"Magic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... As a matter of fact, Osiris is often represented with black or green hands and face, as is customary for gods of the dead; it was probably this peculiarity which suggested the popular idea of his black complexion. A magic papyrus of Ramesside times fixes the stature of the god at seven cubits, and a phrase in a Ptolemaic inscription places it at eight cubits, six palms, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... rapidly forward. Aunt Betsy, as chief directress, was in her element, for now had come the reality of the vision she had seen so long, of house turned upside down in one grand onslaught of suds and sand, then righted again by magic power, and smelling very sweet and clean from its recent ablutions—of turkeys dying in the barn, of chickens in the shed, of ovens heating in the kitchen, of loaves of frosted cake, with cards and cards of snowy biscuit piled upon the pantry shelf—of jellies, tarts and chicken ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... booths. All ordinary employments were laid aside. Ships were deserted by their crews, who ran to the mines, sometimes, it is said, headed by their officers. Soon streets were laid out, houses erected, and from this Babel, as if by magic, grew up a beautiful city. For a time, lawlessness reigned supreme. But, driven by the necessity of events, the most respectable citizens took the law into their own hands, organized vigilance committees, and administered a rude but prompt ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... good deal," he claimed for himself. "It shows a beginning of understanding. And—given the opportunity—I hope to know more." He questioned of her eyes how far he might go. "It's the incomprehensible that lures. It piques interest and lends magic. Behind those eyelids a little weary all the subtle hidden meaning of the ages shadows. The gods forbid that I should claim to hold the answer to ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... to the proper medication for John Porter stood a chance of being fulfilled in one day. Allis's telegram proved that the doctor had understood the pathology of Porter's treatment, for he became as a cripple who had touched the garment of a magic healer. ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... for some days. Our garrison I'll post Distributively on the distant hills; While from the Vulture half a thousand men Land in the darkness. Thus without a blow, But with the magic of a countersign, West Point ...
— The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold - A Play for a Greek Theatre • John Jay Chapman
... Montfort, a magic, that does not always put itself into words. The perfect day, the perfect vision, will ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... time were called alchemists, and the art which they practiced was called alchemy. The alchemists gradually became convinced that the only way common metals could be changed into gold was by the wonderful power of a magic substance which they called the philosopher's stone, which would accomplish this transformation by its mere touch and would in addition give perpetual youth to its fortunate possessor. No one has ever found such a ...
— An Elementary Study of Chemistry • William McPherson
... that Christopher had not been buried in the grave where he was said to be buried, and that he had been taken wounded aboard the ship Great Yarmouth, of the fate of which ship fortunately she had heard nothing. Still, slight as they might be, to Cicely these tidings were a magic medicine, for did they not mean the rebirth of hope, hope that for nine long months had been dead and buried with Christopher? From that ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... of the bite of a serpent, which had till then been considered to be mortal; and that the poets gave an hyperbolical version of the story, in saying that he had rescued her from Hell. He says, too, that he had learned in Egypt the art of magic, which was much cultivated there, and especially ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... that I should?" said he. "Your words have come true. You predicted that I should fly from 'that woman,' as you called her, and come to you. See! here it is exactly as you willed it. You—you are changed. You throw your magic on me, and then you are ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 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, ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... the secret of the Gretchen magic; it is all in the 'Save me, Mr Hercules!' phrase. Her shyness, her timidity, her trustfulness, her tears foster my own strength and grandeur. I am the positive half of the universe. But so I am, if it comes to that, just as positive as ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... before Tolly or Betty could warn their friends of what was coming, the surrounding foliage parted, as if by magic, and a circle of yelling and painted Redskins sprang upon the white men. Resistance was utterly out of the question. They were overwhelmed as if by a cataract and, almost before they could realise what had happened, the arms of all the ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... Magic springs from this eternal yearning of the human mind. Its value has no doubt been exaggerated, but it is not a falsehood. Some Orientals who are skilled in it perform prodigies. All travellers have vouched for its existence, and at the Palais Royal M. Dupotet moves with ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... lists. De Jarnac was not so confident, though perhaps more desperate. At noon, on the day appointed, the combatants met, and each took the customary oath that he bore no charms or amulets about him, or made use of any magic, to aid him against his antagonist. They then attacked each other, sword in hand. La Chataigneraie was a strong robust man, and over confident; De Jarnac was nimble, supple, and prepared for the worst. The combat lasted ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... equally with superstitious ones. Yes, I am convinced of it; our gross rationalism is the inauguration of a period which, thanks to science, will become truly PRODIGIOUS; the universe, to my eyes, is only a laboratory of magic, from which anything may be expected. . . . This said, I return to ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... consideration. The room emptied as if by magic; and no one was left at the table but Pascal, who scarcely knew what to do with all the gold piled up before him. He succeeded, however, in distributing it in his pockets, and was about to join the other guests in the dining-room, when Madame ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... Indian youth finds himself at once, as if by magic, translated from a state of poverty to one of affluence. He is well fed and clothed and lodged. Books and all the accessories of learning are given him and teachers provided to instruct him. He is educated in the industrial arts on the one hand, and not only in the rudiments ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... Commission in Lunacy Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's Establishment The Secrets of a Princess The Government Clerks Pierrette A Study of Woman Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Honorine The Seamy Side of History The Magic Skin A Second Home A Prince of Bohemia Letters of Two Brides The Muse of the Department The Imaginary Mistress The Middle Classes Cousin Betty The Country Parson In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following: Another Study ...
— Study of a Woman • Honore de Balzac
... You know the magic ring and her distress? Well, when she had recover'd this same ring, It so increas'd her pride and haughtiness, She seem'd too high for any living thing. She goes alone, desiring nothing less Than a companion, even though a king She even scorns to ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... with soft wool-fillet bind These altars round about, and burn thereon Rich vervain and male frankincense, that I May strive with magic spells to turn astray My lover's saner senses, whereunto There lacketh nothing save the ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil
... Percival—did the death of Lord Hartledon leave its effects as it did on Lady Kirton and her daughter Maude. To the one it brought embarrassment; to the other, what seemed very like a broken heart. The countess-dowager's tactics must change as by magic. She had to transfer the affection and consideration evinced for Edward Lord Hartledon to his brother; and to do it easily and naturally. She had to obliterate from the mind of the latter her overbearing dislike to him, cause her insults to be remembered no more. A difficult task, even for ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... circle of old smokers, Of secret treasures found in hidden vales, Of wonderful replies from Arab jokers, Of charms to make good gold and cure bad ails, Of rocks bewitch'd that open to the knockers, Of magic ladies who, by one sole act, Transform'd their lords to beasts (but that 's ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... strong from the leeward; but the boat was swift and light and dry, and skimmed the waves. The wizard had a lantern, which he lit and held with his finger through the ring; and the two sat in the stern and smoked cigars, of which Kalamake had always a provision, and spoke like friends of magic and the great sums of money which they could make by its exercise, and what they should buy first, and what second; and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... favoring an "organization of labor." They aim at the destruction of the present social system, which, at most, needs only to be reformed and rejuvenated; and to galvanize the dead body into a new and different life (Medea's magic cauldron!). Compare Corvaja, Bancocrazia o il gran ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... along the coast from cape to cape, The weird mirage crept tremulously on, In many a magic change and wondrous shape, Throbbing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... an inner sense of some existence, apart from the one that wears away our days: an existence that, afar from St. James's and St. Giles's, the Law Courts and Exchange, goes its way in terror or mirth, in smiles or in tears, through a vague magic-land of the poets. There, see those actors—they are the men who lived it—to whom our world was the false one, to whom the Imaginary was the Actual! And did Shakspeare himself, in his life, ever hearken ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Ahab's needles; but out of this bit of steel Ahab can make one of his own, that will point as true as any. Abashed glances of servile wonder were exchanged by the sailors, as this was said; and with fascinated eyes they awaited whatever magic might follow. But Starbuck looked away. With a blow from the top-maul Ahab knocked off the steel head of the lance, and then handing to the mate the long iron rod remaining, bade him hold it upright, without its ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... The days pass one after another calmly, serenely. It seems as if the autumn ought never to end. The divine and solemn peace of the nights is beyond the power of words to express, especially now that the moon is shedding its magic silver over all. There are hours in the day when everything is so filled and covered with light and when the silence is so impressive that at moments the light seems to be gone letting the silence blaze forth in the wonderful harmony ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... claims the possessions and everything as the rightful heir. Henry asks whether she is willing that some champion should fight on her behalf. She consents. The herald calls for the champion; no one appears, and the case is about to be decided against her when a knight is seen in a magic boat on the river drawn by a swan. He offers to fight for her on one condition: that she will never ask his name or whence he comes. She promises, and in a few minutes Frederick is overcome and, with his wife, disgraced, and the act ends with a regular opera finale. ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... night, with a violent north-wind, the thermometer fell forty degrees, to -8 degrees. Everything was frozen; birds, quadrupeds, and seals disappeared as if by magic; the holes for the seals were closed, the crevasses disappeared, the ice became as hard as granite, and the waterfalls hung like long ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... surprise, Miss Nippett's fingers at once closed on those of Mr Poulter. As the realisation of his presence reached the dying woman's understanding, a smile of infinite gladness spread over her face: a rare, happy smile, which, as if by magic, effaced the puckered forehead, the wasted cheeks, the long upper lip, to substitute in their stead a great contentment, such as might be possessed by one who has found a deep joy, not only after much travail, but as if, till the ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... upon them, or rather did not fall upon them directly, they appeared dark and earthy. Each time, however, the sun's rays soon came to undeceive him; and that which had so lately been black and frowning was, as by the touch of magic, suddenly illuminated, and became bright and gorgeous, throwing out its emerald hues, or perhaps a virgin white, that filled the beholder with delight, even amid the terrors and dangers by which, in very truth, he was surrounded. The glorious Alps themselves, ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... cold. Lastly, we are compelled to say that we repose much more confidence in the writer's taste in architecture than in painting. It is enough to say that he evinces no feeling for the more simple and majestic compositions of Raphael; while the powerful contrasts, and magic of light and shadow displayed by Guercino and Tintoret, seem to exercise an undue fascination on his mind. It is only to the injurious effect produced by these blemishes that we can attribute the slender success with which the volumes have been attended; for at this moment ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... both boys flicked their density controls and zoomed upward. The sub at once seemed to betray a hostile intent. It blew its tanks and planed upward in pursuit. But Tom and Bud easily pulled away. Their density units worked like magic, shooting them straight toward ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... pictures straight, and lighting candles; he was a most uncomfortable little Colonel of militia. And with every movement he revolved nearer and nearer to a certain table. The table stood in the background; Durant recognized it as the kind that opens and discloses the magic circle, the green land of whist. The table had a sweet and sinful fascination ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... again to his paper, and Harry tried to eat his breakfast, but was getting or very badly indeed, until, looking towards his father, he caught his eye. Mr Inglis smiled, and that smile seemed to act like magic upon the lad, for he finished his breakfast in good style—well making up for the lost time; while the sobs gradually ceased to interrupt his meal, and by the time he rose, Harry looked ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... upon mine, so pitiful, so anxious for my recovery. Oh, lovely angel, I would be a leper again, a plague-stricken wretch, only to drink a cup of water from that dear hand—only to feel the touch of those light fingers on my forehead! There was a magic in that touch that surpassed the healing powers of kings. There was a light as of heaven in those benignant eyes. But, oh, she is changed since then. She is plague-stricken with the contagion of a profligate ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... high-hung tokens of its pride Left in the elms on either side; The daisies coming out at dawn In constellations on the lawn; The glory of the daffodil; The three black windmills on the hill, Whose magic arms, flung wildly by, Sent magic shadows o'er the rye. Within the leafy coppice, lo, More wealth than miser's dreams could show, The blackbird's warm and woolly brood, Five golden beaks agape for food; The Gipsies, all the summer seen Native as poppies to the Green; The winter, ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... the castle window saw the fair face and the strong limbs of the hero, and demanded that he should be brought into her presence, and as a sign of her favour she showed the young Prince her magic ...
— Stories of Siegfried - Told to the Children • Mary MacGregor
... UFO reports dropped off considerably. During May, June, and July of 1952 we'd received 637 good reports. During the same months in 1953 we received only seventy-six. We had been waiting for the magic month of July to roll around again because every July there had been the sudden and unexplained peak in reporting; we wanted to know if it would happen again. It didn't— only twenty-one reports came in, to make July ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... herself by a sudden throe, for a brisk breeze, which was highly refreshing to our senses, and which was attended by the loud hollow subterranean sound I have before referred to, unexpectedly sprang up, and swept off, as if by magic, the inertia of nature. What made the phenomenon more extraordinary, was the total absence of thunder or lightning. My companions shouted for joy when the hollow moan of the embryo tempest was heard to move off to the eastward ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... free fight, and the men swore and shouted in vain, till the lady with the baby suddenly went to the rescue. Planting the naked cherub on the door-step, this energetic matron charged in among the rampant animals, and by some magic touch untangled the teams, quieted the most fractious, a big grey brute, prancing like a mad elephant; then returned to her baby, who was placidly eating dirt, and with a polite 'Voila, messieurs!' she whipped ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... propriety, and chooses his means skilfully for that end, he is sure to charm doubly the connoisseur, by moral and by natural propriety. The first satisfies the heart, the second the mind. The crowd is impressed through the heart without knowing the cause of the magic impression. But, on the other hand, there is a class of connoisseurs on whom that which affects the heart is entirely lost, and who can only be gained by the appropriateness of the means; a strange contradiction resulting from over-refined ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... a moment, when, by magic, every little dissonance in all the town seemed blended into a harmony of silence, as it might be the very death ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... who wished to witness the exhibition, and who selected him as the medium of communication, because she said that she knew he would tell her the truth. The ceremonies, therefore, commenced; but though anxiously looking into the magic mirror, he declared that he saw nothing: afterwards, he continued, "A boy was called out of the bazaar, who saw all that the man told him." But while Mohammed expressed his entire disbelief in the ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... every nook of the charming place in which she was received. Highly gratified to see me admire the grace of her person, she wanted me likewise to admire in her attire the taste and generosity of her lover. She was surprised at the almost magic spell which, although she remained motionless, shewed her lovely person in a thousand different manners. Her multiplied portraits, reproduced by the looking-glasses, and the numerous wax candles disposed to that ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... theosophy and Christian Science. The playwrights are touched by it; and the action, instead of being all on the stage, is thrown out into the spirit of the audience. The play in a modern theatre is not on the stage but in the stalls. Maeterlinck, Ibsen, Shaw, merely use the stage as a kind of magic-lantern or suggestion-centre for the real things that, out behind us in the dark, ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... single day; the roof spreads its saving shelter as easily as though it were a huge umbrella; the windows open their eyes in new-born wonder; the chimneys breathe the blue breath of home life out into the world; the painter touches the clapboards with his magic wand; and, with one accord, all men cry out, and especially all women, "Wal, I do declare! That air house goes up in a hurry, don't it? Guess there hain't much but green lumber gone into that. Folks'll be movin' in 'n a few days. Ketch ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... who belonged to the great school of Seekers of the Great Work, though the particulars of her life and name are lost to history, stated that the last crowned child would be assassinated. Having placed the queen-mother in front of a magic mirror, in which was reflected a wheel on the several spokes of which were the faces of her children, the sorceress set the wheel revolving, and Catherine counted the number of revolutions which it made. Each revolution was for each son one year of his reign. Henri ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... just that particular number, three thousand, as if that figure had some necessary connection with the exact number of gentlemen in the State, making it impossible to discover any respectability outside or rascality within the magic number. And in the second place," he continued, "I see we are trying to do two things, diametrically opposed; we are manufacturing a government, which is based on force, and at the same time inferior in strength to those ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... a little blaze in the choint here"—the Baron touched his thumb—"where the bane remained—a roomadic bane. He burgessed a gopper ring for it. It did him no goot." Luckily Rosalind had discarded the magic ring long since, or it might ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... was a kind of magic remarkably common in the world; but even her displeasure could not give her courage to speak. It gave her courage to be silent, however; and Mr. Thorn's best efforts in a conversation of some length could gain nothing ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... stretched so invitingly from the Rebel main, the horizon glimmered so low around me,—for it always appears lower to a swimmer than even to an oarsman,—that I seemed floating in some concave globe, some magic crystal, of which I was the enchanted centre. With each little ripple of my steady progress all things hovered and changed; the stars danced and nodded above; where the stars ended, the great Southern fire-flies began; and closer than the fire-flies, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... thing. I expect that as soon as N'Komo was settled, the usual row and the usual murders began by various would-be successors. By night they had all started north again, on a hot-foot race to occupy and hold the head kraal, and the country was clear of them, and the white man's credit as a magic worker stood higher than ever. He could have had anything he liked in any of the kraals for the asking; he could have been law-giver, king, and god. But he was off in the bush again, alone and restless and mysterious, ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... been here for five years? They have their language—but enough of that now. They are angry. They sent Frithjof away; they tell me now that he escaped; they think you are he—that you have changed your appearance with magic—that the ship they saw was summoned by your magic. They say they will kill us both; throw us ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... face, richly dressed and jewelled, the Lady Eleanore was the admired of the whole assembly, and the women were especially curious to see her mantle, for a rumor went out that it had been made by a dying girl, and had the magic power of giving new beauty to the wearer every time it was put on. While the guests were taking refreshment, a young man stole into the room with a silver goblet, and this he offered on his knee to Lady Eleanore. As she ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... outlandish names of the chiefs, armed with spears, who were to accompany him. The power of Mohammed the Lame was on the wane; for, during the three months which Alec had spent in England, an illness had seized him, which the natives asserted was a magic spell cast on him by one of his wives; and a son of his, taking advantage of this, had revolted and fortified himself in a stockade. The dying Sultan had taken the field against him, and this division of forces made ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... must always seem to us. It tells of flashing temples and cities of marble overlooking singing seas of sapphire, of stately ships venturing over dark waters and landing on unknown islands, of siege and sword-fights and caves and giants and sea-goddesses and magic songs, and all that sunnier and simpler life which the world, as a prosaic old grown-up, has ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... the one, and ingenious as is the invention of the other, both are of slight account in the presence of the great fact of nature observed by the English nobleman and humoured by the Scottish artisan. The genie whom the one captured and the other tamed, is the great magic worker, apart from whose subtle strength their ingenuity had been wasted, and ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... desolation, it was French and foreign; it welcomed us with an unmistakably friendly, companionable air. Why is it that one is made to feel the companionable element, by instantaneous process, as it were, in a Frenchman and in his towns? And by what magic also does a French village or city, even at its least animated period, convey to one the fact of its nationality? We made but ten steps progress through these silent streets, fronting the beach, and yet, such was the subtle enigma of charm with which these dumb villas and ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... Book. The Priests write Books of Bonna. The Kings Warrants how wrapped up. They write upon two sorts of Leaves. Their Skill in Astronomy. Their Almanacks. They pretend to know future things by the Stars. Their AEra. Their Years, Months, Weeks, Days, Hours. How they measure their Time. Their Magic. The Plenty of a Country destroyed by Magic. Their Charm to find out a Thief. The way to dissolve this ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... his strength, only to be overcome at last. The memory of that fierce struggle was upon him now, chilling his veins and clutching his heart with terror. And he would have to fight that invisible, relentless power over and over again to save himself from the black-magic destiny that threatened. Then, suddenly, fear and horror were swept away by a frenzy of rage that ramped through him all the more fiercely because there was nothing upon which it ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... hour, weary grown, When curfew o'er the wold is blown, He sees, as in a magic glass, Some lost and lonely mountain-pass; And lo! a sign of deathful rout The mocking vine has wound about,— An earth-fixed arrow by a spring, All greenly mossed, a mouldered thing; That stifled shaft no more shall sing! He shakes his head in doubt. "Laugh and sigh, live and die,— The hand ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone
... the Ptolemaic system, and Mr. Newbold, after most painstaking research, failed to discover any regular treatise on astronomy, though Arabic and Hindu tracts on interpretations of dreams, horoscopes, spells, propitious and unpropitious moments, auguries, talismans, love philters, medicinal magic and recipes for the destruction of people at a distance, are numerous. They acknowledge the solar year, but adopt the lunar, and reckon the months in three different ways, dividing them, however, into weeks of seven days, marking them by the return of the Mohammedan Sabbath. ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... was of a temper too stolid and sensible to waste his time on random treasure hunting. Blackbeard might have chosen his hiding-place anywhere along hundreds of leagues of coast. He could understand the agitation of these two adventurous lads to whom this memorandum was like a magic spell. Of such was ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... when I tell you, you cannot do too much on your parts to show that we are still cordial and loving friends. To you, ladies of the Institution, I am deeply and especially indebted. I sometimes [pointing to the word 'Boz' in front of the great gallery] think there is some small quantity of magic in that very short name, and that it must consist in its containing as many letters as the three graces, and they, every one of them, being ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... said: "Come then, I will redeem thee from thy distress, and bring deliverance. Lo, take this herb of virtue, and go to the dwelling of Circe, that it may keep from thy head the evil day. And I will tell thee all the magic sleight of Circe. She will mix thee a potion and cast drugs into the mess; but not even so shall she be able to enchant thee; so helpful is this charmed herb that I shall give thee ... Therewith the slayer of Argos gave me the plant that he had plucked from the ground, and he showed ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... are shabby black. The naked face is of a pale mustard colour, as are the bill and legs. The feathers on the back of the head project like the back hairs of an untidy schoolboy. Its walk is an ungainly waddle. Nevertheless—so great is the magic of wings—this bird, as it soars high above the earth, looks a noble fowl; it then appears to be snow-white with black margins ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... Alberich also has begotten a son, Hagan, to achieve for him the possession of the ring. He is partly of the Gibichung race, and works through Gunther and Gutrune, half-brother and half-sister to him. They beguile Siegfried to them, give him a magic draught which makes him forget Brunhild and fall in love with Gutrune. Under this same spell, he offers to bring Brunhild for wife to Gunther. Now is Valhalla full of sorrow and despair. The gods fear the end. Wotan murmurs, "O that she would give back the ring to the Rhine." But Brunhild will ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... out from various stacks. In scarcely more than a moment, the room was completely transformed. It was no longer a storeroom for surplus stock, for the storage of bulky and empty packing cases! From the cases the men had picked out, like a touch of magic, appeared a veritable printing plant, an elaborate engraver's outfit—a highly efficient foot-power press, rapidly being assembled by Whitie Burns; an electric dryer, inks, a pile of white, silk-threaded bank-note paper, a cutter, and a score of ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... amongst nervous and impressionable races like the Anglo-American. In England it is the reverse; the obtuse sensitiveness of a people bred on beef and beer has made the "Religion of the Nineteenth Century" a manner of harmless magic, whose miracles are table-turning and ghost seeing whilst the prodigious rascality of its prophets (the so-called Mediums) has brought it into universal disrepute. It has been said that Catholicism must be true to co-exist ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... city awakened by enchantment. Natives appeared upon all sides, hailing each other with the magic cry "Ehippy"—ship; the Queen stepped forth on her verandah, shading her eyes under a hand that was a miracle of the fine art of tattooing; the commandant broke from his domestic convicts and ran into the residency ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... the Piazza, the beautiful outline of St. Mark's Church was perfectly penciled in the air, and the shifting threads of the snow-fall were woven into a spell of novel enchantment around a structure that always seemed to me too exquisite in its fantastic loveliness to be anything but the creation of magic. The tender snow had compassionated the beautiful edifice for all the wrongs of time, and so hid the stains and ugliness of decay that it looked as if just from the hands of the builder—or, better said, just from the brain ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... west of Admiral; while the Pennsylvania Railroad junction on the main line between Baltimore and Washington is at Odenton, about one and one-half miles east of Admiral. Naval Academy Junction is near Odenton and is the changing point on the electric line between the two chief cities. The magic-like upbuild of the cantonment, moreover, was the signal for the extension of the electric line to encircle the very center of the big military city, thus adding ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman
... were all dressed alike, in chequered blue and white cotton dresses; the boats are propelled with sculls used as oars, the men keeping time to a monotonous song. Forts, or rather the ghosts of forts, appeared as if raised by magic; they were easily distinguished to be formed out of immense screens of coloured cotton, and they were surrounded by flags and pennons. Although not effective, their effect was ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... portrait was in the very house to which she had come through no more romantic means than a chance advertisement in the "Morning Post!" And Miss Lavinia—her "fairy godmother"—could she have found a better friend, even in any elf stepping out of a magic pumpkin? ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... vision we saw life like the treasure cave of the Arabian thief, and we said to our beating hearts that we had the secret of the magic word: that the 'Open Sesame' ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... in hope and courage more and more as they drew nearer to the notary's, poor Kit was looking earnestly out of the window, observant of nothing,—when all at once, as though it had been conjured up by magic, he became aware of the face ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... a magic bun," she said, "and a bite was as much as a whole dinner. I should be overeating myself if ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... chemical affinity, the deep beneath deep of the telescope, the world within world of the microscope,—in these and many other fields it is hard to tell whether it is the scientist or the poet we are listening to. What greater magic than that you can take a colorless ray of light, break it across a prism, and catch upon a screen all the ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... hope of the Emperor, was nothing but an illusion, as soon as the charm was dissolved which had called it into existence; by Wallenstein it had been raised, and, without him, it sank like a creation of magic into its original nothingness. Its officers were either bound to him as his debtors, or, as his creditors, closely connected with his interests, and the preservation of his power. The regiments he had entrusted ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... a magic taxi in the city—just one. You get in, you give your order, and lo and behold, rivers and seas are crossed, countries and continents, until finally you fetch up in the place where you would be, and when you look at the meter you find that ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... pulsing of his heart against her bosom, the caressing touch of his hands, the warm flutter of his breath in her hair and upon her cheek, as in that last dance; and with an inexpressible hunger at once of flesh and soul she yearned to feel them all again, to be once more within the magic circle of his arms, to live once more in the light of ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... everything. He took my hand and hers, and for the moment it seemed that this little circle was my real family, and that my father and mother, standing over us, were hardly more than law-given preceptors. Before our guest's expanding smile and the magic of his tongue the clouds fled. Those which hung heaviest he brushed away with his restless hands. Soon, very soon, I was to go to that bustling, pushing town of Pittsburgh and with Penelope explore its wonders. We should ride behind the fastest pair of trotters in the State—his trotters; we ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... their own body lay at home apparently dead or asleep, wandered under other forms into distant places and countries. Such wanderings were called hamfarir by the old northmen; and were held to be only capable of performance by those who had attained the very utmost skill in magic. ...
— Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December 28, 1850 • Various
... the friends whom fame Had linked with the unmeaning name, 65 Whose magic marked among mankind The casket of my unknown mind, Which hidden from the vulgar glare Imbibed no fleeting radiance there. My darksome spirit sought—it found 70 A friendless solitude around. For who that might undaunted ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... of St. Liborus! I swear, that I also will not pity Danveld. They said of him that he practiced black magic, but God's power and justice is mightier than black magic. As to Zygfried, I am not sure whether he also served the devil or not. But I shall not hunt for him, because first, I have no horses, and on the other hand, if what you said is true that he ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... personal psychology, is to be still occupied with the main question of things, to keep to the subject, to feel one's self in the center of the universal drama. There is comfort in the idea. Everything else may be taken away from us, but if thought remains we are still connected by a magic thread with the axis of the world. But we may lose thought and speech. Then nothing remains but simple feeling, the sense of the presence of God and of death in God—the last relic of the human privilege, which is to participate in the whole, to ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... voice, and as she besought me in the most touching manner in a glorious adagio movement (very ridiculously it seemed to me, as if I had composed it myself) to save her, I soon resolved, like a second Astolpho,[2] to penetrate into Krespel's house, as if into another Alcina's magic castle, and deliver the queen of song from her ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... in regard to eating slowly, and the viands disappeared like frost in the beams of a July sun. The lettuce and stewed pears had disappeared like magic, and but one piece of the veal and ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... evening, thanks to a few sous, which he always finds means to procure, the homuncio enters a theatre. On crossing that magic threshold, he becomes transfigured; he was the street Arab, he becomes the titi.[18] Theatres are a sort of ship turned upside down with the keel in the air. It is in that keel that the titi huddle together. The titi is to the gamin ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... feeling, his careless manner changing as by magic: "I have very grievous news to impart to you. I would not enter upon it before my mother: though she must be told of it also, and ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... his success, foolishly, to "his star," or to any magic. He said, truly, that the reason why such greatly superior numbers quailed before him was, as one of his prisoners confessed, because they lacked a cause,—a kind of armor which he and his party never lacked. When the time ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... other French delegates, with a single exception, not alone by the magic of his personality but by the grip which he had on the imagination of France. The people remembered that long career, beginning with the early days of the Republic and culminating with the miracle of the political salvation he brought to France in the dark days of 1917, when the morale ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... that blessed word, So quickly said, so easy, as 'twere magic Breaks sorrow's spell and bids her phantoms fly! That word, that word, that one, one little ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... you an Easter egg up there?" he called, rather crossly. She only laughed. The family expected, after that time of preparation, something like magic. At last she came, looking very nice in a ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... inadequacy of the proposed remedial legislation; upon the high probability that more could be got for the minority by negotiation; upon the suggestion that, negotiation failing, remedial legislation that would really accomplish something could still be invoked. This argument, plus the magic of Laurier's personality and Tarte's organizing genius, did the business. Futile the sniping of the cures; vain the broadsides of the bishops; empty the thunders of the church! Quebec went to the polls and ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... secret drawer in his desk, inserted his forefinger and, apparently, pressed a button. The doors of the bookcase flew open as if by magic, and, at the same time, a bell inside the bookcase rang sharply. Miss Dana watched each motion of ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... at the tiny vision. Who was she? From whence had she come? Was she only a magic child come to mock us in our loneliness, or was she a real, ...
— Undine • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... always beautiful and always tranquil; to those who know aught of wood magic it is as fair in cold midwinter as in autumn, when the leaves are no longer green leaves, but a rich mosaic of russet and orange and sullen red. My most wonderful memory is of a November day when a fine snow was falling, ...
— The Dukeries • R. Murray Gilchrist
... mountain-pass from another. We had seen nothing like this; nothing, perhaps, so purely beautiful. One could not imagine that winter snow and ice could still the pulse of summer here. It was as if we wandered from one green glade to another in fairyland, where all the little people who owned the magic land had turned themselves hurriedly into strangely delicate ferns and bluebells to watch us, laughing, ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... light that enchants you and tells you where you are. See it come filtering down through a vine-covered trellis on the red handkerchief with which a ragged contadina has bound her hair, and all the magic of Italy, to the eye, makes an aureole about the poor girl's head. Look at a brown-breasted reaper eating his chunk of black bread under a spreading chestnut; nowhere is shadow so charming, nowhere is colour so charged, nowhere has ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... O skill'd with magic spell to roll The thrilling tones, that concentrate the soul! Breathe through thy flute those tender notes again, While near thee sits the chaste-eyed maiden mild; And bid her raise the poet's kindred strain In ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... a man here, posing as a merchant. Claggett Chew. You will see him in the town when you walk there, which you shall do, presently. But he has some magic powers, and knows me well. Too well." Mr. Wicker shook his head and his eyes became slits of rage. "We have been enemies for long," said Mr. Wicker, "but he has yet to get ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... Tull of the Horseshoeing Husbandry to unloose in England the long spell of the magic of Virgil's poetry upon ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... of her mind being fixed on her new pattern and only one-tenth upon her grandchild's peculiar fancy for Victorian photographs. So Mollie wrote a short letter to her brother, enclosing the group which had worked the magic charm for herself that afternoon. She put it into the evening post-bag with a sigh. "If that doesn't do it I can't think of anything else," ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... in Magic," by Charles B. Loomis, the widely known humorist, is an extremely original and clever juvenile, Mr. Loomis's first piece of long fiction. It has a fairy-tale motive in an entirely realistic setting. A country boy, who has a marvellous power of plucking fruit ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... they are made perfect at death, it is plain that in the case of many, perhaps of all, perfection is not attained. Imagine a Christian, but one beset with many imperfections. In a moment some accident cuts him off. Are we to imagine that the mere passing through the gates of death works some magic change in his character? Surely not. What then becomes of him? He does not go to hell, for he is a Christian. Yet he is not fit for heaven. What remains, but some preliminary stage of preparation ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... and a purpose. They stopped at Wilberforce, the oldest of Negro schools, where a black bishop blessed them. Then they went, fighting cold and starvation, shut out of hotels, and cheerfully sneered at, ever northward; and ever the magic of their song kept thrilling hearts, until a burst of applause in the Congregational Council at Oberlin revealed them to the world. They came to New York and Henry Ward Beecher dared to welcome them, even though the metropolitan dailies sneered at his "Nigger Minstrels." So their ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... some magic vehicle, transported them in a second to the torrid zone, where the various tropical flowers and fruit, the towering cocoa-nut, the spreading palm, the broad-leaved banana, the fragrant pine—all that was ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... at first been only terrible, but with such thunder they seemed sinister and menacing. Their magic light pierced through closed eyelids and sent a chill all over the body. What could he do not to see them? Yegorushka made up his mind to turn over on his face. Cautiously, as though afraid of being watched, he got ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... shouted over by the Boulevard St. Germain. As if by magic the streets were filled with people,—shivering, chattering ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... Youth and wealth and love were all his, and his all together. He was but eight-and-twenty, was a member of Parliament, solicitor-general, owner of a house in Eaton Square, and possessor of as much well-trained beauty as was to be found at that time within the magic circle of any circumambient crinoline within the bills of mortality. Was it not sweet for him to wander through the rye? Had he not fallen upon an Elysium, a very paradise of earthly joys? Was not his spring-tide ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... swooning. But now, in this my great extremity, of a sudden, from somewhere on the outskirts of the crowd rose a shrill cry of "Fire!" the which cry, being taken up by others, filled the air with panic, the crowd melted as if by magic until the village green and the road were quite deserted. All this I noted but dimly (being more dead than alive) when I became conscious of one ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... that of day; then the music, which, in itself a treat sufficient in every other situation, our inexperience mistakes for the very play we came to witness; then the slow rise of the shadowy curtain, disclosing, as if by actual magic, a new land, with woods, and mountains, and lakes, lighted, it seems to us, by another sun, and inhabited by a race of beings different from ourselves, whose language is poetry,—whose dress, demeanor, and sentiments seem something supernatural,—and whose whole actions and discourse ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... passed, and there was no sign of the miracle she had confidently expected. The magic of the marriage vow failed to transform her; Pauline Dumont was still Pauline Gardiner in mind and in heart. There was, however, a miracle, undreamed of, mysterious, overwhelming—John Dumont, the ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... had made itself comfort able in one end of the quarry and up one side, sat in awed silence, watching him closely, like a theatre audience waiting for some wonder-worker to perform his feats of magic. ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... once, to exorcise the powers of darkness. Though I had been cured, long since, of my passion for such investigations, I still felt a certain attraction and curiosity with regard to all superstitions, and I was delighted to have this opportunity of discovering how far the magic art had ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee
... amazing calm Miltoun remained after he had gone away, till about half-past nine in the evening, he started forth, to walk down to the House. It was now that sort of warm, clear night, which in the country has firefly magic, and even over the Town spreads a dark glamour. And for Miltoun, in the delight of his new health and well-being, with every sense alive and clean, to walk through the warmth and beauty of this night ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... us all are spread The ruins and the symbols of the winter that is dead. But the bleak and barren picture very shortly now will pass, For the halls of life are ready for their velvet rugs of grass; And the painters now are waiting with their magic to replace This dullness with a beauty that no mortal ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... asked Nydia, 'can induce the beautiful and wealthy Julia to ask that question of her servant? Has she not money, and youth, and loveliness? Are they not love-charms enough to dispense with magic?' ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... peasant girl becomes an ambassadress of heaven, gifted with second sight and the power of working miracles. She not only leads the French troops in battle, but she herself fights with a magic sword and kills English soldiers with the ruthlessness of a veteran in slaughter. Through it all, however, she is supposed to remain a tender-hearted and lovable maiden, such as the highest officers ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... long hair, in a black doublet, who approached the foot of the bed where Sainte-Croix lay. Brave as he was, this apparition so fully answered to his prayers (and at the period the power of incantation and magic was still believed in) that he felt no doubt that the arch-enemy of the human race, who is continually at hand, had heard him and had now come in answer to his prayers. He sat up on the bed, feeling mechanically at the place where the handle of his sword would have been but ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... did not put the honor very high. "I am," he said, "the mat before the door." Tarte, a Quebecker and a Bleu, became Montreal's representative at Ottawa. Disappointment among the Liberals led first to rage and then to rage plus fear as Tarte with the magic wand of the patronage and power of the public works department, began to make over the party organization in the province. Open rebellion under Francois Langelier broke out in December: "A coalition with Chapleau," Langelier informed the ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... collected about them other members of the searching party, who stuck their heads out of ports and doors now and then to see that no evil magic had set the ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... sustained no injury to his pride and vanity of sex. And Mercier's flabbiness did more for him than that. It took the sharpest sting from Violet's infidelity. It removed it to the region of insane perversities. It removed Violet herself from her place in memory, that place of magic and of charm where if she had remained she would have had power to ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... danger in allowing ourselves to be so narrowed by our own virtuousness, viciousness being conventionally banished to the remoter region of the third person, as to forget the presence of "the brute brain within the man's." In Rousseau's case, at any rate, it was no wicked broth nor magic potion that "confused the chemic labour of the blood," but the too potent wine of the joyful beauty of nature herself, working misery in a mental structure that no educating care nor envelope of circumstance ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley |
