"Potion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a billet of twenty thousand francs," replied he, with a shrug and a smile. "And he, your neighbour?" asked we cautiously, concerning one of a fine, thoughtful, philosophic, and passionate countenance. "Ha! you may ask—he gave his mistress a potion, for the purpose of merely seducing her, and it turned out to be poison—a carabin like yourselves." But these made no part of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 546, May 12, 1832 • Various
... a man of similar tastes, who is just and yet sympathetic, critical yet appreciative, whose point of view just differs enough to make it possible for him to throw sidelights on a subject, and to illumine aspects of it that were unperceived and neglected—this is a high intellectual pleasure, a potion to be delicately sipped ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... pursuit of their darling sin. I have heard that some of these regular topers place brandy beside their beds that, should they awake during the night, they may have within their reach the fiery potion for which they are bartering body and soul. Some of these persons, after having been warned of their danger by repeated fits of delirium tremens, have joined the tee-totallers; but their abstinence only lasted until the re-establishment of their health enabled them ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... before our very eyes, we can infer that on the same principle even patients with the stone may, in the nature of things, be cured in like manner by means of acid waters, on account of the sharpness of the potion. ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... named either Mbundu or Olonda (nut) werere—perhaps this was what is popularly called "a sell." Mbundu is the decoction of the scraped bark which corresponds with the "Sassy- water" of the northern maritime tribes. The accused, after drinking the potion, is ordered to step over sticks of the same plant, which are placed a pace apart. If the man be affected, he raises his foot like a horse with string-halt, and this convicts him of the foul crime. Of course there is some antidote, as the medicine-man himself drinks large draughts ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... thus far well, yet would myself had drunk The potion he revives from! such suspense Crowds all the pulses of life's residue Into the present moment; and, I think, Whichever way the trembling scale may turn, Will leave the crown of Poland for some one To wait no longer than ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... was Egyptian darkness, but we found a jug and tin cup on the table, and helped ourselves. It may have been that in the darkness we helped ourselves too bountifully, for that morning Watts found himself in an ambulance going to the rear. Overcome by weariness and the potion swallowed in the dark perhaps, he lay down by the roadside to snatch a few moments sleep, and was picked up by the driver of the ambulance as one desperately wounded, and the driver was playing the Good Samaritan. Just before we went into action that day, I saw coming through an old field my lost ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... prescribed embrace the use of some potion; such, for example, as sulphur, asafoetida, and castoreum, mixed with clear spring water; or hypericum, compounded with vinegar—which two potions seem to have been (and to be still) the most favoured recipes ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... come in. They were entertained by the rest, by Effie and Tishy, who was allowed to sit up a little, and by Mademoiselle Bourde, who besought every visitor to indicate her a remedy that was really effective against the sea—some charm, some philter, some potion or spell. 'Never mind, ma'm'selle, I've got a remedy,' said Cousin Maria, with her cheerful decision, each time; but the French instructress ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... theatre, the Emperor, Munich, Germany, were all blotted out of his consciousness. He just watched, as if discarnate, the unrolling of the decrees of Fate which were to bring so simple and overpowering a tragedy on the two who drained the love-potion together. And at the end he fell back in his seat, feeling thrilled and ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... a letter of Marie de l'Incarnation. Garneau says the feasters were drugged, but I cannot find his authority for this, though from my knowledge of fur traders' escapes, I fancy it would hardly have been human nature not to add a sleeping potion ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... d'Amore' is not inferior to that of 'Don Pasquale' in sparkle and brilliancy, but the plot is tame and childish compared to the bustle and intrigue of the latter work. It turns upon a sham love potion sold by a travelling quack to Nemorino, a country lout who is in love with Adina, the local beauty. Adina is divided between the attractions of Nemorino and those of the Sergeant Belcore, who is quartered in the village. In order to get money to pay for the potion Nemorino joins the ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... swords their sleeping lords have slain, And some have hammer'd nails into their brain, And some have drench'd them with a deadly potion: All this he read, and read with great ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... stands mead, for Baldr brewed, over the bright potion a shield is laid; but the AEsir race are in despair. By compulsion I have spoken. I will ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... opportunity to divulge their marriage, another match was projected for Juliet, who, to avoid the crime of a second marriage, swallowed the sleeping draught (as he advised), and all thought her dead; how meantime he wrote to Romeo, to come and take her thence when the force of the potion should cease, and by what unfortunate miscarriage of the messenger the letters never reached Romeo: further than this the friar could not follow the story, nor knew more than that coming himself, to deliver Juliet from that place of death, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... known what hardest inward conflict is, can know what Maggie felt as she sat in her loneliness the evening after hearing that news from Mrs. Glegg,—only those who have known what it is to dread their own selfish desires as the watching mother would dread the sleeping-potion that was to ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... Eudemus, I will see it, shall receive A fit and full reward for his large merit.—— But for this potion we intend to Drusus, No more our husband now, whom shall we choose As the most apt and able instrument, To ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... catches my eye (it just came in) and something from the Lancet is extracted, a long article against quackery—and, as I say, this is the first and only sentence I read—'There is scarcely a peer of the realm who is not the patron of some quack pill or potion: and the literati too, are deeply tainted. We have heard of barbarians who threw quacks and their medicines into the sea: but here in England we have Browning, a prince of poets, touching the pitch which defiles and making Paracelsus the hero of a poem. Sir E.L. Bulwer ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... pleasure of the table is peculiar to the human species." Gastronomy he proclaims the chief of all sciences: "It rules life in its entirety; for the tears of the new-born infant summon the breast of its nurse, and the dying man still receives with some pleasure the final potion, which, alas, he is not destined to digest." Occasionally he affects an epic strain, invoking Gasteria, "the tenth muse, who presides over the pleasures of taste." "It is the fairest of the Muses who inspires me: ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... omnipotent. Worn by exhaustion, excitement, and fever, and possibly a little affected by Captain Dick's later potion, Roger Catron turned white, and lapsed against the wall. In an instant Captain Dick had caught him, as a child, lifted him in his stalwart arms, wrapped a blanket around him, and deposited him in his bunk. Yet, even in his prostration, ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... Sandman; we must all have our heads on our shoulders to-night," said the captain, as he drank off the potion he ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... every growing thing had expanded leaves with furious haste, when the noise of children playing in the street sounded loud through newly-opened windows, when, even on city streets, every breath of the sweet, lively air was an intoxicating potion. Then, with a bound, the heat was there. Evenings and nights were still cool, but noons were as oppressive as in July. The scarcely expanded leaves hung ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... male fern has been macerated, has caused in many cases, the expulsion of the taenia, without occasioning nausea, colics, or any other morbid phenomena." "It is exhibited at bed time, either in an oily potion, in pills, or incorporated in an electuary, in doses of 18 or 20 drops. On the following morning, a similar dose is given, and two hours after, two ounces of castor oil are administered. In most cases, the taenia is expelled in the course of the day, but if this does not occur, the same doses ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... has deserted and is pursued, but he will save him. To gain a livelihood, he proposes to him to travel together and heal the sick. An opportunity to do this is soon offered. A rich man is ill, and Salvatore promises to heal him in three days. He makes every one withdraw, prepares a potion from herbs, and cures the patient. The relatives of the rich man offer in their gratitude all manner of costly things to Salvatore, who, however, accepts only enough to support life. Such an unreasonable proceeding enrages his companion to such a degree that he parts from him. ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... a potion which will destroy their memory and sense of identity; they must go into the world helpless, and without a will of their own; they must draw lots for their dispositions before they go, and take them, such as they are, for better or worse—neither are they to be allowed any choice ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... making choice of the study of medicine, was apprenticed to Mr. John Gordon, a chirurgeon, who afterwards took out a diploma, and practised as a physician. His irresistible propensity to burlesque did not suffer the peculiarities of this man, whom he has represented under the character of Potion, in Roderick Random, to escape him. He made some amends for the indignity, by introducing honourable mention of the name of Dr. Gordon in the last of his novels. A more overt act of contumacy to his superiors, into which his vivacity hurried him, ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... circumstances, on a sudden exhibit three large stones, which he pretended to have extracted from the patient's body. To the first of these patients, he afterwards administered a decoction of herbs, and she recovered. The cure was probably owing to his skill in preparing the potion, but was of course ascribed to the incantation, and the ...
— Letters on the Nicobar islands, their natural productions, and the manners, customs, and superstitions of the natives • John Gottfried Haensel
... penalties of the law. He had sold a "love-philtre" (pronounced infallible for recalling errant fiances to a sense of duty) to an amorous kitchen-maid who was seeking to rekindle the sacred flame in the bosom of an unresponsive policeman. The damozel had mingled the potion in a plate of beefsteak pudding, and had handed the same out of the scullery window to her peripatetic swain; with the sole result that that limb of the law had been immediately and violently sick, and, the moment he felt sufficiently ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... art to die with Phocion? At the Instant when he was to die, they asked him what commands he had for his Son, he answered, To forget this Injury of the Athenians. Niocles, his Friend, under the same Sentence, desired he might drink the Potion before him: Phocion said, because he never had denied him any thing he would not even this, the most difficult Request he ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the 9th of September, 1598, the two women, supping with the old man, mixed some narcotic with his wine so adroitly that, suspicious though he was, he never detected it, and having swallowed the potion, soon fell into a ...
— The Cenci - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... no large experience to correct his hasty generalization. He wants to believe that the means he employed effected his cure. He feels grateful to the person who advised it, he loves to praise the pill or potion which helped him, and he has a kind of monumental pride in himself as a living testimony to its efficacy. So it is that you will find the community in which you live, be it in town or country, ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Roger Potion 'Sir, 'This is to let you know that I have quitted the Thunder man of war, being obliged to sheer off for killing my captain, which I did fairly on the beach, at Cape Tiberoon, in the Island of Hispaniola; having ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... attack of fever, which caused no alarm. It was the prelude, however, to more serious attacks, which shortly succeeded one another in rapid succession till the moment of his death. At four o'clock in the morning a potion was administered, in order to soothe the feverish agitation of the patient. Its good effect was only of short duration. As his physician entered, "this time," said he, "my dear doctor, all is over." He did ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... failure, and the best that might have come of it would have been very much below The Scarlet Letter or The House of the Seven Gables. The appeal to our interest is not felicitously made, and the fancy of a potion, to assure eternity of existence, being made from the flowers which spring from the grave of a man whom the distiller of the potion has deprived of life, though it might figure with advantage in a short story of the pattern of the Twice-Told Tales, appears too slender to carry the weight ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... castles, vessels that steer themselves, and the miraculous properties of the Saint Greal, Arthur and Tristram fight with dragons and giants. The loves of Tristram and Isoud arise from the drinking of an amorous potion. The chastity of knight and damsel is determined by the magic horn, whose liquor the innocent drink, but the guilty spill; and by the enchanted garland, which blooms on the brow of the chaste, but withers on that of the faithless. Inventions such as these ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... allotted once a day: He drenched us well with bitter draughts, tis true, Nostrums from hell, and cortex from Peru: Some with his pills he sent to Pluto's reign, And some he blistered with his flies of Spain. His Tartar doses walked their deadly round, Till the lean patient at the potion frowned, And swore that hemlock, death, or what you will, Were nonsense to the drugs that stuffed his bill. On those refusing he bestowed a kick, Or menaced vengeance with his walking stick: Here uncontrolled he exercised his trade, ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... a dozen small ones—I am at present swath'd hip & thigh, as Samson smote the Philistines, but my soreness is near over. My aunt thought it highly proper to give me some cooling physick, so last tuesday I took 1-2 oz Globe Salt (a disagreeable potion) & kept chamber. Since which, there has been no new erruption, & a great alteration for the better ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow
... being gradually poisoned by my step-mother, and that she had already poisoned my grandparents Barrois in the same manner. He had himself given me an antidote. But the means he had were not sufficient to shield me from all danger, and he begged me to drink a potion, which would put me in a trance for the space of three days. I took the potion which the count gave me; I lost my senses. How long I lay thus I do not know, but when I woke I found myself in a coffin ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... romances, such as Flores and Blancheflour, have "the voluptuous qualities of the East," make great use of magic of all kinds, and show the idyllic side of love. The tragedy of love is depicted in the romance of Tristram and Iseult, where a love-potion plays a prominent part. But, although knightly love and valor are the stock topics, we occasionally come across a theme of Christian humility, like Sir Isumbras, or of democracy, as in the Squire of Low Degree and in the ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... a while, perhaps not speak, but only smile kindly. That will last twelve hours or so, plenty of time for you to be married, and afterward, when the grosser part of the potion passes off leaving only its divine essence, why, ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... that the Queen's knowledge of medicine was accompanied by an acquaintance with the black art, for on the eve of her daughter's departure she entrusted to Brengwain, a lady of Ysonde's suite, a powerful philtre or love potion, with directions that Mark and his bride should partake of it on the night of their marriage. While at sea the party met with contrary winds, and the mariners were forced to take to their oars. Tristrem exerted himself in rowing, and Ysonde, ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... on the surgeon for a sleeping-potion and sent it to him by the steward, giving the man to understand I wanted it for myself. Uninvited, Talbot had seated himself on the sofa. His eyes were closed, and as though he were cold he was shivering and hugging himself in ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... where in due time he was discovered by certain members of the Brampton Club nailing to the wall a new engraving of Abraham Lincoln, and draping it with a little silk flag he had bought in Boston. By which it will be seen that a potion of the Club were coming back to their old haunt. This portion, it may be surmised, was composed of such persons alone as were likely to be welcomed by the postmaster. Some of these had grievances against Mr. Worthington or Mr. Flint; others, in more prosperous circumstances, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the Marlakes'; the children were all three sick. Kate Marlake had been a Grayland, and her sister Stella was recently come to stay with her through that trying time. Lawrence gave one of the children a soothing potion, and said he would wait to see the effect. He went down-stairs, and Kate sent Stella to keep him company. She asked him about the children, and he explained to her the "self-limited" character of the disease and the necessity that they should ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... meanwhile Hugo had been compelled, not without a wry face, to swallow the bitter potion Mrs. ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... woman now led the way. At the entrance a man lay on the ground, his heavy stertorous breathing proclaiming him a victim of some sleeping potion. The woman regarded him with a ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... and disastrous. People become confirmed "worriers" about their health. On the slightest suspicion of an ache or a pain, they rush to the doctor or the drug-store for a prescription, a dose, a powder, a potion, or a pill. The telephone is kept in constant operation about trivialities, and every month a bill of greater or lesser extent has ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... of Ireland, another Ysolde, well versed in every magic art, then brews a mighty love potion, which she intrusts to Brangeane's care, bidding her conceal it in her daughter's medicine chest, and administer it to the royal bride and groom on their wedding night, to insure their future happiness ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... should have enabled him to prescribe, for the majestic invasion of his pharmacy was a casual happening that had surprised him almost daily for years. Mr. Fentress knew the formula of, and possessed the skill to compound, a certain potion antagonistic to fatigue, the salient ingredient of which he described (no doubt in pharmaceutical terms) as "genuine old hand-made Clover Leaf '59, ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... some wicked witch her potion to provide, Brewed of the livid, midnight herbs, to draw him to ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... Chobodar who hands the Sultan his first garment, the Duelbendar who ties the shawl round his body, the Berber-Bashi who shaves his head, the Ibrikdar Aga who washes his hands, the Peshkiriji Bashi who dries them again, the Serbedji-Bashi who has a pleasant potion ready for him, and the Ternakdji who carefully pares his nails. All these grandees do obeisance to the very earth as they catch sight of the face of the Padishah making his way through innumerable richly carved doors on his ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... in an imperious tone, "your husband must be persuaded to go to bed at once. His condition is very serious, and a little sleep is absolutely necessary. I will have a potion prepared—" ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... he placed his fingers on the pulse, beating violently. "I am afraid you have taken severe cold—the day has been so inclement." And, with a somewhat unsteady hand, he administered a potion. ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... purple robe, the emblem of his noble descent, and naked, that, from his marrow already dry and his liver (when at length his eye-balls, long fixed on the still renovated food which is withheld from his famished jaws, have no more the power to discern), may be concocted the love-potion, from which these hags promise themselves ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... fever, unless there were poison. A vehement debate followed among the Lords of the Council and the doctors, including the Genevese physician, Dr., afterwards Sir, Theodore Mayerne. Finally, the potion was administered. The patient, who had been speechless, revived sufficiently to speak. But it did not save his life. The populace and the Queen believed that it had been ineffectual because there had been poison. Forty years later, Carew Ralegh referred to the rumour as ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... potion strong and good! One golden drop in his wine Shall charm his sense and fire his blood, And ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... bear something in their hands, while the hands of the rainbow are empty. This is not without intention. When the person for whose benefit the rites are performed is brought in to be prayed and sung over, the sacred potion is brewed in a bowl, which is placed on the outstretched hands of the rainbow while the ceremony is in progress and only taken from these hands when the draught is to be administered. Therefore the hands are disengaged, ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... it gies us mair Than either school or college; It kindles wit, it waukens lair, It pangs us fou o' knowledge. Be't whisky gill or penny wheep Or ony stronger potion, It never fails, on drinking deep, To kittle up our notion By night ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... words, which so corresponded with her own feelings, made it clear to her that Pao-y could not even compare with Hsi Jen and wounded her heart so much more to the quick that she began to weep aloud. But the moment she got so vexed she found it hard to keep down the potion of boletus and the decoction, for counter-acting the effects of the sun, she had taken only a few minutes back, and with a retch she brought everything up. Tzu Chan immediately pressed to her side and used her handkerchief to stop her mouth with. But ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... herbs, which they wisely employed in their attempts at healing. These herbs were greatly esteemed: such, for instance, as the cynocephalia, or, as the Egyptians themselves termed the asyrites,[133] which was used as a preventive against witchcraft; and the nepenthes which Helen presented in a potion to Menelaus, and which was believed to be powerful in banishing sadness, and in restoring the mind to its accustomed, or even to greater, cheerfulness, were of Egyptian growth. But whatever may be the virtues of such herbs, they were used rather for their magical, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... the shadows lieth my master—a-weeping in his slumber. So needs must I weep also, since I do love him for that he is a man. Good Saint Cuthbert, I have wrought for him my best as thou hast seen—tended his hurt thrice daily and ministered the potion as I was commanded. I have worked for him—prayed for him—yet doth he weep great tears within his sleep. So now do I place him in thy care, good saint, for thou dost know me but poor rogue Roger, a rough man and all unlearned, yet, even so, I do most truly love him and, loving ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... when he was quieted led him to the hospital, where a doctor attended to him. Here he entered into a long description of the pillar of "bottles," by which he evidently meant the incandescent globes. The doctor gave his patient a quieting potion, and in a short time he fell into a sleep. When he awoke from his sleep he was quiet, but his mind still dwelt on the pillar of "bottles," and he insisted on repeating his version of the affair to all the doctors. In the ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... be!' said the Egyptian, impetuously. 'Fear nothing, Glaucus shall be thine. Yet how, when thou obtainest it, canst thou administer to him this potion?' ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... Avicenna. Fancy a tall, thin, graceful man, with a grey beard and liquid eyes, absorbed in studies of the obsolete kind, a doctor of theology, law, medicine and astronomy. We spent three days in arguing and questioning; I consented to swallow a potion or two which he made up before me, of very innocent materials. My friend is neither a quack nor superstitious, and two hundred years ago would have been a better physician than most in Europe. Indeed I would rather swallow his ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... Strange things happened in this house. Windows were opened in the night. The curtains of his bed were set fire to. A step on the stair was loosened. The covering of an old well in a corridor where he walked was cunningly removed. And when he fell ill the wrong potion was put in the glass by his bedside, and he died. How could the pretty young mother know that this grizzled interloper was the child of whom ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... with their several pleasures, will you say that any pain has succeeded, though the pleasure is absolutely over? Suppose, on the other hand, a man in the same state of indifference to receive a violent blow, or to drink of some bitter potion, or to have his ears wounded with some harsh and grating sound; here is no removal of pleasure; and yet here is felt, his every sense which is affected, a pain very distinguishable. It may be said, perhaps, that the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Instantly the potion worked. Calmed as if by a miracle, made drowsy to a point where speech was impossible, the white man, tortured but a moment before, tipped sleepily into Fong Wu's arms. The Chinese waited until a full effect was secured, when he lifted his limp ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... won't do for me; To make you laugh, I must play tragedy. One hope remains—hearing the maid was ill, A Doctor comes this night to show his skill. To cheer her heart, and give your muscles motion, He, in Five Draughts prepar'd, presents a potion: A kind of magic charm—for be assur'd, If you will swallow it, the maid is cur'd: But desperate the Doctor, and her case is, If you reject the dose, and make wry faces! This truth he boasts, will boast it while ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... of all diseases. There is no catholicon or universal remedy I know, but this, which though nauseous to queasy stomachs, yet to prepared appetites is nectar, and a pleasant potion ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... dizziness. The doctor came within a half-hour, examined Ste. Marie's bruised head, and bound it up. He gave him a dose of something with a vile taste which he said would take away the worst of the pain in a few hours, and he also gave him a sleeping-potion, and ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... that he was more than ordinarily disturbed, sent in to the king his cup-bearer, who had been prepared long beforehand for such a design, and bid him tell the king how Mariamne had persuaded him to give his assistance in preparing a love potion for him; and if he appeared to be greatly concerned, and to ask what that love potion was, to tell him that she had the potion, and that he was desired only to give it him; but that in case he did not appear to be much concerned at this potion, to let the thing drop; and that ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... deadly potion mixed with sweet wine; which he who drinks of, does with the treacherous pleasure sweetly ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... think that they were all enchanted. He inquired about the age of the moon, if Nic. had not given them some intoxicating potion, or if old Mother Jenisa was still alive? "No, o' my faith," quoth Harry, "I believe there is no potion in the case but a little aurum potabile. You will have more of this by-and-by." He had scarce spoken the word when another ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... The lad was accordingly purchased by the gentleman who distributed oranges in the prison, and was sent to Canada, according to promise. Mr. Grossman was addicted to strong drink, and Aunt Debby had long been in the habit of preparing a potion for him before he retired to rest. "I mixed it powerful, dat ar night," said the laughing mulatto; "and I put in someting dat de gemmen guv to me. I reckon he waked up awful late." Mr. Dinsmore, a maternal uncle of Frank Helper's, had been visiting the South, and was then ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... sudden advances and regressions, their passionate surges that finally and after all their exquisite hesitations mount and flare and unroll themselves in fullness—they, too, seem to be seeking to distill some of the same brew, the same magic drugging potion, to conjure up out of the orchestral depths some Venusberg, some Klingsor's garden full of subtle scent and soft delight ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... I took the potion and swallowed it obediently; it had an intensely but not altogether disagreeable bitter taste; and then I quaffed the generous tumbler of sangaree that the old lady handed me. Oh, that sangaree! I had never tasted it ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... decided to take a turn or two round deck before going to his bunk, to drink in a potion of this intoxicating, winelike night. The wheel of fortune might whirl many times before he was again sailing this most ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... man tossed off the potion with the facility of long experience, shutting up the dish with his thumb and finger, as if it were ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... cabin, so that the eleven now in their charge were easily cared for. Of these, only three had been seriously injured. One was the German, who, however, was now sleeping soundly under the influence of the soothing potion that followed his operation. The man's calmness and iron nerve indicated that he would make a rapid recovery. Another was the young Belgian soldier picked up in the roadway near the firing line, who had been shot in the back and ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... same song (24) be takes a potion which causes oblivion. But there is even a third point in the Atlamal in Groenlenzku, which resembles one in the Indian tale. It is where the half enchantress Kostbera warns Hogni against ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... my father was sober and industrious by habit; but habit is not uniform. There were intervals when his plodding and tame spirit gave place to the malice and fury of a demon. Liquors were not sought by him; but he could not withstand entreaty, and a potion that produced no effect upon others changed ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... related the tale of the magnanimous Alexander drinking off the potion, in scorn of the slanderer, to show ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... confess all," she said, "the names and every thing you know. I go to mix a potion which may help you. Bethink you, till I come again, of all the details of your sin, that you may ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... Mr Podsnap now inquired from his station of host, as if he were administering something in the nature of a powder or potion to the deaf child; 'London, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... potion proved its subtle power, And Mahaud's heavy eyelids 'gan to lower. Zeno, with finger on his lip, looked on— Her head next drooped, and consciousness was gone. Smiling she slept, serene and very fair, He took her hand, which fell ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... musty, high-ceilinged chamber, faced with stone and brick. Before him were several odd shaped Chinese vials, and from these he was carefully measuring certain proportions, as if concocting some powerful potion. ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... Tristram. We have no trace in Mark's queen of the fact or likelihood of any such final repentance as is shown by Arthur's: and though the complete and headlong self-abandonment of Iseult is excused to some extent by the magic potion, it is of an "all-for-love-and-the-world-well-lost" kind which finds no exact parallel elsewhere in the legend. So too, whether it seem more or less amiable, the half-coquettish jealousy of Guinevere in regard to Lancelot ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... said; "do not be afraid, the potion will do its work. Leave her alone all night. When she wakes in the morning she will be wild with fever, and you need have no fear that the Rajah will seek to make her ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... well to talk of death as "a pleasant potion of immortality"; but the most of us, I suspect, are of "queasy stomachs," and find it none of the sweetest.[34] The graveyard may be cloak-room to Heaven; but we must admit that it is a very ugly and offensive vestibule in itself, however fair may be the life to which it leads. And though ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... concerned; that was a thing for which forgiveness might be found him. But that he should submit a lady, delicately nurtured as was Madonna, to such horrors as she had undergone since she had awakened from his sleeping-potion in the Church of San Domenico, was something for which no Hell could punish ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... heard Pitt thundering away against Carteret in exactly the same strain as Pitt and Carteret used to thunder against Walpole. He had heard Pitt denounce Carteret as "an execrable, a sole minister, who had ruined the British nation, and seemed to have drunk of the potion described in poetic fiction which made men forget their country." He had seen the policy of Walpole quietly carried out by the very men who had bellowed against Walpole, and had succeeded at last in driving him from office forever. He knew that no one now among ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... on a strait-jacket, and was struggling violently against three men, who were striving to hold him, while a physician tried to force him to swallow a potion. ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... and began to read—to read as he might have drunk if thirst were torturing him, and a cool, deep cup were at his lips. For the book was to him really a draught which quenched a longing akin to thirst; it was a potion that gave him ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... said Medea, grasping his arm. "Do not you see you are lost without me as your good angel? In this gold box I have a magic potion which will do the dragon's business far more ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... apparently was ill, and the other was pouring out some physic from a bottle into a bowl to give to it. The expression on their countenances amused us. The little invalid was turning away his head, unwilling to take the potion; while the other seemed to be entreating that he might not have too much of it. It was a family picture, however, which gave us a very fair idea of the terms on which parents and their ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... and childish opinion that extraordinary genius cannot brook the slavery of plodding over the rubbish of antiquity (a cant so common among the heedless votaries of indolence), dulls the edge of all industry, and is one of the most powerful ingredients in the Circean potion which transforms many of the most promising young men into the beastly forms which, in sluggish idleness, feed upon the labors of others. The degenerate sentiment, I hope, will never obtain admission in my mind; and, if my mind ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... herself to realize, as far as her husband's means and credit permit, the ideas of the particular section of the wealthy that have captured her. If she is a fool, her ideas of life will presently come into complete conflict with her husband's in a manner that, as the fumes of the love potion leave his brain, may bring the real nature of the case home to him. If he is of that resolute strain to whom the world must finally come, he may rebel and wade through tears and crises to his appointed work again. The cleverer she is, and the finer and more loyal her character ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... which had been laid on him many years before, for the purpose of preventing the continuation of the royal line. A drug had been compounded out of the brains and kidneys of a human corpse, and had been administered in a cup of chocolate. This potion had dried up all the sources of life; and the best remedy to which the patient could now resort would be to swallow a bowl of consecrated oil every morning before breakfast. Unhappily, the authors of this story fell ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... And, in thick shelter of black shades imbowered, Excels his mother at her mighty art; Offering to every weary traveller His orient liquor in a crystal glass, To quench the drouth of Phoebus; which as they taste (For most do taste through fond intemperate thirst), Soon as the potion works, their human count'nance, The express resemblance of the gods, is changed Into some brutish form of wolf or bear, 70 Or ounce or tiger, hog, or bearded goat, All other parts remaining as they were. And they, so perfect is their misery, Not once perceive their foul disfigurement, ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... breathe, that can so much command His blood and his affection? Well, I see I strive in vain to cure my wounded soul; For every cordial that my thoughts apply Turns to a corsive and doth eat it farther. There is no taste in this philosophy; 'Tis like a potion that a man should drink, But turns his stomach with the sight of it. I am no such pill'd Cynick to believe, That beggary is the only happiness; Or with a number of these patient fools, To sing: "My mind to me a kingdom ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... the inorganic aggregation of heterogeneous scientific activities which are connected with one another only by the name "Philology." It must be freely admitted that philology is to some extent borrowed from several other sciences, and is mixed together like a magic potion from the most outlandish liquors, ores, and bones. It may even be added that it likewise conceals within itself an artistic element, one which, on aesthetic and ethical grounds, may be called imperatival—an ...
— Homer and Classical Philology • Friedrich Nietzsche
... that, in spite of them, his cheeks were covered with pure warm water enough. They brought him to Berkeley Castle, on the Severn, and there, it is said, tried to poison him; but his strength of constitution resisted the potion, and did not fail, under confinement or insufficient diet. At last, when Berkeley was ill, ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... whoring, [One] Neist day their life is past enduring. [Next] The ladies arm-in-arm, in clusters, As great and gracious a' as sisters; But hear their absent thoughts o' ither, They're a' run de'ils and jades thegither. [downright] Whyles, owre the wee bit cup and platie, They sip the scandal-potion pretty; Or lee-lang nights, wi' crabbit leuks, [live-long, crabbed looks] Pore owre the devil's picture beuks; [playing-cards] Stake on a chance a farmer's stack-yard, And cheat like ony unhang'd blackguard. ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... ways in which we are made to pay two or three times what it is really worth. It does not do away with the great need of a rigorous food adulteration act, though there is great satisfaction in knowing that when we eat it we are not taking in a mild death-dealing potion. But, come to think of it, there are other great scientists in the country besides those composing the National Academy. Some of them have decided in a contrary manner. Is it not best to have the question decided by a majority vote of reputable chemists, and then stick to the good old things, ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... love-making as had taken place did in truth seem to have been perpetrated altogether on the side of the young man. Therefore it was that Madame Staubach spoke with a gentle voice as she prescribed to Linda some pill or potion that might probably be of service, and then ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... supping up, sipping, drinking, drought; any liquid food that may be sipped, a drink, a potion, a ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... his potion and his pill Has, or none, or little skill, Meet for nothing, but to kill; Sweet ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... knowledge, entirely devoted to warring against the animal element in man, and to educating himself up to an ideal standard of freedom from ignoble instincts, thus shamefully to choke and drown in the muddy lees of a love-potion! ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... "It is nothing. Des Hermies gives me permission to get up tomorrow. But what a frightful medicine!" and he showed Durtal a potion of which he had to take a ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... surmised, was caused by poison; the common tradition being that a potion was provided for Margaret at breakfast, in order to free the King from his bonds, that he might "match with England." "But it so happened," says the narrative,[209] "that she called two of her sisters, then with her in Drummond, to accompany her that morning, to wit, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... auditor in the Eighteenth Century, who declared it to be a new disease, not known in her day, and deserving investigation. She was happy to compare sensations with him, but hers were not of the complex order, and a potion soon righted her. In fact, her system appeared to be a debatable ground for aliment and medicine, on which the battle was fought, and, when over, she was none the worse, as she joyfully told Hippias. Never looked ploughman on prince, or village belle on Court Beauty, with half the envy ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... fish in water. And I know that hard is iron, And that mud when black is bitter. Painful, too, is boiling water, And the heat of fire is hurtful, Water is the oldest medicine, Cataract's foam a magic potion; 200 The Creator's self a ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... women had need stop our ears, lest in hearing we prove so foolish hardy as to believe them, and so perish in trusting much and suspecting little. Saladyne, piscator ictus sapit, he that hath been once poisoned and afterwards fears not to bowse[1] of every potion, is worthy to suffer double penance. Give me leave then to mistrust, though I do not condemn. Saladyne is now in love with Aliena, he a gentleman of great parentage, she a shepherdess of mean parents; he honorable and she poor? Can love consist of contrarieties? Will the falcon perch with the ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... taken at four several times, some Apothecaries carry not the whole pint at once, but divide it into four parts, and carry but one at a time, and so of other Medicines, and then will charge their Bill for every single Potion, or Draught, as they ought the whole Pint; so that by this Art they gain four times as much for the whole Medicine as in Conscience they ought; and a Juleb, which cost them six pence, will be rated at 10, 12, ...
— A Short View of the Frauds and Abuses Committed by Apothecaries • Christopher Merrett
... resumed Antonona, "that what you are plotting against my mistress is a piece of wickedness. You are behaving like a villain. You have bewitched her; you have given her some malignant potion. The poor angel is going to die; she neither eats nor sleeps, nor has a moment's peace, on account of you. To-day she has had two or three hysterical attacks at the bare thought of your going away. A good deed you have done before becoming a priest! ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... Wednesday night Juliet drank off the potion. She had many misgivings lest the friar, to avoid the blame which might be imputed to him for marrying her to Romeo, had given her poison; but then he was always known for a holy man: then lest she should awake before the time that Romeo was to come for her; whether the terror ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... or rather buried for some Time; tho' taken all imaginable Care of, and furnish'd with all the Necessaries of Life by that venerable, and loyal Priest. In the mean Time, his Apothecary enter'd at Break of Day into my Apartment, with a Potion in his Hand, compos'd of Opium, black Hellebore, Aconite, and other Ingredients still more baneful. Whilst this mercenary Officer of the King's Vengeance was thus employ'd, another as inhuman as himself, went ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... night to its brooding mate; June came with its poets leaning out of windows into the night hearing love songs in the rhythmic whisper of lagging feet strolling under the shade of elms. And under cover of a June night, breathing in the sensuous meaning of the time like a charmed potion, Judge Van Dorn, who personated justice to twenty-five thousand people, went forth a ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White |
