"Fascinate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... beneath or the waters under the earth. From star-dust in infinite space (which we hope to measure) to fossils on the bed of an ocean which is no longer unfathomed, nothing is too great or too small to attract man, to fascinate him, to influence his thought, his life, his literature. Darwin's Origin of Species (1859), which laid the foundation for a general theory of evolution, is one of the most famous books of the age, and of the world. Associated with Darwin were Wallace, Lyell, Huxley, Tyndall ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... say that considering the modest costumes of these Indian ladies and their bashful and shrinking disposition, it does seem strange that they should fascinate one like myself of the Saxon race. To be sure the sight of the bared shoulders and necks of society belles when undressed in the decollete fashion of their ball gowns ravishes and gluts our sensuality, but a momentary glimpse of the Indian maid's brown knee flashing by ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... my shells, professor? They're indeed able to fascinate a naturalist; but for me they have an added charm, since I've collected every one of them with my own two hands, and not a sea on the globe has ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... constantly at her table, and to accompany her in a short time to her villa. Without any charms, personal or even intellectual, to catch or fascinate, she seemed to have so much goodness of character, that I could not but try to attach myself to her, and accept her kindness as the "cordial drop" to make the cup of woe of my sad solitude go down; for Madame d'Henin, who, to equal sensibility, joined the finest understanding, was now so absorbed ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... such a woman, however for a time she might fascinate him; and afterwards there would only be the nausea and the memory that was like an unpleasant taste. Such a woman might teach him many things it is no harm for a man to know; but she would never call to the best in him, nor ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... opposite kind, the Byronic dissolution of domestic feeling was not entirely without justification. There is probably no uglier growth of time than that mean and poor form of domesticity, which has always been too apt to fascinate the English imagination, ever since the last great effort of the Rebellion, and which rose to the climax of its popularity when George III. won all hearts by living like a farmer. Instead of the fierce light beating ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 3: Byron • John Morley
... betray the slightest feeling in the interview. If only that strange turn of fate had not brought Lord Fordyce into her life, what glorious pleasure she would now take in trying her uttermost to fascinate and attract Michael—not that she desired him for herself!—only to punish him for all the past! But she was not free. She had given her word to Henry. The humiliation of feeling that Michael was making no protest, and would apparently from this fact agree willingly to ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... fracture in her gown of finest woof? Ye gods! what an insult to suppose her repairing such! The lady's mental accomplishments and qualifications are as follow:—She sings divinely, plays on the harp (and piano too in modern days) a merveille; occasionally condescends to fascinate on the guitar, and the lute also, should that instrument, now rather antiquated, fall in her way. She takes portraits, and sketches from nature; she understands all languages, or rather that desideratum, an universal tongue, since in the most foreign ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various
... the best books for boys of all ages, so attractively written and illustrated as to fascinate the reader into staying up until all ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... meant to mould their own lives; and, instead of 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 they ever do it again, let them have some reason for it." Who knows ...
— The Runaway - The Adventures of Rodney Roverton • Unknown
... is unlimited, and we must not suppose that these seven thousand stars that fascinate our eyes and enrich our Heavens, without which our nights would be black, dark, and empty,[5] comprise the whole of Creation. They only represent the ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... a. To hurt, bewitch: dook the gry, bewitch the horse. Wal. Deokira (to fascinate, bewitch). ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow
... your Highness has put afoot, proposes a new vice, which, passing under the guise of innocent pastime, will not only, by itself, be fully equal to any other of the many vices now known among men, for its certainty to lure them to its embrace, fascinate, infatuate, deprave, and destroy them, but will insure the exercise and combine the powers of them all. It addresses itself to the intellectual by the implied challenge it holds out to them to make a trial of their skill; it appears to the unfortunate in business as a welcome friend, which is ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... 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
... THE INDIANS. In which are enumerated the most remarkable incidents of the early Indian Wars, which abound in dangers, vindictiveness, endurance, heroism, gratitude, treachery, stoicism, and revenge, and in which there is much to fascinate the reader, and store the inquiring mind. By JOHN FROST, LL. D. With more than 300 Illustrations. ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... quickly; "but, strangely as it seems to fascinate you, it has always repelled, and even terrified me. It's the only object of the beautiful harbor that has ever cast a shadow across the loveliness of the sea. I hate it; and I have often wished the sea would draw it silently ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... garden, had stood in the center of things, in the heart of vital things. The two women had troubled Charmian. Madame Sennier had almost frightened her. Yet something in both of them fascinated, must always fascinate such a mind and temperament as hers. They meant so much to the men who were known. And they had made themselves known. Both were women who stood apart from the great crowd. When their names were mentioned everyone—who counted—knew who ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... expect you to wear mine," said April drily. "No, as you rightly suspect, it isn't for the clothes, though they fascinate and lure me. And it isn't for the honour and glory of being Lady Diana, though that is fascinating too, and it will be priceless to have the joke on the rest of the world for once. It is for various subtle reasons which I don't suppose ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... 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
... 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 ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... she cried to Birkin, who was watching the water on the steps, to see if it would get any lower. It seemed to fascinate him. He looked at her ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... she entertained of Lucian's love for Diana only made Lydia the more eager to fascinate him on her own account. A conceit of herself, a hatred of her stepdaughter, and a desire to wring admiration out of a man who did not wish to bestow it. These were the reasons which led Mrs. Vrain to be particularly ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... books which most fascinate the boy are those which deal in thrilling tales of adventure. The wily and unscrupulous traffickers in cheap literature have ever been awake to this fact, and their highly-colored productions have been flung from the vicious ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... not beautiful. There was nothing in its straight front of chocolate-colored stone, its heavy cornices, its broad, staring windows of plate glass, its carved and bronze-bedecked mahogany doors at the top of the wide stoop, to charm the eye or fascinate the imagination. But it was eminently respectable, and in its way imposing. It seemed to say that the glittering shops of the jewelers, the milliners, the confectioners, the florists, the picture-dealers, the furriers, the makers of rare and costly antiquities, ...
— The Mansion • Henry Van Dyke
... feelings were the same that I had experienced, and I refer the matter to scientific gentlemen, and desire them to solve the question. Can a black snake, by the aid of lamp light, fascinate two men, separated a distance of three yards, so that they lose all mastery over their actions, and are impelled, by a power that appears uncontrollable, to approach an object that they most dread ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... several others making the shining list. His keen care for the health of his forces induced him to hold back from visits even to his best friends, if he were very deeply at work, or paying more rapidly than usual from his capital of physical strength, which had now begun to sink. Lowell tried to fascinate him out of seclusion, in the frisky letter given in "A Study of Hawthorne;" but very likely did not gain his point, since Longfellow and others had infrequent success in ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... was Mrs. Stannard's vexed inquiry of her inner consciousness. Was the widower bent on making the most of his time in an endeavor to fascinate the Eastern belle? The ladies were hardly dressed when he reappeared, and was urging Miss Sanford to come out with him for a brief stroll to see the mountain prairie and take a whiff of Wyoming breezes, ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... like two Incubi, they glared As Baba with his fingers made them fall To heaving back the portal folds: it scared Juan a moment, as this pair so small, With shrinking serpent optics on him stared;[297] It was as if their little looks could poison Or fascinate whome'er they ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... department was achieved in Eve's Ransom (1895). Burrowing back into a projection of himself in relation with a not impossible she, Gissing here creates a false, fair, and fleeting beauty of a very palpable charm. A growing sense of her power to fascinate steadily raises Eve's standard of the minimum of luxury to which she is entitled. And in the course of this evolution, in the vain attempt to win beauty by gratitude and humility, the timid Hilliard, who seeks to ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... 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
... lay knotted in sleepy folds, with his great ringed back shining blue in the sunlight that struggled in round patches through the shimmering foliage. More consciously now than even in the train, the beautiful deadly creature seemed to fascinate Elma and bind her to the spot. For a moment she hesitated, unable to resist the strange, inexplicable attraction that ran in her blood. That brief interval settled it. Even as she paused, Cyril glanced round at the snake to note the passing effect of a gleam of light ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... It seemed to me they had come together as if attracted, drawn and guided to each other by a mysterious influence. They were a complete couple. In her grey frock, palpitating with life, generous of form, olympian and simple, she was indeed the siren to fascinate that dark navigator, this ruthless lover of the five senses. From afar I seemed to feel the masculine strength with which he grasped those hands she had extended to him with a womanly swiftness. Lena, a little pale, nursing her beloved lump of dirty rags, ran towards her big friend; and then in ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... glass, and inhaled the smoke of his excellent cigar with all the enjoyment of a satisfied connoisseur. His glance played from one article of furniture to another, from the floor to the ceiling, from bookcase to bookcase, from picture to picture. The very plainness of the room seemed to fascinate him. His gaze sought out the ugliest picture, and became fixed on it. Tranter turned over all the cards, and ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... 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 to ignore. In a faint panic, hardly conscious to her fear, she stared at her neighbour's ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... courting has been clandestine, behind the back of her family. It seems perfectly obvious that you're trying to lure her into a runaway match. She has grounds for believing that you do not trust her and, because of that, although you fascinate her, she finds it impossible to trust you in return. She trusts you so little that she did not dare to risk facing you and sent me in her stead. She's so sure that a marriage with you would be unfortunate that, in order to save herself from it, she's willing to become engaged to me, whom ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... enamoured. Alone in the group Franklin is endowed with the ordinary human revulsion from folly and wickedness, but his character is sketched too lightly to relieve the darkness. Such creatures may fascinate us by their defiance of the laws that bind us. Alice, particularly, does so. She possesses—as Michael does, to a less degree—at least a few natural traits; her conscience is not quite dead, and her love ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... and the hero have been on excellent terms, and to the great benefit of the hero too. But in this case Balderstone was to follow in the rut, and become the rival of Osborne for the hand of Marguerite Andrews—the heroine. Balderstone was to write a book, which for a time should so fascinate Miss Andrews that she would be blind to the desirability of Osborne as a husband-elect; a book full of the weird and thrilling, dealing with theosophy and spiritualism, and all other "Tommyrotisms," as Harley called them, all of which, of course, was to be the making and the undoing ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... with a veneering of the usages of polite society managed to fascinate the farmer's daughter. His power over her seemed almost hypnotic. So great was his control over her that she is said to have kept appointments with him in the dental office where ...
— The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan - or: the Headless Horror. • Unknown
... scenes what diff'rent sight! The comely grace it borrows of both hill and stream; And to the landscape it doth add a charm supreme. The fumes of Chin Ku wine everything permeate; The flowers the inmate of the Jade Hall fascinate. The imperial favour to receive how blessed our lot! For oft the palace carriage ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... girl of some twenty-three summers, of middle height, thin, but possessing a face which, without being actually beautiful, had the rare quality of charm, and might fascinate even to the ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... The Tempest fascinate with the witchery of untrammeled existence. Two lines of a song from Twelfth Night give an attractive presentation of the Renaissance philosophy of the present as opposed to ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... Furthermore, she knew that he had in mind one of the boldest projects he had yet attempted and needed, to insure success, every scrap of knowledge that she possessed. In the meantime, while she waited for him to seek her out, she resolved to show him the extent of her power to fascinate others; and from that moment never had she seemed more attractive and alluring to her admirers, in all of whom she appeared to excite the fiercest of passions. In fact, one word whispered in an ear by those voluptuous lips and marvellously sweet, musical voice, ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... lobby. persuade; prevail with, prevail upon; overcome, carry; bring round to one's senses, bring to one's senses; draw over, win over, gain over, come over, talk over; procure, enlist, engage; invite, court. tempt, seduce, overpersuade[obs3], entice, allure, captivate, fascinate, bewitch, carry away, charm, conciliate, wheedle, coax, lure; inveigle; tantalize; cajole &c. (deceive) 545. tamper with, bribe, suborn, grease the palm, bait with a silver hook, gild the pill, make ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... And 'neath the vault immense at evening swarm Figures of angel, saint, or demon's form, As oft a fearful world our dreams disclose. But not the huge Cathedral's height, nor yet its vault sublime, Nor porch, nor glass, nor streaks of light, nor shadows deep with time; Nor massy towers, that fascinate mine eyes; No, 'tis that spot—the mind's tranquillity— Chamber wherefrom the song mounts cheerily, Placed like a joyful nest well nigh ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... was he going to fascinate Kitty if he couldn't see her? But there was a bit of silver lining here. If he couldn't see her, what chance had Hawksley? The whole sense and prompting of this problem was to keep Kitty and Hawksley apart. How this was accomplished was ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... Tiara seemed to fascinate. He spent more and more time, particularly evenings, crouching on the bench in Gov-Park across from the Tiara, ignoring the constant stream of awed tourists silhouetted against the blaze of light. He kept in constant touch with his desk sergeant ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... ear. It was well her face owned an agreeable outline, and that her cheek possessed the polish and the roundness of early youth, or, thus robbed of a softening shade, the contours might have lost their grace. But what mattered that in the present society? Neither Calypso nor Eucharis cared to fascinate Mentor. ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... girl with one small finger struck a key. The sound seemed to fascinate her. Margaret caught her in her arms and kissed the ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... the snake with disrespect, not to say insolence; nothing, ophidian or otherwise, can fascinate a pig. If your back garden is infested with rattlesnakes you should keep pigs. The pig dances contemptuously on the rattlesnake, and eats him with much relish, rattles and all. The last emotion of the rattlesnake is intense ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... unscrupulous leaders brought on this war. The military group of one nation plays into the hands of like groups in other nations. To keep up war agitation long enough, whether the cause be real or imaginary, seems to hypnotize the public mind. The horrors of war fascinate rather than repel, and thousands of men in this land of peace are ready to fight in Europe to one who dreamed of such a line of action a year or ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... bulletin of happiness from me, my friend. I find it impossible to make Olivia happy. She has superior talents, accomplishments, beauty, grace, all that can attract and fascinate the human heart—that could triumph over every feeling, every principle that opposed her power: she lives with the man she loves, ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... out in a style which will fascinate the young, the illustrations by Mr. Billinghurst are executed in fine taste. His animals are real animals which will delight ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... 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
... before the coveted article was in her possession, and even then the stall seemed to fascinate her, and she was just making up her mind that a certain little blue vase would please Christine when Mrs. Sefton ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... either side, surpass anything of the kind that I have elsewhere seen, though in many respects vividly recalling the scenery around Rio de Janeiro: nor do I know any spot in the world more calculated to fascinate the naturalist who, while appreciating the elements of which a landscape is composed, is also keenly alive to the beauty ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... undemonstrative way and quiet voice, this man related some of his experiences, so as not only to gain the attention of his companion in arms, but to fascinate all who chanced to be within earshot of him—not the least interested among whom, of course, was ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... said Smith to himself. He was folding the paper when his eye was caught by a heading that recalled the days of his boyhood, when he had revelled in stories of savages, pirates, and the hundred and one themes that fascinate the ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... no doubt! You saw Antony's galleys from Actium come. But there! if questions could answers draw From lips so many a long age dumb, I would not tease you with history, Nor vex your heart for the men that were; The one point to learn that would fascinate me Is, where and what are you to-day, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... picturesque and interesting. These sixteen chapters on the famous scientists from Galileo to Darwin and Huxley will fascinate ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... Mary Virginia one afternoon, rubbing salt into his smarting wounds, "Mr. Flint, I am so glad all the girls like you so much. You fascinate them. They say you are such a profoundly clever and interesting man, Mr. Flint! Why, some of those girls ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... offered by which the heart 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 bore to each ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... 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 all ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.
... and toothsome, or at all events beaksome, morsels. These are, just now, the crimson cherries, purple and yellow plums, currants, red, white, and black—and sun-painted peaches, asking in their luscious ripeness for a mouth to melt in, that fascinate finch and flycatcher alike, and make the starlings smack their horny lips with a sound ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... Elizabeth is beginning to fascinate me. She seems just the sort of woman I would like. Well, you got ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... Coleridge, 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 the heart of individuals beneath "the ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... cipher was no longer there. I searched among all the other papers to find it, but in vain. I then concluded that he had destroyed it. For several days I continued to examine that desk, but with no result. It seemed to fascinate me. At last, however, I came to the conclusion that nothing more could ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... will not have in my writing any elegance, or effect, or 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 mirror ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... big Western boy, this unsophisticated miner, had sensed her wiles and turned them upon her—how then could she hope to succeed? If her eyes had no allure for a man like him, how could she hope to fascinate an audience? And Carmen and half the heroines of modern light opera were all of them incorrigible flirts. They flirted with servants, with barbers, with strolling actors, with their own and other women's husbands; until the whole atmosphere fairly reeked of intrigue, of ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... the person who possesses it. We can only say, I have it, he has it. You have seen it often in the eyes of those Italian faces you like. It is most obvious in the eye. As we look on such eyes, we think on the tiger, the serpent, beings who lurk, glide, fascinate, mysteriously control. For it is occult by its nature, and if it could meet you on the highway, and be familiarly known as an acquaintance, could not exist. The angels of light do not love, yet they do not insist ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... obey; that the torturing spirit of God in them will keep their consciences awake, not to remind them of what they ought to have done, but to tell them what they must do now, and hell will no longer fascinate them. Tell them that there is no refuge from the compelling Love of God, save that Love itself—that He is in hell too, and that if they make their bed in hell they shall not escape him, and then, perhaps, they will have some true presentiment of the worm that ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... the spacious grate seemed to fascinate the woman as she sat huddled in a big luxurious chair. The book she had been reading was lying open and unheeded on her lap. Her surroundings were by no means in keeping with her dejected manner. The room was cosy and lavishly furnished, while the shaded electric reading-lamp cast its gentle radiance ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... aware that he is valued for his simplicity and innocence. Then he resolves to break with the past, to put away childish things, to forgo affection, and to earn respect by imitating the activities of his elders. The strange power of words and the virtues of abstract thought begin to fascinate him. He loses touch with the things of sense, and ceases to speak as a child. If his first attempts at argument and dogma win him praise and esteem, if he proves himself a better fighter than an older boy next door, ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... button to the man nearest him, Mr Cupples withdrew into a corner, and leaned his back against the wall. The button made many a zigzag from side to side of the table, but Beauchamp saw the yellow gleam of it coming nearer and nearer. It seemed to fascinate him. At last bursting the bonds of dismay, the blood rushed into his pale face, and he again moved ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... face, framed in by loose light brown curls, and a pair of those clear, grave, wise, light hazel eyes which have the power of looking so young and so spiritually old at once. Those eyes are the first thing that Mrs. Eberstein sees, and they fascinate her already. Meanwhile kind arms are opened wide, and ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... stamped with the most cruel passions, her eye burning with the greed of evil. It was not from her appearance, I believe, but from some emanation of her soul, that I recoiled in a kind of fainting terror; as we hear of plants that blight and snakes that fascinate, the woman shocked and daunted me. But I was of a brave nature; trod the weakness down; and forcing my way through the slaves, who fell back before me in embarrassment, as though in the presence of rival mistresses, ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... Ambrose, I may as well tell you that my messenger (for I can't go to the station myself) is that curious old creature whom I mentioned to you in my first letter. Ever since that time he has been perpetually hanging about here for a look at me. I am not sure whether I frighten him or fascinate him; perhaps I do both together. All you need care to know is that I can trust him with my trifling errands, and possibly, as time goes on, with something more. ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... money from the vanquished. We financiers do the same. Our vanquished are the speculators; our vassals the shareholders. And what a superiority there is about our proceedings! There is no violence. We persuade; we fascinate; and the money flows into our coffers. What do I say? They beseech us to take it. We reign without contest. We are princes, too princes of finance. We have founded an aristocracy as proud and as powerful as the old one. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... finest man in the kingdom, as the person who appeared to her the most admirable. She loved him sincerely, with a degree of sentimentalism, if not with a profound passion. Her ideal had been on arriving at the court to fascinate him, to keep him amused by a thousand diversions suggested by art or intellect, to make him happy and contented in a circle of ever-changing enchantments and pleasures. A Watteau-like country, plays, comedies, ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... most interesting pursuit in the world is studying character. I believe I was meant to be a novelist; people fascinate me—until I know them thoroughly. Percy and the doctor form a most engaging contrast. You always know at any moment what that nice young man is thinking about; he is written like a primer in big type and one-syllable words. But the doctor! He might as well be ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... on land and water seemed to fascinate the girl; she had walked a little way toward the cliffs, Siward following silently, offering no comment on the beauty of sky and cliff. As they halted once more the enchantment seemed to spread; a delicate haze enveloped the ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... it "bate one jot of heart or hope." The grand loneliness of Milton after 1668, "is reflected in his three great poems by a sublime independence of human sympathy, like that with which mountains fascinate and rebuff us" (Lowell). ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... what they begin to take themselves for—for gods at least! People used to say 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, he would regard it ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... so indignant, please. I am an artist—honestly. But some of these men I've met over here—well, they fascinate me. Such boundless energy and drive ought to go into a symphony. Plenty of drums and crashing brass. Good-bye, Mrs. Lanier," he added. "This has been a lucky ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... think she was lame—I seem to remember some story about a malady of the spine. Her Armand was disproportionately young and slight, a handsome youth, perplexed in the extreme. But what did it matter? I believed devoutly in her power to fascinate him, in her dazzling loveliness. I believed her young, ardent, reckless, disillusioned, under sentence, feverish, avid of pleasure. I wanted to cross the footlights and help the slim-waisted Armand in ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... 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 he sprang ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... passage in which it occurs was wrought and burnished with excessive pains; or (which in this case is also known) when that particular passage is pushed into singular prominence as having obtained a singular success. In no part of his poetic mission did Pope so fascinate the gaze of his contemporaries as in his functions of satirist; which functions, in his latter years, absorbed all other functions. And one reason, I believe, why it was that the interest about Pope decayed so rapidly after his death (an accident somewhere noticed by Wordsworth), must be ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... with rattle accompaniment. The manner of using this powder will be described under the caption of "descriptive notes." It differs entirely from the powder employed in painting the face by one who wishes to attract or fascinate the object of his or her devotion. The latter is referred to by the ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... When Dolores smiled they appeared embarrassed; but truly greatly pleased. Barrow noticed that one of them was examining a book in English; the illustrations seemed to fascinate him. ...
— Wanted—7 Fearless Engineers! • Warner Van Lorne
... To fascinate, and make a fool of, a man who was strong and cunning in his own sphere; to have a hand—gloved in officious friendship—in other lives, furnished the zest of her unemployed life. She could introduce discord into a family without even acknowledging to herself ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... 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 strong walls. Nor will I deny ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere
... bad-hearted man. He was vain, but knew how to disguise his vanity, and passionately cherished his independence. When Vassily Ivanovitch would half close his black eyes, smiling affectionately, when he wanted to fascinate any one, they say it was impossible to resist him; and even people, thoroughly convinced of the coldness and hardness of his heart, were more than once vanquished by the bewitching power of his personal influence. He served his own interests devotedly, ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... a man who sees that he is about to be ruined, seized him again by the arm and tried to fascinate him by his steady gaze. But he obtained no response to this mute and threatening supplication except a stupid smile and ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... approval. And though I knew he wouldn't have any objection to Florence, having known her father since they were at Oxford together, I hadn't wanted to take any chances; so I had told her to make an effort to fascinate the ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... words to the letter. One beating was followed by another; with interval enough between the torture to insure recuperation and avoid danger to life. These scenes came to be regarded as a recreation of the house. The other inmates were allowed to attend, to witness the example and fascinate their attention. But at last the Okamisan despaired. Amusement was one thing; but her hatred of O'Iwa was tempered by the desire to find some use for her, to get a return for the twenty ryo[u] of which she had been swindled. Finally the advice ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... away towards the hotel; link after link the chain was being forged. But around whom, in the end, was it going to be fastened? It was the first time in his life that he had ever been brought face to face with crime, and the seeking out of the criminal was beginning to fascinate him. ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... of a poor 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. ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... thighs, the immense heaving of that dingy, striped green-and-orange back, the whole burrowing effort of that gaudy and sordid mass, troubled one's sense of probability with a droll and fearsome effect, like one of those grotesque and distinct visions that scare and fascinate one in a fever. He disappeared. I half expected the roof to split in two, the little box on wheels to burst open in the manner of a ripe cotton-pod—but it only sank with a click of flattened springs, and suddenly one venetian blind ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... are now two Black-Artists, of the first quality, busy on the unconscious Friedrich Wilhelm; and Seckendorf, for the next seven years, will stick to Friedrich Wilhelm like his shadow; and fascinate his whole existence and him, as few wizards could have done. Friedrich Wilhelm, like St. Paul in Melita, warming his innocent hands at the fire of dry branches here kindled for him,—that miracle of a venomous serpent is this that has fixed itself upon his finger? To Friedrich Wilhelm's ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... story out of the materials available from purely native society, the stock themes and characters of Anglo-India being entirely discarded. Bijli is a professional dancing girl, whose grace and accomplishments so fascinate a great Mohammedan landholder of North India, that he persuades her to abandon her profession and to abide with him as his mistress. This arrangement is correctly treated in the book as quite consistent with the maintenance of due respect and consideration for the Nawab's lawful wife, ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... pride in his State so deeply cherished by Virginians. At the outset of his public career he became associated with Mr. Calhoun, and early imbibed the doctrines of that illustrious senator, who seldom failed to fascinate the young men who fell within the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... for ten minutes. It was Tupper's great poem, and she attempted to read it. Lady Linlithgow sat, totting up her figures, but said nothing. She had not spoken a word since Lucy's return to the room; and as the great poem did not at first fascinate the new companion,—whose mind not unnaturally was somewhat disturbed,—Lucy ventured upon a question. "Is there anything I can do for you, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... opened her eyes to the true state of the case. Still, Tommie's future was in this strange gentleman's hands; she felt bound to consider that. And, moreover, it was no everyday event, in Isabel's experience, to fascinate a famous personage, who was also a magnificent and perfectly dressed man. She ran the risk of wasting another minute or two, and went on ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... pay me, too,' said the witch, 'and it is no trifle that I demand. You have the most beautiful voice of any at the bottom of the sea, and I daresay that you think you will fascinate him with it; but you must give me that voice; I will have the best you possess in return for my precious potion! I have to mingle my own blood with it so as to make it as sharp as ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... to the remote horizons.... At night the vastness of things, the height of the stars, fascinate me to the edge of uneasiness. And sometimes I go and sit in my room for a while—to reassure myself.... You see I am used to an enclosure—the walls of a room—the walled-in streets of New York.... It's like suddenly stepping out of a cellar to the edge of eternal space, ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... Penelope. His physical beauty alone was a thing to fascinate far harsher critics than these two who grew to be his special friends. His hair was tawny and thick and wavy. His eyes were black and bright. His mouth was small and perfectly cut. His cleft chin was square and ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... stranger to her, a letter overflowing with gratitude for the pure delight his poem had yielded her. Her passionate warmth, betraying at once the accomplished poetess and the gifted thinker, did not fail to fascinate the old priest, who immediately resolved to capture this beautiful soul for the church. His desire brought about a lively correspondence, our chief source of information about Sara Copia. Her conversion became a passion with the highstrung priest, ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... not my hunt!" muttered Jimmie Dale; then, with a shrug of his shoulders: "Queer the way those headquarters chaps fascinate and give me a thrill every time I see them, even if I haven't a ghost of ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... solitariness of the youthful Hawthorne. Is it surprising that in the fiction of the mature man there should be a pervading sense of remoteness, of silences that fascinate, of ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... in the shadow? They seem not to be the Red Hungarians, nor the Blue, nor the Hungarians of any other colour of the spectrum. You set them down as the Colourless Hungarians, and resume your study of the tables. They fascinate you, these your fellow-diners. You fascinate them, doubtless. They, doubtless, are cudgelling their brains to 'spot' your state in life—your past, which now has escaped you. Next day, some of them are gone; and you miss them, almost bitterly. But others succeed ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... was such a volume of entreaty in the words. "Only such a few weeks ago you said that I was far sweeter than all your other pleasures put together, and that you would give them all up for me; and now, won't you give up this one, which is more a worry than a pleasure? Do, Frank. Come, let me fascinate you by all I can do—by pretty words and pretty looks, and everything I can think of—to stay at home. Say ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... oil, Baku—especially the European settlement—has nothing to fascinate the traveller. In the native city, Persian in type, with flat roofs one above the other and the hill top crowned by a castle and the Mosque of Shah Abbas, constant murders occur. The native population consists mostly of Armenians and Persians. Cotton, saffron, opium, ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... boys laughed sympathetically. The little merchant said, "Whatever the spelling, El Mouski will fascinate you. Many things are made there especially for tourists. Some of the workmanship is excellent, and the prices are ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... 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
... been such as are the least fitted to stand the trial 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... of these women were real Seers, to whom the Madonna appeared, assuming in each case the only aspect that could fascinate them; just as she was seen to be the model of mere prettiness—the only type they could understand—by Melanie at La Salette and ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... quietly, and hinted that if she were "like some that were ready to return evil for evil, such talk as that would bring no blessing on them that spoke it;" which being translated into plain English, meant, "If you trouble me, I will overlook (i. e. fascinate) you, and then your pigs will die, your horses stray, your cream turn sour, your barns be fired, your son have St. Vitus's dance, your daughter fits, and so on, woe on woe, till you are very probably starved to death in a ditch, by virtue of this terrible little eye of mine, at ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... he felt 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 ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... this direct and 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 ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... to talk of a man in this way, he is an ass who does not win her; and, for my part, I used to follow her about, and put myself in an attitude opposite her, 'and fascinate her with my glance,' as she said, most assiduously. Lord George Poynings, her former admirer, was meanwhile keeping his room with his wound, and seemed determined to give up all claims to her favour; for he denied her admittance when she called, sent no answer to her multiplied correspondence, ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... remorseful love could do to 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 would ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of self-destruction had surged up in the lava of other tumultuous thoughts occasioned by the artist's scorn, and at first she had shrunk from it with natural and instinctive dread. But the awful thought began to fascinate her like a dizzy height from which it seems so easy to fall and ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... smooth water, but seemed to glide on its surface as if on a sheet of plate-glass, a man in her bow, the master at the wheel visible only from the waist upwards above the white screen of the bridge, both of them so still-eyed as to fascinate young Powell into curious self-forgetfulness and immobility. He was steeped, sunk in the general quietness, remembering the statement 'she's a lady that mustn't be disturbed,' and repeating to himself idly: 'No. ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... heart, she asked herself what all this could possibly mean, and why she was not angry—and why this stranger—whose appearance outraged all her ideas as to what an English gentleman should look like— had yet the power to fascinate her completely. Of course, she would not go for a drive with him—and yet, what would be the harm? After September she would never have a chance like this again. There would be only Eustace Medlicott and parish duties— yes—if fate made it ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn
... are open, and the women sitting in their balconies, so that possibly thy eyes may glance upon some one of them, and thy heart be distracted with love; for in this part are many beautiful damsels, who would fascinate even a religious, and therefore I am alarmed for ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... arrondissement, on which Providence had bestowed this lawyer, as it gives a beneficent plant to cure or alleviate every malady. Here is a sketch of a man whom the brilliant Marquise d'Espard hoped to fascinate. ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... and burdens of the same sort, such as enchant when sung and fascinate when written. And then, when they condescend to compose a sort of verse that was at that time in vogue in Kandy, which they call seguidillas! Then it is that hearts leap and laughter breaks forth, and the body grows restless and all the senses ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... us and swim the stream and pass into the Palace." But Ibn Ibrahim remained behind while Sahlub departed with those about him; and when they had left the company, Al-Hayfa asked, "O Ibn Ibrahim, say me, canst thou keep my secret and my being fascinate[FN239] by love?" and he answered, "Yea, verily, O my lady, how should I not conceal it for thee, when thou art my mistress and princess and the daughter of my master, even though I keep it inside mine eyes?" So she continued, "O Ibn Ibrahim, there came to me a youth ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... I mean what I say. If I do admire a person I say so. Now, I admire our darling Martha West. She has always been kind to me. Martha is a dear, a duck; but, of course, she doesn't fascinate in the way you do. Several of the other girls in my form—I'm in the upper fifth, you know—have been talking about you and wondering where your charm lay. For you couldn't be called exactly pretty; although, of course, that very black hair of yours, and those curious eyes which ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... the might of their enchantments. But Tertullian[172] is bolder, and maintains that no magical art has power to bring the souls of the saints from their rest; but that all the necromancers can do is to call forth some phantoms with a borrowed shape, which fascinate the eyes, and make those who are present believe that to be a reality which is only appearance. In the same place he quotes Heraclius, who says that the Nasamones, people of Africa, pass the night by the tombs of their near relations to receive oracles from the latter; and ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... method. Vigorous, fluent, crisp, and clear, it shows how well our language is adapted to description and narration. It is written for the people, and in the picturesque and poetic strain which is always certain to fascinate the Celtic mind. The introduction to each Vision is evidently written with elaborate care, and exquisitely polished—"ne quid possit per leve morari," and scene follows scene, painted in words which ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... 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 Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... Diana she seemed to fascinate him—he refused to give up my letters—said he could not part with them. In this way he tortured me for weeks until at last he wrote from Raydon Manor, saying I should have the letters if I would call for them in person, but it must be at ten o'clock at night—and Diana must go with me. So ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... books that delight and fascinate the wide awake Girls of the present day who are between the ages of eight and fourteen years. The great author of these books regards them as the best products of her pen. Printed from large clear type on a superior ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... a man of the world! But when you can dress in vermilion and purple and gold and wear the biggest cloak and the largest sword that ever was and twist your moustache as outrageously as you please, what's easier than to fascinate such a child as Columbine? She curtseys to him as he bows to her. She beckons to her husband to join them. But he, lost now in the landscape, now in his reopened book, waves only a distant greeting, and will not budge. The Man of the World smiles a most worldly smile, and soon he and pretty Columbine ...
— The Harlequinade - An Excursion • Dion Clayton Calthrop and Granville Barker
... than I do. They may fear to offend you more than I ever will, but they cannot be more ready to serve you. I wish to God that I could see one so superior in mind and talents and every grace and power that can fascinate and delight, happier. You might still be so, Lord Byron, if you would believe what some day you will find true. Have you ever thought for one moment seriously? Do you wish to heap such misery upon yourself that you will no longer be able to endure it? Return to virtue and happiness, for God's ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... engaged in reading the original, the possibility of preserving intricate stanzaic form, and something of alliteration, without an entire sacrifice of poetic beauty. The experiment was persisted in because its problems are such as baffle and fascinate a translator, and the finished version is offered not merely to students of Middle English but to college classes in the history of English ...
— The Pearl • Sophie Jewett
... will fascinate by the grace and charm with which it is written, by the delightful characters that take part in it, and by the interest of the plot. The scene is laid in a magnificent Austrian castle in North Italy, and that serves as a ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... wire as in the surrounding space—in the most surprising manner, taking the forms of heat, light, mechanical energy, and, most surprising of all, even chemical affinity. All these observations fascinate us, and fill us with an intense desire to know more about the nature of these phenomena. Each day we go to our work in the hope of discovering,—in the hope that some one, no matter who, may find a solution of one of the pending great problems,—and each succeeding day we return to our task ...
— Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High - Frequency • Nikola Tesla
... devoted to her, and when she was practicing would hover about her as often and as long as she could. Her singing especially seemed to enchant and fascinate the girl. But a change had already begun to show itself in her. The shadow of an unseen cloud was occasionally visible on her forehead, and unmistakable pools were left in her eyes by the ebb-tide ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... stated thus. We can all remember it in the case of the really inspiriting parties and fooleries of our youth. The only real fun is to have limited materials and a good idea. This explains the perennial popularity of impromptu private theatricals. These fascinate because they give such a scope for invention and variety with the most domestic restriction of machinery. A tea-cosy may have to do for an Admiral's cocked hat; it all depends on whether the amateur actor can swear like an Admiral. ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... dead; but deliberation could not quite be proved, and, what was more practical still, the criminal could not be found. I heard a rumour of his having reappeared somewhere in the opposite character this time, lending money instead of borrowing it; but still to such poor widows as he might personally fascinate, but still with the same bad result for them. Well, there is your innocent man, and there is his innocent record. Even, since then, four criminals and three warders have identified him and confirmed the story. Now what have you got to say to my poor ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... not for other attractions we would like to concentrate our attention on these beautiful creatures alone. For they fascinate us by the daring of their colours, by their bold designs, by the way in which they blend the colours with one another, and by the extreme delicacy and chasteness of both colour and design. We are reluctant to take the life of a single one of the ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... have experienced great joys and great trials. And Hut Point has an atmosphere of its own. I do not know what it is. Partly aesthetic, for the sea and great mountains, and the glorious colour effects which prevail in spring and autumn, would fascinate the least imaginative; partly mysterious, with the Great Barrier knocking at your door, and the smoke of Erebus by day and the curtain of Aurora by night; partly the associations of the place—the old hut, the old ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... adjurations, and passionate apostrophes, but with this strange and unexpected result. Heretofore she had always been sustained and kept up by an audience of some kind or quality, if only perhaps a humble companion; there had always been some one she could fascinate or horrify, and she could read her power mirrored in their eyes. Even the half-abstracted indifference of her strange host had been something. But she was alone now. Her words fell on apathetic solitude; she was acting to viewless space. She rushed to the ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... as a compensation for being restricted in our walks, we were to exercise for ever dominion over all the other species of snakes. And, as a protection from those who might wage a war of invasion against us, our eyes were gifted with the power to fascinate, and attract to us, every living creature that came within the scope of their vision, save those who were specially favoured by the Spirit of the Mountain. And thus it is. We, the Kind Old Kings, are the ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... forest back of "Old Faithful," and that gave us one whole day and afternoon with the geysers. Our colored cook was simply wild over them, and would spend hours looking down in the craters of those that were not playing. Those seemed to fascinate her above all things there, and at times she looked like a wild African when she returned to camp from one of them. Not far from the tents of the enlisted men was a small hot spring that boiled lazily in a shallow basin. It occurred to one of the men that it would make ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... to dream of in this world? Those exciting pictures of country life, so free from fears and troubles, the ocean of happy days that glitters incessantly before all young imaginations, are real allurements wherewith to fascinate a poor, unhappy prisoner, worn out by prison cares, emaciated by the stifling air of the Bastile. It was the picture, it will be remembered, drawn by Aramis, when he offered the thousand pistoles he had with him in the carriage to the prince, and the ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere |
