"Spellbound" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... recitative semi-tone yet full of expression and dramatic breadth, at times almost a chant. With those dark and glowing eyes looking into mine, I have listened until I forgot everything about me, and was simply spellbound. Mr. Fields described Tennyson's reciting his own poems in much the same way. Whittier once said to a friend, "I consider Miss Proctor one of the best woman poets of the day," and then added, "But why do I say one of the best; ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... marvel of which Bob had never before had any adequate conception. Then there were the cities, alive with varying industries, and teeming with their strangely mixed American population. Above all was the amazing natural beauty of scenery hitherto undreamed of. Hour after hour Bob sat spellbound at the window of the observation-car, never tiring of watching the shifting landscape as it whirled past. His interest and intelligence caught the notice of a gentleman who occupied the section opposite the boys, and soon the three formed ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... I felt convinced that many crosses were in store for me. Then my soul was flooded with such consolation as I have never since experienced. Suffering became attractive, and I found in it charms which held me spellbound, though as yet I did not appreciate them to ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... emerged of such fantasy and variety of color that the two boys were spellbound. Elephants and camels, llamas and horses, all richly caparisoned in Eastern silks, passed along with their riders. Guards with curved swords and many-thonged whips formed a double hedge between those ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... the gray eyes took her literally, since his nation are not slow at seizing opportunity. He launched without a word more of preliminary into a lecture on Germany that lasted hours and held his audience spellbound. It was colorful, complete, and it did not seem to have been memorized. But ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... and Moderns, which so keenly occupied French men of letters in the latter part of the seventeenth century. But his fame to-day rests upon his authorship of the traditional Tales of Mother Goose; or Stories of Olden Times, and so long as there are children to listen spellbound to the adventures of Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, and that arch rogue Puss in Boots, his memory ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... spellbound admiration at the picture until the moose was gone. When they had recovered their senses they slowly went up to the camp on the ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... the compartment as the rocket car entered the lower atmosphere but Karl listened spellbound to the astounding revelations of the Moon man. There came a pause in the discourse of the dwarf as a number of relays clicked furiously on the control board and the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... first place, he had been unforgettable for two reasons—because he had been so struck at sight of her that he had gazed unconsciously, with a glow on his face and a radiance in his eye, as of a young poet spellbound at an inspiration; and because he seemed the physical type of young man she had idealized—a strong, lithe-limbed, blond giant, with a handsome, frank face, clear-cut and smooth, ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... scorching mouths, and fled therewith, and the fireman never stirred. Then Darius, to whom the mentor kindly lent his spade, attempted to do the same, but being inexpert woke the fireman, who held him spellbound by his roaring voice and then flung him like a sack of potatoes bodily into the slush of the yard, and the spade after him. Happily the mentor, whose stove was now alight, lent fire to Darius, so that Darius's stove ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... like a vice. "Then God help you both, my friend; God help you both." His voice was soft, but horribly menacing; and as the curtain dropped behind him, the Kid, who had been listening spellbound, understood for the first time the type of ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... fresh pleasures and carousing. For truly the grass withereth and the flower thereof passeth away!' He stood tense, one arm outstretched; he was moved by his own incoherent eloquence. The congregation listened spellbound; indeed, the man was an orator, and the very unexpectedness of his strange violence held his listeners enthralled. After a pause, during which the silence became nearly intolerable, he continued his ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... firing party, the bystanders—all stood with their eyes fixed upon the plane. The cool insolence of her pilot held them spellbound. For the moment Ken and ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... battery of round blue eyes gazed on unwinking; the poet's dewlaps quivered with stored emotion, and the spellbound audience breathed as people breathe when the hostess at table attempts to smooth over a bad ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... as he chose to style himself, had some hesitation in plotting her downfall. She fascinated him. The women who had come into his life were totally different from her; there wasn't a point of resemblance. It was her innocence, her pure country charms, held him spellbound. Many women had helped him in his nefarious designs; they fell easy victims to his blandishments and his payments. He found them useful; one woman in particular had proved invaluable in the case of the great explosion at the Valentine Steel Works. It was Mannie Kerrnon who actually carried ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... listened spellbound. They had often talked together of some step which might kindle the conflagration, but had never yet seen the occasion. Hot-headed, rash, reckless as were the youths; wild, tameless, and fearless as was the ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... full of people, but nobody had as yet said a word; awe and wonder held everybody in spellbound silence. Judith was the first to speak. She pushed through the crowd to Salome. Her face was blanched to a deadly whiteness; and her eyes, as Mrs. William Blair afterwards declared, were enough to give a body ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Spellbound with the unutterable horror of what he had seen, Terry watched the waters become quiet again, but turned away, aghast, when bubbles rose like tiny silver globes against the jet depths. When he turned back ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... him, spellbound by the animation of his face, the seeming reality of his plea. He was not a singer; he ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... to come more, after I lent Almiry some money to lay in a stock of better goods. Papa enjoyed my business venture immensely, and was never tired of joking about it. He actually went and bought balls for four small black boys who were gluing their noses to the window one day, spellbound by the orange, red, and blue treasures displayed there. He liked my partner's looks, though he teased me by saying that we'd better add lemonade to our stock, as poor, dear Almiry's acid face would make lemons unnecessary, and sugar and ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... Prevaricashun, Eggsaggeration, and Magnifycashun. For instance: If Tallmage, in his sermin, sez he b'lieves there's a hell, you want to be sure to rite it up thusly: "Rev. Tallmage, havin just returned from a short visit, held his hearers spellbound for a hour, yesterday morning, by his grand and vivid discripshun of the mildness of the climat of a salubrous summer resort" This wuld be a excellent illustrashun ...
— The Bad Boy At Home - And His Experiences In Trying To Become An Editor - 1885 • Walter T. Gray
... world of sense made him a human being endowed with senses, and then left him to himself. Nature had thus fulfilled her mission. What she is able to do with the powers operative in man is exhausted; not so the forces themselves. They lie as though spellbound in the merely natural man and await their release. They cannot release themselves. They fade away to nothing unless man seizes upon them and develops them, unless he calls into actual being what ...
— Christianity As A Mystical Fact - And The Mysteries of Antiquity • Rudolf Steiner
... was concluded, the trio remained sitting as if spellbound, quite unobservant of the crowd, slowly dispersing ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... more sensations during his chat with Mrs. Marteen than had fallen to his lot for many a long day. His tremendous power had long made his position so secure that he had met extraordinary situations with the calm of one who controls them. He had startled and held others spellbound by his own infinite foresight, resource and energy. The situation was reversed. He gazed fascinated in the fine blue eyes of another and ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... company by reciting "The Raven" as he alone could recite it. His lectures upon "The Poetic Principle" and "The Philosophy of Composition," and his readings in the assembly rooms of the Exchange Hotel, drew the elite of the city, who sat spellbound while he, erect and still and pale as a statue, filled their ears with the music of his voice, and their souls with wonder at the brilliancy of his thought and words. Subscriptions to The Stylus poured in. At last, this dream of his life ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... considerable part of their drive. Nearly the whole of the way lay through the jungle, here and there narrowing to little more than a track over which great forest-trees stretched their boughs. It was all new country to Olga, and the quiet, sunless depths as they advanced, held her awe-struck, spellbound. She gazed into the thick undergrowth with half-fearful curiosity. Once, at a sudden loud flapping of wings, she started ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... September sunshine and waved her bewildered farewell to Zeb. There was no bewilderment or surprise now at her strange and unwonted sensations. She had learned why she had stood looking after him dazed and spellbound. Under the magic of her own light irony she had seen her drooping rustic lover transformed into the ideal man who could face anything except her unkindness. She had guessed the deep secret of his timidity. It was a kind of fear of ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... leaped into flight toward the wrong goal. Dashing around Princeton's left end he reversed his field and crossed over to the right. Phil King, Princeton's quarterback, was so amazed at the performance that he was too spellbound to tackle his comrade. Down the backfield the player sped towards his own goal. Shep Homans, his fullback, took in the impending catastrophe at a glance and dashed forward, laid the halfback low with a sharp tackle, thereby preventing a safety. The game was unimportant, the Princeton's ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... her feet when he first took his stand in front of her and announced the opening hymn. His text was: "Why stand ye here all the day idle?" and so well did he handle it, and so forcible were his gestures and eloquent his style of delivery, that Daisy listened to him spellbound, her eyes fixed intently upon his glowing face and her ears drinking ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... little children straining forward between their elders in the bull-fight frenzy—that same intoxication of the senses that held the Roman freemen spellbound ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... Beauclerk. They are whispering "soft and low." Miss Maliphant is looking, perhaps, a little confused—for her—and the cause of the small confusion is transparent. Beauclerk's hand is tightly closed over hers, and even as Dicky and Miss Kavanagh gaze spellbound at them, he lifts the massive hand of the heiress and imprints ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... that glorious day when he had intercepted her on the great highway. And with this memory would come a sudden shame of himself and occupation,—a realisation of the barrier which he had deliberately put between the present and the past. Up to the hour when he had parted from her, and had remained spellbound, seated on his horse at the fork of the roads, watching the vanishing coach up to the last minute, he was still a Spanish gentleman, still worthy in himself,—whatever his father had done,—to offer his love and his devotion to a pure and honest girl. But now he was ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... quarrelsome and suddenly engaged in a fight, pecking each other furiously, beating their wings and uttering shrill, protesting chipperings. Robin did not quite understand what they were doing and stood watching them with spellbound interest. ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... your pardon, Innstetten," which he interjected in a variety of ways. The Baron mechanically nodded assent, but in reality paid little attention to what was said. He turned his gaze again and again, as though spellbound, to the wild grape-vine twining about the window, of which Briest had just spoken, and as his thoughts were thus engaged, it seemed to him as though he saw again the girls' sandy heads among the vines and heard the saucy call, ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... changed. It was Schubert's Serenade now that rose from voice and violin together. No one stirred. The canoes were now close inshore, and the long, soft fingers of fir and cedar brushed Margaret's cheek as she sat motionless, spellbound. It was a world of soft darkness, black upon black: the silver world they had just left seemed almost garish as she looked back on it. Here in the cool shadow, the voices of the night pouring forth their wonderful melody—"Oh!" she thought; "if this ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... Lamps were flickering beneath the trees like a swarm of fireflies. There was a hum as from a gigantic beehive. Passers-by lifted their faces, then vanished into the crowd; Rozsi stood gazing at them spellbound, as if their very going and coming were ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... vulgarly supposed to consist. When we read the incantations of those terrible beings the Witches in Macbeth, though some of the ingredients of their hellish composition savor of the grotesque, yet is the effect upon us other than the most serious and appalling that can be imagined? Do we not feel spellbound as Macbeth was? Can any mirth accompany a sense of their presence? We might as well laugh under a consciousness of the principle of Evil himself being truly and really present with us. But attempt to bring these things on to a stage, and you turn them instantly ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... Rhenish confederation solely aimed at aggrandizing itself by fresh wars at the expense of that empire, and, notwithstanding the inclination to revolt evinced by the people in different parts of Germany, more particularly in Westphalia, the terror inspired by Napoleon kept them, as though spellbound, ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... of that moment was greater fur than all the agonies which Hilda had ever known. Her heart stopped beating; all life seemed to ebb away from the terror of that presence. Wildly there arose a thought of flight; but she was spellbound, her limbs were paralyzed, and the dark, luminous eyes of the horror enchained her own gaze. Suddenly she made a convulsive effort, mechanically, and sprung to her feet, her hands clutching one another in a kind of spasm, and her brain reeling beneath such thoughts as make ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... for his first Idaho trip—a dream of theirs for years. The Idaho stories he could tell—oh, why can I not remember them word for word? I have seen him hold a roomful of students in Berlin absolutely spellbound over those adventures—with a bit of Parker coloring, to be sure, which no one ever objected to. I have seen him with a group of staid faculty folk sitting breathless at his Clearwater yarns; and how he loved to tell those tales! Three and a half months he ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... frantic struggle which ends the drama. Victurnien was living through this infernal poem, and alone. He saw visions of himself—a friendless, solitary outcast, reading the words carved on the stone, the last words on the last page of the book that had held him spellbound—THE END! ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... Thornton it had the look of a miracle that the class for whom no teacher could be found was as clay in the hands of the potter. There was nothing Gertrude could not do with them. They listened spellbound while she talked, took part in the responsive readings, answered questions, studied their lessons, sat wherever the superintendent wished; they even pocketed their papers without a glance at them until the session was over. And they sang with a wild abandon ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... and now this plateau of rock with breakers at their feet and the island mists for their horizon; and, in the far distance, away upon the sword-fish reef, sights and sounds which quickened every pulse—who shall blame them if they could answer me never a word? They simply halted there and gazed spellbound across the shimmering water. I alone knew how far we stood from the end where ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... walking on their lawn, which sloped to the lake, they heard the sound of a flute, played with a skill so exquisite as to draw them, surprised and spellbound, to the banks. The musician was a young man, in a boat, which he had moored beneath the trees of their demesne. He was alone, or, rather, he had one companion, in a large Newfoundland dog, that sat watchful at the helm of the boat, and ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... hand the match burned down until it left a mark like charcoal, and without calling attention. One and all they stood spellbound, their eyes on the floor, their lips unconsciously uttering the speech universal of anger and of horror, the instinctive ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simple credulity. His appetite for the marvellous, and his powers of digesting it, were equally extraordinary; and both had been increased by his residence in this spellbound region. No tale was too gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow. It was often his delight, after his school was dismissed in the afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed of clover bordering the little brook that whimpered by his ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... Drummond, tingling all over with wrath and excitement, stands spellbound for the moment, a light step comes to his side, a little hand is laid on the bandaged arm, and Ruth Harvey's pretty face, two big tears trickling down her cheeks, ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... loveliness the memory of Dorothy Armstrong's laughing prettiness faded like a star in the sunrise, nevermore in the fullness of the day to be remembered. Yet it was not of her beauty I thought as I stood spellbound before her. I seemed to see a dim little valley full of whispering pines, and a girl standing under their shadows, looking at me with the same great, greyish-blue eyes which gazed upon me now from Marian Lindsay's face—the same face, matured into gracious womanhood, that ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... counsel was even still more conclusive; and the reluctant Prince was compelled to rejoin the army. The fear by which he was moved, however, could not be concealed, and it gradually infected the ranks of the soldiery. He had no sooner taken his station at the head of the army than he became spellbound. A river, the Lugra, divided him from the enemy; he could not summon courage to attempt it, but stood gazing in disastrous terror upon the foe, with whom he opened negotiations to beg for terms. In the mean time the news ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... under the old wrought-iron arch that once held an oil-lamp, and up a short but rather steep flight of steps, which led to a brick porch built out at the side. Then he let himself in, and stood spellbound with perplexed amazement,—for he was in a ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... anthem, echoing from canon, mountain, rock and woodland, thrills you with delight, and you gaze with rapture at the iris-crowned curtains of fleecy foam as they plunge into gulfs enveloped in mist and spray. The stillness which held your senses spellbound, as you peered into the dismal depths of the canon below, is now broken by the uproar of waters; the terror it inspired is superseded by admiration and astonishment, and the scene, late so painful from its silence and gloom, is now animate with joy ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... and never could find them again. So this time he resolved to eat them then and there. He had just put one into his mouth when the tutor leaned forward, and his eyes, glowing in the firelight, met MacGreedy's, who had not even the presence of mind to shut his mouth, but remained spellbound, with a ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... her the rich rock with its peacock-blue coloring and plunged forthwith into a description of his find. Now at last he was himself and to his natural enthusiasm was added the stimulus of her spellbound, wondering eyes. He talked on and on, giving all the details, and she listened like one entranced. He told of his long trips across the desert, his discovery of the neglected mountain of low-grade copper ore; and then of his enthusiasm when in making a cut he encountered ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... was staring at him as if spellbound by some new hope; now she shrugged her shoulders in ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... Fifteen paces brought us to a point that left the strange curiosity naked to our eyes. The vermilion walls, thirty yards in front of us, formed part of the sides of an enormous circular crater, and we stood spellbound as we pulled up within a few feet of the ledge and looked into ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... the first time she saw Blake's face with the light full upon it. At the sound of her cry Blake's eyes went to her, and for the space of a second the imprisoned beast on the floor and the girl looking down on him made up a tableau that held Philip spellbound. Between them was recognition—an amazed and stone like horror on the girl's part, a sudden and growing glare of bestial exultation in the eyes ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... and lurid; it would serve as a sorry passport if proffered on his entry to another world; but the tragi-comedy of Watts's appearance among the close-packed gathering on the forecastle was forthwith blotted out of existence by a thing so amazing, so utterly unlooked for that during a couple of spellbound seconds not ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... flowers and little trees, taking what came, sunshine and rain, and just living and smiling, breathing fragrant breath from morning to night, and sleeping a light sleep till they should waken to another tranquil day. He listened as if spellbound. There were but three verses, and though he could not remember the words, it seemed as though the rose spoke and ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Spellbound, Madison watched. Upon the face was a yearning that saddened it, and, saddening, glorified it; the head was slightly turned as though to listen—while slowly, with measured, certain tread, as though indeed he had no need ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... playing of the band, the rhythmic clatter of thousands of feet, the glint of rows and rows of bayonets, the red or the blue of the uniforms, the commanding officer on his mount, the spirited singing of the men marching back to barracks—all this would literally hold me spellbound ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... good prose. Lord Rosebery has a natural dignity and a charm of lucid phrasing that adapts itself admirably to the essay form he has chosen. The subjects he takes up are beloved figures of the past. Robert Burns, as Lord Rosebery talks of him, walks about in Dumfries and holds spellbound by sheer personal charm the guests of the tavern. There are papers on Burke, on Dr. Johnson, on Robert Louis Stevenson, and others as great. One group deals with Scottish History and one with the service of the state. The last is a study of the genius loci of such ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... theater that movement is not the only condition which makes us focus our interest on a particular element of the play. An unusual face, a queer dress, a gorgeous costume or a surprising lack of costume, a quaint piece of decoration, may attract our mind and even hold it spellbound for a while. Such means can not only be used but can be carried to a much stronger climax of efficiency by the unlimited means of the moving pictures. This is still more true of the power of setting or background. The painted ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... to speak to him, but when I looked into his face I felt as if it were impossible to do so. That eye—the eye of the serpent—fixed and held me spellbound. And withal, about the man's whole person there was a dignity, an air of pride and station and superiority, that would have made anyone, habituated to the usages of the world, hesitate long before venturing upon a liberty or impertinence. And what could I say? ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... was constructed and how the daring young aviator and his friends made the hazardous journey through the clouds from the new world to the old, is told in a way to hold the reader spellbound. ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... another boy, of precisely his own age and size, who planted a magic bean in his mother's dooryard, which grew up and up until it reached clear to the sky, where a giant lived. Juanito Garcia had never heard the like. He was spellbound with delight; he held his breath in ecstasy; only his toes moved, and they wriggled ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... sing — to sing as she had never sung before. Sweet, thrilling, her voice poured forth into the crowded auditorium. The people sat spellbound. There was a moment of silence; no one offered to applaud. ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... fear, being too much frightened to utter a sound; and there I remained spellbound, staring still towards the spot where I had seen the apparition—half-sitting, half-standing on the locker, having drawn up my feet, so as to be out of the rush of the water as it washed to and fro on ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the garden she heard a loud scream, followed by angry voices; she threw her hands up to heaven in dismay and ran toward the sounds. They came from the back garden. She went like lightning round the corner of the house, and came plump upon an agitated group, of whom she made one directly, spellbound. Here stood Aunt Bazalgette, her head turned haughtily, her cheeks scarlet. There stood Mr. Fountain on the other side of the rustic seat, red as fire, too, but wearing a hang-dog look, and behind him young Arthur, pale, with two eyes like saucers, gazing awestruck at the first row he had ever ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... against the blue, Let but the river's strip of skylight through To trees below, that on each jutting ledge Scant foothold found to overlook the edge,— As still as statues on their niches there, Where no breeze stirred the ever-shadowed air,— Spellbound spectators, crowded tier on tier From where the lowest, bending to be near The shock of spray, with leaves a-tremble stood In shuddering gaze above the swirling flood. The whole deep chasm, some vast natural nave ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... sodden mass, but the human outline was preserved, and the clothes were there, recognizable. It was a grisly, a hideous sight, and it held them all spellbound. ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... said to myself, and I really breathed easier when I saw him go out the entrance to the circus grounds and board an electric car for down town. A few minutes later I was in the big tent, where I had overhauled Red Denny. King Wallace was doing his turn and holding the audience spellbound. He was in a particularly vicious mood, and he kept the lions stirred up till they were all snarling, that is, all of them except old Augustus, and he was just too fat and lazy and old to get ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... himself with a nod, and blowing a kiss into the air to a black-haired girl who crouched at the old woman's feet. But she, for whom the greeting was intended, did not observe this mute courtship, for her eyes followed the travellers, and especially the young man, as if spellbound. As soon as the three were far enough off not to hear her, the girl asked with a shiver, as if some desert-spectre had passed by-and in a low voice "Grandmother, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of my intoxication; and after a while, I drew a very deep sigh. And she came towards me, very slowly, as I stood rooted to the ground; and she put up her arms, and laid one hand on each shoulder, with a touch like the fall of a flake of snow. And she said: I know what is the matter: thou art spellbound by a return of thy original delusion. But it will leave thee, and thy senses will return to thee, once thou hast said good-bye. And then, seized with frenzy, I caught her in my arms, and suddenly she prevented me from kissing her by putting her hand over ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... to cast spells over people, animals and even rivers? Kui, a certain Chinese musical artist, as they are called, expresses something to this effect: 'When I play my kyng the wild animals hasten to me, and range themselves into rows, spellbound by my melody.' This Kui lived one thousand years before the supposed era ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... content in the lodges of forest wilds. Gradually I became aware of my sulky canoeman's presence on the other side of the camp-fire. The man had not joined the revels of the other voyageurs but sat on his feet, oriental style, gazing as intently at the flames as if spellbound by some fire-spirit. ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... to their table they were intercepted by a woman who, with two cavaliers, had since the moment of her entrance been standing near the door of the restaurant, apparently spellbound with admiration. Through a rising clatter of tongues her voice cut clearly but not at ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... march across Wongolo, Mungongo triumphantly held spellbound audiences at every village through which they passed. As they neared the site of the City of the Snake, where they heard zu Pfeiffer was encamped, they encountered deserted villages. When they came upon the smouldering embers of one Birnier ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... on the Nausicaae?" asked the stranger, whilst Cimon gazed on him spellbound, asking if he ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... seeing people at their work and making their lives happy. When men first saw his fair boyish face and his soft white hands, they sneered and said he was only an idle, good-for-nothing fellow. But when they heard him speak, they were so charmed that they stood, spellbound, to listen; and ever after that they made his words their law. They wondered how it was that he was so wise; for it seemed to them that he did nothing but stroll about, playing on his wonderful lyre and looking at the trees and blossoms and birds and bees. But when any of ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... the Deacon said, and much more. He began his speech with considerable warmth of utterance, but as he progressed in praises of Mount Olivet and her faith he waxed hotter and hotter until his spellbound hearers were fairly deluged in a mighty avalanche of his rustic oratory, and he wound up with the sweeping statement that the doctrine of holiness must be abolished from the face of ...
— The Deacon of Dobbinsville - A Story Based on Actual Happenings • John A. Morrison
... you can help. She is meaning to fatten us and cook us,"—which was the exact truth. At that moment, Haensel got clear of the rope which had been about his neck and ran to Gretel, but the old witch pointed at them a stick which had been hanging at her girdle, and instantly they found themselves spellbound. She repeated this blood-curdling rhyme, and there they stood, ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... spellbound by the glamour of Bull Run till the hard, sharp truths of '62 began to rouse them from their flattering dream. They fondly hoped, and even half believed, that if another Northern army dared to invade Virginia ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... gentle April shower fell; and as the thoughts were carried by it, spellbound, from the chamber where she was born, to her newly-made grave,—that night being the first of her sleeping there,—it seemed very plain that, though Death had been conquered, the Grave still kept possession of the field.—Christ ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... mile or so the boy sat spellbound, drinking in the casual comments of "Scotty" upon the dogs in the team, as if they were pearls of wisdom dropping from the lips of an Oracle. He was not so much interested in the Woman's replies, for they displayed a lack of technical information that contrasted unfavorably in the boy's mind with ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... They watched him, spellbound, and in a moment he would have gone, had not Teddy with a big sob made a spring forward and seized ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... Town Hall, and the curious sight of the sea of faces when Mr. Bright appeared lingers in my memory still. One curious thing I observed at this gathering was that so long as our member was speaking the vast assembly was held spellbound. But when he paused for a moment to turn over his notes or take a sip of water, the tightly squeezed audience swayed for a little bodily relief and expansion, and this resulted in big surging waves of humanity, which rolled from one end of the body of the hall to the other, ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... latter, testily, his wine working in his brain. "Why stand you there, Monsieur L'as, gazing as though spellbound? Salute, sir, as I do, the chief gem of France, and her who is most fit to ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... come that the President and Secretary Seward have been assassinated,' said Gramp. Ad dropped his axe and stood looking at Gramp, as if spellbound. 'It cannot be!' he said. 'I am afraid it ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... aglow with excitement, her lips were parted in a divine smile. She was a little out of breath. The boy gazed upon her spellbound. In that brief, transcendent moment he fell deeply, hopelessly in love,—and that is why, a moment later, he manfully endeavoured to refuse the prodigious tip she was offering him. Only when she stuffed it, with her own fingers, into the depths of his breast pocket, directly over his ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... war—for whether men are driven by conscience, or a government draft board, makes no difference in the effect upon those who come through. Time after time, for eighteen months, I made my regular trips into hell—into a hell more revolting than mid-Victorian evangelists ever pictured to spellbound, quaking sinners. Never in this world had there been a parallel to the naked dangers and nauseous discomforts of that western front; never so prolonged an agony of head-splitting noises, lacerations of human flesh, smells that turned the ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... was out and the hair tumbled a shimmering cloud over Marian's shoulders, over the chair arms, and on down to the floor, Mrs. Morton exclaimed in admiration and Chicken Little stood spellbound. Marian, ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... this suggestion seemed, it offered the only possible explanation of the scene. No officer would have dared to order troops to such certain destruction as apparently awaited them on the fire-crowned slopes of Missionary Ridge. Spellbound Grant followed the men as they crept further and further up the height, expecting every instant to see them hurled back as Pickett's heroes were at Gettysburg, when suddenly wave upon wave of blue broke over the crest, the Union flags fluttered all along ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... ecclesiastical monuments of the city. St. Maclou, which dates from the early fifteenth century, though not of the grand proportions of either of the other great churches, being rather of the type of the large parish church as it is known in England, holds one spellbound by the very daring of its ornaments and tracery, but contains no trace of non-Gothic. The French passion for the curved line is nowhere more manifest than here (and in the west front of Notre Dame), where flowing tracery of window, doorway, portal, ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... when in a picture-gallery, a work, noted by the casual spectator as '......Titian—remarkably fine,' breaks through the defences of some Forsyte better lunched perhaps than his fellows, and holds him spellbound in a kind of ecstasy. There are things, he feels—there are things here which—well, which are things. Something unreasoning, unreasonable, is upon him; when he tries to define it with the precision of a practical ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Throughout the long railway journey and during the five mile drive from the station, she had anticipated, and the actuality had outstripped her anticipation. The beauty of the park, the herds of grazing deer, had delighted her; the old grey house itself had stayed her spellbound. She had not imagined anything half so lovely, so impressively enduring. She had seen nothing to compare with its fine proportions, with the luxury of its setting. It differed utterly from the French Chateaux where she had visited; there toil obtruded, ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... my breath, without wiping the cold sweat from my face, I rose instantly on my knees to watch the bedtop. I was literally spellbound by it. If I had heard footsteps behind me, I could not have turned round; if a means of escape had been miraculously provided for me, I could not have moved to take advantage of it. The whole life in me was, at that moment, concentrated ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... be," she answered, and sang two songs, in which she revealed the cause of their misunderstanding; and when Mord pressed her to speak out, she told him how she and Hrut could not live together, because he was spellbound, and that she wished ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... them, their children would die, their name and race be cut off, if infidel girls were permitted to bewitch them and turn them from the faith of the Prophet. He pointed to young Selim, and demanded whether he were not already spellbound by the silken daughter of the Giaour to join in ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... park was never lonely, nor did I spend much time dreaming over Cheyenne. The moment I appeared in the morning my lively host began his vocal gymnastics, while I sat spellbound, bewitched by the magic of his notes. In spite of being absorbed in listening to him, I retained my faculties sufficiently to reflect that the chat had probably other employment than entertaining me, and ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... breath with a start and dug his thumb-nail into the palm of his hand to make sure he was awake. For the illusion of a moment ago was not an illusion at all; she was a flesh and blood girl; she had left her shadowy foothold in the far end of the car and was coming down the aisle toward him. Spellbound, he waited as she approached, slim as a fawn, erect as an arrow, moving as lightly as the ripples that danced upon the surface of the river along whose banks they were rolling. Whether or not she was the image ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... walking in the garden, a lady more lovely than he had dreamed any one might be. Her hair was golden, and wreathed with flowers. Her dress was rich, and jewels sparkled on her white throat. Spellbound, he stood a while watching the lovely lady. He could ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... when very young, at school taking always the prize in composition. As a mere child she could always keep other children spellbound whilst telling them fairy stories of her own invention. 'I remember', she says, turning round with a laugh, 'when I was about ten years old, writing a ghost story which so frightened myself, that when I went to bed that night, I couldn't sleep till I had tucked my head ...
— Mrs. Hungerford - Notable Women Authors of the Day • Helen C. Black
... Jr., at this juncture, terminated the newspaper story, and finding that his explanation held his comrades spellbound, he produced a letter, and drew out the message, after stating the youths could read the entire news-story of ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... which he moved his hands to turn his paper aroused a vague memory. Fascinated, the lad watched. What was it that rendered the figure so familiar? He had never seen the man before in his life—he was certain of that. And yet, had he? And if so, where? What was the haunting association that held him spellbound and made it impossible for him to remove his gaze from this person whose features were almost entirely screened from view behind the outspread ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... the commissioners and Indian chiefs at Chillicothe the governor summoned them to a great council. Tecumseh was to speak on behalf of the red men. Upon him was centred the attention of all. He spoke for three hours, during which he held his listeners spellbound. He assured them that it was far from his intention to take up the hatchet against the pale-face, but that he would sternly resist any trespass upon his people's rights. Rapidly reviewing all the treaties between the western tribes and the whites, he boldly ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... unlucky travelers who crossed their path—told so many blood-curdling stories of meetings between white men and Indian warriors that the little boys, James and Thomas, and little black-eyed Patty and older Virginia, were spellbound as they listened. ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... that listened spellbound to that oration, arose and left the Capitol like persons in a dream. Never were they to forget the effect ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... the reading, he told the people that this prophecy was now fulfilled in their ears. That is, he said that he was the Messiah whose anointing and work the prophet had foretold. For a time the people listened spellbound to his gracious words, and then they began to grow angry, that he whom they knew as the carpenter of their village should make such an astounding claim. They rose up in wrath, thrust him out of the synagogue, and would have hurled him over the precipice had he ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... right, he beheld lying—apparently almost dying—a young woman. Beside the bed, kneeling with upraised head and clasped hands, was a strangely familiar form. Then came forth a sweet voice, pleading to the throne of Mercy for the sufferer. He gazed spellbound for a moment. Then slowly and softly he retraced his steps to the door. Then he almost flew along the streets until he reached Mr. Fairleigh's, just as his father and Miss Bland were ascending the steps. Seizing the former very ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes |
