"Fascination" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... interesting from their historical or traditional associations, or connected in some way with humorous or pathetic passages of his own life experience. Some of these autobiographical fragments affected me deeply. In narrating them he invested familiar and commonplace facts with something of the fascination of romance. "Human life," he would say, "is the same everywhere. If we could but get at the truth, we should find that all the tragedy and comedy of Shakespeare have been reproduced in this little village. God has made all of one blood; ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... series of romances with scenes laid in the iron and steel world. Each book presents a vivid picture of some phase of this great industry. The information given is exact and truthful; above all, each story is full of adventure and fascination. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... sagacious diplomatist, whose accomplished manners and quick perception of character have procured him a European reputation. He quitted public business some years ago, but even in retirement Vienna had its attractions for him. There is an unaccountable fascination in a residence in this capital; those who live long in it become ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... shelf, his thin blonde hair falling over his eyes as he did so. Markheim moved a little nearer, with one hand in the pocket of his great-coat; he drew himself up and filled his lungs; at the same time many different emotions were depicted together on his face—terror, horror, and resolve, fascination and a physical repulsion; and through a haggard lift of his upper ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... and for an indefinite period,—now that our plans must ripen, I have come to the conclusion that Madeleine must be removed, or they will never attain fruition; she must not be allowed to cast the spell of her dangerous fascination over him; something must be done, and that before Maurice returns; in a fortnight he will ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... be most susceptible to the evil-eye. Charms and amulets were furnished against fascination in general. Certain figures in bronze, coral, ivory, etc., representing a closed hand with the thumb thrust out between the first and second fingers called the fig, were common. In Henry IV, ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... it might perhaps have been attributed to the satiety incident to the complete gratification of "hope long deferred;" but so far from diminishing, the more I gazed, the stronger and deeper the sentiment became. Yet this scene of sadness was strangely mingled with a kind of intoxicating fascination. Whether the phenomenon is peculiar to Niagara I know not, but certain it is, that the spirits are affected and depressed in a singular manner by the magic influence of this stupendous and eternal fall. About five miles above the cataract the river expands to the dimensions of a lake, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... religious experience of the Romans, as an important part of their history. And this happens to coincide with my own inclination and training; for I have been all my academic life occupied in learning and teaching Roman history, and the fascination which the study of the Roman religion has long had for me is simply due to this fact. Whatever may be the case with other religions, it is impossible to think of that of the Romans as detached from their history as a whole; it is an integral part ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... she coloured a good deal, she made no objection, and showed no displeasure. Alice and she now busied themselves with getting the cups and saucers out of the cupboard, and setting the table: but all that evening, through whatever was doing, Ellen's eyes sought the stranger as if by fascination. She watched him whenever she could without being noticed. At first she was in doubt what to think of him; she was quite sure, from that one looking into his eyes, that he was a person to be feared; there was no doubt of that; as to the ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... gold at Vienna, made away with a very considerable quantity. He felt the loss so acutely, that he vowed to think no more of the philosopher's stone. This wise resolution he kept for two months; but he was miserable. He was in the condition of the gambler, who cannot resist the fascination of the game while he has a coin remaining, but plays on with the hope of retrieving former losses, till hope forsakes him, and he can live no longer. He returned once more to his beloved crucibles, and resolved to prosecute his journey in search of a philosopher who had ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... Wood is the home in fiction of adventuresses and profligacy and Bohemian supper-parties; often have I read about those foreign Countesses, of unknown history and incredible fascination, who decoy handsome young officials of the Foreign Office to these villas, and rob them, in dim-lit, scented bedrooms, of important documents. But I at least have never too harshly blamed these young diplomatists. Silent is the street as the mysterious brougham ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... a project than an insurrection of negroes and the capture of New Orleans. The robber of to-day is a stern realist. He knows nothing of romance. A ride under the stars and a swift succession of revolver-shots have no fascination for him. He likes to work in secret upon safe or burglar-box. He has moved with the times, and has at his hand all the resources of modern science. If we do not know all that is to be known of him and his ambitions it is our own fault, since the most expert of his class, Langdon W. Moore, ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... expected, the wanderings of Ulysses and the geography of Homer prevailed in Mr. Gladstone's mind over the counsels of parliamentary Nestors. Besides the ancient heroes, there was the fascination of the orthodox church, so peculiar and so irresistible for the anglican school to which Mr. Gladstone belonged. Nor must we leave out of account the passion for public business so often allied with the student's temperament; the desire of the politician ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... every water-wheel in that part of the county, whether overshot, undershot, breast, or turbine. Everything in the nature of a motor had an especial fascination for me, and for the men in control of such power I entertained a respect which ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... crying evils of the system (everything was a system with Rachel) that chained girls to an unhealthy occupation in their early childhood, and made an overstocked market and underpaid workers—holding Fanny fast to listen by a sort of fascination in her overpowering earnestness, and great fixed eyes, which, when once their grasp was taken, would not release the victim; and this was a matter of daily occurrence on which Rachel felt keenly ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... philters, amulets, charms, images, and such unlawful meanes: if they cannot prevail of themselves by the help of bawds, panders, and their adherents, they will fly for succour to the devil himself. I know there be those that denye the devil can do any such thing, and that there is no other fascination than that which comes by the eyes. It was given out, of old, that a Thessalian wench had bewitched King Philip to dote on her, and by philters enforced his love, but when Olympia, his queen, saw the maid of an excellent beauty well brought ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... write to you, but I do not feel equal to write to Clara." She was still, however, the child to him; the child whom he used to frighten with his gruesome ghost-stories, especially of his "Doppelgaenger," a name, Clara afterwards took to herself. Child as she was, he watched her with something of fascination, and ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... to an imaginative beholder had such an one stood by to compare the picture with its almost twin living copy. Maryllia however had a very small stock of vanity,—she was only pleasantly aware that she possessed a certain grace and fascination not common to the ordinary of her sex, but beyond that, she rated her personal charms at very slight value. The portrait of Mary Elia Adelgisa made her more seriously discontented with herself than ever,—and ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... the most elegant Moralities was composed by Louise L'Abe; the Aspasia of Lyons in 1550, adored by her contemporaries. With no extraordinary beauty, she however displayed the fascination of classical learning, and a vein of vernacular poetry refined and fanciful. To accomplishments so various she added the singular one of distinguishing herself by a military spirit, and was nicknamed ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... not want to stay in the kitchen, but when he found Jedediah there he was more complacent. The ex-gold seeker and his tales of adventure had a tremendous fascination for Georgie. ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... and brother ever grow tired of listening. Ralph Brighton had lost, in that one dreadful hour, his love for dollar signs, and he nodded in wise agreement over Felix's decision to give up the quest for gold. Barbara would hearken in awed fascination to that story of the man lost in the desert, whose eyes looked once upon fabulous wealth but who could never ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... to the craft of printing was profoundly interesting to Reed, whether viewed from the practical, or the historic, or the artistic side. His types were to him no mere articles of commerce, they were objects of beauty; to him the craft possessed the fascination of having a great history, and the legitimate pride of having played a ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... "taste which is the feminine of genius," the self-respecting gentleman-like instinct, innocent at once and playful, keeps the voluptuary out of sight, teaches, as Imogen taught Iachimo, "the wide difference 'twixt amorous and villainous." Add to all these elements of fascination the unbroken luxuriance of style; the easy flow of casual epigram or negligent simile;—Greek holy days not kept holy but "kept stupid"; the mule who "forgot that his rider was a saint and remembered that he was a tailor"; the pilgrims "transacting their salvation" at the Holy Sepulchre; ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... disapprove." That was the unvarying formula for Granoux, who had devoted himself to the enormous task of collecting all the articles, small or great, published about Balzac since his entry as a writer. And just see what a fascination this devil of a man—as Theophile Gautier once called him—exercises over his followers; I am fully convinced that these little details of Balzacian mania will cause the reader to smile. As for me, I have found them, ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... were no tidings of the missing man. With the lapse of each week the excitement only increased. Throughout the whole county this was the common topic of conversation. It was matter for far more than the ordinary nine days' wonder, for about this there was the fascination and the horror ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... the old tune. Even without any habitual association, we cannot help recognizing a certain power over our fancy in mere words. In verse almost every ear is caught with the sweetness of alliteration. I remember a line in Thomson's "Castle of Indolence" which owes much of its fascination to three m's, where he speaks ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... herself back from the fascination of the precipice) You think I can't smash anything? You think life can't break up, and go outside what it was? Because you've gone dead in the form in which you found yourself, you think that's all there is to the whole ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell
... believe that he ever painted a work fuller of life, more individual, and more striking. It made a deep and curious impression upon me; I went time and again to see it; I could not take my eyes off it, and it exercised upon me a sort of nostalgic fascination. It was from that painting that my dreams started upon fantastic trips through the narrow streets of ancient Cairo once traversed by Caliph Haroun al Raschid and his faithful vizier Jaffier, under the disguise of slaves or common people. ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... bouquet. Now, like a good girl, help us make an inventory. We will first have a list of what we may consider trustworthy seeds on hand, and then, with the aid of these catalogues, we can make out another list of what we shall buy. Seed catalogues, with their long list of novelties, never lose their fascination for me. I know that most of the new things are not half so good as the old tried sorts, but still I like to try some every year. It's a harmless sort of gambling, you see, and now and then I draw a genuine prize. Mother has the gambling mania far worse than I, as is evident from the ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... Middle Ages was drawing near to the Tudors is interesting, because of the riddle of Richard III. Chesterton's description of this strange king is full of fascination if also it is full of truth: 'He was not an ogre shedding rivers of blood, yet a crimson cloud cannot be dispelled from his memory. Whether or not he was a good man, he was apparently a good king, and even a popular one. He anticipated the Renaissance in an ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... creation of a great free republic based upon traditions of personal liberty which theretofore had been confined to a single little island, but which it was purposed should spread to all mankind. And the singular fascination of American history is that it has been a process of constant re-creation, of making over again in each generation the thing which was conceived at first. You know how peculiarly necessary that has been in our case, because America has not grown by ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... whether it has occurred to many Americans to ask why all the belligerents in this present war are showing such remarkable deference to American public opinion. Some Americans may, of course, believe that it is the sheer personal fascination of individual Americans or simple tenderness of moral feeling that makes Great Britain, France, Russia, Germany, and Austria take definitely so much trouble at a time when they have sufficient already, to demonstrate that they have taken the right course, that they are obeying all the laws of war, ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... position. It was seized the instant it had touched the water, and down, down went the trout, its white sides glistening through the clear water. For some reason still unaccountable I let it go, and yard after yard of line was reeled out. Perhaps, after all, it was fascination that kept me from stopping the plunge of the fish, that never stopped until the entire line was let out. That brought me to my senses, and I reeled the fish up and got a fine trout, but I also got at the same time an uncontrollable longing for land. To be in a leaky, ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... again, Mr. Bainrothe," and I examined it once more closely, as if by some fascination I could not resist. I remarked only one peculiarity in the document. One word was written in a cramped manner, as though space had been wanting—yet much of the sheet of paper on which it appeared was unoccupied—this was the word "thirty," at ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... had of the Martians emerging from the cylinder in which they had come to the earth from their planet, a kind of fascination paralysed my actions. I remained standing knee-deep in the heather, staring at the mound that hid them. I was a battleground ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... way too; it was to be lived alone, without any true companion for his soul, without the love that he had not asked except of one, and, asking of that one, had not obtained. As the days went on, the fascination of the spectacle she watched grew on her; it was more poignant now than in the former time, and it filled all her life. Thus in some sort Alexander Quisante had his way; his hold on her was not relaxed, his dominion over her not abrogated, to the end of his life he would ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... ever really liked. It was Buck who suggested to his pupil, in October, a particularly novel experience for his soul's unfolding, which Queed, though failing to adopt it, sometimes dandled before his mind's eye with a kind of horrified fascination, viz: the taking of Miss Miller to the ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... rather fond of going over empty houses; there's a sort of fascination about the desolate empty rooms, with the nails sticking in the walls, and the dust thick upon the window-sills. But I didn't enjoy going over Number 20, Paul Street. I had hardly put my foot inside the passage when I noticed a queer, heavy feeling about the air of the house. Of course all ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... with colored girdles and clumsy shoes, or with feet roughly tied up in the bark of trees, waited impatiently for the announcement of Li Mestre. Pale-faced southerners had braved the Alps and the Pyrenees under the fascination of "the wizard." Shaven and sandalled monks, black-habited clerics, black canons, secular and regular, black in face too, some of them, heresy hunters from the neighboring abbey of St. Victor, mingled with the crowd of young and old, grave and gay, beggars ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton
... mused Jose, "that you now follow this work because of its fascination—for you must have found and laid aside much treasure in the years that you have ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... attain the desired goal. While this childish enthusiasm was nipped in the bud by the timely intervention of an uncle, who met the two pilgrims trudging along the highway, the idea lost none of its fascination for a time; and the two children immediately began to play at being hermits in their father's garden, and made donation to all the beggars in the neighborhood of whatever they could find to give away, depriving ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... tired of sea stories—there is a fascination about them, and they are a recreation ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer
... the lobby floor there arose a ten-foot pillar to a far-distant roof. This pillar was of pale, green-streaked marble, and Peter's eyes followed it to the top, where it exploded in a snow-white cloud-burst, full of fascination. There were four cornucopias, one at each corner, and out of each cornucopia came tangled ropes of roses, and out of these roses came other ropes, with what appeared to be apples and leaves, and still more roses, and still ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... being a thing so dreadful, that we would hardly believe it; however, all doubt was soon changed into horrible reality by the arrival of the bodies within our lines. I was determined not to see them; but there was a horrible fascination which drew one along with the rest to the hospital tent, where ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... the Greek mythology a class of nymphs who were fabled to lure the passing sailor to his ruin by the fascination of their music; Ulysses, when he passed the beach where they were sitting, had his ears stuffed with wax and himself lashed to the mast till he was at a safe distance from the influence of their charm. Orpheus, however, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... lively dread of incurring a charge of presumption, to address you principally on that profound and most subtle question, the nature and mode of formation of the photographic image. I am impelled to do so, not only because the subject is full of fascination and hopefulness, but because the wide topics of photographic methods or photographic applications would be quite unfittingly handled by the ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... the fascination of rain for the water drinker, it is a fact the neglect of which I simply cannot comprehend. The enthusiastic water drinker must regard a rainstorm as a sort of universal banquet and debauch of his own favourite beverage. Think of the imaginative intoxication of the wine ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... girl." Laurent smiled with such a fascination that it brought the bright color to her face. "Mademoiselle, I have been thinking of you as the little girl whose advice I disdained and had a ducking for it. I did not look for a young lady. I do not wonder now that you have taken so ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... constant fascination in the skill and power displayed by those employed in directing the work that was going on. He haunted the place at every spare moment, and even did a day's work there, at leisure times, for the sake of getting an insight into the principles of things ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... it was difficult to find a Socialist to occupy these functions. Citizen Fortune Lapersonne entered the Visire cabinet of his own free will and without any constraint; and he found those who approved of his action even among his former friends, so great was the fascination that power exercised ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... about the streets. I must either die of want or return to your father. I preferred death. Toward evening—instinct having led me to the Seine—I sat down on one of the stone benches of the Point-Neuf, holding you on my knees and watching the flow of the dark river below. There was a strange fascination—a promise of peace in its depths—that impelled me almost irresistibly to plunge into the flood. If I had been alone in the world, I should not have stopped to consider a second, but on your account, ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... it was due to the fact that he was the only element in her life that made for excitement. Since his advent the days had certainly passed more swiftly for her. The dead level of monotony had been broken. There was a certain fascination in exerting herself to suppress him, which increased ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... well), and whose heart and intellect she considered so superior to her own. But the sternly virtuous girl did not abandon herself altogether to the man she loved, in spite of the Karamazov violence of his passions and the great fascination he had for her. She was continually tormented at the same time by remorse for having deserted Mitya, and in moments of discord and violent anger (and they were numerous) she told Ivan so plainly. This was what he had ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... boxes stood waiting the neatly trimmed and pressed bread: Lydia did this sort of thing perfectly. At the end of the table, his cheeks glowing, and his dark mop in a tumble, Teddy was watching in deep fascination. ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... indeed, may think that, without any detriment to ecclesiastical literature, some of the matter which has helped to swell the dimensions of these volumes might have been omitted. Everything in any way associated with the name of Ignatius seems to have a wonderful fascination for the learned prelate. Not content with publishing and commending what he considers the genuine productions of the apostolic Father, he here edits and annotates letters which have long since been discredited ...
— The Ignatian Epistles Entirely Spurious • W. D. (William Dool) Killen
... canopy in SS. Cosma e Damiano, dated 1153; fragments of an inlaid screen in the studio of the illustrious artist, Senor Villegas, etc. We are in the habit of asserting that only the Renaissance masters studied and were inspired by the antique; but the fascination of ancient art was equally felt by their early precursors of the twelfth century. The archway in the middle of the south side of these cloisters (opposite the one represented in our illustration) rests on sphinxes, one of which is bearded. ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... comrades dropping with moans and shrieks. A few lay under foot, still or wailing. And now for an instant the men stood, their rifles slack in their hands, and watched the regiment dwindle. They appeared dazed and stupid. This spectacle seemed to paralyze them, overcome them with a fatal fascination. They stared woodenly at the sights, and, lowering their eyes, looked from face to face. It was a strange pause, and a ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... was past praying for. Long before 1795 the Irish aristocracy had lost whatever power for good it ever possessed, and most of the resolute reformers of Wolfe Tone's middle-class Protestant school had turned, under the enthralling fascination of the French Revolution, into revolutionaries. Reform had been refused in 1782; again, and without coercion from the Volunteers, in 1783. It was refused again in 1784, against the advice of Pitt and at the instigation of Pitt's own Viceroy, Rutland, whom Pitt had urged—what a grim irony it ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... Colorado at last. I had a good view of the stream below, as we crossed the bridge—the Colorado in flood, muddy, turbulent, sweeping onward like an affrighted thing,—repulsive, yet with a fascination for me, born of an intimate acquaintance with the dangers of this stream. The river had called again! The heat was forgotten, the visions of the coast faded, for me the train could not reach Needles, ten miles up ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... then, simply the presence of Mr. Rainham which had leavened the company, and the personal fascination of his friendship—indefinable and unobtrusive as that had been—which had enabled her to adopt for the moment their urbane, impartial point ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... to appraise the effect of this startling proposition on me. At any other moment I should inevitably have broken loose again, but the fascination of his personality was upon me and I let him spin his webs. Any man, and there are scores adrift, who falls under the spell of Henry H. Rogers, invariably, as did the suitors of Circe, pays the penalty ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... April 25th, 1863, a consumptive when he entered on the work, which he was obliged to leave six months before his death. He was a faithful and conscientious teacher. Though so many months had passed since he left these labors, their fascination was such that he dwelt fondly upon them in his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... spread like lightning. Villa—the magic word! The Great Man, the salient profile, the unconquerable warrior who, even at a distance, exerts the fascination of a reptile, ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... Berrington had gone to a cottage to see an old woman who was ill—an old woman who had been in her service for years, in the old days. Unlike her friend she was fond of young people and invalids, but she was less interesting to Laura, except that it was a sort of fascination to wonder how she could have such abysses of placidity. She had long cheeks and kind eyes and was devoted to birds; somehow she always made Laura think secretly of a tablet of fine white soap—nothing else was so smooth ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... making up in activity what was lacking in gracefulness of motion. Game after game was made out, the ladies vying with each other to see who should laugh the most, while those who were left chatted gayly together in groups, or tried their powers of fascination upon some ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... sufficient fortune and influence at court, it was now a matter of very promising and not too risky speculation. To George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, one of the most interesting characters at the court of James I., the business had peculiar fascination. He was in both the New England Company and the Virginia Company, and after the charter of the latter was revoked he was one of the Provisional Council for the government of Virginia. Nothing daunted by the ill luck of these companies, he tried colonizing on his account in 1620, ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... the Georgian slave had instigated him to the deed, and had insisted that he should bring me back, I well knew for what purpose, and thought only of revenge. I feigned to be less averse to him, and before our journey was over, had used all my powers of fascination with triumphant success. At last our wearied horses arrived at Stamboul, and after waiting in the suburbs till the evening closed in, that the cavalcade might not attract attention, it proceeded to the ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... his way on, his eyes, which he usually kept fixed on the ground before his feet, were attracted upwards by the dome of St. Paul's. It had a peculiar fascination for him, that old dome, and not once, but twice or three times a week, would he halt in his daily pilgrimage to enter beneath and stop in the side aisles for five or ten minutes, scrutinizing the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to the supernatural event is so abrupt that it might well have left the uninformed helplessly befogged. But this very fact again, as supposing some further treatment only now to be guessed at, helps to make the unique fascination of the book as revealing the difficulties and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... in this generous lad that he was strongly under the influence of sex. If a woman passed near where he was working, his eyes lit up, his hand paused, and his mind wandered instantly to other thoughts. It was natural that he should exercise a fascination proportionally strong upon women. He begged, you will remember, from women only, and was never refused. Without wishing to explain away the charity of those who helped him, I cannot but fancy he may have owed a little to his handsome face, ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... don't in the least mind going to the Casino." Why should he be a spoil-sport? "But I confess I cannot understand the kind of attraction play has for some minds. For instance, I cannot understand the extraordinary fascination it seems to exercise over such an intelligent man as ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... Clara, and so identified it with her that presently he could see her face crowning it, though concealed by the similitude of a rocky veil. This image took such possession of him that he watched it with fascination, and when a monstrous cliff slid between it and him he felt as if here were a new parting; as if he were once more bidding her a speechless, ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... especially when, by the process, we bring to view or to operation, new powers, or powers heretofore hidden, whether they are our own powers, or those of objects upon which we act. Experimenting has a sort of magical fascination for all. Some do not like the trouble of making preparations, but all are eager to see the results. Contrive a new machine, and every body will be interested to witness, or to hear of its operation;—develope any heretofore unknown properties ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... threescore. Gifted by nature with a handsome person, undoubted courage, and many generous qualities, he exhibited, in the most important transactions of life, the recklessness of a madman and the levity of a spoiled child; it was apparent to the world that nothing short of the personal fascination which he exercised over the Queen could so long have preserved him from the consequences of his continual caprices and quarrels. Such was the character of the young nobleman, who, as was afterwards said, at the instigation of his enemies, was sent over to restore the ascendancy ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... to increase the distracted and agitated condition of his heart. It has been already stated more than once that he was a diligent student of music and painting. These formed his recreation from the severe and dry study of law-books; but to these two arts he now added the fascination of literary composition, and wrote two novels, which he entitled Cornaro and Der Geheimnissvolle. The former was rejected by a publisher, who had at first held out some hopes of being able to accept it, on the ground ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... thus brought out. It is the same with landscape painting. The artist must place himself in communion with his hills and streams, and the secret of the scenery will be solved.... Hills without clouds look bare; without water they are wanting in fascination; without paths they are wanting in life; without trees they are dead; without depth-distance they are shallow; without level-distance they are near; and without height-distance they ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... of this child, Julia (Miss MARY MERRALL), who could never find words for her love—she said little beyond "Yuss" and "I dunno"—was a very moving thing; and the patient stillness with which she bore his subsequent brutality held us always under a strange fascination. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... agreed eagerly, his eyes burning like two coals of fire, so intense was his interest. "I have been from boyhood," he added, noticing my glance, "a lover of tales of mystery. They have for me a fascination I cannot explain; there is in my blood something that responds to them. I feel sometimes that I would have made a great detective—or a great criminal. Instead of which, I am merely a dealer in curios. You ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... Democrats. Lincoln's Plan for Emancipation in the District of Columbia. His Bill Fails to Receive Consideration. A Similar Bill Signed by Him Fifteen Years Later. Logan Nominated for Congress and Defeated. Lincoln an Applicant for Office. The Fascination of Washington ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... 1. Fascination with form-vs.-content jokes, paradoxes, and humor having to do with confusion of metalevels (see {meta}). One way to make a hacker laugh: hold a red index card in front of him/her with "GREEN" written on it, or vice-versa (note, however, that this is funny only ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... anything to do with ancient Egypt that I happen to come across, because this land and its history have a queer fascination for me, that perhaps has its roots in occurrences or dreams of which this is not the place to speak. Lastly now and again I read one of the Latin or Greek authors in a translation, since I regret to say that my lack of education does not enable me to do so ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... He yielded to the fascination that the scrap of brown paper was beginning to exercise over him and drew it from the pigeonhole. He opened it and let his eye travel over the illiterate text to the threat at the end that was already ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... heightened by her interest in Miss Kenton, whom, with an admirable show of now finding her safe from Breckon's attractions, she was always wishing to study from his observation. What was she really like? The girl had a perfect fascination for her; she envied him his opportunities of knowing her, and his privileges of making that melancholy face light up with that heart-breaking smile, and of banishing that delicious shyness with which she always seemed to meet him. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... and fascination of this idea, Louise set to work to tabulate the information she had received thus far, noting the; element of mystery each fact evolved. First, Captain Wegg must have been a rich man in order to build this house, maintain ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... to analyze just what the fascination was that Long Sin exercised over Mary Carson. But as the servant left the room, Mary bowed almost as deferentially as the little Chinese girl. ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... what merit had the old paintings of the middle ages to compensate for so many great disadvantages and incongruities? Certainly before the time I have reached, they have, with rare exceptions, little merit, save that fascination of pathos, half-comic, half-tragic, which belongs to the struggling dawn of all great endeavours, and especially of all endeavours in art. But just at this epoch, art, in one man, took a great stride, began, as I shall try to show, to exert ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... a grand military ball at Knightsbridge, at which she had been present, and some private theatricals and tableaux that had followed. She had a vivid, picturesque way of describing things, and Bessie listened with a sort of dreamy fascination that lulled her into forgetfulness of her ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... fascination in studying the rear of the cabin, which George Ashbridge and his father had builded with so much care ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... upon his lips and a thought of her in his heart, while he never returned from an interview with Lucy that he did not contrast the two and sigh for the olden time, when Anna was his co-worker instead of pretty Lucy Harcourt. And yet there was about the latter a powerful fascination, which he found it hard to resist. It rested him just to look at her, she was so fresh, so bright, so beautiful, and then she flattered his self-love by the unbounded deference she paid to his opinions, studying ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... a sort of fascination about the child to the organist, and when he found that no one seemed to have the slightest suspicion as to who the baby really was, or why he should be interested in it, he gave way more and more to the inclination to go to the Grays' cottage, and watch the little thing, ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... Founders of Libraries,' and many others of equal charm? Indeed, these volumes may well be among the first that he who embarks upon the peaceful sea of book-collecting gathers to himself. Nor is there any less fascination in the more specialised works, such as Mr. Gordon Duff's 'Early Printed Books,'[52] 'English Provincial Printers,' and 'The Printers of Westminster and London to 1535,' Bradshaw's 'Collected Papers,' Mr. A. W. Pollard's 'Early Illustrated Books,' Wheatley's ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... of the farmers too, and money which ought to have gone to buy stock, or for the rent, was lost at that table. Of course some of them won occasionally, and considerable sums, for them, too; that formed the fascination of it. ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... splendid pioneer blazed out in the wilderness, it seemed only to reveal the loneliness of the forests, and to give new meaning to the solemnity of the shadows. The heart was astir with some responsive thrill that jarred vaguely, and was pain. Yet the night had its melancholy fascination, and they were all awake later than usual. When at last the doors were barred, and the house grew still, and even the vigilant Towse had ceased to bay and had lodged himself under the floor of the passage, the moon still ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... Wait till the wonderful resources of this country in this its richest and unparalleled product are spread before you. [Laughter.] Then you will not wonder at the mysterious power of Helen of Troy, who set nations by the ears, or the fascination of the Queen of the Nile, who made heroes forget their duty and their homes. If you should take any for themselves, alone, we should commend your choice, and though parting with them reluctantly, ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... had a certain fascination. You stepped out of the anteroom and found yourself on a raised concrete platform at the back of which washed the sea. Very extensive harbour works, half completed, ran farther out in a great semicircle across a wide space of leaden water, over which gulls were circling and crying; but ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... guilt is creeping over me. I have a sort of conviction growing upon me that I shall be taken up and tried, and that a jury will find me guilty. I dream about it; and if,—as is probable,—it drives me mad, I'm sure that I shall accuse myself in my madness. There's a fascination about it that I can't explain or escape. I go on thinking how I would have done it if I did do it. I spend hours in calculating how much I would have realised, and where I would have found my market. I couldn't keep ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... that last touch of sheer horror, the playfulness of the Smiting Thing, that sent my dry tongue to the roof of my terror-parched mouth, and held open with monstrous fascination eyes that ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... of those characters who exert a personal fascination over their own age without leaving any works behind them to perpetuate the charm to posterity. He was the son of Sir John Sedley of Aylesford, in Kent, and was born in 1639. When the Restoration took place he repaired to London, and plunged into all the licence of the time, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... written by men who were not natives of Rome; Virgil came from Mantua, Livy from Padua, Cicero from Arpinum. They are doubtless genuine, though in some degree rhetorical; those of Cicero and Livy can hardly be called strictly accurate. But taken together they may help us to understand that fascination of the site of Rome, to which Virgil gave such ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... dominion of the Creator. It does not need a subject like that of Peter the Hermit. If the stream be but bright and strong, it will sweep like a spring-tide to the popular heart. Not in word only, but in intellectual act lies the fascination. It is the homage to the Invisible. This power, knotted with Love, is the golden chain let down into the well of Truth, or the invisible chain that binds the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... which we wished to carry away with us, but we concluded to postpone this until a future visit. Max, however, having once laid hold of the gridiron, seemed extremely loath to part with it again, and, finally yielding to the irresistible fascination which it evidently had for him, he threw it over his shoulder as we started on our return, and brought it away with him. Having been fastidiously purified by repeated scourings and ablutions, it proved very useful in preparing our meals, of which fresh fish frequently ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... again to the side of the vessel, but now the fascination of the scene had all faded out. The restless billows were dreary, savage, hungry and dizzying; they seemed to claw at, and tear, and wrench the struggling ship as a group of huge lions would tease and worry a captive dog. They distressed her and all on board by dealing a blow which would ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... other, we do not wonder at finding him on his way to the land of wonders, the New World, making the voyage in company with La Salle. The wilderness, full of hardships and haunted by treacherous savages though it was, had a fascination for him, and we soon find him serving as an itinerant ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... herself, at the time of my parents' marriage, as thoughtfully as the rest. Her personality never ceased to hover about Concord, even after her death. She is a part of its fascination:— ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... a widow of great beauty and fascination, a brunette, good-natured, clever, and shrewd. I might here pause, and go into no end of raptures on the various qualities of this lady's character; but, on the whole, I think I'd better not, as they will be sufficiently apparent before the end ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... in himself. The last few years had left their mark upon him. With the handling of great sums of money and the acquisition of wealth had grown something of the financier's fever. He had become a power, solidly and steadfastly he had hewn his way into a little circle whose fascination had begun to tell in his blood. Was he to fall without a struggle from amongst the high places, to be stripped of his wealth, shunned as a man who was morally, if not in fact, a murderer, to be looked upon with never-ending scorn by the woman whose picture for years had been a religion to him, ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... fifteenth century was used as a "fraudulent substitute for the true diamond" (King). Few, very few, belong to the blue grades, and the best of these cannot compare with those from Royalston, Mass. Those of amber and honey shades are beautiful objects, and under artificial light have a fascination far exceeding the olivine or chrysoberyl. These are not as frequent as the paler varieties, but when found excite the admiration of visitor and expert. It seems hardly probable that any true emeralds will be uncovered and the yellow beryls ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various
... can say very little you have not heard already. Westminster has rarely— never certainly in later years—heard such an advocate. The secret of his great success at the bar, beyond his intellectual power, lay, I think, in a peculiar charm and fascination of manner—a manner which could invest the driest and most technical matters with interest, and compelled the attention of the hearers to the subject under discussion. The melody of his voice was, to me, one of his greatest attractions. Then, again, what ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... can be expected to settle in a new country from pure Quixotism,—and nothing but the railroad would make anything else of his expenditure of energies beyond the needs of self-support. The Plains are the natural pasture of the continent; but they have no natural fascination for the white man which can induce him to take up his residence there for cattle-breeding en amateur. The greatest enthusiast in butter and cheese would scarcely care to accumulate mountains of rancid firkins and boxes for the mere gratification of fancy. Access to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... Marx's Secret' has a wonderful power of fascination: it is strongly written, and is certain to appeal to that popular ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... Edition, recalls him looking up with "long, hatchet face, black hair, and haunting gaze, that follows as you move about the room." But his likeness was as difficult for the photographer, or the sun, to catch, as for the painter to put on canvas, for the peculiar fascination of the living man lay in himself, in the elusive charm of his smile, and in his manner of speech. However, his contemporaries have left their printed records of his appearance and his peculiar personality. Henley's perfect description in verse ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson
... meditating, I turned my gaze from the landscape to the heavens where the myriad stars formed a gorgeous and fitting canopy for the wonders of the earthly scene. My attention was quickly riveted by a large red star close to the distant horizon. As I gazed upon it I felt a spell of overpowering fascination—it was Mars, the god of war, and for me, the fighting man, it had always held the power of irresistible enchantment. As I gazed at it on that far-gone night it seemed to call across the unthinkable ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Pickering church has a fascination for the antiquary, and does not fail to impress even the most casual person who wanders into the churchyard and enters the spacious porch. The solemn massiveness of the Norman nave, the unusual effect of the coloured paintings above the arches, and the carved stone effigies ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... by the frequent intrigues to which he was exposed.[1] His timidity verged on monomania. Like Alfonso II. of Naples, he was tortured with the ghosts of starved or strangled victims; like Ezzelino, he felt the mysterious fascination of astrology; like Filippo Maria Visconti, he trembled at the sound of thunder, and set one band of body-guards to watch another next his person. He dared not hope for a quiet end. No one believed in the natural death of a prince: princes must ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... steps, and leered on him with a ghastly mimicry of the defiant stare with which pugilists strive to cow one another before combat. For a time, which he could not so much as conjecture, he was held in the fascination of that unearthly gaze, and at last the thing, whatever it was, on a sudden swaggered close up to him with extended palms. With an impulse of horror, Larkin put out his hand to keep the figure off, and their palms touched—at least, so he believed—for a thrill of ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... terrible and beautiful work of art. This, I think, is a meaning inherent in it—not perhaps the meaning, and still less all the meanings. Indeed, its peculiar fascination for me, among all Ibsen's works, lies in the fact that it seems to touch life at so many different points. But I must not be understood as implying that Ibsen constructed the play with any such definitely allegoric design as is here set forth. I do not believe that this creator of men ...
— Little Eyolf • Henrik Ibsen
... X. C. V. The lady, though she was not over fond of me, received me with great politeness. I possibly cut a better figure in her eyes when rich, and at Paris, then when we were in Venice. We all know that diamonds have the strange power of fascination, and that they form ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... must come by the same inspiration that gave the substance. Unto this part of knowledge touching the soul there be two appendices; which, as they have been handled, have rather vapoured forth fables than kindled truth: divination and fascination. ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... on to Prague, which city, like everything Czech, always had a strange fascination for me. There I met a certain Mr. Vojtech Napristek (or Adalbert Thimble), who had once edited in the United States a Bohemian newspaper with which I had exchanged, and with whom I had corresponded, but whom I had never before seen. He had established in Prague, on American lines, a ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... very emphatically, "one day would be enough for any fellow I know, and the idea of going where there is likely to be plenty of chance for adventure will never again have any fascination for me." ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... all this was a strong turn for speculations. When the mind has once become absorbed in earthly visions of wealth and prosperity, the excitement exercises such a fascination over the senses that the judgment loses balance. Bold assumptions are taken as certainties, and made the foundation of fresh fabrics—the very power of discerning between fact and possibility departs, ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of hypnotic fascination, out of the corners of his eyes, he took stock of the face beside him, the face of the strange being that was his father—the broad, moist, unmarked brow; the large eyes, heavy-lidded, serene; the full-fleshed cheeks from which the beard sprang soft and rank, and against which ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... really inflicted this—THIS on me for a son-in-law?" Mr. Brewster swallowed a few more times, Archie the while watching with a frozen fascination the rapid shimmying of his new relative's Adam's-apple. "Go away! I want to have a few words alone with this—This—WASSYOURDAMNAME?" he demanded, in an overwrought manner, addressing Archie for the ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... prospect, and at some distance, a youth, who seemed to advance with hasty steps towards the castle. At first she was tempted to turn away her eye with carelessness and inattention. There was however something in his figure, that led her, by a kind of fascination for which she could not account, to cast upon him a second glance and a third. He drew nearer. He leaped with an active bound over the fence that separated him from the garden. It was the form of Edwin. His hair hung carelessly about his ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... "behind the Ranges," which might contain great possibilities. Our guides could tell us nothing about it. Little was to be found in books. Perhaps Manco's capital was hidden there. For months afterwards the fascination of the unknown drew my thoughts to Choqquequirau and beyond. In the words of ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... which contains several thousand soldiers, and its prison of state. The remembrance that Peter the Hermit there put himself at the head of the army with which the Crusades were begun adds to the mysterious and powerful fascination of the place. I fancied that I could see the lean and fanatical priest preaching before the assembled thousands, hurling his words down upon them from some lofty pinnacle. No one can blame the worthy Peter for undertaking his mission if the infidels treated Christians in the Orient ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... all rural communities throughout the world. The Hebrew law-makers did not make a concession to a lower form of religion by endorsing magical remedies, but merely shared the contemporary belief in the demoniac origin of disease. The patient was regarded as being in a condition of enchantment or fascination,—under a spell, to use the popular phrase. To dissolve such a spell, recourse was had to amulets, written charms, or the spoken word ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... my last iniquitous intention, the first outrage so nobly resented, as well as, so far as she was able, so nobly resisted, I cannot but conclude, that I was under the power of fascination from these accursed Circes; who, pretending to know their own sex, would have it, that there is in every woman a yielding, or a weak-resisting moment to be met with: and that yet, and yet, and yet, I had not tried enough; but that, if ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... achievements which have been made therein of late years. It does not fall within my province to frame such a record. But at least any person who reads this unscientific account, not daunted by the title, will understand the fascination of ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... their lives. Lancaster was caught up in it the "day" after his arrival, realized at once what it meant, and was plunged into the fascination of it. Berg hadn't lied; this ...
— Security • Poul William Anderson
... such parts well. Melancholy and the horrors had a peculiar fascination for him—especially in these early days. But his recitation of the poem "Eugene Aram" was finer than anything in the play—especially when he did it in a frock-coat. No one ever looked so well in a frock-coat! He was always ready to recite it—used to do it after supper, ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry |
