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Charm   /tʃɑrm/   Listen
Charm

noun
1.
Attractiveness that interests or pleases or stimulates.  Synonyms: appeal, appealingness.
2.
A verbal formula believed to have magical force.  Synonyms: magic spell, magical spell, spell.  "Inscribed around its base is a charm in Balinese"
3.
Something believed to bring good luck.  Synonym: good luck charm.
4.
(physics) one of the six flavors of quark.



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"Charm" Quotes from Famous Books



... ten years of age, a virgin, or a woman quick with child. The first of the three was the easiest to be procured, and a boy was brought in from a neighbouring house, who knew nothing at all of the robbery; in case his age should not be guarantee sufficient, a sort of charm was wrought, which proved to the professor's satisfaction that he was free from sin. The magician then recited divers incantations, drew a circle on the floor, and placed the boy, who was rather frightened, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various

... hedges and the ploughed fields, just showing a tinge of green, to the cottages and farms they passed here and there. To many people each mile would have seemed just like the last, but to Mona each had a charm of its own. She knew all the houses by sight, and knew the people who dwelt in some of them, and when by and by the van drew near to Seacombe, and at last, between a dip in the land, she caught her first glimpse of the sea, her heart gave a great leap, ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... expression of exasperated nerves, and tuned themselves to the meter of that pretty, childish voice, intelligently giving utterance to the thoughtful philosophy that had always soothed him. It lost some of its familiarity and gained a new charm, coming from that small, round mouth which had an almost faultless instinct for pronunciation. A feeble germ of fatherly pride began to sprout beneath the soil upon which the child's intelligent reading fell like ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... marks a distinct advance in the quality of books offered for girls. No lack of action—no sacrifice of charm. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne

... nothing of him after this moment, and he fell a victim, not to the violent symptoms of the epidemic, but to a slow and wearing fever, which undermined his strength as well as his capacity. To a friend who came to ask after him when in this disease, Pericles replied by showing a charm or amulet which his female relations had hung about his neck—a proof how low he was reduced, and how completely he had become a passive subject in the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various

... rank of apostolical and evangelical theologians. But in all his books Owen labours under the fatal drawback of a bad style. A fine style, a style like that of Hooker, or Taylor, or Bunyan, or Howe, or Leighton, or Law, is such a winning introduction to their works and such an abiding charm and spell. The full title of Dr. Owen's great work runs thus: The Nature, Power, Deceit, and Prevalency of the Remainders of Indwelling Sin in Believers—a title that will tell all true students what awaits them when ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... With a feeling of deep indignation Teresa Zampieri determined after her engagement with Cartillos expired, that he should never acquire another farthing by her. She speedily became the pet of the people, yet notwithstanding her surprising good fortune, nothing had the power to charm her out of the subdued manner so unnatural in one so young, or throw a lightsome sparkle into those large, dark, melancholy eyes, while almost the first exclamation made by every one on hearing her sing, was, "Her voice sounds like a fountain of tears!" The only thing that ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray

... hope of reaching the wished-for goal. The leaders of the allies had already shewn the ablest French generals, in several grand engagements, that they possessed sufficient means and talents to dissolve the charm of their invincibility. They were now about to enter the lists with the hero whom a thousand panegyrists, during a period of near twenty years, had extolled far above the greatest generals of ancient and modern times; whose enemies had to boast of but one ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)

... would pack my portmanteau and move on to Brussels, but to-day finds me still at Bruges. The charm of the old Flemish city grows on me. To-day I carried my peregrinations further a-field. I wandered about the Quais and stood on the old bridge where one obtains such a perfect glimpse, through a trellis of chestnuts, of the red roof and spires ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al

... weak state, and after his long captivity, found her the more charming playmate because she so strangely reminded him of his own little sisters. She thought herself his little nurse, and missing from his broth the yellow petals that she had been wont to think the charm of tisane, the housewifely little being had trotted off, unseen and unmissed, across the quadrangle, over the embankment, where she had often gathered them, or attended on the 'lessive' on the river's brink; and now she broke forth exultingly, ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... dish, then laid on the potatoes, covering with water and adding salt. I then covered this with another wash-basin, and started my fire. We were not allowed to have fires, and this gave the mulligan all the charm of ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung

... herself at his feet and wept. The sobs hurt him, yet he must not lift her. She begged for a charm—for a spell—for black magic to strike dead the wearer of the red bears and the blue beads, for all wild things a wild ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan

... uniform on, I said, as I looked in the glass, "It's one to a million That any civilian My figure and form will surpass. Gold lace has a charm for the fair, And I've plenty of that, and to spare, While a lover's professions, When uttered in Hessians, Are eloquent everywhere!" A fact that I counted upon, When I first ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... beg you come to-night and dine. A welcome waits you, and sound wine— The Roederer chilly to a charm, As Juno's breath the claret warm, The sherry of an ancient brand. No Persian pomp, you understand— A soup, a fish, two meats, and then A salad fit for aldermen (When aldermen, alas, the days! Were really worth their mayonnaise); A dish of grapes whose clusters won Their ...
— The Sisters' Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... neighbourhood was appeased. His old friends came back to him, he began to receive overtures to write in some of the humbler papers, to lecture on his adventures in the Yorkshire and Lancashire towns. Daddy expanded, harangued, grew daily in good looks and charm under his wife's eyes. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... and as secrecy adds a charm to an amour, Clara received a long letter and a telescope from Edward. The letter informed her that, whenever he could, he would make his appearance in his schooner off the south of the island, and await a signal made by her at a certain window, ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat

... the counties of Westmoreland and Cumberland, is the famous "Lake Country" of England. It does not cover a large area—in fact, a good pedestrian can walk from one extremity of the region to the other in a day—but its compact beauties have a charm of rugged outline and luxuriant detail that in a condensed form reproduce the Alpine lakes of Northern Italy. Derwentwater is conceded to be the finest of these English lakes, but there is also great beauty in Windermere and Ulleswater, Buttermere and Wastwater. ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... construction, excellence of form, purity of style, perfection of imagery, truth to nature, clearness of statement, humanly possible situations, humanly possible people, fluent narrative, connected sequence of events—or philosophy, or logic, or sense. No; the rich, deep, beguiling charm of the book lies in the total and miraculous ABSENCE from it of all these qualities—a charm which is completed and perfected by the evident fact that the author, whose naive innocence easily and surely wins our regard, and almost our worship, does not know that ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... not in anywise use or exercise any manner of witchcraft, charm, or sorcery, invocation, or other prayers, than may stand with God's law ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 64, January 18, 1851 • Various

... in the life of Plato when the ethical teaching of Socrates came into conflict with the metaphysical theories of the earlier philosophers, and he sought to supplement the one by the other. The older philosophers were great and awful; and they had the charm of antiquity. Something which found a response in his own mind seemed to have been lost as well as gained in the Socratic dialectic. He felt no incongruity in the veteran Parmenides correcting the youthful Socrates. ...
— Parmenides • Plato

... schooners, had lately returned empty-handed, after a week's foraging; and now it was our turn. They said the mills were all burned; but should we go up the St. Mary's, Corporal Sutton was prepared to offer more lumber than we had transportation to carry. This made the crowning charm of his suggestion. But there is never any danger of erring on the side of secrecy, in a military department; and I resolved to avoid all undue publicity for our plans, by not finally deciding on any until ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... pains with my education,—at least with those parts of it which were congenial to her taste and mine; for, to follow with ardour whatever was the impulse and fancy of the moment, was at once the charm and the danger of my aunt's character. She could not resist the temptation of initiating me, perhaps too early, into those studies which captivate the imagination and excite the feelings. German and Italian we studied together. The ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton

... course, we stopped as short a time as possible; and then, bidding adieu to the sea, struck inland over the Campagna to Rome. The country now grows wild, desolate, and lonely; but it has a special charm of its own, which they who are only hurrying on to Rome, and to whom it is an obstruction and a tediousness, cannot, of course, perceive. It is dreary, weird, ghostly,—the home of the winds; but its silence, sadness, and solitude are both soothing and impressive. After miles and miles up and down, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various

... of the enormity of his conduct. On the 2nd of July, 1810, he used the following language in a letter to the Hon. Bushrod Washington: "I do not retain the smallest degree of that feeling which roused me fifteen years ago against some individuals. For the world contains no treasure, deception, or charm which can seduce me from the consolation of being in a state of good will toward all mankind, and I should not be mortified to ask pardon of any man with whom I have been at variance for any injury which I may have done him. If I could now present myself before your venerated uncle it would be ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... who can ride up to stag-hounds on a straight running day must have a perfect hunter, in first-rate condition, and be, in the strongest sense of the term, "a horseman." But it wants the uncertainties which give so great a charm to fox-hunting, where there are any foxes. There is no find, and no finish; and the checks generally consist in whipping off the too eager hounds. As a compensation, when the deer does not run cunning, or along roads, the ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey

... to let Firio and his little cavalcade pass. All the while she continued to look at him through the screen of her half-closed lashes in a way that set her repose and charm apart as something precious and cold and baffling. Now he realized that he had made a breach in the barrier of their old relations only to find himself in a garden whose flowers fell to ashes at his touch. He saw the light that enveloped her as an ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... haven't it with you, now?" The girl's eyes were very wistful. To her imagination, there was a potent charm in this lying symbol, which had been the companion of the man ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley

... close his earthly course, He, in his soul's strong purpose, finds new force, Though weak with age, though by long travel worn: Thus reaching Rome, led on by pious love, He seeks the image of that Saviour Lord Whom soon he hopes to meet in bliss above: So, oft in other forms I seek to trace Some charm, that to my heart may yet afford A faint resemblance of thy ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock

... removed his hat. Through the confusion clouding his thoughts, he both foreglimpsed humiliation and was dimly aware of a personality of force and charm: of a well-poised figure cloaked in a light pongee travelling-wrap; of a face that seemed to consist chiefly in dark eyes glowing lambent in the shadow of a wide-brimmed, flopsy hat. He was sensitive to a hint ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance

... married couple who completely gave themselves up to the charm of life; indeed they possessed every good thing they could desire—health and ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... he would cry; "it can't be; you couldn't live in the midst of it and not feel the charm; with all your poetry of soul you couldn't help! Loudon," he would go on, "you drive me crazy. You expect a man to be all broken up about the sunset, and not to care a dime for a place where fortunes are fought for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... conviction that the Sabbath-day, the holy day, the day on which alone the great majority of the Christian world can spend their hours as they please, is ill passed (if passed entirely) within brick walls, listening to an earth-born preacher, charm he never ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope

... state or understand the facts, a metaphysical insight seems to be required. There are more things in language than the human mind easily conceives. And many fallacies have to be dispelled, as well as observations made. The true spirit of philosophy or metaphysics can alone charm away metaphysical illusions, which are always reappearing, formerly in the fancies of neoplatonist writers, now in the disguise of experience and common sense. An analogy, a figure of speech, an intelligible theory, a superficial observation of the individual, have ...
— Cratylus • Plato

... resting-place in America, where there is at least one public picture gallery and several private ones of the first class, the best efforts of American painters, and perhaps still more those of American sculptors, are full of suggestion and charm; while I cannot believe that the student of modern architecture will anywhere find a more interesting field than among the enterprising and original works of the American ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead

... he, "are we believers in such nursery tales and old wives' superstitions? Pshaw! The charm shall soon be broken. Halls! Franz! Winebutt! Thieving innkeeper! Rascally corkdrawer! where are ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... anxious expectation Of transformation Into a lovely nymph bedecked with flowers; And longed impatiently to prove those powers— Those dangerous powers—of witchery and wile, That should all mortal men mysteriously beguile; For life as running water lost its charm Before the exciting hope of doing so much harm. And yet the hope seemed vain; Despite the Poet's strain, Though the days came and went, and went and came, The seasons changed, the Brook ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... a member of society, your neighbor being another member, and each of you members one of another, as two fingers on a hand, the obvious conclusion being that unless you love your neighbor as yourself and he reciprocates you will both be the worse for it. He conveys all this with extraordinary charm, and entertains his hearers with fables (parables) to illustrate them. He has no synagogue or regular congregation, but travels from place to place with twelve men whom he has called from their work as he passed, and who have ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw

... in the Sheldonian from the first the gallery under the organ was always set apart for 'ladies and gentlewomen'. 'Oxford', to quote J.R. Green once again, 'is simply young', but when he goes on to say 'she is neither historic nor theological nor academical', he exaggerates; the charm of Oxford lies in the fact that her youth is at home among survivals historic, theological, and academical; and the old ...
— The Oxford Degree Ceremony • Joseph Wells

... of it. It was scrawled over in a very illegible hand, and was moreover much stained with perspiration, so that I had considerable difficulty in making myself master of its contents; but at last I accomplished the following literal translation of the charm, which was written in bad Portuguese, but which struck me at the time as being the most remarkable ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow

... girl's college that has ever been written." —N. Y. Press. "To any woman who has enjoyed the pleasures of a college life this book cannot fail to bring back many sweet recollections; and to those who have not been to college the wit, lightness, and charm of Patty are sure to be no less ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan

... teachings in favor of the religion of sentiment, as it has been called, inaugurated by Chateaubriand, and which is that attractive form seen in the writings of Madame Swetchine and the La Ferronnais. These elevated souls throw a charm around the immolation of self, which the egotism ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... veritable French 'Uncle Remus' that Mr. Harris has discovered in Frederic Ortoli. The book has the genuine piquancy of Gallic wit, and will be sure to charm American children. Mr. Harris's ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton

... products, inasmuch as it produced the most definite practical result in moulding opinion, and a result of the highest importance. But it is not, as we have seen, a work of art, or even an organic work at all, and it cannot compare in literary charm with some other of the author's works. We do not turn to the Cromwell again and again, as we do to the French Revolution, or to Sartor, which we can take up from time to time as we do a poem or a ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison

... come so near he did not have the strength to finish. Her face, with its indefinable charm, was raised to his, as she dropped these words one by one from her lips in lingering cadence: "Frederick—do you love ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green

... community too Mr. Gwynne was recognised as a gentleman, a gentleman not in appearance and bearing only, a type calculated to repel plain folk, but a gentleman in heart, with a charm of manner which proceeded from a real interest in and consideration for the welfare of others. This charm of manner proved a valuable asset to him in his business, for behind his counter Mr. Gwynne had a rare gift of investing the very ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... all healed—now," she said, smiling up at him; "didn't your mother ever 'kiss the place to make it well' when you were a little boy, and didn't it always work like a charm? It won't show at all, either, under ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes

... Amelia Mary (1731-1814), daughter of Charles, second Duke of Richmond, as celebrated for her beauty and charm as her sisters, Lady Holland, Lady Louisa Connolly, and Lady Sarah Bunbury, The reference is evidently to her approaching ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue

... ascetics. Also, she had heard the remark many times made that these women of the lower orders had "no morals." Just what did such a remark mean? What would be the attitude of such a girl as Mary Burke—full-blooded and intense, dissatisfied with her lot in life—to a man of culture and charm like Hal? She would covet him, of course; no woman who knew him could fail to covet him. And she would try to steal him away from his friends, from the world to which he belonged, the future of happiness and ease to which he was entitled. She would have powers—dark and terrible ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair

... from the unaccustomed feminine charm, were a series of mule races, near the old camp, for soldiers and laughing Kaffir boys. The men's dinner itself was enough to mark the day. It is true everything was rather skimped, but after the ordinary short rations it was a treat to get any kind of pudding, any pinch of tobacco, and sometimes ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson

... revealed to our hearts by the same signs; by the sweetness of their tongues, the tenderness in their eyes, by their fair, pale faces, and their gracious ways. All these things are so blended and mingled that we feel the charm of their presence, yet cannot tell in what that charm consists, and every movement is an expression of a divine soul within. I loved passionately. This newly awakened love satisfied all my restless longings, all my ambitious dreams. She was beautiful, wealthy, and nobly ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... in Sexual Attraction. The Admiration for High Stature. The Admiration for Dark Pigmentation. The Charm of Parity. Conjugal Mating. The Statistical Results of Observation as Regards General Appearance, Stature, and Pigmentation of Married Couples. Preferential Mating and Assortative Mating. The Nature of the Advantage Attained by the Fair in Sexual Selection. The Abhorrence ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... perch for the radiant wanderer. The inhospitable saurian dives with embarrassing suddenness and dips the airy visitor into the "rank water." The butterfly finds no charm in the gloomy place and flies away, which less ethereal wanderers might likewise be fain to do. Now and then the stillness that reigned over that home of malign things was broken by the sound of a boat-horn on a lumber ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... had been in Arizona for nearly three years, yet the wonder of the desert had not ceased to charm him, and now as he stopped his horse to rest, his eyes sought the vast distances stretched in every direction, and revelled in the splendour of ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill

... the evening boat for Clayton there was not a more miserable man in all the whole wide world than Hubert Varrick. He paced the deck moodily. The thousands of little green islands upon which the search-light flashed so continuously, had little charm for him. Suddenly as the light turned its full glare upon a small island midway up the stream, rendering each object upon it as clearly visible as though it were noonday, under the strong light Hubert Varrick's eyes fell upon a sight ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey

... most becoming and tasteful manner, and faces aglow with an enthusiasm that bespoke a life within sustained by visions of spiritual things, would often be seen to shake hands and add a word of greeting and hope which would impart a charm and meaning to the singing far above what the humble words of the song without these accessories could convey. As the rich chorus of matchless voices poured out in perfect time and tune, "Rise, shine, and give God the glory," the thoughts of ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward

... ship's biscuits I had in my pocket. The fingers closed slowly on it and held—there was no other movement and no other glance. He had tied a bit of white worsted round his neck—Why? Where did he get it? Was it a badge—an ornament—a charm—a propitiatory act? Was there any idea at all connected with it? It looked startling round his black neck, this bit of white thread from beyond ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad

... mythology, all that you had ever seen of statuary, thronged upon you at that supreme moment, and, evolved from your own fancy, the river god was born. It is your own, chere enfant, as much the offspring of your genius as the exquisite atmosphere you have caught, the charm of light and shadow that you have brought away. Accept my felicitations. You have little more to ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte

... to see her footprints in the sand, he must turn and flee. Nothing could be wiser; for love implies an absurd and boundless admiration for the loved one, and her mother, appearing to the lover in the very image of his beloved without the charm and liveliness of youth, will deter him from that brief spell of folly which is so necessary for ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois

... effect will tell upon our silly young ladies, whose heads are turned with a foreign accent and a hairy lip. You acted the whiskered fop to a charm. No one could have ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur

... of darkling life where sin Laughs piteously that sorrow should not know Her own ill name, nor woe be counted woe; Where hate and craft and lust make drearier din Than sounds through dreams that grief holds revel in; What charm of joy-bells ringing, streams that flow, Winds that blow healing in each note they blow, Is this that the ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... will call Nellie, is a very ordinary looking girl and below the average of intelligence, but as tractable and obedient as she is ingenuous. She is wholly without the charm which would naturally attract the eye ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various

... this divine glove, the golden-honey voice—of all in Paris the only one to pity and to understand? Even to love the mystery of that lady and to build my dreams upon it?—to love all the more because of the mystery? Mystery is the last word and the completing charm to a young man's passion. Few sonnets have been written to wives whose matrimony is more than five years of ...
— The Beautiful Lady • Booth Tarkington

... face becoming crimson, but my heart was sore, so in my simplicity I bought the charm and was smuggling it into my bag when I became aware that one of my fellow-passengers, a lady, was looking down ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... could rise to fame, and make his mother happy, knowing at the same time that he was capable of faithfully loving his wife. But soon his own will created, although he did not know it, a genuine passion. He began to study the old maid, and, by dint of the charm which habit gives, he ended by seeing only her beauties and ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac

... feeling must learn the signification of at least the most common among festival symbols and tokens. Especially is such knowledge necessary to the student of Japanese art: without it, not only the delicate humour and charm of countless designs must escape him, but in many instances the designs themselves must remain incomprehensible to him. For hundreds of years the emblems of festivity have been utilised by the Japanese in graceful decorative ways: ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... they had only migrated to the other big cafe, on the other side of the Place de la Comedie. It is very possible. I did not go across to find out. It was my perfect idleness that had invested the girl with a peculiar charm, and I did not want to destroy it by any superfluous exertion. The receptivity of my indolence made the impression so permanent that when the moment came for her meeting with Heyst I felt that she would be heroically ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad

... That charm whose virtue warms the world beside, Was by these tyrants to our use denied. While yet they deigned that healthsome balm to lade, The putrid water felt its powerful aid; But when refused, to aggravate our pains, Then fevers raged and revelled through our veins; Throughout my frame I felt its deadly ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... touched a lute to soft notes of complaining and praise and patience and desire, was to make, for the moment, even the most obdurate understand her charm. But if I at all seem to disfavor her, it may be because she was too costly a toy for such as I, save, indeed, when she condescended to do a grace, for kindness' sake, to one whose revenues were of small estate. It is plain that such ladies have their fascination, and in a measure ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... in Carolina; yet I never heard of any Surveyor that was kill'd, or hurt by them. I have myself gone over several of this Sort, and others; yet it pleased God, I never came to any harm. They have the Power, or Art (I know not which to call it) to charm Squirrels, Hares, Partridges, or any such thing, in such a manner, that they run directly into their Mouths. This I have seen by a Squirrel and one of these Rattle-Snakes; and other Snakes have, in some measure, the same Power. The Rattle-Snakes have many small ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson

... two sitting-rooms which Mrs. Fisher had taken for her own was a room of charm and character. She surveyed it with satisfaction on going into it after breakfast, and was glad it was hers. It had a tiled floor, and walls the colour of pale honey, and inlaid furniture the colour of amber, and mellow books, many in ivory ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim

... yet seen the sea, he longed when a boy for a long sea voyage, and he would sail little paper boats down the stream to prove the fact. In truth, that is what Shakib would prove. The devil and such logic had a charm for ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... The last days of frost are experienced for the most part in April, but also in May to the north of fifty-five degrees. The spring is exceptionally beautiful in central Russia; late as it usually is, it sets in with vigour and develops with a rapidity which gives to this season in Russia a special charm, unknown in warmer climates; and the rapid melting of snow at the same time raises the rivers, and renders a great many minor streams navigable for a few weeks. But a return of cold weather, injurious to vegetation, is observed throughout central and eastern ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various

... to carry in your pocket, Mr. Gwynne," said the girl in her hoarse, low-pitched voice. "No harm c'n ever come to you as long as you got this with you,—in your pocket er anywheres. Hit's a charm an old Injin chief give my Pap when he wuz with the tribe, long before I wuz born. Pap lost it the day before he wuz tooken up by the sheriff, er else he never would ha' had setch bad luck. I found it day ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... dimpled elbows, her hair pushed on her forehead, and her general appearance so deliciously business-like and agreeably professional that the dusts of flour that were so prominent a feature in her costume seemed only an additional charm. ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... green woods and green shades of Cobham would recur to his memory even in far-off Lausanne, and the last walk that he ever enjoyed—on the day before his fatal seizure—was through these woods, the charm of which cannot be better defined than in ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin

... of meaning, but Robinette refused to hear it. She had succumbed as quickly to his charm as he to hers, but while she still had command over her heart she did not intend parting with it unless she could give it wholly. She knew enough of her own nature to recognize that she longed for a rowing, not a drifting mate, and that ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... are wandering from Count Cavour and Professor Botta. We have to thank the latter for enriching the literature of his adopted country with a memoir which in the lucid beauty and transparent flow of its style reminds the Italian scholar of the charm of Boccaccio's limpid narrative, and is besides animated with a patriot's enthusiasm and elevated by a statesman's comprehension. A more cordial, heart-warming book we have not for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various

... Mediterranean sky; a music super-European, which would assert itself even amid the tawny sunsets of the desert; a music whose soul is akin to the palm-trees; a music that can consort and prowl with great, beautiful, lonely beasts of prey; a music whose supreme charm is its ignorance of Good and Evil." For he came with some of the light and careless and arrogant tread, the intellectual sparkling, the superb gesture and port, of the musician of the new race. The man who composed such music, one knew, had been born on some sort ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... perfectly true, nor have I ever seen one to this day. There is a kind of "hospitality" which consists of giving yourself a grand treat at a tavern or cafe, and inviting your strangers to it to help you to be glorified. But to very domestic people and utter Philistines, domestic life lacks the charm of a brass band, and the mirrors and gilding of a restaurant or hotel; therefore, what they themselves enjoy most, they, with best intent, but most unwisely, inflict on more civilised folk. But in America and England, where ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... the altar, Mr. Keller and Minna are followed by Doctor Dormann (taking his annual holiday, this year, in England). The doctor gives his arm to the woman of all women whom Jack worships and loves. My kind and dear aunt—with the old bright charm in her face; the firm friend of all friendless creatures—why does my calmness desert me, when I try to draw my little portrait of her; Minna's second mother, standing by Minna's side, on the ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins

... the distant woods; the graceful forms of hemlock and elm; the dim twilight vistas always cool and soft with emerald mosses redolent with the breath of pine and sweet scented fern—all combine to make this a place of wonderful charm where ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... genealogical tree, or a coat-of-arms, and what cared this child of thirteen summers whether Fritz Wendel was the son of a prince or a peasant? He pleased her because he was young and handsome, and he had one other great charm, he was her first lover. Every one else called Mademoiselle von Sehwerin a child, and jested with little Louise. The princess royal had begged her from her mother, as a sort, of plaything with which to amuse her lonely hours, and the title "maid of honor" was only a jest, which ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... where ladies are admitted without shoes or stockings, or playing the darky at Earl's Court! Yes, but for Jimmy, that's where she would have been! Or else the Parisienne, in Russia! She, an English girl, my! And Lily fervently touched her lucky charm: oh, work, work, thank goodness for it! And Lily rendered homage to work and sprang from her chair to shake hands with Tom, who had come ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... Cross Keys; Whose chosen waiters, Samuel, Archibald, Helped by the boots and marker at billiards, Wait, as the smoke-filled, crowded chamber Rings to the roar of a Gaelic chorus— Me rather all those temperance hostelries, The soda siphon fizzily murmuring, And lime fruit juice and seltzer water Charm, as a wanderer out in South Street, Where some recruiting, eager Blue-Ribbonites Spied me afar and caught by the Post Office, And crimson-nosed the latest convert Fastened ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray

... held thousands spellbound and breathless, could not submit easily to losing in such a way the only friendship that had ever meant much to her. The man who had just told her that she had lost her charm for him meant that she was sinking to the level of her surroundings, and he was the only man she had ever believed that she loved. Two years ago, and even less, she would have been generously angry with him, and would have spoken out, and perhaps all would have been over; but those ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford

... be right, sir," said the tramp politely. "I don't dispute your word. I ought to be friendly with that fellow, as I see he is a brother of mine. He belongs to my order. I can tell by his watch-charm—that square bit of enamel with the rising sun in the middle, and the letters 'I. O. U.' in red, white, and blue, around it. Yes, he is O. K. I have been a member of many fraternities, and in better days I was the keeper of the 'Hoot Mon' in our local ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald

... place. He has made himself one with pupils and faculty and trustees and public in such friendly fashion that he may rightly say 'we' from any point of view. His many readers will look for noteworthy diction amounting to a new use of words, grace of speech and charm of phrase, a startling power of insight, a passion for social service and the revelation of the spiritual in all human affairs, with the inspiration which compels. These things Dr. Peabody's readers ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... its soul. You have nothing but a dead carcass left on your hands. Color, play of feature, the varying modulations of voice, the laugh, the smile, the informing inflections, everything that gave that body warmth, grace, friendliness, and charm, and commended it to your affection, or at least to your tolerance, is gone, and nothing is left, but a pallid, ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... good Albius. [Exeunt all but Albius. Alb. O, what a charm of thanks was here put upon me! O Jove, what a setting forth it is to a man to have many courtiers come to his house! Sweetly was it said of a good old housekeeper, I had, rather want meat, than want guests, especially, if they be courtly guests. For, never ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson

... conduct—obtain an honorable and agreeable position, and live with persons of every rank, the most distinguished in their several walks,—persons not precisely of his own class,—on that insensible footing of equality which is, or which was, the charm and honor of social life in France. For my own part, during those years,—happy ones I may call them,—I had endeavored, not without a fair degree of success, to arrange an existence combining dignity with ease. To write ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... charm which never failed him, and in his time won more foes than his sword ever conquered, the King drew me into my room, where I found De Vic, Vitry, Roquelaure, and the rest. They all laughed heartily at my surprise; nor was Maignan, who was the ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman

... Colds. Borax for Cold Settled in Throat. "For a cold in the throat, dissolve a piece of borax, the size of a pea, in the mouth and don't talk. It will work like a charm." This is an old and well tried remedy and is very good for colds or sore throat. It acts by contracting the tissues and in that way there is less congestion ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... arrived in Moscow on a fine frosty day, and when he put on his fur coat and warm gloves, and walked along Petrovka, and when on Saturday evening he heard the ringing of the bells, his recent trip and the places he had seen lost all charm for him. Little by little he became absorbed in Moscow life, greedily read three newspapers a day, and declared he did not read the Moscow papers on principle! He already felt a longing to go to restaurants, clubs, dinner-parties, anniversary celebrations, and he felt flattered ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... towards the kitchen, and, seeing the woman, he gave Simpson a look in which there was only contempt. "You've hid behind the law once, and this time it's petticoats. The open don't seem to have no charm for you. But—" He didn't finish, there was no need to. Every one knew and understood. He put up his revolver and walked ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning

... comfort and happiness of others! This disposition adorns with peculiar grace the female character. Solomon, describing a virtuous woman, says, "In her tongue is the law of kindness." If you cultivate this disposition at all times, and in all places, your presence will add a charm to every circle; you will honor your Master; and your ability to advance his cause will be greatly enhanced. In your efforts to do good, with the law of kindness in your lips, you can penetrate where, without ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb

... force with which she tied her shoe when the lacing came undone, the flirt over shoulder she gave her black braid when she was excited or warm, her manner of studying,—book on desk, arms folded, eyes fixed on the opposite wall,—all had an abiding charm for Seesaw Simpson. When, having obtained permission, she walked to the water pail in the corner and drank from the dipper, unseen forces dragged Seesaw from his seat to go and drink after her. It was not ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... long and died slowly, and the Christian hymn-writers wrote in its decadence. It was then an instrument that has lost its fineness, and keenness, and polish—worn out and ineffective,—not the language of the men whose thoughts still charm the world, and who by its deft use gained for themselves and for their work immortality. It has little of the subtilty of expression, the variety of cadence, or the intellectual possibility, of the Greek of Homer, Plato, ...
— Hymns of the Greek Church - Translated with Introduction and Notes • John Brownlie

... features with the bloom of health upon them, into her dark eyes with their depths of motherly pride and joy, at her snowy neck and ivory arms bare to the summer heat, and longest at the wavy silver of her hair, that crowned her beauty with an almost supernatural charm. ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe

... power of a mistress of a family. "Her occupation is gone." She becomes a wanderer. Whilst her youth and beauty last, she may enjoy that species of delirium, caused by public admiration; fortunate if habit does not destroy the power of this charm, before the season of its duration expire. It was said to be the wish of a celebrated modern beauty, "that she might not survive her nine-and-twentieth birth-day." I have often heard this wish quoted for its ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... aunt Jane's second best. We are familiar with the heroine of romance whose foot is so exquisitely shaped that the coarsest shoe cannot conceal its perfections, and one always cherishes a doubt of the statement; yet it is true that Rebecca's peculiar and individual charm seemed wholly independent of accessories. The lines of her figure, the rare coloring of skin and hair and eyes, triumphed over shabby clothing, though, had the advantage of artistic apparel been given her, the little ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... honest fellow, he was troubled at the thought that the Seagull would think he had stolen her mantle and purse. And he began to wonder how he could restore them to her the soonest. Then he remembered that the mantle had some hidden charm that enabled the bearer to transport himself at will from place to place, and in order to make sure of this he wished himself in the best inn of the town. In an ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various

... it," he said gravely, but his lips curled a little as he watched her delight bring back her color, her smiles, her every fairy charm. ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... strength, no virile grip to take his fate in his own hands and mould it like a man. He only mourned his disadvantages, and sometimes blamed destiny, sometimes a congenital infirmity of purpose, for the dreary course of his life. Nature alone could charm his sullen moods, and that not always. Now and again she spread over the face of his existence a transitory contentment and a larger hope; but the first contact with facts swept it away again. His higher aspirations were neither deep nor enduring, and yet the man's love of nature was lofty and just, ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... too looked at her and thought what a beautiful woman she was, in her own way. She was very small, rounded in her figure almost to stoutness, and possessed the tiniest and most beautiful hands and feet. But her greatest charm lay in the face, which was almost infantile in its shape, and delicate as a moss rose. She was exquisitely fair in colouring—indeed, the darkest things about her were her violet eyes, which in some lights looked almost ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard

... about right for a watch charm when it cools," he said, with a return of his customary self-command. "I promised you the first specimen. I'll catch ...
— The Moon Metal • Garrett P. Serviss

... exquisite phrasing. But Bourget lacks poetic ardor, and in metre is always a little artificial. Although he went on writing poetry for some years, he found few readers until he turned to prose. When the 'Essais de Psychologie Contemporaine' appeared in 1883, the public were delighted with their original charm. Taking five authors whom he knew and loved particularly,—Baudelaire, Renan, Flaubert, Taine, and Stendhal,—he wrote a brilliant, profoundly psychologic exposition of their minds and temperaments. The scientific explanation was fervid with ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... movements of armies; but that I was, on the contrary, to bear in remembrance the adage about "brevity" being the "soul of wit," and, when I had nothing to write, to write nothing. By so doing, it was added, I should please the editor and charm the public, one of whose minor griefs is, as regards newspapers, that it is brought into a state of disgust with every event of this life long before it has happened, and thoroughly nauseated with it long after it is past,—to say nothing ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne

... ordinary Japanese reader to-day can enjoy these early productions of his native muse with about as little difficulty as the English reader finds in studying the poets of the Elizabethan era. Moreover, the refinement and the simple charm of the Many[o]sh[u] compositions have never been surpassed, and seldom equaled, by later ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn

... over a child whom she loved at the bottom of her heart with a kind of wild passion, though she would menace and strike him, and who often precipitated these paroxysms by denying his mother that duty and affection which were, after all, the great charm and pride of ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli

... charm in the scene. The poplars were in tender leaf. The moon, round and brilliant, was rising just above the mountains to the east, as we made our bed and went to sleep with the singing of ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland

... pistol, and the threat effectually silenced all objections on the part of the guide, who meekly continued to move on, as though under the influence of some charm which he ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... the pomps and tumults of the world, we would take up our happy life again and live it out as we had begun it, in the free air and the sunshine, with the friendly sheep and the friendly people for comrades, and the grace and charm of the meadows, the woods, and the river always before our eyes and their deep peace in our hearts. Yes, that was our dream, the dream that carried us bravely through that three months to an exact and awful fulfilment, the thought of which would have killed ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain

... altered not only her outward sensibilities but the obscure temperamental forces which controlled in her the laws of attraction and repulsion. What she had liked yesterday she was frankly wearied of to-day. What she had formerly hated she now found to be full of a mysterious charm. Books bored her, and her mind, in spite of her effort at restraint, dwelt longingly upon the trivial details which made up Gerty's life—upon those bodily adornments on which her friend had staked her chance of married ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

... sweethearts. I believe Wetzel loved a lass once; but he was an Indian-killer whose hands were red with blood. He silenced his heart, and kept to his chosen, lonely life. Jonathan does not seem to realize that women exist to charm, to please, to be loved and married. Once we twitted him about his brothers doing their duty by the border, whereupon he flashed out: 'My life is the border's: my ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey

... connection between the idea of death and the convulsions of body and soul in combat and in death. Human language, human wisdom, are only a puppet-show of stiff mechanical dolls by the side of the grim charm of reality and the creatures of mind and blood, whose desperate and vain efforts are strained to the fixing of a life which crumbles away with ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... gave you sorry rest: The cause was thereof truly Nothing but very envy; Wherefore now, gentle esquire, Forgive me, I you desire, And help, I you beseech, Telemachus to a leech, That him may wisely charm From the worms that do him harm; In that ye may do me pleasure, For he is my chief treasure. I have heard men say, That come by the way, That better charmer is no other, Than is your own dear mother. I pray you of ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley

... Lisle liked better than being on night picket duty. Other men shirked it, but to him there was something delightful to stand there almost alone, rifle in hand, watching the expanse of snow for a moving figure. There was a charm in the dead silence. He liked to think quietly of the past and, somehow, he could do so far better, while engaged on this duty, than when lying awake in his little tent. The expanse and stillness calmed him, and agreed far more with his mood ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty

... has added much to the charm of his book by his spirited translations, which give excellently both the ring and sense of ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson

... suffer because of them, she must certainly have given him up at times. He had never, to her thinking, known how to put a note properly on paper; his letters were perfectly fascinating, but they lacked a final charm in being often written on one side of half-sheets, and numbered in the upper right-hand corner, like printer's copy. She had to tell him that he must bring his mother to call upon her; and then he was so long doing it that Louise imagined a timidity in ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells



Words linked to "Charm" :   speech, incantation, catch, protect, spoken language, high energy physics, language, high-energy physics, speech communication, control, enamour, persuade, whammy, conjuration, voice communication, talisman, flavour, witch, mesmerize, amulet, work, magnetize, hoodoo, curse, glamour, attract, hex, voodoo, hold, particle physics, spoken communication, siren call, winsomeness, command, juju, siren song, jinx, physical object, magnetise, fetich, flavor, spellbind, attractiveness, object, mesmerise, fetish, oral communication



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