"Spell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ditch of the fort was reached. It was some six or seven feet deep and ten or twelve wide, the excavated material sufficing for the embankments of the fort. Some 120 men and officers precipitated themselves into it, many losing their lives at its very edge. After a short breathing spell men were helped up the exterior of the parapet on the shoulders of others; fifty or sixty being thus disposed an attempt was made to storm the fort. At the signal nearly all rose, but the enemy, lying securely sheltered behind the interior slope, the muzzles of their guns almost touching ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... a mere patriotic effort not to be made if it involved any self-denial. Swadeshi, as defined here, is a religious discipline to be undergone in utter disregard of the physical discomfort it may cause to individuals. Under its spell the deprivation of a pin or a needle, because these are not manufactured in India, need cause no terror. A Swadeshist will learn to do without hundreds of things which today he considers necessary. Moreover, those who dismiss Swadeshi from their minds ...
— Third class in Indian railways • Mahatma Gandhi
... as he studied himself in the art of politics may be compared to what an English Canadian of similar temperament would feel like if he could fling a spell over Quebec. Laurier made a second conquest of Canada. He took a great Cobden party from Edward Blake and made it almost protectionist, Imperial and his own. He grafted a sort of Liberalism on to polyglot nationalities. In about the ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... meant, ran yet an indubitable vein of awful truth, whether fully intended by the writer or not mattered little to such a reader as Donal—when, lifting his eyes, he saw lady Arctura standing before him with a strange listening look. A spell seemed upon her; her face was white, her lips white and a ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... happy and careless that for some time he did not like to break the spell of her restful beauty. Nor did he until his pipe was quite finished, and he had looked carefully over the notes in his "day-book." Then he said in slow, even tones, "My child, listen to me. This summer my young kinsman ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... mate arrived with the dray, which we at once unloaded, and then turned the horses out to feed and have a spell before working them again. Every night since I had arrived a thunderstorm had occurred, much to my delight, and already the once cracked and baking flats were beginning to put on a carpet of grass; and indeed, in three weeks it was eighteen inches high, and made ...
— "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific - 1901 • Louis Becke
... let me go back from the slum to my Brooklyn home for just a look. I did every night, or I do not think I could have stood it. I never lived in New York since I had a home, except for the briefest spell of a couple of months once when my family were away, and that nearly stifled me. I have to be where there are trees and birds and green hills, and where the sky is blue above. So we built our nest in Brooklyn, on the outskirts of the great park, while the fledglings grew, and the nest was full ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... impertinent fops never ventured to take any liberty with him; his temper, even in the most vexatious and irritating circumstances, always under perfect command. His education had been so much neglected that he could not spell the most common words of his own language: but his acute and vigorous understanding amply supplied the place of book learning. He was not talkative: but when he was forced to speak in public, his natural eloquence moved the envy of practiced rhetoricians. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... threshold stone, And horse-shoes on the lintel of it, And happy hearts to keep it warm, And God Himself to love it! Dear little nest built snug on bough Within the World-Tree's mighty arms, I would I knew a spell that charms Eternal safety from ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... nothing of this. He was wholly modern; dissolute enough for any epoch, but possessed of virtues that his contemporaries could not spell. A slave tried to poison him. Suetonius says he merely put the slave to death. The "merely" is to the point. Cato would have tortured him first. After Pharsalus he forgave everyone. When severe, it was to himself. It is true ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... received copies of the inquiry was a New York writer. He thought the proposition over for a spell, and then sent back the truthful ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... drew back from this first attempt to take the island, but the fire of the hidden enemy did not cease. In this brief breathing spell we dug deeper into our pits, making our defences stronger where we lay. Disaster was heavy upon us. The sun beat down pitilessly on the hot, dry earth where we burrowed. Out in the open the Indians were crawling like serpents through ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... he, in a gutteral accent, and interlarding his discourse with certain Dutch graces, which with our reader's leave we will omit, as being unable to spell ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... young man. Politically, he represents very much what the cordially detested Weyler did in the military sphere. But Maurism today is a very different thing from the Maurism of fifteen years ago, or of the moat of Montjuich. The name of Maura casts a spell over the Conservative imagination. It is the rallying point of innumerable associations of young men of reactionary, aristocratic and clerical tendencies throughout the country, while to progressives it symbolizes the ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... perpetual, sour droop to his lids. At the sight of Buck the sourness became accentuated and increased still more when he observed the ashes on the floor. His only reply to Stratton's introduction of himself was a grunt and Buck lost no time in easing the fellow's mind of any fear of a prolonged spell ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... neither marrying nor giving in marriage in heaven. Just imagine a couple of love-sick loons having nothing to do but spoon from everlasting to everlasting, to talk tutti-frutti through all eternity—never a break or breathing spell in the lingering sweetness long drawn out! Amelia Rives Chanler or Ella Wheeler Wilcox couldn't stand it. Nor could I. By the time I had lived ten thousand years with a female who could fly, and had nothing in God's world ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... the streets of the Bulgarian capital, your eyes almost refuse to take in the change. You have such a strong expectation of the moving picture of the Constantinople street that you feel, as it were, robbed and astonished, as by a spell cast over your world. You have been transported by enchantment to an entirely different scene. Here is a strange quiet. A peasant population has come to town in heavy clothes and heavy faces. Despite the war and all the trouble it has meant, there ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... native infantry at Ramoo, and was busied in erecting stockades as the basis of future operations, when an order arrived for him to return to the defence of the golden empire. His return to Ava not only restored confidence to the Burmese troops opposed to the British, but acted as a spell to draw the reluctant people round his banners. In the meantime, whilst a large fleet of war-boats, with a train of artillery was preparing to fall down the river, and orders were issued for the various detachments to join Bandoola on his progress, the British ranks were thinned by ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... impressionable, we should doubtless have wished ourselves back again. After remaining some time, however, we came to the conclusion that we had come upon a foolish errand, and had just risen to go, when an exquisite strain of very soft music came from the organ. We listened spell-bound, rooted to the spot. The theme was simple, almost Gregorian in its character, but handled in a most masterly way. Such playing I had never before heard; it was the ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... Pauline the spell seemed to fall again over the bright spirit of Mrs. Harris. Her eyelids drooped, her limbs lost their power, and she sank into her chair as before, a helpless victim, apparently, to the hidden forces. For a moment I was at a loss. I could ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... herself a heap of cinders, trampled by contending and miserable crowds; she must yet again become the England she was once, and in all beautiful ways,—more: so happy, so secluded, and so pure, that in her sky—polluted by no unholy clouds—she may be able to spell rightly of every star that heaven doth show; and in her fields, ordered and wide and fair, of every herb that sips the dew;[181] and under the green avenues of her enchanted garden, a sacred Circe, ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... to urge the American people, in the interests of their own security, prosperity and peace, to make sure that their own part of this great project be amply and cheerfully supported. Free World decisions in this matter may spell the difference between world disaster ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower
... high glory! Pure gems around His burning throne! Mute watchers o'er man's strange, sad story Of crime and woe through ages gone! 'Twas yours, the wild and hallowing spell, That lured me from ignoble glens— Taught me where sweeter fountains Than ever ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... fast a pace," he told him. "It's that—and the blow you got when DeBar threw you against the rock. You'll have to lay up for a spell." ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... Next, by Meriones, Phereclus died, Son of Harmonides. All arts that ask A well-instructed hand his sire had learn'd, For Pallas dearly loved him. He the fleet, 75 Prime source of harm to Troy and to himself, For Paris built, unskill'd to spell aright The oracles predictive of the wo. Phereclus fled; Meriones his flight Outstripping, deep in his posterior flesh 80 A spear infix'd; sliding beneath the bone It grazed his bladder as it pass'd, and stood Protruded far ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... He had never believed in these sudden obsessions, and more than once had been amused at Martel's ability to fall violently in love at a moment's notice, and to fall as quickly out again, but in spite of his coolest reasoning and sternest self-reproach he found the spell too strong for him. Every decent instinct commanded him to uproot this passion; every impetuous impulse burst into sudden flame and consumed his better sense, his judgment, and his loyalty, leaving him shaken and doubtful. Although this was his first serious soul conflict, he possessed more than ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... you to-night," said he, continuing his talk to the primer class. "Spell it over, so you won't have to stop long between words. All who read it well ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... the dim echoes of years that are past Bring their joys to my bosom in vain; For the chords, which their spell once o'er memory cast, Ne'er shall waken ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... only going to be a short run, my love. But I'm vurry glad to observe that you and Mr. CULCHARD are so perfectly harmonious, as I'm leaving him on your hands for a spell. Aren't you ever coming, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various
... answered, "and I do not think we can do better than start our search there, if it proves to be an island. We will be there in an hour at this rate. I wish I could spell you, Walt, but it don't seem right for you to be doing all ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... and the playing ceased. Those glittering orbs held her as if by a magic spell. She was rendered powerless when he put his arm about her, and touched her lips ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... from growing up in the ignorance which is the parent of idleness. Why should these ten or fifteen thousand little nomads be allowed to remain in the neglected condition which has characterised their strange race for centuries? It is time that the spell was broken. There are no traditions of Gipsy life worth perpetuating; there is no sentimental halo around its history which it would be cruel to dispel. In past ages the Gipsies have been subjected to harsh laws and barbarous edicts; it remains for our more enlightened times to ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... wandering beyond all reach of civilisation, they were here in the wild heart of Manitou's wild land, and the red and white of Elizabeth's cheek, the fire in her eyes showed how the god's spell had worked.... ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... does not hold out long with the truly understanding. Those who really know what originality is are not long the slave of the power of imitation: it is the gifted assimilator that suffers most under the spell of mastery. Legitimate influence is a quality which all earnest creators learn to handle at once. Both poetry and painting are, or so it seems to me, revealing well the gift of understanding, and as a result we have a better variety of painting and of poetry than at the first outbreak of ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... Elinebrigge, Elyngbrigge, Elinerugge, Ellerug, Elmerugge, Elmebrugge, Elmridge, Elmbrige, Elmebrygge, Ellmbridge, Elinrugge, Ellyngbrugg, Elenbrig, Elingbrig, Ellyngbrigg, and Ellynbrege. An Elinbrygge in those days could spell practically anything. Other memorials are fragments of stone carving, once belonging to the Southcotes and Waldegraves, and built without reason into windows and walls. Over the west chancel arch is a broken piece of carving from old London Bridge; and forlornest possession ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... side; the current, striking him sideways, threw him towards the bank, and she caught him by his sleeve. For an instant it seemed as if she would be dragged down with him. For one dangerous moment she did not care, and almost yielded to the spell; but as the rush of water pressed him against the bank, she recovered herself, and managed to lift him beyond its reach. And then she sat down, half-fainting, with his white face and damp ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... His cheek glowed, his eye brightened, his voice mellowed into richer tones, his language be came unconsciously adorned. In such moments there might scarcely be an audience, even differing from him in opinion, which would not have acknowledged his spell. ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... spoken softly. Natalie Brande stood beside me. The spell was complete. The unearthly glamour of the magical scene had been compassed by her. She had called it forth and could disperse it by an effort of her will. I wrenched my mind free ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... the divine language? If I mistake not, these instruments of an infernal power are, by this song, preparing some new spell." ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... spoke on these occasions, my companion and I," continued Ned, suspending the stirring of the decoction and filling his pipe, as he sat down close to the blazing logs; "speaking, we found, always broke the spell, so we agreed to keep perfect silence for as long a time as possible. You must try it, Tom, some day, for although it may seem to you a childish thing to do, there are many childish things which, when done in a philosophical ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... Arjuna! because I loved thee well, The secret countenance of Me, revealed by mystic spell, Shining, and wonderful, and vast, majestic, manifold, Which none save thou in all the years had favour to behold; For not by Vedas cometh this, nor sacrifice, nor alms, Nor works well-done, nor penance long, nor prayers, nor chaunted ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... especially Pelissier, a dreadful waste of life would have been averted, and the result might have proved a brilliant success.] We did not lose many men. I remained in the trenches until 7 P.M.—rather a long spell—and on coming up dined, and found an order to be at the night attack at twelve midnight on June 17 and 18. I was attached to Bent's column, with Lieutenants Murray and Graham, R.E., and we were to go into the Redan at the Russians' right ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... offers every morning the best dramatic amusement in the city. Presently, among the stupid eyes fixed upon him, Lemuel was aware of the eyes of that fellow who had passed the counterfeit money on him; and when this scamp got up and coolly sauntered out of the room, Lemuel was held in such a spell that he did not hear the charge read against him, or the clerk's repeated demand, "Guilty ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... (Oh sentence sure!) "Upon all that wild in wickedness dip hand In the blood of their birth, in the fount of their flowing: So shall he pine until the grave receive him—to find no grace even in the grave! Sing then the spell, Sisters of hell; Chant him the charm Mighty to harm, Binding the blood, Madding the mood; Such the music that we make: Quail, ye sons of man, and quake, Bow the heart, ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... her friend tightly. Helen was laughing, but suddenly she stopped. The queen's terrible eyes seemed to hold the girl in a spell. Involuntarily Helen's limbs bore her toward the far end of ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... leave home for a spell. There was an old friend of mine holdin' down a mine out in the hills. I knew he wouldn't have no company around, and I pined for solitude. There is a time in the affairs of men, as Shakespeare says, when a pair of cold feet beats any hands in the deck. Keno Jim said Shakespeare ...
— Mr. Scraggs • Henry Wallace Phillips
... and Coblentz, which I knew only in history. They were ruins that interested me chiefly. There seemed to come up from its waters and its vine-clad hills and valleys a hushed music as of Crusaders departing for the Holy Land. I floated along under the spell of enchantment, as if I had been transported to an heroic age, and breathed an ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... boy abbreviated the month January to "Jan." and the word Company to "Co." he received a hundred per cent mark, as did the boy who spelled out the words and who could not make the teacher see that "Co." did not spell "Company." ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... we have seen her and Harut has confessed as much. Therefore I maintain that, whatever may be her temporary state, she must still be fundamentally of a reasonable mind, as she is of a natural body. For instance, she may only be hypnotized, in which case the spell will break one day." ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... the spell of the immediate presence of this troubled mother and her appealing daughter, Serviss began to doubt and to question. "They are almost too simple, too confiding. Why should Mrs. Lambert, at a first meeting, accidental and without explanation, ask me to ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... woman is so highly charged with spiritual infection as to be dangerous at certain frequently recurring periods, she may be more or less dangerous between these periods. As Havelock Ellis says: "Instead of being regarded as a being who at periodic intervals becomes the victim of a spell of impurity, the conception of impurity becomes amalgamated with the conception of woman; she is, as Tertullian puts it, Janua diaboli; and this is the attitude which still persisted in medieval ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... spell of great horror has fallen upon them. Murdered in their midst, in their peaceful household—they cannot ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... upon his back and started in pursuit, putting his animal upon the jump from the first. The few seconds' unavoidable delay gave the young fugitive something like a hundred yards start, an advantage which he used every effort to increase, and which, for a brief spell, ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... and left Mr. Crow to sit by Mr. 'Possum until he came back. He could follow Mr. 'Possum's track to the place, and in a little while he had the fine, fat chicken, and came home with it and showed it to the patient, who had a sinking spell when he looked at it, and turned his face to the wall and said he seemed to have ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... out days summed up with fears, And make them years; Produce thy mass of miseries on the stage, To swell thine age; Repeat of things a throng, To show thou hast been long, Not lived: for life doth her great actions spell. By what was done and wrought In season, and so brought To light: her measures are, how well Each syllabe answered, and was formed, how fair; These make the lines of ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... tear this veil of night from around my spirit. I will lay bare my soul to the glorious sunlight, drink in its glory until I am saturated with delight. I will not weep; I will not mourn; I defy this spell; I challenge this curse—this brand of hell! Oh that it were always day, that the sun never set, and my mind were as strong as now!' and she flung the great masses of wavy hair back from her stately forehead, and it fell to the ground, enshrouding her form till she looked like a goddess ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... received was obtained at a school at Brentford; but he could never write or spell correctly. It is probable that his passion for art absorbed his every thought. Not that he succeeded with his perspective studies, however, for Mr. Malton brought the boy back to his father as a pupil quite beyond all hope. ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... separate and independent existence, albeit troubled and precarious. The fact that she continued free so long, while she again succumbed at the very commencement of the reign of Esar-haddon, may lead us to suspect that she owed this spell of liberty to the increasing years of the Assyrian monarch, who, as the infirmities of age crept upon him, felt ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... through Hanover Street, among crowds of young women, none so neatly dressed as she, and men less respectable than honest Hughson, Mercedes was conscious of a void within her life. In the afternoon she shut herself in her room and had a crying spell; at least so Jamie feared, as he tiptoed by her door, in apprehension of her sobs. Her piano had grown silent of late. What use was a piano among such as Hughson? So Jamie and the rising teamster sat in the kitchen and discussed the ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... asked the Whip sipping his port wearily, for such negotiations were no new thing to him. "I mean, how do you spell it?" ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... these Versys to rede, With favour I pray he will theym spell; Let not the rudenes of theym hym lede For to dispraue thys Ryme Dogerell: Some part of the honour it doth you tell Of this old Cytye Troynouant; But not thereof the halfe dell; Connyng in the Maker ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... farewell, my County Council, Cheek, and fads, and bosh farewell, Never more in Whitehall Gardens Shall your ROSEB'RY take a spell. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 23, 1892 • Various
... the spell was broken. When the six strokes of the hour chimed out from the old parish church which forms the centre of the town of Lacville, as if by enchantment there rose sounds of stir both indoors ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... years to her, he became conscious of her presence. He raised his head slowly and looked at her with vacant eyes, as if he were half-dazed and were asking himself if she were a vision. The movement released Celia from her spell; a pang of pity smote her at the sight of the white, drawn face, the hopeless despair in the young fellow's eyes; her womanly compassion, that maternal instinct which the youngest of girl-children possesses, gave her courage. She leant forward, loosened the stiff, ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... away, when one day the crow came to the Princess and said: 'In another year I shall be freed from the spell I am under at present, because then the seven years will be over. But before I can resume my natural form, and take possession of the belongings of my forefathers, you must go out into the world and take ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... affectionate enquiry, as to whether perhaps some fault in his serving had caused that little playful enigmatical expression on the face which he, in common with many others of his sex, thought the fairest in the world. The coffee dispensed and the page gone, there followed a spell of silence. The fire burned cheerily in the deep chimney, and the great logs cracked and spluttered as much as to say, "If these two curious people can find nothing to talk about, we can!" And then, just as luck would have ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... Ye spotted snakes with double tongue, Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen; Newts and blind-worms do no wrong, Come not near our fairy queen. Philomel, with melody Sing in our sweet lullaby, Lulla, lulla, lullaby, lulla, lulla, lullaby; Never harm. Nor spell nor charm, Come our lovely lady ...
— Sleep-Book - Some of the Poetry of Slumber • Various
... That stricken, depressed creature of the night of the operation had faded away, and in her place was this passionate, large-hearted woman, who had spoken to him bravely as an equal in the dark room of the forbidding cottage. She had thrown a spell into his life this night, and his steps were wandering on, purposeless, unconscious, with an exhilaration ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... They say I can't be spared much longer. Awfully sweet of 'em, isn't it? As for this immoral little State, it ought to be put under martial law for a spell. It won't be, of course; but old Reggie will understand. He'll take measures, and relieve me of my stewardship as soon as may be. I'm sorry in a way, but I only bargained for six months. And I want to get back to Muriel." He turned to her again, ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... said David, unheeding, "I allowed 't I'd walk 'round with my mouth open a spell, an' git a little air on my stomech to last me till that second breakfust; an' as I was pokin' 'round the grounds I come to a sort of arbor, an' there was ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... from the beginning to the end of the Meeting. It was a Meeting of great power. None who heard the exhortations of the good Bishop at the close of his Sunday morning sermon can ever forget it. After holding the vast congregation spell-bound for more than an hour in the delivery of the sermon, the old man, with locks as white as the driven snow, came down from the stand, and, standing on a seat in the Altar, began to invite mourners. The motives of the Gospel were presented one after another, the tide of feeling rising, until ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... with a reproving glance; and, as though that voice and look possessed a spell, the features of the young man instantly became grave, almost solemn. Then turning to Algernon, the old man continued: "As to leaving us, Mr. Reynolds, you of course know your own business best, and it arn't my desire to interfere; but ef you could put up with ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... and heard with my own ears. And though I will not presume to estimate them as superior to the heroes and heroines in the works of former ages, yet the perusal of the motives and issues of their experiences, may likewise afford matter sufficient to banish dulness, and to break the spell of melancholy. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... of their arrival, a large quantity of fire-wood is hauled from the forests and piled up around the cabins; but the negroes spend very little of this interval of leisure in their own homes, unless a bad spell of weather has set in and continues. They are either out in the open air or at the "store." This latter serves the purpose of a club, and is a very popular resort. Even at other times of the year it is always packed at night; but during the Christmas holidays it is full ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... thank ourselves, Who spell-bound by the magic name of Peace Dream golden dreams. Go, warlike Britain, go, For the grey olive-branch change thy green laurels: Hang up thy rusty helmet, that the bee 5 May have a hive, or spider find a loom! Instead of doubling ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... taken captive all the world, was now herself a captive. The pagans saw in this calamity the vengeance of the ancient deities, who had been dishonored and driven from their shrines. The Christians believed that God had sent a judgment on the Romans to punish them for their sins. In either case the spell of ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... 'twixt heaven and hell, The soul's sad growth o'er stationary friends Who hear us from our height not well, not well, The slant of accident, the sudden bends Of purpose tempered strong, the gambler's spell, The son's disgrace, the ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... Giovanni," "La Traviata," and "Hamlet." All the good qualities which have since then been extolled hundreds of times by the critics of the New York newspapers were noticeable in her first representation. I turn back to the files of The Tribune to see what I wrote while under the spell of her witching ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... her little daughter asked how to spell unstraight, and smiled again when she saw the card and read, "Dear twin ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... great joy their united strength proved sufficient for the purpose. It out-balanced the weight and tenacity of the sand; and after a good spell of pulling and tugging, Ossaroo's limbs were drawn upward and once more set free. Then both rushed out to the bank, and the same trees and rocks that so lately echoed the mournful cries of the shikarree, now ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... most interesting figures in Scotland during the twenty years just past had unquestionably been Montrose and Argyle. The first had been well known to Clarendon, and the spell of Montrose's heroism and romance had earned his enthusiastic admiration. Argyle had been the object of his suspicion from days long past; and striking as were Argyle's abilities, his character was as ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... though it were an exercise of patriotism; with them it is no languid movement half deprecated by the utilitarian soul—it is a passion whirling them into ecstasy. But dancing was not the only diversion. The winter I was at Buda-Pest a long spell of enduring frost gave us some capital skating. The fashionable society meet for this amusement in the park, where there is a piece of ornamental water about five acres in extent. Here the Skating Club have established themselves, having ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... new world to him; he knew nothing of mythology, nothing of history, little of books. He began to thirst for knowledge, and this being true, he drank it in. Little men spell things out with sweat and lamp-smoke, but others there be who absorb in the mass, read by the page, and grow great by simply letting ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... shadow of his wings; wise and goodly apes come forth and minister unto them; enchanted camels bear them over evil deserts with the swiftness of the wind, or the magic horse outspreads his sail-broad vannes, and soars with them; or they are borne aloft by some servant of the Spell till the earth is as a bowl beneath them, and they hear the angels quiring at the foot of the Throne. So they fare to strange and dismal places: through cities of brass whose millions have perished by divine decree; cities ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... the second. This had for sujet the fair female sex; how the ladies were now all improved; how they could write, and read, and spell; how a man now-a-days might talk with them and be understood, and how delightful it was to see such pretty ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... motionless under the spell, yet struggling to think of what I had heard of the nearness of his Excellency to New York, and how I might get word to him at once concerning the Oneidas' danger and the proposed attempt upon the frontier granaries. ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... sentinels became invisible. The wind blew gently and sang among the leaves, as if the forest were always a forest of peace, although from time immemorial, throughout the world, it had been stained by bloodshed. But the forest spell which came over him at times was upon him now. The rippling of the leaves under the wind he translated into words, and once more they sang to him ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... sighed. "No," she said, "if I go ahead with it it'll be because I've made up my mind to, not on account of anybody else's advice. I've steered my own course for quite a long spell and I sha'n't signal for a pilot now. Well, here we are home again—or at ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... surprise, sank down upon the divan. A feeling of boundless anxiety, of immeasurable ecstasy suddenly overcame her. She could have fled, but she felt as if spell-bound; she could have concealed herself from him, and yet was joyfully ready to purchase with her life the happiness of seeing him. It was a strange mixture of delight and terror, of happiness and despair. She spread her arms toward heaven, she sought to pray, but she had no ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... wonders for me in the way of getting me noticed. If I had any soul, big enough to find with a microscope, I believe I should hate the North for cringing so to anything from Dixie. Let the veriest vagabond in all the South, so ignorant that he can scarcely spell baker correctly, to say nothing of biscuit, let him, I say, come to any one of the New York hotels, and with something of a swell write himself from Charleston, or any other Southern city, and bless me, what deference ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... which our story begins, a long conversation had been enjoyed at Major Fabens'; much had been said of the western country, in description of its climate and soil, its lakes and forests; and young Fabens listened in a spell of delight, more and more convinced that there was the land for his future home. He resolved upon going to the Lake Country. He hastened the preparation for his departure. His clothes were put in readiness; he passed ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... connivance the curragh sprang a leak, and that they were drowned. They were true artists, of the spirit of the Gael. But they alone knew his secret, and he made away with them before they could speak. His great controversy on the water nymphs was like a spell cast over the minds of the people ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... pestilence. After the first hostilities directed against the exploring parties they avoided the whites, and held a meeting in a dark and dismal swamp, where the medicine-men for three days together tried vainly to subject the new-comers to the spell ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler
... what he had expected—two for and two against the motion. It was not carried. For a few minutes all sat in silence, the air tingling with suppressed irritability. A word would have condensed it into cruel speech. It was Billy who broke the spell. ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler
... over me, to be thus in the dark with that dark Thing, whose power was so intensely felt, brought a reaction of nerve. In fact, terror had reached that climax, that either my senses must have deserted me, or I must have burst through the spell. I did burst through it. I found voice, though the voice was a shriek. I remember that I broke forth with words like these—"I do not fear, my soul does not fear"; and at the same time I found ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... consequence be compelled to remain willy-nilly upon the island until such time as communication with Naples shall be once more restored, for rough weather on Capri means complete isolation from the mainland and the outside world. A spell of four or five days without a letter or a newspaper may in certain cases be restful and even beneficial, but it can also ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... impossible to read "Crime and Punishment" without reverently saluting the author's power. As is well known, the story gave Stevenson all kinds of thrills, and in a famous letter written while completely under the spell he said: "Raskolnikov is easily the greatest book I have read in ten years; I am glad you took to it. Many find it dull; Henry James could not finish it; all I can say is, it nearly finished me. It was like having an illness. James did not care for it because the character ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... saw horoscopes and nativities, phials, wax-figures under spells, and possibly poisons. Tavannes and I were fascinated, I do assure you, by the sight of this devil's-arsenal. Only to see it puts one under a spell, and if I had not been King of France, I might have been awed by it. 'You can tremble for both of us,' I whispered to Tavannes. But Tavannes' eyes were already caught by the most mysterious feature of the scene. On a couch, near the old man, lay a girl of strangest beauty,—slender and long like ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... spoken during all this time. Both felt the magic of the place so strong upon them that speech seemed profanation. The flight of the little birds, however, loosened the spell. Hildegarde spoke, but softly, almost under her breath. "Captain! Do you see the lizard? Look at him, on the log there! The greenness of him! soul ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... had thrown her into a trance, hoping she would die, and that the king would then marry her daughter; but on the king speaking to her, the spell was broken. The queen told the king how cruelly she had been treated by her stepmother, and on hearing this he became very angry, and had the witch and her daughter brought to justice. They were both sentenced to die—the daughter to be ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... coming to live up to the island, be you?" said Mrs. Downs. "Do tell if you are? We heard there was some one. There hain't been nobody there for quite a spell back, not since the Lotts went away last year. Job Lott, he farmed it for a while; but Miss Lott's father, he was took sick over to Machias, and they moved up to look after him, and nobody's been there since, unless the boys for blueberries. I guess your Pa'll ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... turning to his grandson, "tell Jake ter hitch up de mules, an' you stay dere an' help him. We's all gwine ter de big meetin'. Yore grandma hab set her heart on goin', an' it'll be de same as a spell ob sickness ef she don't hab a chance to show her bes' bib an' tucker. That ole gal's ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... radiance breaking through this cloudy environment, it is not in this or that faculty overcoming all obstacles, it is in the entirety of his nature as originally formed, and as moulded or marred by circumstance and fate, that we shall find the secret of that spell which he exercised over men of all classes and characters. The culture which might have sweetened and perhaps ennobled his life would have unfitted him for his mission. It would have brought him more or less into harmony with his age; and it was by his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... 'Twas not I who hastened the matter, but La Barre. 'Tis not just to condemn me unheard, yet I have been patient and kind. I thought it might be that you loved another—in truth I imagined that De Artigny had cast his spell upon you; yet you surely cannot continue to trust that villain—the murderer ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... the toe, with fetlock and knee flexed. After a time, if the case is closely watched, the animal takes a few lame steps while at work, but the lameness disappears as suddenly as it came, and the driver doubts whether the animal was really lame at all. Later the patient has a lame spell which may last during a greater part of the day, but the next morning it is gone; he leaves the stable all right, but goes lame again during the day. In times he has a severe attack of lameness, which may last ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... her eyes to mine. I knew not what magnetism, what spell lay in them; but no other eyes were like them. They compelled attention; a man could no more release himself from their glance than he could fly. I was not at all in love with her, yet those eyes held ...
— Coralie • Charlotte M. Braeme
... himself before, what did it matter? If old Huang Chow had disposed of these people in some strange manner, they had sought to rob him. The morality of the case was complicated and obscure, and more and more he was falling under the spell of Lala's dark eyes. ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... existing schemes for a change in her position. It was to her a real, though but a momentary triumph. From the hour of her arrival she had a powerful party to cope with; and the fact of her being an Austrian, independent of the jealousy created by her charms, was, in itself, a spell to conjure up armies, against which she stood alone, isolated in the face of embattled myriads! But she now reared her head, and her foes trembled in her presence. Yet she could not guard against the moles busy in the earth secretly to undermine ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... sank mechanically into the chair which Savage (having thoughtfully waved away the hovering waiter) placed beside the table, between himself and his guest. But once seated, precisely as if that position were a charm to break the spell that sealed them, promptly her lips reformed the opening syllables of ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... all due merely to an unexpected call from a stranger. Unaccustomed emotions, strong but undefined, were filling her breast and tugging at her heart. To her sharpened perception it seemed almost as if something uncanny were hovering in the room. She shivered and leaned back wearily. What spell was coming over them? Were those two beside her, strangers until an hour ago, about to sink sobbing into each other's arms? And was she, Penelope, the calm and self-mastered, about to ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... staying here for a spell now:—kind of seeing to things. My name isn't Polly. It's Mrs. Mary Grundy, and somehow folks have got to nicknaming me Polly, but it'll look more mannerly in you to call me Mrs. Grundy; but what am I ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... dispersing far The pirate horde, and closes quick the war. From his red jaws tremendous triumph roars, Dark Euxine trembles to its distant shores, Proud Jason starts, confounded in his might, Leads back his peers, and dares no more the fight. But the sly Priestess brings her opiate spell, Soft charms that hush the triple hound of hell, Bids Orpheus tune his all-enchanting lyre, And join to calm the guardian's sleepless ire. Soon from the tepid ground blue vapors rise, And sounds melodious move ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... the spell of her influence seemed to calm the overwrought mind of the girl there succeeded a hardness in her tone that was wholly out of keeping with her youth. There was something that breathed of a past where there should have been nothing but ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... just lookin at 'em. There ain't no great trouble about it; anyhow, there ain't about potatoes. You just put some fat in a pan, and chop up your potatoes, and when the fat is hot clap 'em in, and let 'em frizzle round a spell; and then when they're done you take 'em up. Did you sprinkle ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner
... demands will be made on their efficiency. Unbroken horses, and others not trained to the long gallops and trots of to-day, cannot possibly carry weights of from 230 to 240 pounds for many hours a day straight across country. After a very short spell most of the augmentation horses would be useless, and their presence would only have brought confusion and unsteadiness into ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... denial. Just for a moment there was a breathless silence. Then Bessie pawed the ground, and thrust her nose into the face of Tresler's horse in friendly, caressing fashion; and the movement broke the spell. ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... the story of Richard Arkwright, the great mechanician. He was never at school in his life—never forced to do ridiculous sums, to spell correctly, to parse, to drill, to sing! His biographer said that the only education he ever received he gave himself—that he was fifty years of age when he set to work to learn grammar and to improve his hand-writing. ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... the Office of the Rosary. Paul was stirred by the scene as never before by any devotional services and in spite of his eager desire to learn more about the dark-eyed lady, all through the prayers and responses he was rapt as in some mystic spell. With the benedicite by the young abbe, a column of incense rose before the Calvary, a moving pearl-coloured shaft in the soft light, for the sun had set. And as the cantors and the pious folk at worship sang Tantum ergo the Host was borne out through ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... what other ties or friends had she? So far as he could learn—none, and thus he read her story; growing up unprotected and motherless, without any standard to judge by, she must have accepted the attentions and fallen under the spell of a man who probably appealed to her pity and also to her intellect. Crabbe had been the only man in the neighbourhood capable of understanding her cultivated allusions; the remnants of the mixed education she had drawn from the school at Sorel and the pedantic ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... characteristics known to arise from traceable hereditary sources may be mentioned factors in musical ability, artistic composition, literary ability, mechanical skill, calculating ability, inventive ability, memory, ability to spell, fluency in conversation, aptness in languages, military talent, acquisitiveness, attention, story-telling, poetic ability; and, on the other hand, insanity, feeble-mindedness of many types, epilepsy. These are suggestive of the inheritability of many other mental traits ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... will remember that he was not over fond of study when he first began to attend school; but when his mamma explained to him that in order to become a useful member of society, as his father was, he must learn to read, write and spell, which were the first steps toward acquiring a good education, he made it a duty to learn every lesson thoroughly, so that by the time he was sixteen years old he was ...
— Bertie and the Gardeners - or, The Way to be Happy • Madeline Leslie
... understand you much or to classify you, and would have been sorry it should put you under an obligation. He and his wife spoke sometimes, but seldom talked, and there was something vague and patient in them, as if they had become victims of a wrought spell. The spell however was of no sinister cast; it was the fascination of prosperity, the confidence of security, which sometimes makes people arrogant, but which had had such a different effect on this simple satisfied pair, in whom further development ...
— Pandora • Henry James
... exclaimed, saddened by the assault of these memories. He rose to dissipate the horrible spell of this vision and, returning to reality, began to ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... be so little concerned about proselytising, that he does not even know how to spell the word; a circumstance which, if I did not suppose it to be a slip of the pen, I should think a more serious objection than the 'Reverend' which formerly stood before his name. I am quite content with ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... to meet down at the post-office, the whole gang of us, and I had quite a spell to walk. I was going in on Bob Stokes's team. I remember how fast I walked with my hands in my pockets, looking along up at the stars,—the sun was putting them out pretty fast,—and trying not to think of Nancy. But I didn't think of ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... a chair, and long before there was danger of the man's dying he released his hold upon his throat. When the Russian's coughing spell had abated Tarzan spoke ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... charities of nature taught: Whence he was said fierce tigers to allay, And sing the Savage Lion from his prey, Within the hollow of AMPHION'S shell Such pow'rs of found were lodg'd, so sweet a spell! Ducere quo vellet suit haec sapientia quondam, publica privatis secernere, sacra profanis; concubitu prohibere vago; dare jura maritis; Oppida moliri; leges incidere ligno. Sic honor et nomen divinis vatibus atque Carminibus venit post hos insignis ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... mystery surrounding her, her reticence, the muttered insinuation dropping from the unguarded lips of Murphy, merely served to render her the more attractive, while her own naive witchery of manner, and her seemingly unconscious coquetry, had wound about him a magic spell, the full power of which as yet remained but dimly appreciated. His mind lingered longingly upon the marvel of the dark eyes, while the cheery sound of that last rippling outburst of laughter reechoed in his ears ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... disagreed with him, he had evidently got the whole and undivided attention of his audience; and indeed his gifts both as rhetorician and orator were so great that they must have been either willfully deaf or obtuse who, when under the spell of his extraordinary earnestness and eloquence, could resist listening. Not a word was lost on Brian; every sentence which emphasized the great difference of belief between himself and his love seemed to engrave itself on his ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... the summit, for it held me as by a magician's spell, I hastened down the steep incline of the cog-wheel road, past Windy Point, and turning to the right, descended across the green slope below the boulder region to the open, sunlit valley which I had ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... came under such a spell that this intangible, inaccessible, unearthly vision appeared to be the only reality in the world—and all else a mere dream. That I, that is to say, Srijut So-and-so, the eldest son of So-and-so of blessed ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... inner Facts of this Universe, and followed the transient outer Appearances thereof; and so was arrived here. Properly it is the secret of all unhappy men and unhappy nations. Had they known Nature's right truth, Nature's right truth would have made them free. They have become enchanted; stagger spell-bound, reeling on the brink of huge peril, because they were not wise enough. They have forgotten the right Inner True, and taken up with the Outer Sham-true. They answer the Sphinx's question wrong. Foolish men cannot answer it aright! Foolish men mistake transitory semblance for ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... magic in running water, no evil spell can cross it. Tam O'Shanter proved its potency in time of sorest need. The wild-wood creature with its deadly foe following tireless on the trail scent, realizes its nearing doom and feels an awful spell. Its strength is spent, its every trick is tried in vain till the ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... come about in the girl Yule was aware. He observed her with the closest study day after day. Her health seemed to have improved; after a long spell of work she had not the air of despondent weariness which had sometimes irritated him, sometimes made him uneasy. She was more womanly in her bearing and speech, and exercised an independence, appropriate indeed ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... safety on her dark and hazel gaze, Nor find there lurk'd in it a witching spell, Fatal to balmy nights and blessed days? The peaceful breath that made the bosom swell, She turn'd to gas, and set it in a blaze; Each eye of hers had Love's Eupyrion in it, That he could light his link ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... wearing over and a spell of leave comes due The most'll go back to Blighty to see if their dreams are true; There's some that'll make for the Athol glens and some for the Sussex downs, There's some that'll cling to the country ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... I went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Auld, she very kindly commenced to teach me the A, B, C. After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters. Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read. To use his own words, further, he ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... at last," he said; and then the spell was broken, and I would have fled, but that, holding me with his left hand, he pointed with his right away to a shadowy distance, where the gray ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell |
