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noun
Potion  n.  A draught; a dose; usually, a draught or dose of a liquid medicine.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Potion" Quotes from Famous Books



... a little disconcerted; but, after some recollection, resumed his air of sufficiency and importance, and assured our adventurer he would do him all the service in his power; but in the meantime advised him to take the potion ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... pleasure, she said, in the parties she should make in my company. But, after what Emily told me, she appears to me as a Medusa; and were I to be thought by her a formidable rival, I might have as much reason to be afraid of the potion, as the man she loves of the poniard. Emily has kept the secret from every body but me. And I rely on the inviolable secrecy of ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson

... nothing that he does not think, is worth thinking; no man can think as he thinks, except he be pure like him; no man can be pure like him, except he go with him, and learn from him. To put off obeying him till we find a credible theory concerning him, is to set aside the potion we know it our duty to drink, for the study of the various schools of therapy. You know what Christ requires of you is right—much of it at least you believe to be right, and your duty to do, whether he said it or not: do it. If you do not do what ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald

... ominous Wood, And in thick shelter of black shades imbowr'd, Excells his Mother at her mighty Art, Offring to every weary Travailer, His orient liquor in a Crystal Glasse, To quench the drouth of Phoebus, which as they taste (For most do taste through fond intemperate thirst ) Soon as the Potion works, their human count'nance, Th' express resemblance of the gods, is chang'd Into som brutish form of Woolf, or Bear, 70 Or Ounce, or Tiger, Hog, or bearded Goat, All other parts remaining as they were, And they, so perfect is their misery, Not once perceive their foul ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... surmised, was caused by poison; the common tradition being that a potion was provided for Margaret at breakfast, in order to free the King from his bonds, that he might "match with England." "But it so happened," says the narrative,[209] "that she called two of her sisters, then with her in Drummond, to accompany her that morning, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson

... of September, 1598, the two women, supping with the old man, mixed some narcotic with his wine so adroitly that, suspicious though he was, he never detected it, and having swallowed the potion, soon fell into a ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... is naterally light work; and being such a small chap, you may suppose they can never make enuff of him. These are all the upper servants, of coarse, I shan't lower myself by notusing the infearyour crechurs; such as the owsmade, coke, edcett rar, but shall purceed drackly to the other potion of the fammaly, beginning with the old guv'nor (as Pee-taw cawls him), who as no idear of i life, and, like one of his own taller lites, has only dipped into good sosiety. Next comes Missus:—in fact, I ot to have put her fust, for the grey mayor is the best boss in our ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various

... excitement, and the murderer held forth his great hand for the potion. Using every art to enhance the effect of this dramatic advertisement, the Inca of Peru raised his bottle on high, and said in ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... this ominous wood, And, in thick shelter of black shades imbowered, Excels his mother at her mighty art; Offering to every weary traveller His orient liquor in a crystal glass, To quench the drouth of Phoebus; which as they taste (For most do taste through fond intemperate thirst), Soon as the potion works, their human count'nance, The express resemblance of the gods, is changed Into some brutish form of wolf or bear, 70 Or ounce or tiger, hog, or bearded goat, All other parts remaining as they were. And ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton

... may sound, my wife, in order to prove her devotion to me and to free me from further annoyance on her part, offered to take poison; and but for my interference (fool that I was to stay her!) would have drained the phial containing the deadly potion. The weakness was momentary, and I reproached myself for it when too late. But it convinced me that a firmer hand than mine must ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... this: if God upon all single instances, and in the midst of our sins, before they are come to the full, and sometimes in the beginning of an evil habit, be so fierce in His anger, what can we imagine it to be in that day when the wicked are to drink the dregs of that horrid potion, and count over all the particulars of their whole treasure of wrath? "This is the day of wrath, and God shall reveal, or bring forth, His righteous judgments." The expression is taken from Deut. xxxii., 34: "Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures? ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser

... jogged on with as little reflection as horses: the whistling ploughman went cheek by jowl with his brother that neighed. Now the biped carries a box of phosphorus in his leather-breeches; and in the dead of night the half-illuminated beast steals his magic potion into a cleft in a barn, and half a country is grinning with new fires. Farmer Graystock said something to the touchy rustic that he did not relish, and he writes his distaste in flames. What a power to intoxicate his crude brains, just muddlingly awake, to perceive that something is wrong ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... the vigour with which the air is rife! The spirit of joyous motion; The fever, the fulness of animal life, Can be drain'd from no earthly potion! The lungs with the living gas grow light, And the limbs feel the strength of ten, While the chest expands with its madd'ning might, GOD'S ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon

... filled a cup of sweet wine and offered it to her, but she refused it, saying, that it was not permitted for her to drink red wine; but she bade them mix meal and water with the tender herb of mint, and give it to her to drink. Then Metaneira made a potion and gave it to the Goddess as she bade, and Lady Deo took it and made libation, and to them fair-girdled ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang

... argument with his fierce patron. Taking advantage of the coldness which had for some time existed between the Taiko and Rikiu, the enemies of the latter accused him of being implicated in a conspiracy to poison the despot. It was whispered to Hideyoshi that the fatal potion was to be administered to him with a cup of the green beverage prepared by the tea-master. With Hideyoshi suspicion was sufficient ground for instant execution, and there was no appeal from the will of the angry ruler. One privilege ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura

... practised, or attempted, in remote and uneducated parts of Ireland, almost down to the present day. We ourselves in early youth saw a man who professed, and was believed to be able, to cure jealousy in either man or woman by a potion; whilst charms for colics, toothaches, taking motes out of the eye, and for producing love, were common among the ignorant people ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... lay as one dead. He was conscious but paralysed by the potion, and could only watch the girl in the grip of the obese monster and feel his heart going like a ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace

... the potion had been administered, the bleeding was wholly stopped; and in half an hour, his mother could express her wishes in a whisper. When the little doctor arrived, he carefully examined his patient, and then went downstairs with her son ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat

... else, but that I tried to escape in the midst of a desperate scuffle, and fell into the arms of a very tall woman who started from the bushes and protected me for some time; the rest is all confusion and dread, a dim recollection of a sea-beach and a cave, and of some strong potion which lulled me to sleep for a length of time. In short, it is all a blank in my memory until I recollect myself first an ill-used and half-starved cabin-boy aboard a sloop, and then a schoolboy in Holland, under the ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... instant. And, moreover, such love-making as had taken place did in truth seem to have been perpetrated altogether on the side of the young man. Therefore it was that Madame Staubach spoke with a gentle voice as she prescribed to Linda some pill or potion that might probably be of service, and then ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope

... their beginnings and subsidings, their sudden advances and regressions, their passionate surges that finally and after all their exquisite hesitations mount and flare and unroll themselves in fullness—they, too, seem to be seeking to distill some of the same brew, the same magic drugging potion, to conjure up out of the orchestral depths some Venusberg, some Klingsor's garden full of subtle scent and soft ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... insisted upon bringing her a cordial, if not the wine, and surely she was forgiven for putting a few drops of a sleeping potion in the glass ere she handed it to her mistress. She well knew that she had not slept soundly ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey

... Adept Philosophers; although in this our decrepit age of the world, That be accounted a most Secret Hyperphysico-magical Saturn, and not known, unless to some Cabalistick Christian only. We judge him the most happy of all Physicians, who hath the knowledge of this pleasant Medicinal potion of our Mercury, or of the Medicine of the Son of our Esculapius resisting the force of death, against which there is no Panacea otherwise produced in Gardens. Moreover, the most wise GOD doth not reveal his Gifts of Solomon promiscuously ...
— The Golden Calf, Which the World Adores, and Desires • John Frederick Helvetius

... nectar as the gods drink too, Sublim'd with rich Canary—say, shall then These less than coffee's self, these coffee-men; These sons of nothing, that can hardly make Their broth, for laughing how the jest does take, Yet grin, and give ye for the vine's pure blood A loathsome potion, not yet understood, Syrop of soot, or essence of old shoes, Dasht with diurnals and the books ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... Could he who thus to vile enjoyment clings Know what calm joy from purer sources springs; Could he but feel how sweet, how free from strife, The harmless pleasures of a harmless life, No more his soul would pant for joys impure, The deadly chalice would no more allure, But the sweet potion he was wont to sip Would turn to poison on his ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White

... man, with a grey beard and liquid eyes, absorbed in studies of the obsolete kind, a doctor of theology, law, medicine and astronomy. We spent three days in arguing and questioning; I consented to swallow a potion or two which he made up before me, of very innocent materials. My friend is neither a quack nor superstitious, and two hundred years ago would have been a better physician than most in Europe. Indeed I would rather swallow his ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... purification of E-ninnu was completed and the way between the old temple and the new made ready, all the inhabitants of the city prostrated themselves on the ground. "The city," says Gudea, "was like the mother of a sick man who prepareth a potion for him, or like the cattle of the plain which lie down together, or like the fierce lion, the master of the plain, when he coucheth." During the day and the night before the ceremony of removal, prayers and supplications were uttered, and at the first ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall

... this is the last of his virtues with which I shall weary you,—had a true English heart. He could make friends with anybody and be at home anywhere, but though he had a mighty thirst he had never, in the words of the elder Pitt, 'drunk of the potion described in poetic fictions which makes men ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... of Ireland, another Ysolde, well versed in every magic art, then brews a mighty love potion, which she intrusts to Brangeane's care, bidding her conceal it in her daughter's medicine chest, and administer it to the royal bride and groom on their wedding night, to insure their future happiness by ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber

... nothing now to write to you, but to give you thankes both for the good councell ye gave me, and for the event of it. The King gave mee a good sharpe potion, but you took away the working of it by the well relished comfites ye sent after it. I have met with the partie, that must not be named, once alreddie, and the culler of wryting this letter shall make mee meet with her on saturday, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber

... poison was named either Mbundu or Olonda (nut) werere—perhaps this was what is popularly called "a sell." Mbundu is the decoction of the scraped bark which corresponds with the "Sassy- water" of the northern maritime tribes. The accused, after drinking the potion, is ordered to step over sticks of the same plant, which are placed a pace apart. If the man be affected, he raises his foot like a horse with string-halt, and this convicts him of the foul crime. Of course there is some antidote, as the medicine-man ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... have almost lost their reason and can no longer realize that the drug offered them has never been proven capable of remedying the evils that weigh heavily upon them, they accept and swallow the poisonous dose of Socialism and become a thousand times more wretched than they were before. The very potion they drink, with a view to being cured, makes them most unhappy for the rest of their lives, and in many cases for all eternity. If there is anything that non-Socialists should be on their guard against it is this base form of tactics by which the revolutionists have been eminently ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... opened the cupboard, and when, a short time after, the monk emptied the first goblet, he uttered a long drawn "Ah!" following the course of the fiery potion with his hand, till it rested content near his stomach. His lips quivered a little in the enjoyment of the flavor; then he looked benignantly with his unusually round eyes ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the pot; Thrice I stir, thrice I chant the mystic number three. Who shall withstand the philtre Endora of Hecate brews? Simmer, ye potion! Brew, ye philtre! Spirits of Hades, draw out the essence Of fish and beasts, birds and men! Make the broth strong so the sediment worthless may be. Help ye the drawing of love by the lover From Chios who drinks of ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short

... enough. The dead child with two heads has itself made its own name impossible. Use that name no more, for the mother who has borne the child is ashamed of it and will hear of it no more. Give the potion another label and another color if you would make men take it, or better, give it no color. And talk as little as possible, but do, act, carry out. Make of the deed your shepherd's staff and of facts your milestones and your ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... it much resisteth sorrow, and recreates the heart." The same properties I find ascribed to the hyacinth and topaz. [4146]They allay anger, grief, diminish madness, much delight and exhilarate the mind. [4147]"If it be either carried about, or taken in a potion, it will increase wisdom," saith Cardan, "expel fear; he brags that he hath cured many madmen with it, which, when they laid by the stone, were as mad again as ever they were at first." Petrus Bayerus, lib. 2. cap. 13. veni mecum, Fran. Rueus, cap. 19. de ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... telling you, mister honey, it's queer and sick we were, Haines and myself, the time himself brought it in. 'Twas murmur we did for a gallus potion would rouse a friar, I'm thinking, and he limp with leching. And we one hour and two hours and three hours in Connery's sitting civil ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... you did," she agreed, frankly, if somewhat faintly. "For, then, Davy, you'd give me a potion ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan

... read or hear of in women. This is the courage of Juliet, when, after summing up all the possible consequences of her own act, till she almost maddens herself with terror, she drinks the sleeping potion; and for that passive fortitude which is founded in piety and pure strength of affection, such as the heroism of Lady Russel and Gertrude de Wart, he has given us some of the noblest modifications of it in Hermione, in Cordelia, in ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... study and practise this Art, witness what I am afraid is too true, that some have made use of the Coculus India Berry for making Drink heady, and saving the Expence of Malt; but as this is a violent Potion by its narcotick stupifying Quality, if taken in too large a degree, I hope this will be rather a prevention of its use than an invitation, it being so much of the nature of the deadly Nightshade, that it bears the same Character; ...
— The London and Country Brewer • Anonymous

... gathered together in a certain name, do you not join humbly in the petitions of those servants, and close them with a reverent Amen? That first night of his stay at Oakhurst, Harry Warrington, who had had a sleeping potion, and was awake sometimes rather feverish, thought he heard the Evening Hymn, and that his dearest brother George was singing it at home, in which delusion the patient ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... merrily away, and the great journey commenced. Ethel met the Abbotstoke party at the station, and, with a parting injunction to her father, that he was to give all his patients a sleeping potion, that they might not miss him, she was carried away ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... obsolete malady the colic, for toothache, headaches, or for removing warts, and taking motes out of the eyes; let it suffice to inform our readers that she was well stocked with them; and, that in addition to this, she, together with her husband, drank a potion made up and administered by an herb-doctor, for preventing for ever the slightest misunderstanding or quarrel between man and wife. Whether it produced this desirable object or not, our readers may conjecture, when we add, that the herb-doctor, after having taken a very liberal advantage ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... their fondness and delight in her small tyrannies; and the immense room, dimly lit, with the mystical implements of cookery glimmering from the wall, showed like some witch's cavern, where a particularly small sorceress was presiding over the concoction of an evil potion or the weaving ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... and dying on the coast of Ireland and was rescued and nursed by her, though he was her enemy. But Tristan, having sworn faith to his uncle, never looks at her, and she full of wrath that he wooes her for another instead of for himself, attempts to poison herself and him by a potion. But Brangaena, her faithful attendant secretly changes the poisoned draught for a love-potion, so that they are inevitably joined in passionate love. Only when the ship gets ashore, its deck already covered with knights and sailors, who ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... though it may be a partial, salvation, is indispensable to the temper of equable cheerfulness of which I have been speaking. Apart from that consciousness, you may have plenty of excitement, but no lasting calm. The contrast between the drugged and effervescent potion which the world gives as a cup of gladness, and the pure tonic which Jesus Christ administers for the same purpose, is infinite. He says to us, 'I forgive thy sins; by thy faith I save thee; go in peace.' Then the burdened heart is freed from its ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... that they were all enchanted. He inquired about the age of the moon, if Nic. had not given them some intoxicating potion, or if old Mother Jenisa was still alive? "No, o' my faith," quoth Harry, "I believe there is no potion in the case but a little aurum potabile. You will have more of this by-and-by." He had scarce spoken the word when another friend of John's ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot

... buried for some Time; tho' taken all imaginable Care of, and furnish'd with all the Necessaries of Life by that venerable, and loyal Priest. In the mean Time, his Apothecary enter'd at Break of Day into my Apartment, with a Potion in his Hand, compos'd of Opium, black Hellebore, Aconite, and other Ingredients still more baneful. Whilst this mercenary Officer of the King's Vengeance was thus employ'd, another as inhuman as himself, ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire

... prevailed on her to go to bed. Mrs Jones had given her night-lights, and a slight sleeping potion before she left home, upon the chance of their being wanted; and she put one of the former in the bedroom, and gave Netta the latter. She sat by her side until she fell asleep, and then returned to the sitting-room, literally 'to ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... similar to spices, which lasts some time."[132] Possibly this fact first suggested that semen might, when ingested, possess valuable stimulant qualities, a discovery which has been made by various savages, notably by the Australian aborigines, who, in many parts of Australia, administer a potion of semen to dying or feeble members of the tribe.[133] It is perhaps noteworthy that in Central Africa the testes of the goat are consumed as an aphrodisiac.[134] In eighteenth century Europe, Schurig, in his Spermatologia, still found it necessary ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... thousand dollars is a potion that can work wonders; but a poor man must get hold of a secret to accomplish his ends. Now, I am on my way to town to get at the knowledge of this secret. It is all contained in certain papers, and I will search for those papers ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... cried fiercely, pointing to Niphrata's white and rigid form, . . "Poisoned by some deadly potion devised of devils, to twist and torture the quivering centres of the brain! Accursed work!—Will none undo it?" and springing forward nearer the Shrine, he raised his angry, impassioned eyes to the dark, inscrutable ones of the High Priestess, who met his troubled look with serene and irresponsive ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... bearing some relic of venom or death, To stir up the toil and to double the trouble, That fire may burn, and that cauldron may bubble. The wives of our cits of inferior degree Will soak up repute in a little Bohea; The potion is vulgar, and vulgar the slang With which on their neighbors' defects they harangue. But the scandal improves,—a refinement in wrong!— As our matrons are richer and rise to Souchong. With Hyson, a beverage that's still more refined, Our ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... therefore he Drink and incense, food and dresses Should up-offer plenteously; And the fountain's limpid liquor Pour Grand Foutsa's face before, Drain himself a cooling beaker When a day and night are o'er; Tune his heart to high devotion: The five evil things eschew, Lust and flesh and vinous potion, And the words which are not true; Living thing abstain from killing For full twenty days and one, And meanwhile with accents thrilling Mighty Foutsa call upon— Then of infinite dimension Foutsa's form in dreams he'll see, And if he with fixt attention, When his sleep dissolv'd ...
— Targum • George Borrow

... entrance of Port Royal harbour, where we dropped anchor in the afternoon. I found that I had been absent exactly nine months and three days. In spite of my tatter-demalion appearance and my consciousness that I was much like the wretched apothecary who supplied the love-lorn Romeo with the fatal potion, as soon as I got on shore I hastened up to pay my respects to Sir Peter Parker. He received me, as I knew he would, with the greatest kindness, and when I apologised for my ragged appearance he laughed and assured me that he would much rather see an officer in a threadbare uniform, worn out ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... hopes behind, Friends in this distant world to find; Led by that God, who from His throne Regards the poor man's stifled moan. Like one awaken'd from the dead, The peasant lifts his drooping head, Nerves his strong heart and sunburnt hand, To win a potion of the land, That glooms before him far and wide In frowning woods and surging tide No more oppress'd, no more a slave, Here freedom dwells beyond ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... such a Man as thou art to die with Phocion? At the Instant when he was to die, they asked him what commands he had for his Son, he answered, To forget this Injury of the Athenians. Niocles, his Friend, under the same Sentence, desired he might drink the Potion before him: Phocion said, because he never had denied him any thing he would not even this, the most difficult Request he ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... gave way to good humour and fun,— "Much harm to my friend," said the Patient, "is done; Your Ape pill and potion has put to the rout, And cured me, I thank him, at once of the Gout." He then to the Monkey made reverence profound, Who ...
— The Monkey's Frolic - A Humorous Tale in Verse • Anonymous

... 12: Dinah, daughter of a rich London merchant, loves Felix contrary to her father's wishes. Going into the garden she drinks poison. Felix arrives and drains the rest of the potion. Both are buried in ...
— A Syllabus of Kentucky Folk-Songs • Hubert G. Shearin

... had advised Paul to partake of the hot draught also, and the landlord had not heeded his request to place a tankard of ale on the tray also: so that if either of the youths were to drink at all, it must be of the potion ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green

... of course a filter is a very useful thing in a house; but still I don't quite see that it is the sort of thing that places its possessor on the very pinnacle of earthly joy. ALEXIS Aline, you misunderstand me. I didn't say a filter—I said a philtre. ALINE (alarmed) You don't mean a love-potion? ALEXIS On the contrary—I do mean a love potion. ALINE Oh, Alexis! I don't think it would be right. I don't indeed. And then—a real magician! Oh, it would be downright wicked. ALEXIS Aline, is it, or is it not, a laudable object to steep the whole village ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... nephew, wilt thou fetch my sleeping potion from the hall? I shall take it more willingly from thine hands. The butler places it nightly ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... can fashion to love Edward Benden that way," said Tabitha, perversely misinterpreting her father-in-law's words. "I'll mix him a potion 'll help to cleanse his disorder, you'll see. Bitters be good for sick folks; and he's grievous sick. I met Mall a-coming; she saith he snapped ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt

... him sparingly to a harmless potion she had secured at her room on the way, put the bottle into the hands of Ignacio's withered and anxious old mother, informed the half dozen Indian onlookers that she had arrived in time and that the bell-ringer would live, and then was impatient to go ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory

... own person, am with your unique "Tristan." Away with all the cares and tribulations of every-day existence! Here one can weep and glow again. What blissful charm, what undivined wealth of beauty in this fiery love-potion! What must you have felt while you created and formed this wondrous work? What can I tell you about it beyond saying that I feel with you in ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... appeared whose evident object was to reaessure the public mind and to restore to peace and confidence any souls that might have been agitated during the convention by so unusual and novel an exercise as thought. The nature of the sedative potion thus editorially administered to an alarmed public may be ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... in need of a little medicine, but was not ill enough to report myself to the surgeon at his levees, I would call of a morning upon his steward at the Sign of the Mortar, and beg him to give me what I wanted; when, without speaking a word, this cadaverous young man would mix me my potion in a tin cup, and hand it out through the little opening in his door, like the boxed-up treasurer giving you your change at the ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... unacquainted with the field paths, to evade being intercepted. Nothing remained, therefore, but to summon his brother away. Thus it happened that the landlady, though mangled, escaped with life, and eventually recovered. The landlord owed his safety to the stupefying potion. And the baffled murderers had the misery of knowing that their dreadful crime had been altogether profitless. The road, indeed, was now open to the club-room; and, probably, forty seconds would have sufficed to carry off the box of treasure, ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey

... Fritz swallowed the potion unhesitatingly, immediately sinking back on his pillow in a quiet sleep; when the girl, sitting down by the side of the bed, watched the long-drawn, quivering respirations that came from the white, parted ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson

... broth, milk, lemonade, and the potion of extract of quinine. Do not leave him, and call me ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... day befor with Hosannas crying with displayed gorge, dum jacet in ripa, calcemus Caesaris hostem, and it is very fitt that divyne providence tryst us with such dispensations. For if wee had alwayes prosperous gales that is so inebriating are potion that lyke the herb mentioned by Homer, it's ready both to cause us forgett our selves and our dewty to God, and I speak it from my oun knowledge that Abbotshall was rauch bettered by thir traverses of fortune, for it both gave him ane ryse and opportunity with ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... next morning with another look in her eyes. Her fever was still high, but she was no longer delirious. Too feeble to ask questions, she only smiled, and took obediently the remainder of the potion that Pete poured from his flask and heated in the tin-cup among the embers. On her wakening again it was seen that the fever was broken. But life in her was only a tiny flame, at times the merest spark that every gust of wind through the ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham

... knew, from my experiments, to be the last ingredient required; and late one accursed night, I compounded the elements, watched them boil and smoke together in the glass, and when the ebullition had subsided, with a strong glow of courage, drank off the potion. ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

... Meschini carried home with him was nothing but weak laudanum and water. It looked innocent enough, in the little glass bottle labelled "Sleeping potion." But the effect of it, as Colaisso had told him, was very rapid. Exhausted by all he had suffered, the librarian closed the windows of his room and lay down to rest. In a quarter of an hour he was in a heavy sleep. In his dreams he was happier than he had ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford

... receives from a very sage person, whose look much resembled that of an apothecary (his warehouse likewise bearing an affinity to an apothecary's shop), a small phial inscribed, THE PATHETIC POTION, to be taken just before you are born. This potion is a mixture of all the passions, but in no exact proportion, so that sometimes one predominates, and sometimes another; nay, often in the hurry of making ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding

... worst wounded patient a night potion and saw him to sleep. He also went down to see the chief engineer, who had been wounded three times—once in the head. The Doc talked to him awhile—he was inclined to rave—gave him a half-grain jolt of morphine and saw him to sleep. He told the signal quartermaster ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly

... she said, "the names and every thing you know. I go to mix a potion which may help you. Bethink you, till I come again, of all the details of your sin, that you may speak honestly and ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt

... Holland, France, and the Swiss Alps. In Italy we made a special trip to Assisi to honor the apostle of humility, St. Francis. The European tour ended in Greece, where we viewed the Athenian temples, and saw the prison in which the gentle Socrates {FN39-6} had drunk his death potion. One is filled with admiration for the artistry with which the Greeks have everywhere wrought their very fancies ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... here in this now sad place, where I was so happy as first to meet you: but I shall long for the ninth of May; for then I hope again to enjoy your beloved company, at the appointed time and place. And now I wish for some somniferous potion, that might force me to sleep away the intermitted time, which will pass away with me as tediously as it does with men in sorrow; nevertheless I will make it as short as I can, by my hopes and wishes: ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton

... to consider the constituent parts and properties of the most common things we are in the habit of daily using, and their poisonous and destructive natures, we should recoil at the deadly potion, and shrink from the loathsome draught we are about to take. That which we consider the most delicious and exhilarating portion of our common beverage, porter, contains carbonic acid gas, commonly known by the "spirit," and which the poor miners dread with the utmost horror, like the Arabian ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various

... love, which I pay to her mourning and many surviving friends; yet it leaves a peculiar pain upon my heart, and it is almost as if my very gall were poured out upon the earth. Yet much sweetness mingles itself with this bitter potion, chiefly in the view and hope of my speedy removal to the eternal world. May it not be the bounty of this providence, that instead of her living many years upon the earth, God may have taken away my child ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge

... loth to pay for thy sinning, and for the means that puts thee upon that exercise of thy graces, as will be for thy good hereafter: take heed of tempting of God lest he doubleth this potion unto thee. The child, by eating of raw fruit, stands in need of physic, but the child of a childish humour refuseth to take the potion, what follows but a doubling of the affliction, to wit, frowns, chides, and further threatenings and a forcing ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... trees, he would draw a tulip. They are unevolved. There is raw green in the tulip yellows; the reds are like a fresh wound, and the whites are either leaden or clayey.... Violets are almost spiritual in their enticements. They have colour, texture, form, habit, and an exhalation that is like a love-potion—earthy things that ask so little, do so well apart and low among the shadows. They have come far like the bees and the martins. Lilacs are old in soul, too, and their fragrance is loved untellably by many mystics, though ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort

... harlot daughters—Catholicism and Protestantism. This God's pure ministry has been preaching for the last two decades. Sectism is in a fallen condition. It is fallen into the depths of worldliness. She has opened her bosom and invited the world in to revel with her. She has prepared a potion of charming delusive spirits, by which she has intoxicated and inflamed the blood of nations. In the last few years the concerts, fairs and socials are frequented by both the professed Christians and non-professors, ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr

... and things were carried so far that he was represented, on the stage of a popular theatre, ill, pale, and surrounded by doctors, who were holding a consultation as to the nature of his malady: they at last agreed to give him a potion of gold to take; the sick man at once sat up, complaining of nothing more than a burning thirst. When informed of this scandalous piece of buffoonery, Louis contented himself with saying, "I had rather make courtiers laugh by my stinginess than ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... and was struggling violently against three men, who were striving to hold him, while a physician tried to force him to swallow a potion. ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... (especially students whose garments were of fine cloth and perfectly new), and I now did the same, with a consciousness that "IT" was "beginning." There had been no great festivity as yet, but I felt assured that things would go splendidly when once we had begun drinking tumblers of the potion that was ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy

... all drew near. The Finn took the tale of the beasts, and bade his grandsons not let the reindeer stray too far while he was away, and could not guard them from wolves and bears. Then he took a sleeping potion and began to dance and turn round and round till his breath quite failed him, and he sank moaning to the ground. His furs were all that remained behind of him. His spirit had gone—gone all ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie

... he replied, "It is nothing. Des Hermies gives me permission to get up tomorrow. But what a frightful medicine!" and he showed Durtal a potion of which he had to take a teaspoonful ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... predisposition, responded to the draught he had drunk then. As a body freed from the quivering, unrelenting grasp of an electric battery subsides into a cool quiet, so, through his veins seemed to pass an ether which stilled the tumult, the dark desire to drink the potion in his hand, and escape into that irresponsible, artificial world, where he had before ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... is really worth. It does not do away with the great need of a rigorous food adulteration act, though there is great satisfaction in knowing that when we eat it we are not taking in a mild death-dealing potion. But, come to think of it, there are other great scientists in the country besides those composing the National Academy. Some of them have decided in a contrary manner. Is it not best to have the question decided by a majority vote of reputable chemists, ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... doctor arrived. I show him my drunkards; and at once he recognizes that I have guessed correctly, and that these men have been put asleep by means of one of those narcotics of which certain thieves make use to rob their victims. A potion, which he administers to them by forcing their teeth open with a knife, draws them from this lethargy. They open their eyes, and soon are in condition to reply to my questions. They are furious at the trick that has been played upon them; but they do not ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau

... alas! is quickly guest; The town has whisper'd round the jest. Think on some remedy in time, The Dean you see, is past his prime, Already dwindled to a lath: No other way but try the Bath. For Venus, rising from the ocean, Infused a strong prolific potion, That mix'd with Acheloues spring, The horned flood, as poets sing, Who, with an English beauty smitten, Ran under ground from Greece to Britain; The genial virtue with him brought, And gave the nymph a plenteous draught; Then fled, and left his horn behind, For ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... Eusebian chronicle, [47] gives 95 B.C. Others have with more probability assigned an earlier date. It is from Jerome that we learn those facts which have cast a strong interest round the poet, viz. that he was driven mad by a love potion, that he composed in the intervals of insanity his poem, which Cicero afterwards corrected, and that he perished by his own hand in the forty-fourth year of his age. Jerome does not quote any contemporary authority; his statements, ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... same song (24) be takes a potion which causes oblivion. But there is even a third point in the Atlamal in Groenlenzku, which resembles one in the Indian tale. It is where the half enchantress Kostbera warns Hogni ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland

... as far as her husband's means and credit permit, the ideas of the particular section of the wealthy that have captured her. If she is a fool, her ideas of life will presently come into complete conflict with her husband's in a manner that, as the fumes of the love potion leave his brain, may bring the real nature of the case home to him. If he is of that resolute strain to whom the world must finally come, he may rebel and wade through tears and crises to his appointed work ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells

... well to talk of death as "a pleasant potion of immortality"; but the most of us, I suspect, are of "queasy stomachs," and find it none of the sweetest.[34] The graveyard may be cloak-room to Heaven; but we must admit that it is a very ugly and offensive vestibule in itself, however fair may be the life to which it leads. And though Enoch ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... good side" of Granny Thomas, lest she brew an unfavourable wind for them, and there was much talk of love potions. Janet knew that people said Peggy Buchanan would never have got Jack McLeod if Granny had not given her a love potion. Jack had never looked at Peggy, though she was after him for years; and then, all at once, he was quite mad about her—and married her—and wore her life out with jealousy. And Peggy, the homeliest of all the Buchanan ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... disease, but from experience, that it may always be cured, if taken in time, and proper directions be followed. If, by the cure of gout be meant the administration of some pill, some powder, or some potion, which shall drive away the complaint, I firmly believe, that it never was, nor ever will be cured. Indeed, it is astonishing that such an idea should have ever entered the mind of any person, who has any knowledge of nature, or ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett

... and asks what has been done to him. Parnapishtim tells him. But Gilgamesh is not completely healed. His body is still covered with sores. The magic potion must be followed by immersion into the fountain of life. Parnapishtim instructs Ardi-Ea to convey Gilgamesh to this fountain. He speaks to ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... no such thing as ungrowing? When the fair, when the sex which we instinctively attribute to cities, finds itself too large in its actuality for a Directoire ideal, there are means, there are methods, of reduction. Is there no remedy, then, for municipal excess of size? Is there no harmless potion or powder by which a city may lose a thousand inhabitants a day, as the superabounding fair loses a pound of beauty? Is there nothing for New York analogous to rolling on the floor, to the straight-front corset, to the sugarless, starchless diet? Come, you must not deny us all hope! How ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells

... abuse, if any covering be over it: and to confirm my former presage to the Widdow, I have advised old Peter Skirmish, the Soldier, to hurt Corporal Oath upon the Leg; and in that hurry I'll rush amongst 'em, and in stead of giving the Corporal some Cordial to comfort him, I'll power into his mouth a potion of a sleepy Nature, to make him seem as dead; for the which the old soldier being apprehended, and ready to be born to execution, I'll step in, and take upon me the cure of the dead man, upon pain of dying ...
— The Puritain Widow • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]

... doctor came within a half-hour, examined Ste. Marie's bruised head, and bound it up. He gave him a dose of something with a vile taste which he said would take away the worst of the pain in a few hours, and he also gave him a sleeping-potion, and ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman

... never compel himself to take the healthful precautions which might have prevented, or would at least modify, this malady, which was slight at first, but had greatly increased from year to year. He wanted to cure it, and would sometimes take baths or drink some prescribed potion; but, hurried along on the current of his business, he soon neglected the care of his person. Sometimes he thought of suspending work for a time, travelling about, and visiting the noted baths for such ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac

... 'abridge'; 'dormitory' and 'dortoir' or 'dorter' (this last now obsolete, but not uncommon in Jeremy Taylor); 'desiderate' and 'desire'; 'fact' and 'feat'; 'major' and 'mayor'; 'radius' and 'ray'; 'pauper' and 'poor'; 'potion' and 'poison'; 'ration' and 'reason'; 'oration' and 'orison'{24}. I have, in the instancing of these named always the Latin form before the French; but the reverse I suppose in every instance is the order in which ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench

... not be!' said the Egyptian, impetuously. 'Fear nothing, Glaucus shall be thine. Yet how, when thou obtainest it, canst thou administer to him this potion?' ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... such times, without any waste of rhetoric or balancing of expediencies, he was more in love with suicide than Hamlet or Cato, and that if it had not been for the sympathy and aid of a golden-haired little girl he would have swallowed his death-potion quietly. Georgy was his firm ally against her mother, and helped him shrewdly in many a close pinch; and his rich uncle, Mr. Raymond (Mr. Floyd's father-in-law), rarely refused him provisional aid upon his application, although he was wise enough to decline helping him in any of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... assured, you know, that Ninon possesses a potion, and that in her generosity to her friend, the fair Indian, she lent ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... night Juliet drank off the potion. She had many misgivings lest the friar, to avoid the blame which might be imputed to him for marrying her to Romeo, had given her poison; but then he was always known for a holy man. Then lest she should awake before the time that Romeo was to ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... "Alas, my sorrow, for now am I slain. But thou, Vassal, who hast done me this great wrong, do not think to hide from the vengeance of thy destiny. Never may surgeon and his medicine heal your hurt. Neither herb nor root nor potion can ever cure the wound within your flesh: For that there is no healing. The only balm to close that sore must be brought by a woman, who for her love will suffer such pain and sorrow as no woman in the world has endured before. And to the dolorous ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France

... listened to what he said, and answered, "If you be able to perform what you promise, I will enrich you and your posterity. Do you assure me that you will cure my leprosy without potion, or applying any external medicine?" "Yes, Sire," replied the physician, "I promise myself success, through God's assistance, and to-morrow, with your majesty's permission, I will ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... ditch-water to shave with. With a shower of tears he strove to smile, saying that, in spite of them, his cheeks were covered with pure warm water enough. They brought him to Berkeley Castle, on the Severn, and there, it is said, tried to poison him; but his strength of constitution resisted the potion, and did not fail, under confinement or insufficient diet. At last, when Berkeley was ill, ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... the occasion. Raising his glass, he said, "Madam, may I be permitted to drink your health and to thank you for your hospitality." Madam smiled blandly, in no wise inconvenienced by the severity of the potion which she had absorbed!... ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer

... have vowed it. Go, Ta-user, the hour is late. Have thy woman stir a potion for thee, and sleep. I would to mine own dreams. They yield ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... how stupid I am; I entertain you with discourses of physic, but I have the oddest jumble of disagreeable things in my head that ever plagued poor mortals; a great cold, a bad peace, people I love in disgrace, sore eyes, the horrid prospect of a civil war, and the thought of a filthy potion to take. I believe nobody ever had ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville

... omnipotent. Worn by exhaustion, excitement, and fever, and possibly a little affected by Captain Dick's later potion, Roger Catron turned white, and lapsed against the wall. In an instant Captain Dick had caught him, as a child, lifted him in his stalwart arms, wrapped a blanket around him, and deposited him in his bunk. Yet, even in his prostration, ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte

... for a while, perhaps not speak, but only smile kindly. That will last twelve hours or so, plenty of time for you to be married, and afterward, when the grosser part of the potion passes off leaving only its divine essence, why, afterward she'll love ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard

... sobriety of the senses, and he will subdue by reason his animal faculties, that the animal pleasure in food and drink may not delight him too much, but that he may eat and drink as a sick man takes a potion, because it is his duty to preserve his strength for the service of God. This is sobriety of body. A man will preserve moderation in words and actions, in silence and speech, in eating and drinking, in what he does and ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge

... home-sickness came into his throat. He saw the old wood- coloured house, crouching black within its walls under the cold November stars. If his mother had not gone to bed yet, she was sitting beside the cooking-stove in the kitchen, and perhaps his sister was brewing something on it, potion or lotion, for her husband's rheumatism. Miss Vane had talked to him about his mother; she had said he might have her down to visit him, if everything went on right; but of course he knew that Miss Vane did not understand that his mother wore bloomers, and he made up his mind ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells

... the bottle of gin. Thomas ordered his fifth glass of ale, and saw Jameson's head sink forward a little. Thomas' sigh almost split his heart in twain. Jameson's head went up suddenly, and with a drunken smile he reached for the bottle and poured out a stiff potion. He drank ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath

... anointed myself with the unguent, and drank of the potion, ha! ha! ha!" cried Dorothy, with a wild gesture, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... activities which are connected with one another only by the name "Philology." It must be freely admitted that philology is to some extent borrowed from several other sciences, and is mixed together like a magic potion from the most outlandish liquors, ores, and bones. It may even be added that it likewise conceals within itself an artistic element, one which, on aesthetic and ethical grounds, may be called imperatival—an ...
— Homer and Classical Philology • Friedrich Nietzsche

... ease, I alighted and followed him. Thus we had speech by the way, but not touching his sorrow Rather his red Yesterday and his regal To-morrow, Wherein he statelily moved to the clink of his chains unregarded, Nowise abashed but contented to drink of the potion awarded. Saluting aloofly his Fate, he made swift with his story; And the words of his mouth were as slaves spreading carpets of glory Embroidered with names of the Djinns—a miraculous weaving— But the cool and perspicuous eye overbore unbelieving. So ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling

... "This, madam," said I, "is not the way to rid you of your ague." "I grant it," answer'd Psyche, "but I have a Dose at hand will infallibly do it" and therefore brought me a lusty bowl of satyricon, (a love-potion) and so merrily ran over the wonderful effects of it, that I had well-nigh suck'd it all off; but because Ascyltos had slighted her courtship, she finding his back towards her, threw the bottom of it ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter

... delicate food and drink, dressed his burns with softest touch, given him some soothing potion, and prepared a daintily clean bed for him to rest in. When he awoke, after the first refreshing sleep in many hours, she was still there, and the room seemed like another place, so restfully clean ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... deliver you when in mine?" the Colonel replied. "C'est la fortune de la guerre, mon garcon; but calm yourself, and take this potion which ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Boroughbridge, made his escape, however, and turned the tide against the King. This was ROGER MORTIMER, always resolutely opposed to him, who was sentenced to death, and placed for safe custody in the Tower of London. He treated his guards to a quantity of wine into which he had put a sleeping potion; and, when they were insensible, broke out of his dungeon, got into a kitchen, climbed up the chimney, let himself down from the roof of the building with a rope-ladder, passed the sentries, got down to the river, and made away in a boat to where servants and horses were waiting ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... Tom swallowed the potion. The result, however, was unsatisfactory, for, contrary to what was anticipated, they produced no effect whatever. To make matters worse, the hut in which they lay was overrun with rats, which were not only sleepless and active, but daring, for they kept galloping round the ...
— Hunting the Lions • R.M. Ballantyne

... refreshment I had received by their victuals and drink, which were very nourishing, disposed me to sleep. I slept about eight hours, as I was afterwards assured; and it was no wonder, for the physicians, by the emperor's order, had mingled a sleepy potion in the ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift

... dunghills; but you will excuse me, if I let our correspondence lie dormant rather than deal in such trash. I am forced to send Lord Hertford and Sir Horace Mann such garbage, because they are out of England, and the sea softens and makes palatable any potion, as it does claret; but unless I can divert you, I had rather wait till we can laugh together; the best employment for friends, who do not mean to pick one another's pocket, nor make a property of either's frankness. Instead of politics, therefore, I shall amuse you ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... down. "Give me the potion," I said. "If the worst comes to the worst it will save having my hair cut, and that I think is one of the most hateful duties of a civilised man. How do you take ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells

... to the arrangement of his sleeping-room, drawing the curtains, seeing that the bed was well aired and warmed, and himself adding blocks to the wood fire which soon kindled. Nor did he forget to prepare, with the aid of the good woman, some hot potion that might soothe and comfort his stricken and exhausted charge, who in this moment of distress and desolation had come, as it were, and thrown himself on the bosom of his earliest friend. When all was arranged Glastonbury descended ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli

... despatch him. Seeing this, Magny, with the most dreadful self-abasement, after dragging himself round the room on his knees from one officer to another, weeping and screaming with terror, at last desperately drank off the potion, and was a corpse in a few minutes. Thus ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... of stars! Light, the revealer of dread beauty's face! Weaving whereof the hills are lambent clad! Mighty libation to the Unknown God! Cup whereat pine-trees slake their giant thirst And little leaves drink sweet delirium! Being and breath and potion! Living soul And all-informing heart of all that lives! How can we magnify thine awful name Save by its chanting: Light! and light! and light! An exhalation from far sky retreats, It grows in silence, as 'twere self-create, Suffusing ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various

... to modify his opinion. He had heard Pitt thundering away against Carteret in exactly the same strain as Pitt and Carteret used to thunder against Walpole. He had heard Pitt denounce Carteret as "an execrable, a sole minister, who had ruined the British nation, and seemed to have drunk of the potion described in poetic fiction which made men forget their country." He had seen the policy of Walpole quietly carried out by the very men who had bellowed against Walpole, and had succeeded at last in driving him from office forever. He knew that no one now among those who used to call themselves ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... Maggie felt as she sat in her loneliness the evening after hearing that news from Mrs. Glegg,—only those who have known what it is to dread their own selfish desires as the watching mother would dread the sleeping-potion that was to still her ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... very well to talk of death as 'a pleasant potion of immortality', but the most of us, I suspect, are of 'queasy stomachs,' and find it none of the sweetest. {9a} The graveyard may be cloak-room to Heaven; but we must admit that it is a very ugly and ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... physician attending a personage of exalted rank has always to drink half the potion he prescribes as a test ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... that whoever may obtain the tears of the Gladsome Beast in a bowl, and become drunken upon them, may move all persons to shed tears of joy so long as he remains inspired by the potion to sing ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany

... the smoke of a profitless lamp. Nevertheless it cannot be concealed from the enlightened judgment of the holy and good, to whom these discourses are specially addressed, that the pearls of salutary admonition are threaded on the cord of an elegance of language, and the bitter potion of instruction sweetened with the honey of facetiousness, that the taste of the reader may not take disgust, and himself be debarred from the pleasure of approving of them: "On our part we offered some good advice, and spent an age in bringing it to perfection. If that ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... was nearly all weariness and the result of the excitement, but it may have been due to Uncle Paul's potion; at any rate Rodd went off fast asleep, and when he awoke it was to find Morny sitting by his cot. "Hullo!" ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn

... fleece on the hill-side, and all the world a shining singing vision, what thought of the lost warmth then? What warmth were not well lost for this keen exhilarated sense in every nerve, in limb, in eye, in brain? What potion has sleep like this crystalline air it almost takes one's breath to drink, of such a maddening chastity is its grot-cool sparkle? What intoxication can she give us for this larger better rapture? So did Narcissus, an old Son of the Morning, figure to ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard

... the seeing, but taking of a potion, that maketh it work as it should, nor is the blood of Christ a purge to this or that conscience, except ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... with {16} extraordinary wisdom and intelligence. Grown to manhood, he determined to compel his father to restore his brothers and sisters to the light of day, and is said to have been assisted in this difficult task by the goddess Metis, who artfully persuaded Cronus to drink a potion, which caused him to give back the children he had swallowed. The stone which had counterfeited Zeus was placed at Delphi, where it was long exhibited as a ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens

... some acquaintance or servant of the prince or baron whom he wished to slay. Allowing this person to take a full taste of the delights of the place, he was cast into a deep sleep by means of a strong potion, in which state he was removed from paradise. On recovering from his sleep, and finding himself excluded from the pleasures of paradise, he was brought before the old man, whom he entreated to restore him to the place from ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... their sleeping lords have slain, And some have hammer'd nails into their brain, And some have drench'd them with a deadly potion: All this he read, and read with ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope

... in it may be attended or followed by injurious consequences. We may best illustrate this double character of actions by a case so simple that we can see through it at a single glance. I will suppose that I carry to a sick person a potion which I believe to be an efficient remedy, but which, by a mistake for which I am not accountable, proves to be a deadly poison. My act, by the standard of absolute right, is an unfitting and therefore a wrong act, and it has its inevitable result ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody

... tending towards a rise in the rates and more public interference with the insanitary, because insufficiently financed, private house. What the public wants, therefore, is a cheap magic charm to prevent, and a cheap pill or potion to cure, all disease. It forces all ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw

... fury at Bill, at himself for carelessly keeping the money in the envelope although its hiding place back of the photograph seemed absolutely safe, at fate for playing him such a trick, the thought of exposure—everything was mixed into a poisonous potion which filled his brain and of which his soul drank. He leaped upon Bill and tried to throttle him. He fought with the strength of ten. Somehow both boys seemed to feel the need for silence. Except for the quick intake of their labored ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb

... but if I listen And buy thy secret and prove its truth, Hast thou the potion and magic lotion To give me also the heart of youth? With the cheek of rose and the eye of beauty, And the lustrous locks of life's lost prime, Wilt thou bring thronging each hope and longing That made the glory of that ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... beside me and told me I was being gradually poisoned by my step-mother, and that she had already poisoned my grandparents Barrois in the same manner. He had himself given me an antidote. But the means he had were not sufficient to shield me from all danger, and he begged me to drink a potion, which would put me in a trance for the space of three days. I took the potion which the count gave me; I lost my senses. How long I lay thus I do not know, but when I woke I found myself in a ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere



Words linked to "Potion" :   love-philtre, love-philter, potable, beverage, philtre



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