"Magic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and confidence. Young as she was, Annie had learned that all efforts to benefit the unfortunate or ignorant are vain so long as the cold shoulder is turned towards them. She had proved in Annorah's case the magic effect of loving ...
— Live to be Useful - or, The Story of Annie Lee and her Irish Nurse • Anonymous
... sufficient drink in the cellars of the Dissenters, they had begun to break open and to destroy the houses of churchmen. They were busy in breaking open the house of Dr. Withering, at some distance from the town, when the words "light horse" sounded in their ears, and the whole mob melted away as if by magic; when the light-horse appeared, not a shadow of them could be found. In fact, the mob of Birmingham was the very counterpart of that which had been engaged in Lord George Gordon's riots. Throughout their whole career they had ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... St. Paul's Cathedral, London, on which Sir John Goss played, and which had felt the magic touch of Mendelssohn, had 13 stops on the Great, 7 on the Swell, 8 on the Choir and only one on the Pedal. It stood in a case on the screen between the choir and the nave of the Cathedral. We have noted elsewhere in this book how Willis had this screen removed, and rebuilt the ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... joyousness that he believed had somehow left him. He roved the Devon hills in wind and rain, drew into his lungs the fragrant breath of the moorland, and felt a better man. He sang as he walked—a great deep song that went echoing along the valleys. Space—space! There was the magic potion. What were Money, Success, Power, compared to the ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... Baron de Letters of Two Brides A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Modeste Mignon The Magic Skin Another Study of Woman Beatrix The Unconscious Humorists ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... class of Italian poetry to which it belongs. The agony is tedious, as Italian agony is apt to be, the passion is outrageously violent or excessively tender, the description too often prosaic; the effects are sometimes produced by very "rough magic". The more than occasional infelicity and awkwardness of diction which offend in Byron's poetic tales are not felt so much in those of Grossi; but in "Ildegonda" there is horror more material even than in "Parisina". Here is a picture of Rizzardo's apparition, ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... a great attraction. You dropped a penny into a little slit in a box and a doll would begin to dance and play the fiddle: and there was the Magic Mill, where for another modest copper a row of tiny figures, wrinkled and old and dressed in the shabbiest of rags, marched in weary procession up a flight of steps into the Mill, only to emerge again ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... other people of India, always watch the first hour of a baby's life very closely. They know that always some incident will occur that will point, as a weather-vane points in the wind, to the baby's future. Often they have to call a man versed in magic to interpret, but sometimes the prophecy is quite self-evident. No one knows whether or not it works the same with baby elephants, but certainly this wild, far-carrying call, not to be imitated by any living voice, did seem a token and an omen in the life of Muztagh. And it is a curious ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... that I could scarcely support myself when introduced to the Princesses. The first day of my reading in the inner apartment of Madame Victoire I found it impossible to pronounce more than two sentences; my heart palpitated, my voice faltered, and my sight failed. How well understood was the potent magic of the grandeur and dignity which ought to surround sovereigns! Marie Antoinette, dressed in white, with a plain straw hat, and a little switch in her hand, walking on foot, followed by a single servant, through the walks leading to the Petit Trianon, would never have thus disconcerted ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... thronged the sky. He and Steve and Rat, together at last—plunging from star to star, going everywhere, seeing everything. The little craft grappled to the Valhalla would be the magic wand that put the universe in ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... to any healthy spot. A farm-house, in a high, dry, and salubrious neighbourhood, is as good a place as can be chosen. If, in a short time, he be not quite well, take him to the sea-side: the sea breezes will often, as if by magic, ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... glad indeed. But by what magic did you so suddenly subdue that man? And was it necessary to sully your ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... he then stood erect, at a little distance from the spot on which he had knelt. Presently what appeared a lump of grey stone, moved upwards, then aside, and the head and shoulders of a man from beneath sprang into its place so suddenly as to have appeared the work of magic. He leaned a little on one side, to permit Burrell to descend; and the next minute the cavern seemed as if no human step had ever disturbed its solitude. Six or eight rugged stairs brought the knight into a low but spacious apartment, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... ascending pile Stood fix'd her stately height; and straight the doors Opening their brazen folds, discover, wide Within, her ample spaces, o'er the smooth And level pavement; from the arched roof Pendant by subtle magic, many a row Of starry lamps and blazing crezzets, fed With naphtha and asphaltus, yielded light ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... fingers, and his touch on plants, in gardening, his tying of strings—he liked doing up parcels—was very quick and delicate. He was fond of all sorts of little puzzles, toys of wood and metal, which had to be fitted together; and the puzzles took shape or fell to pieces under his fingers like magic. They were extremely sensitive to pain, his hands, and a little pinch or abrasion would cause him marked discomfort. His handwriting was rapid and fine, and he occasionally would draw a tiny sketch to illustrate something, which showed much artistic skill. He often deplored his ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... me and we mutually terrified each other. I fully expected to get killed by the local nobility and gentry; they thought I was connected with the World's Women's Temperance Association, and collecting shocking details for subsequent magic-lantern lectures on the liquor traffic; so fearful misunderstandings arose, but we gradually educated each other, and I had the best of the affair; for all I had got to teach them was that I was only a beetle and fetish hunter, and ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... my friend from Athens is quite convinced. In books of magic there are many formulas by which misfortunes may be transferred not merely from men to beasts, but from one human being to another. Very remarkable experiments have even been carried out with slaves, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... by the policeman's altered manner, the self-styled Hooliam went on, with an air of taking Stonor into his confidence: "These niggers here are a funny lot, aren't they? Still believe in magic." ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... THE MAGIC FOREST: A Modern Fairy Story. "No better book could be put in a young boy's hands," says the New York Sun. It is a happy blend of knowledge of wood life with an understanding of Indian character, as well as ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.
... and, ascending with alacrity the poop ladder, was able to see from that elevated position the capital way in which he urged on and encouraged the men, until, as if by magic, the heavy boxes and lumbering crates that had but a short time before almost covered the jetty beside the ship, were all hoisted inboard and lowered down into ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... make a wish on a hay-wagon it will come true if "yes" is the first word you say after doing so. But should you be asked a question requiring any other answer, or should it be necessary to make a remark not beginning with the magic ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... actually coining money. Other boats were built, out of materials which had either come around Cape Horn or were brought from the Sandwich Islands. Wharves were built, houses were springing up as if by magic, and the Bay of San Francisco presented as busy a scene of life as any part of the world. Major Allen, of the Quartermaster's Department, who had come out as chief-quartermaster of the division, was building a large warehouse at Benicia, with a row of quarters, out of lumber at one hundred ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... exciting, that getting ready, and the time went like magic before we formed a hollow square, and the colonel said a few words to us, mounted as he was now, his voice firm as firm, except once, when I saw him glance at an upper window, and then it trembled, but only for an instant. His words were not many; and to this day, when I think of the scene under ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... knows who his best friends are until he gets in trouble. When everything is lovely and there is no sign of trouble anywhere, one may have ever and ever so many friends. At least, it may seem so. But let trouble come, and all too often these seeming friends disappear as if by magic, until only a few, sometimes a very few, are left. These are the real friends, the true friends, and they are worth more than all the others put together. Remember that if you are a true friend to any one, you will stand by him and help him, ...
— The Adventures of Prickly Porky • Thornton W. Burgess
... to his feet, his eyes gleaming fiercely. "How?" he demanded. "They have slain the pack. Will they not soon come for the leaders? Has the young white chieftain magic to work against their many ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... in the southwest, and in an hour afterward we perceived the little headsail we carried flapping listlessly against the mast. In two minutes more, in spite of every preparation, we were hurled on our beam-ends, as if by magic, and a perfect wilderness of foam made a clear breach over us as we lay. The blow from the southwest, however, luckily proved to be nothing more than a squall, and we had the good fortune to right the vessel without the loss of a spar. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... thought it would very likely end fatally. I prescribed several medicines, and even subcutaneous injections of morphine, but without any avail. I then tried for the first time the counter-irritation on both sides of the neck, and this means acted like magic. In four or five days the patient recovered, and was able to go to school. Since that time I have been applying the same treatment, either on the right side only or on both, with the greatest benefit.—Br. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various
... was received into the tribe. The meaning of this similarity I leave to others to conjecture. In a legend mentioned by Mrs. Brown concerning a game of "All-tes-teg-enuk," played by a youth against an old man, the latter, who has magic power, has several times regained his youth by inhaling the breath of ...
— Contribution to Passamaquoddy Folk-Lore • J. Walter Fewkes
... bosom laying down my head I sobbed away the sorrows of a child, If I have always, and Heaven knows I have, Next to a mother's held a nurse's name, Succour this one distress, recall those days, Love me, though 'twere because you loved me then." But whether confident in magic rites Or touched with sexual pride to stand implored, Dalica smiled, then spake: "Away those fears. Though stronger than the strongest of his kind, He falls—on me devolve that charge; he falls. Rather than fly him, stoop thou to allure; Nay, journey to his tents: a city stood ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... another silence, a much longer one. The Honorable Heth threw his butt away, and lighted another cigar. Suddenly, as if by magic, his aplomb returned, and in a flash of understanding he perceived the situation. He saw himself once more as the successful congressman, the trusted friend of the railroad interests, and he saw Jethro as a discredited boss. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... fisherman's hut. It stole in where Joergen was sitting and thinking upon Lange Margrethe and her misdeeds. Her last thoughts had filled that little room the night before her execution; he remembered all the magic that, in the olden times, was practised when the lord of the manor, Svanwedel, lived there; and it was well known how, even now, the chained dog that stood on the bridge was found every morning hung over the railing in his chain. All these tales recurred to Joergen's ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... figure of Mr. Soloman, the accommodation man. He did not spring from among the bevy of coat-takers, and hood-retainers, at the extreme end of the great hall, nor from among the heap of promiscuous garments piled in one corner; and yet he is here, looking as if some magic process had brought him from a mysterious labyrinth. "Couldn't get along without me, you see. It's an ambition with me to befriend everybody. If I can do a bit of a good turn for a friend, so much the better!" And he grasps the old ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... succeeding age were the times of omens and meteors, prognostics and providences—of "day-fatality," or the superstition of fortunate and unfortunate days, and the combined powers of astrology and magic. It was only at the close of the century of James I. that Bayle wrote a treatise on comets, to prove that they had no influence in the cabinets of princes; this was, however, done with all the precaution imaginable. The greatest minds were then sinking under ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... name of Pitt. The very sound of the four letters seemed to carry magic everywhere, with the young English officers on the ship, in Boston, in Albany, and he had noticed too that it inspired the same confidence at the little towns at which they stopped on their way across Massachusetts. Like a blast on the horn of the mighty Roland, the call of Pitt was summoning ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... in your restoration, Mr. Wade," Fanny claimed. "I see you need a second dose of medicine. Hand me the flask, Mary. What shall I pour from this magic bottle? juice of Rhine, blood of Burgundy, fire of Spain, bubble of Rheims, beeswing of Oporto, honey of Cyprus, nectar, or whiskey? Whiskey is vulgar, but the proper thing, on the whole, for these occasions. I prescribe it." And she gave ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... Would it have been worth while, After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor— And this, and so much more?— It is impossible to say just what I mean! But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: Would it have been worth while If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, And turning toward the window, should say: "That is not it at all, That is not what I ...
— Prufrock and Other Observations • T. S. Eliot
... old Night, Cimmerian Muse, all hail! That wrapt in never-twinkling gloom canst write, And shadowest meaning with thy dusky veil! What Poet sings and strikes the strings? It was the mighty Theban spoke. He from the ever-living lyre With magic hand elicits fire. Heard ye the din of modern rhymers bray? It was cool M-n; or warm G-y, Involv'd ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... greatest seduction of Venice; but it would be an uncandid sketch of the Canalazzo that shouldn't touch them with indulgence. Taking one nuisance with another, they are probably the prettiest in the world, and if they have in general more magic for the new arrival than for the old Venice-lover, they in any case, at their best, keep up the immemorial tradition. The Venetians have had from the beginning of time the pride of their processions and spectacles, and it's a wonder how with empty pockets they still make a clever show. The Carnival ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... Esq. is an exquisite picture of saddened beauty. The Ettrick Shepherd has the Carle of Invertine—a powerful composition, and the Cameronian Preacher, a prose tale, of equal effect. In addition to the pieces already mentioned, by the editor, is one of extraordinary excellence—the Magic Bridle: his Lines to a Boy plucking Blackberries, are a very pleasing picture ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various
... confer on Marduk as his son the powers of the father, and by making Nusku a messenger between Ea and Marduk. At the same time, since the invoking of the divine powers was the essential element in the incantations, in order to make the magic formulae as effective as possible, a large number of the old local deities are introduced to add their power to the chief ones; and it is here that the astral system comes into play through the introduction of names of stars, as well as through assigning attributes to the gods ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... not seem at all strange to him, on the contrary, a vague idea was floating mistily through his mind that he had beheld precisely the same thing somewhere before. Probably at some past period of his life he had beheld a similar vision, or had seen a picture somewhere like it in a tale of magic, and satisfying himself with this conclusion, he began wondering if the genii of the place were going to make their appearance at all, or if the knowledge that human eyes were upon them had scared them ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... allowed an earthly voice to overrule the counsels of her heavenly guides. And from this hour her star set; from this hour her path led into darkness. Soon after her return to the army she broke the magic sword with which she had achieved so many conquests; the Voices, too, were silent, and all this troubled her. The king kept her away from all active warfare, and she grew restive and impatient with her life of inaction. The army, which under her ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... all these was added the new delight of Albert's admiring gaze—an alert, live gaze, a thing hitherto unknown to Albert. Perhaps, if she stayed, Albert would take her out for the evening. She would see the streets of the town in the magic of lights. She would walk out in her new dress with a real young man—a young man who possessed a gilt watch-chain. The suspense, as the wintry afternoon drew in, became almost intolerable. Still her aunt did not speak. The sitting-room ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... orchestra (so the Prince assured me) were ancient. The very dust was sacred. Sitting alone in the dim space, one could fancy the great little man still there, in his snuff-coloured coat and ruffles, half buried (as on state occasions) in his 'ALLONGE PERUCKE.' A tap of his magic wand starts into life his quaint old-fashioned band, and the powder flies from their wigs. Soft, distant, ghostly harmonies of the Surprise Symphony float among the rafters; and now, as in a dream, we are listening to - nay, beholding - ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... Wakwa arose and said: "Brave warriors, listen, and give due heed. Great is Heyka, the magical god; He can walk on the air; he can float on the flood. He's a worker of magic and wonderful wise; He cries when he laughs and he laughs when he cries; He sweats when he's cold, and he shivers when hot, And the water is cold in his boiling pot. He hides in the earth and he walks ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... from him just as he had got it under his arm. But so near the crying, Tommy did not cry, for even while the tears were rushing to his aid he tripped on the step of a shop, and immediately, as if that had rung the magic bell again, a voice, a woman's voice this time, said shrilly, "Threepence ha'penny, and them jimply as big as a bantam's! Na, na, but I'll ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... did I; for these faulty hearts of ours cannot turn perfect in a night, but need frost and fire, wind and rain, to ripen and make them ready for the great harvest-home. Wishing to divert his mind, I put my poor mite into his hand, and, remembering the magic of a certain little book, I gave him mine, on whose dark cover whitely shone the Virgin Mother and the Child, the grand history of whose life the book contained. The money went into Robert's pocket with a grateful murmur, the book into ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... wheat, biscuit, and oats had been noiselessly collected in different places. Large sums of specie had been forwarded, to hire the services of every peasant, with his mule, who inhabited the valleys among the mountains. Mechanic shops, as by magic, suddenly rose along the path, well supplied with skillful artisans, to repair all damages, to dismount the artillery, to divide the gun-carriages and the baggage-wagons into fragments, that they ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... deal," he claimed for himself. "It shows a beginning of understanding. And—given the opportunity—I hope to know more." He questioned of her eyes how far he might go. "It's the incomprehensible that lures. It piques interest and lends magic. Behind those eyelids a little weary all the subtle hidden meaning of the ages shadows. The gods forbid that I should claim to hold the answer to the eternal ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... Aboulfahrez, not feeling comfortable, perhaps, or even safe, in the presence of so exalted a personage. But new wonders were at hand. The mysterious visitor uttered some cabalistic words, and lo! flames burst forth from the magic phial, to the additional wonder and dismay ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... was for this moment, either in herself or in him, that Catherine's unconquerable faith had been patiently and dumbly waiting. Either she would go first, and death would wing her poor last words to him with a magic and power not their own; or, when he came to leave her, the veil of doubt would fall away perforce from a spirit as pure as it was humble, and the eternal light, the light of the Crucified, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in rapture, The day forgets to wane; And the winds of heaven are silent, To hear that magic strain. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... knees—a boy who might once have been this man before her—this tall, sunburned young man, awkward, insistent, artless—oh, entirely without art in a wooing which alternately exasperated and thrilled her. And now his awkwardness had shattered the magic of the dream and left her staring at reality—without warning, without the courtesy ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... joists and rafters, and stood in a litter of shavings, bits of board and piles of yellow earth, with a kindling eye. He had that happy prophetic vision of the home-builder which overlooks all present deficiencies and in an instant, with a confident magic, erects all that the slow years are to build. He saw a handsome, well-kept house, correctly colonial in style, grounds artfully laid out to increase the impression of space, a hospitable, smoothly run interior, artistic, ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... except in open markets and fairs, on penalty of forty shillings for each offence, both to buyers and sellers.] Moreover, to these divers sights and sounds were added ballad singers, who piped ditties upon topics of the day; quacks who sold nostrums and magic potions; dancers who performed on tight-ropes; wandering musicians; fire-eaters of great renown; exhibitors of dancing dolls, and such like itinerants "as make show of motions and strange sights," all of whom were obliged to ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... a fairy-tale," commented Ricky. "A sword with magic powers beaten out of two other swords found in a tomb. And the whole thing done under the direction of ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... Circe, a beautiful but wicked enchantress. Here he divided his crew into two parties, and while one half rested, the others went to find what place this was. Circe welcomed them in her palace, feasted them, and gave them a magic drink. When they had drunk this, she touched them with her wand, and they were turned into swine, all except one, who had feared to enter the palace, and now returning, told Ulysses that the others had disappeared. Then the hero arose and ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... was puzzled to find time hanging so empty, so wretchedly empty, on his hands. When they were together in these days they found less to talk about, and had it not been for the Silver Fleece which in magic wilfulness opened both their mouths, they would have found their companionship little more than a series of awkward silences. Yet in their silences, their walks, and their sittings there was a companionship, a glow, a satisfaction, as came to them nowhere else ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... dependence upon times, places, and conditions; it makes privacy possible in crowds, and silence accessible in tumults of sound; it withdraws a man so completely from his surroundings that he secures complete isolation as readily as if the magic carpet of the "Arabian Nights" were under him to bear him on the instant into the solitude of lonely deserts or inaccessible mountains. More than this, it enables a man to work with the utmost rapidity, to complete his task in the shortest ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... among kings, thy fear of Sakra will soon be dispelled, and I shall soon remove this terrible pain by means of my magic lore (incantation); be calm and have no fear of being overpowered by India. Thou hast nothing to fear from the god of a hundred sacrifices. I shall use my staying charms, O king, and the weapons of all the gods will avail them not. Let the lightening ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... to the young wife telling of the applause that greeted his efforts. Sam could picture the performances, the little dimly- lighted schoolhouses with the weatherbeaten faces shining in the light of the leaky magic lantern, and the delighted Windy running here and there, talking the jargon of stageland, arraying himself in his motley and strutting upon the ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... up his nose when there was a stench in his nostrils,—for instance, when Belle Lorrigan hurtled past with her bronks and her buckboard and her yellow hair flying. Mary Hope wondered, too, what the Lorrigan boys had got from the devil in exchange for their souls. Some magic, perhaps, that would protect them from death and accident. Yet that seemed not true, for Al Lorrigan broke his leg, one spring round-up. The devil ought to have saved his horse from falling down with him, if the devil had Al ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... title. He was a mild-mannered man with a long thin black beard and a slight stoop, and his experience with fire-arms was confined to the occasional shooting of depredatory crows, squirrels, and rats with an ancient fowling-piece. Still there is magic in a name. And who knows but that the subtle influence of the title of colonel may have unconsciously guided the searching eyes of the young saleswoman among the Noah's arks and farmyards to the box ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... who usually looked up to Sampson with awe, to be witnesses of one of those rencontres. In a moment the shouting—galloping—rampaging cudgel-wielder was to be seen changed, as if by some magic power, into a being of almost child-like obedience, while he listened attentively and deferentially to the lecture of Major Grantham, whom he both feared and loved. On these occasions, he would hang his head upon his chest—confess his error—and promise solemnly to amend his course of life, ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... her to read and to sew. Topsy liked reading, and learned her letters like magic. But she could not bear sewing. So she broke her needles or threw them away. She tangled, broke, and dirtied her cotton and hid her reels. Miss Ophelia felt sure all these things could not be accidents. Yet she could ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin, Young Folks' Edition • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... impossible but that its composition may have cost him more trouble than "Robinson Crusoe" itself. There is no space left to deal with his other works. Reference can only be made to "Captain Singleton," "A System of Magic," "A History of the Devil," "The Family Instructor," "The Plan of English Commerce," "A New Voyage Round the World," etc. In naming these I abbreviate the titles. Most of Defoe's title-pages epitomize his works, and merely as a list would ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... answered, "as though by magic. You see, we were sitting at the table next the door, and he had every opportunity for slipping ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... child, and in her dreamless eyes There slept a world of unawakened thought— And in her voice, her laughter, and her sighs, No spirit lingered, and no magic wrought; For as the haze that veils the glorious skies At morning prime; or as the mist that lies On ocean's might: or as the solemn hour Of Nature's silence, when the Heavens lower, Such was her childhood; ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... declare: "All that we propose to do is this: To find out the secrets of the human frame, to know why the parts ossify and the blood stagnates, and to apply continual preventives to the effects of time. THIS IS NOT MAGIC; IT IS THE ART ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... of the sufferer himself that we acquire the knowledge of his disgrace. [7] The cruelty of the emperor was exasperated by the pangs of sickness, the approach of a premature end, and the suspicion of poison and magic. The lives and fortunes, the eyes and limbs, of his kinsmen and nobles, were sacrificed to each sally of passion; and before he died, the son of Vataces might deserve from the people, or at least from the court, the appellation of tyrant. A matron of the family ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... thunderstorm; they both go to the window, and she is so touched by the beauties of nature that she lays her hand on his and murmurs "Klopstock,"—to the complete dismay of the reader, though not of Werther, for he, we find, was so carried away by the magic word that he flung himself on to her hand and kissed it with tears ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... another heaven than any of which he dreamed on earth, to look down on his race, to see the nations from the fields of Asia, to the forests of Hercynia, performing pilgrimages to the fountain which his magic wand caused to flow; if it is permitted to him to view the vast assemblage of grand, of elevated, of glorious productions, which had been called into being by means of his songs; wherever his immortal spirit may reside, this alone would ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... boldness of the former as much as she enjoyed that of the latter. With crimson in her cheeks and lightning in her eyes, she first attempted to drown them both, then waded to shore, sat down on the sand, and said things to Mr. Gerald Height, which had the magic effect of making him unburden himself and his lizard-like career to her ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... amount of dilute ammonia be injected into the circulation of a patient suffering from snake-bite, the curative effect is usually sudden and startling, so that, in many cases, men have thus been brought back, as it were, by magic, from the very ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... exasperated beyond endurance, was apoplectic in the face from the too sudden strain upon his temper. Starting angrily forward he seemed as if about to carry out his threat, and the effect of this was magic. The offending cabbies quickly disentangled themselves, and once more the long string of vehicles began to move. Women screamed shrilly, as with their escorts they dodged the horses' hoofs, the trolleys ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... certain forceful magic about the combined influences of propinquity and sea air, as these are enjoyed by the idle passengers upon a great ocean liner. They do, I think, tend to advance intimacy and accelerate the various stages of intercourse leading thereto, and therefrom, ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... one's eyes, and a ribbon or a bead or a pair of new red striped yarn stockings or any other of the embellishments which nature teaches little girls to wear casts a sheen over all the world for a boy. The magic bundle that charmed John Barclay was a scarlet dress, "made over," that came in an "aid box" from the Culpeppers in Virginia. And when the other children in Miss Lucy's school made fun of John and his amour, the ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... not comprehend the metaphysics of a Trinal Unity, nor how it is just that innocence should be punished, that guilt may go free. They do not attribute any magic virtue to the laying on of hands; nor do they believe that the traces of an evil life in the soul can be washed out by the sprinkling of a few drops of water, however pure, or by baptism in any blood, however innocent, in ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... Gilder regarded us sidewise from amid her bodyguard of young men. Evidently she was dying to know who was the acquaintance her darling Biddy had picked up in mid-Mediterranean the moment her back was turned; and at last, unable to restrain herself longer, she made use of some magic trick to attach the band of youths to her aunt. Then, separating herself with almost indecent haste from the group, she marched up to us, gazing—I might say, staring—with large unfriendly eyes at ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... it was that George Bellew came to Dapplemere in the glory of the after-glow of an August afternoon, breathing the magic air of Arcadia which is, and always has been, of that rare quality warranted to go to the ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... supply the magic power that enables the corn to grow and ripen. It is the heat of the sun which raises water from the ocean in the form of vapour, and then sends down that vapour as rain to refresh the earth and to fill the rivers which bear our ships down to the ocean. It is the ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... and started across the room with great strides. My secretary's eyes were glued to the magic portrait. His fingers, looking like claws, hung suspended over the keyboard of ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... storm cleared, and then it was discovered that the ptarmigans and rabbits, which had been so plentiful and constituted their chief source of food supply, had disappeared as if by magic. Not a ptarmigan fluttered before the hunter, and no rabbit tracks broke the smooth white snow ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... the race of men who had lived it was gone, and their works were following them, to the universal dust. Out of the memories they left and the departed glory of the places wherein they had dwelt, the magic of the Middle Age was to weave another long romance, less grand but more stirring, less glorious but infinitely ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... islands, and at last left in the sky above those reveries of fortification, a whiff of sombre smoke, dark and unreal as a memory of battle; to the right, on some line of railroad, long-plumed trains arrived and departed like pictures passed through the slide of a magic-lantern; even a pile-driver, at work in the same direction, seemed to have no malice in the blows which, after a loud clucking, it dealt the pile, and one understood that it was mere conventional violence like that of a Punch ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... financial value being given free quarters in the hospitable mansion of the Squire. Hence the house was never finished. The roof, however, was on, and the main room floored, so that it had been utilized for church and Sunday school purposes, for an Orange Lodge, for temperance and magic lantern itinerant lectures, and for local hops. Now, with the dead body of Harding laid out upon an improvised table of rough boards on trestles, it assumed the most solemn aspect it had ever exhibited. Three oldish men were there, whom people called Johnson, Newberry, ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... object, the methods they adopt are in almost direct contrast. Mr. Orage looks down from the height, not of philosophic doubt, but of philosophic certainty (where he alone feels happy) upon the petty house of party politics, and seeks, by the magic music of his words and phrases, so to move and draw after him the sand of human nature on which that house is built, that it may no longer stand but fall and be banished utterly. Mr. Cecil Chesterton, on the other hand, only happy in the role of the new David, ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... danger of the folly of marrying for fashion: not that she had fixed her fancy upon any man of fashion in particular, but she had formed an exalted idea of the whole species—and she regretted that Frederick was not in that magic circle in which all her hopes of happiness now centred. She wrote kind letters to Miss Elmour, but each letter was written with greater difficulty than the preceding; for she had lost all interest in the occupations which formerly were so ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... passion to that moment when two standing tiptoe on the brink of golden surrender, sit down to their first ambrosial meal together—delicious adventure!—with all the world to watch them, if it choose, and yet aloof in a magic loneliness, as of youthful divinities wrapped in a roseate cloud! Hours of divine expectancy, at once promise and fulfilment. Happy were it for you, lovers, could you thus sit forever, nor pass beyond this moment, ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... myself serves both as the magic lantern of my own destiny, and as a window opened upon the mystery of the world. I am, or rather, my sensible consciousness is concentrated upon this ideal standing-point, this invisible threshold, as it were, whence one hears the impetuous passage of time, rushing and foaming as it ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... as the little spoon made, and such a beating as the batter got, it quite foamed, I assure you; and when Daisy poured some on to the griddle, it rose like magic into a puffy flapjack that made Demi's mouth water. To be sure, the first one stuck and scorched, because she forgot the butter, but after that first failure all went well, and six capital little cakes were safely ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... land between childhood and youth, between instinct and reason; but there are certain principles to guide us. We note, in the development of any normal child, that there comes a time when for his stories he desires knights, giants, elves, fairies, witches, magic, and marvelous adventures which have no basis in experience. He tells extraordinary tales about himself, which may be only the vague remembrances of a dream or the creations of a dawning imagination,—both of which are as real to him ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... been, under some form or other, in every race and clime—ever since Eve ate of the magic fruit, that she might be as a god, knowing good and evil, and found, poor thing, as most have since, that it was far easier and more pleasant to know the evil than to know the good. But that theatre was built that men might know therein the good as well as the evil. To learn the evil, ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... sir," said Walter, "I could not help thinking there must be some magic in trade, and I had better go into it. I didn't think you would consent to that. I wasn't game to defy you; so I did a meanish thing, and slipped away into a ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... found that my potted beef, which I had carefully hung from a nail the night before, had been almost carried away by small ants. These ants swarm in every house on low altitudes. They assemble in legions as if by magic, and by their orderly activity carry away all that they do not devour, of all eatables which have not been placed on tables which have rags dipped in a solution of corrosive sublimate ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... mental ore to temper and refine, To cast in virtue's mould the yielding heart, And honor's polish to the mind impart. Without thy wakening touch, thy plastic aid, I'd lain the shapeless mass that nature made; But form'd, great artist, by thy magic hand, I gleam a sword ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... dwarf buffoon stood telling tales To a sedate grey circle of old smokers, Of secret treasures found in hidden vales, Of wonderful replies from Arab jokers, Of charms to make good gold and cure bad ails, Of rocks bewitch'd that open to the knockers, Of magic ladies who, by one sole act, Transform'd their lords to beasts (but that 's ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... she. "There are none around me but enemies. My tirewoman wishes to poison me; my hairdresser to give me some dreadful disease. The warriors are waiting an opportunity to bury swords and spears in my bosom; I am sure that instead of food, they prepare for me magic herbs in the kitchen. All are rising up to ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... her bed she found it impossible to read any more Newman. The rain and the scents coming up out of the hidden earth of Africa had carried her mind away, as if on a magic carpet. She was content now to lie awake ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... mind so much as the exquisite paucity of forces and of funds by which the world-empire was fought for and resisted in France, Holland, Spain, and England. The scenes of war were rapidly shifted—almost like the slides of a magic-lantern—from one country to another; the same conspicuous personages, almost the same individual armies, perpetually re-appearing in different places, as if a wild phantasmagoria were capriciously repeating itself to bewilder ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... important, and Grisell enjoyed the two miles' ride along the cliffs of Roker Bay, looking up at the curious caverns in the rock, and seeking for the very strangely-formed stones supposed to have magic power, which fell from the rock. In the distance beyond the river to the southward, Ridley pointed to the tall square tower of Monks Wearmouth Church dominating the great monastery around it, which had once held the venerable Bede, though to both Ridley and Grisell he was ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... At this magic hour a young painter, a man of talent, who saw in art nothing but Art itself, was perched on a step-ladder which helped him to work at a large high painting, now nearly finished. Criticising himself, honestly admiring ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... filled with copal, and, having lighted it, incensed the figures. Turning to the presidente, she asked whether he were going to placate the saint for invasion by giving aguardiente and candles, both of which appeared, as if by magic, when she was given money. Pouring aguardiente from the bottle into a glass, she poured into the four basins in the ground before the altar, before the Virgin, before and behind the heaps of ashes under the table, and then placed it to the lips of the Virgin and Christ, lovingly requesting ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... to delight his hearers with a piece of genuine music. This he did and his operatic overtures are of such distinct import and self-sufficiency that they are often detached from the opera itself and played as concert numbers. The Magic Flute Overture is also noteworthy because of the polyphonic treatment of the first theme which is a definite fugal presentation in four voices. The second theme, beginning in measure 64, and soon repeated, is light and winning, ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... "during, or shortly after, the French Revolution; and it was mainly intended to counteract the visionary ideas in regard to the blessings of Grecian democracy, which had spread so far in the world, from the magic of Athenian genius." Says Chancellor Kent: "Mitford does not scruple to tell the truth, and the whole truth, and to paint the stormy democracies of Greece in all their grandeur and in all their wretchedness." Lord Byron said of the ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... Setting aside the magic of the name, and all those associations which it would be pedantic and superfluous to recapitulate, the very situation of Athens would render it the favourite of all who have eyes for art or nature. The climate, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... indeed, I know no more than I might learn from good Mrs. Rusk's very inaccurate talk. Two or three of them crossed in the course of my early life, like magic-lantern figures, the disk of my very circumscribed observation. All outside was and is darkness. I once tried to read one of their books upon the future state—heaven and hell; but I grew after a day ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... question. I read it eagerly, passionately, vehemently. I read its successor and its successor. I read until I came to a book called "The Doctor's Wife"—a lady who loved Shelley and Byron. There was magic, there was revelation in the name, and Shelley became my soul's divinity. Why did I love Shelley? Why was I not attracted to Byron? I cannot say. Shelley! Oh, that crystal name, and his poetry also crystalline. ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... utility of another course. Ordinary men have been more faithful to asserted principles, but no statesman more frequently departed from asserted principles to secure achievements which redounded to the honor of the nation. During the thirty years in which Pitt exercised the magic spell of his eloquence and power over the English Parliament, the stakes for which he contended against the world were no less than the dominion of North America and of India. In the pursuit of these policies he fought Spain ...
— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church
... behold! then straight a wand He waved, an anti-magic power that hath Truth from illusive falsehood ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... thing astounds and almost frightens us, however far we may be, which is the mysterious old painted glass, at the farthest end of the church, on which the design is no longer distinguishable, twinkling in the shade, like an illegible magic scroll of unknown characters. The chapel is not less dark on that account; you can no longer discern the ornaments and delicate moulding entwined in the vaulted roof; the shadow deepening blends and confounds the outlines. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... water flew about. Long legs, shaggy paws, wet, wriggling tail, and squawking beak, fur and feathers—all turning and squirming in inextricable confusion. It was hard telling which was having the best of the melee, when, on a sudden, the struggle stopped, as if by magic. ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... the propositions in a primer, and he spoke slowly, with a kind of uniformity of emphasis that made his words stand out like the raised type for the blind. An obvious incapacity for abstract conceptions made him peculiarly susceptible to the magic of generalization, and one felt he would have been at the mercy of any Cause that spelled itself with a capital letter. It was hard to explain how, with such a superabundance of merit, he managed to be a good fellow: I can only say that he performed the astonishing feat as naturally ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton |
