"Spell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on its ordinary course from day to day with no promise of anything special. The theatrical season was over, the warm days had come. There was a long spell of glorious weather. One morning the Laptevs attended the district court to hear Kostya, who had been appointed by the court to defend some one. They were late in starting, and reached the court after the examination of the witnesses had begun. A soldier in the reserve was accused of ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... beauty; each breath they drew increased their wonder, till the whole rosy universe seemed thrilling and singing at their feet, and they two, love-crowned, alone, saw Time and Eternity flowing like a golden tide under the spell ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... dream of romanticism. It was nothing to her that Mr. Carville had poured diluted vitriol upon some women who clamoured for the vote, nothing that he had barely deigned to notice her existence. Once aware that he essayed to be a spell-binder, she accepted him with utter abandon in that role. She permitted him to bind the spell; and as she walked with short quick steps along Van Diemen's Avenue, her brown head held high and unswerving, I could not refrain ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... English connections, and spoke English fluently. She was one of those women who make a favorable impression upon everyone brought into personal contact with them. Soon the children adored her, and it was not long before the duke had come under the same spell. The duchess found herself completely isolated in her own household; husband and children had alike gone over to this stranger. The duchess wrote pathetic letters to her husband, pleading her own ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... The teacher at that time was Mr. Lancelot Whale, an excellent classical scholar, a humorist, and a worthy man. He had a supreme antipathy to the puns which his very uncommon name frequently gave rise to; insomuch, that he made his son spell the word Wale, which only occasioned the young man being nicknamed the Prince of Wales by the military mess to which he belonged. As for Whale, senior, the least allusion to Jonah, or the terming him an odd fish, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... us, her figurehead was always the Princess Sheila. Along the ruffled blue waters of the sounds and lochs that wind among the roots of unpronounceable mountains, and past the dark hills of Skye, and through the unnumbered flocks of craggy islets where the sea-birds nest, the spell of the sweet Highland maid drew us, and we were pilgrims to the Ultima Thule ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... names, well may we then, Though dwindled sons of little men, Essay to break a feeble lance In the fair fields of old romance; Or seek the moated castle's cell, Where long through talisman and spell, While tyrants ruled, and damsels wept, Thy Genius, Chivalry, hath slept: There sound the harpings of the North, Till he awake and sally forth, On venturous quest to prick again, In all his arms, with all his train, Shield, lance, and brand, and plume, and scarf, ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... other aid—Spirits, they say, Flit round invisible, as thick as motes Dance in the sunbeam. If that spell Or necromancer's sigil can compel them, They shall hold council with ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... an unfair advantage of an innocent and trustful girl," he said. "My daughter is young, ignorant of the world, and she does not know her own mind. You have cast a spell over her, as it were. She defies me—she refuses to obey my orders. You have estranged us, Mr. Vernon, and brought a cloud into what was a happy home. I appeal to you, in a father's name, to release ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... the magic spell By which my thoughts were bound; And burning dreams of light and love Were wakened by the sound. My heart beat quick when stranger-tongues, With idle praise or blame, Awoke its deepest thrill of joy To ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... returned to Anstice's mind three days later as he stood by the graveside of his friend, and in his heart he wondered whether it were indeed true that what men called failure might, in the eyes of God, spell ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... crawled under the barn or stable and secured eggs, which he would roast in the fire and eat. That boy did not wear pantaloons, as you do, but a tow-linen shirt. Schools were unknown to him, and he learned to spell from an old Webster's spelling-book, and to read and write from posters on cellar and barn doors, while boys and men would help him. He would then preach and speak, and soon became well known. He ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... not reply; he was still fearful from emotion, and he would not speak, so as not to break the spell; he had to make an effort to ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... with the evil effects of his wrong-doing, and that which classifies the congenital criminal as an anomaly, partly pathological and partly atavistic, a revival of the primitive savage—did not suggest themselves to me instantaneously under the spell of a single deep impression, but were the offspring of a series of impressions. The slow and almost unconscious association of these first vague ideas resulted in a new system which, influenced by its origin, has preserved in all its subsequent developments the traces of doubt and indecision, ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... like that of an iron vice, one with his right hand, the other with his left. Well, he must have been wonderfully strong in his arms, to be sure. But the secret of the matter was, that the brazen bulls were enchanted creatures, and that Jason had broken the spell of their fiery fierceness by his bold way of handling them. And, ever since that time, it has been the favorite method of brave men, when danger assails them, to do what they call "taking the bull by the horns"; and to gripe him by the tail is ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... with hesitation at first, and in a manner foreign to her. But soon she became apparently herself, and found her old swift smile and laugh, her happy slight shrugs and gestures, and quaint polyglot colloquialisms (which I omit, as I cannot always spell them); her homely, simple ways of speech, her fluent, magnetic energy, the winning and sympathetic modulations of her voice, its quick humorous changes from grave to gay—all that made everything she said so suggestive of all she wanted to ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... delightful morning; a cool breeze swept from the sea through the tents of the camp, and, after the preceding spell of debilitating hot weather, exerted a most refreshing and invigorating effect upon the languishing soldiers. The sun which had scorched every thing for the last few days, was to-day gently veiled by small, whitish clouds, which, far on the horizon, seemed to arise, like swans, ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... doth dwell, Whose heart-strings are a lute; None sing so wildly well As the angel Israfel, And the giddy stars, so legends tell, Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell Of ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... God! 'twould make the very streets and ways Through which she passes, burst into a pleasure! * * * * * * No spell were wanting from the dead to raise me, But only that sweet laugh ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... paint gnomes and elves in the palm groves and among the wild Java uplands of the mid-Pacific, and Honolulu itself is not free from the lingering and traditionary kahuna. This is the wizard, or medicine man, or voodoo worker, who does by prayer and spell what his employers would do with a club if it were not for the awkward institution of the law. When a Kanaka has endured an injury he hires a kahuna to pray his enemy to death. This imposes on the victim the necessity of hiring a kahuna to pray down the other one, or of running away, if he ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... a spectator can realise Assyrian warfare with its striking contrasts of bravery and unbridled cruelty; he is no longer reduced to spell out laboriously a monotonous narrative of a battle, for the battle takes place actually before his eyes. And after the return from the scene of action, when it is desired to show how the victor employed his prisoners for the greater honour of his gods and his own glory, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... or rather under-dressed, girl in the arms of a pasty-faced, protruding-eyed roue, both obviously under the spell of too much liquid inspiration, Ted suffered a momentary revulsion and qualm of conscience. He shouldn't have brought Madeline here. It wasn't the sort of place to bring a girl, no matter how good the music was. Oh, well! What did it ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... of life, for ever, By those dread Powers that weave the woof,— Whose art the singer's spell can sever? Whose breast has mail to music proof? Lo, to the Bard, a wand of wonder The Herald[8] of the Gods has given: He sinks the soul the death-realm under, Or lifts it breathless up to heaven— Half sport, half earnest, rocking its devotion Upon ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... and to speak of a spell laid upon the young man, and her visits to a sorceress came to be spoken about so openly that it was against the bridegroom's wish that Rachel was asked to the wedding feast; but Ruth pleaded, saying that it would be no feast for her if Rachel did not present herself at the table. The twain sat ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... will, but I am hired for a month on trial, and I shall stay. You see, I sha'n't practice on anybody but Pa for a spell. I made up my mind to that when I gave a woman some salts instead of powdered borax, and she came back mad. Pa seems to want to encourage me, and is willing to take anything that I ask him to. He had ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... in heaven in a celestial chariot, revelling in my pride, I did not think of anything else, I used to exact tribute from Brahmarshis, Devas, Yakshas, Gandharvas, Rakshasas, Pannagas and all other dwellers of the three worlds. O lord of earth, such was the spell of my eyes, that on whatever creature, I fixed them, I instantly destroyed his power. Thousands of Brahmarshis used to draw my chariot. The delinquency, O king, was the cause of my fall from my high prosperity. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... said, forcing himself to break the spell. "Two have escaped, Marge. It is possible, if there are ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... new noise,—a low, steady rap, tap, tap, tap, on the boat, and from underneath. For a moment or two there was a sensation without apprehension,—a sort of mesmeric, irresistible spell; but a sudden thought burst through the trance, and with a powerful impression of what was doing—one no less horrid than true—I dashed off covering, roof, hatchway, and all, and stood upon deck to meet a ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... a dream? or did some magic dire, Dulling my senses with a strange delusion, O'ercome my spirit? or did destiny, Jealous of my good actions, mar their fruit, And rob me of their guerdon? It is past, Whate'er the spell that bound me. Once again Am I awake, but only to behold The precipice o'er ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... and there dashed with fun. A fine-looking, athletic fugitive, telling him his story one day, said, "When I first run away, I met some people who were dreadful afraid I couldn't take care of myself. But thinks I to myself I took care of master and myself too for a long spell; and I guess I can make out." With a roguish expression laughing all over his face, he added, "I don't look as if I was suffering for a master; ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... with some knowledge of its language, history, manners, and customs. But what do we find? The profoundest ignorance of the rudiments of English. The special correspondent sent to London by the Figaro to be amusing on our darker side, cannot spell the word theatre; but he is trenchant when dealing with what he saw at the Adelphi Theater. How completely he must have understood the dialogue, he who describes Webster as a comique de premier ordre! In the same paper the dramatic critic, after explaining ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... of the old chairs to a window, and softly opened it. There was a young moon, and many stars, seen uncertainly through the rush of April cloud. Every now and then a splash of rain moved the creepers and swept across the lawn, to be followed by a spell of growing and breathing silence. The scent of hyacinths and tulips mounted through the wet air. She could see a long ghostly line of primroses, from which rose the grey base of the Tudor front, checkered with a dim light and shade. Beyond the garden, with its vague forms of fountain ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... mockingly, but the words died on her lips, and there fell a moment of shivery silence until Kendall Brown broke the spell. ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... and huge, sombre patches of shadow lay everywhere. Zuleika and her lover were alone together; for some time they seemed too full of happiness to speak, but finally Giovanni said, in a soft, flutelike whisper, as if unwilling to break with loudly uttered words the delicious spell ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... fine for failure to collect according to the law, waited for no more than this intelligence of Sandi's going. His swift loud drums called his people to a dance-of-many-days. A dance-of-many-days spells "spears" and spears spell trouble. Bosambo heard the message in the still of the early night, gathered five hundred fighting men, swept down on the Akasava city in the drunken dawn, and carried away two thousand spears ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... being good—which was not to commit murder or be an atheist like Milo Barrus and spell God with a little g; and there was Coming to the Feet—not so simple as it sounded, he could very well tell them; and there was the matter of Blood. There were hymns, for example, that left him confused. The "fountain filled with blood drawn ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... travellers whom they decoyed into their haunts, plundered, strangled, and buried on the spot. For years they carried on their infamous trade with impunity, and no member of the conspiracy had turned informer. At last, however, a clue was found by a skilful and resolute agent of the government, and the spell of mutual dread which held together the murderous confederacy was effectually broken in India. Meanwhile, the same period of peaceful development witnessed the execution of important public works, the relaxation of restrictions on the liberty ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... farther on Edith stopped again—stopped and pointed to a short, dark soldier who was eying the crowd in general, and the tableau of Mr. In and Mr. Out in particular, with a sort of puzzled, spell-bound awe. ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... a little spell Of absence changed that heart of thine; And I, who know the change full well, Have found another place for mine. No more such fair but fickle she Shall find me her obedient; And, flighty shepherdess, we'll see Which of the twain ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... about four o'clock in the morning when Cytherea, though most probably dreaming, seemed to awake—and instantly was transfixed by a sort of spell, that had in it more of awe than of affright. At the foot of her bed, looking her in the face with an expression of entreaty beyond the power of words to portray, was the form of Miss Aldclyffe—wan and distinct. No motion ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... felt in the intellectual history of Germany. Some efforts were made to reconcile them, as for instance by Schiller. Sometimes a sort of alliance took place, as in 1813, when the Romanticists, who were quite under the spell of the Herder-Goethe ideas, invoked the aid of the moral energy, which was a special characteristic of Kant's disciples; but the antagonism lives on not the less even now in the German nation, as the antagonism between Hume and Burke, Locke and Berkeley, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... present Bacon had broken through the spell which had so long kept him back. He won a great deal of the King's confidence, and the King was more and more ready to make use of him, though by no means equally willing to think that Bacon knew better than ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... confined in a strait-jacket. Above all, let them try a tale of joy or woe, all in words of three letters and less. Mother Goose could never have made her precious "high-diddle-diddle" nonsense in this way. I have tried frantically to spell "jolly" in three letters and "darling" in one syllable. How I have succeeded the books are submitted ...
— The First Little Pet Book with Ten Short Stories in Words of Three and Four Letters • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... filled the city with enthusiasm by his powerful oratory. Franklin was astonished at the hold he got on the people, especially as he assured them they were naturally half beasts and half devils; but our philosopher admits that he himself succumbed once to the preacher's spell. Whitefield was preaching a begging sermon for a project which Franklin did not approve, and the latter made a silent resolve that he would not contribute. He had in his pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As the ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More
... house from the island has been fotched over hyer. I cal'late Mr. Greasewood's folks mean to stop hyer a spell, from that." ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... it too," Charley 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 doing all ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... and it's no good trying to pull Oliver down. He's charmed. Ay, you may laugh; but no one of us could have escaped the bullet of Miles Syndercomb, to say nothing of dark John Talbot:—I tell ye, he is spell-guarded. Hugh is a knowing one, and has some plan a-foot, or he wouldn't keep beating about this coast as he does, after being so long from it, and using every county but Sussex and Kent. I wonder, too, what placed you, Master Robin, in Burrell of Burrell's service: I thought you were a ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... had taught him what to do, the music he played was plaintive and low and soothing. Eudemius lay with arms behind his head and stared at the painted ceiling where naked nereids sported. By slow degrees, still more his hard face softened; under the spell of the music and of his thoughts his thin lips parted to a smile. Slow and soft the melody rippled into the quiet room, singing of placid waters smiling in the sun, with lilies floating on their bosom, of young ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... crowd—even the crowd of excellent illustrators—because its amazing fantasy and caprice are supported by cunning technique that makes the whole work a "picture," not merely a decoration or an interpretation of the text. As a spinner of entirely bewitching stories, that hold a child spell-bound, and can be read and re-read by adults, he is a near ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... the 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 is wont ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... art. It seemed to Greenleaf the voice of an angel that he heard, so promptly did his conscience respond. He listened with heightening color and tense nerves; the delirious languor of amatory music, and the delirium he had felt while under the spell of Marcia's beauty, passed away. It seemed to him that he was lifted into a higher plane, whence he saw before him the straight path of duty, leading away from the tempting gardens of pleasure,—where he recognized immutable ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... follow, for I verily believe his pig possessed of the devil, who has thrown an evil spell over the wind, of which we have scarce had a fair puff ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... synonym; paraphrase, metaphrase^; convertible terms, apposition; dictionary &c 562; polyglot. V. interpret, explain, define, construe, translate, render; do into, turn into; transfuse the sense of. find out &c 480.1 the meaning of, &c 516 read; spell out, make out; decipher, unravel, disentangle; find the key of, enucleate, resolve, solve; read between the lines. account for; find the cause, tell the cause of &c 153; throw light upon, shed light upon, shed new light ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... to point out the broken places. Never before was seen such a perplexed woman. She looked and looked, and felt all over the precious piece of furniture with her finger, and, I believe, would have fairly gone demented had I not broken the spell by a roar of laughter. When I explained the trick I had played, she too laughed heartily, and boxed my ears, saying it was just like me, and that I was always up to some ...
— Harper's Young People, October 12, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... importance has been held as an English (civilian?) civic prisoner in the mixed civilian (concentration) camp at Holzminden, has escaped. It is now feared that he has made his way safely to New York. (Memo: Please note the very ingenious use of phonetics to spell out New ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... offer. I was attracted to Rossetti in the first case by ardent love of his genius, and retained to him ultimately by love of the man. As I have said in the course of these Recollections, it was largely his unhappiness that held me, with others, as by a spell, and only too sadly in this particular did he in his last year realise his own ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... family of them, and my father's in Sing Sing. I put him there. They'd not have caught him without. He was an educated man—never worked anything but big stuff. At that, what was the best he could do—or any of them? Make a haul, and all they got out of it was a spell of easy money that they only had the chance to spend while they were dodging arrest. Sooner or later every one of them I knew got put away for a longer or shorter term. Growing up like that, getting my education in the public schools ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... had deliberately gone flying off in the opposite direction with Bland, regardless of what she might think or suffer, filled her with something more bitter than mere girlish resentment. Johnny was like one under a spell, hypnotized by his own air castles ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... game should be capable of considerable dramatic action. Among the Indians the person who does the hiding of the disks personifies one who practices magic; he makes passes over the disks and the cedar fiber under which the disks are hidden, makes signs and movements, and does what he can to throw a spell of confusion over those who are to guess where the ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher
... ditch of the fort was reached. It was some six or seven feet deep and ten or twelve wide, the excavated material sufficing for the embankments of the fort. Some 120 men and officers precipitated themselves into it, many losing their lives at its very edge. After a short breathing spell men were helped up the exterior of the parapet on the shoulders of others; fifty or sixty being thus disposed an attempt was made to storm the fort. At the signal nearly all rose, but the enemy, lying securely sheltered behind the interior slope, the muzzles of their guns almost ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... in fiction, Merimee, accurate, precise, trenchant, and cultured; finally in criticism, Sainte-Beuve, who began, it is true, by being the theorist and literary counsellor of romanticism, but who was soon freed from the spell, almost from 1830, and became author of Port Royal. Though possessing a wide and receptive mind because he was personified intelligence, he was decisively classical in his preferences, sentiments, ideas, and even in ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... upon its threshold stone, And horse-shoes on the lintel of it, And happy hearts to keep it warm, And God Himself to love it! Dear little nest built snug on bough Within the World-Tree's mighty arms, I would I knew a spell that charms Eternal ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... the great sources of religious and moral suasion which gave birth to mediaeval and modern Europe, and so largely contributed to the polity of Asia and the upraising of Africa, have been a dead letter, which spell his extinction. He lived up to his racial traditions, and is fast dying with them. His language, his arts, his religious rites are ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... do," he admitted; "but this here is a hot spell." Another long pause and then he volunteered suddenly: "You can mostly tell by Alviry. When she gets a sunstroke it's purty hot. I'm ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... day is done, and men look back to the, shadows we have left behind us, and there is no longer any spell of personal magnetism to delude right judgment, I think that the figure of Dean Inge may emerge from the dim and too crowded tapestry of our period with something of the force, richness, and abiding strength which gives Dr. Johnson ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... mine!" he snarled. "No, SIR! she ain't no friend of mine, I'm thankful to say. More a friend of Bailey's, here, if she's anybody's. One of his pets, she was, for a spell. A patient of his, you might say; anyhow, he prescribed for her. 'Twas that deef idiot, Debby Beasley, Cy; that's who 'twas. Her name was Briggs afore she married Beasley, and she was hired help for Emily Thayer, when Mary was born, and ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the vade mecum of slaveholders, and they never venture abroad without it. It is a pocket-piece for sudden occasion—a keepsake to dote over—a charm to spell-bind opposition, and a magnet to attract "whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie." But closely as they cling to it, "cursed be Canaan" is a poor drug to stupify a throbbing conscience—a ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... to me is what I expect has happened to a good many people. I still admire the great Free Trade writers, the force of their intellect, the lucidity of their arguments. There can be no clearer proof of the spell which they exercised over the minds of their countrymen than the fact that so many leading public men on both sides of politics remain their disciples to this very day. But for my own part I have been unable to resist the evidence of facts which shows ...
— Constructive Imperialism • Viscount Milner
... in the later half of the eighteenth century frequently sat spell-bound under the magic ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... him say, half under his breath, "Damned persistent little woman!" before he vanished through the door. She turned to her companions, her face aghast, her lips quivering, her eyes dim. The magician had come and gone and worked no spell; her disappointment ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... book, is used to separate two lovers or even a husband and wife, if the jealous rival so desires. In the latter case the preceding formula, from the same source, would be used to forestall this spell. No explanation of the ceremony is given, but the reference to tobacco may indicate that tobacco is smoked or thrown into the fire during the recitation. The particular hawk invoked (giyagiya) is a large species found in the coast region but seldom met with in the mountains. Blue ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... intolerable, purposeless thing. He sat down at his desk and leaned his head in his hands. His whole life seemed to spell failure. With sudden impulse he seized a ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... cluster of some strange date, With a subtle and searching tang That seemed, as you tasted, to penetrate The heart like a serpent's fang; And back you fell for a spell entranced, As cold as a corpse of stone, And heard your brains, as they laughed and danced And talked ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... seized him as a devil-fish seizes its prey, and sucked him in, so that he perished without leaving a trace of himself, or of the manner of his death. The legend said further that if any person could succeed in passing a night in these rooms and in resisting their deadly influence, the spell would for ever be broken, and no one would thenceforth be sacrificed. Hearing all this, and being somewhat of the knight-errant order, C. and I determined to face the danger, and, if possible, deliver the town from the enchantment. We ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... carelessly, "you'd better phone for a doctor and a nurse. Kronberg has returned and I fear he's in for a spell of pneumonia." ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... the Sentinel's role suits my style passing well; The enemy won't find me napping or nodding. But what I most like as I do sentry spell, Is the fine opportunity offered for—prodding! I watch like a lynx, as a sentry should do, With an eye like a hawk, and a smile sweet as syrup; But when there's a chance for 'a thrust—whirraroo! My bayonet-point is ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. July 4, 1891 • Various
... before. Old chap looked like a sort of corn doctor or corner spell-binder. Other was probably one of these longshore ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Channel, calculating the domestic effect of each treaty provision. Few could resist his personal magnetism in conversation and no one would deny him the title of master-politician of his age. During the first weeks of the Conference, Wilson seems to have fallen under the spell of Lloyd George to some extent, who showed himself quite as liberal as the President in many instances. But Wilson was clearly troubled by the Welshman's mercurial policy, and before he finally left for America, found relief in the solid consistency of Clemenceau. ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... you are behind, never when ahead. Risks are only worth while when you have everything to win and nothing to lose. It may spell victory, and at least will not hasten defeat. Above all, never lose your nerve or confidence in a match. By so doing you have handed your opponent about two points a game—a rather hard handicap to ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... called on. If good men are playing, the quickness of the returns is marvellous: you hear the rattle like that a boy makes drawing his stick along palings, only heavier; and the closeness of the men in action to one another gives it a strange interest, and makes a spell at back-swording ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... they have all volunteered to stay for eighteen months more. They ought to know a great deal at the end of that time, then they will go home almost to a certainty only for two or three months, and come back again for another long spell. ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... great Paul aver, in lucid spell, That they of conjugal intent "do well"? But hinted at a better state,—'tis one With which two loving souls have naught to do. For, in well-doing being quite content, Be there another state ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... by her loveliness, and loth to lose sight of her, began to make love to her; but she warned him that, if he did so, her beauty would vanish in a moment, and, worse still, she would have the power to throw a spell over him, and to carry him away to her own country. But I wot that her spell had fallen on Thomas already, for it seemed to him that there was nothing on earth to ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... fun over it. He said we would spell it Smeatholym if it would make the aunts feel any easier, and he told me I could tell them how brave he was—that he once slew a wild oryx. He said he often drove a yoke of wild oryxen before him as gentle as lambs. I know Aunt Constance would be deeply impressed ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... all but looking-glass, my dear '—one of the most superb things of the kind that perhaps ever was seen—But come, I perceive it is getting late, let us proceed directly to Dolly's, take our chop, then a rattler,{1} and hey for the Spell."{2} ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... it is which, considered as applying to the human will, conflicts with our consciousness, and revolts our feelings. We are certain that, in the case of our volitions, there is not this mysterious constraint. We know that we are not compelled, as by a magical spell, to obey any particular motive. We feel, that if we wished to prove that we have the power of resisting the motive, we could do so (that wish being, it needs scarcely be observed, a new antecedent); and it would be humiliating to our pride, and (what is of more importance) paralyzing to ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... designed for colloquy. Although our correspondent found the Morse telegraph alphabet a resource on occasion, he would scarcely be content to use it, and it only for life, even if emancipation from it involved months of labor. The motions required to spell SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN by the telegraph alphabet are thirty-nine, but as the short dashes occupy the time of two dots for each dash, and there are eight of these, eight more ought to be counted in a comparison of it with an alphabet composed wholly of dots, ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... and served as a beacon. The waves splashed over our boat with angry hissings. The farther across we got, the more furious and the wilder became the waves. Already we could hear a sort of roar that held mind and soul as with a spell. Faster and faster our boat flew on before the wind, till it became almost impossible to steer a course. Every now and then we would sink into a gulf, and the next moment we would rise high on the summit of some ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... think it necessary to add that as the sounding had been taken with the well on the slant it was therefore considerably under the truth. Still he sent Dayton-Philipps and the trimmer on deck to take a spell at the pumps, and himself resumed his ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... that great friend of liberty, that constitutional philosopher, and that liberal statesman. The sentiments of the ministers, however, were strongly opposed by Lords Temple, Lyttleton, and Mansfield, the latter of whom, though he had once been spell-bound by court influence, "rode the great horse Liberty with much applause." The Earl of Chatham replied, but the constitutional principles which his opposers laid down could not be answered with success, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... from his office, and glad I was to get out. He's on the war-path, Mr. Randolph—uglier than I ever saw him. The last time he broke loose was child's play to his mood to-day. Mother sent me word this morning that she saw last night the spell was coming. He had been up to see her and sisters, and mother thought from his tone he was about to disappear again. When she told me of his mood, and I remembered the day, I was afraid he might seek his vent ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... said it would be a great disappointment to them not to hear her, "Then," she replied, "will they kindly go and sit where I cannot see them?" When she began to speak she seemed to forget her diffidence, and she held the little audience spell-bound. At a Stirling meeting a gentleman slipped in. After a slight pause she said, "If the gentleman in the meeting would hide behind the lady in front of him I would be more at my ease." On another occasion she fled from the platform when called on to speak, and it was only with difficulty ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... think I was better off before you came. Then I had only my share of the enemy's fire, but now that you have come, I have it all. I'm riddled like a sieve, and have lost four men already. Suppose you give me a spell now—pull behind the vessel ahead of us. I'll ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... by means of a huge cylinder and chains, which looked as if the world might hang upon them in safety. I lay down on the summit of the rock while my father went off exploring further, and the perfect stillness of the solitude was like a spell. There was not a sound of life but the low, drowsy humming of the bees in the stone-rooted tufts of fragrant thyme. On our return we had to run down the steep, slippery slopes, striking our feet hard to the earth to ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... any time under the spell of the second Mrs Lawrence, Joy felt the charm of her voice, words and manner, and it began to seem as if she had been very unreasonable in entertaining ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... he continued at last, "that there Alf Cobb used to fair aggryvate me with 'is grousin'. When 'e got sent up for a spell in the trenches, and 'ad all 'the fun of the fightin',' 'e groused because 'e couldn't go off to some ole estaminet an' order 'is glass o' bitters like a dook. 'E groused becos 'e 'adn't got a feather bed, 'e groused becos 'e 'ad to cook 'is own food, an' 'e groused becos 'e didn't like ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett
... little prayer hook bound in red velvet. This little book was a matter of great concern among several old peasants, one of whom, unable to contain himself any longer, asked of his neighbour: "What is she doing? Lord have mercy on us! Is she casting a spell?" The sweet scent of the flowers, which filled the whole church, mingled with the smell of the peasant's coats, tarred boots and shoes, the whole being drowned by the delicious, overpowering scent ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... from me!" he burst out, turning toward Penrose. "I believe I am in some way answerable—though you all deny it—for the French boy's death. Why not? His voice is still in my ears, and the stain of his brother's blood is on me. I am under a spell! Do you believe in the witches—the merciless old women who made wax images of the people who injured them, and stuck pins in their mock likenesses, to register the slow wasting away of their victims day after day? People disbelieve it in these times, but it has never ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... the past winter. She had been afraid of it then, and she had run away from his good-bye that snowy day when he had left Algonquin. For then she had not wanted to see that look in the eyes of any man. She had seen it once before and had yielded to its spell, and the love-light had died out and left her life desolate. But since she had last talked with Roderick McRae, she had seen those eyes again, lit with the old love, and to her amazement she had found no answer in her heart. She had far outgrown Dick Wells in her self-forgetful life she had ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... everlastin',' murmured Hal; and the next moment their Father's voice calling across to Little Lindens broke the spell as ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... remembered is, spell correctly, though it is one of much importance. A mis-spelled word is a grievous error in a letter—worse than a blot. Keep a dictionary on the desk; when in doubt look up the word, and then take pains to fix it in mind ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... week his conviction grew stronger that Honor—and none but Honor—could do the rest. Let them only meet again, in fresh surroundings, and Theo—already so very much her friend—could not fail to come under her spell. His present seeming disposition to avoid her Paul set down to her intimate association with his wife. Six months' extension of leave had been granted to both, and Paul looked to a summer in England to establish what Italy had ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... a plaint which Lady Surry had against Lord Marsh, and was quite incomprehensible. Out rolled the English words, like plums out of a burst bag, and all completely unintelligible. But the old beau was supremely satisfied. He loved talking English, and holding his listeners spell-bound. ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... Memphis a telegram came from President Lincoln ordering four hundred colored men to be enlisted, and no more, until further orders. Colonel Eaton took this work for his breakfast spell. As he came in rather late for his morning meal he said, "I have enlisted the required number, and quite a company went away crying because they could not enlist. I comforted them by telling them that I presumed there would be another call soon." ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... swimming purposes. I began to suspect that I had caught a Tartar; but I had now gone too far to back out with credit: my self-respect wouldn't admit of the thought. So, taking a short breathing spell, I again advanced to the attack, somewhat encouraged by perceiving that my scaly antagonist seemed exhausted and distressed by his recent exertions. His mouth was wide open, and his gills quivered; but I was rather uncertain ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... the Poet heard them read, And children spell the letters softly through, It may be that he felt at heart some need, Some craving to be thus remembered too; It may be that he wondered if indeed He must die wholly when he passed from view; It may be, wished when death ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... nothing worse than another dose of the narcotic, and under its spell he is spirited back to London, where, on arrival, he is confronted with the lady of his "dream," and Mortimer John secures a colossal fee. In addition, for he has had the happy thought of selecting his own daughter for the heroine, he secures ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, Feb. 7, 1917 • Various
... to show; the cannon's thunder Does not impair my rest. It's just as well, For, though I dote on blood, and thoughts of plunder Act on my jaded spirit like a spell, I could not but regard it as a blunder If Prussia's foremost scribe should ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 23, 1917 • Various
... cry as if to pierce me through the diagonal; and in that same moment there arose from myriads of his subjects a multitudinous war-cry, increasing in vehemence till at last methought it rivalled the roar of an army of a hundred thousand Isosceles, and the artillery of a thousand Pentagons. Spell-bound and motionless, I could neither speak nor move to avert the impending destruction; and still the noise grew louder, and the King came closer, when I awoke to find the breakfast-bell recalling me ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... was the charm I cannot rightly tell That kindled in me such A flame of love that rest nor day nor night I find; for, by some strong unwonted spell, Hearing and touch And seeing each new fires in me did light, Wherein I burn outright; Nor other than thyself can soothe my pain Nor call my senses back, by ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... a spell of wonderment. The scolding was not severe, but it was generally followed by some sort of punishment. A clean pinafore, too! To be set on a high stool and study a Psalm, or be relegated to bread and ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... specialised types like the Old Army. They have nerves, the defects of their good qualities. They are more susceptible to the horrors and discomforts of what they were never brought up to undergo. The philosophy of the battlefield is not part of their panoply. No one fights better than they do—for a spell—and a good long spell too. But they have not the invincible carelessness or temperamental springiness of the old lot—and ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... For quite a spell now we have been speaking of hair on the face; at this point we revert to hair in its relation to the head. There are some few among us, mainly professional Southerners and leading men, who retain the bulk of the hair on their heads through life; but with most of us the circumstances are different. ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... 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
... firm in his theory of the worthlessness of education beyond what, in a narrow acceptation of the term, was absolutely 'necessary;' and Anne Dutton, although now heiress to very considerable wealth, knew only how to read, write, spell, cast accounts, and superintend the home-business of the farm. I saw a good deal of the Duttons about this time, my brother-in-law, Elsworthy, and his wife having taken up their abode within about half a mile of James Dutton's dwelling-house; and I ventured once ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various |
