"Magic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... president of the association, his portrait hung in all the meeting-halls, and the magic of his name used to attract the easily deluded masses, who were in a state of agitated ignorance and growing unrest, ripe for any movement that looked anti-governmental, and especially anti-Spanish. Soon after the organization had been perfected, collections began ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... the wildest vicissitudes, the most daring explorations, the mightiest magic, the fiercest conflicts, the brightest triumphs, and the most affecting catastrophes, are those ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... that Stillwell had dreamed of, and so many more changes and improvements and innovations that it was as if a magic touch had transformed the old ranch. Madeline and Alfred and Florence had talked over a fitting name, and had decided on one chosen by Madeline. But this instance was the only one in the course of developments in which Madeline's wishes were not compiled with. The ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... said that this is a scientific age, the world is so full of necessitous life that it is waste of time for young Ireland to brood upon tales of legendary heroes, who fought with enchanters, who harnessed wild fairy horses to magic chariots and who talked with the ancient gods, and that it would be much better for youth to be scientific and practical. Do not believe it, dear Irish boy, dear Irish girl. I know as well as any the economic needs of our ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... not comprehend the metaphysics of a Trinal Unity, nor how it is just that innocence should be punished, that guilt may go free. They do not attribute any magic virtue to the laying on of hands; nor do they believe that the traces of an evil life in the soul can be washed out by the sprinkling of a few drops of water, however pure, or by baptism in any blood, however innocent, in the ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... of a child, If I have always, and Heaven knows I have, Next to a mother's held a nurse's name, Succour this one distress, recall those days, Love me, though 'twere because you loved me then." But whether confident in magic rites Or touched with sexual pride to stand implored, Dalica smiled, then spake: "Away those fears. Though stronger than the strongest of his kind, He falls—on me devolve that charge; he falls. Rather than fly him, ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... with a strange delight To every word you said, And then to hide the burning tears I turned away my head. I dared not trifle with your love, Though till that magic hour I had not cared for aching hearts If they but owned ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... under the Federal authority again, the Southern cause would be deprived of a large amount of its prestige and strength. The authorities of the Gulf States accordingly hurried forward to Richmond all available troops; and from all parts of Virginia the volunteer regiments, which had sprung up like magic, were in like manner forwarded by railway to the capital. Every train brought additions to this great mass of raw war material; large camps rose around Richmond, chief among which was that named "Camp Lee;" and the work of drilling and moulding ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... took the sea, and towed them all like little cockle-boats in his wake. From sea to sea, from port to port, from tribe to tribe, from peril to peril, from feat to feat, David whirled his wonderstruck hearers, and held them panting by the quadruple magic of a tuneful voice, a changing eye, an ardent soul, and truth ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... soul was filled with the fullest effects. He stood watching her figure, with its inspired lineaments, and thought of the fabled prodigies of music spoken of in ancient story. He thought of Orpheus hushing all animated nature to calm by the magic of his song. At last all thoughts of his own left him, and nothing remained but that which the song of Beatrice swept ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... treatment, I have had resource to the wide knowledge of my friend Mr. Alfred Nutt in all branches of Celtic folk-lore. If this volume does anything to represent to English children the vision and colour, the magic and charm, of the Celtic folk-imagination, this is due in large measure to the care with which Mr. Nutt has watched its inception and progress. With him by my side I could venture into regions where the non-Celt wanders at his ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... people seen so much to admire in his appearance, and when, after the opening exercises and the regular order of service, he rose and came out at one side of the desk to speak, as his custom was, the people were for the time under the magic sway of his personality, that never stood out so commanding and loving ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... safety spread as by magic. Men and women and children poured into the streets to welcome them. It was as much as Kilmeny could do to keep back the cheering mob long enough to reach the hotel. Verinder, Lady Jim, and India came down the steps to meet them, Captain ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... to the north, they observed in that direction fewer churches, but numerous villas and lines of wood, with the arid steppe beyond them. To the south-west arose the Sparrow Hills, those celebrated heights whence Napoleon and his then victorious army first caught sight of that magic city which they deemed was soon to be the reward of all their toils, but yet which, ere many days had passed, was to prove the cause of their destruction. In the same direction the Moscowa was seen flowing down towards the city, to circle round a portion of it ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... side of the river, where the bow met with the same fate. At that moment Reuben seized the branches of a small overhanging tree in a desperate hope of checking the canoe, but the tree proved so elastic that he was jerked on shore in an instant as if by magic, and the canoe swept over a cascade, where several holes were broken in her bottom and nearly all the bars started. At the same moment the wreck fell flat on the water; all the men jumped out, and Ducette, whose courage forsook ...
— The Pioneers • R.M. Ballantyne
... to secure a seat directly in front of the stand and in full view of the blackboard. If you have never seen Frank Beard make pictures you know nothing about what a good time she had. They were such funny pictures! —just a few strokes of the magic crayon and the character described would seem to start into life before you, and you would feel that you could almost know what thoughts were passing in the heart of the creature made of chalk. Eurie looked, and listened, and laughed. The old deacon who thought the Sunday-school ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... A sea-worm—or a ghost of one—is swimming about. Its large, brilliant eyes, long tentacles, and innumerable waving appendages are now as distinct as before they had been invisible. A trifling change in my position and all vanishes as if by magic. There seems not an organ, not a single part of the creature, which is not as transparent as the water itself. The fine streamers into which the paddles and gills are divided are too delicate to have existence in any but a water creature, and the least attempt ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... your love is much,' she answered smiling. 'Ah! Teule, what magic have you that you can bring me, Montezuma's daughter, to the altar of the gods and of my own free will? Well, I desire no softer bed, and for the why and wherefore it will soon be known by both of us, and with it ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... care of himself by all accounts," answered Samuel, but in quite an amiable tone of voice, because the girl's magic ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... some cards, a magnet, a dried chameleon, and other things necessary for her art. She told me to cross my left hand with a piece of money, and the magic ceremonies began. It was evident to me that she was ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... be patient, and asked my wife to supply me with a ball of thick strong thread. The enchanted bag did not fail us; the very ball I wanted appeared at her summons. This, my little ones declared, must be magic; but I explained to them, that prudence, foresight, and presence of mind in danger, such as their good mother had displayed, produced ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... Peter's nose and watched the delicate edges riffle in the Dutchman's breath. Crossing to the table, he leaned over the white fluff and breathed the short German incantation over it. How it glistened in the firelight! He bent closer and closer as he whispered the magic words that Peter had taught him, his breath ruffling the feather, playing about in the fringed softness. He hung up the feather by a thread and watched it hop back and forth in the center of ...
— The White Feather Hex • Don Peterson
... assure herself that no contingency could arise to defraud her of her long-delayed recognition, she felt that the galling load of half her life had suddenly slipped from her weary shoulders; and the world and the future wore that magic radiance which greeted Miriam, as singing she looked back upon the destruction escaped, and on toward the redeemed ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... before said, who create etiquette, and Burke tells us that "manners are of more importance than laws." A fine manner is the "open sesame" that admits us to the audience chamber of the world. It is the magic wand at whose ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... he passionately strove to shape his dreams into abiding sounds. He did not always succeed, but his victories are the precious prizes of mankind. One is loath to believe that the echo of Chopin's magic music can ever fall upon unheeding ears. He may become old-fashioned, but, like Mozart, he ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... fire for a time, at least, and make it possible for him to escape. He must reach the island to find out about his mother and Jess, and how they had fared. The rain by now had developed into a regular downpour, and the raging fire had been quenched as if by magic. The dense volumes of smoke no longer rolled over the land, and as John looked out upon the blackened plains a scene of desolation met his eyes. The forest on every side was in ruins, even to the lake, a glimpse of which he could see through the ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... name Poland was to become another name for tragedy. Kosciusko had fought in the War of the American Revolution. When he returned, with the badge of the Order of the Cincinnati upon his breast and filled with dreams of the regeneration of his own land by the magic of this new political freedom, he was the chosen leader ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... grace, so perfect an exemption from error, that you could not say she outraged custom but commanded it. The wealth of her graces was inexhaustible—she beautified the commonest action; a word, a look from her, seemed magic. Love her, and you entered into a new world, you passed from this trite and commonplace earth. You were in a land in which your eyes saw everything through an enchanted medium. In her presence you felt as if listening to exquisite music; you were steeped in that sentiment ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... that he wore. Swithin picked him up, while Mr. Torkingham wiped the sand from his lips and nose, and administered a few words of consolation, together with a few sweet-meats, which, somewhat to Swithin's surprise, the parson produced as if by magic from his pocket. One half the comfort rendered would have sufficed to soothe such a disposition as the child's. He ceased crying and ran away in delight to his unconscious nurse, who was reaching up for blackberries at a hedge ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... hastily behind her ample skirt a long list of the figures on every freight-car that has passed that morning, from which by some Antillian miscalculation and the murmuring of certain invocations she was to find the magic number that would bring her cooking days ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... was written by me aforetime, and which was set forth in print, I therein told much of the history of King Arthur; of how he manifested his royalty in the achievement of that wonderful magic sword which he drew forth out of the anvil; of how he established his royalty; of how he found a splendid sword yclept Excalibur in a miraculously wonderful manner; of how he won the most beautiful lady in the world for his queen; and of how he established the famous ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... neglected, and is one by which any modern conception of the universe must be profoundly affected. Many of the outgrowths of this method compel a justifiable rejection. But such rejection is not sufficient in an age in which very many resort to this way of thinking, and are attracted to it as if by magic. The case is in no way altered because some people see that true science long ago passed, by its own initiative, beyond the shallow doctrines of force and matter taught by materialists. It would be better, ...
— Christianity As A Mystical Fact - And The Mysteries of Antiquity • Rudolf Steiner
... utterance, was continually surprising: it was music not unworthy of the golden ages of the world. Yet MacDowell was a Celt, and his music is deeply Celtic—mercurial, by turns dolorous and sportive, darkly tragical and exquisitely blithe, and overflowing with the unpredictable and inexplicable magic of the Celtic imagination. He is unfailingly noble—it is, in the end, the trait which most surely signalises him. "To every man," wrote Maeterlinck, "there come noble thoughts, thoughts that pass across his heart like great white birds." Such thoughts came often to MacDowell—they ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... beyond these things I have at the castle a fine library—useless no doubt for most purposes of modern study, but full of precious old books. There I can at any moment be in the best of company! There is more of the marvellous in an old library than ever any magic could work!" ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... spring from among the bevy of coat-takers, and hood-retainers, at the extreme end of the great hall, nor from among the heap of promiscuous garments piled in one corner; and yet he is here, looking as if some magic process had brought him from a mysterious labyrinth. "Couldn't get along without me, you see. It's an ambition with me to befriend everybody. If I can do a bit of a good turn for a friend, so much the better!" And he grasps the old ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... a magic twilight from below, I heard its grand sad song as in a dream: Life's wild infinity of mirth and woe It sang me; and, with many a changing gleam, Across the music of its onward flow I saw the cottage lights ...
— The Children of the Night • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... a worse man to do it. Crime, as ever, led to further crime and was itself the punishment of crime. In the eyes of William's contemporaries the death of Waltheof, the blackest act of William's life, was also its turning-point. From the day of the martyrdom on Saint Giles' hill the magic of William's name and William's arms passed away. Unfailing luck no longer waited on him; after Waltheof's death he never, till his last campaign of all, won a battle or took a town. In this change ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... by! O the days gone by! The music of the laughing lip, the lustre of the eye; The childish faith in fairies, and Aladdin's magic ring— The simple, soul-reposing, glad belief in everything,— When life was like a story, holding neither sob nor sigh, In the golden olden glory of ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... milk," he said. "Do you mind just getting up and touching the bell? And you've got such a sharp way of speaking to waiters, perhaps you wouldn't mind hauling him over the coals for me when he comes?" Winn complied with this request rapidly and effectively, and the hot milk appeared as if by magic. ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... of course, Tolstoi himself; and all his eternal doubts and questionings, his total dissatisfaction and condemnation of artificial social life in the cities, his spiritual despair, and his final release from suffering at the magic word of the peasant are strictly autobiographical. When the muzhik told Levin that one man lived for his belly, and another for his soul, he became greatly excited, and eagerly demanded further knowledge of his humble teacher. He was ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... her group and its departure for the Salon has left Felicia for a week past in this state of prostration, of disgust, of heart-rending, distressing irritation. It requires all of the old fairy's unwearying patience, the magic of the memories she evokes every moment in the day, to make life endurable to her beside that restlessness, that wicked wrath which she can hear grumbling beneath the girl's silences, and which suddenly bursts forth in a bitter ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... was something about the room, and about the ugly little house as well, that Janice Day realized she did not have at home. She had had it once; but it was not present now in the Day house. In the Carringford dwelling the magic wand of a true homemaker ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... never have thought of it again, probably, but for Harriet herself, for now that the magic string had been touched, her heart overflowed to its echoes, and my waking hours were filled with anecdotes touching, brutal or humourous, of her years of joy and labour. Her cottage rent had cost her forty dollars, ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... notice. Haward, rowing, spoke evenly on, his theme himself and the gay and lonely life he had led these eleven years; and Audrey, though at first sight of the waiting figure she had paled and trembled, was too safe, too happy, to give to trouble any part of this magic morning. She kept her eyes on Haward's face, and almost forgot the man who had risen from the grass and in silence ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... of the moment when he would tell his love to a woman. It was a moment of dim lights, music perhaps in the distance, two souls caught up in the magic of the moonlit night—a pretty graceful speech from him, a sweet gracious surrender from the girl. ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... and feel constrained to address you a word. For although I may not be able to elucidate the principles on which a free government is founded, with the force and clearness of many others who will doubtless respond to your call, nor awake enthusiasm with that magic power that some of the anti-slavery women of the North possess in so high a degree, I shall at least give to Ohio and my country one more voice in favor of a united and free republic; and certainly no voice should be silent when called ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... a sort of sharp, sudden cry or whistle, and immediately all the dwarfs of the village appeared as if by magic, and began hurrying into the house, but as soon as they were in the middle of the passage they fell back at each side, leaving a ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... for the Druids dwelt in the recesses of the forests or near their temples, and those who wished to consult them must journey to them to ask their counsel beneath a sacred oak or in the circle of the magic stones. When great events were impending, or when tribes took up arms against each other, the Druids would leave their forest abodes, and, interposing between the combatants, authoritatively bid them desist. They acted as mediators between great chiefs, ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... we find ourselves transported beyond a doubt to the far-famed city of Winnipeg—that emporium of wealth, enterprise and industry which arose from its prairie surroundings as by the magic of the ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... the dogs acted like magic on the two men. They rushed up the stairs, without a single glance behind. The danger was too pressing to allow any delay for making plans of escape. The door Alan had thrown open seemed to them the way to safety; the cheerful light of day, which ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... the distinguished historian of modern Europe, "during, or shortly after, the French Revolution; and it was mainly intended to counteract the visionary ideas in regard to the blessings of Grecian democracy, which had spread so far in the world, from the magic of Athenian genius." Says Chancellor Kent: "Mitford does not scruple to tell the truth, and the whole truth, and to paint the stormy democracies of Greece in all their grandeur and in all their wretchedness." Lord Byron said of the author: "His ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... for some days. Our garrison I'll post Distributively on the distant hills; While from the Vulture half a thousand men Land in the darkness. Thus without a blow, But with the magic of a countersign, ...
— The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold - A Play for a Greek Theatre • John Jay Chapman
... exercise and by careful diet, keep yourself in a state of such physical soundness that the chances are altogether favourable for your withstanding the assaults of disease. No doubt the vast majority of people prefer not to follow this advice. A considerable number of them resort to various magic cults, such as letting sudden drafts of cold air in upon the inoffensive bystander with a view to exorcising the germs. But it remains that the medical advice is sound: it amounts to saying, "Keep yourself in the best physical condition possible and ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... first, there was considerable liberality on the part of the officials (all paid for), and both Raleigh and Percy had each a garden to cultivate and walk in, and a still-room or laboratory in which to study and perform their ' magic.' Hariot was the master of both in these occult sciences. The ' furnace ' and the ' still' were at first Raleigh's chief amusement and study. Assaying and transfusing metals, distilling simples and compounds, concocting medicines, and testing antidotes, with exercises in chemistry and ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... neighbouring ruins, it should be added, are the favourite night resort of the Kerman young men in search of romantic adventure, and a most convenient rendezvous for flirtations; but whether the extraordinary qualities of prolificness are really due to the occult power of the magic stone or to the less mystic charms of nights spent away from home, the reader is no doubt better able to discriminate than I. Judging by the long strings of ladies of all ages to be seen going on the pilgrimage, ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... Wellington and had determined to take me on to Winter Quarters, having met, on the way to Windsor, some great specialist in my kind of malady (I wonder how much he knows of it), who declared that the climate of the Antarctic would act on me like magic. ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... of an attitude to science, but he did have such an attitude. Life was to him a story told by God: the people in it the characters in that story. But since the story was told by God it was, quite literally, a magic story, a fairy story, a story full of wonders created by a divine will. As a child a toy telephone rigged up by his father from the house to the end of the garden had breathed that magic quality more than the Transatlantic ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... naked breast—but it was the apple of its owner's eye, and when Inez unfeelingly banished it from the house Juanito began to squall lustily. Nor could he be conciliated until Alaire took him upon her knee and told him about another boy, of precisely his own age and size, who planted a magic bean in his mother's dooryard, which grew up and up until it reached clear to the sky, where a giant lived. Juanito Garcia had never heard the like. He was spellbound with delight; he held his breath in ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... from rage appeared now to increase the shivering propensities of the future judge, who at once perceived it was necessary to moderate his passion; and he returned, as it were by magic, to his former plausible and insinuating manner, as ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... moment becoming English. I know no better example than the French 'prestige' will afford. 'Prestige' has manifestly no equivalent in our own language; it expresses something which no single word in English, which only a long circumlocution, could express; namely, that magic influence on others, which past successes as the pledge and promise of future ones, breed. The word has thus naturally come to be of very frequent use by good English writers; for they do not feel that in employing it they are ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... gives it an advantage over every other boat I have examined. Its deck is nowhere level, and if a person attempts to step upon it while it is afloat, his foot touches the periphery of a circle, and the spoon-shaped, keelless, little craft flies out as if by magic from under the pressure of the foot, and without further warning the luckless intruder falls ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... mean is best perceived when we listen to Him saying, in a plain quotation of this call, 'If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.' Nothing short of Himself can satisfy the thirst of one soul, much less of all the thirsty. Like the flow from the magic fountain of the legend, Jesus becomes to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... abroad, And his "doe cee doe" was the gem of the fraud. But what can you hope from a gentleman barred From circles of culture by dogs in the yard? 'Twas a glorious dance, though, all the same, The Jardin Mabille in the days of its fame Never saw legs perform such springs— The cold-chisel's magic had given them wings. They footed it featly, those lades and gents: Dull care (said Long Moll) had a ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... stood on the black sideboard. By this act he meant perhaps to put a stop to the conversation of which he was heartily tired. But Mrs. Brand, in the half-bewildered condition of mind to which long anxiety and sorrow had reduced her, did not know the virtue of silence, and did not possess the magic ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... MAGIC carpet,' said the Phoenix; 'why, if it had been allowed to lie about on floors there wouldn't be much of it left now. No, indeed! It has lived in chests of cedarwood, inlaid with pearl and ivory, wrapped in priceless tissues of cloth of gold, embroidered ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... then how sweetly closed those crowded days! The minutes parting one by one like rays, That fade upon a summer's eve. But O, what charm or magic numbers Can give me back the gentle slumbers Those weary, happy days did leave? When by my bed I saw my mother kneel, And with her blessing took her nightly kiss; Whatever Time destroys, he cannot this;— E'en now ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... not care for plants. All he cared for was his mysticism. But one day, as if the magic of poetry had slipped into his soul, he heard all the plants talking, and talking to him; and behold, he loved them and knew what they meant. Imagination had done more for him than all his metaphysics. So we give up our days to collating theory with theory, ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... to most disgusting odors, nor make the least wry face about it. If she found a patient not very sick she would sit down and pour forth a gossipy stream of talk for an hour, when, ten to one, every ailment would be forgotten. There was a charm in her tone, word, and manner that affected like magic. Of course, this woman had a drunken husband—such women always have that affliction. There were those, even in Windsor, who said they did not blame Mr. Moffat for taking to drink—if their wives were always from home, and the house ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... ceremonies was doubtless one symbolizing a marriage or mystical union between the god and his worshippers. (Whether the form of 'sacred marriage' which was originally intended to promote the fertility of the ground by 'sympathetic magic' entered into the ritual of Sabazios is doubtful.) Such a rite, though probably in fact quite innocent, gave rise to suspicions, of which Demosthenes takes full advantage; and the fact that well-known courtesans (such as Phryne and perhaps Ninus) sometimes organized ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... wrongly thought that I had a meeting with a great man; no such meeting took place, but my mind was dulled by slumber, and so the false idea arose.' In an analogous manner the things of which we are conscious when under the influence of a magic illusion, and the like, are negated by our ordinary consciousness. Those things, on the other hand, of which we are conscious in our waking state, such as posts and the like, are never negated ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... pleasant to me beyond any fairy tale. I never cared much for things that were not true. No chambers of Arabian fancy could have had the fascination for me of those old Egyptian halls, nor all the marvels of magic entranced me like the wonder-working hand of time. Those books made my comfort and my diversion all the winter. For I was not a galloping reader; I went patiently through every page; and the volumes were many enough and interesting enough to last me long. I dreamed ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... the chalk in the hand of the artist. Behold What beauteous forms as by magic unfold! The store-house of Nature he swiftly displays, Till the dazzled beholder is lost in the maze; Designs without number appear to the view, And show what the chalk ...
— 1001 Questions and Answers on Orthography and Reading • B. A. Hathaway
... when he was feasting on a pile of the willow and poplar forage which he loved, and which had appeared as if by magic close beside the mysterious barrier, he saw some men, perhaps a hundred yards away, throw open a section of the barrier. Forgetting to be angry at their intrusion on his range, he watched them curiously. A moment ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... a shape in the middle of the laboratory floor. A huge globular shape which it hurt the eyes to look upon. It became visible out of nowhere as if evoked by magic amid the flames of hell. But it came, and was solid and substantial, and it slid along the floor upon small wheels until it wound up with a crash against the winding drum, and the chain shrieked as it tightened unbearably—and the engine ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... I know. Why 'tis no less than a miracle. It was a child I thought of under that name—a slender, brown-eyed girl, as blithesome as a bird. No, I had not forgotten; only the magic of three years has made of you a woman. Again and again have I questioned in Montreal and Quebec, but no one seemed to know. At the convent they said your father ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... by the magic wand of sunken silver that our hero achieved this success. The treasures of Peru, loaded on Spanish ships, had not all reached the ports of Spain. Some cargoes of silver had gone to the bottom of the Atlantic. ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... from between his teeth and stared at the speaker silently for a moment. "Voodoo?" he echoed. "You mean negro magic?" ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... the Horses of the Hill wild with fright. Out they'd go in a lull, screaming like gulls, and back they'd be driven five good miles inland before they could come head to wind again. Butterfly-wings! It was Magic—Magic as black as Merlin could make it, and the whole sea was green fire and white foam with singing mermaids in it. And the Horses of the Hill picked their way from one wave to another by the lightning flashes! That was how it was in the ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... her aunt, "thou dost speak like a maiden of nineteen, on the day before her marriage, in the intoxication of wishes fulfilled, of fair hopes and happy omens. Dear child, remember this—even the heart in time grows cold. Days will come when the magic of the senses shall fade. And when this enchantment has fled, then it first becomes evident whether we are truly worthy of love. When custom has made familiar the charms that are most attractive, when youthful freshness has died away, and with the ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... change this house if it could be done by a magic wand or by the exercise of faith, and without raising a speck of dust or upsetting the housekeeping ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... displays its own peculiar characteristics and mode. It is the everlasting struggle between the evil principle and that which is good. He ranges titanic forces in opposition and lets us see the battle. By the magic of his art we are enabled to see these pictures as on ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... was equal to him in any game with pasteboard or ivory; but, be my conscience, he met his match now, for if it was ould Nick was playin' he couldn't do the thrick nater nor the baron. He made every thing come up just like magic: if he wanted a seven of diamonds, or an ace of spades, or the knave of clubs, there ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... request the trader led us over to where she sat, and gave us a formal introduction. She received us in a pleasant but dignified manner, and the moment that she opened her lips to speak the clatter of tongues around us ceased as if by magic, and the most ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... "as long as they and the French kept the peace." They decided to adopt the English Order, barring responses, the Litany, the surplice, "and many other things." {54} The Litany was regarded by Knox as rather of the nature of magic than of prayer, the surplice was a Romish rag, and there was some other objection to the congregation's taking part in the prayers by responses, though they were not forbidden to mingle their voices in psalmody. Dissidium valde absurdum—"a very absurd quarrel," ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... that a traveller has brought from a distant land. But you! you hypocritical robber, who disregard your own body with beastly pride, and sacrifice it to low brutality—what should you know of the magic charm of beauty—that daughter of heaven, that can touch even thoughtless children, and before which the gods themselves do homage! I have a right to Sirona; for hide her where you will—or even if the centurion were to find her, and to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... which, meeting over the height occupied by the hotel, discharged torrents of rain. At last the wind left the writhing trees in peace, and carried the deeply shadowing cloud away beyond the hills. The sun broke forth, and nature began some magic work. Calling the mist fairies to her aid, she gathered from every ravine and clove delicate airy clouds, which formed a large and rapidly increasing mass of vapor. Soon the plain below—the wide Hudson valley—was entirely shut out, as though a great white ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... loves the pleasing note of lute and lyre, The lily's purple, the red rose's glow; It wonders at the witchery of the fire, And marvels at the magic of ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... that he can do so. But on the other hand the weakness of every religion which depends on miracles is that their truth is contested and not unreasonably. If they are true, why are they not certain? Of all the phenomena described as miracles, ghosts, fortune telling, magic, clairvoyance, prophesying, and so on, none command unchallenged acceptance. In every age miracles, portents and apparitions have been recorded, yet none of them with a certainty that carries universal conviction and ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... by magic the echoes took up the call. Andy heard them respond from the farthest haunts of the ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... ninety-six percent. of the race. For a man of the superior minority to subscribe to one of them publicly was already sufficient to set him off as one in imminent need of psychiatrical attention. Belief in them had become a mark of inferiority, like the allied belief in madstones, magic and apparitions. ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... stone cage before. But the magic of his morning walk across the moor, the sight of the pagan tors, the songs of the last cuckoo, had unprepared him for that dreary building. He left the street, and, entering the fosse, began a circuit, scanning the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... a participation in His glory which shall exalt their limited, stained, and fragmentary humanity into 'the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.' Astronomers tell us that dead, cold matter falls from all corners of the system into the sun, drawn by its magic magnetism from farthest space, and, plunging into that great reservoir of fire, the deadest and coldest matter glows with fervid heat and dazzling light. So you and I, dead, cold, dull, opaque, heavy fragments, drawn into mysterious oneness with Christ, the Sun of our souls, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... black wharves and the slips, And the sea-tides tossing free; And Spanish sailors with bearded lips, And the beauty and mystery of the ship And the magic of ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... England life, we still recognize some magic in summer. Most persons reluctantly resign themselves to being decently happy in June, at least. They accept June. They compliment its weather. They complained of the earlier months as cold, and so spent them in the city; and they will complain ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... among kings, thy fear of Sakra will soon be dispelled, and I shall soon remove this terrible pain by means of my magic lore (incantation); be calm and have no fear of being overpowered by India. Thou hast nothing to fear from the god of a hundred sacrifices. I shall use my staying charms, O king, and the weapons of all the gods will avail them not. Let the lightening flash in all the directions ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Then I make a separate group of those who expect to sing, or to do any sort of a musical specialty, or any kind of a "stunt" that might be included in the show. I have had the greatest variety of specialties in a show. I have had them do magic, burlesque magic, play ukuleles, and all sorts of stunts which I have placed effectively in a show. We had a man in the Princeton show who did a little trick with a cigarette that was a scream. I saw him standing around, and ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... qualities of our Caucasian civilization, she has changed her policy. She has learned that in the language, and on the lips, and in the hearts of most members of the English race, there is such a word as equity, and at the magic of that word she has nearly emerged from her isolation. And, sir, what we see here to-day reminds me that, some thirty years ago, Boston confined one of her citizens in a lunatic asylum, for the offence of being possessed by a too intensified Boston "notion." He had discovered a new and expeditious ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... stairs flew about his head and struck upon the table,—an omen only fearful from what it prophesied. Then there was such a row for five minutes as I hope I may never see or hear again. People kept their places fortunately, under a vague impression that they should forfeit some magic rights if they left those numbered seats. But when, for a moment, a file of policemen appeared in the orchestra, a whole volley of cyclopaedias fell like rain upon their chief, with a renewed cry ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... instruments. Upon the ancient chant the new harmonies blossomed like roses on an old gnarled stem, and when on the ninth bar of the "Kyrie" the tenors softly separated from the sustained chord of the other parts, the effect was as of magic. Evelyn lifted her eyes and saw her dear father conducting with ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... all these respects they appear to have been made to the author's hand. Neither does the poem exhibit any prevailing force of imagery, or of expression, apart from popular idiomatic phraseology; still less, though it has plenty of infernal magic, does it present us with any magical enchantments of the alluring order, as in Ariosto; or with love-stories as good as Boiardo's, or even with any of the luxuries of landscape and description that are to be found in both of those poets; albeit, ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... "in spite of the opinions of certain narrow-minded people, who would shut up the human race upon this globe, as within some magic circle which it must never outstep, we shall one day travel to the moon, the planets, and the stars, with the same facility, rapidity, and certainty as we now make the voyage from Liverpool to New York! Distance is but a relative expression, and must end by being reduced ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... conscience of every reverently educated boy, and become in his growth inseparable from the maturer beliefs. The evolution of the human mind itself had finally reached the point at which this anthropomorphism became a thing impossible to maintain reasonably any longer, and the magic word was spoken by Darwin which broke the spell and set us free—who wished to be free—from a mental servitude grown dangerously dear to our deepest faculties, those of reverence and devotion. That evolution took ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... me. I wanted to force her curiosity, to compel her to suspect nay, to guess my secret, but without giving her any advantage over me: it was necessary for me to proceed by slow degrees. In the mean time, and until I should have a greater happiness, I was glad to see that my money, that magic talisman, and my good conduct, obtained me a consideration much greater than I could have hoped to obtain either through my position, or from my age, or in consequence of any talent I might have shewn in ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... /alu/, evil /edimmu/, evil /gallu/, evil god, evil /rabisu/, /labartu/, /labasu/, /ahhazu/, /lilu/, /lilithu/, handmaid of /lilu/, sorcery, enchantment, magic, disaster, machination which is not good—may they not set their head to his head, their hand to his hand, their foot to his foot—may they not draw near. Spirit of heaven, mayest thou exorcise, spirit of earth, ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Theophilus G. Pinches
... astound me as the spectacle of this ice-locked schooner. It was easy to account for the presence of a dead man. My own situation, indeed, sufficiently solved the riddle of that corpse. But the ship, perfect in all respects, was like a stroke of magic. She lay with a slight list or inclination to larboard, but on the whole tolerably upright, owing to the corpulence of her bilge. The hollow or ravine that formed her bed went with a sharp incline under her stern to the ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... upon her escutcheon. Like a royal lily she proudly bloomed with undisputed splendor in the midst of this court, whose petty cabals and intrigues could not soil her fair fame. Her presence spread around her a sort of magic. The most audacious courtier, the most presumptuous cavalier, approached her with only reverence; they ventured not in her presence to use such words and jests as but too well pleased the empress; there was something in Eleonore's glance that commanded ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... is not easy to believe that Mozart, recognized as the greatest pianoforte player and composer of his time by all of musical Germany, could suffer such dire extremes of want as to be obliged more than once to beg for a dinner. In 1791 he composed the score of the "Magic Flute" at the request of Schikaneder, a Viennese manager, who had written the text from a fairy tale, the fantastic elements of which are peculiarly German in their humor. Mozart put great earnestness into the ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... diamonds in brilliant devices. From the middle of the roof, where the arches met, was hung, suspended by a gold chain, an immense lamp of one hollowed pearl, and perfectly transparent, in the centre of which was a large carbuncle, which, by the power of magic, turned round continually, and shed throughout all the hall a clear mild light like that of the setting sun. But the hall was so large, and these dazzling objects so far removed, that their blended radiance cast no more than a pleasing mellow lustre around, and excited no ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... till it came to the island of Aeaea, where Circe, the dreadful daughter of the Sun, dwelt. She was deeply skilled in magic, a haughty beauty, and had hair like the Sun. The Sun was her parent, and begot her and her brother Aeaetes (such another as herself) upon Perse, daughter ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... dreams. None had an inkling of the truth. The insolubility of the Big Bow Mystery teased the acutest minds in Europe and the civilised world. That a man could have been murdered in a thoroughly inaccessible room savoured of the ages of magic. The redoubtable Wimp, who had been blazoned as my successor, fell back on the theory of suicide. The mystery would have slept till my death, but—I fear—for my own ingenuity. I tried to stand outside myself, and to look at the crime with the eyes of another, or of my old self. I found ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... one of the joys which perhaps few of us have yet experienced. But whether we have been there or not, we all know that the very sound of her name is enchanting for those who are fresh from her magic—her sunrises and sunsets unmatched for colour, ...
— The Book of Art for Young People • Agnes Conway
... congress that assembled there was not a large one, but, with no exaggeration whatever, it was one of the most remarkable gatherings ever held. For six entire days and nights the delegates struggled to create by some magic means a world-wide organization of the people, without a program, a committee, a chairman, or a vote. No longer oppressed by the "tyranny" of Marx, or baffled by his "abominable intrigues," they set out to create their "faithful image" of the new world—an organization that was not to ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... freshening, I must admit—and went out on to the hillside, leaving us irreverent youngsters convulsed with laughter. The fun was over now as far as we were concerned, for Father Maguire, overcome by his own magic brew, was calmly sleeping, and no efforts of ours could elicit more than a grumpy, "Arrah, thin—be ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... name is JOHN WELLINGTON WELLS - I'm a dealer in magic and spells, In blessings and curses, And ever-filled purses, In prophecies, witches, and knells! If you want a proud foe to "make tracks" - If you'd melt a rich uncle in wax - You've but to look in On our resident Djinn, Number seventy, ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... perfect being—a being adored and venerated by Mme. d'Albany! One cannot help, in reading these words, smiling sadly at the strange magic by which Death metamorphoses those whom he has taken in the eyes of the survivors; at the strange potions by means of which he makes love spring up in the hearts where it has ceased to exist, saving us from hypocrisy by making us really feel what is false to ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee) |
