"Magic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lawyers understand the art of "cramming" better than any other persons in the world. Why should not this young man be working up the picturesque in this romantic region to serve as a background for some story with magic, perhaps, and mysticism, and hints borrowed from science, and all sorts of out-of-the-way knowledge which his odd and miscellaneous selection of books furnished him? That might be, or possibly he was only reading for ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... raised the glass, and decided, doubtless, by the delicious smell and the beautiful rose color which those few drops had given to the champagne, he swallowed the magic liquor. In an instant a kind of shiver ran through him; he seemed to feel all his old and sluggish blood rushing quickly through his veins, from his heart to his feet, his wrinkled skin seemed to expand, his eyes, half covered by their lids, appeared to open without his will, and the pupils ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... peering and inquiring glance; and, indeed, once or twice I did turn, expecting to see somebody whom I knew, yet always without success; though it appeared to me that I was but a moment too late, and that some one had just slipped away from the direction to which I turned, like the figure in a magic lanthorn. Once I was quite sure that there were a pair of eyes glaring over my right shoulder; my attention, however, was so fully occupied with the objects which I have attempted to describe, that ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... almost direct contrast. Mr. Orage looks down from the height, not of philosophic doubt, but of philosophic certainty (where he alone feels happy) upon the petty house of party politics, and seeks, by the magic music of his words and phrases, so to move and draw after him the sand of human nature on which that house is built, that it may no longer stand but fall and be banished utterly. Mr. Cecil Chesterton, on the other hand, only happy in the role of ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... cart, to spend the day in some picturesque place, where he could sketch or paint. We had our provisions with us, and both lunched and dined on the grass under the fine chestnuts or oaks, so numerous in the Morvan, by the side of a clear stream or rivulet; for running water had a sort of magic influence upon Gilbert, and instinctively, when unwell from nervous exhaustion, he sought its soothing influence. We generally rambled about the country after each meal, and whilst he drew I read to him, leaving the children to their play, under the ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... the sacred city, and the first half of the work had been completed. The results had been very satisfactory, and our boxes contained five hundred specimens; but our hearts were sad. The wide sweep of the limitless, grassy sea, the glorious morning rides, and the magic of the starlit nights had filled our blood. Even the lure of the unknown forests could not make us glad to go, for the plains had ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... as well as those that have ascribed all things to their own prudence, and by various arts have raised themselves to honors and have acquired wealth, in the other life devote themselves to the study of magic arts, which are abuses of Divine order, and find in these the chief delight of life. [4] Those that have adapted Divine truths to their own loves, and thereby have falsified them, love urinous things ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... homely, virtuous feeling, a disinterested regard for truth, a blunt yet tender honesty, seasoned with a few amiable fireside prejudices, which always come home to the hearts of your fathers of families and thorough-bred Britons; versed in all the niceties of language, and the magic of names; if he were defending crime, carefully calling it misfortune; if attacking misfortune, constantly calling it crime,—Mr. Dyebright was exactly the man born to pervert justice, to tickle jurors, to cozen truth with ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the phrase which echoes, with some variation, a phrase or line already used. In such poems as "To Helen," "Israfel," "The Haunted Palace," "Annabel Lee," the theme, the tone, the melody all weave their magic spell; it is like listening to a ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... had no shoes; his feet were bare, red, and swollen, and when he walked he limped with both legs. As to clothing—ah, you would hardly have had the skill to name any single garment that he wore, or say by what magic he kept it upon him. That he was cold all over and all through did not admit of a doubt; he knew it himself. Anyone would have been cold there that evening; but, for that reason, no one else was there. How Jo came to be there himself, he could not for the ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... me his breadth of back, and then again was performed for me the feature of which I had heard so much and which has made the swordfish the most famous of all fish—he rose two-thirds out of the water, I suppose by reason of the enormous power of his tail, though it seemed like magic, and then he began to walk across the sea in a great circle of white foam, wagging his massive head, sword flying, jaws wide, dorsal fin savagely erect, like a lion's mane. He was magnificent. I have never seen fury so expressed or such an unquenchable spirit. Then ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... battle in the sky was repeated in the sea-like river with all of the added magic of the current and the eddies and the wimpling ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... constant habit; it has happened a hundred times since, and a thousand before. I lived on her caresses as my daily food, nor can I live without them." So I told him the whole story, "what conjurations, and what mighty magic I won his daughter with," to be anything but MINE FOR LIFE. Nothing could well exceed his astonishment and apparent mortification. "What I had said," he owned, "had left a weight upon his mind that he should not easily get rid of." ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... succeeded each other rapidly. That beautiful Milky Way, which has for ages been the object of admiration to all lovers of nature, never disclosed its true nature to the eye of man till the astronomer of Padua turned on it his magic tube. The splendid zone of silvery light was then displayed as star-dust scattered over the black background of the sky. It was observed that though the individual stars were too small to be seen severally ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... a cow milked before, and stood watching the white streams which filled the foaming pail, as if Mr. Alder were a fairy. It seemed like magic. ...
— Clematis • Bertha B. Cobb
... composed," says Alison, the distinguished historian of modern Europe, "during, or shortly after, the French Revolution; and it was mainly intended to counteract the visionary ideas in regard to the blessings of Grecian democracy, which had spread so far in the world, from the magic of Athenian genius." Says Chancellor Kent: "Mitford does not scruple to tell the truth, and the whole truth, and to paint the stormy democracies of Greece in all their grandeur and in all their wretchedness." ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... hour, Helen's roving eyes were everywhere, taking note of the things from near to far—the scant sage that soon gave place to as scanty a grass, and the dark blots that proved to be dwarf cedars, and the ravines opening out as if by magic from what had appeared level ground, to wind away widening between gray stone walls, and farther on, patches of lonely pine-trees, two and three together, and then a straggling clump of yellow aspens, and ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... suppose that I believe that the days of magic have returned. This commission, both Constance and myself feel, that is, we are certain, that you are at the bottom of it all. The commission is purchased. I could not expect the Duke, deeply as I feel his generous kindness, to purchase a commission for my son: I could not permit it. ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... pain he suffered. I do not know what magic medicine gave him the strength to smile at us, dying as he was ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... magic carpet of the Eastern story, carried him back to a rambling old grey mansion, clothed with a great magnolia and many roses, standing in old-time gardens, and shrubberies of laurel and ilex and Spanish chestnut, and ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Burris said. "Lately, you've been acting as though magic were loose in the world. As though nothing ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... huge green fierce snake bars the way!" "I see no X here" (for some noun X). "You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike." "You are in a little maze of twisty passages, all different." The 'magic words' {xyzzy} and {plugh} also ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... wanted to provoke excitement or astonish the multitude, but because she had succeeded eminently in leading her own life according to her own lights. The terror of appearing inconsistent excited her scorn. Appearances never troubled that unashamed soul. This is the magic, the peculiar fascination of her books. We find ourselves in the presence of a freshness, a primeval vigour which produces actually the effect of seeing new scenes, of facing a fresh climate. Her love of the ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... stop before the movable stall of an astrologer, who has surmounted it with an owl, as an emblem of his magic wisdom. Many of them take this animal for a curiosity imported from foreign countries; for they are seldom able to distinguish a ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... the craft and duplicity of the Stadtholder; but if ever a French philosopher and a French grisette masqueraded as a Dutch horticulturist and a Frisian waiting-maid they are Cornelius van Baerle and his Rosa; and if ever a tulip grew by magic rather than by the laws of nature it was the tulipe noire. No matter; there is but one Dumas. According to Flotow the composer, William III. of Holland told Dumas the story of the black tulip at his coronation in 1849, remarking that it was time that the novelist turned his attention ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... Siva. In this cult the various forces of nature are deified under separate personalities, which are known as the divine mothers or Matrigan. The ritual to be observed, the sacrifices to be offered, and the mantras or magic texts to be uttered, in order to secure the efficacy of the worship and to procure the fulfilment of the worshipper's desire, are laid down in a series of religious writings known as Tantras. The cult is supposed to have originated in East ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... forget the sensations of awe, horror, and admiration with which I gazed about me. The boat appeared to be hanging, as if by magic, midway down, upon the interior surface of a funnel vast in circumference, prodigious in depth, and whose perfectly smooth sides might have been mistaken for ebony, but for the bewildering rapidity with which they spun around, and for the gleaming and ghastly radiance ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Bretton listened, and waited an opening in the magic circle, his glance restlessly sweeping the room at intervals, lighted by chance on me, where I sat in a quiet nook not far from my godmother and M. de Bassompierre, who, as usual, were engaged in what Mr. Home called "a two-handed crack:" what the Count would have interpreted as a tete-a-tete. ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... out, or heavy ones coming in. At short intervals along the road are repair furnaces, and near them a truck or a gun carriage, or an ambulance that has turned out for slight repairs. In the village are great stores of gasoline and rubber, huge quantities of it assembled by some magic for the hour's ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... no weight in Italy. Pietro of Abano, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, is well known to have fallen a victim to the envy of another physician, who accused him before the Inquisition of heresy and magic; and something of the same kind may have happened in the case of his Paduan contemporary, Giovannino Sanguinacci, who was known as an innovator in medical practice. He escaped, however, with banishment. Nor ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... ordinary men as a traditional everyday rule; for this very reason military discipline, in which more than anywhere else law takes the form of habit, fetters every man not entirely self-reliant as with a magic spell. It has often been observed that the soldier, even where he has determined to refuse obedience to those set over him, involuntarily when that obedience is demanded resumes his place in the ranks. It was this feeling that made Lafayette and Dumouriez ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... sympathies that were at that time indescribably powerful in Rome, and above all in Flamininus himself. If the Romans are liable to any reproach, it is that all of them, and in particular Flamininus who overcame the well-founded scruples of the senate, were hindered by the magic charm of the Hellenic name from perceiving in all its extent the wretched character of the Greek states of that period, and so allowed yet further freedom for the doings of communities which, owing to the impotent antipathies ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Andreae, were part of a hoax designed perhaps originally as means of establishing a sort of charitable masonic society of social reformers. Missing that aim, the Rosicrucian story lived to be adorned by superstitious fancy, with ideas of mystery and magic, which in the Comte de Gabalis were methodized into a consistent romance. It was from this romance that Pope got what he called the Rosicrucian machinery of his Rape of the Lock. The Abbe de Villars, professing to give very full particulars, had told how ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... its mouth, and a wink of one eye, in order to give the impression that, after all, the crime and the punishment are neither of them the most serious things in the world. I could draw the sketch myself, if I had but the use of ———'s magic fingers. ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to be able to avert the anger of the gods by means of charms, of which she alone possessed the secret; and she drove a brisk trade, and made a fat livelihood out of it. But certain persons accused her of black magic and carried her before the judges, and demanded that she should be put to death for dealings with the Devil. She was found guilty and condemned to death: and one of the judges said to her as she was leaving the dock, "You say you can avert the anger of the gods. ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... a bawd aright, Give ear—there is an old trot Dipsas hight.[170] Her name comes from the thing: she being wise,[171] Sees not the morn on rosy horses rise, She magic arts and Thessal charms doth know, And makes large streams back to their fountains flow; She knows with grass, with threads on wrung[172] wheels spun, And what with mares' rank humour[173] may be done. When she will, cloudes the darkened ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... while working in the Castello dell'Uovo, taking pleasure in watching his pencil and listening to his discourse; 'and Giotto,' says Vasari, 'who had ever his repartee and bon-mot ready, held him there, fascinated at once with the magic of his pencil and pleasantry of his tongue.' We are not told the length of his sojourn at Naples, but it must have been for a considerable period, judging from the quantity of works he executed there. He had certainly returned to Florence in 1332." There he was immediately appointed "chief ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... reputation, and brought bad luck instead of good upon its wearer, Honor put it away in her drawer, with the resolve not to test its powers again until she was back in her own Emerald Isle, where, perhaps, it could exercise its magic more freely than in the land of ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... mushroom towns along the line of a new railroad, sprang up as if by magic, and in less than one month we had two hundred frame and log houses, three or four stores, several saloons, and one good hotel. Rome was looming up, and Rose and I already considered ourselves millionaires, and thought we "had the world ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... me to follow my good impulse—some unseen hand held me back—some mysterious influence kept me chained to the spot. We are influenced by magic, although magicians ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... house something to eat; for they were all living beings and might betray her. The broom, however, stood behind the door, so she did not notice it, and gave it nothing to eat. Then she took from the witch's chamber three magic balls of yarn, and fled with the prince. The witch had a little dog that loved the fair Angiola so dearly that ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... the Devon hills in wind and rain, drew into his lungs the fragrant breath of the moorland, and felt a better man. He sang as he walked—a great deep song that went echoing along the valleys. Space—space! There was the magic potion. What were Money, Success, Power, compared to the free delights ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... the gods, acknowledging they were beaten, were hospitably entertained. On the morrow they were escorted to the confines of Utgard, where the giant politely informed them that he hoped they would never call upon him again, as he had been forced to employ magic against them. He then went on to explain that he was the giant Skrymir, and that had he not taken the precaution to interpose a mountain between his head and Thor's blows, while he seemingly lay asleep, he would have been slain, as deep clefts in the mountain side, to which he pointed, ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... very sick she would sit down and pour forth a gossipy stream of talk for an hour, when, ten to one, every ailment would be forgotten. There was a charm in her tone, word, and manner that affected like magic. Of course, this woman had a drunken husband—such women always have that affliction. There were those, even in Windsor, who said they did not blame Mr. Moffat for taking to drink—if their wives were always from home, and the house ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... of power. It is a phantasm and a cheat. Men can do wonders through wine; through Tea they only think themselves great and clear—but that is enough if one has bound oneself to that strange idol and learnt the magic phrase on His Pedestal, [Greek: ARISTON MEN TI], for of all the illusions and dreams men cherish none is so grandiose as the illusion ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... city awakened by enchantment. Natives appeared upon all sides, hailing each other with the magic cry "Ehippy"—ship; the Queen stepped forth on her verandah, shading her eyes under a hand that was a miracle of the fine art of tattooing; the commandant broke from his domestic convicts and ran into the residency for his glass; the harbour-master, who was also the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dresses From the finest wool of lambkins, One thread only in thy weaving. "Hear thou what I now advise thee: Brew thy beer from early barley, From the barley's new-grown kernels, Brew it with the magic virtues, Malt it with the sweets of honey, Do not stir it with the birch-rod, Stir it with thy skilful fingers; When thou goest to the garners, Do not let the seed bring evil, Keep the dogs outside the brew-house, Have no fear of wolves in hunger, Nor the wild-beasts of the mountains, ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... back again to the boudoir. She looked very pretty and innocent, seated behind the graceful group of delicate opal china and glittering silver. Surely a pretty woman never looks prettier than when making tea. The most feminine and most domestic of all occupations imparts a magic harmony to her every movement, a witchery to her every glance. The floating mists from the boiling liquid in which she infuses the soothing herbs; whose secrets are known to her alone, envelope her in a cloud of scented vapor, through which she seems a social fairy, weaving potent spells with ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... rapt awe upon him. A spell held them fixed. The whole circle swayed in unison with his swaying form as he chanted the departed glories of those happy days when the red man roamed free those plains and woods, lord of his destiny and subject only to his own will. The mystic magic power of that rich resonant voice, its rhythmic cadence emphasized by the soft throbbing of the drum, the uplifted face glowing as with prophetic fire, the tall swaying form instinct with exalted emotion, swept the souls of his hearers with surging tides of passion. Cameron, though ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... startling abruptness in response to the upraised hand of a giant in khaki whose high-crowned sombrero and the brass letters on his shoulder-straps showed that he was a trooper of the Alberta Horse. On his arm was a red brassard bearing the magic letters M. ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... music of Wagner. Wagner had abused Meyerbeer for doing what he did himself—writing operas stuffed with spectacular effects. This man of the foot-lights destroyed all musical imagination with his puppet shows, magic lanterns, Turkish bazaars, where, to the booming of mystic bells, the listener was ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... confessed that she no longer wished to go into his presence without adding a little grace to her usually plain attire; and now that she was thinking so deeply of him she involuntarily raised her hand to adjust her coquettish nurse's cap, which by some feminine magic all her own she ever contrived to make a becoming head-dress rather than ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... the loud barking of dogs, while from the tepees appeared as if by magic, women and children, together with innumerable ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... casts it out, with its blindness and its terrors, and leaves the mind clear and free. All nature is then before us to study and enjoy. Truth shines on us with celestial light, Goodness smiles on our best endeavors, and Beauty thrills our senses and kindles our imagination with the subtle magic of ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... Wonderland" gave a new stimulus to children's literature, with its effective magic for youthful minds and its brilliant success among all classes of readers. "Davy the Goblin" is one of the many volumes which have been founded, so to say, on its idea and been carried along by its impulse. Thus little can be said for the actual originality ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... out, when too late, that they were unfitted for a life-long companionship. A journalist has said: "No lessons learned by experience, however sharply taught and sadly earned, can enlighten the numbed senses which love has sent to sleep by its magic fascination; and things as plain as the sun in heaven to others are dark as night, unfathomable as the sea, to those who let themselves ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... intent, to guard them during a period of danger (so in Celebes when a family moves into a new house). In Greenland, according to Cranz, a damaged soul might be repaired. Or the soul might be removed with evil intent by magic art—the result would be sickness or swoon; it was then incumbent on the sufferer or his friends to discover the hostile magician and counteract his work by stronger magic, or force him to restore the soul.[49] On the other hand, ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... reader, in fancy, accompany us to some thunder-splintered canyon of the great rock-ribbed Continental Divide, and when the shadows of night come walking along the mountains, seek one of these sequestered camps, take our place in the magic circle, and listen to wondrous tales as they are passed around. There is nothing to disturb the magnificent silence save an occasional soughing of the fitful breeze in the tops of the towering pines, or the gentle babbling of ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... cried he, "cork that magic bottle of yours, before all the oxygen-genii escape, or you'll have us both under the table! And, see here," he added, pulling out his check-book, while Flint stared in amazed disgust. "Here, take a blank check." He took his fountain pen and scrawled his name on one. "The amount? ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... now fixed on the head girl as she stood in the center of the platform, ringing the bell for silence. The clamor subsided as if by magic, and in the midst of a dead hush she began ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... obeyed with celerity, and as some rushed into the hall and dragged forth the squire, struggling, the scene was lighted by the blazing up of a bunch of hay, which had appeared as if by magic, and on which sticks of wood were quickly burning. Over the fire a pot, swung on a stick upheld by two men, was placed, telling a story of ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... prepared that morning to the strains of "Jesus, Lover of My Soul." Wade went out to the kitchen presently to wash hands and face at the sink and dry them on a roller towel, which Zephania whisked before him as if by magic. Watching her for a minute or two dispelled all doubts as to her ability. The way in which she broke the eggs and slipped them into the boiling water was a revelation of dexterity. And all the while she sang on uninterruptedly, joyously, like ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Louis pressed upon him the advantages to be derived from success, the oftener he sounded in his ears the magic words, "five hundred thousand francs," the more loudly did Raoul's conscience cry ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... in her life, and bearing the loveliest name ever given a woman—Mary." He further added that "God fashioned her heart to be gracious, her body to be the mother of children, and as her especial gift of Grace, he put Flower Magic into her fingers." Mary Stratton was the mother of twelve lusty babies, all of whom she reared past eight years of age, losing two a little over that, through an attack of scarlet fever with whooping cough; too ugly a combination for even such a wonderful mother as she. With ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... diligently; avoiding the muddy pools, but oblivious of the light which they reflect. "Eyes" takes the walk too: and for him it is a perpetual revelation of beauty and wonder. The sunlight inebriates him, the winds delight him, the very effort of the journey is a joy. Magic presences throng the roadside, or cry salutations to him from the hidden fields. The rich world through which he moves lies in the fore-ground of his consciousness; and it gives up new secrets to him at every step. "No-Eyes," ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... that no sooner he thinks of a certain deed than the same is accomplished; that an enemy, for instance, is actually harmed by merely wishing him harm. This mode of thinking forms the basis for many magic ceremonials. It is this latter mechanism,—i.e., the endowment of one's own thoughts with an omnipotent power,—which is also frequently illustrated in malingering. It is sufficient for the type of individual who malingers ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... You see on his canvas, to be sure, red, green, orange, and so on, the peculiar tints of the leaves; but Nature does more (and Cole does not): she blends the variegated hues into one bright mass of bewitching color by the magic of this soft, golden, hazy sunshine. I wish, too, that the great company of story-tellers would let scenery rest in peace. The charm of a landscape is entireness, unity; it strikes the eye at once and as a whole. Examination of the component parts is quite a different thing. Who ean build ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... means an old man was sometimes mistaken for a boy, a woman for a man, and a blackamoor for an European, which very often produced great peals of laughter. These I guessed to be a party of puns. But being very desirous to get out of this world of magic, which had almost turned my brain, I left the temple and crossed over the fields that lay about it with all the speed I could make. I was not gone far before I heard the sound of trumpets and alarms, which seemed to proclaim the march of ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... any gentleman whose head has arrived at maturity of size, the Necromancer, without removing that hat for an instant from before the eyes of the delighted company, will light a fire in it, make a plum pudding in his magic saucepan, boil it over the said fire, produce it in two minutes, thoroughly done, cut it, and dispense it in portions to the whole company, for their consumption then and there; returning the hat at last, wholly uninjured by ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... That magic spark which now circles round the world, annihilating time and space, was evolved; it flashed down the wire; the ocean could not put it out; the dry powder received it; the massive rock burst into fragments; a decided shock was felt on board ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... from Salvator to Claude, we shall find a system of lines totally different. Our first impression from Claude is that of perfect unity, and this we have even before we are conscious of a single image; as if, circumscribing his scenes by a magic circle, he had imposed his own mood on all who entered it. The spell then opens ere it seems to have begun, acting upon us with a vague sense of limitless expanse, yet so continuous, so gentle, so imperceptible in its remotest gradations, as scarcely to be ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... counters and shelves were there, but the barrels of pickled meat, the piles of soap and tinned meats, the bags of flour, the stacks of men's clothing, all this had been whisked away and out of sight as though by magic. A strip of new red oilcloth upon one counter, a strip of blue upon another, transformed both into auxiliary seats. Benches, recently brought in from the rear storeroom by Pere Marquette's man, Jules, and freshly dusted by him, ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... advancing the three men at the fire disappeared as if by magic! The next moment the circle of light showed the figures of half a dozen cowboys darting hither and thither in search of the men who had taken themselves off ...
— Boy Scouts on the Great Divide - or, The Ending of the Trail • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... in each other's arms they admitted the extent of their desolation. Life had been robbed of a magic,—a mystery. The solid friendship of years of mutual trust and understanding was the background of so much lovely folly, so many unrealized possibilities, so many nebulous desires and dreams that the sudden dissolution of their circle was ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... the worship of Osiris, Serapis, and Mithras to the loathsome rites practised in the darkness of African forests, has been handed down as unquestionable truth commanding the loyalty of its disciples. What logic, what magic of holiness, could destroy a false religion if tradition is sacrosanct and ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... robber, the notorious "Fatia Negra." He produced convincing proofs of the existence of a combination extending from the depths of the dungeons to the summits of the mountains which was held together by the magic influence of this one man and he left no stone unturned to ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... The magic bean The divine fruit Fragrant berries Rich, royal berry Voluptuous berry The precious berry The healthful bean The Heavenly berry The marvelous berry This all-healing berry Yemen's fragrant berry The little aromatic berry Little brown Arabian berry Thought-inspiring bean of Arabia ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... himself, sobered, suddenly and painfully aware that the magic of the moment had opened for him an unreal vista where, in the false dawn, the phantom of Hope stood smiling. Her happy smile had altered, too; and her gloved hand stole out and rested on his own for a moment in silence. Neither said anything for a while, and yet ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... peril; The wish is in my mind That I had fired the jungle, And left no leaf behind,— Burnt all bamboos to ashes, And made their music mute,— To save thee from the magic Of Khristna ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... strange thing was which was coming towards them. It was Bold Walter of Buccleuch and his men, and each of them had stuck a branch of witch's hazel in his basnet, for 'tis said that a twig of hazel protects its wearer from the arts of magic, and they had no mind to be bewitched by ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... that beating, hell had opened for Skag. It was associated with the raw smell of blood and a thin red steam, a little hotter than blood-heat. It always came when he remembered his father. . . . But his mother meant lilacs. The top drawer of her dresser had been faintly magic of her. The smell came when he remembered her. It was like the first rains in the ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... the Vision and the Cry That haunt the new Canadian soul? Dim grandeur spreads we know not why O'er mountain, forest, tree and knoll, And murmurs indistinctly fly.— Some magic moment sure is nigh. O ...
— Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure • W.D. Lighthall
... "Loveliness, magic, and grace, They are here—they are set in the world! They abide! and the finest of souls Has not been thrilled by them all, Nor the dullest been dead to them quite. The poet who sings them may die, But they are ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... it acquired an element of the exotic; at the same time, descriptive writing became more vivid and picturesque, and the vocabulary for the purposes of description was enlarged. He added to French literature a tale in which human passion and the sentiment of nature are fused together by the magic of genius; he created two figures which live in the popular imagination, encircled with a halo of ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... every Irish heart and made us one in love, purpose and resolve. We see, after ages of your oppression, the unquenchable desire for Irish independence blaze forth anew, and as it sweeps along the cities and prairies of this vast continent it gathers within its magic influence five millions of Irish hearts and twice five millions of friends of freedom and foes of despotism! Arise, then, my countrymen! Nerve yourselves for the struggle so nobly commenced. Cast aside every consideration that would darken the ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... weeks his departure for Stoughton, Michigan, where he meant to return in any case. It was the familiar field of those opportunities in copper which he hoped to profit by again. Once he was on that ground, Olivia Guion and her concerns would be as much a part of a magic past as the woods and mountains of a holiday are to a man nailed down at an office desk. With a very little explanation to Ashley he could turn his back on the whole business and give himself up to ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... been expected," replied Dr. Jones. "It is marvelous what we accomplished with an absolutely empty treasury, no credit, no standing army to speak of, and our little navy scattered to the four ends of the earth. The vast, splendidly drilled armies which we brought into existence as if by magic, were the wonder of the world. We had everything to learn, both North and South, in the matter of logistics. Long lines of communications had to be kept open, and such splendid raiders as John Morgan, Forest, Mosby, etc., were not slow to break them frequently, so that I ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... wood!" he said sharply, and none too soon, for even as he spoke the glade at our left filled as by magic with a motley troop deploying into the road as to ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... fatal sign. As I did so, a loud flap overhead and the simultaneous righting of the ship caused me to glance aloft in amazement and wonder as to what was happening. Could it be? By Heaven, yes! The wind had dropped, as if by magic, or a miracle, and for the moment there was a breathless calm, leaving us within fifty fathoms of the reef and, with the momentum of our rapid progress through the water, rushing straight at it. Instinctively I bounded with one mad spring to the wheel, ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... by reading "Tam o' Shanter," accompanied by illustrations, made by a magic lantern. When this was over, and lights were again brought into the room, the tubs of water were drawn forward. Twelve apples were set floating in each tub. Three little boys had their arms pinioned, and water-proof capes were put over their clothes. Then each one was led up to a tub, and ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... introduction, passim, but especially p. xciii. For diseases wrought by witchcraft, see the same, pp. 230, 293. On the preferences of spells in healing over medicine and surgery, see Zend-Avesta, vol. i, pp. 85, 86. For healing by magic in ancient Greece, see, e. g., the cure of Ulysses in the Odyssey, "They stopped the black blood by a spell" (Odyssey, xxix, 457). For medicine in Egypt as partly priestly and partly in the hands of physicians, see ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... a villa too, near Florence, "on the link of Bellosguardo," as dear from association as Villino Trollope. It has for a neighbor the Villa Mont' Auto, where Hawthorne lived, and which he transformed by the magic of his pen into the Monte Bene of the "Marble Faun." Not far off is the "tower" wherein Aurora Leigh sought peace,—and found it. The inmate of this villa was a little lady with blue-black hair and sparkling ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... crush. She looked around in vain for some Mowbray face that she could recognise, but after some fruitless research, a loud shouting in the distance, followed by the firing of musketry, so terrified all around her, that the mob in her immediate neighbourhood dispersed as if by magic, and she remained alone crouching in a corner of the flower-garden, while dreadful shouts and shrieks and yells resounded from the distance, occasionally firing, the smoke floating to her retreat. She could ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... children as well as others, older only by accident of years, but whose hearts are always young—which is the eternal youth—to know the greatest French writer of his day, when, by the magic of his pen, he, like them, becomes young, gentle and charming. I want them to learn to love his "Honey-Bee," newest and sweetest of those darlings of childhood who have come down to us from bygone ages, distant lands and half-forgotten races, but who in their eternal charm appeal to all children ...
— Honey-Bee - 1911 • Anatole France
... many years ago, but cannot recollect the authority, "That, when Alexander besieged a certain city in India, the Brachmans, by the power of magic, raised a cloud of smoke around the walls, whence broke frequent flashes of lightning, with thunder, and the thunderbolts slew many of his soldiers." This would infer the very ancient use of fire-arms of some ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... magic wand of sunken silver that our hero achieved this success. The treasures of Peru, loaded on Spanish ships, had not all reached the ports of Spain. Some cargoes of silver had gone to the bottom of the Atlantic. Phips had heard of such a wreck on the Bahamas, had sailed thither, and had ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... which took place a few days after that of his parents, completed the consternation into which the court was thrown. The most sinister rumors circulated darkly; a base intrigue caused the Duke of Orleans to be accused; people called to mind his taste for chemistry and even magic, his flagrant impiety, his scandalous debauchery; beside himself with grief and anger, he demanded of the king to be sent to the Bastille; the king refused curtly, coldly, not unmoved in his secret heart by the perfidious insinuations which made ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... encroachments of death. And now death stalked everywhere, grinning with malicious triumph, for he had but one more battle to fight. Already his grisly clutch was closing on the standard of victory. Man had mastered life but he had not conquered death. With the magic wand of science he had reached out into space and viewed the life of far-off worlds. He had routed superstition and fear and selfishness. He had banished disease and learned all nature's secrets; had even visited other worlds and had come to know and understand ...
— Omega, the Man • Lowell Howard Morrow
... magic sword of King Arthur, which only he could unsheathe and wield. When he was about to die he requested a knight to throw it into a lake close by, who with some reluctance threw it, when a hand reached out to seize it, flourished ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Almost magic as was the change thus suddenly effected in the appearance of the garrison, it was not the most interesting feature in the exciting scene. Choking up the gateway, in which they were completely wedged, and crowding the drawbridge, ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... obstinate button hindering the performer. All this is opposed to the real purpose of playing, and injurious to the actor's art, to say nothing of the interests of the dramatist. Illusion is the special object of the theatre, and this forfeits its magic when once inquiry is directed too curiously to its method of contrivance. Still doubling of this kind has always been in favour both with actors and audiences, and many plays have been provided especially to give dual occupation to the performers. Certain of these have for excuse the fact that ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... had much to think about that night had he been in an analytical mood, for by some magic his sense of utter weariness was marvellously relieved. With a ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... pilgrimages to Stratford-on-Avon, and the Leasowes, and Olney, and other places memorable for their literary associations, are as fine pieces of descriptive writing as the English language possesses. This magic of style characterized all his works, whether those of a more popular kind, or his scientific treatises, such as the "Old Red Sandstone," and "Footprints of the Creator," a volume suggested by the "Vestiges ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... from the Nautilus for about an hour and a half. It was almost noon. I spotted this fact in the perpendicularity of the sun's rays, which were no longer refracted. The magic of these solar colors disappeared little by little, with emerald and sapphire shades vanishing from our surroundings altogether. We walked with steady steps that rang on the seafloor with astonishing intensity. The tiniest ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... would that I could raise The magic of that tongue; The spirit of those deathless lays, The Swan of Teios sung! Each song the bard has given, Its beauty and its worth, Sounds sweet as if a voice from ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various
... now proved the power Of Fin-folk's craft in magic hour, With magic song; for stroke of steel Thor's reindeer coat would never feel, Bewitched by them it turned the stroke Of the king's sword,—a dust-like smoke Rose from Thor's shoulders from the blow Which the king ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... speak, More than pertains to feats of broil and battle; And therefore, little shall I grace my cause In speaking for myself; yet, by your gracious patience I will a round unvarnished tale deliver Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms, What conjuration, and what mighty magic, (For such proceeding I am charged withal) I ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... certainty that reigns so serenely in my heart. Have you not already noted, comrade, for all that you are young and the way of the world before you, how there sometimes comes to one, although rarely, such a magic mood in which the liberated spirit seems to swim in an exalted ether, and the body seems to move uplifted in a world ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the eye of the mind, as a magic lantern produces an illusion on the eye of the body. And, as the magic lantern acts best in a dark room, poetry effects its purpose most completely in a dark age. As the light of knowledge breaks in upon its exhibitions, as the outlines of certainty become more and more definite, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and conquering a repugnance, such as I had never before experienced, I touched the figure with my hand, "The flesh is like stone," I said, "thus held lifelike by some magic of the Indies. I have heard of such skill but never before realized its perfection. Good God! she actually seems to breathe. What can it all mean? Who could the woman be? And why should her body be thus carried about at sea. Is it love, ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... had, however, a fair number of adherents at Constantinople and at Kuku[vs].... There was at the same time another movement, more discreetly undertaken, by American missionaries to convert the Bulgars to the Protestant religion. These Americans, drawn by the magic name of Greece, had come to Europe to assist that people in their fight for freedom. They had built them schools, had printed educational books in Greek, and had contributed in every way towards the people's ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... the world was young With alchemies of fire and witches' oils And magic. But he never ...
— The Wild Knight and Other Poems • Gilbert Chesterton
... hook, uncoils and rises straight into the sky until the end disappears; and, soon after, there come tumbling from the blue two arms, two legs, a head and so on, all of which the wizard picks up and crams into the sack. He next utters a few magic words over it and opens it; and the child steps out, bowing ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... may be tall, or the Russian peasant girls who leap high in the air crying, "Flax, grow." The leaping of the youths of the Cretan hymn is just the utterance of their tense desire. They have grown up, and with them all live things must grow. By their magic year by year the fruits of the earth come to their annual new birth. And that there be ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... the lectures in college halls, it rustled the thumbed book leaves of the schoolrooms. This wind blew upon all vanes of all the churches of the country and turned them one way, — toward war. It blew, and shook out as if by magic a flag whose device was unknown to soldier or sailor before, but whose every flap and flutter made the blood bound in our veins. . . . It arrayed the sanctity of a righteous cause in the brilliant trappings of military ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... St. Paul's Cathedral, London, on which Sir John Goss played, and which had felt the magic touch of Mendelssohn, had 13 stops on the Great, 7 on the Swell, 8 on the Choir and only one on the Pedal. It stood in a case on the screen between the choir and the nave of the Cathedral. We have noted elsewhere in this book how Willis had this screen removed, and rebuilt the organ on each ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... civet, good apothecary!" That mass itself is daily changing: is the new body, which the indulgence of gluttonous sensuality supplies, as holy as the old? If it be his mind that is consecrated, what is mind, but a succession of thoughts? By what magic are future thoughts consecrated? Has a bishop no unholy thoughts? Can pride, lust, avarice, and ambition, can all the sins of the decalogue be consecrated? Are some thoughts consecrated and some not? By whom or how is the selection made? ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... insensible, but not seriously injured. One ready and daring hand had prevented the certain loss of one life, and the probable loss of more. Fire-crackers, pistols and other abominations had vanished from the street as if by magic; the noise over, the horses came again under command; they were raised, and horses, harness and carriage all found comparatively uninjured; the disabled driver was taken to a neighboring drug-store; one of the bystanders volunteered to drive the carriage ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... instance. Marble and canvas are more discreet than the mask of the best trained living features. Messalina and Julia look cold and correct enough since they have been turned into stone. Only by the magic of her smile and by the glory of her golden hair do we recognize her who, if all tales are true, might have given a tongue to the walls of the Vatican. We forget the Borgia, with her laboratory of philtres and poisons—we only think that never a duke of all ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... of mankind, and a world-consciousness is arising. Kindness and justice—yesterday but community ideals—are extending their sway throughout the earth. Even while bayonets are bared in conflict and cannon thunder against hostile camps, the magic of our civilization is weaving bonds of union that cannot be broken. Peace, not war, is the true grandeur of nations; love, not hate, is the immutable law of God; and so surely as governments and kings are powerless to divide when home and factory would bind, some ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... gone to him for books, books, nothing but books; and I had been blind to everything in his shop but that fairy-land of shelves, filled, in my simple fancy, with inexhaustible treasures, wonder-working, omnipotent, as the magic seal of Solomon. ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... discover the new elements which might take the place of tradition? Where seek the magic ring which would raise a new social edifice on the remains of that which no ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... find any one in the house, Sylvia dear," said Mrs. Marshall-Smith quietly. Sylvia looked up into the clear, blue eyes, so like her father's, and felt the usual magic spell lay hold on her. The horrid impression made by Arnold's story dimmed and faded. Arnold was always getting things twisted. She came up closer to her aunt's side and took the soft, smooth fingers between her two little hard, muscular hands. In her relief, she ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... last, he tried to make useful, may here be given. On one occasion, following his invariable habit of taking every possible occasion of trying to win the confidence and friendship of those under him, he was exhibiting a magic lantern to the crew of the Hellas. At many of the dissolving views they manifested a childish delight, but at length one unfortunate picture was brought before them. It depicted a Greek running from the pursuit of a Turk, and then melted into a view of the Turk cutting off his captive's head. ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... one would imagine to be the case from the close association of cats with witches and magic, phantasms in a feline form are comparatively rare, and their appearance is seldom, if ever, as repulsive as that of the occult dog. I have seen phantasm cats several times, but, though they have been abnormally large and alarming, only once—and I am anxious ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... get a first-hand impression of the way the gods are treated by the old French epic poets, but the material is too large, and indexes suited to the purpose are wanting. The paganism of the original is taken over naively, e.g., by Veldeke, Eneidt, i. 45, 169.—On magic I have consulted Horst's Daemonomagie (Frankf. 1818); and his Zauber-Bibliothek (Mainz, 1821-26); Schindler, Der Aberglaube des Mittelalters (Breslau, 1858); Maury, La magie et l'astrologie dans l'antiquite et au moyen age (Paris, 1860). These authors all agree that mediaeval ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... that we propose to do is this: To find out the secrets of the human frame, to know why the parts ossify and the blood stagnates, and to apply continual preventives to the effects of time. THIS IS NOT MAGIC; IT IS THE ART OF ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... and who belonged to the great school of Seekers of the Great Work, though the particulars of her life and name are lost to history, stated that the last crowned child would be assassinated. Having placed the queen-mother in front of a magic mirror, in which was reflected a wheel on the several spokes of which were the faces of her children, the sorceress set the wheel revolving, and Catherine counted the number of revolutions which it made. Each revolution was for ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... Ellen in associating this new and delightful variety of sensations with the fact that Jean Isbel had set to-day for his ride up to the Rim to see her. Ellen's joyousness fled; her smiles faded. The spring morning lost its magic radiance. ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... the glamouring influence Of the right honourable gentleman Prevails with magic might, ELEVEN men Have been amassed. And in the Cinque-Port towns, Where he is held in absolute veneration, His method has so quickened martial fire As to bring in—one man. O would that man Might meet my sight! [Laughter.] A Hercules, no doubt, A god-like emanation from this ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... time I've felt easy in weeks! See that? Vandersee said he'd have the entrance cleared. It's like magic. You could float a thousand-tonner in ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... back to her course as if by magic, and once more rushed toward the enemy. Several miles to port, could now be seen the faint outline of the approaching British battle cruiser, sailing swiftly, under full steam, as though she were afraid she would not arrive in time to take part ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... As by magic, the cares of the common day slipped away from her and her spirit began to breathe. Upon the heights she walked firmly now, and as surely as though she felt the hills ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed |
