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Spellbound   /spˈɛlbˌaʊnd/   Listen
Spellbound

adjective
1.
Having your attention fixated as though by a spell.  Synonyms: fascinated, hypnotised, hypnotized, mesmerised, mesmerized, spell-bound, transfixed.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Spellbound" Quotes from Famous Books



... was spellbound with astonishment and horror. I ought to have seized the author of the infamous sacrilege—I ought, at any rate, to have called to the priest—but I could do neither. I trembled before this mysterious man. My frame literally shook. I knew what fear ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett

... maids huddled together in the parlor, knitting shawls and swapping tales of the good and bad pensions they had encountered in their travels. When a caller braved the ordeal, they always stopped knitting and talking and sat spellbound, intent on not losing one word of the ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed

... than he reft his cocked hat from his head and flung it upon the floor. Peninnah Penelope Anne sprang up so precipitately at the dread sight that she overturned her stool and drew a stitch awry in her sampler, longer than the women of her family were accustomed to take. The children gazed spellbound. The weavers at the loom were petrified; even the creak of the treadle and the noisy thumping of the batten—those perennial sounds of a pioneer home—sunk into silence. The two negroes at the end of the vista beyond the shed-room, with the ox-yoke and plough-gear ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock

... country was a marvel of which Bob had never before had any adequate conception. Then there were the cities, alive with varying industries, and teeming with their strangely mixed American population. Above all was the amazing natural beauty of scenery hitherto undreamed of. Hour after hour Bob sat spellbound at the window of the observation-car, never tiring of watching the shifting landscape as it whirled past. His interest and intelligence caught the notice of a gentleman who occupied the section opposite the boys, and ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett

... Penrod, spellbound, gazed upon Roderick Magsworth Bitts, Junior. So did Herman and Verman. Roddy's staggering lie had changed the face of things utterly. No one questioned it; no one realized that it was much too ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington

... spellbound with horror, and the next, realising what had happened, were kneeling down beside the piteous head. The thin crust of earth had given way beneath the animal's hindquarters as it grazed over the turf, and before it could recover itself it had slipped bodily through ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... wonderful &c. adj.; beggar description, beggar the imagination, baffle description; stagger belief. Adj. surprised &c. v.; aghast, all agog, breathless, agape; open- mouthed; awestruck, thunderstruck, moonstruck, planet-struck; spellbound; lost in amazement, lost in wonder, lost in astonishment; struck all of a heap, unable to believe one's senses, like a duck ion thunder. wonderful, wondrous; surprising &c. v.; unexpected &c. 508; unheard of; mysterious &c. (inexplicable) 519; miraculous. indescribable, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... in the midst of his heavy trials, and his truly Christian fortitude in his final sufferings—these formed a rhetoric which made its way to all hearts. Against such influences the eloquence of Greece would have been vain. The nation was spellbound; and a majority of its population neither could ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... hand she began to beat time nervously against the cushion of the box. Selina Storace was singing the "Che faro" to an audience that hung spellbound upon the prima donna's lips. Chauvelin did not move from his seat; he quietly watched that tiny nervous hand, the only indication that his ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... melancholy night rejoice, and brought a glow into its dark face as it hovered about the door and windows, peeping curiously in above the shoulders of a dozen loungers. As to this idle company, there they stood, spellbound by the place, and, casting now and then a glance upon the darkness in their rear, settled their lazy elbows more at ease upon the sill, and leaned a little further in: no more disposed to tear themselves away than if they had been born to cluster round ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... dawned—a cold and bitter morning with snow-flakes filling the air and whirling across the landscape—they found themselves looking down the steep slopes of the plateau of Douaumont, towards the German positions, and watching, spellbound almost, another demonstration of the power and skill of the ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton

... him a sudden picture of a garden, and the sweet life of the flowers and little trees, taking what came, sunshine and rain, and just living and smiling, breathing fragrant breath from morning to night, and sleeping a light sleep till they should waken to another tranquil day. He listened as if spellbound. There were but three verses, and though he could not remember the words, it seemed as though the rose spoke and ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson

... nightingales (poetically fabled to sing only by night), the chirping of multitudinous sparrows, wrens, and linnets, and the twittering of swallows. At the outer gate sat two or three aged monks, picturesque and sculpturesque at once, like enchanted porters at the doors of some spellbound palace, their long, gray beards and sunken, listless eyes according with their own and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... hand the match burned down until it left a mark like charcoal, and without calling attention. One and all they stood spellbound, their eyes on the floor, their lips unconsciously uttering the speech universal of anger and of horror, the ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... black bat. There was not a soul anywhere near him, but by the occasional flashes of light Thomson could see soldiers and hurrying people in the Admiralty Square, and along the Strand he could hear the patter of footsteps upon the pavement. But he himself remained alone, a silent, spellbound, fascinated witness of this epic of ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... by his idea, Planchette took an empty flower-pot, with a hole in the bottom, and put it on the surface of the dial, then he went to look for a little clay in a corner of the garden. Raphael stood spellbound, like a child to whom his nurse is telling some wonderful story. Planchette put the clay down upon the slab, drew a pruning-knife from his pocket, cut two branches from an elder tree, and began to clean them of pith by blowing through them, as if ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... strongest appeal. Youth, with its inexperience, is seldom tempted to bring fiction to the test of reality, or to scorn it on the ground of its improbability, and we may be sure that Shelley and his cousin, Medwin, as they hung spellbound over such treasures as The Midnight Groan, The Mysterious Freebooter, or Subterranean Horrors did not pause to consider whether the characters and adventures were true to life. They desired, indeed, not to criticise but to create, and in the winter ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead

... Blanco Diablo was speeding low, fleet as an antelope, fierce and terrible in his devilish action, a horse for war and blood and death. He seemed unbeatable. Yet to see the magnificently running Blanco Sol was but to court a doubt. Gale stood spellbound. He might have shot the raider; but he never thought of such a thing. The distance swiftly lessened. Plain it was the raider could not make the opening ahead of Ladd. He saw it and swerved to the left, ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... to time with a blunt "I beg your pardon, Innstetten," which he interjected in a variety of ways. The Baron mechanically nodded assent, but in reality paid little attention to what was said. He turned his gaze again and again, as though spellbound, to the wild grape-vine twining about the window, of which Briest had just spoken, and as his thoughts were thus engaged, it seemed to him as though he saw again the girls' sandy heads among the vines and heard the saucy call, ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... for the Himalayas in a buoyant spiritual mood,' he explained. 'Inspiration filled me at the prospect of meeting the masters. But as soon as Mukunda said, "During our ecstasies in the Himalayan caves, tigers will be spellbound and sit around us like tame pussies," my spirits froze; beads of perspiration formed on my brow. "What then?" I thought. "If the vicious nature of the tigers be not changed through the power of our spiritual trance, shall they treat us with ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... The boys were spellbound by the intense language of the strange man. All fears that he might be one of the ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish

... grasp its full meaning, was too eagerly engaged scanning its imposing array of creams, scents, powders, oils, salves, cosmetics, tresses of hair, and other "aids," to be able to remember what she had come for, and simply stood there like one fascinated and spellbound. ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici

... of Notre Dame, form the chief ecclesiastical monuments of the city. St. Maclou, which dates from the early fifteenth century, though not of the grand proportions of either of the other great churches, being rather of the type of the large parish church as it is known in England, holds one spellbound by the very daring of its ornaments and tracery, but contains no trace of non-Gothic. The French passion for the curved line is nowhere more manifest than here (and in the west front of Notre Dame), where flowing tracery of window, doorway, portal, and, ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun

... the whole heaven was aflame with a whirlwind of scarlet and gold and crimson, of violet and blue and emerald, flecked with copper and bronze and shreds of smoky clouds in shadow, a tempestuous riot of color so wild and extraordinary as to hold one spellbound. ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter

... airship was constructed and how the daring young aviator and his friends made the hazardous journey through the clouds from the new world to the old, is told in a way to hold the reader spellbound. ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... unnoticed by both, as it had happened many times before, but in that heavily-charged atmosphere it took on a new significance. Both blushed hotly, and as their eyes met each saw that which held them spellbound. Slowly, almost as if without volition, Crane put his other arm around her. A wave of deeper crimson swept over her face and she bent her handsome head as her slender body yielded to his arms with no effort to free itself. Finally Crane spoke, his ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby

... light, silence and, best boon of all, an unexpected solitude—a solitude that invested the white building with a glamour of unreality and converted the slight-stemmed, moss-grown trees into spellbound sentinels. ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... child and cat, Through the dire time of slaughter sat, By terror both spellbound; But when night came, a silence drear Fell on the coast; and far or near, No voice caught Edric's wakeful ear, Save water's lapping sound. He wandered from the stern to prow, Ate of the stores, and marvelled how He yet might reach the ground; Till low and lower sank the tide, Dark ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge

... more strange tales were told than of the bloody buccaneer himself. That the walls of his house were ceiled with jewels, shedding their accumulated lustre of years so that never candle need shine in the place, was well known. That the spellbound souls of all those on his red-handed ancestor's roll were fain to keep watch and ward over their once treasures, by night and noon, white-sheeted and faint in the glare of the sun, wan in the moon, blacker shadows in the starless dark, found belief. And there were those who had seen his seraglio;—but ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... Huckleberry Street, and I mean to have you some day, old fellow." And the perfect assurance with which he said this, and the settled conviction of final success that was visible in his quiet gray eyes, fascinated Charley Vanderhuyn, and he felt spellbound, like the wedding guest held ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston

... sheer, the tremendous cliffs of them apparently unbroken, soaring superbly to more than twenty thousand and seventeen thousand feet respectively: Denali, "the great one," and Denali's Wife. And the little peaks in between the natives call the "children." It was on that occasion, standing spellbound at the sublimity of the scene, that the author resolved that if it were in his power he would restore these ancient mountains to the ancient people among whom they rear their heads. Savages they are, if the reader please, since "savage" means simply a forest dweller, and the ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck

... emerged of such fantasy and variety of color that the two boys were spellbound. Elephants and camels, llamas and horses, all richly caparisoned in Eastern silks, passed along with their riders. Guards with curved swords and many-thonged whips formed a double hedge between those in the procession and the bystanders. ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson

... Professor Featherwit sent the air-ship higher, even as it sped onward at quickened pace, his face as pale as his eyes were glittering, intense anticipation holding him spellbound for the time ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.

... shadow fell upon him, and turning around he found himself face to face with Mary Barner who stood spellbound, listening to her lately installed Band ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung

... think that he's an investigating magistrate," panted Lecoq, left spellbound on the quay. "Has he gone mad?" As he spoke, an uncharitable thought took possession of his mind. "Can it be," he murmured, "that M. d'Escorval holds the key to the mystery? Perhaps he wishes ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... felt suddenly seized as with a general paralysis, the same as happens when a person has the nightmare and fancies himself pursued by enemies; they are on the point of catching him, they will kill him, and yet he remains spellbound, unable to ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various

... to him was "Annie Laurie," and he sang it through with taste and effect. As his sweet, boyish notes fell on the ears of the crowd they listened as if spellbound, and at the end gave him ...
— Ben's Nugget - A Boy's Search For Fortune • Horatio, Jr. Alger

... of that moment was greater fur than all the agonies which Hilda had ever known. Her heart stopped beating; all life seemed to ebb away from the terror of that presence. Wildly there arose a thought of flight; but she was spellbound, her limbs were paralyzed, and the dark, luminous eyes of the horror enchained her own gaze. Suddenly she made a convulsive effort, mechanically, and sprung to her feet, her hands clutching one another in a kind of spasm, and her brain reeling beneath ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... piano upon which Laurencine had played! The embrasure of the window! The corner in which Irene had sat spellbound by Jules Defourcambault! The portraits of Irene, at least one of which would perpetuate her name! The glazed cases full of her collections!... The chief pieces of furniture and all the chairs were draped in the pale, ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... do. I'll go an' try. [She goes to the door of the bedroom, stands still as if spellbound and listens.] Wilhelm! You might answer.—[Louder and more frightened.] Wilhelm! You're not to frighten me this way! Maybe you think I don't know that you're still awake!!—[In growing terror.]—Wilhelm, I tell you!... [BERTHEL has waked up and ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann

... in her deep mourning dress, with her fair hair unbound and floating softly around her pale, sweet face, every eye in that court was spellbound by her almost unearthly beauty. Before proceeding with what she was about to say, she turned upon Traverse a look that brought him immediately to ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... faint as dreams. Now and then a bird uttered a piercing little chatter from the branches of the tall larches, and ducks talked in the reeds, but their talk was only a soft murmur, hardly louder than the rustle of the reeds now in full leaf. Everything was spellbound that day; the shadows of reed and island seemed fixed for ever as in a magic mirror—a mirror that somebody had breathed upon, and, listening to the little gurgle of the water about the limestone shingle, one seemed to hear ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... she was, stood for an instant spellbound, and for one moment of not unpardonable panic, tried to tell herself that she had been mistaken. Almost immediately, however, there came from the direction of the hall a dull chunky sound as though something ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse

... revealing the whole line of the great peaks that stand as sentinels at the eastern end of the vast Tibetan plateau. Westward from that snow-topped line there is no low land until you reach the plains of India. For a few minutes we stood spellbound, and then the clouds shut down again, leaving only a glorious memory to cheer the descent through a grey, ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall

... suggestion and reminder, had tempted him into talking "shop." He had been lured into the role of monologuist for the benefit of his host, Arthur Sloane. He had talked brilliantly, at length, in detail, holding his three hearers in spellbound and fascinated interest while he discoursed on crimes which he had probed and criminals whom ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay

... one wishes to keep up one's spirits. The last time I came home the Mediterranean way I had a struggle with myself against excusing our sandy landscape, when we came in sight of it, with its summer cottages for the sole altitudes, to some Italian fellow-passengers who were not spellbound by its grandeur. I had to remember the Rocky Mountains, which I had never seen, and all the moral magnificence of our life before I could withhold the words of apology pressing to my lips. I was glad that I succeeded; but ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells

... through The somber robe of Silence drew A thread of golden gossamer: So pure a flute the fairy blew. Like beggared princes of the wood, In silver rags the birches stood; The hemlocks, lordly counselors, Were dumb; the sturdy servitors, In beechen jackets patched and gray, Seemed waiting spellbound all the day That low, entrancing note to ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various

... case, indeed!" Mr. King was exploding at intervals, while the torrent was rushing on in execrable French as far as accent went. No one else of the spellbound group could have spoken if there had been occasion for a word. Then he pulled out the pocket-book again, and taking out several franc notes of a good size, he pressed them between the man's dirty fingers. "Go and get something to eat," ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney

... Every word of joyous greeting was heard by the amazed listeners and every word from the strangers was as distinct. Surely the newcomers were friends of long standing. When their heavy wraps were removed the trio stood forth before as curious an audience as ever sat spellbound. The men were young, well dressed and handsome; the woman a beauty of the most dashing type. Tinkletown's ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon

... The audience had never heard a colored man preach before. And Crummell's dignity and bearing in the pulpit, his polish and refinement, his lucid exposition of the text, his sublimity of thought, beauty of diction, and fire and force of utterance for nearly an hour held that cultured audience spellbound. Crummell made history for the race on that Sunday morning in 1848. And I suppose that Crummell's eulogy on Clarkson, delivered in New York City in 1846, in its grandeur of thought, sublimity of sentiment and splendor of style, surpasses any oratorical effort of any colored ...
— Alexander Crummell: An Apostle of Negro Culture - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 20 • William H. Ferris

... a shapeless, sodden mass, but the human outline was preserved, and the clothes were there, recognizable. It was a grisly, a hideous sight, and it held them all spellbound. ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille

... one who sees things dimmed to those of only natural powers. With what figures, Wrayson wondered, idly, was he peopling that empty avenue, what were the fancies which had crept out from his brain and held him spellbound? He had admitted a more or less intimate acquaintance with the place: was he, perhaps, a former lover of the Baroness, when she had been simply Amy de St. Etarpe? Wrayson forgot, for a while, his own affairs, in following out these mild speculations. The soft twilight stole down ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... friend made Dan spellbound, and he gazed at the corpse in horror. Then he felt his arm seized by Poke Stover, and in a minute more found himself being hurried ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer

... he exclaimed; "it is false of thy father's child, false of thy mother's son, falsest of my dault! I offer my gage to heaven and hell, and will maintain the combat with him that shall call it true. Thou hast been spellbound by an evil eye, my darling, and the fainting which you call cowardice is the work of magic. I remember the bat that struck the torch out on the hour that thou wert born—that hour of grief and of ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... at him with black-dilated, spellbound eyes. But he sat glistening and obstinate, forcing the wheeling mare, which spun and swerved like a wind, and yet could not get out of the grasp of his will, nor escape from the mad clamour of terror that resounded through her, as the trucks thumped slowly, heavily, horrifying, ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... his experience, and opportunities to embody them, it seemed to be no longer the same high and mysterious faculty that so ruled the tides of the feelings of others. He then appeared a more ordinary poet—— a skilful verse-maker. The necromancy which held the reader spellbound became ineffectual; and the charm and the glory which interested so intensely, and shone so radiantly on his configurations from realities, all failed and faded; for his genius dealt not with airy fancies, but had its power and ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt

... to sing — to sing as she had never sung before. Sweet, thrilling, her voice poured forth into the crowded auditorium. The people sat spellbound. There was a moment of silence; no one offered to applaud. And then she ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers

... afternoon we came to Dunkerque, lying peacefully between its harbour and canals. The bombardment of the previous month had emptied it, and though no signs of damage were visible the same spellbound air lay over everything. As we sat alone at tea in the hall of the hotel on the Place Jean Bart, and looked out on the silent square and its lifeless shops and cafes, some one suggested that the hotel would be a convenient centre for the excursions we ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton

... He stood staring, spellbound, at the partly open door of the nearest freight car. His cane had fallen from his hand, his head was thrown up as if he had been struck a stunning blow under the chin, and even at the distance ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman

... beyond himself; in a physical ecstasy he spoke out that which clamored at his lips, caring nothing for his audience, unconscious of them utterly. And because that is the one thing which will grip men's minds and compel them, he held them spellbound, in spite of themselves,—until, abruptly, in a flash, he became conscious of himself, seeing himself, hearing himself. That moment he lost his hold of them. And he knew it, and stopped short. And for an instant there ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... all seemed waiting; and all were silent but the captain, whose vulgar champing reached me through the crazy lattice, as I stood spellbound and ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung

... the dog; he remained immovable—conscious of some mysterious coming thing that held him spellbound. I tried to go to the poor creature, and fondle and ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins

... hand trembled under his, then, suddenly nerveless, relaxed. With an effort she lifted her head; their eyes met, spellbound. ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers

... ruins of two of the finest structures I have ever seen in Peru. Not only were they made of selected blocks of beautifully grained white granite; their walls contained ashlars of Cyclopean size, ten feet in length, and higher than a man. The sight held me spellbound. ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham

... he rarely "gagged," or interpolated, upon the stage. Yet he did not lack for a ready wit. One time during the final act of Rip Van Winkle, a young countryman in the gallery was so carried away that he quite lost his bearings and seemed to be about to climb over the outer railing. The audience, spellbound by the actor, nevertheless saw the rustic, and its attention was being divided between the two when Jefferson reached that point in the action of the piece where Rip is amazed by the docility of his wife under the ill usage of her second husband. He ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... surprise she had recognized one among the groundlings in front of the stage after the performance. It was Sir Guy, very plainly dressed and gazing fixedly upon her. Doubtless he had been there during the entire play, waiting in vain for one sign of recognition. But Shylock had held her spellbound, and even for her lover she ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... was soon hushed to silence, and spellbound from curiosity. Sherakim the Orator gazed on the king. The king, with an angry brow, gazed on the stranger. The stranger, in return, cast a withering glance on the king, and stood in his presence with ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones

... accept it at last as the word of God. That is the secret of the power of all demagogues and emotional orators. The slickest horse-thief that ever operated in the West was a revivalist who migrated there with a tent. While he held the crowd spellbound with his eloquence, his confederates loosed the horses in the woods and got them to a safe place. Oratory is one of the cheapest tricks ever played on man, but an everlastingly effective one, because it is ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon

... the time for it was not yet ripe. But as the minutes lengthened and the flow of Richard's speech not only continued, but gained in volume and in force, sympathy, anxiety, tenderness, were merged in an emotion of ever-deepening anguish, so that she sat as one who contemplates, spellbound, a scene of veritable horror. From regions celestial to regions terrestrial she had been hurried with rather dislocating suddenness. But her sorry journey did not end there. For hardly were her feet planted on solid earth again, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... kneeling down beside Anicza on the steps of the altar, and raising his eyes towards the black vault of the cavern as he recited the words of a new oath, which kept all the listeners spellbound, so full it was of grisly images and hellish fancies. So deep indeed was the general attention that nobody observed in the meantime that, in the dark background formed by the distant walls of the cavern, a multitude of strange faces were popping up. First two men descended through the ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai

... the four elements that frame the heart, 10 And each diversely exercised her art By force or circumstance or sleight To prove her dreadful might Upon that poor domain. Desire presented her [false] glass, and then 15 The spirit dwelling there Was spellbound to embrace what seemed so fair Within that magic mirror, And dazed by that bright error, It would have scorned the [shafts] of the avenger 20 And death, and penitence, and danger, Had not then silent Fear ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... alone. Other tricks of virtuosity, such as tuning up the A string by a semi-tone, left hand pizzicato, or his double thirds, were executed with such stupendous technique that they held connoisseurs and amateurs spellbound. His individuality, in fact, was so abnormal that it rendered him unfit to play with others in quartets or other chamber music. As a man he had all the worst faults of a genius. The vast sums of money which he accumulated ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... day, I took the usual promenade in the Seraglio Park, and was accosted by a very pretty little woman, Kariana, wife of Dumba, who, very neatly dressed, was returning from a visit. At first she came trotting after me, then timidly paused, then advanced, and, as I approached, stood spellbound at my remarkable appearance. At last recovering herself, she woh-wohed with all the coquetry of a Mganda woman, and a flirtation followed; she must see my hair, my watch, the contents of my pockets—everything; but that ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... Mamma with the two girls settled down to needlework. Mamma's kindly interest invited confidence under these pleasant circumstances, and it was not long before the young man was pouring his story into her sympathetic ears. Prudence listened spellbound. It was not often that one had romance brought to one's very door—by a hero with a sprained ankle too! Such a romantic affliction! But Mollie was too much preoccupied by that haunting likeness to listen properly to what the hero was saying, ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton

... when in a picture-gallery, a work, noted by the casual spectator as '......Titian—remarkably fine,' breaks through the defences of some Forsyte better lunched perhaps than his fellows, and holds him spellbound in a kind of ecstasy. There are things, he feels—there are things here which—well, which are things. Something unreasoning, unreasonable, is upon him; when he tries to define it with the precision of a practical ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... had traveled all over the world, and because she was interested in all the little things, her adventures had been many. She told them to-night about one ride she had taken for miles inland and held every one of them spellbound ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill

... audience that listened spellbound to that oration, arose and left the Capitol like persons in a dream. Never were they to forget the ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson

... them then and there. He had just put one into his mouth when the tutor leaned forward, and his eyes, glowing in the firelight, met MacGreedy's, who had not even the presence of mind to shut his mouth, but remained spellbound, with a raisin in ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... not know how long I stood there, spellbound, the woman lost in the artist, scribbling frantically in my notebook, when an onslaught of rain brought me to my senses and I looked ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley

... captives, who were guarded and forced to their labor by armed savages. As the heavy-hearted spectators were about to turn away from this distressing sight, a thrilling incident absorbed their attention, and held them spellbound. ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... table they were intercepted by a woman who, with two cavaliers, had since the moment of her entrance been standing near the door of the restaurant, apparently spellbound with admiration. Through a rising clatter of tongues her voice cut clearly but not at ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... of the reader's voice had held us spellbound, and the poem was well received; but after the usual compliments there was a pause, and then Ideala burst out impetuously: "I am sick of those old Italian lovers," she said; "they float into everything. Their story is ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand

... songs I sing . . . Called from the tomb of some enchanted past By that strange sphinx, my soul, they slowly rise And settle on white pages wing to wing . . . White pages like flower-petals fluttering Held spellbound there till some blind hour shall bring The perfect voice that, delicate and wise, Shall set them free in fairyland at last! That garden of all dreams and ecstasies Where my soul sings through an eternal spring, Watching alone with enigmatic ...
— The Inn of Dreams • Olive Custance

... opponents. In the excitement of the play he became confused, when lo! he leaped into flight toward the wrong goal. Dashing around Princeton's left end he reversed his field and crossed over to the right. Phil King, Princeton's quarterback, was so amazed at the performance that he was too spellbound to tackle his comrade. Down the backfield the player sped towards his own goal. Shep Homans, his fullback, took in the impending catastrophe at a glance and dashed forward, laid the halfback low with a sharp tackle, thereby preventing a safety. The game was unimportant, ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards

... the Phoenix beckoned to the spellbound David. Together they walked across the glade, leaving behind them a wake of swirling butterflies. An immense oak stood at the edge of the forest. At its foot, on a bed of ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd

... through nineteen centuries to find their application from the lips of an orator to-day; the sense of remoteness in the strange language and the far-off heathen origin; the deep and moving note in the speaker's voice, thrilled the imagination of the audience and held it spellbound, lifting for a moment the whole subject of debate into a region far above party conflicts. Spoken by any one else, the passage culminating in these Lucretian lines might have produced little effect. It was the voice and manner, ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce

... gasped Harkness. He was spellbound with utter awe at the spectacle he beheld. This brilliant world a-gleam to its farthest horizon with golden, glorious sunlight, softly spread and diffused! This, this! was ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various

... dazed and intoxicated. He had never seen so many books before; he had never conceived of such lovely pictures. And yet in some vague way he thought he must have dreamt of them at some time. He had mounted a chair, and was gazing spellbound at an engraving of a sea-fight ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte

... the old wrought-iron arch that once held an oil-lamp, and up a short but rather steep flight of steps, which led to a brick porch built out at the side. Then he let himself in, and stood spellbound with perplexed amazement,—for he was in ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey

... visitor, with rounder face, dressed in country tweeds, a flower in his buttonhole, the picture of a prosperous man, yet with a curious, almost disturbing likeness to the pale, over-nervous, loose-framed youth whose eye had been attracted by its presence, and who was gazing at it, spellbound. ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... sounded, the curtain was drawn back, and the play began. Upon the ruder sort in the audience silence fell at once: they that followed the sea, and they that followed the woods, and all the simple folk ceased their noise and gesticulation, and gazed spellbound at the pomp before them of rude scenery and indifferent actors. But the great ones of the earth talked on, attending to their own business in the face of Tamerlane and his victorious force. It was the fashion to do so, and in the play to-night the ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... better goods. Papa enjoyed my business venture immensely, and was never tired of joking about it. He actually went and bought balls for four small black boys who were gluing their noses to the window one day, spellbound by the orange, red, and blue treasures displayed there. He liked my partner's looks, though he teased me by saying that we'd better add lemonade to our stock, as poor, dear Almiry's acid face would make lemons unnecessary, and sugar and ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott

... of the thing upon Eve's delicious nape, he could feel that she was trembling. He surveyed the dazzling string. She also surveyed it, fascinated, spellbound. Even Mr. Prohack began to perceive that the reputation and value of fine pearls might perhaps be not ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett

... by side spellbound. The tiny flames licked past them in the tarweed; they did not heed. The horsemen rode up, twenty strong. It seemed to Bob that they said things, and shouted. Certainly a half-dozen leaped spryly off their horses and in ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... clarion of a single curve Hung at his side by slender bands; And when he blew, with faintest nerve, Life burst throughout those lonely lands; Graves yawned to hear, Time stood aghast, The whole world rose and clapped its hands. Then on the other shape I cast My eyes. I know not how or why He held my spellbound vision fast. Instinctive terror bade me fly, But curious wonder checked my will. The mysteries of his awful eye, So dull, so deep, so dark, so chill, And the calm pity of his brow And massive features hard and still, Lovely, but threatening, and the bow Of his sad neck, as if he told Earth's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... spellbound to this extraordinary story. My friend rose now and paced up and down the room, his hands in his pockets, and an expression of the most profound gravity upon ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... night, a gentle April shower fell; and as the thoughts were carried by it, spellbound, from the chamber where she was born, to her newly-made grave,—that night being the first of her sleeping there,—it seemed very plain that, though Death had been conquered, the Grave still kept possession of the field.—Christ "will be thy destruction," O Grave, as he has been "thy plagues," ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams

... is this more true than in preaching. It is such a glorious thing to be able to gather great congregations; but even this may be done and the messenger fail. It is such a delightful thing to a preacher to watch a multitude waiting spellbound beneath his eloquence in rapt attention, or swept by waves of emotion; but that multitude may disperse, the great end of preaching still unwrought and the whole attempt a splendid failure. It is possible to attract people to your ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson

... respected—Mrs. Acland, the wife of the well-known doctor and professor. And Liddon, with a wonderfully happy instinct, had added to his sermon a paragraph dealing with Mrs. Acland's death, which held us all spellbound till the beautiful words died into silence. It was done with a fastidious literary taste that is rather French than English; and yet it came from the very heart of the speaker. Looking back through my many ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... tense interest held us all spellbound. We could see nothing but some stray glimpses of an ivy-clad wall. A weathercock, that had once been gilded, stood out black against the evening sky. The Grey Lady in the rustling silk, through whom you could see the rain drops splash on the gravel stones, was by no means ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett

... ballroom of the Hotel Taftoftia, during Christmas week, William K. Spriggs, Ph.D., held a number of fashionable audiences spellbound with his marvellously lucid dances in Euclid and Algebra up to Quadratics. Perhaps the very acme of the Terpsichorean art was attained in the masterly fluency of body and limbs with which Mr. Spriggs demonstrated that the sum of the angles in any triangle is equal ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky

... I could not speak or yell. All was intense excitement on that boat. I jumped up on the stern, holding the bait Captain Dan had put on my hook. Then I paused to look. We all looked, spellbound. That was a sight of a lifetime. There he swam, the monster, a few feet under the surface, only a rod back of the boat. I had no calm judgment with which to measure his dimensions. I only saw that he was tremendous and beautiful. His ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey

... interblend of which, produces the dynamic intonation, that chords with the inward rhythmic vibrations of the soul. Once this magical, dynamic, vibration is produced, there immediately springs into being the whole elemental world belonging thereto, by correspondence. Vocalists who hold their audiences spellbound do so by virtue of the magical vibrations they produce, and are in reality practical, even though unconscious, magicians. The same power, to a degree, lies in the voice when speaking, the graceful movement of the hand when obeying the ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne

... intense silence. Dredlinton was listening, indifferently at first, then as though spellbound, his lips a little parted, his cheeks colourless, his eyes filled with a strange terror. Presently he laid down the receiver, although he failed to replace it. He turned very slowly around, and his eyes, still filled with a ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... to be done?' he asked. 'Here's these legal ferrets has got our Puddin' in their clutches, and here's us, spellbound with anguish, watchin' them wolfin' it. Here's a situation as would wring groans from the breast of ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay

... able to explain it exactly, they felt that it was just the kind of singing that belonged to the kind of day: it was right and natural, a fresh and windy sound in the careless notes, almost as though it was a bird that sang. So exquisite was it, indeed, that they listened spellbound without moving, standing hand in hand beneath the dark bushes. And Uncle Felix evidently heard it too, for he turned his head; instead of examining the tree-tops he peered into the rose trees just behind him, both hands held to his ears to catch the happy song. There was both ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood

... conditions was he to protest or interfere. He set his teeth and resumed his seat. The fight went on. There were little sobs and tremors of excitement, strange banks of silence. Both men seemed out of condition. The sound of their hoarse breathing was easily heard against the curtain of spellbound silence. For a time their knives stabbed the empty air, but from the first the end seemed certain. The Englishman attacked wildly. His adversary waited his time, content with avoiding the murderous blows struck at him, striving all the time to steal underneath the other's guard. And then, almost ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... a door is always open. Profound silence in the salon, a long colloquy on the landing. At last the old servant—she had been in the family as long as the lamp—introduced a young man, a perfect stranger, who stopped suddenly, spellbound, at sight of the charming picture presented by the four darlings grouped about the table. He entered with an abashed, somewhat awkward air. However, he set forth very clearly the purpose of his call. He was recommended to apply to M. Joyeuse by a worthy ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... she burst out one day, after being held thus spellbound. "Oh, my dear, what a splendid man your brother is! I feel sometimes I could sink through the floor with shame at my ignorance, when 'e talks ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... displayed itself in her expressive and strongly marked features. For almost a minute, until the sound of Uncle David's footsteps had died away, she stood absolutely rigid; while my wife and I gazed at her spellbound. ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... be some faults in it." But we all exclaimed that we had done our prettiest at finding fault,—that there wasn't a ghost of a fault in it. For the incarnate beauty and ideality and truthfulness of her little stories had melted into our being, and left us spellbound, till we were one with each other and her; one with the Seven Little Sisters, too, and they seemed like our very own little sisters. So they have rested in our imagination and affection as we have seen them grow into ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews

... evening.[30] In Parsifal Gurnemanz explains all the circumstances to the Knappen. How undramatic are these explanations we shall realize when we compare them with such soliloquies as Tannhaeuser's account of his pilgrimage or Siegmund's story of his life, which, though equally lengthy, keep us spellbound from the first bar to the last, because they directly lead up to and form part of the scene which is actually before us. Tannhaeuser's wild aspect and manner, Siegmund's desolation and longing for community with other human beings, ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight

... office,—you say you're the head of it,—and order them to give Torpenhow my sketches,—every one of them. Wait a minute: your hand's shaking. Now!' He thrust a pocket-book before him. The note was written. Torpenhow took it and departed without a word, while Dick walked round and round the spellbound captive, giving him such advice as he conceived best for the welfare of his soul. When Torpenhow returned with a gigantic portfolio, he heard Dick say, almost soothingly, 'Now, I hope this will be a lesson to you; and if you worry me when I have settled down to work with any nonsense ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling

... ancient violin, began to read a chapter from his old Book which began with the exhortation, "Let brotherly love continue," and laid down a course of moral conduct that seemed so impossible that I sat spellbound to the last words, "Grace be ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess

... years ago,— When apple trees were white with snow Of fragrant blossoms, and the air Was spellbound with the perfume rare,— Upon a farm horse, large and lean, And lazy with its double load, A sun-browned youth and maid were seen Jogging ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... missionary stood spellbound, gazing over the lovely, fairylike scene, Mr. Ritchie touched ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith

... medley of old Southern airs she played. The audience sat spellbound while the strains of "Old Black Joe," and "Old Folks at Home" were heard throughout the auditorium, and when Dorothy swung into the quick measures of her beloved "Dixie," such a roar shook the building as Aunt Betty had never ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond

... band of enthusiasts at the lecture; it seemed her fate to run up against enthusiasm she could not share. Young ladies, middle-aged ladies, even old ladies, all listening spellbound—at least if not absolutely spellbound, spellbound compared to Henrietta—to an elderly gentleman discoursing on Aristotle. For most of them Aristotle, and the satisfaction of using their minds were sufficient, ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor



Words linked to "Spellbound" :   enchanted



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