"Charm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... see some charm elsewhere. He is old enough now to marry. And Jeanne Angelot may be only very little French, though her skin has bleached up clearer, and she puts on delicate airs with her accent. She will not make ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... excuse to ask for the salt, and begin a conversation. He did this in a matter-of-fact, bourgeois way, however, which not even a prude or a snob could think offensive. And apparently the girl was far from being a prude or a snob. She answered with a soft, girlish charm of manner which gave the impression that she was generously kind of heart. Then something that the man said made her flush ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... by his persuasive manner, and the excellence of his tutorial method. His memory was prodigious, his eloquence seductive, and a power of extempore versification in the most difficult metres enhanced the charm of his conversation. He is referred to by Pliny, Quintilian, and Juvenal, and for a time superintended the studies of ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... "The charm of Trieste is that one can live exactly as one pleases. Richard and I drew out a line for ourselves when we first went to Trieste, and we always kept to it as closely as we could. We rose at 3 or 4 a.m. in summer, and at 5 a.m. in winter. He read, wrote, ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... herself, as being more genteel and mentally aristocratic than the cruder words by which Barney and Old Jimmie and their kind designated a woman accomplice—this young super-adventuress, who had schemed all this so adroitly, and worked toward it with the best of her brain and her conscious charm, was seized with new panic as she listened to the eager torrent of his imploring words, as she gazed into the quivering earnestness of his frank, blue-eyed face. She wished she could get out of the machine ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... declaimed half a page of wretched prose. Her voice rose and fell in a sing-song cadence, but certain modulations of tone lent charm to the absurd words. When she finished her eyes were ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... thoroughly liberal and open-minded man, Washington never turned a deaf ear to any new suggestion, whether it was a public policy or a mechanical invention, but to all alike he gave careful consideration before he adopted them. To Jefferson, on the other hand, mere novelty had a peculiar charm, and he jumped at any device, either to govern a state or improve a plough, provided that it had the flavor of ingenuity. The two men might easily have thought the same concerning the republic, but they started from opposite poles, ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home; A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there, Which, wherever we rove, is not met with elsewhere. Home! Home! sweet, sweet home! ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... even made her his companion in the sacred retreat of his study, with the purpose of entering upon a course of instruction in the learned languages. This measure, however, he found inexpedient to repeat; for Ellen, having discovered an old romance among his heavy folios, contrived, by the charm of her sweet voice, to engage his attention therein till all ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... had as capable rulers in the past as Lord Curzon, but rarely one more tactful or courageous, and never one having the assistance of a vicereine possessing the charm and lovable qualities of the late Lady Curzon. Her splendid work in behalf of the natives, especially the women, endeared her to all Indians. The Delhi durbar in 1903 honored Edward VII in a degree unsurpassed, but was a greater personal triumph for ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... that I was in all probability a freeman, sounded in my ears like a charm. I am satisfied that none but a slave could place such an appreciation upon liberty as I did at that time. I wanted to see mother and sister, that I might tell them "I was free!" I wanted to see my fellow slaves in St. Louis, ...
— The Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave • William Wells Brown
... complained when he received the picture in London. A long horizontal furrow is clearly to be seen running right across the canvas. Apart from the consideration that pupils no doubt had a hand in the work, it lacks, with all its decorative elegance and felicity of movement, the charm with which Titian, both much earlier in his career and later on towards the end, could invest such mythological subjects.[46] That the aim of the artist was not a very high one, or this poesia very near to his heart, is demonstrated ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... knucklebones has seen the fall of the Roman empire and the rise of the United States. It may still flourish in its native spot, but nowhere else, I am persuaded; for I tried myself to introduce it on Tweedside, and was defeated lamentably; its charm being quite local, like a country wine that ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... nearly all pretty or attractive or both, and mostly young. These are the usual attributes of women in a new country like Rhodesia; for men do not take ugly, unattractive women to share life with them in the wilds, and girls born in such places have a gift all their own of beauty and charm. ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... discernible odor, mercury was difficult to introduce into the system, and the corrosives, although gratifyingly spectacular, were dangerous to the user. Wolfsbane and fly agaric were excellent, of course; deadly nightshade could not be discounted, and the amanita toadstool had its own macabre charm. But these were the poisons of an older, more leisurely age. The impatient younger generation—and especially the women, who made up nearly 90 per cent of the poisoners on Omega—were satisfied with plain arsenic or strychnine, as the occasion and ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... Livia was herself attired, And those bright dames that to the beds aspired Of emperors. Yet the celestial maid Requires no earthly ornamental aid To give her faultless form a single grace, Or add one charm to her bewitching face." ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... and charm gave their convincing evidence against Joan's own characteristics. At this ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... horse, a clustering sound Of shapely potency, forward bound, Glossy black steeds, and riders tall, Rank after rank, each looking like all, Midst moving repose and a threatening charm, With mortal sharpness at each right arm, And hues that painters and ladies love, And ever ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... has points of resemblance with that of the insufferable Bana's Harsha-charita, is only the Hindoo method of declaring that the two characters presently to be brought upon the scene are mortal incarnations of love and charm: as we call a man, an Adonis, or a ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... few catchwords that he had learned from others. Even the former Populists turned from him. But their sour faces when he spoke taught him nothing. He was still, to himself, the great spellbinder, and he looked forward to the day when he, too, a nominee for the Presidency, should charm multitudes with his eloquence and logic. He had no hesitation in confiding his hopes to Harley, and the correspondent longed to tell him how he misjudged himself. Yet he refrained, knowing that it was not his duty; and ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... Bonne-Biche and Beau-Minon. They detest me because I have sometimes succeeded in rescuing their victims from them. You will never see your father again, Blondine, you will never leave this forest, unless you yourself shall break the charm which holds ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... beauty of which words are wholly inadequate to describe. But I am willing to confess that my admiration lost a great deal of its ardour when Mr Austin informed me that the mist which imparted so subtle a charm to the scene was but the forerunner of the deadly miasmatic fog which makes the Congo so fatal a river to Europeans; and I was by no means sorry when we found ourselves, three-quarters of an hour later, once more in safety alongside the Daphne, having succeeded ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... and she noticed him for his exquisite elegance during the marriage fetes of Louis XIV. When she met him in the Queen's apartments, she remarked that he had more wit than anyone else, and found a particular pleasure in talking with him. The charm operated so effectually that the princess of forty-three was at length fain to own that she passionately loved the Gascon cadet, who was then in his thirty-eighth year. Determined as she was naturally, that discovery overwhelmed her. "I resolved," she says, "never to speak ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... snow-covered mountains shining in the sun before; but he was greatly delighted with this new view of them. There is indeed a peculiar charm in the sight of these eternal snows, especially when we see them basking, as it were, in the rays of a warm summer's sun, that is wholly indescribable. The sublime and thrilling grandeur of the spectacle no pen ...
— Rollo in Geneva • Jacob Abbott
... described by Ayliffe, and without much protest, as being "in respect of beauty the most regular and uniform of any in the University." It is the best specimen of that late Gothic style which makes the charm of Oxford, and which Mr Jackson has helped to preserve by his work there ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... is a singularly elusive thing, and I doubt if anyone alive can explain it; but its elusiveness gives it something of its charm; and, moreover, the illustrations which are necessary to an inquiry into its nature, its scope and meaning, are apt to be amusing ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... sentence or perish in the attempt. "Eyes blue as the summer skies, and a skin of snow and roses. She has a timorous, shrinking nature, and prefers a milk-white charger to her sister's untamed steed. Evangeline, the third, has tawny locks and a dimpling smile, and makes up by charm of manner for what she lacks in regular beauty. ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... novel into a melange of family biographies; yet the author has been successful in weaving into his chapters some of the beauty and magic of his native land, lovely and forbidding by turns, and the charm and simplicity of its people. So when he makes Ormarr Orlygsson fling away the strenuous work of ten years and a promising career as a great violinist to return to a pastoral life on his father's Iceland estates, the step seems neither strange nor unnatural. So with the perfectly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 1, 1920 • Various
... join our party? There used to be no need to haul him in our wake, for he would march at our head singing the verses of Phrynichus; he was a lover of singing. Should we not, friends, make a halt here and sign to call him out? The charm of my voice will fetch him out, if ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... actor as Garrick, whose name when announced in the play-bill operated like a charm and drew multitudes to the theatre, of consequence considerably augmented the profits of the patentee. But at the time when all without doors was apparently gay and splendid, and the theatre of Drury Lane seemed to be in the most flourishing condition, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... of Victoria a wizard would sometimes get hold of a man's opossum rug and roast it slowly in the fire, and as he did so the owner of the rug would fall sick. If the wizard consented to undo the charm, he would give the rug back to the sick man's friends, bidding them put it in water, "so as to wash the fire out." When that happened, the sufferer would feel a refreshing coolness and probably recover. In Tanna, one of the New Hebrides, a man who had a grudge at another ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... ill-temper in the handsome, half-mocking, half-petulant face. With a strain of sourness in him Comus might have been leavened into something creative and masterful; fate had fashioned him with a certain whimsical charm, and left him all unequipped for the greater purposes of life. Perhaps no one would have called him a lovable character, but in many respects he was adorable; in all respects he ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... divine, was gathered in Miriam's heart till very soon its light began to shine through her eyes and face, making them ever more tender and beautiful. Nor did she lack charm and grace of person. From the first, in stature she was small and delicate, pale also in complexion; but her dark hair was plenteous and curling, and her eyes were large and of a deep and tender blue. Her hands ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... to me a sincere book. You have built your life on the lines there indicated. And there is a charm not merely in that sincerity but in the freedom of the life so built. I could not, for instance, follow my thoughts as you do. I do not call myself a coward for these limitations. I believe it to ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... Muhamed is led in. Krall, who is a little nervous, makes no secret of his uneasiness. His horses are fickle animals, uncertain, capricious and extremely sensitive. A trifle disturbs them, confuses them, puts them off. At such times, threats, prayers and even the irresistible charm of carrots and good rye-bread are useless. They obstinately refuse to do any work and they answer at random. Everything depends on a whim, the state of the weather, the morning meal or the impression which the visitor makes upon them. Still, Krall seems to know, by certain imperceptible ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... fond lover?" he says, lightly, laying his hand on Ulic's shoulder. The latter turns to him with a bright smile that renders his handsome face quite beautiful. Seeing its charm, Kelly asks himself, in half-angry fashion, how Olga can possibly hesitate for one moment between him and Rossmoyne. "But they are all ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... contains the following declarations among others of similar import. "I do not retain the smallest degree of that feeling which roused me fifteen years ago against some individuals. For the world contains no treasure, deception, or charm which can seduce me from the consolation of being in a state of good will towards all mankind; and I should not be mortified to ask pardon of any man with whom I have been at variance for any injury ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... are all the Muses' lays, And sweet the charm of matin bird; 'Twas long since these estranged ears The sweeter ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... inexplicable. He did not understand himself, and he looked down at her again with a touch of impatience. She was very lovely, he thought, with a strange new appreciation of the beauty he had appropriated, and very womanly in the soft, clinging green dress. The slim, boyish figure that rode with him had a charm all its own, but it was the woman in her that sent the hot blood racing through his veins and made his heart beat as it was beating now. His eyes lingered a moment on her bright curls, on her dark-fringed, pleading eyes and on her ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... loveliness are no more than simple Berber girls, who, whilst doubtless dusky, and possibly maidenly as ever, have not inherited much of the storied beauty of their forbears. In spite of this modern perversion of the old tale I find that the oranges of the dining-table have a quite rare charm for me to-night,—such an attraction as they have had hitherto only when I have picked them in the gardens of Andalusia, or in the groves that perfume the ancient town of Jaffa at the far eastern end of the Mediterranean. Now I have one more impression to cherish, and the ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... a half-hour's interval of play, and then the class of French literature from four till dinner-time at six—a class that was more than endurable on account of the liveliness and charm of Monsieur Durosier, who journeyed all the way from the College de France every Saturday afternoon in June and July to tell us boys of the quatrieme all about Villon and Ronsard, and Marot and Charles d'Orleans (exceptis excipiendis, ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... station in the scale of literary merit permanently established. They have outlasted generations of works of higher power and wider scope, and will continue to outlast succeeding generations, for they have that magic charm of style by which works are embalmed to perpetuity. Neither shall we attempt a regular analysis of the character of the poet, but will indulge in a few desultory remarks in addition to those scattered throughout the ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... life of a peasant! And my wife——You do not know the distinguished delicacy of my wife, a refined helplessness, a peculiar dependent charm. Like some slender tropical creeper—with great white flowers.... But all this is foolish talk. It is impossible that Paris, which has survived so many misfortunes, ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... which the latest of our royal visitors inspires is deeper and more universal than that prompted by the charm and the misfortunes of her namesake. MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS, as the evidence of contemporary portraits conclusively establishes, was not conspicuous for her personal beauty. In the "Queen business" ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 30th, 1920 • Various
... without a word obeyed. His voice, the motion of his clean-cut mouth, the searching glance of his quick, keen eyes, acted upon her like a charm. Alice—Wolf—every thing else in the world vanished from her thoughts, or rather had never been there. She was drinking again the forbidden waters for which she had thirsted, perhaps without quite knowing it, so long. The strangeness, ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... long, the warm, warbling persuasiveness of the pleasant, holiday weather we came to, seemed gradually to charm him from his mood. For, as when the red-cheeked, dancing girls, April and May, trip home to the wintry, misanthropic woods; even the barest, ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth some few green sprouts, to welcome such glad-hearted visitants; so Ahab did, in ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... lower New York bay till the breeze leaves her becalmed off the coast of Florida, one can almost hear the whistle of the wind through her rigging, the creak of her straining cordage as she heels to the leeward. The adventures of Ben Clark, the hero of the story and Jake the cook, cannot fail to charm the reader. As a writer for young people Mr. Otis ...
— Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World • Horatio Alger
... about the same time, and found our host and hostess full of quiet cordiality, to which their homeliness lent an additional charm. The relation of host and guest is weakened by every addition to a company, and in a large assembly all but disappears. Indeed, the tendency of the present age is to blot from the story of every-day life all reminders of the ordinary ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... macaroni, as the P.M.G. chef remarks in an inspired passage, is delicious if properly prepared with hot milk and quickly fried in hot fat. But, on the other hand, if treated with spermaceti or train-oil it loses much of its peninsular charm. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 15, 1919 • Various
... too heavy as these might have been for another, we can conceive of none too hard for the magnetic tact and intuitive delicacy of Shakespeare's judgment and instinct. But it must fairly and honestly be admitted that in this scene we find as little of the charm and humour inseparable from the prince as of the courtesy and dignity to be expected from ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... never seemed to know that she had done anything brave in defending him against all odds. Bab did not tell any one how she felt, but endeavored to be amiable while waiting for her chance to come, and when it did arrive made the most of it, though there was nothing heroic to add a charm. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... might regale them with a bowl of such liquor as I ventured to say had never passed their lips in this life. On this he went to the side, and, hailing the men, ordered all but one to step aboard and drink to the health of the lonesome sailor they had come across. The word "drink" acted like a charm; they instantly hauled upon the painter and brought the boat to the chains and tumbled over the side, one of the negroes remaining in her. They fell together in a body, and surveyed me and the ship with ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... begins "The Master" will find a charm which will lure him through adventures which are lifelike and full of human interest.... A strong and ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... was a certain fascination about telegraphy. But she had a presentiment that in time the charm would give place to monotony, more especially as, beyond a certain point, there was positively no advancement in the profession. Although knowing she could not be content to always be merely a telegraph operator, she resolved to like it as well and as long as she ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... bewildering than mere color, that Garnier, all devoted eyes and courteous blandishment, broke out: "But this curse must fall harmlessly before the incarnation of blessing; Miss Saltonstall has no more to fear than the angels. She is the one predestined through her charm, through her goodness, to lift ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... opposite quality to breadth, that of division or scattering of light and color, has a certain contrasting charm, and is occasionally introduced with exquisite effect by good composers.[70] Still it is never the mere scattering, but the order discernible through this scattering, which is the real source of pleasure; not the mere multitude, but the constellation ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... A charm like that, she gave me to understand, I must by hook or by crook obtain. She had not a second. None of her people in the camp over there possessed one. I am ashamed to confess that I actually paid her a pound for this brass pin! The purchase was ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... certainly Mrs. Stuart Boyd has deserved well of her country. To read her book is to conceive an insensate desire to be off and away on 'the long trail' at all hazards and at all costs.... Mr. Boyd's illustrations add greatly to the interest and charm of the book. There is movement, ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... the gallant Captain Rock, "as the free confession of weakness constitutes the chief charm and use of biography, I will candidly own that the dawn of prosperity and concord which I now saw breaking over the fortunes of my country, so dazzled and deceived my youthful eyes, and so unsettled every hereditary notion of what I owed to my name and family, that—shall ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... bows were considered to be too stiff, he replied: "Would it not have been better to throw the veil of charity over them, ascribing their stiffness to the effects of age, or to the unskillfulness of my teacher, rather than to pride and dignity of office, which God knows has no charm for me?" Washington bore with remarkable humility the criticisms of his ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... a fool the writer must have been to talk of L. D. in the letter, when the outside cover was plainly addressed to Miss Lilian Dale! But there are some people for whom the pretended mystery of initial letters has a charm, and who love the darkness of anonymous letters. As Lily thought of this, she stamped on the letter again. Who was the M. D. to whom she was required to send an answer—with whom John Eames corresponded in the most affectionate terms? She had resolved not even to ask ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... real tales of greater distress, and met suspicion that all was a cheat halfway; but the acknowledged fictitious they yield to at once their whole hearts, throwing to the winds their beggarly stint. Never was there a writer that possessed to so great a degree as did Goldsmith this wondrous charm; and in him it is the more delightful in the light and pleasant allegria with which he works off the feeling. The volume is full of subjects that so move; and in this respect it is most admirable for illustration, inviting ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... striking and endearing charm about the Cuban ladies, their every motion being replete with a native grace. Every limb is elastic and supple. Their voices are sweet and low, while the subdued tone of their complexions is relieved by the arch vivacity of night-black eyes, that alternately swim in melting lustre, and sparkle ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... come whisperin' on the pane, The charm makes blazin' logs so pleasant, But I can't hark to wut they're say'n', With Grant or Sherman ollers present; The chimbleys shudder in the gale, 85 Thet lulls, then suddin takes to flappin' Like a shot hawk, but all's ez stale To me ez so ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... lovers sit in state together, As they were giving laws to half mankind! The impression of a smile, left in her face, Shows she died pleased with him for whom she lived. And went to charm him in another Caesar's just entering: grief has now no leisure. Secure that villain, as our pledge of safety, To grace the imperial triumph.—Sleep, blest pair, Secure from human chance, long ages out, While all the storms of fate fly o'er ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... Halifax, 1829), the earliest general history of the province, based on but slight knowledge of the sources. Beamish Murdoch, 'A History of Nova Scotia' (3 vols., Halifax, 1865-1867), fuller and more accurate than Haliburton, but having less charm of style. Francis Parkman, 'France and England in North America' (9 vols., Boston, 1865-1892, and later editions). The chapters on Acadia are scattered through several volumes of this valuable series: see the volumes entitled 'Pioneers of France, The Old Regime, A Half-Century of Conflict', ...
— The Acadian Exiles - A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline • Arthur G. Doughty
... tastes—in fact, it follows instinctively the canon of truth of eternal popular sensualism. What is clear, what is "explained"? Only that which can be seen and felt—one must pursue every problem thus far. Obversely, however, the charm of the Platonic mode of thought, which was an ARISTOCRATIC mode, consisted precisely in RESISTANCE to obvious sense-evidence—perhaps among men who enjoyed even stronger and more fastidious senses than our contemporaries, but who knew how to find a higher ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... The original of this heathen charm is in the Old High German dialect; but it is quoted here as a good specimen of the early form of alliterative verse. A similar charm undoubtedly existed in Anglo-Saxon, though no copy of it has come down to our days, as ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... resolved not to sell his vengeance for bread, cold ham, and a pickle, and yet it must be known that the sight of them affected him powerfully. The pickle in particular was notable for its seductive charm. He surveyed ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... self-consciousness and fear through mastery of manners and customs. It has been written by one who has not sacrificed the strength and honesty of her pioneer girlhood, but who added to these qualities that graciousness and charm which have given her ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown
... to humanize the animals. What he aimed mainly to do was to invest his account of them with literary charm, not by imputing to them impossible things, but by describing them in a way impossible to a less poetic nature. The novel and the surprising are not in the act of the bird or beast itself, but in Thoreau's way of telling what it did. To draw upon ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... gave a fresh charm to the whole apartment, while the sunlight falling through it served also to reveal other beauties which I had not observed. One that quickly drew and absorbed my attention was a piece of statuary on the floor at ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... with all the tenderness of a modest student, by the side of one of the tinsel class, and observe the ultimate effect. The former will gradually win your admiration, and continue to arouse pleasing reminiscences; the latter will finally lose its charm, and be regarded with something of the feeling with which one looks upon the ornamental paper of a room. We have had many exhibitions of single large pictures, such as DUBUFE'S 'Don Juan,' which have produced ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... little singular when it is remembered how difficult it is to convey the broken Indian language to a French reader. This is one of the best features of Cooper's novels—the striking manner in which he portrays the language of the North American Indian and his idiomatic expressions. Yet such is the charm of his stories that they have found their way over Europe. The translations into the French ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... Colds. Borax for Cold Settled in Throat. "For a cold in the throat, dissolve a piece of borax, the size of a pea, in the mouth and don't talk. It will work like a charm." This is an old and well tried remedy and is very good for colds or sore throat. It acts by contracting the tissues and in that way there is ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... the first been toward Racey Dawson), and Racey perceived the cold and Roman profile of a long-jawed head. Then the man turned full in his direction and behold, the hard features vanished, and the man displayed a good-looking countenance of singular charm. The chin was a thought too wide and heavy, a trait it shared in common with the mouth, but otherwise the stranger's full face would have found favour in the eyes of almost any ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... Lonesome Tunes from the Kentucky Mountains, taken down by Miss Lorraine Wyman and Mr. Howard Brockway directly from the mountaineers and other dwellers in that region. These melodies have great individuality, directness and no little poetic charm. It is certainly encouraging to feel that, in this industrial age, there are still places where people express their emotions and ideals in song; for a nation that has not learned to sing—or has forgotten how—can never create music ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... methods of working as they are interesting. The only things they have in common are their profession and their appetites. As individuals they are ugly, unattractive and apparently void of personality and charm. Nevertheless, they have an important part to play in the scheme ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... may defy the world for a man she loves, and imagine that he will love her for the sacrifice, but no greater mistake can be made. Men are not so constituted. When he sees her standing alone, dishonored, a mark for the finger of scorn, her charm for ...
— Wise or Otherwise • Lydia Leavitt
... 'Two Little Waifs' will charm all the small people who find it in their stockings. It relates the adventures of two lovable English children lost in Paris, and is just wonderful enough to pleasantly wring the ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... wanted to know, first of all, where Dorothy had found the Patchwork Girl, so between them the visitors told the story of how Scraps was made, as well as the accident to Margolotte and Unc Nunkie and how Ojo had set out upon a journey to procure the things needed for the Crooked Magician's magic charm. Then Dorothy told of their adventures in the Quadling Country and how at last they succeeded in getting the ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... Men and women wear showy costumes, quite barbaric and uncomfortable. The women seem determined to wear as few garments as possible, and to compensate for lack of number by brightness of coloring. In many a pretty face traces of gypsy blood may be seen. This vagabond taint gives an inexpressible charm to a face for which the Hungarian strain has already done much. The coal-black hair and wild, mutinous eyes set off to perfection the pale face and exquisitely thin lips, the delicate nostrils and beautifully moulded chin. Angel or ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... two last-named writers was English by descent, they were both so by adoption, and the same may be said of the next author, Farquhar, who was born at Londonderry in 1678, but whose Irish characters want the charm of the pure national comicality. He was the son of a clergyman who sent him to the University, but his taste being averse to the prescribed course of study, he left it, and became an actor. Want of voice soon excluded him from the stage, and he entered the army—a profession which we might ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... humor," he would say. "Season it with wit, and sprinkle it all over with the charm of good-fellowship, but never poison it with the cares of yo' life. It is an insult to yo' digestion, besides bein', suh, ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... uninteresting to add to the records of the "Snail-charm" (Vol. iii, p. 132.), that in the south of Ireland, also, the same charm, with a more fanciful and less threatening burden, was used amongst us children to win from its reserve the startled and offended ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 71, March 8, 1851 • Various
... dazzling innovator that he might be thought. Why, even at the moment that Mr. OXENHAM was serving up Miss CHASE on toast, but always, of course, with perfect taste, Miss CHASE was performing the same culinary business for him. For her next novel, to be entitled with great charm My Gentleman of the Cheek, will present a faithful picture of the gifted JOHN and the figure he cut on Dartymoor all among the thikkies and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 15, 1916 • Various
... separate members of the family, is always welcome. The collection of "Famous Songs," edited by Winton James Baltzell, is skillfully assembled from the best song-books available, and it also contains many pieces of unusual charm not so generally known. The songs for little children, for instance, are based upon a list approved by our leading kindergartners. A novel feature is that not only are the songs within range of children's voices, but many of them ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... her own peculiar charm of style and simple, subtle character-painting comes her new gift, the delightful story before us. The scene mostly lies in the moors, and at the touch of the authoress a Scotch moor becomes a living thing, strong, tender, beautiful, and ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow
... Realidad, and as in Tristn, we are shown a husband who pardons. But here the treatment of the theme lacks vitality, and the abstract idea is not beautified by the veil of poetry which gives charm to Los condenados, Alma y vida, and ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... We are in a new world of vegetation here, within a degree of the Equator; but, rich as it is, there is still a feeling of disappointment because it is all green—no bright hues, no coloring, such as gives Florida its charm, or lends to an American forest in autumn its unrivalled glory! It is always summer, and the moisture of the tropics keeps everything green. There is another cause of disappointment to one accustomed to the ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... centuries in refining the population, the finest specimens of the young students proving irresistible to the women of the people, and so raising the level of the population by sexual selection. At Salamanca I was impressed by the unusual charm of the women, and even at Palencia to some extent noticed it, though Palencia ceased to be the great university of Spain nearly eight centuries ago. At Fecamp I have been struck by the occasional occurrence of an unusual type of feminine beauty, not, ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... Fog and Fate no charm is found To lighten or amend. I, hurrying to my bride, was drowned— Cut down by ...
— The Years Between • Rudyard Kipling
... moist airs of Puget Sound can produce, a young woman sat in her drawing-room regarding a letter she had just read with a highly dissatisfied air. It was a pretty little room, not rich nor fussy, but expressing the charm of an individual woman no less than the clothes ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... she withdraws it, how she allows the softer feelings of her woman's nature to shake her firmness; her opponent is ever watchful, and should she allow the faintest gleam of hope to enter his bosom, the potent charm is broken. Thus, in the bright dignity of her nature, stood ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... with the charm which never failed him, and in his time won more foes than his sword ever conquered, the King drew me into my room, where I found De Vic, Vitry, Roquelaure, and the rest. They all laughed heartily at my surprise; nor was ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... finish the front room, lending his own hand to the work. Then he used to get letters at every port, telling of progress,—how Lizzie, his wife, had adorned the front room with a bright ninepenny paper, of which a little piece was enclosed,—which he kept as a sort of charm about him and exhibited to his friends; how she and her little brother had lathed the entry and the kitchen, and how they had set out blackberry vines from the woods. Then another letter told of a surprise awaiting him on his return; and, in due time, coming home as third mate ...
— Eli - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... nor her accent betrayed the slightest trace of foreign blood. She was, without a doubt, extraordinarily attractive, gracious almost to freedom in her manner, and yet with that peculiar quality of aloofness only recognisable in the elect,—a very appreciable charm. Julian found his undoubted admiration only increased by his closer scrutiny. Nevertheless, as he watched her, there was a slightly puzzled frown upon his forehead, a sense of something like bewilderment mingled with those other feelings. ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Well-chosen paper (See Chapter II) often improves a badly proportioned room by optical illusion. The ideal lightings for dining rooms are side lights. Dining-room drop lights or domes are very trying to the eyes of those who dine, and are unbecoming. Side lights (adding candles for grace and charm) are far pleasanter to the eyes ...
— Prepare and Serve a Meal and Interior Decoration • Lillian B. Lansdown
... presence, except a slight movement, and then a shiver amongst the frost-bitten boughs above the rocks. He had not power to bethink him of his Paternosters and Ave Marias, which, doubtless, would have dissolved the impious charm. Ralph had so neglected these ordinances that his tongue refused to repeat the usual nostrums for protection against evil spirits. His creed was nigh forgotten, and his "salve" was not heard. Whilst he was pondering on this occurrence, there started through a crevice a single light, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... which this event took place, the strapping young man and the little active youth sat together at the open window of a comfortable though small parlour, enjoying a cup of tea. The view from the window was limited, but it possessed the charm of variety; commanding as it did, a vista of chimney-pots of every shape and form conceivable—many of which were capped with those multiform and hideous contrivances, with which foolish man ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... drawing, say of a strong man, we seem to identify ourselves with it and feel a thrill of its strength in our own bodies, prompting us to set our teeth, stiffen our frame, and exclaim "That's fine." Or, when looking at the drawing of a beautiful woman, we are softened by its charm and feel in ourselves something of its sweetness as we exclaim, "How beautiful." The measure of the feeling in either case will be the extent to which the artist has identified himself with the subject when making the drawing, and has been impelled ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... few days' absence so profoundly move these delicate, emotional creatures, whom an all-wise Providence had made almost too susceptible to masculine charm! He had never seen Fay like this. But then, he had never seen anything like anything. She withdrew herself suddenly, and stood a little apart, her face and neck one ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... on the side and drawn over the skull; her figure was delicate and sprightly as ever. Esther noticed all this, and Mrs. Barfield noticed that Esther had grown stouter. Her face was still pleasant to see, for it kept that look of blunt, honest nature which had always been its charm. She was now the thick-set working woman of forty, and she stood holding the hem of her jacket in ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... honour in its tenderest and most vital interests, the other telling her, through the liveliest language of animal sensibility, and through the very pulses of her blood, that she is herself a child; this collision gives an inexpressible charm to the whole demeanour of many a young married woman, making her other fascinations more touching to her husband, and deepening the admiration she excites; and the more so, as it is a collision which cannot exist ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... very beautiful place. The country about it has all the charm of river scenery in a settled and ancient land, and the great castle and piled town of Wetmore, cliffs of battlemented grey wall rising above a dense cluster of red roofs, form the background to innumerable gracious prospects of ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... or almost, a million of our francs. In his party the Bishop of Arezzo, Gentile, who had once been Lorenzo dei Medici's tutor, was elected as second ambassador, and it was his duty to speak. Now Gentile, who had prepared his speech, counted on his eloquence to charm the ear quite as much as Piero counted on his riches to dazzle the eye. But the eloquence of Gentile would be lost completely if nobody was to speak but the ambassador of the King of Naples; and the magnificence of Piero dei Medici would never be noticed at all if he went to Rome mixed ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a charm," was the reply. "I shall soon expect you boys to take your turn at guiding the ...
— Through Space to Mars • Roy Rockwood
... various works of benevolence, and watched with intelligent attention the course of science, literature, and religion; and the versatility and activity of her mind, the flow of brilliant and penetrating thought on all the topics of the day, gave to the conversations of her retired room a peculiar charm. You forgot that she was an invalid; for she rarely had a word of her own personalities, and the charm of her conversation carried you invariably from herself to the subjects of which she was thinking. All the ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... beat him out of the field. Dr. Lana's social success was as rapid as his professional. A remarkable surgical cure in the case of the Hon. James Lowry, the second son of Lord Belton, was the means of introducing him to county society, where he became a favourite through the charm of his conversation and the elegance of his manners. An absence of antecedents and of relatives is sometimes an aid rather than an impediment to social advancement, and the distinguished individuality of the handsome ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of her ignorance and angularities there was a certain charm about the new-comer. When the sunburn caused by her sea-voyage had yielded to a course of treatment, it left her with a complexion which put even that of Stephanie Radford, the acknowledged school beauty, in the shade. The coral ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... perceptible signs, she set me weaving the fancy that she had always unconsciously loved me better than Alfred, but that, with the ignorant fluttered sensibility of a young girl, she had been imposed on by the charm that lay for her in the distinction of being admired and chosen by a man who made so brilliant a figure in the world as my brother. She satirized herself in a very graceful way for her vanity and ambition. What was it to me that I had the light of my wretched provision on the fact that ...
— The Lifted Veil • George Eliot
... let good-nature every charm exert, And while it mends it, win th' unfolding heart. Let moral mirth a face of triumph wear, Yet smile unconscious of th' extorted tear. See with what grace instructive satire flows, Politely keen, in Olio's numbered ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... to Lucia Catherwood in the whole course of the evening, but now he sought her. Some of the charm which Mrs. Markham so lately had for him was passing; in the presence of Lucia she seemed less fair, less winning, less true. His own conduct appeared to him in another light, and he would turn aside from his vagrant fancy to the one ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... himself was far from unattractive. Raised in Virginia, he possessed that unconscious charm of the Southerner that is always particularly pleasing to women. He drawled his words, dropping his "r's"; and he had a little habit of smiling at the end of his remarks. Like Ruth, however, Harold Mason was an only child; and, like her, he was ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... him, madame, you must have courage enough to lose no time in dressing. But, indeed, Madame la Duchesse, you could not look more charming than you do at this moment. You are sweet enough to charm anybody, take an old woman's word for it! In short, madame, do not wait for your carriage, but get into my hackney coach. Come to Madame de Serizy's if you hope to avert worse misfortunes than ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... woman who kept a lodging-house with such devotion that it was like a work of art. Its purity and freshness, its warmth and light had a charm beyond that of comfort. Such work is to be done, and it is not often done well, because the woman who does it is below rather than above her task. "Let the great soul incarnated in some woman's form, poor and sad and single, ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... sir," answered Malcolm, and went to find Miss Horn. He was shown into the little parlour, which, for all the grander things he had been amongst of late, had lost nothing of its first charm. There ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... never for one moment hesitated to confide in Monsieur Darzac. She showed him the letter in which Jean Roussel asked her to recall the first hours of their union in their beautiful and charming Louisville home. "The presbytery has lost nothing of its charm, nor the garden its brightness," he had written. The scoundrel pretended to be rich and claimed the right of taking her back to Louisville. She had told Darzac that if her father should know of her dishonour, she would kill herself. Monsieur Darzac had sworn to silence her persecutor, ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... the scared and hurried ilex woods, and the sea-wind spares them and breaks upon the mountain. But the garden also is his, and his wild warm days have filled it with orange-trees and roses, and have given all the abundant charm to its gay neglect, to its grass-grown terraces, and to all its lapsed, forsaken, ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... evening boat for Clayton there was not a more miserable man in all the whole wide world than Hubert Varrick. He paced the deck moodily. The thousands of little green islands upon which the search-light flashed so continuously, had little charm for him. Suddenly as the light turned its full glare upon a small island midway up the stream, rendering each object upon it as clearly visible as though it were noonday, under the strong light Hubert Varrick's ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... this obscurity in the nature of possession of currency, there is a charm in the seclusion of it, which is to some people very enticing. In the enjoyment of real property, others must partly share. The groom has some enjoyment of the stud, and the gardener of the garden; but the money is, or seems, shut ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... Cobham Park. The green woods and green shades of Cobham would recur to his memory even in far-off Lausanne, and the last walk that he ever enjoyed—on the day before his fatal seizure—was through these woods, the charm of which cannot be better defined than in ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... suggesting that expression of countenance, at once so earnest and so monotonous—by what manner of feeling those gestures, so uniformly firm and deliberate were prompted—whence the constant traces of fatigue on those overhanging brows and on that athletic though ungraceful figure—what might be the charm which excited amongst his chosen circle a faith approaching to superstition, and a love rising to enthusiasm, towards a man whose demeanour was so inanimate, if not austere:—it was a riddle of which neither Gall nor Lavater could have ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... a sympathetic editorial on her public and personal life. Telegrams were received at her home from all parts of the world and the letters were almost beyond counting. Friend and foe alike yielded to the unsurpassed charm of her personality and the rare qualities of her ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... luxuriousness of her saloon, whereas the Ganymede was fitted out mainly for cattle transport, and to be avoided by coastwise passengers. The humblest Indian in the obscurest village on the coast was familiar with the Cerberus, a little black puffer without charm or living accommodation to speak of, whose mission was to creep inshore along the wooded beaches close to mighty ugly rocks, stopping obligingly before every cluster of huts to collect produce, down to three-pound parcels ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... a moment or so, gazing on his son with a strange bewildered marvel at the strength of that mystic passion, which none not labouring under its fearful charm can comprehend, which creates the sudden idol that no reason justifies, and sacrifices to its fatal shrine alike the Past and the Future. Not trusting himself to speak, the father drew his hand across his eyes, and dashed away ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... called Animism. This class of divinities corresponds rather to the Roman dii genitales than to the Greek (Greek daemones). Suijin-Sarna, the God of Wells; Kojin, the God of the Cooking-range (in almost every kitchen there is either a tiny shrine for him, or a written charm bearing his name); the gods of the Cauldron and Saucepan, Kudo-no-Kami and Kobe-no-Kami (anciently called Okitsuhiko and Okitsuhime); the Master of Ponds, Ike-no-Nushi, [130] supposed to make apparition in the form of a serpent; the Goddess of the Rice-pot, O-Kama-Sama; ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... is held by some authorities to come from gru-gru, a Mandingo word for charm, but I respectfully question whether gru-gru has not come from ju-ju, the native approximation to ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... worms, what have you presumed to do? How did you learn to break my charm in this manner? Who bid ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... plum pudding. A solid page of printed matter is distasteful to the reader; it taxes the eye and tends towards the weariness of monotony, but when it is broken up into sections it loses much of its heaviness and the consequent lightness gives it charm, as it were, to capture ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... liked the man at Number Nine, But now my breast is bursting with its wrongs, For when we had a few old friends to dine And crowned our feasting with some gentle songs, Instead of simply drinking in the glamour, The charm of it, he had the cheek to hammer The party-wall with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 5, 1917 • Various
... better chance of feasting upon the privacy of the room's adorable and mysterious mistress. Cassandra adored her cousin; the adoration might have been foolish, but was saved from that excess and lent an engaging charm by the volatile nature of Cassandra's temperament. She had adored a great many things and people in the course of twenty-two years; she had been alternately the pride and the desperation of her teachers. She had worshipped architecture and music, natural history and humanity, ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... the sea is deserted, one must not give up observing it to the extreme limits of the horizon. Monotonous as it may appear to heedless minds, it is none the less infinitely varied for him who knows how to comprehend it. Its slightest changes charm the imagination of one who feels the poetry of the ocean. A marine herb which floats up and down on the waves, a branch of sargasso whose light track zebras, the surface of the waters, and end of a board, ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... radiant sunsets at home, which I love; but they're not startlingly magnificent as in America, where all things—even cloud effects—are managed on such a sensational scale. I saw some skies to remember, in Newport, though never one like this; but perhaps the magical charm of it was partly dependent on ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson |
