"Evil eye" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Style; accordingly they collect it and use it for a variety of purposes. Mixed with tar and sprinkled on the door-posts it prevents snakes and scorpions from entering the house: sprinkled on heaps of threshed corn it protects them from the evil eye: mixed with an egg, henna, and seeds of cress it is an invaluable medicine for sick cows: poured over a plate, on which a passage of the Koran has been written, it strengthens the memory of schoolboys who drink it; and if you mix it ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... extra present. On returning, stopped at a stall, where were exposed for sale, onions, trona, dates, and other things. The women immediately caught alarm, afraid I was going to throw a glance of "the evil eye" on their little property. They cried out, "There is one God, and Mahomet is the prophet of God!" I made off quick enough from this unseemly uproar. Saw afterwards the Governor. Called to ask him to allow his servants to make me some cuscasou, which request ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... on one of his hands the second finger is twined over the first, of the Rightful-heir in presence of the Wrongful-heir, you may know that the first is guarding himself against the Evil Eye supposed to belong ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... hymns within - What evil eye can entrance win Where guards like these abound? If chance some heedless heart should roam, Sure, thought of these will lure it home Ere lost in ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble
... influence of his other uncle, Ulric Czillei. This Czillei was a great nobleman of Styria, but was withal possessed of large estates in Hungary. As a foreigner and as a relative of King Sigismund, he had long viewed with an evil eye Huniades' elevation. On one occasion Huniades had to inflict punishment on him. He consequently now did everything he could to induce the young king, his nephew, to hate the great captain as he himself did. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... need a reason for his follies?" he asked dryly. "His head is as hard as his wooden leg and never a new idea has pierced his brain since the day he was born. He hates our people with as much reason as our black Minna fears witches and the evil eye. It is said that he has written to the directors at Amsterdam, begging that none of the Jewish nation be permitted to infest New Netherlands. He has used those very words in public places; infest the colony and be like a plague of hungry locusts. Perhaps ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... society came to aid our projects; how the winds from the unknown, the seismic throbbings of the earth, and the very stars in their courses fought for us; and when, at last, these mightinesses turned upon us the cold and evil eye of their displeasure, how the heaped-up sea came pouring over here, trickling through there, and seeping under yonder, until our great dike toppled over in baleful tumult, "and all the world was in the sea"; how business, east, west, north, ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... believe, I expressed with intense hatred—was never forgotten either by my own men or by the Turks. Believing firmly in the evil eye, their ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... a man of medicine. He sold there prophylactics against small-pox, adultery, blindness, the evil eye, sterility, or any other trouble which you thought threatened you. If a man feared for the faithfulness of his spouse, it seems Father the Hadj could secure it with a charm, and so allow him to spend the night elsewhere in perfect enjoyment and content. That is what the quiet old cynic told ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... ermine." The Montreal Witness said: "Such a gigantic wrong cannot exist on the same continent with us without affecting the people of Canada in one way or another. Slaveholders long looked at Canada with evil eye. If the slavers get Anderson back they will execute him before the slaves. It would be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... for the works of departed talent be bestowed, what future has the living talent itself to look forward to? Art is best nourished by a general diffusion of aesthetic taste and feeling. There can be no invidious rivalry between the dead and the living. Alfred Tennyson looks not with evil eye upon John Milton. Why should a modern be jealous of a mediaeval artist? The public can love and appreciate both. Nor should it be forgotten that it is precisely in those countries where old art is most appreciated that the modern is ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... France. Edgar Atheling saw likewise that the innocence of his conduct could not make amends for the guilt of an undoubted title to the crown, and that the Conqueror, soured by continual opposition, and suspicious through age and the experience of mankind, regarded him with an evil eye. He therefore desired leave to accompany Robert out of the kingdom, and then to make a voyage to the Holy Land. This leave was readily granted. Edgar, having displayed great valor in useless acts of chivalry abroad, after the Conqueror's death returned to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... "Having once made her a mistress, we cannot again reduce her to the state of a bondwoman." Unmindful of this warning, Sarah exacted the services of a slave from Hagar. Not alone this, she tormented her, and finally she cast an evil eye upon her, so that the unborn child dropped from her, and she ran away. On her flight she was met by several angels, and they bade her return, at the same time making known to her that she would bear a son who should ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... Culdee, Dolly Mount, Sidney Parade, Ben Howth, Valentine Greatrakes, Adam and Eve, Arthur Wellesley, Boss Croker, Herodotus, Jack the Giantkiller, Gautama Buddha, Lady Godiva, The Lily of Killarney, Balor of the Evil Eye, the Queen of Sheba, Acky Nagle, Joe Nagle, Alessandro Volta, Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, Don Philip O'Sullivan Beare. A couched spear of acuminated granite rested by him while at his feet reposed a savage animal of the canine ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... neighbouring cities, as, for example, Thebes or Megara, both of which are well governed, will come to them as an enemy, Socrates, and their government will be against you, and all patriotic citizens will cast an evil eye upon you as a subverter of the laws, and you will confirm in the minds of the judges the justice of their own condemnation of you. For he who is a corrupter of the laws is more than likely to be a corrupter of ...
— Crito • Plato
... will make my part easier, and save my being driven to assert my own will, and so plunging poor Priscilla into hysterics. I can bear her interference, as long as Margaret's name is not on her lips. The moment she casts an evil eye on her, I shall speak to Rowland; which I had much rather avoid. It would be delicious, too, to be her protector, without her knowing it,—to watch over her as she walks in her bright innocence,—to shield her—but from whom? From my own ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... nearer to the mirror and looked into it. The fire from the heart of the ruby seemed to leap out. She hastily unfastened the gold chain from her neck and held the locket in her hand. The ruby with its heart of fire seemed now to the excited girl to possess an evil eye which could see through her. She felt that she hated it, she trembled a little, she hastily unlocked a drawer and thrust in the ruby locket and chain. She then removed the silver wreath of bay-leaves and put it also in the drawer with the ruby. Then she clasped her hands above her head and looked ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... cure for fits; hair plucked from the crop on an ass's shoulder, and woven into a chain, to be put round a child's neck, is powerful for the same purpose; and the hand of a corpse applied to the neck is believed to disperse a wen. The 'evil eye,' so long dreaded in uneducated countries, has its terrors among us; and if a person of ill life be suddenly called away, there are generally some who hear his 'tokens,' or see his ghost. There exists, besides, the custom of communicating deaths to hives of bees, in the belief that they invariably ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... form. Each of the young men, in saluting the new-comer, made mechanically, and with care to conceal it from him, a slight gesture or sign with their fingers; for Arbaces, the Egyptian, was supposed to possess the fatal gift of the evil eye. ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... day his three sons went with him to the war, and all were stricken down. God summoned the angels and said to them: "Behold the being I have created in my world. A father as a rule refrains from taking his sons even to a banquet, lest he expose them to the evil eye. Saul goes to war knowing that he will lose his life, yet he takes his sons with him, and cheerfully accepts ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... thing as the evil eye, Rapport's must have been a pair of them, as he realized that Kennedy had resorted to the simple devices of shadowing ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... the young face flushed with undisguised emotion. There cannot be a greater contrast than that which the frank, impulsive features, sanguine complexion, and blue eyes of Wolfe present to the power expressed in the commanding brow, the settled look, and the evil eye [Footnote: The late Lord Russell, who had seen Napoleon at Elba, used to say that there was something very evil in his ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... evidence that such a tradition is not yet extinct in Welford-on-Avon, a village, four miles from Stratford, with which Shakespeare must have been perfectly familiar. The witch, as usual, was an old woman, credited with the "evil eye" and the power of causing the death of cattle and farm-stock by "overlooking" them; and the native of Welford, from whom the story was communicated to me, would be prepared to produce eye-witnesses of various ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... however; and though Sir Walter must ever look with an evil eye on anyone intending to inhabit that house, and think them infinitely too well off in being permitted to rent it on the highest terms, he was talked into allowing Mr Shepherd to proceed in the treaty, and authorising him to wait on Admiral Croft, who still remained ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... themselves thrown constantly into the shade by his superiority in this as in other respects. The priests, his companions, were not inclined to be indulgent to any weakness shown by their young and admired rival; the husbands of some of his fair parishioners looked on him with an evil eye, while the ladies themselves could see nothing to blame in his deportment, ever devoted and amiable as he was to them. All the learned men of the country sought his society; all the well-meaning and generous spirits of the neighbourhood found answering virtues in Urbain Grandier, and he was ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... have died, and in the sky There lives no cloud to hint of Nature's grief; The sun glares ever like an evil eye, ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... feverish imagination was not content with this illumination of the facts. Something more lay behind it all. He sat down beside a prostrate column to penetrate the gloom. As he gazed before him into the dark heavens, the blast furnace winked like an evil eye, then silently belched flame and smoke, then relapsed into its seething self. The monster's breath illumined the dusky sky for a few moments. Blackness then fell over all for two minutes, and again the beast reappeared. Far away to the west came through ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... Euripides. And it is a vulgar persuasion, that very handsome persons, when looked upon, oft suffer damage by envy and an evil eye; for a body at its utmost vigor will through delicacy very ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... could speak with certainty of the fact. In truth, for as far back as the memory of the "oldest inhabitant" could reach, she had been feared, disliked and avoided, as one of malign reputation; indeed, the ignorant and superstitious believed her to possess the "evil eye," and to be gifted with ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... adherent was his dog Wolf, who was as much henpecked as his master; for Dame Van Winkle regarded them as companions in idleness, and even looked upon Wolf with an evil eye, as the cause of his master's going so often astray. True it is, in all points of spirit befitting an honorable dog, he was as courageous an animal as ever scoured the woods—but what courage can withstand the ever-during and all-besetting terrors of a woman's ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... her horse, which was ambling along, she sprang off, and ran up a sand hill, like a white doe. Never having witnessed any thing like this before, I was so astonished that she was returning, ere I could overtake her to ask if an ogre had lured her with his evil eye. 'O, no,' she cried,—'look here! You like flowers, but did you ever see any so lovely as this?—Smell it,—'tis so sweet, that the rose, if growing near it, loses its beauty and fragrance, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... demanded talismans and charms from the dervishes, which he had either sewn into his garments, or suspended in the most secret parts of his palace, in order to avert evil influences. A Koran was hung about his neck as a defence against the evil eye, and frequently he removed it and knelt before it, as did Louis XI before the leaden figures of saints which adorned his hat. He ordered a complete chemical laboratory from Venice, and engaged alchemists to distill the water of ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... regarded with an evil eye the old woman who braved him to the face. He did not doubt but that she had recognized her son in this young Siberian. Now if this son had first renounced his mother, and if his mother renounced him in her turn, it could occur only from ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... have been call'd Over the Baltic, we have saved the empire From ruin—with our best blood have we sealed The liberty of faith and gospel truth. But now already is the benefaction No longer felt, the load alone is felt. Ye look askance with evil eye upon us, As foreigners, intruders in the empire, And would fain send us, with some paltry sum Of money, home again to our old forests. No, no! my Lord Duke! no!—it never was For Judas' pay, for chinking gold and silver, That we did leave our King by the Great Stone[24] No, not ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... reached the chamber of the Enchantress. Her snoring had ceased. She had begun to rub her eyes and move uneasily, with many a grunt and snort. She was about to awake. Who could have told what mischief one glance of her evil eye would have effected. "Strike! strike!" said the Fairy. The Prince struck the bed. Instantly loud shrieks and groans, and cries most terrific, were heard filling the air, and shouts most horrible of mocking laughter, and bellowings, and roarings, and ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... accouterments, seeing that we had to saddle and bridle and bring forth our own steeds. This particular person could not saddle a horse very well nor put on his bit and bridle. The animal was inclined to rear and plunge when he came near, to fix him with an evil eye ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... long as I remained amongst them in that county. My having dared to ask a question and to expose the two venerable representatives of the county in such a public manner was an offence not to be forgiven; and accordingly I was set down as a jacobin and leveller, and was looked upon with an evil eye by the cunning supporters of the system, the parsons, lawyers, and attorneys. I received the thanks of many of the freeholders privately; but the poor sycophants did not dare to shew their, approbation publicly. ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... no knowledge whatever of medicine: charms are here, as throughout the Soudan, the great remedy. They are also used as preventatives to keep off the evil eye, bad spirits, and genii of different sorts; for these reasons almost every individual— nay, cattle, mules, and horses, are covered with amulets of all ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... to happen on this day—when no doubt all unsuspected and unperceived some lurking jettatura had given him the evil eye—that he passed by hazard through the block where Valerie lived, and saw ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... smiled at her new mistress; but when her look turned to Lady Dauntrey she secretly "made horns" with the first and last fingers of the hand that held the dog; the sign which Italians and Arabs use to keep off the evil eye. ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Athenians who would pass that cleft in the Areopagus where the "Avengers" had their grim sanctuary without a quick motion of the hands to avert the evil eye. Thieves and others of evil conscience would make a wide circuit rather than pass this abode of Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, pitiless pursuers of the guilty. The terrible sisters hounded a man through life, and after death to the judgment bar of Minos. With reason, ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... longer with this man," said Hester, slowly and firmly. "Thy heart must be no longer under his evil eye!" ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... "that's the woman," nodding significantly towards her as he spoke, but without looking at her person, lest the evil eye he dreaded so much might meet his, ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... Glorious and high the stature, she assumes; But watch the wandering changeful mischief well, And thou shalt see her with low lurid light Search where the soul's most valued treasure lies, Or, more embodied to our vision, stand With evil eye, and sorcery hers alone, Looking away her helpless progeny, And drawing poison from its very smiles. For Julian's truth have I not pledged my own? Have I not sworn ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... ward off disease. Such charms were supposed to bring good luck and prosperity to the owner and they were used particularly as a charm against barrenness in women. A sign which could be made by the hand, the phallic hand, was used as a protection against the evil eye. Ancient representations of Priapus have been found with the hand in this attitude. As further evidence to show the total degeneracy of these beliefs, it may be said that the phallic hand was adopted as ...
— The Sex Worship and Symbolism of Primitive Races - An Interpretation • Sanger Brown, II
... that, with all the rest, ariseth and proceedeth out of the heart—the soul; 'For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil things come from within, and defile the man' (Mark 7:21-23). That is, the outward man. But a difference must always be put betwixt defiling and being defiled, that which defileth being the worst; not but that the body shall have its share ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... lasted through the day, and at nightfall the people retired to their lodges. Hiawatha's daughter had been out, probably with other women, into the adjacent woods, to gather their light fuel of dry sticks for cooking. She was great with child, and moved slowly, with her faggot, across the sward. An evil eye was upon her. Suddenly the loud voice of Atotarho was heard, shouting that a strange bird was in the air, and bidding one of his best archers shoot it. The archer shot, and the bird fell. A sudden ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... pretty glass vases with narrow necks as a sign of welcome. The incense of the priests was supposed to avert the "evil-eye" from the gipsy van and our party. I felt much obliged for the good intention, but I did not mind the "evil eye" so much as the water-spouts. In my experience of travelling I never met with such kind and courteous people as the inhabitants of Cyprus. The Dali population had already blocked the narrow streets ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... Vautrin could put the evil eye on her neighbours' cows and stop their milk, on their churns and stop their butter, on their ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... prosperous than it is at present. The value of land would rise, and all the small trades would flourish. This is what is really undermining the power of Pius IX. A most curious sign of the times is the general belief among the Roman populace that the Pope has an evil eye. How long since this originated I have not been able to learn; but it is not uncommon for those who chance to see the pope in his carriage, especially women, to go immediately into the nearest church for purification. A few days since ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... Philhellenes of France and Germany affected to see in this struggle a revival of the ancient Greek spirit that blazed forth at Thermopylae and Marathon. For this same reason, perhaps, Metternich and his colleagues in the Holy Alliance looked upon the Greek revolution with an evil eye. Any cause espoused by the hot-headed liberals at the universities in those days of itself became obnoxious to the reactionary rulers of the ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... his operation, so gathered, or borne, or hung upon the neck, it mightily helps to drive away all phantastical spirits." These are the blossoms which have been hung in the windows of European peasants for ages on St. John's eve, to avert the evil eye and the spells of the spirits of darkness. "Devil chaser" its Italian name signifies. To cure demoniacs, to ward off destruction by lightning, to reveal the presence of witches, and to expose their nefarious practices, are some of the virtues ascribed to ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... dame looked! I don't know why young Petru devoured her so with his eyes, that he might have given her the Evil eye. Was he counting the wrinkles in her face? He would have needed to be born seven times in succession, and each time live seven times as long as an ordinary human life, to have leisure to number them all. But Holy Friday's heart laughed ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... weeks. We were all glad when she came back, the house had seemed so like a tomb. I'm not sure about Miss Joey. No doubt she looked upon her with an evil eye, as being the upsetter of all her plans. But then there was nothing Miss Joey dreaded more than a lonely house. ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... sight of a priest threw my uncle into a violent rage. He would shake his fist and make grimaces at him, and would then touch a piece of iron when the priest's back was turned, forgetting that the latter action showed a belief after all, the belief in the evil eye. Now, when beliefs are unreasonable, one should have all or none at all. I myself am a Freethinker; I revolt at all dogmas, but feel no anger toward places of worship, be they Catholic, Apostolic, Roman, Protestant, Greek, Russian, Buddhist, Jewish, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... proceeded to fulfil that sacred rite, never omitted in the east, of presenting refreshments; without the heartless and niggardly-ceremony of appealing to the guests, as is wont in Europe, to learn whether they will take them or not, looking on those who receive them with an evil eye. I followed Kamalia to know how the genuine oriental coffee is made. Good mussulmans can alone make good coffee; for, being interdicted from the use of ardent spirits, their palate is more exquisite ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 538 - 17 Mar 1832 • Various
... negro on the place," continued Edward, "who does not lie down at night in terror of the Evil Eye, and go to his work in the morning paralyzed by dread of what the day may bring. Why, there is a perfect panic among them. They are falling about like a set of ten-pins. This morning I sent for Wash (best hand on the place) to see about ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... profess'd friends; tho' I don't know whether the other ever made him an equal return of gentleness and sincerity. Ben was naturally proud and insolent, and in the days of his reputation did so far take upon him the supremacy in wit, that he could not but look with an evil eye upon any one that seem'd to stand in competition with him. And if at times he has affected to commend him, it has always been with some reserve, insinuating his uncorrectness, a careless manner of writing, and want of judgment; the praise of seldom altering or blotting out what ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... a child simple and amiable, neither sharper nor more stupid than all the other girls of her native village, Wratschewo, in the Government of Novgorod. But the people of the place having, from her early youth, made up their minds that she had the "evil eye," ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... and notwithstanding the numerous converts made by the early Christians, the <gr 'Efesia grammata>, or little scrolls upon which magic sentences were written, formed an extensive trade up to the fourth century. These "writings" were used for divination, as a protection against the "evil eye," and generally as charms against all evil. They were carried about the person, so that probably thousands of them were thrown into the flames by St. Paul's hearers when his glowing words ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... might be expected from such a character. His father, Elatha, was a Fomorian sea-king or pirate, and he repaired to his court. His reception was not such as he had expected; he therefore went to Balor of the Evil Eye,[39] a Fomorian chief. The two warriors collected a vast army and navy, and formed a bridge of ships and boats from the Hebrides to the north-west coast of Erinn. Having landed their forces, they marched to a plain in the barony of Tirerrill (co. Sligo), where ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, "No eye at all is better than an evil eye, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... 1554, to the main entrance of the Alhambra. This is the Puerta Judiciaria (Gate of Judgment), a massive horseshoe archway, surmounted by a square tower, and used by the Moors as an informal court of justice. A hand, with fingers outstretched as a talisman against the evil eye, is carved above this gate on the exterior; a key, the symbol of authority, occupies the corresponding place on the interior. A narrow passage leads inward to the Plaza de los Aljibes (Place of the Cisterns), a broad open space which divides the Alcazaba from the Moorish palace. To the left ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... this place from year to year, except such differences as are brought about by the change of seasons; no civic improvement troubles its sedate gloom—no adventurous speculator regards it as a promising site for building blocks of offices—no railway company casts an evil eye upon its seclusion within the area formed by the church and the tall dim houses which have mouldered ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... station and got her away, but the other things could not walk aboard, and how to get them there was hard to know. I asked people I knew to lend me their carts—people who were under some obligation to me, men I had known and done business with for years. They all refused; they feared the evil eye of the vigilance committee of a Fenian organisation still in full swing among us, and keeping regular books for settlement when they have the power. I was determined not to be beat, so I went to Limerick, nearly thirty miles ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... know thee not, I loathe thy race, But in thy lineaments I trace What Time shall strengthen, not efface: Though young and pale, that sallow front Is scathed by fiery Passion's brunt; Though bent on earth thine evil eye,[cu] As meteor-like thou glidest by, Right well I view and deem thee one Whom Othman's sons should ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... legends of the tenth or twelfth century are especially ambitious of initiation. The Scalds, like the Brahmins or Druids, were possessed of tremendous secrets; their runic characters were all powerful charms, whether against enemies, the injurious effects of an evil eye, or to soften the resentment of a lover.[31] The Northmen, with the exception of some nations of Central Europe, like the Lithuanians, who were not christianised until the thirteenth or fourteenth century, from their roving habits as well perhaps as from their remoteness, were among the last ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... AGREEABLE, even to those who desire not to have any share in the discourse: hence the teller of long stories, or the pompous declaimer, is very little approved of. But most men desire likewise their turn in the conversation, and regard, with a very evil eye, that LOQUACITY which deprives them of a right they are ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... only have been inspired by the whisperings of Cupid. They are in open-work patterns—called perforated—and often have long tufts of colored silk tied to the rugs with blue beads, in order to keep them from the effects of the Evil Eye." The Kiz-Kilim rug in the illustration was copied from a genuine rug. The filling is a deep blue and the borders are in oriental colors. The center figure is white, with red, brown, and yellow inside. ...
— Hand-Loom Weaving - A Manual for School and Home • Mattie Phipps Todd
... there were still a few considerable persons, who regarded his resumption of authority with an evil eye. Of these Don Juan Manuel had fled the kingdom before his approach, and taken refuge at the court of Maximilian, where the counsellors of that monarch took good care that he should not acquire the ascendency he had obtained over Philip. The duke of Najara, ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... place mentioned, and that he still smokes his hookah upon it; and that it had lost the two claws upon the left forefoot. The minister of the King of Oudh states that he received the two claws nicely set in gold; that they had cured his boy, who still wore them round his neck to guard him from the evil eye. The goldsmith states that he set the two claws in gold for C, who paid him handsomely for his work. The peasantry, whose cattle graze on the island, declare that certain gentlemen did kill a tiger there about the time mentioned, and that they saw the body after the skin had been taken ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... be sure of it; for from within, out of the heart of man proccedeth evil thoughts, Adulteries, Fornications, Murders, Thefts, Coveteousness, Wickedness, Deceit, Lasciviousness, an evil Eye, Blasphemy, Pride, Foolishness. All these things come from within, and defile a man. {92c} And a man, as his naughty mind inclines him, makes use of these, or any of these, to gratifie his lust, to promote his designs, to revenge his malice, to enrich, or to wallow himself in the foolish pleasures ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... sight of a priest threw him into a violent rage; he shook his fist and grimaced at him, and touched a piece of iron when the priest's back was turned, forgetting that the latter action showed a belief after all, the belief in the evil eye. Now when beliefs are unreasonable one should have all or none at all. I myself am a Freethinker; I revolt at all the dogmas which have invented the fear of death, but I feel no anger towards places of worship, be they Catholic, Apostolic, Roman, Protestant, Greek, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... the Church, besides their rich parishes in the City." The author of this tract, once widely celebrated, was Thomas Long, proctor for the clergy of the diocese of Exeter. In another pamphlet, published at this time, the rural clergymen are said to have seen with an evil eye their London brethren refreshing themselves with sack after preaching. Several satirical allusions to the fable of the Town Mouse and the Country Mouse will be found in the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... impresses every one that is seized upon by it with a kind of a rage, and a hatred against their own kind—as if there was a malignity not only in the distemper to communicate itself, but in the very nature of man, prompting him with evil will or an evil eye, that, as they say in the case of a mad dog, who though the gentlest creature before of any of his kind, yet then will fly upon and bite any one that comes next him, and those as soon as any who had been most observed by ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... combat. I saw no moving thing in the whole apartment which I could attack, but unfortunately my eyes fell upon some shining brass nails which served as ornaments round the edge of a table. To my heated imagination each nail seemed glaring directly at me, menacing me like the evil eye of a bird of prey. I rushed madly toward the table, and climbing up one of its legs, I seized a nail in my beak. To my great delight I found I could easily pull it out, which I immediately did, and threw it spitefully away. With yells of triumph I crept ...
— Harper's Young People, November 18, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... stretch of country so as to render it untenable by the enemy. Lord K. demonstrated this cross fire upon the map. He toiled over the wording of his instructions. They were headed "Constantinople Expeditionary Force." I begged him to alter this to avert Fate's evil eye. He consented and both this corrected draft and the copy as finally approved are now in Braithwaite's despatch box more modestly headed "Mediterranean Expeditionary Force." None of the drafts help us with facts ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... [7:20] But he said, that which comes out of the man, this defiles him; [7:21]for from within, from the hearts of men, proceed evil thoughts, fornications, [7:22] thefts, murders, adulteries, covetousness, malice, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. [7:23]All these evil things proceed from within, ...
— The New Testament • Various
... exquisitely refined, of perfected pain, achieved by the stimulation of recondite nerves of very delicate sensibility. Lawyers wear archaic robes and use a strange language in their mysteries, conveying to us a belief that Justice is an ancient witch whose evil eye can be averted only by the incantation and grotesque posturing of her initiate priests. But I am not sure that financiers do not understand the art of hypnotic suggestion best of all. I have worshipped in cathedrals, sweated cold in ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... nose, like the last new strawberry. He wore a fur cap and shorts, and was of the velveteen race velveteeny. He sent word that he would 'look round.' He looked round, appeared in the doorway of the room, and slightly cocked up his evil eye at the goldfinch. Instantly a raging thirst beset the bird, and when it was appeased he still drew several unnecessary buckets of water, leaping about the perch and sharpening his bill with ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... be possessed of the most extraordinary powers for evil; they could bewitch a man, woman or child—even the cows and flocks—by casting an "evil eye" upon them, by uttering an imprecation, or in other ways casting a spell upon them. This power was derived directly from the devil himself, with whom witches were supposed to be in direct compact; consequently ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... me so himself. That's what he knew him by. Gabriel was in the stage-manager's office. Suddenly the door opened and the Persian entered. You know the Persian has the evil eye——" ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... end of the sapling, adjusted a fuse in one of them, and soaped the opening to exclude water. Then Big Junko thrust the long javelin down into the depths of the jam, leaving a thin stream of smoke behind him as he turned away. With sinister, evil eye he watched the smoke for an instant, then zigzagged awkwardly over the jam, the long, ridiculous tails of his brown cutaway coat flopping behind him as he leaped. A scant moment later the hoarse ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... so far useful; scorner of every tradition, infernally wideawake and curiously deficient in what the Germans call "Gemuet" (one of those words which we sadly need in our own language). Instead of being regaled with tales of Saint Venus and fairies and the Evil Eye, I learnt a good deal about the price of food in the ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... harm me." So she unbolted the door, and told her to come in. Oh, how delighted Snow-white was with the pretty things; she bought several trinkets, and a beautiful silk lace for her stays, but she did not see the evil eye of the old woman who was watching her. Presently she said, "Child, come here; I will show you how to lace your stays properly." Snow-white had no suspicion, so she placed herself before the old woman that she might lace her stays. But no sooner was the lace in the holes than she began to ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... But an evil eye had noted the kindly act; and the proud Pharisee thought within himself, if Jesus were the prophet He professes to be, He would certainly have known that the woman was a great sinner, and would not have allowed her to touch Him. ...
— Mother Stories from the New Testament • Anonymous
... meaning to accredit such an idea,) as one that briefly and energetically conveyed his meaning to those whom he was addressing. 'Oh, foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you?' That is, literally, who has fascinated your senses by the evil eye? For the Greek is, tis umas ebaskanen? Now the word ebaskanen is a past tense of the verb baskaino, which was the technical term for the action of the evil eye. Without having written a treatise ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... all possible positions [he wrote in 1892], that of master of a school, or leader of a sect, or chief of a party, appears to me to be the most undesirable; in fact, the average British matron cannot look upon followers with a more evil eye than I do. Such acquaintance with the history of thought as I possess has taught me to regard school, parties, and sects as arrangements, the usual effect of which is to perpetuate all that is worst and feeblest in the master's, leader's, or founder's ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... military, but not of the people. The soldiers closed the procession; but their bearing is not nearly so haughty as that of the horses. The reason of this is simple enough—no one dares look upon the Arabians with an evil eye, but the soldiers are entirely subject to the caprice of their officers. I would certainly rather be the Sultan's horse than ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... to believe in ghosts and necromancy and witchcraft and the evil eye and ghouls and vampyres, and I don't know what all out of ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... best luck.{49} A Highland practice was to send |333| some one on the last night of the year to draw a pitcherful of water in silence, and without the vessel touching the ground. The water was drunk on New Year's morning as a charm against witchcraft and the evil eye.{50} A similar belief about the luckiness of "new water" exists at Canzano Peligno in the Abruzzi. "On New Year's Eve, the fountain is decked with leaves and bits of coloured stuff, and fires are kindled round it. As soon as it is light, the girls come as usual with their copper pots on their head; ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... name of Kuan Yin, the ship will be saved. If one goes into a conflict and calls on the name of Kuan Yin, the sword and spear of the enemy fall harmless. If the three thousand great kingdoms are visited by demons, call on her name, and these demons cannot with an evil eye look on a man. If, within, you have evil thoughts, only call on Kuan Yin, and your heart will be purified, Anger and wrath may be dispelled by calling on the name of Kuan Yin. A lunatic who prays to Kuan Yin will become sane. Kuan Yin gives sons to mothers, and if the mother ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... reference to the superstition of the "evil eye," still rife among the peasants in Russia. Though it has died out among the educated classes, yet the phrase, "not to cast an evil eye," is still made ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... and though it refreshed a little in going down, we were so sick, and strained ourselves so much after it, that it came up again, and made us more miserable than before. Our corpse now stunk so, what was left of it, that we could no longer bear it on board, and every man began to look with an evil eye on his fellow, to think whose turn it would be next; for the carpenter had started the question, and preached us into the necessity of it; and we had agreed, the next morning, to put it to the lot who should be the sacrifice. In this distress of thought it ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... broken, the only difficulties are, first, to understand your visitors, and secondly, to get them to go away. When the general conversation is fairly started, inquiries are made by degrees as to how many witches there are in the village, or what cures they know for fever and the evil eye, etc. At first these are met by denials expressed in set terms, but a little patient talk will generally lead to some remarks which point the villagers' minds in the direction required, till at last, after many persuasions, some child begins a story, others ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... "de w'ite folks use' ter sen' me ter town ter fetch vegetables. One day I met a' ole conjuh man name' Jerry Macdonal, an' he said some rough, ugly things ter me. I says, says I, 'You mus' be a fool.' He didn' say nothin', but jes' looked at me wid 'is evil eye. Wen I come 'long back, dat ole man wuz stan'in' in de road in front er his house, an' w'en he seed me he stoop' down an' tech' de groun', jes' lack he wuz pickin' up somethin', an' den went 'long back in 'is ya'd. De ve'y minute I step' on de spot he tech', I felt a sha'p pain ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... the cord might not be subject to the evil eye or fall into the hand of a foe who would use it magically to injure the babe. The navel-string has few superstitions in England. The lower classes mostly place over the wound a bit of cloth wherein a hole has been burned, supposing that the carbon will heal the cut, and make it fast to the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... unbaptized (326. I. 284); in Scotland, where the new-born babe is "bathed in salted water, and made to taste it three times, because the water was strengthening and also obnoxious to a person with the evil eye," the lady of the house first visited by the mother and child must, with the recital of a charm, put some salt in the little one's mouth. In Brabant, during the baptismal ceremony, the priest consecrates salt, given him by the father, and ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... benches, sat the trackmen, in their sheepskin coats and fur caps, with earlaps tied tightly down. They were tired and sleepy, and sat in every conceivable attitude expressive of sleepiness and fatigue. A red lantern, like an evil eye, gleamed from one dark corner; in the middle of the floor were several green lamps turned low, and over against the wall hung one barred lantern whose bright little gleam of light reminded one uncomfortably of a small, live mouse in a cage, caught and ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... reason for the appearance of so many different animals in this stele and in others of the same nature, has been given by Maspero, Etudes de Mythologie et d'Archeologie Egyptiennes, vol. ii. pp. 417- 419; they were all supposed to possess the evil eye and to be able to fascinate their victim ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero |
