"Spell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his words without comprehending their meaning. I sat and stared at him, quite conscious, all the time, of the extreme impropriety, not to say indecency, of my conduct; but there was a spell on me; I tried to speak, but could not; and, believing that I was either possessed by some dumb evil, or struck with palsy, I rose up, bowed to Captain Transom, and straightway ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... quite a sedate young lady by the time she joined them at the well, and Tommy was the first to feel the change. "Don't you think this is all rather silly?" she said, when he addressed her as the Lady Griselda, and it broke the spell. Two girls shot up into women, a beard grew on Tommy's chin, and Corp became a father. Grizel had blown Tommy's pretty project to dust just when he was most gleeful over it; yet, instead of bearing resentment, ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... the spell. She saw the far-off country of love, she saw, hovering above the land, the angel whose tenderness gave to all that beauty a burning glow. She was drinking in the letter at long draughts; how should it have been otherwise? The girl who ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... character of a hand-to-hand conflict, several groups of friend and foe using on each other the butts of their guns. At this juncture the timely arrival of Colonel Hatch with the Second Iowa gave a breathing-spell to Campbell, and made the Confederates so chary of further direct attacks that he was enabled to retire; and at the same time I found opportunity to make disposition of the reinforcement to the best advantage possible, placing the Second Iowa on the left of the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... spell of foul weather to men that have sailed the salt seas! Haul forward your stools, mates, and we'll have a concert and make all snug. I warrant some of you can troll a ditty, though ye be too modest to own it; and not being plagued wi' modesty myself, ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." The officers listen as the wonderful words fall from his lips, and they, too, become interested; their attention is enchained; they come under the same spell which holds all the multitude. They linger till his discourse is ended; and then, instead of arresting him, they go back without him, only giving to the judges as reason for not obeying, "Never man spake like ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... not so much alone as alien in the world. He was without companionship except that of Willy Woolly, without interest except that of his timepieces, and without hope except that of rejoining her. Once he emerged from a long spell of musing, to say in a tone ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... all over!" cried the Admiral, with delight. "I could swear that he wrote it, if it was written with his toes. 'Twas an old joke against him, when he was lieutenant, that he never could spell his own title; and he never would put an e after an o in any word. He is far too straightforward a man to spell well; and now the loss of three fingers will cut his words shorter than ever, and be a fine excuse for him. He was faint again, when I boarded the Leda, partly no doubt through ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... was prodigal of smiles and civilities. Alas! no one was found any longer to cut it voluntarily. The newcomers seemed to decline the honor. The "old favorites" reappeared one by one like dethroned princes who have been replaced for a brief spell in power. Then, the chosen ones became few, very few. For a month (oh, prodigy!) M, Anserre cut open the cake; then he looked as if he were getting tired of it; and one evening Madame Anserre, the beautiful Madame Anserre, was seen cutting ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... Madrilenos, on the annual return of the great feast of Corpus Christi. On that same self-same festival, in a northern land, under a gray and clouded sky, in the heart of a city most unlike gay, garden-hued, out-of-door Madrid, we have spent the long hours over these resurrected dramas, and the spell of both the poets is still upon us, as we unite together, in dutiful juxtaposition, the ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... dropped into the rigging, where I stretched and played my legs a bit. They were as stiff as hand-spikes after that long spell in the maintop. I descended as low down as the sheer-pole, breathlessly watching. They pulled the boat under the bow, and Bill Martin with lifted oar made as though spearing at the brute's head. It opened its huge ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... bowl-shaped pieces, about fifteen inches across, in the line of cleavage. One of these he proceeded to hollow out into an Esquimaux lamp, for the stock of wood had been largely drawn upon during the cold spell just over, and only about twenty decoys remained unburnt. Waring sat next him, unraveling one of the old cotton-flannel over-shirts, and twisting the fibres into large wicks; while La Salle made a cover of the last remaining sheet-iron decoy, with holes ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... he, "there is no money for this palaver, but a green crocodile I must have because the evil people of the Lower Isisi say I have put a spell on their land because I slew the Green One, M'zooba, also this crocodile must I have before the moon is due. My Lord M'ilitani has sent me many powerful messages ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... vicissitudes of the season and the vagaries of the monsoon, and watching from day to day to see what the year may bring forth. Should rain fall at the critical moment his wife will get golden earrings, but one short fortnight of drought may spell calamity when "God takes all at once." Then the forestalling Baniya flourishes by selling rotten grain, and the Jat cultivator is ruined. First die the improvident Musalman weavers, then the oil-pressers for whose wares there is no demand; the carts lie ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... impressed him, like all the other fugitives, from the highest to the lowest, more deeply than aught else and strongly increased the courage of his heart. This man was indeed the trusted servant of the Most High, and so long as he held his staff uplifted, the waves seemed spell-bound, and through him God ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Ernest,—I never heard any one that could. He infused his own soul into the soul of the author, and brought out his deepest meanings. When he read poetry I sat like one entranced, bound by the double spell of genius and music. Mrs. Linwood could sew; Edith could sew or net, but I could do nothing but listen. I could feel the blood tingling to my finger ends, the veins throbbing in my temples, and the color coming ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... Lieutenant Ayala, and schooner Sonora, under Lieutenant Bodega. To Lieutenant Ayala was assigned the exploration of the Bay of San Francisco, while the Santiago and the Sonora sailed for the north. Bodega discovered the Bay which bears his name, and Heceta (to spell his name as it is usually written) discovered the Columbia River. Bancroft (History of California), in giving Palou's Vida as authority for his short and incorrect account of Ayala's survey, says: "It is unfortunate that ...
— The March of Portola • Zoeth S. Eldredge
... idiot you must be if you've got to be told half a dozen times. I'll spell it for ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... leaving what had been once the Island of Gems, we experienced a spell of fine weather, with bright sun and cool breeze. The elements seemed kind to the exiled queen without a throne, who had trusted herself to the wind and the sea, and but for the anxiety which I felt for the future, the voyage would have been ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... she behaved perfectly, if she wished to fascinate and tantalize a flirt, such as Sidney Vandyke was said to be. She let herself seem to fall under his spell, and then suddenly slipped gently away, turning to Captain March who sat at her other side. She would talk to him in a friendly, intimate way, in a low voice, with little happy outbursts of laughter over their reminiscences of a year ago; ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... girl turned round, scattered the bystanders right and left, and fled as if she had resolved then and there to dash out her brains on the first post she met, and so have done with men and fish for ever. But she was not done with them yet! The spell was still upon her. Ere she had got a dozen yards away she paused, stood one moment in uncertainty, and then rushing back forced her way to the old position, and shouted in a tone that might have moved the hearts even of ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... known romance, and the spell of the great, simple, and primitive emotions; he had sat down to eat with buccaneers; he had seen the fierce, quick leap of unleashed passions, and had felt death swoop close at his nape and pass like a swift spurt of cold air. City life, his old life, had no charm for him now. Wilbur honestly ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... to escape from his power, the wish was hopeless. Having once submitted to his fascination, she was held by it to the end. Hester Vanhomrigh, who was about ten years younger than Stella, felt the same spell, and having a far less restrained nature than Miss Johnson, gave free expression to the passion which devoured her. Between his two admirers, for such they were, Swift had a difficult course to steer. To Stella he was linked by strong ties of companionship, and to her, according to some authorities, ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... interest. We encounter a herd of classical dolphins out a-pleasuring. We ask about a pretty little town perched just above the sea, and called Giocosa. By its side lies Tyndaris—classical enough if we spell it right. The snow on Etna is as good as an inscription, and to be read at any distance; but what a deception! they tell us it is thirty miles off, and it seems to rise immediately from behind a ridge ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... wonderful comfort to the girl that she had been permitted to take a spell of nursing now ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... ain't gonna do that scalpin' job no good," he announced. "He can't ride far 'less he gits him a spell of rest an' maybe has a medicine man look at ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... designation, and invariably spelt the name "Laperouse," as one word. Inasmuch as the final authority on the spelling of a personal name is that of the individual who owns it, there can be no doubt that we ought always to spell this name "Laperouse," as, in fact, successors in the family who have borne it have done; though in nearly all books, French as well as English, it is spelt "La Perouse." In the little volume now in the reader's hands, the example of Laperouse ...
— Laperouse • Ernest Scott
... by the frets of the earthly lot; and there comes a vague desire to be out of it all. It is not aspiration, it is evasion. It is not response to the ideal, it is recoil from the actual. It is not the spell of that which shall be that is upon the soul, but the irksomeness or the dreadfulness of that which is. This is a mood that awaits us all. No man faces life as it should be faced, but some can hardly be said ...
— The Threshold Grace • Percy C. Ainsworth
... the rack, in his haste almost upsetting Grimm's antiquated tile that hung beside it; and, with a farewell shout, was gone. His feet padded joyously on the gravel outside; then silence fell again in the big room. It was Mr. Batholommey who broke the spell. Walking solemnly up to Peter, who stood looking with a sort of stunned wistfulness straight in front of him, the rector held out ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... the house, to see whether any one knew this [incantation]. Then says Gudrid: "Although I am neither skilled in the black art nor a sibyl, yet my foster-mother, Halldis, taught me in Iceland that spell-song, which she called Warlocks." Thorbiorg answered: "Then art thou wise in season!" Gudrid replies: "This is an incantation and ceremony of such a kind, that I do not mean to lend it any aid, for that I am a Christian woman." Thorbiorg answers: "It might ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... may. Oh, Harold, the spell is on me now so strong that I can almost remember. Tell me again about that night, and the morning; what they did at the park house—Mr. Arthur, I mean. He was expecting somebody; Nina told me a little once, but not much. Do you know? Was ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... Government, to show that his views were borne out by that great friend of liberty, that constitutional philosopher, and that liberal statesman. The sentiments of the ministers, however, were strongly opposed by Lords Temple, Lyttleton, and Mansfield, the latter of whom, though he had once been spell-bound by court influence, "rode the great horse Liberty with much applause." The Earl of Chatham replied, but the constitutional principles which his opposers laid down could not be answered with success, for although parliament passed the act of indemnity, yet the opposition lords so enlightened ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... with marks of the deepest respect by waiters, maitres d'hotels and even the manager himself. They behaved, indeed, as they both admitted afterwards, like a couple of moonstruck idiots. When he had finally disappeared, however, they looked at one another and the spell was broken. ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... up a great musculature. This is a mistake, unless the intention is to become an exhibit for the sake of earning one's living. Big muscles do not spell health, efficiency and endurance. Even a dyspeptic may be able to build big muscles. What is needed for the work of life is not a burst of strength that lasts for a few moments and then leaves the individual exhausted for the day, but ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... work. Now she seemed to see the farm as part of a great fourth line of defense, a trench that was feeding all the other trenches and all the armies in the open and all the people behind the armies, a line whose success was indispensable to victory, whose defeat would spell failure everywhere. It was only for a minute that she saw this quite clearly, with a kind of illuminated insight that made her backache well worth while. Then the minute passed, and as Elliott bent to her hoe again she was aware only ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... can you talk so absurdly. You, the future mistress of the Abbey House—you, with your youth and beauty and high spirit—to go meandering about the world teaching buttermen's or tea-dealers' children to spell B a, ba, ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... different object. When you see him 'quid, said the savage, honing his harpoon in the bow of his hoisted boat, then you quick see him 'parm whale. The next day was exceedingly still and sultry, and with nothing special to engage them, the Pequod's crew could hardly resist the spell of sleep induced by such a vacant sea. For this part of the Indian Ocean through which we then were voyaging is not what whalemen call a lively ground; that is, it affords fewer glimpses of porpoises, dolphins, flying-fish, and ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... started, as if awakened to his senses. "Cast off your spell from my wife!" he shouted, striking the ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... spell which held her chained to the ill-omened spot, and she turned to fly, only to find herself on his breast and his dear voice sounding ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... go in, but sat on a bench in the garden for an hour, not thinking, hardly musing, but in a sort of spell as it were. As she rose at the stroke of six, she was saying to herself: "I never knew life was like that!" And she repeated it ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... conclusion of the "Spell of Cadboll" Norman received the hearty and unanimous congratulations of the circle. The frail old bard, pulling himself together, got up, went across the room, and shook him heartily with both hands. This special honour was a most unusual one. It was clear that Alastair ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... call it what you will—brought about the greatest catastrophe that had so far obtained in the Guernsey ranks. Major Davey moved his party over an area—at about 11 in the morning of a warm, sunny Sunday—coming in for a spell of shelling extraordinary in intensity. A labour unit retired because of the exigencies of the precarious situation. Inflexible, the Normans carried on, then—s-i-iz-z ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... Then the spell that bound all the others fell on Lord Blandamer too. His eyes were drawn by an awful attraction to the great tower that watched over the market-place. The buttresses with their broad set-offs, the double ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... you under some spell, some wicked enchantment, that you make promises to (with your excellency's leave) a mule, which is the accursed animal since the ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... blast of wind. Shamashnapishtim spoke to his wife: 'Behold this man who asks for life, and upon whom sleep has fallen like a blast of wind.' The wife answers Shamashnapishtim, the man of distant lands: 'Cast a spell upon him, this man, and he will eat of the magic broth; and the road by which he has come, he will retrace it in health of body; and the great gate through which he has come forth, he will return by it to his country.' ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... devious and not suitable for publicity. Offices were frequently filled by incompetent men. There had been congressmen and other offices of higher and more responsible duties, filled by persons who could not correctly frame a sentence in their native language, who could not spell the simplest words as they were spelled in the dictionary, ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... sweetness of that which had breathed upon me first, and now kept on breathing upon me, while she watched me through her eyelashes. From sheer fright I kept looking at her—I couldn't help it—until I felt father's hand touch mine. That seemed to break the spell. I looked down at the carpet again and felt the color rushing to my face. I heard the rustle of her dress, a soft, silky, indefinite sound. She had come forward into the room, had taken one of the chairs, I knew—I heard the subsiding of her draperies—and then I felt her watching me. Her presence ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... 'as parst, the spell his broken, 'Opes 'ave faded one by one: Th' w'isper'd words, so sweetly spoken, Hall like faded flow'rs har gone. Still that woice hin music lingers, Loike er 'arp 'oose silver strings, Softly swep' by fairy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... sit on the golden benches and long for a chance to break jail, With a shooting-star for a motor, or a flight on a comet's tail; He'll see the smoke rise in the distance, and goaded by memory's spell, He'll go back on the women who saved him, And ask ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... was glistening on the sea when I went to bed that night, and when I got up in the morning the sun was shining on it, and a crow cut across my window cawing, and I heard grandfather humming to himself on the path below. And after my long spell in London, and my railway journey of the day before, it was the same as if I had fallen asleep in a gale on the high seas and awakened in a quiet ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... the dreadful day limped along. The children howled while they were dressed. Their mother by turns nagged or cajoled them from one crying spell into another. The frowsy maid pulled the covers untidily over the two little beds and half-heartedly picked up a few of the toys and dumped them in a closet. Felicia's delicate fingers guided her needle back and forth making exquisite ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... of goodness, on the whole, no man can surrender himself to it utterly. The good-will is not proved until, as Plato said, it is tried with enchantments, and found to be strong and true. Goodness can not be cast upon a man like a spell; it is a work of rational organization, and can not be had without discipline, efficiency, and service. But it is for art to surround life with fit auspices; to create an environment that reflects and forecasts its best achievements, thus ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... life and grace to personal symmetry and beauty. James Dutton remained firm in his theory of the worthlessness of education beyond what, in a narrow acceptation of the term, was absolutely 'necessary;' and Anne Dutton, although now heiress to very considerable wealth, knew only how to read, write, spell, cast accounts, and superintend the home-business of the farm. I saw a good deal of the Duttons about this time, my brother-in-law, Elsworthy, and his wife having taken up their abode within about ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... Capri may in consequence be compelled to remain willy-nilly upon the island until such time as communication with Naples shall be once more restored, for rough weather on Capri means complete isolation from the mainland and the outside world. A spell of four or five days without a letter or a newspaper may in certain cases be restful and even beneficial, but it can also ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... the heart of the Old Testament, and understand the spell which the religion first of Judaism and then of Christianity has cast upon the world for thousands of years, should ponder the book of Isaiah. It blends the work of two authors, but their spirit is closely akin. In each case the prophet is full of ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... things no nation of the Continent possesses—Spring, and middle-aged people. You may be young for a good long spell—some have been known, by the judicious appliances of art, to keep on for sixty years or so; but when you do pass the limit, there is no neutral territory—no mezzo termine. Fall out of the Young Guard, and you must serve as a ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... white domino, "he is an evil spirit, and we will surely lay him. If one spell fails, we must ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... weather for the Regatta. "But when it du break up, after this yer logie [dull, hazy, calm] spell, look out!" ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... extra drill filled us with dismay. Sore shouldered, stiff, and aching in every limb, oppressed and wearied in mind and body, we only had one intense desire—to get away, to hide somewhere, to enjoy at least a brief spell of ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... than lose our guns," said Captain Grant. "I have no fancy to have our teeth drawn. The crew may rest for a spell. See, there is a breeze coming ahead," observed the captain, after some time. "Man the capstan again. Set the mainsail, mizen-topsail, and topgallant-sail. Let the people run from side to side as ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... just received their seats from the Whigs against the direct opposition of their rivals. Gratitude and self-interest impelled them to support the Whig party; and its leaders, who had for nearly fifty years been out in the cold shade of opposition, might count on a long spell of power, especially as the Canningites, stronger in talents than in numbers, joined them at this juncture. Brougham had gone to the House of Lords, but three future Prime Ministers—Stanley (afterwards Lord Derby), Lord John Russell, and ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... out this way this afternoon, with a couple his pards," remarked McGurvin, unaware of the bomb was exploding. "They watered up, rested a spell, an' hiked on ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... about the shabby cab having memories only for the garden scene, its musical enchantments. The spell of them lay thick upon her as she was undressed by Magda. When the lights were out, she asked Magda if ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... that they were under the malign influence of some adverse spell. And after a month Columbus gave way to their remonstrances, and abandoned his search for a channel to India. He was the more ready to do this because he was satisfied that the land by which he lay was connected with the coast which other Spaniards had ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale
... matter; but he inwardly resolved, that, as soon as the coming-on of winter would oblige the Indians to recross the mountains to the shelter of their homes beyond, he would take advantage of the breathing spell thus allowed him to make a journey to Boston, there to submit the question for final settlement to Gen. Shirley, who had succeeded Braddock to the chief command of all the British ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... and this confusion Miss Elliott, by her efficiency and force of character, brought a good degree of cleanliness and order. Among other things she established a school in the Home, gathered the children into it in the evening, taught them to spell, read and sing, and inspired them with a ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... finds them delightful. If you could see his picture of the angels bearing St. Catherine, robed in red, through the air to her last resting-place upon the hill, you would feel the beauty and peace of his gentle nature revealed in his art. But the spell of Leonardo vanished with the death of those who had known him in life. The last of his pupils died in 1550, and with him the Leonardo school of painting came to ...
— The Book of Art for Young People • Agnes Conway
... the American people, in the interests of their own security, prosperity and peace, to make sure that their own part of this great project be amply and cheerfully supported. Free World decisions in this matter may spell the difference between world disaster and world progress ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower
... the cabin, where he sot takin' his schnapps, an' says, 'Cappen, it's agittin' thick, an' looks kin' o' squally, hedn't we's good's shorten sail?' 'Gimmy my alminick,' says the cappen. So he looks at it a spell, an' says he, 'The moon's due in less'n half an hour, an' she'll scoff away ev'ythin' clare agin.' So the mate he goes, an' bumby down he comes agin, an' says, 'Cappen, this 'ere's the allfiredest, powerfullest ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... listening, and showing that he listened. Whether he attended to their talk, or tried to think of other things, or talked himself, or held his peace, or resolutely counted the dull tickings of a hoarse clock at his back, he always lapsed, as if a spell were on him, into eager listening. For he knew it must come. And his present punishment, and torture and distraction, were, to listen ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... present in a high degree, may be compared to the working of a watch, where interest is the spring which keeps all the wheels in motion. If it worked unhindered, the watch would run down in a few minutes. Beauty, holding us in the spell of description and reflection, is like the barrel which ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... spekulacii. Speculation spekulacio. Speculative spekulativa. Speculate (theorise) teoriigi. Speculative (theoretic) teoria. Speculum spegulo. Speech parolado. Speechless muta. Speed rapido. Speed rapidigi. Speedy rapida. Spell silabi. Spell cxarmo. Spend elspezi. Spendthrift malsxparulo. Sphere sfero. Spherical sfera. Sphinx sfinkso. Spice spico. Spider araneo. Spider's web araneajxo. Spike najlego. Spile ligna najlo. Spill (liquid) disversxi. Spill (corn, etc.) dissxuti. Spin ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... we get to Norway, because you claim to be a Norwegian by birth and a minister. We think you are a German by birth and a doctor. We had one sailing with us the last trip from Saint Paul, Minnesota and he spelled his name 'Susage' and was a German and a doctor. You spell your name 'Susag.' He had a goatee like you and looked just like you, and we think you two are brothers. We believe you are an American citizen, and if you acknowledge that you are a German and a doctor, we believe we can be a help to you. We will guarantee ...
— Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag • S. O. Susag
... of the Third Estate differed among themselves far more than did those of the Clergy or the Nobility. This order comprised the rich banker and the beggar at his gate, the learned encyclopaedist and the water-carrier that could not spell his name. Every layman, not of noble blood, belonged to the Third Estate. And although this was the unprivileged order, there were privileged bodies and privileged persons within it. Corporations, guilds, cities, and whole provinces possessed rights distinct from those ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... echoed, his gaze upon the sand, now partially obscured in the descending twilight. "Sacre! I truly thought I did, for the girl certainly has beauty and wit, and wove a spell about me in Montreal. But she has become as a wild bird out here, and is a most perplexing vixen, laughing at my protestations, so that indeed I hardly know whether it would be worth ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... another occasion, when a conference was held with one of the tribes, great alarm was caused by a notary, who attended to take notes of the conversation. The savages had never before seen the operation of writing; and they regarded it as a spell which was to have some magic effect upon them, and which they must neutralize by various mystic fumigations which they believed to act as counter-charms. "They were themselves skilled sorcerers," says Columbus,—whose credulity ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... breathed. Criticism was disarmed. Malibran was forgotten. The people were under the spell of the enchanter. Orpheus had come again. But suddenly the music ceased. The spell was broken. With a shock the audience returned to earth, and Ole Bull, restored to consciousness of his whereabouts by the storm of applause which shook the house, ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... ardor as ever. And when Napoleon called on him by his old title, "the bravest of the brave," to once more rally under his standard, Ney responded with alacrity, as though the name possessed a magic spell he could ...
— Harper's Young People, January 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... minute all spell-bound with astonishment, when the king jumped frantically in the air, clapping his hands above his head, and singing out, "Woh, woh, woh! what wonders! Oh, Bana, Bana! what miracles he performs!"—and all the Wakungu followed in chorus. ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... carving-knife on the carving-fork, still looking at me (as I felt quite sure without looking at him) in the same unusual manner. The sharpening lasted so long that at last I felt a kind of obligation on me to raise my eyes in order that I might break the spell under which he seemed to labour, of not being able ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... in my grandfather. Suppose the stolen offspring of some mountain tribe brought up in a city of the plain, or one with an inherited genius for painting, and born blind—the ancestral life would be within them as a dim longing for unknown objects and sensations, and the spell-bound habit of their inherited frames would be like a cunningly wrought musical instrument never played on, but quivering throughout in uneasy, mysterious moanings of its intricate structure that, under the right touch, gives music. Something like that, ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... would sniff back. "His way! Keepin' you all on rye meal one spell, an' not lettin' you eat a mite of Injun, an' then keepin' you on Injun without a mite of rye! Makin' you eat nothin' but greens an' garden stuff, an' jest turnin' you out to graze an' chew your cuds like horned animals one spell, an' then makin' you live on meat! Lettin' you go abroad when he takes ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... a spell of wonderment. The scolding was not severe, but it was generally followed by some sort of punishment. A clean pinafore, too! To be set on a high stool and study a Psalm, or be relegated to bread and water, ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... back and take my share of the "gouter," now on the refectory-table at Pelet's—to wit, pistolets and water—I stepped into a baker's and refreshed myself on a COUC(?)—it is a Flemish word, I don't know how to spell it—A CORINTHE-ANGLICE, a currant bun—and a cup of coffee; and then I strolled on towards the Porte de Louvain. Very soon I was out of the city, and slowly mounting the hill, which ascends from the gate, I took ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... at the Nile. If rapid action lost the chance of battle a month before, it did much to insure victory when the opportunity came, and it was made possible by each captain's full grasp of what was to be done. "Time is everything," to quote a familiar phrase of Nelson; "five minutes may spell the difference between victory and defeat." It was two in the afternoon when the British, after looking into Alexandria, first sighted the French fleet at anchor in Aboukir Bay, and it was just sundown when the leading ship Goliath rounded the Guerrier's bows. The battle was ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... the first tent-peg of a wonderful adventure. Under the spell of that music his body seemed to grow larger. He fingered his sword, and presently caught Perrot by the shoulder and said ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the American House of Representatives." They would not think of calling even the most ornately self-bemedaled American sovereign elector "His Badgesty." Of a foreign nobleman they do not say "His Lordship;" they will not admit that he is a lord; nor when speaking of their own noblemen do they spell "lord" with a capital L, as we do. In brief, when mentioning foreign dignitaries, of whatever rank in their own countries, the English press is simply and serviceably descriptive: the king is a king, the queen a queen, the jack a jack. We ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... in the tremendous spell of a nightmare. I could not stir even a finger; I could not lift my voice; I could not even breathe; and though I expected every moment to see the sleeping man murdered, I could not even close my eyes to shut out the horrible spectacle, ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... had the power to prevail against my prayers at last. They have ta'en him away; the flower is plucked from among the weeds, and the dove is slain amid a flock of ravens. They came with shout, and they came with song, and they spread the charm, and they placed the spell, and the baptised brow has been bowed down to the unbaptised hand. They have ta'en him away, they have ta'en him away; he was too lovely, and too good, and too noble, to bless us with his continuance on earth; for what are the sons of men compared to him?—the light of the moonbeam to the morning ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... least sign of changing their course, do they, Frank?" Andy remarked after another spell of ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... that I am not doing, but ought to be, keep tugging at my skirts. There is no doubt but Punch's personal devil needs the whole attention of a whole person,—preferably two persons,—so that they could spell each other and get ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... listening old man was now really affected; he did not understand the words, but the tears came into his eyes. He thought of his family, of the sorrows and dangers about them and of the difficulties surrounding his return to them. . . . As though under the spell of the melody, little by little, he descended the stairs. What an artist's soul that haughty scoffer had! . . . At first sight, the Germans with their rough exterior and their discipline which made them ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... thought unto his mistress tell He flashes signals to her with his eyes, And she at once is ware of what befell. How swift the looks that pass betwixt the twain! How fair, indeed, and how delectable! One with his eyelids writes what he would say: The other with her eyes the writ doth spell. ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... will I, and to the world's end"; for the fairy spell had so wrought upon his heart that he cared no more for any earthly thing but to have the love of Niam of ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... Abbeville, La. His face beamed with grateful joy as he told the story of the meeting and the wonders of the North, and of the warm welcome of Northern friends, while the brethren of the Association were held spell-bound by his graphic recital. It is hard to tell which was the happier, the speaker ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 49, No. 4, April, 1895 • Various
... had no difficulty in reconciling God's will and an enchantment. One thing had helped to confirm this belief. Mick and Jane remembered the night their father died—it was the night Honeybird was born—and, thinking back over it now, they were sure they had heard the incantation that had wrought the spell. They had been waked by a noise, a muttering, and a tramp of feet on the gravel beneath the nursery window. They had been frightened, for Lull was not in the nursery, and when they ran out into the passage to call her they saw their mother standing in a white dress at the top of the stairs ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... you so excel, When you vouchsafe to breathe my thought, That, like a spirit, with this spell Of my own teaching, I ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... at all afeared, no how. I only did want to say that, if the thing takes wind, as how it raaly stood, it spiles all my calkilations. I couldn't 'stablish a consarn here, I guess, for a nation long spell of time after." ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... space, while his spell was upon them, they did not stir. Then Stephen sought her eyes that had been so long denied him. They were not denied him now. It was Virginia who first found her voice, and she called him ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... for producing the same end, consists in the parent or teacher repeating a sentence to the child, and requiring him to remember it, and to spell the several words in their order. Here the child has to remember the whole sentence, to observe the order of the several words, to chuse them one after another as he advances, and to remember and rehearse the letters of which each is composed. The mental exercise here is exceedingly ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... cousin, the Duc de Liria, was besieging the Imperialists. He won golden opinions from the army, but was already too strong for his tutors—Murray and Sir Thomas Sheridan. He had both Protestant and Catholic governors; between them he learned to spell execrably in three languages, and sat loose to Catholic doctrines. In January 1735 died his mother, who had found refuge from her troubles in devotion. The grief of James and of ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... seriousness, "it's a hangin' matter. I fixed 'm. I had to. He woke up on me. You an' me's got to do some layin' low for a spell." ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... for four hours without allowing them a single moment's rest, abusing them roundly for every mistake they made; and when at last he marched them to their quarters, it was only that they might eat their dinner and take half an hour's breathing-spell preparatory to going through the same course of sprouts again in the afternoon. This routine was followed day after day until the members of the awkward squad were declared to be sufficiently drilled to warrant their appearance on dress-parade. After ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... are now, half of them would have died. The spring before the second drouth, I acted as padrino for Tiburcio and his wife, who was at that time a mere slip of a girl living at the Mission. Before they had time to get married, the dry spell set in and they put the wedding off until it should rain. I ridiculed the idea, but they were both superstitious and stuck it out. And honest, boys, there wasn't enough rain fell in two years to wet your shirt. In my forty years on the Nueces, I've seen hard times, ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... the desolate, Mother of tears, Weeping your beauty marred and torn, Your children tossed upon the spears, Your altars rent, your hearths forlorn, Where Spring has no renewing spell, And Love no language save ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... and fancy of the speller, my Lord,' replied Sam; 'I never had occasion to spell it more than once or twice in my life, but I spells it with ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... bears the evidence of a conflict of purposes in almost every one of its sections. It is evident, for example, that, with the tide of civil war beating fiercely around the national capital, Congress was still under the spell of the past, and severely distrustful of any avoidable increase of public obligations. Bonds were loaned to the enterprise at the rate of sixteen thousand dollars per mile for the easy work, with treble aid for the mountain division and double for the Salt Lake Valley; but this loan was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... of their lives they make no attempt at resistance: they think that their affairs would never prosper; that their padi would be blighted, and their buffaloes die; that they would remain under a kind of spell ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... her actions shall be holy, as, You hear, my spell is lawful: do not shun her, Until you see her die again; for then You kill her double: Nay, present your hand: When she was young you woo'd her; now, in age, Is she ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... book is Yorkshire Legends and Traditions, collected and recounted by the Rev. THOMAS PARKINSON. He who writes of fairies and of witches should of course possess some potent spell—(how many members of the School-Board, had they lived a couple of hundred years ago, would have been punished as witches for teaching "spelling," it is pleasant to imagine)—and Mr. PARKINSON'S great charm is his apparent belief ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... roused out of the spell that Pearlie's story had put upon them, and began to group themselves under the trees, arranging their little ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... those who would have spurned me from them, if they dared, writhe beneath my lash, as I withheld or inflicted it at will. I was the magician who held the great spirits that longed to tear me to pieces, by one simple spell which a superior hardihood had won me—and, by Heaven, I did not ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and walked, talked and laughed, loved, wept, and parted; and in that beauty and mystery and silence it seemed to her that some day, any day, they all would come again. They were only sleeping somewhere, waiting for some spell to be removed. She was sure of it, as sure as she was that King Arthur sat sleeping in his hidden cave, spellbound until some one, brave and good and strong enough, should find him and blow a huge blast on the horn which lay on the table before him, and so ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... uniform came running to the brigand. "Read aloud," said he. I was curious to know for what purpose the old man had written to Pougatcheff. The Secretary began to spell out in a ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... the boy the spell he used with the rope, and when he had learnt this, he asked to be taught the spell by which he could change his own shape without having a second person to work the spell with the rope. The Jogi said ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... twenty years ago if it hadn't been for Bill. The survey outfit took him along for helper and he et up all the grub, so the Injin guide quit 'em cold and they couldn't go on. I allus hoped he'd starve to death somm'eres, but after a spell of sickness from swallerin' a ham-bone, he died tryin' to eat six dozen aigs ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... tried another's fetters, too, With charms, perchance, as fair to view; And I would fain have loved as well, But some unconquerable spell Forbade my bleeding breast to own A kindred ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... by this become quite sober, and took his spell at the helm; admitting, evidently to his senior's satisfaction, that it certainly was "a real nullifier of a breeze, enough to blow the ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... why am I here?—why so yearning, yet so afraid to come? Why did my heart fail when these trees rose in sight against the sky?—why, why—why was it drawn hither by the spell I could not resist? Alas, Darrell, alas! I ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the Earth, when by every law of rational circumstance the move seemed to spell only his own disaster, was characteristic of the man. He stood there in the instrument room at the peak of the skeleton tower in Venia and rasped out to the Earth Council his defiance. Silence followed—silence unbroken ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... dash down the main thoroughfare had awakened some misgivings in the little town, was beyond the precincts of village scrutiny. The country road was hard, although marked by deep cuts from traffic during a rainy spell, and the horse's hoofs rang out with exhilarating rhythm. Regardless of all save the distance traversed, the rider yet forbore to press the pace, relaxing only when, after a considerable interval, he came to another road and drew rein at the fork. One way ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... was wonderfully novel. The great blue stretch of sky seemed endless. How still the country was! Had it not been for the muffled tramp of hoofs, the low bleating of the herd, the flat-toned note of the sheep-bells, there would not have been a sound. The quiet of the day cast its spell everywhere. Sandy, who was usually chary enough of his words, preserved even a stricter silence. Although his lips were parted with a contented smile, only once did he venture to break the quiet and that was when he softly hummed a bar or two ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett
... 'Le Baron de Valvem,' whose cruel W's perplexed them so much. However, the address was the least of Eustacie's troubles; she should be only too glad when she got to that, and she was sitting in Maitre Isaac's room, trying to make him dictate her sentences and asking him how to spell every third word, when the dinner-bell rang, and the whole household dropped down from salon, library, study, or chamber to the huge hall, with its pavement of black and white marble, and its long tables, for Madame de Quinet was no woman to ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... furthermore, down to the latest days of the Babylonian and Assyrian empires the mixed method of writing continued, though there were periods when "purism" was the fashion, and there was a more marked tendency to spell out the words laboriously in preference to using signs with a phonetic complement as an aid in suggesting the reading desired in any given instance. Yet, even in those days, the Babylonian syllabary continued to be ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... some moments,—it seemed hours,—spell-bound, watching the face, but not daring to move even an eyelid, lest the discovery of the fact that I was awake, should be the signal for my own destruction. I expected every moment to hear the twang of a bow-string, and feel the head of an arrow penetrate my flesh; for I felt confident ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... stigmatising of all eroticism during that long spell of a thousand years was necessary. Only the unnatural condemnation of love in its widest sense, a hatred of sex and woman such as was felt by Tertullian and Origen, could result in the reverse of sexuality—purely spiritual love with its logical climax, the deification and worship of woman. ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... (Aside.) Now while he stands enchained within the spell I'll to Rosalia's room and don his cloak And cap, and sally forth to meet the duke. 'Tis now the hour, and if he come—so ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... put on the shelf Because he could not spell "pie"; When his aunt, Mrs. Grace, Saw his sorrowful face, She could not ...
— The Real Mother Goose • (Illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright)
... of the surface. Eating is not everything: we have to get out of this. The larva, so well-equipped with tools and muscular strength, finds no difficulty in going where it pleases, by boring through the wood; but does the coming Capricorn, whose short spell of life must be spent in the open air, possess the same advantages? Hatched inside the trunk, will the long-horned Beetle be able to clear ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... Bohemian, "because I wished to know if the Christian gentleman had lost his feeling as well as his eyes and ears. I have stood speaking to you these five minutes, and you have stared on that scrap of yellow paper, as if it were a spell to turn you into a statue, and had ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... expressions of her mind are honoured, wherever the large conceptions of Pericles command the admiration of statesmen, wherever the architect and the sculptor love to dwell on the masterpieces of Ictinus and Pheidias, wherever the spell of ideal beauty or of lofty contemplation is exercised by the creations of Sophocles or of Plato, there it will be remembered that the spirit which wrought in all these would have passed sooner from among men, if it had not been recalled from a trance, which others were content to mistake ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... birds; for instead of retiring, they each moment drew nearer and nearer, now alighting on the ground, then flapping back to the branches, and anon darting to the ground again—as though they were under some spell from those fiery eyes, and were unable to take themselves away. Their motions appeared to grow less energetic, their chirping became almost inaudible, and their wings seemed hardly to expand as they flew, or rather fluttered, around ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... The multitude increases daily for six or eight weeks, additions, in the form of new family groups, constantly augmenting their numbers. Some time in September the migration call reaches the Martins, and, yielding to its spell, they at once depart toward their winter home in tropical ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... stranger, a man cannot always be a child, nor a woman, either; my crying spell appeared to ease my heart amazin'ly. I shouldered old kit here, and down I went to examine things. The hurricane had scattered every thing; the fire had been at work too, but, great God! the bloody wolf had been thar, the settlement was kivered ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... must be directed by immediate intelligence. Mr. Felt's invention demonstrates that this operation is clearly within the scope of machinery; that there is no need of a machine with brains, for setting or justifying type; that such a machine need not be able to think, read, or spell; but that, guided in its processes by an intelligent mind, a machine can perform operations which, as in this case, are purely mechanical, much more rapidly and cheaply than they can be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... Mirza Shah and I watched the scene. Although my mind was clouded with all manner of uncertainties, yet in my heart was a faint flutter of hope. Would this mountain fighter break the spell of the stars, and actually kill Prince Hasan, before the latter could accomplish the portended crime of dealing death to his father? I was torn by distracted arguments; at one moment I believed firmly as ever in the stars, at the next my trust was in the lance of the burly freebooter ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... sham attack by the Turkish fleet and of the sudden despatch of our squadron, and its subsequent spell of idleness in Tunisian waters, had degenerated into a farce in which the ridiculous part fell to our share. So that when I took over the command of the squadron, with the prospect of seeing it undergo the same course ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... 'n', my! but he was snappy. He said, 'Ask Dr. Brown,' 'n' then he clumb straight back up his ladder; 'n' Dr. Brown said 's she died o' the complete seclusion of her aspirational 'n' bronchoid tubes. I could see 't the newspaper man did n't know how to spell it, 'n' he told young Dr. Brown any such doin's 'd squeeze the cod-liver oil over into next week, which could n't be considered for a minute. 'N' then he went on to say 't if folks want to die o' more 'n one line, they ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... beautiful instances of the spirit of the place was on the occasion of our last visit. We knew that the good days were over, and that our lives could never be quite so pleasantly united again; but the place held us under its spell; and I remember as I drove away through the woods, in a soft moist dawn, I felt nothing but a deep and uncomplaining gratitude for all the happiness that I had enjoyed there; the trees, the crags, the embowered lawn with its smiling flowers, the verandah with its chairs piled up for departure, the ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... from the department stores, servants with an evening out, trainmen from the Elevated, off duty for an hour or two, small storekeepers whose places closed early, with their wives and children beside them, all under the spell of the hushed interior. Some prayed without moving, their heads bowed; others kept their eyes fixed on the priest. One or two had their faces turned toward the choir-loft, completely absorbed in the full, deep tones that rolled now ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... tender lids covered again those wondrous eyes, and we sat as if spell-bound, wrapt in ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... its unique subject. It is the product of the heart rather than the head, and its frequent passages of childlike naivete, its transparent revelations of the inmost soul of the writer, and the radiant atmosphere of spiritual beauty in which thoughts and images are melted together with a magic spell, transport it from the sphere of prose composition to that of high poetry. In spite of the trammels of words, it gives expression to the same subtle and ethereal conceptions which inspired the genius of Liszt as a musical artist. As a sketch of the life of the great composer, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... strike, a murder, football, bodies found; vociferation from all parts of England simultaneously. How miserable it is that the Globe newspaper offers nothing better to Jacob Flanders! When a child begins to read history one marvels, sorrowfully, to hear him spell out in his ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... impression of coldness and reluctance; but she could not help it. She could not forget that he had never spoken to her of marriage till Mr. Royall had forced the word from his lips; though she had not had the strength to shake off the spell that bound her to him she had lost all spontaneity of feeling, and seemed to herself to be passively awaiting a fate she ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... I fell under the spell of the French Revolution through a book, given to me by my mother, about la Vend['e]e. It was a dull book, but nothing, not even a bad translation, could dim the heroism of Henri de la Rochejaquelein for me, and I became a Royalist of the Royalists, and held hotly the thesis ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... is under a spell; he is being worked by some one in the crowd," Darrell exclaimed to his father, ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... 'twixt heaven and hell, The soul's sad growth o'er stationary friends Who hear us from our height not well, not well, The slant of accident, the sudden bends Of purpose tempered strong, the gambler's spell, The son's disgrace, the ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... it closely. "Three of something I think they are fleur-de-lys, which would spell Montgomery. Or lions' heads, ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... an incorrigible sense of humour, as well as an infinite common sense. He wanted to break this spell of tense emotion which possessed her. So he pursued a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... bound his friends to him as by "hooks of steel." Erect and manly in bearing, he stepped along, never apparently in a hurry, never dawdling. One had only to look in his beautiful face, the bright kind eyes, the high wide brow, and to come under the spell of his winning smile, to obtain a glimpse ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... time she clung to him; her arms round his neck, her cheek to his cheek, her beating heart to his bosom, as if she was afraid that the spell would be broken if once she let go. Howel kissed her pale cheek, wiped those large black eyes, and comforted her as she had never hoped to be comforted again. Vague thoughts entered his mind of the possibility of beginning life afresh—of being a better husband and father—of giving ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... moves reproachfully, The mistress of my moods, and looks bereft (Cruel to the last!) as tho' 'twere I, not she, That did the wrong, and broke the spell, and left Memory comfortless.—Away! away! Phantoms, about whose brows the bindweed clings, Hopeless regret! In thinking of these things Some men have lost ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... wonted tranquillity that evening; but his agitation manifested itself in a craving to talk and fidget on his chair, which seemed rather inconsistent with his quiet disposition. When the Brussels sprouts had disappeared, there was a delay in the appearance of the dessert, and a spell of silence ensued. Out of doors the rain was beating down with still greater force, rattling noisily against the house. The dining-room was rather close, and it suddenly dawned on Helene that there was something ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... making them jets and cascades of molten rubies, then passing on, tinged with the blood of the grape, shed crimson glories here and there on fair faces, snowy beards, velvet, satin, jewelled hilts, glowing gold, gleaming silver, and sparkling glass. Gerard and his friends stood dazzled, spell-bound. Presently a whisper buzzed round them, "Salute the Duke! Salute the Duke!" They looked up, and there on high, under the dais, was their sovereign, bidding them welcome with a kindly wave of the hand. The men ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... poem of the "Nibelunge," such as it was written down at the end of the twelfth, or the beginning of the thirteenth century, is "Sorrow after Joy." This is the fatal spell against which all the heroes are fighting, and fighting in vain. And as Hagen dashes the Chaplain into the waves, in order to belie the prophecy of the Mermaids, but the Chaplain rises, and Hagen rushes headlong into destruction, so Chriemhilt is bargaining and ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... there's been, an' if you don't mind I think I'll take a nap.' So I helps her into her room and fixes her into her night things an' thur she's laid ever since, an' it's six whole weeks ef it's a day. Every mornin' fer a spell I'd go in an' say, 'Ain't you ready fer me to fix you fer the day, Mis' Brownleigh?' An' she'd jest smile an' say, 'Well, I b'leeve not just now, 'Meelia Ellen. I think I'll just rest to-day yet. Maybe I'll feel stronger to-morrow'; ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... the young man heard nothing further save a confused murmur of voices. The speakers quitted the balcony, and his spell of waiting began afresh in the sunlit salon so peaceful and delightful in its brightness. But all at once the door of his Eminence's private room was thrown wide open and a servant ushered him in; and he was surprised to find the Cardinal alone, for he had not witnessed ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... house, and you don't call it theft when children pick a few of the berries that load down the vines. [His passion is aroused once more] Miss Julia, you are a magnificent woman, and far too good for one like me. You were swept along by a spell of intoxication, and now you want to cover up your mistake by making yourself believe that you are in love with me. Well, you are not, unless possibly my looks might tempt you—-in which case your love is no better than mine. I could never rest satisfied with having ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg |
