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Fascinate   Listen
verb
Fascinate  v. t.  (past & past part. fascinated; pres. part. fascinating)  
1.
To influence in an uncontrollable manner; to operate on by some powerful or irresistible charm; to bewitch; to enchant. "It has been almost universally believed that... serpents can stupefy and fascinate the prey which they are desirous to obtain."
2.
To excite and allure irresistibly or powerfully; to charm; to captivate, as by physical or mental charms. "There be none of the passions that have been noted to fascinate or bewitch but love and envy."
Synonyms: To charm; enrapture; captivate; enchant; bewitch; attract.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Fascinate" Quotes from Famous Books



... alackaday for the instability of youthful affection! It befell in an evil time that there came over from the land of Nod a frivolous and gorgeously apparelled beau, who, with finely wrought phrases, did so fascinate the giddy Mizpah that incontinently she gave Methuselah the mitten, and went with the dashing young stranger of 102 ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field

... for a minute or two, with his head supported on his hand, and gazing on the lady of his love with a look that was intended to fascinate her. Agatha sat perfectly still; she was evidently mindful of the lesson she had received: at last, Adolphe started up from his position, walked a step or two into the middle of the room, thrust his right hand into his bosom; and said abruptly, "Agatha, this is child's play; we are deceiving each ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... simplicity and innocence. Then he resolves to break with the past, to put away childish things, to forgo affection, and to earn respect by imitating the activities of his elders. The strange power of words and the virtues of abstract thought begin to fascinate him. He loses touch with the things of sense, and ceases to speak as a child. If his first attempts at argument and dogma win him praise and esteem, if he proves himself a better fighter than an older boy next door, who has often bullied him, and if at the ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh

... sorrow. The grand loneliness of Milton in his latter years, while it makes him the most impressive figure in our literary history, is reflected also in his maturer poems by a sublime independence of human sympathy like that with which mountains fascinate and rebuff us. But it is idle to talk of the loneliness of one the habitual companions of whose mind were the Past and Future. I always seem to see him leaning in his blindness a hand on the shoulder ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... will have to pay me, too,' said the witch, 'and it is no trifle that I demand. You have the most beautiful voice of any at the bottom of the sea, and I daresay that you think you will fascinate him with it; but you must give me that voice; I will have the best you possess in return for my precious potion! I have to mingle my own blood with it so as to make it as sharp as ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... "Physiology of Faith and Fear;" Emerson's "Essays;" Holmes' "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table;" Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam; Tom Moore's Poems; "Plutarch's Lives;" "Seneca;" "Addison;" Bulwer Lytton; Hugo; Carlyle's "Sartor Resartus." This latter book will not fascinate you like Carlyle's "French Revolution," but you will learn to love its fine language, its fine analysis of character, ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter

... nothing," repeated she, fixing her eyes upon Miss Portman, to fascinate her by terror. "Friend or foe! peace or war! Take your choice. Come to the ball at Harrowgate, I win my bet, and I'm your sworn friend. Stay away, I lose my bet, and ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth

... that she did not divide the smooth water, but seemed to glide on its surface as if on a sheet of plate-glass, a man in her bow, the master at the wheel visible only from the waist upwards above the white screen of the bridge, both of them so still-eyed as to fascinate young Powell into curious self-forgetfulness and immobility. He was steeped, sunk in the general quietness, remembering the statement 'she's a lady that mustn't be disturbed,' and repeating to himself ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... been called by the revolutionist Bolivar, now President of Colombia. The project appealed strongly to Clay. A league of young republics in the New World to offset the Holy Alliance in Europe was, as his biographer remarks, "one of those large, generous conceptions well calculated to fascinate his ardent mind." The imagination of the President was not so easily touched: he instructed Clay to inquire more particularly into the purposes of ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson

... Timour, ready to force him backward through the door into the night-quarters, something in the blank glare of his eyes seemed to fascinate me. I had an absurd sensation that he was slipping away from me—escaping; that I no longer dominated him nor had authority. It was not panic, nor even fear; it was a faint paralysis—temporary, fortunately; for at that instant instinct saved me; ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... a poor Jew's reforming the gay and dissolute metropolis of the earth, which sat as a queen among the nations, singing to herself, "I will be a lady forever," was not brilliant enough to fascinate him; and the prospect of the reward he would get from the luxurious people of pleasure, whose well-opiated consciences he should rudely rouse by calling their intrigues and carousals wickedness, was only too clear. Jonah fled from his ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton

... Dictionary" makes some fine distinctions between flirtation, coquetry and coyness. Flirtation means to fascinate and leave the lover in doubt as to his fate—to lead him on and leave him in a maze. It does not imply that he does not have reason for hope. Flirtation is coyness refined to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... She saw it plainly. He did not love her, but he saw that he could fascinate her, and he hoped to use her as an aid to his escape. She threw ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White

... of fruit, beautiful silver, floral pieces, snowy linen, fine crystal, the whole dominated by a superb electrolier, which cast color over all, was indeed a spectacle to delight and fascinate the eye. Jimmie was so overcome by the sight, that he nearly fell over the chair which the accommodating Oku held out for him. At last all were seated, Virginia at the right hand of the host, Fanny at the left, the shipping clerk at the other ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow

... and pretentious sign seemed to fascinate Colonel Witham. He walked past it once, reading it out of the corner of one eye; but he went only a little way beyond, then turned and stopped and surveyed it once more. He edged up to the canvas, sidled into ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith

... our couple left alone, What fairer field could truly have been shown? The belle now wore a smart becoming dress, Designed, in ev'ry view, to prepossess. 'Twas NEGLIGENCE, so requisite to please And fascinate, with airy, careless ease, According to the taste which I pursue, That made her charms so exquisite to view. No gaudy tinsel: all was flowing light; Though not superb, yet pleasing to the sight; A neckerchief, where much should be concealed, Was made so narrow,—beauties ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine

... "Do not puzzle yourself over such difficulties to-night, at any rate. Leave me to think of those. I will tell you what you must do. Make up your mind to be as charming as possible when you see my father, and fascinate him in spite of himself; for, I assure you he will not very readily forgive us for deranging his plans. Good-night now, I ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill

... horror. He reached the river, and in a third poor little boat, again he sailed down the passage. There was the swift-leaping current, the ugly tusk of rock staked with wreckage. A moment, a few feet, a turn of the oar-blade, and he would have been past. But, no! The rock seemed to fascinate him as the eyes of a snake fascinate a bird. He stared at it fearfully, a look of terror and despair. Then for the third time, with a hideous crash, his frail boat was piled ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... and depart our presence; haply some wight may come to us and swim the stream and pass into the Palace." But Ibn Ibrahim remained behind while Sahlub departed with those about him; and when they had left the company, Al-Hayfa asked, "O Ibn Ibrahim, say me, canst thou keep my secret and my being fascinate[FN239] by love?" and he answered, "Yea, verily, O my lady, how should I not conceal it for thee, when thou art my mistress and princess and the daughter of my master, even though I keep it inside mine eyes?" So she continued, "O Ibn Ibrahim, there came to me a ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... her, by a specious exhibition of gratitude and love, to respond to him on a key that was far, indeed, from the true state of a heart now wholly filled by Felix. Flavie, seeing the manner in which la Peyrade put forth his seductions, was reminded of the pains he had formerly taken to fascinate herself. "The monster!" she said, beneath her breath. But she was forced to bear the torture with a good grace; la Peyrade was evidently approved by all, and in the course of the evening a circumstance came to light, showing a past service done ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... whom we may term philosophers of Nature. In other words, there are those who are charmed with the external world, its landscapes, its beauteous forms and tints, and all its various adaptations to fascinate the senses,—and those who delight in deciphering and describing all the details of individual objects, and their wonderful fitness to the role they have severally or unitedly to play; and there is the man who, endowed with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... my steps are drawn To the shade of the forest trees; To revel with Pan in his secret haunts, To pipe mazourkas while satyrs dance, Or lull to soft slumber some favorite faun And fascinate strange ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard

... will keep the one atom of faith in love and the truth that is love and life in her heart. When something shrieks within her, she feels that all her anguish is for nothing and that she is a fool. She is exasperated that people call her peculiar, but confesses that she loves admiration; she can fascinate and charm company if she tries; imagines an admiration for Messalina. She most desires to cultivate badness when there is lead in the sky. "I would live about seven years of judicious badness, and then death if ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... fascinate you seem to surround pretty Carol Duncan. A vivid, plucky girl, her cleverness at solving mysteries will captivate and thrill every ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin

... of various objects, each worthy to detain it. Wonderful indeed, and sweetly-satisfying to the intellectual appetite, is the variety, the plenty of pleasures which serve to enchain the imagination, and fascinate the traveller's eye, keeping it ever on this little spot; for though I have heard some of the inhabitants talk of its vastness, it is scarcely bigger than our Portman Square, I think, not larger at ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... When the latter approached Alexandria, Antonius, deceived by the false report that Cleopatra had destroyed herself, threw himself upon his sword and died. Cleopatra, finding herself unable to fascinate the conqueror, but believing that he meant that she should adorn his public triumph at Rome, poisoned herself (30). Egypt was made into a Roman province. The month Sextilis, on which Octavianusreturned to Rome, received in honor of him the name ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... She seemed startled, but greeted him pleasantly, and entered into a discussion of the demerits which fascinate the crowd. ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens

... to talk of a man in this way, he is an ass who does not win her; and, for my part, I used to follow her about, and put myself in an attitude opposite her, 'and fascinate her with my glance,' as she said, most assiduously. Lord George Poynings, her former admirer, was meanwhile keeping his room with his wound, and seemed determined to give up all claims to her favour; for he denied her admittance when she called, ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... of them said, on potatoes and Point. Here Severance and I made our summer home, basking in the delicious sunshine of the lovely bay. The bare outlines around Oldport sometimes dismay the stranger, but soon fascinate. Nowhere does one feel bareness so little, because there is no sharpness of perspective; everything shimmers in the moist atmosphere; the islands are all glamour and mirage; and the undulating hills of the horizon seem each like the soft, arched back of some pet animal, and you long to caress ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... "They fascinate me," replied she. "But I'd have to get used to these friends of yours. You made their acquaintance one or a few at a time. It's very upsetting, being introduced to ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... agreeable outline, and that her cheek possessed the polish and the roundness of early youth, or, thus robbed of a softening shade, the contours might have lost their grace. But what mattered that in the present society? Neither Calypso nor Eucharis cared to fascinate Mentor. ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... with her hair that always looked as though it had been cut short like a boy's, her strong rough movements, and Caroline, so neat and shining and entirely feminine that her only business in the world seemed to be to fascinate, beguile and bewilder the opposite sex. Whatever the aunts may have thought of this new friendship, they said nothing. Caroline had her way with them as with every one else. Maggie wondered often as to Aunt Anne's, real ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... overcome it. She worked hard all day long, that at night she might fall on deep sleep. Again she had taken up her hard German books, and was also busy with French histories of revolution, which did indeed fascinate her, though, as she half perceived, solely by the dramatic quality of the stories they told. And at length the morning of her ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... as in "My Last Duchess," the speaker adds a word here and there, aside from the story, which unconsciously shows the kind of man he is. It is this power of revealing the soul from within that causes Browning to fascinate those who study him long enough. His range is enormous, and brings all sorts and conditions of men under analysis. The musician in "Abt Vogler," the artist in "Andrea del Sarto," the early Christian in "A Death in the Desert," the ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... was the cleanness of the winds and the sea—as if his eyes had been washed by the sea. I wonder who Alice is? A common little shopgirl probably from Sixth Avenue, with padded hair and painted lips, and smelling of cheap powder. That's just the kind of girl to fascinate a big, strong, simple creature like that Yes, of course, Alice is cheap and tawdry and vulgar, with no substance to her mind." She tried to think of Arthur, but her mental image of him had become as thin and unsubstantial ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... coffee-coloured straw, with a narrow black velvet ribbon. She crossed the side street, stopped for a second, gave a swift look round, then came resolutely on. What was it made him love her so? What was the secret of her fascination? Certainly, no conscious enticements. Never did anyone try less to fascinate. He could not recall one single little thing that she had done to draw him to her. Was it, perhaps, her very passivity, her native pride that never offered or asked anything, a sort of soft stoicism in her fibre; that ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... But it's not my hunt!" muttered Jimmie Dale; then, with a shrug of his shoulders: "Queer the way those headquarters chaps fascinate and give me a thrill every time I see them, even if I haven't a ghost of ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... something so inconceivably picturesque in the varying gestures of unrestrained passion, so irresistibly comic in their sallies, or so heart-piercingly pathetic in the little airs they would sing, frequently bursting out after an awful silence, as to fascinate the attention, and amuse the fancy, while torturing the soul. It was the uproar of the passions which she was compelled to observe; and to mark the lucid beam of reason, like a light trembling in a socket, or like the flash which divides the threatening clouds of angry heaven ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft

... the snake with disrespect, not to say insolence; nothing, ophidian or otherwise, can fascinate a pig. If your back garden is infested with rattlesnakes you should keep pigs. The pig dances contemptuously on the rattlesnake, and eats him with much relish, rattles and all. The last emotion of the rattlesnake is intense astonishment; and astonishment is natural, in the circumstances. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... insult to suppose her repairing such! The lady's mental accomplishments and qualifications are as follow:—She sings divinely, plays on the harp (and piano too in modern days) a merveille; occasionally condescends to fascinate on the guitar, and the lute also, should that instrument, now rather antiquated, fall in her way. She takes portraits, and sketches from nature; she understands all languages, or rather that desideratum, an universal tongue, since in the most foreign lands she is never at a loss to render herself ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various

... poets must fain renounce all those artistic effects which proceed from the gradually accelerated growth of any object in the mind, or in the external world, through the march of time, while of all that in a drama is calculated to fascinate the eye they were through their wretched arrangement of stage- scenery deprived in a great measure by the Unity of Place. Accidental circumstances might in truth enforce a closer observance of this rule, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... Lizzie quickly; "but, strangely as it seems to fascinate you, it has always repelled, and even terrified me. It's the only object of the beautiful harbor that has ever cast a shadow across the loveliness of the sea. I hate it; and I have often wished the sea would draw it silently into its hungry depths, ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott

... believed in the story of the Drac, a sort of merman, that lived in the Rhone, and had power to fascinate the women who ventured into the water. There was once a very widespread superstition concerning this Protean creature; and the women washing in the river often had a figure of the Drac, in the form of a lizard, carved upon the piece ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer

... which Olga continued to annoy the learned small man with her irreverent flippancy, and Mrs. Carew seemed to fascinate the two gentlemen who hovered about her like eager moths around a lamp. Then the host and Congressman came in together, and Regina saw her guardian cross the room, and murmur something to his fair client, who ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... to the remote horizons.... At night the vastness of things, the height of the stars, fascinate me to the edge of uneasiness. And sometimes I go and sit in my room for a while—to reassure myself.... You see I am used to an enclosure—the walls of a room—the walled-in streets of New York.... It's like suddenly stepping out of a cellar to the ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers

... she sat gazing upon that fearful appearance, while, with stealthy step, the savage advanced from his lurking-place, keeping, as he did so, his eyes riveted upon hers, with such a gaze as the wily serpent is said to fascinate its prey. His hapless victim moved not:—whither could she flee to escape one whose fleet foot could so easily have overtaken her in the race? where conceal herself from him whose wary eye fixed upon her seemed to deprive ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill

... deathly in its pallor, lighted by eyes sloe-black but like glinting steel. Striking as were these features, they failed to fascinate as did the strange tracings which apparently showed through the white, drawn skin. This first repelled, then drew her with wonderful force. Suffering, of fire, and frost, and iron was written there, and, stronger than all, so potent as to cause ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey

... now?' she cried to Birkin, who was watching the water on the steps, to see if it would get any lower. It seemed to fascinate him. He ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... could have called him positively a bad-hearted man. He was vain, but knew how to disguise his vanity, and passionately cherished his independence. When Vassily Ivanovitch would half close his black eyes, smiling affectionately, when he wanted to fascinate any one, they say it was impossible to resist him; and even people, thoroughly convinced of the coldness and hardness of his heart, were more than once vanquished by the bewitching power of his personal influence. He ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... was said, but took no part in the conversation. Benito quietly and attentively watched him. The eyes of Torres, with a peculiar expression, constantly sought his father. One would have called them the eyes of some wild beast trying to fascinate his prey before he ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne

... is a pretty one, and no mistake! You don't know that my idol is worth more than the whole lot of your things! A draper's shopman wouldn't have selected that pink stuff. Was it your idea to fascinate ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola

... of Beowulf it might seem that there was danger of a lapse from the more serious kind of heroic composition into a more trivial kind. Certainly there is nothing in the plain story to give much help to the author; nothing in Grendel to fascinate or tempt a poet with a story made ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker

... that gentlemanly philosopher from Sweden, a great friend of the Governor, you know. But, alas, I might as well have tried to fascinate an iceberg! I do not believe that he knew, after a half-hour's conversation with me, whether I was man or woman. That was ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... much. You get on the right side of his wife. Is it an appropriation? You'd go 'straight to the Committee, or to the Interior office, I suppose? You'd learn better than that. It takes a woman to get any thing through the Land Office: I tell you, Miss Laura would fascinate an appropriation right through the Senate and the House of Representatives in one session, if she was in Washington, as your friend, Colonel, of course ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... that delight and fascinate the wide awake Girls of the present day who are between the ages of eight and fourteen years. The great author of these books regards them as the best products of her pen. Printed from large clear type on a superior quality of paper; attractive multi-color jacket wrapper around ...
— A Cousin's Conspiracy - A Boy's Struggle for an Inheritance • Horatio Alger

... aroused. Or perhaps, the example of another's crime affords a suggestion for the method of accomplishing a certain desired end. On the other hand, the ancestral example, after having broken down the moral barrier depends entirely upon its power to fascinate. Those of weak will or guilty conscience, alone succumb to its influence. If we consider the cases of thieves, vagabonds and paupers we find their crimes and vices likewise running in families. It is nevertheless quite a mistake to jump at the conclusion that heredity accounts ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll

... Napoleon, he felt the need of some great stroke that should astonish and fascinate the world. He understood that to maintain his fame he was condemned to work miracles. September 23, 1805, he had exposed to the Senate the hostile conduct of Austria, and had announced his speedy departure to carry aid to the Elector of Bavaria, the ally of France, whom ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... of public exhibition. His pictures do not command the eye by extraordinary combinations of assertive colors,—nor do they, through great pathos, deep tenderness, or any overcharged emotional quality, fascinate and absorb ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... power, but this is a part of man's mystery. There is no mystery in the artist's material as such: he is working in pigments or clay or vibrating sound or whatever other medium he has chosen. The qualities and possibilities of this particular medium fascinate him, preoccupy him. He comes, as we say, to think in terms of color or line or sound. He learns or may learn in time, as Whistler bade him, "never to push a medium further than it will go." The chief value of Lessing's epoch-making discussion ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry

... disturbance, and above all, the fatal inclination to repeat sin till it becomes a habit, are set forth with terrible force in these grim figures. What a menagerie of ravenous beasts some of us have at the doors of our hearts! With what murderous longing they glare at us, seeking to fascinate us, and make us their prey! When we sin, we cannot escape the issues; and every wrong thing we do has a kind of horrible life given it, and sits henceforth there, beside us, ready to rend us. The tempting, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... only, can Mirabeau perhaps place dependance. It is possible, the greatness of this man, not unskilled too in blandishments, courtiership, and graceful adroitness, might, with most legitimate sorcery, fascinate the volatile Queen, and fix her to him. She has courage for all noble daring; an eye and a heart: the soul of Theresa's Daughter. 'Faut il-donc, Is it fated then,' she passionately writes to her Brother, 'that I with ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... the heavens above or the earth beneath or the waters under the earth. From star-dust in infinite space (which we hope to measure) to fossils on the bed of an ocean which is no longer unfathomed, nothing is too great or too small to attract man, to fascinate him, to influence his thought, his life, his literature. Darwin's Origin of Species (1859), which laid the foundation for a general theory of evolution, is one of the most famous books of the age, and of the world. Associated with Darwin ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... Vasudeva's daughter and Vasudeva's (Krishna) sister; endued with so much beauty, whom can she not fascinate? If this thy sister, this maid of the Vrishni race, becometh my wife, truly may I win prosperity in everything. Tell me, O Janardana, by what means I may obtain her. To get her I will achieve anything that ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... But Tertullian[172] is bolder, and maintains that no magical art has power to bring the souls of the saints from their rest; but that all the necromancers can do is to call forth some phantoms with a borrowed shape, which fascinate the eyes, and make those who are present believe that to be a reality which is only appearance. In the same place he quotes Heraclius, who says that the Nasamones, people of Africa, pass the night by the tombs ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... neighbours, and injure the rising corn. He finds that all this noise and tumult, all this danger and injury, are occasioned by the pursuit of a little hare, whose pain is in proportion to the joy of those who follow it. Now can this diversion, educated as my child has been, fascinate him? Will he not question its innocence? And will he not question its consistency as a natural pursuit, or as ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... book;—and who meanwhile wore golden bracelets, ate from silver, was dressed in silk and carried the fire of youth in her eyes. While the woman thought of that young man who could fight like a hero; was ready to work like a day laborer, to throw money away like a noble, to fascinate women like an angel, and to blaspheme the powers ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... Minuet is one of those pictures which fascinate and draw us back again and again. A rarely-beautiful girl is dancing the minuet, surrounded by a group of her friends, beautiful blonde girls and a fair-haired young man. The costumes are perfectly exquisite, yet there is not too much chiffonnerie ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various

... opinion that he judged her correctly, for she must have been a tiger when her passions were aroused, capable of anything, and I was careful never to give her more serious cause of offense than the doing of my official duty. Over those whom she chose to fascinate, she had an extraordinary power, and I have known young women who were so completely under her control as to be unable to escape from it when they found out her real nature ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... out all that encumbers the heart, all that impedes the free action of the Holy Spirit within—longings after an imaginary perfection or well-being, unreal sentiments that trouble us in prayer, in work, in slumber, that fascinate us, but the result of which is to destroy all ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.

... her old ambition to fascinate Mellen, and her efforts were highly amusing to the lookers-on. She was in doubt whether he preferred the queenly manner and repose of Elizabeth or the arch grace and exuberant gayety of his sister, and attempted airs which she considered a happy medium between ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... woman is invested with supernatural power and becomes a magician, a charmer, without herself knowing that she is one; involuntarily she inspires the love that fills her own bosom; her smiles and glances fascinate. If this condition, which comes from the soul, can give attraction even to a plain woman, with what radiance does it not invest a woman of natural elegance, distinguished bearing, fair, fresh, with sparkling eyes, and dressed in a ...
— Madame Firmiani • Honore de Balzac

... answered Tom in a whisper, his eyes fixed upon the burning eyes of Lord Claud, which seemed to fascinate and hold him as the snake ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green

... prove to their own satisfaction that it is not history at all, and Carlyle has been posthumously convicted of miscalculating the distance from Paris to Varennes. It remains one of the books that cannot be forgotten, that fascinate all readers, even the professors themselves. And yet, greater than the book itself is Carlyle's behaviour when the first volume had been lost by Mill. Mill, himself in extreme misery, had to come ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... the yard through the storm, leaning on George Ramsey's arm, gave a little, involuntary sob. It was a sob half of the realization of slighted affection, half of shame. It gave the little element of strangeness which was lacking to fascinate the young man. He had a pitiful heart towards women, and at the sound of the little, stifled sob he pressed Lily's arm more closely ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... pure. One of the most popular and seductive tricks in his art was the treating of well-known airs as rondos, returning ever and anon to his theme after a variety of brilliant excursions in a way that used to fascinate his hearers, thus anticipating some of his ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris

... her odd and altered. She was interested in all she saw and heard. To-night she found herself studying a certain phase of modernity. That it sometimes struck her as maniacal did not detract from its interest. The mad often fascinate the sane. ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens

... girl with one small finger struck a key. The sound seemed to fascinate her. Margaret caught her in her arms and kissed the ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas

... of the best books for boys of all ages, so attractively written and illustrated as to fascinate the reader into staying up until all hours to ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... tobacco and a Mid[-e]/ song with rattle accompaniment. The manner of using this powder will be described under the caption of "descriptive notes." It differs entirely from the powder employed in painting the face by one who wishes to attract or fascinate the object of his or her devotion. The latter is referred to by the Rev. ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman

... self-destruction had surged up in the lava of other tumultuous thoughts occasioned by the artist's scorn, and at first she had shrunk from it with natural and instinctive dread. But the awful thought began to fascinate her like a dizzy height from which it seems so easy ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... Lyndsay. "She may be lively and witty. Odd people possess an attraction in themselves. We are so much amused with them, that they fascinate us before we are aware. She has a good figure for her very voluminous proportions, and splendid trotters, which always possess charms for ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... you. I couldn't, even if I loved you, and I don't think I do love you, though you fascinate me and, when we are dancing, I forget all the other things in you that I hate. I have been very foolish and maybe unkind to let it go on so far. I didn't quite know what I was doing. Girls don't know. That is why they play with men ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper

... of the affections, which have been noted to fascinate or bewitch, but love and envy. They both have vehement wishes; they frame themselves readily into imaginations and suggestions; and they come easily into the eye, especially upon the present of the objects; which are the points ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon

... the youthful Hawthorne. Is it surprising that in the fiction of the mature man there should be a pervading sense of remoteness, of silences that fascinate, of mysteries ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... redresser of American wrongs and the enemy of public nuisances, we beg your attention to a vice which seems to be upon the increase, and which grows in strength with what it feeds upon. As the vice in question appears to be upon the increase, and to fascinate its victims by the allurements of the excitement, we consider it worthy of PUNCHINELLO'S lance, or, in other words, of being ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 22, August 27, 1870 • Various

... him for some time with an expression which the young man took for doubt, but which, however, was nothing but observation, or rather the wish to fascinate. ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... entered. I also took a ticket and followed. Passing by the open doors of a refreshment-room, I fortified myself with some biscuits and soda-water; and in another minute, for the first time in my life, I beheld a play. But the play did not fascinate me. It was the middle of some jocular after piece; roars of laughter resounded round me. I could detect nothing to laugh at, and sending my keen eyes into every corner, I perceived at last, in the uppermost tier, one face as saturnine as my own.—Eureka! It was the Captain's! ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... details, and may still be read for information as well as for pleasure. The 'Zanoni' species is undeniably interesting. The weird traditions of the 'Philosopher's Stone' and the 'Elixir of Life' can never cease to fascinate human souls, and all the paraphernalia of magic are charming to minds weary of the matter-of-factitude of current existence. The stories are put together with Bulwer's unfailing cleverness, and in all external respects neither ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... had seen a great deal. Following her old tactics, she had started out to fascinate the tall newspaper man, expecting to find him an easy victim. For once, however, she found that she had met her match. Directly she arrived in Denver she sent him her card, and he called at the hotel, his manner courteous, but distinctly cold. He had not forgotten, however, ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow

... lives; and, instead of detesting their crimes, Rodney began to admire the skill and success with which they were perpetrated. The excitement and freedom, and wild, frenzied enjoyment of such a life, as depicted by the young knaves, began to fascinate and charm his mind. Something seemed to whisper in his ear, "As you are now disgraced, without any fault of your own, why not carry it out, and make the most of it? They have put you into jail, this ...
— The Runaway - The Adventures of Rodney Roverton • Unknown

... golden rule advocated by clever folk, especially by the French, which says that a girl should not let herself go when she marries, should not neglect her accomplishments, should be even more careful of her appearance than when she was unmarried, and should fascinate her husband as much as she did before he became her husband. Natasha on the contrary had at once abandoned all her witchery, of which her singing had been an unusually powerful part. She gave it up just because it was so powerfully seductive. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... bare table-land on which Churra stands, into the valleys on either side, surpass anything of the kind that I have elsewhere seen, though in many respects vividly recalling the scenery around Rio de Janeiro: nor do I know any spot in the world more calculated to fascinate the naturalist who, while appreciating the elements of which a landscape is composed, is also keenly alive to the beauty and grandeur ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... a firm accent, trying to fascinate her with the impassioned fixedness of her eyes, drawing near her, as if to caress her with the music of his words. And how about him? What did Margalida think of him? What if he should present himself to Pep some day, telling him that he wished to ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... fascinate by the grace and charm with which it is written, by the delightful characters that take part in it, and by the interest of the plot. The scene is laid in a magnificent Austrian castle in North Italy, and that serves as a background for the working out of a sparkling love-story ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young

... giddy height above the town; airy loggias imposed on great forbidding masses of brown stone, shooting aloft into a light aerial tower. The empty halls inside are of fair proportions and a noble size, and the views from the open colonnades in all directions fascinate. But the final impression made by the building is one of square, tranquil, massive strength—perpetuity embodied in masonry—force suggesting facility by daring and successful addition of elegance to hugeness. Vast ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... such as men get for places where they have experienced great joys and great trials. And Hut Point has an atmosphere of its own. I do not know what it is. Partly aesthetic, for the sea and great mountains, and the glorious colour effects which prevail in spring and autumn, would fascinate the least imaginative; partly mysterious, with the Great Barrier knocking at your door, and the smoke of Erebus by day and the curtain of Aurora by night; partly the associations of the place—the ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... events sufficiently mysterious to make a special feature story that rivals fiction. Unexplained crimes and accidents; strange psychical phenomena, such as ghosts, presentiments, spiritism, and telepathy; baffling problems of the scientist and the inventor—all have elements of mystery that fascinate ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... the beginning of war, and, once Sheldon's suspicions were aroused, he was not long in finding other confirmations. Tudor too obviously joyed in Joan's presence, too obviously laid himself out to amuse and fascinate her with his own glorious and adventurous personality. Often, after his morning ride over the plantation, or coming in from the store or from inspection of the copra-drying, Sheldon found the pair ...
— Adventure • Jack London

... Geoffrey saw Diana she seemed to fascinate him—he refused to give up my letters—said he could not part with them. In this way he tortured me for weeks until at last he wrote from Raydon Manor, saying I should have the letters if I would call for ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... Julius took possession of his companions, and exerted all his arts to charm and fascinate. He led the ladies from cage to cage, from enclosure to enclosure, showed himself as familiar with the characters and habits of their wild denizens as a farmer is with those of his stock, and they responded ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban

... easy-chair, and he began to look at her fixedly, so as to fascinate her. I suddenly felt myself somewhat uncomfortable, with a beating heart and a choking feeling in my throat. I saw that Madame Sable's eyes were growing heavy, her mouth twitched and her bosom heaved, and at the end of ten minutes she ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various

... possible. She could count upon herself not to betray the slightest feeling in the interview. If only that strange turn of fate had not brought Lord Fordyce into her life, what glorious pleasure she would now take in trying her uttermost to fascinate and attract Michael—not that she desired him for herself!—only to punish him for all the past! But she was not free. She had given her word to Henry. The humiliation of feeling that Michael was making no protest, ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn

... it's so nice. I wish we had a gallery at Lockleigh. I'm so very fond of pictures," Miss Molyneux went on, persistently, to Ralph, as if she were afraid Miss Stackpole would address her again. Henrietta appeared at once to fascinate and to frighten her. ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... from the deadly thing seemed to fascinate the man, for he held it a long while silently. ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... we must be far more familiar with Nature than with scene painting or photographs, and to do this we must, so to speak, fascinate ourselves with pictures in life, glad memories of golden hours, rock and river and greenwood tree. We must also banish resolutely from our past all recollections of enemies and wrongs, troubles and trials, and throw all our ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland

... squabble of politics, and we will show you one who has failed to reach and enjoy that true relation of sovereignty which is held by her "meek and lowly" sisters; who, though destitute of such panting aspirations, hold the scepter of true authority in those high and holy virtues which fascinate while they command in their undisputed empire—the social circle. What iconoclast shall break our idol, by putting the ballot in ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... comes later. We speak now only of our acquaintance with them in their own sphere, and the way in which they seem to fascinate and draw to them some genius who occupies himself with one thing, all his life long. The possibility of interpretation lies in the identity of the observer with the observed. Each material thing has its celestial side; has its translation, ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... dropped into the creek-bottom, and a ray was caught by the deputy's badge which shone on Ralston's breast. The glitter of it seemed to fascinate Smith. ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart



Words linked to "Fascinate" :   beguile, grip, captivate, enamor, seize, attract, capture, trance, fascination, bewitch, charm, transfix, interest, grab, enchant, becharm, entrance, hold, intrigue, appeal



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