"Ravishing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... With a ravishing swagger, half-lifted wings, and deep, guttural hissing, the lover approached again. He suddenly lifted his body, but she coolly rocked forward on the limb, glided gracefully beneath him, and slowly sailed into the Limberlost. He recovered ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... advice he presented himself late in the day, and when he had cooled his heels in the salon for some time, a lady entered, who was of such ravishing ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... never been nearer a horse than the distance between sidewalk and road. She smiled at you over her shoulder radiant in a white tricot Palm Beach suit, who thought palms grew in jardinieres only. On page 17 she was revealed in the boyish impudence of our Aiken Polo Habit, complete, $90. She was ravishing in her golf clothes, her small feet in sturdy, flat-heeled boots planted far apart, and only the most carping would have commented on the utter impossibility of her stance. Then there was the Killiecrankie Travel Tog (background of assorted ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... and executed in so masterly a manner, that in the whole course of my life I had never heard anything so exquisite. So great was my amazement that I could scarcely breathe. Awakened by the violence of my feelings, I instantly seized my violin, in the hope of being able to catch some part of the ravishing melody which I had just heard, but all in vain. The piece which I composed according to my scattered recollections is, it is true, the best I ever produced. I have entitled it 'Sonata del Diavolo;' but it is so far inferior ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 530, January 21, 1832 • Various
... see and to do. We separated to dress, to make ourselves beautiful for the evening, and then till the morning light came in through the curtains, never a pause or a weariness. Yes! sometimes one had a terrible pang. There would be a toilette, which was ravishing, which was far superior to mine—for I never had money to dress as I wished—or some one else would have a success, and attract all eyes. But what did that matter?" the Contessa cried, lighting up more and more. "One did not really grudge what lasted ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... extraordinary talents excited envy, and he was accused of magical arts: his harp had been heard to pour forth strains of ravishing beauty when no human hand was near, and other like prodigies, savouring of the black art, were said to attend him, so that he fled the court, and took refuge with his uncle, Elphege, ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... illuminated chromo-lithographs of Kansas scenes have been distributed among the blacks. The gentleman who has seen some of these chromos writes that the most ravishing presentment of rural life in Kansas is depicted. The Negroes look on the State as a second paradise, compared with which old Canaan is a Florida swamp. One of these pictures, entitled "A Freedman's Home," represents ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... watched it following upon the unconscious footsteps of the girl Esmay. Then, again, the fair-haired woman who only a few minutes ago had come to meet Quinton Edge on the north terrace, an apparition so ravishing that Constans must needs confound it with the flesh-and-blood presentment of his ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... the Lard of Burley, standing there) this trator, wha hes committed divers poinets of his treasone against his Majestie's civill lawes, to his grait dishonour and offence of his guid subjects, namlie, taking of his peacable subjects on the night out of thair housses, ravishing of weimen, and receating within his hous of the King's rebels and ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison
... intoxicating breakfast aroma began to steal up from Cindy's domain. Then, spurred by a positive agony of hunger, it took the singer lady the fewest possible number of minutes to complete a dainty and most ravishing breakfast toilet. ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... garb, but dressed in Turkish trousers, vest and slippers with upturned toes. Jewels glittered about her waist and neck and arms, her wrists jangled with heavy bangles, in her ears two great pendants swayed—her eyelids were darkened and her lips reddened. She was a ravishing houri of the harem, and I gasped a ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... discreet marrying age is about sixteen. Jeneka was eighteen—still young enough and of a most ravishing weight, but the slim princess stood as a slight, yet seemingly insurmountable barrier between her and all ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... such things?' 'Fair my soul,' rejoined the abbot, 'marvel not, for that sanctity nowise abateth by this, seeing it hath its seat in the soul and that which I ask of you is a sin of the body. But, be that as it may, your ravishing beauty hath had such might that love constraineth me to do thus; and I tell you that you may glory in your charms over all other women, considering that they please holy men, who are used to look upon the beauties of heaven. Moreover, abbot though I be, I am a man like another ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... adventurous knight relates in his Private Memoirs, how they came beneath a balcony where a love-lorn fair one stood touching her lute, and how they loitered awhile to admire her beauty, and listen to her "soul-ravishing harmony." Their delightful contemplations, however, were soon arrested by a sudden attack from several armed men, who precipitated themselves upon the three Britons. Their swords were instantly drawn, and a fierce combat ensued; but the valiant Digby slew the leader of ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... dress, toned like a pigeon's breast, a round neck with a tulle collar, a wide girdle fastened with a bunch of primroses, a flapping hat of Italian straw tied with two narrow ribbons under her chin, created a delightful effect and a ravishing frame for her lovely face. When she passed lightly on her way to her booth, she caused quite a sensation. The Duke, Count Albert, Maurice and Jean Perliez were waiting for her. A crowd ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... demure in cap and kerchief as the most ravishing of young Priscillas, rose obediently at the request. "May I read to her a little ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... as dear to the stricken parents. When she went back to London they gave her not only gifts but money, and for two years she returned to them for long visits. So America had a chance to admire the ravishing Miss Fairfax, too, and Rachael had many conquests and one or two serious affairs. The girls had their first dances at the Belvedere Club; Rachael met them all, who were later to be her neighbors: the Morans and Parmalees, the Vanderwalls and the ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... carried to the authorities of every movement made, of almost every meeting held. Men were arrested, imprisoned, flogged in the streets of Belfast. Information was forced from prisoners under the lash. Parties of yeomen rode through the country burning, ravishing, and ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... meek, In a brown little baby cheek, Two dear little eyes that met her own in a ravishing glance oblique; A chubby hand thrust through The palings of bamboo— A little Celestial, dropped, it seemed, straight out of the ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... do. Thence with my wife and Mercer to my Lord Chancellor's new house, and there carried them up to the leads, where I find my Lord Chamberlain, Lauderdale, Sir Robert Murray, and others, and do find it the most delightfull place for prospect that ever was in the world, and even ravishing me, and that is all, in short, I can say of it. Thence to Islington to our old house and eat and drank, and so round by Kingsland home, and there to the office a little and Sir W. Batten's, but no newes at all from the fleete, and so ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... at work. I called to mind the Arabian story of a prince, borne away during sleep by a good genius, to the distant abode of a princess of ravishing beauty. I do not pretend to say that I believed in having experienced a similar transportation; but it was my inveterate habit to cheat myself with fancies of the kind, and to give the tinge of illusion ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... Dick said no more as to that. The way she said it was enough. They had come to the door of her newly finished house, a clean, home-like place from which a fragrance of preparing breakfast flowed like a ravishing nectar. "Where are they now?" she demanded impatiently. "Wherever they are it ain't fit for a horse! Why don't you ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... "Parsifal" began auspiciously. Quite puffed up with vainglorious pride over the little maiden's admiration of one of my modest possessions, while Bee's and Mrs. Jimmie's ravishing masterpieces had received not even a look, we met Jimmie bustling up with programmes and opera-glasses, and went toward the main entrance. We showed our tickets, and were sent to the side door. We went to the side door, ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... breast, and her hair, tightly bound, was decorated with another narrow band of green. She looked younger than in the city—almost virginal. Stooping low, she gathered a handful of blue scylla from the grass, Mary barely checking an exclamation at this ravishing of her beloved bulbs. Then Felicity lay down upon the grass; her eyes closed; she seemed asleep. They waited silently for some minutes. Stefan ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... those, diluted also, or somewhat qualifi'd, for the composition, arising from the mixture of the two extremes undiluted, makes a Purple, which though it be a lovely colour, and pretty acceptable to the eye, yet is it nothing comparable to the ravishing pleasure with which a curious and well tempered Green affects the eye. If removing the Paper, the eye be plac'd against cd, it will perceive the lower side of the Sun (or a Candle at night which is much better, because it ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... said she, smiling with a ravishing sweetness, "I hear you are in far greater peril from a foe much harder and more cruel—ma mie Elliot. Ah! how you lovers put yourselves in jeopardy, and take me from my trade of war to play the peacemaker! ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... From inward, fledged with might of sorrow and mirth And father's fire made mortal in his son. Nor was not spirit of strength in blast and breeze To exalt again the sun's child and the sea's; For as wild mares in Thessaly grow great With child of ravishing winds, that violate Their leaping length of limb with manes like fire And eyes outburning heaven's With fires more violent than the lightning levin's And breath drained out and desperate of desire, Even so the spirit in him, ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... that a hunter beheld a basket descend from heaven, containing twelve young maidens of ravishing beauty. He attempted to approach, but on perceiving him they quickly re-entered the basket and were drawn up again out of his sight. Another day, however, he succeeded, by disguising himself as a mouse, in capturing the youngest of the damsels, whom he married and by whom he ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... object,[420] is rhetorical—depending on precept and example—and attaining its true aim when it moves men to action. Poesy is "a dulcet and gentle Philosophy, which leades on and guides us by the hand to Action with a ravishing delight and incredible Sweetnes."[421] Jonson evidently knew that he was merging oratory and poetry in their common purpose of securing ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... cried Neenah, with ravishing candour. "A prince for a husband and the glorious Sahib Chase for a lover all your life! Ah!" The exclamation was no less than ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... next place, remember that no excellence is ever attained without self-denial. Wisdom's ways are indeed ways of pleasantness. The satisfaction of having done well and nobly is of a certain ravishing kind, far surpassing other enjoyments. But to obtain this high and satisfying pleasure, many minor and incompatible pleasures must be foregone. You cannot have the pleasure of being a first-rate scholar, and at the same time have your ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... in soon after this, and before long the two girls had to go and dress for their dinner. Daisy, in the highest spirits, rushed in again to say good-night to the aunts before starting, a ravishing figure. ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... "Ah, deuce take it, to think of them imagining such a thing, the devils! Exquisite! Ravishing! Where did you get hold of such a ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... appeared in the form of a most beautiful young woman; and there are still current in obscure parts of Scotland wild legends of his having thus tempted even godly men to sin.—In Asiatic tales rakshasas, ghuls (ghouls), and such-like demons frequently assume the appearance of heart-ravishing damsels in order to delude and devour the unwary traveller. In many of our old European romances fairies are represented as transforming themselves into the semblance of deer, to decoy into sequestered places noble hunters of whom they had ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... welcomed and half resented the putting off of the decisive moment He was in a dreadful nervous flutter, his hopes alternately flying like a flag in a high wind, and drooping in a sick abandonment of everything. And May was more ravishing than ever. She had stuck the stem of a rose in one little ear like a pen, and the full flower itself nestled drooping at her cheek. There was never anything in the world more demure than her face and her manner, but the frolic eye betrayed her mood now and then, and Paul was half ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... showed exquisite, a face that might float tantalisingly across a painter's vision, and vanish after but allowing him the merest glimpse. Though she was clad in a simple dark blue serge dress, the grace of her figure seemed to him a revelation, and a ravishing sprig of cornflower peeped from her waistband. There was a repose, too, and a gentleness in her bearing that made him think, by contrast, of his Cleo, and of the uncouthness of Alice and Mary when they attempted to ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... lovely, in her ravishing costume of a shepherdess; her dress was of crimson satin, her black velvet bodice was fastened over her voluptuous bosom by rich golden cords, finished off by tassels glittering with diamonds. A wreath of crimson roses ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... the maiden, in the same ravishing voice, 'thou revelest with thy fancies, and dost thou wonder that I, too, love to dally with my thoughts and dreams? The tiny creatures whom thou hast taken from me were, and still are, threads of my heart, which I permit at times to issue into the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... of an empress, she led the way into the adjoining room, which was a bedroom sumptuously enriched with everything that could allure the senses. The very curtains of the bed seemed to breathe out languorous odors, the walls were hung with ravishing groups of figures that might have come from a Pompeiian temple, the dressing-table was rich with ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... harp-player came to her palace and sang and played before her; he made music so ravishing and so sad that all who heard him wept save the Queen, who listened and smiled, listless and indifferent. But her smile filled him with such a passion of wonder and worship that he resolved to rest no more until he had found her heart, for he knew the tale. So he sought the ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... the Knight, with a half sigh. "It is only a reminiscence of youthful follies. But now it is thy turn again. I warrant me there is store of ravishing melodies in the treasury whence thou didst ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... a frenzy of friendship, Mr Mountchesney convinced that the country in August might be delightful, and Lady Joan almost gay because Alfred was pleased. Lady de Mowbray had been left in her boudoir with the "Morning Post." Sybil had just finished a ravishing air, there was a murmur of luncheon—when suddenly Harold, who had persisted in following his mistress and whom Mr Mountchesney had gallantly introduced into the music-room, rose and coming forward from the corner in which ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... Madonna. Ah, but there is a Magdalen of Titian that enchanted me. Only—there must always be an only—her wrists are too thick and her hands are too plump—beautiful hands they would be on a woman of fifty. There are things of Rubens and Vandyck that are ravishing. The 'Mensonge' of Salvator Rosa is very natural. I do not speak as a connoisseur; what most resembles nature pleases me most. Is it not the aim of painting to copy nature? I like very much the full, fresh countenance of the wife of Paul Veronese, ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... ravishing," the Marquise Urbain resumed, looking at her sister-in-law, with her head on one ...
— The American • Henry James
... would have to face an old field gun's fire on the morrow, as well as a Maxim's. I was eloquent as I told how our four-inch gun might be expected to shake the ship. After that, in the dimness we talked shop; we had neither of us possibly had many easy openings for that ravishing employment lately. ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... young and old, who can generate gastric juice copiously. Because of the general impression that they are healthful and no tax, human stomachs are converted into cider-mills at will, regardless of between meal-times. By their ravishing flavor and apparent ease of digestion apples still play an important part in the "fall of man" from that higher estate, the Eden ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... lakeside, delighting in the soft air, and saw, in front of a teahouse, a ravishing girl of about eighteen, in whose face, which was as dreamful as the Night Star, flowered all the blossoms of the time. He stopped, fixed to the ground with admiration and already riotous with love. He could not take his ...
— Eastern Shame Girl • Charles Georges Souli
... Lily was perfectly ravishing in her splendor at the dance. The white Swiss frock she wore was high in the neck, but her brown shoulders and arms shone through the thin fabric with fine effect. About her slim waist she tied a narrow ribbon of blue, and she ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... in a stately chateau in Old Picardy, she was brought up in comparative seclusion; her father, the Duc de Potache,[1] spent his time at Court, so that her radiant loveliness was left to mature and develop unnoticed. Her childhood was uneventful, but at the age of seventeen this ravishing creature was wedded by proxy to Gustave de Poopinac, a dashing young officer in the Garde du Corps,[2] and at twenty-five she came to Court in order to see her husband; but alas! Fate, seated securely in Destiny's irreproachable turret, willed it that her journey should be in vain. ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... said Count Victor, "I am—what do you call it?—a somnambulist. In that condition it has sometimes been my so good fortune to wander into the most odd and ravishing situations. But as it happens, helas! I can never recall a single incident of them when I waken in the morning. Ma foi!" (he remembered that even yet his suspicions of the Baron were unsatisfied), "I would with some ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... there. "No, he did not kill them," he said. "He doesn't know what kept him from killing—the man. He was a coward, that man. He crawled away like a worm. Perhaps that was why my friend spared him. The wonderful part of it was that the woman—his wife—was not afraid. She stood up in her ravishing dishevelment, with that mantle of gold he had worshipped streaming about her to her knees, and she laughed? Yes, she laughed—a mad sort of laugh; a laughter of fear, perhaps—but—laughter. So he did not kill them. Her laughter—the man's cowardice—saved ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... that nowhere else[60] than in the presence of an audience presided over by so great a man, and in the midst of so numerous and distinguished a gathering of learned men who come kindly disposed to hear. For my part, if I were skilled to make ravishing music on the lyre, I should never play save before crowded assemblies. It was ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... what whisky is to the drunkard, brought back a familiar picture. It was of a farmhouse with barns and many out-buildings. There were hens, ducks and turkeys in the yard and back of the house was a row of beehives that always emitted this ravishing odor. ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... more days or years at most, My troubles sell be o'er; I hope to join the heavenly host On Canaan's happy shore. My raptured soul shall drink and feast In love's unbounded sea; The glorious hope of endless rest Is ravishing to me." ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... seen them since: no, nor heard of them; but to this day I live a bachelor on account of those ravishing charmers. ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... behind her head in such a fashion that she seemed to embrace herself. Lily in crimson cashmere, which lent its warm glow to her tender cheeks, and even seemed to impart a rosy reflection to the gloss of her hair, was ravishing. To-night, too, her face wore a new expression, one of triumphant tenderness, which caused her to look ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the House, "it is one of the young ones come back to visit his birthplace. I am afraid, after that ravishing performance, that my story ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... Holy Communion. The fire of divine love then burned so vividly in her heart that she could hardly refrain from letting appear exteriorly the ecstatic joy with which her soul was inundated. Once she saw Our Lord in the Holy Host during Mass, in the form of a little child, of a ravishing and incomparable beauty, and by such a singular favor we may easily judge of the state of her soul at that period of ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... ministers as discharge their ministry amiss; ravishing away the goods of the widows and fatherless; and serve themselves, not others, out of those things ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... ere this I should have done the deed, Had not sweet pleasure conquered deep despair. Have not I made blind Homer sing to me Of Alexander's love and Oenon's death? And hath not he, that built the walls of Thebes With ravishing sound of his melodious harp, Made music with my Mephistophilis? Why should I die, then, or basely despair? I am ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... interesting to depict all these people, but it would require volumes for the work, and I reluctantly let them all pass out without a word,—all but that sweet young blonde who arrives by most trains, and who, putting up her eye-glass with a ravishing air, bewitchingly peers round among the bearded faces, with little tender looks of hope and trepidation, for the face which she wants, and which presently bursts through the circle of strange visages. The owner of the face then hurries forward to meet that sweet blonde, who gives him a little ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... revel in our spoils?—There is no fear of being hanged for such a crime as this, while we have money or friends.—And suppose even the worst, that two or three were to die, have we not a chance, each man of us, to escape? The devil's in them, if they'll hang five for ravishing three! ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... been originally designed that Kettle should be the After-Clap's nurse. The colored mammy who had nursed Beverley and Anita with tender devotions having gone to her well-earned rest, Mrs. Fortescue had determined to be very modern with the After-Clap. A smart young trained nurse, in a ravishing cap, was his first nurse. But the baby showed such marked preference for Kettle, and Kettle dogging the baby by day and night and thrusting superfluous services and advice upon the nurse, she decided she would not stand being "bossed by a nigger," ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... the going of each day's sun gilding cloud-crests, silvering waves, setting you matchless scenes in color effect, some ravishing in their gorgeous splendor, some soft and tender of tone as the light in the eyes of the woman you worship, scenes beside which the most brilliant stage settings which metropolitans flock like sheep to see ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... prelude to kissing? Who could linger over it tenderly with a candle, or a lump of mutton fat, when cold had laid its cruel hand upon it? It is not tip-tilted like a flower; it is not whimsical with some ravishing and unexpected little crook. It is straight, like a mathematical line. But it has no parts. Her cheeks are round and fair. Each has its dimple and blush. They are thoroughly healthy, Mrs. Smith's digestion is unexceptionable. You might indicate the contour of these ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... the room, followed by her daughter. Linder had a sense of being unsatisfied; it was as though a ravishing meal has been placed before a hungry man, and only its aroma had reached his senses when it had been taken away. Well, ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... ambition in the worldly sense. Ambition is a red devil of a horse, but he gets you somewhere. One overcomes Inertia in riding far and long on that mount. He takes you to the piled places where the self may satisfy for the moment all its ravishing greeds. This is not a great thing to do. One sickens of this; all agony and disease comes of this. The red horse takes you as far as you will let him, on a road that must be retraced, but he gets you somewhere! Inertia does not. The point is, one must not slay the red horse of ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... worried landlady gave Barrow a fervently grateful look for his championship of the abused stranger; and the pet of the house, a very prism in her cheap but ravishing Sunday rig, blew him a kiss from the tips of her fingers and said, with the darlingest smile and a sweet ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... self-contained in general company, would laugh till the tears ran down her cheeks; and the music of her laughter, which was deep and low, rang more agreeably to Barty's ear than even the ravishing strains of Adelina Patti—the last of the great prime donne of our time, I think—whose voice still stirs me to the depths, with vague remembrance of fresh girlish innocence ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... heaven Complain'd in some such words:— 'Great goddess, you have given To me, the laughing-stock of birds, A voice which fills, by taste quite just, All nature with disgust; Whereas that little paltry thing, The nightingale, pours from her throat So sweet and ravishing a note, She bears alone the honours of ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... pause, apparently to allow the editor to materialize this ravishing description, he said, gently, "Are ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... open it. You will save Gnulemah; her innocence will save her from the knowledge of her loss. As for Balder,—his suffering will satisfy a reasonable enemy. No wife, no fortune, the cup dashed from his lips just as the aroma was ravishing his nostrils!—O, enough! Open the door, therefore, and ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... lifted up a really ravishing foot—small, swarthy, and not misshapen like the majority of feet which look dainty only in bottines. I laughed, and started to draw on to the foot a silk stocking, while Mlle. Blanche sat on the edge ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... slept until awakened by the sound of a voice. Opening his eyes, he saw that the sun had risen. Above him stood a woman of ravishing beauty. He sprang to his feet ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... to help my Lady to and from the carriage. One observes my Lady, how recognisant of my Lord's politeness, with an inclination of her gracious head and the concession of her so-genteel fingers! It is ravishing! ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... beaufet was set out with all sorts of gold plate, so finely wrought, that the workmanship was much more valuable than the weight of the gold. Several bands of beautiful women richly dressed, and whose voices were ravishing, began a concert, accompanied by the most harmonious instruments he had ever heard. When they were seated, the fairy took care to help prince Ahmed to the most delicious meats, which she named as she invited him to eat of them, and which the prince had never heard of, but found so exquisite, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... to excel. But when the foam-sprung Goddess to the skies A suitress went on their behalf, to obtain Blest nuptials for them from the Thund'rer Jove, (For Jove the happiness, himself, appoints, And the unhappiness of all below) Meantime, the Harpies ravishing away Those virgins, gave them to the Furies Three, 90 That they might serve them. O that me the Gods Inhabiting Olympus so would hide From human eyes for ever, or bright-hair'd Diana pierce me with a shaft, that while Ulysses yet engages all my thoughts, My days concluded, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... of music. Constance had sung them so many times that she knew them by heart. Now she fixed her eyes on the east wall of the gymnasium, and, leaving the world behind her, rendered the beautiful selection as though she were in her own home, with only her dear ones to listen to the flood of ravishing melody that ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... coranto, or to move with a loftier grace in the stately galliard, for this rugged and decayed dungeon of rusty-coloured stone—quitting the gay theatre, for the solitary chimney-nook of a Scottish dog-house—bartering the sounds of the soul-ravishing lute, and the love-awaking viol-de-gamba, for the discordant squeak of a northern bagpipe—above all, exchanging the smiles of those beauties, who form a gay galaxy around the throne of England, for the cold courtesy of an untaught ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... you to pay to the people the increased obligation which the voluntary surrender of my dignity lays upon you. Other princes esteem it a peculiar felicity to bequeath to their children the crown which death is already ravishing from then. This happiness I am anxious to enjoy during my life. I wish to be a spectator of your reign. Few will follow my example, as few have preceded me in it. But this my deed will be praised if your future life should justify my expectations, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... creatures. He spent many years in ascetic penances at the source of the river Ganga. The accomplished and lovely Ganga, one day, assuming the form of a beautiful female, and rising from the waters, made up to the monarch. The celestial maiden, endued with ravishing beauty, approached the royal sage engaged in ascetic austerities, and sat upon his right thigh that was, for manly strength, a veritable Sala tree. When the maiden of handsome face had so sat upon his lap, the monarch said unto her, 'O amiable ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... is, he had to justify her by being correct in his manners. And as he looked from mother to daughter he realized that Irene had not inherited all her beauty from her father. In their dinner gowns Mrs. Hardy was sedate and even beautiful, and her daughter ravishing. Dave thought he had not before seen so much ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... ravishing in fancy the mouldiest wine-cellars of Continental Europe. Already the fond mother has idealised a house in "Millionaire's Row" east of the Park, where there shall be twenty servants instead of three, and there shall cease that ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... Husband" has not been acted these many, many years, yet to all who treasure the historical memories of the stage it should be recalled with interest, for it was in this gay comedy that the ravishing Nance shone forth in all the silvery light of her resplendent genius. Read the pages of the old play in unsympathetic mood and they may look musty and worm-eaten, but imagine Oldfield as the sprightly Lady Betty Modish, the elegant Wilks as Sir Charles Easy, and Cibber[A] himself ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... themselves to the task of penning elegant little notes inviting the town belles to accompany them to the play, while the belles themselves, scenting an opportunity to complete the wreck of masculine hearts that was their chief business, addressed themselves as promptly to the quest of the most ravishing theatre bonnets which the latest Paris fashions as interpreted by Mrs. Fipps could produce. As that lady bustled back and forth among her customers, her mouth full of pins and hands full of ribbons, feathers, flowers and what not, her face wore, in ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... her portrait, he exclaimed, "The original was fashioned for the gods." And we cannot wonder, as we look on the ravishing beauty of the face that wrung this eloquent tribute from the cold-blooded cynic—the tender, melting violet of the eyes, with their sweeping brown lashes, under the exquisite arch of brown eyebrows, the dainty little Greek nose, the bent bow of the delicious ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... misguided, and franticly abandoned to its passions. He is admirable where the subject calls chiefly for emotion, and makes no higher requisitions; and he is still more so where pathos and moral beauty are united. Few of his pieces are without passages of the most ravishing beauty. It is by no means my intention to deny him the possession of the most astonishing talents; I have only stated that these talents were not united with a mind in which the austerity of moral principles, and the ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... love, so simply uttered in the text, are entirely unaccompanied by the orchestra; but as Pelleas exclaims: "The ice is melted with glowing fire!" four solo 'cellos, with sustained harmonics in the violins and violas, sound, pianissimo, a ravishing series of "ninth-chords" (page 244, measure 6)—a sheer Debussy-esque effect, for the relation between the chords is as absolutely anarchistic as it is deeply beautiful. "Your voice ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... miserable wretch. Cotton had, being rather riled at his chum's temper for the last month, hinted, in unmistakable terms, that the debt was to be paid on return after holidays. Todd contemplated the ravishing prospect of the future with unmixed feelings. Between the upper and nether millstones of the lost Exhibition and the lost bet he ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... purpose to inaugurate a servile war in their country, and they call fiercely for retaliation. They mean, by using the words "servile war," to convey the impression that there is to be a general slaying and ravishing throughout the South, on and after the first of next January, under the special patronage of the American President, who has ordered his soldiers and his sailors, his ships and his corps, to be employed in protecting black ravishers of white women and black murderers of white children. All they ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... Pete, dropping his pen, and rubbing his hands in ravishing contemplation of his own fiction; "the next thing we hear she'll be riding in her carriage ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... concealed even from Clotilde. What a secret—for what a spirit—to keep from what a companion!—a secret yielding honey to her, but, it might be, gall to Clotilde. She felt like one locked in the Garden of Eden all alone—alone with all the ravishing flowers, alone with all the lions and tigers. She wished she had told the secret when it was small and had let it increase by gradual accretions in Clotilde's knowledge day by day. At first it had been but a garland, then it had become a chain, now ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... matter of pride to display her overskirts. These were arranged with ever so many tapes on the inside, and would readily tie up into the most ravishing bunches and puffs—how Lu and Kathie, wee-est mites of women though they were, did envy Winnie her tapes! Their mammas didn't know how to loop a dress—witness their little skirts pinned back into ...
— Lill's Travels in Santa Claus Land and other Stories • Ellis Towne, Sophie May and Ella Farman
... present inquired whether a man who knew so many sciences was acquainted with music? Alfarabi made no reply, but merely requested that a lute should be brought him. The lute was brought; and he played such ravishing and tender melodies, that all the court were melted into tears. He then changed his theme, and played airs so sprightly, that he set the grave philosophers, Sultan and all, dancing as fast as their legs could carry them. He then sobered them again by a mournful strain, and made ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... Paris. Close was their union, great their joy. It was engrossing admiration and devotion on one side; absorbing sympathy, respect, and gratitude, on the other. The power and charm of Madame Recamier were not merely in her ravishing beauty, imperturbable good nature, and all-subduing graciousness, but also in her mind and character. Madame de Stael, who was a great critic, and no ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... winsome; taking, fascinating, captivating, killing; seducing, seductive; heart-robbing, alluring, enticing; appetizing &c. (exciting) 824; cheering &c. 836; bewitching; enchanting, entrancing, enravishing[obs3]. charming; delightful, felicitous, exquisite; lovely &c. (beautiful) 845; ravishing, rapturous; heartfelt, thrilling, ecstatic; beatic[obs3]; beatific; seraphic; empyrean; elysian &c. (heavenly) 981. palmy, halcyon, Saturnian. Phr. decies repetita placebit[Lat]; "charms strike the sight but merit wins the soul" [Pope]; "sweetness and light" ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... ravishing. The green and gold brought out the tawny red glint of her hair, which was bound with two gold bands about the head, ending in tiny emerald clasps over the barely discoverable tips of her ears; little gold shoes twinkled in and out of ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... on, saw there trees of ambergris [81] and aloes and sandal-wood and cloves and jessamine, [82] full-grown and laden with ripe fruits and flowers [83] whose fragrance dilated the breast and cheered the spright; and there [they heard] the voices of the birds twittering their various notes and ravishing the wit with their warblings. So Mubarek turned to Zein ul Asnam and said to him, "How deemest thou of this place, O my lord?" And the prince answered him, saying, "Methinketh, O Mubarek, ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... great floor, holding the instrument delicately poised, and still awaking its ravishing voice, stood a figure, the sight of which almost ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... men whose business was to ravish and take away virginity from young girls. These girls were taken to such men, and the latter were paid for ravishing them, for the natives considered it a hindrance and impediment if the girls were virgins ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... and the fluttering parterre, I sought relief in solitude. Never was solitude so grateful to me. I indulged in a thousand reveries. Gay hope exhibited all her airy visions to my fancy. I formed innumerable prospects of felicity, and each more ravishing than the last. The joys painted by my imagination were surely too pure, too tranquil to last for ever. Oh how sweet is an untasted happiness! But ours, Matilda, shall be great, beyond what expectation ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... just adore having such a ravishing experience as that," said Lily Pearl Montgomery from the window seat, "but how can one have any thrilling experiences in a stupid old school! Now there are Polly and Peggy; think of all they could tell us if they ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... would tell her what I think of her!" blazed Frieda. "But you need not lecture any more, Karl. I understand, and I will be good. I will be better than Hannah. I will be better than yourself, than the saints, even. I will admire all things. Behold the ravishing country! The wonder of that sky! Not Italy, not Spain has such a dull gray color! The beauty of the dirty streets! The charm of the crowded street-cars! Only five cents a ride, sitting upon the laps of others! I will ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... eating the fowl. Ethel, who had never cut anything in her young existence, except her fingers now and then with her brother's and her governess's penknives, bethought her of asking Miss Honeyman to carve the chicken. Lady Ann, with clasped hands and streaming eyes, sat looking on at the ravishing scene. ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... characteristic. Their artists, especially of the later school, sometimes toil to depict such subjects, but are apt to stiffen the lithe tendrils in the process. The poets succeed better, with Tennyson at their head, and often produce ravishing effects by dint of a tender minuteness of touch, to which the genius of the soil and climate artfully impels them: for, as regards grandeur, there are loftier scenes in many countries than the best that England can show; but, for the picturesqueness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... actual conditions of life are, with respect to eternal truth, but the novelties of time. The novelist is to picture these, and, in picturing, subordinate them to that which is perpetual and inspiring. Just so far as he opens the ravishing possibilities of life in commanding reconciliation with the formal civilization of a particular time, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... as sweet as ditties highly penn'd, Sung by a fair queen in a Summer's bower, With ravishing ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... yourself, and pronounce that you are ravishing," Victorine said at length, folding her hands with a sigh of satisfaction, as she fell back in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... benches, and heavy and loud sounded at intervals the steps of the giants. Orm and his wife listened to the clattering of the plates, and the shouts of joy with which they celebrated their banquet. When it was over and midnight drew near, they began to dance to that ravishing fairy-tune, which some have heard in the rocky glens, and learned by listening to the underground musicians. As soon as Aslog caught the sound of this air, she felt an irresistible longing to see the dance. Nor was Orm able to keep her back. "Let me look," said she, "or my heart will ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... side of music, till it got the audience fairly into the hall and in their seats; and then music had to struggle with fashion. It had to fix and melt the wandering eyes, to tug at the worldly and the stony heart. And here it was that Arnold's music won the victory. The ravishing bonnet of Madam This or That no longer distracted the attention of its envying admirers, or of its owner; the numerous flirtations that had been thought quite worth the price of the ticket, and of the crushed flounces, died away for a few moments; the dissatisfaction of the many who ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Mrs. Anderson glanced imperceptibly at the window, thinking her son might pass. She regarded the unmarried aunt and the young niece with asides of reflection even while she talked to them. The niece was not pretty, but her bloom of youth under the roses of her spring hat was ravishing. The aunt had never been pretty; and, moreover, her bloom had gone, but she was well dressed, and her thin figure was full of grace. She sat in her chair with delicate erectness, the folds of her gray gown was disposed over ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... that Bryce forgot all his troubles in her sweet presence. "By the gods, Moira," he declared earnestly, "you're a peach! When I saw you last, you were awkward and leggy, like a colt. I'm sure you weren't a bit good-looking. And now you're the most ravishing young lady in seventeen counties. By jingo, Moira, you're a stunner and no ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... Romans in disordered array over the whole space of ground where the Forum now is. He had almost reached the gate of the Palatium, crying out: "We have conquered our perfidious friends, our cowardly foes: now they know that fighting with men is a very different thing from ravishing maidens." Upon him, as he uttered these boasts, Romulus made an attack with a band of his bravest youths. Mettius then happened to be fighting on horseback: on that account his repulse was easier. When he was driven back, the Romans followed in pursuit: and the remainder of the Roman ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... terror of interest, of that juncture to me, and ever afterwards to be associated, along with two or three other more or less contemporary products, Guerin's Burial of Atala, Prudhon's Cupid and Psyche, David's helmetted Romanisms, Madame Vigee-Lebrun's "ravishing" portrait of herself and her little girl, with how can I say what foretaste (as determined by that instant as if the hour had struck from a clock) of all the fun, confusedly speaking, that one was going to have, and the kind of life, always of the queer so-called inward ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... chapel on the left, the windows bricked up. It had a sinister and wicked air, somehow. The squire told me that they had unearthed a dozen skeletons in that little yard as they were laying a drain, and had buried them in the neighbouring churchyard. But the back of the house was still more ravishing than the front; surrounded by great brick walls, curving outwards, lay a grassy garden, with huge box-trees at the sides, and in the centre many ancient apple-trees in full bloom. The place was bright with carelessly ordered ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... bud bad grown into a flower, redeeming the promises of the bud. If her heart beat less wildly, it throbbed more strongly. If she had given Hamlet of her superabundance of spirits, he had given her of his wisdom and discretion. She had always been a great favorite in society; but Verona thought her ravishing now. The mantua-makers cut their dresses by her patterns, and when she wore turquoise, garnets went ont of style. Instead of the groans and tears, and all those distressing events which might possibly have happened if Juliet had persisted in loving ...
— A Midnight Fantasy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... it was taken by assault and pillaged. The town of Saint Winochsberg shared the same fate. De Thermes, who was a martyr to the gout, was obliged at this point temporarily to resign the command to d'Estonteville, a ferocious soldier, who led the predatory army as far as Niewport, burning, killing, ravishing, plundering, as they went. Meantime Philip, who was at Brussels, had directed the Duke of Savoy to oppose the Due de Guise with an army which had been hastily collected and organized at Maubeuge, in the province ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... and, last, but not least, that general friend of mankind, more puissant, powerful and necessary than all the nightingales, butterflies, or men of letters—who, nevertheless, are well enough in their places!—Tortier, the only Tortier, who carried the art de cuisine to ravishing perfection, whose ragouts were sonnets in sauce and whose fricassees nothing ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... the little back parlour, the most delicate little foot that ever graced a shoe, or tripped to measure on the grass. He would say nothing of the owner of this miracle; of her face—which was full of intelligence; of her figure—which was gentille toute a fait—but for that dear, chaste, ravishing model of a foot! so modestly pose upon the cushion. Heaven!—and Panpan unconsciously heaved a long sigh, and brought with it from the very bottom of his heart a vow to become its possessor. There was no necessity for anything very rash or very desperate ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... at Mrs. Woodruff's was to follow the picnic, and thither we resorted about ten o'clock and found the chairs placed for a German. Georgy Lenox was there, radiant in a ravishing toilette, waiting for Frank to lead the cotillon with her. She nodded to me pleasantly as she took her seat. I was angry with myself for my disappointment, doubly angry with her for causing it. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... touched her. It seemed a grossness of which I was incapable to break up her reverie by speech. I stood and drank her in with my eyes; how the light made a glory in her hair, and (what I have always thought the most ravishing thing in nature) how the planes ran into each other, and were distinguished, and how the hues blended and varied, and were shaded off, between the cheek and neck. At first I was abashed: she wore her beauty like an immediate halo of refinement; she discouraged me like an angel, or what I suspect ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... veil is God, that God after Whom the world, with strange inconsistency, has felt, "if haply they might find Him." He has discovered Himself to some extent in nature, but more perfectly in the Incarnation; now He waits to show Himself in ravishing fulness to the humble of soul and ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... Garden of Paradise, beneath the Tree of Knowledge, bloomed a rose bush. Here, in the first rose, a bird was born: his flight was like the flashing of light, his plumage was beauteous, and his song ravishing. ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... with the ravishing prospect—her eager hopes converting the possible into the probable, and again, by a rapid change, the probable into the certain, the Greek stood spurning the needle work at her feet. Then glancing around, the whim seized upon her to assume, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... marvelous beauty. The lady was described as a befitting representative of the loveliness and opulence of this new Golconda and Ophir in one, since her matchless wealth and munificence were approached only by her ravishing personal charms. The other papers took up the topic, and were even more extravagant. "Felix Farley's Journal" gave a long narrative of her wanderings and extraordinary adventures in the uttermost East, as gleaned, ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... dislocated harmonies and splintered themes—melodies they are not—in the Pierrot Lunaire. I have been informed that the ear should play a secondary role in this "new" music; no longer through the porches of the ear must filter plangent tones, wooing the tympanum with ravishing accords. It is now the "inner ear," which is symbolic of a higher type of musical art. A complete disassociation of ideas, harmonies, rhythmic life, architectonic is demanded. To quote an admirer of the Vienna revolutionist: "The entire ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... truth is that we have here the very commonplace of the theatre: the wish to have it both ways, to show, yet not to reveal—the "dramatic situation," in short, set out because it is dramatic, not because it is true. We cannot suppose that Browning meant Earl Mertoun for a mere seducer, ravishing from a maiden that which she did not desire to give—yet the words he here puts in Mildred's mouth bear no other interpretation. Either she is capable of passion, or she is not. If she is, sorrow ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... Querida mi alma, douchka, Herzliebchen, carissima; and bien, bien-aimee, I'll not run out of salutations for you this side of heaven—no—nor t'other. I adore the serene grace with which you ignore the ravishing Liane. Haven't you any curiosity at all, my Sphinx? No? Well, then, just to punish you, I'll tell you all about it. She's married to the best fellow in the world—a liaison officer working with our ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... fresh in a ravishing toilet, with field-daisies in her hair, was in a condition to laugh gently at John for his emotion of yesterday. She triumphed softly, not too obviously, in her power. He couldn't do without her,—do what ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... that a new and charming French artiste was to sing a few peculiarly ravishing songs, unheard in England before. Close to the main ballroom was the octagon music-room which was brilliantly illuminated, and in which a large number of chairs had been obviously disposed for the comfort of an audience. ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... while the music, a waltz of Waldteufel's, soft and ravishing and seductive, floated out to her, and mocked her with the memory of the happiness that had been hers but an hour—half an hour ago. She staggered to the edge of the terrace and leaned her head on her hands, and, closing her eyes, tried hard ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... her pouting lips. She was a blonde, but one of those dazzling and radiant blondes found only in the countries of the sun; and from her hair, drawn high upon the top of her head, escaped a profusion of ravishing, glittering ringlets, which seemed almost to sparkle in the ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... American Colonel, who proclaimed himself an "esoteric Buddhist," and provoked in me a rapid and vehement dislike. I turned my back upon him and examined the table. Suddenly I became aware of a figure opposite to me, the figure of a young girl who seemed to me one of the most ravishing creatures I had ever seen. She was very small, and exquisitely made. Her beautiful head, with its mass of light-brown hair; the small features and delicate neck; the clear, pale skin, the lovely eyes with rather heavy lids, which gave ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... my fortunate friend?" he said, as he met them at the door. "Of course you're well and happy as mortal man can be in this vale of tears. Charming, ravishing, quite delicious, that way of dressing your hair, Miss Posey! Nice girls here this evening, Mr. Lindsay. Looked lovely when I came out of the parlor. Can't say how they will show after this young lady puts in an appearance." In reply to which florid speeches Susan blushed, not knowing what ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... high-class Brahmana, skilled in counsel, and versed in all the Sastras. His object was to possess himself of the bows, the quivers and the other material implements belonging to the Pandavas; and he had been watching for an opportunity of ravishing Draupadi. And that wicked and sinful one was named Jatasura. And, O king of kings, Pandu's son (Yudhishthira) had been supporting him, but knew not that wretch like unto a fire covered ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... poet was called vates, which is as much as a diviner, fore-seer, or prophet, as by his conjoined words vaticinium and vaticinari is manifest: so heavenly a title did that excellent people bestow upon this heart-ravishing knowledge. And so far were they carried into the admiration thereof, that they thought in the chanceable hitting upon any such verses great foretokens of their following fortunes were placed. Whereupon ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... in a quart of chips, and dad shook hands with the Dakota man and said: "Pard, we have got 'em on the run," and reached for his sack to put in the first installment of acquired wealth, and the low-necked countess smiled a ravishing smile on dad, and dad looked as though he owned a brewery, and the Dakota man twisted his chin whiskers and acted like he was sorry for the Monte Carlo bank, I just got so faint with joy that ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... too long—this morsel, I say, gave a yell as shrill as a launch-whistle and as fetching as a baby's cry. Instantly three chambermaids, two barmaids, the two maiden sisters who were breakfasting on the shady side of the inn gable, and the dog's owner, who, in a ravishing gown, was taking her coffee under one of the Japanese umbrellas, came rushing out of their respective hiding-places, impelled by an energy and accompanied by an impetuousness rarely seen except perhaps in some heroic attempt to save a drowning ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... young, and noble, and gifted creature, but a few days back the idol of the nation, and from whom a word, a glance even, was deemed the greatest and most gratifying distinction—whom all orders, classes, and conditions of men had combined to stimulate with multiplied adulation, with all the glory and ravishing delights of the world, as it were, forced upon him—to see him thus assailed with the savage execrations of all those vile things who exult in the fall of every thing that is great and the abasement of every thing that is noble, was indeed a spectacle ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... was enjoying himself, how should he be discontented? And the truth is, that of all the delights of the Gardens; of the hundred thousand extra lamps, which were always lighted; the fiddlers in cocked hats, who played ravishing melodies under the gilded cockle-shell in the midst of the gardens; the singers, both of comic and sentimental ballads, who charmed the ears there; the country dances, formed by bouncing cockneys and cockneyesses, and executed amidst jumping, thumping ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... spirits had caught each tone as it came from the peasant's horn, and had deified it there among the clouds, and had repeated it over and over with divinest variations, to show man how crabbed were the sounds which he produced, and yet how ravishing they might one day become, when to the symphony of silver strings they rang out amid the seraph harps and choral harmonies of heaven. All the party stood still in rapturous attention, and even Cyril forgot for ten minutes his ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar |
