"Charm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unintelligible and the artificial plots bewildering; but to one interested in the adult literature of the same periods of history an acquaintance with these amusement books of past generations has a peculiar charm and value of its own. They then become not merely curiosities, but the means of tracing the evolution of ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... the committee from the Convocation for dinner, that evening. They came aboard stiffly hostile—most understandably so, under the circumstances—and Prince Trevannion exerted all his copious charm to thaw them out, beginning with the pre-dinner cocktails and continuing through the meal. By the time they retired for coffee and brandy to the parlor where the conference was to be held, the Lords-ex-Masters ...
— A Slave is a Slave • Henry Beam Piper
... successes. On the 13th we resumed the march; winding along the banks of the tortuous Pamunkey, enchanted by the lovely scenery which constantly met our gaze. The profusion of flowers in the forests, the bright green meadows, and the broad fields of newly springing wheat, offered a perpetual charm; and as we passed along, the women and negroes watched us with conflicting sentiments of interest. All the white men capable of bearing arms, and every able-bodied negro, had been swept along by the rebel army in its retreat, and none but women and children and aged negroes ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... reception hall, where the sunlight flooded a rosy-latticed paper, an old white Colonial mantel and fiddle-backed chairs, and struck dazzling gleams from the brass fire-dogs and irons. The drawing-room had its own charm; the largest room in the house, it had French windows on three sides, each one giving a separate and exquisite glimpse of lawns and garden beyond. Upon its dark and shining floor were stretched a score of ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... Tobacco Works to the garden of the Eiffel Tower! The river winds along with sovereign gracefulness; the avenue stretches out under superb foliage. You can really saunter there amid delicious quietude, instinct as it were with all the charm ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... disposed of a possible opponent. She has all to gain, and nothing to lose by such procedure. Unless I greatly mistake the Rincon character, the lad will yield to our inducements and his mother's prayers, the charm of the Church and the bias of her tutelage, and ultimately take the oath ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... you for your delightful narratives, and beg you to continue them. I told you how your Saturday's conversation with Lady Davers, and your Sunday employments, charm us all: so regular, and so easy to be performed—That's the delightful thing—What every body may do;-and yet so beautiful, so laudable, so uncommon in the practice, especially among people in genteel life!—Your conversation and decision in relation to the two parsons (more than charm) transport ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... author's own life, except in so far as he may be assumed to have practised his own preachings; the Meditations reflect mood by mood the mind of him who wrote them. In their intimacy and frankness lies their great charm. These notes are not sermons; they are not even confessions. There is always an air of self-consciousness in confessions; in such revelations there is always a danger of unctuousness or of vulgarity for the best of men. St. Augus-tine is not always clear of offence, and John Bunyan ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... quaint devices, Rude emblems, baked funeral meats, Strong incense, rare wines, and rich spices, The ashes, the shrouds, and the sheets; Does our thraldom fall short of completeness For the magic of a charnel-house charm, And the flavour of a poisonous sweetness, And the ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... the isolated youth was finding such an increasing charm in the companionship of the gifted minds who spoke to him from the printed pages of his little library that he felt the ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... sinned in this line, and defended my general line of argument of inventing a theory and seeing how many classes of facts the theory would explain. I added that I would endeavour to modify the "believes" and "convinceds." He took me up short: "You will then spoil your book, the charm of (!) it is that it is Darwin himself." He added another objection, that the book was too teres atque rotundus—- that it explained everything, and that it was improbable in the highest degree that I should ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... it when the shifts changed at midnight; kept the oncoming force outside for five minutes. It works like a charm." ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... first of the painters to take the individual faces of those about him as models for his sacred characters, and clothe them in contemporary costume. Piety is not very pronounced in any of his works, though he is not without imagination and feeling, and there is in his women a charm of sweetness. His tendency was ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... its marvellous script and the rich treasures of its literature that the Chinese language depends for its unique fascination and charm. If we take a page of printed Chinese or carefully written manuscript and compare it with a page, say, of Arabic or Sanskrit, the Chinese is seen at once to possess a marked characteristic of its own. It consists of a number of wholly independent units, each of which would fit into a small square, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... bark they all rushed in pursuit of the unfortunate negro. Had the wolves caught up to old Dick in this moment of fury, he might have appealed in vain to his fiddle. By running he had destroyed the charm, and the coyotes would not have stopped to listen to him even had he played like Orpheus in the olden times, or ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... AEschylus in the boldness and originality of his characters, or the loftiness of his sentiments, or the colossal grandeur of his figures; but in the harmony of his composition, and the grace and vigor displayed in all the parts—the severe unity, the classic elegance of his style, and the charm of his expressions he is his superior. These two men carried tragedy to a degree of perfection never afterward attained in Greece. It was not merely a spectacle to the people, but was applied to moral and religious purposes. The heroes of AEschylus are raised above the sphere ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... himself on news of that warrior's death, saying, 'What is left worth living for?' This was not a sacrifice to the Manes of Nicholson. The sacrifice of the mourner's hair, as by Achilles, argues a similar indifference to personal charm. Once more, the text in Psalm cvi. 28, 'They joined themselves unto Baal-Peor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead,' is usually taken by commentators as a reference to the ritual of gods who are no gods. But it rather seems to indicate an acquiescence in foreign burial rites. ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... result is (though I won't own it to any of them) that I find my idea of him in the days of my blindness—oh, so unlike the reality! The one thing that is not a disappointment to me, is his voice. When he cannot see me, I close my eyes, and let my ears feel the old charm again—so far. ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... little, in the mind of any boy, stood obviously clear to me. There was no inhibition, so long as the man was in the house, that would be strong enough to hold these two apart; for if it be hard to charm serpents, it is no very difficult thing to cast a glamour on a little chip of manhood not very long in breeches. I recalled an ancient sailor-man who dwelt in a lone house beyond the Figgate Whins (I believe, he called it after Portobello), and how the boys would troop out of Leith on a Saturday, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... analyse him ruthlessly; his childish lack of self-criticism, his placidity, his insatiable vanity, his almost deliberate exploitation of his personal charm, all these things she cast aside and ignored. She came then to his thoughts, and here she was baffled because she knew so little of his history. Beyond his thoughts lay that in which she was passionately ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... bird dart firm scar card char spar hurl lark hurt part arch turn blur purr pert spur hard barn darn carp herd dark burn term hark yard start shirt bark yarn harp sharp clerk skirt chirp park spark shark mark spurt third parch smart churn perch harm charm starch march ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... going, Zoe!" exclaimed Violet in a tone of disappointment. "That will rob the excursion of half its charm for me. Is she ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... glance as we took our way over the desert that stretched between us and the ranch. Here another night was passed, and then we set out for home. The brief sojourn "near to Nature's heart" had been a delightful experience, holding for many of us the charm of novelty, and for all ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... who bring their works to birth without effort and with a certain grace which others cannot give to their creations, either by study or by imitation. It is a truly celestial gift, which pours down on these works in such a manner, that they ever have about them a loveliness and a charm which attract not only those who are versed in that calling, but also many others who do not belong to the profession. And this springs from facility in the production of the good, which presents no crudeness or harshness to the eye, such as is often shown by works wrought with ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari
... a Farm" indicates the possession of great power rather than consummate skill in the use of it. Full of charm as it is, it cannot by any stretch of language be called a masterpiece. Two years later, however, Gogol produced one of the great prose romances of the world, "Taras Bulba." He had intended to write a history of Little Russia and a history of the Middle Ages, ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... his duties; to prevent him from being unjust and mischievous demanded a tightened curb.[2103] All sense of conviction, under this regime, had died out; no body would serve gratis as in 1789;[2104] nobody would work without pay; disinterestedness had lost all charm; ostentatious zeal seemed hypocrisy; genuine zeal seemed self-dupery; each looked out for himself and not for the community; public spirit had yielded to indifference, to egotism, and to the need of security, of enjoyment, and of ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... that is theirs. Theirs is the whole empire of Spain in America. That stroke finishes all. I should be glad to see our suppliant negotiator in the act of putting his feather to the ear of the Directory, to make it unclench the fist, and, by his tickling, to charm that rich prize out of the iron gripe of robbery and ambition! It does not require much sagacity to discern that no power wholly baffled and defeated in Europe can flatter itself with conquests in the West Indies. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... was honour'd with a Greater Name, Homer is Greece's Glory and her Shame. How could Learn'd Athens with contempt refuse, Th' immortal labours of so vast a Muse? Thee, Colophon, his angry Ghost upbraids, While his loud Numbers charm th' Infernal Shades. Ungrateful Cities! Which could vainly strive For the Dead Homer, whom they scorn'd Alive. So strangely wretched is the Poet's Doom! To Wither here, ...
— Discourse on Criticism and of Poetry (1707) - From Poems On Several Occasions (1707) • Samuel Cobb
... not without charm to a young man accustomed to more traditional views. George Darrow had had a fairly varied experience of feminine types, but the women he had frequented had either been pronouncedly "ladies" or they had not. Grateful to both for ministering to the more ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... compare bodies that are weak and sickly with the healthy and robust. There also, probably, he met with Homer's poems, which were preserved by the posterity of Cleophylus. Observing that many moral sentences and much political knowledge were intermixed with his stories, which had an irresistible charm, he collected them into one body, and transcribed them with pleasure, in order to take them home with him. For his glorious poetry was not yet fully known in Greece; only some particular pieces were in a few hands, as they happened to be dispersed. Lycurgus ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... primitive cults and the sacred title of the stone (lapis manalis), it is practically certain that the original ritual was the purely imitative process of pouring water over the stone. A similar rain-charm may possibly be seen in the curious ritual of the argeorum sacra, when puppets of straw were thrown into the Tiber—a symbolic wetting of the crops to which many parallels may be found among other primitive peoples. A sympathetic charm of a rather different ...
— The Religion of Ancient Rome • Cyril Bailey
... brother, with a good-humored but significant smile—"larning may be very good in its place; in the mane time, lave the business in our hands rather than in your own head—or if you have e'er a scrap of Greek or Latin that 'ud charm ould Sobersides out, where was the ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... Preface, biographical and critical, to each Authour, by Samuel Johnson, LL.D." which I see advertised. I am delighted with the prospect of it. Indeed I am happy to feel that I am capable of being so much delighted with literature.[316] But is not the charm of this publication chiefly owing to the magnum nomen in the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... ingenuity of plot, the power and subtlety of the portrayal of character, the charm of the romantic environment,—the entire atmosphere, indeed,—rank this novel at once among ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... For an apprentice Musketeer the young woman was almost an ideal of love. Pretty, mysterious, initiated in almost all the secrets of the court, which reflected such a charming gravity over her pleasing features, it might be surmised that she was not wholly unmoved; and this is an irresistible charm to novices in love. Moreover, d'Artagnan had delivered her from the hands of the demons who wished to search and ill treat her; and this important service had established between them one of those sentiments of gratitude which so easily assume a ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... course be pleasing to the prospective wooer. That which is desirable in young girls means, naturally, that which is desirable to men. Of all cultivated accomplishments the first is "innocence." Beauty may or may not be forthcoming; but "innocence" is "the chief charm of girlhood." ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... in the South the Moon Shone full against the island. The North-star, Sparkling and blazing like a silver sun, Stood at the Zenith, as a lamp hung out From heaven to charm the endless Arctic night;— And thus a soft profusion of pure light, More exquisite than sunshine, fell abroad. Unnipped by daintiest frosts, in every field Flowers crowded thick; and trees, not tall nor rude, ...
— The Arctic Queen • Unknown
... could not avoid? And again, is there not some truth in the statement that much that we call evil has been incidental to the progress of the race, just as the discords produced by the learner on a musical instrument are necessary incidents in the process which will teach him by and by to charm the ear with the perfect harmony? Such questions are frequently put forward; let us see if we are able to clear away the misunderstandings to which ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... (1731-1814), daughter of Charles, second Duke of Richmond, as celebrated for her beauty and charm as her sisters, Lady Holland, Lady Louisa Connolly, and Lady Sarah Bunbury, The reference is evidently to her approaching ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... more specific in its terms, subjected to the same penalty all persons "invoking any evil spirit, or consulting, covenanting with, entertaining, employing, feeding, or rewarding any evil spirit, or taking up dead bodies from their graves to be used in any witchcraft, sorcery, charm, or enchantment, or killing or otherwise hurting any ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... Youth's charm has like a fleeting shadow gone, With eagle wings the hours of life have flown. Alas! the time when pleasure I have known, I may not now ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... longer, the contrast was too painful, he must break the sweet charm, the hallowed song, for the sky was reddening yet more luridly behind him, and each moment he expected to see Dorchester burst forth into flames. ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... He was witty, he had humour, he had imagination; but he was, before all things, gentle—with the gentlest voice, the gentlest eyes, the gentlest manners. His gentleness, she told herself, was the chief element of his charm—his gentleness, which was really a phase of his modesty. 'He was very gentle, he was very modest, he was very graceful and kind,' she said; and she remembered a hundred instances of his gentleness, his modesty, his kindness. Oh, but he was ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... the full bloom of her beauty, beauty even more brilliant in its mourning garb—a beauty so wonderful that it shed around her a charm which no one whom she wished to please could escape, and which was fatal to almost everyone. About this time, too, someone made her the subject of a song, which, as even her rivals confessed, contained ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Riis' How the Other Half Lives. At the time of its appearance it created nothing short of a literary sensation, and it is still found among the widely read and discussed publications. The present volume is a continuation or an elaboration of that work. In it Mr. Riis tells with that charm which is peculiarly his own and with a wonderful fidelity to life, little human interest stories of the people of the "other half." He has taken incidents in their daily lives and has so set them before ...
— Sight to the Blind • Lucy Furman
... has hinted to me that she intends to store a great deal of my own porcelain and pottery away in the butler's pantry. I had hoped that when we got into the new house we should have plenty of space for displaying the platters, plates, bowls, teapots, etc., etc., to which age has added a special charm, and the collection of which has involved the expenditure of much time and ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... upon the subject of music, of which she possesses a surprisingly solid knowledge, and she was telling me that Debussy and his school held no particular charm for her, when Possum set ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... has a cause? You cannot buy devotion at a price. "It hath never been heard of in the land of Chanaan, neither hath it been seen in Theman. The children of Agar, the merchants of Meran, none of these have known its way." What then is that wonderful charm, which makes a thousand men act all in one way, and infuses a prompt obedience to rule, as if they were under some stern military compulsion? How difficult to find an answer, unless you will allow the obvious one, that they ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... with a Silver Dog's Head on it, and Zendavesta had a Watch Charm that pulled the Buttonholes out ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade
... Bougainville, "the Marchioness is all-powerful—prime minister." Bougainville saw the Marchioness, Madame de Pompadour, and read to her some of Montcalm's letters. She showed no surprise and said nothing—her habit, as Bougainville said. By this time the name of Montcalm was one to charm with in France. Bougainville wrote to him "I should have to include all France if I should attempt to give a list of those who love you and wish to see you Marshal of France. Even the little children know your name." There had been a time when the court thought the ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... Brooklyn and over the distant stretch of the Hudson river islands, the sparkling waves and dancing craft in the bay, and all the dear familiar maze of spars and rigging in the docks; it is wonderful how such sights, and the knowledge that you are close to the haven where you would be, charm away the sore memories of the voyage past, and incline you to feel that it hasn't been such ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... scene of his labors. But then, voiceless, powerless, without control of his own genius, without the consciousness of his prophetic mission, he brooded alone and out of harmony with the beautiful and mundane city. The charm of the hills and gardens of Valdarno, the loveliness of Giotto's tower, the amplitude of Brunelleschi's dome—these may have sunk deep into his soul. And the subtle temper of the Florentine intellect must have attracted his own keen spirit by a secret sympathy. For ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... like our manners, and he mightn't like the smell Which is half the charm of Dawson; and he mightn't live to tell Of the acres of wild roses that grows on every street; And he mightn't like the winter, or he ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... court. Those of former times, of hereditary pretensions and high-bred minds and manners, were scandalised at all this; and they complained, with justice, that the whole TONE of society was altered; that the decorum, elegance, polish, and charm of society was gone; and I among the rest (said Sir James) felt and deplored their change. But, now it is all over, we may acknowledge that, perhaps, even those things which we felt most disagreeable at the time ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... their camp and was caught, and by means of the charm about my neck, which thou knowest, it was established that I was the son of some man in the regiment: according to the prophecy of the Red Bull, which thou knowest was common talk of our bazar.' Kim waited for this shaft to sink into the letter-writer's heart, cleared his throat, and continued: ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... honours apparently at will, and might, many thought, have won a fellowship with little effort; but his passion was for change. Whatever bore upon the rogueries of letters, the frauds of literature, had an irresistible charm for him; and he once declared that he would almost rather have been Ireland than Shakespeare; and then it was his delight to write Greek versions of a poem that might attach the mark of plagiarism to Tennyson, or show, by a Scandinavian ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... self-denying; and yet, in spite of his intentions, he had fallen into such a condition of things with Mr. Houghton's wife, that were the truth to be known, he would be open to most injurious proceedings. To him the love affair with another man's wife was more embarrassing even than pleasant. Its charm did not suffice to lighten for him the burden of the wickedness. He had certain inklings of complaint in his own mind against his own wife, but he felt that his own hands should be perfectly clean before he could deal with those inklings magisterially and maritally. How would he look ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... silent breath. After all, he knew everything. He mechanically dropped a little the arm on which her hand rested, that it might slip farther within. Her timid remoteness had its charm, and he fell to thinking, with amusement, how she who was so subordinate to him was, in the dimly known sphere in which he had been groping to find her, probably a person of authority and consequence. It satisfied a certain domineering quality ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... head. This to-day, those yesterday—there is, I see, and know, thus much goodness in line after line, goodness to be scientifically appreciated, proved there—but over and above, is it in the writing, the dots and traces, the seal, the paper—here does the subtle charm lie beyond all rational accounting for? The other day I stumbled on a quotation from J. Baptista Porta—wherein he avers that any musical instrument made out of wood possessed of medicinal properties retains, being put to use, such virtues undiminished,—and that, for instance, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... points to, and partly explains, the charm of the poems in A Shropshire Lad . The fastidious care with which each poem is built out of the simplest of technical elements, the precise tone and color of language employed to articulate impulse and mood, and the reproduction of objective substances for a ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... dying by the arrow of Heracles, which had been dipped in the venom of the Hydra, persuaded the bride Deanira, whose beauty was the cause of his death, to keep some of the blood from the wound as a love-charm for her husband. Many years afterwards, when Heracles was returning from his last exploit of sacking Oechalia, in Euboea, he sent before him, by his herald Lichas, Iole, the king's daughter, whom he had espoused. Deanira, when she had discovered this, commissioned Lichas when he returned ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... anger of hatred, but the cold anger of a man who has had too many attempts on his life, who has escaped narrowly from an unseen plotter twice because of pure luck and does not intend to fall victim to the dictum that "the third time's a charm." ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... followed he dwelt in her mind as she sat at her desk and stared out across the river, and several times that summer she started to walk to Silliston. But always she turned back. Perhaps she feared to break the charm ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... himself on a chair. He had word from Mahommed— that upon which he counted so certainly as a charm in counteraction of the depression taking possession of his spirit. There it was in his hand, a declaration of confidence unheard of in an Oriental despot. Yet the effect was wanting. Even as he sat thinking the despondency deepened. He groped for the reason in vain. He ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... shamed the mellow vermeil of the wreath Which in her jetty locks became her well, And mingled fragrance with her sweeter breath, The while her haughty lips more beautifully swell With consciousness of every charm's excess; While with becoming scorn she turned her face From every eye that darted its caress, As if some god alone might hope for ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... of late. It was a picture of an old-fashioned rose-garden in the light of an English summer morning, with a young wife walking there, herself taller and fairer than any flower. Would she sing, in her gladness, the songs of other lands, to charm the sweet English air? There was that one about O dolce ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... characteristic of Irving's books, do not by any means exhaust his variety, but they afford a fair measure of his purely literary skill, upon which his reputation must rest. To my apprehension this "charm" in literature is as necessary to the amelioration and enjoyment of human life as the more solid achievements of scholarship. That Irving should find it in the prosaic and materialistic conditions of the New World as well as in the tradition-laden atmosphere of the Old, is evidence ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... burial he laid his hand on the old horseshoe nailed as a charm to the foremast, and solemnly told us that, in less than three weeks, not one quarter of our number would remain aboard the ship—by that time they would have left her ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... in a more sheltered place amid the dark evergreen trees. His depression of spirit was such that for a long time he left his abode only when hunger compelled him to hunt for his necessary food. When he did resume his wanderings they were generally in the night. The singing of the birds had no charm for him, and the brightness of the summer days chased not away his gloom. More congenial to him were the "watches of the night," when the few sounds that fell upon his ears were weird and ghostly. Here, amid the gloomy shadows where the only sounds were the sighing of the winds ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... depths of darkling life where sin Laughs piteously that sorrow should not know Her own ill name, nor woe be counted woe; Where hate and craft and lust make drearier din Than sounds through dreams that grief holds revel in; What charm of joy-bells ringing, streams that flow, Winds that blow healing in each note they blow, Is this that the outer darkness ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... though far from beautiful, possessed a certain charm, due entirely to their wildness. Unlike most Tibetan women, they had good teeth. Their complexion was not specially dark. Only the black ointment, with which their cheeks, noses, and foreheads were smeared, made them appear darker than they really were, ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... and faculty and trustees and public in such friendly fashion that he may rightly say 'we' from any point of view. His many readers will look for noteworthy diction amounting to a new use of words, grace of speech and charm of phrase, a startling power of insight, a passion for social service and the revelation of the spiritual in all human affairs, with the inspiration which compels. These things Dr. Peabody's readers expect of him, but it ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... likely, we think, that the big volume lay open, while the scholar's eyes glowed and shone with cherished reminiscences of that enchanting city in which his best days had flown, and Mary Stewart responded to his recollections with all her gay wit and charm of pleasant speech. Many are the tragic associations of Holyrood: it is well to note that other companions more sober than Signor Davie, more calm than Chastelar, shared now and then the Queen's leisure. ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... He had not only converted the scoffer, but he now found that the gang's plans for the evening no longer held a charm for him. What a peach of a time he ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... exhaust, the smell of the bacon cooking, the sight of their outer garments drying in the cheery warmth, while the wind howled outside and the rain beat down upon the low roof the situation was not half bad and an occasional lurch of the old hull gave a peculiar charm to their ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... and charm form the raw materials of the most entertaining city life in the country. For whatever San Francisco is or is not, it is never dull. Life there is in a perpetual ferment. It is as though the city kettle had been set on the stove to boil half a century ago and had never ...
— The Californiacs • Inez Haynes Irwin
... fifteen minutes. Lylda interpreted for us as well as she could, though I must confess we were all three at times completely at a loss. But Lylda's bright, intelligent little face, and the resourcefulness of her gestures, always managed somehow to convey her meaning. The charm and grace of her manner, all during the talk, her winsomeness, and the almost spiritual kindness and tenderness that characterized her, made me feel that she embodied all those qualities with which we of this earth idealize our ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... this through the Forbes-Robertsons. He was at one time engaged to one of the girls, but it was a good thing it ended in smoke. With all his charm, Wills was not cut out for a husband. He was Irish all over—the strangest mixture of the aristocrat and the sloven. He could eat a large raw onion every night like any peasant, yet his ideas were ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... mother," said Bettina, with a sudden trembling of the lip and suffusion of the eyes which gave her a new charm, in revealing the fact that this young goddess had a human heart which could ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... aside useless; others he works, plays, and pensions; still others serve as jackals or servitors and proudly flaunt his livery; a few, the strong, independent souls, tempted with great rewards and beguiled by the man's baleful, intellectual charm into his clutches, preserve a semblance of freedom; but let the boldest of these turn restive—he is maimed or ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... Philippine literature. Zuniga did for the island of Luzon what Arthur Young did for France a few years earlier, or to take an apter parallel, what President Dwight did for New England. His careful observations, relieved of tedium by a rare charm of style, his sweetness of temper, quiet humor, his love of nature and of man all combine to make his "Travels" a work that would be accorded a conspicuous place in the literature of any country. An English translation will appear in ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... palliating circumstances, he admitted, he undertook to exemplify in her the beauty and exaltation of noble suffering. His Mary (which has always been a favorite with tragic actresses) is in my opinion as devoid of that insinuating, sense-compelling charm which alone can account for this extraordinary woman's career as is the heroine of Bjoernson's play. In fact Bjoernson's Mary lies half-way between the amorous young tigress of Swinburne and the statuesque martyr ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... knowledge of Wessex types, and especially, his subdued but permeating pessimism. There is nothing in his writings more quietly, deeply hopeless than most of the tales in the collection "Life's Little Ironies." One shrinks away from the truth and terror of them while lured by their charm. The short stories increase one's admiration for the artist, but the full, more virile message conies from the Novels. It is matter for regret that "Jude the Obscure," unless the signs fail, is to be his last testament in fiction. For such a man to cease from ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... strong vein of piety in her character; and this crowning grace gave to her an inexpressible charm. Whatever men may say, there are few who do not reverence, and hope to find in those they love, this feeling. The world is a hard school, and men must strike alone everywhere. In the struggle, it is almost impossible to prevent the mind from gathering those bitter experiences which ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... air and the kind treatment of the Vigilance Committee acted like a charm upon them, and they improved very rapidly from their exhaustive and heavy loss of blood. Desiring to retain some memorial of them, a member of the Committee begged one of their silk shrouds, and likewise procured an artist to take the photograph ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... They all see that no beauty recommends a wife so much to her husband as the probity of her life and her obedience; for as some few are caught and held only by beauty, so all are attracted by the other excellences which charm all the world. ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... of Edgar the Dreamer was filled with the subtle charm of mystery. It was a secret life. The world in which he moved was a secret world—an invisible world, to whose invisible door he alone held the key. Edgar the Dreamer was himself an invisible person, for the only outward difference between him ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... picked up something better than either of these, at least in appearance. This was a little blue flower resembling the violet, with glossy green leaves that were its especial charm. ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... "Worked like a charm, Bud," he remarked; "and if the famous Wright brothers could have seen what you did, after only glimpsing the article long ago, they would have said, just as I do, that you deserve a ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... factitiousness of much of their wit, and their conventionality of plot. Above all things, the man who drew so many fancifully delightful types of womanhood must have been intensely appreciative of the charm of sex; and it is on that side that we are to look for his first contacts with the deeper forces of life. What marks off the Shakspere of thirty-five, in fine, from all his rivals, is just his peculiarly true and new[148] expression of the living ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... "is just what I was getting at. Generally I feel a placid contentment with things in general, but once in a while a sort of fever stirs my blood, and I long to get out and rough it somewhere. I tell you, a wild life has a certain charm about it that dies out reluctantly when the fever once gets into a man's blood. Some day I really believe I'll return to Africa, or some other wild land, for big game. I ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... faltered, "that I haven't asked you before, but—but—" then, with the impulsiveness which was one of her characteristics, and to her guardian her great charm, she looked him full in the face and added, "but I hoped you would understand that—that I understood a little better. I should like to ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... unfailing talisman and charm used for keeping all things in their places. Everybody was dressed for a Fancy Ball that was never to leave off. From the Palace of the Tuileries, through Monseigneur and the whole Court, through the Chambers, the Tribunals of Justice, and all society (except the scarecrows), ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... operation. It is, he seems to mean, a direct perception of beauty in character applied to the regulation of conduct. Virtue corresponds to an instinctive and so far ultimate appreciation of beauty of character. Mackintosh insists upon this intrinsic charm of virtue in the language which struck Mill as simply foppish affectation. The pleasure of 'benevolence' itself, says Mackintosh, is infinitely superior to the pleasures to which it may lead. Could it become 'lasting and intense,' it would convert the heart ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... nice parks with beautiful and delightfully fragrant flowers and shrubbery lend a charm to ...
— A Soldier in the Philippines • Needom N. Freeman
... the fire, "how it would simplify the whole matter if Jill were to become a motion-picture artist and win fame and wealth in her profession. And there can be no reasonable doubt, my boy, that she would. As you say, with her appearance and her charm . . . Which of these women whose names you see all along Broadway in electric lights can hold a candle to her? Once started, with the proper backing behind her, her future would be assured. And then. . . . Of course, as regards her feelings I cannot speak, as I know nothing of them, but ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... galling, Willard felt the charm of the morning too strongly to admit of anger or to ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... focusing of the child's attention on what he ought not to do, and an added note to the disturbance. Then an American across the aisle having surveyed the situation took out of his pocket a folder full of brightly colored views. The charm worked beautifully—the meal went on free from disturbance—and the child ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... der Neer, the painter of night; Ruysdael, the painter of melancholy; Hobbema, the painter of windmills, cottages, and kitchen-gardens; and with others who contented themselves with expressing the charm of the modest scenes ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... they knew that they would consider them cowards if they could not bear to look upon that which others no older than themselves endured. There was also the incessant, terrible wailing of the whistle, which seemed to charm ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... length, and their shields half-a-foot higher than their persons, and pierced with two openings through which they could see their adversary. The arms had to be shown to the Court, and each champion was obliged to make oath on the Gospels that he had upon him neither writing, charm, nor any other arms than those shown to the Court. The combatants were then placed and fought. Near at hand stood the warders of the field, so that they might catch the words "I repent" in the event of their being uttered. In that case they said to the other party, "You have done enough"; and he ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... her a root to hold, and to give him to smell on his return. He changed himself into a pard, killed one of the nilgai, and came bounding back for the root; but the terrified woman lost her nerve, flung away the charm, and rushed from the place. The husband hunted about wildly for the root, but in vain; and then inflamed with rage he pursued her, and tore her to pieces and continued to wreak his vengeance on the human race. Such was the history of the man-eating ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... was tall for her age, and seemed likely to become as tall as Pauline. Her breast was perhaps a little small, but perfectly shaped, her hands were white and plump, her feet small, and her gait had something noble and gracious. Her features were of that exquisite sensibility which gives so much charm to the fair sex, but nature had given her a beautiful body and a deformed soul. This siren had formed a design to wreck my happiness even before she knew me, and as if to add to her triumph she ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... were eager to rush forward and at once attack the monster. I restrained them, dogs and all. I had heard—who has not?— of the power of fascination which these reptiles possess. I knew not whether to believe or disbelieve it. Here was an opportunity to test its truth. Would it charm the bird? We should see. One and all of us remained motionless and silent. The snake ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... personal feeling; but I am certain that unless a book can rise to the magnitude of the War it had best leave it alone. Still it may well be that others will find interest, and even consolation, in these little papers. They have at least the charm of simplicity, and are obviously the products of a gentle and sympathetic nature. Thus, Miss ORCHARD can still see the pathos of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 1, 1916 • Various
... had been gazing at her with passionate earnestness, as if her fair face possessed an irresistible charm for him, now addressed her ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... Mrs. Tickell) to her sister, Mrs. Sheridan, though containing nothing remarkable, yet, as warm with the feelings of a moment so interesting in Sheridan's literary life, will be read, perhaps, with some degree of pleasure. The slightest outline of a celebrated place, taken on the spot, has often a charm beyond the most elaborate ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... hips sent out for the mansions of Arjuna. And in that mood and with her crisp, soft and long braids decked with bunches of flowers, she looked extremely beautiful. With her beauty and grace, and the charm of the motions of her eye-brows and of her soft accents, and her own moon like face, she seemed to tread, challenging the moon himself. And as she proceeded, her deep, finely tapering bosoms, decked with a chain of gold and adorned with celestial unguents and smeared with ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... dreamt of mythology, all that you had ever seen of statuary, thronged upon you at that supreme moment, and, evolved from your own fancy, the river god was born. It is your own, chere enfant, as much the offspring of your genius as the exquisite atmosphere you have caught, the charm of light and shadow that you have brought away. Accept my felicitations. You have little more to learn ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... away slanting silkily to the temples across the nearly imperceptible upward curve of his brows there—felt more than seen, so slight it was—and gave to his profile a bold beauty, to which his bashful, breathless air was a flattering charm. An arrow drawn to the head, capable of flying fast and far with her! He leaned a little forward, drinking her in with all his eyes, and young Love has a thousand. Then truly the System triumphed, just ere it was to fall; and could Sir Austin have been content to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... salt and pepper, and water. The turnip-tops I put in the bottom of the dish, then laid on the potatoes, covering with water and adding salt. I then covered this with another wash-basin, and started my fire. We were not allowed to have fires, and this gave the mulligan all the charm of the forbidden. ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... wrong, and the consequent misery and restlessness, can ever be healed until you go to Christ—the forgiving Christ—and let Him lay His hand upon you; and from His own sweet and infallible lips hear the word that shall come as a charm through all your nature: 'Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.' 'Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened; then shall the lame man leap as an hart';—then limitations, sorrows, miseries, will pass away, and forgiveness will bear fruit in joy and power, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... finishes with these noble and avenging threats:—'But let them not be deceived; wherever they put them, such captives have, on their side, the two most powerful advocates in the whole world—their innocence and their misfortune. No Cicero, no Demosthenes can so charm the ear, or so powerfully rouse the mind, as these two defenders; because, among other privileges, God has given them that of being always present, to cry out for justice, to serve both as witnesses and advocates, and to terminate one of those processes which God alone judges in this ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... the charm'd reader with thy thought complies, And views thy Rosamond with Henry's eyes. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... him alone. From time to time, his eyes wandering from the fingers of the pianist to the long gloves hanging from the music stand, which still retained the form of those hands, still preserved an inexpressible charm in the small opening at the wrist where, but a short time ago, a tiny morsel of her soft ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... we've got for conjuring him," quoth the other. "And we only want Swanny to dig, and then if the charm is only a sham charm, the adder ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... reach with your riding? What is the charm of the chase? Just the delight and the striding swing of the jubilant pace. Danger is sweet when you front her,— In at the death, every hunter! Now on the breeze the mort is borne In the long, clear ...
— Music and Other Poems • Henry van Dyke
... her true worth, to adjust the balance between her merits and her demerits, is a difficult task. A woman of a hundred opposing facets; of rare culture and charm, and of whims and fancies and strange enthusiasms each battling with the other. Thus, by turns tender and callous, hot-tempered and soft-hearted; childishly simple in some things, and amazingly shrewd in others; trusting and suspicious; arrogant and humble, yet supremely indifferent to public opinion; ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... lay there drinking in her beauty for several moments before she chanced to glance downward and observe that I was awake. The evidences of past exposure and strain were not absent from her features, yet had not robbed her of that delicate charm which to my mind separated her so widely from all others,—her rounded cheek yet retained the fresh hue of perfect health, her clear, thoughtful eyes were soft and earnest, while the luxuriant hair, swept back ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... word that makes the dictionary heavy. It is because you do not know its meaning that you women, or perhaps I ought to use the despised term, 'ladies,' become the very beautiful and useless articles that you are—works of art, which may thrill and charm a man for a moment, when he has time to look at them, but which bear little relation to the stress of life which you ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter |
