"Siren" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mahones was threading her way through a fleet of small fishing-boats, as I could tell by the reduced speed, the hooting of the siren, and the constant and prolonged rattle of the steering rods. Soon she would bring up to the quay in Palma harbour. Why should I not get ashore there and work out the hard ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... was a lovely affair and there wasn't a more cheerful crowd of fellows on earth than they were when they marched down the street at one A. M. eighteen abreast and singing one of the dear old songs in a kind of a steam-siren barytone. ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... an innocent siren, studying ways of bewitchment, of endearment. She became a bewildering revelation to him, amazing him, delighting him. After he had begun to conclude that he knew her she became not one woman, but a score of women: demure, elfin, pensive, ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... left the affair, nor ever spoke again of Malpas and the siren who presided there. And meanwhile the autumn faded into winter, and with the coming of stormy weather Sir Oliver and Rosamund had fewer opportunities of meeting. To Godolphin Court he would not go since she did not desire it; and himself he deemed it best to remain away since otherwise ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... motto of this print, which was published by Humphrey on February 6 of 1801. "The Bulstrode Siren" (Mrs. Billington), where she is seen warbling to the Duke of Portland, fares little better than Emma herself; and Sir William Hamilton appears, in another of Gillray's satires, as "A Conoscenti contemplating ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... flowers' perfume turns to singing, Heard afar over moonlit seas; The siren's song, grown faint with winging, Falls in ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... expression which plainly said it was about time, and reached over to press down the emergency key. He held it down. Eleven light-years away, if one had to depend upon impossibly slow three-dimensional space time, a siren which could be heard for ten miles in ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... before your eyes as a bit of the drapery that goes to the ball of life. But when dawn almost comes and the ball is over, you mustn't expect the paper roses to smell. This mystifies you a little, for you are a plain, downright siren. Your lovers' songs have been in simple measures. Well, the moral is this: take my love-letters as real (in their way) as the play, or rather, the opera; infinitely true for the moment, unreal for the hour, eternal as the dead passions of the ages. Further, ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... the plan of the place, sought refuge with a pitying friend and died here penniless. The long war of twenty years in Europe brought to America thousands in search of safety and rest, and to these the magnetism of the word "capital" was often the song of the siren wiling them to the poor-house. By the time Europe had wearied of the sword, the fatality attending high living, large slave-tilled estates, the love of official society, and the defective education of the young men of tide-water Virginia and Maryland, produced ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... mixed him a tumbler, and must taste a drop of it—a little drop; and the Captain must sing her one of his songs, his dear songs, and teach it to her. And when he had sung an Irish melody in his rich quavering voice, fancying it was he who was fascinating the little siren, she put her little question about Arthur Pendennis and his novel, and having got an answer, cared for nothing more, but left the Captain at the piano about to sing her another song, and the dinner-tray on the passage, and ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and perhaps claim his property with a keen glance at my face to see whether I had read anything. I intended of course to put on what Jack calls my "rag doll expression," one which I find most useful in social intercourse. But the man didn't start. He could not have helped hearing my siren hoot, but he never turned a hair or anything else. He went on pointing out perfectly irrelevant porpoises. I had to admire his nerve! For instantly I seemed to read the inner workings of his mind, and understood that he'd deliberately ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... much as I have played the Infidel, If, as the fated Pitcher to the Well, Too oft to Love's empyrean Font I stray, To fall, at last, beneath some Siren's spell, ...
— The Rubaiyat of a Bachelor • Helen Rowland
... but too long For thy manna divine! I've drunk enough of thy wine, And I know thy siren song: Waiting for a lucky turn, I have wasted my best days: Take up thy magic-lantern And elsewhere display its rays. 'Tis very nice to run, But to ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... "Sing, siren, for thyself and I will dote: Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs, And as a bed I'll take them and there lie; * * * * * It is thyself, mine own self's better part, Mine eye's clear eye, ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... to change my ways"— Thus Juan said—"No more for me A round on round of idle days 'Mid soul-debasing company. I've pleasure woo'd from year to year As by a siren onward lured, At last of roystering, once held dear, I'm as a man of ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... hour later the encircling hills of the bay echoed the shriek of a siren. She got up, looked out of the window, and saw the white shape of the German yacht moving out towards the fringe of islands ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... discontents of the tribe were near the crisis, earnestly fostered by the French on the western boundaries, that vast domain then known as Louisiana, toward whose siren voice the Cherokees had ever lent a willing ear. The building by the British government, two or three years later, of those great defensive works, Fort Prince George and Fort Loudon, situated respectively at the eastern and western extremities of the Cherokee ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... Upon his hated hyacinthine head? Have they not wiled from me the fickle heart Of perjured BANDOLINA! There, he stands Before my window, where a winsome form, Rotating slow with measured self-display, Has caught his errant eye. Now, demi-siren, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 24, 1887 • Various
... water, which is not at all influenced by changes in the weather. At some twenty or thirty feet below the surface there is exceedingly little disturbance of the water, although there may be large waves at the surface. Suppose a large water-siren like this—experiment shown—is working at as great a depth as is available, off a dangerous coast, the sound it gives out is transmitted so as to be heard at exceedingly great distances by an ear pressed against ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... in another pamphlet, for the sake of the King's honour. At the same time, he wished that the grace of God might assist his Majesty, and enable him to turn wholly to the gospel, and shut his ears against the siren voices ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... and they will say you are possessed of a devil!" Then he thought of another and grander saying—"Whoso, putting his hand to the plough, looketh back, is not fit for the Kingdom of God!—" and over all rang the enchanting call of the siren's voice— ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... never looked more bewitchingly beautiful than this siren of France as she half reclined upon the couch, playing upon the King's heart with a bit of memory. His great nature realized ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... city had become so. An occasional Madison Avenue car could be heard ringing along the cold rails, or rhythmically bounding down hill on a flat wheel. Once some distance away came the long, continuous complaint of the siren of a fire-engine and the bells and gongs of its comrades; and then a young man went past, whistling with the purest accuracy of time and tune the air to which ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... tempter, and the more fascinating smiles and glances of the bewitching siren, were not thrown away on the young noble; and these, with the soft perfumed atmosphere, the splendidly voluptuous furniture of the saloon, and the delicious music, which was floating all the while upon his ears from the blended instruments and voices of unseen minstrels, conspired to plunge ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... slowly from her seat, a handsome siren shaped, drilled, fitted, polished from her birth for nothing else than the beguiling of lordly man. From the heart of her beautiful bouquet she plucked a spray of perfect lily-of-the-valley, and, eyes upon her own flowers, held ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... fingers, whereupon he blew it out and carefully crushed it under his foot. A faint reflected light rendered perceptible the stone steps below. At the top, Soames stood looking down. Nothing stirred above, below, or around him. What did it mean? Dimly to his ears came the hooting of some siren from the river—evidently that of a large vessel. Still he hesitated; why he did so, he scarce knew, save that he was ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... of pearl, which, poets feign, Sails the unshadowed main,— The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... Tungku Indut's house, the shrill screams of defiance from three hundred dainty throats pierced my ear-drums like a steam siren, and they were all so marvellously noisy, brave, and defiant, that, in spite of an occasional girlish giggle from one or another of them, I began to fear there would be bad trouble before the dawn. So wild was ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... been a temptation by which Durward was easily beset, the noise with which the caserne of the guards resounded after the first toll of primes, had certainly banished the siren from his couch; but the discipline of his father's tower, and of the convent of Aberbrothick, had taught him to start with the dawn; and he did on his clothes gaily, amid the sounding of bugles and the clash of armour, which announced the change of the vigilant ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... out her hand blindly and caught up the nearest bottle. As she unstoppered it she watched the mirrored bed. A gemmed bracelet rose from the pile, rose in the air and tinkled its siren song. It was as if an idle hand played.... Bat spat almost noiselessly. But he did not retreat. Bat had ...
— All Cats Are Gray • Andre Alice Norton
... place Commodore Preble had been chosen to command the naval forces; and that officer, with the "Constitution," forty-four, arrived in the Mediterranean in September, 1802. Following him at brief intervals came the other vessels of his squadron,—the "Vixen" twelve, "Siren" sixteen, and "Argus" sixteen; the "Philadelphia" thirty-eight, and the "Nautilus" twelve, having reached the Mediterranean before the commodore. Three of these vessels were commanded by young officers, destined to win enduring fame ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... and in fright. Moss dropped to one knee, firing up. The leader dissolved in a cloud of particles. On all sides D- and B-class leadys were rushing up, some with weapons, some with metal slats. The room was in confusion. Off in the distance a siren was screaming. Franks and Taylor were cut off from the others, separated from the soldiers by ...
— The Defenders • Philip K. Dick
... Miss Carroll, an intimate friend of Gov. Hicks, and at that time a member of his family, favored the national cause, and by her powerful arguments induced the Governor to remain firm in his opposition to the scheme of secession. Thus, despite the siren wooing of the South, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... and that although she might have wished Jenny out of the way, and hinted as much, she never meant actual murder; while his, again, was the old Barnwell charge, that his better nature had been corrupted by the woman, and that he did it at her suggestion, and under the influence of her siren power. They thus got gradually into that state of feeling by which the runaway convicts from a penal settlement were actuated, when, toiling away through endless brakes and swamps where neither meat nor drink could be procured, they were so ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... as the Siren song that floated across Sicilian waves, was the memory of her fair young daughter to this suffering weary mother; and at the thought of clasping Regina in her arms, of feeling her tender velvet lips once more on her cheek, the lonely heart of the ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... siren song that lured me to a certain nook on the side of the highest mountain in Massachusetts one June. The country was gloriously green and fresh and young, as if it had just been created. From my window I looked down the valley beginning ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... to endorse or condemn Olympia. We know that she gives the most delicious little suppers in the world, sings like a siren, smiles like an angel, and gets more and more fascinating as she grows older, as fruit ripens with age. No one ever thinks of asking her how old she is, or where she was born. It is enough that her beauty is in its summer, ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... the older man turned away. Peter saw him walk to the garage, and a few moments later the motor-car shot past, spun down the drive, and the music of its siren horn announced that it was turning into the street. Where had his father gone ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... sweet persuasions of a Lally Tollendal, a Mounier, a Malouet, or a Mirabeau could induce a Louis XVI. to cast in his lot with the bourgeoisie, in opposition to the feudalists and the remnants of absolute monarchy, just as little will the siren songs of a Camphausen or a Hansemann ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... about to leave the table when the shrill screams of a distant whistle sliced through the noise of the crowd. Voices broke off in mid-sentence and bodies froze into immobility. As the siren's piercing tones faded the restaurant's customers looked at one another in silent terror. Then, as the shock wore off and unanswered questions were beginning to fly, a man suddenly ran in through the ...
— This One Problem • M. C. Pease
... siren sound, then another; and another. I wasted a precious moment to look up. A scout plane was diving for us, on a terrific slant. The air was black with aircraft converging on us. The master machine had seen us! I sensed ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... him that he is born lucky, that everything he touches turns into gold. Now if he forgets that his economical habits, his rectitude of conduct and a personal attention to a business which he understood, caused his success in life, he will listen to the siren voices. ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... to-day he scarcely cared so much. Sitting in his garden yesterday, he could never have imagined such a change. But his heart did not hail the barkentine as usual. Books, music, pale paper, and print—this was all that was coming to him, some of its savor had gone; for the siren voice of Life had been speaking with him face to face, and in his spirit, deep down, the love of the world was restlessly answering it. Young Gaston showed more eagerness than the Padre over this arrival of the vessel that might be bringing Trovatore in the nick of time. Now he would ...
— Padre Ignacio - Or The Song of Temptation • Owen Wister
... Savage's well-wisher, the writer of the little satire, "To the Ingenious Riverius, on his writing in the Praise of Friendship," was none other than Eliza herself.[14] Exactly what injury she had sustained from him and his Siren is not known, but although he still stood high in her esteem, she was implacable against that "worse than Lais" whom in a long and pungent description she satirized ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... rescued with neatness and speed. If there was no trouble yet, there would very likely be some swearing when the soldiers got there. In the meantime he was wet through, both with rain and perspiration. The thought of a bath and dry clothes urged him like the voice of a siren calling; and he had shown the babu all the courtesy his Sikh creed and ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... The faces which mocked and mourned, the clutching hands, the lines of barbaric ornaments, the golden goblets of debauchery, the jewelled daggers, the poison phials—all those accessories, designed to produce the siren of the posters, faded out, and he found himself face to face with a human being like himself, a thoughtful, self-contained, and rather serious American girl of twenty-six or twenty-eight years ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... Thou art a siren. Sing, forever sing; Hearing thy voice, I cannot tell what fate Thou hast provided when the song is o'er;— But ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... open the big gates without and light the candles within under their red shades glowing over the mass of roses still wet from the garden, before I heard the devilish wail of a siren beyond the wall; then a sudden flash of white light from two search-lights illumined the courtyard, and with a wrenching growl Madame Alice de Breville's automobile whined up to my door. The next instant the tip of ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... of width and spread: yet all concentric and so timed that all complete the full circle punctually together—'The Spindle turns on the knees of Necessity; and on the rim of each whorl sits perched a Siren who goes round with it, hymning a single note; the eight notes together ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... away over the hills to his right, mingling with the call of the coyotes, came the unmistakable honk of a siren. He held his breath to listen. It came again, a long continued wail, in perfect tune with the whining of the coyotes. He turned to the right and started over the hills in the wake ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... that you cared. It was cruel to die so if you did love me! It brought the 'pang and spur'! I fought the drowsiness that was taking away my pain. I had begun to lean on it as a comfortable breast. I woke up and tore myself away from that siren sleep. It was my darling,—her love that saved me. Without that thought of you, I never would have stirred again. Where were you, what were you thinking that brought you so ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... XV.-XVIII., I show you,[38] typically represented as the protectresses of nations, the Argive, Cretan, and Lacinian Hera, the Messenian Demeter, the Athena of Corinth, the Artemis of Syracuse; the fountain Arethusa of Syracuse, and the Siren Ligeia of Terina. Now, of these heads, it is true that some are more delicate in feature than the rest, and some softer in expression: in other respects, can you trace any distinction between the Goddesses of Earth and ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... of the wind whistling among cordage of sea-going ships, the shouts of men at work, the river slapping against piles and the iron sides of vessels, the whirr and clank of steam-cranes. Wreaths of brown smoke blew gustily in the sunlight; a train boomed across the latticed bridge; and the hoot of a siren tore all other sounds in shreds. Creakily our ship was warped in by straining cables, and I said to myself, "The overture's finished. The ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... coral bower, Decked with the rare, rich treasures of the deep; Mild as the spirit of the dream whose power Bears back the infant's soul to heaven, in sleep Brightens the hues of summer's first-born flower Pure as the tears repentant mourners weep O'er deeds to which the siren, Sin, beguiled,— Art thou, sweet, smiling, ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... the edges together. The force of the expiratory blast of air from below overcomes the forces which approximate the edges of the cords and throws them into vibration. With each vibration of the membranous reeds the valve is opened, and as in the case of the siren a little puff of air escapes; thus successive rhythmical undulations of the air are produced, constituting the sound waves. The pitch of the note depends upon the number of waves per second, and the register of the voice ...
— The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song • F. W. Mott
... safety the Latin schools, but not the free and home thoughts which found utterance in the language of the people, if the solemn beauty of the Italian Commedia had not seized on all minds. It would have been an evil thing for Italian, perhaps for European, literature if the siren tales of the Decameron had not been the first to occupy the ears with the charms ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... sitting and glumly whispering around an old coloured woman, Joe's cook, who was crying and rocking herself in a chair. I hushed her up and told her to show me the pump. It was in an orchard behind the house, and was one of those old-fashioned things that sound like a siren whistle with ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... apparatus it reported, 'Careful; Emden near.' The work of destruction went smoothly. The wireless operators said: 'Thank God! It's been like being under arrest day and night lately.' Presently the Emden signaled to us, 'Hurry up.' I pack up, but simultaneously wails the Emden's siren. I hurry up to the bridge, see the flag 'Anna' go up. That means 'Weigh anchor.' We ran like mad into our boat, but already the Emden's pennant goes up, the battle flag is raised, they ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... suspected that somehow she may be working in the pay of the government that she is a vampire, living on the secrets of the group who so trust her. I suspect anything, everybody—that she is poisoning his mind, perhaps even whispering into his ear some siren proposal of amnesty and his estate again, if he will but do what she asks. My poor father—I must save him from himself if it is necessary. Argument has no effect with him. He merely answers that the senora is a talented and accomplished woman, ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... the Siren who sang and slew is now The fable outworn of an age remote, And the women to whom to-day we bow Have long abjured her sinister note; She heals, she helps, she follows the plough, And her song has fairly earned her ...
— Punch, July 18, 1917 • Various
... the somber gray and the snuffy brown of that unromantic garment known as the business suit. The winding horn is become a goblet, and its notes are the tinkle of ice against glass. The baying of hounds has harshened to the squawk of the motor siren. The fresh-plowed field is a blue print, the forest maze a roll of plans and specifications. Each fence is a business barrier. Every ditch is of a competitor's making, dug craftily so that the clumsy-footed may come a cropper. All the romance ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... were two of them. He knew that he must become a prey, but was there any choice left to him as to which siren should have him? He had been quite aware in his more gallant days, before he had been knocked about on that Charybdis rock, that he might sip, and taste, and choose between the sweets. He had come to think lately that the younger young ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... granted. And I do not think that this—this—shall we call it glamour, John?—this glamour, of the imagination and the senses, will overcome you in any detrimental way. I cannot picture you as the victim of a 'society' siren!" ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... me of the obscure race and country of the heavenly siren? Ithaca is his country, Telemachus his father, and Epicasta, Nestor's daughter, the mother that bare him, a man by far the wisest of mortal kind.' This we must most implicitly believe, the inquirer and the answerer being who they are—especially since the poet has so greatly ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... meant gloom. If the sweet joy of living ever sang to him in his youth, he shut his ears to the sound as to siren temptings, and sternly set himself to the fierce delight of ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... such as they had had together many times during the holidays. But this was better than the dangers of mere snow and ice. For Juanita had tasted that highest of emotions, the excitement of battle. She had heard that which some men having once heard cannot live without, the siren song of a bullet. ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... tryin' to make the Sally,' says the Cap'n. I stepped on the tread of the siren and kept her blattin' now and then and, after some minutes, we heard a splashin' alongside and there was a man ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... sixpenn'orth of tea-dust? Girl, thou camest for other things! Thou lovedst his voice? Siren! what was the witchery of thine own? He deftly made up the packet, and placed it in the little hand. She paid for her small purchase, and with a farewell glance of her lustrous eyes, she left him. ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... innocent pleasures. Thus day after day sped rapidly by. Imagine, if you can, the youth's felicity; he was of an ardent temperament, deeply enamoured, barely a score of years old, and he had been strictly brought up by serious parents. He therefore resigned himself entirely to the siren for whom he willingly forgot the world, and he wondered at his good fortune, which had thrown in his way a conquest richer than all the mines of Meru.[FN65] He could not sufficiently admire his Padmavati's grace, beauty, bright wit, and numberless accomplishments. Every morning, for vanity's ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... but the rest was drowned by another storm which swept through the room. Even above the tumult, Peter could hear Dennis challenging and beseeching Mr. Caggs to come "outside an' settle it like gentlemen." Caggs, from a secure retreat behind Blunkers's right arm, declined to let the siren's song tempt him forth. Finally Peter's pounding brought ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... these signs of the vernal equinox I knew that I, too, must follow the music, forsake awhile the beautiful siren we call the city, and in the green silences meet once more ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... what it wants," whereas, in fact, the public, while it knows what it wants when it sees it, cannot clearly express its wants, and never wants the thing that it does ask for, although it thinks it does at the time. But woe to the editor and his periodical if he heeds that siren voice! ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... laughter rang in my ears, as I fancied, in mockery. Her sweet silvery voice only grated upon my heart. Oh, that I had never listened to its siren tones! ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... the local symptoms in a natural manner. Thousands of cases cured by us by these methods attest the truth of our statements; while those who failed to understand the simple reasoning of the Nature Cure philosophy or lacked will power to withstand the arguments of friends and physicians followed the siren call of the operating table and have been sorry for ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... side, while the Arundel had a high, ominous reverberation like a fire bell. When at last the clangings had ceased she would lie listening to the overtones throbbing in the air, high and low, high and low; lie shrinking, awaiting the second summons that never failed to terrify, the siren of the Chippering Mill,—to her the cry of an insistent, hungry monster demanding its daily food, the symbol of a stern, ugly, and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... few painted from the beautiful girl who stood for ‘The Spirit of the Rainbow’ and ‘Forced Music.’ What his work from the nude suffered from this is incalculable, as may be seen in the crayon called ‘Ligeia Siren,’ a naked siren playing on a kind of lute, which Rossetti described as “certainly one of his best things.” The beauty and value of a crayon which for weird poetry—especially in the eyes—must be among Rossetti’s masterpieces are ruined by the ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... rescue; and then, all at once, of a yellow day, having chanced to glance out of the window and down the harbor in the direction of Cottage Point, and having clapped eyes on a sight that pinched and shook the very heart of her, she was changed in a twinkling into the Siren of ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... melancholy, sighed, "I've been north of Ireland, Pedro, and that was bad enough! The lookout saw a siren and the Infanta Isabella was dashed on the rocks and something laughed at us ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... inches from his head. Her, sleeve touched him. He turned more wooden under the spell of the orris root and violet. Her courtiers thought it all a graceful pose, but Coleman believed otherwise. Her voice sank to the liquid, siren note of a succubus. " Do you know what kind of a man I like? Really like? I like a man that a woman can't bend in a thousand different ways in five minutes. He must have some steel in him. He obliges me to admire him the most when he remains stolid; ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... have resented this question, but Mrs. Octagon ostentatiously seized the opportunity to clear herself, and thereby increased Jennings' suspicions. "Certainly," she said in an open manner and with a rather theatrical air, "I went to beg my son's life from this fair siren." ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... illustrious coadjutors. The first was the jealous Queen, whose unbridled rage and vulgar clamor had made the Louvre a hell. The second was Henriette d'Entragues, Marquise de Vernenil, the crafty and capricious siren who had awakened these conjugal tempests. To this singular coalition were joined many other ladies of the court; for the pious flame, fanned by the Jesuits, spread through hall and boudoir, and fair votaries of the Loves and Graces found it a more grateful task ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... sister is no wife of mine, Nor to her bed no homage do I owe: Far more, far more to you do I decline. O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note, 45 To drown me in thy sister flood of tears: Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote: Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs, And as a bed I'll take them, and there lie; And, in that glorious supposition, think 50 He gains by death that hath such means to die: Let Love, being light, be drowned ...
— The Comedy of Errors - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... of this barbaric period never died. They grew up, instead, and proved serviceable friends. Fishing and hunting are now the high-lights of vacation time. The crude call of the weird and the inexplicable has modulated into a siren note from the forgotten psychic continents which we Western peoples have only just discovered and begun to explore. As for the buried treasure craze—why, my life-work practically amounts to a daily search for hidden valuables in the cellars ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... reported: 'Careful; Emden near.' The work of destruction went smoothly. The wireless operator said: 'Thank God! it's been like being under arrest day and night lately.' Presently the Emden signaled to us: 'Hurry up.' I pack up, but simultaneously wails the Emden's siren. I hurry up to the bridge, see the flag 'Anna' go up. That means 'Weigh anchor.' We ran like mad into our boat, but already the Emden's pennant goes up, the battle flag is raised, ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... pain To know the dusk depths of the ponderous sea, The miles profound of solid green, and be With loath'd cold fishes, far from man—or what;— I know the sadness but the cause know not. Then they, thus ranged, gan make full plaintively A piteous Siren sweetness on the sea, Withouten instrument, or conch, or bell, Or stretch'd chords tuneable on turtle's shell; Only with utterance of sweet breath they sung An antique chaunt and in an unknown tongue. Now melting upward through the sloping scale ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... deft strokes, steered them, between the grinding bergs, raising his voice in lone signals like the weird cry of a siren. ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... Her bid for the heart of him and the soul of him was finer and more generous than the bid of the Game; yet he dallied with both—held her in his arms, but turned his head to listen to that other and siren call ...
— The Game • Jack London
... pieces of wood in a cranky canoe. But before they stated their objections and preferences, the Bikari people called to us in a loud voice to come ashore, threatening us with the vengeance of the great Wami if we did not halt. As the voices were anything but siren-like, we obstinately refused to accede to the request. Finding threats of no avail, they had recourse to stones, and, accordingly, flung them at us in a most hearty manner. As one came within a foot of my arm, I suggested that a bullet be sent in return in close ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... has since then been filled with far other scenes: among eternal snows and stupendous sun-scorched monuments of departed empires; within the scent of the long orange-groves; and where the temple of Neptune looks out over the siren-haunted sea. But my eyes at least have kept their early affectionate joy in our native landscape, which is one deep root of our national life ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... more sought for than the gold of Golconda. We believe that Woman should associate freely with man, and we believe that it is for the preservation of her rights. She should become acquainted with the metaphysical designs of those who condescended to sing the siren song of flattery. This, we think, should be according to the unwritten law of decorum, which is stamped upon every innocent heart. The precepts of prudery are often steeped in the guilt of contamination, which blasts the expectations of better moments. Truth, and beautiful dreams—loveliness, ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... Of woven caresses, Where lovers catch ye by your loose tresses; From the azure isles, Where sweet Wisdom smiles, Delaying your ships with her siren ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... Naples, anciently called Parthenope, from the name of the siren who threw herself into the sea for grief at the departure of Ulysses, and was cast up and buried there.—Ovid, "Met.," xiv, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... to this gentle pair; Love's tide that launched on with a blast too strong Sweeps toward the foaming reef, the hidden snare, Baffling with fond illusion's siren-song, Too faint, on idle shoals, to linger there Far from Youth's glowing dream, bore them along, With purple sail and steered by seraph hands To isles resplendent in the ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... welcomed the ministry of healing: how willingly have soothed the sufferer back to tolerance of life! But Lily's self-betrayal took this last hope from her. The mortal maid on the shore is helpless against the siren who loves her prey: such victims are floated back ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... out of her earnings a hospital for crippled children; the watery-sentimental eye of the flash crowd in its cups sees in her a Phryne, a Mrs. Fry, or a Saint Cecilia. Goethe said that every man must be either the hammer or the anvil; the billiard-room public is sure that every primadonna is a siren or a martyred wife, or else a public benefactress, unless she is all three by turns, which is even ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... within; They are but empty cells for pride; He who the Siren's hair would win Is ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... his head against a wall like a hooded rook as he was. So giddy had he become at the sight of this creature, even more enticing than a siren rising from the water. He noticed the animals carved over the door and returned to the house of the archbishop with his head full of diabolical longings ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... was a kid," said Tim reflectively, "there used to be a female siren in the movies. Her pet line used to be 'Kiss me, my fool!' Theda Bara, ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... Our little Siren was at her piano singing with all her might and fascinations. Master Clavering was asleep on the sofa, indifferent to the music; but near Blanche sat a gentleman who was perfectly enraptured with her strain, which was of a passionate ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of pearl which, poets feign, Sails the unshadowed main,— The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea maids rise ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... drunk of Siren tears, Distill'd from limbecks foul as hell within, Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears, Still losing when I saw myself to win! What wretched errors hath my heart committed, Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never! How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted, In the distraction ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... the ominous cry That tells a greedy foe draws nigh— The vulture, thirsting for the strife. Hear in the west the serpent's hiss Whose siren-fangs are set for this, To poison all your virtuous life. Near is the vulture's swoop; The serpent coils to stoop For the stroke; Then watch and pray Until the day— Your swords be sharpened ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... be recalled that, when fired with the desires of this mocker, ambition, one is inclined, in his selfish absorption, to be ruthless in his dealings with others. It is so easy to trample upon others when a siren is beckoning you to climb higher, and your ears are eagerly listening to her seductive phrases. With her song in your ears, you cannot hear the wails of anguish of others, upon whose rights and life you trample, the manly rebukes of those you wound, or the stern remonstrances of those who ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... perpetuated in the midst of the new, but without any further relation to it—it must be admitted indeed that such a relation is considerable—than that of the stock on his shelves to the shopkeeper, or of the Siren of the South to the showman who stands before his booth. More than once, as we move about nowadays in the Italian cities, there seems to pass before our eyes a vision of the coming years. It represents to our satisfaction an Italy united and prosperous, but altogether scientific ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... the Pavilion d'Armenonville swirled round the unfortunate painter so violently that he felt as if he were on a roundabout at a fair. He feared that the siren must hear the pounding of his heart. To think that he had dreaded paying two louis! Two louis? Why, it would have been a bagatelle! Speechlessly he laid a fortune on the salver. With a culminating burst of recklessness ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... "is worse heraldry than metal upon metal. He is more false than a siren, more rapacious than a griffin, more poisonous than a wyvern, and more cruel ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... goal Where self, for England's sake, was self-effaced, In silence reining-in his soul On the strait difficult line by wisdom traced, 'Twixt gulf and siren, avalanche and ravine, Guarding the ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... Mt. Vesuvius, southwest is the island of Ischia with its extinct volcano, and beyond is Cape Miseno. The "Hallena" cautiously felt her way among the luxuriant islands that guard the broad and beautiful Bay of Naples and the Siren City. Her passengers had ample opportunity to study the attractions of this ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... may, and sometimes can with advantage, be gulped down. Though the drinker makes wry faces, there may, after all, be a wholesome goodness in the cup. But debt, however courteously it may be offered, is the Cup of Siren; and the wine, spiced and delicious though it be, is poison. My son, if poor, see Hyson in the running spring; see thy mouth water at a last week's roll; think a threadbare coat the only wear; and acknowledge ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... themselves unable to resist her smile. Forward they must march through the garden of enchantment, henceforth taking the precaution to walk with drawn sword, and, like Orlando in Morgana's park, to stuff their casques with roses that they might not hear the siren's voice too clearly. It was thus that Italy began the part she played through the Renaissance for the people of the North. The White Devil of Italy is the title of one of Webster's best tragedies. A white Devil, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... dressing bag, dashed the rest of his correspondence into his pocket, and with the bag in one hand, and an overcoat over the other arm, he hastened out into the street. He was obliged at first to board a street car. Afterwards he found a taxicab, and drove under the great wooden shed as the last siren was blowing. He hurried up the gangway, a grim, remorseful figure, a sense of defeat gnawing at his heart, a bitter, haunting fear still with him even when, with a shriek of the tugs, the great steamer swung into the river. He was leaving forever the ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... passed before the shivering people in the small boats heard the siren whistle that announced the approach of a steamship from the south. There was a heavy fog and they could not see one hundred fathoms off over the clashing and grinding ice that floated in fields on every side. Soon after seven o'clock ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... Peter answered. "As for the other thing, it's something like this: By the sound it was a small craft—no square-rigger. No whistle, no siren, was blown—again a small craft. It anchored close in—still again a small craft, for steamers and big ships must drop hook outside the middle shoal. Now the entrance is tortuous. There is no recruiting nor trading captain in the group who dares to run the passage after dark. Certainly ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... Meanwhile the French siren, balked in her design upon her English cully, who was so easily disheartened, and hung his ears in manifest despondence, rather than rather than run the risk of making a voyage that should be altogether ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... hind wheels of the car sank deeper and deeper. I believe we should never have got out, and it would have been there still, if we had not heard a scream from a siren, and our American friend tore up again! It was pitch dark by now, and the valet, the chauffeur, and Uncle John were shoving and straining, and nothing was happening. Why he was returning this way, right out of the main road, he did not explain, ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... the Causeway he led me—for not a word was I capable of uttering; and just before we reached that artery of Chinatown, from down-river came the deep, sustained note of a steamer's siren, the warning of ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... Passing the guard-boat, we delivered our permit; before venturing into the open sea we repeated the Fatihah- prayer in honor of the Shaykh Majid, inventor of the mariners' compass [4], and evening saw us dancing on the bright clear tide, whose "magic waves," however, murmured after another fashion the siren song which charmed the senses of the old ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... murder made the hermit shudder. He hesitated, was undecided, looked on the charms of the siren; he saw that he could make himself master of her and of the treasure without danger; and, all his virtue yielding, he forgot heaven and his oft-repeated vows. The pilgrim dragged the reeling miscreant into the hut; each seized a dagger; ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... Squad-cars came careening out of uptown-traffic streets and converged on the tumult. The sirens produced violent surgings of the crowd. There was a wild rush in this direction as a siren sounded from that, and then an equally wild rush in another direction still as blazing headlights and a moving howl came from elsewhere. Rushing figures surged against the doors to the lobby of ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster
... Blondelle, beautifully dressed, seated herself at the grand piano, and began to sing and play some of the impassioned songs from the Italian operas; and Lyon Berners, a very great enthusiast in music, hung over the siren, doubly entranced by her beauty and her voice. Sybil, too, stood with the little group at the piano; but she stood back in the shade, where the expression of her agonized face could not be seen by the other two, even if they had been at leisure to observe ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... its rulings. No matter what the weather, an agent wore a hat. Malone thought bitterly that he might just as well wear a red, white and blue luminous sign that said FBI in great winking letters, and maybe a hooting siren too. Still, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was not supposed to be a secret organization, no matter what occasional critics might say. And the hats, at least as long as the weather remained broiling, were enough ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... bigger blaze than could have been made by any number of shacks. And presently there were shouts in the crowd, "It's the Empire! The Old Shops!" There came a hook and ladder truck, rushing by with shrieking siren, and then the fire-chief in his automobile with a fiercely clanging bell; they turned the corner, and far down the street before them was the building in which for four years Jimmie had tended the bolt-making machine. They saw that one whole end of it was a towering, ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... here; let me take it"—This is a clear-cut, straightforward policy. Those who can pursue its course with vigour needs must win through in the end. But the gods would not have it that such journey should be easy, so they have deputed the siren Sympathy to distract the wayfarer, to dim his vision with her ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... the departing siren was sounding. Friends and relatives of the passengers were crowding the exit incline. The deck was clearing. I had not seen George Prince come aboard. And then I thought I saw him down on the landing stage, just arrived from a private tube car. A small, slight figure. The customs ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... that of a waterfall, added itself to the hum of the alternating current in the wires. And now a third sound came to his ears, the note of the turbine, low at first, but gradually rising like the scream of a siren, and the floor of the Ring beneath his ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... in the moon of her laces and the stars of her gems, and the sense of the immeasurableness of the hour came upon him as it comes to few; the knowledge that the evanescent moment is very potent, the world where the siren light of the Remote may at any moment lie quenched in some ashen present. To him, held momentarily in this place that was like shoreless, open water, the present was inestimably precious and it lay upon ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... sir?" On his part, Cappy, jubilant, even in the instant when he knew thirty new faces were already whining round the devil, dashed out on the bridge, seized the whistle cord and swung on it. A sad, nautical sob from the Costa Rica's siren answered him, and ten seconds later Terence Reardon whistled up the bridge. Cappy let go the whistle cord and took up the speaking ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... satisfactory why she had not sought her cousin's acquaintance early in the winter, and the very irksomeness of the enforced absence from his country home which seized him as spring came on, made him the more susceptible to the blandishments of the mature siren who, with cunning art, was meshing ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... by worldly considerations to a heaven of purity, which no worldling can enter; it gives to its votaries, who long to eat of forbidden fruit, the assurance of impunity from the threatened evils, and leads them on by siren strains from the Paradise of purity into the broad road which ends at last in the blackness of the darkness of an ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... territory. Psionics, as I understand it, holds that the map is—practically—the territory, but can't prove it. So I simply don't know what to believe. On one hand, I have had real hunches all my life. On the other, the signal doesn't carry much information. More like hearing a siren when you're driving along a street. You know you have to pull over and stop, but that's all you know. It could be police, fire ambulance—anything. Anybody with any psionic ability at all ought to do a lot better than ...
— Subspace Survivors • E. E. Smith
... suspect," Valentine cried gaily. "In the wilds of South Kensington, in a tiny house, all Morris tapestry and Burne-Jones stained glass, dwells the latest siren who has been calling to our Ulysses. He is there, I suspect. Wait a moment, though. His telegram might tell us. Where ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... sort, owned it, But later to Uncle Sam they loaned it, Who afterwards made no bones, but boned it In the fine Autolycus way; And though life wasn't a matter vital He kept with the lake its rasping title, Which recalls the croak of an amorous frog Or a siren heard in an ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... gaol. This disposition is the true source of the passion which many men, in very humble life, have taken to the American war. Our subjects in America; our colonies; our dependents. This lust of party power is the liberty they hunger and thirst for; and this Siren song of ambition has charmed ears that we would have thought were never organized ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... "Those siren waves were bearing me on to the gulf where"—She paused a moment, shuddering at the dark retrospect of the past. "Where all your pomp and pageantry will be overwhelmed, and yourselves, for ever, in the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... sentries, etc., was utterly upset by the presence of hundreds of ladies and children, with the inevitable paraphernalia necessary to their comfort. "The front of grim-visaged war" was constantly being smoothed into beauty by baby fingers. Men, lured by siren voices, deserted the tented field, and were happy, in entire forgetfulness of duty (so called). Soldiers who did not bring ladies enjoyed hugely living in tents and once more "messing" together. Many eloquent speakers addressed the crowd. Pearls of eloquence ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... running over to the window, her eyes wide with horror. "Billie, that's the signal to the life-savers. And there goes the siren," she groaned, clapping her hands over her ears as the moan of the siren rose wailingly into the night. "It's a ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... not so: This life has brought me health but not content. That boy, whose shouts ring round us while he flings Intent each stone toward yon shining object Afloat inshore ... I eat my heart to think How all which makes him worthy of more love Must train his ear to catch the siren croon That never else had reached his upland home! And he who failed in proof, how should he arm Another against perils? Ah, false hope And credulous enjoyment! How should I, Life's fool, while wakening ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... chief gates of the cemetery in Paris bore the inscription, "Death is an eternal sleep." It has had more in Germany in this century; and voices of enervating music are not wanting in our own literature to swell its siren chorus.7 Perhaps the greatest prophet it has had was Heine, whose pages reek with a fragrance of pleasure through which sighs, like a fading wail from the solitary string of a deserted harp struck by a lonesome ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... cast stones. Yet, Pharisaical snob, he did most violently resent that she should be opposite his wife in The Sunday Picture.... Eve! Eve! A few short weeks ago, and you made a mock of women who let themselves get into The Daily Picture. And now you are there yourself! (But so, and often, was the siren Lady Massulam! A ticklish thing, ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... again with a beaming countenance, convinced that he was the only man in the world to that shameless slut, as treacherous, but as lovely and as engaging as a siren. ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... of their intercourse did not creak as if despairingly appealing to be oiled. Of course it was very banal to talk about Italy. But, still, these moments must come sometimes to all those who go much into the world. And what is Italy, beautiful, siren-like Italy, for if not to be talked about? Charmian said that to herself afterward, and was amazed at her own vulgarity of mind. Ah, yes! That was what she had disliked in Claude Heath—his faculty of making her feel almost vulgar-minded, vulgar-intellected! She coined horrible bastard ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... an American ship, we would have tied down the siren, sung the doxology, and broken everything on the bar. As it was, the Americans instinctively flocked to the smoking-room and drank to the British navy. While this ceremony was going forward, from the promenade-deck we heard tumultuous shouts and cheers. We believed that, relieved of ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... cost, is minimized; and what it produces is ugliness, an ugliness which could not be mistaken for beauty but for the notion that it does express a desirable state of being in those who possess it. And this desirable state is the state of the King's mistress, of a siren who can have whatever she desires because of the potency of her charms. How otherwise can we explain the passion for superfluous machine-made ornament which makes our respectable homes so hideous? The machine ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock |
