"Siren" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she remembered that Francis' room looked out on a part of the garden and that the drive was not visible from the windows. Therefore, although it was possible that he might have heard the sound of a horn or siren, he would never actually have seen a car. Electric light was installed in his room. She had no idea when this had been done, but he must be ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... some impetuous act of which he would have been ashamed later. He had seemed to hear the voice as Rose slept her last sleep, under her white veil, but later it was silent. It left him to himself, and sometimes he was even persuaded that it joined with the voice of Rose, whispering that siren word, "Reconsider." ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... agreed Mr. Ross. "We are gradually getting away from the old-fashioned instruments such as violins and flutes. You will notice, Rollo, that in the orchestra are two drums, a pair of cymbals, a siren, and a pistol; also the pianist does not use his ...
— Rollo in Society - A Guide for Youth • George S. Chappell
... are the dark-eyed Queen Titania, the small imperious person who drives in state in 'Strange Adventures of a Phaeton,' and sails with such high courage in 'White Wings,' and the half-sentimental, half-practical, wholly self-seeking siren Bonny Leslie in 'Kilmeny' who develops into something a little more than coquettish in the Kitty ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... this is a small world. Brownwell also is a writer from Writersville. You should see the way he paints the lily in the Banner every week. You remember old Cap Lee—J. Lord Lee of the Red Legs—and Lady Lee, as they called her when she was a sagebrush siren with the 'Army of the Border' before the War? Well, read this clipping from the Banner of this week: 'The wealth, beauty, and fashion of Minneola—fairest village of the plain—were agog this week over the birth ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... too late. Above them they could hear the electric siren of the Wonder as it was blown to let them know that their escape had been noticed. A moment later the water, which acted as a sort of sounding-board, or telephone, brought to the ears of Tom Swift and his friends the noise of the engines of the other ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... which Reason did defend, A Siren song, a fever of the mind, A maze wherein affection finds no end, A raging cloud that runs before the wind; A substance like the shadow of the sun, A goal of grief for which ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... Michael Murphy yelled to Cappy Ricks. "Well, are you satisfied, sir?" On his part, Cappy, jubilant, even in the instant when he knew thirty new faces were already whining round the devil, dashed out on the bridge, seized the whistle cord and swung on it. A sad, nautical sob from the Costa Rica's siren answered him, and ten seconds later Terence Reardon whistled up the bridge. Cappy let go the whistle cord and took up the ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... then, thou siren!" cried the warrior, with fierceness. As he spoke he threw the tender knees of Lady Helen upon the rocky floor. His voice echoed terribly in her ears, but obeying him, "Free me," cried she, "for the sake of my ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... the water to the ears of those on shore. The officers were issuing commands. Men left the rail and disappeared from the view of the spectators as they hurried to perform their duties. Came several sharp blasts of the vessel's siren; a moment later her speed increased and as she slid easily through the waters of the river, a cheer ...
— The Boy Allies at Jutland • Robert L. Drake
... opposite his wife in The Sunday Picture.... Eve! Eve! A few short weeks ago, and you made a mock of women who let themselves get into The Daily Picture. And now you are there yourself! (But so, and often, was the siren Lady Massulam! A ticklish thing, criticism ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... heaven with the planets revolving around it in whorls of graduated width and speed, yet all concentric and so timed that all complete the full circle punctually together.—"The Spindle turns on the knees of Necessity: and on the rim of each whorl sits perched a Siren, who goes round with it, hymning a single note; the eight notes together ...
— Poetry • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... intolerably hot. As is the way with the Siren city when June is half-way through, the asphalt pavements radiated heat; the air was heavy, laden with strange, unpleasing odours; and even the trees, which form such delicious oases of greenery in the older quarters of the town were powdered ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... But the Siren who sang and slew is now The fable outworn of an age remote, And the women to whom to-day we bow Have long abjured her sinister note; She heals, she helps, she follows the plough, And her song has fairly earned ...
— Punch, July 18, 1917 • Various
... has none to spare for any one else. But, Lydia, this is tedious; we shall never get through at this rate. Besides," with a mock-sentimental air, "you have not been here long enough to know the melancholy history,—to count the wrecks that are strewn along the coast, where the Siren resorts. Let me take up the list. Corning, who really loved me, (six,) and went to sea to cure the heart-ache. I heard of him in State Street a month ago,—with a blue shirt and leather belt, and chewing a piece of tobacco ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... 'same old game! Hear that siren?' A curtain of fog had grown on the northern horizon and was drawing shorewards ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... the Causeway he led me—for not a word was I capable of uttering; and just before we reached that artery of Chinatown, from down-river came the deep, sustained note of a steamer's siren, the warning of ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... keep her. She could make caps like a Parisian milliner; she could dress her exquisitely; she could read for hours in the sweetest and clearest of voices, without one yawn, the dullest of dull High Church novels. She could answer notes and sing like a siren, and she could embroider prie-dieu chairs and table-covers, and slippers and handkerchiefs, and darn point lace like Fairy ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... you," cries Cecil, tragically, flinging herself into her arms. "Molly, Molly, you are a siren!" ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... from which my cares have been hitherto so forcibly diverted? The ear of Fancy, it is said, can discover the voice of sea-nymphs and tritons amid the bursting murmurs of the ocean; would that I could do so, and that some siren or Proteus would arise from these billows, to unriddle for me the strange maze of fate in which I am so deeply entangled!—Happy friend!" he said, looking at the bed where Dinmont had deposited his bulky person, "thy cares are confined to the narrow round of a healthy and thriving ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... the present base being accepted as proper for numeration, however erroneously, it is assumed to be proper for gradation also; and a very flattering assumption it is, promising a perfectly homogeneous system of weights, measures, coins, and numbers, than which nothing can be more desirable; but, siren-like, it draws the mind away from a proper investigation of the subject, and the basic qualities of numbers, being unquestioned, remain unknown. When the natural order is adopted, and the base of gradation is ascertained by its adaptation to things, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... were necessary to stimulate his interest. Such artless devices were, however, preferable to the pastime, already fashionable in more exalted circles, of kicking a total stranger round the room to the accompaniment of cymbals, a motor siren, and a frying pan. ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... ye are now, such once were we. Through many scenes of trial, through heroic constancy, and ever-during patience, have we attained to this bright eminence. Large and mysterious are the paths of heaven, just and immaculate his ways. If ye listen to the siren voice of pleasure, if upon the neck of heedless youth you throw the reins, that base and earth-born clay which now you wear, shall assume despotic empire. And when you quit the present narrow scene, ye shall wear ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... have I been weary of either, or longed to go away. And this same sweet desire to stay came over me in Edfu. The Loulia was tied up by the high bank of the Nile. The sailors were glad to rest. There was no steamer sounding its hideous siren to call me to its crowded deck. So I yielded to my desire, and for long I stayed in Edfu. And when at last I left it I said to myself, "This is a supreme thing," and I knew that within me had suddenly developed the curious passion for buildings that ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... look for look with any passenger. Poverty is a bitter draught, yet may, and sometimes can with advantage, be gulped down. Though the drinker makes wry faces, there may, after all, be a wholesome goodness in the cup. But debt, however courteously it may be offered, is the Cup of Siren; and the wine, spiced and delicious though it be, is poison. My son, if poor, see Hyson in the running spring; see thy mouth water at a last week's roll; think a threadbare coat the only wear; and acknowledge a whitewashed garret the ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... his teeth and gripped the Inspector's arm. The place where the Durham had been anchored was empty. Already, half a mile down the river, with a trail of light behind and her siren shrieking, the Durham was standing ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... could not be composed by the invocation of Dame Memory and her siren daughters, but by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and send out his Seraphim, with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases, without reference to ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... I pray that every venture The port of peace may enter, That, safe from snag and fall And siren-haunted islet, And rock, the Unseen Pilot May guide us ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... kitchen we saw that Noel was wrong as usual. It was neither. Mrs Pettigrew, screaming like a steam-siren and waving a broom, occupied the foreground. In the distance the maid was shrieking in a hoarse and monotonous way, and trying to shut herself up inside a clothes-horse on which washing was ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... ill-success, and groaning under the galling yoke of servitude to Princes, had forbidden instead of encouraging this fatal step. He might himself have listened to the words of old Speroni, painting the Court as he had learned to know it, a Siren fair to behold and ravishing of song, but hiding in her secret caves the bones of men devoured, and 'mighty poets in their misery dead.' He might even have turned the pages of Aretino's Dialogo delle Corti, and have observed how the ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... his blood? After a time his drumming grew less frequent, and finally, in the middle of April, ceased entirely. Had some accident befallen him, or had he wandered away to fresh fields, following some siren of his species? Probably the latter. Another bird that I had under observation also left his winter-quarters in the spring. This, then, appears to be the usual custom. The wrens and the nut-hatches and chickadees succeed to these abandoned cavities, and often have amusing disputes over them. ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... The senses then bestir themselves; everything takes color and animation; the woman appears in an altogether novel aspect; her person becomes beautiful. Behold! she is not a woman, she is a demon, a siren, who is drawing you by magnetic attraction to some respectable house, where the worthy bourgeoise, frightened by your threatening step and the clack of your boots, shuts the door in your face without looking ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... share in the dialogue, and listened to her, rapt and dreamily as in his fiery youth he had listened to the songs of the sirens. No siren Isaura! She was defending her own cause, though unconsciously—defending the vocation of art as the embellisher of external nature, and more than embellisher of the nature which dwells crude, but plastic in the soul of man: indeed therein the creator of a new nature, ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Transform me, then, and to your power I'll yield. 40 But if that I am I, then well I know Your weeping sister is no wife of mine, Nor to her bed no homage do I owe: Far more, far more to you do I decline. O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note, 45 To drown me in thy sister flood of tears: Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote: Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs, And as a bed I'll take them, and there lie; And, in that glorious supposition, think 50 He gains by death that hath such means to die: Let Love, being light, ...
— The Comedy of Errors - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... steam fog-horn, until finally it seemed evident they were almost exactly above the lightship that, as Tom knew, was anchored on the shoals to warn mariners of their danger by means of a far-reaching lamp and the powerful siren's hoarse voice. ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... dress. And can we suppose that this Being can take delight in dwellings and modes of life or forms of worship where every thing is reduced to cold, naked utility? I think not. The instinct to adorn and beautify is from him; it likens us to him, and if rightly understood, instead of being a siren to beguile our hearts away, it will be the ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... man on his arm, my mother would tell me. My mother's family is of Welsh descent. I learned to read at 5, and I can scarcely have been more than 6 when I used to read again and again David's lament for Absalom. Even now I can dimly recall the siren charm for me of that melancholy refrain, 'O my son Absalom.... O Absalom, my son, my son!' Of late, when I have thought of the amount of devotion I have shown to lads, and the amount I have sometimes suffered for them, I have felt as if there were something almost weirdly prophetic in ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... I beheld her there Sea-dreaming in the moted air, A siren lithe and debonair, With wristlets woven of scarlet weeds, And oblong lucent amber beads Of sea-kelp shining in ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... between Wem and Shrewsbury, and I eyed their blue tops seen through the wintry branches, or the red rustling leaves of the sturdy oak-trees by the road-side, a sound was in my ears as of a Siren's song; I was stunned, startled with it, as from deep sleep; but I had no notion then that I should ever be able to express my admiration to others in motley imagery or quaint allusion, till the light of his genius shone into my ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren, till ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... Indut's house, the shrill screams of defiance from three hundred dainty throats pierced my ear-drums like a steam siren, and they were all so marvellously noisy, brave, and defiant, that, in spite of an occasional girlish giggle from one or another of them, I began to fear there would be bad trouble before the dawn. So wild was their excitement, and so maddening ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... I speak the winged galley flies, And lo! the Siren shores like mists arise. Sunk were at once the winds; the air above, And waves below, at once forgot to move; Some demon calm'd the air and smooth'd the deep, Hush'd the loud winds, and charm'd the waves to sleep. Now every sail we furl, each oar we ply; ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... Moss dropped to one knee, firing up. The leader dissolved in a cloud of particles. On all sides D- and B-class leadys were rushing up, some with weapons, some with metal slats. The room was in confusion. Off in the distance a siren was screaming. Franks and Taylor were cut off from the others, separated from the soldiers by ...
— The Defenders • Philip K. Dick
... listening to the shells as they passed overhead, sometimes with the soft whistle of distance, and sometimes with the angry shriek of a shell passing near. Occasionally the shriek would drop to a low howl, the note of a steam siren as it stops, and then a deafening crash and the clatter of falling bricks and glass would warn us that we had only escaped by a few yards. But even listening to shells becomes monotonous, and my eyes gradually glued together, and I ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... striking passages in the work are the pathetic sketch of the old violinist and composer, Pisani, with his sympathetic "barbiton" which moaned, groaned, growled, and laughed responsive to the feelings of its master; the description of Viola's and her father's triumph, when "The Siren," his masterpiece, is performed at the San Carlo in Naples; Glyndon's adventure at the Carnival in Naples; the death of his sister; the vivid pictures of the Reign of Terror in Paris, closing with the downfall ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, Sails the unshadowed main,— The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... my own wit or wisdom,' said Lord Colambre; 'but much to love, and much to friendship,' added he, turning to Sir James Brooke; 'here was the friend who early warned me against the siren's voice; who, before I knew Lady Isabel, told me what I have since found to be ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... directions, and the next morning I left the town on foot and alone. I did not mind the labor of it. I was as vigorous as a young giant, fear of personal peril I had never known, and the love of adventure was singing its siren's song to me. I was clad in the strong, coarse garments, suited to the Plains. I was armed with two heavy revolvers and a small pistol. Hidden inside of my belt as a last defence was the short, sharp knife bearing Jean Le Claire's name ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... there is no harm done, or else some disappointment would necessarily be experienced by the passer-by to think that any one so nearly related to liberty should choose to live in that spot. Neither would the Trafalgar Square agitator be pleased were he called upon to suppose that the siren whom he pursues with such ardor on rainy Sunday afternoons could ever take refuge behind the dingy Turkey-red curtain that hides the inner parts of the ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... siren of the hidden vessel once more, and this time it was answered by another whistle somewhere further ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... flageolet! It languished on the night with an o'ermastering appeal, sweet inexpressibly and melting, the air unknown to one listener at least, but by him enviously confessed a very siren spell. He looked at Olivia, and saw that ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... short and terrible epithet. "Out, siren, with fairy's face and tail of fiend, and leave the ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... forward to marriage with this aristocratic heiress, and the future is most luminous. Even haunting memories of Alice Webster and Oswald Langdon fail to dampen Paul's expectant joy. These recede, their menacing voices stilled by hope's siren lullaby. ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... very shortly. But ill-luck made him accept an invitation to a bachelor dinner, where champagne and smutty stories were flowing freely, too freely. He left about midnight, and as the night was beautiful he decided to walk home. He met a siren, who invited him to accompany her. Under other circumstances he would have sent her on her way, or at least he would have stepped into a drugstore for a prophylactic. But, excited by the wine, the smutty stories and the year's abstinence, he went along like a sheep, as a matter ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... very foolishly, Beauclerk. Perhaps it is your odd way of making yourself agreeable. It doesn't please me a bit to be told that I am a siren. My mind is full of the Bond of Association and your Meeting at St. James's Hall. How shamefully Lord Cavernake has behaved, but dear Lord Gretingham has come out well. What a miserable set we have in the ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... hallowed voice, which pleads with them in behalf of their dearest interest, and take the downward road to dissipation and vice, and, by their wretched example, lead other thousands to the dark abodes of sorrow, grief and pain. Enchanted by the siren voice of false and fleeting pleasure, they hurry to the tremendous precipice, where reputation and fortune lie in broken ruins. There they drag out a wretched existence in disappointed hope, satiety and disgust. They pay their devotions at the shrine of ignominy, where the ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... pansy bed a woman lay. She screamed piercingly at intervals. Frank learned that she was in travail. By and by a doctor came, a nurse. They were putting up tents on the green sward. Automobiles rolled up, sounding their siren alarms. Out of them were carried bandaged men who moaned, silent forms on litters, more screaming women. They were taken to the tents. Extra police appeared to control the crowds that surged hither and thither without seeming reason, swayed by ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... near.' The work of destruction went smoothly. The wireless operators said: 'Thank God! It's been like being under arrest day and night lately.' Presently the Emden signaled to us, 'Hurry up.' I pack up, but simultaneously wails the Emden's siren. I hurry up to the bridge, see the flag 'Anna' go up. That means 'Weigh anchor.' We ran like mad into our boat, but already the Emden's pennant goes up, the battle flag is raised, they fire ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... was a lion, No, years ago, night was a python Weaving designs against space With undulations of his being— Night was a siren once. ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Marjorie Allen Seiffert
... the free and home thoughts which found utterance in the language of the people, if the solemn beauty of the Italian Commedia had not seized on all minds. It would have been an evil thing for Italian, perhaps for European, literature if the siren tales of the Decameron had not been the first to occupy the ears with the charms of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... a Note. By means of an apparatus called the siren, it is possible to calculate the number of vibrations producing any given musical note, such, for example, as middle C on the piano. If air is forced continuously against the disk as it rotates, a series of puffs ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... Scheldt emptied itself into the Meuse? But, even leaving its origin out of the question, in what other country in the world do things happen as they happen in Zealand? In what other country do the fishermen catch in their nets a siren whose husband, after vain prayers to have her restored, in vengeance throws up a handful of sand, prophesying that it will bury the gates of the town—and lo his prophecy is fulfilled? In what other country do the souls of those lost at sea come as they come to Walcheren, ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... touches turns into gold. Now if he forgets that his economical habits, his rectitude of conduct and a personal attention to a business which he understood, caused his success in life, he will listen to the siren voices. He says: ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... is man? what perils still environ[181] The happiest mortals even after dinner! A day of gold from out an age of iron Is all that Life allows the luckiest sinner; Pleasure (whene'er she sings, at least) 's a Siren, That lures, to flay alive, the young beginner; Lambro's reception at his people's banquet Was such as fire accords to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... lightning had struck fairly near home. One is almost forced to believe that Savage's well-wisher, the writer of the little satire, "To the Ingenious Riverius, on his writing in the Praise of Friendship," was none other than Eliza herself.[14] Exactly what injury she had sustained from him and his Siren is not known, but although he still stood high in her esteem, she was implacable against that "worse than Lais" whom in a long and pungent description she satirized ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... was forever discovering new vistas, surprising panoramas, amazing variations of color and topography. The mysterious rifts and passageways that opened and closed as if to lure the ship astray, the trackless confusion of islets, the siren song of the waterfalls, the silent hills and glaciers and snow-soaked forests—all appealed to him strongly, for he ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... tears, and laughed and cried joyously. Jane Restless borrowed her man's bandana and blew her nose like a steam siren, declaring that the heat always gave her catarrh. Carrie Horsley guessed she'd never seen so pretty a bride so elegantly dressed, and wept down the front of Eve's spotless lawn the moment she got near enough. Mrs. Rust sniffed audibly, and hoped she would be happy, but warned her strongly ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... the Cynic in you is loose, and snarls at me. At the same time, I think your Lotus-and-Siren simile is rather off the point: you see, the people who ate the Lotus and listened to the Sirens paid for the gratification of ear and palate with their lives: whereas I not only have a great deal more enjoyment than they had, but am ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... of June Upon whose brow the crescent-moon Hangs pendant in a diadem Of stars, with envy lighting them.— And, like a wild cascade, her hair Floods neck and shoulder, arm and wrist, Till only through a gleaming mist I seem to see a siren there, With lips of love and melody And open arms and heaving breast Wherein I fling myself to rest, The while my heart cries hopelessly For my fair ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... fascination to him. She broke out, pro bono publico, like the sun in April, with quips and cranks and dimpled smiles, and made everybody near her quite forget her late hauteur and coldness, and bask in this sunny, sweet hostess. When the charm was at its height, the siren cast a seeming merry glance at Griffith, and said to a lady opposite, "Methinks some of the gentlemen will be glad to be rid of us," and so carried the ladies off to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... who united to a fine aesthetic sense the fervor of a devotee, Clarian was that one, heart and soul. Some men make a mistress of Art, and sink down, lost in sensual pleasure and excess, till the Siren grows tired and destroys them. Other men wed Art, and from the union beget them fair, lovely, ay, immortal children, as Raphael did. Some again, confounding Art with their own inordinate vanity, grow ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... strange flowers' perfume turns to singing, Heard afar over moonlit seas; The siren's song, grown faint with winging, Falls in scent on the ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... by the screech of a siren, and a demon car that spurned the road, that splattered them with pebbles, tore past and disappeared in the darkness. As it fled down the lane of their head-lights, they saw that men in khaki clung to its sides, were packed in its tonneau, were swaying ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... to the English Philip van Artevelde. It was to be picturesque, intellectual, pleasing; it was to deal, above all, with moral "truths"; it was to avoid vagueness and to give no uncertain sound; it was to regard "passion" with alarm, as the siren which was bound sooner or later to fling a bard upon the rocks. It is not necessary to treat this conception of poetry with scorn, nor to reject principles of precise thought and clear, sober language, ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... of the Republic, when Plato has completed his final burning denunciation of Poetry, the false Siren, the imitator of things which themselves are shadows, the ally of all that is low and weak in the soul against that which is high and strong, who makes us feed the things we ought to starve and serve the things we ought to rule, he ends with a touch of compunction: 'We will give her champions, ...
— The Poetics • Aristotle
... Great sparkling, flashing brilliants that hung as frozen tears! The feet once nude and soil-stained were clad in Frenchy boots, The once tanned face bore tintings of miscellaneous fruits; The voice that once admonished the mules to move along Was tuned to new-born music, as sweet as Siren's song! ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... contrast to Del's siren tones, Frona's were purest silver as they rippled down-island through the trees. "Oyez! Oyez! Open water! Open water! And wait a minute. I'll ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... God knows whither. Connecting the lower zigzags (I need scarcely say) are short-cuts or slides made by the brown-footed children, who plunge down almost as steeply and quickly as the stream itself when the fortnightly fruit-steamer blows her siren beyond ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... knowledge of anatomy, made all his nude pictures undesirable save those few painted from the beautiful girl who stood for ‘The Spirit of the Rainbow’ and ‘Forced Music.’ What his work from the nude suffered from this is incalculable, as may be seen in the crayon called ‘Ligeia Siren,’ a naked siren playing on a kind of lute, which Rossetti described as “certainly one of his best things.” The beauty and value of a crayon which for weird poetry—especially in the eyes—must be among Rossetti’s ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... for Mrs. Osbourne. Nobody laughed after this. It was silently and unanimously voted that Mrs. Osbourne was a good fellow, and soon she was enjoying all the benefits of the Siron Club. When a frivolous member suggested that it be called the Siren Club he was met with an oppressive stillness ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... o'er the siren hung, And beat the measure as she sung, And, pressing closer and more near, He ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... to be an American "monsoor" at that. This actress affects French plays for reasons that have never been explained, and that certainly do not appear. As a "star," she is of course entitled to treat herself to any luxury that may seem to tempt her histrionic appetite, and the Gallic siren evidently appeals to her. It is not likely that there will be international complications, although the provocation must at ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... comeliness Which their fancies doth so strike, They borrow language of dislike; And, instead of Dearest Miss, Jewel, Honey, Sweetheart, Bliss, And those forms of old admiring, Call her Cockatrice and Siren, Basilisk, and all that's evil, Witch, Hyena, Mermaid, Devil, Ethiop, Wench, and Blackamoor, Monkey, Ape, and twenty more; Friendly Trait'ress, loving Foe— Not that she is truly so, But no other way they know A contentment to express, Borders so upon excess, That they do not rightly ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... of murder made the hermit shudder. He hesitated, was undecided, looked on the charms of the siren; he saw that he could make himself master of her and of the treasure without danger; and, all his virtue yielding, he forgot heaven and his oft-repeated vows. The pilgrim dragged the reeling miscreant into the hut; each seized a dagger; and just as he was ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... motor, and Tom and Mr. Damon could hear him turning the levers and wheels, ready to start. But before the explosions came something happened. There was a sound as of some great, siren whistle blowing, and then, with a howl of the on rushing air, the Red Cloud, the propellers of which hung motionless on their shafts, was fairly sucked forward toward the fire, as the current sucks a boat over a ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... crossed this market, from around a corner came a big motor car with the roar of a siren. There was Baron Ungern in the yellow silk Mongolian coat with a blue girdle. He was going very fast but recognized me at once, stopping and getting out to invite me to go with him to his yurta. The Baron lived in a small, simply arranged yurta, set up in the courtyard of a Chinese hong. ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... by an outrageous uproar, the grisly scream of a siren and the cannonade of a powerful exhaust, as a great white touring-car swung round us from behind at a speed that sickened me to see, and, snorting thunder, passed us "as if we had been ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... as I have played the Infidel, If, as the fated Pitcher to the Well, Too oft to Love's empyrean Font I stray, To fall, at last, beneath some Siren's spell, ...
— The Rubaiyat of a Bachelor • Helen Rowland
... while the occupants of the saloon were endeavoring to persuade each other that all was well, the loud wail of the siren thrilled them with increased foreboding. It was not the warning note of a fog, nor the sharp course-signal for the guidance of a passing ship, but a sustained trumpeting, which announced to any steamer hidden in the darkening waste of waters that the Kansas was not under control. It was ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... the public, while it knows what it wants when it sees it, cannot clearly express its wants, and never wants the thing that it does ask for, although it thinks it does at the time. But woe to the editor and his periodical if he heeds that siren voice! ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... have to go back to Peking some time. You must hurry out of the city, men tell you there, or else ere you know it the siren-like Lure of the East will grip you irresistibly; and I felt in some measure the soundness of the counsel. The knowledge that each day the long trains of awkward-moving camels are winding their unhurried way from Chien-Men Gate to the Gate of the Heavenly ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... natural with an attorney; but he was now almost inclined to doubt Mr. Dove. And he was hardly more at ease in regard to the other clauses of the opinion. Not only could not the estate claim the necklace as an heirloom, but that greedy siren, that heartless snake, that harpy of a widow,—for it was thus that Mr. Camperdown in his solitude spoke to himself of poor Lizzie, perhaps throwing in a harder word or two,—that female swindler could ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... it true," she wondered, "that a simple and loving heart is not all-sufficient to an artist; that to balance the weight of these powerful souls they need a union with feminine souls of a strength equal to their own? If I had been brought up like this siren, our weapons at least might have been equal in the hour ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in the great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... of this print, which was published by Humphrey on February 6 of 1801. "The Bulstrode Siren" (Mrs. Billington), where she is seen warbling to the Duke of Portland, fares little better than Emma herself; and Sir William Hamilton appears, in another of Gillray's satires, as "A Conoscenti contemplating ye beauties of ye Antique." Among ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... unhallowed love. Alizon Device is comely to view, no doubt, but who shall say whence her beauty is derived? Hell may have arrayed her in its fatal charms. Sin is beautiful, but all-destructive. And the time will come when you may thank me for delivering you from the snares of this seductive siren." Richard ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... reached Miasnitskaya Street before an armored car full of working men and soldiers passed by at about fifty miles an hour. Half a dozen bad faces looked at me. I decided to continue calmly on my way, but I heard the car coming back very soon sounding its siren. It stopped near me. "Come in, cavalry man, there is a seat for one. They found somebody ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... twilight does sometimes appear A nymph, a goddess, or a fairy queen, And though no siren but a sprite this were Yet by her beauty seemed it she had been One of those sisters false which haunted near The Tyrrhene shores and kept those waters sheen, Like theirs her face, her voice was, and her sound, And thus she sung, and pleased both ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... exercise a siren's charm upon nearly all sorts of men. But Edward Henry knew one sort of men upon whom she could not exercise it—namely, the sort of men who are born and bred in the Five Towns. His instinctive belief in the Five Towns as the sole ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... of the work he painted scenes with figures in colours, two spaces, high and narrow, being on either side, and one square in shape in the middle; and in the latter he painted a Corinthian column planted with its base in the sea, with a Siren on the right hand, holding the column upright, and a nude Neptune on the left supporting it on the other side; while above the capital of the column there is a Cardinal's hat, the device, so it is said, of Pompeo Colonna, who was much the friend of the owners of that ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... George. Over the mainland. That's St. Anne. We pass this side of it. Put the mufflers on. This damn thing roars like a tower siren." ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings
... siren woke the echoes along the wooded shore. A throbbing that shook her from stem to stern betokened the first turnings of the screw. And slowly she backed into deep water and swung ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... maid was unendurable. Rogers had met her, had been fascinated by her black eyes and red lips, had, in the end, proposed honourable marriage —quite unnecessarily, no doubt!—had been accepted, and for some months had led an eventful existence as the husband of the siren. Then, one morning, he awakened ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... but the fires had been extinguished on the Southern Cross when she was taken in tow, and she had nothing to signal with but her rapid firing gun. This was fired again and again and soon through the mist there came back the low moan of the siren of ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... was recaptured on the way. The victory was not remarkable, but the place of capture was very significant, and it happened July 12 only a fortnight after Blakely captured the 'Reindeer' farther westward. The 'Siren' was but one of many privateers in those waters. The 'Governor Tompkins' burned fourteen vessels successively in the British Channel. The 'Young Wasp,' of Philadelphia, cruised nearly six months about the coasts of England and Spain, and in the course of West ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... he murmured, "once again ere I forsake the flesh, are my ears blest with that voice! It is the song of the eternal woman! For me she sings!—Sing on, siren; my soul is a listening universe, and therein ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... girl weeping silently, abundantly, patiently, and as if irresistibly. I thought of her tawny hair. I thought how, if unplaited, it would have covered her all round as low as the hips, like the hair of a siren. And she had bewitched him. Fancy a man who would guard his own life with the inflexibility of a pitiless and immovable fate, being brought to lament that once a crowbar had missed his skull! The sirens sing and lure to death, but this one had been weeping ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... babble of the change, the sailing from all ports of freighted argosies; music, wine, a palace; the doors of the bright theatre, the key of consciences, and love - love's whistle! All this below my itching fingers; and to set this by, turn a deaf ear upon the siren present, and condescend once more, naked, into the ring with fortune - Macaire, how few would do it! But you, Macaire, you are compacted of more subtile clay. No cheap immediate pilfering: no retail trade of petty larceny; but swoop at the ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... of a yellow day, having chanced to glance out of the window and down the harbor in the direction of Cottage Point, and having clapped eyes on a sight that pinched and shook the very heart of her, she was changed in a twinkling into the Siren ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... life-time visited the shades of death. Thee Scylla, thee Charybdis, expect. Thee the deathful Sirens lie in wait for, that taint the minds of whoever listen to them with their sweet singing. Whosoever shall but hear the call of any Siren, he will so despise both wife and children through their sorceries, that the stream of his affection never again shall set homewards, nor shall he take joy in wife or children thereafter, ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... gazed, but finally went on, like the seamen of Ulysses, deafening myself to the siren-voice. And though I had hesitated, I might not have been lost; but returning by the same route, I saw a neighboring druggist rush into that store bareheaded, as I now suppose to change a bill. Need I say that I then thought ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... up the rounds, from Governor to Senatorship, thence to a place in the Cabinet, certainly to an important foreign embassy; where, in the eternal fitness of things, somebody, somebody with tender brown eyes like a thrush's, and the voice of a siren, and the red lips of Hebe—will be invited to reign as l'ambassadrice! If I am not as mad with jealous despair as Othello, attribute my escape either to a sublime faith in your adorable constancy and incorruptibility, or to my own ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... continually seeking concealment in some secret covert, some supposed security from his omniscient inspection. Captivated by deceitful appearances, human confidence is perpetually misplaced, and therefore perpetually betrayed; the siren song of pleasure soothes the unhappy captives of her bewitching charms into the bosom of destruction—the splendour of earthly distinctions dims the eye of sense, and prevents its perception of the bright realities of heaven. In fact, such has been ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... felt neither hunger nor thirst; life had turned to a golden dream, and all the treasures of the world lay at their feet. Far away on the horizon lay the blue streak to which Hope points a finger in storm and stress; and a siren voice sounded in their ears, calling, "Come, spread your wings; through that streak of gold or silver or azure lies the sure way ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... by an electro-magnetic brake siren of Mr. Bourbouze; Konig's apparatus for the synthesis of sounds; and Mr. S.P. Thompson's cymatograph—a pendulum apparatus for demonstrating the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various
... posse which expected to pursue the murderer. He was not a murderer yet, however, for Mrs. Budlong's screams had not diminished in volume, although it was feared that worse than death might already have befallen her. Her shrieks guided them like a lighthouse siren, so they lost no time in taking wrong directions but, at that, it was a considerable distance and Mr. Budlong, in spite of the agonized thoughts which goaded him forward, was so handicapped by his asthma that he gradually fell to the rear ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... the clever but less largely informed Campion and others threatened it with fantastic changes. He probably did as much as Waller to introduce polish of line into our poetry. Turn to the famous "Ulysses and the Siren," and read. Can anyone tell me of English verses that run more smoothly off the tongue, or with a ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Mahones was threading her way through a fleet of small fishing-boats, as I could tell by the reduced speed, the hooting of the siren, and the constant and prolonged rattle of the steering rods. Soon she would bring up to the quay in Palma harbour. Why should I not get ashore there and work out the hard problem that was ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... wished Jenny out of the way, and hinted as much, she never meant actual murder; while his, again, was the old Barnwell charge, that his better nature had been corrupted by the woman, and that he did it at her suggestion, and under the influence of her siren power. They thus got gradually into that state of feeling by which the runaway convicts from a penal settlement were actuated, when, toiling away through endless brakes and swamps where neither meat nor drink could be procured, they were so maddened by ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... rail, waving frantic adieux in return. The siren sounded deep-toned blasts of warning to the smaller river craft to get out of the way. The huge vessel strained and trembled, vibrating more violently as she gradually began to glide into the open. Assisted by a fleet of energetic tugs she finally swung clear and pointed her nose ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... lightning gleam of passion, justified the belief that Alexis would follow the path that led Theodore, and Ferdinand, and Ivan, and Milosch to their ruin. Each of these rulers began to reign under favorable auspices, yet each succumbed to the siren's spell, and there was no reason at all, according to such reckoning, why the handsome and impulsive Alexis should escape. That a pretty Parisienne who was also an artist should fail to offer herself as a willing bait did not enter at all into ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... normal balance. What I regret most in the affair is, that it precludes the idea of marriage for you for some time to come, and I had wished that so much for you. As long as the fascinations of this siren are fresh in your memory, no respectable German girl will have any attraction for you, and the love she is able to offer you ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... of February 7th we for the first time encountered icefloes, when attempting the northern passage between Greenland and Iceland. About 11 a.m. we stopped and hooted for the Wolf, as a fog had come on—the first time we had heard a steamer's siren since the day of our capture. We waited for some hours in the ice, but no answering signal came, so the Captain decided to turn back, as he thought it impossible to force his way through the ice. We therefore went back ...
— Five Months on a German Raider - Being the Adventures of an Englishman Captured by the 'Wolf' • Frederic George Trayes
... stood. Beside her was another. This other, very lovely, was a saint. Yet, prompted still by the cells and equally unaware of it, it occurred to him that a lovely saint may resemble a vase that is exquisite, but unresilient and perhaps even empty. Whereas a siren, like Cassy—— ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... that it was but the song of the siren she was singing to my ears. My memory told me that she had been false to me twice two score times, and I knew full well she would again be false to me, or to any other man whom she could use for her purposes, ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major |
