"Ravishing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... valet, scraping and bowing, informed Fitzhugh Williams, aged nine, that it was time to get up, and tub, and go forth in a white sailor suit, and be of the world worldly, Fitzhugh declined. A greater personage was summoned—Aloys, "the maid of madame," a ravishing creature—to whom you and I, good Americans though we are, could have refused nothing. But Fitzhugh would not come out of his feather-bed. And when madame herself came, looking like a princess even at that early hour, he only pulled the ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... as the basket touched the ground they leaped out, and began straightway to dance, in the most joyous manner, around the magic ring, striking, as they did so, a shining ball, which uttered the most ravishing melodies, and kept time as ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... told, he was ridiculously vain of his conquests among the fair sex, and was always saying to whoever would listen: "Ah, mon cher, I have met a woman! But such a woman!" Then his dark eyes would glow and he would snap his thumb nail under an upper tooth, with an expression of ravishing joy that only a Castilian billiard player could assume. And, of course, it was always ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... a day of blue sky, a day when from the heavens some of the sparkle and brightness descends to earth. The green of tender grass and young wheat was of a ravishing delicacy, even the dun woods borrowed something from the ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... springing from the lips of morn, Kissing the leaves, and sighing so to lose 'em, The winding of the merry locust's horn, The glad spring gushing from the rock's bare bosom: Sweet sights, sweet sounds, all sights, all sounds excelling, Oh! 'twas a ravishing spot formed for ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... had watched it following upon the unconscious footsteps of the girl Esmay. Then, again, the fair-haired woman who only a few minutes ago had come to meet Quinton Edge on the north terrace, an apparition so ravishing that Constans must needs confound it with the flesh-and-blood presentment ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... the air. The subtle, pungent, ravishing odours on the wind, of unfolding leaves, ice-water washed plants, and catkin pollen, were an elixir to humanity. The cattle of the field were fairly drunk with it, and herds, dry-fed during the winter, were coming to their first grazing with heads thrown high, romping, ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... properties left unexplored, neglected. Language, he understood, was chiefly important for the beauty of its sounds, by its possession of words resonant, glorious to the ear, by its capacity, when exquisitely arranged, of suggesting wonderful and indefinable impressions, perhaps more ravishing and farther removed from the domain of strict thought than the impressions excited by music itself. Here lay hidden the secret of the sensuous art of literature; it was the secret of suggestion, the art of causing ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... he stepped out! the thunder had leapt into the west, the air was clean and sweet, and a ravishing scent ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... "What ravishing pleasures you are preparing for me!" returned he—"I know not whether my weak senses will be ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... Abrizah, mercy! leave me not for I * Of thy love and Yamani[FN225] glance the victim lie My heart is cut to pieces by thy cruelty, * My body wasted and my patience done to die: From glances ravishing all hearts with witchery * Reason far flies, the while desire to thee draws nigh; Though at thy call should armies fill the face of earth * E'en now I'd win my wish and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... discharge of my duties as a Justice of the Peace the only comment that was made by the local Democratic paper of the town was in these words: "We are now beginning to reap the ravishing fruits ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch
... hundred seconds or so he had her in the drawing-room, and she was actually pouring out gin for him. She looked ravishing in that peignoir, especially as she was munching an apple, and balancing herself on the arm of ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... at a lady. Returning with two friends from supper at Lord Bristol's, the adventurous knight relates in his Private Memoirs, how they came beneath a balcony where a love-lorn fair one stood touching her lute, and how they loitered awhile to admire her beauty, and listen to her "soul-ravishing harmony." Their delightful contemplations, however, were soon arrested by a sudden attack from several armed men, who precipitated themselves upon the three Britons. Their swords were instantly drawn, and a fierce combat ensued; but the valiant Digby slew the leader of the band, and ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... not take me long to fall asleep in the saddle. A sudden sense of freshness penetrated and awoke me. I saw that we had already begun climbing a mountain path, in the midst of a dense forest, rifts in which occasionally opened to our admiring gaze ravishing vistas, impetuous torrents; distant mountains; cloudless heavens; a landscape, far below, of wondrous beauty. All about us were the songs of numberless brilliantly plumaged birds. We came out of the forest toward noon, descended to a little hamlet on the bank of the river, ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... to the harper that frequented the fireside of Polesworth Hall where the boy was a petted page, later the honoured almoner of the bounty of many patrons, one who "not unworthily," as Tofte said, "beareth the name of the chiefest archangel, singing after this soule-ravishing manner," yet leaving but "five pounds lying by him at his death, which was satis viatici ad coelum"—is not this the panorama of a poetic career? But above all, to complete the picture of the ideal poet, he worshipped, and hopelessly, from youth ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... to his mouth the silver instrument that hung at the button-hole of his jacket, by a chain of the same metal, and though not quite so ravishing as the pipe of Hermes, produced a sound so loud and shrill, that the stranger, as it were instinctively, stopped his ears, to preserve his organs of hearing from such a dangerous invasion. The prelude being thus executed, Pipes fixed his eyes upon the egg ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... should have her apartment and the comforts of life secured to her, while the barest attic should suffice for him. Never did he visit her without kissing her hand with the homage due to a princess, complimenting her on her good looks, bringing bonbons, entertaining her with most ravishing small-talk of all the interesting on-dits in Paris; and these visits were most particularly frequent as the time for receiving her quarterly instalments approached. And so Madame adored him and could refuse him nothing, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... downstairs, dish and all. How Monsieur Gaston was so gay, so inconceivably gay, that he could hardly stand, and insisted on kissing her clandestinely. That Mademoiselle Pelagie had wept much because her veil was torn; and Madame F. had made a fresh toilette, ravishing to behold. Would the dear ladies survey the party, still at table? Regard them from the little window in the garden, and see if it is not truly a ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... believe it. A servant in the neighbor's yard adjoining to Mrs. Bargrave's house heard her talking to somebody an hour of the time Mrs. Veal was with her. Mrs. Bargrave went out to her next neighbor's the very moment she parted with Mrs. Veal, and told her what ravishing conversation she had had with an old friend, and told the whole of it. Drelincourt's Book of Death is, since this happened, bought up strangely. And it is to be observed that, notwithstanding all the trouble and fatigue Mrs. Bargrave has undergone ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... the lower Ascents of the blue, Washes the roofs And the hillsides with clarity; Charms the dark pools Till they break into pictures; Scatters magnificent Alms to the beggar trees; Touches the mist-folk That crowd to his escort Into translucencies Radiant and ravishing, As with the visible Spirit of Summer Gloriously vaporised, ...
— The Song of the Sword - and Other Verses • W. E. Henley
... purchases—all but some lace, which that lady wished to add to the ravishing tea-gown which was to be worn that evening, and to get this she would have to pass ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... and began looking everywhere. They even opened the door of Avrillia's own bed-room, which was upholstered entirely in pink morning-glory satin, with hangings of opalescent mist; Sara thought it was quite the most ravishing place she had ever seen; at least she though so until Pirlaps distractedly led her down into the basement to Avrillia's kitchen. A smell of something delectable scorching enveloped them as they opened the ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... Lutea, Musk, Lemmon, and Mastick: Thyme, Spike, Cammomile, Balm, Mint, Marjoram, Pimpernel, Serpillum, etc., which upon the least pressure and cutting, breathe out and betray their ravishing Odors.' Plantations of trees were also to be made and nurseries formed, which would have the additional advantage, besides mere beauty and ornament, of providing for the fields—'better Shelter, and Pasture for Sheep and Cattel then now; that they lie bleak, expos'd and ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... times had he dreamed that he had seen him and always was the giant ape-man avenging the wrongs that had been committed upon him and his by the ruthless hands of the three German officers who had led their native troops in the ravishing of Tarzan's peaceful home. Hauptmann Fritz Schneider had paid the penalty of his needless cruelties; Unter-lieutenant von Goss, too, had paid; and now Obergatz, the last of the three, stood face to face with the Nemesis that had ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... songs and popular heroes were created and perpetuated.—It is, perhaps, time now that we should give the personal name of this popular prince, of whom we have spoken so often, and who is as well known to Chinese tradition as the severe Brutus 'is, or as the ravishing Tarquin was, to old Roman history. His name was Ch'ung-erh, or "the double-eared," in allusion to some peculiarity in the lobes of his ears; besides which, two of his ribs were believed to be joined in one piece: his great ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... Murther, —thus with hia stealthy pace, With Tarquin's ravishing strides, tow'rds his ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... avoid a debtor's prison, we took the open road again. But war was ravishing the land; there was no work for him to do. We starved slowly southward, day by day, shivered and starved from town to ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... sparkled with diamonds. There was no ornament in her brown hair, however, nor were her little pink ears made hideous by ear-rings. Her face was a jewel sufficient unto itself. I had never seen her in an evening gown before. The effect was really quite ravishing. As I looked at her standing there by the big oak table, I couldn't help thinking that the Count was not only a scoundrel but all kinds of ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... its poppies and corn, her face showed exquisite, a face that might float tantalisingly across a painter's vision, and vanish after but allowing him the merest glimpse. Though she was clad in a simple dark blue serge dress, the grace of her figure seemed to him a revelation, and a ravishing sprig of cornflower peeped from her waistband. There was a repose, too, and a gentleness in her bearing that made him think, by contrast, of his Cleo, and of the uncouthness of Alice and Mary when they attempted to ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... first impression, renewed her confidence in that soul, in that countenance as ravishing as the face of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. She paid no further attention to the publisher. And so, about the beginning of the month of August she wrote the following letter to this Dorat of the sacristy, who still ranks as a star of ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... the glory and soul-ravishing goodness of that presence, is a thing that the world understands not, nor can they as such desire to know ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... of calico-printing. The artist seems to have exhausted himself on roses. From the largest cabbage down to the tiniest Burgundy, he has arranged them in every possible variety of wreath, garland, bouquet, and single flower. They are of all stages of growth, from earliest budhood up to the ravishing beauty of the "last rose of summer." Nor has he confined himself to the colors usually worn by this lovely plant, but, with the daring of a great genius soaring above nature, worshiping the ideal rather than the real, he has painted them brown, purple, green, black, and blue. It ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... and appreciation of the true morality, ravishing in its utter novelty for the young barbarian, was cherished by the Marchesino until he began almost to swell with virtue, and to start on stilts to heaven, big with the message that wickedness was for the young and must not be meddled with by any one over thirty—the age at which, till ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... arose and joining hands on the rocks they sang to the now dying Sun a chorus of Fairy Land! Now and then these ravishing melodies are permitted to reach to mortal ears: chiefly in dreams to the sick and sorrowful, for Fairies have great compassion on such, and allow them a distant taste of this, the most exquisite of ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty
... conversation might have been, had she possessed some share of charms and beauty—had she been loved as she loved, with a chaste and devoted flame! But soon sinking into belief that she should never know the ravishing sweets of a mutual passion, she found consolation in the hope of being useful to Agricola. At the dawn of day, she rose softly, and descended the staircase with little noise, in order to see if anything ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... rose-trees and tangled vines, and often, also, in its old walks of pounded shell, the coco-grass and crab-grass had spread riotously, and sturdy weeds stood up in bloom. He stepped in and drew the gate to after him. There, very near by, was the clump of jasmine, whose ravishing odor had tempted him. It stood just beyond a brightly moonlit path, which turned from him in a curve toward the residence, a little distance to the right, and escaped the view at a point where it seemed more than likely a door of the house might open upon it. While he still ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... draw ugliness; it turns into beauty or majesty on his hands. Satan has a large and enthusiastic party among readers of Paradise Lost. Comus, we are told, stands for a whole array of ugly vices—riot, intemperance, gluttony, and luxury. But what a delicate monster he is, and what a ravishing lyric strain he is master of! The pleasure that Milton forswore was a young god, the companion of Love and Youth, not an aged Silenus among the wine-skins. He viewed and described one whole realm of pagan loveliness, and then he turned ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... on the red, and dad did the raking and raked in a quart of chips, and dad shook hands with the Dakota man and said: "Pard, we have got 'em on the run," and reached for his sack to put in the first installment of acquired wealth, and the low-necked countess smiled a ravishing smile on dad, and dad looked as though he owned a brewery, and the Dakota man twisted his chin whiskers and acted like he was sorry for the Monte Carlo bank, I just got so faint with joy that ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... this Love of mine, As Dunkery frowns on Exon Moor, And still she pouts, this Love of mine, So cityward I go. But ere I start to do the thing, And speed my soul's imperilling For one who is my ravishing And ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... long time ago, an old man who lived on this mountain lost himself in the jungle at its foot, and at night, being tired, and afraid of snakes and the evil spirits of the wood, he climbed into a tree and fell asleep. He was woke by a noise of ravishing music, the sweetest gongs and chanangs mingling with voices over his head. The music came nearer and nearer to the place where he was, until he heard the sweet voices under the tree, and, looking down, beheld a large clear fountain opened, ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... wind, I approached until I could almost have touched her. It seemed a grossness of which I was incapable to break up her reverie by speech. I stood and drank her in with my eyes; how the light made a glory in her hair, and (what I have always thought the most ravishing thing in nature) how the planes ran into each other, and were distinguished, and how the hues blended and varied, and were shaded off, between the cheek and neck. At first I was abashed: she wore her beauty like an immediate ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of frightful illness she began to feel better, and was able to be moved from her cabin to the ladies' lounge. Wrapped in one or other of Diana's ravishing boudoir garments of silk and fur, she was supported there every morning, ensconced on the most luxurious sofa, and surrounded by attentions from the other semi-invalids. Nothing was too good for the peer's delightful daughter, and everyone behaved as if she were an ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... flame, so did she breathe on my mouth, and, in that wise, rendered the divine fire that slumbered in my heart more uncontrollable than ever, and this I felt at that very moment. Thereafter, opening a little her purple robe, she showed me, clasped in her arms against her ravishing breast, the very counterpart of the youth I loved, wrapped in the transparent folds of a Grecian mantle, and revealing in the lineaments of his countenance pangs that were not unlike those ...
— La Fiammetta • Giovanni Boccaccio
... this moment to feel it; for Chad was in the act of remarking to him that they of course both counted on him—he himself and the other earnest person—for cheer and support. It was brave to Strether to hear him talk as if the line of wisdom they had struck out was to make things ravishing to the Pococks. No, if Madame de Vionnet compassed THAT, compassed the ravishment of the Pococks, Madame de Vionnet would be prodigious. It would be a beautiful plan if it succeeded, and it all came to the question of Sarah's ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... trousers, vest and slippers with upturned toes. Jewels glittered about her waist and neck and arms, her wrists jangled with heavy bangles, in her ears two great pendants swayed—her eyelids were darkened and her lips reddened. She was a ravishing houri of the harem, and I gasped a ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... the girl seemed unaware of his presence, and read steadily, occasionally looking up and chirping with a pair of ravishing lips at a blackbird, which hung in a wicker ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... in the canal below Don't you hear the plash of oars Underneath the lantern's glow, And a thrilling voice begins To the sound of mandolins? Begins singing of amore And delire and dolore— O the ravishing tenore! ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... own half the island between them. Splendid, aren't they? Look at the diamonds on her lovely arms, and his ravishing moustache. Isn't he your ideal of Prince Djalma, in ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... the name of Pratipa, who was kind to all creatures. He spent many years in ascetic penances at the source of the river Ganga. The accomplished and lovely Ganga, one day, assuming the form of a beautiful female, and rising from the waters, made up to the monarch. The celestial maiden, endued with ravishing beauty, approached the royal sage engaged in ascetic austerities, and sat upon his right thigh that was, for manly strength, a veritable Sala tree. When the maiden of handsome face had so sat upon his lap, the monarch said unto her, 'O amiable ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... me the ravishing country of Spain! O those Sierras!—those Vegas! the mountains shirting with snow! the green plains watered!—but misere! hot as—the disposition of the Cure. To-day, gentlemen, the affair becomes serious, for lo, the approach of a doubtful election, and a trifle of clerical interference, like ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... Of gods is honored, With song made splendent in the sight of men— Whose heart most sweetly stout, From ravishing France cast out, Being firstly hers, was hers most wholly then— Or where on shining seas like wine The dove's wings draw the drooping Erycine. (Give ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... For 'ravishing division,' see the remarks on the third of the foregoing passages, the speech of Juliet about the lark's ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... passionately, as a prelude to kissing? Who could linger over it tenderly with a candle, or a lump of mutton fat, when cold had laid its cruel hand upon it? It is not tip-tilted like a flower; it is not whimsical with some ravishing and unexpected little crook. It is straight, like a mathematical line. But it has no parts. Her cheeks are round and fair. Each has its dimple and blush. They are thoroughly healthy, Mrs. Smith's ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... within him. The music, the most ravishing of its kind, stirred him to that intensity of pain, it seemed as if he must cry out with torture. No suffering had ever been like this: if the doctrine of sacrificial fires were true, he might have ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... now no Angel Song With sudden ravishing acclaim salute thee, Yet everywhere Our Church's white-robed throng Shall to thy first exultancy transmute thee. Peace and Good Will again with holy mirth Proclaiming to the ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... compositions? Did you hear that gush of melody? It comes not from that house, but seems floating from the opposite direction. Such strains almost revive one's faith in the Hindoo Gandharvas,—musical genii, filling the air with ravishing sounds. There! is it not exquisite? Hold these reins while I ascertain who owns ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... disordered array over the whole space of ground where the Forum now is. He had almost reached the gate of the Palatium, crying out: "We have conquered our perfidious friends, our cowardly foes: now they know that fighting with men is a very different thing from ravishing maidens." Upon him, as he uttered these boasts, Romulus made an attack with a band of his bravest youths. Mettius then happened to be fighting on horseback: on that account his repulse was easier. When he was driven back, the ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... the East; there was a squabble about fares, river dues and such matters. However, this is vieux jeu, and has nothing to do with Prague. The Avari were devoted to the time-honoured practice of robbing and ravishing their neighbours, among them the Bohemians. These latter seem to have borrowed one Samo the Frank, a strong man, from one of the northern Slavonic tribes, and as he proved a success, invited him to be ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... pretty enough in their way, and I rather like you to have a style of your own, but it looks odd and people will think you are mean if you don't make more show. Besides, you don't do justice to your beauty, which would be both peculiar and striking if you'd devote your mind to getting up ravishing costumes." ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... stringes in accorde, Heard I so play, a ravishing swetnesse, That God, that maker is of all and Lorde, Ne heard never better, as I gesse, Therewith a wind, unneth it might be lesse, Made in the leaves grene a noise soft, Accordant to the ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... amid the circulation of Parisian humanity. Oh, how deeply she feels the value of a minute! Her gait, her toilet, the expression of her face, involve her in a thousand indiscretions, but oh, what a ravishing picture she presents to the idler, and what an ominous page for the eye of a husband to read, is the face of this woman when she returns from the secret place of rendezvous in which her heart ever dwells! Her happiness ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... strange and vast absurdities some imaginations have straggled ... the Knight constantly killing the gyant, or it may be whole squadrons; the Damosel certainly to be relieved just upon the point of ravishing; a little childe carried away out of his cradle after some twenty years discovered to be the sone of some great prince; a girl after seven years wandring and co-habiting and being stole, confirmed to be a virgin, either by a panterh, ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... to go as a Vie Parisienne cover. A study in black and daffodil—a ravishing confection—and also used part of our "FANTASTIK" kit, but made the bodice out of crinkly yellow paper. A chrysanthemum of the same shade in my hair, which was skinned back in the latest door-knob ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... diseased, misguided, and franticly abandoned to its passions. He is admirable where the subject calls chiefly for emotion, and makes no higher requisitions; and he is still more so where pathos and moral beauty are united. Few of his pieces are without passages of the most ravishing beauty. It is by no means my intention to deny him the possession of the most astonishing talents; I have only stated that these talents were not united with a mind in which the austerity of moral principles, and the sanctity of religious feelings, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... when I light upon a Portia or Cornelia, crown'd with still flourishing leaves of truth and goodness; with such a feeling I peruse their Fortunes, as if I then had liv'd, and freely tasted their ravishing sweetness; at the present loving the whole Sex for their goodness and example. But on the contrary, when I look on a Clytemnestra, or a Tullia; the first bath'd in her Husband[s] bloud; the latter, without a touch ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... business was to ravish and take away virginity from young girls. These girls were taken to such men, and the latter were paid for ravishing them, for the natives considered it a hindrance and impediment if the girls were virgins when ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... the first time the ravishing splendour of the equatorial highlands. The Ndara range reaches a height of 5,000 feet and is covered from summit to base with a luxuriant vegetation; a number of silvery brooks and streams murmur and roar down its sides to the valleys; and ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... to see and to do. We separated to dress, to make ourselves beautiful for the evening, and then till the morning light came in through the curtains, never a pause or a weariness. Yes! sometimes one had a terrible pang. There would be a toilette, which was ravishing, which was far superior to mine—for I never had money to dress as I wished—or some one else would have a success, and attract all eyes. But what did that matter?" the Contessa cried, lighting up more ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... open door came a ravishing odor, that of a filet a la Chateaubriand; the purely animal instincts reasserted themselves, and I picked up the gardenia blossom that lay beside the letter and stuck it into the button-hole of my dinner-jacket. I looked ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... Beauty, soul-ravishing, Shines from his prayer, that now he be shriven Of all the past! And penitence lavishing, All he confesses; with glad homage given Mirrors and masses Deep the mountains' ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... mite of a white sun-bonnet, clean as fresh fallen snow, and starched and stiff as the best pearl gloss cap make it. The cape of this cute little bonnet shades a round white throat, and the strings are tied beneath the chin in a ravishing bow that stands guard over a dimple. She has been married quite ten years, and they say that the two little children who were cradled for a few happy months on her soft breast are waiting and watching for her coming the other side of the river of death. He is a matter-of-fact looking ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... access to Mrs. Simonson's gentlemen lodgers could be obtained, was not a person whose acquaintance it was desirable to cultivate. Moreover, the words opera singer raised ecstatic visions of a possible future introduction to some "ravishing tenor," the remote idea of which caused her to be so visibly preoccupied, that Miss Kling took her leave with angry sniffles, and returned home to ponder over ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... the rocky gorge rise in some places to a height of more than two hundred feet. Concerning this ravine, there is a legend that a party of hunters, long ages ago, were deer-stalking in Cheviot Forest, when on reaching the Henhole their ears were greeted by the most ravishing music they had ever heard. Allured by the enchanting sounds, they followed the music into the ravine, where they disappeared, and were never ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... not heard of it. But this did not matter. As had been the case with Lumley before him, Lola's ravishing smile inflamed his susceptible heart; and he promptly engaged her to dance in the ballet that was to follow Halevy's Il Lazzarone, then ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... tread, be it ever so small in quantity, sufficed to impart a pleasant flavor to a whole cask of wine. The race of Monte Beni—so these rustic chroniclers assured the sculptor—had possessed the gift from the oldest of old times of expressing good wine from ordinary grapes, and a ravishing liquor from the choice ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... find that, next to perfumes, pretty ladies, and dice, you must have in it "[Greek: poikilia]," which observe, both in that place and again in the third book, is the separate art of joiners' work, or inlaying; but the idea of exquisitely divided variegation or division, both in sight and sound—the "ravishing division to the lute," as in Pindar's "[Greek: poikiloi hymnoi]"—runs through the compass of all Greek art-description; and if, instead of studying that art among marbles you were to look at it only on vases of a fine time, (look back, for ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... looking out for victuals, or seeking for some small plunder, without bestowing a thought on the fair sex; by and by she popped her head out of her place of refuge with the petty question, "Good folks, can you tell when the ravishing is going to begin?" I am sure I shall neither hide myself to avoid applause, which probably no one will think of conferring, nor have the meanness to do anything which can indicate any desire of ravishment. I have seen, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... but death must be the penalty of all who try and fail." In spite of this hard condition some would try. Hippomenes was to be judge of the race. "Can it be possible that any will be so rash as to risk so much for a wife?" said he. But when he saw her ravishing beauty as she prepared for the race, he changed his mind, and said, "Pardon me, youths, I knew not the prize you were competing for." As he surveyed them he wished them all to be beaten, and swelled with envy of anyone that seemed at all likely to win. While such were ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... his sentinel, the wolf, Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design Moves ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... and relished the bad diet; and not alone would I test him by hardships and hunger, fatigue and occasional upsets; but I'd try his powers of self-resistance by surrounding him with dissolute young attaches given to blind hookey and lansquenet. I'd have him invited to ravishing orgies, and tempted in as many ways as St Anthony; and all these after long privations. Then, I'd have him kept waiting either under a blazing sun or a deep snow, or both alternately, to test his cerebral organisation; and I'd ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... that they seemed as high, though they were entirely different in their impress upon the beholder. Tahiti from the sea was like a living being, so vivid, so palpitating was its contour and its color, but Moorea, when far away, was cold and black, a beautiful, ravishing sight, but like the avatars of a race of giants that had passed, a sepulcher or monument of their ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... voice each joyous Vanar raised, And Rama, conquering Rama, praised. Soft from celestial minstrels came The sound of music and acclaim. Soft, fresh, and cool, a rising breeze Brought odours from the heavenly trees, And ravishing the sight and smell A wondrous rain of blossoms fell: And voices breathed round Raghu's son: "Champion of ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... to that morning, that ravishing morning, when in the grand old parlor panelled and carved in oak, which served the family as a dining-room, she saw her handsome cousin for the first time. Alarmed by the seditions in Paris, her mother's family had sent the young courtier to Rouen, hoping that he could there be trained to the duties ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... they seem as the stars of the firmament, beautifying the dusky robe of night. And though I wot well how much the lovely and quaint language will suffer by my widowed voice, widowed in that it is no longer matched by my beloved viol-de-gamba, I will essay to give you a taste of the ravishing sweetness of the poesy of the ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... her arms for this ravishing creature in a French gown, looked into its countenance of unflinching infantile grace and amiability and innocence, and her fickle heart betrayed her, and she laughed with delight, and the tension of ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... sister in ravishing black satin, scaled as a fish with glistening crimsoned-silver sequins, her round, smooth arms bare to the shoulders, her corsage cut as low in the front and back as her daring, in relation to her ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... colour spread, and hundreds of little lights moving among them, and fountains and waterfalls and swarms of small ladies and gentlemen, dressed in green and gold, walking and sporting among them, or reposing on the turf and telling stories to the most ravishing soft music. This was as much as she would relate; but it is certain that the piskies were friends of hers. For, in spite of her nightly wanderings, her housework was always well and cleanly done before ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... this laxity of morals, submitted to the yoke. As the idol of the king, and the dispenser of honors and powers, the clergy, the nobility, the philosophers, all did her homage. She was still young, and in all the splendor of her ravishing beauty, when the king died. For the sake of appearances, she retired for a few months into a nunnery. Soon, however, she emerged again into the gay world. Her limitless power over the voluptuous old monarch had enabled her to amass an enormous fortune. With this ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... of Kansas scenes have been distributed among the blacks. The gentleman who has seen some of these chromos writes that the most ravishing presentment of rural life in Kansas is depicted. The Negroes look on the State as a second paradise, compared with which old Canaan is a Florida swamp. One of these pictures, entitled "A Freedman's Home," represents a fine landscape, with fields of ripening grain stretching ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... treasure, which were transported on the shoulders of the Indian porters, and, after being carefully registered, were placed in safe deposit under a strong guard. They now began to believe that the magnificent promises of the Inca would be fulfilled. But, as their avarice was sharpened by the ravishing display of wealth, such as they had hardly dared to imagine, they became more craving and impatient. They made no allowance for the distance and the difficulties of the way, and loudly inveighed against the ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... might of sorrow and mirth And father's fire made mortal in his son. Nor was not spirit of strength in blast and breeze To exalt again the sun's child and the sea's; For as wild mares in Thessaly grow great With child of ravishing winds, that violate Their leaping length of limb with manes like fire And eyes outburning heaven's With fires more violent than the lightning levin's And breath drained out and desperate of desire, Even so the spirit in him, when winds grew strong, Grew great with child of song. Nor less than ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... went and laid itself down at the Morgue. But for this I will not vouch. Only of this be sure. 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy.' More and more the light peeps through the chinks. Soon, amidst music ravishing, the curtain will rise, and the glorious scene be displayed. Adieu! Remember me. Ha! 'tis dawn," Pinto said. And he ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... some time, entranced with the sudden change he beheld. The bustle and animation around and below him; the vessels, with their brave and gallant equipments, anchored in the bay;—all this amused Dick vastly for a while. But the most heart-ravishing delights end ultimately in satiety and disgust, greater, and probably more keenly felt, the more they have been relished and enjoyed. Dick began to feel listless and tired with his day's work. He laid his head upon a groove or niche in the battlements, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... imagery, of gold and purple, foreign languages, esoteric philosophies, foods the names of which strike the ear as graciously as they themselves might strike the tongue. From Huysmans he has learned the formula for ravishing all our senses. Words are often used for their own sakes to call up images, colour flits across every page, across, indeed, every line. We taste, we smell, we see. There is the pomp and circumstance of the ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... himself. One of the doctors present inquired whether a man who knew so many sciences was acquainted with music? Alfarabi made no reply, but merely requested that a lute should be brought him. The lute was brought; and he played such ravishing and tender melodies, that all the court were melted into tears. He then changed his theme, and played airs so sprightly, that he set the grave philosophers, Sultan and all, dancing as fast as their legs could carry them. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... sermons, but it is no mystery why the Reverend John Mitchell was called "a truly aged young man" at thirty,—especially when we consider that he was successor at Cambridge to "the holy, heavenly, sweet-affecting, and soul-ravishing Mr. Shepard," in continuance of whose labors he kept a monthly lecture, "wherein he largely handled man's misery by sin and made a most entertaining exposition of the Book ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... that Tangle stood dumb before him. He had no smile, but the love in his large gray eyes was deep as the centre. And with the repose there lay on his face a shimmer as of moonlight, which seemed as if any moment it might break into such a ravishing smile as would cause the beholder to weep himself to death. But the smile never came, and the moonlight lay there unbroken. For the heart of the child was too deep for any smile to reach from it to ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... him to the Lard of Burley, standing there) this trator, wha hes committed divers poinets of his treasone against his Majestie's civill lawes, to his grait dishonour and offence of his guid subjects, namlie, taking of his peacable subjects on the night out of thair housses, ravishing of weimen, and receating within his hous of the King's rebels and ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison
... for a change, have a religious marvel. Mrs. Zuil, 'a very judiciouse Christian,' had a friend of devout character. This lady, being in bed, and in 'a ravishing frame,' 'observed a pleasant light, and one of the pleasantest forms, like a young child, standing on her shoulder'. Not being certain that she was not delirious, she bade her nurse draw her curtains, and bring her some posset. Thrice the nurse came in with posset, and thrice drew ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... then down the path came Perkins, dignified in white linen, and in his hand he bore a tray on which a glass pitcher, misty with coolness and showing ravishing glimpses of lemon peel and ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... spent four times and she seven at least. We then rose, her nerves calmed by the repeated doses of hot boiling sperm shot into her interior. She declared that never in all her fucking had she felt such insatiable desire, or more ravishing delight in satisfying it, that she would undergo a dozen such floggings to have the same ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... vault on the animal's back, after which it went on faster than ever and leapt a little brook or a hedge. An odd incident occurs to my recollection just now. My friend had a susceptible heart, and a ravishing beauty was staying at a certain, country house, so we drove over to call there that he might see her. I went with him, and we had a dog-cart with a very lively horse. The drive was in the form of a great circle before ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... chaotic; full day was far from rising upon it. He is without ambition in the worldly sense. Ambition is a red devil of a horse, but he gets you somewhere. One overcomes Inertia in riding far and long on that mount. He takes you to the piled places where the self may satisfy for the moment all its ravishing greeds. This is not a great thing to do. One sickens of this; all agony and disease comes of this. The red horse takes you as far as you will let him, on a road that must be retraced, but he gets you somewhere! Inertia does not. The point is, one must not slay the ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... ran in Maud's brain with a ravishing sound. She built upon them a fantastic palace of mist and cloud. When at last her dress was finished and she started, after three unsuccessful attempts, to walk to Algonquin Avenue, she was in no condition to do herself simple justice. She hardly knew whether she wanted a place in the library, a ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... dilettanti in Europe, there was not so great a singer as herself. The most famous of the public performers scarcely could equal her. In the bravura she astonished! in the cantabile she charmed; her maestoso was inimitable! and her adagios! Oh! they were ravishing! killing. She indeed openly accused him of flattering her; but Signor Gridarini appealed both to his honour and his friends; the best judges in Europe, who as she well knew all said ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... of the most excellent truths; the contemplation of the most glorious objects, and the hope of the most ravishing pleasures, and the practice of such duties as are most servicable to our happiness, our peace, our health, our honor, our prosperity, and our eternal welfare. Virtue needs no outward pomp; her very countenance is so full of majesty, that the proudest pay her respect, and the ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... musicians, warriors, and poets slept side by side around me; some beneath the gorgeous monument, and some beneath the simple headstone. But the political intrigue, the dream of science, the historical research, the ravishing harmony of sound, the tried courage, the inspiration of the lyre—where are they? With the living, and not with the dead! The right hand has lost its cunning in the grave; but the soul, whose high volitions it obeyed, still ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... after a repeated rap and wait, Margaret chose to assume that she did, and entered. Margaret knelt in a soft flop of scented lingerie beside the indignant young thing. She explained, she apologised, she begged, she implored Martha to put on that simply ravishing gown which she had worn the evening before; she expatiated at length upon the charms of the people whom she had invited to dinner, but Martha spoke not at all until she was quite ready. Then she said ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... water to wash away the traces of her ablutions in the burn, I had my first view of the chambermaid. I found her even more ravishing than the waitress downstairs, and with the additional advantage that she was not stand-offish—indeed, she was a giggler. She giggled at my slightest word, and Tony altered her first impression and dubbed her ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... she thought in terror. "Uncle Jack Belmont says, according to Balzac, our presentiments always mean something." She noticed anew how beautiful the night was: the white wreaths floating on the water, the dark blue sky that was bursting into stars, the mysterious outline of the hills, the ravishing perfumes rising from the garden below. "It is like a poem," she thought. "Why does no one write about it? Oh!" with a hard gasp, "if I could—if I could only write!" A meteor shot down the heavens. For the moment it seemed that ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... assumed thereupon her own little dignity. Never but once did I see a masculine arm round Miss Maria's trig, stiff little waist, and that was at Christmas-time, when there were sprigs of mistletoe over every doorway; but, mistletoe or not, the owner of that arm, if he did succeed in ravishing a kiss, got his ears smartly boxed the next moment. I don't know precisely what was Miss Maria's function in the economy of the household; I can fancy her setting the table, and adding touches of neatness and prettiness; dusting the ornaments and fine china on the shelves ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... favorite pupil; indeed, it was whispered that Liszt had said that, old as he was, he never heard Bloomgarten without learning something. There was a good deal of subdued conversation while the pianist was in his extreme agony of execution, and a hush of extreme admiration—it was divine, divine, ravishing—when he had finished. The speaker was a learned female pundit from India, and her object was to interest the women of America in the condition of their unfortunate Hindoo sisters. It appeared that thousands and tens of thousands of them were doomed ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... not have suited Fate. She loves to laugh at men, and to make of life a paradox. To the one, she played ravishing strains, having first taken the precaution to make him stone-deaf. To the other, she piped a few poor notes on a cracked tin-whistle, and he thought it was ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome |
