"Magical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... three Stuarts," he said, "as inseparable as the holy trefoil; and, as they say the wearer of that sacred herb mocks at magical delusion, so we, while we are true to each other, may set malice and enmity ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... spied nothing noticeable saving this: he sat in a folding chair and smoked, but every now and again he withdrew his cigar from his mouth and talked to it with a singular smile. It was a smile of cunning, that worked like some baleful, magical spirit in the fine high breeding of his features; changing his looks just as a painter of incomparable skill might colour a noble, familiar face into a diabolical expression, amazing those who knew it only in its honest and manly beauty. I ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... gap of centuries, filled in by impossible stories of magical flight by witches, wizards, and the like—imagination was fertile in the dark ages, but the ban of the church was on all attempt at scientific development, especially in such a matter as the conquest of the air. Yet ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... the old that is transformed and completed. If there was not already implicit in man that which predisposed him for the higher life, a consciousness to which the spirit could appeal, then Christianity would be simply a mechanical or magical influence without ethical significance and having no relation to the past history of the individual. But that is not the teaching of our Lord or of His apostles. We are bound, therefore, to assume a certain ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... of Bottlesby had a magical effect upon Dalton, and he seemed to become sober in a moment. He sprang to his feet, his eyes flashed fire, and cutting, stinging ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... and travel along the Upper Columbia, where several steamers now ply between busy marts, of themselves attest what magical effects the years have wrought. Besides gold, lead for miles is found along the Kootenay. Red hermatite, iron ore, traces of copper, and plumbago are found along the main Bitter Root. Cinnabar is said to exist ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... state of ecstasy are supposed to be inspired by the gods. During their trance such men are questioned as to the will of the divine. Sometimes they become renowned through their reputed performance of an occasional miracle. Again, as magical and religious ceremonies become more complicated, there is a deliberate training of an expert class to perform these essential acts. And, whatever be the source of the selection of the priestly class, the immense influence which their functions are regarded as having on the welfare ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... stopped running he had begun to plot again. Even though he had made the great renunciation he could not help hoping. It was the kind of hope that, when one is very young, follows on the heels of absolute despair, and is based on magical impossibilities. It was like his birthday hopes, which had been known to rise triumphant above the most obvious and discouraging facts. After all there was to-morrow. He would tell Christine everything—open his heart to her as to a good and understanding friend—and she would give ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... good knight Barbazan in an iron cage, from which he would not come out, alleging that he was a prisoner on parole.[2135] Jeanne, on the contrary, had been careful to promise nothing, or rather she had promised to escape as soon as she could.[2136] Therefore the English, who believed that she had magical powers, mistrusted her greatly.[2137] As she was being prosecuted by the Church, she ought to have been detained in an ecclesiastical prison,[2138] but the Godons were resolved to keep her in their custody. One among them said she was dear to them because they ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... every word of her strange, magical voice there went from him some shred of innocence and illusion. It was, of course, his innocence, his ignorance that had made him tolerant of a Grand Display, that had filled him with admiration for the Young Ladies of ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... eradicated. But when the old miserly feeling came over him, and he began to dole out grudgingly the means with which to make his family comfortable, his wife would pleasantly say: "You are taking it out of the wrong pocket, John!"—words which seemed to have a magical effect upon ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... ill-gotten gains never prosper, and the Prince found that the stolen ring brought him ill-luck after all. The Witch-maiden had never rested night nor day until she had found out where the ring was. As soon as she had discovered by means of magical arts that the Prince in the form of a bird was on his way to the Eastern magician, she changed herself into an eagle and watched in the air until the bird she was waiting for came in sight, for she knew him at once by the ring which was hung round his neck by a ribbon. Then the eagle pounced upon ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... David, the Next King of Israel? On Reading Omar Khayyam The Beggar's Valentine Honor Among Scamps The Gamblers On the Road to Nowhere Upon Returning to the Country Road The Angel and the Clown Springfield Magical Incense The Wedding of the Rose and the Lotos King Arthur's Men Have Come Again Foreign Missions in Battle Array Star of My Heart Look You, I'll Go Pray At Mass Heart of God The Empty Boats With a Bouquet of Twelve Roses St. Francis of Assisi Buddha ...
— General William Booth enters into Heaven and other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... immediately obeyed; and a cylinder covered with inscriptions was drawn out from its hiding-place of twenty-four centuries, as fresh as when deposited there by the hands, probably, of Nebuchadnezzar himself! The Colonel added in a note that the fame of his magical power had flown to Bagdad, and that he was besieged with applications for the loan of his wonderful instrument to be used in the ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... There seemed something magical in the communication—something that awakened all the sympathies of the poor bereaved woman; and she felt she could ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... a clever fellow, although of a very odd complexion, which was the same color as your olives. Well, this Arab, whenever he had done eating or working, used to sit down to rest himself, as I am resting myself now, and smoked I cannot tell you what sort of magical leaves, in a large amber-mouthed tube; and if any officers, happening to pass, reproached him for being always asleep, he used quietly to reply: 'Better to sit down than to stand up, to lie down than to sit down, to be dead than to lie down.' He was an acutely melancholy Arab, and I ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... compelling even a peaceful man like myself to forsake invention for war, and the workman's frock which I love, for the armour which I love not, when peace shall smile again on the country, and I shall have time to perfect the work of my hands, I shall present it to my royal master, a magical supremacy of power, which shall for ever raise him and his royal progeny above all use or need of subsidies, ship-money, benevolences, or taxes of whatever sort or name, to rule his kingdom as independent of his subjects in reality as ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... since fled Flit over the brain, like the ghosts of the dead,— Bright visions of glory that vanished too soon; Day-dreams, that departed ere manhood's noon; Attachments by fate or falsehood reft; Companions of early days lost or left; And my native land, whose magical name Thrills to the heart like electric flame; The home of my childhood; the haunts of my prime; All the passions and scenes of that rapturous time When the feelings were young, and the world was new, Like the fresh bowers of Eden unfolding to view; All, all ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... and Aunt Victoria were all alone together—or with only the silent, swift-fingered, Pauline in attendance during the wonderful processes of dressing or undressing her mistress. These occasions seemed to please Aunt Victoria best also. She showed herself then so winning and gracious and altogether magical to the little girl that Sylvia forgot the uncomfortableness which always happened when her aunt and her father were together. As they came to be on more intimate terms, Sylvia was told a great many details about Aunt ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... that with almost magical silence the whole wall at the end of the corridor was sliding back to reveal an enormous amphitheatre in the center of which stood a vast circular table. Ranged in a semicircle about that table, stood fifteen incredibly ancient men ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... in wrath we acknowledge how well He the "Pleasures of Memory" who drew, For mankind from his magical shell Gives the "Pains of ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... named the island, after our ship, Predpriatie: we now tacked to stand out to sea for the night, and at break of day again made towards the island, under feelings of strong excitement. The many telescopes which our eager curiosity pointed towards its object, seemed each endued with the magical power of conveying different images to the sight. Some of us saw what others saw not, till these delusions of the imagination vanished before the conviction produced by rising columns of smoke visible ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... their way to the Isles of Shoals, what was it that had most impressed him at Manchester? Was it not an evening spent in a cottage amid the rocks, close by the water, in the company of charming people? To be sure, there were the magical reflection of the moonlight and the bay, the points of light from the cottages on the rocky shore, the hum and swell of the sea, and all the mystery of the shadowy headlands; but this was only a congenial setting for the music, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... rather a succession of just sentiments in elegant language than a representation of natural affections, or of any state probable or possible in human life. Nothing here "excites or assuages emotion:" here is "no magical power of raising phantastic terror or wild anxiety." The events are expected without solicitude, and are remembered without joy or sorrow. Of the agents we have no care; we consider not what they are doing, or what they are suffering; we wish only to know what ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... ferocious assaults upon her own master passion, her ruling principle. George Sand was one whose entire life signally attested the power of a "saving grace," resident in the creative and recuperative energies of nature, resident in the magical, the miracle-working, powers of the human heart, the powers of love and sympathy. She was a modern spiritual adventurer who had escaped unscathed from all the anathemas of the old theology; and she abounded, like St. Francis, in her ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... American history was the conversion in the autumn of 1861 of a defeated rabble and a multitude of raw militia into a splendid fighting machine. The very excellence of this achievement was part of his undoing. It was so near to magical that it imposed on himself, gave him a false estimate of himself, hid from him his own limitation. It imposed also on his enemies. Crude, fierce men like the Vindictive leaders of Congress, seeing this miracle take place so astoundingly soon, leaped at once to the conclusion that he could, ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... settlement, as the fort, with its guns, and the houses, were already erected. It was a Sabbath morning, and at the usual hour a bell summoned the settlers to worship. Tuscarora seemed to fancy that some magical ceremony was going forward, and was afraid to enter; but Tecumah, less superstitious than his father, and prompted by curiosity, begged leave to attend, accompanied by several other young men. Though they were unable to comprehend a word, their countenances ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston
... doings—Item, what our Lord God said; and lastly, of the magical experiment performed upon George Putkammer and ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... by the moon, and redolent of flowers that had been made magical by the alchemy of night, surrounded them. They came to a spot where a circular wall of foliage, rising behind stone benches, hemmed in a fountain, above which a marble antique warrior was lifting in his arms a marble girl, who struggled against that seizure ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... sweet cadence, and he would string together some simple words to them, and sing them to himself with gentle content. The song of the reapers on the upland, or the rude chanting in the little church had a magical charm for him; and Mistress Alison would hear the boy, in his room overhead, singing softly to himself for very gladness of heart, like a little bird of the dawn, or tapping out some tripping beat of ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of his state-room. And between you and me and the binnacle, reader, not to let it go any further, I believe it was poor Mary's letter, with its "dear luv" and its "sweet kisses," that was at the bottom of Jack's resolve. For had she not written, as plain as quill can write, the magical sentence, "Yes, missus misses you; so do I"? It didn't matter a spoonful of tar about the "so do I," but there was the "missus misses you." Ah! it was around these simple, euphonious words that hope hung ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... no heaviness nor languor in her eyes, her voice, as heretofore. Under the white silk sunshade which screened her from the hot sunlight, she looked like some young bride beneath her veil, or a maiden waiting to yield to the magical enchantments of Love. ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... essayed another trick. He brought out a bottle, apparently empty, and said that it was a magical flask. ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... unconscious appeal. Perhaps the brain had been stunned asleep, but the deep-down soul was awake. It was calling to Beverley's soul, and the call had to be answered, or the vow would be broken. Roger Sands' wife dared not break such a vow lest she should be punished and lose her magical happiness. ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... out, and as they walked homewards through the forest, purple and vaporous in the evening light, they drew closer together; and Dion looking into her eyes saw there a new gleam, violet, magical, shining, there was the presence of ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... the little party opposed to them, another ordered them to hurry to the walls, a third to seize the gate and see that it was not opened. The confusion reached its height as the Scots poured in through the open gate. The garrison, surprised and confounded as they were at this, to them, almost magical seizure of the castle by their foes, fought bravely until the governor and many of the officers were killed. Some of the men threw down their arms, and others, taking advantage of their knowledge of the castle, made their way to the gate and escaped ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... be written of amulets, cups, and horns of magical power, from the divining cup of Genesis to the Amalthean horns, and the goblet of Oberon, which he gave to Huon of Bordeaux, the supernatural power of which, passing into an hundred shapes of fiction, may be found ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... "Say, what magical charm, or 'Open Sesame,' did you use on this?" asked Allen, after vainly trying. "We can't make it ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Ocean View - Or, The Box That Was Found in the Sand • Laura Lee Hope
... the world, strange and mysterious was the world! Here was blue, here was yellow, here was green, the sky and the river flowed, the forest and the mountains were rigid, all of it was beautiful, all of it was mysterious and magical, and in its midst was he, Siddhartha, the awakening one, on the path to himself. All of this, all this yellow and blue, river and forest, entered Siddhartha for the first time through the eyes, was no longer a spell of Mara, was no longer the veil of Maya, was no longer a pointless and ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... "I am arguing against that proverb. Enough is not as good as a feast. It is far better. There is something magical and satisfying in the art of leaving off. Good advice is infinitely more potent when it is brief and earnest than when it dribbles into vague exhortations. Many a man has been worried into vice by well-meant but wearisome admonitions to be virtuous. A single word of true friendly ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... to penetrate my soul when I enter, as if I were in a holy temple. 'Thou standest in a holy place,' I would say. A loud word, a heavy footstep, makes me shudder, as if an infidel were desecrating the place. I stand speechless, in a magical atmosphere that wraps my whole being, scarcely daring to lift my eyes. A perfect stillness comes over my soul; it seems to be soaring ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... kindly; everything in it is feminine, from its name upwards. It has well been given the name of 'the fair city.' Its masses of palaces and churches stand out light and wonderful like the graceful dream of a young god; there is something magical, something strange and bewitching in the greenish-grey light and silken shimmer of the silent water of the canals, in the noiseless gliding of the gondolas, in the absence of the coarse din of a town, the coarse rattling, and crashing, and uproar. 'Venice is dead, ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... dreamed about the subject uppermost in his mind. He thought that, after several days' patient watching, he finally discovered his man; but all attempts to capture him were unavailing. When he pursued, the rebel would disappear in a magical way, that was perfectly bewildering. Finally, he dreamed that the rebel assumed the offensive, and one day he met him in the street, carrying in his hand something that looked like a lump of coal, which he threw at Frank. It proved, however, to be a torpedo, for it exploded with a loud report, ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... at him, voiceless from the surprise of it. The magical neck was absorbed in the chest again, and he ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... a river which probably derived its magical character from Celtic traditions: it was long the boundary of Briton and Saxon.—These places are introduced, as being near the ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... of the Pied Piper becomes for the first time credible to me (albeit confirmed by the Hameliners dating their legal instruments from the period of his exit), as I behold how those strains, without pretence of magical potency, bewitch the pupillary legs, nor leave to the pedagogic an entire self-control. For these reasons, lest my kingly prerogative should suffer diminution, I prorogue my restless commons, whom I follow into the street, chiefly lest some mischief may chance befall them. After ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... with a magical charm—the result of the union of opposite emotions; as when shame and courage, timidity and daring, love and heroism, meet and are blended together in a wonderful harmony—a miracle seen only in the magic ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... which generally produced some slight incident which she styled an adventure. She was kind to Coningsby, but had no time to indulge in the lengthened conversations which he had previously found so magical. Mr. Melton was always on the scene, the monopolising hero, it would seem, of every thought, and phrase, and plan. Coningsby began to think that Beaumanoir was not so delightful a place as he had imagined. He began to think that he had stayed ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... done these three hundred years. And the condition is this, that every year I present unto the Demon one who hath at my persuasion assigned his soul to him in exchange for power, riches, knowledge, magical gifts, or whatever else his heart chiefly desireth; nor until this present year have I perilled the fulfilment of my obligation. Seest thou these scrolls? They are the assignments of which I have spoken. It would amaze thee to scan the subscriptions, and perceive in these the signatures of ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... the tent and the strange things which formed the Musungu's personal baggage and furniture. After gazing in stupid wonder at the table, on which was placed some crockery and the few books I carried with me; at the slung hammock, which he believed was suspended by some magical contrivance; at the portmanteaus which contained my stock of clothes, he ejaculated, "Hi-le! the Musungu is a great sultan, who has come from his country to see Ugogo." He then noticed me, and was ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... in high veneration by their deluded brethren; not so much for their knowledge of medicine as for the magical power which they are supposed to possess. It is for their interest to lead these credulous people to believe that they can at pleasure hold intercourse with the munedoos, who are ever ready to give them whatever ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... whole alta Roma, beginning with slaves carrying mosaics for their refined masters, and ending with patricians, who were so fond of beautiful things that one of them for instance used to kiss at every moment a superb vase, stands before our eyes as if it was reconstructed by a magical power from ruins ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... no fear concerning his ability to fill the role. He had proven equal to the task before now; and there were not a few, particularly among those acknowledging the magical Red Fox as their totem, who secretly cherished a belief that Paul knew more about the secrets of Nature than any two ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... my life I remember nothing more formidable than my uncle's entrance into that little Pompadour drawing-room, at ten that evening. The fine head, with its silver hair thrown into relief by the entirely black dress, and the divinely calm face, had a magical effect on the Comtesse Honorine; she had the feeling of cool balm on her wounds, and beamed in the reflection of that virtue which gave light without ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... words, she took the paper and tobacco from his unresisting hands; and with a facility that, in Desborough's eyes, seemed magical, rolled and presented him a cigarette. He took it, still seated, still without a word; staring with all his eyes upon that apparition. Her face was warm and rich in colour; in shape, it was that piquant triangle, so innocently sly, so saucily attractive, so rare in our more ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... good-bye. I saw his white figure glide across the great open space that the moon made white as it was. And when the shadows took him I still heard the faint sound of his flute, calling to his heart and to the distant Oreida through the magical stillness ...
— Smain; and Safti's Summer Day - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... vibration rapidly increased, he then gave a sharp order or two, and in an instant almost the men came pouring up from the various hatches upon deck, but so quickly and quietly that the transformation was almost magical. ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... he closed the secret door, "but there is nothing magical about it, after all. It was a simple matter to have an electric light plant smuggled up here in sections. It was an equally simple matter to obtain rugs and cushions from the Castillo de Ruiz, ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... which has risen as rapidly as an American city, and with the same fits and starts. Magical prosperity is succeeded by a general insolvency among builders and land speculators; after a few years of fallow another start takes place, and so on—speculation follows speculation. Birkenhead has had about four of these high tides of prosperous ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... than a dram, or ounce of theirs," those loathsome and fulsome filthy potions, heteroclitical pills (so he calls them), horse medicines, ad quoram aspectum Cyclops Polyphemus exhorresceret. And though some condemn their skill and magnetical cures as tending to magical superstition, witchery, charms, &c., yet they admire, stiffly vindicate nevertheless, and infinitely prefer them. But these are both in extremes, the middle sort approve of minerals, though not in so high a degree. Lemnius lib. 3. cap. 6. ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... written long afterwards, from her recollections, from her own oblique point of view; in a beautifully shrill humor; running, not unnaturally, into confused exaggerations and distortions of all kinds. Not mendaciously written anywhere, yet erroneously everywhere. Wilhelmina had no knowledge of the magical machinery that was at work: she vaguely suspects Grumkow and Seckendorf; but does not guess, in the mad explosions of Papa, that two devils have got into Papa, and are doing the mischief. Trusting to memory alone, she misdates, mistakes, misplaces; jumbles ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Trask, and turned to see Shanghai Tom staring into the bowl, his eyes fairly popping out of his head at this magical cookery which transformed a sea-beach into ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... the mandate of the magnanimous Abbas, I saw there the beautiful Tamira with the gazelle eyes, the rose of Ispahan, brilliant as the azure campac which only grows in Paradise. Her glance produced on me the magical effect of the seal of Solomon, and I resolved to take her for my wife. I went this very morning to her father, but his word was given to you; and Bebut-kazi is the only obstacle to my happiness. Listen! I possess great riches, and have powerful ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 327, August 16, 1828 • Various
... madness," says Pentheus, "has confounded your minds, O ye warlike men,[80] descendants of the Dragon? Can brass knocked against brass prevail so much with you? And the pipe with the bending horn, and these magical delusions? And shall the yells of women, and madness produced by wine, and troops of effeminate {wretches}, and empty tambourines[81] prevail over you, whom neither the warrior's sword nor the trumpet could affright, nor troops ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... warrior was the highest aim among all ancient peoples of note, as it is still among many barbarous peoples. When we remember that in the Norseman's heaven, the time was to be passed in daily battles with magical healing of wounds, we see how deeply rooted may become the conception that fighting is man's proper business and that industry is fit only for slaves and people of low degree. That is to say, when the chronic struggles of races necessitate perpetual wars there is evolved an ideal of ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... W. Shaumann. Bio-Dynamic Agriculture: An Introduction. Spring Valley, New York: Anthroposophic Press, 1976. A good introduction to this philosophical/mystical system of farming and gardening that uses magical compost ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... hisses appeared to have as little effect on him. From the first word to the last, he was master of the platform, and no one dreamed of contesting his right to it. His gestures were his own, and could not be imitated, for they were the creation of the moment. There was something magical in this art of his, and if his wisdom and judgment had only equalled it, he might have counted among the ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... Pennine Alps without veiling their summits. We soon had under our eyes a second sky, a lower sky, a sea of clouds, whence emerged a perfect archipelago of peaks and snow-wrapped mountains. There was something magical in it, which the greatest ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... not only in these magical transitions and transformations that Browning's joy in soul was decisively coloured by his joy in power. A whole class of his characters—the most familiarly "Browningesque" division of them all—was shaped under the sway of this master-passion; the noble army of "strivers" who succeed and of ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... grasping thing, man? Who talks of religion, country, wife, children? This petty mineral can purchase them all! Oh, what a bright joy speaks out in your white cheek, my beauty! What are all human charms to yours? Why, by your spell, most magical of talismans, my years may walk, gloating and revelling, through a lane of beauties, till they fall into the grave! Pish! that grave is an ugly thought,—a very, very ugly thought! But come, my sun of hope, I must eclipse you for ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... parents are the wine-god Bacchus and the sorceress Circe. The former, mated with Love, is the father of Mirth (see L'Allegro); but, mated with the cunning Circe, his offspring is a voluptuary whose gay exterior and flattering speech hide his dangerously seductive and magical powers. He bears no resemblance, therefore, to Comus as represented in Ben Jonson's Pleasure reconciled to Virtue, in which mask "Comus" and "The Belly" are throughout synonymous. In the Agamemnon of Aeschylus, Comus is a "drinker ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... Gnostics in Syria; and another, of the secret virtues which were supposed to reside in gems: especially in the old Roman and Greek gems, carved into intaglios with figures of heathen gods and goddesses. Lapidaria, or lists of these gems and their magical virtues, were not uncommon in the Middle Ages. You may read a great deal that is interesting about them at the end of ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... sent thirty-two bullets zipping and singing in amongst the trees. Before the convicts recovered from their surprise, forty-eight more leaden messengers whined through the air above them. The effect was magical, the convicts ceased their fire, and puzzled and alarmed by the sudden leaden hail, sought shelter behind the largest trees ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... chilometri into the pass, where you leave the river, then the road, always winding about the hills, runs level for four miles, and at last drops for five miles into Fivizzano. All the way the mountains stand over you frighteningly motionless and threatening, till the woods of Fivizzano, that magical town, hide you in their shadow, and evening comes as you climb the last hill that ends in the Piazza before the door ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... san," she rhythmically droned, three being the magical number that would bring good luck if the petals were properly arranged and the number ...
— Little Sister Snow • Frances Little
... of his kind, disposed of his boat, the last tie, if tie there was, that bound him to his present life. Waterman he had always been, and now had come to him the call of the Father of All Waters. The tang of the salt in his nostrils conjured up dreams as magical as those invoked by the wand of the poppy god. Wrapped in their rosy mantle, he walked the streets for the next two days, and on the third he took his way to the dock where lay the fire junk that was to bear ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... since her arrival at the mountain camp. It was a wild and picturesque scene at any time, but now the effect of the intense white light, falling on splintered rock, hanging tree, and glancing stream was magical indeed. Rita lay down on her face at the edge of the precipice, as she had seen the soldiers do, and lowered her jar carefully. As the water gurgled placidly into the jar, her eyes roved here and there, taking in every detail of the marvellous ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... ran through his frame. The Lieutenant repeated his question, and, getting no answer, looked round for orders. The Captain met the look, and crying savagely, 'Answer will you, you mule!' struck the half-swooning miserable across the back with his switch. The effect was magical. Covered, as his shoulders were, the man sprang erect with a shriek of pain, raising his chin, and hollowing his back; and in that attitude stood an instant with starting eyes, gasping for breath. Then he sank back against the wall, moving his mouth spasmodically. His ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... monarchy. Others said that the founder of the new kingdom was a Parthian satrap, the son of a noble, and that, having long meditated revolt, he took the final plunge in consequence of a prophecy uttered by Artabanus, who was well skilled in magical arts, and saw in the stars that the Parthian empire was threatened with destruction. Artabanus, on a certain occasion, when he communicated this prophetic knowledge to his wife, was overheard by one of her attendants, a noble damsel named Artaducta, already affianced to Artaxerxes and a sharer ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... with care, those, then living might see most of those naked rocks clothed with verdure, for the progress of vegetation in such a climate, favoured by those accidental causes which seemed to prevent that particular region from ever suffering by droughts, is almost magical, and might convert a wilderness into a garden in the course of a ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... and Mrs. Custard hobbled down stairs, and the children hopped, skipped, and jumped up stairs, both wondering what would come of this magical ...
— Red, White, Blue Socks, Part First - Being the First Book • Sarah L Barrow
... purchases in which he had been employed, such as Indian flowers, poppingjays, birds' feathers, spices, Greek wines, and diamonds. Requested by us, the judge, to say if he had furnished certain ingredients of magical conjuration, the blood of new-born children, conjuring books, and things generally and whatsoever made use of by sorcerers, giving him licence to state his case without that thereupon he should be the subject to any further inquest or inquiry, the said al Rastchid ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... which the soul, separated from the body, was believed to accomplish in the various divisions of the lower regions, are related in this book. It contained also a collection of prayers for the use of the deceased in the other world, and of magical formulae intended to secure the preservation of the mummy from decay, and to prevent its possession by an evil spirit, till the ultimate return of the soul of the deceased. Many of these rituals are also found written, not in hieroglyphics, but in hieratic characters, which are an abbreviated ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... killed. Having regard to the Kumaon rite, it may be surmised that these legends commemorate the death of a Natni or acrobat during the performance of some feat of dancing or sliding on a rope for the magical benefit of the crops. And it seems possible that acrobatic performances may have had their origin in this manner. The point bearing on the present argument is, however, that the Nat performed special functions for the success of the village ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... raised himself from the mantelpiece against which he was leaning. Never had he thought so brilliantly, and he regretted that no magical stenographer should be there to register his thoughts as they passed. But they were gone.... Resuming his position against the mantelpiece, he continued ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... ascribes this gift of heaven to Joseph's skill in magical arts: Cum magicas ibi artes (Egypto) solerti ingenio ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... pearly lamp of heaven. The subtle sorrow of this world of magical moonlight filled his soul. Then the hopelessness and tragedy of all it symbolized were unfolded to him, and, extending his arms in a vague wild sympathy, in a vague wild ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... my departure from the presbytery had brought me back the next morning in a close litter, and departed immediately afterward. When I became able to collect my scattered thoughts, I reviewed within my mind all the circumstances of that fateful night. At first I thought I had been the victim of some magical illusion, but ere long the recollection of other circumstances, real and palpable in themselves, came to forbid that supposition. I could not believe that I had been dreaming, since Barbara as well as myself had seen ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier
... to gaze upon a vast space, the limits of which extended far beyond my vision. An atmosphere of magical luminousness permeated the entire field of view. I was amazed to see no trace of animalculous life. Not a living thing, apparently, inhabited that dazzling expanse. I comprehended instantly, that, by the wondrous power of my lens, I had penetrated beyond the grosser particles ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... up and flaunted above us like a bunch of the weed floating there in the water beneath and dyeing all the shallows so that they looked like caves of cool emerald, and wide off and over them the west burned smoulderingly red like a furnace. Many a time since, I've felt the magical color between those banks and along those meadows, but then I felt none of it; every wit I had was too awake and alert ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... King Frodi had a magical quern, or hand mill, called Grotti; the largest quern ever known in Denmark. Now Grotti, which ground either gold or peace for King Frodi as he willed, was stolen by a sea king named Mysing, who ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... which stands in the Oriental mind for the United States, is a sacred passport and password. It is a magical word. It opens doors that are locked to all the rest of the world; it tears down barriers, century-old, that have been barricading certain places for ages past. That simple word opens hearts that would ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... a word covers too large a space of meaning, is the frequent occasion of the introduction of another, which shall relieve it of a portion of this. Thus, there was a time when 'witch' was applied equally to male and female dealers in unlawful magical arts. Simon Magus, for example, and Elymas are both 'witches', in Wiclif's New Testament (Acts viii. 9; xiii. 8), and Posthumus in Cymbeline: but when the medieval Latin 'sortiarius' (not 'sortitor' ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... than a guess. Owing to the number of proper names and technical terms which we have no means of understanding, it is often quite impossible to know the drift of large paragraphs, and even of whole chapters. Since many of the chapters were treated merely as having a magical efficacy either when recited or when inscribed on something buried with the body, it was of small consequence whether or not the words were understood. The bare recital or writing of names of gods, etc., had ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... been a magical or arbitrary government of the world that has been for ages the dominant one in the human mind. People have supposed that these invisible beings desired them to do certain things, to refrain from doing certain other things, and they have expected them ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... reconstruction. It was the dull season from the builder's standpoint, and Persis had no difficulty in securing workmen in sufficient numbers to hurry the work with what seemed to herself, as well as to Joel, almost magical despatch. A generous check deposited to her credit in the Clematis Savings Bank had relieved Joel's earlier apprehensions. The bequest was no hoax. But his constitutional parsimony rebelled against the outlay as if each expenditure had meant want in the future. While his dignity demanded that ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... for three days, being unable to find game. On another occasion they fell in with a tribe of bushmen who harassed them with poisoned arrows, killing two of their best men, and were only prevented from annihilating them through the terror inspired by their firearms, which they took for magical instruments. ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... a deep water-hole, splashing into it clothes and all, that nothing from the dead might attach itself to them. They changed their wet attire after their arrival at the house. Later in the evening a magnificent hikuli feast was held. The Indians sat around the big fire, which cast a magical light over the tall old pine-trees around the patio, while the dancers moved about in their fantastic way through the red glow. Such a scene makes a deeper impression than any that could be ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... planets, and a number of fancied numerical relations were adduced on the subject. The absurdity of this doctrine is obvious enough, especially when we observe that, as is now well known, there are two large planets, and a host of small planets, over and above the magical number of the regular solids. In Kepler's time, however, this doctrine was so far from being regarded as absurd, that its announcement was hailed as a great intellectual triumph. Kepler was at once regarded with favour. It seems, indeed, to have been the circumstance which brought ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... their attention, and the special opportunities of attacking them. Those problems were of no higher order of complexity than those I had been accustomed to for years, in fact, most of them were not very complex from a purely intellectual viewpoint. There was nothing inherently uncanny, magical or wizardly about their occupation whatever. It was nothing but plain hard work and keeping everlastingly at it. Now, what was the actual thing behind that chemical laboratory that we did not have at ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... sooner had she done so than she found herself flitting over rocks and rough places with perfect ease, and at such speed, that, when she looked back, in a moment, she had already left the old woman far behind, and out of sight. They were magical shoes; but, no matter how fast they skimmed over the ground, Dorel, out of pure love, continued to go before, talking and laughing and ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... dinner the tables disappeared with magical rapidity and a dance began. While I was talking in a corner behind a table, a large album containing views of Irkutsk was presented to me as a souvenir of my visit. The golovah was prominent in the presentation, and when it was ended he urged ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... of me,' he will write in a day of foreboding. A most significant trait is this—in the tedium of trench days, or when imminent peril silences the idle tongues, he gathers the greatest number of these magical flowers. In those moments when speech fails, his soul is serene, it has free play, and we hear its own fine sounds. Hitherto we had heard the repetition of the word of courage and of brotherhood uttered by all our gathering armies. But here, in battle, face to face with the eternities, that ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... know anything about the said laws. Loose conceits, fancies of the private judgment, were excusable enough in the Elizabethan poets. In their day, nature was still unconquered by science; medieval superstitions still lingered in the minds of men and the magical notions of nature which they had inherited from the Middle Age received a corroboration from those neoplatonist dreamers, whom they confounded with the true Greek philosophers. But, now that Bacon has spoken, and that Europe has obeyed him, surely, among the most practical, ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... contrivers, in mimicry of the real festival cars. Games of soldiers are of two types. When copied from the historical fights, one boy, with his kerchief bound round his temples, makes a supposed marvelous and heroic defence. He slashes with his bamboo sword, as a harlequin waves his baton, to deal magical destruction all around on the attacking party. When the late insurrection commenced in Satsuma, the Tokio boys, hearing of the campaign on modern tactics, would form attack and defence parties. A little company armed with bamboo breech-loaders would march to ...
— Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories • Mrs. M. Chaplin Ayrton
... find it, and could tell from its appearance all that had befallen his family. And Martin was called by Glooskap Uch-keen (M.), "my younger brother." The Lord of men and beasts had a belt which gave him magical power and endless strength. And when he lent this to Martin, the younger brother could also do great deeds, such as were ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... (it is not proper to look on at magical arts), and then in a moment, saw the right hook on his cast; but Jaqueline was not in the boat. She had turned herself into an artificial fly (a small black gnat), and Dick might set ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang
... Only I wanted the magical influence of love like yours to take the cruelty out of my heart, to smooth down all the rough edges, and to make me feel like an ordinary girl. I feel like an ordinary girl now in many ways, except that I could never give you ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... mentioned apropos of the tempo di menuetto of the eighth symphony), [Footnote: Ferdinand Hiller] to play the eighth Prelude and Fugue from the first part of "Das Wohltemperirte Clavier" (E flat minor), a piece which has always had a magical attraction for me. [Footnote: i.e. Prelude VIII., from Part I. of Bach's 48 Preludes and Fugues.] He very kindly complied, and I must confess that I have rarely been so much taken by surprise. Certainly, there was no trace here of ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... Palestine professes to drive devils out of people (perhaps alluding to the exorcists of the early church.) He makes Eucrates speak of one Pancrates, who would take a broom or the pestle of a wooden mortar, and upon saying a couple of magical words, it appeared to become a man, drew water, and ordered food. When Pancrates had no further need of him, he spoke a couple of words, and the man was a pestle again. Eucrates tried this himself, but having made the pestle a man, and told him to bring water, he forgot how to change ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... against the starry sky when the camp-fire blazed up. The color of the foliage seemed indescribably blue-green, something never seen by day. Every line shone bright, graceful, curved, rounded, and all thrown with sharp relief against the sky. How magical, exquisitely delicate and fanciful! The great trunks were soft serrated brown, and the gnarled branches stood out in perfect proportions. All works of art ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... one General, with a quivering voice, "the respected governor of our ancient capital gave a grand dinner. The table was set for one hundred persons, with wonderful luxury. The gifts of all lands seemed to have appointed a rendezvous at this magical feast. There was the golden sterlet of the Sheksna, the pheasant, nursling of the Caucasian forests, and strawberries, that great rarity in our north ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... tried: but they were all bad and obvious failures. Against the possible tameness of the domestic novel; against the too commonly actual want of actuality of the historic romance; he set this new fantastic activity of his, which was at once real and unreal, but where the reality had a magical touch of the unfamiliar and the very unreality was stimulating. He might have a hundred faults—he was in fact never faultless, except in Pickwick, which is so absolutely unique that there is nothing ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... beggar maid, and Patricia caught the vision of a slender, airy figure, glittering beneath its gauzy draperies with the sparkle of bright gold, and with the glint and shimmer of rosy clanking bracelets and anklets, and the spangled glory of the rose-crowned headpiece stirring a magical memory of Persia. ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... depth, and could only be approached from the southward, the precipitous ledge of which I have already spoken cutting off all access in other directions. Through the middle of the valley ran a brawling stream of the same magical-looking water which has been described. We saw several strange animals about the dwellings, all appearing to be thoroughly domesticated. The largest of these creatures resembled our common hog in the structure of the body ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... her feeling into words than it is for the youth who has enchantingly rendered the gentle poetry of Ben Jonson's "Sad Shepherd," or for him who has walked the boards as Southey's Wat Tyler. His association, however, is quite as clinging and magical as is the child's although he can only say, "Gee, I wish I could always feel the way I did that night. Something would be doing then." Nothing of the artist's pleasure, nor of the revelation of that larger ...
— The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets • Jane Addams
... outspread wings above the brown, limpid depths of her eyes. He could not tell that she was still little more than a girl; barely eight-and-twenty. For him she was ageless:—protector and playfellow, essence of all that was most real, yet most magical, in the home that was his world. Unknown to him, the Eastern mother in her was evoking, already, the Eastern spirit of ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... the Gipsies were now the only persons addicted to such wickedness; but this is not the case; for it is well known that almost every town is cursed with an astrological, magical, or slight-of-hand fortune-teller. There are two now in Southampton; and their wretched abodes are visited not only by vain and ignorant servants, but often by those who belong to the higher circles, and not unfrequently by ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb
... became "magical" in our sense of the term only when the growth of knowledge revealed the fact that the measures taken were inadequate to attain the desired end; while the "magician" continued to make the pretence that he could attain ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... collector. Uncomfortably near him on the dark wall he began to be aware of something marvellous on old gold when tea interrupted his observations. Tea with Emma was always engrossing. The mere practice and etiquette of it brought the gentlewoman in her into a lovely salience. Her hands and eyes became magical, her talk light and constant without insistency. A symbolist might imagine eternal correspondence between the amber brew and her sunny hair. It was easy to adore Emma at tea, and generally she did not resent a discreetly ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... cries of joy, repeating mona, mona signifying beautiful. The mirrors were at first received with the most delight, but this soon changed into terror; they evidently conceived there was something magical about them, and flung them all into the sea. The coloured glass beads had then the preference, but the distribution caused many disputes. Those who had not obtained any, wished to deprive the rest of them by force. The clamour and quarrelling were increasing, when the voice of the ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... he had forsaken God, and God had forsaken him, and given him up to demoniacal delusions. Nor does Josephus's strange account of the root Baara [Of the War, B. VIII. ch. 6. sect. 3] seem to be other than that of its magical use in such conjurations. As for the following history, it confirms what Christ says, Matthew 12;27 "If I by Beelzebub cast out demons, by whom do your Sons cast ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... and gardenia, and through the swaying boughs of palm and mimosa there are glimpses of rugged mountains, their summits veiled in clouds, of purple sea with the white surf beating eternally against the reefs, whiter still in the yellow sunlight or the magical moonlight ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... is the simple and appropriate ceremony we call confirmation. We claim for it no magical powers. It is not a sacrament. It adds nothing to the sacrament of baptism, for that is complete in itself. There is no conferring of Grace by the pastor's hands, but simply a directing of the Church's prayers to ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... on which the countess threw ever so slight an emphasis, by reason of the pride that the mistress of a house takes in showing that she only receives people of distinction as visitors in her house, produced a magical effect. The Count's stiff manner relaxed at once as he ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... as anything. Then the man did lots more tricks, and he called a boy, and told him to take Lulu and Bawly back home, after he had given them each ten cents. For his regular trick duck and frog were all well again, and he could do magic with them. So that's how Lulu and Bawly were in a magical show, and they told all their friends about it and everyone was so surprised that they said: "Oh! Oh! Oh!" ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... which he yielded, the bad things in his writings, the sectarian obloquy which pursued him, have veiled from popular apprehension some of the sweet and noble qualities of his heart. Notwithstanding his perverse lower impulses, he was one of the most princely and magical of the immortal lords of fame. So far from there being any lack of permanent value and power in his verse, any falling from his established rank, the most authoritative critics, more generally today than ever before, acknowledge him to be the greatest lyric poet that ever ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... the bouquet of rich wine, never cloying, exquisite, might well have seemed magical to the dry Puritans, I mused. It should stay by me tonight, like a promise ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... lad was as incomprehensible to the others as to Kobylin himself. The rapidity with which the blows were delivered, and the ease with which Godfrey had evaded the rushes of his opponent, seemed to them, as to him, almost magical, and from that moment they regarded Godfrey as being possessed of some strange power, which placed him altogether apart from themselves. Osip and the other men of the same stamp warmly ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... of seven feet radius was drawn on the ground in white chalk. At the centre of the circle were inscribed, in yellow chalk, certain magical figures representing Mercury, and about them was drawn, in white chalk, a triangle within a circle of three feet radius—the centre of the circle being the same as that of the outer circle. Within this inner circle were then placed the three captive werwolves. It would be ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... god Vishnu, notwithstanding that tulsi bears the title of Krishna's bride, probably because of the latter being an incarnation of Vishnu. On these occasions pots of this plant are painted and adorned with tinsel. A magical circle is traced in the garden and the plant is put in the middle of it. A Brahman brings an idol of Vishnu and begins the marriage ceremony, standing before the plant. A married couple hold a shawl between the plant and the ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... toil for daily wages are beginning to understand that capital, though sometimes vaunting its importance and clamoring for the protection and favor of the Government, is dull and sluggish till, touched by the magical hand of labor, it springs into activity, furnishing an occasion for Federal taxation and gaining the value which enables it to bear its burden. And the laboring man is thoughtfully inquiring whether in ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... this, I gave some of it to Hans, also to Umslopogaas, who was with the wounded Zulus, who, we found, were progressing well towards complete recovery, and lastly to Goroko who also was worn out. On all of these the effect of that magical brew ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... There's a magical Isle up the River Time Where the softest of airs are playing; There's a cloudless sky and a tropical clime, And a voice as sweet as a vesper chime, And the Junes with the roses ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... above the ancients, that whereas they were faine by their magical charms to represent the Moones approach, wee cannot onely bring her lower with a greater innocence, but may also with a more familiar view behold ...
— The Discovery of a World in the Moone • John Wilkins
... he murmured, biting his last crust in delight. "What relief! what fire! Where can one find such transparency of color! such magical ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... of which the tawdry decorations of our modern operas can give but a faint idea. Devotees and sinners, intent upon winning the favor of a new saint, lighted thousands of candles in his honor inside the vast church, and these scintillating lights gave a magical aspect to the edifice. The black arcades, the columns with their capitals, the recessed chapels glittering with gold and silver, the galleries, the Moorish fretwork, the most delicate features of this delicate carving, were all revealed in the dazzling brightness like the ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... completed, printed, and published on December 1, 1816; but without the magical words, "by the Author of 'Waverley,'" on the title-page. All doubts as to the work being by the author of "Waverley," says Lockhart, had worn themselves out before the lapse ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... it (or under it). In the present state of things there is not much to be expected from effusions and feeble attempts of that kind. On the other hand I am expecting something great, beautiful, and magical from the Symphonic form into which you will shape this story—a story which just as easily becomes dry and tedious as, on the other hand, it can be melting. Take care that we bring your work to a hearing at the next Tonkunstler-Versammlung ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... sprinkled the essences appropriate to the cult of Selenis, we took off all our clothes, and holding the letter concealed in my left hand, with the right I graciously led Madame d'Urfe to the brink of the bath. Here stood an alabaster cup containing spirits of wine which I kindled, repeating magical words which I did not understand, but which she said after me, giving me the letter addressed to Selenis. I burnt the letter in the flame of the spirits, beneath the light of the moon, and the credulous lady told me she ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... my little speech was magical. Pepper glanced at McQuhair, Moffatt crimsoned and nudged McKenzie, Wiry Ben slipped off the window-seat and shyed his hat across the kitchen, whilst Long Tom, the bullock-driver, "thanked me kindly for mentioning of it;" and every body got up directly and took their hats off. I ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... pioneers in the great work of redemption. What emotion and what pride for them! To complete the work they are ready to sacrifice their lives. The French nation with one heart spurs them forward, and on the folds of their flag are inscribed the magical names Liberty and Right. Long live ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... that will help you, Asa Thor. Lucky for you I am mistress of magical things. Take this staff in your hands. It is a staff of power and will stand you instead ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum
... a dream. Aloof in those dark heavens paused Destiny, With her last star descending in the gleam Of the cold morrow, from the emptied sky. The hour, the distance from her old self, all The novelty and loneness of the place Had left a lovely awe on that fair face, And all the land grew strange and magical. ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... known to modern times had no place in Rich's pantomimes. These were divided into two parts, the first being devoted to scenic surprises and magical transformations of a serious nature, and the last to all kinds of comic antics, tumbling and dancing. No allusions to passing events or the follies of the day ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... better than talk, book, art, (Thou hast, O Nature! elements! utterance to my heart beyond the rest—and this is of them,) So sweet thy primitive taste to breathe within—thy soothing fingers my face and hands, Thou, messenger—magical strange bringer to body and spirit of me, (Distances balk'd—occult medicines penetrating me from head to foot,) I feel the sky, the prairies vast—I feel the mighty northern lakes, I feel the ocean and ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... had a magical effect. The intervening time between past and present closed up for him, and moved by an impulse which he had combated for fifteen years, he seized her two hands and ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... contest their supremacy. These last—the fourth immigration—are depicted to us as accomplished soothsayers and necromancers who came out of Greece. They could quell storms; cure diseases; work in metals; foretell future events; forge magical weapons; and raise the dead to life; they are called the Tuatha de Danans, and by their supernatural power, as well as by virtue of "the Lia Fail," or fabled "stone of destiny," they subdued their Belgic kinsmen, and exercised ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... to which Japanese are commonly accustomed in their differences of opinion to refrain from blows makes many of their quarrels harmless. The threat to send for the policeman or the actual appearance of the policeman has an almost magical effect in calming a disturbance. The Japanese policeman believes very much in reproving or reprimanding evil doers and in reasoning with folk whose "carelessness" has attracted attention. Sometimes for greater impressiveness ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... nor bolt, nor grate, And yet men durance there abide, In dungeon scarce three inches wide; With roof so low, that under it 1140 They never stand, but lie or sit; And yet so foul, that whoso is in, Is to the middle-leg in prison; In circle magical conflu'd, With walls of subtile air and wind, 1145 Which none are able to break thorough, Until they're freed by head of borough. Thither arriv'd, th' advent'rous Knight And bold Squire from their steeds alight At th' ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... 'Thanks, my Creator! thanks!'—Your highness says that M. Baleinier has often found me in my solitude, a prey to a strange excitement: yes, it is true; for it is then that, escaping in thought from all that renders the present odious and painful to me, I find refuge in the future—it is then that magical horizons spread far before me—it is then that such splendid visions appear to me, as make me feel myself rapt in a sublime and heavenly ecstasy, as if I ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... repent; but in what terms? "Oui, ma foi! il faut s'amender. Encore vingt ou trente ans de cette vie-ci, et puis nous songerons a nous." After Moliere comes the artist-enchanter, the master of masters, Mozart, who reveals the hero's spirit in magical harmonies, elfin tones, and elate darting rhythms as of summer lightning made audible. Here you have freedom in love and in morality mocking exquisitely at slavery to them, and interesting you, attracting you, tempting you, inexplicably forcing ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... studying the relations between the theory of evolution and socialism, and which is common to the ruling classes under the bourgeois regime and to the individualistic anarchists,—since both alike imagine that the social organization can be changed in a day by the magical effect of a bomb,—more ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... words on Barnes was almost magical. The dull colour streamed into his sallow cheeks, he shook all over with excitement. His voice, when he spoke, was almost hysterical. He had been so near to despair. This indeed had been ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... It was almost magical the way the Boer fire dropped. The guns came into action about a quarter-past nine, and for an hour you would hardly have known they were there. Whenever a group put their heads over the sky-line 1950 yards away there came a round of ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... finding the key of the rainbow. Yet here we were; and Granada—after we had entered at last by crossing still another river—came out from under its spell of enchantment when we saw it at close quarters. Only that wonderful hill above was magical still, as magical to the eye as when Ibraham the astrologer ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... claims; and, whether from being deceived or as a deceiver, whether as an enthusiast or as a cheat, he pretended to have learned all the supernatural knowledge which they pretended to teach. By the Egyptians he was looked upon as the favourite of Heaven; he claimed the power of working miracles by his magical arts, and of foretelling events by his knowledge of astrology. In the Thebaid he was so far honoured that at the bidding of the priests one of the sacred trees spoke to him, as had been their custom from of old with favourites, ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... magical,' he added; 'when anyone uses the fan, in three strokes of it I am with them; if they fold it and tap it on the table, in three taps I am at home again. The casket will not open to all, but you see it was this fair ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... all my gifts are magical words That sing sweet songs to me; And the sensitive words are caroling birds In the ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... we had crucified Jesus, not knowing that he was the Son of God, but supposing he wrought his miracles by some magical arts, we summoned a large assembly ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... death and life. The figure one is subject to illimitable expansion. It is without beginning in the infinite of number, as God is without beginning in the infinite of being. As with the vegetable kingdom, the tiny seed or acorn silently working its magical transformation into a plant or tree, and directing its destiny with marvelous intelligence through the torrid and frigid vicissitudes of the seasons; so is man without beginning in the infinitude of his own being or microcosm. Man is both a type and antitype. A type of what pre-existed ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... eat, and had to sup on some pineapples and plums from the hot-houses. This was a very light diet for people who, without food for twenty-four hours, had spent the preceding night on foot and all day fighting! But we were the victors, and that magical word enabled us ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... court with equal effect; that knowledge of the law in its innumerable doctrines, principles, and decisions, which made the study even in Lord Coke's day the work of twenty years; the prompt application of this learning to the rapid matter in hand; the magical use of the faculties of the mind and the wondrous discipline which they must have undergone, every hour, every minute demanding a stretch of thought and an adroitness of discrimination which have justly ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... for his sake!—and his wife, mounting as he mounted beside the one man in the world she had elected to admire and love. "Doctor and Mrs. John Tenison "—so it would be written. "Doctor Tenison's wife"—"This is Mrs. Tenison"—she seemed already to hear the magical sound of it! ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... the practice seems to have at present no further significance than that of ornamentation. No therapeutic nor magical nor ceremonial effects are associated with it. Neither is it symbolic of prowess, nor distinctive of family, place, nor person, for two persons from different localities and groups may ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... Many affected to believe that Marie was the victim of sorcery, and that such was the real source of the influence of Leonora; and thus the heart-broken mother and unhappy wife, whose morbid imagination had caused her to consider her trials as the result of magical arts, was herself accused of having employed them against her ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... peoples, regard madness as due to possession by an evil spirit,[123] but the Malanaus extend this theory to many other forms of disease, and practise an elaborate rite of exorcism. This will be described in the chapter (XVI.) dealing with charms and magical practices. ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall |
