"Fascinate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... taking my measure, and labeling the visible marks of my personality. Then she came graciously forward, her step reminding me, in its smooth, gliding motion, of some graceful animal of the jungle that might both fascinate and ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... seemed to fascinate his eyes. He stared at it fixedly, and augured ominously of Barker's intentions, since that worthy obviously alluded to his having smiled in form, and chose to interpret it as an intentional provocation. He felt that he was in for it, and that Barker meant to pick a quarrel with ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... the need of some great stroke that should astonish and fascinate the world. He understood that to maintain his fame he was condemned to work miracles. September 23, 1805, he had exposed to the Senate the hostile conduct of Austria, and had announced his speedy departure to carry aid to the Elector of Bavaria, the ally of France, whom the Austrians had ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... plain to see there was incest in the air, she was all of a tremble, yet did not withdraw her hand when he made her touch his rampant tool, which seemed to strangely fascinate her. ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous
... detesting their crimes, Rodney began to admire the skill and success with which they were perpetrated. The excitement and freedom, and wild, frenzied enjoyment of such a life, as depicted by the young knaves, began to fascinate and charm his mind. Something seemed to whisper in his ear, "As you are now disgraced, without any fault of your own, why not carry it out, and make the most of it? They have put you into jail, this time, for nothing; if ...
— The Runaway - The Adventures of Rodney Roverton • Unknown
... last, as with a passionate gesture she tore her eyes away from the portrait, which seemed to fascinate her. The sight of Gualtier at once restored her outward calm. She was herself once more. She waved her hand loftily to a seat, and the very fact that she had made this exhibition of feeling before him seemed to harden that proud manner which ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... finesse. There is similar spirit in the Italian galleries, with a variation due to national characteristics rather than to difference of opinion or method. The Italian pictures fully occupy the mind and eye; the French often fascinate by something more than skill and color. Both countries have placed their older art, and some of its ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... brilliant English complexion, her eyes so full of poetry and passion, her perfect features, and, more than all, the wondrous smile, which would have made a plain face handsome. She was full of life and spirits, with enough of coquetry about her to fascinate and turn older ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... fight and resolved that, if she chose, she could still make almost any man love her. That she could easily fascinate she knew. Most people were subject to her easy charm and to the delightfully unaffected manner which no amount of vanity had ever been able to rid her of. Surely the temporarily fascinated man might easily be changed into the permanent lover! Fear assailed her certainly when she ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... change the text and make it read: "The world does not care for your soul," You may win it, and it will mock you. Satan does not care for your soul. He will fascinate you and snare you, and when you say, "Oh, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" there will be no deliverance. But God cares. Christ cares. The minister cares, and thousands ...
— The Personal Touch • J. Wilbur Chapman
... litter), the curtains of which were kept down. This carriage stimulated her curiosity, and, in such a country, was well adapted to suggest to a lively fancy the outlines of a romance. No doubt, she thought, the pavosk contained a young and beautiful Circassian, whose charms would fascinate some Oriental prince, and place a queen's diadem upon her brow. At an inn, in Stavropol, Madame de Hell again fell in with the Circassian and his mysterious charge, but the latter was veiled from head to foot "The young mountaineer," she says, "prepared a divan with cushions and pillows very like ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... horse-hunter's passion that reminded him of his pursuit. The deer trail led down through a break in the wall. Only a few rods of it could be seen. This trail was passable, even though choked with snow. But the depth beyond this wall seemed to fascinate Slone and hold him back, used as he was to desert trails. Then the clean mark of Wildfire's hoof brought back the ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... the artist, who had intended to fascinate Madame Marneffe. "Society is not very amusing unless one is interested in it. That little Madame Marneffe is clever, but a ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... sense of uncertainty and pain which had distressed him passed away, leaving him fully self-possessed once more. "I think you are one of those exceptional women whom a man never grows weary of: like a Cleopatra, or any other old-world enchantress, you fascinate with a look, you fasten with a touch, and you have a singular freshness and wild attraction about you which makes you unlike any other of your sex. I know well enough that I shall never get the memory of you out of my brain; your face will haunt ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... quarrel she had ever had with him; it was so little like a quarrel, so ominously like a—No; absurd! It could not be a finality. She rejected that instantly, so confident had beauty and position as a prospective heiress made her as to her powers over any man she chose to try to fascinate, so secure was she in the belief that Ross loved her and would not give her up in any circumstances. She went over their interview, recalled his every sentence and look—this with surprising coolness for a young woman as deeply in love as she fancied herself. And ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... is Vasudeva's daughter and Vasudeva's (Krishna) sister; endued with so much beauty, whom can she not fascinate? If this thy sister, this maid of the Vrishni race, becometh my wife, truly may I win prosperity in everything. Tell me, O Janardana, by what means I may obtain her. To get her I will achieve anything that is achievable ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Oliver, author of "Ruby Hamilton," "Seba's Discipline," etc. This is a book which will fascinate and at the same time instruct and benefit every boy or girl who reads it. Its characters are delightfully sketched and have a refreshing air of genuineness. 400 pages, fully illustrated, cloth, $1.50, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... To hurt, bewitch: dook the gry, bewitch the horse. Wal. Deokira (to fascinate, bewitch). See ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow
... turbulent companions, merely by the ascendancy of goodness, combined with a rare elevation of mind; this, although in other circumstances and in an utterly different sphere, must by the same charm (do not smile at such a parallel, miss) fascinate the stately Archduchess Sophia and all the circle of my court; for the good and wicked, great and small, submit almost always to the influence of higher, nobler spirits. I do not wish to say that you were born princess ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... deathly in its pallor, lighted by eyes sloe-black but like glinting steel. Striking as were these features, they failed to fascinate as did the strange tracings which apparently showed through the white, drawn skin. This first repelled, then drew her with wonderful force. Suffering, of fire, and frost, and iron was written there, and, stronger than all, so potent as to cause fear, could be read the terrible ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... runaway girls were reclaimed, how a little woodland fairy, Jacqueline, worked out a scout fantasy, and how a very modest deed won the first Bronze Cross, makes the first volume of this series a book calculated to inspire as well as to fascinate the reader. ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... was silent and reflective for a moment. "Men are so queer," she finally said. "If I'd been an honest working girl he'd never have noticed me. It's because I am what I am that I've been able to get acquainted with him and fascinate him. And he feels it's a sporty thing to do—to marry a fast girl. If I was to settle down to work, be a regular working girl—why, I'm afraid he—he'd stop loving me. Then, too, he likes to believe he's rescuing me from a life of shame. I've ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... the church-steps, her missal in her hand. Thou watchest her to cast thy spells upon her. Thou hatest her for her youth and beauty and spotless purity, like all thy wretched tribe, whom the sight of innocence and brightness sickens to the heart's core. Thou wouldst fascinate her with thy eye of evil ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... Fayette, the heroes of public imagination; those dreams of ancient simplicity, of primitive manners, of liberty at once heroic and pastoral, which the fashion and illusion of the moment had transported from the other side of the Atlantic,—all contributed to fascinate the spirit of the Continent, and nourish in the mind of the people contempt for their own institutions, and fanaticism for ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... have any worth reading, do you?" replied To-no-Chiujio. "I have only just now discovered," continued he, "how difficult it is to meet with a fair creature, of whom one can say, 'This is, indeed, the one; here is, at last, perfection.' There are, indeed, many who fascinate; many who are ready with their pens, and who, when occasion may require, are quick at repartee. But how often such girls as these are conceited about their own accomplishments, and endeavor unduly to disparage those of others! There are again some who are ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... sweetness which soothes us not. "She kept me awake all night, as a strain of Mozart's might do," Keats wrote of his Charmian. There was no song this special songstress sang which she did not make her own by a peculiar and powerful effort. Her instinct was to rouse, charm, fascinate her little audience. Not to move her hearers was to her not to sing, and when she sang as she wished she could sweep away his world of ideas from her listener and recreate a new one. In one song, an Italian composition ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... like that of Beowulf it might seem that there was danger of a lapse from the more serious kind of heroic composition into a more trivial kind. Certainly there is nothing in the plain story to give much help to the author; nothing in Grendel to fascinate or tempt a poet with a story made to ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... platform. Captain Nemo had not left it. He was standing at the fore part near his flag, which a slight breeze displayed above his head. He did not take his eyes from the vessel. The intensity of his look seemed to attract, and fascinate, and draw it onward more surely than if he had been towing it. The moon was then passing the meridian. Jupiter was rising in the east. Amid this peaceful scene of nature, sky and ocean rivalled each other in tranquillity, ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... work, and Schmucke looked on precisely as an idiot might have done. Broken down with sorrow, wholly absorbed, in a half-cataleptic state, he could not take his eyes from the face that seemed to fascinate him, Pons' face refined by the absolute repose of Death. Schmucke hoped to die; everything was alike indifferent. If the room had been on fire he would not ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... take leave of Rembrandt and his unique abode, without allowing the town's immediate surroundings to fascinate us by their quite original charm. The excursion, which we could offer our friends through Amsterdam's immediate neighbourhood, in Rembrandt's company, would, however, give rise to so many comments, often of great local interest, that they would ...
— Rembrandt's Amsterdam • Frits Lugt
... tender pessimism, in puzzled revolt against the wrongness and cruelty of a shadowy world, the brooding thought too whimsical to be bitter, the fancy too refined to be boisterously merry—all these conspired to fascinate us as we came to perceive and appreciate them beneath the rather stiff little verses. To read Miss Coleridge's poems was to make acquaintance with a charming and delicate soul that wished to be understood and was willing to be intimate. Life astonished her, and her comments ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... At moments like these a woman is invested with supernatural power and becomes a magician, a charmer, without herself knowing that she is one; involuntarily she inspires the love that fills her own bosom; her smiles and glances fascinate. If this condition, which comes from the soul, can give attraction even to a plain woman, with what radiance does it not invest a woman of natural elegance, distinguished bearing, fair, fresh, with sparkling eyes, ...
— Madame Firmiani • Honore de Balzac
... seen a great deal. Following her old tactics, she had started out to fascinate the tall newspaper man, expecting to find him an easy victim. For once, however, she found that she had met her match. Directly she arrived in Denver she sent him her card, and he called at the hotel, ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... Such a magazine may be interesting to antiquaries; it may be valuable to the learned in ecclesiastical disputes, or the curious in genealogy or family records; but these interests are of a very partial and transient description. It will never generally fascinate the human race. Nothing ever has, or ever can do so, but such annals as, independent of local or family interest, or antiquarian curiosity, are permanently attractive by the grandeur and interest of the events they recount, and the elegance or pathos of the language in which ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... demonstration and by terrifying them with what you imagine would be the consequences of finding that Christianity is unfounded? Ah sir, does the advocate of a cause "founded on adamant" wish to dazzle the judges and fascinate the jury before he ventures to bring the merits of his cause to trial? Must they be made to shed tears, must their hearts be made to feel that you are right, in order that their understandings may be able to perceive it? Should the learned and able champion of a system, ...
— Letter to the Reverend Mr. Cary • George English
... the mechanic and the mathematician fairly meet; and it requires a rare union of ability in both vocations to arrive at original results in this sphere. To invent a bridge, through the application of a scientific principle by a novel method, is one of those projects which seem to fascinate philosophical minds; in few have theory and practice been more completely tested; and the history of bridges, scientifically written, would exhibit as remarkable conflicts of opinion, trials of inventive skill, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... Capitol seemed to fascinate her, as she stood before it a few moments later. The spell of tradition enwrapped her. The mighty sentiments and motives which had actuated the framers of the Constitution seemed to loom before her like monuments of eternal stone. Had ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... the familiar. "To them it is every thing. They care neither for splendid mansions, nor wealth, nor youth, nor beauty. If they did, they could have them all. They care only for the dread and mysterious power they possess, to be able to fascinate with a glance, to transfix by a gesture, to inflict strange ailments by a word, and to kill by a curse. This is the privilege they seek, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... comprehensive question, there was nothing to tell about the Congo. But adroitly she drew him on. He told of the great river and its people, and the white men who administered it. The subject of cannibals seemed especially to fascinate her. He had seen living human beings issued as a sort of ration on the hoof to native ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... which he formerly indulged. He liked to talk, and his conversation was easy and witty, and full of an irresistible charm. His dress, which in old times he neglected, became elegant. His expression and voice acquired gentleness and an almost caressing quality. Not only did he try to fascinate the young and handsome Empress, he spared no pains to please her. Being much honored and flattered in his vanity as a Corsican gentleman,—for this man of Vendmiaire, the saviour of the Convention, always had ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... of public exhibition. His pictures do not command the eye by extraordinary combinations of assertive colors,—nor do they, through great pathos, deep tenderness, or any overcharged emotional quality, fascinate and absorb ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... victim all the human emotions he pleases. He may make the snake glide through the tree-tops from limb to limb, and from tree to tree, in pursuit of its prey: the main thing is, the snake got the squirrel. If our romancer makes the snake fascinate the squirrel, I shall object, because I don't believe that snakes have this power. People like to believe that they have. It would seem as if this subtle, gliding, hateful creature ought to have some such mysterious gift, but ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... originality, to hang in the way between me and the rest like curtains. I will have nothing hang in the way, not the richest curtains. What I tell, I tell for precisely what it is. Let who may exalt or startle or fascinate or soothe, I will have purpose, as health or heat or snow has, and be as regardless of observation. What I experience or portray shall go from my composition without a shred of my composition. You shall stand by my side and look in the ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... abandon themselves. Their architecture forms a sort of border-land between the Byzantine of Venice and the Lombardic of Verona. The superb domes of St. Anthony's emulate those of St. Mark's; and the porticos of other Paduan churches rest upon the backs of bird-headed lions and leopards that fascinate ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... and of the soul's awakening that followed, Hazlitt has left an account (My First Acquaintance with Poets) that will fascinate so long as English prose is read. 'Somehow that period [the time just after the French Revolution] was not a time when NOTHING WAS GIVEN FOR NOTHING. The mind opened, and a softness might be perceived coming over ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... prove to their own satisfaction that it is not history at all, and Carlyle has been posthumously convicted of miscalculating the distance from Paris to Varennes. It remains one of the books that cannot be forgotten, that fascinate all readers, even the professors themselves. And yet, greater than the book itself is Carlyle's behaviour when the first volume had been lost by Mill. Mill, himself in extreme misery, had to come ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... penser to the elder children. Having no softening medium of a mother's eyes to look at their father through, they were more bold in judging him than, perhaps, they ought to have been; and he did not take pains to fascinate his children, or throw the glamour of love into their eyes. He took it for granted, frankly and as a part of nature, that he himself was the first person to be considered in all matters. So he was, of course—so the father, the bread-winner, the head of the ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... his hat. She seemed startled, but greeted him pleasantly, and entered into a discussion of the demerits which fascinate the crowd. ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... dexterous questions to him about India and the dancing-girls there; asked Amelia about that beautiful boy who had been with her; and complimented the astonished little woman upon the prodigious sensation which she had made in the house; and tried to fascinate Dobbin by talking of the late war and the exploits of the Pumpernickel contingent under the command of the Hereditary Prince, now ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the room. Arriving at the table, she began fiddling with its contents. The pen seemed to fascinate her. She picked it up ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... soften such a strain and burden he tried to do. He encouraged her to find work among the poor; he tried in the tenderest ways to interest her in the great spectacle of London life which was already, in spite of yearning and regret, beginning to fascinate and absorb himself. But their standards were now so different that she was constantly shrinking from what attracted him, or painfully judging what was to him merely curious and interesting. He was really more and more oppressed by her intellectual limitations, though never consciously ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to fascinate my little cousin. No sooner did he enter the room than Ernest ran up to him, kissed ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... always taciturn, listened to all that was said, but took no part in the conversation. Benito quietly and attentively watched him. The eyes of Torres, with a peculiar expression, constantly sought his father. One would have called them the eyes of some wild beast trying to fascinate his prey before ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... in blue? Morley's idea, I believe. As though a man had any right to interest himself in such things. We call them collectively the Tricolor, and Anne Denham is the governess. Pretty? No. Artful? Yes. See how she is trying to fascinate Ware!" ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... about Karmazinov that his connections with aristocratic society and powerful personages were dearer to him than his own soul, people used to say that on meeting you he would be cordial, that he would fascinate and enchant you with his open-heartedness, especially if you were of use to him in some way, and if you came to him with some preliminary recommendation. But that before any stray prince, any stray countess, anyone that he was afraid of, ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... decidedly marked the crisis which had arrived, than the fact that everyone hastened to disown railways. Gentlemen who had been buried in prospectuses, whose names and descriptions had been published under every variation that could fascinate the public, who had figured as Committeemen, and received the precious guineas for their attendance, were eager to assure the world that they were ignorant of this great transgression. Men who, ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... he sailed down the passage. There was the swift-leaping current, the ugly tusk of rock staked with wreckage. A moment, a few feet, a turn of the oar-blade, and he would have been past. But, no! The rock seemed to fascinate him as the eyes of a snake fascinate a bird. He stared at it fearfully, a look of terror and despair. Then for the third time, with a hideous crash, his frail boat was piled up in a ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... Rosa, with her sweet, strong voice and imposing stage presence; Pescha Leutner, the star of 1856; Louisa Pyne, the English Sontag; Parodi, pupil of Pasta; Etelka Gerster, whose beautiful soprano could fascinate if it could not awe; Pauline Lucca, whose originality, artistic temperament and intelligence placed her in the front rank of dramatic sopranos, ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... and heavy spindles, by means of which they spun a kind of coarse pack-thread, which the children wound up, sitting on stools at their feet. All the while some old dame would relate the old-world ogreish stories of Blue Beard, the Sorcerer, or the Loup Garou, to fascinate the ears and trouble the dreams of the young folks. It was here, no doubt, that Jasmin gathered much of the traditionary lore which he afterwards wove into ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... its vast rectangular bulk to a giddy height above the town; airy loggias imposed on great forbidding masses of brown stone, shooting aloft into a light aerial tower. The empty halls inside are of fair proportions and a noble size, and the views from the open colonnades in all directions fascinate. But the final impression made by the building is one of square, tranquil, massive strength—perpetuity embodied in masonry—force suggesting facility by daring and successful addition of elegance to ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... occasion had passed. None the less, for that instant her dread was breathless. It was the fear of one who walks in a wood, at an inexplicable rustle. The darkness and the sense of moving water continued to fascinate her, and she slightly shuddered, not at a thought, but at the sensation of the moment. At last she closed her eyes, still, however, to see mirrored as in some visual memory the picture she was trying ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... inconceivably picturesque in the varying gestures of unrestrained passion, so irresistibly comic in their sallies, or so heart-piercingly pathetic in the little airs they would sing, frequently bursting out after an awful silence, as to fascinate the attention, and amuse the fancy, while torturing the soul. It was the uproar of the passions which she was compelled to observe; and to mark the lucid beam of reason, like a light trembling in a socket, or like the flash which divides ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... root out all that encumbers the heart, all that impedes the free action of the Holy Spirit within—longings after an imaginary perfection or well-being, unreal sentiments that trouble us in prayer, in work, in slumber, that fascinate us, but the result of which is to destroy ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.
... vulgar and would not fascinate well-bred people. It is in her eyes, in her voice, in the very atmosphere about her, and she is wonderfully beautiful. She isn't the spider, she does not spin a net, but she looks at the mouse out of great, soft eyes, and he comes ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... the deep morass of business transactions. Why do you offer to me what is the bane of all nations? I would not accept it even if I meant to give it away, for I see many things which it would not become me to give. I should like to place before my eyes the things which fascinate both kings and peoples, I wish to behold the price of your blood and your lives. First bring before me the trophies of Luxury, exhibiting them as you please, either in succession, or, which is better, ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... bracelets, ate from silver, was dressed in silk and carried the fire of youth in her eyes. While the woman thought of that young man who could fight like a hero; was ready to work like a day laborer, to throw money away like a noble, to fascinate women like an angel, and to blaspheme the powers that ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... when ornamented with a profusion of silk flags, resplendent with gaily colored ribbon streamers, handsome mats and a choice collection of small potted plants, palms and flowers; becomes a thing of beauty, well calculated to capture and fascinate the childish heart. When the train is in motion, gaily spinning around this five-hundred-foot oval; the cribs and seats filled with bright happy children, smiling and crowing, their chubby little hands clapping ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... the clock round! King did not answer. He blocked the way into the cave and looked past the mullah at a sight that fascinated, as a serpent's eyes are said to fascinate a bird. But the mullah, who knew perfectly well what must be happening, did not trouble to ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... twenty, that seizes one's mind here; it is the accumulation of various objects, each worthy to detain it. Wonderful indeed, and sweetly-satisfying to the intellectual appetite, is the variety, the plenty of pleasures which serve to enchain the imagination, and fascinate the traveller's eye, keeping it ever on this little spot; for though I have heard some of the inhabitants talk of its vastness, it is scarcely bigger than our Portman Square, I think, not larger at the very ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... soul, penetrate the soul, imbrue the soul, absorb the soul, affect the soul, disturb the soul. absorb, rivet the attention; sink into the mind, sink into the heart; prey on the mind, distract; intoxicate; overwhelm, overpower; bouleverser[Fr], upset, turn one's head. fascinate; enrapture &c. (give pleasure) 829. agitate, perturb, ruffle, fluster, shake, disturb, startle, shock, stagger; give one a shock, give one a turn; strike all of a heap; stun, astound, electrify, galvanize, petrify. irritate, sting; cut to the heart, cut to the quick; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... might be trained not only to cope with but overpower the intellect. With great powers of pleasing, beauty, accomplishments, a sweet voice, a soft manner, a sympathetic heart, Lady Annabel was qualified to charm the world; she had contrived to fascinate her daughter. She had inspired Venetia with the most romantic attachment for her: such as rather subsists between two female friends of the same age and hearts, than between individuals in the relative situations which they ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... aviator in the great World War. It could well serve as a guide to those who are studying aviation. Although he has avoided the stilted tone of the school-master, still his accomplishments as a knight of the air must fascinate any who know aviation. For the aviators as well as their machines have accomplished wonders. They are rightly called the eyes of the army—these iron-nerved boys who know no fear. Admiral Schley's historic words after ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke
... to hide from himself the fact that Mrs. Dangerfield had lost some of her charm: she was the mother of the Terror. He found, too, that his instinctive distaste for the company of Erebus was not ungrounded. She was a nuisance; she would talk about wet boots; the subject seemed to fascinate her. Then, when at last he recovered his spirits, grew once more humorous, and even rose to the proposing point, there was no getting rid of her. She was impervious to hints; she refused, somewhat pertly, to pause and gather the luscious blackberries. How ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... Inca's son, Captain, I shall make the Inca order you to cut off that moustache. It is too irresistible. Doesn't it fascinate everyone ...
— The Inca of Perusalem • George Bernard Shaw
... expressed irony or even indifference. What a fine picture it would have made for a Rembrandt! The bodies of the men were invisible in the darkness of the nave, and their heads alone emerged from the gloom. The effect was grand enough to fascinate the most sceptical of painters; it soothed and charmed one and wiped out all the miseries that the war had left in its wake. Men like these would be equal to anything, ready for anything; and I myself should much have liked to see a Monsieur Homais hidden away in some corner ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... was one, a lady of mature age, with beauty still powerful enough to fascinate all beholders, who seemed to survey Paulina with an interest far beyond that of curiosity or simple admiration. Sorrow might be supposed the common bond which connected them; for there were rumors amongst the sisterhood of St. Agnes that this lady had ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... truth; but she did not complain; she accepted her husband's kisses as she did the toil he imposed on her—meekly, unaffectedly, as a matter of course, as if she always knew that the romances which used to fascinate her were merely idle dreams, having no bearing upon the daily life of human beings—things fit to amuse a young girl's fancies, and to be thrown aside when the realities of life were entered upon. The only analogy between the past and present was an ample submission to authority and an indifference ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... as one of those delusions of fancy, one of those women above mortal height, like Tasso's Eleanora, Dante's Beatrice, Petrarch's Laura, or Vittoria Colonna, the lover, the poet, and the heroine at once,—forms that flit across the earth, scarcely touching it, and without tarrying, only to fascinate the eyes of some men, the privileged few of love, to lead on their souls to immortal aspirations, and to be the sursum corda of superior imaginations. As to Louis, he dared not raise his love as high as his enthusiasm. His sensitive and tender heart, ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... sparring was like the breaking off of diplomatic relations between countries at the beginning of war, and, once Sheldon's suspicions were aroused, he was not long in finding other confirmations. Tudor too obviously joyed in Joan's presence, too obviously laid himself out to amuse and fascinate her with his own glorious and adventurous personality. Often, after his morning ride over the plantation, or coming in from the store or from inspection of the copra-drying, Sheldon found the pair of them together on ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... comparison of which the Pantheon and Colosseum are vulgar and coarse, mere broad-shouldered Titans before ambrosial Jove); but these fantastic spires, and cupolas, and galleries, excite, amuse, tickle the imagination, so to speak, and perpetually fascinate the eye. There were very few believers in the famous mosque of Sultan Hassan when we visited it, except the Moslemitish beadle, who was on the look-out for backsheesh, just like his brother officer in an English cathedral; and who, making us put on straw slippers, ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with a brighter face and stronger spirits. She had been very full of enjoyment at St. Faith's. She had the visitor's room, with delightful sacred prints and photographs, and a window looking out on the sea—a sight enough to fascinate her for hours. She had been out every fine day on the shore; she had sat in the pleasant community-room with the kind Sisters, who talked to her as a woman, not a baby; she had plenty of books; one of the Sisters had ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... lie there. Why, you could see that, if you had eyes. Didn't you watch him while he was talking during the early part of the evening?—didn't you see how he looked at her? He's a bad man, I tell you! Have you ever seen a serpent trying to fascinate a bird? I have—where I don't know, but I have. He was just like that, and she yielded to his fascination, too; you must have noticed it! Buller is a nonentity, just a harmless, good-natured, weak boy. He could be ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... of my time to-day upon the apes. They fascinate me more daily. They look exactly like familiar demons, and certainly anyone having them about him two hundred years ago would have been burned as a wizard. When Mr. Low walks down the veranda, these two familiars walk behind him with a stealthy tread. He is having a business ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... will only fascinate the right sort!" the doctor prayed. He smiled savagely at the picture he drew of the right sort, which, it is needless to add, was ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick
... watching the approach of the boat that they were unconscious of her presence, and suddenly it began to fascinate the Countess de Mattos also, as if it were one of the discs which hypnotists give to their patients. She, too, bent over the rail and gazed at the boat as the rowers brought it nearer and nearer, but she could not see the faces of its occupants. For three or four minutes ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... cyclone passes over, a wind dies down, a broken mast can be replaced, a leak can be stopped, a fire extinguished, but what will become of this enormous brute of bronze. How can it be captured? You can reason with a bulldog, astonish a bull, fascinate a boa, frighten a tiger, tame a lion; but you have no resource against this monster, a loose cannon. You can not kill it, it is dead; and at the same time it lives. It lives with a sinister life which comes to it from ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... your list," rejoined Philippa decidedly; "I certainly don't want them. I just want to be allowed to do nothing in particular except see a great deal of your lovely country in the quietest and laziest way possible, please. These little villages fascinate me—all clustering round a church which looks far too big and important for the number of cottages. Why have you so many churches about here? I counted eight on my ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... one of these processions, should behold it, not in its atoms, but in its aggregate,—as a mighty river of life, massive in its tide, and black with mystery, and, out of its depths, calling to the kindred depth within him,—then the contiguity would add to the effect. It might so fascinate him that he would hardly be restrained from plunging into the surging stream of ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... for many days, tramping over the country leagues and leagues away, making the earth tremble with his heavy tread, and distancing everything with his long, untiring stride. Then, on his return, he would be the prince of good-fellows once more, and fascinate the merry revellers with the witchery of his tongue. Even when a boy, he had won a bet by walking six miles in two minutes less than an hour. He once dined in Grosvenor Square, and made his appearance at Oxford at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... exceeding bitter fate to watch the rapid decay of the arts and to witness the triumph of sacerdotal despotism over liberal thought. To none of these things was he indifferent; and the sorrow they wrought in his soul, found expression in his painting.[264] Michael Angelo was not framed by nature to fascinate like Lionardo or to charm like Raphael. His manners were severe and simple. When he spoke, his words were brief and pungent. When he wrote, whether in poetry or prose, he used the fewest phrases to express the most condensed meaning. When asked ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... in Salem." This lady remembers that when she was a child, and before Hawthorne had printed any of his stories, she used to sit on his knee and lean her head on his shoulder, while by the hour he would fascinate her with delightful legends, much more wonderful and beautiful than any she has ever ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... perhaps even more antipathetic—its suppression of detail. The great majority of poets—and especially of English poets—produce their most potent effects by the accumulation of details—details which in themselves fascinate us either by their beauty or their curiosity or their supreme appropriateness. But with details Racine will have nothing to do; he builds up his poetry out of words which are not only absolutely simple but extremely general, so ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... Jew's reforming the gay and dissolute metropolis of the earth, which sat as a queen among the nations, singing to herself, "I will be a lady forever," was not brilliant enough to fascinate him; and the prospect of the reward he would get from the luxurious people of pleasure, whose well-opiated consciences he should rudely rouse by calling their intrigues and carousals wickedness, was only too clear. Jonah fled from his duty. In his flight ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... are too insulting, and I tell you my thoughts without disguise. I love Don Garcia; he alone can fascinate a generous heart; his courage in Leon has nobly proved his passion for me; he dared on my account the greatest dangers, freed me from the toils of cowardly tyrants, and protected me against the horrors of an unworthy alliance by placing me within these ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere
... and pretentious sign seemed to fascinate Colonel Witham. He walked past it once, reading it out of the corner of one eye; but he went only a little way beyond, then turned and stopped and surveyed it once more. He edged up to the canvas, sidled ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... wherefore?" Zicci paused, and smiled mournfully as he added: "My life is not that of others, but I am still human,—I know pity; and more, Isabel, I can feel gratitude for affection. You love me; it was my fate to fascinate your eye, to arouse your vanity, to inflame your imagination. It was to warn you from this folly that I consented for a few minutes to become your guest. The Englishman, Glyndon, loves thee well,—better than ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of every thing that appears to them to be likely to interrupt it. But they consider dramatic exhibitions, as having this tendency. These exhibitions, under the influence of plot, dialogue, dress, music, action, and scenery, particularly fascinate. They excite the person, who has once seen them, to desire them again. But in proportion as this desire is gratified, or in proportion as people leave their homes for the amusements of the stage, they lose their relish, and weaken their powers, of the enjoyment of domestic society: that is, ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... and many students of Nature; but there are very few whom we may term philosophers of Nature. In other words, there are those who are charmed with the external world, its landscapes, its beauteous forms and tints, and all its various adaptations to fascinate the senses,—and those who delight in deciphering and describing all the details of individual objects, and their wonderful fitness to the role they have severally or unitedly to play; and there is the man who, endowed with all this, seeks to go still farther, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... that all this noise and tumult, all this danger and injury, are occasioned by the pursuit of a little hare, whose pain is in proportion to the joy of those who follow it. Now can this diversion, educated as my child has been, fascinate him? Will he not question its innocence? And will he not question its consistency as a natural pursuit, or as an ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... your life; and it's all that delightful man's doing; only he wont have a geometric flower-garden, as I did everything I could think of to persuade him. I pity the woman that will be his wife she wont have her own way in a single thing; but then he will fascinate her into thinking that his way is the best so it will do just as well, I suppose. Do you know, I can't conceive what he has come over here for. He has been here before, you know, and he don't seem to me to know exactly what he means to do; at least, ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Dawson. "What I want of you is this. Whenever here in London you see a French or Belgian officer wearing the badges of the Flying Corps, mark him down. Make his acquaintance somehow; you will know how. Entertain him, fascinate him, let him entertain you; fool him as you would fool me if I let you; worm out his secrets, if he has any. If you get upon a promising track, go strong; let the man make love to you—he will, whoever he is, if you give him half a chance—intoxicate him with those confounded ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... before beginning the real story in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, but the most of this preliminary matter is very interesting description. The quiet valley with its small brook, the tapping woodpecker, the drowsy shade of the trees, the spots haunted by the headless Hessian,—all fascinate us and provide an atmosphere which the modern short-story teller too seldom secures. The novice in modern short-story writing should know at the outset that it takes more genius to succeed with a story like The Legend of Sleepy Hollow than with a tale where the writer relies on the more strait-laced ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... in an easy-chair, and he began to look at her fixedly, so as to fascinate her. I suddenly felt myself somewhat uncomfortable, with a beating heart and a choking feeling in my throat. I saw that Madame Sable's eyes were growing heavy, her mouth twitched and her bosom heaved, and at the end of ten ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... he said to her, "on Saturday night you are going to put on your most winning way—you can do it when you like—and you are going to captivate and fascinate those two people until they'll go away home with the conviction that you are the most charming and delightful creature that ever lived. You can do it easily enough if you like—no one better. You are going to be very nice to them, and you'll send them ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... side of the Master that mattered to them most, and it is perhaps not a mere random guess that they were not in any case so aware of the interest of childhood and of children as Jesus was. Matthew and Luke record the miraculous birth, and each adds a story, that has never failed to fascinate men, of the Magi or the Shepherds who came to the manger cradle. Luke gives one episode of Jesus' childhood. ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... the feudal mansion the hitherto solitary occupant might behold incessant variety, accompanied by the pleasing associations growing out of prosperous industry and smiling plenty. Does Claude ever revel in solitudes? Does Poussin fascinate in exhibitions of mechanical nature? And when does Woollet enchant us but in those rich landscapes in which the woods are filled with peeping habitations, and scope given for the imagination by the curling smoke of others ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... climb to their nest, and descended in rage and terror to the lower branches. 'The snake, seeing them approach almost within range of his hideous maw, gathered himself into a coil, and prepared to strike. His eyes scintillated like sparks of fire, and seemed to fascinate the birds; for instead of retiring, they each moment drew nearer and nearer, now alighting on the ground, then flapping back to the branches, and anon darting to the ground again—as though they were under some ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... one, and no mistake! You don't know that my idol is worth more than the whole lot of your things! A draper's shopman wouldn't have selected that pink stuff. Was it your idea to fascinate ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola |
