"Magic spell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nothing whatever that one can do. One can't go to the police and say that a man has cast a magic spell ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... cooked. Suddenly he saw a fox, which begged him to tie up his hound, give it a bit of bread and a glass of wine, and let it rest by his fire. Instead of granting the request the prince released the hound, which instantly pursued the animal, whereupon the fox, by a magic spell, transformed the emperor's son ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... this Royal January Edict; as it rolls rapidly, in its leathern mails, along these frostbound highways, towards all the four winds. Like some fiat, or magic spell-word;—which such things do resemble! For always, as it sounds out 'at the market-cross,' accompanied with trumpet-blast; presided by Bailli, Seneschal, or other minor Functionary, with beef-eaters; or, in country churches is droned forth after sermon, 'au ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... labour flow: And hence restrain'd, his youthful hand Obey'd a master's dull command; But soon with health his sickly style From Leonardo learn'd to smile; And now from Bonarroti caught A nobler Form; and now it sought Of colour fair the magic spell, And trac'd her to the Friar's[6] cell. No foolish pride, no narrow rule Enslav'd his soul; from every School, Whatever fair, whatever grand, His pencil, like a potent wand, Transfusing, bade his canvass grace. Progressive thus, with giant ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... danger fear, Mirth and love attend you here; You shall break the magic spell, That on a beauteous ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... legendary lore Invests our young, our golden Austral shore With that romance the poet loves too well, When Inspiration breathes her magic spell." ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... others coiled round, and intertwined among each other, until one could fancy one was looking on some mighty battle between armies of gigantic serpents, that had been arrested at its height by some magic spell. All these bush- ropes were as bare of foliage as a ship's wire rigging, but a good many had thorns. I was very curious as to how they got up straight, and investigation showed me that many of them were carried up with a growing tree. The only true climbers were the calamus ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... flowers and twinkling with clear rills; That in its girdle of wild acres bears The anodyne of rest that cures all cares; Wherein soft wind and sun and sound are blent And fragrance—as in some old instrument Sweet chords—calm things, that nature's magic spell Distils from heaven's azure crucible, And pours on Earth to make the sick mind well. There lies the path, they say— Come, ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... Obbo both my wife and I were excessively ill with bilious fever, and neither could assist the other. The old chief of Obbo, Katchiba, hearing that we were dying, came to charm us with some magic spell. He found us lying helpless, and immediately procured a small branch of a tree, and filling his month with water he squirted it over the leaves and about the floor of the hut. He then waved the branch around my wife's head, also around mine, and completed the ceremony by sticking ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... hour he had worshipped her: she had cast over him the magic spell of her refinement, her beauty, that aroma of youth and innocence which makes such a strong appeal to the man ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... indomitable sea To let them pass to rescue me. Theirs was the fiery weapon hurled By him who rules the watery world;(956) Theirs the dire shaft by Indra sped; Theirs was the mystic Brahma's Head.(957) In vain they fought, the bold and brave: A coward's hand their death-wounds gave. By secret shafts and magic spell The brothers, peers of Indra, fell. That foe, if seen by Rama's eye One moment, had not lived to fly. Though swift as thought, his utmost speed Had failed him in the hour of need. No might, no tear, no prayer may stay Fate's dark inevitable day. Nor could their matchless ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... brought a message. This was the message. "Father says you are to stay here until after dark. You are to hunt around until you find a toad, and when you find it, you must be sure not to let it get away from you. He is going to put a magic spell on the field to keep the crows away, but the spell will not work except in the dark. So you must ...
— The Spartan Twins • Lucy (Fitch) Perkins
... that I first discovered when I stood on tiptoe on the kitchen table has followed me all down the years. The secret that I learned that day has acted like a talisman, and has turned every spot that I have visited into an enchanted ground. Even my study table is not immune from its magic spell. A more prosaic spectacle never met the eye. The desk, the pigeon-holes, the drawers, and the piles of papers might have to do with a foundry or a fish-market, so very unromantic do they appear. And yet, what times I have whenever ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... 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 and subdued her armies. He subsidized the king of Prussia ...
— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church
... passages of childlike naivete, its transparent revelations of the inmost soul of the writer, and the radiant atmosphere of spiritual beauty in which thoughts and images are melted together with a magic spell, transport it from the sphere of prose composition to that of high poetry. In spite of the trammels of words, it gives expression to the same subtle and ethereal conceptions which inspired the genius of Liszt ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... how did DANTE manage to indite His admirable tale of Hell, Or BUONARROTI sculp his sombre "Night" Without the kodak's magic spell— No Press-photographer, a dream of tact, To snap the artist ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 8, 1920 • Various
... mole that serves his cheeks' bright flame * Yet burneth not in fire albeit Infidel[FN470] I wonder eke to see that apostolic glance, * Miracle working, though it work by magic spell: How fresh and bright the down that decks his cheek, and yet * Bursten gall bladders feed which ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... Witch of Endor, and she, by some magic spell, called up Samuel, the prophet said: "Why hast thou disquieted me, to call me up?" He did not say: Why have you called me from another world? The idea expressed is: I was asleep, why did you disturb that ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... firm root, and grow with such rapidity, that she is soon almost wild with suspense. All his attempts to soothe her only seem to excite her more, and suddenly, fancying that she hears the swan boat coming to bear him away from her, she determines to break the magic spell at any cost, as Ortrud cunningly advised her, and demands his name. Just as Lohengrin is gazing upon her in heart-rending but mute reproach, Telramund bursts into the room, with a band of hired assassins, to take his life. A quick motion from Elsa, whose trust returns when she sees her beloved ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... softly casting O'er the earth a magic spell, And a love-song, everlasting, On the ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... boy believes that he is an angel exiled from heaven!" thought the tall stranger. "Which of us all has a right to undeceive him? Not I—I, who am so often lifted by some magic spell so far above the earth; I who am dedicate to God; I who am a mystery to myself. Have I not already seen the fairest of the angels dwelling in this mire? Is this child more or less crazed than I am? Has he taken a bolder ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac
... thoroughly tired, and more nervous than she had any idea she could be, leaned luxuriously back in her mother's chair, with a delicious sense of unresponsibility about her, and watched a magic spell come over the room. Down came the shades in a twinkling, and the low red sun looked in on them no more; the table-cloth straightened itself; pickles and cheese and cake got out of their confused proximity, ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... brought with it some halcyon days, as if to reconcile Mrs. Dalton to her life of solitude and toil. The pure beauty of the crystal waters, the august grandeur of the vast forest, and the aromatic breezes from the pines and birches, cast a magic spell upon her spirit. She soon learned the use of the rifle, the paddle, and the fishing rod. Charming hours of leisure and freedom were passed upon the water of the lake, or in rambles through the arches of the forest. In these pleasures, enhanced by the needful toils of the household or ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... horror have frequently been described, and castles, filled with spectres and chimeras, conjured up by the magic spell of genius to harrow the soul, and absorb the wondering mind. But, formed of such stuff as dreams are made of, what were they to the mansion of despair, in one corner of which Maria sat, endeavouring ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... mighty master teach. Seeing, that on this day, since I came here The sun completes its course from sphere to sphere, I from my prison cell come forth to view What in the light I now have power to do. Ye skies of cloudless day List to my magic spell-words and obey; Swift zephyrs that rejoice In heaven's warm light, stand still and hear my voice; Stupendous mountain rock Shake at my words as at an earthquake shock; Ye trees in rough bark drest Be frightened at the groanings of ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... city (Nashville),—whites from the "best families," all crowding in, listening, wondering, enjoying! How the music of those well-tuned instruments and voices caught us up and carried us away! Color-line melted and faded out. How we wished the politicians all might have been brought under that magic spell of solos and choruses!" ...
— American Missionary, Volume 44, No. 6, June, 1890 • Various
... in sickness asks for music; the second is an account of Cerimon's attempt to rouse the half-drowned Thaisa with at least partial assistance from music; while the third represents Prospero using a solemn air to remove the magic spell which he had cast on Alonso and his ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... with other costly presents by the King of Scandinavia to the King of Erin, and he gave it to the princess, and it was the virtue of this bracelet, that whoever was wearing it could not forget the person who gave it to him, and it could never be loosened from the arm by any art or magic spell; but if the wearer, even for a single moment, liked anyone better than the person who gave it to him, that very moment the bracelet fell off from the arm and could never again be fastened on. And when the princess promised ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... these latitudes a vast bed of loose sea-weed, floating about, which has existed there from time immemorial, and which is only found in this one spot of the ocean; as though it were here compelled to remain under the influence of some magic spell. Some navigators are of opinion that it grows on the rocks at the bottom of the sea, beneath the surface on which it floats. Others maintain that it has been drifted across the Atlantic, having issued from the Gulf of Mexico. Here, however, it is doomed to drift about hopelessly, ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... Yusef, whom we saw in Safita, asked the Nusairiyeh women to repeat to him their nursery rhymes, they denied that they had any. They were afraid to recite them, lest he write them down and use them as a magic spell or charm against them. When a child is born among them, no one is allowed to take a coal or spark of fire from the house for a week, lest the child be injured. They always hang a little coin around the child's ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... magic spell to roll The thrilling tones, that concentrate the soul! 10 Breathe thro' thy flute those tender notes again, While near thee sits the chaste-eyed Maiden mild; And bid her raise the Poet's kindred strain In soft impassion'd ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... to judge and act wisely and impartially about the grave matter of infant training—a subject she absolutely knew nothing about, having never contemplated it? What do parents think, or expect when their young daughters marry and become parents? Do they suppose that some magic spell will come over a girl of eighteen in going through the matrimonial ceremony, which shall induct her into all the mysteries of housewifery, and initiate her into the more intricate and important duty of training the infant, so as to give it a sound mind in a sound ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... once to see if this were true, and, sure enough, the glass dog ran out and began barking at him. Then the wizard spread out his hands and chanted a magic spell which sent the dog fast asleep, when he picked him up and carried him to his own room on the top ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... A magic spell cast over a computer allowing it to turn one's input into error messages. 2. An exercise in experimental epistemology. 3. A form of art, ostensibly intended for the instruction of computers, which is nevertheless almost inevitably a failure if other ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... refined The poets mythologic dreams, To real Muses, gods, and streams. Who would not swear, when you contrive thus, That you're Don Quixote redivivus? Beneath, a dry canal there lies, Which only Winter's rain supplies. O! couldst thou, by some magic spell, Hither convey St. Patrick's well![6] Here may it reassume its stream, And take a greater Patrick's name! If your expenses rise so high; What income can your wants supply? Yet still you fancy you inherit A fund of ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... strong face glowing with enthusiasm for the Seer's dream, he felt the sweet power of her personality sweep over him as he felt the breeze from off the desert. He was held as though by some magic spell—not by the lure of her splendid womanhood, but by that and something else—something that was like the country of which she spoke so passionately. And he remembered wondering if ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... this picture, Claude Phillips justly observes that it has been "not a little cheapened and obscured by frequent copies, in which the delicate essence of the original has been allowed to evaporate; but a glance at the picture itself renews the magic spell of the master." ...
— Child-life in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... tears, presenting her infant children to their father, implored his justice for some real or imaginary insult, which she imputed to the audacious eunuch. [28] The emperor's hand was directed to sign the condemnation of Eutropius; the magic spell, which during four years had bound the prince and the people, was instantly dissolved; and the acclamations that so lately hailed the merit and fortune of the favorite, were converted into the clamors of the soldiers and people, who reproached his crimes, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... dying person struggled hard and long, it was believed that the spirit was kept from departing by some magic spell. It was therefore customary, under these circumstances, for the attendants to open every lock in the house, that the spell might be broken, and the spirit let loose. J. Train refers to this superstition in his Mountain Muse, ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... be wondered at that Ney became Napoleonist with as much ardor as ever. And when Napoleon called on him by his old title, "the bravest of the brave," to once more rally under his standard, Ney responded with alacrity, as though the name possessed a magic spell ...
— Harper's Young People, January 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... water and forest Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled together. Hanging between two skies, a cloud with edges of silver, Floated the boat, with its dripping oars, on the motionless water. Filled was Evangeline's heart with inexpressible sweetness. Touched by the magic spell, the sacred fountain of feeling Glowed with the light of love, as the skies and waters around her. Then from a neighboring thicket the mocking-bird, wildest of singers, Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the water, Shook from ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... building through which we had to move cautiously so as not to stumble into some pit or dangerous hole or trap-door. Here were no electric lights to drive away the gloom, here no gas-jets to show us where we were treading, nothing but an occasional lamp dimly burning. Yet we went on as if drawn by a magic spell. At last we were ushered into a room poorly furnished. It was not more than twelve feet square, and in the corner was an apology for a bed. On this was stretched an old man whose face was sunken, whose eyes were lusterless, ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... works a magic spell on the audience. They have been boisterous, fretful, even at times disorderly. Not a dozen words are uttered by Trueman and the silence, save for his ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... time continually to concert performances and composition, though he by no means neglected the requirements of musical labor. As he himself confesses, the balmy climate, the glorious landscapes, the languid dolce far niente, which tended to enervate all that came under their magic spell, wrought on his susceptible temperament with peculiar effect. A quotation from an article written by Gottschalk, and published in the "Atlantic Monthly," entitled "Notes of a Pianist," will furnish the ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... about this fairy Land of Oz was that whoever managed to enter it from the outside world came under the magic spell of the place and did not change in appearance as long as they lived there. So Dorothy, who now lived with Ozma, seemed just the same sweet little girl she had been when first she came to this ...
— The Tin Woodman of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... you come to seek for your shady dell, For that spot in the moonlit grove, Where first you were bound by the magic spell, And thrilled to the voice ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... beetle rarely murmur'd by, No sheep-dog sent his voice so high, Save when, by chance, far down the steep, Crept a live speck, a straggling sheep; Yet one lone object, plainly seen, Curv'd slowly, in a line of green, On the brown heath: no demon fell, No wizard foe, with magic spell, To chain the senses, chill the heart, No wizard guided POWEL'S cart; He of our nectar had the care, All our ambrosia rested there. At leisure, but reluctant still, We join'd him by a mountain rill; And ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... father and grandfather, that the hand and key were magical devices on which the fate of the Alhambra depended. The Moorish King who built it was a great magician, or, as some believed, had sold himself to the devil, and had laid the whole fortress under a magic spell. By this means it had remained standing for several hundred years, in defiance of storms and earthquakes, while almost all other buildings of the Moors had fallen to ruin, and disappeared. This spell, the tradition went on to say, would last until the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 549 (Supplementary issue) • Various
... to-day be made a master?"—"No, no," Walther rejects the idea with distaste; "In the presence of the guild and its masters, scant inspiration would animate my dream-picture!"—"But yet, suppose your dream contained the magic spell by which you might win over the guild?" Walther shakes his head: "How do you cling to an illusion, if after such a rupture as you witnessed you still cherish such a hope!"—"Nay, my hope stands undiminished, nor has anything so far ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... from one's bosom, and turn it round and round. I had thought I could never have another moment's happiness, if my neighbor, Hans Gottlieb, should be magistrate: and with that verse of yours, it has been with me as when one calms the blood with a magic spell." ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... might spoil the magic spell, if more than one went, Uncle Wiggily. Maybe the fairy would not like it. ...
— Sammie and Susie Littletail • Howard R. Garis
... became the mere patient of these sounds; and I sank, as it were, under the force of gloomy impressions, which so completely lulled and seduced me, that I suffered without being able to exert an effort to escape from their magic spell. Seldom had the power of sound acquired a similar ascendency over me. I seemed to be carried back by it to days and events long passed away. My soul, so to speak, was absorbed; and I leaned upon a gate, partly to indulge the reverie, partly ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... went to Bayreuth I had always believed that some magic spell rested upon the Franconian hills like a musical benison; some mystery of art, atmosphere, and individuality evoked by the place, the tradition, the people. How sadly I was disappointed I propose to tell you, prefacing all ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... sleeper passes into unconsciousness, passes through the flowered border of the ancient square, into the scene beyond, becomes one of those storied persons in the enchanted land and lives with them in jousts and tourneys or in fetes champetres at lovely chateaux. The magic spell of the house of tapestries has fallen like the dew from heaven to bless the striver in our modern life of exigency ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... afternoon late in August, gathering the purple foxgloves which waved invitingly in the breeze. It was one of those rare days of waning summer, clear, beautiful and cool, with just a hint of autumn haze in the air; and it cast its magic spell over the bare-headed, flower-laden maid, wandering dreamily through the crisp, crackling grass, with no particular destination in view, no particular thought in mind. She had set out an hour before with Cherry and Allee as her companions, but had wandered away ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... invoke the playful sprite To chill, with magic spell, The tender feelings of delight, And ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams
... pause until each composition attacked, be it but an exercise, could be interpreted with accuracy, intelligence, and feeling. We should then have more musicianly players and singers. We should more often be brought under the magic spell of exquisitely shaded tone that may make a simple little ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... presence, welcomed guest; And I, responsive to thy call, Arose, and felt within my breast A power that made the fetters fall From off my long enthralled soul, And woke, as with a magic spell, Griefs which yet owned the soft control Of hopes that all ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 460 - Volume 18, New Series, October 23, 1852 • Various
... it is more like a plaster cast, most like of all to the sculptor's hollow moulds. It needs the bronze to bring a statue to life, and it needs the audience to bring a play to life. Some glamour must come from one to the other; some wind of enchantment must blow between them—there must be a magic spell. But these two actors had produced the spell without ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... while to stay the night at the little hostel near the Land's End for the purpose of viewing this westernmost piece of England under the magic spell of a stormy sunset or a misty dawn. The sun sinks beyond the vast expanse of open, wide, and illimitable sea, heaving with a deep and mysterious ground swell as the long waves roll shorewards. Between the great pinnacles of ...
— The Cornish Riviera • Sidney Heath
... and the newspapers not unnaturally supposed at such times that he used the occasions of our personal association to secure these contributions. The cartoonists used to find this a fruitful theme. They would picture Dr. Harper as a hypnotist waving his magic spell, or would represent him forcing his way into my inner office where I was pictured as busy cutting coupons and from which delightful employment I incontinently fled out of the window at sight of him; or they would represent me as fleeing across rivers on cakes of floating ...
— Random Reminiscences of Men and Events • John D. Rockefeller
... The magic spell was in Latin, of course; but the princess knew Latin very well, and soon she had the magic song by heart. Then she closed the book and put it back on the shelf. Then she threw open the window and drew back the curtains, and put out all the lights ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang
... Dido was carried to her palace, whence she could watch the hurried preparations for the departure. As she watched, life became intolerable to her. Pretending to her sister that she was preparing to perform a magic spell to release her from the bonds of love, she reared a mighty pyre in her court, wreathed it with funereal garlands, and placed thereon Aeneas's couch, garments, and sword. With her hair dishevelled, she then invoked Hecate, and sprinkling Avernian water and poisons on it, ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... not fall. The Bakwains believed that I had bound Sechele with some magic spell, and I received deputations, in the evenings, of the old counselors, entreating me to allow him to make only a few showers: "The corn will die if you refuse, and we shall become scattered. Only let him make rain this once, and we shall all, men, women, and children, come to the ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... orator of the evening, like a primo tenore, had been surveying the house through the friendly chinks of the pastoral landscape, he would have felt a warm suffusion of pleasure that his name should be the magic spell to summon an audience so fair, so ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... goes clean through the bunch. You know leaders like Napoleon and our own Teddy Roosevelt are born, not made. Jack is built on that plan. Other fellows who have made up their minds to dislike him, as I did at first, soon come under the magic spell of his nature, and end by believing he can do almost anything he tries. And so we are all firm in the belief he'll carry his team to a glorious victory that'll cause those Harmony chaps to sit up and take notice, because of course every last one of them will be on deck ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... soldier. Men of mark respect the law as a moral necessity, ordinary men as a traditional everyday rule; for this very reason military discipline, in which more than anywhere else law takes the form of habit, fetters every man not entirely self-reliant as with a magic spell. It has often been observed that the soldier, even where he has determined to refuse obedience to those set over him, involuntarily when that obedience is demanded resumes his place in the ranks. It was this feeling that made Lafayette and Dumouriez ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... eye as it is invigorating to the body. Over all the landscape hangs a veil of soft, purple haze that is bewitching. It gives to the scene a mysterious, subtle something that is exquisite and holds the senses in a magic spell of enchantment. ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... set forth in the Edda that Cold may be overcome by a magic spell. Thus Groa (Grougaldr, 12) promises her son a ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... All Hallows Eve has been considerably distorted during the course of years but the fun it affords the young folks in its present manner of keeping cannot be gainsaid and needs no changing. Halloween is the night when a magic spell enthrals the earth. Witches, bogies, brownies and elves are all abroad to use their power. Superstition proves true, witchery is recognized and the future may be read in ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various
... Didst not thou O Dronacharjya, promise me Thy crown in time should deck my brow And I be first in archery? Lo! here, some other thou hast taught A magic spell—to all unknown; Who has in secret from thee bought The knowledge, in ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... value to this simple pair. Strange sight! They take up the bright gold in handfuls and throw it sportively into the air for the sake of seeing the glittering worthlessness descend again in a shower. They know not that each of those small yellow circles was once a magic spell, potent to sway men's hearts and mystify their moral sense. Here let them pause in the investigation of the past. They have discovered the mainspring, the life, the very essence of the system that had wrought itself into ...
— The New Adam and Eve (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... since then copied by men: the kaleidoscope, with its infinite variety of shifting figures; the orrery; the prism; the burning-glass; the microscope and the telescope; and the magic lantern, with its vast variety of entertainment. Another magic spell she put into operation, by which, with the aid of an instrument in a little square box, the sun was compelled to paint landscapes and portraits, so true to life that they seemed only to lack motion. ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... ministers, ye have done well, But 'tis for love that most the poet pineth, And till I spell him with my magic spell, In vain for him earth smiles or heaven shineth. Behold I touch his heart, and there upspring Blooms to his cheeks, and flashes to his eyes; His scornful lips upon the instant sing, And all his pulses leap with ecstasies. 'Tis love the poet wants; he cannot live Without caressing ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... death, or what perhaps is more trying, sickness, by the observation of a certain easy but daily regimen, is completely and duly nailed up between the four planks of his coffin, after having said every evening: "Dear me! to-morrow I will not forget my pills!" How are we to explain this magic spell which rules all the affairs of life? Do men submit to it from a want of energy? Men who have the strongest wills are subject to it. Is it default of memory? People who possess this faculty in the highest degree yield ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... changed into stone, as if the head of Medusa had gazed upon them. The solitary stone, still called the King Stone, is the ambitious monarch; the circle is his army; and the Five Whispering Knights are five of his chieftains, who were hatching a plot against him when the magic spell was uttered. The farmers around Rollright say that if the stones are removed from the spot, they will never rest, but make mischief till they are restored. Stanton Drew, in Somersetshire, has a cromlech, and there are several in Scotland, the Channel Islands, and Brittany. Some sacrilegious ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... the second part of "Faust" the magic spell was completely broken. No work of Art of a more chilling, disenchanting character was ever produced. For the striking individuality of the first part, we have here nothing but abstractions; for its deep poetry, symbolism; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... things in earth and air Bound were by magic spell Never to do him harm; Even the plants and stones; All save the ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... years, on the festival of St. John, the enchantment ceases to have thorough sway; I am permitted to go forth and post myself upon the bridge of the Darro, where you met me, waiting until some one shall arrive who may have power to break this magic spell. I have hitherto mounted guard there in vain. I walk as in a cloud, concealed from mortal sight. You are the first to accost me for now three hundred years. I behold the reason. I see on your finger the seal-ring of Solomon the Wise, which is proof against all enchantment. ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... and he gave the outlandish names of the chiefs, armed with spears, who were to accompany him. The power of Mohammed the Lame was on the wane; for, during the three months which Alec had spent in England, an illness had seized him, which the natives asserted was a magic spell cast on him by one of his wives; and a son of his, taking advantage of this, had revolted and fortified himself in a stockade. The dying Sultan had taken the field against him, and this division of forces ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... some evil by witchcraft or sorcery." In some parts of Western Africa, when a man returns home after a long absence, before he is allowed to visit his wife, he must wash his person with a particular fluid, and receive from the sorcerer a certain mark on his forehead, in order to counteract any magic spell which a stranger woman may have cast on him in his absence, and which might be communicated through him to the women of his village. Two Hindoo ambassadors, who had been sent to England by a native prince and had returned to ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... who so loves thee, who Were well deserving love upon thy part; To whom (unless forgot, thou know'st how true The tale) thou debtor for thy freedom art, This ring, which can each magic spell undo, Sends for thy succour, and would send her heart, If with such virtue fraught, her heart could bring Thee safely in thy ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... and holy influences. There the poor always found a welcome, a willing heart, a ready hand, and listening ear; however sad and desponding on entering, they invariably came out cheerful and hopeful. There seemed a magic spell cast around every one who sought the presence of our dearly ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... with their leafy verdure of summer; the rich valley spread below us made radiant by the beauty of the descending sun and a light rain; voices rising on the misty air from the valley below—all seemed to unite in weaving a magic spell for the coming scene. As we gazed out over the peaceful valley a rainbow seemed to spring from a wooded hillside and arch the lovely meadow below us, coloring the fields in the most singular beauty; while its second reflection with softer colors arched like a corona above a high wooded hill. ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... necessary to provide men and arms. The Legislature immediately sent out a huge quantity of paper-money, with which, as if by magic spell, the governor hoped to get possession of all the old cannon, powder and balls, rusty swords and muskets, and everything else that would be serviceable in killing Frenchmen. Drums were beaten in all the villages of Massachusetts to enlist soldiers for the service. Messages ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... What a strange power has that helpless-looking mass—the brain! One moment, and the limbs are fagged, the shins are tender with breaking all day through the densest jungles, the feet are worn with unrequited labor and—hark! The bay! no doubt of it—the bay! There is the magic spell which, acting on the brain, flies through every nerve. New legs, new feet, new everything, in a moment! fresh as though just out of bed; here we go tearing through the jungle like a buffalo, and as happy as though we had just come in for a fortune—happier, ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... to the forensic skill of an advocate, romance might be held accountable for the wanderings of John and Sylvia, what of Robert? He, at least, was not under its magic spell. He, when the fateful hour struck, was merely drinking himself drowsy. To explain him, witnesses would be needed, and who more credible than a Superintendent and Detective Inspector ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... presence of the orator, the audience is absolutely in his power to do as he will. They laugh or cry as he pleases, or rise and fall at his bidding, until he releases them from the magic spell. ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... Ah, who can tell, Though in every land 'tis a magic spell? Men call me that, and they call me this; Yet the different names are the same, I wish! Gift-bearer to all the world am I, Joy-giver, light-bringer, where'er I fly; But the name I bear in the courts above, My truest and ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg |
