"Magic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... kept up for some hours. As we were in the height of the amusement, the cathedral bell struck three slow measured sounds, the signal of the Oration. It was repeated by the belfries of all the churches in the city. Instantly, as if by magic, every movement was suspended. Each one said the evening prayer in a low whisper, and then made the sign of the cross; those of most consequence turning to the persons near them, uttering the words buenas noches (good night), which was repeated by all present. It is a simple but beautiful custom, ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... International, a call was sent out for a congress to be held in Geneva in 1873. The congress that assembled there was not a large one, but, with no exaggeration whatever, it was one of the most remarkable gatherings ever held. For six entire days and nights the delegates struggled to create by some magic means a world-wide organization of the people, without a program, a committee, a chairman, or a vote. No longer oppressed by the "tyranny" of Marx, or baffled by his "abominable intrigues," they set out to create their "faithful image" of the new world—an ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... time at the window, so long indeed that Maizie feared she was lost to all materialities. Suzanna, wonderful one, who could strike from dull stuff magic dreams; who could vivify and gloriously color the little things of life; who could into the simplest happenings read thrilling interpretations! What bliss to accompany her upon her wanderings, and what sadness ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... at regular intervals by short and somewhat thicker lines. It was the shadow of a field-telephone and its poles! And the airplane from which that photograph was taken was so high that it must have looked like a mere speck to one on the ground. There's war magic for you. ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... a match, the leaves were wet and the twigs soggy, but by some magic a tiny spark glows under some shadowy figure, bites at the twigs, snaps at the branches, and wraps a ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... its deeper meaning, saved Stephen from becoming a dunce. He still blundered and boggled over his lessons, and still kept pretty near to the bottom form in his class, but he felt that his master had an interest in him, and that acted like magic to his soul. He declined Master Raddleston's professional assistance for the future, and did the best he could by himself. He now and then, though hesitatingly, availed himself of Mr Rastle's offer, and took his ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... any other genius, Lord Byron had the magic power of conjuring up before our imagination the ideal image of his subject. He was not at all perplexed how to clothe his ideas. That quality, so sought after by other writers, and so necessary for hiding faults, was quite natural to him. When he describes women, a few rapid strokes suffice ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... more of an automaton than a human being, more dead than alive, and yet—greatest of all miseries!—he is not allowed to die. For he has a mother, the witch Uraka, who keeps him artificially alive by anointing him every night with magic salve and giving him such diabolic advice as will be useful to him during the day. By means of the sham health she gives to her son, the magic bullets she casts for him, the tricks and wiles she teaches ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... love? Sing winter, summer-sweets, the vernal air, Or the soft Sofa, to delight the fair[5]? Laugh, e'en at kings, and mock each prudish rule, The merry motley priest of ridicule[6]? With modest pencil paint the vernal scene, The rustic lovers, and the village green? Bid Mem'ry, magic child, resume his toy, And Hope's fond ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... a tangled string or an obstinate button hindering the performer. All this is opposed to the real purpose of playing, and injurious to the actor's art, to say nothing of the interests of the dramatist. Illusion is the special object of the theatre, and this forfeits its magic when once inquiry is directed too curiously to its method of contrivance. Still doubling of this kind has always been in favour both with actors and audiences, and many plays have been provided especially to give dual occupation to the performers. ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... prepared to scale an upper sphere: - By stirring up a lower, much I fear! How deftly that oiled barber lays his bloom! That long-shanked dapper Cupid with frisked curls Can make known women torturingly fair; The gold-eyed serpent dwelling in rich hair Awakes beneath his magic whisks and twirls. His art can take the eyes from out my head, Until I see with eyes of other men; While deeper knowledge crouches in its den, And sends a spark up:- is it true we are wed? Yea! filthiness of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... those of ancient Sparta, and, though in a different way, quite as repugnant to the essential principles of our nature. The institutions of Lycurgus, however, were designed for a petty state, while those of Peru, although originally intended for such, seemed, like the magic tent in the Arabian tale, to have an indefinite power of expansion, and were as well suited to the most flourishing condition of the empire as to its infant fortunes. In this remarkable accommodation to change of circumstances we see the proofs ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... staircase, and along the narrow passage. "A bas les Huguenots! Mort aux Huguenots!" they shouted; and shrieking, sweating, spurning with vile hands, viler faces, they poured pell-mell into the street, and added their clamour to the boom of the tocsin that, as by magic and in a moment, turned the streets of Paris into a hell of blood and cruelty. For as it was here, so it was in ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... breast of this Mohican warrior of the Siwanois clan, which is called by the Delawares "The Clan of the Magic Wolf," outlined in scarlet, I saw the emblem of his own ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... Chancellorship, or the gold medal at the musical academy, vanish as if by magic. There is no more talk about bishoprics or artistic fame. The parents settle down to the conventional task of having the child fitted for something it has no desire to be; and the notion that the particular faculties they observed—or thought they observed—during ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... which most resemble modern savages, speech was personified by the necessity of the perceptive faculty, a vague power was certainly ascribed to it, and even a simple murmur or whisper was supposed to have a direct and personal influence on things, men, and animals. Magic, which is the primitive expression of fetishtic power, embodied in a man, had its most efficacious form in the utterance of words, cries, whispers, or songs, referring to the malign or to the healing and beneficent arts, and it was employed to arouse or to calm storms, ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... are the magic handiwork of the nymphs and fays who for ages have lain hidden in the springs that burst out into little lakes upon the birch-crowned summits, and come rushing and tumbling down the rocky defiles to join the waters of the Housatuck. School-house ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... spring, always icy cold and crystal pure, in a certain birch-screened hollow of Rainbow Valley in the lower corner near the marsh. Not a great many people knew of its existence. The manse and Ingleside children knew, of course, as they knew everything else about the magic valley. Occasionally they went there to get a drink, and it figured in many of their plays as a fountain of old romance. Anne knew of it and loved it because it somehow reminded her of the beloved Dryad's Bubble at Green Gables. Rosemary ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... he caught in his arms the Houri of the foreign race; he fastened his burning lips upon her rosebud mouth; and by the magic of her breath she drew him on to the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... words disarmed that great crowd as if by magic; the men who had just now shouted, "Long live Wat Tyler!" now shouted with a mighty shout, "Long live our ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... I traversed Tower Hill, my mind wandered back for centuries, and dwelt upon the strange events in history which had been enacted there; of the soil where I stood, that had been moistened by the blood of monarchs, soldiers and statesmen. As I gazed upon the massive gray walls of the Tower, the magic scenes of Shakspeare arose, and passed in review before me. I thought of Gloucester, Clarence, Hastings, Henry VI., his two murdered nephews: then came forth the unhappy Jane Shore, pale, exhausted, and starving; no one ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... reduced them to fibres, as he had seen ropemakers do. For he intended to make a cord, to replace that which the devil had stolen. The demons were somewhat displeased at this; they ceased their clamour, and the girl with the theorbo no longer continued her magic arts, but remained quietly on the wall. The courage and faith of Paphnutius increased whilst ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... of the most beautiful and magnificent sights in Nature, all admit. But, I think, to those who know its story its beauty and magnificence are ten-fold increased. Its saltness it due to no magic mill. It is the dissolved rocks of the Earth which give it at once its brine, its strength, and its buoyancy. The rivers which we say flow with "fresh" water to the sea nevertheless contain those traces of salt which, collected over the long ages, occasion the saltness of ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... in its simplest form the genius of Commerce at the work of Civilization. Trade is the magic that keeps all at peace, and unites these discordant elements into a well-behaved community. All are traders, and know that peace and order are essential to successful trade, and thus a public opinion is created which puts down all lawlessness. Often in former year, when ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... ship in which he sailed moved very slowly; for he longed to reach the land which he could see through his magic spectacles: it was a beautiful kingdom, rich with mines of ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... with him at the city, whose thousands of tinned roofs, rising one above the other from the water's edge to the citadel, were all a splendor of argent light in the afternoon sun. It was indeed as if some magic had clothed that huge rock, base and steepy flank and crest, with a silver city. They gazed upon the marvel with cries of joy that satisfied the driver's utmost pride in it, and Isabel said, "To live there, there in that Silver City, in perpetual sojourn! To be ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... "anything they pleased," said the magistrates of Frankfort, "as long as they and the French kept the peace." They decided to adopt the English Order, barring responses, the Litany, the surplice, "and many other things." {54} The Litany was regarded by Knox as rather of the nature of magic than of prayer, the surplice was a Romish rag, and there was some other objection to the congregation's taking part in the prayers by responses, though they were not forbidden to mingle their voices in psalmody. Dissidium valde absurdum—"a very absurd quarrel," among exiled ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... conversation of which he was heartily tired. But Mrs. Brand, in the half-bewildered condition of mind to which long anxiety and sorrow had reduced her, did not know the virtue of silence, and did not possess the magic quality of tact. ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... small golden Cross which hung at his girdle, and laid it upon the Mirror. Instantly a loud noise was heard, resembling a clap of thunder, and the steel shivered into a thousand pieces. This circumstance confirmed the suspicion of the Monk's having dealt in Magic: It was even supposed that his former influence over the minds of the People was entirely ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... and Follies vain, Pleasures soon exchanged for pain, Doubt, and Jealousy, and Fear In the magic dance appear. ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... that a'thing wes ready, and the next aifternoon the Doctor comes himsel', an' the first thing he dis is tae lay the stick on the table an' gin he hed never said a word, tae see it lyin' there wes a veesitation. But he 's a weel-meanin' bit craturie, Maister Peebles, an' handy wi' a magic lantern. Sall," and then Hillocks became incapable of speech, and you knew that the thought of Dr. Davidson explaining comic ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... law at the bottom of a barrel of trash discovered at a venture and taking instant possession of the discoverer's mind! Like the genius issuing grandly in the smoke cloud from the vase drawn up out of the sea by the fisher in the Arabian tale! But this great book was not the only magic casket discovered by the idle store-keeper, the broken seals of which released mighty presences. Both Shakespeare and Burns were revealed to him in this period. Never after did either for a moment cease to be his companion. These literary treasures ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... has nothing to do with. Novelists and lawyers understand the art of "cramming" better than any other persons in the world. Why should not this young man be working up the picturesque in this romantic region to serve as a background for some story with magic, perhaps, and mysticism, and hints borrowed from science, and all sorts of out-of-the-way knowledge which his odd and miscellaneous selection of books furnished him? That might be, or possibly he was only reading for amusement. ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the boys are lying, in their low and narrow tents, And no battle-cry can wake them, and no orders call them hence; And the yearnings of the mother, and the anguish of the wife, Can not with their magic presence call the soldier back to life; And the brother's manly sorrow, and the father's mournful pride, Can not give back to his country him who for his country died. They who for the trembling Nation in its hour of trial bled, Lie, in these its years ...
— Farm Ballads • Will Carleton
... wonderful things, and at the red flannel shirts, and at the four flint guns and the spotted cotton handerchiefs, each worth a sable skin at one end of the fur trade, half a six-pence at the other. There was tea, too—tea, that magic medicine before which life's cares vanished ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... a nobleness and grandeur which it had never before exhibited. There was a lightning in his eye that seemed to rive the spectator. His action became graceful, bold and commanding; and in the tones of his voice, but more especially in his emphasis, there was a peculiar charm, a magic, of which any one who ever heard him will speak as soon as ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... As if by magic, every ship in the air above the city shot downward, dropping suddenly out of sight. In seconds, the air ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... see a wonderful row of little lights rise smoothly out of the ground, before a vast green curtain. Now, a bell rings—a magic bell, which still sounds in my ears unlike all other bells—and music plays, amidst a buzz of voices, and a fragrant smell of orange-peel and oil. Anon, the magic bell commands the music to cease, ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens
... which they were. He recognised that between them there was something which had never existed between Lois and himself, something which made their friendship a natural and significant thing. It was the freemasonry of class again, the magic ring against which he had ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... savants much earlier; yet when Dante's tutor, Brunetto Latini, visits Roger Bacon at Oxford about 1258, and is shown the black stone, he speaks of it as new and wonderful, but certain, if used, to awake suspicion of magic. "It has the power of drawing iron to it, and if a needle be rubbed upon it and fastened to a straw so as to swim upon water, the needle will instantly turn towards the Pole-Star. But no master mariner could use this, nor would the sailors venture themselves to sea under his ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... dominion over lake and forest. Occasionally a lily-pad would brush along the bottom, and stooping low I could hear a faint murmuring of the water under the bow: else all was still. Then almost as by magic, we were encompassed by a huge black ring. The surface of the lake, when we had reached the center, was slightly luminous from the starlight, and the dark, even forest-line that surrounded us, doubled by reflection in the water, presented a broad, unbroken belt of utter blackness. The effect was ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... magic hour a young painter, a man of talent, who saw in art nothing but Art itself, was perched on a step-ladder which helped him to work at a large high painting, now nearly finished. Criticising himself, honestly admiring himself, floating on the current of his thoughts, ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... yet it could bear no fruits—the door could not open till the pope pronounced the magic words which held it closed. Neither Philip nor Mary was in a position to use violence or ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... it and took it to the fire's edge, where, opening its pages one by one, so that each would get the warmth, she held it as close as she opined was safe. Having dried it until she no longer feared the wetting it had had would seriously harm its usefulness (the lovely smoothness of its magic leaves was gone, alas! beyond recall) she paused there for a moment, herself still far from dry, with a bare foot held out to the blaze, and studied curiously one ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... mother, the home-maker. She is the mystery of the ideal home. Each day her divine art grows more perfect because her heart is consecrated to the work. She may not be surrounded with material splendor. The miracle is in the soul she possesses. Love is the magic wand she yields. She loves her home, her children, her husband. She is the queen mother in the paradise ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... And hurls defiance at the caitiff's den. The First on fancy'd giants spent his rage, But This has more than windmills to engage: He combats passion, rooted in the soul, Whose pow'rs, at once delight ye, and controul; Whose magic bondage each lost slave enjoys, Nor wishes freedom, though the spell destroys. To save our land from this MAGICIAN's charms, And rescue maids and matrons from his arms, Our knight poetic comes. And Oh! ye fair! This black ENCHANTER's wicked arts ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... within hearing of his magic song. About the middle of this busy summer, the revisal of the Iliad was brought to a close; and on the very next day, the 24th of July, the correction of the Odyssey commenced,—a morning rendered memorable by a kind and unexpected visit from the patroness of that work, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... the palm to him, since Parrhasius painted a curtain which deceived his rival, whereas the grapes of Zeuxis had deceived only birds. Parrhasius was exceedingly arrogant and luxurious, and boasted of having reached the utmost limits of his art. He combined the magic tone of Apollodorus with the exquisite design of Zeuxis and the classic ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... upon tier of windows winking in the setting sun. On every hand were dazzling peaks piled against a turquoise sky, yet drawn respectfully apart from the incomparable Matterhorn, that proud grim chieftain of them all. The grand spectacle and the magic air made me thankful to be there, if only for their sake, albeit the more regretful that a purer purpose had not drawn me ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, on which Sir John Goss played, and which had felt the magic touch of Mendelssohn, had 13 stops on the Great, 7 on the Swell, 8 on the Choir and only one on the Pedal. It stood in a case on the screen between the choir and the nave of the Cathedral. We have noted elsewhere in this book how Willis had this screen removed, and rebuilt the organ on each side ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... Trove had risen early and was walking out on a long pike that divided the village of Hillsborough and cut the waste of snow, winding over hills and dipping into valleys, from Lake Champlain to Lake Ontario. The air was cold but full of magic sun-fire. All things were aglow—the frosty roadway, the white fields, the hoary forest, and the mind of the beholder. Trove halted, looking off at the far hills. Then he heard a step behind him and, as he turned, saw a tall man approaching at a quick pace. ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... my mind, as I travelled on, by a solitary road. At intervals, some one among them would stop, as it were, in its restless flitting to and fro, and enable me to look at it, quite steadily, and behold it in full distinctness. After a few moments, it would dissolve, like a view in a magic-lantern; and while I saw some part of it quite plainly, and some faintly, and some not at all, would show me another of the many places I had lately seen, lingering behind it, and coming through it. This was no sooner visible than, in its turn, it ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... services at the church were well attended, and there were generally upwards of thirty at the Holy Communion. At Christmas time we had a great feast; nearly a hundred of the people came, and after partaking of the good things, we gave them a magic lantern exhibition, which pleased them greatly. Then we always had service in the schoolhouse every Wednesday evening, at which there was an exceedingly good attendance; and on Friday evenings we held a cottage lecture, sometimes ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... upon the correct usage of these magic bits of pasteboard will not seem unnecessary when it is remembered that the visiting card, socially defined, means, and is frequently made to take the place of, one's self. It will be seen, therefore, that one of the first requisites for social success is to understand the language, ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... some Cooper's magic art may wake The sleeping legends of this mighty vale, And twine fond memories round the lawn and lake, Where Warrior fought ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... it is magic. But I am no fool. I know John Gaviller make the laktrek in an engine in the mill. Me, I have seen that engine. I see blue fire inside lak ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... partly from a desire to escape the monotony of old scenes and familiar faces; and partly because one day while in "town" he had listened attentively to a desert nomad, or "drifter," who had told a tale of a country where water was to be the magic which would open the gates of fortune to the eager ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the mystery of that nocturnal minstrelsy. Seventy-three bells in chromatic diapason—with their tinkling, ringing, tolling, knolling peal! Was not that a chime? a chime of chimes? And all these goblin hammers, like hands and feet of sprites, rising and falling, by magic, by hidden mechanism. ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... forms, and even to-day we are scarcely more than heads out of the vast subtle muddle of thinking about spheres and ideally perfect forms and so on, that was the price of this little necessary step to clear thinking. You know better than I do how large a part numerical and geometrical magic, numerical and geometrical philosophy has played in the history of the mind. And the whole apparatus of language and mental communication is beset with like dangers. The language of the savage is, I suppose, purely positive; the thing has a name, the ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... replied the other captain, solemnly, "the fog and all disappeared as if by magic, the whole horizon was clear and there ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... each other rapidly. That beautiful Milky Way, which has for ages been the object of admiration to all lovers of nature, never disclosed its true nature to the eye of man till the astronomer of Padua turned on it his magic tube. The splendid zone of silvery light was then displayed as star-dust scattered over the black background of the sky. It was observed that though the individual stars were too small to be seen severally without optical ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... step beside her. They walked toward the Platform. And it was still magic, no matter how often Joe looked at it. It was huge beyond belief, though it was surely not heavy in proportion to its size. Its bright plating shone through the gossamer scaffolding all about it. There was always a faint bluish mist in the air, ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... fall upon them directly, they appeared dark and earthy. Each time, however, the sun's rays soon came to undeceive him; and that which had so lately been black and frowning was, as by the touch of magic, suddenly illuminated, and became bright and gorgeous, throwing out its emerald hues, or perhaps a virgin white, that filled the beholder with delight, even amid the terrors and dangers by which, in very truth, he was surrounded. The glorious Alps themselves, those wonders of the earth, ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... remain insensible to this magic spectacle of the starry Heavens? Where is the mind that is not attracted to these enigmas? The intelligence of the amateur, the feminine, no less than the more material and prosaic masculine mind, is ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... time it had begun to dawn upon me that there was a difference among books, not only in regard to the things told, but also in regard to the way of the telling. Unconsciously I became sensitive to the magic of style, and, wandering freely through the library, was drawn to the writers whose manner and accent had a charm for me. Emerson and Carlyle I liked no better than I liked caviar; but Lamb's Essays and Irving's Sketches were fascinating. For histories of literature, thank Heaven, I never ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... month with me, and I know the nature of his changes throughout; but I have not yet had the revised proofs. He was in a better state at Knebworth than I have ever seen him in all these years, a little weird occasionally regarding magic and spirits, but perfectly fair and frank under opposition. He was talkative, anecdotical, and droll; looked young and well, laughed heartily, and enjoyed some games we played with great zest. In his artist ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... single ship till it came to the island of Aeaea, where Circe, the dreadful daughter of the Sun, dwelt. She was deeply skilled in magic, a haughty beauty, and had hair like the Sun. The Sun was her parent, and begot her and her brother Aeaetes (such another as herself) upon Perse, ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... Fastened to this magic wand were also many strange shells and charms which the earth children did not understand and which the strange prince did ...
— Stories of Birds • Lenore Elizabeth Mulets
... at Mingham! What a destiny! Certainly Blent was in the same valley, but—— Well, a "seat" is one thing, and a farm's another; the world is to blame again, no doubt. And with men who want nothing, for whom the word "opening" has no magic, what is to be done? Abstractly they are seen to be a necessary element in the community; but they do not make good sons or sons-in-law for ambitious men. Janie, when she had seen Bob, an unrepentant cheerful Bob, on his way, came back to find her ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... in Magic," by Charles B. Loomis, the widely known humorist, is an extremely original and clever juvenile, Mr. Loomis's first piece of long fiction. It has a fairy-tale motive in an entirely realistic setting. A country boy, ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... Wizard-Dame, the Lover's ancient friend, With magic charm has deaft thy husband's ear, At her command I saw the stars descend, And winged lightnings stop in mid ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... adventures, king AEtes promised to deliver to Jason the golden fleece, provided he yoked two fire-breathing oxen with brazen feet, and performed other wonderful deeds. Here, also, as in the legend of Theseus, love played a prominent part. Medea, the daughter of AEtes, who was skilled in magic and supernatural arts, furnished Jason with the means of accomplishing the labours imposed upon him; and as her father still delayed to surrender the fleece, she cast the dragon asleep during the night, seized the fleece, and sailed away in the Argo ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... made to live Past kingdoms, with his vivid brain! Who could such warmth to shadows give, By the mere magic of his pen, That Charles and England rose again! Well sleeps he 'mid the Abbey's dust: And, Laureate! thy funereal verse Shall have such echo as it must From hearts just wrung at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... to make them so, but because they already were so. So that this argument seems more than all others demonstrative for the Anabaptist, and to prove that Baptism derives all its force if it be celestial magic, or all its meaning if it be only a sacrament and symbol, from the presumption of actual sin ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... the pea, and the pyramid, flash into existence. In some branches of traffic the wearer calls loudly for new fashions; but in this, the fashions tread upon each other, and crowd upon the wearer. The consumption of this article is astonishing. There seem to be hidden treasures couched within this magic circle, known only to a few, who extract prodigious fortunes out of this useful toy, whilst a far greater number, submit to a statute ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... of an attitude to science, but he did have such an attitude. Life was to him a story told by God: the people in it the characters in that story. But since the story was told by God it was, quite literally, a magic story, a fairy story, a story full of wonders created by a divine will. As a child a toy telephone rigged up by his father from the house to the end of the garden had breathed that magic quality ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... damp. In future she would wear leather boots with goloshes over them during the day, and only put on moccasins when it became cold in the evening. She knew that in a few days the snow would have disappeared as if by magic, and that a thousand green living things would be rushing up from the brown, steaming earth, and broidering with the promise of a still ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... Messenger looked him full in the eyes; then, as by magic, the loveliest of smiles transfigured the dull, blank features; her round shoulders, pendulous arms, slouching pose, melted into superb symmetry, quickening with grace and youth as she straightened up and faced ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... ranchward. Once more the smiles filled out his wrinkles. Very suddenly, by the magic of kinship and the good that lies somewhere in all hearts, ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... simply! First my liquid positive, then my magic spectacles. I photograph the story in a liquid with light-sensitive chromates. I build up a complex solution—do you see? I add taste chemically and sound electrically. And when the story is recorded, then I put the solution in my spectacle—my ...
— Pygmalion's Spectacles • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... opportunity of stealing the novel in question. I read it eagerly, passionately, vehemently. I read its successor and its successor. I read until I came to a book called "The Doctor's Wife"—a lady who loved Shelley and Byron. There was magic, there was revelation in the name, and Shelley became my soul's divinity. Why did I love Shelley? Why was I not attracted to Byron? I cannot say. Shelley! Oh, that crystal name, and his poetry also crystalline. I must ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... to Cheyenne," interrupted Potter, who had shown deep interest in the conversation, "we'll get you over if we have to use a snow plow. Maybe you've got the magic to get this row settled. At any rate, it's ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... better worth telling than those of Count Antonio.... The author knows full well how to make every pulse thrill, and how to hold his readers under the spell of his magic."—Boston Herald. ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... from their stands, right-turned like a military line, and walked in procession round the stage. At a halt and a signal each pussy put its front paws on its front neighbour and the march began again. Then Lola did something with voice and whip, and each cat dropped on its paws, and as if by magic there appeared a space between ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... started on their hike to the old camp. Excepting their tents they carried full camping equipment, blankets, cooking utensils, first aid kit, lanterns, changes of clothing, and plenty of those materials which Roy's magic could conjure into luscious edibles. The raw material for the delectable flipflop was there, cans groaning with egg-powder, raisins for plum-duff, savory bacon, rice enough for twenty weddings and chocolate enough to corner the market ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... a magic lantern are a condensing lens to make the beam of light converge upon the slide to illuminate it evenly, ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... furnished another volume for my garden studies. From him I inherited some of that taste which finds a magic attraction in dictionaries and grammars; and I only wish that I had properly mastered about half the languages in which it was the delight of my girlhood to dabble. As yet, however, I only looked at the 'grammar corner' with ambitious eyes, till one day there ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... random treasure hunting. Blackbeard might have chosen his hiding-place anywhere along hundreds of leagues of coast. He could understand the agitation of these two adventurous lads to whom this memorandum was like a magic spell. Of such was the ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... of Max toward Yolanda was a real triumph of skill and adroitness over inherited convictions and false education. She had brought him from condescension to deference solely by the magic of her art. Or am I wrong? Was it her artlessness? Perhaps it was her artful artlessness, since every girl-baby is born with a modicum of ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... Mahadeo's hair in King Burtal's story, she put her two thumbs to her ears, and spread out all her fingers from her head saying, "His hair stood out like this," and in "Loving Laili," after moving her hand as if she were pulling the magic knife from her pocket and unfolding it, she swung her arm out at full length with great energy, and then she said, "Laili made one 'touch'" (here she brought back the edge of her hand to her own throat), "and the head fell off." Dunkni sometimes used an English word, such as ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... breakfast, now becoming a very important consideration, assailed by a good natural appetite, sharpened in the shrewd air of a clear, cold morning. At last, ring goes the bell; and the deck, already thinned of the more anxious, or more provident, of the party, becomes, at that magic tinkle, a desert. ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... seemed forgetful of the existence of anybody but himself, forgetful almost of himself as well: sitting low in his great chair, his body as stirless as it were bound by some spell of black magic, his far gaze ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... burden. The twins could hear her surprised exclamation, and see the hitch of the shoulders with which she freed her right arm for the attack. Down she bent, panting louder than before, until, even as her envious fingers approached the prize, it leapt into the air, and as by some magic process disappeared from sight. Jack was bursting with pride at his own adroitness, and Jill nudged in enthusiastic approval. This came of fishing by the river-banks in the last summer holidays, and gaining dexterity in the art of casting lines! It was wonderful how useful such accomplishments ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... Odo spent many blissful hours. His fancy ranged in the wake of heroes and adventurers who, for all he knew, might still be feasting and fighting north of the Alps, or might any day with a blast of their magic horns summon the porter to the gates of Donnaz. Foremost among them, a figure towering above even Rinaldo, Arthur and the Emperor Frederic, was that Conrad, father of Conradin, whose sayings are set down in the old story-book ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... death stalked everywhere, grinning with malicious triumph, for he had but one more battle to fight. Already his grisly clutch was closing on the standard of victory. Man had mastered life but he had not conquered death. With the magic wand of science he had reached out into space and viewed the life of far-off worlds. He had routed superstition and fear and selfishness. He had banished disease and learned all nature's secrets; had even visited other worlds and had come to know and understand his God, but still ...
— Omega, the Man • Lowell Howard Morrow
... reluctantly to the capital; but very soon escaped back to the things he loved: the mountains, and his chrysanthemum garden, and the country, where he could hear the dogs barking in the far farms, and see the chickens scratching in the lanes. We do not find in him, perhaps, the flood of Natural Magic that came with the poets of the Great Age three or four centuries later; but we do find a heart-felt worship of the great unspoiled world under the sky: he is there to say that China was returning to her real strength, which is Nature-worship. While he ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... junk, stands on a rock in a fish-pond reflecting the rosy sky, and the fretted marble of a beautiful Arabian tomb gleams from a clump of white-starred sumboya exhaling incense on the air. As the magic and mystery of night shroud Makassar in a mantle of gloom, the surrounding sea becomes a vision of phosphorescent flame to the furthest horizon. The sheet-lightning of the tropical sky repeats the wonders of the deep, the ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... ragged walls, All unawares before his half-shut eyes, Comes in upon him in the dead of night, And with th' excess of sweetness and of awe, Makes the heart tremble, and the eyes run over Upon his steely gyves; so those fair eyes Shone on my darkness forms which ever stood Within the magic cirque of memory, Invisible but deathless, waiting still The edict of the will to reassume The semblance of those rare realities Of which they were the mirrors. Now the light, Which was their life, burst through the cloud of thought Keen, irrepressible. It ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... somewhere read, many years ago, but cannot recollect the authority, "That, when Alexander besieged a certain city in India, the Brachmans, by the power of magic, raised a cloud of smoke around the walls, whence broke frequent flashes of lightning, with thunder, and the thunderbolts slew many of his soldiers." This would infer the very ancient use of fire-arms ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... Baliol; "you must get over all these scruples, if you would thrive in the character of a romantic historian, which you have determined to embrace. What is the classic Robertson to you? The light which he carried was that of a lamp to illuminate the dark events of antiquity; yours is a magic lantern to raise up wonders which never existed. No reader of sense wonders at your historical inaccuracies, any more than he does to see Punch in the show box seated on the same throne with King Solomon in his glory, or to hear him hallooing out to the patriarch, ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... "There are many among the Norman men-at-arms who talk, over their wine-cups, how that Damian de Lacy is in love with his uncle's betrothed bride; ay, and that they correspond together by art magic." ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... toy human being seemed full of intelligence, and after the first protest examined me fearlessly, with enchanting smiles about the mouth and eyes. I noticed even then an upward curling of the mouth corners and a kind of magic in the liquid blue gaze, of which Paul might never be conscious, but which would work ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... shanties and booths. All ordinary employments were laid aside. Ships were deserted by their crews, who ran to the mines, sometimes, it is said, headed by their officers. Soon streets were laid out, houses erected, and from this Babel, as if by magic, grew up a beautiful city. For a time, lawlessness reigned supreme. But, driven by the necessity of events, the most respectable citizens took the law into their own hands, organized vigilance committees, ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... romance. Thus it has always been nor can the peopling of many lands and the finding and exploring of all continents and islands check this. However it may be with the cattle it is this which gives tang to our salt hay and touches the reviving coolness of the spray and the east wind with the rainbow magic of dreams. ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... me; I have stolen away from you, but only for a few days, and only in order to see if we cannot gain the magic home where I am to be the Genius, and you the Princess. I go forth with such a light heart, Sophy dear, I shall be walking thirty miles a day, and not feel an ache in the lame leg: you could not keep up with me; you know you could not. So think over ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... west is a mysterious sea, (What sails have seen it, or what shipmen known?) With coasts enchanted where the Sirens be, With islands where a Goddess walks alone, And in the cedar trees the magic winds make moan. ...
— Grass of Parnassus • Andrew Lang
... scattered remnants of the tribes East and West owned his rightful authority as chief. The Canaghwagas were one of these. So these lost ones had come straight to the official and actual head of their people when they were stranded in the great city. They knew it when they heard the magic name of Donegahawa, and sat silently waiting and wondering till he should come. The child looked up admiringly at the gold-laced cap of Inspector Williams, when he took her on his knee, and the stern face of the big policeman ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... these circumstances to display his genius and to delight his hearers with a piece of genuine music. This he did and his operatic overtures are of such distinct import and self-sufficiency that they are often detached from the opera itself and played as concert numbers. The Magic Flute Overture is also noteworthy because of the polyphonic treatment of the first theme which is a definite fugal presentation in four voices. The second theme, beginning in measure 64, and soon repeated, is light and winning, meant to supplement rather than to contrast strongly with ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... frozen skin, Old friends and dear came trooping in, And light and laughter filled the room.... Voices and faces, shapes beloved, Babbling lips and kindly eyes, Not ghosts, but friends that lived and moved ... They brought the sun from other skies, They wrought the magic that dispels The bitterer part of loneliness ... And when they vanished each man dreamed His dream there in the wilderness.... One heard the chime of Christmas bells, And, staring down a country lane, Saw bright against the window-pane The firelight beckon warm and red.... ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... able to tread in that magic circle only by an exquisite refinement of taste, and by a delicate sense of humour, which is the best preservative against all extravagance. Both qualities combine in that tender delineation of character which is, after ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... dwellings and shops, store-houses of food, imposing temples, and lordly mansions. The anvils rang merrily as the armorers forged weapons for the troops, merchants sought the new city with their goods, heavily laden boats flocked into its harbor, and almost as if by magic a great city, the destined capital of the ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... for astronomers had long surmised the existence of a planet in the wide gap between Mars and Jupiter. Indeed, they were even preparing to make concerted search for it, despite the protests of philosophers, who argued that the planets could not possibly exceed the magic number seven, when Piazzi forestalled their efforts. But a surprise came with the sequel; for the very next year Dr. Olbers, the wonderful physician-astronomer of Bremen, while following up the course of Ceres, happened on another tiny ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... yet—the distinction struck her hard—that was perhaps only true if personal charm merely meant charm of person, for she herself had experienced something of the strange impressiveness which men—men of imagination—submitted to in Emily's presence. Where did it lie, this magic? It was indefinite, indefinable; perhaps a tone of the voice represented it, perhaps a smile—which meant, of course, that it was inseparable from her being, from her womanhood. Could one attribute to Emily, even after the briefest acquaintance, a thought, an ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... bad luck. My wife and the neighbour women play the lottery, by combining the numbers of their birthdays, and the ages of their fathers, their mothers, and their children. When some relative dies, they make a magic combination of the dates of birth and death, the day and the month, and buy a lottery ticket. They never win; and instead of realizing that their systems are of no avail, they say that they omitted to count in the number of letters in the name or something of that sort. It ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... were undertaken and executed in Napoleon's short and eventful reign! To obviate the difficulty of communication between Metz and Mayence a magnificent road was made, as if by magic, across impracticable marshes and vast forests. Mountains were cut through and ravines filled up. He would not allow nature more than man to resist him. One day when he was proceeding to Belgium by the ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... day, did her spell weave round me its magic, and all the hidden things of her being grew more lovely and strange. Did I commune with a spirit? Often I thought that Paradise had overtaken me on earth, and that Yillah was verily an angel, and hence ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... shall lose the sight. Quite a number of people are come from inland. How wonderfully quickly these things spread! They came the first day, and then made up their minds that nothing could be done, and so they stopped at home. But now, here they are again, as if by magic! If the ship gets off, it will be known halfway to London before nightfall. But I see Captain Stubbard going up the hill to your charming battery. That shows implicit faith in Tugwell, to return the salute of the fair captive! It is indeed ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... When spreads abroad the lofty lay, The Human kindles to the Holy, And into Spirit soars the Clay! One with the Gods the Bard: before him All things unclean and earthly fly— Hush'd are all meaner powers, and o'er him The dark fate swoops unharming by; And while the Soother's magic measures flow, Smooth'd every wrinkle on the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... were the friends whom fame Had linked with the unmeaning name, 65 Whose magic marked among mankind The casket of my unknown mind, Which hidden from the vulgar glare Imbibed no fleeting radiance there. My darksome spirit sought—it found 70 A friendless solitude around. For who that might undaunted stand, The saviour of a sinking land, Would crawl, its ruthless ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... glancing from Paul to Hazel. "You are better, Paul. Has Hazel been treating you again with some of her magic suggestion business? At any rate, I cannot deny its power." She flittered over to the bed and playfully buried Paul's face in the bouquet. "There! Aren't they splendid? And you would never guess who sent ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... power of expression. That is before you which never can be painted or chanted, because there is no cunning of art or speech able to reflect it. Nature realizes your most hopeless ideals of beauty, even as one gives toys to a child. And the sight of this supreme terrestrial expression of creative magic numbs thought. In the great centres of civilization we admire and study only the results of mind,—the products of human endeavor: here one views only the work of Nature,—but Nature in all her primeval ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... the spot. Voice, accent, and manner had alike jarred on his nerves: she had appeared in every respect the opposite to the decorous, soft-voiced, highly-bred, if somewhat inane, damsel who represented his ideal of feminine charm. One week ago! What magic did she possess, this little red-haired, white-faced girl, to make such short work of the scruples of a lifetime? What was this mysterious feminine charm which blinded his senses to everything but just herself, and the ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... jokes which make the blood run cold. Lastly, we are compelled to say that we repose much more confidence in the writer's taste in architecture than in painting. It is enough to say that he evinces no feeling for the more simple and majestic compositions of Raphael; while the powerful contrasts, and magic of light and shadow displayed by Guercino and Tintoret, seem to exercise an undue fascination on his mind. It is only to the injurious effect produced by these blemishes that we can attribute the slender success with which the volumes have been attended; for at this moment we do not recollect ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... misery, moaning and bewailing continually. Through the intervention of Myuingwa (a vague conception known as the god of the interior) and of Baholikonga (a crested serpent of enormous size, the genius of water), the "old men" obtained a seed from which sprang a magic growth of cane. It penetrated through a crevice in the roof overhead and mankind climbed to a higher plane. A dim light appeared in this stage and vegetation was produced. Another magic growth of cane afforded the means of rising ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... happy sleeper passes into unconsciousness, passes through the flowered border of the ancient square, into the scene beyond, becomes one of those storied persons in the enchanted land and lives with them in jousts and tourneys or in fetes champetres at lovely chateaux. The magic spell of the house of tapestries has fallen like the dew from heaven to bless the striver in our modern ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... division of the subject is represented by the religious literature. With this literature as a guide, the views held by the Babylonians and Assyrians regarding magic and oracles, regarding the relationship to the gods, the creation of the world, and the views of life after death have been illustrated by copious translations, together with discussions of the specimens chosen. The translations, I may add, have been made direct from ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... usual tribute. Dr Schweinfurth has given a vivid picture of this man in the heyday of his power. Chained lions formed part of his escort, and it is recorded that he had 25,000 dollars' worth of silver cast into bullets in order to foil the magic of any enemy who was said to be proof against lead. Strong as this truculent leader was in men and money, the Khedive Ismail did not believe that he would dare to resist his power. He therefore decided to have recourse to force, and in ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... softened by distance, and to imbibe the finest aerial hues. In common also with other mountains, their apparent forms and colours are perpetually changed by the clouds and vapours which float round them: the effect indeed of mist or haze, in a country of this character, is like that of magic. I have seen six or seven ridges rising above each other, all created in a moment by the vapours upon the side of a mountain, which, in its ordinary appearance, shewed not a projecting point to furnish even a hint for such ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... into a quasi-Dictatorship, was suddenly lowered from his high position, and his late Troops march to this last Review with the quiet formality of a dress parade. What cared those stern, self-sacrificing men in ranks, from whose bayonets that brilliant sun glistened in diamond splendor, for the magic of a name—the majesty of a Staff, gorgeous, although not clothed in the uniform desired by its late Chief. The measure of payment for toil and sacrifice with them, was progress in the prosecution of their holy cause. The thunders of the ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... from the battlements seen Parsifal approaching, who, thrust out from the Castle of the Grail, had, by the peculiar magic of the place, found the path to it obliterated. He had come forth with the exalted but undefined sense of a great task to perform. But, even as the road to the Castle of the Grail was difficult to find, the road to Klingsor's castle was easy ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... foot. 'Vive Labeur, Vive le Roy Louys!' I do not wonder this skilful craftsman 'of the empire and the rule' lamented on his death-bed in 1483, at Plessis-les-Tours, that he could not live to crown the edifice he had so well begun. We in England and America know him only in the magic mirror of the Wizard of the North. But France owes him a great debt. He was cruel, but in comparison with the cruelty of Lebon, of Barere, of Billaud-Varennes, his cruelty was tender mercy, He was a hypocrite, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... uneasy air, and their laughter was not quite genuine at its best, and died away altogether when they came near the schoolhouse, and they hardly recovered from the effects of the preaching till a mile or two had been spun behind the shining runners. It took all the magic of the jingle of the bells and the musical creak of the polished steel on the snow to win them ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... content; the quiet, the magic veil of oblivion, of the woods, of the immobile mountains, enveloped and soothed him, released his heart from its oppression, banished the fever, the struggle, from his brain. The barrier against which he still fished was mauve, the water black; the moon appeared ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... ensued. Cards, chips, and money were swept as by magic from the board. A dozen dog-eared and filthy magazines and newspapers were snatched from a hiding place beneath the table, and in the fraction of a second the room was transformed from a gambling place ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the forfeiture of his folly, acknowledged, before he died, that his reasons for believing in a mine were extracted from the lips of a sibyl, who, by looking in a magic glass, was enabled to discover the hidden treasures of the earth. Such superstition was frequent in the new settlements; and, after the first surprise was over, the better part of the community forgot the subject. But, at the same time that it removed from ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... There was nothing of melancholy in it, nor in the expression of the New Englander as he sprang, cutlass in hand, through the gap. Slow to take fire, when Toley's anger was kindled it blazed with a devouring flame. The crowd of assailants dissolved as if by magic. Before the last of the crew of the Hormuzzeer, lascars and Europeans, had passed into the inclosure, the men of the Good Intent and their Bengali allies were streaming over and under the ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... consternation into which the court was thrown. The most sinister rumors circulated darkly; a base intrigue caused the Duke of Orleans to be accused; people called to mind his taste for chemistry and even magic, his flagrant impiety, his scandalous debauchery; beside himself with grief and anger, he demanded of the king to be sent to the Bastille; the king refused curtly, coldly, not unmoved in his secret heart by the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... boy chums watched the flames spread as if by magic till in a few minutes a towering wall of fire was ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... should be invented, or some magic made, whereby the brown rot would be banished from our orchards then a great many of the fine varieties of hybrid plums would be transferred from the "plums that are on the way" to the list of "plums that we already have." The brown ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... with weary surprise, prepared to put him back in his proper place. But she must have seen again something of the magic crown about the boy's head, for she had patience with him. He meant nothing. He had to talk as he did. ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... confess that the Italian sky, in the daytime, is bluer and brighter than our own, and that the atmosphere has a quality of showing objects to better advantage. It is more than mere daylight; the magic of moonlight is somehow mixed up with it, although it is so transparent a ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... So, all these magic memories which link eight generations of Americans are summed up in the inscription just above me. How many times have we seen it? "In ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... more a blessing than a curse to Judea! The soldiers of Charles II. were justified in shooting the Covenanters on the muirs of Scotland, if they thought his rule was better, on the whole, for England, than anarchy! According to this theory, the moment the magic wand of Government touches our vices, they start up into virtues! But has Government any peculiar character or privilege in this respect? Oh, no—Government is only an association of individuals, and the same ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... being avoided. For the same reason, by this process positive impressions can be obtained not only upon wet paper, &c., but also upon hard inflexible substances, such as porcelain, ivory, glass, &c.,—and upon this last, the positives being transparent are applicable to the stereoscope, magic ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 194, July 16, 1853 • Various
... The magic little word "Reno" makes a smile creep over the face of anyone who hears it mentioned, as a rule in recognition of the one thing for which it is known. I have smiled myself with the rest of the world in the past; in the future my smile will ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... constraint between Lord Earle and his daughters wore away; Ronald even wondered himself at the force of his own love for them. He had made many improvements since his return. He did wonders upon the estate; model cottages seemed to rise by magic in place of the wretched tenements inhabited by poor tenants; schools, almshouses, churches, all testified to his zeal for improvement. People began to speak with warm admiration of the Earlescourt estate ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... middle of which are four high black pillars; within which there are neat fire-places for preparing tea, coffee and punch; and all around, also, there are placed tables, set out with all kinds of refreshments. Within these four pillars, in a kind of magic rotundo, all the beau-monde of London move perpetually ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... power, whose sole function is to form such conceptions as the intellect imperatively demands. Imagination, thus exercised, never really severs itself from the world of fact. This is the storehouse from which its materials are derived; and the magic of its art consists, not in creating things anew, but in so changing the magnitude, position, grouping, and other relations of sensible things, as to render them fit for the requirements of the intellect in the ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... truth telling, industrious, courageous Americans—plain and unlettered, many of them, but full of the sterling virtues. Yes, he would have written poems out of these people; and he would have done something more—he would have given us symbols, songs of eternal truth, of unutterable magic and profound meaning like "La Belle Dame sans Merci." I am sure he would have done something of this kind—though it is idle to say he would have written anything as immortal as that. You must only indulge me in my partiality for Mitch, and my belief in his genius, ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters
... possessing so great a treasure as this magic ring, the Prince went on his way rejoicing, but by and by, as he trudged along the road, he began to feel hungry, and thought he would put his ring to the test. So, making a holy place, he put the ring in the ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... France, few save Mr. Michelet could have produced. Founded on truth and close inquiry, it still reads more like a poem than a sober history. As a beautiful speculation, which has nearly, but not quite, grasped the physical causes underlying the whole history of magic and illusion in all ages, it may be read with profit as well as pleasure in this age of vulgar spirit-rapping. But the true history of Witchcraft has yet to be written ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... by the buffalo, every bush and low tree had been stripped bare. Multitudes of rocks blackened by the sunlight were to be seen on every side. No scouts were sent in advance and none acted on the flanks. The contagious example of Major McGary acted like magic, and men and horses went forward as if every one was doing his utmost to outstrip ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... His touch was so exquisite, his interpretation so masterly, that presently the second violinist laid down his instrument and listened breathlessly, while Wolfgang played on and on, forgetful of everything but the magic spell of the music, and as his father listened, his heart throbbed with pride and joy, and tears rolled down his face, ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... surpass all the mermen of legend in the depths they go in their coral-studded lagoons in search of the jewels that hide in gold-lipped shells? Was it for me to wander among those fabulous coral isles flung for a thousand miles upon the sapphire sea, like wreaths of lilies upon a magic lake? ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... heart is to be expressed; pictured to yourself the very looks by which those words will have their sweetest reply. The scene you have thus imagined appears to you vivid and distinct, as if foreshown in a magic glass. And suddenly, after long absence, the meeting takes place in the midst of a common companionship: nothing that you wished to say can be said. The scene you pictured is painted out by the irony of Chance; and groups and backgrounds of which you ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... at bay From the roseate splendour of the cheek so tender, And the silver threads from the gold away. And the tell-tale years that have hurried by us Shall tip-toe back, and, with kind good-will, They shall take the traces from off our faces, If we will trust to thy magic skill. ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... no bridges across the little river, nor were there boats enough to carry the army across. But under the direction of skillful engineers, the best in the world, pontoon bridges sprang up as if by magic. Before the Germans were fully aware of what was going on, several thousand men had been ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... consulting party, and sauntered idly towards them, but they were about as sharp as himself, in practice if not in name. The lisps and drawls returned as if by magic, and the turf became the subject of interest ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... this book, especially the account of the pilgrimages to Stratford-on-Avon, and the Leasowes, and Olney, and other places memorable for their literary associations, are as fine pieces of descriptive writing as the English language possesses. This magic of style characterized all his works, whether those of a more popular kind, or his scientific treatises, such as the "Old Red Sandstone," and "Footprints of the Creator," a volume suggested by the "Vestiges of Creation," and subversive ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller |
