"Spell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... o'er whom the Summers Of youth passed, like a swell Of melody all unbroken, Till evil wrought its spell, And dream-embroidered curtains ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... nothing good could come of it, And this is what befell; She tried to write to papa, And found she could not spell. ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... Eminent Writer.—Rather think I do call myself Editor. Couldn't insert that humbug about India and Canada without reply. By the bye, have forgotten if you spell Christian name with or without K? ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... downstairs to my mother I held up my hand and made the letters for doll. I did not know that I was spelling a word or even that words existed; I was simply making my fingers go in monkey-like imitation. In the days that followed I learned to spell in this uncomprehending way a great many words, among them pin, hat, cup and a few verbs like sit, stand, and walk. But my teacher had been with me several weeks before I understood that everything ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... of utter helplessness, that he had once before resisted. But this time he did not attempt to resist, and no vision came to save him. Slowly drawn by the beauty of her tender eyes, he yielded to the spell, and soon her lips were pressed upon his own, and the white arms had closed around his neck, whilst the crushed magnolia bloom shed ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... Barnes, and threw back her cloak. She had just come in from the opera, and diamonds were flashing from her neck and bosom. Her gown was exquisite, the touch of her fingers an enchantment. It was impossible for him to resist the spell of her presence. ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... 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, Wooing the heart and bewitching the feet. ...
— Music and Other Poems • Henry van Dyke
... no uncommon story in India. She has laid her spell on certain families; and they have followed one another through the generations, as homing birds follow in line across the sunset sky. And their name becomes a legend that passes from father to son; because India does not forget. There is perhaps ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... from the present time, makes him an actor and a participator in the vivid scenes which he describes, and which is, in fact, inspiration of the very loftiest kind. The few who enjoy the glorious privilege, not often felt, nor long conferred, of surrendering themselves to the magic of that spell, cease for the time to be artists; they take no thought of ornament, or of any rhetorical artifice, but throw themselves headlong into their subject, trusting to nature for that language which is at once the shortest ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... as a whole was the policy of Grenville seen to spell disaster. Each new law seemed carefully designed to increase the burdens imposed by every other. The Sugar Act, for example, taken by itself, was perhaps the most grievous of all. The British sugar islands, to which it virtually restricted the West Indian trade of the Northern colonies, offered ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... is not extraordinary: I tell it you for the strange coolness which the young fellow, who was but nineteen, expressed: as he was writing his confession, "I murd—" he stopped, and asked, "how do you spell murdered?" ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... was too bewildered and feeble to do more than cling to Edith, with a blessed sense of being rescued from some great peril. A horrid spell seemed broken, and for some reason, she knew not why, life and hope were still possible. A torrent of tears seemed to relieve her of the dreadful oppression that had so long rested on her, and at ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... trim-built wherry, Oars and coat and badge farewell! Never more at Chelsea Ferry, Shall your Thomas take a spell! ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... open door. The master was a poor, ragged, pale, careworn looking young man, seemingly half-dinned with the noise, but very earnest in his work. The children, all speaking at once, were learning to spell out of some old bills of Congress. Several moral sentences were written on the wall in very independent orthography. C—-n having remarked to the master that they were ill-spelt, he seemed very much astonished, and even inclined to doubt the fact. I thought it was one of those cases where ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... unpleasant to the Peruvian's ear, and he says pillui, 'I sail.' The plu, again, in pluma, a feather, is said to be found in pillu, 'to fly.' Quichua has no v, any more than Greek has, and just as the Greeks had to spell Roman words beginning with V with Ou, like Valerius—Ou?ale'rios—so, where Sanscrit has v, Quichua has sometimes hu. Here is a list of words ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... some of the men pushed on with the freshest of the animals, leaving Stapylton and the remainder of the party to spell for a while, and bring ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... for all her hard work, but Nancy's "Do tell!" as she peeped over their shoulders and saw the illuminated tree, broke the spell. ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... affinity to a puppet-show. You cannot always see the magician who pulls the strings, and moves the political machine obedient to his will. And of no man in the House of Commons is this more true than of Mr. Dalglish. Unless one is under his magic spell, it is impossible to understand its mainspring, although it is easy to feel its effects. Ask the influential citizens of Glasgow to reveal the secret of Mr. Dalglish's power, and they will mention two ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... eyes to mine. I knew not what magnetism, what spell lay in them; but no other eyes were like them. They compelled attention; a man could no more release himself from their glance than he could fly. I was not at all in love with her, yet those eyes ...
— Coralie • Charlotte M. Braeme
... earth Before I rise to some diviner birth: Invisible to men, yet seen and heard, And understood by sorrowing beast and bird - Invisible to men, yet always near, To whisper counsel in the human ear: And with a spell to stay the hunter's hand And stir his heart to know and understand; To plant within the dull or thoughtless mind The great religious impulse ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... July there cam' a spell o' weather, the like o' 't never was in that countryside; it was lown an' het an' heartless; the herds couldnae win up the Black Hill, the bairns were ower-weariet to play; an' yet it was gousty too, wi' claps o' het wund that rummled in the glens, and bits o' ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... the poet more obviously portrayed peers as livingly the face of the poet portraying him. And this one—the admonishing poet—is set there with his "sudden rose," as if to indicate with that symbol of poetic magic what kind of spell was sought to be exercised by their maker to conjure up in his house of song the figures that people its niches. Could a poem be imagined more cunningly devised to reveal a typical poetic personality, and a typical theory of poetic ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... And yet, by all accounts, that's to save poor children's souls. O, I knew your ladyship would agree with me. I am sure my mother was as good a creature as ever breathed the blessed air; and if she's not gone to heaven I don't want to go there; and she could not spell a letter decently. And does Mr. Gray think God took ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Poe and Tschaikowsky occasionally do. His intellectual muscles are too strong to let him become over-influenced, as Ravel and Stravinsky seem to be by the morbidly fascinating—a kind of false beauty obtained by artistic monotony. However, we cannot but feel that he would weave his spell over us—as would the Grimms and Aesop. We feel as much under magic as the "Enchanted Frog." This is part of the artist's business. The effect is a part of his art-effort in its inception. Emerson's substance and even his manner has little to do ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... Snip and Moppet, and I hear Fan and Dora rushing up stairs for me, so I will bid you good-by, or "orevo," as I heard Dr. Le Baron say to Miss Farrar when he went away last night—that is, it sounded like orevo. I don't know as I spell it right, for I can not find it anywhere in ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Curious, the spell that colors cast, Binding the fancy coweb-fast, And you would smile if you could know I like your cretonne parrots so! But I have seen them sail toward night Superbly homeward, the last light Lifting them like a purple ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
... men coming by, I called them to aid in removing the dead horse from his wounded limb. They did so, and then passed on; but I seemed bound to him as by a spell. His manly face and soldierly bearing, when suffering so terribly, charmed me. I changed his position, adjusted his head, arranged his mangled legs in an easy posture, supporting them by leaves stuffed under the blanket on which we had laid him. In the ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson
... image of loveliness that gave her such a charm. The charm was an imaginary one. Had I never found her on the river and idealized her, the might have gained my admiration; but she would never have thrown over me such a spell. But now, whatever she was in herself, she was so merged in that ideal, that in my longing for my love I turned my steps backward and wandered toward O'Halloran's, with the frantic hope of seeing her shadow on the window, ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... farm as part of a great fourth line of defense, a trench that was feeding all the other trenches and all the armies in the open and all the people behind the armies, a line whose success was indispensable to victory, whose defeat would spell failure everywhere. It was only for a minute that she saw this quite clearly, with a kind of illuminated insight that made her backache well worth while. Then the minute passed, and as Elliott bent to her hoe again she was aware only of a suspicion that possibly ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... Quiocto. Mrs. Behn probably meant to spell this word 'Quiyoughcto', the sound being identical. There is in Virginia a river which in the seventeenth century was called the 'Quiyough'. The inhabitants of the banks of this river had mysterious or supernatural properties ascribed to them. In the Voyages & Discoveries of Capt. John Smith ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... released myself from the spell which held me, and gone to the countess. Something very like fear held ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... up the child, who at first resisted passionately, fighting with all its chubby strength against the strange arms. But Rachel seemed to have a way with her—a spell, which worked. She bent over the little thing, soothing and cooing to her, and then finding a few crumbs of cake in the pocket of her overall, the remains of her own lunch in the field, she daintily fed the rosy mouth, till the sobs ceased and the child stared upwards in a sleep ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... autumn, and just as he was beginning to recover from a spell of bad health, he was invited to give a lecture at the Royal Institution, the prospect of which seemed to have upon him a most stimulating effect; he at once began to think about a ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... In a day of action this man would dare anything. A button might be awry THEN and nobody touched him; but when they had made the brute fight, then they lashed him again into subordination. Almost all of us yielded to the spell—scarce one could break it. The French officer I have spoken of as taken along with me, was in my company, and caned like a dog. I met him at Versailles twenty years afterwards, and he turned quite pale ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... get there? What strange spell Kept her two hundred years so well, Free from decay and mortal taint? What? but the prayers of a patron saint! A hundred leagues from Manilla town, The "San Gregorio's" helm came down; Round she went on her heel, and not A cable's length from a galliot That ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte
... dock, we did not hail him. Everybody was wildly curious: Everybody was perfectly dumb. The whole earth was silent at last; the wheels had stopped; the boat was scarcely moving through the water. The place, the scene, the hour seemed under a spell. Then a bell rang very shrilly in the deep silence; the paddles plunged into the sea again; we made a graceful sweep under the shadow of the great mountain and proudly steamed away. Not a syllable had been exchanged with that mysterious being on the dock; ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... awful Spright, hast to Achitophel, Rouze his great Soul, use every Art, Charm, Spell: For Absolom thy utmost Rhetorick try, Preach him Succession, roar'd Succession cry, Succession drest in all her glorious pride, Succession Worshipt, Sainted, Deify'd. Conjure him by Divine and Humane Pow'rs, Convince, Convert, Confound, make him ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... go, if you've a mind to, and as soon as you like. — It's better travelling now than it will be by and by. I can get along without you for a spell, I guess." ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... himself took in his performance. He evidently delighted in the revival of those scenes in which he had once figured, and the powerful portraiture which, in his study, realized the characters of the eminent men whom he had seen successively depart from the political world. In this lies the spell which makes Walpole the favourite of all the higher order of readers in our age, and will make him popular to the last hour of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... wake up de slaves. He blowed it long 'fore day so dat dey could eat breakfast and be out dere in de fields waitin' for de sun to rise so dey could see how to wuk, and dey stayed out dar and wukked 'til black dark. When a rainy spell come and de grass got to growin' fast, dey wukked dem slaves at night, even when de moon warn't shinin'. On dem dark nights one set of slaves helt lanterns for de others to see how to chop de weeds out of de cotton and corn. Wuk ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... cape or a headland to break its monotony, as the surges rolled mournfully in upon a desolation more dreary than their own. The atmosphere was mirky and surcharged with rain, for the wild equinoctial storm which had held Maurice spell-bound had been raging over land and sea for many days. At every step the unburied skulls of brave soldiers who had died in the cause of freedom grinned their welcome to the conquerors. Isabella wept at the sight. She had cause ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... though Desmond frequently spoke of trying to get a ship, the admiral always replied that there would be time enough by and by, and that a spell on shore would do him no harm. They were one day walking across Southsea Common, intending to go to some shops in the High Street, when Desmond caught sight of three officers, whom he saw by their uniforms were commanders, ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... town—it was winter; I stood in the cold, smartly dressed, in this coat! I was blowing on my fingers and jumping from foot to foot. Good people carried me to the hospital. When I began to get better and come to my senses, my drunken spell was over. Dread came over me! Horror seized me! How had I lived? What had I done? I began to feel melancholy; yes, such melancholy that it seemed better to die. And so I decided that when I got quite well, I would go on a pilgrimage, then go to my brother, and let him take me as a porter. ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... scarcely be the effect of mere improvidence. There must be foul play. James was evidently in bad hands. Barillon was earnestly cautioned not to repose implicit confidence in the English ministers: but he was cautioned in vain. On him, as on James, Sunderland had cast a spell which no exhortation ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... loose hay out of this sunshine," said Larssen after an hour or so, when a spell of losing set in. "Now ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... harboring it, nursing it, dwelling on it, rolling it as a sweet morsel under the tongue, and quite determined to enjoy a miserable time in selfish morbidness and grumbling, it costs us no little sacrifice to throw off the morbid spell, to refuse the suggestions of injury, neglect and the remembrance of unkindness, to rise out of the mood of self-commiseration in wholesome and holy determination, and say, "I will rejoice in the Lord"; I will "count it ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... carried in his saddle-pouch, quite three months passed ere he and the black boy reached the Cloncurry. Here, however, he found nothing to tempt him—the field was overcrowded, and every day brought fresh arrivals, and so, after a week's spell, he once more set out, this time to the eastward towards the alluvial fields near the Burdekin River, ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke
... sweetest spell When I for Susan's praise invoke you? What, sulkier still? you pout and swell As if that lovely ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... things that I have known, to learn to know any fresh things. If I could choose, I would ask that I might now glide gently from your arms into those of eternal sleep. Oh! Arthur, I am so happy now—so happy that I scarcely dare to speak, for fear lest I should break the spell, and I feel so good—so much nearer heaven. When I think of all my past life, it seems like a stupid dream full of little nothings, of which I cannot recall any memory except that they were empty and without meaning. But the future is worse than the past, because it looks fair, and snakes always ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... Thus, in the History of Prince Arthur (Sir T. Malory, 1470), we are told that the enchantress Nimue or Ninive inveigled the old man, and "covered him with a stone under a rock." In the Morte d'Arthur it is said "he sleeps and sighs in an old tree, spell-bound by Vivien." Tennyson, in his Idylls ("Vivien"), says that Vivien induced Merlin to take shelter from a storm in a hollow oak tree, and left him spell-bound. Others say he was spell-bound in a hawthorn bush, but this is evidently a blunder. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... duck in there and hide last night?" I asked, coming out of the charmed spell his description had ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... retains enough of the warlike spirit to fight fiercely in defence of his own property, but has lost all desire to despoil and wrong his neighbours. It was for this reason that Numa encouraged agriculture among the Romans, as a spell to charm away war, and loved the art more because of its influence on men's minds than because of the wealth which it produced. He divided the whole country into districts, which he called pagi, and appointed ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... letter again in memory. Genuine, or a joke of the enemy, it spoke wakening facts to him. He leapt from the spell Rose had encircled him with. Strange that he should have rushed into his dream with eyes open! But he was fully awake now. He would speak his last farewell to her, and so end the earthly happiness he paid for in deep humiliation, and depart into that gray cold mist ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... ever, when writing a letter, been arrested by the fact that you did not know how to spell a certain word?" ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... something more, I went to other villagers, mostly women, who are more easily disarmed and made to believe that you too know and are of the same mind with them, being under the same mysterious power and spell. In this way, laying many a subtle snare, I succeeded in eliciting a good deal of information. It was, however, mostly of a kind which could not profitably be used in any inquiry into the subject; it simply went to show that the feeling existed and was ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... shore and pier familiar faces of old men and young men changed; boys grown into stalwart fellows, and babes into boys and girls; many quiet visions of youth rose and mingled with my thoughts, and this spell began its working, as those of ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... The spell of rest lasted some two months, and then the Legion returned to the front in time for the battle in Champagne "in which" he writes "we took part from the beginning, the morning of the memorable 25th. September." I cannot resist ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... of this short address shook the hearts of the listeners, and before the first sentence was ended they were under the spell of a mighty magician. They stood hushed, awed, and melted, as the speaker enforced the solemn lesson of the hour, and brought home to them, in plain unvarnished terms, the duty which remained for them to do—to finish the work which the dead around them had given their lives to carry ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... the two characters 'Pao-yue,'" the maids speedily explained, "every one in our house has received our old mistress' and our mistress' injunctions to use them as a spell to protract his life for many years and remove misfortune from his path, and when we call him by that name, he simply goes into ecstasies, at the very mention of it. But you, young brat, from what distant parts of the world do you hail that you've recklessly been also dubbed by the same name? But ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... show that the little fellow was coming to think for himself and had an active and earnest mind. In fact, he was so precocious and said such droll things as greatly to amuse the king and those around him. Here is one of his sayings, spoken in a spell of cold weather when the butter could not be spread on the bread. The prince bent a piece of ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... they relate. I have seen these story-tellers so much in earnest, so entirely carried away by the tale they were relating, that they fairly trembled with excitement. They held their little audiences spell-bound. The women dropped their half-sewn moccasin from their listless hands, and the men let the pipe go out. These stories for the most part were about the ancient gods and their miraculous doings. They were generally related ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... her through eyes over which had come an unfamiliar softness. Under the lingering spell of his dream, her golden hair, which fell in rippling curls, seemed like a halo of purity and innocence and peace, irradiating the atmosphere around her. It is true the thought occurred to Ben, vaguely, that through harm to her he might inflict the greatest punishment upon her father; ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... of the year 1884: "England was the opponent of all the maritime Powers of Europe. She had for decades assumed at sea the same dictatorial attitude as France had maintained upon land under Louis XIV. and Napoleon I. The years 1870-1871 broke the French spell; the year 1884 has shown England that the times of her maritime imperialism also are over, and that if she does not renounce it of her own free will, an 1870 will come for the English spell too. It is true, ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... alone for a spell," Persis commanded with her usual decision. "And you leave this thing to me. I'll try ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... intense his energies, and so upright his life, that he succeeded in spite of this defect. But this strong, fine man told me that this low habit of speech delayed his progress constantly. A few years ago, in a great crisis in his life, he was suddenly able to break the spell, and I think he is now prouder of his clean words and that mastery of himself which their use indicates than he is of any single success he has achieved or of any single honor he ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... energy provided an occasion arose to call forth their dormant energy. But without the aid of an almost universal introduction of self-acting tools in this sleepy establishment, to break, with the busy hum of active working machinery, the spell of indolence that seemed to pervade it, there appeared to me no hope of anything like continuous and effective industry or useful results. The docks looked like one vast knacker's yard of broken-down obsolete ships and wretched ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... wuz restin' a little in my room after supper, Josiah havin' stayed down in the parlor a spell talkin' to granpa Huff and Billy, Blandina come into my room. She wuz all fagged out, but under the fag you could see that expression of perennial good nature and ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... Teddy said, with an air of conviction, "an' then you can sneak back long enough to tell us where you're hangin' out. I'll work down 'round the markets for a spell, an' p'rhaps I'll see some of ...
— Aunt Hannah and Seth • James Otis
... maid, Come to the rocky shade I love to sing; Live with us, maiden rare— Come, for we "want" thee there, Thou elfin thing, To work thy spell, In some cool cell ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... contract were worked like bullocks until they were often wont to fall asleep out of sheer exhaustion as they hauled away mechanically. We can imagine then with what raptures of joy these ill-treated mortals must have hailed the advent of October, the month that terminated their long spell of suffering and semi-starvation, and with what eagerness they must have returned homewards, the more industrious to perform odd jobs during the winter season on farms or in factories; the lazier to enjoy a well-earned holiday of loafing ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... known to arise from traceable hereditary sources may be mentioned factors in musical ability, artistic composition, literary ability, mechanical skill, calculating ability, inventive ability, memory, ability to spell, fluency in conversation, aptness in languages, military talent, acquisitiveness, attention, story-telling, poetic ability; and, on the other hand, insanity, feeble-mindedness of many types, epilepsy. These are suggestive of the inheritability ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... 22.—We came across Evans's sheep-skin boots this evening. They were almost covered after their long spell since they fell off the sledge. The breeze was in from the S.S.W., but got bright and light. At lunch camp we had completed 8.2 miles. In the afternoon the breeze fell altogether and the surface acted on ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... wild landscapes and picturesque manners. The pleasure was a passive one. There was no deep thinking to perplex, no subtler beauties to pause upon; the feelings were stirred pleasantly, but not deeply; the effect was on the surface. The spell employed was novelty—or, at most, wonder—and the chief emotion aroused was breathless interest in the progress of the story. Carlyle said that Scott's genius was in extenso, {247} rather than in intenso, and that its great praise was its healthiness. This is true of his verse, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... party looking at the place a spell back," he said, rubbing his dry old hands. "I dunno's I exac'ly give him an option on it; but I was sort of looking for him to turn up 'most any day. Course I'd have to give him the first chance, if it comes ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... spell-bound, but the author and manner of his death are given differently by different authorities. Thus, in the History of Prince Arthur (Sir T. Malory, 1470), we are told that the enchantress Nimue or Ninive inveigled ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... its ordinary course from day to day with no promise of anything special. The theatrical season was over, the warm days had come. There was a long spell of glorious weather. One morning the Laptevs attended the district court to hear Kostya, who had been appointed by the court to defend some one. They were late in starting, and reached the court after the examination of the witnesses had ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... distant near. New forms of beauty start at once into existence, and all the burial places of the memory give up their dead. Change the structure of the sentence; substitute one synonym for another, and the whole effect is destroyed. The spell loses its power; and he who should then hope to conjure with it would find himself as much mistaken as Cassim in the Arabian tale, when he stood crying, 'Open Wheat,' 'Open Barley,' to the door which obeyed no sound but 'Open ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... of hostilities the fullest demands will be made on their efficiency. Unbroken horses, and others not trained to the long gallops and trots of to-day, cannot possibly carry weights of from 230 to 240 pounds for many hours a day straight across country. After a very short spell most of the augmentation horses would be useless, and their presence would only have brought confusion and unsteadiness into the ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... friendship on me without shame to herself, for I had come of an old family in Scotland, the Sheplaws of Canfire, which she knew, as did the governor also, was a more ancient family than their own. Yet her kindness that day worked me no good, and I went far to make it worse, since, under the spell of her gentleness, I looked at her far from distantly, and at the last, as she was getting from the boat, returned the pressure of her hand with much interest. I suppose something of the pride of that moment leaped up in my eye, for ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of their infantry attack the Germans gave us a short breathing spell until their machine guns had been trained on our parapet and a school of light field guns dragged up into place. The aeroplane came out again, dropping to within three hundred feet of our trench, and with tiny jets of vari-colored ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... in a most invaluable manner, the pronunciation of English at that time; and in the second, it shows that Orm had a sound understanding of that principle of English which has been set at nought by those who would spell "traveller" "traveler." He knew that the tendency, and the, if not warned, excusable tendency, of an English tongue would be to pronounce this traveeler. It is a pity that knowledge which existed in the twelfth century should apparently ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... now this spell was snapt:[50-38] once more I viewed the ocean green, And looked far forth, yet little saw Of what had else ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... made of these letter pictures to spell out the recipient's name or the season's greeting. During the holidays the letters may be made from winter scenes to spell "A Merry Christmas" or "A Happy New Year." An Easter greeting may have more spring-like subjects and a birthday remembrance a fitting month. The prints are no more difficult ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... thought as blood is shed, Requickening thee with wisdom to do well; Such sons were of thy womb, England, for love of whom Thy name is not yet writ with theirs that fell, But, till thou quite forget What were thy children, yet On the pale lips of hope is as a spell; And Shelley's heart and Landor's mind Lit thee with latter watch-fires; why wilt ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... a brilliant day, in the midst of a brief spell of Indian summer. When they left the train and drove along the corduroy road from Applegate, the forest on either side of them was gorgeous in gold and copper. Straight ahead, at the end of the long vista, they could see a bit of cloudless sky beyond the low ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... no folly, no absurdity, no induction of French education upon the abstract idea of men and women; no similitude nor dissimilitude to English? Why, thou cursed Smellfungus! your account of your landing and reception, and Bullen (I forget how you spell it,—it was spelt my way in Harry the Eighth's time), was exactly in that minute style which strong impressions INSPIRE (writing to a Frenchman, I write as a Frenchman would). It appears to me as if I should die with joy at the first landing in a foreign country. It is the nearest pleasure ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... 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 ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... in Russian was to spell the signs upon the stores. In riding I could rarely get more than half through a word before I was whisked out of sight. I never before knew how convenient are symbolic signs to a man who cannot read. A picture of a hat, a glove, or a loaf of bread ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... A glittering row, Hang pit irons less for use than show, With horse-shoe brightened as a spell, Witchcraft's evil powers ...
— Weather and Folk Lore of Peterborough and District • Charles Dack
... mole that serves his cheeks' bright flame * Yet burneth not in fire albeit Infidel[FN470] I wonder eke to see that apostolic glance, * Miracle working, though it work by magic spell: How fresh and bright the down that decks his cheek, and yet * Bursten gall bladders feed which e'en as ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... was driving slowly now along the sandy road, and with his hand on hers she simply could not think. The spell of his nearness, of his touch, which all nature that morning conspired to deepen, was too powerful to be broken, and something was calling to her, "Take this day, take this day," drowning out the other ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... was goin' to my work early this morning, and I heard her groaning, so I come in, and I just staid on ever since. Feelings is feelings, if a body does have to lose a day's work to pay for 'em. She lies like that for a spell, and then she rouses up ...
— Three People • Pansy
... stars that fell At the wind's spoken spell, Swept with sharp strokes of agonizing light From the clear gulf of night, Between the fixed and fallen glories one Against my vision shone, More fair and fearful and divine than they That measure night and day, And worthier ...
— Two Nations • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... he said about Joe Johnson?" observed Dave, after a bad spell of coughing, as they cleared the old church ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... riding at a gallop, but, as he reached the place where the men lay in ambush, he pulled El Capitan to a walk, and took advantage of his first breathing spell to light his pipe. He had already filled it, and was now fumbling in his pocket for his match-box. The match-box was of wood such as one can buy, filled to the brim with matches, for one penny. But it was a most precious ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... Chetwynde treated her with scrupulous courtesy; yet beyond the extreme limits of that courtesy she found it impossible to advance. Hilda's manner was most humble and conciliatory. She who all her life had felt defiant of others, or worse, now found herself enthralled and subdued by the spell of this man's presence. Her wiliness, her stealthiness, her constant self-control, were all lost and forgotten. She had now to struggle incessantly against that new tenderness which had sprung up unbidden within her. She caught herself looking forward wistfully every day ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... fields, heaping up one upon another, high above the valley, and plunging down in steep slopes so suddenly that the falling land is lost from view and the valley below seems to hang unattached, are covered with a brilliancy of coloring and a variety of those rich tints of green and orange which spell to the eye abundance, and arouse a keen delight, like that of possessing ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... the main curse of time. The idea of it—of its exceeding sinfulness—haunted and oppressed him. He used to say of John Foster, that this deep and intense, but sometimes narrow and grim thinker, had, in his study of the disease of the race, been, as it were, fascinated by its awful spell, so as almost to forget the remedy. This was not the case with himself. As you know, no man held more firmly to the objective reality of his religion—that it was founded upon fact. It was not the pole-star he lost sight of, ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... resort of ghosts and devils that congregated about a spring near the village, so that the people were afraid to go there for water. A native headman took wood from a deserted house, made a cross of it, and set it up near the spring to spell away the fiends. As the people still feared, a woman of courage ventured near the place to find that a stream of cold, pure water was flowing from one of the arms of the cross. To further assure the people that the evil spirits had been mastered the cross arose from the earth and stalked about the ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... Ben hardly knew whether the boy had answered him or not, owing to his being obliged to struggle with his breath lest he should lose it in the second laughing spell that attacked him, the boy's thoughtfulness was not ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis
... the verdict with unmoved composure, whilst the noise from the excited crowd in the galleries is suddenly hushed as by a magic spell, and even the faces of the infuriated fish ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... boats and took another to Montreal. When we arrived there, three priests were waiting for us. Their names I perfectly remember, but I am not sure that I can spell them correctly. Having never learned while in the nunnery, to read, or spell anything except a simple prayer, it is not strange if I do make mistakes, when attempting to give names from memory. I can only give them as they were pronounced. ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... punch, and I can sing songs to the dear old dad, and I can comfort my mother when her rheumatics are bad. And I can love, love, love! Oh, no, Alice, I am not ignorant in the true sense; but I hate French, and I hate arithmetic, and I hate all your horrid school work. And I never could spell properly; ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... my privilege to know many sovereigns and because I have been honored with the confidence of several of them, I have become to a certain extent immune from the spell which seems to be exercised upon the commoner by personal contact with the Lord's anointed. Save when I have had some definite mission to accomplish, I have never had any overwhelming desire "to grasp the hand that shook ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... expression of those uplifted palms, as it were, I shall never 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. ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... lullaby. All the tender sentimentality we throw around a place is the result of the sacred thought that we live there with some one else. It is "our" home. The home is a tryst—the place where we retire and shut the world out. Lovers make a home, just as birds make a nest, and unless a man knows the spell of the divine passion I hardly see how he can have a home at all. He only ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... been a brief lull in the adventures, and all were of opinion that as long as this spell of vigilance lasted no spies would enter the town. It therefore came as a surprise when our little friend with the walking-stick was to be seen coming up the garden path of Harmony, wearing that air of happy mystery ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... and the vagaries of the monsoon, and watching from day to day to see what the year may bring forth. Should rain fall at the critical moment his wife will get golden earrings, but one short fortnight of drought may spell calamity when "God takes all at once." Then the forestalling Baniya flourishes by selling rotten grain, and the Jat cultivator is ruined. First die the improvident Musalman weavers, then the oil-pressers for whose wares there is no demand; the carts lie idle, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... Spell that word, and you shall have your penny. Now you may run out and play again. Give your old father a pretty kiss for it. I often wish," continued the lieutenant, as his daughter flew back to the dead skate and the babies, "that ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... stood a spell on one foot fust, Then stood a spell on t' other, An' on which one he felt the wust He couldn't ha' told ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... love-making had never disturbed. Physically, she hadn't responded to him in the least; but the long silences of Roscarna and particularly those of the following winter, when Slieveannilaun loomed above the woods like an immense and snowy ghost, and the lake was frozen until the cold spell broke and snow-broth swirled desolately under the Palladian bridge, gave her time for reflection in which her fancy began to dwell on the problems of ideal love. In this dead season the letters of Radway were more than ever an excitement. They stirred her imagination with pictures ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... incident could break the spell of Roma's enchantment, and when dinner was over, and she had gone to the studio and closed the door, the whole world seemed to be shut out, and nothing was of ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... asked Carl, in a weak, thin voice, well knowing that it was not his line partner, but trying to break the spell of ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... deliverance. Discipleship does not hold out long with the truly understanding. Those who really know what originality is are not long the slave of the power of imitation: it is the gifted assimilator that suffers most under the spell of mastery. Legitimate influence is a quality which all earnest creators learn to handle at once. Both poetry and painting are, or so it seems to me, revealing well the gift of understanding, and as a result we have a better ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... the nearest fire, muttering a spell. From his loin cloth he took the three digital bones of an enemy and proceeded to discover the whereabouts by geomancy. And behold! the fingers pointed in one direction which all could see. Oblivious to the tight indifference of Bakahenzie ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle |
