"Fascination" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... clear enough in this play—the tragic moment, the life and movement, the splendid pathos, breadth of outlook and fascination of language. Yet there is a serious fault as well, for Sophocles, like the youngest of dramatists, can strangely enough make mistakes. The entry of Heracles practically makes the play double, marring its continuity. The ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... have gone since the penitent soul of Lola Montez took flight to its Creator; but there must be some still living whose pulses quicken at the very mention of a name which recalls so much mystery and romance and bewildering fascination of the days when, for them, as for her, ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... in his composition. One of these parcels, fastened with elastic rings, must be magnum bonum, and Janet, though without much chance of distinguishing it, was reading the labels with a strange, sad fascination, when, long before she had expected him, her uncle stood before her, with greatly astonished and displeased looks, and ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was attired in his customary black. He had maintained his usual phlegmatic manner all through the journey, and apparently had no intention of departing from it now. Having spent many years in New York after his arrival in America, the city's fascination for the average mortal seemed to ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... I know most of the hostelries up and down this part of the river—the "Ferry" at Cookham, the "French Horn" across the Backwater, one or two at Henley, and a lovely old bungalow of a tavern at Maidenhead; but this garden of roses at Sonning has never lost its fascination for me. ...
— A Gentleman's Gentleman - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... families of high position and honorable lineage. Such families are to those cities what the Knickerbockers are to New York. They give a gracious flavor to society; they are a link between the dim and heroic past and the dashing, eager, practical present; they add a dreamy fascination to the social landscape, like the lingering haze of morning illumined by the rays of the sun fast mounting to zenith. Where Duquesne stood, neither track nor mark remains of the volatile, daring and glory-loving race whose lily flag greeted the bearers ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... not crazy. I knew the old lady well, and at one time we were very good friends. She was the last daughter of an old, once prosperous family; a woman of bright, even brilliant mind, unhinged by misfortune, disappointment, loneliness, and the horrible fascination which an inherited load of litigation exercised upon her. The one diversion of her declining years was to let various parts and portions of her premises, on any ridiculous terms that might suggest themselves, to any tenants ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... happened to fit a certain vague feeling of uneasiness that possessed him. He laid it down on his desk, walked up and down behind his counter, and then returned and read it again. The sprawling words seemed to possess a fascination for him. He read them again and again, and turned them over and over in his mind. It was characteristic of his simple nature that he never once attributed the origin of the note to the humor of the young men with whom he was so familiar. He regarded ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... caused her to prefer to pass as much of her time as was possible in this desolate and unvisited spot. First, because Mr. Layard was less likely to find her when he called, and secondly, that for her it had a strange fascination. Indeed, she loved the place, clothed as it was with a thousand memories of those who had been human like herself, but now—were not. She would read the inscriptions upon the chancel stones and study ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... on the same attractive theme by Marie de France, the first woman, as M. de Roquefort says,who ever wrote French verse, the Sappho of her age.* Nor was Marie herself the only minstrel of that early time who yielded to the fascination of this legend. Two anonymous Trouveres of a little later period were unconsciously her rivals in the attempt. M. l'Abbe de la Rue, in his valuable work on Norman ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... herself slip, while she did so, to some doom as yet incalculable; she went on very much as she had done for Mr. Pitman and Mrs. Drack, with the rage of desperation and, as she was afterward to call it to herself, the fascination of the abyss. She didn't know, couldn't have said at the time, why his projected benevolence should have had most so the virtue to scare her: he would patronize her, as an effect of her vividness, if not of ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... called principles of knight errantry. His greatest victories were won against overwhelming odds, at the head of followers who were resolved to conquer or die. And in three years he had conquered all Hindustan. His figure stands out with an extraordinary fascination, as an Oriental counterpart of the Western ideal of chivalry; and his autobiography is an absolutely unique record presenting the almost sole specimen of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... and power, and fascination, and I know not what, she seemed to regard Ada and me as little more than children. So, as she slightly laughed and afterwards sat looking at the rain, she was as self-possessed and as free to occupy herself with her own thoughts as if ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... in living expresses itself in almost everything the Thoracic does, especially when he is young. Such people appear almost electrical. These are traits of great fascination and the Thoracic uses them freely upon ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... masculine and searching logic, the vast extent and variety of his research, the large stores of his affluent knowledge, marshalled and arranged with consummate skill and judgment, together with the fascination of his purely unaffected, earnest manner, the magic power of his unstudied action, and the thrilling intonations of his deep rich voice, rendered him, in his best days, "before public assemblies, almost irresistible." ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... its forked tongue played around its open mouth, flashing in the sunlight like a small lambent flame, while its eyes were intently fixed upon the bird. There was a clear, sparkling light about those eyes that was fearful to behold—they fairly flashed with their peculiar bending fascination. The poor sparrow was fluttering around a circle of some few feet in diameter, the circle becoming smaller at each gyration of the infatuated bird. She appeared conscious of her danger, yet unable to break the spell that bound her. Nearer and still ...
— Children's Edition of Touching Incidents and Remarkable Answers to Prayer • S. B. Shaw
... confined to the domain between the mountain range and the river; she was forbidden to ford the one or climb the other. Perhaps if such a prohibition had never been made Capitola would never have thought of doing the one or the other; but we all know the diabolical fascination there is in forbidden pleasures for young human nature. And no sooner had Cap been commanded, if she valued her safety, not to cross the water or climb the precipice than, as a natural consequence, she began to wonder what was in the valley behind the mountain ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... acts effects a strange fascination upon the mind and very often induces imitation of the same acts. When a suicide or murder, in fact any crime, is committed by a member of a family the other members either, according to their moral disposition, experience ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... the girl was watching him, and, with the fascination peculiar to such a situation, he could not forbear a quick glance at her. Interest and concern showed in the brown eyes, and she smiled frankly, as ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... stranger to the stirring impulses of a high ambition, though the world to him was as yet only a world of books, and all that he knew of the schemes of statesmen and the passions of the people, were to be found in their annals. Often had his fitful fancy dwelt with fascination on visions of personal distinction, of future celebrity, perhaps even of enduring fame. But his dreams were of another colour now. The surrounding scene, so fair, so still, and sweet; so abstracted from all the tumult of the world, its strife, its passions, and its cares: had fallen on his heart ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... which it was inextricably blended in his fancy were hers; she was more like his ideal than the other, though he owned that the other was a charming girl too, and that in the thin treble of her voice lurked a potential fascination which might have made itself ascendently felt if he had ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... flesh Beats the active ecstasy. In the sudden lifting my eyes, it is clearer, The fascination of the quick, restless Creator moving through the mesh Of men, vibrating in ecstasy ...
— Amores - Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... its windows you look across the brown-red tiles to S. Miniato. The pictures, although so few, are peculiarly attractive, being the work of two very rare hands, Piero della Francesca (? 1398-1492) and Melozzo da Forli (1438-1494). Melozzo has here a very charming Annunciation in two panels, the fascination of which I cannot describe. That they are fascinating there is, however, no doubt. We have symbolical figures by him in our National Gallery—again hanging next to Piero della Francesca—but they are not the equal of these in charm, although very charming. These grow more attractive ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... place; while around and around the reptile circling nearer and ever nearer, walked the hermit's crooked-tailed, cropped-eared cat, its back arched, tail erect, fur standing stiff all over its body, and round yellow eyes glued in fascination to the enemy luring her to death. Not a sound did the poor cat make, but continued her march with a spasmodic rhythm that would have seemed ludicrous had it not been so pathetically fearful. Even Aunt Maria's arrival upon the scene did not break the charm, and the horrified woman ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... the Bar, both before juries and the full Court. He is the only advocate I ever heard who had the imperial power which would subdue an unwilling and hostile jury. His power over them seemed like the fascination of a bird by a snake. Of course, he couldn't do this with able Judges, although all Judges who listened to him would, I think, agree that he was as persuasive a reasoner as ever lived. But with inferior magistrates and juries, however intelligent, however determined they ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... give effect to what he is saying. Not long ago I met him on 'Change, at a business hour, when all the commercing multitudes of the city were together, and you could scarcely turn, for the people. The old fellow fixed his eye on me; there was a fatal fascination in it. Getting off without recognition, would have been unpardonable disrespect. In a moment, his finger was in my button-hole, and his rheumy optics glittering with the satisfaction of your true bore, when he has met with an unresisting ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... he caught a view of her face—shaded his eyes with his hands as if to gaze more intently—and at length burst into an exclamation of surprise and pleasure. At that instant Alice turned, and her gaze met that of the stranger. The fascination of the basilisk can scarcely more stun and paralyse its victim than the look of this stranger charmed, with the appalling glamoury of horror, the eye and soul of Alice Darvil. Her face became suddenly locked and rigid, her lips as white as marble, her eyes almost ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... going right away, as it seemed to him, at night over the dark water to fish by the light of a lanthorn was startling, and sent a curious shiver through him; but at the same time it attracted him with a strange fascination that forced him to keep to his determination of being one of the party, as often as his old timidity made him disposed to say he would stay ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... strange that among all his father's collection of drawings and engravings nothing had such fascination for him as an engraving of a picture of Andromeda and Perseus by Caravaggio. The story of the innocent victim and the divine deliverer was one of which in his boyhood he never tired of hearing: and as he grew older the charm of its pictorial presentment had for him a deeper ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... boy, (as you remember, no doubt,)—handsome as she is, fit for a sea-king's bride, it is not her beauty alone that holds my eyes upon her. Let me tell you one of my fancies, and then you will understand the strange sort of fascination she has ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... long, tense silence. Not a man in the group of riders moved a finger. All were gazing, with a sort of dread fascination, at the holster at Sanderson's right hip, and at the butt of the gun in it, projecting far, ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... his waiting companion, who had touched a match to the firewood as he sighted the numerous packages in the forager's arms, he was repeating, over and over, as though the words held him in the thrall of fascination: "There ain't no sweet Penelope somewhere that's ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Vienna, made away with a very considerable quantity. He felt the loss so acutely, that he vowed to think no more of the philosopher's stone. This wise resolution he kept for two months; but he was miserable. He was in the condition of the gambler, who cannot resist the fascination of the game while he has a coin remaining, but plays on with the hope of retrieving former losses, till hope forsakes him, and he can live no longer. He returned once more to his beloved crucibles, and resolved to prosecute his journey in search of a ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... to Brent that every soul in that place, from the grey-haired chairman on the bench to the stolid-faced official by the witness-box was holding his breath, and that every eye was fastened on Krevin Crood with an irresistible fascination. There was a terrible silence in the court as Krevin paused, terminated by an involuntary sigh of relief as he made signs of speaking again. And, in that instant, Brent saw Mrs. Elstrick, the tall gaunt woman of whom he had heard at least one mysterious piece of ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... enchantress is utterly ignorant of the duties required of her, and confidingly seeks manly encouragement and guidance. Controlled by the hand of beauty, the cue becomes a magic wand, and the balls are no longer bits of inanimate ivory, but, poked restlessly hither and thither, circulating messengers of fascination. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... of those who hold that all that is related of vampires is the effect of imagination, fascination, or of that disorder which the Greeks term phrenesis or coribantism, and who pretend by that means to explain all the phenomena of vampirism, will never persuade us that these maladies of the brain can produce such real effects as those we have just recounted. ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... she was of their number, or the links Of threescore years and ten, indeed had wound Their coil around her, with such warmth the heart, And cloudless mind retained their energies. Beauty and grace were with her to the last, And fascination that withheld the guest Beyond the allotted time. More would we say, But her affections 'tis not ours to touch In lays so weak. He of their worth might tell, Whose dearest hopes so long with hers entwined, And they who shared the intense maternal love, That knew no pause of effort, no decay, ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... about him was intensely still. Not even the twitter of a snow-bird marred its silence. For a long time Wabi sat as immovable as the log upon which he had seated himself, resting and listening. Such a day as this held a peculiar and unusual fascination for him. It was as if the whole world was shut out, and that even the wild things of the forest dared not go abroad in this supreme moment of Nature's handiwork, when with lavish hand she spread the white mantle that was to stretch from the ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... about education suddenly occurs to him, and for a time exercises a sort of fascination over his mind, though in the later books of the Laws it is forgotten or overlooked. As true courage is allied to temperance, so there must be an education which shall train mankind to resist pleasure as ...
— Laws • Plato
... of pleasure; especially when, by the process, we bring to view or to operation, new powers, or powers heretofore hidden, whether they are our own powers, or those of objects upon which we act. Experimenting has a sort of magical fascination for all. Some do not like the trouble of making preparations, but all are eager to see the results. Contrive a new machine, and every body will be interested to witness, or to hear of its operation;—develope any heretofore unknown ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... marched off to his dormitory with fifty-five others, and lay for a long time listening with the fascination of innocence whilst Clem in a low voice described with much detail the scenes of "human nature" which he had recently witnessed down hopping with his people. Almost before he was well asleep, as it seemed, the strange new life began again with the bray of a bugle and the flaring ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... offence, Clayton took a swallow of the liquid, which burned him like fire. He had scarcely recovered from the first shock, and he had listened to the man and watched him with a sort of enthralling fascination. He was Easter's father. He could even see a faint suggestion of Easter's face in the cast of the features before him, coarse and degraded as they were. He had the same nervous, impetuous quickness, and, horrified by the likeness, Clayton watched ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... The unholy fascination of dread dwells in the thought of the last moments of a ship reported as "missing" in the columns of the Shipping Gazette. Nothing of her ever comes to light—no grating, no lifebuoy, no piece of boat or branded oar—to give a hint ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... uninformed. It passed through at least eight editions, by which the bookseller, as WOOD records, got an estate; and, notwithstanding the objection sometimes opposed against it, of a quaint style, and too great an accumulation of authorities, the fascination of its wit, fancy, and sterling sense, have borne down all censures, and extorted praise from the first Writers in the English language. The grave JOHNSON has praised it in the warmest terms, and the ludicrous STERNE has ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... rainproof from her throat to the hem of a tweed walking-skirt, and wearing boots both stout and brown. And at sight of him she paused and instinctively stepped back, groping blindly for the knob of her bed-chamber door; while her eyes, holding to his with an effect of frightened fascination, seemed momentarily to grow more large and dark in her face of ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... Fatal fascination! It was his last gaze. A bright flash shot up— something struck him through the heart, and he saw ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... Castle, Sidney became more and more in love with the little Penelope; but when he declared his passion, she held him off, like the coquette that she was, while she took pains to spin the web of her fascination more hopelessly about him. ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... will not do any of these things unless you have much leisure, and an eager thirst for knowledge. Some new fascination— society and pleasures—or special duties and pressing occupations will drive the fervid desires of your school-days quite from your hearts, or make it impossible for you to gratify them. At any rate, in attempting to ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... of whom people say, "It is impossible to tell what attracts men in a woman." She was indifferent, she was casual, she was even cruel; yet every male creature she met fell a victim before her. Her slightest gesture had a fascination for the masculine mind; her silliest words a significance. "I declare men are the biggest fools where women are concerned," Miss Priscilla had remarked, watching her; and the words had adequately expressed the opinion of the feminine ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... The fascination of choosing new garments for personal wear was upon Walter Hepburn, and he spent a whole hour in the shop, selecting an outfit which did credit to his taste and discernment. Before that hour was over he had risen very considerably in the opinion of those who served him—his ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... in which he had been permitted to act as her escort, the luncheons and dinners at restaurants, although they were not many, were expensive. Yes, Rice was right. To be near Emily de Reuss was to live within a maze of fascination, but the end to it could only be the end of the others. Already he was in debt, a trifle behind with his work—a trifle less keen about it. Already the memory of his sufferings seemed to lie far back in ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... patience of the littler boy, who decided that he wished never to eat breakfast again. During the ten days that he had been a member of the household a certain formality observed at the beginning of each meal had held him in abject fascination, so that he looked forward to it with pleased terror. This was that, when they were all seated, there ensued a pause of precisely two seconds—no more and no less—a pause that became awful by reason of the fact that every one grew instantly solemn and expectant—even ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... of cheated creditors. In 1699 two other attractive and plausible scamps—Kingsbury and May—garbed and curried themselves as ministers, and went through a course of unchecked villany, building only on their agreeable presence. Cotton Mather wrote pertinently of one of these charmers, "Fascination is a thing whereof mankind has more Experience than Comprehension;" and he also wrote very despitefully of the adventurer's scholarly attainments saying there were "eighteen horrid false spells and not one point in one very short note I received from him." As the population increased, so also ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... to the door, but on Ford's assurance that her child had nothing to fear from him, she paused with her hand on the knob to look in curiosity at this wild young man, whose doom lent him a kind of fascination. Again, for a minute, all three were silent in the excess of their surprise. Wayne himself sat rigid, gazing up at the new-comer with strained eyes blurred with partial blindness. Though slightly built ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... Joiner, with whom Mary eloped, was one of those two or three gentlemen, and what fascination she had that was strong enough to overcome all those physical disabilities ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... Mendana excited no enthusiasm, in spite of the name of Solomon which he gave to the archipelago discovered by him, to make it believed that from thence came the treasures of the Jewish King. Marvellous recitals had no longer any fascination for men glutted with the riches of Peru. Proofs were what they demanded; the smallest nugget of gold, or the least grain of silver would have been more satisfactory ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... Some of it was in his ears, muffling them, so the first intimation he had that the door was opened was the sound of Mikah's hoarse shout. He was standing in the doorway, finger pointed and shaking with wrath. Narsisi was standing behind him, peering over his shoulder with fascination at this weird ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... news of the murder had spread with lightning-like rapidity, and already crowds of people, drawn by that strange fascination which always exists for a certain class in scenes of this kind, were gathering on the grounds outside the house, forming in little groups, conversing with the servants, or gazing upward with awe-stricken ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... charming in the surroundings of the mountain Lake; but as soon as one walks to the beach of it, and surveys its expanse, it is the color, or rather the colors, spread out before the eye, which holds it with greatest fascination. I was able to stay eight days in all, amidst that calm and cheer, yet the hues of the water seemed to become more surprising with each hour. The Lake, according to recent measurement, is about twenty-one miles in length, by twelve or thirteen in breadth. ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... a second huge wave was overtaking us. I half hoped that it would drown me. With a curious fascination I watched its awful advent. The moon was nearly hidden now by the wreaths of the rushing storm, but a little light still caught the crest of the devouring breaker. There was something dark on it—a piece of wreckage. It was on us now, and the boat was nearly full of water. But ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... started the break-up of the party. She was attacked by a craving to yawn that gradually became irresistible. I saw the incipient symptoms of the attack and watched her with a sympathetic fascination, as she clenched her jaw, put her hand up to her lips, and made little impatient movements of her head and body. I knew that it must come at last, and it did, catching her unawares in the middle of a sentence—undertaken, I fancy, solely as a defence ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... it is felt by a man intoxicated with love, and full of religious respect for the virgin of his election. This feeling is, from a rational point of view, absurd, and in its tendencies, immoral; but it is delicious in its sacredly voluptuous subtlety. Defloration thus has its powerful fascination in the respect consciously or unconsciously felt for woman's chastity. In marriage, the feeling is yet more complicated: in deflowering his bride, the Christian (that is, any man brought up in a Christian civilization) has the feeling of committing a sort of sin (for the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... every boy of intelligence in the land. We have seen a highly intellectual and world-weary man, a cynic whose heart was somewhat imbittered by its large experience of human nature, take up one of Oliver Optic's books and read it at a sitting, neglecting his work in yielding to the fascination of the pages. When a mature and exceedingly well-informed mind, long despoiled of all its freshness, can thus find pleasure in a book for boys, no additional words ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... he was free of it, he realized that there was that within him which responded to the call of the catacombs; there was a fascination in the fume-laden air of those underground passages; there was a charm, a mysterious charm, in the cave of the golden dragon, in that unforgettable place which he assumed to mark the center of the labyrinth; in the wicked, black eyes ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... to capture and retain all the wonder and mystery of these grand old strongholds, which must be seen in order to leave upon the imagination and memory the full impress of their weird and extraordinary fascination. ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... Mrs. Rushmore could not help looking at it, and in her prim way she wondered how any man who was not an adventurer or a sort of glorified commercial traveller could carry such a thing. There was an unpleasant fascination in the mere look of it, and she watched it ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... the fascination of historic association that I am sure, if I could drag my beloved but conscientious Salemina from some foreign soup-kitchen which she is doubtless inspecting, I could make even her mourn the vanished past with me this morning, on the Beacon's towering head. For ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... for several days I worked in the bandaging room directly under Nikitin. The work had a peculiar and really unanalysable fascination for me. It was perhaps the directness of contact that pleased me. I suppose one felt that here at any rate one was doing immediate practical good, relieving distress and agony that must, by some one, be immediately relieved; and, at any rate, in the first days at M—— when ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... human mind to seek the end of things; if this woman had worn a suit of tights and nothing else, she would have been as uninteresting as an underwear advertisement in a magazine; but this incessant not-quite-revealing of herself exerted a subtle fascination. At frequent intervals the orchestra would start up a jerky little tune, and the two "stars" would begin to sing in nasal voices some words expressive of passion; then the man would take the woman about the waist and dance and swing her about and bend her ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... because he had heard a woman murmur: "He is as beautiful as Jesus Himself!" The expression of the dominating soul in him had become more marked; the nose had grown more prominent through his increased fleshlessness, there were great dark rings under his eyes. The eyes had an ineffable fascination. They still wore an expression of sadness, but of sweet sadness, full of vigour, of peace, and of mystic devotion. Standing there, under the little white cloud of the flowering apple tree, in the midst of the prostrate crowd, surrounded by sunshine and moving shadows he seemed an apparition ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... but too well aware of the influence which these parades were exerting on the minds of the people; he knew the fascination which his person produced not only on his soldiers, but the public generally, and he wished to profit by it, in order to conquer the civilians after conquering their army. Every one, therefore, had free access, and the subtle invader had always a kind glance and an affable smile ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... and they went on along the edge of the tremendous cliff till they came above the canyon, down into which Bart, never seemed weary of gazing. For the place had quite a fascination for him, with its swift, sparkling river, beautiful wooded islands, and green and varied shores. The sides of the place, too, were so wondrously picturesque; here were weather-stained rocks of fifty different ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... hair. He held the locket open in his hands for several minutes, wondering who she could be, and what possible connection she could have held with the dead. Something about that face smiling up into his own held peculiar fascination for him, gripping him with a strange feeling of familiarity, touching some dim memory which failed to respond. Surely he had never seen the original, for she was not one to be easily forgotten, and yet eyes, hair, expression, ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... ask?" she whispered from the shelter of his arms. "It is the same old fascination of our girl and boy days. Do you remember how completely I lost my head about you?" She laughed softly. "I used to think you wore a football suit better than anybody in the world! Sometimes I suspect that it is merely that same girlish ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... knee, and, suddenly extending her arm, she pressed her hand to my lips. Lighted up from below, the picturesque aspect of her figure took on something of a transcendental grace; the unusual upward shadows invested her beauty with a new mystery of fascination. A minute passed. I could hear her rapid breathing above, and I stood up before her, holding ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... to her feet in terror at the first sign of the coming strife, but she did not cry out, nor call in the slaves or guards. She stood, holding the tent-pole with one hand, and gathering her mantle to her breast with the other, gazing in absolute fascination at the fearful life and death struggle, at the unspeakable and tremendous strength so silently exerted by the two ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... is called an ideal beauty, there was a fascination about this winsome little maid which few could resist. She had all her brother's impulsiveness, all his enthusiasm, and, it may be safely asserted, all his abiding faith in the sacred and unimpeachable character of cadet friendships. If ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... philosophers, and is in a manner the main problem of this book. How can we contrive to be at once astonished at the world and yet at home in it? How can this queer cosmic town, with its many-legged citizens, with its monstrous and ancient lamps, how can this world give us at once the fascination of a strange town and the comfort and honour of being ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... itself felt in New York and Boston starts up for your astonishment out of all the fastnesses of the continent. Virgin Nature wooes our civilization to wed her, and no obstacles can conquer the American fascination. In our journey through the wildest parts of this country, we were perpetually finding patent washing-machines among the chaparral,—canned fruit in the desert,—Voigtlander's field-glasses on the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... particular than I am really," he said, lightly. "I don't in the least mind going to the Casino." Why should he be a spoil-sport? "But I confess I cannot understand the kind of attraction play has for some minds. For instance, I cannot understand the extraordinary fascination it seems to exercise over such an intelligent man as is ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... was angry, but impressed. There is a fascination in learning how others see us, even if the lesson is unpleasant. She heard the two neighbors who talked together before Mama came down, and their talk was of her—and of how they ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... opposed to his convictions—he had vainly expected, could no longer escape him. The Alexandrian fellow-artists who belonged to his party would gratefully welcome this special work; for what grew out of it would have nothing in common with the fascination of superhuman beauty, by which the older artists ensnared the hearts and minds of the multitude. He would create a genuine woman, who would not lack defects, yet who, though she inspired neither gratification nor rapture, would touch, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... art which now appears in Garhwal. Among the Guler painters was a master-artist and although his first Garhwal pictures are concerned with passionate romance, devotion to Krishna quickly becomes apparent.[107] The great Alaknanda River which roared through Srinagar, the capital, had a special fascination for him and just as Leonardo da Vinci evinced at one time a passionate interest in springing curls, the Guler artist found a special excitement in winding eddies and dashing water. The result was a sudden new interpretation of the Krishna theme. In two pictures where Krishna ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... such tales as these were in those early days of the West, I still remained boy enough in heart to feel a fascination in Thockmorton's narrative. Besides, there was at the time so little else to occupy my mind that it inevitably drifted back to the ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... lends its aid to swell the interest of Vesuvius, and invest it with a perfect fascination. The looking, from either ruined city, into the neighbouring grounds overgrown with beautiful vines and luxuriant trees; and remembering that house upon house, temple on temple, building after building, and street after street, are still lying underneath the ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... however, when McWha resumed his old seat and his old attitude on the bench. Rosy-Lilly avoided him for two evenings, but on the third the old fascination got the better of her pique. McWha saw her coming, and, growing self-conscious, he hurriedly started up a song with the full ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... hear him preach,—he resolved to address the people in the open air. The excitement he produced was unparalleled. Near Bristol, he sometimes assembled as many as twenty thousand. But they were chiefly the colliers, drawn forth from their subterranean working places. But his eloquence had equal fascination for the people of London and the vicinity. In Moorfields, on Kennington Common, and on Blackheath, he sometimes drew a crowd of forty thousand people, all of whom could hear his voice. He could draw tears from Hume, and money ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... toward his sister, who was sitting far back in her seat, as though trying to shut out the scene which had such a fascination for her. ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... body on the rocks. His knees buckled and Glaudot caught him, stopping him from falling. Chandler tried to say something, but the words wouldn't come. He stared with horrified fascination at the body, which was an exact copy of himself—or a copy of the dead man from whom the ...
— A World Called Crimson • Darius John Granger
... With a species of fascination, the Worm-suspect would then watch her turn out the hideous, sticky liquid, till the tablespoon was full and crowning over the brim of it all around. Why, even to this day, as the picture rises in memory, I feel my stomach roll ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... French. It was a wonderful and brilliant Paris which Mickiewicz entered. This was the time when the city was first called "the stepmother of Genius." Heine was here in exile, and Boerne. It knew the personal fascination and the denunciative writings of Ferdinand la Salle. It was the day, too, of Eugene Sue, Berlioz, George Sand, de Musset, Dumas, Gautier, the Goncourt Brothers, Gavarni, Sainte Beuve, Liszt, Felix Mendelssohn, Ary Scheffer, Delacroiz, Horace Vernet—to mention only a few great names ...
— Sonnets from the Crimea • Adam Mickiewicz
... wife, he is little more than an agent, a frame of bone and sinew for her fiery spirit to command. The nature of his feeling towards her is rendered with a most precise and delicate touch. He always yields to the woman's fascination; and yet his caresses (and we know how much meaning Salvini can give to a caress) are singularly hard and unloving. Sometimes he lays his hand on her as he might take hold of any one who happened to be nearest to him at a moment of excitement. Love has fallen out of this ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as the gaze of the story-teller was again finding a fascination in her face, Irene took refuge behind her veil, but ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... seen the familiar realities of school life thus brought low and lying in inglorious disorder at his feet. It gave him a feeling of triumph and had a fascination for him. Damp smelling books were here and there among the ruins, histories, arithmetics, algebras and grammars. He could tread upon these with his valiant heel. A huge roll call book (ah, how well he knew it even in the darkness) lay charred and soggy near the assembly-room ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the sub-title says, "an historical novel" of the days of Aaron Burr, when he was conspiring to create a western empire. A young fellow full of enthusiasm and patriotism, named Tom Edwards, comes under the fascination of Burr, and works with him for quite a period before considering his true aims and real character. When the day of awakening comes, the fight with his conscience is thrilling. No better book for boys can be mentioned, ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... blew the scarf from her neck. He took it and replaced it, and his hand touched the soft warm flesh. It stayed there. He had no power to remove it. This girl of unearthly beauty and fascination paralyzed him. To think that he should be sitting there with the perfectest woman God ever made——! The storm within him broke. His body quivered, and his great hand took the warm slim one and held ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... to his like a baby's. There was a sweet hollow under her chin, above her fine lace collar. Her soft, fair curls smelt in his face of roses and lavender. The utter daintiness of this maiden Dorothy Fair was a separate charm and a fascination full of subtle and innocent earthiness to the senses of a lover. She appealed to his selfish delight like a sweet-scented flower, like a pink or ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... as well to show her independence by returning, as she had set out, alone, she consented to go. Miss Amelyn showed her a short cut across the park, and they separated—to meet at dinner. In this brief fellowship, the American girl had kept a certain supremacy and half-fascination over the English girl, even while she was conscious of an invincible character in Miss Amelyn entirely different from and superior to her own. Certainly there was a difference in the two peoples. Why else this inherited conscientious ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... hope in our stroll I have been able to give you a new insight into the fascination of ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... to bear it. When she turned her miserable eyes toward them again, allured by some strange fascination she was powerless to analyse, Edith was in his arms, her mouth crushed ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... it was no place for her, yet no one waited for her, no one would care if she staid for ever, and, yielding to the perilous fascination that drew her there, she lingered with a heavy throbbing in her temples, and a troop of wild fancies whirling through her brain. Something white swept by below,—only a broken oar—but she began to wonder how a human body would ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... render the evasive charm of the cloistered life. But George Moore has two grave faults; he is sometimes vulgar and he is sometimes brutal. Evelyn's worldly lover is a man who makes one's flesh creep, and yet one feels he is intended to represent the fascination of the world. Then it does not seem to me to be true realism to depict scenes of frank animalism. Such things may occur; but the actors in such a carnival could not speak of them, even to each other; it may be prudish, but I cannot help feeling ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... sly look did Cuthbert flash over that way, for somehow there seemed to be a wonderful fascination about Owen's personality that appealed strongly to him, though he found it utterly impossible to analyze this feeling, in order to make out whether it was pure sympathy toward one who had evidently rubbed up against the hard places ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... be with an effort that Gifford released himself from the fascination that held his gaze to the tragedy. "It is an absolute mystery," he replied, moving to where his ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... answered yes, and you showed that you doubted me. You were justified in your doubts. I did love her once, or thought so, but my feelings changed. A great temptation came into my life. Carmel returned from school and—you know her beauty, her fascination. A week in her presence, and marriage with Adelaide became impossible. But how evade it? I only knew the coward's way; to lure this inexperienced young girl, fresh from school, into a runaway match. A change which now became perceptible in Miss Cumberland's manner, only egged me on. ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... fell from his fingers. He was very intent, and in spite of herself Muriel became intent too, held by a most unaccountable fascination. So handicapped was he that he could not even pull a flower to ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... virtue. "I have just seen Charles and Mary Lamb," Crabb Robinson had written (20th October, 1831), "living in absolute solitude at Enfield. I find your poems lying open before Lamb. Both tipsy and sober he is ever muttering Rose Aylmer. But it is not those lines only that have a curious fascination for him. He is always turning to Gebir for things that haunt him in the same way." Their first and last hour was now passed together, and before they parted they were old friends. I visited Lamb myself (with Barry Cornwall) the following ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... advanced toward Harris with his hand outstretched in adieu, the face of the consul halted him. With the letters, the clerk had placed upon the table a visiting-card, and as it lay in the circle of light from the lamp the consul, as though it were alive and menacing, stared at it in fascination. Moving stiffly, he turned it so that Hemingway could see. On it Hemingway read, "George S. Sheyer," and, on a lower ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... and had interposed between the poor girl's frightened English and the dreadful Ticinese French of the functionaries in the post-yard. At the custom-house on the Italian frontier I was of peculiar service; there was a kind of fateful fascination in it. The wardrobe was voluminous; I exchanged a paternal glance with my charge as the douanier plunged his brown fists into it. Who was the lady at Cadenabbia? What was she to me or I to her? She wouldn't know, when she rustled down to dinner ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... warmed by imagination or tempered by charity the child had been a ductile substance in his hands; but the shadow of the Council of Trent still hung over the Church in Savoy, making its approach almost as sombre and forbidding as that of the Calvinist heresy. As it was, the fascination that drew Odo to the divine teachings was counteracted by a depressing awe: he trembled in God's presence almost as much as in his grandfather's, and with the same despair of discovering what course of action was most likely to call down the impending wrath. The beauty of the Church's ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... comfort to administer to the affliction of his companion, was somewhat relieved by the change in his mood, though his more grave and sensitive nature was a little startled at its suddenness. But, as we have before seen, Montreal's spirit (and this made perhaps its fascination) was as a varying and changeful sky; the gayest sunshine, and the fiercest storm swept over it in rapid alternation; and elements of singular might and grandeur, which, properly directed and concentrated, would have made him the blessing and glory of his time, were wielded with a boyish ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... allowed to lie scattered about over a large surface, it is liable to have much of its value washed out by the rain. In a compact heap of this kind, the rain or snow that falls on it is not more than the manure needs to keep it moist enough for fermentation. 3d. There is as much fascination in this fermenting heap of manure as there is in having money in a savings bank. One is continually trying to add to it. Many a cart-load or wheel-barrowful of material will be deposited that would otherwise be allowed to run ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... earnest struggles of intellect seem to be calmed and made gentle in their vehemence, by a more essential rationality of taste. That imperious mind, which seems fit to defy the universe, is ever subordinate, by a kind of fascination, to the perfect law of grace. In the highest of his intellectual flights—and who can follow the winged rush of that eagle mind?—in the widest of his mental ranges-and who shall measure their extent?—he is ever moving within the severest ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... whose favourite disguise was that of an itinerant preacher, cherished no less a project than an insurrection of negroes and the capture of New Orleans. The robber of to-day is a stern realist. He knows nothing of romance. A ride under the stars and a swift succession of revolver-shots have no fascination for him. He likes to work in secret upon safe or burglar-box. He has moved with the times, and has at his hand all the resources of modern science. If we do not know all that is to be known of him ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... and fascination into the face of the youth who spoke. It was a refined and beautiful face, notwithstanding the evidences of long exposure to sun and wind. The features were finely cut, sensitive and expressive, and the eyes were very luminous in their glance, and ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... in their terrible hand-to-hand encounters, they looked more like demons than human beings. I felt my heart grow sick at the sight of this bloody battle, and would fain have turned away, but a species of fascination seemed to hold me down and glue my eyes upon the combatants. I observed that the attacking party was led by a most extraordinary being, who, from his size and peculiarity, I concluded was a chief. His hair was frizzed out to an enormous ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... the sleeper, without any starting or turning round, awoke. There was a kind of fascination in meeting his steady gaze so suddenly, which took from the other the presence of mind to withdraw his eyes, and forced him, as it were, to meet his look. So they remained staring at each other, until Mr Chester at last broke silence, and asked him in a low ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... some ceremony was observed. Then it was that Paslew raised his eyes, and beheld standing before him a tall man, with a woman beside him bearing an infant in her arms. The eyes of the pair were fixed upon him with vindictive exultation. He would have averted his gaze, but an irresistible fascination withheld him. ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... brow. In his heart he wanted to be pottering about among these ocean treasures which had a peculiar fascination for his doggy soul. But a greater call was upon him, keeping him where he was. Though she had not uttered one word to detain him, he had a strong conviction that his mistress wanted him, and so, stolidly, he remained beside her, ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... not bear the 'Tannhauser;' it seems to paint with a fatal fascination the beauty of wickedness, the rightness, so to speak, of sensuality. I feel after it as if I had been yielding to a luscious temptation; unnerved, ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... already to climb the ladder, and he would raise Stella with him, Stella and that other being upon whom he sometimes suffered his thoughts to dwell with a semi-humorous contemplation as—his son. A fantastic fascination hung about the thought. He could not yet visualize himself as a father. It was easier far to picture Stella as a mother. But yet, like a magnet drawing him, the vision seemed to beckon. He walked the desert with a lighter step, and Tommy swore that ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... upon its top an urn, Serpent-begirt; each urn upon its front A face—and such a face! I turn'd away— Then gazed again—'twas not to be forgot:— There was a fascination in the eyes— Even in their stony stare; like the ribb'd sand Of ocean was the eager brow; the mouth Had a hyena grin; the nose, compress'd With curling sneer, of wolfish cunning spake; O'er the lank temples, long entwisted curls Adown the scraggy neck in masses ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... his way on, his eyes, which he usually kept fixed on the ground before his feet, were attracted upwards by the dome of St. Paul's. It had a peculiar fascination for him, that old dome, and not once, but twice or three times a week, would he halt in his daily pilgrimage to enter beneath and stop in the side aisles for five or ten minutes, scrutinizing the names and epitaphs on the monuments. The attraction ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... into Naples, "as the mandatory of Europe.''13 Metternich's opposition to this, illogical, but natural from the Austrian point of view, first opened his eyes to the true character of Austria's attitude towards his ideals. Once more in Russia, far from the fascination of Metternich's personality, the immemorial spirit of his people drew him back into itself; and when, in the autumn of 1825, he took his dying empress for change of air to the south of Russia, in order—as all Europe supposed—to place himself at the head of the great army concentrated ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... also be a good reader. Given these two indispensable elements, other parts may be added as players become available; and although the larger the number of wind instruments admitted, the greater the likelihood of out-of-tune playing, yet so great is the fascination of tonal variety that our inclination is always to secure as many ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... felt the cold perceptibly grow upon me till it seemed to grip me by the heart. Then while the flood of moonlight still fell on the marble tomb, the storm gave further evidence of renewing, as though it was returning on its track. Impelled by some sort of fascination, I approached the sepulchre to see what it was, and why such a thing stood alone in such a place. I walked around it, and read, over the ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... me a morbid, unhappy feeling, while yet it had something of the fascination of the "Pilgrim's Progress," of which it is an imitation. I fancied myself followed about by a fiend-like boy who haunted its pages, called "Inbred-Sin;" and the story implied that there was no such thing as getting rid of him. I began to ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... silent for yet a few more moments. Then, completely her dignified and composed self, she stepped toward her bedroom. Olivetta's eyes followed her in wondering, worshipful fascination. ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... then I sadly trace— That love's a fluttering thing of air; And yonder lurks the viper base, Who would my gentle bird ensnare! 'Twas in the shades of Eden's bower This fascination had its birth, And even there possessed the power To lure the ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... daughter, Maria Theresa, who now succeeded to the crown of Austria, was twenty-four years of age. Her figure was tall, graceful and commanding. Her features were beautiful, and her smile sweet and winning. She was born to command, combining in her character woman's power of fascination with man's energy. Though so far advanced in pregnancy that she was not permitted to see her dying father, the very day after his death she so rallied her energies as to give an audience to the minister of state, and to assume the government with that ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... Dexie closely following. They hurried away to where the noise of the worshippers was not quite so audible, and by degrees Elsie grew quiet and calm. Leaving them seated on the grass by the roadside, Lancy re-entered the church, the strange doings having a certain fascination which he could neither ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... who welcomed me and showed to our table found his little flow of small talk arrested by that first glimpse of our companion. He accepted my orders in a chastened manner, and I noticed his eyes straying every now and then, as though in fearsome fascination, to Mrs. Bundercombe, who was sitting very upright at the table, with her bony fingers stretched out and a good deal of gold showing in her teeth as she talked with Eve in a high nasal voice concerning the absurd food ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... from his strange and chivalrous friendship for the Mainwarings—which was as incomprehensible to Sir Robert as Sir Robert's equally eccentric and Quixotic speculations had been to Bradley—he began to feel a singular and weird fascination for the place. A patient martyr in the vast London house he had taken for his wife and cousin's amusement, he loved to escape the loneliness of its autumn solitude or the occasional greater loneliness of his wife's social ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... good father was too cunning for him, and that he must give in at last. Nevertheless, like a rabbit who runs squealing round and round before the weasel, into whose jaws it knows that it must jump at last by force of fascination, he parried and parried, and pretended to be stupid, and surprised, and honorably scrupulous, and even angry; while every question as to her being married or single, Catholic or heretic, English or foreign, brought his tormentor a step nearer the goal. At last, when Campian, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley |
