"Charming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... arrived. There is always so much to do in settling one's self in a new home. This time, I am bound to say, the difficulties have been reduced to a minimum, not only from the prompt kindness and helpfulness of my charming neighbors, but because I found excellent servants ready to my hand, instead of needing to go through the laborious process of training them. The cooks are very good—better indeed than the food ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... until they had finished the charming story, and each of the girls wondered why Arabella was not reproved for rudeness. The arithmetic lesson completed the morning's work, and as they walked home, they talked of ...
— Dorothy Dainty's Gay Times • Amy Brooks
... still a small girl, had left Darrowtown and Miss True Pettis, and all her other old friends and acquaintances, to live with her mother's uncle, at the Red Mill. Her coming to the mill and her early adventures in and about that charming place were related in the first volume of this series, entitled "Ruth Fielding ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... an uncanny feeling that they can see right through your soul and read motives you dare not avow even to yourself. I was terribly in awe of him at first, but when I got acquainted with him I found him charming. He is not above talking delightful nonsense even to a girl. I sat by him at dinner, and he talked to me—not nonsense, either, this time. He told me of his political contests and diplomatic battles; he was wise and witty and whimsical. I felt as if I were drinking some rare, ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... other. The Legation was a shifting point, between 1785 and 1815; but the Consulate, far down in the City, near the Tower, was convenient and inviting; so inviting that it proved fatal to young Adams. Louisa was charming, like a Romney portrait, but among her many charms that of being a New England woman was not one. The defect was serious. Her future mother-in-law, Abigail, a famous New England woman whose authority over her turbulent husband, the second President, ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... The Glynn sitting-room was charming, mainly because of the quantity of flowering plants. Every window was filled with them, until the room seemed like a conservatory. Ivy, too, climbed over the pictures, and the mantel-shelf was a cascade of wandering Jew, ...
— The Yates Pride • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... were politicians, in the worst sense of that word, as Glaucon; and some were young men of fashion, as Euthydemus and Alcibiades. These were all alike delighted with his inimitable irony, his versatility of genius, his charming modes of conversation, his adroitness of reply; and they were compelled to confess the wisdom and justness of his opinions, and to admire the purity and goodness of his life. The magic power which he wielded, even over men of dissolute character, is strikingly depicted ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... or six years, Jefferson was faithful to his vow—rather an unusual record. He met his fate at last in the person of a charming widow—Martha Skelton. ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... CHARIS, grace, which plainly signified so much to them? A word, the root-meaning of which was neither more nor less than a certain heathen goddess, or goddesses—the inspirer of beauty in art, the impersonation of all that is pure, charming, winning, bountiful—in one word, of all that is graceful and gracious in the human character. The fact is strange, but the fact is there; and being there, we must face it and explain it. Of course, the Apostles use the word ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... disobey."—FELL: ib. Chints is called by Cobb a "substantive plural" and defined as "cotton cloths, made in India;" but other lexicographers define it as singular, and Worcester (perhaps more properly) writes it chintz. Johnson cites Pope as speaking of "a charming chints," and I have somewhere seen the plural formed by adding es. "Of the Construction of single Words, or Serieses of Words."—Ward's Gram., p. 114. Walker, in his Elements of Elocution, makes frequent use of the word ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... of English, Latin, and Greek in Woodstock, Conn., and in the schools of New York City. In 1905 she married Roscoe Platt Conkling at San Antonio, Texas, and spent her early married life in Mexico, which inspired some of her most charming lyrics. Since 1914, Mrs. Conkling has been teaching in the English Department of Smith College. She has published "Afternoons in April", 1915, and "Wilderness Songs", 1920. Mrs. Conkling is a poet of exceedingly delicate and beautiful touch, and her ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... were shoulders compared to mind, piety, amiability—all the Christian graces? Cydalise owned that dear Madelon was somewhat gauche; Gustave called her bete. The father remonstrated with his son. Was it not frightful to use a word of the barracks in connection with this charming young lady? ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... charming companion than your temperamentalist, when once the spark is struck. Jacqueline for the first time in her life enjoyed that most subtle flattery of being understood. Here was a person, a thoroughly "grown-up" person, who did not ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... Soul there are again gradations in Art, according as it is joined with the merely Characteristic, or in visible union with the Charming and Graceful. ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... a little way up. It was humanity projected upon the skies, divine creatures of more than mortal beauty, but thrilling with human life and human sympathies. Has Christianity anything to offer in the place of this charming system of ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... with Mr. Robertson was not only a delight, but an education. He had been everywhere, and knew everything. He was charming in conversation and magnificent in hospitality, and the unique nature of his entertainment under his savage environments lent an additional charm to the situation. He soon became aware that we needed something exciting to sustain us in our enforced imprisonment, ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... it is impossible. [Dazedly to herself] He had such charming manners. [Aloud again] You seem to think everybody Jewish. Are you sure Mr. Quixano is not Spanish?—the ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill
... wonderful exuberance ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. And as they have been gazing upon this attractive picture so long, they cannot, in the little distraction that has taken place in the party, bring themselves to give up the charming hope; but with greedier anxiety they rush about him, sustain him, and give him marches, triumphal entries, and receptions, beyond what even in the days of his highest prosperity they could have brought about in his favor. On the contrary, nobody has ever ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... to our estate, which lay about twenty miles from this place, and were met by a prodigious number of poor tenants, men, women, and children, who testified their joy by loud acclamations; so that we were almost devoured by their affection. My charming Narcissa was universally admired by all our neighbours who called upon us; and she is so well pleased with the situation of the place, and the company round, that she has not the least desire of changing her habitation. If there be ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... to charming little Lizzie Green, had been living very carefully for a time in prospect of shortly calling Lizzie his own, was only now a casual visitor to Cook's lodgings. One evening, on his way home from Ball & Field's, Pate began to reckon up his chances ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... he had himself noted, liked him; and what now occurred was simply that my new intelligence and vain preoccupation damaged my liking. I not only failed to run a general intention to earth, I found myself missing the subordinate intentions I had formerly enjoyed. His books didn't even remain the charming things they had been for me; the exasperation of my search put me out of conceit of them. Instead of being a pleasure the more they became a resource the less; for from the moment I was unable to follow ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... trim young ladies, pleasant matronly ladies, chorus of young porters and old porters, all smiling, and awaiting my lightest bow and heaviest baggage. I am "to be shown up." (Absit omen!) However, I am shown up. Charming room: sea-view, nearly all the views from the windows of Royal Bath are sea-views, take the Bath which way you will; and the welcome is so warm, it ought to be ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 8, 1891 • Various
... discussion of all that may be known of Dante at the Poleata court see Dr. Ricci's large work, L'Ultimo Rifugio di Dante (1891). A charming book in English, Dante in Ravenna (1898), by Catherine Mary Phillimore, is to a great extent based upon Dr. Ricci's work. A valuable book that should be consulted is the more recent volume by P.H. Wicksteed and E.G. Gardner, Dante and ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... misfortune to tear her third flounce, she said, that if I went on in that way she would not have a whole gown left when she got to Louisville. 'With a whole one or none at all, Miss,' said I, 'you'll always be a charming creature.' That now was as pretty a compliment as ever was paid in Kentucky, but she did not seen ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... injudiciously was interpolated into the program the effect of the heroic environment was hopelessly belittling. M. Arene's "L'Ilote" and M. Ferrier's "Revanche d'Iris" are charming of their kind, and to see them in an ordinary theatre—with those intimate accessories of house life which such sparkling trifles require—would be only a delight. But at Orange their sparkle vanished, and they were jarringly out of place. Even the perfect ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... the Danes, Who wrote, we're told, mid all the pains And horrors of exenteration, Nine charming odes, which, if you'll look, You'll find preserved with a translation By BARTHOLINOS in his book. In short 'twere endless to recite The various modes in which men write. Some wits are only in the mind. When beaus and belles are round them ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... lace handkerchief and a locket, it does really very nicely. Then I've got three afternoon dresses, the grey you gave me, the sage-greeny aesthetic one, and the peacock-blue with the satin box-pleats. It's a charming dress, the peacock-blue; it looks as if it might have stepped straight out of a genuine Titian. It came home from Miss Wells's this morning. Wait five minutes, like a dear boy, and I'll run and put it on and let you see ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... 'This was followed by a vain laugh of his own, and a deep silence of all the rest of the company. I had nothing left for it but to fall fast asleep, which I did with all speed.' [Footnote: Spectator 132.] His, too, is the charming little idyll of the huntsman and his Betty, who fears that her love will drown himself in a stream he can jump across, [Footnote: Spectator 118.] and the whole fragrant story of Sir Roger's thirty years' ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... beauty, and great love. Whenever Mr. Scatters appeared he was greeted with deference and admiration. Any man who had come clear from Cuba on such an errand to their fellow-townsman deserved all honour and respect. His charming manners confirmed, too, all that preconceived notions had said of him. He became a social favourite. It began with Mr. and Mrs. Dunkin's calling upon him. Then followed Alonzo Taft, and when the former ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... mourner dashed away her tear and cried, 'Wessex is free!' Remained a single doubt: Christians crept forth from cave and hollow tree: Once more the exiled monk was seen; and one Who long in minstrel's garb, with harp in hand, Old, poor, half blind, had sat beside a bridge, And, charming first the wayfarer with song, Had won him next with legends of the Cross, Stood up before his altar. Rumour ran 'Once more Birinus lifts his crosier-staff!' Then muttered priests of Odin, 'Cynegils We know was Christian. Kenwalk holds—or held, Ancestral ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... she any cause to regret doing so; for, to her huge delight, she found herself moved into a charming deck-cabin on the starboard side of the vessel, some little way abaft the engine-room. It was evidently an officer's cabin, for there, over the head of the bed, was the picture of a young lady he adored, and also some neatly fitted ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... variety, what charming pictures are presented to our view in this temple of nature which we inhabit! Look at the canopy of heaven. Look at the exquisite pictures painted by the Hand of the Divine Artist on this earth. "Consider ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... hot from a publisher's shop, (Next door to the pastry-cook's; so that when I Cannot find the new volume I wanted to buy On the bibliopole's shelves, it is only two paces, 20 As one finds every author in one of those places:) Where I just had been skimming a charming critique, So studded with wit, and so sprinkled with Greek! Where your friend—you know who—has just got such a threshing, That it is, as the phrase goes, extremely "refreshing."[612] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... eternal Hell he first turned from, then denounced, and finally despised. It was for wavering as to this hideous dogma that the Rev. F. D. Maurice got into trouble with his College. He was godfather to Tennyson's little boy, and the poet invited him, in exquisitely charming ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... must have seen with pleasure the charming proof of O'too's tender and inviolable friendship for Captain Cook, which appears in page 233 of this work; where he is described as attended by a man carrying the portrait of that illustrious Englishman, without which he never moves from one place to another. That portrait, as ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... commands the respect and admiration of the world. I invite all present to join me in drinking to our illustrious and most welcome guest, whom we all so much admire for his many distinguished qualities—extending to him and to his charming family our best ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... too long; so, in the end, she picked out some bits for each, which they learned easily, and which, with a good deal of fighting, made quite as good a story of it as if they had done the whole. What may have been wanting otherwise was made up for by the dresses, which were charming. ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... then, let me state that my first recollection dates back to a beautiful summer morning, when in a lovely garden I opened my eyes and became conscious of two very material facts: first, a charming woman arranging her hair in the mirror-like waters of a silver lake directly before me; and, second, a poignant pain in my side, as though I had been operated upon for appendicitis, but which in reality resulted from the loss of a rib which had ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... mile—and hotel bills. Our collections thus far fully equal those at the East. I have been delightfully disappointed, for everybody said I couldn't raise money in Kansas meetings. I wish you were here to make the tour of this beautiful State, in which to live fifty years hence will be charming; but now, alas, the women especially see hard times; to come actually in contact with all their discomforts and privations spoils the poetry of pioneer life. The opposition, the "Anti-Female Suffragists," are making a bold push now; but all prophesy a short run for them. They ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... and wrote two books, "Ramona," a novel, and "A Century of Dishonor," setting forth vividly the wrongs to which the red race has been subjected. She had previously published several books of prose and poetry, less important but charming in their way. The following selection is adapted from "Bits of Travel at ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... box in which it belongs. I give you the box and the beads, my charming dear, for a Christmas present and a consolation. See the card at the ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May
... Royal Highness went ashore informally, mainly to satisfy his craving for walking exercise. Before he did so, he received the British correspondents on board the Renown, and a few minutes were spent chatting with him in the charming and spacious suite of rooms that Navy magic had erected with such efficiency that one had to convince oneself that one really was on a battleship and not ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... hard-featured Scotch woman in her husband's night-cap, and who wrote such a succession of frightful things! Where is all your interest in Kitty Jones? I've seen you talk to her by the half-hour, and heard you say she is a charming woman; and now she marries,—and you not only won't go to the wedding, but you don't ask a word ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... places. The unfortunate victims, when you chance to meet them, mostly look but half-alive, and dismally cold. Their noses (however charming these features may become in a year or two, or even may be in the holidays) appear somehow of a frosty temperature in the long dull months of school-time. The hands, too, of the fair pupils are apt to seem larger than common, inclined ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... you yet. It is a most extraordinary thing that all you people of the prairie love to call each other by nicknames. Why should the Hon. William Bunning-Ford be dubbed 'Lord' Bill, and why should that sweet niece of yours, who is the possessor of such a charming name as Joaquina, be hailed by every man within one hundred miles of Calford as 'Jacky'? I think it is both ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... called on to enter the lists, and found himself involved in the series of controversial dialogues afterwards published in a substantial book. This volume, interesting in several respects, is one of the most charming examples of unconscious irony in the language, and it is matter of regret that our space does not admit of the abridgment of several of its pages. They bear testimony, on the one hand, to Byron's capability of patience, and frequent sweetness of temper under trial; ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... foxes, bears, wolves, raccoons, fawns, buffalo calves and birds of all kinds, tamed by various boys. My pets were different at different times, but I particularly remember one. I once had a grizzly bear for a pet, and so far as he and I were concerned, our relations were charming and very close. But I hardly know whether he made more enemies for me or I for him. It was his habit to treat every boy ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... other than a race-day if one wishes to see the charming old town of Epsom at its best. But if, on the other hand, one wishes, to see something of the scene on the race-course depicted in Mr. Frith's famous picture, one gets no suggestion of the great spectacle ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... Blind Asylum. The three were paid seven francs in a lump sum for the night. For the money, they gave us, not Beethoven certainly, nor yet Rossini; they played as they had the will and the skill; and every one in the room (with charming delicacy of feeling) refrained from finding fault. The music made such a brutal assault on the drum of my ear, that after a first glance round the room my eyes fell at once upon the blind trio, and the sight ...
— Facino Cane • Honore de Balzac
... man. This was comfortable, but this was not all; for a smartly-dressed girl, with a bright eye and a neat ankle, was laying a very clean white cloth on the table; and as Tom sat with his slippered feet on the fender, and his back to the open door, he saw a charming prospect of the bar reflected in the glass over the chimney-piece, with delightful rows of green bottles and gold labels, together with jars of pickles and preserves, and cheeses and boiled hams, and rounds of beef, arranged on shelves in the most tempting and delicious ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... half-dozen he would receive, he scarcely knew how to dispose of three. And Amy expressed her gratitude in the most charming way. She had gained much in point of manner during the past twelve months; her ten thousand pounds inspired her with the confidence necessary to a perfect demeanour. That slight hardness which was wont to be perceptible ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... come into the kitchen, ostensibly for a drink of water, and had found Miss Flora fussily adjusting the Klondyke nugget pin in the tie of Charming Billy, as is the way of women when they know they may bully a man with impunity—and she was saying: "Now, Billy Boy, if you don't learn to stick that pin in straight and not have the point standing out a ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... was blushing in the sky," we bade farewell to Rochester; and, sailing on the other sixty-mile level, we continued our journey through a charming region past Greece, Spencerport, King & Adams, Cooley's Basin, and arrived at the attractive village of Brockport. Beautifully situated in the midst of a country teeming with abundance and inhabited by a prosperous ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... my friends more than two-thirds of the subscribers to Covent Garden Opera.... By the way, do you happen to be connected with the Moncreiffs of Suddon Wester? They have a charming house in Hyde Park Terrace. ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... boyhood he resided in Italy, and his education, which began there, was continued in schools in France, Switzerland, and England. He was a man of scholarly habits and fearless and independent character, a charming writer, and an accomplished fine-art critic; withal he was a great traveller, a strenuous politician, and an able diplomatist. In 1845, while sojourning in the East, he undertook the exploration of ancient Assyrian cities. ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... the opening, stooped, and looked in. 'It is obvious that you cannot,' he said, taking in her compass at a glance; and adding to himself; 'Charming! who would have thought that clothes could do so much!—Wait a minute, my little maid: I have it!' ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... sisterhood, an admirer of Diana's contrasting complexion, would have had her dance once in a quadrille of her forming, but yielded to the mute expression of the refusal. Wherever Mrs. Warwick went, her arts of charming were addressed to the women. Men may be counted on for falling bowled over by a handsome face and pointed tongue; women require some wooing from their ensphered and charioted sister, particularly if she is clouded; and old women—excellent buttresses—must be suavely courted. Now, to woo ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... our leave of fair Glenagalt, and assuredly if any aspect of external nature could work such a blessed change, the repose, peace, and plenty of this charming valley would restore the unsettled brain ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... heritage from the French, is a village of wooden buildings set upon a hill overlooking the Gulf of Panama, in the midst of a charming study in tropical gardening. It is managed with an energy which explores to the uttermost the medical experiences of other tropical countries, and is not afraid of improving upon time-honored methods. The daily dose ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... at his button-hole. "Delicate and fine!" he thought,—"delicate and fine!" and with the repetition he looked from it down the long street after the interminable line of stages; and somehow the faint, sweet perfume, and the fair flower, and the dainty lace bonnet, were mingled in wild and charming confusion in his brain, till he shook himself, and laughed at himself, and quoted Shakespeare to excuse himself,—"A mad world, my masters!"—seeing this poor old earth of ours, as people always do, ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... acquainted with the lovely Chatterissa and her female Mentor. Lord Chatterino, who possessed all the graces of diplomacy, who could turn from a hot and angry discussion, on the instant, to the most bland and winning courtesy, was foremost in promoting my wishes, inducing his charming mistress to throw aside the reserve of a short acquaintance, and to enter, at once, into ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... quite as useful as its larger cousins. A Cocker can very often go and work as well where a larger Spaniel cannot even creep, and for working really thick hedgerows or gorse has no superior. There seems to be every prospect of a brilliant future, and increased popularity for this charming breed. ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... might equally find their cure in the heart. Already did imagination transport him toward his beloved Ida, and he consoled himself by saying, that if love has wings, friendship ought to have none. If this were an illusion, he completed it by writing that charming poem of his youth, ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... to fling it out of the window. The next thing he did, after calling the school to order, was to tell the gaping, open-eyed children the most entertaining story to which they had ever listened. The anecdote had its moral too, for woven in and out and through its charming meshes was the woof of a life of heroic ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... about this interior basin is heavily wooded, and spars of 75 feet can be obtained in generous numbers. Were it not for the native inhabitants, mosquitoes, and flies, the interior would present conditions charming enough to tempt any lover of nature. It is the abundance of these invincible foes which make interior life a burden and almost an impossibility. To these inhabitants alone Grand Falls has ceased to chant its melodious tune. Hereafter its melodious ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various
... is remarkable for the corruption of the text, which appears even to present lacunae. The English reader will naturally prefer the lively and charming version of Shelley to any other. The poet can tell and adorn the story without visibly floundering in the pitfalls of a dislocated text. If we may judge by line 51, and if Greek musical tradition be correct, the date of the Hymn cannot be earlier than the fortieth Olympiad. ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... and bid man abdicate his usurped sovereignty over Nature in favour of the female line. On the other hand, there are persons not to be outdone in all loyalty and just respect for woman-kind, but by nature hard of head and haters of delusion, however charming, who not only repudiate the new woman-worship which so many sentimentalists and some philosophers are desirous of setting up, but, carrying their audacity further, deny even the natural equality of the sexes. They assert, on the contrary, ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... it—base and unmanly. What have I done that you should venture to so insult your charming wife, not to speak of the insult to myself? When you so far forgot yourself a fortnight ago as to hint at your outrageous ideas regarding me, I forced myself to remember that you were not an Englishman, that perhaps in your country there may be a social ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... heard of a party dress with a plain skirt?) her buff one was not gay enough; in short, she had been seen in all those dresses—she ought to have a bran new one—a cherry silk, for instance, with swan's down round the neck and shoulders; that would be charming. Mary Scott told her, that her Philadelphia cousin had a dress like that, and ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... ejaculated Mr. Solomon Jenks, a young gentleman who affected a charming frankness and abruptness in his speech, but who was in reality the most specious flatterer of the entire party. Mr. Jenks rejoiced in the following personal advantages: red hair, a blue nose, goggle eyes, and jaws ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... energetically. "People do resent such insinuations against a woman, though I remember one case where the opposite effect was produced. It was when Collins ran for supervisor in Cleveland. He was a good fellow himself, and he had a wife who was all that was beautiful and charming, but who had once risked her reputation in an act which did call for public arraignment. Unfortunately, there was a man who knew of this act and he published it ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... asks everywhere for La Valliere. They tell him that she has a charming house between Saint Germain, Lucienne, and Versailles. He goes thither, laden with coral and pearls from the Indies. He asks to have sight of his love. A tall Swiss repulses him, saying that, in order to speak with Madame ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... cried Betty as, a little later, they were gathered about the table. "'Tis charming to meet old friends! And everybody is here save thy cousins, Clifford and Harriet, Peggy. Oh, yes! and ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... Ever charming, ever new, When will the landscape tire the view? The fountains fall, the rivers flow, The woody valleys, warm and low, The windy summit, wild and high, Roughly rushing on the sky! The pleasant seat, the ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... giving to the eye the sensation of flesh gleaming through the almost transparent stocking, he said: "Ah, that is what I should paint! That is life—a woman's foot at the edge of her skirt! Into that subject one may put everything—truth, desire, poetry. Nothing is more graceful or more charming than a woman's foot; and what mystery it suggests: the hidden limb, lost yet imagined beneath ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... society." Phillips Brooks, who met Browning in England in 1865-6, was impressed by his fullness of life and said he was "very like some of the best of Thackeray's London men." In public and on ordinary social occasions Browning is said to have been frank, charming, friendly—"more agreeable," Mary Anderson said, "than distinguished." With intimate friends, however, the poet had quite another sort of charm. "To a single listener," says Mr. Gosse, with whom he was on familiar terms, "the Browning of his own study was to the Browning of ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... touching the keys of the piano as if they were the chords of her thoughts, practice by note seemed a soulless, mechanical effort, which I would not make. One day mother and I were reading the separate volumes of charming Miss Austen's "Mansfield Park," when a message arrived from Aunt Mercy, with the news of Grand'ther Warren's dangerous illness. Mother dropped her book on the floor, but I turned down the leaf where I was reading. She went to Barmouth immediately, and the next ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... cent. of all daily friction is caused by tone—mere tone of voice. Try this experiment. Say: 'Oh, you little darling, you sweet pet, you entirely charming creature!' to a baby or a dog; but roar these delightful epithets in the tone of saying: 'You infernal little nuisance! If I hear another sound I'll break every bone in your body!' The baby will infallibly whimper, and the dog will infallibly mouch off. True, a dog is ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... the next few months I have wondered what would have resulted if I had taken that vacant chair between very agreeable Mr. William Raines and very proper Mr. Peter Scudder so evidently reserved for the young, beautiful and charming Marquise of Grez and Bye. I have decided that in about the half of one hour young Mr. Robert Carruthers would have been extinct and the desired and beloved Marquise in her place between them sipping her tea while making ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... swung open, permitting the entrance of a young and very pretty woman, one who knew exactly what a charming picture she made in jade negligee over peach pajamas. About her exceedingly well-shaped head ash-blonde hair lay in close artificial waves. She was such a distinctively blonde type that Miss Beaver could not control her slightly startled ...
— Old Mr. Wiley • Fanny Greye La Spina
... to the memory of my counselor and my friend,—that most delightful of story-tellers, that most charming of comrades,—my dear old Mother; whose early life was spent near the shade of the Colonel's porch, and whose keen enjoyment of the stories between these covers—stories we have so often laughed over together—is still ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... be on his guard lest he divulge something of the actual state of affairs, and is therefore either taciturn or presents an evil and watchful appearance, or, if a novice at his trade, is hesitating in his replies, the pathological liar has a cheerful, open, free, enthusiastic, charming appearance, because he believes in his stories and wishes their reality. The inconsequential way in which such persons go to work is to be explained by the fact that consciousness of the real situation is partly clouded in their minds. In any special act it is impossible to say whether ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... Delancy," he said, "because what is obvious and ready-made appeals to you. You think as you eat—heavily—and you miss a few things. That little Seagrave girl is charming. ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... He did not even amuse himself by flirting with her, as men would willingly do who could not be charged with any serious purpose whatever. His devotion was more mysterious and remote. A rumor would get about that Mr. Lavender had finished another of those charming heads in pastel, which, at a distance, reminded one of Greuze, and that Lady So-and-so, who had bought it forthwith, had declared that it was the image of this young lady who was partly puzzled and partly vexed by the incomprehensible conduct of her reputed admirer. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... most kind," responded the Frenchman, with a charming smile. "I am sure that I shall find it most interesting—especially your wonderful city, of which I have ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... tell her that he had bought it. With his outward eyes, he saw her drooping on the opposite side of the table, and in spite of her declaration that she wanted her breakfast, making nothing of it, after the preliminary melon, while to his inward vision she was passionately refusing, by every charming perversity, to be ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... saw a mother enfolding her child thus when he was taking a walk at the quiet end of day, and caught at once a suggestion from the scene for a Madonna. There is indeed an old legend which grew up about this picture, relating the supposed circumstances under which Raphael found a charming family group which served him as a model, and which he rapidly sketched upon the head of a cask; the circular form of the picture is thus accounted for. Whether or not this pretty story is true, it is certain that the Madonna of the Chair is a true ...
— Raphael - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... circumstances in the world she could find no romance. Her new-born instinct revealed itself in a curious, almost maternal devotion to her father and the current litter of puppies. Jocelyn found its expression unusual but not unpleasant: the attentions of this charming daughter flattered him; and the puppies liked it, too, licking her face when she smothered them with motherly caresses. But these things were not enough for her, and it came as a great relief when she discovered another outlet in the contents ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... was not disagreeable to me, but I wished it had not been so very pressing. I could not conceal from myself that repentance was beginning to creep into my amorous and well-disposed mind, and I was grieved at it. I felt certain, however, that the charming girl would never have any cause to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Beecher," vol. i., p. 43. The same charming volume contains abundant evidence that the spirit of true religion was cherished in the homes of the people, while there were so many public signs ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... answer "have I been myself to the man, but each time he puffed himself out like a frog and answered me not a word, but only sent me into a little room with his daughter—whom you must see, for she is charming—and a miserable black slave, and there I found these few wretched ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... English word "orchard" scarcely translates arbustum, but every one who has been in Italy will recall the endless procession of small fields of maize and rye and alfalfa through which serried ranks of mulberry or feathery elm trees, linked with the charming drop and garland of the vines, seem to dance toward one in the brilliant sunlight, like so many Greek maidens on a frieze. ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... Aruna insulted. Let me tell you she's charming and cultivated; much better company than Floss. And I love ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... Berlin is the Deutscher Frauenklub, and it is nicknamed the Millionaire's Club because the subscription is twenty-five shillings. It is a rather smarter club than the other, and has a charming set of rooms. There are about 450 members. The Third Club is a branch of the London Lyceum, and it has aroused great interest and attention in Berlin, not only because it is on a more magnificent scale than the other clubs, but because ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... nervous feminine natures, had not lessened my esteem for woman. I say, surely, no! So much of these is due to educational errors, so much to false relationships with husbands, so much is born out of that which healthfully dealt with, or fortunately surrounded, goes to make all that is sincerely charming in the best of women. The largest knowledge finds the largest excuses, and therefore no group of men so truly interprets, comprehends, and sympathizes with woman as do physicians, who know how near to disorder and how close to misfortune ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... concerned with them. On its own merits as a tale it is bustling and picturesque enough. The scene of it is laid in a South American Republic (that useful variant on Ruritania), and the plot deals with the rescue of the charming daughters of a rapscallion President, threatened by local revolutionaries. Naturally, therefore, there is some shooting—in the American sense—all of which bears the sign of expert handling. The affair ends with a really thrilling climax, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 16, 1914 • Various
... himself, and for that reason lenient with others. He appeared to apologize for being kinder than his fellows. He did merciful things as stealthily as others committed crimes. Almost ashamed of tenderness, he said and did the noblest words and deeds with that charming confusion—that awkwardness—that is the perfect grace of modesty. As a noble man, wishing to pay a small debt to a poor neighbor, reluctantly offers a hundred-dollar bill and asks for change, fearing ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... by Mignard, Boucher, and their imitators, are charming studies as tableaux de genre. But in nothing, by the way, are they more remarkable than in their decency. The nudities of the present times appear to have been undreamed of in the philosophy of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... sunlight revealed once more that sudden touch of gravity—almost of fear—in her face. It was rather a charming face, delicately angled, with cheeks that hollowed slightly beneath the cheek-bones and a chin which would have been pointed had not old Dame Nature changed her mind at the last moment and elected to put a provoking little cleft there. Nor could even the ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... content with fooling two men, you tried the same amusement on a supposed third. Ay, you wince at that! While you thought me to be the Count Oliva—while you were betrothed to me in that character, you wrote to Guido Ferrari in Rome. Very charming letters! here they are," and I flung them down to her. "I have no further use for them—I ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... in the breakfast Jacqueline was waiting for me, looking very dainty and charming. She was hungry, ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... think of scaling the walls of a maiden fortress. It must be you, Sir Karl.' The saucy little elf rose from her chair, bowed low before me and said, 'I do liege homage to the future Duke of Burgundy.' Then she danced across the room, laughing at my discomfiture. She is charming, Max, but remember Gertrude the Conqueror! Such trifling affairs are well enough to teach a man the a-b-c of life but one with your destiny ahead of him must not remain too long in his alphabet. Such affairs are for boys, Max, ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... report that the season is now in full swing. The charming seaside resorts on this attractive coast are crowded with visitors. It is remarked, as a singular indication of the uncertainties attending excursion traffic, that the proportion of arrivals is greatly in advance of the ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... Gave de Pau, we run on to Pau, the ancient capital of Bearn; the birthplace of Henri Quatre, and of Bernadotte, King of Sweden; where, in the charming old chateau, restored by Louis Philippe, those who list may see the tortoise which served as the great Henry's cradle; and believe, if they list also, the tale that that is ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... round the building. It was evidently unoccupied, though the delightful sense of uncertainty that at any moment some one might pounce out upon them or walk down the drive made the questionable adventure very charming. ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... Maurice hath manufactured the component parts of a ponderous quarto, upon the beauties of "Richmond Hill," and the like:—it also takes in a charming view of Turnham Green, Hammersmith, Brentford, Old and New, and the parts adjacent. [The Rev. Thomas Maurice (1754-1824) had this at least in common with Byron—that his 'History of Ancient and Modern Hindostan' was ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... and the deeper verdure of pines: while, far to the horizon, rose the distant and dim outline of the mountain range, scarcely distinguishable from the mellow colourings of the heaven. Through this charming spot went a slender and sparkling torrent, that collected its waters in a circular basin, over which the rose and orange hung their contrasted blossoms. On a gentle eminence above this plain, or garden, rose the spires of a convent: and, though it was still clear daylight, the long and pointed ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book V. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... coaxing—for Sarah could be charming to those she loved—that her uncle smiled, and said with a sigh, 'Well, you're safe enough now you're here, and I've half a mind to send for your mother and George. Anyway, I must telephone to tell them you ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... 1580, and the remarkable Mother Hubberds Tale, a bitter satire on the army, the court, the church, and politics. His Daphnaida was also published about the same time. On his return to Ireland he gave a charming picture of life at Kilcolman Castle, with an account of his visit to the court, in Colin Clout's Come Home Again. The story of the long and desperate courtship of his second love, Elizabeth, whom he wedded in 1594, is told in the Amoretti, a ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... the King had turned the next page, and there was a shining bird complete and beautiful in every blue feather of him. Under him was written, "Blue Bird of Paradise," and while the King gazed enchanted at the charming picture the Blue Bird fluttered his wings on the yellow page and spread them and flew out ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... putting it in order, and giving these poor recluses what they considered so great a gratification. We got it into some sort of condition at last, and when they heard it played, they were vehement in their expressions of delight. The Seora ——-, who has a charming voice, afterwards sang to them, the bishop being very indulgent, and permitting us to select whatever songs we chose, so that when rather a profane canticle, "The Virgin of the Pillar" (La Virgen del Pilar), ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... advantage of the club and the carefully selected musical library which Mr. Goodfellow possessed and placed at our convenience. It was a delightful gathering of congenial friends and gave restful pleasure to our good host and charming hostess who made it possible for us all to benefit by their generous hospitality. These delightful weekly gatherings were only discontinued when Mr. Goodfellow was obliged to rest from his labor and travel for a year. Our last meeting occurred February 2, 1900, when he ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... held his club close to the Princess's charming little nose, whereupon she woke up and shrieked with terror at finding herself in a strange place with the detested Grumedan. Frivola, who had stood by, stiff with displeasure at the sight of the lovely Princess, ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... limitations, never quite trusting her unguided instincts, and finding her as an instructress greatly inferior to Harvard University, though possibly not to Cornell. With dauntless enterprise and energy he had built and stocked a charming cottage farm in a nook in the Sierras, whence he opposed, like the lesser Englishman that he was, his own tastes to those of the alien West. In the present instance he felt it incumbent upon him not only to assert his principles, but to act upon them with ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... looked up quickly at this unusual generosity, yet she was, she realized, more startled than surprised. For had not little Rose been the one creature Martin had loved and to whom he had enjoyed giving pleasure? It had been charming—the response of the big, aloof man to the merry child of seven, but that child was now a woman, and, in all probability, a beautiful one. Wasn't there danger of far more complicated emotions which might prove even uprooting in their consequences? Mrs. ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... opera written upon a Russian subject, which was produced in 1885, there was much charming music, but the libretto was uninteresting, and the success of the work never equalled that of its predecessor. The most attractive part of the opera was the delightfully quaint and original ballet music, ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... thickets, in order to fertilize them with the waters of irrigation of the divine grace, so that the seed of their apostolic preaching might be received. By means of the laborious eagerness of the sowers who have succeeded them, a great portion of that arid desert has been transformed into the most charming garden. When I left Philipinas in the year 1738, it still existed as a most fruitful mission and there were well founded hopes that if Apollos water the plants established by Paul, it will receive the most abundant ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... however, I ought to confess, I was prompted to, in the first place, by a remembrance of the many obligations I owed to Commodore Pasley), I must beg you will recollect that, by sending to me your charming Nessy (and if strong affection may plead such a privilege, I may be allowed to call her my daughter also), you would have over-paid me if my trouble had been ten times, and my uneasiness ten thousand times greater than they were, upon what I once thought ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... happy adjectives. She was delighted with Washington; she was in excellent health; the members of the Legation were very thoughtful in their attentions; the autumn weather was all that could be desired; her apartments at the hotel were charming. In fact, her whole life was rose-colored, but never a word of real news for her anxious father and sister—nothing about gaining a pound a day. The Governor-General hoped from the encouraging tone of the letters that she was quietly housed, out in the borders of some primeval ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... me the delight you conferred by your performance last night would be equally charmed to possess my precious privilege of expressing my unbounded admiration of your genius; but unfortunately the impression prevails that my charming countrywoman sternly interdicts all gentleman visitors, denies access even to the most ardent of her worshippers, and I deem myself the most supremely favoured of men in having triumphantly crossed into the enchanted realm of ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... woman a present," thought Trevalyon. "But I must end this, for he won't. I am in no mood for trifling, I have again missed seeing Vaura. Mrs. Tompkins is charming in a tete-a-tete, but with the entree of a soldier on the war-path," and stepping towards his hostess he said gallantly: "So fair a foe, dear Mrs. Tompkins, surrounded by soldiers, is unfair; I beat a retreat. May I carry a comforting message to the gentleman who called ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... are the Jews to blame for it? No, it's not the Jews who are to blame, but the Jewish women! They are narrow-minded, greedy; there's no sort of poetry about them, they're dull. . . . You have never lived with a Jewess, so you don't know how charming it is!" Susanna Moiseyevna pronounced the last words with deliberate emphasis and with no eagerness or laughter. She paused as though frightened at her own openness, and her face was suddenly distorted in a strange, unaccountable way. Her eyes stared at the lieutenant without blinking, her lips ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... charming sweetness was all that saved the party from Miss Sniffen's very apparent displeasure, the tardy ones agreed. Supper had been served at least five minutes before they filed into the dining-room; but their astonishing appetites, which gave a relish even to soggy corncake ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... breakfast, which consisted mostly of hard-tack and coffee, a thorough inspection of the command was made, and all men reported to have unserviceable or unsafe horses, were sent to the rear. The weather is perfectly charming to-day, although quite too warm, in the midday ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... him as a sad flirt. "Beethoven had a great liking for female society, especially young and beautiful girls, and often when we met out-of-doors a charming face, he would turn round, put up his glass, and gaze eagerly at her, and then smile and nod if he found I was observing him. He was always falling in love with some one, but generally his passion did not last long. Once when I teased him on his conquest of a very beautiful woman, ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... but interested; and she indicated in the charming drawing-room manner, by a touch on her night-gown, that he could sit ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... mother's views was a scene of comedy, and there was instinctive art in the way she added touch to touch and made point upon point. She was so quiet, to oblige her painter, that only her fine lips moved—all her expression was in their charming utterance. Mrs. Rooth, after the first flutter of a less cynical spirit, consented to be sacrificed to an effect of the really high order she had now been educated to recognise; so that she scarce hesitated, when Miriam had ceased speaking, before she tittered out with the fondest indulgence: 'Comedienne!' ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... yourself out, when your charm lies in your charming manners? It isn't gowns that lovers love, but ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... awaiting me. Her parents and her two sisters had gone out, and we had the parlor to ourselves. Life in Burma may not have suited Mary Armat, but it certainly had improved her, for she was much more charming than when I had last seen her. Moreover, she was so very friendly, and without doubt so glad to see me, she was so bright and full of high spirits, that it might have been supposed she had arranged matters so that we ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... from the ball one evening so sick at heart that I feared that it was love. I happened to have beside me at supper the most charming and the most distinguished woman whom it had ever been my good fortune to meet. When I closed my eyes to sleep I saw her image before me. I thought I was lost, and I at once resolved that I would avoid meeting her again. A sort of fever seized me and I lay ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... times," she answered. Then she stepped back and daintily smoothed out the gown she was wearing, smiling at him as she did that day three years ago. She had put on this particular gown, remembering that Ian Stafford had said charming things about that other blue gown just before he bade her good-bye three years ago. That was why she wore blue this night—to recall to Ian what it appeared he had forgotten. And presently she would dine alone with Ian in her husband's house—and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... heaven and on the rolls of the nation, of a young girl with long hair, with black liquid eyes, with small feet, with dainty tapering fingers, with red lips, with teeth of ivory, finely formed, trembling with life, tempting and plump, white as a lily, loaded with the most charming wealth of beauty. Her drooping eyelashes seem like the points of the iron crown; her skin, which is as fresh as the calyx of a white camelia, is streaked with the purple of the red camelia; over her virginal complexion one seems ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... of men as a meadow, no doubt, but glorious to the eye with its unbroken stretch of white bowing before the summer breeze like the waves of the sea, and charming as well to pewee and kingbird who hovered over it, ever and anon diving and bringing up food for the nestlings. When, to a meadow not so completely abandoned to daisies, where buttercups and red clover flourish among the grass, is added the music of the meadow's poet, the bobolink, ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... Gallienne's admirations. His more recent poems in The Lonely Dancer (1913) show a keener individuality and a finer lyrical passion. His prose fancies are well known—particularly The Book Bills of Narcissus and the charming and high-spirited fantasia, The Quest of ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... the good angels were plotting in favor of Northrop School, for this year we have had one delightful entertainment after another. Foremost among these events was a visit from the Syrian princess Rahme Haider and her charming companion Miss Burgess, who gave us a fascinating dramatic reading from the Bible. The entire school was held spellbound by the art of the princess, who made a very artistic appearance in her Oriental garb and had a charming personality. Princess Rahme Haider most assuredly gave us ...
— The 1926 Tatler • Various |
