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Spell   Listen
verb
Spell  v. i.  (past & past part. spelt or spelled; pres. part. spelling)  
1.
To form words with letters, esp. with the proper letters, either orally or in writing. "When what small knowledge was, in them did dwell, And he a god, who could but read or spell."
2.
To study by noting characters; to gain knowledge or learn the meaning of anything, by study. (Obs.) "Where I may sit and rightly spell Of every star that heaven doth shew, And every herb that sips the dew."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Spell" Quotes from Famous Books



... a key into the lock and opened the door. Then she stepped aside and motioned the girls to enter, and they did so as if moved by a spell that they were unable to resist. Then the woman herself entered, closed the door and put the key into the lock and turned it. If the twelve Camp Fire Girls had no suspicions as to the genuineness of the motives of the woman up to this time, they had good and sufficient ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis

... streams, for it flows uphill. It comes rushing into the valley with a great display of foam and froth, and it leaves in a similar way, tearing down the rocks, and behaving like any other boisterous hill rivulet; but in the valley itself it lies under a spell. It is slow and dark, and has a surface like a mirror, and it flows uphill. There is no doubt about it; anyone can see it. When they came here, my friend tells me, they made a halt, and the Burmese hunters with him unpacked his breakfast. He did not want to eat then, he said, but ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding

... not commit any of the forty-two sins, hence the court of the gods pronounces a gracious verdict regarding him. And since, moreover, the royal mummy, thanks to the exceptional care of the priests, is provided with every amulet, prayer, direction, and spell, there is no doubt that the late pharaoh is now in the dwelling of the gods, sitting at the side of ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... for her smile too and so was every one of the staid and grown-up people in the car. I don't know when we would ever have come out from the spell of that ten-months-old baby girl if just then the conductor had not called out reproachfully—"Central Avenue—Central Avenue." Then the pepper-and-salt man jumped and looked nervously out and rushed for the door. I, myself, had to walk back two blocks and when I turned at my corner he was still ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey

... interesting events of those early schools for the colored race. Old, old slaves came, desiring to learn to read and spell. They brought the only books they could find, many of which proved to be almanacs, paper bound novels discarded by their mistress and ancient dictionaries, about half of which ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration

... to see how Master George would carry on the land campaign if he had money to spare. That, however, he has not. The presents he brought home for the whole family, as is customary, must have cost him a good deal. He has had, too, a spell in the Naval barracks—which means spending money on shore amusements instead of putting it by. And as he has bought some civilian clothes on the instalment system, and will have that to pay off, he cannot borrow much of ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds

... now, Mister Harry," exclaimed Jacques, as the canoe entered the mouth of one of these small rivulets which are called in Scotland burns, and in America creeks; "it's like that your appetite is sharpened after a spell like that. Keep her head a little more to the left—straight for the p'int—so. It's likely we'll get some fish here if ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne

... soul through the Invisible, Some letter of that After-life to spell; And by and by my soul returned to me, And answered, "I myself am ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... became conscious of the mysterious links which, bound me to my Gypsy ancestress by reading one of her letters to my great-grandfather, who had taught her to write: nothing apparently could have taught her to spell. It was written during a short stay she was making away from him in North Wales. It described in the simplest (and often the most uncouth) words that Nature-ecstasy which the Romanies seem to feel in the woodlands. It came ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... this strange honeymoon had passed, and Tom Fuller was able to gratify the chief desire of his honest soul, and rush down to the island to bewilder himself more hopelessly in the spell of Elsie's fascinations, like a great foolish moth whirling ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... did it matter? If old Huang Chow had disposed of these people in some strange manner, they had sought to rob him. The morality of the case was complicated and obscure, and more and more he was falling under the spell of ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer

... off his glass, "spell oh!—let's have a song while they take their breath. Jemmy, ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat

... its very emptiness, and yet since I have seen the Golden Gate I know that that thrill is nothing to the sensation of seeing a sailing ship with her canvas spread, bound for the far East. From the West to the East the spell draws. First from the East to the West; from the cold and storms of New England to our land of sun it beckons, and then unless we hold tight, the lure of the South Seas and the glamour of the Far East calls us. I know just how it would ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane

... deep, gray eyes; and crowning all a wealth of auburn hair, from which peeps, as she turns, a pink, shell-like ear; these complete a picture which seems to belong to another clime and another age, and lives hardly but on the canvas of Titian. We are almost sorry to enter the room and break the spell. Mary Anderson's manner as she starts up from the organ with a light elastic spring to greet her visitors is singularly gracious and winning. There is a frank fearlessness in the beautiful speaking eyes so full of poetry and soul, a mingled tenderness and decision ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar

... Fil. "At least I do try—I put a bit here and there, but I write so slowly, I'm only half-way through before she's bounced on to something else, and I've missed the beginning of it. I have to stop, too, sometimes, to think how to spell ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... which had distinguished the old school. He generally rose about noon, dined at three p.m., spent the evening at the opera or theatre, and went to bed towards morning. Add to this, that he collected old china, took much snuff, combed his wig in public, and was unable to write legibly or spell correctly—and a finished portrait is presented of Mr Marcus Welles, and through him of a fashionable London ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt

... carry out the intentions you have at present in view." This was uttered in a tone of still greater bitterness than George had used even in the previous phrase, and he added in a tone of surprise: "Why, Harry, what have you been writing, and who taught thee to spell?" Harry had written the last words "in view," in vew, and a great blot of salt water from his honest, boyish eyes may have obliterated some ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... watching in absolute idleness the strenuous exertion of others. Those exertions emphasized his inertia, in which presently the mind began to take part with the body. The Nile is exquisitely monotonous. He was coming under its spell. Far off and near, from the western and eastern banks of the river, he heard almost perpetually the creaking song of the sakeeyas, the water-wheels turned by oxen. They made the leit motiv of this wonderful, idle life. Antique and drowsy, with a plaintive ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... sortes Virgilianae^; hocus-pocus &c (deception) 545. V. practice sorcery &c n.; cast a nativity, conjure, exorcise, charm, enchant; bewitch, bedevil; hoodoo, voodoo; entrance, mesmerize, magnetize; fascinate &c (influence) 615; taboo; wave a wand; rub the ring, rub the lamp; cast a spell; call up spirits, call up spirits from the vasty deep; raise spirits from the dead. Adj. magic, magical; mystic, weird, cabalistic, talismanic, phylacteric^, incantatory; charmed ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... The thundering surf seemed some comfort to Henry. He was unconscious of the fact that he felt very much better than he had ever imagined that he could feel after such a blow. Moravia's maneuvrings and sweet sympathy had been most effective, and Henry had fallen asleep while her spell was still upon him—and only awakened after several hours of refreshing slumber. Then it was he decided upon the plan, which he put into execution as soon as daylight came. Now he left the old priest at the church door and strode away ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn

... legend of Elene had come to England in a Greek form. As to the author of the poem, we know his name, but very little else about him. He has left us his name, imbedded in runic letters as an acrostic, in the last canto of the poem, q.v. These letters spell the word CYNEWULF; but who was Cynewulf? The question is hard to answer, and has given rise to much discussion, which cannot be gone into here. A good summary of it will be found in Wuelker's Grundriss ...
— Elene; Judith; Athelstan, or the Fight at Brunanburh; Byrhtnoth, or the Fight at Maldon; and the Dream of the Rood • Anonymous

... the spell. There was no longer any mystery in the situation. The condemnatory pieces of evidence were there, Clyffurde's connection with de Marmont was well known—the plot had become obvious. Here was an English adventurer—an ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... minutes before the Prince again spoke. He still held the whip in his hand, his eyes fixed and the muscles of his face rigid. All at once the spell seemed to dissolve: his hand fell, and he said ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor

... tupapau horrors, for God's sake! let him stay away from the club. It's got so I hate to see him come in here, looking like a death's head. He spoils my drink. I'd rather be in the Marquesas with old Hemeury Francois, who is dyin' by inches of the spell Mohuto 's put on him. They're alike, these Kanakas; they're afraid of God and the devil, their own and the dam' missionary outfit, too. They've got them coming and going. No wonder they're getting so scarce you can't get ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... could not read, except enough to spell out an address, and he had no idea what the letters contained. But he was quick to think the bundle might be worth some money. So ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives

... parted, as if she were on the point of speaking. I have since thought that if I had spoken, if I could have spoken—for I did make one effort to do so, but no audible words would come at my bidding—the spell that bound the poor soul, this mysterious wanderer from some shadowy borderland between life and death, might have been broken, and the message that I now believe burdened her delivered. Sometimes I wish I could have done it; but then, again—oh ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth

... loudly. The noise broke in raucously upon that horrid gurgling sound without. It snapped the spell that bound me. ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams

... rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... honour, you have had watching enough, and I'll just take my spell. I'm as fresh as a daisy with the dew on ...
— The Gilpins and their Fortunes - A Story of Early Days in Australia • William H. G. Kingston

... papa. He came with a newspaper to Mr. Button, and he is so good to his poor sick mother,' said Alwyn. 'See, see, sister!' turning the prow of his small vessel towards her, and showing a word on it in pencil which he required her to spell out. It ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Again so full of guileless truth— Langsyne! the eyes no more shall see, Ah, no! the rainbow hopes of youth. Langsyne! with thee resides a spell To raise the spirit, and refine Farewell!—there can be no farewell ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 340, Supplementary Number (1828) • Various

... introduced many would leave, owing to the strange feeling against Female Suffrage in and about Oscaloosa; but not one left, the crowd grew more dense. A more eloquent speech never was uttered in this town than Miss Brown delivered; for an hour and three-quarters the audience was spell-bound as she advanced from point to point. She had been longing for such an opportunity, and had become weary of striking off into open air; and she proved how thoroughly acquainted she was with her subject as she took up each point advanced by her opponent, not denying their truth, but ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... astrology, the pretended art of forecasting events by the aspect of the stars, which was most elaborately and ingeniously developed, until the fame of the Chaldaean astrologers was spread throughout the ancient world, while the spell of that art held in thraldom ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... with the fixed gravity of a Red Indian, immovable, inscrutable. It was not till the scene was ended that she lifted her head as if breaking a spell, sent the point of her tongue rapidly over her dried lips, and looked round into the box. Her brown eyes expressed shame, fear, and disgust. A curious grimace went over her face—a grimace only to be expressed ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence

... tension nobody yet laughed, although Tilda, throwing a glance toward the chimney-corner, saw the shepherd's jaw relax in a grin. Her head yet swam. She felt a spell upon her that must be broken ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... pondered, the more clearly he saw that she was not a girl who, under the spell of friendly good will, would permit a false situation to exist. Her sincerity was too deep for such a glossing of fact. He dared assume, then, that her sympathy with him went even so far as to accept his attitude when it was ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin

... a few remarks may be offered. The genius of our mountain land, as if prompted alike by thought and feeling, has in these wrought a spell of matchless power—a fascination, which, reaching the hearts both of old and young, maintains an imperishable sway ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... ye what my Timotheus is a doin' these days. I set him ter hoeing fer me, and I tell ye ye'd like ter watch him a spell," said old Mr. Simpkins, his face beaming with pride ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks

... Juno and Ceres whisper seriously, There's something else to do: hush, and be mute, Or else our spell is marr'd. ...
— The Tempest • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]

... miss that one! There's a splendid bear in a s'loon on Fourth Street,—mebbe the man would leave him go a spell if you told him what a nice place you hed up here. Say, them fishes keep it up lively, ...
— The Story of Patsy • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... a minute that he'd sort of put the spell on Steele, most likely because he was a genuine sample of what J. Bayard was givin' only a fair imitation of. You know, one of these straight-backed, aristocratic old boys that somehow has the marks of havin' been everywhere, seen everything, and done everything. ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford

... year I was promoted to the grammar school. Then it was that I walked on air. For I said to myself that I was a student now, in earnest, not merely a school-girl learning to spell and cipher. I was going to learn out-of-the-way things, things that had nothing to do with ordinary life—things to know. When I walked home afternoons, with the great big geography book under my ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... either of them is at all expressive. The so-called evidences are devised afterwards, when faith and imagination have prejudged the issue. The force of William James's new theology, or romantic cosmology, lies only in this: that it has broken the spell of the genteel tradition, and enticed faith in a new direction, which on second thoughts may prove no less alluring than the old. The important fact is not that the new fancy might possibly be true—who shall know that?—but that it has entered the heart of a leading American ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana

... mind many contorted ways of breaking the news to Allis, and finished up by blurting out: "The mare's coughin' this mornin', Miss; I hope it ain't nothin', but I'm afraid she's in for a sick spell." ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... then existing schemes for a change in her position. It was to her a real, though but a momentary triumph. From the hour of her arrival she had a powerful party to cope with; and the fact of her being an Austrian, independent of the jealousy created by her charms, was, in itself, a spell to conjure up armies, against which she stood alone, isolated in the face of embattled myriads! But she now reared her head, and her foes trembled in her presence. Yet she could not guard against the moles busy in the earth secretly to undermine her. Nay, had not Louis XV. died at the moment he ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... Tom. "Never could find out. You see it's heaps upon heaps of thousands, for the thousands come first and the billions afterwards; but when I've thought uncommon hard, for a long spell at a time, I always get confused, because millions comes in between, ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne

... Mrs. Behn probably meant to spell this word 'Quiyoughcto', the sound being identical. There is in Virginia a river which in the seventeenth century was called the 'Quiyough'. The inhabitants of the banks of this river had mysterious or supernatural properties ascribed to them. In the Voyages ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn

... "The spell lies in two words," replied Wamba: "Pax vobiscum will answer all queries. If you go or come, eat or drink, bless or ban, Pax vobiscum carries you through it all. It is as useful to a friar as a broomstick to a witch or a wand to a conjurer. Speak ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... cow a ko or a coo. Bring me meen skoe (I spell as pronounced) is, Bring me my shoes. Gae til land is, Go ashore. Tak place is, Take place, or sit down. If you talk of bathing, they will advise you to dook oonder; and should a mother present her baby to you she will call it her smook barn, her pretty bairn or child, smook ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne

... wanting to come into the sitting-room. And it would curl down at Aunt Hetty's feet like a dog. She saved the wool every year, and spun it, and laid it away until she had enough. But I don't believe it went to school, although it could spell one word." ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas

... During a better spell the Master said, Yu has long been feigning. This show of ministers, when I have no ministers, whom will it take in? Will Heaven be taken in? And is it not better to die in the arms of my two-three boys than to die in the arms of ministers? And, if I miss a big burial, shall ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius

... from Hoomi Koot & Co. Comes the note to us below, Full of joy and gossiping. Hoomi Koot is summering In the desert waste of Gobi, In a cottage of adobe. All the little Koots are well. Tommy Koot has learned to spell. Mrs. Koot is busy on Papers on "The Great Anon," Which by special cable soon, From her workshop in the moon, Will be sent to us below By grand Hoomi ...
— Cobwebs from a Library Corner • John Kendrick Bangs

... sternly, "a bullet can outstrip your fleetest footsteps. There may never be but one occasion when you will need a weapon, but on that occasion the possession of the means of protection may spell the difference between ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis

... Does, Slim, I'll stand and let yuh shoot me as full of lead as you like," Andy promised, in much the same tone. Then he strove to shake off the spell of the Old Man's stricken silence. "Buck up, boys. He'll thank us for what we aim to do—when he knows all ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower

... Never a spell shall blight our vines Nor Sirius blaze above us. But you and I shall drink our wines And sing to the loved that ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field

... spell that held him, and brought him again to his senses. His fingers slowly relaxed their tense hold. A sigh that was something between a moan and a gasp came with his deliverance and shook him. All the horror now was in his own face as he seized his hat ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin

... girls were immediately roused out of the spell that Pearlie's story had put upon them, and began to group themselves under the trees, arranging their little skirts ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung

... in his place behind her, to all appearance spell-bound by the fascinations of the graceful dancer. Mrs. Van Brandt, on the contrary, seemed to find but little attraction in the spectacle presented by the stage. She looked at the dancing (so far as I could see) in an absent, weary manner. When the applause broke out in a perfect frenzy of cries ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins

... John, first Baron of Kingston, in the peerage of Ireland. Lady Mary was, therefore, a relation of the novelist, Henry Fielding, whose surname was spelt differently because, he explained, his branch of the family was the only one that could spell correctly. ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville

... dropped into the rigging, where I stretched and played my legs a bit. They were as stiff as hand-spikes after that long spell in the maintop. I descended as low down as the sheer-pole, breathlessly watching. They pulled the boat under the bow, and Bill Martin with lifted oar made as though spearing at the brute's head. It opened its huge mouth and showed its immense claws upon the rail; old Bunk hissed and snapped at it, ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell

... poor, feeble hand, My country's harp of gold, Though far from that dear home I stand, Where it was played of old, My mother tongue hath yet a spell And inward voice, which bids me tell My tale in song that Wales loves ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones

... was the first President, but he didn't enquire who was going to be the next, for I guess he thought the little rabbit hadn't studied Politics enough. After that he told Mrs. Rabbit that she had a very bright little bunny boy even if he didn't know how to spell ...
— Little Jack Rabbit's Adventures • David Cory

... with the best intentions: I introduce * * *, and * * * runs away with your money: my friend Hobhouse quarrels, too, with the Quarterly: and (except the last) I am the innocent Istmhus (damn the word! I can't spell it, though I have crossed that of Corinth a ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... old familiar air Sweet as the bugle call, 'All hail the power of Jesus' name! Let angels prostrate fall.'" Ah, wondrous was the old tune's spell. As on the soldiers sang; Man after man fell into line, And ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... it all, and they met no one. They scarcely broke the silence themselves. The man led the way as one who knew it by heart, and Bettina followed, not caring for speech herself, because the stillness seemed to add a spell of enchantment. What could one say, to a stranger, of such beauty so lost and given over to ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... then were told to hold our new line. There was a fierce bombardment early in the morning, and then, because of a mix-up of orders, part of our command fell back while another tried to go forward. One of our men, a fellow named Lorimer Spell, a queer sort of chap who hailed from Texas, was hit by a piece of shell and knocked partly unconscious. He was unable to save himself, and as I didn't want to see him killed I ran out from behind our shelter and brought ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer

... of Heaven—but he sang even more beautifully in the ritual of home, and how we were looking forward to his hymns at the Passover table—— [He breaks down. The BARON has gradually turned round under the spell of DAVID'S story and now listens hypnotised.] I was playing my cracked little fiddle. Little Miriam was making her doll dance to it. Ah, that decrepit old china doll—the only one the poor child ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill

... to teach him. Following her natural impulse to do kindness to others, and without, for a moment, thinking of the danger, she at once consented. He quickly learned the alphabet and in a short time could spell words of three syllables. But alas, for his young ambition! When Mr. Auld discovered what his wife had done, he was both surprised and pained. He at once stopped the perilous practice, but it was too late. The ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various

... cleric pride, that self-respecting quiet, sat upon their high-bred figures, their angelic, unspoiled faces, saddened transiently as they came under the religious spell for a moment. As for Gaston, they welcomed him with perfect friendliness, kept their best side foremost for an hour, and would not leave his very dreams. In absolute unconsciousness, they had brought ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater

... Had the distinguished visitor then been so absorbed in the sight of Miss Dalrymple coming down the steps that he had utterly failed to observe the humble caretaker of canines? Possibly—and again possibly not. In the former contingency he might yet have a brief breathing-spell to think—to plan for the future, unless—There was another to reckon with—the woman he had met in the park, whose automobile he had attempted to follow. She, too, was on the boat! He had been her dupe once. Was he now to become ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham

... "I will go into the castle to get tidings of the dogs." "Truly," he replied, "if thou wouldst follow my counsel, thou wouldst not enter therein. Whosoever has cast a spell over this land, has caused this castle to be here." "Of a truth," answered Pryderi, "I cannot thus give up my dogs," and to the ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)

... the mediaeval period three great cycles of stories commanded the imagination of the poets. Of these cycles one, the tale of Troy in its curious mediaeval guise, attested the potent spell of antique legend.[1] The two other great cycles were of later origin, and centred around the commanding historical figures of Charlemagne, and the phantom glory of the ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson

... with a prolonged drawl through his nose, and flapping his arms in an uncouth fashion, "I ain't seen him for a long spell now." ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke

... you to withdraw yourself from your playmates, or to cease from your games. Your doing so will, if it continues, excite talk. Your friends will think that a spell has fallen upon you, and will shun you. I want you to grow up such as your father was—strong and brave, and skilful in arms—and to do this you must be alert and active. It may well be that you should not join your countrymen until you are able to play the part of a man, ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty

... give you a couple of days' work," the old man regretted, at parting, "but I can't see it. The ranch just about keeps me and the old woman, now that the children are gone. An' then it don't always. Seems times have been bad for a long spell now. Ain't never been the ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... beginning of this year to nearly the end of June, he was busily employed on the zoological and geological results of his voyage. This spell of work was interrupted only by a visit of three days to Cambridge, in May; and even this short holiday was taken in consequence of failing health, as we may assume from the entry in his diary: "May 1st, unwell," and from a letter to his ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... forgotten, ranches of the foot-hill country, the mining camps to the north and south of the new line—these were beginning to fire the imagination of older Canada. Fresh from the new and wonderful land lying west of the Great Lakes, with its spell upon him, its miseries, its infamies, its loneliness aching in his heart, but with the starlight of its promise burning in his eyes, he came to tell the men of the Colleges of their duty, their privilege, their opportunity ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor

... there was nothing of this. He was wholly modern; dissolute enough for any epoch, but possessed of virtues that his contemporaries could not spell. A slave tried to poison him. Suetonius says he merely put the slave to death. The "merely" is to the point. Cato would have tortured him first. After Pharsalus he forgave everyone. When severe, it was to himself. ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus

... away. Now we may have it as a slight contribution to the importance of nut culture. The sustaining power which carried the boy through his trial was the hickory nut. There was a pile of them in the attic, and the boy on the quiet, cracked and ate a quart of them every day. That boy could not spell protein to save his life, and carbo-hydrates would have scared him off the floor, but the nuts and the brown bread gave him a balanced ration which did everything except find out about the hound and the hare. I think it would have required a balanced ration fed ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various

... wrong-doing, and that which classifies the congenital criminal as an anomaly, partly pathological and partly atavistic, a revival of the primitive savage—did not suggest themselves to me instantaneously under the spell of a single deep impression, but were the offspring of a series of impressions. The slow and almost unconscious association of these first vague ideas resulted in a new system which, influenced by its origin, has preserved in ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero

... little beasts of yours;" exclaimed Ned, "a little exercise won't hurt them, but to think of three hours in a place like this! and say, don't you know how to spell out here?" ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... Bud in a weak voice. "I've been practically kidnaped and put under the spell of some sort of ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker

... lain thus when the fact, that if I laid much longer I would actually freeze to death, would come over me with such overpowering force as to break the icy spell, and starting to my feet, I would endeavour to go through the combined manual and pedal exercise to restore the circulation. The first fling of my benumbed arm generally struck me in the face, instead of smiting my chest, its true destination. But in these cases one's ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... great, In the old days of awe and keen-eyed wonder, In town I hear, scarce wakened yet, In vain we call old notions fudge, Into the sunshine, It don't seem hardly right, John, It is a mere wild rosebud, It mounts athwart the windy hill, It was past the hour of trysting, It's some consid'ble of a spell sence I hain't ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... current of fate. They were merely confirmatory of the already existing bias which Marathon had created. The day of Marathon is the critical epoch in the history of the two nations. It broke forever the spell of Persian invincibility, which had previously paralyzed men's minds. It generated among the Greeks the spirit which beat back Xerxes, and afterward led on Xenophon, Agesilaus, and Alexander, in terrible retaliation through their Asiatic campaigns. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... pressure of want, her thoughts soar into a world which is as unknown to her as heaven is to us, and in regard to which her longings are apt to be infinitely stronger than are ours for heaven. Her education has been much better than that of the man. She can read, whereas he can only spell words from a book. She can write a letter after her fashion, whereas he can barely spell words out on a paper. Her tongue is more glib, and her intellect sharper. But her ignorance as to the reality of things is much more gross than his. By such contact as he has with men ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... you are in a hypnotic state or under the power of others, portends disastrous results, for your enemies will enthrall you; but if you hold others under a spell you will assert decided will ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... criticise Lady Markland," said her mother; and then she burst into an unpremeditated invitation, to break the spell. "You will bring Mr. Cavendish to dine with us one evening?" she said. "He and you will excuse the dulness of ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... both stood listening for anything that might break the silence downstairs. No sound came to them; that poignant silence was continued throughout long, long minutes, while the two listeners stood there under its mysterious spell; and in its plaintive eloquence—speaking, as it did, of the figure alone in the big, dark library, where dead Wilbur's new silver frame gleamed in the dimness—there was something ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington

... no wisp Of day's distraction thine enchantment mar; Thy soft spell lisp And lure the sweetness down of each blue star. Then let that low moan be A while more easeful, trembling remote and strange, far oversea; So shall the easeless heart of love rest then, or only sigh, Hearing ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman

... should murder the two languages in which he wrote seems a small thing; but that Frederick the Great, the most accomplished of princes, bosom-friend of Voltaire, and sworn patron of the literati, should not have been able to spell, is a matter for some astonishment. I could but remember this fact, as I perused the epistles of Matthew Haygarth. I felt that these letters had in all probability been carefully numbered by the lady to whom they belong, and that to tamper with them to any serious extent might ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... confederacy, was absent, the Prophet committed a capital blunder. When reproached by his warriors, he declared that all would have gone well but for the fact that on the night before the battle his squaw had profanely touched the pot in which his magic charms were brewed, so that the spell had been broken! The explanation was not very convincing, and ominous murmurings were heard. Before the end of the year, however, word came to Vincennes that the crafty magician was back at Tippecanoe, that the village had been rebuilt, and that ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg

... know that those hieroglyphics might not mean the salvation of the world if she could spell them out herself, or some great and good person took a steady lamp and went ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... and the ship began to labour very much. The consequence was, as we had expected, the leak we had patched up once more burst open, and it became necessary to keep all hands, watch and watch, at the pumps. Mr Randolph took his spell like the rest of us, and no one seemed to work with a more ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston

... rest-day; Army resting about Krakau, after such a spell through the woody moors. The King, with small escort, rides out reconnoitring, hither, thither, on the southern side or Lacy quarter: to the top of the Keulenberg (BLUDGEON HILL), at last,—which is ten or a dozen miles from Krakau and Quosdorf, but commands an extensive ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... forgotten what I saw, I have forgotten what I knew, And many lands I've set sail for To find that marvellous spell of yore, Never to set foot on thy shore O ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various

... as Prescott's infatuation clouded more and more the poor fellow's brain. Jaffery talked (not before Liosha, but to Adrian and myself, that night, after the ladies had gone to bed) as if the girl had woven a Vivien spell around his poor friend. We smiled, knowing it was Jaffery's ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... in wonderful glory arise and the whole ground is alive with exotic flowers. Or the young artist sits in his attic playing his violin; we see the bow moving over the strings but the dreamy face of the player does not change with his music. Under the spell of his tones his features are immovable as if they were staring at a vision. They do not speak of the changing emotions which his melodies awake. We cannot hear those tones. And yet we do hear them: a lovely spring landscape widens behind his head, we see the valleys ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg

... people could never have caught and held you," she resumed. "The motive force was not strong enough; it has faded through all these years. But I"—she paused a moment and looked at him with complete confidence in her splendid eyes—"I possess the spell to conquer you and hold you: the spell of old love. I can win you back again and make you live the old life with me, for the force of the ancient tie between us, if I choose to use it, is irresistible. And I do choose to use ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... made one more attempt, while Frank watched every movement of the boat, praying earnestly for its preservation. Again he failed, and the bonne returned to the bank unharmed. But hardly had the weary men thrown themselves down for a brief spell of rest than what they all so dreaded happened. One of the logs, getting into a cross eddy, rolled broadside against the rock. It was caught and held fast. Another and another charged against it and stayed there. The ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley

... no time now to wonder how he had heard of her obtaining the letters: all her world was dark outside the monstrous glare of his scheme for using them. And it was not, after the first moment, the horror of the idea that held her spell-bound, subdued to his will; it was rather its subtle affinity to her own inmost cravings. He would marry her tomorrow if she could regain Bertha Dorset's friendship; and to induce the open resumption of that friendship, and the tacit retractation of ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... thousands of women wear dress waists so tight that no free movement of the upper body is possible; indeed in numbers of instances ladies are compelled to put their bonnets on before attempting the painful ordeal of getting into their glove-fitting dress waists. Many young women to-day, yielding to the spell of fashion, place the corset next to their flesh, while a still greater number have merely the thinnest possible undershirt between the flesh and the corset, after which they tightly draw the dress waist until it meets. This seems incredible, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various

... undone. But out of this material and this confusion Miss Elliott, by her efficiency and force of character, brought a good degree of cleanliness and order. Among other things she established a school in the Home, gathered the children into it in the evening, taught them to spell, read and sing, and inspired them with ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... children had passed through the rudimentary stages of instruction, being able to spell and read correctly, their advanced studies should be entirely shorn of their present routine characteristics. They might be made so full of life, and even amusement, that they would thenceforth lose their lesson look; ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson

... stopped; the spell had broken! She turned round to him. As a wind obscures with grey wrinkles the still green waters of enchantment into which some mortal has been gazing, so Hilary's reason suddenly swept across the situation, and showed it once more as it was. Quick to mark every shade that ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... heedless of the fact that the garments of his carefully cultivated antagonism to the world and to his fellows had slipped very easily from his unresisting shoulders. The glory of a perfect English midsummer lay like a golden spell upon the land. The moors were purple with heather, touched here and there with the fire of the flaming gorse, the wind blew always from the west, the gardens were ablaze with slowly bursting rhododendrons. Every ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... change in methods of text-books marks the introduction of Webster's spelling-book, from which millions of Americans have learned to spell the names on a ballot! Lay Dilworth and a first Webster side by side: the likeness and the difference of the two are apparent. It is clear that Dilworth served as a model, and that Webster's book started simply as an improvement upon the English original. Even ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder

... saw nothing, they were fascinated by what they wished to see. The great lodge held them with a spell that they did not seek to break. Although it was past midnight, they stayed there, staring at the blank walls. Warriors passed and gave them sharp glances, but nothing was said to them. The air remained close and heavy. Heat lightening ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... said, breaking the spell. "Couldn't be any nicer, now, could it?" Then he went over and stood near ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh

... bed on the floor; and he took the first spell, pistol in hand and sword on knee, three hours by the captain's watch upon the wall. Then he roused me up, and I took my turn of three hours; before the end of which it was broad day, and a very quiet morning, with a smooth, rolling sea that tossed the ship and made the blood run ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson

... me, shade of St. Theodore—has not a brand new cafe begun to glare there, electrically, this very year?) that introduces us most directly to the great picture by which the Grand Canal works its first spell, and to which a thousand artists, not always with a talent apiece, have paid their tribute. We pass into the Piazzetta to look down the great throat, as it were, of Venice, and the vision must console us for turning our ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... any aspect of human affairs within the range of judgment breaks the spell which has lain upon political ideas. There have, of course, been plenty of men who did not realize that the range of attention was the main premise of political science. They have built on sand. They have demonstrated in their own persons the effects of a very limited ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann

... to thrive in Mexico. We find in a book of sermons published by the Jesuit Father, Ignacio de Paredes, in the Nahuatl language, in 1757, that he strenuously warns his hearers against invoking, consulting, or calling upon "the devilish spell-binders, the nagualists, and ...
— Nagualism - A Study in Native American Folk-lore and History • Daniel G. Brinton

... is an introduction to the celebrated tragedy of that name; and, by its vivid portraiture of the state of the general's army, gives the best clue to the spell of his gigantic power. The blind belief entertained in the unfailing success of his arms, and in the supernatural agencies by which that success is secured to him; the unrestrained indulgence of every passion, and utter disregard of all law, save that of the camp; ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... curtain behind, upon entering, and behold, with the world is also shut out the bitter cold, and one is folded, as it were, in a soft mantle of down, as if angels wrapped their wings about us. I expanded at once under the invisible sun. There have been moments when I have felt the spell of Rome, but every one says here that it dawns gradually upon the mind. It would not have been so with me, I am convinced, if I had been warm. Who ever heard of an icicle glowing with emotion? What is Rome to a frozen ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... swarm, and the touts still swindle; the bookmakers, bedizened with belts of silver coin, and outlandish hats, and flaring assertions of personal integrity, still clamour by their blackboards; they still chalk up the odds they offer against horses whose names they mis-spell; the sun still shines on the jockeys' silk jackets; still, down a course cleared empty, distracted dogs rush madly; still, before the start for the great race, there broods over that huge concourse an intense, almost a dreadful silence; still there is the shout as the ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... a searching interrogatory from the tall-hatted Ugly-Wugly as to his schools, his sports, pastimes, and ambitions, wondered how long the spell would last. The ring seemed to work in sevens. Would these things have seven hours'life or fourteen or twenty-one?"His mind lost itself in the intricacies of the seven-times table (a teaser at the best of times) and only found itself with a shock when the procession found itself at the ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit

... little figure, and the thin white face, with its tired, dark-ringed eyes, was enough for her. Here was need of help; and therefore help of some sort she must certainly give. "Now, then," she went on quickly, "you look just plum tuckered out; set down an' rest a spell, an' tell me what I can do ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes

... the idol I worshipped was at best the very incarnation of falsehood and unworthiness, was altogether too much for me; I brooded and fretted over it until I could endure it no longer, and then, one day when she seemed striving to weave anew round my heart the fatal spell of her endearments, I broke away from her embrace and suddenly taxed her with her perfidy, charging her with purchasing her former lover's absence and silence by the sacrifice of her jewels, the whole of which I had soon ascertained ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood



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