in the fine Autumn weather;—and considerably captivate the Crown-Prince, Baltimore playing chief, in that as in other points. The visit lasted five days: [20th-25th September, 1739 (OEuvres de Frederic, xiv. p. xiv).] there was copious speech on many things;—discussion ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... inspire love; some please the sight without captivating the affections. If all beauties were to enamour and captivate, the hearts of mankind would be in a continual state of perplexity and confusion—for beautiful objects being infinite, the sentiments they inspire should ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... countenance, the gesture, and the voice. Here I might run into a pleasing enumeration of many instances of this; but, fearing that I have already trespassed upon your patience, shall desist. Permit me, however unusual, to close with a wish. May none of those unruly passions ever captivate ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... John J. Crittenden and John C. Breckenridge in Kentucky. Tradition still has stories to tell of their exploits and prowess, their wit and eloquence, even their commonplace sayings and doings. They were marked men who never failed to captivate their audiences. The system of stump oratory had many advantages as a public force and was both edifying and educational. There were a few conspicuous writers for the press, such as Ritchie, Greeley and Prentice. But the day of personal journalism ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... "Will captivate by its humor, set all the heart strings to vibrating by its pathos, flood one's being in the great surge of patriotism ... a story that vastly enriches ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... be published anonymously; for as a historical essay it possesses extraordinary merit, and does great credit not only to its author, but to English scholarship and acumen. [19] It is not, indeed, a book calculated to captivate the imagination of the reading public. Though written in a clear, forcible, and often elegant style, it possesses no such wonderful rhetorical charm as the work of Renan; and it will probably never find half a dozen readers where the "Vie de Jesus" has found a hundred. ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... of life and death, honour and disgrace, to millions. I had made up my mind how to behave; the poets I had read had taught me but too well. Convinced that a little wilfulness would, from its novelty, be most likely to captivate one who had been accustomed to dull and passive obedience, I allowed my natural temper to be unchecked. The second day after my arrival, the Kislar Aga informed me that the sultan intended to honour me with a visit, and that the baths and dresses were prepared. I replied ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... smiling [at these things], you have said truly that where pleasure of the body is greater and fuller, there is the exile of the soul; and where luxury reigns there the soul is a wretched and afflicted hand-maid. O Paris! How well-suited art thou to captivate and deceive souls! In thee are the nets of the vices, in thee the arrow of Hell transfixes the hearts of the foolish! This my John has felt and therefore he has named it an exile. Would that you were leaving behind that exile of yours just as it is, and were hastening to your ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton
... comical, as he saw the unusual vivacity of the reigning beauty when in his immediate society. Her voice took instinctively a softer and more musical tone; she showered her glances upon him, dazzling and prismatic as the rays from her diamonds; she seemed determined to captivate him without the tedious process of a siege. And, in truth, he must have been an unimpressible man that could steel himself against the influence of a woman who satisfied every critical sense, who piqued all his pride, who stimulated all that was most manly in his nature, and without ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... of vision and revelation, with a complete scheme of reconciliation, with correlated catalogues of Shint[o] and Buddhist gods, with liturgies, with lists of old popular festivals newly named, with the apparatus of art to captivate the senses, K[o]b[o] forthwith baptized each native Shint[o] deity with a new Chinese-Buddhistic name. For every Shint[o] festival he arranged a corresponding Buddhist's saints' day or gala time. Then, training up a band of disciples, he sent them ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... when once divine truth gets entry into the heart of a man, and becomes one with his will and affection, it will quickly command the whole man to practise and execute, and then he that received "the truth in love" is found a walker in the truth. Many persons captivate truth in their understandings, as the Gentiles did, they hold or detain it in unrighteousness, but because it hath no liberty to descend into the heart, and possess that garrison, it cannot command the man. But ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... that Mr. Heady (Uncle Juvinell) has produced a very entertaining and instructive volume. It is written in a racy, sprightly style, that cannot fail to captivate the mind. Partaking himself of the buoyancy and good humor of boyhood, the author is able to write for the boys in a manner that is at once attractive and profitable. He has written a live book of one, who, "though dead, ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... has now laid down the external pomp of Protector, and, like Cincinnatus, has withdrawn to retirement, but not with the same view. This modesty is to captivate the crowd, who are to call on him to convert the ploughshare into an Imperial sceptre! I have excellent information to this effect, having found means to obtain it from behind the ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... on the Duke of Orleans all those gifts which usually captivate mankind. His physiognomy was agreeable and prepossessing: to a natural eloquence he joined uncommon sweetness of manner. Brave, full of liveliness, his penetration was never at fault, and his abilities would have procured for him distinction at the head of councils or armies. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... they vividly set forth the love and hate, the craft and hypocrisy, the courage and revenge of his race. Moreover, they portray in a truly dramatic manner the innermost life and thought of the Moslem, while they captivate the senses by a magnificent panorama of exquisite banquets, lovely characters, charming ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... assigned them of ultimate judges and punishers of heresy. Thus the several orders of monks became a kind of regular troops or garrisons of the Romish church; and though the temporal interests of society, still more the cause of true piety, were hurt, by their various devices to captivate the populace, they proved the chief supports of that mighty fabric of superstition, and, till the revival of true learning, secured it from any ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... singular atrocity of this woman gives her a sort of infamous claim to notice. She was born in Paris in 1651; being daughter of D'Aubrai, lieutenant- civil of Paris, who married her to the Marquis of Brinvilliers. Although possessed of attractions to captivate lovers, she was for some time much attached to her husband, but at length became madly in love with a Gascon officer. Her father imprisoned the officer in the Bastille; and, while there, he learned the art of compounding subtle and most mortal poisons; and, when he was released, he taught it to ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... not give his mistress the features which captivate him; he is not then master of loving, or not loving the object of his tenderness; he is not master of his imagination or temperament. Whence it evidently follows, that man is not master of his volitions and desires. "But man," you will say, "can resist his desires; therefore he is free." ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... to drink. He had made me sensual. He had not yet assumed the coarse, red-faced brutish aspect that he wore later, but he had a coarse, red-faced brutish soul. Alas! his body was still fine enough to tempt me. And his mind was devilishly clever enough to captivate my fancy. He took away my faith, even my faith in motherhood. That was ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... I warn thee that there have been very many pleasanter companions than she will make thee, for she is excessively irritable and passionate. Withal she is so fond of admiration, that I have no doubt she would give chace to the ugliest toad that ever devoured a worm, so she could captivate him. She ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... then, ought this Gospel to be received by the guilty, perishing creatures, for whose rescue from perdition it is designed. How should this display of divine compassion melt and captivate the hearts of those, whose sins have been thus expiated, and for whom an offer of free pardon and endless blessedness has ...
— The National Preacher, Vol. 2 No. 7 Dec. 1827 • Aaron W. Leland and Elihu W. Baldwin
... through the Stearns' dinner to captivate Dave Darrin. He, without diminution of love and loyalty to Belle Mead, was glad to be on friendly terms with ...
— Dave Darrin's Second Year at Annapolis - Or, Two Midshipmen as Naval Academy "Youngsters" • H. Irving Hancock
... a tall, slim young fellow, with an olive, Velasquez-like face, and dark, tender eyes. I have seldom seen a man who was more likely to excite a woman's interest, or to captivate her imagination. His expression was, as a rule, dreamy, and even languid; but if in conversation a subject arose which interested him he would be all animation in a moment. On such occasions his colour would heighten, his eyes gleam, and he could speak with ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the Rosebud was the widow Toothaker. Her troubles had come early, and, tedious as they seemed, had passed before all her bloom was fled. She was still fair enough to captivate a bachelor, or with a widow's cheerful gravity she might have won a widower, stealing into his heart in the very guise of his dead wife. But the widow Toothaker had no such projects. By her watchings and continual cares her heart had become knit to her first husband with a constancy ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... incapable of feeling the beauties which come from delicate concords and truly artistic combinations. They verge towards barbarism, and require things that are strange, odd, dazzling, and peculiar to captivate their jaded senses. Such we take to be the condition of Parisian society now. The tone of it is given by women who are essentially impudent and vulgar, who override and overrule, by the mere brute force of opulence and luxury, women of finer natures and moral tone. The court of France is ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... on, go on! say what you please: I will not hate anything yet. Why have you torn up by the root all these little mountain ash-trees? This is the season of their beauty: come, Ternissa, let us make ourselves necklaces and armlets, such as may captivate old Sylvanus and Pan; you shall have your choice. But why ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... power that associations have of rendering picturesque nature more picturesque still. Therefore, a show-place, to be regarded as such in the true sense of the word, must possess features of interest of another kind, underlying the external loveliness of form and outline that merely please and captivate the eye. ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... Miss O'Neill's Juliet came to captivate London, another idol of the stage was led to the altar by William, first Earl of Craven. Louisa Brunton, for that was the name of Craven's Countess, was cradled, like her successor, on the stage; for her father was well known at every ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... opinions, decrees, traditions, and doctrines that they taught distinct from the true and holy doctrines of the prophets. And they made to themselves disciples by such doctrine, men that they could captivate by those principles, laws, doctrines, and traditions: and therefore such are said to be of the sect of the Pharisees: that is, the scholars and disciples of them, converted to them and to their doctrine. O! it is easy ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... which my happiness is wrecked. I have ceased to please because I am not thirty-six years old. In the eyes of some men youth is thought an inferiority. There is nothing to imagine on an innocent face. I laugh frankly, and that is wrong; to captivate I ought to play off the melancholy half-smile of the fallen angel, who wants to hide her yellowing teeth. A fresh complexion is monotonous; some men prefer their doll's wax made of rouge and spermaceti and cold cream. I am straightforward; but duplicity ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... Barton as the famous Robin Hood. Emily Barton represented, with very good effect, Maid Marion, under the escort of young Snaffle of the Lancers, who rode over from the nearest Garrison Town to captivate some stray heart by personating Young Lochinvar. The other two sets, figuring in costumes as handsome as they were varied, were made up of the youth and beauty of the neighbourhood, with the exception of the bottom couple of the last set; here, Mrs. Fraudhurst appeared, gorgeously attired, as Sarah, ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... word "able," as I understand it, is applicable to those arts only which involve the exercise of the mind as a controlling factor. One may be a great orator, according to the usual acceptation of the term "great," and yet be only a declaimer and a rhetorician. That is to say, he may be able to captivate audiences by his superior action, as Demosthenes defines oratory to be, and at the same time his elocution and rhetoric may be unexceptionable, yet he maybe in fact totally lacking in every element which goes to ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... that fine young man thus cut down the day after he had been laughing and dancing in our gallery. Yet all people seemed to think of, when everybody went to condole with his young widow in her bed, was that she had set herself off to the best advantage to captivate M. de Nemours! ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... drawings of Piranesi, in the pictures of Rembrandt, one sees this grand language exhibited more truly. It is not picture, but certain primitive and leading effects of light and shadow, or lines and contours, that captivate the attention. I saw a picture of Rembrandt's at the Louvre, whose subject I do not know and have never cared to inquire. I cannot analyze the group, but I understand and feel the thought it embodies. At something similar Turner seems aiming; an aim ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... thee, yes, I do, And all thy blooming kindred too, (More than the works of art,) For in them, I can ever find Such beauty, skill and power combined, As captivate and soothe the mind, And ...
— The Snow-Drop • Sarah S. Mower
... face"—as Lucrece came before her—"is deep enough. Not deep like a river, but like a snake. I could do well enough with your plain, honest sister; but I love you not, Mistress Lucrece. Enville. Your graceful ways do not captivate me. Ah! it takes a woman to know a woman. And the men, poor silly things! fancy they know us better than we ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... avow, neither your birth, your hundred thousand pounds, nor your merit, would put you on a footing, in my estimation, with my Emily. You may form some idea of her power to captivate, and of her indifference to her conquests, when I mention that she once refused—but I forget, you don't know him, and therefore cannot be a judge. The thing is finally decided, and we shortly go into Westmoreland, and next week, the Moseleys ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... knowing how long his precarious power might last, for bettering his low and indigent circumstances. It appeared to him, that the traffic in Indians was the shortest way to riches. He therefore granted commissions to several persons, to assault, trepan and captivate as many Indians as they could, and resolved to turn the profits of such trade to his own private emolument. Not contented with this cruel method of acquiring wealth, he formed a design for engrossing the whole advantages arising to the ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... poor JONES, how sad your fate! The Law's stern coldness comes to freeze Your burning wish to captivate With words you know will always please— ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 13, 1892 • Various
... me until I was eighteen, and then one day I met a gentleman. Oh, my lad, it was no wonder I loved him; he was different from all the lads I had met in those parts, young, handsome, laughter-loving, just the man to captivate a lassie's heart. He married me, Scottish fashion, and on the day we were wed he told me he had received a letter which urged him to go back to his home at once. We were married secretly, my boy, because I was afraid ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... accepted theory is that each female should, at one or other period of her existence, captivate at least one of the opposite sex, though it will be found by experience that some species possess a far more potent influence for this purpose ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... Aeneas to a banquet in her palace, an invitation he gladly accepted, charging Achates to hasten back to the ships to announce their companions' safety and to summon Iulus or Ascanius to join his father. To make quite sure Aeneas should captivate Dido's heart, Venus now substituted Cupid for Iulus, whom she meantime conveyed to one of her favorite resorts. It was therefore in the guise of the Trojan prince that Cupid, during the banquet, caressingly nestled in Dido's arms and stealthily effaced from her heart ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... influence, except those who had the misfortune to be in disgrace at Court, which was to stand in lieu of all vices and all corruptions. A scheme of perfection to be realised in a Monarchy, far beyond the visionary Republic of Plato. The whole scenery was exactly disposed to captivate those good souls, whose credulous morality is so invaluable a treasure to crafty politicians. Indeed, there was wherewithal to charm everybody, except those few who are not much pleased with professions of supernatural virtue, ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... to be attributed, in part, to the sound of her voice, and to her blunt manner of speaking; for she was said to be a woman of great sense, and devotedly attached to the King and Madame de Pompadour. Some people pretended that she tried to captivate the King, and to supplant Madame: nothing could be more false, or more ridiculously improbable. Madame saw a great deal of these two ladies, who were extremely attentive to her. She one day remarked to the Duc d'Ayen,—[Afterwards Marechal de Noaines.] that ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... you to go to them!" said Mme. Verdurin, who regarded the President of the Republic only as a 'bore' to be especially dreaded, since he had at his disposal means of seduction, and even of compulsion, which, if employed to captivate her 'faithful,' might easily make them 'fail.' "It seems, he's as deaf as a post; ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... ever changes. If I ever come there again, I shall find the same houses and shops that I knew of old; the same holes in the pavements will cause my downfall; the same stiff hedges of lindens, the same clipped lilac bushes will captivate my fascinated gaze. Again shall I see the old Mayor who rules the whole town walking down the street with elephantine tread. What a feeling of security there is in knowing that you are walking there! And deaf old Halfvorson will still be digging in ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... instance, that the most mischievous doctrine of pantheism will surrender its elements of truth (for it has an important admixture of truth) to the formation of a new conception of God, which will appeal to and captivate the Indian mind and heart. Indeed, we are witnessing, this very day, even in the far West, the influence of India in her monistic overemphasis upon the divine immanence, working toward a new Christian conception of God. Modern ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... vacant for my reception, and learn the terms of my admission; and in three days' time returned with an engaging account of the place, the master, the regularity of the scholars, of an apartment secured for my reception, and, in short, whatever else might captivate my mother's opinion in favour of his scheme; and indeed, though he acted principally from another motive, as was plain afterwards, I cannot help thinking he believed it to be the best way of disposing of a lad sixteen years old, born to a pretty fortune, and who, at that age, could ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... had travelled on our globe from a desire to convert the gentiles. We therefore told them that they did well to shun them, because their intention was, not to teach, but to secure gain and dominion; and that they strive by various means first to captivate men's minds (animi), and afterwards to subject them to themselves as slaves: moreover, that they did well in not suffering their idea concerning God to be disturbed by such spirits. They said further, that these spirits also confuse them by asserting ...
— Earths In Our Solar System Which Are Called Planets, and Earths In The Starry Heaven Their Inhabitants, And The Spirits And Angels There • Emanuel Swedenborg
... Peregrine, the Commodore assisting at the ceremony as godfather. On Mrs. Pickle assuming the management of household affairs, Miss Grizzle directed her operations upon the Commodore, whom she was resolved to captivate and enslave, in spite of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... to the actual state of the society in which she lived. Her virtues were inherent in her character; every day developed them more and more, and they were such as to make the happiness of all who lived with her and to captivate the affection of all who really knew her. I have never lost anyone I loved before, and though I know the grief I now feel will soon subside (for so the laws of nature have ordained), long, long will it be before I forget her, or before my mind loses the lively impression ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... larger Urn, who at some few Miles distance is lost in the Ocean, which heaves it's broad Bosom to the Sight, and ends the Prospect with an immense Expanse of Waters. Tell me, EUPHEMIUS, would not such a Scene captivate the Heart even before the intellectual Powers discover Minerals in the Mountains; future Navies in the Woods; Civil and Military Architecture in the Rocks; healing Qualities in the smaller Streams; Fertility, that the larger Waters distribute ...
— Essays on Taste • John Gilbert Cooper, John Armstrong, Ralph Cohen
... I intend to have her with me very soon. Your mother is anxious that she should get into a high family, trusting that her beauty will captivate some of the members—a bad kind of speculation. I will advertise for a companion, and so arrange that your mother shall not see me; and when your sister does come to me, it shall not be as a companion, but as a child of ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... this desolate world did not fail to captivate them by its very strangeness. They were moving over this region as if they had been borne on the breath of some storm, watching heights defile under their feet, piercing the cavities with their eyes, going down into the rifts, climbing the ramparts, ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... we have a very fair specimen of the pseudo-philosophy which is so admirably adapted to captivate the half-informed, wholly unformed minds of the undiscriminating multitudes who have been taught little or nothing well except to believe in their right, duty, and ability to judge for themselves in matters for which a life-time of specialization were barely sufficient. A ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... The stage associates of Mile. Guimard called her "L'araignee," and Sophie Arnould christened her "the little silkworm," for the sake of the joke about "la feuille." But such spiteful raillery did not prevent her charming men to her feet whom greater beauties had failed to captivate. Houdon the sculptor molded her foot, and the great painters vied for the privilege of decorating the walls of her hotel. When she broke her arm, mass was said in church for her recovery, and she was one of the reigning toasts of Paris. Among ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... islands seemed afloat in an atmosphere of blue; their jungles rooting in the water's edge. The strange birds in the daytime, the flocks of parrots, the din of every kind of life, the flying foxes at night, the fragrant and spicy odours, captivate the senses. How delicious, too, the fresh fruits brought off by the Malays in their scooped-out logs, one's first taste of bananas, juicy shaddocks, mangoes, and custard apples - after months of salt junk, disgusting salt pork, and biscuit all dust and weevils. The water is so crystal-clear ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... manes tied over their heads, would advance with long tubes like monster bassoons, blowing with all their might, contorting their faces and bodies, and going through the most obscene and ridiculous motions to captivate their simple admirers. This, however, was only the feast; the ball then began, for the pots were no sooner emptied than five drums at once, of different sizes and tones, suspended in a line from a long horizontal bar, were beaten with fury, and all the men, women, and children, singing ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... generally regretted every definite step which he took. The glow of romance which had sustained him during the preliminary negotiations had faded entirely. A girl has to be possessed of unusual charm to continue to captivate B, when she makes it plain daily that her heart is the exclusive property of A; and Roland had long since ceased to cherish any delusion that Bessie March was ever likely to feel anything but a mild liking for him. Young Mr. Petheram had obviously staked out an indisputable claim. Her attitude toward ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... And kindly stopp'd the unfinish'd charm. But though not changed to owl or bat, Or something more indelicate; Yet, as your tongue has run too fast, Your boasted beauty must not last. No more shall frolic Cupid lie In ambuscade in either eye, From thence to aim his keenest dart To captivate each youthful heart: No more shall envious misses pine At charms now flown, that once were thine No more, since you so ill behave, Shall injured ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... so as to secure himself a position and a citizenship. Yet Kromitzki, with his reputation as a rich man, could have got all this, and money with his wife besides. Evidently Aniela attracted him personally and for some time. It is not to be wondered at that Aniela should captivate any one. ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... cip, cap(t)> (take): (1) receive, deceive, perceive, deceit, conceit, receipt, reception, perception, inception, conception, interception, accept, except, precept, municipal, participate, anticipate, capable, capture, captivate, case (chest, covering), casement, incase, cash, cashier, chase, catch, prince, forceps, occupy; (2) receptacle, recipient, incipient, precipitate, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... row of flaming spears, then changing into a silvery veil, undulating in wavy folds with the wind, every here and there interspersed with red sprays. These wonderful night effects are ever new, and never fail to captivate the soul." ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... of Napoleon Bonaparte was never too particular in regard to his facts, but those which he made use of he could array with such skill as to completely captivate the judgment of the unwary. In his History of the Civil War, all the enthusiasm of the writer, his easy flow of rhetoric, his vast fund of anecdote, and his characteristic inability to discriminate between truth and falsity, assert themselves. The chief importance of the work consists in ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... stimulated, by uncertainty not merely, but by the calm grace and indefinable sweetness which he did not remember in Eleanor, well as he had loved her before. He loved her better now. That charm of manner was the very thing to captivate Mr. Carlisle; he valued it highly; and did not appreciate it the ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... personification of abstract qualities had never been so happily executed before; the pure spirituality of the conception, the elegance and force of the language, the harmony and variety of the numbers, were all executed with a felicity which none before or since have reached. That these poems did not at once captivate the public attention cannot be accounted for by any cause hitherto assigned. We may not wonder that the multitude did not at once perceive their full beauties; but that, among readers of taste and learning, there should not have been found a sufficient number to set the example ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... tired," she said. I remember how drearily she said it, and how the tears glittered in her weary eyes. I remember, too, how, ten minutes later, I heard that amiable youth boasting of what had happened, and giving a hideous travestie of her attempts to captivate him, till at last my wrath was kindled, and, to his great confusion (for he was of a timid disposition), I spoke, and sharply, ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... of Russia seems to have laid himself out most ably at Berlin to captivate the King, and the army, and ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... age, Each heavenly daughter's triumphs we presage; Already see the illustrious youths complain, And pity monarchs doomed to sigh in vain. Thou too, the darling of our fond desires, Whom Albion, opening wide her arms, requires, 20 With manly valour and attractive air Shalt quell the fierce and captivate the fair. O England's younger hope! in whom conspire The mother's sweetness and the father's fire! For thee perhaps, even now, of kingly race, Some dawning beauty blooms in every grace, Some Carolina, to heaven's dictates true, Who, while the sceptred ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... men—the few Who wish they could be ladies too— Display a sprig of yellow Conspicuous in their buttonhole, To captivate a maiden soul ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... impressions. Historians, taking a bird's-eye view of their subject, portray its most general characteristics; they bring out only the prominent features, and sacrificing all the rest, draw pictures whose precision and simplicity captivate our minds. We finally get into the habit of seeing an epoch as they have painted it, and cannot imagine there was anything in it besides the qualities they specify. But when we read letters relating, without alteration or selection, events as they ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... and forced. Note that the native himself is not, naturally inclined to routine, but his mind is disposed to accept all truths, just as his house is open to all strangers. The good and the beautiful attract him, seduce and captivate him, although, like the Japanese, he often exchanges the good for the evil, if it appears to him garnished and gilded. What he lacks is in the first place liberty to allow expansion to his adventuresome spirit, and good examples, beautiful prospects for the future. It is necessary that ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal
... by every base and treacherous trick, to render Honoria Eversleigh an object of suspicion in the eyes of her husband. She had a double game to play; for she sought at once to gratify her ambition and her thirst for revenge. On one hand she wished to captivate Lord Sumner Howden; on the other she wanted to widen the gulf between Sir Oswald and ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... men you'll meet there; have your fun out first,' were the arguments most frequently put forward; and, in the excitement of breaking off Olive's engagement, even the Land League was forgotten. Olive hesitated, but at length allowed herself to be persuaded to at least try to captivate the marquis before she honoured the captain with her hand. No sooner said than done. Mrs. Barton lost not a moment in writing to Captain Hibbert, asking him to come and see them the following day, if possible, ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... set of Geisha girls who were masked below the eyes, one of whom sang what she fondly imagined was a typical American song calculated to captivate her American audience. She sang through her nose, the better to imitate the nasal voices which to the British mind is the national characteristic of the American, and her song had the refrain beginning "For I am an Ammurikin Girl," telling how ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... to hamlet, and chateau to chateau; of testing humanity, high and low, on the romantic side, and, at the end of a victorious conspiracy, of rearing in France the standard of the monarchy—all this was too dazzling not to captivate a young and high-spirited woman, bold through very ignorance of the obstacles she had to surmount, heroic in the hour of danger through levity; able to endure all but ennui, and ready to lull any misgivings with the casuistry of ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... the seclusion of the smoking-room, and was already encircled by the clouds which float on the heaven of tobacco, when I heard a rustling of silk outside, and saw the smile of Mrs. Roylake beginning to captivate ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... me for Venus, contains charms which I can make mine own, and their lustre must be extreme, since beauty herself, Venus, requires them to adorn herself. Would it be a great crime to snatch a few? To captivate a god, who has been my lover, to recover his affection, and put an end to my torture, can anything that I may do be unlawful? Let me open it. What vapours cloud my brain? and what do I behold issuing from this open casket? Love, unless thy compassion ...
— Psyche • Moliere
... such boots as they themselves could make from the hides which they themselves had cured. In Lincoln's boyhood the hunting-shirt and leggings made of skins were a sufficiently respectable garb; and buckskin breeches dyed green were enough to captivate the heart of any girl who wished a fashionable lover; but by the time that he had become a young man, most self-respecting men had suits of jeans. The ugly butcher's knife and tomahawk, which had been essential as was the rapier to ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... comes to the surface, and the courtesan is the queen of ignoble fancy, that has brought forth this most perfect embodiment of purity among the nations. This is of itself one of those miracles which captivate the mind and charm the imagination, the living paradox in which the soul delights. How did she come out of that stolid peasant race, out of that distracted and ignoble age, out of riot and license and the fierce thirst for ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... When they do appear, they are generally disposed of at a high price. [Sidenote: GEORGIAN SLAVE.] This beautiful captive, who proved to be a Georgian, was neither bashful nor timid. She saluted us with smiles, severing her raven locks, and trying to captivate the spectators, by making her beauty appear to the greatest advantage. However, it did not seem to possess any power over the Turks; and as to the Christians, they are not allowed to purchase slaves publicly, though sometimes it is done indirectly, and by the assistance ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... then in a signally untriumphant; and is not now worth any knowledge but a transient accidental one. Chetardie came hither about Stanislaus and his affairs; tried hard, but in vain, to tempt Friedrich Wilhelm into interference;—is naturally anxious to captivate the Crown-Prince, in ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Cheronean Sage, is thine. '(Why should this praise to thee alone belong!) 'All else from Nature's moral path decline, 'Lured by the toys that captivate the throng; 'To herd in cabinets and camps, among 'Spoil, carnage, and the cruel pomp of pride; 'Or chaunt of heraldry the drowsy song, 'How tyrant blood, o'er many a region wide, 'Rolls to a thousand thrones its ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... and yet if you have a mind to it he will intertaine you, your fill, and peradventure stumble as little and as seldome against the rules of his tongue, as the best Master of arts in France. He hath no skill in Rhetoricke, nor can he with a preface fore-stall and captivate the Gentle Readers good will: nor careth he greatly to know it. In good sooth, all this garish painting is easilie defaced, by the lustre of an in-bred and simple truth; for these dainties and quaint devices serve but to ammuse the vulgar sort; unapt and ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... outweigh. Earthly minds, like mud walls, resist the strongest batteries: and though, perhaps, sometimes the force of a clear argument may make some impression, yet they nevertheless stand firm, and keep out the enemy, truth, that would captivate or disturb them. Tell a man passionately in love, that he is jilted; bring a score of witnesses of the falsehood of his mistress, it is ten to one but three kind words of hers shall invalidate all their testimonies. QUOD VOLUMUS, FACILE CREDIMUS; what suits our wishes, ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... idea we would convey is, that the mother had rather endeavored to fill her child's mind with real information and knowledge, than to teach her that the chief end and aim of life were to learn how to captivate a husband; she preferred to make her daughter a true and noble-hearted woman, possessed of intrinsic excellence, rather than to make her marketable for matrimonial sale; to give her something that would prove to her under any and all circumstances, ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... at Calais and at Paris with the most gratifying honours: he was then entirely the man to captivate the French. The beauty of his person, the grace of his manner, his consummate taste in all things, the exceeding variety and sparkling vivacity of his conversation, enchanted them. In later life he has grown more reserved and profound, even in habitual intercourse; and attention ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... them if we would reach the genuine human heart. One of the reasons why he detested what he called stump oratory was because he believed it to be a great school of insincerity. Its end was not truth, but plausibility. It was the effort of interested men to throw opinions into such forms as might most captivate uninstructed men; to keep back every unpopular side; to magnify everything in them that was seductive. He once said to me that two great curses seemed to him eating away the heart and worth of the English people. One was drink. The other was stump oratory, which accustomed men ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... in art, Charmed and delighted his devoted heart, A gorgeous sunset, and a moonlit sky, Ne'er failed to captivate ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... he grow as his aunt reads on that you might have heard a mouse squeak. But for the low, soft tones of Joyce no smallest sound breaks the sweet silence of the day. Miss Kavanagh is beginning to feel distinctly flattered. If one can captivate the flitting fancies of a child by one's eloquent rendering of charming verse, what may one not aspire to? There must be something in her style if it can reduce a boy of seven to such a state of ecstatic attention, considering ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... be carefully noted: the expression of the face should make the gesture of the arms forgotten. Here the talent of the orator shines forth. He must captivate his public in such a way that his arm gestures will be ignored. He must so fascinate his auditors that they cannot ask the reason of this fascination, nor remark ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... we should so receive truth, as that it might rule and be master in us, captivate judgment, will, and affections, and break out into the practice. And this recommendeth ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... the charms of the place and the security from wild beasts were all calculated to captivate their fancy and render them contented, the poor Sakais drooped and pined for the vicissitudes of their wild life in the woods where comfort was unknown and food was sometimes scarce. Their thoughts, their very souls were ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... prefer one of Titian's or Murillo's Virgins to one of Raffaelle's heavenly Madonnas. The less there is of marked expression or vivid color in a countenance or character, the more difficult to delineate it in such a manner as to captivate and interest us: but when this is done, and done to perfection, it is the miracle of poetry in painting, and of painting in poetry. Only Raffaelle and Correggio have achieved it in one case, and only Shakspeare ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... is no wonder that a girl not out of her teens should be captivated by the young poet whom the world was beginning to worship for his genius as very few men are worshipped in their prime, and who could captivate young and old, man, woman, and child, when he chose to try. As yet, his habits of life and mind had not told upon his manners, conversation, and countenance as they did afterwards. The beauty of his face, the reserved ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... the timorous Trout I wait To take, and he devours my bait, How poor a thing, sometimes I find, Will captivate a greedy mind: And when none bite, I praise the wise Whom vain allurements ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... love,' upon which he poured forth a mystical incomprehensible rhapsody, with extraordinary vehemence of manner and power of lungs. There was nothing like eloquence in his sermon, no musical periods to captivate the ear, no striking illustrations to charm the imagination; but there is undoubtedly something in his commanding figure and strange, wild countenance, his vehemence, and above all the astonishing power of his voice, its compass, intonation, and variety, which ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... soon make me forget that I was transplanted; he could act dog, tame rabbit, fox, pony, and a whole nursery collection alive, but he was sometimes absent for days, and I was not of a temper to be on friendly terms with those who were unable to captivate my imagination as he had done. When he was at home I rode him all round the room and upstairs to bed, I lashed him with a whip till he frightened me, so real was his barking; if I said 'Menagerie' he became a caravan of wild beasts; I undid a button of his waistcoat, and it was a lion ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the ring, and began to sing the "Suwanee River" in a manner which he intended should captivate his audience; but he had neglected to give the band any orders, and the consequence was that, when he commenced to sing, Leander began to play "Old Dog Tray," a proceeding which mixed ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis
... Henry was still superior to William; and yet the latter had no common share of those attractions which captivate ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... self was never worth a pin; But still it suits the superficial mind— The slight observer of the human kind; The airy, fleety, vain, and hollow thing, That only feeds on wily flattering. 'Man owns its powers?' And what will not man own To gain his end—to captivate—dethrone? The truth is this, whatever he may feign, You'll find your greatest loss his greatest gain; For like the bee, he will improve the hour, And all day long he'll hunt from flower to flower, And when he sips the sweetness all away, For aught he cares, the flowers ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... virtue the poet hath given her; which, with these sort of critics, might make her pass for a wit; and that is, her love of a joke—'For gentle Dulness ever loved a joke.' Her delight in games and races is another of her bastard virtues, which would captivate her nobler sons, and draw them to her shrine; not to speak of her indulgence to young travellers, whom she accompanies as Minerva did Telemachus. But of all her bastard virtues, her FREE-THINKING, the virtue which she anxiously propagates amongst her followers in the Fourth Book, might, one would ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... philosopher enough to know that these will elevate a man under any circumstances. But Fenwick had no decided points in his character. He had limited intelligence, and no energy arising from clear perceptions and strong resolutions. He was a man fit to captivate a young and innocent girl, but not to hold the affection of ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... of beauty is not the only lure by which a creature may win its mate. Sound may captivate as effectively as beauty. This is true of insects as well as of birds. Certain insects at least advise their mates of their presence by means of a sound which they emit. This is particularly noticeable ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... and Augier. But in "Fromont and Risler," not only is the plot a trifle stagy, but the heroine herself seems almost a refugee of the footlights; exquisitely presented as Sidonie is, she fails quite to captivate or convince, perhaps because her sisters have been seen so often before in this play and in that. And now and again even in his later novels we discover that Daudet has needlessly achieved the adroit arrangement of events so useful in the theatre and ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... never to have worn the abominable European costume—those hideous habits, and frightful hats, which render the men so ridiculous, so ugly, that in truth there is not a single good quality to be discovered in them, nor one spark of what can either captivate or attract! There comes to me at last a handsome young prince from the East, where the men are clothed in silk and cashmere. Most assuredly I'll not miss this rare and unique opportunity of exposing myself to a very serious and formidable ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... to read the same Scriptures from the Bible, as if the awe which it is supposed the fiends entertain for Holy Writ depended, not on the meaning of the words, but the arrangement of the page, and the type in which they were printed. This singular species of flattery was designed to captivate the clergyman through his professional opinions; others were more strictly personal. The afflicted damsel seems to have been somewhat of the humour of the Inamorata of Messrs. Smack, Pluck, Catch, and Company, ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... to captivate the ear, (Angels such melody might deign to hear,) To anticipate on earth the joys of heav'n, 'Twas Handel's task: to him that ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... with the taste, want of taste she called it, shown by Mr Arabin in paying so much attention to Madame Neroni. It was as infallible that Madeline should displease and irritate the women, as that she should charm and captivate the men. The one result followed naturally on the other. It was quite true that Mr Arabin had been charmed. He thought her a very clever and a very handsome woman; he thought also that her peculiar afflictions entitled ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... by a peculiar play of feature and of voice, and with unique and original gestures, which seemed to excite and captivate ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... and vice versa, as long as he or she was in demand; a successful man had nearly every woman of prominence at his feet. The men planned their attacks upon the women whom they desired, and the women connived, posed, and set most ingenious traps and devised most extraordinary means to captivate their hero. As the century wore on and the vices and appetites gradually consumed the healthy tissues, there sprang up a class of monsters, most accomplished roues, consummate leaders of theoretical and practical immorality, who were without conscience. To gain their ends, they manipulated ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... prevail upon; overcome, carry; bring round to one's senses, bring to one's senses; draw over, win over, gain over, come over, talk over; procure, enlist, engage; invite, court. tempt, seduce, overpersuade[obs3], entice, allure, captivate, fascinate, bewitch, carry away, charm, conciliate, wheedle, coax, lure; inveigle; tantalize; cajole &c. (deceive) 545. tamper with, bribe, suborn, grease the palm, bait with a silver hook, gild the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... those of Bonaparte, Jourdan, Hoche, Marceau and Klber. Next year his initial successes were interrupted by the Preliminaries of Leoben, and he procured for himself a mission into Italy in order to meet General Bonaparte, who spared no pains to captivate the brilliant young general from the almost rival camps of Germany. Provisionally appointed commander of the "Army of England," Desaix was soon transferred by Bonaparte to the expeditionary force ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... early knowledge of their own beauty. If a young woman once thinks herself handsome, she never doubts the truth of any man that tells her he is in love with her; for if she believes herself charming enough to captivate him, 'tis natural to ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... childish Filipinos, who have no needs; and that the cura has infinite advantages over the governor, for his buffets do not offend, his requests oblige, and his love to the village and his disinterestedness captivate and interest these people, and make them as wax. Thus indeed can it be said that the cura is the soul of the village. In any province where its ruler is united with the curas, where the latter honor the alcalde and instruct him of all that happens, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... "gets things done." He builds bridges and industries; he manages markets and men. His eye is on the practical; he is dependable, rapid, and efficient. In an industrial civilization he is the great heroic type. The statesman and the railroad builder, the newspaper editors and the political leaders captivate the imaginations as they control ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... the art leg they limped on, as Fulkerson phrased it. They had not merely to deal with the question of specific illustrations for this article or that, but to decide the whole character of their illustrations, and first of all to get a design for a cover which should both ensnare the heedless and captivate the fastidious. These things did not come properly within March's province—that had been clearly understood—and for a while Fulkerson tried to run the art leg himself. The phrase was again his, but it was simpler to make the phrase than to run the leg. The difficult ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... were strolling back, Yejiro and I, we came, in the way, upon another species of fish. The bait, which was well designed to captivate, bade for the moment to exceed even the angler's anticipations. It was a sort of un-Christmas tree with fishing-pole branches, from which dangled articulated figures, bodied like men, but with heads of foxes, tortoises, and other less likelybeasts, ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... may contrast the character of Carlo Maratti, who, in my own opinion, had no great vigour of mind or strength of original genius. He rarely seizes the imagination by exhibiting the higher excellences, nor does he captivate us by that originality which attends the painter who thinks for himself. He knew and practised all the rules of art, and from a composition of Raffaelle, Caracci, and Guido, made up a style, of which its only fault was, that it had no manifest defects ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds |
