"Fascination" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... visit, and the subject had a great fascination for Richard. Perhaps Phyllis unconsciously described Texas, and Texan affairs, in the light of her own heart; it is certain that Richard never wearied of hearing her talk upon the subject; and the following spring he determined ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... in human nature. War is the essence of all the dramatic and heroic story of the world. The past lives most vividly in this theme of war, and the sense of remoteness in time lends an aesthetic coloring to all the story of war, and is in part its fascination. The dead heroes of to-day are glorified by linking their names with the ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... Westminster Abbey. No visitor to London should fail to see these. Indeed he ought to feel that his visit to England is wasted unless he has seen them. I speak strongly on the point because I feel strongly on it. To my mind there is something about the grim fascination of the historic Tower, the cloistered quiet of the Museum and the majesty of the ancient Abbey, which will make it the regret of my life that I didn't see any one of the three. I fully meant to: but I failed: and I can only hope that ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... thin blonde hair falling over his eyes as he did so. Markheim moved a little nearer, with one hand in the pocket of his great-coat; he drew himself up and filled his lungs; at the same time many different emotions were depicted together on his face—terror, horror, and resolve, fascination and a physical repulsion; and through a haggard lift of his upper lip, his ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... opposite the Puvis four very different canvases deserve to be mentioned. In the center a young Russian, Nicholas Fechin, displays a very unusual virtuosity in a picture of a somewhat sensual-looking young creature. Aside from the fascination of this young human animal, the handling of paint in this canvas is most extraordinary, possessing a technical quality few other canvases in the entire exhibition have. There is life, such as very few painters ever attain, and seen only in the work of a master. This work is not entirely a Nell Brinkley ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... invisible. The billowy masses clung to the forest line, but from the slopes above them we could look far across the valley into the blue distance where the snow-covered summits of range after range of magnificent mountains lay shining in the sun like beaten silver. There was a strange fascination about those mountains, and I thrilled with the thought that for twelve long months I was free to roam where I willed ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... morning! Lavretsky, however, was not at that time disposed to be observant; he was blissful, drunk with happiness; he gave himself up to it like a child. Indeed he was as innocent as a child, this young Hercules. Not in vain was the whole personality of his young wife breathing with fascination; not in vain was her promise to the senses of a mysterious luxury of untold bliss; her fulfillment was richer than her promise. When she reached Lavriky in the very height of the summer, she found the house dark and dirty, the servants absurd and old-fashioned, ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... I know, excuse any description of all that has passed, and is passing, and I leave it to Charles. The impression is very favourable.[53] There is great fascination in the quiet, frank manner of the Emperor, and she is very pleasing, very graceful, and very unaffected, but very delicate. She is certainly very pretty and very uncommon-looking. The Emperor spoke very amiably of you. The reception ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... Realizing the fascination that the personalities of our national heroes have for the young, the author has chosen those men who best illustrate the important periods in the making of our nation, and in a series of interesting biographical sketches uses their lives as centers around which the history is written. ...
— Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories • Mrs. M. Chaplin Ayrton
... his abrupt departure, which happened one day without a word of warning. He had dined at the cottage on the previous evening, and had been in his wildest, most reckless spirits—that mood to which he was subject at rare intervals, and in which he exercised a potent fascination over his companions. He had beguiled the little party at the cottage into complete forgetfulness of the hour by his unwonted eloquence upon subjects of a deeper, higher kind than it was his habit to speak about; and then at the last moment, when the clock on the mantelpiece had struck twelve, he ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... world in ships usually have; and these 'yarns,' furnished, after the pattern of Othello's tales of Anthropophagites and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders, one of the many varieties of fascination which he practised on the fair sex. Only in justice to Mark, I must say that he was by no means so shameless a drawer of the long-bow as the Venetian gentleman ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... became terrible, she shrieked and sprang aside. His father's nature showed itself in Pierre. He felt the fascination and delight of frenzy. He flung down the slab, broke it, and swooping down on her with outstretched hands shouted, "Get out!" in such a terrible voice that the whole house heard it with horror. God knows what he would have done at that moment had Helene not fled ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... of my repugnance, I could not resist taking his offered hand. His eyes were fastened upon me with something of the fabled fascination of a serpent's. I knew instinctively that he would have the power, and use it, of probing every wound he might suspect in me to the quick. Yet he interested me; and there was something not entirely repellent to me about him. Above all for Olivia's sake, should ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... little lapses, Pliny writes sanely and well. Book Two treats of the crust of the earth, of earthquakes, meteors, volcanoes (these had a strange fascination for ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... which are not indispensable in the briefer narrative. A famous tale, published perhaps forty years ago, but which cannot be included in our series, tells the story of a murder the secret of which is admirably concealed till the last; and much of the fascination of the book is due to the ability with which the leading character, and some of the subordinate ones, are drawn. The author was a woman, and I have often marveled that women so seldom attempt this form of literature; many of them possess a good constructive faculty, ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... The unfailing fascination of Arctic venturing is presented in this story with new vividness. It deals with skilobning in the north of Scotland, deer-hunting in Norway, sealing in the Arctic Seas, bear-stalking on the ice-floes, ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... no wonder that the "Rollo Books" are so extremely popular, for we doubt if many of us "children of a larger growth" can escape their fascination.—Salem Observer. ...
— Rollo in Holland • Jacob Abbott
... by what species of fascination this poor fellow was attracted to Meeker. Doubtless it originated in the triumphant resistance which the latter opposed to Hill's attempt on him at their first acquaintance, and his complete victory over and discomfiture ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... share the very great pleasure I have myself enjoyed in reading them. I know of no book which will add more largely to the soldier's knowledge of strategy and the art of war; and the ordinary reader will find in this Life of Stonewall Jackson, true and accurate as it is, all the charm and fascination of a great ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... waters stilled at even." Yet, pale and quiet like this, she seemed even more beautiful than ever, especially in that adorable lavender negligee—with slippers to match. Missy regarded her with secret fascination. ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... child adores the being who has entirely won its heart, without knowing, without reasoning, without even being aware that it was so, but I was simply under the spell of an infinite fascination. Since then, however, I have understood and admired her, realising how unique and radiant a soul was imprisoned under the thick-set exterior and happy face of that holy woman. I have loved her ever since ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... of the various structures and tissues of the human body as revealed by the microscope possesses a curious fascination for every observer, especially for young people. No one ever forgets the first look at a drop of blood, or the circulation of blood in a frog's foot as shown ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... is, by all save one. Turnback Haynes, who had been watching Dick with a sort of wild fascination, noted Dick's latest move. ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... that Aunt Jerusha had a way with her that was not without its fascination. To look at her you would never have supposed that she was more than four hundred years old, and the variety of eyes that she could make when there were men about, was wonderful to see. I noticed it the very day I was born, and when I first caught sight of that piquante little ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... attention. His admiration was almost openly expressed, and the girl sometimes blushed at his gallant compliments. She liked the gay-hearted young man, but she was not so much attracted towards him as towards Clarke and those more thoughtful spirits. Still, she was not proof against the fascination of his courtly address, and she listened with interest to his account of the game he had learned in Italy and had introduced to England, and which bears so close a resemblance to our modern game of football that it may well be ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the national sentiment and be distinctively Irish. It is this national aspiration, and the remarkable promise of the movements making for its fruition, which give to the work of Irish social and economic reform the fascination which those who do not know the Ireland of to-day cannot understand. This work of reform must, of course, be primarily economic, but economic remedies cannot be applied to Irish ills without the spiritual aids which are required to move ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... how you use them. If the knife holds your eyes, you'll never get past it. That knife is like the deadly serpent's glittering eye. If the cobra's eye can get your eye, you are held fast in that awful, deadly fascination. ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... Forest of Dartmoor and Commons of Devon is one which excites a vast difference of opinion. For some it has an extraordinary fascination, whilst to others it is only, like a beautiful view in the Highlands which I once heard depreciated by a native—'just hills.' And the hills on Dartmoor are not even very high. Yes Tor, till lately thought to be the highest point, is only a little over ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... that all lovers have, soon or late, to learn to be only friends: happiest and safest are those in whom the friendship is the foundation—always firm and ready to fall back upon, long after the fascination of passion dies. It may take a little from the romance of these two if I own that Robert Lyon talked to Hilary not a word about love, and a good deal about pure business, telling her all his affairs and arrangements, and giving her as clear an idea of his future ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... her to a nook where two high hedges met, and where the grass was elastic and dry, he lightly rested his arm on her waist, and practised with her the new step of fascination. Instead of music he whispered numbers, and she, as may be supposed, showed no slight aptness in following his instructions. Thus they moved round together, the moon-shadows from the twigs racing over their ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... had had always an indescribable fascination. When he was very young there had been absolute trust that things would grow; that every kind of wonder might spring before one's eyes at any moment of the day. Then, when no wonder came, there had been the thrill of the empty boxes of earth; the probing with one's fingers to see what the ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... their lives for her—ascended to his box, and drove them to their destination, the linen draper's. It was an excellent shop, situated a little beyond the office of Mr. Carlyle, and Mrs. Hare and Barbara were soon engaged in that occupation said to possess for all women a fascination. They had been in about an hour, when Mrs. Hare discovered that ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... enchanted, who so flaunted her borrowed robes amidst the daffodils, Hath piteous touches. She, from Fate's clutches, free some brief space, "escaped from so sore ills," Moves our compassion. But this modern fashion of Snake Enchanter looks unlovely all. Greed's inspiration its sole fascination. Low selfishness ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 4, 1891 • Various
... sponsor for such sins as Don's committed. He was meant to be straight. But I got hold of him through an agent, and caught his imagination when that wild vow was freshly branded on his heart or brain. I have the gift of fascination, Mrs. Donaldson. I know that better than I know most things. You feel it to-night, or you wouldn't sit there letting me tear your heart to pieces—what's left of your heart. And I have an idea there's a good deal more than you think, if you have the ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... exchanged glances, as if to express the thought that this chant could not compare with the brilliant lively style of the Italian music. But this unfavorable opinion was not of long duration. They, like all others, soon yielded to the irresistible fascination of Mary's exquisite voice. They listened with such rapt attention that not the slightest movement was made in the room, and one might have heard the murmur of the leaves in the garden as they were gently stirred ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... impossible for them to escape. Deer-hunting was of all pursuits, if we except war, the most exciting to the Indians. It not only yielded the richest returns to their larder, and supplied more fully other domestic wants, but it possessed the element of fascination, which has always given zest and ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... showed so much alarm and dread that Aurelia could not but utter assurances and encouragements, which again awoke that arch manner, partly bantering, partly flattering, which exercised a sort of pleasant perplexing fascination on the simple girl. ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of Daniel Multenius's death, as unfolded in the witness-box into which one person went after another, appeared to be the fairly plain one—looked at from one point of view: there was a certain fascination in its unfolding. It began with Melky, who was first called—to identify the deceased, to answer a few general questions about him, and to state that when he last saw him, a few hours before his death, he was in his usual good health: as good, at any rate, ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... a good deal to him of the celebrated Margaret Caroline Rudd, whom I had visited, induced by the fame of her talents, address, and irresistible power of fascination[231]. To a lady who disapproved of my visiting her, he said on a former occasion[232], 'Nay, Madam, Boswell is in the right; I should have visited her myself, were it not that they have now a trick of putting every thing into the news-papers.' This ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... magic in it. Mark Twain, when he wrote it, felt renewed in him all the old fascination of those days and nights with Tom Blankenship, John Briggs, and the Bowen boys on Glasscock's Island. Everywhere in Tom Sawyer there is a quality, entirely apart from the humor and the narrative, which the younger reader is likely to overlook. No one forgets the whitewashing scene, but not ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... disaster, Bradley was a frequent and welcome visitor to Oldenhurst. Apart from his strange and chivalrous friendship for the Mainwarings—which was as incomprehensible to Sir Robert as Sir Robert's equally eccentric and Quixotic speculations had been to Bradley—he began to feel a singular and weird fascination for the place. A patient martyr in the vast London house he had taken for his wife and cousin's amusement, he loved to escape the loneliness of its autumn solitude or the occasional greater loneliness of his wife's social triumphs. The handsome, ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... bitterness which women know so well how to cast into their submission, left Diard no chance for planned ill-humor. Besides, she was one of those noble creatures to whom it is impossible to speak disrespectfully; her glance, in which her life, saintly and pure, shone out, had the weight of a fascination. Diard, embarrassed at first, then annoyed, ended by feeling that such high virtue was a yoke upon him. The goodness of his wife gave him no violent emotions, and violent emotions were what he wanted. What myriads of scenes are played in the depths of his souls, beneath the cold exterior ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac
... influence than Montesquieu was Voltaire. He exercised an irresistible fascination on the intellectual class by the unrivalled lucidity and logic of his powerful yet witty prose. He carried common sense to the point of genius, threw the glamour of intellect over the materialism of his ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... nails in distraction, and still watched with a sort of fascination the little square of country where he felt more and more afraid that Master Angelot was ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... Sergeant Shell, they made up a little middle class of their own, when Dora's heart had gone out, ungrudgingly, to handsome, clever, educated George Rawdon, whom all men could see had been reared among gentlefolk, and who, as further fascination, was supplied from some unknown source with money which he spent ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... Louise. See what a costly treasure has bloomed for me from the grave of my betrayed love. Look at that lovely young woman who, although disguised as a shepherdess, stands out in the midst of all other women, an imperial queen! a queen of beauty, grace, and fascination! This charming, innocent, and modest young woman belongs to me; she is my wife; and I have your inconstancy to thank you for this rare gem. Oh, madame, I have indeed reason to forgive you for the past, to be grateful to you as long as I live. But for you I should never ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... cats in general, the unexpected apparition of this one in particular utterly confounded me. When I had a little recovered from the fascination of its glance, I started up; the cat fled, and emboldened by this, I rushed out of the house in pursuit; but it had disappeared. It was the only time I ever saw one in the valley, and how it got there I cannot imagine. ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... sufficient strength of character to relinquish his own selfish desires for the good of his species? Can it be that not one Apeman exists whom nature can rely upon for the great work of uplifting humanity, who is brave enough to resist the temporary fascination of a lovable woman? And have I lived to see the reincarnated soul of the bravest and noblest man that ever breathed, bound within the flesh of a wretched coward incapable of living for any greater purpose than his own self-gratification? Am I to understand ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... Balmerino. I had little doubt that a Stuart restoration was the cause for which he was recruiting, and all day I had balanced in my mind the pros and cons of such an attempt. I will never deny that the exiled race held for me a strong fascination. The Stuarts may have been weak, headstrong Kings in their prosperity, but they had the royal virtue of drawing men to them in their misfortune. They were never so well loved, nor so worthy of it, ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... be possessed of abstract volition. I could not take them off. They were held by some terrible fascination; and I felt, or fancied, that the moment this should be broken, the animal ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... He must be of a certain imposing height to obtain his position, and his luxurious yellow moustaches and blue black eyes, enriched and intensified by southern blood, give him a strange fascination. The cold, manly beauty and strength of a northern blonde meet with the heat and lithe grace of the more supple southerner to produce this paragon. There is a combination of half-indolent elegance and sensuous langour, with a ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... ever-present and growing fascination lay in Wildfire's clear, sharply defined tracks. It was as if every hoof mark told him something. Once, far up the interminable ascent, he found on a ridge top tracks showing where Wildfire had ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... moments. Euphra's best was when she was trying to fascinate. Then she was — fascinating. During the first morning that Hugh spent at Arnstead, she had probably been making up her mind whether, between her and Hugh, it was to be war to the knife, or fascination. The latter had carried the day, and was now carrying him. But had she calculated that fascination may re-act ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... and perennial fascination in the contemplation of the future. The past is a fixed province, the finished result of an ever-moving present. The future is the province of the poet, the prophet and the seer. The past is adamant, the future is plastic ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... his eyes to escape the fascination and, controlling himself, mastering his voice so that she might not perceive its tremor, ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... Among these persons there were wild-eyed hangers-on telling of a flight upward on a fiery chariot, as well as a predicted disappearance and reappearance after three days. Such were the stories being gulped down by the thousands who still clung with an indefinable fascination to the memory of the charlatan. Meantime the soldier Wilkes had died of his injuries, and the coroner's inquiry was to be ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... not think his own mother would call him handsome; he is certainly not young, nor particularly brilliant; and yet there is a fascination about the proprietor of this rambling old house that gave me an unaccountable desire to become his tenant. He is a wine-merchant, and occupies, as his counting-room, the entire second floor. The place is desolate-looking ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... the body on the rocks. His knees buckled and Glaudot caught him, stopping him from falling. Chandler tried to say something, but the words wouldn't come. He stared with horrified fascination at the body, which was an exact copy of himself—or a copy of the dead man from whom the ...
— A World Called Crimson • Darius John Granger
... Drew was soon heavily short of Erie stock in Wall Street. The market was buoyant; speculation was rampant; and the outside public, the delight and prey of Wall Street gamblers, were as usual drawn in by the fascination of acquiring wealth without labor. All this time our friend, Daniel Drew, was quietly selling Erie stock and closing contracts for the future delivery of the certificates; and he was doing this at rising prices. As the days went by, ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... pre-eminently, heard, only a little later, the same grandeur, and the same subtle beauty in the sounds of their mother-tongue, only waiting the artist's skill to be combined and harmonized into strains of mysterious fascination. But Spenser was the first to show that he had acquired a command over what had hitherto been heard only in exquisite fragments, passing too soon into roughness and confusion. It would be too much to say that his cunning ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... mighty. And I gazed at the immense columns and at the light and little figures all about me. Bird and Sphinx, delicate whimsicality, calm and terrific power! In Egypt the dead men have combined them, and the combination has an irresistible fascination, weaves a spell that entrances you in the sunshine and beneath the blinding blue. At Abydos I knew it. And I loved the columns that seemed blown out with exuberant strength, and I loved the delicate white walls ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... was increased as ring after ring of the lens antenna was thrown into play. Each time the centering operation was more delicate. The image grew until it filled a quarter of the screen. We stared at it in fascination. ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... of fascination. Somehow or other he felt that all these people must have been born on purpose to be together! It seemed to him that the Epanchins were not having a party at all; that these people must have been here always, and that he himself was one of them—returned among them after ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... occupation of many; the folly of unwise ambition impels others. There is a fascination about social life that appeals to the majority of natures. Let us compare society to a mountain whose sides are a steep incline, difficult to mount. To stand upon the summit, to become the cynosure of all eyes, is a desire inherent, seemingly, in all humanity; ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... the eye can reach from a hill; when you have seen every caliber at work and your head aches from the noise, the thing becomes overpowering and monotonous. Yet you return again, drawn by the uncanny fascination of ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... the last straw; for I thought that some dreadful fascination was impelling my friend to hurl himself out! Wildly I threw my arms about him, and ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... be a sort of fascination in frightful punishments, but, to say the least of it, all these things demoralize the community. In some countries, you know, they whip people for petty offences. The whipping, however, does no good, and on the other hand it does harm; ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... nothing but the nearness and pallor of her face, the darkness of her eyes shining up at him. All his life seemed to have rushed concentrating into that one instant of extreme trouble, happiness, trembling fascination. ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... birth of a nation; it was the creation of a great free republic based upon traditions of personal liberty which theretofore had been confined to a single little island, but which it was purposed should spread to all mankind. And the singular fascination of American history is that it has been a process of constant re-creation, of making over again in each generation the thing which was conceived at first. You know how peculiarly necessary that has been in our case, ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... loss of dignity of life, into an unseemly susceptibility to extravagant adulation, as he succumbed to surroundings, the corruptness of which none at first realized more clearly, and where one woman was the sole detaining fascination. And withal, as the poison worked, discontent with self bred discontent with others, and with his own conditions. Petulance and querulousness too often supplanted the mental elasticity, which had counted for naught the roughnesses ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... positive contribution to make to human satisfaction. Though we try to arrange the serious affairs of life so as to avoid danger as much as possible, in play we seek such dangers as we can escape by skilful work. The fascination of gambling and of taking various risks probably comes from the satisfaction of the fear and ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... occasion, his speech abounded with tropes and figures; and his performance attracted a fuller audience than had yet assembled in the hall. It lasted three whole days; but only a few fragments of his speech are extant, and scarcely any one of those in existence convey any notion of the fascination which, it is said, that his oratory exercised over those who heard him. One of the most beautiful portions of his speech related to the correspondence of the governor and his agent. It reads thus:—"When I see in many of these letters the infirmities ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... influence at court, it was now a matter of very promising and not too risky speculation. To George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, one of the most interesting characters at the court of James I., the business had peculiar fascination. He was in both the New England Company and the Virginia Company, and after the charter of the latter was revoked he was one of the Provisional Council for the government of Virginia. Nothing daunted by the ill luck of these companies, he tried colonizing ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... Franciscan gospel is in these words, but to understand the fascination which it exerted we must have gone through the School of the Middle Ages, and there listened to the interminable tournaments of dialectics by which minds were dried up; we must have seen the Church of the thirteenth century, ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... her eyes to his. They were wet with tears. He had touched the pity in them. She saw him as she had never seen him before. All her fear of him vanished, and she was held by the cords of a strange fascination. She knew not what she did. The owl looked at her queerly, and she ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... Osuna was a man of unusual height and heaviness of build. His black eyes were set close to his fine Roman nose. The mouth was so tightly compressed that its original curves were quite destroyed, and the intellectual development of the brow was very marked. His hands exerted a peculiar fascination over Roldan. They were of huge size, even for so big a man, lean and knotted, with square-tipped fingers. The skin on them was fine and brown; it looked as soft as a woman's. He used them a good ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... your private life, many biographers contrive to make public as much of it as possible. Your name, even in life, was, alas! a kind of ducdame to bring people of no very great sense into your circle. This curious fascination has attracted round your memory a feeble folk of commentators, biographers, anecdotists, and others of the tribe. They swarm round you like carrion-flies round a sensitive plant, like night-birds bewildered by the sun. Men of sense and taste have written on you, indeed; ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... gone since the penitent soul of Lola Montez took flight to its Creator; but there must be some still living whose pulses quicken at the very mention of a name which recalls so much mystery and romance and bewildering fascination of the days when, for them, as for her, "all the world ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... good father was too cunning for him, and that he must give in at last. Nevertheless, like a rabbit who runs squealing round and round before the weasel, into whose jaws it knows that it must jump at last by force of fascination, he parried and parried, and pretended to be stupid, and surprised, and honorably scrupulous, and even angry; while every question as to her being married or single, Catholic or heretic, English or foreign, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... plunged into a discussion on the business of the Silver Shoe. Clara always listened with fascination to the details of buying and selling. Novelettes left her cold, but the devices to attract customers, the lines that were sold at a loss for advertisement, the history of the famous Silver Shoe that Jonah sold in thousands at a halfpenny a pair profit, astonished ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... high carnival. For an instant there was intense darkness, followed by a succession of brilliant, flickering illuminations, bewildering to the senses. Several times she was forced to turn away her head, but only for a second, as she was compelled by some strange fascination to look upon the wonderful spectacle. Flash upon flash, racing gleam upon gleam, Stygian darkness and crashing thunder intermingled in an appalling confusion. Jean felt that she could endure the sight no longer. ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... mood over the fact that she had unearthed a big nugget by herself. Beginner's luck, Bill said teasingly, but that did not diminish her elation. The old, adventurous glamour, which the long winter and moods of depression had worn threadbare, began to cast its pleasant spell over her again. The fascination of the gold hunt gripped her. Not for the stuff itself, but for what it would get. She wondered if the men who dared the impassive solitudes of the North for weary, lonesome years saw in every morsel of the gold they found a picture of what that gold would buy them in kindlier ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... hands and no wet fingers, I was occasionally allowed to look at on a winter's Sabbath evening, and which always sent me to bed in a melancholy frame of mind, yet drew me to their inspection with a most curious fascination when the next ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... with wholesome, stirring adventures, replete with the dashing spirit of the border, told with dramatic dash and absorbing fascination of style and plot. ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... produced was unparalleled. Near Bristol, he sometimes assembled as many as twenty thousand. But they were chiefly the colliers, drawn forth from their subterranean working places. But his eloquence had equal fascination for the people of London and the vicinity. In Moorfields, on Kennington Common, and on Blackheath, he sometimes drew a crowd of forty thousand people, all of whom could hear his voice. He could draw tears from Hume, and money from Dr. ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... scandals. He was a being of wonderful personal attractions. He had not only strong poetical, but also strong logical power. He was daring in speculation, and vigorous in sophistical argument; beautiful, dazzling, and possessed of magnetic power of fascination. His sister had been kind and considerate to Lady Byron when Lord Byron was brutal and cruel. She had been overcome by him, as a weaker nature sometimes sinks under the force of a stronger one; and Lady ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... magical hi their effects. Certain graces and harmonies of both may be acquired by diligent study and imitation, but only in a limited degree; whereas by their natural possessors they are exercised spontaneously, almost unconsciously, and with ever-varying fascination. Reynolds soon understood and appreciated the merits of Goldsmith, and a sincere and ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... him, as he stood there palpably before us, one seemed to understand better than ever Thackeray's declaration in regard to those same menials in plush breeches, that a certain delightful "quivering swagger" of the calves about them, had for him always, as he expressed it, "a frantic fascination!" Immediately afterwards, however, as the Reader turned a new leaf, in place of the momentary apparition of that particular flunkey, three very different persons appeared to step across the threshold on to the platform. Low-spirited, Mr. Filer, with his hands in ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... books however were by and by given up; none that she had in the least suited her wants; only the Bible proved both a light and a power to her. It had a great fascination for Eleanor, and it sometimes made her hopeful; at any rate she persevered in reading it, through gloom and cheer; and her mind when she was alone knew much more of the former condition than of the latter. When not alone, she was in a whirl of other occupations and interests. The ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... forth the well-known story of the man who sold his soul to the devil in return for complete gratification of his desires during his life on earth. Something of its fame is due to its association, through its main plot, with Goethe's masterpiece; something may be attributed to the fascination of its theme; something must be granted to the terrible force of one or two scenes. It is hard to believe that its own artistic and dramatic qualities could have secured unaided the reputation which it appears to possess among some critics. More even than ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... dwell. It can be read with delight by a child of ten. It is put into the mouth of a child of about that age, but the adult must be strangely constituted who can remain indifferent to its haunting spell or who can resist the fascination which lies ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... black eyes held a singular fascination in their mild, sparkling depths, now full of tender, loving light and childish gladness; and the flexible red lips curled in lines of orthodox Greek perfection, showing remarkable versatility of expression; while the broad, full, polished forehead with ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... in it had moved her; and to the woman whose life had been cloudless and cradled in ease from her birth, there was that in the suffering and the sacrifice which the anecdote suggested, that had at once the fascination of the unknown, and the pathos of a life so far removed from her, so little dreamed of by her, that all its coarser cruelty was hidden, while only its unutterable sadness and courage remained ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... and the challenge to explain it which appears to proceed from him, render him, to my sense, remarkably interesting. The artist whose idiosyncrasies, whose limitations, if you will, make us question and wonder, in the light of his fame, has an element of fascination not attaching to conciliatory talents. If M. Eugene Montrosier may say of him without scandalizing us that such and such of his drawings belong to the very highest art, it is interesting (and Daumier profits by the interest) ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... Its theme is the battle for power that goes on in an old New York family and culminates on the verge of murder. "This one deserves especial thanks and hearty praises. It returns us to expertness and fascination and fine mood in the theater." Gilbert Gabriel, in New York American. "At last a play has come to town that can be heartily recommended. Sturdy theater, compelling. Once you are within the radius of Double Door you will remain transfixed until you know what's behind it." Bernard Sobel, Daily ...
— Why the Chimes Rang: A Play in One Act • Elizabeth Apthorp McFadden
... and fascination of this idea, Louise set to work to tabulate the information she had received thus far, noting the; element of mystery each fact evolved. First, Captain Wegg must have been a rich man in order to build this house, maintain two servants ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... of Temptation Lures my listening soul to sin, And, with baleful fascination, Strives my vain, weak heart to win; With the combat faint and weary, If I call not then on thee— In that time of peril dreary, ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... at first disguises itself, and to know that she loved was now as painful as to love without knowing it had been delicious. FERAMORZ, too,—what misery would be his, if the sweet hours of intercourse so imprudently allowed them should have stolen into his heart the same fatal fascination as into hers;—if, notwithstanding her rank and the modest homage he always paid to it, even he should have yielded to the influence of those long and happy interviews where music, poetry, the delightful scenes of nature,—all had tended to bring their hearts close together and to waken by every ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... through the putrid and heaving mass many disjointed limbs and ghastly faces could be discerned, the long hair of women and the tiny arms of children appearing on the surface. It was a horrible sight—so horrible, that it possessed a fascination peculiar to itself, and, in spite of his loathing, Leonard lingered to gaze at it. Strange and fantastic thoughts possessed him. He fancied that the legs and arms moved—that the eyes of some of the corpses opened and glared at him—and that the whole rotting ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... to keep down his next question, but it had a sort of fascination for him, and he could ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... there are dancing and singing, and then you may hear and see the extremely dramatic meles of the Hawaiians—a kind of rapid chant, the tones of which have a singular fascination for my ears. A man and woman, usually elderly or middle-aged people, sit down opposite each other, or side by side facing the company. One begins and the other joins in; the sound is as of a shrill kind of drone; it is accompanied ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... woods—and it's been entirely neglected for a number of years. He and some others, including the owner, are working to get it straight—re-making roads, building bridges, cutting down trees. It sounds Quixotic, but I can see the fascination. Besides, he took the work ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... a wistful gaze Across green valleys, back to tender Mays; And something of her large contentment goes, When Roses die; Yet all her subtle fascination stays To lure us into idle, sweet delays. The lowered awning by the hammock shows Inviting nooks for dreaming and repose; Oh, restful are the pleasures of those days ...
— The Englishman and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... to liberate any of the smaller insects; every fly, removed from the leaf upon which it had been feeding, returned immediately it was at liberty to do so, and walked down the fatal cup as though drawn to it by a species of irresistible fascination. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various
... a good rat-dog in there and watch him work," laughed Brent, turning again to face the door as though he found fascination in the thought. Then idly he laid his hand on the knob as though to try its opening, but he went no further. Just at the side of the lintel hung a broken and extremely dirty mirror and a quick glance into its revealing surface ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... in company certainly did not detract from her fascination upon a closer acquaintance. Of those who fell under the spell, the more fortunate came at once to terms of friendship with her, which remained undisturbed through life. Thus, of one among this numerous brotherhood, Francois Rollinat, with whom she ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... in her mind no intention whatever of letting herself do anything so foolish as to marry him. But there were moments when the thought of it had a dreadful fascination for her. She did not invite such thoughts to ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... grotesque, or melancholy, but always grand—the complete expression of the life of an epileptic, mad for enjoyment, unable to read or write, using all his defects as stepping-stones, turning every blunder and disaster into a triumph? Did not you feel a sense of his fascination exerted over a greedy and lustful race, in this overture, which is an epitome ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... Jose, "that you now follow this work because of its fascination—for you must have found and laid aside much treasure in the years that you ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... only heard the low beating of his heart, and only beheld the 'Dead Child' up there in the air, near the ceiling. He did not take his eyes off it, a prey to a fascination which held him there, quite independent of his will. The crowd turned round him, people's feet trod on his own, he was pushed and carried away; and, like some inert object, he abandoned himself, waved about, ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... "foul and furtive boats," is closely connected with the personality of Dickens himself, having been the residence of his godfather, one Huffam, a rigger employed in a waterside shipyard. What wonder then that the fascination of riverside London fell early upon the writer ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... cannot immediately be made available for the ordinary student, or become absorbed into the popular histories of the day. We can ill spare from our list the names of those writers, who, from Livy to Lord Macaulay, have added a fascination to the study of history; though in their works most beautiful Mock Pearls abound. But the student should be warned against ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... daybreak, the dockyard boats began to row alongside, with grey-coated convicts. Reuben watched them as they came on board, with a sort of fascination with their closely cut hair, bullet heads, and evil faces. Although he had no doubt that the repulsive expression was due partly to the close-cut hair and shaved faces, and their hideous garb, he could scarcely repress a shudder as he looked at them. In some faces an expression ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... darkest lashes, and he gazed entranced; for the red glow of the little oil-lamp covered all the strangeness of her complexion. But as soon as he met a stolen glance out of those eyes unveiled, his soul shuddered within him. Lovely face and craving eyes alternated fascination ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... gives him the strong hold he has on the hearts of the American people, or the absorbing interest he possesses in the eyes of foreigners. The fact that in his own person he condenses a period of national history is a large factor in the fascination he exercises over others. He may fitly be named the "Last of the Great Scouts." He has had great predecessors. The mantle of Kit Carson has fallen upon his shoulders, and he wears it worthily. He has not, and never can have, a successor. He is the vanishing-point ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... to a man of a great mind. Nature has treated him as a favourite. His stature is not tall, but handsome; his expressive countenance paints and reflects every emotion of his soul. His gestures are wonderfully graceful, like his delivery. There is a fascination in the soft gaze of his eyes, which none can but admire. Being a great reader, and endowed by nature with a good memory, he supplies himself with the most complicated dates and historical events. Nothing can equal the variety of his matter. I have heard him ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... sufferings which prepared the way for its triumph in many lands and issued in its cruel suppression in others, and the story of the men who by God's grace were enabled to bear the brunt of the battle and to lead their countrymen on to victory or to martyrdom, will ever have a fascination for all in whose hearts faith in the great truths, then more clearly brought to light, has not yet altogether evaporated. The movement then initiated was no mere effort to get quit of acknowledged scandals, ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... but could not; this doubtless was caused by some Inchantment. But to proceed to what I intend; the Eyes of Persons by reason of Inchanting Charms, may not only see what others do not, but be under such power of Fascination, as that things which are not, shall appear to them as real: The Apostle speaks of Bewitched Eyes, Gal. 3.1. and we know from Scripture, that the Imaginations of men have by Inchantments been imposed upon; and ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... had its irresistible fascination, and now and then came reflective moments like the one on February 25, when the doctor, encamped on the way from the Roosevelt to ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... above. Fauntleroy's fate seems to have had great fascination for Lamb. He returned to the subject, in the vein of this letter, in "The Last Peach," a little essay printed in the London Magazine for April, 1825 (see Vol. I. of this edition); and in Memories ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... really one of the strangest things I had ever come across up to that early period of my life. Since then I have met with even more curious things; but being then of an age when strange things have a great fascination I was bent on getting to the bottom of the mystery. However, it was in vain; doubtless the fat woman suspected my motives in calling on her and sipping mate and listening to her talk, for whenever I mentioned her daughter in a tentative way, ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... responded Tutt. "Though you will doubtless find it entertaining enough, but indirectly—atmospherically so to speak—it touches upon doctrines of jurisprudence, of religion and of philosophy, replete with historic fascination." ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... military ball at Knightsbridge, at which she had been present, and some private theatricals and tableaux that had followed. She had a vivid, picturesque way of describing things, and Bessie listened with a sort of dreamy fascination that lulled her into forgetfulness of ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... in the haunted forest, and without a doubt these were the Esemkofu, the evil ghosts that dwelt therein. Yes, that was what they were, and yet she could not take her eyes off them—the sight of them held her with a horrible fascination. But if they were ghosts, why did they sing and dance like men? Why did they wave those sharp stones aloft, and quarrel and strike each other? And why did they make a fire as men do when they wish to cook food? More, what was it that they rejoiced over, that long ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard
... prayer is repeated at every Sunday morning service of the Episcopal church, described woman as "a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic peril, a deadly fascination, and a painted ill." The doctrine of priestly celibacy which was early taught, though not thoroughly enforced until the eleventh century, and the general tenor of the Church against marriage, together with its teaching woman's greater sinfulness, were the great causes of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... stay out long! We will only go around that point that I see before us. What a fascination there is in a turning point! We always want to see what is on the other side," ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... was that of the evil eye. According to this belief, certain persons could bewitch, injure, and kill by a glance. Children and domestic animals were thought to be particularly susceptible to the effects of "fascination." In order to guard against it charms of various sorts, including texts from the Bible, were carried about. The belief in the evil eye came into Europe from pagan antiquity. It survived the Middle Ages and lingers ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... made any special noise, for the footsteps above did not hasten. I had, therefore, the satisfaction of feeling myself saved from what might have been a very special danger, and was moving slowly away, when the fascination which all horrible objects exert upon the human soul seized me with a power I could not resist, and I turned slowly but irresistibly towards the corner where I knew the fatal vat ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... and where his path lay near fir trees, the snow, where fell their heavy shade, looked so dead and cold and grey that it recalled thoughts of night-time, or of storm, or of other gloomy things; and this thought of gloom, which the dense shadow brought, had fascination, because it was such a wondrous contrast to the rest of the happy valley, in which the sunbeams, now aslant, were giving a golden tinge to the icy facets of crags, to high-perched circling drifts, to the ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... world-weary man, a cynic whose heart was somewhat imbittered by its large experience of human nature, take up one of Oliver Optic's books and read it at a sitting, neglecting his work in yielding to the fascination of the pages. When a mature and exceedingly well-informed mind, long despoiled of all its freshness, can thus find pleasure in a book for boys, no additional words of recommendation ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic
... man is surely guilty," said I to myself, "who is pronounced so, when that judge has summed up the evidence against him." I had never in my life beheld so much benignity and gentleness—so much of truth, ingenuousness, and pure humanity, stamped on a face before. There was the fascination of the serpent there; and the longer I looked, the more pleasing became the countenance, and the longer I wished to protract my observation and delight. He was a middle-aged man—for a judge, he might be called young. His ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... quite understand that," the military secretary said, with a smile. "I can quite realize the fascination of the life of a partisan leader; especially when he has, which Trant and the others have not, a body of men whom he has trained himself, and upon whom he can absolutely rely. You can still, of course, wear the uniform of a field officer on the general's ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... on now delightfully. Matilda sometimes lifted her eyes to look at her opposite neighbours; they had a fascination for her. Judith was such a sprite of mischief, to judge from her looks; and David was so utterly unlike Norton. Norton was always acute and frank, outspoken when he had a mind, fearless and careless at all times. Fearless ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner
... which they chose to impose on their work. Their sculpture shares with the paintings of Botticelli and the churches of Brunelleschi that profound expressiveness, that intimate impress of an indwelling soul, which is the peculiar fascination of the art of Italy in that century. Their works have been much neglected, and often almost hidden away amid the frippery of modern decoration, and we come with some surprise on the places where their fire ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... of new fields, especially at San Diego and Tulare—experiments yet, but hopeful ones. Another token is that in one, at least, of our helpers evangelistic power seems to appear. Not without anxiety did I see him brought within the fascination of the "Holiness Band" and the "Salvation Army," and my fears were not groundless, as some minor symptoms in his spiritual life clearly disclosed. But I believe that his Master and ours knew what was going on and will ...
— The American Missionary—Volume 39, No. 02, February, 1885 • Various
... their inventors, the penetrating nature of their institutions, the reproductive influence of their example, the contagious activity of their doctrines, the active proselytism of their reforms, the irresistible fascination of their originality, the exuberant florescence of their Christianity, all exert a profound influence upon European culture and on the morals, the politics, and the destinies of the world, and guide, improve, ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... arms until then, with upturned face and piteous, frightened eyes—like a bird that feels itself within the toils of a snake, yet whose horror is blent with a certain fascination. Now, as she spoke, her will seemed to reassert itself, and she struggled to break from me. But as her fierceness of hatred grew, so did my fierceness of resolve gain strength, and I held ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... fascination for the novelty-loving Molly, in this case its age being the to her new thing. She had tried her own strength in lifting the great beam and lowering the bucket from its pole; and, perhaps, she had done so now and had fallen over the curb into the ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... thereabout, was found to have died worth upwards of L.60,000, all secured by mortgages bearing 7 per cent interest on the Brazilian slave-estates of a relative by marriage. But as an illustration of power—and power under any form of development has a singular fascination for most minds—I have thought it may not be uninteresting to glance briefly at a few of the more salient features ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... evening, and no one had seen her. I told you how my heart went out to her as I looked on her sweet, bright, yet somewhat timid face; there was a perfect witchery in her eyes. I felt that I could gaze into them for ever; there was about them a spell, a fascination that I have never seen in others; they laughed as they looked at you, and yet they were not merely laughing eyes; perhaps the long, drooping lashes somewhat modified the expression, and helped to give the peculiarity so strikingly ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... effort of the imagination. Yet, when we come to the second part, the magic is already half gone out of it. Rossetti says, in a printed letter, with admirable truth: "The conception, and partly the execution, of the passage in which Christabel repeats by fascination the serpent-glance of Geraldine, is magnificent; but that is the only good narrative passage in part two. The rest seems to have reached a fatal facility of jingling, at the heels whereof followed ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... above all other Northumbrian streams, though some of them are worthy rivals. These two places are Weldon Bridge and Felton; the old Angler's Inn at the first-named is a favourite rendezvous of the fraternity of rod and creel. Fishermen have long known the fascination of these two places, and I quote from the "Fisherman's Garland" two stanzas written by two enthusiastic anglers in praise of them. The writers are Robert Roxby and ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... own line. And at the full height of one's powers to be baulked by the morbidity, for I can call it nothing else, of a Percy Podby! Gertie," he went on dreamily, "I wish I could make you understand something of the fascination which an artist finds in his medium. To be lying here, at the top of the world, with the lazy sea crawling beneath us so ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... but I've quite a prevalence (predilection?) for siggers." So Wiggins puffed and chatted away; and at last, delighted with the sprightly conversation of the lady, seated himself on the small-beer barrel, and so far forgot his economy in the fascination of his entertainer, that he purchased a second. At this favourable juncture, Mrs. Warner, (for she was a widow acknowledging five-and-twenty) ordered the grinning shop-boy, who was chopping the 'lump,' to take home them 'ere dips to a customer who lived at some distance. Wiggins, ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... infirmity, though he was not sensible of it with regard to any other woman. In her place, too, it is said, a young virgin was substituted under a mask, to undergo a legal inspection by a jury of matrons. After such a trial, seconded by court influence, and supported by the ridiculous opinion of fascination or witchcraft, the sentence of divorce was pronounced between the earl of Essex and his countess.[*] And, to crown the scene, the king, solicitous lest the lady should lose any rank by her new marriage, bestowed on his minion the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... group which gathered around him was neither a sect nor a school; but a common spirit, a sweet and penetrating influence was felt. His amiable character, accompanied doubtless by one of those lovely faces[9] which sometimes appear in the Jewish race, threw around him a fascination from which no one in the midst of these kindly and ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... source of satisfaction and admiration; and when the Emperor of the French himself came to town, as Heine saw him do in 1810, we can easily understand how the enthusiasm of the boy surrounded the person of Napoleon, and the idea that he was supposed to represent, with a glamor that never lost its fascination for the man. To Heine, Napoleon was the incarnation of the French Revolution, the glorious new-comer who took by storm the intrenched strongholds of hereditary privilege, the dauntless leader in whose army every common soldier carried a field marshal's baton in his ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... guitar and sang a love-song in a manner which can best be described as no manner at all; her expression never changed, her voice never warmed. At first the effect was flat, then the subtle fascination of it grew until the very memory of impassioned tones was florid and surfeiting. When she finished, Ignestria's heart was hammering upon the steel in which he fancied ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... Ages was drawing near to the Tudors is interesting, because of the riddle of Richard III. Chesterton's description of this strange king is full of fascination if also it is full of truth: 'He was not an ogre shedding rivers of blood, yet a crimson cloud cannot be dispelled from his memory. Whether or not he was a good man, he was apparently a good king, and even a popular one. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... like an angel. All the same, you frighten me a little. You've a terrible fascination for the child. Don't use it too much. Let her feelings alone. Don't work on them for the fun of seeing what she'll do next. If she tries to break away don't bring her back. Don't jerk her on the chain. Don't—amuse ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... way, and again upon the grounds, Burr related the history of the old landmark, telling much with the fascination of personal knowledge. The tale of the Morrises, of Washington and of Mary Philipse was yet upon his tongue, as he led Ellis through the broad pillared ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... fascination in the study of the men and women of the eighteenth century of France and England; they, their manners and customs, have disappeared for ever, but Gainsborough's gracious women, Sir Joshua Reynolds's charming ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... Constitution in opposition to such a scheme. A large surplus in the Treasury is the parent of many ills, and among them is found a tendency to an extremely liberal, if not loose, construction of the Constitution. It also attracts the gaze of States and individuals with a kind of fascination, and gives rise to plans and pretensions that an uncongested Treasury never ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... slip; she urges him on with a fiery eloquence, which has at command all those sophisms that serve to throw a false splendour over crime. Little more than the mere execution falls to the share of Macbeth; he is driven into it, as it were, in a tumult of fascination. Repentance immediately follows, nay, even precedes the deed, and the stings of conscience leave him rest neither night nor day. But he is now fairly entangled in the snares of hell; truly frightful is it to behold that same ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... menial activities had been to clean the animal cages. And there Shann Lantee had found something new, something so absorbing that most of the tiring dull labor had ceased to exist except as tasks to finish before he could return to the fascination ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... gratefully, and I sighed as I examined his physiognomy in the hope of finding one attractive feature. I sighed again as I finished my inspection. What a pity, I thought, that he had not just a little dash about him, even the merest soupcon of fascination, in order to make the situation interesting. He was still holding my hand as the door opened and Elizabeth shot into view with the ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... hardly any guide to our artillery fire. Yet it is to the artillery fire that all the losses of the Boers that day were due. The cleverness of Cronje's disposition of his trenches some hundred yards ahead of the kopjes is accentuated by the fascination which any rising object has for a gunner. Prince Kraft tells the story of how at Sadowa he unlimbered his guns two hundred yards in front of the church of Chlum, and how the Austrian reply fire almost invariably pitched upon the steeple. So our own ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... her now in what seemed to her a very threatening way. His shaggy eyebrows were drawn together and his eyes had lightning in them. She continued staring at him, held by the fascination of her terror. In that instant she realized a great many things: chiefly that she had never seen her husband angry with her, because she had taken every path to avoid the possibility, and that it was even more sickening than she could have thought. But she knew also that the battle was on, and ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... he had lost him: when he left the study he had been lifted straight to the bosom of the Father to whom he had prayed! Slow through the dusk dawned his face. He had not then been taken bodily!—not the less was he gone!—that was a dead face! But as he gazed in a fascination of fear, his eyes grew abler to distinguish, and he saw that he breathed. He was astonished to find how weak was the revulsion: we know more about our feelings than about anything else, yet scarcely understand them at all; they play what seem ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald |
