"Spell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... enough beneath the tree There walks another love with me, And overhead the aspen heaves Its rainy-sounding silver leaves; And I spell nothing in their stir, But now perhaps they speak to her, And plain for her to understand They talk about a time at hand When I shall sleep with clover clad, And she beside ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... fairy animal, any more than Toto," said Ozma, "yet as soon as he came under the spell of our fairyland he found he could talk. It was the same way with Billina, the Yellow Hen whom you brought here at one time. The same spell has affected Toto, I assure you; but he's a wise little dog and while he knows ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... had blessed him with a buoyancy of spirits, and even when suffering, he deceived the partial observer. He delighted many of the strangers he met in his saunterings through the cloisters, arrested and riveted the attention of the passer by, whom, like his "Ancient Mariner," he held by a spell. His schoolfellow, Lamb, has mentioned him, when under the influence of this power, as the delight of his auditors. In the ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... far on in the toils of settling was from England, but the love of his native land burned all too bright within his heart. In vain he toiled on those rude fields, and though his own, they seemed not his home. The spirit voices of the land of his childhood called him back—he obeyed their spell, and just at the time his labours would have been repaid, he left, and, with all the money he could procure, paid his passage to England, where he soon after died in the workhouse of his parish. Yet even there ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... was the natural thing to do, you did yourself a violence when you refused to. It was like sailing off above the clouds on familiar wings, although it was the first time she had tried them. . . . Marise would fall wholly under Marsh's spell, would run away and be divorced. Neale would never raise a hand against her doing this. Eugenia saw from his aloof attitude that it was nothing to him one way or the other. Any man who cared for his wife would fight for ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... to all the then existing schemes for a change in her position. It was to her a real, though but a momentary triumph. From the hour of her arrival she had a powerful party to cope with; and the fact of her being an Austrian, independent of the jealousy created by her charms, was, in itself, a spell to conjure up armies, against which she stood alone, isolated in the face of embattled myriads! But she now reared her head, and her foes trembled in her presence. Yet she could not guard against the moles busy in the earth secretly to undermine her. Nay, had not Louis XV. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the spell and placed her instantly back in the world to which she now belonged. Drawing away from him, she returned, with characteristic calmness, "Oh, no, Uncle Pete, father and mother are both very well indeed. But why should you think there must be something ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... ask at least a dozen questions, but it is dampening to one's ardor to have to spell every word, and she only nodded and smiled in her turn as ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... repeated Kosmaroff, touching himself on the breast and standing at his full height. No one spoke, as if the silent spell of History were again for a ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... He was the youngest son of a particularly fatuous peer resident in the neighbourhood, had started life as a barrister, in which profession he had attained a moderate success, had enjoyed a brief but not inglorious spell of soldiering, from which he had retired slightly lamed for life, and had filled up the intervening period in the harmless occupation of censoring. His friendship with Furley appeared on the surface too singular to be anything else but accidental. ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... sufficient burthen for the beasts; then he loaded them upon his animals, and covered this plunder with sticks and fuel, so none might discern the bags, but might think that he was carrying home his usual ware. Lastly he called out, "Shut, O Simsim!" and forthwith the door closed, for the spell so wrought that whensoever any entered the cave, its portal shut of itself behind him; and, as he issued therefrom, the same would neither open nor close again till he had pronounced the words, "Shut, O Simsim!" ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... it is hard for a little spell on earth, there's a long while to have our wants satisfied when we get where He is in Heaven," Mrs. Blake said, ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... him the faintest presentiment that at that very moment the Little People were busy pressing their cloth-o'-dream mantles and reblocking their wishing-caps; that the instant the sun went down the spell would be off the faery raths, setting them free all over the world, and that the gates of Tir-na-n'Og would be open wide for mortals to wander back again. No, not one of the board remembered; the trustees sat looking straight at the primroses and saw nothing, ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... before the caste committee. The tribe have gurus or spiritual preceptors, whom he describes as the most ignorant Bairagis, very little better than impostors. When a boy or girl grows up the Bairagi comes and whispers the Karn mantra or spell in his ear, also hanging a necklace of tulsi (basil) beads round his neck; for this the guru receives a cloth, a cocoanut and a cash payment of four annas to a rupee. Thereafter he visits his disciples annually at harvest time and receives a ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... vaguely conscious it was strange of him to continue sleeping with that noise of shouting men and whining hounds and snapping branches going on in the forest. The child's lightest cry generally broke the spell of a nightmare; but the din of terrified searchers rushing through the woods and of echoes rolling eerily back from the white hills convinced him this was no dream-land. Then, the distinct crackle of trampled brushwood and the scratch of spines across his face called ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... time, and she used to do a day's charing now and then, but has too many babies now. Parents married at 21 and 18 respectively; two children dead and another expected. He reads papers a good deal, gets them out of trains. This is his first spell of regular work. Two boys sell papers, and a Mission gives cheap meal. Food none too plentiful. One child gets free dinners. The eldest child has glands; impetigo; thin and badly nourished. The second, glands, hair lice and nits bad. The third, boils on neck, glands, thin. The fourth, glands. ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... they fall into the oddest shapes.... Look wheresoever you will, you are faced with incongruity and confusion.... Daily the claims increase as though more and more evil spirits were issuing forth from hell at the invocation of a sorcerer who has forgotten the spell by which to lay them."[13] It was of the Vienna Congress that those words ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... The spell of the night fell over Barry. He sent his thoughts ahead, dreamily, trying to peer into the future as if to see what it would hold for him. But the picture invariably dissolved as soon as it was conjured out ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... "and at length the diamond is accidentally lost. It falls into the hands of a simple and laborious youth, a student, a minister of God, just entering on a career of usefulness and even distinction. Upon him also the spell is cast; he deserts everything, his holy calling, his studies, and flees with the gem into a foreign country. The officer has a brother, an astute, daring, unscrupulous man, who learns the clergyman's secret. What does he do? Tell ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... expects you to plan each answer before writing, to write neatly and legibly, to spell and punctuate correctly, and to be accurate and intelligent in choosing words and in framing sentences ...
— Teachers' Outlines for Studies in English - Based on the Requirements for Admission to College • Gilbert Sykes Blakely
... this occurrence. He believed that he was followed by a spirit, and that a spell was upon him, which boded destruction. He resolved to abandon the chase and devote himself to the ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... thrown her into a trance, hoping she would die, and that the king would then marry her daughter; but on the king speaking to her, the spell was broken. The queen told the king how cruelly she had been treated by her stepmother, and on hearing this he became very angry, and had the witch and her daughter brought to justice. They were both sentenced to die—the daughter to be devoured by wild beasts, ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... of the setting sun, and on the shore and pier familiar faces of old men and young men changed; boys grown into stalwart fellows, and babes into boys and girls; many quiet visions of youth rose and mingled with my thoughts, and this spell began its working, as those of Society ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... however, the urban school is far less social than it wishes to be. Under the spell of our own recent educational experience it is difficult for us, who have to do with educating institutions, to see the radical changes that modern life demands of the schools and colleges. We add socializing efforts without removing the individual viewpoint that has gotten ...
— Rural Problems of Today • Ernest R. Groves
... in spirit have I panted, O holy city, country of my heart! How oft, in vision, have I gazed enchanted On thy fair towers—a sainted thing thou art!— By Lavra's walls or Dnieper's wave, nor wanted A spell to draw me from this life apart; In thee my country I behold, victorious, Holy and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... her farewell, and she thanked him for having brought us over. I noticed also that Norton, though considerably older than any of us, had apparently succumbed to the spell of her wonderful ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... a 'spell,'" she retorted one day, when Katherine laughingly commented upon her conchological, geological, ichthyological "research." "It has got to have its 'run,' like some other beliefs that aren't so good; then I'll get over it, I suppose, settle down and behave like people ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... of future apportionment, or to any provision for future changes, called amendments to the Constitution. Those who love change,—who delight in public confusion, who wish to feed the cauldron, and make it bubble,—may vote if they please for future changes. But by what spell, by what formula, are you going to bind the People to all future time? The days of Lycurgus are gone by, when we could swear the People not to alter the Constitution until he should return. You may make what entries on parchment you please; give me a Constitution ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... delicacy, with such truth of detail and such grace in the manner of telling, that I finished the long manuscript almost at a sitting, with a pleasure rarely, almost never experienced in voluminous communications which one has to spell out of handwriting. This was from a correspondent who made my acquaintance by letter when she was little more than a child, some years ago. How easy at that early period to have silenced her by indifference, to have wounded her by a careless epithet, perhaps even to have crushed her as one puts his ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... started to sing, a woman fell in some sort of spell. She was sitting near me on the same bench. Instantly it occurred to me they were getting up one of their 'feelin' meetin's', as they call them, and I was frightened half out of my wits. Fearing they would get to shouting and pounding each other, I ran out as ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... then, is she—who! Truly his 'guardian spirit' hath stepped between him and the fearful words, which, however unmerited, must have hung as a pall over his future existence;—a spell which could not be unbound—which could not ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... next health to friends of mine. Loving the brave Burgundian wine, High sons of pith, Whose fortunes I have frolick'd with; Such as could well Bear up the magic bough and spell; And dancing 'bout the mystic Thyrse, Give up the just applause ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... remarked, a slow process. An illusion such as the apparent movement of the sun will persist as a partially developed error long after it has been convicted. And it may be that the fundamental beliefs here referred to, even if presumably illusory, are destined to exercise their spell ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... her so limited an artist that she seems almost to take up a school as she takes up a lady-friend—"one down another come on." I think her abuse of Wagner now curiously narrow. I can't see why one should not feel the full spell and greater purity of Brahms without dancing in his honour on Wagner's bones!! It seems like her refusing to see any merit in, or derive any enjoyment from modern pictures because she has been "posted" in the Early Italian School. So from year to year these good people who have been to Florence ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... outwitted King Nidad, or how Thor went as bride to Thrym in Giantland, and the old sad tale of how Sigurd Fafnirsbane, noblest of men, went down to death for the love of a queen not less noble. Leif told them well, so that his hearers were held fast with the spell of wonder and then spurred to memories of their own. Tongues would be loosened, and there would be wild recollections of battles among the skerries of the west, of huntings in the hills where strange sights greeted the benighted huntsman, and of voyaging far south into the ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... that of Orpheus in hades, seemed to soothe all unpropitious powers with a sudden spell. The Fire began to slacken, the kettles began to lull, the meat began to cook, the irons began to cool, the clothes began to behave, the spirits began to rise, and the collar was finished off with most triumphant success. John watched the change, and, though a lord of creation, abased ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... a hot dry night when London lay beneath its haze of sun-reddened dust after a heat spell, ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... great there is to till, Teddy darlint; on'y this mornin', whin I was sint for to Ann Dolan (an' she that bad it's dead we thought she wor one spell, but for Docther Wintworth), Jovarny kim up, an' axed might the child go for a walk to the Gardens wid him; an' I jist puttin' on me shawl to go out, an' not wantin' to take the little crather in wid a sick woman, nor yet to lock the door on her, an' lave her ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... cried, "we've hit the Fisher Bank! You'd best lash the wheel, get our breakfast, and take a spell of sleep on deck. Tie a string to your finger and pass it down to me, so that I can wake ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... an eye on the garden," said Mr. Thompson. "I know I am going to feel some better now this spell ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.
... of such an occurrence as has since happened came to oppress my solitude during the long months which now intervened. I was as yet too much under the spell of her charm to allow anything calculated to throw a shadow over her image to remain long in my thoughts. But when, some time in the fall, a letter came to me personally from Mr. Clavering, filled with a ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... everything practically deserted, the people having learned that it is best to stay indoors until this crisis is solved in some manner. Occasionally a rag-picker, or some humble person so little separated from the life hereafter that to push a trifle closer does not spell much peril, can be seen hooking up rags and whatnots from the piles of Peking offal. If you speak to him he gives an unintelligent pu chih tao—"I do not know"—and moves boorishly on. As my old Chinese writer said a week ago, Peking has never been in such a state of topsy-turvydom since ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... the expected knock of the chambermaid, but by a hurrying to and fro of feet, and the sound of several eager voices resounding through the echoing corridors. Fortunately, it was not only perfectly light, but exhausted Nature had enjoyed its allotted spell of sleep; for we found, to our astonishment, that it was past five o'clock. The storm continued outside no whit abated, and in the midst of the human hubbub the father's voice sounded clear ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... both hands the frail fluted ivory handle of her parasol, it snapped, and the carved leopard that constituted the head fell with a ringing sound upon one of the marble blocks, thence into the sluggish water beneath; but her eyes had not moved from his,—seemed to hold them, as with some magnetic spell. A radiant smile parted her pale lips, and she said in her wonderfully sweet, rich, liquid tones which sank into people's ears and hearts, as some mellow old wine creeps through the grey cells of the brain, bringing lotos dreams: "Is the gentleman ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... brought 'Bijah, who said he should think likely she would want to sleep a spell, she must be pretty well beat out, pokin' around all night. He'd heard her making them queer noises o' hern—something like a hoarse kind o' Phoebe bird, it sounded, in ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... A tress of the hair had flowed across his hand. And about her small fine head it was bound with a black fillet, a narrow coil so sleek and glossy that it was touched with silver lights, and this intense blackness made the gold of her head more dazzling. And Hobb lay there bewildered under the spell of her loveliness, asking nothing but to lie and gaze at ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... was under the spell. She saw the far-off country of love, she saw, hovering above the land, the angel whose tenderness gave to all that beauty a burning glow. She was drinking in the letter at long draughts; how should it have been otherwise? The girl who had put love from her was now a woman ripened ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... people, believe that when a bird sings he is weaving a magic spell, and so they have songs for special magic too; some for grinding, for weaving, for planting, others for hunting, and still others for war; all definitely to gain the favor of the gods ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... right shoulder, and the point of the spear went right through him, so that he fell groaning in the dust until the life went out of him. The sons of Autolycus busied themselves with the carcass of the boar, and bound Ulysses' wound; then, after saying a spell to stop the bleeding, they went home as fast as they could. But when Autolycus and his sons had thoroughly healed Ulysses, they made him some splendid presents, and sent him back to Ithaca with much mutual good will. ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... suppose we camped no more than three-quarters of a mile from it. The dogs sighted it, which seemed to electrify them. They had new life and started to run, but we were so weak that we could not go more than 200 yds. and then spell. I think another day would have seen us off. Arrived at depot 3.25; found it in a dilapidated condition, cases all about the place. I don't suppose there has ever been a weaker party arrive at any depot, either north or south. After a hard struggle got our tent up and made camp. ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... us she hath a spell beyond Her name in story, and her long array Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond Above the Dogeless city's vanished sway; Ours is a trophy which will not decay With the Rialto;[382] Shylock and the Moor, And Pierre,[383] can not be swept or worn away— The keystones of the Arch! though ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... thaw comes, I fancy the little frog feels it and stirs in his bed. One would see the warty toads squatted in the soil two or three feet below the surface, in the same way. Probably not till April will the spell which the winter has put upon them be broken. I have seen a toad go into the ground in late fall. He literally elbows his way into it, ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... to show us what he did teach. The school was called together and words to spell were given out from a dictionary. They had got as far as "patrimony," and went on from that word to a dozen or so that followed it. The words were spelled by the children in turn, but nothing was said about the definition or meaning of the word. He did not explain whether, ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... yet far too real. Surely, I dreamed, or was under some dire enchantment. But the spell is gone—gone, I ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... of this scrutiny, turning to me, "I have a talisman for you also, wherewith to entice the Sultan's daughter. It is a ruby of rare size and color, and therefore valuable. But the power of the spell it is said to possess remains to be tested. I give it to you because in you, at this moment, are fulfilled the conditions necessary to exercise this spell; which you do by simply taking the jewel in ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... why she is so Silly. Sally Tracy is the only merry one, now you are away; she spends too much, time, to my thinking, reading and walking with a young Gentleman who comes from Branford. I have not yet learned how to spell his Name, but you may Guess who I mean. When are you coming home, Betty? I want so to see your dear face. My Respects to Gulian and Clarissa, and Obedience to Grandma—I do not Recollect her whole Name. My Sampler is more perfectly Evil than ever, but I have completed the Alphabet and I danced ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... The spell which Venice has cast over the English poets is as powerful, in its way, as was the influence of Italian literature upon the early literature of England. From Chaucer down, the poets have turned to Italy for inspiration, and, ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... sorrow, or rather that is like me. Does it not always seem to mourn, and to mourn alone, but the moment that another star arises then the spell is broken, and it seems no more to mourn in the ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... the girl from the ranch. "Think of charging a wildcat with one of these smoke wagons! My! wouldn't it make Bashful Ike's eyes bulge out? I reckon he wouldn't believe we had such hunting here in the East—eh?" and her laugh broke the spell of fear that ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... principle of the universe, and of those spiritual threshings by and through which it is brought again under its blessed influence. In his 'Cristabel' he has exhibited the dark principle of evil, lurking within the good, and ever struggling with it. We read it in the spell the wicked witch Geraldine works upon her innocent and unsuspecting protector; we read it in the strange words which Geraldine addresses to the spirit of the saintly mother who has approached to shield from harm the beloved child for whom she died; ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... that had prevailed over the love-hardened heart of the gay old gallant, who had escaped the dangers of forty seasons of flirtation. He was entangled in the meshes of her golden hair, fascinated by the spell of her love-languid eyes, her mouth like a sad, heavy rose, her faultless form and her superb manners. He was blind to all her faults; deaf to all his friends—in the glamour of her enchantments he submitted to ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... nothing, is nothing, but exquisite emotion uttering itself in song—quick lyrical outbursts from her joyous child's heart. The happiness-in-herself which this poor silk-winder possesses is something deeper than the gaiety of which I earlier spoke. Gay she can be, and is, but the spell that all unwittingly she exercises, derives from the profounder depth of which the Eastern poet thought when he said that "We ourselves are Heaven and Hell." . . . Innocent but not ignorant, patient, yet capable of a hearty little grumble ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... accidentally at his door when Gib Dally passed on his way home. Cracky had an unspoken question in his eye; but Gib did not respond, for the singing had drawn a kind of spell over him too. So Cracky had to speak plain out before ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... would do such a thing, but he is more Russian than Aleut, and both he and his sister are completely under the spell of the priest. They are intensely religious, and their idea of ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... eager throng, to whom he is speaking in his gracious, winning way. That was the day he said, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." The officers listen as the wonderful words fall from his lips, and they, too, become interested; their attention is enchained; they come under the same spell which holds all the multitude. They linger till his discourse is ended; and then, instead of arresting him, they go back without him, only giving to the judges as reason for not obeying, "Never man spake like ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... down. No one moved or spoke for an instant. Dan'l Hastings let his cane fall upon the floor. It echoed through the silent place with a crash. Some of the women started and half cried out; but the spell was now partly broken. Mr. Simpson suddenly remembered to pray, and the gossips forgot to whisper when their heads were bowed. There were some pale faces in the crowd, and some which the galling of tears had made red. There was ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... and acted as a solvent on the mediaeval idea of the Church. All through the middle ages, nothing seemed more formidable to the European mind than heresy. Any sacrifices were willingly made in order to secure the unity of the Catholic Communion. But now, by the Protestant rebellion, that spell was broken, and the right of peoples to choose their faith, in dissent from a Church ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... that serves his cheeks' bright flame * Yet burneth not in fire albeit Infidel[FN470] I wonder eke to see that apostolic glance, * Miracle working, though it work by magic spell: How fresh and bright the down that decks his cheek, and yet * Bursten gall bladders feed ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... the mediaeval period three great cycles of stories commanded the imagination of the poets. Of these cycles one, the tale of Troy in its curious mediaeval guise, attested the potent spell of antique legend.[1] The two other great cycles were of later origin, and centred around the commanding historical figures of Charlemagne, and the phantom glory of the ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... A spell immediately enwrapped the senses of Koerg. Calm and fearless, he descended into the deep, floating dreamily downward to the glittering caves from whence, exactly as the elf had depicted, swarmed forth troops of mermen and mermaids, with eyes and arms ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... the curious compact organism of which my aunt was the head, and into which my soul had strayed by some caprice of fate. What I felt was that the organism was suspended in a sort of enchantment, lifelessly alive, unconsciously expectant of the magic touch which would break the spell, and I wondered how long I must wait before I began to live. I know now that I was happy in those serene preliminary years, but nevertheless I had the illusion of spiritual woe. I sighed grievously as I went back to the piano, and opened the volume ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... very quiet, he declared; the spirit could work only in deep silence. And he asked me to be kind enough to close my eyes. Then I heard his voice muttering, in a strange tongue, a queer dark gobbling kind of words, which may have been ancient African spell-words, or sheer gibberish such as magicians in all times and places have employed ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... History of England, by Lord MAHON, Vol. II. p. 285-298. He introduces it by the following remarks: "Some years back, the real events might have excited interest; but the wand of an enchanter is now waved over us. We feel the spell of the greatest writer that the world has seen in one department, or Scotland produced in any. How dull and lifeless will not the true facts appear when no longer embellished by the touching sorrows of ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... hurried luncheon, and then in summertime the river or the cricket fields. Back again he comes to cold supper and long draughts of shandygaff in hall; then a pipe or two and a chat, and then (sometimes) a spell of reading before bed and sleep. But all this is nearly forty years ago:—a mere memory:—but yet it is things like these that first come to mind when ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How
... The spell was broken. They cut the string and lifted the cover. Inside, packed in a soft bed of cotton, was a prize that shone out at them with a soft splendor—the ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... On the gentle St. Lawrence swell, As though by some mystic spell The water was turned to gold; But as he pursued, they fled, Till his vessels at last were led Where, cold and sullen and dead, The ...
— Fleurs de lys and other poems • Arthur Weir
... now, silence! Juno and Ceres whisper seriously, There's something else to do: hush, and be mute, Or else our spell is marr'd. ...
— The Tempest • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... conclusion of the "Spell of Cadboll" Norman received the hearty and unanimous congratulations of the circle. The frail old bard, pulling himself together, got up, went across the room, and shook him heartily with both hands. This special honour was a most unusual one. It was clear that Alastair ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... when the fact, that if I laid much longer I would actually freeze to death, would come over me with such overpowering force as to break the icy spell, and starting to my feet, I would endeavour to go through the combined manual and pedal exercise to restore the circulation. The first fling of my benumbed arm generally struck me in the face, instead of smiting my chest, its true destination. But in ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... found neither horse nor mule; so we entered the lodging of the Mamelukes and found none there, nor know we how they fled." The King marvelled at this, unknowing that the horses and Mamelukes were all Ifrits, the subjects of the Slave of the Spell, and asked the grooms, "O accursed how could a thousand beasts and five hundred slaves and servants flee without your knowledge?" Answered they, "We know not how it happened," and he cried, "Go, and when ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... only to fancy flying bricks, as you saw the slates flying from the roof the other day in the storm; only those slates didn't seem to know where they were going, and, besides, were going where they had no business: but my spell-bound bricks, though they have no wings, and what is worse, no heads and no eyes, yet find their way in the air just where they should settle, into towers and roofs, each flying to his place and fastening there at the right moment, so that ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... times has he crawled under the barn or stable and secured eggs, which he would roast in the fire and eat. That boy did not wear pantaloons, as you do, but a tow-linen shirt. Schools were unknown to him, and he learned to spell from an old Webster's spelling-book, and to read and write from posters on cellar and barn doors, while boys and men would help him. He would then preach and speak, and soon became well known. He became presidential ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... this nightmare? Or is it true that I am so suddenly cast down from my secure place, as to become in one hour a fugitive from my home, a fugitive from justice! Oh! Lyon, speak to me. Break the spell that binds my senses. Wake me up. Wake me up," ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... he rose from his bed; every day his sight was dimmer and his hand less steady; every night the steep flight of stairs seemed steeper, and he ascended them feebly by his hands as well as feet. He could not bring himself to write upon his slate or to spell out upon his fingers the dread words, "I am dying;" and Phebe was not old or experienced enough to read the signs of an approaching death. That her father should be taken away from her ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... the Turning Castle. The boar, watching his opportunity, sprang into it, and the dogs followed, and Pryderi said, "I will go into this castle and get tidings of the dogs." "Go not," said Manawydan; "whoever has cast a spell over this land and deprived us of our dwelling has placed this castle here." But Pryderi replied, "Of a truth I cannot give up my dogs." So he watched for the opportunity and went in. He saw neither boar nor dogs, neither man nor beast; but on the centre of the castle ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... lovers of peace as that of a man who farms his own land; for he retains enough of the warlike spirit to fight fiercely in defence of his own property, but has lost all desire to despoil and wrong his neighbours. It was for this reason that Numa encouraged agriculture among the Romans, as a spell to charm away war, and loved the art more because of its influence on men's minds than because of the wealth which it produced. He divided the whole country into districts, which he called pagi, and appointed a head man for each, and a patrol to guard ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... answer. He was watching Gaspare, fascinated, completely under the spell of the dance. The blood was beginning to boil in his veins, warm blood of the south that he had never before felt in his body. Artois had spoken to Hermione of "the call of the blood." Maurice began to hear it now, ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... under a spell, man. Old Shotover sold himself to the devil in Zanzibar. The devil gave him a black witch for a wife; and these two demon daughters are their mystical progeny. I am tied to Hesione's apron-string; but I'm her husband; and if ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... what books you read, what tunes you learn, and inclose me your best copy of every lesson in drawing.... Take care that you never spell a word wrong.... It produces great praise to a ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... board, clothing, books, &c., amounting to about $300 a year. At the end of that time, the Priest reported to me that Carson was a good natured boy, willing enough, but that he had no taste or appetite for learning. His letters to me confirmed this conclusion, as he could not possibly spell. After reflection, I concluded to send him to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to the care of General Langdon C. Easton, United States Quartermaster, with instructions to employ him in some capacity in which ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... and resolutely refused to take a hint or to adopt a suggestion. Both of them were fearfully anxious for the result that was pending, and each had his plan for overreaching the other. It was a long hour; but at last Tom broke the spell which seemed to rest on both of them by declaring that he was "clean choked up," and must go and get a drink of water. At the same moment, Somers heard the tramp of the soldiers in the road as they approached the house, and ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... and at the desert song. Suddenly she thought she would not sing it to Lady Cardington. There was too wild a spell in it for this auditor. She played a little prelude and sang an Italian song, full, as a warm flower of sweetness, of the sweetness of love. The refrain was soft as golden honey, soft and languorous, strangely sweet and sad. There ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... another dupe in Madame Pernelle, incredulous of the revelations which have at last opened his own besotted eyes, is a scene of the double Comic, vivified by the spell previously cast on the mind. There we feel the power of the poet's creation; and in the sharp light of that sudden turn the humanity is livelier than any realistic work ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... mountain gulfs towards unseen and unaccountable enemies. I have seen trainloads of wounded staring out of the ambulance train windows as we passed. I have seen these dim intimations of questioning reflection in the strangest juxtapositions; in Malagasy soldiers resting for a spell among the big shells they were hoisting into trucks for the front, in a couple of khaki-clad Maoris sitting upon the step of a horse-van in Amiens station. It is always the same expression one catches, rather weary, rather sullen, inturned. The shoulders droop. The ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... but in a few days after advertising we found the rightful owner. She was a very poor woman who had saved by dint of hard labor the sum of twenty dollars, and was on her way to pay the doctor who had attended her during a spell of rheumatic fever, when she lost the money and had not one dollar left to pay for advertising and being disheartened, she had given up all hope of finding it, when she happened to see it advertised in the paper. She was very grateful to my mother for restoring the money and offered ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... for everlastin',' murmured Hal; and the next moment their Father's voice calling across to Little Lindens broke the spell as St. ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... that of Sally; the talk, that had momentarily died away, began again, and with a glance at Long Snapps,—a lank, shrewd-faced old sailor, who, to use his own speech, had "cast anchor 'longside of an old ship-met fur a spell, bein' bound fur his own cabin up in Lenox,"—'Zekiel spoke ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... placed on the poop, with a sail stretched over them, to shelter them somewhat from the night air. The dead were carried forward. We had no time, however, to spare from the pumps; but, with the aid of the fresh hands, we again set to for a spell, the gentleman helping, as far as his strength would allow him. As may be supposed, I was curious to know who he was; and while we were pumping away, I bethought me I ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... much to be wondered at that Ney became Napoleonist with as much ardor as ever. And when Napoleon called on him by his old title, "the bravest of the brave," to once more rally under his standard, Ney responded with alacrity, as though the name possessed a magic spell ...
— Harper's Young People, January 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... things work. Now she seemed to see the farm as part of a great fourth line of defense, a trench that was feeding all the other trenches and all the armies in the open and all the people behind the armies, a line whose success was indispensable to victory, whose defeat would spell failure everywhere. It was only for a minute that she saw this quite clearly, with a kind of illuminated insight that made her backache well worth while. Then the minute passed, and as Elliott bent to her hoe again she was aware only of a suspicion that possibly when one was having the most ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... beams widely over all, each mist-veil was instantly transformed into a thing of surpassing beauty. It could only be compared to strings of diamonds, rubies and pearls. With a fairy's witchery, or a magician's spell, the whole face of the waters was changed. Each wrecked craft along the shore, partially buried in sand, masts gone, keel broken, and anchor dragged, with the surf breaking over all, was transformed under the brilliant sunshine, ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... spell was broken. Even while the soldier resumed his short, solemn walk, other figures shuffled forward. They did not so much as greet the leader, but joined the one, sniffling and hitching and scraping ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... superhuman energy of his utterance there had been found the potency of a spell—the huge antique panels to which the speaker pointed threw slowly back, upon the instant, their ponderous and ebony jaws. It was the work of the rushing gust—but then without those doors there ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... in search of Bele, replaced him on his hereditary throne, swore eternal friendship with him, and, the baleful spell being removed, married the beautiful Ingeborg, who dwelt with ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... a barney, of course, made bad blood betwixt us and Moran's mob, so for a spell Starlight and father thought it handier for us to go our own road and let them go theirs. We never could agree with chaps like them, and that was the long and short of it. They were a deal too rough and ready ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... the tan-bark with troops of pretty Shetland ponies of all ages, sizes, and colors. A cry of delight went up from a group of little people near me, and the spell of the Horse Show was broken. It was no longer a solemnity of fashion, it was a sweet and kindly pleasure which every one could share, or every one who had ever had, or ever wished to have, a Shetland pony; the touch of nature made the whole show kin. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... whatsoever. The unity of synthesis, by which they are composed into one figure of a cross, we know to be a mere accidental result from an arbitrary synthesis of human fancy. Take such and such stars, compose them into letters, and they will spell such a word. But still it was our own choice—a synthesis of our own fancy, originally to combine them in this way. They might be divided from each other, and otherwise combined. All this is true: and yet, as the combination does spontaneously offer itself [Footnote: ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... knew its import; yet I made no effort to rise, for I was for the moment paralysed. Again the cry sounded, yet still I lay motionless—the stupidity of horror was upon me. A third time, and it was then that, by a violent effort bursting the spell which appeared to bind me, I sprang from the bed and rushed downstairs. My mother was running wildly about the room; she had awoke and found my father senseless in the bed by her side. I essayed to raise him, and after a few efforts ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... skill'd with magic spell to roll The thrilling tones that concentrate the soul! Breathe through thy flute those tender notes again, While near thee sits the chaste-eyed maiden mild; And bid her raise the poet's kindred strain In ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... present Bacon had broken through the spell which had so long kept him back. He won a great deal of the King's confidence, and the King was more and more ready to make use of him, though by no means equally willing to think that Bacon knew better than himself. Bacon's view of the law, and his resources ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... sank down upon the divan. A feeling of boundless anxiety, of immeasurable ecstasy suddenly overcame her. She could have fled, but she felt as if spell-bound; she could have concealed herself from him, and yet was joyfully ready to purchase with her life the happiness of seeing him. It was a strange mixture of delight and terror, of happiness and despair. She spread her arms toward ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... or the "Most Mighty Name" [of God] is a magic spell or incantation which the acquirer can apply to wonderful purposes. God hath, among the Muhammadans, ninety-nine names or epithets; the Ismi A'zam is one of the number, but it is only the initiated few who can say which of the ninety-nine ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... and widespread interest aroused by the appearance of the Somme Film, it may perhaps be permissible to depart for a spell from the narration of my story, in order to explain briefly, for the benefit of those interested, how such a picture is prepared, and the various processes through which it must necessarily pass before it is ready for ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... hardest and sternest nature; while over all her features the same yearning expression was spread. Gradually, as she stood, she raised her thin white hands and clasped them together, and so stood, intent upon the portrait, as though she found some spell ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... and the hell's delight of the war are things of the past. We take up life where we left it five years ago; we come back to plough, lathe, counter, bank, office, and we shall carry on as though a Sleeping Beauty spell had been cast on the world and we were awakening, at the kiss of the Fairy Prince of ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... level. I was already covered with a layer of snow, and I suppose it was the frigid pressure on my forehead that caused the dream. It is, however, probable that, had it not been for the hideous vision that shook my nerves free of paralysing torpor, I should never have awakened from that spell-bound silence. ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... boy the spell he used with the rope, and when he had learnt this, he asked to be taught the spell by which he could change his own shape without having a second person to work the spell with the rope. The Jogi said that he would teach ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas |
