"Spell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... must be a witch, and the magical spell She has woven about me has done its work well, For the morning grows brighter, and gayer the air That my landlady sings as she sweeps down the stair; And my poor lonely garret, up close to the sky, Seems something like heaven when ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... pilgrim, is certain to have purchased from some religious Faky of the sacred shrine either a few square inches of cloth, or some such trifle, that belonged to the prophet Mahomet. This is exhibited to his friends and strangers as a wonderful spell against some particular malady, and it is handed about and received with extreme reverence by the assembled crowd. I once formed one of a circle when a pilgrim returned to his native village: we sat in a considerable ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... forms between the rete Malpighii and the stratum corneum of the skin, the latter being raised as a blister in which fluctuation can be detected (Fig. 9, a). This is commonly met with in the palm of the hand of labouring men who have recently resumed work after a spell of idleness. When the blister forms near the tip of the finger, the pus burrows under the nail—which corresponds to the stratum ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... was over to see him last and he scarcely said a word while we was there. You and me did all the talkin' and he just set and looked at us—when he wasn't lookin' at the floor. I never saw such a change in a man. We asked—yes, by fire, we fairly begged him to come and stay with us for a spell, but he never did. Now it ain't no further from Ostable to South Harniss than it is from South Harniss to Ostable. If he'd wanted to come he could; if he'd wanted to see us he could. We went to see him, didn't we; ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... expect to do much before the winter closed in with its inclement darkness, so the energies of all were devoted to making the most of the glorious spell of fine weather which now ensued, and ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... reappeared in the same piece. This reappearance was a revelation. Until then, of the two singers, the man had been the most prized. Older and more accustomed to the public, whose foibles and preferences he had studied, he held the pit and boxes under the spell of his voice. Beside him, the other one seemed but an admirably gifted pupil, the promise of a future genius; but her voice was young and had angles in it, just as her shoulders were too slight and thin. And when on her ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... Millicent felt the spell of the silence and sighed remembering how the lover whom she had discarded once pleaded that she would help him in a life of healthful labor. She regretted that she had not consented to flee with him to the new country. Now she was tied to a man ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... Greenleaf continued, "Last term they were at Bloomington Seminary, and, if you'll believe it, the principal insisted upon putting Arabella into the spelling-class, just because she didn't chance to spell every word of her first composition correctly! I dare say it was more Mildred's fault than hers, for she acknowledged to me that 'twas one of Mildred's old pieces that she found ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... I delighted to spell out the album quilt until I knew almost every line by heart; while the curious medley which these different scraps of poetry presented reminded me very much of a play, in which one person repeats a line, to which ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... through centuries of legend. Hobgoblins, demons, and witches mingle grotesquely with the throng of beautiful princesses, queens in glittering raiment, fairies and elves. Without these ugly figures, folk-tales would soon lose their power to charm. All tale tellers know that fear is a potent spell. The curiosity which drove Bluebeard's wife to explore the hidden chamber lures us on to know the worst, and as we listen to horrid stories, we snatch a fearful joy. Human nature desires not only to be amused and entertained, but moved to pity and fear. All can sympathise ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... is a secret! We are not allowed to speak of it there, much less here. It was only communicated to us confidentially, in whispers, with closed doors. But by and by you will see it operate like enchantment. It is a sovereign balsam which will heal your wounded honor; it is a potent spell, or a kind of patent medicine, which will extinguish and forever put at rest the devouring spirit which has desolated so many nations of Europe. You never can know exactly what it is; nor can we tell you precisely the time it will begin to operate: but ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... friend; and I hope that you will excuse me when you hear the reason, which is, that I am a lover of knowledge, and the men who dwell in the city are my teachers, and not the trees or the country. Though I do indeed believe that you have found a spell with which to draw me out of the city into the country, like a hungry cow before whom a bough or a bunch of fruit is waved. For only hold up before me in like manner a book, and you may lead me all round Attica, and over the wide world. And ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... spirited dash down the main thoroughfare had awakened some misgivings in the little town, was beyond the precincts of village scrutiny. The country road was hard, although marked by deep cuts from traffic during a rainy spell, and the horse's hoofs rang out with exhilarating rhythm. Regardless of all save the distance traversed, the rider yet forbore to press the pace, relaxing only when, after a considerable interval, he came to another road and drew rein at the fork. One way ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... the driver, uneasily, pulling his cap farther over his snow-hung eyebrows. "I've been thinking so for quite a spell." ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... demon or a evil sperrit, must of entered into Hank's human carkis and give that turrible eloquence to his remarks. It busted out every few minutes, and the women would put their fingers into their ears till a spell was over. And it was personal, too. Hank, he would listen until he hearn a woman's voice that he knowed, and then he would let loose on her fambly, going backwards to her grandfathers and downwards to her children's children. If her father had once stolen a hog, ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... voice and her name pronounced as nobody else ever could pronounce it, and the big manly form and brave face, all seemed to complete the spell of the sunset hour. Elinor did not speak, but with a smile made room for him beside her at the window, and the two looked long at the deepening grandeur of the heavens and the misty shadows of heliotrope and silver darkening softly to ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... she determined to know the worst. She was not a refined or clever woman; but the depth of her trouble sharpened her wits, and she instinctively made use of her woman's wiles to extort the truth from the man who she knew was under the spell of her beauty, whatever else ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... seemed like a dead hand grasping him out of the darkness. But a dreadful fascination compelled him to read every line, and re-read them, till they seemed burned into his memory. At last, by a desperate effort, he broke the strong spell her words had placed upon him, and, ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... did give surety to our fears that they were under a spell from that horrid House afar in the Land; and we had an assurance that this thing was. For, presently, there came a Monstruwacan to the Master Monstruwacan to report that there had come sudden a mighty Influence into the Land; and in the same moment, as it ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... hold. Still, by constantly changing hands and making strenuous exertions, they prevented it from increasing rapidly. All that night and next day they wrought with unflagging energy at the pumps. No man on board spared himself. The captain took his spell with the rest. Even Mr Webster threw off his coat and went to work as if he had been born and bred a coal-heaver. The work, however, was very exhausting, and when land appeared no one seemed to have any heart to welcome it except Annie and her ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... Under the spell of Europe's ageless artistry and the rich-hued meadows of England's literary past he had grown humble. The song of 'Dollars' was less clamorous than the echo of the ocean in the heart of a sea-shell. When he wrote, which ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... storm came on, we sprung a leak, and sorely were we tired, We plied the pumps, 'twas spell and spell, with lots of work beside; And what d'ye think this beggar did, the trick I do declare, He called us all to leave the pumps and join ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Dwight remarks; 'The numbers of the poet, the delightful melody of song, the fascination of the chisel, and the spell of the pencil, have been all volunteered in the service of Satan for the moral destruction of unhappy man. To finish this work of malignity the stage has lent all its splendid apparatus of mischief; the shop has been converted into a show-box of temptations; ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... industriously. I leaned forward with a sharp curiosity to see this great friend of America. He was dressed in a well-worn suit of brown, and I recall a decided Irish face, and a more decided Irish accent, which presently I forgot under the spell of his eloquence. I have heard it said he had many defects of delivery. He had none that day, or else I was too little experienced to note them. Afire with indignation, he told how the deputy black rod had hustled him like a ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... ran through the house, a gay voice called for three cheers, and as though a spell had been lifted the merriment burst out afresh in tune ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... unhinge the resolution of kings. His trust in the deepening impression made by the fall of Moscow was fostered by negotiations begun by Kutusoff for the very purpose of delaying the French retreat. For five weeks Napoleon remained at Moscow as if spell-bound, unable to convince himself of his powerlessness to break Alexander's determination, unable to face a retreat which would display to all Europe the failure of his arms and the termination of his career of ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... as if she were looking over their shoulders, that all the jurors were writing down "Stupid things!" on their slates, and she could even make out that one of them didn't know how to spell "stupid," and that he had to ask his neighbor to ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... is, the Empire, between the significance of Plon-Plon, and the insignificance of Prince Victor, is like the Republic between Ferry, the Tonkinese, and Carnot, who ought to spell his name Carton!' ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... days! thy words have broken A spell that long has bound these lungs of clay, For since this smoke-dried tongue of mine hath spoken, Three thousand tedious years have rolled away. Unswathed at length, I 'stand at ease' before ye. List, then. O list, while ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... good spell, if you've any sense,' growled father. 'It'll give us all we know to keep dark when this thing gets into the papers, and the police in three colonies are all in full cry like a pack of beagles. The thing is, what'll be our ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... march. As they passed with a rush very near the stand of the other preachers, the hearts of the people were smitten with fear, thinking that their entertainer had failed to enchain them longer with her spell, and that they were coming upon them with redoubled and remorseless fury. But they found they were mistaken, and that their fears were groundless; for, before they could well recover from their surprise, every rioter was gone, and not one was left ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... of Jesus was a talisman dissolving the spell in which Peter was held. Sin is always a kind of temporary madness; and it was manifestly so in this case. Peter was so bewildered with terror, anger and excitement that he did not know what he was doing. But the look of Jesus brought him to himself, and immediately he acted like a man. He ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... full-voiced quire below, In service high and anthems clear, As may with sweetness, through mine ear, Dissolve me into ecstasies, And bring all Heaven before mine eyes. And may at last my weary age Find out the peaceful hermitage, The hairy gown and mossy cell, Where I may sit and rightly spell Of every star that heaven doth shew, And every herb that sips the dew, Till old experience do attain To something like prophetic strain. These pleasures, Melancholy, give; And I with ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... for a moment what kind of tales science has to tell, and how far they are equal to the old fairy tales we all know so well. Who does not remember the tale of the "Sleeping Beauty in the Wood," and how under the spell of the angry fairy the maiden pricked herself with the spindle and slept a hundred years? How the horses in the stall, the dogs in the court-yard, the doves on the roof, the cook who was boxing the scullery boy's ears in the kitchen, and the king and queen with all their courtiers in ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... there with never a third, But each by each, as each knew well: The sights we saw and the sounds we heard, The lights and the shades made up a spell Till ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... Martinson, drawing an ample pad out of his pocket and producing a lead-pencil; "I want to get that. How do you spell it?" ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... to make me forget him—something of his own doing. A dance had ended, and after a breathing spell he began to play an interlude. It was an instance of how tunes, like perfumes, have the power to wake sleeping memories. The tune he was playing now, simple and dreamy like a lullaby, and strangely at variance with the surroundings, whisked me off in a twinkling, far ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... in Claude's sea-piece, No. 14, National Gallery, or in the curved portico of No. 30; but still these are not points to be taken into consideration as having anything to do with artistical rank, just as, though we should say it was disgraceful if a great poet could not spell, we should not consider such a defect as in any way taking from his poetical rank. Neither is there anything particularly belonging to architecture, as such, which it is any credit to an artist to observe or represent; it is only a simple and clear field for the manifestation ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... you The object of my watches, when the night Wanted a spell to cast me into slumber; Yet when the weight of my own thoughts grew heavy For my tear dropping eyes, and drew these curtains, My dreams were still of thee—forgive my blushes— And in imagination thou wert then My ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... enormous silence that lay upon the waters. In the Casa del Mare the atmosphere was almost suffocating, although every window was wide open. The servants went about their duties leaden-footed, drooping, their Latin vivacity quenched as by a spell. Vere was mute. It seemed, since the episode of the Carmine, as if her normal spirit had been withdrawn, as if a dumb, evasive personality replaced it. The impression made upon Hermione was that the ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... from their dormant state and make them work for us, a gigantic responsibility has devolved upon mankind. It was man's fate to remain unaware of this fact during the first phase of the electrification of his civilization; to continue now in this state of unawareness would spell peril to the ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... by before the signal bell rang on the electronic brain. Both Tom and Bud dashed over to the machine as it began to spell out the incoming message ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton
... child are likely to be sold. He is very anxious about this and wishful that she could get away by some vessel or otherwise. His wife's name is Lucy Morris; the child's name is Lot Morris; the lady's name she lives with is a Mrs. Hine (I hope I spell her name right, Hine), at the corner of Duke street and Washington street, in Norfolk city, Virginia. She is hired out to this rich old widow lady. James Morris wishes me to write you—he has saved forty dollars, and ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... faint echoes are already heard between intervals of solemn thoughts, while the name of Rosamond strikes upon our ear and vibrates within us as though the influence of myriads of spirits had woven around a deep subtle spell from which we cannot force ourselves. In truth, you have won us—your ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... Jim answered. "A fellow came one hot evening in January. We'd had a long spell of heat, and all our meat had gone bad that day; there was hardly a bit in the place, and of course they couldn't kill a beast till evening. About the middle of the day this chap turned ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... victim of what Panurge's sheep call progress, and what, in France, is called equality. The words, simple in themselves, became sublime from the tone of him who said them, in a voice that possesses a spell. Are there not, in fact, some calm and tender voices that produce upon us the same effect as a far ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... been written up, save in chance scraps. The Wanderer is quite as interesting as ever! I took the odds to L2 with him over a race run at Newmarket, and he paid promptly. He puts out little signs of improvement—sprouts of gentility—at times: but one heavy spell of gin and Shakespeare takes him back to the old level again. Still, he is more amusing than the dandies; in fact, I do not think I shall go amongst the respectable division again. I make no pretence of immolating myself: I go among the blackguards and wastrels because I am fascinated; I tell ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... face with the corpse, he contrived to achieve some likeness to his Sosia. And to complete a change almost as marvelous as that related in the Arabian tale, where a dervish has acquired the power, old as he is, of entering into a young body, by a magic spell, the convict, who spoke Spanish, learned as much Latin as an Andalusian ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... Baumeler, who had been a leading man among them, was chosen to be their spiritual as well as temporal head. His name probably proved a stumbling-block to his American neighbors, for he presently began to spell it Bimeler—a phonetic rendering. Thus it appears in deeds and other public documents; and the people came to be commonly spoken of as "Bimmelers." Baumeler was originally a weaver, and later a teacher. He was doubtless a man of considerable ability, but not comparable, I imagine, with ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... time. Juan Lepe understood. But just as he was thinking that in duty bound he must say to the Admiral, "She is undermining reputation. Best move away!" Guacanagari made a violent gesture as though he would break a spell. "Where could they come from with all that they have except from heaven? Who can plan against gods? It is sin to think of it! El Almirante will make you ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... have had the name of being sincere and willing workers with bare steel since the days when Charles the Bold, of Burgundy, sought to curb their rebellious spirits by razing their city walls and massacring some ten thousand of them. And quite a spell before that, I believe, Julius Caesar found them tough to ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... next day, as we rested after a good spell at the oars, "what would have become of us if our boat had been smashed to pieces, or ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... of Douglas' thinking. His vision enthralled me. His outlook upon the country, its increasing power and wealth, fascinated my imagination. Was I not resolved to be rich myself? And for moments I was under the spell of his great power. He was a world thinker, but with his own country forefronted in the playing of a colossal part. It appealed to my English blood, that blood which does great deeds through great vision, ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... most potent spell exerted by the great conqueror over his rival was a guarded invitation to share in some future partition of the Turkish Empire. That scheme had fascinated Napoleon ever since the year 1797, when ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... man Calabressa was, having escaped from prison, and eagerly inclined for chatter, after so long a spell of enforced silence, he could not fail to perceive that his companion was hardly ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... at the helm, in his capacity of skipper of the Betsey. With the prospect of the services of the Sabbath before him, and after working all Saturday to boot, it was rather hard to set him down to a midnight spell at the helm, but he could not be wanted at such a time, as we had no other such helmsman aboard. The gale, thickened with rain, came down, shrieking like a maniac, from off the peaked hills of Rum, striking away the tops of the long ridgy billows that had risen ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... of impish light and shadow to race over every face and form in the assemblage. The fantastic magician of the fire threw humps on to straight backs, flattened good round breasts, wrote wrinkles on smooth faces, turned eyes and lips into shining gems, made white teeth yellow, cast a grotesque spell of the unreal on young shapes, of the horrible upon old ones. A sort of monkey coarseness crept into the red, upturned faces; their proportions were distorted, their delicacy destroyed. Essential lines of figures were concealed by the inky shadows; unimportant features were ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... by the harmonious sound, Sylvans and Fauns the Cot surround, And curious crowd the Minstrel to behold: The Wood-nymphs haste the spell to prove; Eager They run; They list, they love, And while They hear the strain, forget the ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... my mate arrived with the dray, which we at once unloaded, and then turned the horses out to feed and have a spell before working them again. Every night since I had arrived a thunderstorm had occurred, much to my delight, and already the once cracked and baking flats were beginning to put on a carpet of grass; and indeed, in three weeks it was eighteen ...
— "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific - 1901 • Louis Becke
... forget. It occurred to me that perhaps here was a case of attempted bird-charming on the part of the snake, so I looked on from behind the fence. The birds charged the snake and harassed him from every side, but were evidently under no spell save that of courage in defending their nest. Every moment or two I could see the head and neck of the serpent make a sweep at the birds, when the one struck at would fall back, and the other would renew the assault from the rear. There appeared ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... the Antigone, the Oidipous, and the Prometheus were written to suit the popular taste of the time; not to be read by literary people, or to be performed before select audiences such as in our day listen to Ristori or Janauschek, but to hold spell-bound that vast concourse of all kinds of people which assembled ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... belonged to the school of Timagetes filed past him, he took such delight in the beauty of their heads, the wonderful symmetry of their limbs strengthened by athletic games, and the supple grace of most of them, that he felt as if some magic spell had carried him back to the golden age of Greece and the days of the Olympian games in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... kingdom he governs, to the condition of the times, and to the nature of the station he fills. Yet if it be true, what I have read in old English story-books, that one Agesilaus (no matter to the bulk of my readers, whether I spell the names right or wrong) was caught by the parson of the parish, riding on a hobby-horse with his children; that Socrates a heathen philosopher, was found dancing by himself at fourscore; that a king called Caesar Augustus (or some such name) ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... blind to the fact, that often from the first interview the maiden feels an undefined spell thrown around her by him who will become her husband. She feels differently in his presence; she watches him with other eyes than she has for the rest of men. She renders no account to herself of this emotion; she attempts no analysis of it; she does ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... campus. Not that he ceased to be the same sunny-souled, popular and friendly youth. The collegians, happy at finding his room open-house again, flocked to his cozy quarters, Freshmen fell under the spell of his generous nature, his Beef-Steak Busts, down at Jerry's were nightly occurrences, and he was the same Hicks as of old. But, after the dramatic manner in which Hicks had mysteriously made good the rash vow uttered at Camp Bannister and had brought to Coach Corridan a blond-haired giant who ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... magic of his mind over the very face of nature; to give to things and places a charm and character not their own, and to turn this "working-day world" into a perfect fairy land. He is indeed the true enchanter, whose spell operates, not upon the senses, but upon the imagination and the heart. Under the wizard influence of Shakespeare I had been walking all day in complete delusion. I had surveyed the landscape through the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... his obsequious companions towards the close of his career. For the charges of sordid parsimony so frequently preferred against Kenyon it is to be feared there were better grounds. Under the steadily strengthening spell of avarice he ceased to invite even old friends to his table; and it was rumored that in course of time his domestic servants complained with reason that they were required to consume the same fare as their master deemed sufficient for himself. "In Lord Kenyon's house," a wit exclaimed, "all ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... shore-line, curls of smoke rose from distant roofs, and on the headland, up the coast, the fairy forest in the air was outlined with precision. Distant ships were moving, like still pictures, on the horizon, as if that spell were laid on them which hushed the enchanted palace. There was just sea enough to roll the bell-buoy gently, and now and then was rung an idle note of warning. Three fishing-boats lay anchored off the Spindle, rising and falling, and every now and then a ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... Barrie relished this long spell of cold—to them no part of the year was quite so delightful as winter. What could compare with a long sleigh drive over firm thick snow, tucked in with soft warm furs and muffled up to the eyes—or tobogganing in the moonlight down a long hill—or skimming over ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... get fixed, honey, and it took a old conjurer ter get the spell off of her. It wuz like this: Sister Lizzie had a pretty peachtree and one limb spreaded out over the walk and jest as soon as she would walk under this limb, she would stay sick all the time. The funny part 'bout it wuz that while ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... The old preacher looked into the eyes of the street gamins about him, and he began to wonder. Some of them were fierce, unruly-looking youngsters, inclined to meanness and rowdyism, but one and all, they seemed under the spell of their leader's voice. At last Robert said, "Boys, this is my father. He's a preacher, too. I want you to come up and shake hands with him." Then they crowded round the old man readily and heartily, and when they were outside the church, he heard them pause for a moment, and then three ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... little dodges that spell comfort for the dressing-room of the woman who wants comfort and can have luxury. There is the hot-water towel-rack, which is connected with the hot-water system of the house and which heats the towels, and incidentally the dressing-room. This a boon if you like a hot bath sheet after a cold ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... Then the spell was broken, and the Prince knew her again, and you may fancy how glad he was. But as for the witch who had rolled the apple over to him, he had her torn to pieces between twenty-four horses, so that there was not a bit of her left, and after that they held on with the wedding in real earnest; and ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... impression such as none but herself could have created. The entire assemblage stared, murmuring its excitement, at the renowned creature. Eliza loved the stare and the murmur. She was like a fish dropped into water after a gasping spell ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... affright, and under the spell of the awful danger before him, exclaimed, "Josh, take which road you please; I ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... not the people inside fire beneath the sure protection of their stronghold? What spell had this woman cast over them? Had she really the power, then, to break through bolts and bars with a mere ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... good luck the girls had had left them. There came a spell of rain that lasted two days, and they remained in the house of Mrs. Nelson's relative—rather miserable days they were, too, for there was little to occupy them. But all things come to an end finally, and the bad weather was ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... honest and spend it. Some day I'll make a pile and go back and eat caviare with Billy. To-night I'll show you how to handle a bunch of corruptionists. I'll show them what Mellinger, private secretary, means when you spell it with the cotton and tissue ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... news had come. Poor Charley, though he made his living by ministering to various abject vices, gave credit for their food to many a piece of white wreckage. He was naively overjoyed at the idea of his old bills being paid, and he reckoned confidently on a spell of festivities in the cavernous grog-shop downstairs. Massy remembered the curious, respectful looks of the "trashy" white men in the place. His heart had swelled within him. Massy had left Charley's infamous den directly he had realized the possibilities open to him, and with his nose ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... method, but the number of minutes required to work out an example. If a boy abbreviated the month January to "Jan." and the word Company to "Co." he received a hundred per cent mark, as did the boy who spelled out the words and who could not make the teacher see that "Co." did not spell "Company." ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... in his pocket-book some sin committed by the pope, he jumped upon his back and commanded his Satanic majesty to carry him to Rome. The devil tried to make the bishop pronounce the name of Jesus, which would break the spell, and then the devil would have tossed his unwelcome burden into the sea, but the bishop only cried, "Gee up, devil!" and when he reached Rome he was covered with Alpine snow. The chronicler naively adds, "the hat is still shown at Rome in confirmation of this ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... you have had watching enough, and I'll just take my spell. I'm as fresh as a daisy with the dew ...
— The Gilpins and their Fortunes - A Story of Early Days in Australia • William H. G. Kingston
... state is brought about. Thus, that extreme concentration of the attention, that perfect abstraction from outward things, which in hysterical persons is the effect of weakness and passive-mindedness—of the inability to resist and shake off the spell of passions and emotions; is in others the effect of active self-control, of voluntary concentration, of a complete mastery over passions and emotions. Yet though the causes of the abnormal state are different, its effects may well be ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... Houseman, "there is about you something against which the fiercer devil within me would rise in vain. I have read that the tiger can be awed by the human eye, and you compel me into submission by a spell equally unaccountable. You are a singular man, and it seems to me a riddle, how we could ever have been thus connected; or how—but we will not rip up the past, it is an ugly sight, and the fire is just out. Those stories do not do for the dark. But to return;—were it only for the ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the time of year! B. A perfect spell, indeed, of halcyon calm, Most grateful here in Town, and, what is more, A priceless gift to our brave lads in France, Whose need is sorer, being sick of mud. A. They have our first thoughts ever, and, if Heaven Had not enough good weather to go round, Gladly I'd sacrifice ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... the cave. My breath came quickly, for at any instant a head might be thrust forth from the opening. Already the sun was mounting toward the zenith. The noontide heat and stillness was casting its drowsy spell upon the island. The air seemed thicker, the breeze more languid. And all this meant meal-time—and the thoughts of hungry pirates turning ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... The morning breaks the spell A pitying night has flung upon my soul. You are not near me, and I know full well My heart has need of patience and control; Before we meet, hours, days, and weeks must ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... occasionally a proletarian uprising enunciated radical principles, these principles should seem to be abnormally ultra-revolutionary. All society, for the most part, except a fragment of the working class, was enthralled by the spell of property. ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... in the haunting chorus, overcome by the madness of its spell; and when she awoke the song was ended and love had claimed ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... Feb. 16. The music of the "Good Friday Spell" from Wagner's opera "Parsifal" given by the Symphony Society, New ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... dispute the old man's contentions. For, had he been pressed, he would have been forced to admit that there was in the child's pure presence a haunting spell of mystery—perhaps the mystery of godliness—but yet an undefinable something that always made him approach her with a ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... ground forty feet before branching, and then spread widely and calmly into mighty sprays of foliage. One could not walk under those trees day after day and year after year through life and not feel their spell upon his heart. "From the old grey trunks that mingled their mighty boughs high in the heaven," to those whose lives lay underneath, in busy and perhaps more or less sordid routine, must inevitably come "the thought of boundless power and inaccessible majesty!" And that is a ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... Ali Akbar, Burton's old munshi, called on them. As his visiting card had been printed Mirza Ally Akbar, Burton enquired insultingly whether his old friend claimed kin with Ally Sloper. In explanation the Mirza said that the English were accustomed to spell his name so, and as he did not in the least mind what he was called, he had fallen in with ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... a scene of revelry that lasted till long after midnight. Bodlevski, feeling his side pocket to see if the passport was still there, at last left the hall, bewildered, as though under a spell. He felt a kind of gloomy satisfaction; he was possessed by this satisfaction, by the uncertainty of what Natasha could have thought out, by the question how it would all turn out, and by the conviction that his first crime had already been committed. All these ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... answered Tom. "Never could find out. You see it's heaps upon heaps of thousands, for the thousands come first and the billions afterwards; but when I've thought uncommon hard, for a long spell at a time, I always get confused, because millions comes in between, d'ye see, and ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... instant she wavered, standing as if by some spell suddenly arrested, with arms half extended. Then she flung down the paper and threw herself upon her lover's breast with a burst ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... truth, to-day Commanded most our musings; least the play: A purpose futile but for your good-will Swiftly responsive to the cry of ill: A purpose all too limited!—to aid Frail human flowerets, sicklied by the shade, In winning some short spell of upland breeze, Or strengthening sunlight on ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... that place of burial, which he had little expected to leave alive, Lycidas felt like one under an enchanter's spell. Joy at almost unhoped-for escape from a violent death was not the emotion uppermost in his mind, and it became the less so with every step which the Athenian took from the olive-grove. Strange as the feeling appeared even to himself, the young poet could ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... advancing in the road of science and improvement, while France, guided by the counsels of her wise Sovereign, pursues a course calculated to consolidate the general peace. Spain has obtained a breathing spell of some duration from the internal convulsions which have through so many years marred her prosperity, while Austria, the Netherlands, Prussia, Belgium, and the other powers of Europe reap a rich harvest of blessings from ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Tyler • John Tyler
... had for sujet the fair female sex; how the ladies were now all improved; how they could write, and read, and spell; how a man now-a-days might talk with them and be understood, and how delightful it was to see such pretty creatures turned ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... waters flow, Emerging from the abyss below, The hapless youth they gained, and bore Sad to his own forsaken door. There watched his dog, with straining eye, And scarce would let the train pass by, Save that with instinct's rushing spell, Through the changed cheek's empurpled hue, And stiff and stony form, he knew The master he had loved so well. The kitten fair, whose graceful wile So oft had won his musing smile, As round his slippered foot she played, Stretched on his ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... the morning. The Morning-watch had been relieved and were dressing. The Middle-watch, of which James had been one, were turning out after a brief three-hours' spell of sleep. Officers from the bathroom, girt in towels, wardroom servants who had been laying the table for breakfast, one or two Warrant-officers in sea boots and monkey jackets—the Watch-below, in short—appeared and vanished from his field of vision like figures on a screen. ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... symbols. We never even spoke of the future; for all time, past and to come, seemed to converge and centre and repose in that radiant present. In the enchantment of my new life, I feared lest a breath should disturb the spell, and send me back to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... be good business to get scared, provided they can unload this onto somebody else for a little ready cash. This spell of weather can't last much longer. Look at that bank to s'uthard. I don't know just what is under her in the way of ledges—never knew much about old Razee. But my prediction is, she'll break in two as soon as the ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... repeated. "I've met up with some several in my lifetime. Cur'ous things. His wound looks to be healed. Reckon he's been puny along ever sence he got that ball in his shoulder, and hit's ended up in this here spell ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... look up. They were near enough to the town to hear,—only too much. They heard the tramp of men, shouts and yells. Then the shrill cries of women. All dull and muffled the sounds came to them through the still night; and they lay there spell-bound, as in a nightmare, as men assisting at some horrible tragedy, which they had no power to prevent. Then there was a glare, and a wisp of smoke against the black sky, and then a house began burning brightly, and ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... Spell-bound, the journeyers pored upon the deathful course beneath their feet, gave a shudder to the horror of being cast upon it, and then hurried over the bridge to the island, in the shadow of whose wildness they sought refuge ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... story a great deal better than I, although he can not spell three consecutive words correctly. But, while he has imagination and humor, he ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... to comfort in bad weather. Of course, if you prefer it, we can put off our start till this puff of wind has blown itself out. It may have dropped before morning. It may last some little time. I don't think myself that it will drop, for the glass has fallen, and I am afraid we may have a spell of broken weather." ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... paused and beckoned us to advance. The sign, twice repeated before I could obey it, at last broke the spell that enthralled me. Under the most astounding or awe-striking circumstances, instinct moves our limbs almost in our own despite, and leads us to do with paralysed will what has been intended or is expected of us. This instinct, and no conscious resolve to overcome ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... coldness and reluctance; but she could not help it. She could not forget that he had never spoken to her of marriage till Mr. Royall had forced the word from his lips; though she had not had the strength to shake off the spell that bound her to him she had lost all spontaneity of feeling, and seemed to herself to be passively awaiting a ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... saw that she was progressing with her arguments, and undoubtedly had the Emperor under the spell of her fatal beauty; to oblige a grand lady in distress, he would be willing to concede much indeed, in his famous rle of lady-killer ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... a desert cave, Cold, dark, and solemn as the grave, I suddenly awoke. It seem'd of sable Night the cell, Where, save when from the ceiling fell An oozing drop, her silent spell No ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... National Apostasy to which the famous "movement" has been traced. John Henry Newman was at that time residing in Oriel, not as a tutor, but as Vicar of St. Mary's. He was kind to Froude for Hurrell's sake, and introduced him to the reading set. The fascination of his character acted at once as a spell. Froude attended his sermons, and was fascinated still more. For a time, however, the effect was merely aesthetic. The young man enjoyed the voice, the eloquence, the thinking power of the preacher as he might have enjoyed a sonata of Beethoven's. But his acquaintance with ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... spell several minutes long, the Captain was the first man to return to consciousness and the full recovery of his intellectual faculties. His first feelings were far from pleasant. His stomach gnawed him as if he had not eaten for a week, ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... Jacques!" said Abby, in her quiet voice. "Good evening to you!" she added, speaking kindly to the little stranger. "I was coming to see if you wouldn't like to step into my house and rest you a spell. Why, my heart!" she cried, as Marie raised her head at the sound of the friendly voice, "you're nothing but a child. Come right along with me, my dear. Alone, are ye, and ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards
... Avaunt, I say, Prendraxon! Thus direst curse on ye I lay Shall make flesh shrink and bone decay, To rot and rot by night and day Till flesh and bone do fall away, Mud unto mud and clay to clay. A spell I cast, Shall all men blast. Hark ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... days Kate was close to despair. Each day the house grew shabbier; things wore out and could not be replaced; poverty showed itself more plainly. So three more years of life in Walden passed, setting their indelible mark on Kate. Time and again she almost broke the spell that bound her, but she never quite reached the place where her thought cleared, her heart regained its courage, her soul dared take wing, and try another flight. When she thought of it, "I don't so much mind the falling," said Kate to herself; ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... worshipped; this cult, shrouded in deep mystery to even the initiates themselves, has remained an almost insoluble problem for the modern critic. It was said that the wishes of the initiates were always granted, and they were feared as to-day the jettatori (spell-throwers, casters of the evil eye) in Sicily ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... friends. All this warm-hearted, unconventional kindness goes far to make the stranger forget his "own people and his father's house," and feel at once at home amid strange and unfamiliar scenes. After all, "home" is portable, luckily, and a welcoming smile and hand-clasp act as a spell to create it in any place. We also managed, after business-hours, when it was of no use making expeditions to wharf or custom-house after recusant carpet-bags, to drive to the Botanic Gardens. They are extensive and well kept, but seem principally devoted to shrubs. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... Brattle Street, about three hundred yards from King Street; and another party came out of these barracks, armed with clubs and cutlasses, bent on a stroll. A little after eight o'clock, quite a crowd collected near the Brattle-Street Church, many of whom had canes and sticks; and after a spell of bantering wretched abuse on both sides, things grew into a fight. As it became more and more threatening, a few North-Enders ran to the Old Brick Meeting-House, on what is now Washington Street, at the head of King Street, and lifted a boy into a window, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... was quickened and excited under the stimulus of extempore speech, and was himself moved and stirred by the emotions which are most likely to move and stir an American audience. Some of his addresses to juries in Worcester are now remembered, under whose spell jury and audience were in tears, and where it was somewhat difficult even for the bench or the opposing counsel to resist the contagion. He never, however, undertook to prepare and train himself for public speaking, as was done by Mr. Choate or Mr. Everett, or had the constant and varied practice ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... sleep-tune blend with the play-tune, Weaving the mystical spell of the dance; Lighten the deep tune, soften the gay tune, Mingle a tempo that turns in a trance. Half of it sighing, half of it smiling, Smoothly it swings, with a triplicate beat; Calling, replying, yearning, beguiling, ...
— Music and Other Poems • Henry van Dyke
... a pleasant game to poor Jack, and he little thought that he was being taught to read, and to speak on his fingers while he was playing at it. As time went on, the boy became very quick at this game; he knew how to write a great many words, and to spell them in the finger alphabet, and the more he learnt the more he wanted to know. He now began to bring all sorts of things to his teacher, spelling "W-h-a-t, what," on his fingers again and again, until she had taught him their names. She saw that his mind, which had ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... Presently, through the window, came the sweet mysterious strains of the violin, not terrifying her as before, but filling her with an inexpressible sense of peace and calmness. She sat listening almost as one in a dream, with her pen suspended, and when the spell was broken by Molly's entrance with her supper, she went on in a much more cheerful strain than she had begun. It was dull, and it was a pity that her grand wardrobe, to say nothing of Betty's good advice, should be wasted, but her sister would rejoice in her seclusion from the ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... would go, for Marion's sake, if I felt at all well," groaned St. John. "But I am in for a regular spell of sickness, I ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield
... bald? Top of his head like a hard-boiled egg? He ain't got a scar across his face? The dickens he has! Short and plump, and a reg'lar old nice grandpa? Blue eyes? Say, did he have a coughin' spell and choke red in the face? Well, sir, for a brand-new detective, you've done well. Listen, Jim: Gubby's ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... me of a Dahomayan family I had watched at work in their hut during the Paris Exhibition. There was a magic spell in their voices as they talked together; the sounds they made had the cadence of the wind in the trees, the running of water, the song of birds: they echoed unconsciously the caressing melodies of nature. ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... Fancy, taking longer flight, With folded arms upon her heart's high swell, Floating the while in circles of delight, And whispering to her wings a sweeter spell Than she has ever aim'd or dar'd before— Shall I address this theme of minstrel lore? To whom but her who loves herself to roam Through tales of earlier times, and is at home With heroes and fair dames, forgotten long, ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... wot they want now," he said gloomily. "For," he added, with sudden desperation, "it's come to an end! Yes! You and your mother will stay here a spell so that the boys don't suspicion nothin' of either of ye. Then I'll give it out that you're takin' your aunt away on a visit. Then I'll make over to her a thousand dollars for all the trouble I've given her, and you'll take her away. I've bin a fool, Miss Pottinger, mebbe I ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... when the solemn deep church-bell Entreats the soul to pray, The midnight phantoms feel the spell, The ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... enough. After tea came an interview with the head-master in his study, and then what was perhaps a still more trying ordeal—a long spell of sitting in the big schoolroom answering an incessant fire of questions such as, "What's your name?"—"Where d'you ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... greedily in her hands, and washed her temples with water. The coolness seemed to break, for an instant, the spell that lay upon her; for, instead of hastening forward again in her dull, indefatigable tramp, she stood still where she was, for near a minute, looking straight before her. And Dick, from above on the bridge where he stood to watch her, saw a strange, equivocal smile ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... gods I make Of friendly clay and kindly stone,— Wrought with my hands, to serve or break, From crown to toe my work, my own. My eyes can see, my nose can smell, My fingers touch their painted face, They weave their little homely spell To warm me from ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan |
