"Spell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hard finding suitable company for Arethusa,—no date could be fixed until that was settled; and then Miss Letitia had a little spell of illness and the making of the clothes was interrupted; and so on. But the last postponement, until late October, was the Worthingtons' own fault. It was far too hot in Lewisburg that September, so off they scurried to the seashore before Arethusa ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... had lit and was puffing on out of his mouth and laid it down on the table, "and more especially considering the fact, that, when I saw him in Coleman's, he appeared to have just got in from a long prospecting spell in the mountains and to have plenty of gold along with him, and gold of a different kind than is found anywhere around here, I feel quite certain that Stackpole's yarn about finding that Cave of Gold comes pretty nigh to being true, nigh enough at ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... astounded at Preciosa's decision, and remained as if spell-bound, with his eyes bent on the ground, apparently considering what answer he should return. Seeing this, Preciosa said to him, "This is not a matter of such light moment that it can or ought to be resolved on the spot. Return, senor, ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... at least I got a letter from somebody to that effect. But I was near crazy just then, and I can't remember exactly how it was. I lost my wife and two children and then I guess I about lost my mind for a spell. I sold out, and the next thing I knew I was roving around the mountains and in rags. Then I took to mining, and now I've got a mine of my own, up yonder in the mountains. Come ...
— Joe The Hotel Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.
... had also boiled at the rude thrust. While under the spell of Richard's voice a cord in his own soul had vibrated as does a glass globe when it responds in perfect harmony to a note from a violin. He too had a Lenore whose loss had wellnigh broken his heart. This in itself was an indissoluble bond between them. Besides, ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... she knew well, Thy Loue did read by rote, that could not spell: But come young wauerer, come goe with me, In one respect, Ile thy assistant be: For this alliance may so happy proue, To turne your houshould rancor to ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... if ever he who had the strongest head in the world had gone mad, it would have been through this turbulent democracy of things. If he looked at a porcelain vase or an old hat, a cabbage, or a puppy at play, each began to be bewitched with the spell of a kind of fairyland of philosophers: the vase, like the jar in the Arabian Nights, to send up a smoke of thoughts and shapes; the hat to produce souls, as a conjuror's hat produces rabbits; the cabbage to swell and overshadow the earth, ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... Thorndike and others like minded analyze the phenomena in a way that reveals their mechanism, or in the unfruitful manner of the faculty psychology? Is, for instance, the mind an aggregate of the following "functions that have been, or might be, studied:—Ability to spell cat, ability to spell, knowledge that Rt 289 equals 17, ability to read English, knowledge of telegraphy,. . . . ability to give the opposites of good, up, day, and night, . . . . fear and avoidance of snakes, misery ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... enjoyed there a brief unwonted hour of good looks. Only a limited amount of electricity was used, and that little was carefully masked and modulated, while the two great chandeliers each of them held aloft a very forest of wax candles. It was known, too, that the spell was in no danger of being rudely broken. The same tender but festive radiance would bathe the hospitable board of the great ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... this passage I have taken the liberty so far to correct it as to spell her name properly ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... being in command and handling the ship alone. Particularly I enjoy swooping down on some giant freighter, like a hawk on a turkey, running close alongside, where a wrong touch to helm or engine may spell destruction, and then demanding through a megaphone why she does or does not do so and so. I have learned more navigation and ship-handling since being over here than in all my previous seagoing experience. ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... the young birds. I had been aroused in time to hear the marauder on the roof with one, and then hear its cry as he carried it to the tree. In the grass in front I found one of the young, unable to fly, but apparently unhurt. I put it back in the nest, but it would not stay. The spell of the nest was broken, and the young bird took to the grass again. The parent birds were on hand, much excited, and, when I tried to return the surviving bird to the nest, the male came at me fiercely, apparently charging ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... its former place in the Vatican. The attitude of the figure, which is more than seven feet high, is inimitable in its freedom, grace, and majesty. The forehead is noble and intellectual, and the whole countenance so exquisite in its beauty, that one pauses spell-bound to gaze on so perfect a conception. The god has a very youthful appearance, as is usual in all his representations, and with the exception of a short mantle which falls from his shoulders, is unclothed. ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... towards her; and she waited shuddering, a scream on her lips. The same terror which, a while before, had frozen the cry in her throat, now tried her in another way. She longed to speak, to shriek, to stand up, to break in one way or any way the hideous silence, the spell that bound her. Every moment the strain on her nerves grew tenser, the fear lest she should swoon, more immediate, more appalling; and still the man sat in his corner, motionless, peeping at her through his fingers, leering and ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... his sympathy, as well as his curiosity. He couldn't forget that look he had surprised. It stayed in his memory, perilously. At night in his room, when he should have been studying, that astonishing glance came before him on his book, and cast a luminous spell upon him. ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... banks in strange and attractive contrast. The starboard side (that from which we hoped to find a way to Shirley) was high and covered with trees of many kinds. The bank to port was low and covered with a marsh forest of cypresses. It was a dark and gloomy forest, but the spell of its sombre depths drew our eyes quite as often as the cheerfuller charm of the woodland on the other side; and so was equally responsible for the zigzag course that Gadabout ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... he lied resourcefully, "I hope you will all keep your seats and indulge the management for a few moments. A fuse has burned out, but it will at once be remedied. Our pianist, I will add, has suffered a fainting spell, but is in ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... name touches every fibre of the soul, and strikes every chord of the human heart as with angelic fingers. Nothing but death can break its spell. What tender associations are linked with home! What pleasing images and deep emotions it awakens! It calls up the fondest memories of life, and opens in our nature the purest, deepest, richest gush of consecrated ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... own, his all:—the crowd may prove A transient feeling, and misname it love:— His was a higher impulse; 'twas a part Of the warm blood that circled through his heart, A fervid energy, a spell that bound Thoughts, wishes, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 346, December 13, 1828 • Various
... something about her looks and something about her voice you couldn't get away from. You couldn't tell to save you what it was, but after you'd seen her she'd seem to be with you for days, and you couldn't think much about anything else, even if you wanted to. People used to go around in a kind of spell; they couldn't think of anything or talk of anything but Dora Preston. It didn't matter much what she did; everything she did made you feel like a boy falling in love the first time. It made you think of apple-blossoms and moonlight just to look ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... position; and that class of intelligence is not accustomed to find the marvellous in such very powerful hands as yours. On more imaginative readers the tale will fall (or I am greatly mistaken) like a spell. By readers who combine some imagination, some scepticism, and some knowledge and learning, I hope it will be regarded as full of strange fancy and curious study, startling reflections of their own thoughts and speculations at odd times, and wonder which a master has a ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... ceremonies which had distinguished the old school. He generally rose about noon, dined at three p.m., spent the evening at the opera or theatre, and went to bed towards morning. Add to this, that he collected old china, took much snuff, combed his wig in public, and was unable to write legibly or spell correctly—and a finished portrait is presented of Mr Marcus Welles, and through him of a fashionable London gentleman ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... do that scalpin' job no good," he announced. "He can't ride far 'less he gits him a spell of rest an' maybe has a medicine man look at ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... the spell, and looked round and clown, terrified, self-conscious. Her eye caught Stangrave's; she saw, or thought she saw, by the expression of his face, that he knew all, and burst away ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... bound. * * * * * The moon on the east oriel shone, Through slender shafts of shapely stone, By foliated tracery combined; Thou would'st have thought some fairy's hand 'Twixt poplars straight the osier wand In many a freakish knot had twined; Then framed a spell, when the work was done, And changed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. • Various
... spell of concentration on these things, Determined now, that long have wasted him, Have left him in a numbing lethargy, From which I fear he may not rouse to strength For speech ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... dim. The fire of the last few minutes had speedily burnt out. His half-soddened brain refused to answer to the sudden spasm of memory which had awakened a spark of the former man. If he had thoughts at all, they hung around that brandy bottle. The calm beauty of the African night could weave no spell upon him. A few feet behind, Trent, by the light of the moon, was practising tricks with a pack of greasy cards. By and by a spark of intelligence found its way into Monty's ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the Oven-birds begin building in the autumn," Hudson tells us, "and the work is resumed during the winter whenever there is a spell of mild, wet weather. Some of their structures are finished early in winter, others not until spring, everything depending on the weather and the condition of the birds. In cold, dry weather, and when food is scarce, they ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... this was. It seemed to her that the phenomenon known as "love at first sight," of which she had read, was a thing far less to be wondered at. There a girl meets some one she has not seen before whom she finds holds for her that potent spell. That could be easily understood; the new force with which she comes in contact instantly exercises its power on her. But she, Daisy, had come across this man a hundred times, and now suddenly, without apparent cause, she who ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... memories still lingered in his mind and seemed to grow brighter at these times. Seeing the interest he took in Nat, Mr. Bhaer begged him to help them lift the cloud from the feeble brain by this gentle spell. Glad to do any thing to show his gratitude, Nat always smiled on Billy when he followed him about, and let him listen undisturbed to the music which seemed to speak a language he could understand. "Help one another," was a favorite Plumfield motto, and ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... faded away, and the street wore a more and more gloomy aspect. The rain poured, and now only an occasional carriage or footstep disturbed the sound of its steady pattering. Yet still Ellen sat with her face glued to the window as if spell-bound, gazing out at every dusky form that passed, as though it had some strange interest for her. At length, in the distance, light after light began to appear; presently Ellen could see the dim figure of the lamplighter crossing ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Eleanor off into another wild spell of laughter, but Polly began to quiet now that she heard her friend making such a disturbance. The ungoverned laughter attracted Mr. Ashby who ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... tactics and admirable strategy of his rival. Cortes conducted his military operations on the scientific principles of a great captain at the head of a powerful host. Pizarro appears only as an adventurer, a fortunate knight- errant. By one bold stroke, he broke the spell which had so long held the land under the dominion of the Incas. The spell was broken, and the airy fabric of their empire, built on the superstition of ages, vanished at a touch. This was good fortune, rather than the result ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... galleries, I was so amazed—so intoxicated, that I could not fix my attention upon any individual object, except the Apollo, upon which, as I walked along confused and lost in wonder and enchantment, I stumbled accidentally, and stood spell-bound. Gallery beyond gallery, hall within hall, temple within temple, new splendours opening at every step! of all the creations of luxurious art, the Museum of the Vatican may alone defy any description to do it justice, ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... armed with a broad assegai, but naked except for his moocha and necklet of baboon's teeth, and with him Nanea in her white bead-bordered mantle. Hadden, who brought up the rear, noticed that the girl seemed to be under the spell of an imminent apprehension, for from time to time she clasped her lover's arm, and looking up into his face, addressed him ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard
... stealing over me, I have at once started off on a pedestrian or other journey. The change of place, scene, atmosphere, of all the objects occupying the daily attention, has at once put to flight the enemy. It has vanished as by a spell. There is nothing like a throwing off the harness and giving mind and body a holiday—a treat to all sorts of new objects. Once, a wretched, nervous feeling grew upon me; I flung it off by mounting a stage-coach, and then taking a walk from the Land's End, in ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... indeed any kind of human literature, hath never been thought a necessary ingredient; for if these sort of great personages can but complot and contrive their noble schemes, and hack and hew mankind sufficiently, there will never be wanting fit and able persons who can spell to record their praises. Again, if it should be observed that the stile of this letter doth not exactly correspond with that of our hero's speeches, which we have here recorded, we answer, it is sufficient if in these the historian adheres faithfully to the matter, though he embellishes the diction ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... answered, "and I do not think we can do better than start our search there, if it proves to be an island. We will be there in an hour at this rate. I wish I could spell you, Walt, but it don't seem right for you to be ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... we prisoners in the 360 miles of the Channel, remaining very often two or three days, as if spell-bound, in the same place, while we were frequently obliged to cruise for whole days to make merely a few miles; and near Start we were overtaken by a tolerably violent storm. During the night I was suddenly ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... from our ruined marts, We heard th' undying serpent hiss, And in the desert of our hearts The fatal spell of Nemesis. ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... woman comes in your house first on New Years Day, it will bring you bad luck, and she has walked as far as 10 miles to get a man in her house first. If she meets a cross eyed person, she crosses her fingers and spits on them to break the bad spell. "Hooten' owls" are sure the sign of death and she always burns her hair combins because if you just throw them away and the birds get them to put in their nests, you'll ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... is not even a matter to be talked about too sacred so I am offending even against my own laws; but I wanted to know how far the old witch had got hold of you. Didn't you feel when you heard her mutterings, as if some sort of a spell was creeping ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... we know them so well, And when they are folded away, Our troubles have vanished as if by a spell, And nothing is wrong with the day. The nursery book-shelves are easy to climb, And no time is better ...
— A Jolly Jingle-Book • Various
... is ready to settle at once with anybody; either with the tongue or with the fist. His eloquence savours pretty strongly of Daniel O'Connell, and is flavoured with colonial pepper; hence Mr. Ireland will always exercise a potent spell over a jury. If he were the Attorney-General, the colony would breath freer from knaves, rogues, and vagabonds. The 'sweeps,' especially, could not possibly ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... all that a poor helpless man might do when his feudal lord was on the side of the enemy, and met every prayer and supplication either with mockery or blows. I soon saw it all too well. Sir Hugh was under the spell of the wicked old man. What was my boy's soul to him? what my agony? Nothing — nothing. The wizard had coveted the beautiful boy. He had doubtless made it worth my master's while to sell him to him; and what could I do? I tried everything I knew; but who would listen to ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... too largo, too deep, Her love could neither laugh nor sleep, And thus it tired him: his desire Was for a less consuming fire. He wished that she should love him well. Not wildly; wished her passion's spell To charm her heart, but leave her fancy free; To quicken converse, not to quell. He granted her to sigh, for so could he; But when she wept, why should it be? 'T was irksome, for it stole away The joy ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... these words, and, recalling where he was and with whom, and the spell he carried with him—which his surprise had obscured—retired a little, hurriedly, debating with himself whether to shun the house that ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... Then came a short spell of silence. Paris sank more and more deeply into the night, growing black and mysterious, till all at once sparks of light began ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... important document. On one point do we feel inclined to quarrel with its author, scil.: that he has not given us more specifically the motives underlying Mochuda's expulsion from Rahen—one of the three worst counsels ever given in Erin. Reading between his lines we spell, jealousy—'invidia religiosorum.' Another jealousy too is suggested—the mutual distrust of north and south which has been the canker-worm of Irish political life for fifteen hundred years, making ...
— The Life of St. Mochuda of Lismore • Saint Mochuda
... meaning can be attached to the heading Pindarus found in certain MSS.[400] There is, however, an interesting though scarcely more fruitful problem presented by the possible existence of two acrostics in the course of the poem.[401] The initial letters of the first nine lines spell the name 'Italices', while the last eight lines yield the word 'scqipsit'. Baehrens, by a not very probable alteration in the eighth line, procures the name 'Italicus', while a slighter and more natural change yields 'scripsit' at ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... to present a faithful picture of this singular man, in his wanderings, captivities, and escapes. If the effort be successful, we have no fear that the attention of the reader will wander. There is a charm in such recitals, which lays its spell upon all. The grave and gay, the simple and the learned, the young and gray-haired ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... upon him in such a way as to keep him a prisoner till I chose to let him go. I watched him till his eyes began to look vague and a kind of fixity settled on his features,—he was perfectly unconscious that I held him at my pleasure,—and presently, satisfied with my experiment, I relaxed the spell and ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... have had watching enough, and I'll just take my spell. I'm as fresh as a daisy with ...
— The Gilpins and their Fortunes - A Story of Early Days in Australia • William H. G. Kingston
... listened in silence to the recital, was the first to break the spell. She rose, fluffed up her hair, straightened her blouse, and ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... threw a strange spell over this strong, turbulent man. Her presence alone seemed enough to soften his stubborn will, and he would watch their games for hours, his eyes fixed on her graceful movements. Once, when the ball had fallen into the water, the king sprang in after it, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... voices as if vainly trying to fill the vast space above. The novelty and solemnity of the surroundings roused all our religious emotions and thrilled every nerve in our being. As if moved by the same impulse to linger there a while, we all sat down, silently waiting for something to break the spell that bound us. Can one wonder at the power of the Catholic religion for centuries, with such accessories to stimulate the imagination to a blind worship ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... and without much difficulty. Supporting itself partly on the glass, partly on the paper, the larva begins to slaver all around it, to froth copiously. After a spell of some hours, it has disappeared within a solid shell. This is white as snow and highly porous; it might almost be a globule of whipped albumen. Thus, to stick together the sand in its pill-shaped nest, the larva employs a frothy ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... stationary, shedding his steady light upon the world below; Thuria, a great and glorious orb, swinging swift across the vaulted dome of the blue-black night, so low that she seemed to graze the hills, a gorgeous spectacle that held the girl now beneath the spell of its enchantment as it always ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... must write the letter to ask Helen to come. So, Edith got up at her mother's writing-desk and took some of her own writing paper, and began to write. She could make the letters but she could not spell very well. She asked her mother how to spell the words and then she wrote them down. And this ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... that," Hamilton replied, in a tone of discomfort, "the facts are simple enough; but they spell disaster for me, unless I can contrive some way or another out of the mess in which I'm involved by the new moves. You see, Carrington has sold his factory. He's sold out to the trust—that's the root of the whole trouble. So, he and Morton are making a fight ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... ma'am. I'll hang round out here; and ef ye should happen to have a ticklin' in your throat, and a bad spell o' coughin', I'll drop in, careless like, to see if you ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... their reputation? Well, perhaps we may be able to break the spell and defeat them on their own ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... and a deathless name. Well, twenty little centuries flutter away, and what is left of these things? A crazy inscription on a block of stone, which snuffy antiquaries bother over and tangle up and make nothing out of but a bare name (which they spell wrong)—no history, no tradition, no poetry—nothing that can give it even a passing interest. What may be left of General Grant's great name forty centuries hence? This—in the Encyclopedia for A. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Apostasy to which the famous "movement" has been traced. John Henry Newman was at that time residing in Oriel, not as a tutor, but as Vicar of St. Mary's. He was kind to Froude for Hurrell's sake, and introduced him to the reading set. The fascination of his character acted at once as a spell. Froude attended his sermons, and was fascinated still more. For a time, however, the effect was merely aesthetic. The young man enjoyed the voice, the eloquence, the thinking power of the preacher as he might have enjoyed a sonata of Beethoven's. But his acquaintance with the ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... my valise at the station and I wallered out there through the dust—it was June and a dry spell and hot. Judas priest! I thought I'd sweat my wad into pulp before I got there—me just down from the high country! On the way I got to wonderin' about Nancy. 'Is she ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... vassal over his feudal lord, and is the harbinger of political life to the people at large. In the time of Iyeyasu the burden might be hateful, but it had to be borne; and so it would have been to this day, had not circumstances from without broken the spell. The Japanese Daimio, in advocating the isolation of his country, was hugging the very yoke which he hated. Strange to say, however, there are still men who, while they embrace the new political creed, ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... were best able to carry their intentions into effect. If the struggle had ended during the first three years of the insurrection, no hand would have been raised to prevent the restoration of the Sultan's rule. Russia then lay as if spell-bound beneath the diplomacy of the Holy Alliance; and although in the second year of the war the death of Castlereagh and the accession of Canning to power had given Greece a powerful friend instead of a powerful ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... and he in his turn was moved. When he heard Olivier's story he tore up the page of music he had just been writing, and called himself a selfish brute to be amusing himself with childish games. But, directly after, he picked up the pieces. He was too much under the spell of his music. And his instinct told him that a work of art the less would not make one happy man the more. The tragedy of want was no new thing to him: from his childhood on he had been used to treading on the edge of such abysmal depths, and contriving not to ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... with beads and flowers and lace, and backed up by ready-made "chignons," on the heads of girls who are only one degree removed from the poor-house. Servant-girls who can scarcely read, much less write,—who do not know how to spell their names,—who have low wages,—and, as little children, had scarcely shoes to their feet,—who perhaps never saw fresh meat in their homes, except at Christmas, when it was given them by some rich neighbour,—spend all their earnings on their dress, appear on Sundays ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... him the faintest presentiment that at that very moment the Little People were busy pressing their cloth-o'-dream mantles and reblocking their wishing-caps; that the instant the sun went down the spell would be off the faery raths, setting them free all over the world, and that the gates of Tir-na-n'Og would be open wide for mortals to wander back again. No, not one of the board remembered; the trustees sat looking straight at the primroses ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... have caused you pain. I suppose you to have spoken with candour. I defend neither my sex nor myself. I can only say I am a woman as good as dead: happy to be made happy in my way, but so little alive that I cannot realize any other way. As for love, I am thankful to have broken a spell. You have a younger woman in your mind; I am an old one: I have no ambition and no warmth. My utmost prayer is to float on the stream—a purely physical desire of life: I have no strength to swim. Such a woman is not the wife for you, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... he said, civilly enough. "This old crone has a crazy spell whenever a stranger comes nigh. She's nutty. It ain't safe to come nearer—is it, ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... hospital awhile, D'ri having caught cold and gone out of his head with fever. We had need of a spell on our backs, for what with all our steeplechasing over yawning graves—that is the way I always think of it—we were somewhat out of breath. No news had reached me of the count or the young ladies, and I took some worry to bed with me, but was ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... absolutely an attack of the nerves. Mabel found her mother, on coming to wish her good-morning one day, shivering so violently that she could not complete her dressing. Loftus was not at home. He had rejoined his regiment for a brief spell, so Catherine and Mabel had to act ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... woman. Further to test Gawaine, she gives him his choice: will he have her fair by day and foul by night, or foul by day and fair by night? Fair by night, says Gawaine. And foul to be seen of all by day? she asks. Have your way, says Gawaine, and breaks the last thread of the spell, as she forthwith explains: her step-mother had bewitched both her, to haunt the moor in ugly shape, till some knight should grant her all her will, and her brother, to challenge all comers to fight him or ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... my beloved child! Look at these wonderful papers. Ten banknotes, each one fifty thousand francs. That is half a million, my Leonore! Look at these papers. Yet no, they are no papers, each is a magic spell, with which you can make a palace rise out of nothing. See this thin scrap of paper; a spark would suffice to transform it to ashes, yet you need only carry it to the nearest banker's to see it changed into a heap of gold, or glitter as a parure of the costliest diamonds. If you desire ...
— A Conspiracy of the Carbonari • Louise Muhlbach
... I could analyse my every feeling, and I knew there was some PRESENCE in the tent, and that I was in instant and imminent peril. Suddenly in the distance a pariah dog gave a prolonged melancholy howl. As if this had broken the spell which had hitherto bound me, I opened my eyes, and within ten inches of my face, there was a handsome leopardess gazing steadily at me. Our eyes met, and how long we confronted each other I know not. It must have been some minutes. Her eyes contracted and expanded, the pupil ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... the hot sun went for us, And br'iled and blistered and burned! How the Rebel bullets whizzed round us When a cuss in his death-grip turned! Till along toward dusk I seen a thing I couldn't believe for a spell: That nigger—that Tim—was a crawlin' to me Through that ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... acquiescence. Could those laughing lips hang in a heavy pout? Could that delicate and mild voice be harsh? Could those burning eyes be coldly inimical? Never! The idea was inconceivable! And Mr. Gerald Scales, with his head over the top of the boxes, yielded to the spell. Remarkable that Mr. Gerald Scales, with all his experience, should have had to come to Bursley to find the pearl, the paragon, the ideal! But so it was. They met in an equal abandonment; the only ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... in a formal and distant manner, pausing in the midst of the last letter to spell out the word "analysis," which he must have known would enrage her further. Then, quite casually, he wished to be told if she might know the local habitat of Mrs. Alys Brewster-Smith and a certain Cousin ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... airs or melodies, a few remarks may be offered. The genius of our mountain land, as if prompted alike by thought and feeling, has in these wrought a spell of matchless power—a fascination, which, reaching the hearts both of old and young, maintains an imperishable sway over ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... him that I feel sure he has been near her, or at least seen her, but where or how, I do not know and cannot even suspect. He never speaks of her, not now, but he watches the house slowly rising in the forest, as if he would lay a spell upon it. Not that he visits it by daylight, or mingles with the men who are busy laying stone upon stone; no, no, he goes to it at night, goes when the moon and stars alone shed light upon its growing proportions; and standing before it, seems to count ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... might have enlarged on her denial, but Aggie took a violent sneezing spell just then, pressing herself between paroxysms to see if she crackled, and we decided to ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... did not follow that in another's hands the spell would remain as powerless. At all events, it was an experiment well worth the trial, and he lost no time in explaining the notion to Dick, who, by the sparkle in his eyes and suppressed excitement in his manner, seemed to think there might ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... Reichenbach), was never got together out of a gentleman's household. To no idlest reader, armed even with barnacles, and holding mouth and nose, can the stirring-up of such a dust-bin be long tolerable. But the amazing problem was this Editor's, doomed to spell the Event into clearness if he could, and put dates, physiognomy and outline to it, by help of such Flunky-Sanscrit!— That Nosti-Grumkow Correspondence, as we now have it in the Paper-Office,—interpretable only by acres of British Despatches, by incondite ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... a peculiar word to spell and pronounce but its definition is really very simple. Put in ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... said Lesley, surrendering herself to the spell, and letting Ethel take both her hands and look into her face. "But you are not at all like the English girls I expected to meet! I thought they were all cold ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... uncertain temper. To the other, they have brought the glory of health for his manhood's crown, content and peace unutterable. To learn to subdue the ground is to learn one great lesson. So the strange meeting is soon over. The Christmas spell may not always last and the brothers ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... her friend tightly. Helen was laughing, but suddenly she stopped. The queen's terrible eyes seemed to hold the girl in a spell. Involuntarily Helen's limbs bore her toward the far end ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... sleep-flushed face and bright disordered hair lay on the pillow inside. Just then some bird, brooding over her three eggs in her nest, stirred drowsily and cooed softly at some delicious dream of love or maternity. It broke the spell, and we turned to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... brother—a nelder brother, an' by name 'Enery; an' last year he went for a miner in South Africa, at a place that I can't neither spell nor pronounce till it winds up with 'bosh.' ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... we say, not we, but they can understand; whereas the less we can understand a man, the more intelligent we are apt to think him. No one should neglect by-play of this description; if I live to be strong enough to carry it through, I mean to play "cambre," and I shall spell it "camber." I wonder Mr. Darwin never abused this word. Laugh at him, however, as we may for having said "sag," if he had not been the kind of man to know the value of these little hits, neither ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... at work, And thus learnt to work well, And now their duties they ne'er shirk, Which is all I've to tell, And you to—spell! spell! spell! ...
— Sugar and Spice • James Johnson
... thinly disguised, his paralysis of wit returns, and his suspicions sink afresh into their dreamless nap. In the hard blows and buffets there experienced, he has stronger arguments than before of the game practised on him; still the deep spell on his judgment continues unbroken: and now the very shame and grief of his past failures and punishments seem to co-operate with his palsy of reason in preparing him for a third hoax even more gross and palpable ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... to the simple and pure in theatricals, it would probably be necessary to effect an escape from a period of time, which has never been employed in the full integrity of tasteful elegance; and thus to break the spell, by which the whole realm of fancy has long been bewitched. An absurd and inconvenient practice, which is almost peculiar to this country, of attending public places in that uncomfortable condition, which is technically called being dressed, but which is in truth, especially ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various
... migration belongs to a period far beyond the reach of documentary history; to times when the soil of Europe had not been trodden by either Celts, Germans, Slavonians, Romans, or Greeks. But whatever it was, the impulse was as irresistible as the spell which, in our own times, sends the Celtic tribes towards the prairies or the regions of gold across the Atlantic. It requires a strong will, or a great amount of inertness, to be able to withstand the impetus of such national, or rather ethnical, movements. ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... will. (Aside.) Now while he stands enchained within the spell I'll to Rosalia's room and don his cloak And cap, and sally forth to meet the duke. 'Tis now the hour, and if he ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... depot. After those few seconds wherein he had felt dazed, incredulous, almost under a spell, he had quickly regained the mastery of his nerves, and regained, too, that intense joy which anticipated triumph ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... stood spell-bound, staring down at that jaded and passion-stained countenance; then Godfrey sprang forward and lifted the ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... and he had not been speaking for half an hour before his audience seemed wild with enthusiasm." Another account says: "His manner was, to a New York audience, a very strange one, but it was captivating. He held the vast meeting spell-bound, and as one by one his oddly expressed but trenchant and convincing arguments confirmed the soundness of his political conclusions, the house broke out in wild and prolonged enthusiasm. I think I never saw an audience more thoroughly carried ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... and overcome with gratitude for it, I watched the receding boat in a sort of trance until the matter-of-fact voice of Gazen broke the spell. ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... believe she was seriously ill; but he did fear that his prolonged absence had tried her cruelly, for he realized that she must have gone through with many a struggle before she could have brought herself to recall him. While he was debating, still under the spell of business, whether to start for home at once or first to settle some important matters at Denison, a telegraph-boy entered the office of the hotel where he was sitting, and handed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... brilliant flowers, on trees, bush, and vines; while the strange, semi-civilized people are most interesting. The queer little king's Prime Minister, an exceedingly competent, gorgeously dressed, black man, reminds Kermit of a rather civilized Umslopagaar—if that is the way you spell Rider Haggard's Zulu hero. ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... in which he himself had enjoyed some hours of sleep after his long spell in the water, and Potter was lying stretched at full length upon the bunk that he had previously occupied. A small oil lamp, screwed to the bulkhead, afforded a fairly good light, by the aid of which Leslie saw that the man was lying with his eyes wide-open, and the ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... long time she began to tire and could no longer maintain her headlong flight. Then it was that she began going far out on the thinnest branches, where he could not follow. Thus she might have got a breathing spell, but Red-Eye was fiendish. Unable to follow her, he dislodged her by shaking her off. With all his strength and weight, he would shake the branch back and forth until he snapped her off as one would snap a fly from a whip-lash. The first time, she saved herself by falling ...
— Before Adam • Jack London
... incited the canary hanging in its gilded cage to break into song that drowned its splashing murmur, and silenced the sparrows twittering about the heavy woodwork of the old porch. That was my real world, because there was one figure, one face, that held me to it, as though by a spell that I could not, and never sought to break. I scarcely remember the time I ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... chair, and long before there was danger of the man's dying he released his hold upon his throat. When the Russian's coughing spell had abated ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... canticles!" cried Mungo. "Ye gied the lassie to the man that cam' withouten boots—sorrow be on the bargain! And if it's cast-in' a spell on the coat ye are, I'll ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... negative character of inoculation of calves, distinguish between the local disease named and foot-and-mouth disease. Mycotic stomatitis occurs in only from 10 to 50 per cent of the animals in a herd, usually in the late summer or early fall after a dry spell, and it does not ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture |
