"Witching" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from his "wallowing in the mire," and supposes that he shall soon regain his primitive condition of temperance. But the sin is strong; for the appetite that feeds it is in his blood. Temptation with its witching solicitation comes before the will,—the weak, self-enslaved will. He aspires to resist, but will not; the spirit would soar, but the flesh will creep; the spirit has the wish, but the flesh has the will; the man longs to be sober, but actually is and remains a drunkard. ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... by chance descried, The Sultan's daughter, witching fair; Love's high control was not denied— He sought to gain the beauty rare. Before the Sultan lowly bent His mother, and the jewels spread; The Prince, astonished, gave consent, And all Aladdin's ...
— Aladdin or The Wonderful Lamp • Anonymous
... conceded that she had not meant to rise at the witching hour of three A. M. Her intention had been to set the alarm for half-past five and her mistake was due to the fact that she had not ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... the Eastern side and villages like Baturanjah, dear to the votaries of pleasure; and with the roar of a gigantic capital mingled the hum of prayer, the trilling of birds, the thrilling of harp and lute, the shrilling of pipes, the witching strains of the professional Almah, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... In welcome smile the witching skies, And with a jocund train, With dancing joy-light in His eyes, God, God comes ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various
... witching smile, to her face beguiled, Paused and broadened, and broke in a ripple of fun, And the soul of a child looked out of the eyes of a child, Or ...
— Silhouettes • Arthur Symons
... what celestial realms of space Is hid that beauteous, witching face? Where shines that star, which, boding ills, My trembling heart with ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his tribe, held his powwows there before the country was discovered by Master Hendrick Hudson. Certain it is, the place still continues under the sway of some witching power, that holds a spell over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk in a continual reverie. They are given to all kinds of marvellous beliefs; are subject to trances and visions, and frequently see strange sights, and hear music and voices in the air. The whole neighbourhood ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... the distance a great clock chimed a single stroke, freighted sore with melancholy. It knelled the passing of the half-hour after midnight; a witching hour, when every public shuts up tight, and gentlemen in top-hats and evening dress are doomed to pace the pave till day (barring they have homes or visible means of support)—till day, when pawnshops open and such personal ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... soon distracted from this witching scene— the exquisite beauty of which is not to be described in mere words—by a noise of singing and shouting on Merlani's island. Presently a feeble flickering fame became visible on the sandy beach, which, quickly increasing ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... one of the most beautiful, serene, witching places that ever was seen. High overhead are ranges of green rustling arches; through which the sun's rays come down to you in sparkles. You seem to be wandering through illimitable halls of pillars; everywhere you catch glimpses of stately aisles, intersecting ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... rash witching goes muffled rumour mine dark silent unfortunate richmond existing great hotly brute select mooted parlous beggars ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... His sense of tactile values is profound. His is true atmospheric colour. A feeling of exhilaration comes while contemplating one of his open-air scenes with jockeys, race-horses, and the incidental bustle of a neighbouring concourse. Unexcelled as a painter of horses, as a delineator of witching horsemanship, of vivid landscapes—true integral decorations—and of the casual movements and gestures of common folk, Degas is also a psychologist, an ironical commentator on the pettiness and ugliness of daily life, of its unheroic aspects, its comical snobberies and shocking hypocrisies; ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... artist in his painting Plans the background to enhance All the beauty of his subject Both in pose and countenance, So the poor and dark interior Lent its gloom to magnify All the power and witching beauty Of her face and lustrous eye. Standing there, a pictured goddess Sketched against a lowering storm, Bearing on her pallid features That supernal gift ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker
... it as a substitute for sackcloth, since he, no less than Cynthia, recognized that a dangerous acquaintance was drawing to an end. So Dale's coat imposed a shield, as it were, between the two, but the man drove with little heed to the witching scenery that Dorset unfolded at each turn of the road, and the woman sat ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... was a success. In her loose, flowing robe of white—Patricia had wrought that with inspiration—she was a witching figure. The filmy veil over the lower part of her face did but emphasize the beauty and size of her golden eyes. The lovely bronze hair was coiled gracefully around the little head, and after a week or so the gravity with which she read palms gave ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... set in, and the witching hour—the keystone of night's black arch, twelve o'clock—was approaching. To go to bed on such an occasion, would have been held no better than for a jolly toper to shirk his bicker, a lover to eschew the trysting thorn, or a warrior to fly the scene of his country's glory; neither would it have ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... at his wonted trade, Still tempting heedless men into his snare, In witching wise, as I before have said; But when he saw, in goodly gear array'd, The grave majestic knight approaching nigh, His countenance fell."—THOMSON, Castle ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... vainly, to waken that sound. The day before Christmas brought trouble for Joe, A thousand times worse. 'Twas a terrible blow To hear that old Santa Claus, god of his dreams. Would not come that year with his fleet-footed teams. He'd seen them. Why, once, of a night's witching hour He saw them jump over the cross on the tower And scamper away o'er the snow-covered roofs, His heart beating time to the sound of their hoofs. Not coming this year? Santa Claus must be dead, He thought, as with sad tears he crept into bed. And, as he lay thinking, the long strings of wire ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... when the cheery blaze was crackling in the witching hour of yarn telling, the seasoned habitues of the camp would direct the eye of the newcomer to a little glint of light high up upon the mountain, and edify him with dark tales of a lonesome draft dodger who had challenged that tangled profusion of tree and brush to escape going to war ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... sunny apple seek The velvet down that spreads his cheek; And there, if art so far can go, The ingenuous blush of boyhood show. While, for his mouth—but no,—in vain Would words its witching charm explain. Make it the very seat, the throne, That Eloquence would claim her own; And let the lips, though silent, wear A life-look, as ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... that night. Chapman's house was brilliantly lighted, and carriages began to arrive and set down their gaily-attired occupants ere St. Paul's clock had struck nine. Then there was such a tripping of delicately turned little feet, such a flashing of underskirts, such a witching of perfumed silks and satins, such a display of white arms and white shoulders, as each bevy of beauties vaulted up the steps and were bowed into the house by the polite Mr. Bowles. Bowles felt himself an important element in the dignity of the family that night. His mistress ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... particular attention to his remark; they were too deeply engrossed in the Senior Surgeon. And the House Surgeon, watching, saw the profile of the Youngest and Prettiest Trustee become even prettier as it blushed and turned in witching eagerness toward the man who was rising to address the meeting. The other profile had turned rigid and white as a ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... went blackberrying with you in my tender infancy! Is it for this that in the heyday of youth I walked with you to the school-house down the road! Was it for this that in the prime of manhood I breathed soft music in your ear at the witching time of night!" ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... this occasion she did not visit him at Potsdam, but at Berlin, and instead of the witching hour of midnight, she chose the broad, clear light of day. Indeed, during the whole of her career, the White Lady does not seem to have kept to the time-honoured traditions of most ghosts, and appeared to startled ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji
... sky, Forth comes the moon, night's joyous, sylvan queen, With one lone, silent star, attendant by Her side, all sparkling in its glorious sheen; And, floating swan-like, stately, and serene, A few light fleecy clouds, the drapery of heav'n, Throw their pale shadows o'er this witching scene, Deep'ning its mystic grandeur—and seem driven Round these all shapeless piles ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various
... a lark, you may guess. There are no lamps in the streets of Kingston, and as all the decent part of the community are in their cavies by half— past nine in the evening, and as it was now "the witching time o' night," there was not a soul in the streets that we saw, except a solitary town guard now and then, lurking about some dark corner under the piazzas. These same streets, which were wide and comfortable enough in the daytime, had become unaccountably narrow ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... blasts Of demon-armies clouding all the wind, With thunder, and with blinding lightning flung In jagged javelins of purple wrath From splitting skies; sometimes with wiles and words Fair-sounding, 'mid hushed leaves and softened airs From shapes of witching beauty; wanton songs, Whispers of love; sometimes with royal allures Of proffered rule; sometimes with mocking doubts, Making truth vain. But whether these befell Without and visible, or whether Buddh Strove with fell spirits in his ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... performance, feeding his passion which, like some fire, grew more fierce by feeding, till he was well-nigh beside himself. Presently, out comes Moll from her state room, all glowing with exercise, flushed with pleasure, a rich colour in her cheek, and wild fire in her eyes, looking more witching than any siren. Swiftly she crosses the hall, and runs up the stairs to gain her chamber and reclothe herself, but half way up Dawson stops her, and clasping her about, cries hoarsely in ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... freedom that almost concealed the commercial nature of her mission. It seemed —this voyaging through the sparkling water, under the scintillating heavens, this resolute pushing into the opening splendors of night —like a pleasure trip. "It is the witching hour of half past ten," said my comrade, "let us turn in." (The reader will notice the consideration for her feelings which has omitted the usual description of "a sunset ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... upon as one of his most admired and intimate friends; now he was nothing more or less than a rival and an enemy, notwithstanding his seeming courtesy and civil self-restraint. As a matter of fact, he, Denzil, was left alone to face his fate: to dare the brilliant seduction of the witching eyes of Ziska,—to win her or to lose her forever! And consider every point as he would, the weary conviction was borne in upon him that, whether he met with victory or defeat, the result would ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... sight of lost and fallen ones, whose sad remains our errant footsteps cross. Not always clad in soft, warm, beating life do our bones perform their noblest purpose. Beauty may lure to ruin, but, the witching charm removed, decay may waken sober thought and high resolve. Poor Yorick might have set King Hamlet's table in a roar and been forgot, if, from his unknown grave, the sexton had not brought him forth, to teach an ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... radiance o'er thy shapely head— And seemed as if they loved to dwell Where'er thy airy footsteps fell! And in my dreams I see thee now— The pearly teeth—the arching brow— The form that mocks the sculptor's art To add one curve that could impart More beauty and more witching grace, Or chisel out a sweeter face! Blest be the hour when first I met This charming girl ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy
... him, and, starting from his reverie and listening, he counted the hours to the full score of midnight. Struck, then, by the weird aspect of the scene and singular silence, a vague sense of horror stole through him, and he exclaimed hoarsely: "This is the very witching time of night, when churchyards yawn and spirits walk abroad!" and scarcely had the words escaped his lips when a wild tumult rose near him, and he perceived a bacchanalian and disorderly troop of both sexes sallying into the moonlight; wherein with uncouth ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... which he felt conscious had often, since he first met this fair daughter of the wilds, been lurking within. But, though he thus resolved and reasoned the intruding feeling into nothing, yet he felt he would not like to have Avis Gurley know how often the sparkling countenance and witching smile of this new and beautiful face had been found mingling themselves with the previously exclusive images of his dreams. But, if they did so before this second interview, would they do it less now? His head resolutely answered, "Yes, ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... into Patsy's cheeks, turning them the color of thorn bloom, and her eyes deepened to the blue of Killarney, sparkling as when the sun goes a-dancing. She smiled—a fresh, radiant, witching smile upon that clay lump of commercialism—until she saw his appraisement of ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... upon thy face, The cheek's bright bloom, the lip's envermeilled dye, And every gay and every witching grace That youth's warm hours and ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... when a child, on some long winter's night, Affrighted, clinging to its grandam's knees, With eager wond'ring and perturb'd delight Listens strange tales of fearful dark decrees, Mutter'd to wretch by necromantic spell; Or of those hags who at the witching time Of murky midnight, ride the air sublime, And mingle foul embrace with fiends of hell; Cold horror drinks its blood! Anon the tear More gentle starts, to hear the beldame tell Of pretty babes, that lov'd each other dear, Murder'd by cruel uncle's ...
— The Philosophy of Style • Herbert Spencer
... a love in her witching dark eye, There's a love in her tresses at play, Yet her love would be worth not a sigh, If from thee she could lure me away, ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... he has thus far written. The consequence is, when he aimed at mental effect, the result was nearly always pompous, as when Dr. Seelig, in "As a Man Thinks," tries to explain the psychological matrix of the piece, and as when Jack Brookfield, in "The Witching Hour," explains the basis of telepathy. But when he aimed nowhere, yet gave us living, breathing flashes of character, as dominate "The Other Girl" and are typified in the small role of Lew Ellinger, in "The ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: In Mizzoura • Augustus Thomas
... at two o'clock, about the witching time that ghosts do glide about in churchyards, as I was thinking whether it would not be better to go to bed instead of writing nonsense, in which opinion most of my readers may coincide with me, in stalked three young men who ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... no more! Witching dancer be gone! For my heart's a still shore in the hugeness of dawn, And some answer is thrilling, is trembling for me In the eerie still brightness of heaven and sea, And the little ripples whisper, "What thing ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... the undoubted contribution of a noble duke was particularly mentioned, which alone appalled the heart of Brooks'. The matter was put before Neuchatel, as he entered the club, to which he had been recently elected with acclamation. "So you are a little frightened," he said, with a peculiarly witching smile which he had, half mockery and half good nature; as much as to say, "I will do what you wish, but I see through you and everybody else." "So you are a little frightened. Well; we City men must see what we can do ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... ethereal light shimmers like a bridal veil adorning a wood nymph. It lays its gentle touch on the waterfall, transforming it into a torrent of molten silver, and causing each drop to glisten like topaz under its witching light. ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... the clock in the stable tower crept from hour to hour, the bell telling off the half-hours. She neither saw nor heard. Then came the twelve long deliberate strokes announcing the witching hour. At the first stroke Beverly started into life. By the time the last had sounded the pretty pink dinner gown she had been wearing lay in a tumbled heap upon the bed where she had ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... to the zenith's golden diadem of stars— even they sport upon the same lofty concave of dewless blue, which looks through and through the lacework and everchanging drapery of their mingled hues in the most witching mazes of their nightly waltz, giving to each a definiteness that our homely Saxon tongue might ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... bathed in the voluptuous atmosphere that seemed to emanate from all that feminine ripeness, took a bitter pleasure in defying the caresses of her coral lips, the tempting smile of her eyes, the witching charm of her bosom, and all the intoxication which seemed to pour from her at every movement. He even carried his temerity so far as to search with his gaze for the spots that he had once so hotly kissed, the corners of her eyes and lips, her narrow temples, ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... but she gave her heart to a rival suitor. The wedding day was fixed, but the prospect of her marriage was a terrible trouble to Eustace, and threatened to mar the happiness of his life. Having, however, in his youth perfected himself in the black art, he drew a magic circle, at the witching hour of night, and summoned the Evil One to a consultation. The meeting came off, at which the usual bargain was quickly struck, the soul of Eustace being bartered for the coveted body of the beautiful ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... Lewy Loses all his pretty smiles; He says they're very far away; At least a hundred miles. He looks as sober as a judge, As stately as a king, As solemn as a parson and As still as anything. And then our little Bertie, The witching willow bringing, Sends all the smiles safe home again, By ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... ceased. But still their trembling ears retained The deep vibrations of his 'witching song, That, by a kind of magic power, constrained To enter in, pell-mell, the listening throng: Heaps poured on heaps, and yet they slipped along In silent ease; as when beneath the beam Of summer moons, the distant woods among, Or by some flood all silvered with ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... tide! I' th' witching hour when the moon woos the wave, I laid me, fresh from a sea-bath, on the shore— And, failing not to put head foremost—for The hair holds the sea-water in its mesh— I rose in air, straight! straight! like angel's flight, And mounted, mounted, gently, effortless,. ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... not in infant smiles A witching power, a cheering ray, A charm, that every care beguiles, And bids the weary soul be gay? There surely is—for thou hast been, Child of my heart, my peaceful dove, Gladdening life's sad and chequer'd scene, An emblem of the peace ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... pushed the door farther open. An odour came forth—a damp, rancid, familiar, musty, intoxicating, beloved odour stirring strongly at old memories of happy days and travels. Black Eagle sniffed at the witching smell as the returned wanderer smells of the rose that twines his boyhood's cottage home. Nostalgia seized him. He put his hand inside. Excelsior—dry, springy, curly, soft, enticing, covered the floor. Outside the drizzle had turned ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... my great joy, my lord the Duke rose and made as though he were departing; whereupon the false image vanished, and I beheld Ann giving her hand with a witching smile to Junker Henning, that he might help her ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... odorous limes were dim above As we leant on a drooping bough; And the darkling air was a breath of love, And a witching thrush sang "Now!" For the sun dropt low, and the twilight grew As we listen'd and sigh'd, and leant; That day was the sweetest day—and we knew What the ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... me. But as I enjoy a hand of cards with a friend, I don't go unprovided.' Saying which, Dare drew a pack from the tail of his coat. 'Shall we while away this leisure with the witching things?' ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... little they occupied her mind. She even spoke of sealed wives in a kind of dreamy abstraction. Something had possession of her, something as strong as the nature which had developed her, and in its power she, in her simplicity, was utterly unconscious, a watching and feeling girl. A strange, witching, radiant beauty lurked in her smile. And Shefford heard ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... nor a bird nor an insect. Either the unchanging view or something in the air has stimulated everybody into being their nicest. It is surprising how quickly graciousness possesses some people when there is a witching girl around. Vivacious young men and benevolent officers have suddenly appeared out of nowhere, spick and span in white duck and their winningest smiles. Entertainments dovetail till there is barely time for ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... It was there that we played at leap-frog, or gathered dandelions for our tame rabbits; and, at its western extremity, were still extant the reliques of the deal-seat, at which we used to assemble on autumn evenings to have our round of stories. Many a witching tale and wondrous tradition hath there been told; many a marvel of "figures that visited the glimpses of the moon"; many a recital of heroic and chivalrous enterprise, accomplished ere warriors dwindled away to the mere puny ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... drink before they sing Their true-pac'd numbers and their holy lays, Which makes them worthy cedar and the bays. But why, why longer do I gaze upon Thee with the eye of admiration? Since I must leave thee, and enforc'd must say To all thy witching beauties, Go, away. But if thy whimpering looks do ask me why, Then know that nature bids thee go, not I. 'Tis her erroneous self has made a brain Uncapable of such a sovereign As is thy powerful self. Prithee ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... taught my willing tongue, The songs that Braga fram'd and sung? Who was it op'd to me the store Of dark unearthly Runic lore, And taught me to beguile my time With Denmark's aged and witching rhyme; To rest in thought in Elvir shades, And hear the song of fairy maids; Or climb the top of Dovrefeld, Where magic knights their muster held: Who was it did all this for me? O, ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... * * * * * finally by night The village matron, round the blazing hearth, Suspends the infant audience with her tales, Breathing astonishment! of witching rhymes, And evil spirits; of the death-bed call Of him who robbed the widow, and devour'd The orphan's portion; of the unquiet souls Ris'n from the grave to ease the heavy guilt Of deeds in life concealed; of shapes that walk At dead of night, ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... Noon came, that witching time with all who labor in the fields or woods, and not until then did Mr. Logan lay down his clumsy hoe. I half pitied his condition as we came out of the hot sun into the shelter of a trellis which ran along the side of the house, over ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... sentinel on guard at the house opposite, he joined them, and was soon striding along, at a tremendous pace, toward the great cathedral. Ere he reached it, its long-tongued clock tolled twelve, and all the other churches, one after another, took up the sound, and the witching hour of midnight rang and rerang from end to end of London town. As if by magic, a thousand forked tongues of fire shot up at once into the blind, black night, turning almost in an instant the darkened face of the heavens to an inflamed, ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... a fit receptacle for such a mind. A face all softness, seemed and was the index to a heart all pity. Taller than her compeers,—in all she said or did, a native dignity and a witching grace were exquisitely blended. She was one not easily seen without admiration; but when known, clung Cydippe-like to the heart's mirror, an image over which neither time ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... of two dollars a week! Comment trouvez-vous ca? I am also in a conspiracy with the American editor, a French restaurant-man, and an Italian fisherman against the Padre. The enclosed poster is my last literary appearance. It was put up to the number of 200 exemplaires at the witching hour; and they were almost all destroyed by eight in the morning. But I think the nickname will stick. Dos Reales; deux reaux; two bits; twenty-five cents; about a shilling; but in practice it is worth from ninepence to threepence: thus two glasses ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the daytime and sometimes at the dead of night. Notices were sent to obnoxious persons warning them to stop certain practices. If warning failed, something more convincing was tried. Fright was the emotion most commonly stirred. A horseman, at the witching hour of midnight, would ride up to the house of some offender, lift his head gear, take off a skull, and hand it to the trembling victim with the request that he hold it for a few minutes. Frequently violence was employed either officially ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... in Helen's face so mild, And in her bashful mien, The winning softness of the child, The blushes of fifteen. The witching smile, when prone to go, Arrests me, bids me stay; Nor joy, nor comfort can I know, When 'reft ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... you to the top now!" she cried. "If you catch me—" There was the old witching challenge ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... downstairs backward, looking into a mirror to discover the particular masculine face which would fill their live's mirrors, though, unhappily some of the potency of the charm was lost because it could not be done upon the witching stroke of midnight. ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... face!" He's monarch of the fair, wherever they may be; For, lo, they're all become the liegemen of his grace. The water of his mouth is liquid honey-dew And 'twixt his lips for teeth fine pearls do interlace. Perfect in every trait of beauty and unique, His witching loveliness distracts the human race. Beauty itself hath writ these words upon his cheek, "Except this youth there's none ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... shimmered, to the left the moonlit crests and hollows of the sand-dunes, to the right the rocky shore with its inky shadows and its crystalline coves. Rilla and her partner swung in among the dancers; she drew a long breath of delight; what witching music Ned Burr of the Upper Glen was coaxing from his fiddle—it was really like the magical pipes of the old tale which compelled all who heard them to dance. How cool and fresh the gulf breeze blew; how white and wonderful the moonlight was ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... regrets no longer, if I cannot share them. There is surely an hilarious informality about these media-nochi that attaches to no antecedent feast; the freedom of a picnic, without its manifold inconveniences: as the witching hour draws nearer, the "brightest eyes that ever have shone" glitter yet more gloriously, till in their nearer and dearer splendor a Chaldean would forget the stars; and the "sweetest lips that ever were kissed" sip the creaming ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world: Now could I drink hot blood, And do such bitter business[106] as the day Would quake to look on. Soft! ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... so full of witching wiles - Of fascinating tricks of mouth and eye; So womanly withal, but not too shy - And all my heaven was compassed by ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... last half hour. Mrs. Morgan wanted to know how the Haunted Wood came by its name, and laughed until she cried when she heard the story and Anne's dramatic account of a certain memorable walk through it at the witching hour ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... side registering more impatience than he thought the occasion called for—Lanyard listened, stared, wondered, the breath of the sea sweet in his nostrils, its flavour in his throat, his vision lost in the tangled web of masts and cordage and funnels that stencilled the moon-pale sky: the witching glamour of salt water binding all his senses with its ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... on the main, and capitals of more revelry," said the charmed Violetta, withdrawing her person from its leaning attitude, as the voices ceased; "but in such a night and at this witching hour, what city may compare ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... New-York), you find the dinner postponed to three; and some gentlemen, with English education and English habits, dine in New-York at five; while others, whose business keeps them at the bank, or court, or counting-house till three, have the witching time adjourned to four. These are, however, only exceptions to the rule, and as lawyers say, exceptio probat regulam; the legitimate, healthy, fashionable hour for dining—that in which the Knickerbockers, who know no banks or counting-houses, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... to represent ladies in afternoon dress, the colours of the intermediate tints of the rainbow—expressions celestial. It is the witching hour before changing from one costume to the other, after afternoon tea and just before dressing for dinner. To the right you may observe an Ayah spoiling some young Britons.[3] You see in the background a golden sunset on a wine red sea, and our lady artist, a pupil from Juliens; she is ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... Struthers, a Scottish poet little known, but of great worth and some genius, thus recurs to Currie's words:— (p. 111) Nae mair in learning Willie toils, nor Allan wakes the melting lay, Nor Rab, wi' fancy-witching wiles, beguiles the hour o' dawning day; For tho' they were na very fou, that wicked wee drap in the e'e Has done its turn; untimely now the green grass waves o'er a' ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... Quinlan escaped five shots, all fired into his house. Mr. Bell, of Pegsboro, beat this record with six. He was believed to sympathise with Mr. Smith-Barry! Men with white masks pervaded the vicinity from the gentle gloaming till the witching morn, and woe to the weak among their opponents, or even among the neutrals, whom they might meet ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... It is the witching hour of 10 a.m. and I am sitting in my little ante-room—boudoir, call it what you will—immersed in correspondence, Boggley, hard-worked man that he is, has departed for his office followed by a kitmutgar carrying some sandwiches and a bottle of soda-water, ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... sea, Low voiced, she sang. So sweet the idle song, She said, "From Paradise, forgotten long, It comes. An elfin echo that doth rise Upward from summer seas to bending skies. In coming days, from any earthly shore It shall not fail. And sweet forever more Shall make my memory. That witching strain Pale Lilith's love shall lightly breathe again. And Lilith's bitter loss and olden pain O'er every cradle wake that sweet refrain. My memory still shall bloom. It cannot die While ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... and barked until his throat was sore. Every night old Mother Fox had warned him that noisy children would come to no good end, and every night Reddy had promised that he would bark no more. But every night when the first silver flood of witching light crept over the hill and cast strange shadows from the naked branches of the trees, Reddy forgot all about his promise. Deep down under his little red coat was a strange feeling which he could not explain. He simply must bark, so up to the Lone Pine he would ...
— Mother West Wind's Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... she held that child by her hand—so marvelous was the fascination of that little creature's countenance. It was a face to attract, to charm, to delight, to draw you in, and rivet your whole attention, until you became absorbed and lost in the study of its mysterious spell—a witching face, whose nameless charm it were impossible to tell, I might describe the fine dark Jewish features, the glorious eyes, the brilliant complexion, and the fall of long, glossy, black ringlets that veiled the proud little ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... of thy ringlets bright, Nor of thy witching 'ee; But this I'll tell thy bonnie sel', That dear art ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 575 - 10 Nov 1832 • Various
... invoke, your Sister Arts implore" With "smiles," and "lyres," and "pencils," and much more. 30 These, if we win the Graces, too, we gain Disgraces, too! "inseparable train!" "Three who have stolen their witching airs from Cupid" (You all know what I mean, unless you're stupid): "Harmonious throng" that I have kept in petto Now to produce in a "divine sestetto"!! "While Poesy," with these delightful doxies, "Sustains her part" in all the ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... fair, so full of witching wiles— Of fascinating tricks of mouth and eye; So womanly withal, but not too shy— And all my heaven was compassed ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... however, regard the power as unholy or disreputable. Another informant mentions a belief that children born between midnight and one o'clock will be second-sighted. People attempt to hasten or delay the birth, so as to avoid the witching hour; clearly then they regard the second sight as an unenviable accomplishment. 'It is certane' says Kirk, 'he sie more fatall and fearfull things, than he do gladsome.' For the physical condition of the seer, Kirk describes ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... At that "witching hour of night when churchyards yawn," we also had a touch of the gaping fit, and thought of rest. The room in which we had supped, was likewise our bed-room; and the bed and sofa, huddled cozily in one corner of ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... so sweet as thine; Wider our view, but not so sanely sure; For we are troubled by the witching lure Of Science, with her lightning on the mist; Science that clears, Yet never quite discloses what she wist, And leaves us half with doubts and half ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... honey-coloured star Singing to the breathless moon, Singing in the silent night Till the stars for sheer delight Closed their eyes, and drowsy birds In the midmost forest spray Took their heads from out their wings, Thinking—it is Ariel sings And we must catch the witching words And sing ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... see. There was a witching mingling of the frank, the childlike, and the womanly, in her troubled face; frankness that would not deny the truth that her monitor seemed to have read, a childlike simplicity of shame that he should have divined it, and a womanly self-respect that ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... My family, in all its branches, came into her Grace's quick recollection; and I was thus indebted to my adventure, not only for an introduction to one of the most elegant women of her time—to the goddess of fashion in her temple, the Circe of high life, at the "witching hour," but of being most "graciously" received; and even hearing a panegyric on my chivalry, from the Marechal, smilingly echoed by lips which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... shall last the dreadful chase Till time itself shall have an end; By day they scour earth's cavern'd space, At midnight's witching hour, ascend. ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... ultimately of practical use, and even the most immediately utilitarian has an abstract principle at its core. We are too prone to regard the present age of the world as preeminently practical, much as a middle-aged man laments the witching fancies of his boyhood. But, and there is more in the parallel than analogy, if the man be truly imaginative he is none the less so at forty-five than he was at twenty, if his imagination have taken on a more critical form; for this latter ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... like a diminutive human hand; his watch-chain was of gold, wrought in a wonderful and extravagant design. As he stepped through the swinging, glazed doors of the Bank, and stood on the broad step without, at the witching hour of twelve, he twirled his small black moustache so as to display to advantage the sparkling diamond ring which encircled the little finger of his left hand. His Semitic features wore an expression of great self-satisfaction, ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... had a wonderful vogue, running rapidly through edition after edition. Among others to whom it appealed and who were influenced by it was Keats. Mrs. Tighe's talent drew from Moore a delicate compliment in "Tell me the witching tale again"; and in "The Grave of a Poetess" and "I stood where the life of song lay low", Mrs. ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... tender Silvery light Luna peeps the clouds between, And 'spite of dark disastrous night The radiant sun is also seen When the wavelets murmuring flow When oak and ivy clinging grow, Then, O then, in that witching hour Let us meet in my ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... artificial townsfolk applaud. Yet a nesting-tree, a thousand leagues from city discords, gives forth better music with deeper meaning and higher message—albeit the songster sings only from love of song. The fretted folk of the great cities cannot understand the witching fascinations of a wild life in a wild, free, tameless land, where God's own hand ministers to eye and ear. To fare sumptuously, to dress with the faultless distinction that marks wealth, to see and above all to be seen—these are the empty ends for which city men engage in a mad, feverish pursuit ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... gracious mother's wiles And dear delusive smiles! No callow fledgling of her singing brood But tastes that witching food, And hearing overhead the eagle's wing, And how the thrushes sing, Vents his exiguous chirp, and from his nest Flaps forth—we know the rest. I own the weakness of the tuneful kind,— Are not all harpers blind? I sang too early, must I sing too late? The lengthening shadows ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... astrologer up the grand sweeping staircases—up and up, to the very top of the house—to the lofty, lonely battlements. Cloudless spread the wide night sky; countless and brilliant shone the stars; peaceful and majestic slept, the purple sea; spotless white gleamed the snowy earth. A weird, witching scene. ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... a moment, and then continued, "Well, my attentive friend, 'the witching hour' approaches. We lost too much time in discussion this evening—What! only ten o'clock?" he said, looking at his watch. "Well, I am at a good resting-place in the story, anyway, as you will to-morrow evening admit. Why, if I started you up into those mountains ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... in a business way. I think we had better let Ptolemy plant a ghost just once more for her. You know you made him take a reef in the flapping of ghostly garments. Can't we resurrect the specter and restore the wails just for tonight, and bring her over here at the witching hour?" ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... her, but he did not answer. His voice had deserted him, and his ideas had vexatiously scattered like frightened wild geese. He looked at her, beautiful, witching, full of smiles; then without knowing exactly why he did so, he turned and looked again at the Lucretia. Berenice ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... a child on some long Winter's night Affrighted clinging to its Grandam's knees With eager wond'ring and perturb'd delight Listens strange tales of fearful dark decrees Muttered to wretch by necromantic spell; 5 Or of those hags, who at the witching time Of murky Midnight ride the air sublime, And mingle foul embrace with fiends ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... my very self, and I am forsooth weighty argument. Fourthly, beloved, 'tis an ass that—ha! O sweet vision for eyes human or divine! Do I see thee in very truth, thou damsel of disobedience, dear dame of discord, sweet, witching, wilful lady—is it thou in very truth, most loved daughter, or wraith conjured of thy magic and my ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... undergrowth that were like the lanterns of the fairies a line came into his mind that he liked and repeated several times, rather whimsically pleased with himself for having found it at exactly the right moment. It was "the witching ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... be found, nor had the warm evening lured Mrs. Wildmere from her room. He had learned that Arnault was still at the house, and he inferred, from the surpassing beauty of the moonlit evening, that his rival would not let such witching hours pass without an effort to turn them to account. With a frown he retreated from the music, dancing, and gayety of a full house, and went up to Mrs. ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... tucked her under his arm and trudged cheerily away across the parade toward the bright lights of the hop room. They had a fairly good string orchestra at Frayne that year, and one of Strauss's most witching waltzes—"Sounds from the Vienna Woods"—had just been begun as father and daughter entered. A dozen people, men and women both, saw them and noted what followed. With bright, almost dilated, eyes, and ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... the crimson ruby of thy lips, I feel the witching weirdness of thy breath! I droop! I sink into my soul's eclipse,— I fall in love ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... This witching child is very small; Her feeble, tiny hands, Can scarcely tend the mammoth doll, Which so ...
— Our Gift • Teachers of the School Street Universalist Sunday School, Boston
... and from that day forth she was sacred to me. I have carried her image in my heart for sixty-three years—all lonely thee, yes, solitary, for it never has had company—and I am grown so old, so old; but it, oh, it is as fresh and young and merry and mischievous and lovely and sweet and pure and witching and divine as it was when it crept in there, bringing benediction and peace to its habitation so long ago, so long ago—for it has ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... her charges and but little older, and eager one and all for any glory or distinction that could pique the pride or stir the envy of "that Craney set." It was too much for a girl of Sallie Waring's type. Her eyes have a dangerous gleam, her cheeks a witching glow; she clings tighter to his arm as she ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... answer such interrogations. But I would not willingly quarrel with Ewan Macpherson. My heart must have been colder than it is, could I have enjoyed the company of Elizabeth Macpherson without yielding me to that influence of witching beauty which softens and subdues ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... have saved myself in time," said my thought, as I stood up and went away from the window, "a day might have come when to give him up would be to renounce the happiness of my whole life—that day that I had sometimes fondly, though vainly, dreamed of, with all its witching possibilities and which now lay crumbled to dust at ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... water-seeking tap-root of the cottonwood or the mesquite of the plains; more powerful to clasp and to hold than the cablelike roots of the rock-embracing cedar. The little new member was so much living sunshine, gay, witching, brilliant, erratic in disposition as he was singular and beautiful in his form and coloring, but always irresistibly endearing, dangerously winning. When he had been Sammy Overholt only two weeks, he sat at table with his parents one day ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... palaces of noblemen and merchants. These new inhabitants have walled up the fair arched windows and slender portals of the ancient dwellers, spoiling the beauty of the streets without materially changing the architectural masses. In that witching hour when the Italian sunset has faded, and a solemn grey replaces the glowing tones of daffodil and rose, it is not difficult, here dreaming by oneself alone, to picture the old noble life—the ladies moving along those open loggias, the young men ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... dear tree Parting her hair that she may see How queens put on their sovereignty? All are come of Pan's own race, Nymphs and satyrs fill the place, Necks outstretched and ears a-twitching, That Pan may know of all this witching. Heedless stumble the goatfeet Till four-footed things retreat. Cries of Ah! and Ay! and Eh! Scare the forest birds away, And their notes that rang so clear At dawn, you now shall rarely hear: Only ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... may, the spot in question was, at all events, so situated as to be only visible, and then but vaguely, under certain witching conditions of ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... you know t' excell. I ask the man condemn'd that's neer his death, How gladly should his gold purchase his breath, And all the wealth that ever earth did give, How freely should it go so he might live: No earth, thy witching trash were all but vain, If my pure air thy sons did not sustain, The famish'd thirsty man that craves supply, His moving reason is, give least I dye, So both he is to go though nature's spent To bid adieu to ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... very same place in which Sir Aymer de Valence held an interview with the old sexton; and who now, drawing into a separate corner some of the straggling parties whom he had collected and brought to the church, kept on the alert, and appeared ready for an attack as well at mid-day as at the witching hour of midnight. This was the more necessary, as the eye of Sir John de Walton seemed busied in searching from one place to another, as if unable to find the object he was in quest of, which the reader will easily understand to be the Lady Augusta de Berkely, of whom he had lost sight in the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... said, "men, as I have known them, are men. He has been shut up for a long while with that minx, who is very fair and witching, and it was scarcely right to watch him through a slit in a tower. If he were my lover, I should say nothing ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... toward me from on high, As fall the leaves in Autumn storm. Her dress was like the mantle fair Which Autumn to Columbia brings, And bids the moaning forest wear, With rainbow hues of angel's wings; Her voice was like the witching strain Which laughing streamlets gayly sing When Summer o'er the ripening grain Spreads wide ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... take the mighty fleece of gold and return to the home of Aeetes, for, she said, the sons of Phrixus had given her by force to the strangers to carry off; with such beguiling words she scattered to the air and the breezes her witching charms, which even from afar would have drawn down the savage ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... to all returned, But, when Oneguine's turn came round, The maiden's weary eye which yearned, Her agitation and distress Aroused in him some tenderness. He bowed to her nor silence broke, But somehow there shone in his look The witching light of sympathy; I know not if his heart felt pain Or if he meant to flirt again, From habit or maliciously, But kindness from his eye had beamed And to ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... that will render far more perfect the reflection of the will of the people; that will perhaps represent minorities as well as majorities; that will disarm corruptions by dispensing with party organizations. It is the very witching ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... as the oars kept time to "aria" or "chorus," heard above the witching melody the solemn minor of "St. Mary's," or ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... we turned away To gaze upon a poet's home; 'Twas near the close of that bright day, And golden sunlight on it shone; Perfume of flowers, and birds' songs low A witching spell ...
— Within the Golden Gate - A Souvenir of San Fransisco Bay • Laura Young Pinney
... shoulder—and as the woman sometimes takes the initiative in an affair of this kind—smiled upon the willing and ready-looking fellow; not exactly at him, but as it were in his direction, you know; and he caught the faint glint of sunshine on her lips, and then—but in the witching hour when the twilight and sunlight kiss and part, after the smile and look of recognition everyone ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley
... and went out, leaving the sense of mystery behind him. He could not stay longer because the witching hour of flute-playing was drawing near. After he had gone a very young officer ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... change the discourse, for it very naturally directed the attention of all present from a subject that was rather tolerated from idleness than interesting in itself, to the different natural phenomena by which they were surrounded. The sunset had now fairly passed, and the travellers were at the witching moment that precedes the final disappearance of the day. A calm so deep rested on the limpid lake, that it was not easy to distinguish the line which separated the two elements, in those places where the blue of the land was confounded ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... Was that witching light already fading in her sky? Was the storm even now muttering, that would rudely toss aside the rose leaves that garlanded the feet of her beloved? In the midst of her eloquent prologue would darkness smite suddenly, and end the drama? ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... butterfly, now half, now wholly shading her radiant face, which quickly peeps out again from behind its shelter, like the moon from out a passing cloud. This little article, always costly, sometimes very expensive, in her hand seems in its eloquence of motion almost to speak. She has a witching flirt with it that expresses scorn; a graceful wave of complacence; an abrupt closing of it that indicates vexation or anger; a gradual and cautious opening of its folds that signifies reluctant forgiveness; in short, the language of ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... return was far enough away, Denas possessed it in anticipation. The belief that he would come, that he would give her sympathy and assistance, helped her through the long sameness of uneventful days by the witching promise, "Anon—anon!" ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... love's passions swell For Estelle! How I love my actions tell Thee, Estelle: That I love thy smiling face, And thy captivating grace— Love thy dreamy 'witching eyes More than planets ...
— The Sylvan Cabin - A Centenary Ode on the Birth of Lincoln and Other Verse • Edward Smyth Jones
... interludes, either; as when Tennyson came from the Isle of Wight to London for three or four days, two of which he passed with the Brownings. He "dined, smoked, and opened his heart" to them; and concluded this memorable visit at the witching hour of half-past two in the morning, after reading "Maud" aloud the evening before from the proof-sheets. The date of this event is established by an inscription affixed to the back of a pen-and-ink ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... of the unfortunate people on board? Poor Dr Cuff! I thought of him more than any one. He was a friend in whom I could place perfect confidence, and had so often been my companion that I thought more of his fate than of that of anybody else on board. While I stood witching the far-distant conflagration, I felt a stronger puff of wind on my cheek than had for some time been blowing. It rapidly increased, but it blew off the land. After I had waited some time till I thought I ought to go back to assist Tommy in keeping up the fire, the ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston |
