"Charm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would be capable of standing a severe test. Also it had occurred to him that she possessed the art of being a good comrade. It would amuse him to watch her develop. At present she was full of illusions about the charm of life in general. Everything for her showed rose-tinged. Well, it was not his business to dispel illusions. At present it was all "Le Reve," but after the dream would come awakening. He took care to leave her very little alone ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... highest learning. We do not attempt to reply to them. It is enough if the stream of discourse flows gently on from their lips. A rich and well-modulated vocabulary, finely turned phrases, amusing quips and conceits of fancy, acute observations, a rich store of recondite learning, these charm and hold us. Such a talker, such a writer, was De Quincey. Such was his task, to amuse, to interest, and at times to instruct us. One deeper note he struck rarely, but always with the master's hand, the vibrating ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... to speak English with precision, and his slight French accent only added a charm to his words. He was fiery, direct, impetuous. He was a fighter by disposition, and care was taken never to cross him beyond a point where the sparks began to fly. The man was immensely diverting, and his size was to his advantage—orators should be very big or very little—anything ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... whatever else he was, Whitney was one of the most persuasive promoters of the day. More than that, I could well imagine how any one possessed of an imagination susceptible to the influence of mystery and tradition would succumb to the glittering charm of the magic words, peje chica, and feel all the gold- hunter's enthusiasm when Whitney brought him into the atmosphere of the peje grande. As he talked, visions of hidden treasure seemed to throw a glamour over ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... paid by the American public to the master who had given to it such tales of conjuring charm, of witchery and mystery as "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "Ligeia"; such fascinating hoaxes as "The Unparalleled Adventure of Hans Pfaall," "MSS. Found in a Bottle," "A Descent Into a Maelstrom" and "The Balloon Hoax"; such tales of conscience as "William Wilson," "The Black Cat" and ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... and graceful proportions of the Suspension Bridge add a great charm to the beauty of this charming landscape. It is well worth paying a visit to Niagara, if it possessed no object of greater interest in its ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... Verplanck volunteered to stroll down to the Courier office with the editor, accepted his invitation to walk in, ascending with him to his room in the attic, and, to the editor's great delight and edification, remained with him, conversing, reading and ruminating until broad daylight. There was a charm in Mr. Verplanck's conversation that was distinctive and peculiar. It was 'green ...
— A Discourse on the Life, Character and Writings of Gulian Crommelin - Verplanck • William Cullen Bryant
... gentleman's garden. Could mere beauty and grace delight and fill the soul, one could not ask for more than the Ariadne. The beautiful head, the throat, the neck, the bust, the hand, the arm, the whole attitude, are exquisite. But after all, what is it? No moral charm,—mere physical beauty, cold as Greek mythology. I thought of his Christ, and did not wonder that when he had turned his art to that divine representation, he should refuse to sculpture from classic models. "He who has sculptured a ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... talk about it for a year and a day—not even to me—and at the end of that time, why we'll all go and see what's in it. No," he said, "you mustn't go to look at it every now and then—that would spoil the charm. Let me see. This is the twenty-eighth—a year and a day—hum." And he made his calculations. Then he said: "By the way, Mary, don't you and the children ever get hungry between meals? If you were to take bread and meat, and make up sandwiches to take on your ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... perch for the radiant wanderer. The inhospitable saurian dives with embarrassing suddenness and dips the airy visitor into the "rank water." The butterfly finds no charm in the gloomy place and flies away, which less ethereal wanderers might likewise be fain to do. Now and then the stillness that reigned over that home of malign things was broken by the sound of a boat-horn on a lumber raft ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... its marvellous script and the rich treasures of its literature that the Chinese language depends for its unique fascination and charm. If we take a page of printed Chinese or carefully written manuscript and compare it with a page, say, of Arabic or Sanskrit, the Chinese is seen at once to possess a marked characteristic of its own. It consists ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... Reader's Thanks, who will thereby, I imagine, receive that Pleasure which I have always done upon any new Discovery of this sort, whether made by my own Labour, or by the Penetration of others: And as to those Things which charm by a certain secret Force, and strike us we know not how, or why; I believe it will not be disagreeable, if I shew to every one the Reason why they are pleas'd, and by that Confederation they will be capacitated to discover still more and more Charms ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... the king, and grisly d'Alva met. Methinks, I see her listening now before me, Marking the very motion of his beard, His opening nostrils, and his dropping lids. I hear him croak too to the gaping council,— Fish for the great fish, take no care for frogs, Cut off the poppy-heads, sir;—madam, charm The winds but fast, the billows ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... destiny, and this is an unusual achievement, made all the more remarkable by a brightness and quickness of mind which give delightful life to a multitude of incidents which are in themselves new to fiction. Her touch upon all her world is both swift and unerring; but the great charm of her work is its brightness and unexpectedness; it lights up so many little unsuspected corners in a world that ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... of charm which the visitor felt in their company; a very short time after his arrival a delightful sensation of comfort overcame him, and soon made him feel at home. The amiability of both the hostess and host made the days pass agreeably and rapidly, ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... entirely unnecessary. I ought to mention, however, that the sagacious reporters were cautious not to mention the affair which caused the polite landlord to eject the high officials from his house. This gave an additional charm to the whole concern, and so elated the major as to entirely take away his appetite. Indeed, he resolved from that moment, let whatever come, to travel no farther without a reporter of his own. They made the very best sort ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... "You gals look purty enough to charm a hoot owl right off'n his perch!" he shot back. Both Phyl and Sandy were wearing gay calico dresses that ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... you understand, without being interesting. Indeed, I have found that it is usually in unimportant matters that there is a field for the observation, and for the quick analysis of cause and effect which gives the charm to an investigation. The larger crimes are apt to be the simpler, for the bigger the crime the more obvious, as a rule, is the motive. In these cases, save for one rather intricate matter which has been referred to me from Marseilles, there is nothing which presents any features of interest. It ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... other two were named Virgilia and Orinthia, and I can't say that these horrific labels did them any injustice. As for the story of "their lives," as VIOLET HUNT tells it, there is really nothing very much to charm in a history of three disagreeable children developing into detestable young women. Perhaps it may have some value as a study of feminine adolescence, but I defy anyone to call the result attractive. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, Feb. 7, 1917 • Various
... or of twenty or more, Helen Page ruled Fair Harbor. When she arrived the "season" opened; when she departed the local trades-people sighed and began to take account of stock. She was so popular because she possessed charm, and because she played no favorites. To the grooms who held the ponies on the sidelines her manner was just as simple and interested as it was to the gilded youths who came to win the championship cups and remained to try to win Helen. ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... also a Harvard man, who met death in the air, was Victor Chapman of New York, a youth of unusual charm, high ideals, and indomitable courage. At the very outbreak of the war he enlisted in the French Foreign Legion—a rough entourage for a college-bred man. Into the Foreign Legion drifted everything that was doubtful, and many that were criminal. No questions were asked of those who sought its hospitable ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... superintendent of schools. Carey wrote from his own experience, and he unwittingly painted his own character. The peasant bearing of his early youth showed itself throughout his life in a certain shyness, which gave a charm to his converse with old and young. Occasionally, as in a letter which he wrote to his friend Pearce of Birmingham, at a time when he did not know whether his distant correspondent was alive or dead, ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... Charm in hand, he came at last, and the applause, caught up to the galleries and tossed back to the floor, echoed again and again through the great opera house. He accepted it quietly, almost indifferently, and stood waiting ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... violently intellectual as Alfieri: she had seen too much of the coarse realities of life, of the brutal giving way to sensual impulse: the heroic, the ideal, nay the deliberately made up, the artificial, had a charm for her. Be this as it may, the Countess and Alfieri continued, in the opinion of all contemporaries, and according to the assurance of Alfieri himself, whose cynicism and truthfulness are equal, on the ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... slightly flavored with the stronger tulip individuality which characterizes the juice and sap of the buds and the bark of the twigs. The leaves, as I have said, are dark and rich, but their shape and color are not the half of their beauty. There is a charm in their motion, be the wind ever so light, that is indescribable. The rustle they make is not "sad" or "uncertain," but cheerful and forceful. The garments of some young giantess, such as Baudelaire sings of, might make that rustling as she would ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... it oft, And love the sweet charm of its spell, For sometimes it wispers so soft, It seems but the ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... usual among English-speaking people to think slightingly of the poetry of France, especially of her lyrics. This is not unnatural. The qualities that give French verse its distinction are very different from those that make the strength and the charm of our English lyrics. But we must guard ourselves against the conclusion that because a work is unlike those that we are accustomed to admire it is necessarily bad. There are many kinds of excellence. And this little book must ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... the birth and ministry of Christ there are the flutter and flash of angel wings, and this story would lose much of its music and charm if it were stripped of its angel ministration. The Bible is full of angels. They appear to Zacharias the mother of John the Baptist, and they find Mary the virgin mother, as a beam of morning light finds a white-leafed flower, and reveal the mystery that has come upon ...
— A Wonderful Night; An Interpretation Of Christmas • James H. Snowden
... hands and shouted "Bravo!" being charmed by the girl's figure and bearing, and more particularly by her Lithuanian village attire; since for these famous captains, who in their roving life had wandered so long in foreign lands, there was a marvellous charm in the national costume, which reminded them both of the years of their youth and of their loves of long ago: so almost with tears they gathered around the table and gazed eagerly upon her. Some asked Zosia to raise her head and show her eyes; others begged her to be ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... Disturbed the gem that sparkled on her breast; Her oval cheek was heightened to a dye That shamed the mellow vermeil of the wreath Which in her jetty locks became her well, And mingled fragrance with her sweeter breath, The while her haughty lips more beautifully swell With consciousness of every charm's excess; While with becoming scorn she turned her face From every eye that darted its caress, As if some god alone might hope ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... yet,' she continued. 'No place on earth is equal to Steignton for me. It 's got the charm. Here at Olmer I'm a mother and a grandmother—the "devil of an old-woman" my neighbours take me to be. She hasn't been to Steignton, either. No, and won't go there, though she's working her way round, she supposes. He'll ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... impression against Caroline wore away, and pity took possession of his soul, pity for the meek little girl, who, though trampled upon, was now springing up to womanhood; and though pale, freckled, thin, meanly dressed, had a certain charm about her which some people preferred to the cheap splendours and rude red and white of the Misses McCarty, and which was calculated to touch the heart of anyone who watched ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... infinite distance of rank and power;" where the monarch prides himself on being the perfect master of a household.[1330] In fact, no drawing room was ever so well kept up, nor so well calculated to retain its guests by every kind of enjoyment, by the beauty, the dignity and the charm of its decoration, by the selection of its company and by the interest of the spectacle. Versailles is the only place to show oneself off; to make a figure, to push one's way, to be amused, to converse ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... mingling some drops drawn from desert sources, which had manifested themselves physically in her dark hair, mentally in a nomadic instinct which had forbidden her to rest among the beauties of Ait Ouaguennoun, whose legendary charm she did not possess. There was the look of an exile in her face, a weariness that dreamed, perhaps, of distant things. But now that she danced that fled, and the gleam of flame-lit ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... from their homes when they were so young that they could not remember them, and they had learned to love the Indians, who had brought them up like their own children, and treated them as lovingly as the fathers and mothers from whom they had been stolen. In the charm of the savage life these children of white parents had really become savages; and certain of the young girls had grown up and married Indian husbands to whom they were tenderly attached. The scenes of parting between all these were very ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... from his work, for he thought he heard a loud laugh somewhere in the near distance. But all seemed silent and he turned back to his willows. The beauty of the landscape about him was much too familiar a thing that he should have felt or seen its charm. The violet hue of the distant woods, the red gleaming of the heather-strewn moor, with its patches of swamp from which the slow mist arose, the pretty little village with its handsome old church and attractive rectory—Janci had known it so long that he never stopped ...
— The Case of The Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study • Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner
... These clever, gay birds must look beautiful indeed in their forest home in tropical countries, as they flash and gleam in the sunshine; but their screaming—you know what it is like if you have ever paid them a visit at the Zoo—takes something away from their charm. They have been called "feathered monkeys," because they are so well able to climb trees. Look at their dark grey toes, and you will see that two of them are turned forward and two backward, so as to enable them ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... becalmed off the coast of Florida, one can almost hear the whistle of the wind through her rigging, the creak of her straining cordage as she heels to the leeward. The adventures of Ben Clark, the hero of the story and Jake the cook, cannot fail to charm the reader. As a writer for young people Mr. Otis is ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... future fate has become a subject of deep interest to all the western states, in consequence of the determined set made upon it by its powerful northern neighbor. With the Cossacks at Istamboul instead of Turks, we should be very ill satisfied, and the whole charm of this city on its seven hills would have departed: already is it on the wane. Sultan Mahmoud's hostility to beards and to flowing robes, to the turban and the jherid, has deprived his capital city of much of its picturesqueness and peculiarity; but still enough remains of eastern ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... a tiger, an anaconda, a wild cat, a monkey, a gazelle, a parrot, a dove, we alternately shudder with horror and yearn with sympathy, now expecting to see the latent devils throw off their disguise and start forth in their own demoniac figures, now waiting for the metamorphosing charm to be reversed, and for the enchanted children of humanity to stand erect, restored to their former shapes. Pervading all the grades and forms of distinct animal life there seems to be a rudimentary unity. The fundamental elements and primordial germs of consciousness, intellect, will, passion, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... the winding road, the witchery of the tender green leaves and the odors of Spring filled eyes and nostrils, and called to his spirit with that subtle voice which has stirred Youth since Youth's own Spring awoke amid the leafy trees. In its call were freedom, and the charm of wide spaces, and the unspoken challenge of Youth to the world, and haunting vague memories, and whisperings of unuttered love, and all that ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... nursery rhyme throw light upon the character of the royal visitor alluded to in the snail charm recorded by F. J. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 73, March 22, 1851 • Various
... and see nothing. In the man who observes only, every passing object mirrors itself in its prominent peculiarities, having a kind of harmony with all the rest, but arouses no magician from the inner chamber to charm and chain its image to his purpose. In Shakspere, on the contrary, every outer form of humanity and nature spoke to that ever-moving, self-vindicating—we had almost said, and in a sense it would be true, self-generating—humanity within him. The sound of any action without him, struck ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... internal secretion by cells to an individual, it is convenient, if not pedantic, to give the credit to Theophile de Bordeu, a famous physician of Paris in the eighteenth century. Bordeu came to Paris as a brilliant provincial in his early twenties and by the charm of his manner and daring therapy fought his way to the most exclusive aristocratic practice of the court. Naturally a courtier, taking to the intrigues of the royal court like a duck to water, making enemies on every hand as well as friends, ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... mark the matchless working of the power That shuts within the seed the future flower; Bids these in elegance of form excel. In color these, and those delight the smell; Sends nature forth, the daughter of the skies, To dance on earth, and charm ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... of the native Australian flowers emit any perfume except the golden and silver wattle (the Mimosae tribe): these charm the senses, and fully realize the description we read of in the 'Arabian Nights' Entertainments' of those exotics, the balmy perfume of which is exhaled ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... beauty the Chinese are peculiarly sensitive. All the way up the rocks are carved with inscriptions recording the charm and the sanctity of the place. Some of them were written by emperors; many, especially, by Chien Lung, the great patron of art in the eighteenth century. They are models, one is told, of caligraphy as well as of literary composition. Indeed, according to Chinese ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... He was witty, he had humour, he had imagination; but he was, before all things, gentle—with the gentlest voice, the gentlest eyes, the gentlest manners. His gentleness, she told herself, was the chief element of his charm—his gentleness, which was really a phase of his modesty. 'He was very gentle, he was very modest, he was very graceful and kind,' she said; and she remembered a hundred instances of his gentleness, his modesty, his kindness. Oh, but ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... ears, which had become a little accustomed to different habits, in young ladies in particular, in the other hemisphere. I confess myself to be one of those who regard an even, quiet, graceful mode of utterance, as even a greater charm in a woman than beauty. Its effect is more lasting, and seems to be directly connected with the character. Mary Warren not only pronounced like one accustomed to good society; but the modulations of her voice, which was singularly sweet by nature, were even and agreeable, ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... Then Nuttie had happy afternoons of driving, donkey-riding, or walking with her mother, sketching, botanising, admiring, and laying up stores for the long descriptive letters that delighted the party in St. Ambrose's Road, drinking in all the charm of the scenery, and entering into it intelligently. They spent a good many evenings alone together likewise, and it could not but give Alice a pang to see the gladness her daughter did not repress when this was the case, even though to herself it meant relaxation of the perpetual vigilance she ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... story which never lost its charm for Elsie; a story which the one never wearied of telling, nor the other of hearing. Elsie would sit listening, with her mother's miniature in her hand, gazing at it with tearful eyes, then press it to her lips, murmuring, ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... Overcome by the charm of her voice and her presence, he exclaimed, "Oh, you're free, Rachel. To you, time will make no difference, ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... cents together, is really a discoverer, even though everybody else in the world knows it. There is a genuine increment of experience; not another item mechanically added on, but enrichment by a new quality. The charm which the spontaneity of little children has for sympathetic observers is due to perception of this intellectual originality. The joy which children themselves experience is the joy of intellectual constructiveness—of creativeness, ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... human soul adopt it, go about as a living witness of it. So long it will obtrude itself on the eye of us who reject it, till we in our practice too have appropriated whatsoever of truth was in it. Then, but also not till then, it will have no charm more for any man. It lasts here for a purpose. Let it last as long as ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... various shapes and sizes, ornamented with beads and containing the "medicine," which was some trifling article—a bit of bone, stone, seed, or whatever, through some special circumstance, had come to be accepted by them as their charm, or "medicine," to ward off sickness and evil—to bring them the good offices and protection of ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen
... time trembling and irresolute: He longed to try the charm, yet feared its consequences. The recollection of his sentence at length fixed his indecision. He opened the Volume; but his agitation was so great that He at first sought in vain for the page mentioned by Matilda. Ashamed of himself, He called all his courage ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... my harp on a willow tree, And I'll go to the war again, For a peaceful home has no charm for me, A battlefield no pain; The lady I love will soon be a bride, With a diadem on her brow. Ah, why did she flatter my boyish pride? She is going to ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... 'a rural epopaea of simple structure divided into three idyls, which relate the betrothment and marriage of the heroine.' This is a pleasing and very peculiar poem, composed in hexameter verse. 'The charm of the narrative,' says Mr. T., 'consists in the minute description of the local domestic manners of the personages.' The charm consists, I think, in the blending of these manners with the beauty of Nature, and the ease ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... No; he had not been in the States. "Then you must come, Mr. Glascock," said Mrs. Spalding, "though I will not say, dwelling as we now are in the metropolis of the world of art, that we in our own homes have as much of the outer beauty of form to charm the stranger as is to be found in other lands. Yet I think that the busy lives of men, and the varied institutions of a free country, must always have an interest peculiarly their own." Mr. Glascock declared that he quite agreed with her, and expressed ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... may die, but the old must," thought I. I was half comforted, and only half. Yet the pensive shadow of coming doom—or shall I not rather say the solemn dawn of approaching eternity?—seemed to lend a new and more unearthly charm to the lovely spiritual vision I ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... field may lead us to think that they contain in germ the solution of the problem. To that wider survey we must now address ourselves. It will be long and laborious, but may possess something of the interest and charm of a voyage of discovery, in which we shall visit many strange foreign lands, with strange foreign peoples, and still stranger customs. The wind is in the shrouds: we shake out our sails to it, and leave the coast of Italy behind us for ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... Then, in the second act,—that is the second part of the play,—he takes his tamed lioness back to civilization. They go to London and there the woman does his training infinite credit. She is extraordinarily beautiful; she is civilized, successful, courted. Her eccentricities only add to her charm. So it goes on very prettily for a while. Then he makes a mistake. He blunders very badly. He gives his lioness cause for jealousy and—to come to the point—she flies at his throat. You see, he hadn't really tamed her. She was under the skin, a ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... an Austral Milton's song, Pactolus-like, flow deep and rich along, An Austral Shakespeare rise, whose living page To Nature true may charm in every age; And that an Austral Pindar daring soar, Where not the Theban Eagle ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... up the description of the visit of the eccentric doctor through the day. Suffice it to say that there was a sort of charm, or rather fascination, about the uncouth old fellow, in spite of his strange ways; in spite of his constant puffing of tobacco; and in spite, too, of a constant imbibing of strong liquor, which he made inquiries ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... says he, rollin' his eyes, and puffin' out his cheeks like he was tryin' the lung-tester. "I drive with her, I walk with her, I sit by her side—one day, two day, a week. Well, what happens? I am charm, I am fascinate, I am become her slave. I make to resist. I say to myself: 'You! You are of the noble Austrian blood; the second-cousin of your mother is a grand duke; you must not forget.' Then again I see Sadie. Pouff! ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... small passageway leading up-stairs he felt the pressure of a finger on his shoulder. Looking up, he met the eyes of Amabel, who was leaning toward him over the banisters. She was smiling, and, though her face was not without evidences of physical languor, there was a charm about her person which would have been sufficiently enthralling to him twenty-four hours before, but which now caused him such a physical repulsion that he started back in the effort to rid his shoulder ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... profound; for these hills, beheld over twenty miles or more of sea, do a wonderful thing in the way of color, lifting themselves up there through all the long summer days, a very marvel of solemn and glorious beauty. The AEgean Sea has a charm of atmosphere which is wanting to Penobscot Bay, but the hue of its heights cannot compare with that of the Camden Hills. Those of Labrador, however, maintain their supremacy above even these,—above all. They look like frozen sky. Or one might fancy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... young people's clubs of the Second Presbyterian Church could satisfy the social aspirations of a Milly Ridge! She was fast becoming conscious of the prize that had been given her—her charm and her beauty—and an indefinable force was driving her on to obtain the necessary ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... just been breakfasting at Baiae and Brindisi, and the charm of Bourget hag-rides me. I wonder if this exquisite fellow, all made of fiddle-strings and scent and intelligence, could bear any of my bald prose. If you think he could, ask Colvin to send him a copy of these last essays of mine when they ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to laugh at his critics to the end of the chapter. In Dom Duardos he gave them an elaborate and very successful dramatization of a Spanish romance of chivalry. The treatment has both unity and lyrical charm. It was so successful that the experiment was repeated in 1533 with the earlier romance of Amadis de Gaula (1508), out of which Vicente wrought an equally skilful but less fascinating play[145]. But Vicente had not given up writing farces and the sojourn of ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... in England could possibly have the same charm, for here dirt, hunger, and rags are always apparent, while there the dirt is lost in the glorious sunshine, and, instead of rags, we find bright colours, while the people, though often poor, seldom, if ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... diving suits," added Mr. Damon. "Bless my watch-charm, I think I'll chance it in one myself! Do you think the sharks ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... paid to the occupation and diversion of the men's minds, as well as to the regularity of their bodily exercise. Our former amusements being almost worn threadbare, it required some ingenuity to devise any plan that should possess the charm of novelty to recommend it. This purpose was completely answered by a proposal of Captain Hoppner, to attempt a masquerade, in which officers and men should alike take a part, but which, without imposing any restraint whatever, ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... the little face in despair. It was so set that it was not easy to recognize the soft Stella who had crept into all their hearts. Even Shawn had felt her charm though he had locked the door of his heart against her. A thought came to Lady O'Gara's mind. Stella's remaining at the cottage for the present would at least give time. Prudence whispered to her that she must not bring Stella to Castle Talbot. ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... over with a sickening sense that she knew them all, and they were all barren of comfort. Even at school she had often wished for books with more in them; everything she learned there seemed like the ends of long threads that snapped immediately. And now—without the indirect charm of school-emulation—Telemaque was mere bran; so were the hard, dry questions on Christian Doctrine; there was no flavor in them, no strength. Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been contented with absorbing fancies; if she could have had all ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... I will call Nellie, is a very ordinary looking girl and below the average of intelligence, but as tractable and obedient as she is ingenuous. She is wholly without the charm which would naturally attract the eye of the white ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... man's love for any account that involves large loss of human life, is his love of any story that tells about a huge loss of property. The mere figures seem to have a charm; any story that can begin with awesome figures, like "Two million dollars," "One hundred automobiles," "Ten city blocks," has news value. Hence any story that involves a large loss that can be expressed in figures has the power to carry a ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... in the beginning of things, fell from heaven to earth, and broke into sixteen hundred pieces, each of which sprang up a god. . . . This is the germ of the adoration of stones as emblems of the fecundating rains. This is why, for example) the Navajos use, as their charm ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... had not been of a sort to sharpen his perception of the ridiculous, but it seemed to me an unmistakable sign of his being under the charm, that this information was very soberly offered. He was preoccupied, he was irresponsive to my experimental observations on vulgar topics—the hot weather, the inn, the advent of Adelina Patti. At last, uttering his thoughts, he announced ...
— Eugene Pickering • Henry James
... him her hand, and as two children, they broke into a run when they came closer the gang. They left the swamp by the west road and followed the trail until they found the men. To the Angel it seemed complete charm. In the shadiest spot on the west side of the line, at the edge of the swamp and very close Freckles' room, they were cutting bushes and clearing space for a big tent for the men's sleeping-quarters, another for a dining-hall, and a board shack for the cook. The teamsters were unloading, the ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... whose sweet nepenthean tongue Can charm the pangs of death with deathless song, Canst stinging plagues with easy thoughts beguile, Make pains and ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... woods is the joy of many convicts. They have no hope of getting out of the country, which is of such vast extent that winter is sure to descend upon them before they can approach the border, but the freedom of life in the woods has for them an undefinable charm. Then as the frigid season approaches they permit themselves to be caught, and go back to their labor or confinement with hearts lightened by the enjoyment of their vagrant summer wanderings. There is in some cases another advantage to be gained. A twenty years' convict who has ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... standing and others reclining upon the flights of steps which appeared to be of solid gold, was an array of Martian woman, beautifully and becomingly attired, all of whom greatly astonished us by the singular charm of their faces and bearing, so different from the aspect of most of the Martians, whom ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... Stonor. 'I've sometimes wondered whether the charm of our presence wasn't counterbalanced by the way we tear about smothering our fellow-beings in dust and running down their pigs and chickens,—not to ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... Lane, where the shadows lie all day long, other and darker shadows may fall; and such a shade now touched Glory's shoulder as she pictured in words the charm of that blessed asylum to which the captain and she would one day repair. He had always fixed the time to be "when he got too old and worthless to earn his living." But that morning she had swiftly reasoned that since he had grown cross—a new thing in ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... well with all the damned rout Of Pluto's reign, even from his tender age; Yet of this war he could not figure out The wished ending, or success presage, For neither stars above, nor powers of hell, Nor skill, nor art, nor charm, nor ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... an interesting study, being the first of her kind that she had viewed at close quarters. She was very stout and ungainly. She moved with elephantine clumsiness, but her desire to please was so evident that Sylvia could not regard her as wholly without charm. Her dog-like amiability outweighed her hideousness. She found it somewhat difficult to understand Mary Ann's speech, for it was more like the chattering of a monkey than human articulation, and being very weary she did not encourage her ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... hunt him up and offer him her choicest wares. Life looks to him more like a birthday party than like a battle-field. I say it not in envy, but with the awe of one who has had to scrabble and who sees endless scrabbling ahead. But I believe part of the charm that I feel about Dick is his manifest predestination ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... Fra Rinaldo lies with his gossip: her husband finds him in the room with her; and they make him believe that he was curing his godson of worms by a charm. ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... lace-pillow. As they still continued so, and as there was a kind of substitute for conversation in the click and play of its pegs, Barbox Brothers took the opportunity of observing her. He guessed her to be thirty. The charm of her transparent face and large bright brown eyes was, not that they were passively resigned, but that they were actively and thoroughly cheerful. Even her busy hands, which of their own thinness alone might ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... time to time, but the ideal is there. As a concrete instance: let us have books, not a lot of books, but books that are friends with whom one may spend a comforting hour anywhere; books that have power to charm away the gloom of discontent, books to lend gayety ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... Cicon tribes. And he asked him: "Will you leave your mountains, Orpheus, my fellow scholar in old times, and cross Strymon once more with me, to sail with the heroes of the Minuai, and bring home the golden fleece, and charm for us all men and all monsters with ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... existences. Now I wish I could put before you a coloured, living, moving picture, like that of the camera obscura, of some other wheat-fields at a sunnier time. They were painted on the surface of a plain, set round about with a margin of green downs. They were large enough to have the charm of vague, indefinite extension, and yet all could be distinctly seen. Large squares of green corn that was absorbing its yellow from the sunlight; chess squares, irregularly placed, of brown furrows; others of rich blood-red trifolium; others of scarlet sainfoin and blue ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... and gilt luxuriousness of her saloon, whereas the Ganymede was fitted out mainly for cattle transport, and to be avoided by coastwise passengers. The humblest Indian in the obscurest village on the coast was familiar with the Cerberus, a little black puffer without charm or living accommodation to speak of, whose mission was to creep inshore along the wooded beaches close to mighty ugly rocks, stopping obligingly before every cluster of huts to collect produce, down to three-pound parcels of indiarubber ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... Sicilian charm contains among its many ingredients a trace of this love of being dominated which, in England, we associate more particularly with women, spaniels and walnut trees; and if it were not so, history might contain less about the misgovernment of the ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... Harrow who would go to church in a barrow, and plied him with whatever rhyming nonsense I could call to mind, but it was no use; all of these things had an element of reality that robbed them of half their charm, whereas "Hey diddle diddle" had nothing in it that ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... little now. Then he went across the street into the shadow on the other side, leaned against the wall and looked. The street was perfectly empty and perfectly quiet, and the hot summer air and sunshine lay on all like a charm. There was another cat, he noticed, on a doorstep a few yards away, and he wondered how any living creature in this heat could possibly lie like that, face coiled round to the feet, and the tail laid neatly across the nose. A dreaming cock crooned heart-brokenly somewhere out ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... breadth, that of division or scattering of light and colour, has a certain contrasting charm, and is occasionally introduced with exquisite effect by good composers.[261] Still, it is never the mere scattering, but the order discernible through this scattering, which is the real source of pleasure; not ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... their walks they encountered other burghers, all eyes rested on the handsome pair, for if Melchior were thin, his figure was tall and his features good, and there was a strange charm in his big, dark, eyes that seemed to find more in the woods than was visible to others, moreover the black clothes of his profession sat as well upon him as did his wife's white dresses and kerchiefs of costly stuffs upon her. These ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... "I'll be hanged if I don't plead my own cause," he contented himself with returning answer, "You'll be hanged if you do." His mots were often excellent, but it was the tone and joyous animation of the speaker that gave them their charm. It is said that in his later years, when his habitual loquaciousness occasionally sank into garrulity, he used to repeat his jests with imprudent frequency, shamelessly giving his companions the same pun with ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... now between her face and the fire, and now between her face and him. Her little visage, with that arch, lazy look in it, topped by its mass of dusky hair, and dwindling from the full cheeks to the small chin, had a Japanese effect in the subdued light, and it had the charm which comes to any woman with happiness. It would be hard to say how much of this she perceived that he felt. They talked about other things a while, and then she came back to what he had said. She glanced at him obliquely round her fan, and stopped ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... will find a charm in a certain consonancy between the aspect of the city and its odd and stirring history. Few places, if any, offer a more barbaric display of contrasts to the eye. In the very midst stands one of the most satisfactory crags in nature—a Bass Rock upon dry land, rooted in a garden, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Jesus, loves Him for Himself; she only looks on the Face of her Beloved to catch a glimpse of the Tears which delight her with their secret charm. She longs to wipe away those Tears, or to gather them up like priceless diamonds with which to adorn her bridal dress. Jesus! . . . Oh! I would so love Him! Love Him as He has never yet been loved! . ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... leading the eye of the spectator into the depths of aerial perspective, the whole work appears on the surface of the panel. There are none of those shadows "hanging in mid air," which constitute so captivating a charm in the great magician of chiaro-scuro; not only are objects of solidity surrounded by softening obscurity, but the contiguous atmosphere gives indications of the influence of the light and shade. To these principles the art is indebted for breadth and fulness of effect, which constitute ...
— Rembrandt and His Works • John Burnet
... grief can charm, And fate's severest rage disarm; Music can soften pain to ease, And make despair and madness please; Our joys below it can improve, And antedate the bliss above. This the divine Cecilia found, And to her Maker's praise confin'd ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... mountains shining in the sun before; but he was greatly delighted with this new view of them. There is indeed a peculiar charm in the sight of these eternal snows, especially when we see them basking, as it were, in the rays of a warm summer's sun, that is wholly indescribable. The sublime and thrilling grandeur of the spectacle no ...
— Rollo in Geneva • Jacob Abbott
... you is in trouble, there ain't nothing gonna save you but de Good Lawd. I heard of folks keeping all kind of things for good luck charms. When I was a child different people gave me buttons to string and we called them our charm string and wore 'em round our necks. If we was mean dey would tell us "Old Raw Head and Bloody Bones" would git us. Grand mammy told us ghost stories after supper, but I ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... disentangle essential facts from the complications of the literary manner form as pleasant and human an introduction to a story as any I remember. The story itself is one highly characteristic of its author, Mr. ARCHIBALD MARSHALL, both in charm and truth to life, as also in one minor drawback, of which I have taken occasion to speak before. Nothing could be better done than the picture of the household at Royd Castle, the boy owner, Sir Harry, sheltered by the almost too-encompassing care ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... of a visit paid long ago to his early home by Lord Lackington and two daughters, Rose and Blanche. He, the Duke, had then been a boy home from school. The two girls, one five or six years older than the other, had been the life and charm of the party. He ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sketches give the article a more than common interest. Of all American architects who have been attracted by the picturesque features of English and French domestic work, no one has shown a closer sympathy or been able in his sketches to render more of its charm than ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Vol. 1, No. 10, October 1895. - French Farmhouses. • Various
... humourous frankness which was very captivating. At a certain moment of the evening, she found occasion to sit down by Constance Bride, and Constance would have been more than human had she altogether resisted the charm of that fine contralto modulating graceful compliments. Mrs. Toplady had read the report of the social work at Shawe; it interested her keenly; she could not sufficiently admire the philanthropic energy which had been put ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... secret, but what follows is less known. The soldier, who had the charm of an engaging personality, led the life of an ordinary young Roman of his day, frequenting cafes, concerts, theatres, and balls. In this character he met a poor woman of the people, and came to love her. She was a good girl, with soft and gentle manners, but a heart ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... her river friend, Lester Terabon, who had gone on ahead to save her husband from the river pirates. She despised her husband more as she let her mind dwell on the man who had shown no common frailties while he did enjoy a comradeship which included the charm of a pretty woman, recognizing her equality, and not permitting her to forget for a moment that he knew she was lovely, as ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... a modest grace at Richmond and Montgomery? Can the privations of the camp so instantaneously dethrone Bacchus and set up Mars? It is to be regretted; they appeared more creditably in their cups, and one would gladly appeal from Philip sober to Philip drunk. Intimate intercourse has lost its charm. New York merchants more than ever desire an increased acquaintance with the coffers of their repudiating debtors; but so far as the knowledge of their peculiar moral traits is concerned, enough is as good as a feast. No Abolitionist has ever dared to pillory the slave-propagandists so conspicuously ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... pervaded the room, as though a woman had lived in it and accomplished the prodigy of imparting some of her own grace to all those stern-looking things. There were no flowers, yet there was a pleasant smell. A charm expanded and conquered every ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... love with the governess. My mother was very beautiful, possessing so much gentleness, with such a merry disposition, that I have heard them say that grandfather used to call her his Sunshine. The negroes said that she had a charm to make all she looked upon love her. But when the son, their pride, declared his intention of making May Everett his wife, it was met with a decided objection by both parents. Impossible! marry a Northern teacher; he, the son of Colonel Ashton—the heir of Ashton manor! preposterous! ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... and visible change in the feelings and opinions of the public. "Who would be a servant of the public? or who would toil for popular applause?" A few words spoken in a decisive tone by a new voice operated as a charm, and the playhouse was in an instant metamorphosed in the eyes of the spectators. All gratitude for the past was forgotten, and the expectation of something better justified to the capricious multitude their disdain of what they had so lately ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... for this latter a specific I had found successful with the mange in dogs, namely, gunpowder, with one fourth sulphur added, made into a soft paste with water, and then formed into an ointment with fat. It worked like a charm with ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... parks (including the well-known botanical gardens) are interesting, it is the oriental element that has the greatest charm for those from other lands. A rickisha ride through the teeming streets of the Chinese or Malay quarters, especially at night, is most interesting. If taken during the day a Chinese funeral procession with its banners, ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... next day she was up and at the window. It was raining, but even through the slanting gray gauze the scene had its charm—and then the rain was so good for the trees. She had noticed the day before that the ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... at an end. Vasilici's attitude had doubtless something to do with Ellerey's state of mind, personal antagonism rising above ambition; but this would not have been the case probably had Ellerey been forced against his will into any other service than that of Princess Maritza. There was a charm for him in her name, the memory of her had dwelt with him and lent a halo of romance to his present position. He saw her again with her hair streaming in the breeze, and felt again the subtle strength and vigor that were in her. Had he not thought ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... [Footnote: Alais: a town in southeastern France not far from the Rhone River.] nearly broke my heart. Of all conceivable journeys, this promised to be the most tedious. I tried to tell myself it was a lovely day; I tried to charm my foreboding spirit with tobacco; but I had a vision ever present to me of the long long roads, up hill and down dale, and a pair of figures ever infinitesimally moving, foot by foot, a yard to the minute, and, like things enchanted in a nightmare, approaching ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... enough to hear of the "cajas abiertas" (exiles) and their ways, if he did not actually meet some of them and personally experience the charm of their courtesy. They were as different from the ruder class of Spaniards who then were coming to the Islands as the few banished officials were unlike the general run of officeholders. The contrast naturally suggested that ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... kreto. chance : hazardo; riski; okazi; sxanco. chancellor : kanceliero. change : sxangxi, aliigi. channel : kanalo. chaos : hxaoso. chapel : kapelo, pregxejeto. chapter : cxapitro. character : karaktero; (drama) rolo. charm : cxarmi; talismano. chaste : cxasta. cheat : trompi. check : haltigi; kontroli. cheek : vango. cheerful : gaja. cheese : fromagxo, chemist : apotekisto, hxemiisto. cheque : cxeko. cherry : cxerizo. chess : sxako. chest : brusto; kesto, ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... alluring thing to which I had given my name. She had a smile—it did not come often—which tore at my heart-strings as it welled up, just stirring the dimples in her cheeks, and died away again in a strange and moving sweetness. Though I reckoned her at her worth; knew that her charm was all physical; that she neither did nor could understand a passion like mine, much less return it, it was none the less irresistible, and I have known myself to stand before a certain book-shelf ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... of the nightingale," remarks Peacock, "ceases about the time the grass is mown." The charm, however, is less in such detached beauties, however exquisite, than in the condensed opulence—"every epithet a text for a canto," says Macaulay—and in the general impression of "plain living and high thinking," pursued in the midst ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... she looks," said Gerald, as Anna began collecting vases from the tables in a drawing-room not professionally artistic, but entirely domestic, and full of grace and charm of taste, looking over a suburban garden fresh with budding spring ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... person, this, from the blond Miss Watkins with her hard blue eyes and too, too dewy lips! Here was a woman of character and charm. A woman fully armed with all the witchery of sex. A woman any man might ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... other help and encouragement. It is now many years since Sir Charles Lyall served in Assam, but his continued regard for the Khasi people bears eloquent testimony to the attractiveness of their character, and to the charm which the homely beauty of their native hills exercises over the minds of all who have had the good fortune to ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... of efficiency, and men can always be found upon whom responsibility will act like a charm, producing quickened perception, interest, foresight, economy, resource, industry, and all the characteristics that responsibility demands. Put the square peg in the square hole, the round peg in the round hole; show the man you have confidence in him, teach him to act on his own initiative in ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... distinctly and irrevocably classed himself—that, when Draper at length brought upon the scene his shy shamble and his wistful smile, Millner, for the first time, had to steel himself against them instead of yielding to their charm. ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... the mind, or mind-illumin'd face; Truth, goodness, honour, harmony and love, The richest bounty of indulgent Heaven. Meantime a smiling offspring rises round, And mingles both their graces. By degrees The human blossom blows; and every day, Soft as it rolls along, shows some new charm, The father's lustre, and the mother's bloom. Then infant reason grows apace, and calls For the kind hand of an assiduous care. Delightful task! to rear the tender thought, To teach the young idea how to shoot, To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind, To ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... the deep and dreamy stillness of this woodsy and flowery place I was without news of the outside world, and was well content without it. It has been four weeks since I had seen a newspaper, and this lack seemed to give life a new charm and grace, and to saturate it with a feeling verging upon actual delight. Then came a change that was to be expected: the appetite for news began to rise again, after this invigorating rest. I had to feed it, but I was not willing to let ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Thou, too, art worthy of all praise, whose pen, "In thoughts that breathe, and words that burn," did shed, A noontide glory over Milton's head— He, "Prince of Poets"—thou, the prince of men— Blessings on thee, and on the honored dead. How dost thou charm for us the touching story Of the lost children in the gloomy wood; Haunting dim memory with the early glory, That in youth's golden years our hearts imbued. From the fine world of olden Poetry, Life-like ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... Her husband, a busy man of the world, with occupation in London, and fine estates in the country, joined them only occasionally, glad to escape the still beauty of landscapes which brought him no rental, and therefore afforded no charm ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ancient story; and though the Charente by no means deserves to be compared to the Loire, ambitious as the natives of the department are that it should be considered equal in beauty and interest to that famous river; yet there is quite enough charm belonging to it to please the traveller who seeks for ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... could not have given the key to these felicities. They were mysteries of which her friends were conscious—those friends whose general explanation was to say that she was clever, whether or no it were taken by the world as the cause or as the effect of her charm. If she saw more things than her fine face in the dull glass of her father's lodgings, she might have seen that, after all, she was not herself a fact in the collapse. She didn't judge herself cheap, she didn't make for misery. Personally, at least, she was not chalk-marked for the ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... thus incensed, the Paphian queen replies: "Obey the power from whom thy glories rise: Should Venus leave thee, every charm must fly, Fade from thy cheek, and languish in thy eye. Cease to provoke me, lest I make thee more The world's aversion, than their love before; Now the bright prize for which mankind engage, Than, the sad victim, of the ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... frequent. A Taoist priest is then summoned, and enters the house dressed in a red robe, with blue stockings and a black cap. He has with him a sword, made of the wood of the peach or date tree, the hilt and guard of which are covered with red cloth. Written in ink on the blade of the sword is a charm against ghosts. Advancing to the altar, the priest deposits his sword on it. He then prepares a mystic scroll, which he burns, collecting and emptying the ashes into a cup of spring water. Next, he takes the sword in his right hand and the cup ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... watershed on the eastern side Sweden feels all the rigor of a sub-Arctic climate. In history, too, mountains play the same part as barriers. They are always a challenge to the energies of man. Their beauty, the charm of the unknown beyond tempts the enterprising spirit; the hardships and dangers of their roads daunt or baffle the mediocre, but by the great ones whose strength is able to dwarf these obstacles is found beyond a prize of victory. Such were Hannibal, Napoleon, Suvaroff, Genghis ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... must sometimes fall below her own standard, and The Man from Australia (COLLINS), though written with considerable grace and charm, is too thin in plot to be altogether satisfactory. John Darling, a youngish man of wealth and an extremely liberal disposition, came from Australia to visit his connexions in the West of Ireland and—if opportunities ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various
... Plummer, Churchill passed to some of his associates—like the Monitor, he never hesitated to befoul his own nest—and he told Mr. Goodnight how the candidate was using them, how they had wholly fallen under the spell of his undeniable charm of manner, and how they wrote to please him rather than to ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... would spoil the charm: for there is a charm, isn't there? But we won't call each other Brat and Brute any more. That's ancient history. I'll be for you—just Boy. I think ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... charm thee by invoking the aid of God for thee against evil" or "I seek refuge with ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... order to establish their opinion beyond danger from the weapons of their adversaries.... Indeed that great man so explains and demonstrates this dogma (although to theologians the word has not much charm) from the immovable foundations of philosophy, that with but few changes and additions a mind sincerely devoted to truth ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... thing, magical as a silver bullet, seemed a miniature incarnation of destiny, spinning his fate. Always Vanno was pricked by the desire to try again, and see if he could once more foretell the result. There lay the poignant, the indescribable charm: in ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... by his ill-fated coalition he had forfeited the confidence of the people. Under these circumstances, he resolved to seek the restoration of his popularity, and to consolidate his power, by producing some great measure, which should at once charm and profit the nation. India afforded him a fine field for legislating, and with the assistance of Burke he concocted a bill for its government. He gave notice on the day when parliament reassembled, that he would produce this bill on the 18th of November, and when that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the eye. Boats passed on the river, and carts plodded along the high-road on their way to Dumfries. The sky was clear; the November sun shone as pleasantly as if the year had been younger by two good months; and the view, noted in Scotland for its bright and peaceful charm, was presented at the best which its wintry aspect could assume. If it had been hidden in mist or drenched with rain, Mr. Noel Vanstone would, to all appearance, have found it as attractive as he found it now. He ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... grand, constant example of cheerful trust, untiring energy, and love to all! What a joy to have had such a father! To be the son of such a man is ground for honest pride. The pleasure of having known him, the honor of having been in social relations with him, will always give a charm to my life. I cherish among my most precious recollections the pleasant words he has so often spoken to me. I can see him while I write, as vividly as though he were with me now; and never can his ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child |
