"Spell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Teague? Then I'll thank you to do me a good turn. I came here in a witch-ship last night, and the crew put this spell upon me because I wouldn't pay my footing to cross the Line. A nice lot, to try and steal the gilt off a church weather-cock! 'Tis ridiculous," said he, "but I can't get loose ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... thought of the leagues of snow He trode on the trail of the buffalo; And little he recked of the hurricanes That swept the snow from the frozen plains And piled the banks of the Bloody River. [40] His bow unstrung and forgotten hung With his beaver hood and his otter quiver; He sat spell-bound by the artless grace Of her star-lit eyes and her moon-lit face. Ah, little he cared for the storms that blew, For Wiwst had found her a way to woo. When he spoke with Wakwa her sidelong eyes Sought the handsome chief in his hunter-guise. Wakwa marked, ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... still was hidden. He was in fact about to do so, when suddenly his senses were overwhelmed with a sweet anguish, darkness fell on him, and from its very core he sneezed twice, violently. This interruption of the previous spell was sufficient to bring him to a realization of his peril, and rising hastily he ran back to the Ring, where he remained till morning. But to what pious thoughts he then committed himself I cannot tell you; neither in what feverish fashion he ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... this token do I know you." He took her hand, and added, "By the mystic spell that drew us to each other, I conjure you here to plight your troth to me ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... 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 moment laid ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... felt himself so lulled to oblivion of things external; he forgot the progress of time, and only when Mrs. Pomfret spoke of the train she had to catch, made an effort to break the lazy spell and take ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... he is nothing to you; but you are something to him. He does not recognize your nature as I do. I must get him out of the reach of your spell—" ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... detected at once the competitive air. He continued to play, gazing hard at his violin and apparently entranced, but edging little by little towards Mr. Ziegler. Audrey desired either to give a cry or to run out of the room. She did neither, being held to inaction by the spell of Mr. Ziegler's perfect unconcern as, with the beer glass lifted towards his mouth, he proceeded steadily to work through "The Watch on the Rhine," while Musa lilted out the delicate, gay phrases of Debussy. The enchantment upon the whole room was sinister and painful. Musa got ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... political, aspired. It was not only a royal court; it was also a great club. Spenser's poem shows us how he had sped there, and the impressions made on his mind by a closer view of the persons and the ways of that awful and dazzling scene, which exercised such a spell upon Englishmen, and which seemed to combine or concentrate in itself the glory and the goodness of heaven, and all the baseness and malignity of earth. The occasion deserved a full celebration; it was indeed a turning-point in his life, for it led to the publication of ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... all the ladies rose from table, and thus the spell under which Bianchon had held them was broken. But there were some among them who had almost shivered at the ...
— La Grande Breteche • Honore de Balzac
... ceremonies which had distinguished the old school. He generally rose about noon, dined at three p.m., spent the evening at the opera or theatre, and went to bed towards morning. Add to this, that he collected old china, took much snuff, combed his wig in public, and was unable to write legibly or spell correctly—and a finished portrait is presented of Mr Marcus Welles, and through him of a fashionable London gentleman ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... chicken thing!" Peter shouted back, springing up to disappear in the direction of the bathroom. Cherry sat on, silent, wrapped still in the new spell of the pleasant voice, the strangely appealing ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... vines which is liable to be spoiled by an early fall frost, it can be saved by pulling the vines and placing them in windrows and covering them with straw. Of course the vines should be handled carefully to shake off as little fruit as possible. If the freeze is followed by a spell of warm, dry weather the fruit will ripen up so as to be quite equal to that shipped in from a distance. A second plan is to pull the vines and hang them up in a dry cellar or out-house, or lay them on the ground in an open ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy
... not get into the town till the chimes of half-past seven were pealing. Captain Harewood hurried into the hotel, to prepare for the evening; and Wilmet was mounting the stairs, still under the spell of her newly-found joy, when she was startled by Alda's voice in a key ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... eyes fastened in horror on Charlie's face. A great actor had been lost in creating Charlie an Indian. He pictured his father's death, his sister's two attempts at revenge with a vividness and power that held even Levine spell-bound. It seemed to Lydia that the noose was fastened closer round John's neck with every word ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... 'Take heed what spell the lightning weaves—what charm the echoes shape— Or, bound among a million sheaves, your soul may not escape. Bar home the door of summer nights lest those high planets drown The memory of near delights in all the ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... astonishment, its lament over the vacuities of this highest type of human society, its ominous threats of thundered denunciation on the day when her tongue should be loosed and the present mesmeric spell broken—for she was under a spell, even that of this new world of tinsel ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... [3] I spell this word as it is spelled by the officers of the Spanish-American Iron Company, who say ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... it has been reported)? Or are you gone into a nunnery? Or are you fallen in love with some of the amorous heroes of Boccaccio? Which of them is it? Is it with Chynon, who was transformed from a clown into a lover, and learned to spell by the force of beauty? Or with Lorenzo, the lover of Isabella, whom her three brethren hated (as your brother does me), who was a merchant's clerk? Or with Federigo Alberigi, an honest gentleman, who ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... 'why' on me," said the Harvester. "Thank God, I am now in a position where I can tell you 'why'! I do it because you are the girl of my dream, my mate by every law of Heaven and earth. All men build as well as they know when the one woman of the universe lays her spell on them. I did all this for myself just as a kind of expression of what it would be in my heart to do if I could do what I'd like. Put on the easiest dress you can find and I will go and ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... realities, the more sagacious grew its expression, the more lifelike its gestures and movements, and the more intelligibly audible its voice. Its garments, too, glistened so much the brighter with an illusory magnificence. The very pipe, in which burned the spell of all this wonderwork, ceased to appear as a smoke-blackened earthen stump, and became a meerschaum, with painted ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... so help me!" he exclaimed, as with a trembling finger he pointed the letters out to Beatrice: "Here's an 'H'—here's 'mbur'—here's 'aily,' and 'ronicl'! Eh, what? 'Chronicle,' it must have been! By Jove, you're right! And the whole thing used to spell 'Hamburg Daily Chronicle,' ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... the bench, there was also the sound of men carousing with loud laughter in the stern of the vessel; but above them all rose the hollow groaning as of one in mortal agony. This proceeded from a slave who was quite close to Uruj. There came a spell in the laughter and loud voices in the stern, and presently an imperious voice spoke: "That noise disturbs me; see that it ceases at once." An obsequious answer came from out of the prevailing darkness: "It shall cease at once, ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... little side street. In the fall of the year Johnny comes down to the Canon and serves as a guide a while; and then, when he gets so he just can't stand associating with tourists any longer, he packs his warbags and journeys back to the Northern Range and enjoys the company of cows a spell. Cows are not exactly exciting, but ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... town, which had been suffering from rather a dreary spell since the acceptable publication of Tom Jones, was refreshed and enlivened by the simultaneous issue of two delightfully scandalous productions, eminently well adapted to occupy the polite conversation of ladies at drums and at the ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... recur to the simple and pure in theatricals, it would probably be necessary to effect an escape from a period of time, which has never been employed in the full integrity of tasteful elegance; and thus to break the spell, by which the whole realm of fancy has long been bewitched. An absurd and inconvenient practice, which is almost peculiar to this country, of attending public places in that uncomfortable condition, which is technically called being dressed, but which is ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various
... hysterical laughter. When they caught sight of me, however, a brief pause ensued, and the solemn hush, that even in a callous crowd invariably attends the actual presence of a long-awaited personage, reigned unbroken for a while; then one spoke, then another ventured to address me, and the spell of silence gave way to noise and general excitability, and the people began speedily to close upon me, anxious to get a glimpse of such a peculiar white man. Later on, when the shutters were up ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... of revelry that lasted till long after midnight. Bodlevski, feeling his side pocket to see if the passport was still there, at last left the hall, bewildered, as though under a spell. He felt a kind of gloomy satisfaction; he was possessed by this satisfaction, by the uncertainty of what Natasha could have thought out, by the question how it would all turn out, and by the conviction that his first crime had already been committed. All these feelings ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... one that went. She meant to tell her mother all about the Psammead,—in fact they had all meant to do this,—but she spent so long thinking how to spell the word that there was no time to tell the story properly, and it is useless to tell a story unless you do tell it properly, so she had to be ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... shadow upon the dazzling white cloud; and oh, Ebbo! he was struggling with a thinner, darker, wilder shape bearing a club. He strove to withhold it; his gestures threatened and warned! I watched like one spell-bound, for it was to me as the guardian spirit of our race striving for thee ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... took fully three months to establish matters on this satisfactory basis; and this brought the time on to what may be termed the winter season; that is to say, the period of the year when, after a long-continued spell of fine weather, during which the crops ripen and are gathered in, the season of rain, wind, and violent thunderstorms begins which is to soften, nourish, and invigorate the baked earth and prepare it to bring forth the luxuriant vegetation of another ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... Shokyu disturbance (1221), the empire enjoyed a long spell of peace under the able and upright sway of the Hojo, and during that time it became the custom to compile anthologies. The first to essay that task was Teika. Grieving that the poets of his time had begun to prefer affectation and elegance to sincerity and simplicity, he withdrew to a secluded villa ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... folks," cried a merry voice—and the bright, happy face of Julia Mannering was before me—"I am sent by my honored father, the colonel, to break up this charmed circle; and he humbly requests to be put under the spell himself, through the enchanting voice of Miss McIvor—one little Highland air, my dear Flora, is all he asks—but see, with sombre Melancholy leaning on his arm, he comes to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... impression such as none but herself could have created. The entire assemblage stared, murmuring its excitement, at the renowned creature. Eliza loved the stare and the murmur. She was like a fish dropped into water after a gasping spell in ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... years passed away, when one day the crow came to the Princess and said: 'In another year I shall be freed from the spell I am under at present, because then the seven years will be over. But before I can resume my natural form, and take possession of the belongings of my forefathers, you must go out into the world and take ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... spell of weather overtakes you, you will inquire, "How can we keep warm?" If you are where wood is very abundant, you can build a big fire ten or fifteen feet from the tent, and the heat will strike through the cloth. This is the poorest way, and if you have only shelter-tents ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... Colby gives this interesting bit of description: "Our husbands were both in the Senate. We had apartments in the same house, where, hobnobbing over our partnership housekeeping, we planned our public work. Our husbands each had a spell of sickness at the same time, and while our functions of State presidency were temporarily exchanged for those of nursing, our enemies took advantage of us and killed that bill, on the very day, February 15, that Gov. John A. Martin signed the bill under which the women of Kansas ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... conjecture that the legend of Elene had come to England in a Greek form. As to the author of the poem, we know his name, but very little else about him. He has left us his name, imbedded in runic letters as an acrostic, in the last canto of the poem, q.v. These letters spell the word CYNEWULF; but who was Cynewulf? The question is hard to answer, and has given rise to much discussion, which cannot be gone into here. A good summary of it will be found in Wuelker's Grundriss zur Geschichte der Angelsaechsischen Litteratur ...
— Elene; Judith; Athelstan, or the Fight at Brunanburh; Byrhtnoth, or the Fight at Maldon; and the Dream of the Rood • Anonymous
... at the river, and the sadness of his homeless and lonely state in the world began to come upon him, as it came often. Then a soft voice broke the spell, and the words ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... those who, by desolate effort, trying hither and thither, have groped their way to some independent power. So, from Cornish rock, from St. Giles's Lane, from Thames mudshore, you get your Prout, your Hunt, your Turner; not, indeed, any of them well able to spell English, nor taught so much of their own business as to lay a color safely; but yet at last, or first, doing somehow something, wholly ineffective on the national mind, yet real, and valued at last after they are ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... seemed hours,—spell-bound, watching the face, but not daring to move even an eyelid, lest the discovery of the fact that I was awake, should be the signal for my own destruction. I expected every moment to hear the twang of a bow-string, and feel the ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... ignorance, and the latter being the greater, always betrayed itself, for nothing looks so silly as a fool acting wisdom. The prince repeated his question; the governor demanded why he asked—the prince had not patience to spell the question over again on his fingers, but bawled it as loud as he could to no purpose. The courtiers ran in, and catching up the prince's words, and repeating them imperfectly, it soon flew all over Pekin, and thence into the provinces, and thence into Tartary, and thence to Muscovy, ...
— Hieroglyphic Tales • Horace Walpole
... running ahead of my yarn. We shared the hatch cover between us. We took turn and turn about, one lying flat on the cover and resting, while the other, submerged to the neck, merely held on with his hands. For two days and nights, spell and spell, on the cover and in the water, we drifted over the ocean. Towards the last I was delirious most of the time; and there were times, too, when I heard Otoo babbling and raving in his native tongue. Our continuous ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... she went to her own room to dress, had she a moment to realize the catastrophe, its consequences, and the means of averting them. So appalled was she, that she sat with her hair on her shoulders as if spell-bound, till the first ring at the door aroused her to speed and consternation, perhaps a little lessened by one of her sisters rushing in to say that it was Mrs. Ledwich and Mrs. Pugh, and that Henry was still in the cellar, decanting ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the mysterious letter, which were well calculated to stir to their depths the hearts of both the squire and his sister, who looked at each other as those look who become suddenly conscious of a common misfortune. A spell seemed on their tongues. At last the silence was broken ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... by criticism, by imagination. Then, the imprisoned souls of nature would speak as of old. The Middle Age, in Germany, where the past has had such generous reprisals, never far from us, would reassert its mystic spell, for the better understanding of our Raffaelle. The spirits of distant Hellas would reawake in the men and women of little German towns. Distant times, the most alien thoughts, would come near together, ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... London newspaper mentioned the case of an Essex man entering a hairdresser's and requesting the barber to procure for him a piece of a certain customer's hair. When asked the reason for this curious demand, he stated that the customer had injured him and he wished to 'work a spell' against him. [330] In the Parsi Zend-Avesta it is stated that if the clippings of hair or nails are allowed to fall in the ground or ditches, evil spirits spring up from them and devour grain and clothing in the house. It was therefore ordained for the Parsis through their prophet ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... laid laid lean leaned, leant leaned, leant leap leaped, leapt leaped, leapt leave left left lose lost lost make made (once maked) made mean meant meant pay paid paid pen [inclose] penned, pen penned, pent say said said seek sought sought sell sold sold shoe shod shod sleep slept slept spell spelled, spelt spelt spill spilt spilt stay staid, stayed staid, stayed sweep swept swept teach taught taught tell told told think thought thought weep wept wept work ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... not large, nor are the prospects for metropolitan greatness at all flattering. Even her most zealous citizen, the ancient of the market corner, admits that "there ain't been much stirrin' for quite a spell back," and among the broad fraternity of commercial travellers, the town is a standing joke. Yet, throughout the entire State, no community of equal size is so well known. It is the home of ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... ensnared me?" queried the lady quizzically. "It hath. As the yellow metal of the earth hath always thrown a spell over men so the red gold of thy hair hath fascinated me. I dote on thy locks, my fair page. Ay! so much so that they and I shall ne'er be parted more. Celeste! Annabelle! have ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... hear first from me, than from Miss Howe, or any other,) what should hinder me from giving her this mark of my obedience; especially as I could leave Will, who is a clever fellow, and can do any thing but write and spell, and Lord M.'s Jonas (not as guards, to be sure, but as attendants only); the latter to be dispatched to me occasionally by the former, whom I could acquaint ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... spot had come Stephen in her pain. The long spell of self-restraint during that morning had almost driven her to frenzy, and she sought solitude as an anodyne to her tortured soul. The long anguish of a third sleepless night, following on a day of humiliation and terror, had destroyed ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... story-readers; if their interest subsides for the moment, or is absorbed by other forms of expression, it reasserts itself in due time and demands the old enchantment that has woven its spell over every generation since men and women reached an early stage of development. Barbarians and even savages share with the most highly civilised peoples ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... moon on the east oriel shone, Through slender shafts of shapely stone, By foliated tracery combined; Thou would'st have thought some fairy's hand 'Twixt poplars straight the osier wand In many a freakish knot had twined; Then framed a spell, when the work was done, And changed the willow-wreaths ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. • Various
... you think best; but I fancy we'd better turn the biggest lot into the 'Sheeps' Close' to-night." The "Sheeps' Close" was the name of one of the best meadows, which at this time was very bare owing to the long spell ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... assumptions made inside certain programs, esp. expert systems, which lead to the appearance of semi-intelligent behavior but are in fact entirely arbitrary. For example, fuzzy-matching of input tokens that might be typing errors against a symbol table can make it look as though a program knows how to spell. 2. Special-case code to cope with some awkward input that would otherwise cause a program to {choke}, presuming normal inputs are dealt with in some cleaner and more regular way. Also called 'ad-hackery', 'ad-hocity' (/ad-hos'*-tee/), ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... cheering words reanimated their spirits. The carpenter had often sounded the well. He now reported that the ship had sprang a leak; the pumps must be manned; the demand on the energies of the crew was increased. Still they worked cheerfully. Even some of the wounded insisted on coming up to take their spell at the pumps. ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... position; and that class of intelligence is not accustomed to find the marvellous in such very powerful hands as yours. On more imaginative readers the tale will fall (or I am greatly mistaken) like a spell. By readers who combine some imagination, some scepticism, and some knowledge and learning, I hope it will be regarded as full of strange fancy and curious study, startling reflections of their own thoughts and speculations ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... unattractive to my trivial mind. This time, however, my eye fell upon a poem full of light and beauty, and of that subtle grace which seems so incomprehensible, so uncreated—a lyric by Mr. Alfred Noyes. It was like a spell which banished for an instant the weariness born of a long, hot, tedious committee, the oppression which always falls on me at the sight and sound of the cataract of human beings and vehicles, running so fiercely in ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Chucha had told her. Every penitent in that great and gaunt building was thrilled with one persistent hope, worked patiently with that in view, and under its spell refrained from violence or clamour. There was not one face of those files of grey-gowned girls which, at stated hours, entered the chapel, knelt at the altar, or stooped at painful labour through the stifling days, which did not show a gleam. Stupid, vacant, vicious, morose, pretty, sparkling, ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... sweetest charms has Cupid's spell. No sooner felt, the ready heart His conquered self would yield him well Ere yet the god had winged his dart. But yet the tale we often hear Of tears and sorrows keen, To share in them, I ween, Though sweet, would ...
— The Imaginary Invalid - Le Malade Imaginaire • Moliere
... years, will little by little be wasted and spoiled." Hereto all assented and with single mind agreed that he whom they had slain had knowledge of the magical words whereby the door was made to open; moreover that some one beside him had cognizance the spell and had carried off the body, and also much of gold; wherefore they needs must make diligent research and find out who the man ever might be. They then took counsel and determined that one amongst them, who should be sagacious and deft of wit, must don the dress of some ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... seriousness, "it's a hangin' matter. I fixed 'm. I had to. He woke up on me. You an' me's got to do some layin' low for a spell." ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... But once—a likely spell ago—when that poor little chick From teething or from some such ill of infancy fell sick, You wouldn't know us people as the same that went about A-feelin' good all over, just to hear him crow and shout; ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field
... associations with Greek philosophy and culture, with Roman law and social life, but as a moral force among the common people, its weakness was contemptible. It could sway the wavering multitude with superstitious fancies, and cast a subtler spell upon the noblest Christian teachers, but its own adherents it could hardly lift above their petty quest of pleasure. Julian called aloud, and called in vain. A mocking echo was the only answer from that valley of dry bones. Christianity, on the other side, had won the victory almost without ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... sketch it, but could not purchase it. The interpretation given of its symbolism is that of the qaçà li who owned it. In the myth of klèdji-qaçà l it is said that the beneficent god Qastcèëlçi used this kethà wn when he removed from the prophet Co the evil spell which had been cast on the ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... of wonderful quality, rich and unctuous, the labials dropping, honeyed, from the lips. It wooed the crowd, lured it, enmeshed it. But the magician had, a little, lost confidence in the power of his spell. His mind dwelt uneasily upon his well-garbed auditor. What was he doing there, with his keen face and worldly, confident carriage, amidst those clodhoppers? Was there peril in his presence? Your predatory creature hunts ever with fear ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... of Prince Arthur (Sir T. Malory, 1470), we are told that the enchantress Nimue or Ninive inveigled the old man, and "covered him with a stone under a rock." In the Morte d'Arthur it is said "he sleeps and sighs in an old tree, spell-bound by Vivien." Tennyson, in his Idylls ("Vivien"), says that Vivien induced Merlin to take shelter from a storm in a hollow oak tree, and left him spell-bound. Others say he was spell-bound in ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... we were notified to stop firing and a flag of truce was sent in to demand the surrender of the city. The negotiations gave us a breathing spell. ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... the two years are gone, and her man wants her back, as he will, she must come, of course. But she grows poor here in the city. It don't agree with her like the scent of the clover and the breeze from the hills. So, shet up the house for a spell, and let the child ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... that Florence had left her alone—with her playing with adultery. I suppose it was; though she was such a child that one has the impression that she would hardly have known how to spell such a word. No, it was just submissiveness—to the importunities, to the tempestuous forces that pushed that miserable fellow on to ruin. And I do not suppose that Florence really made much difference. If it had not been for her that Ashburnham left his allegiance for Mrs Maidan, then ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... at first scarcely glanced at all these beautiful things, for in an easy chair sat Zog himself, more wonderful than any other living creature, and as they gazed upon him, their eyes seemed fascinated as if held by a spell. Zog's face was the face of a man, except that the tops of his ears were pointed like horns and he had small horns instead of eyebrows and a horn on the end of his chin. In spite of these deformities, the expression of the face was not ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum
... you that it has been a fad with the ladies here to spell out their dates, and, though the fashion is waning, Mrs. Makely is a woman who would remain in such an absurdity among the very last. I will let you make your own conclusions concerning this, for though, as an Altrurian, I cannot respect her, I like her so much, and have ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... about like the enchanted Hero of a Romance, who sees beautiful Castles, Woods and Meadows; and at the same time hears the warbling of Birds, and the purling of Streams; but upon the finishing of some secret Spell, the fantastick Scene breaks up, and the disconsolate Knight finds himself on a barren Heath, or in a solitary Desart. It is not improbable that something like this may be the State of the Soul after its first Separation, in respect of the Images it will ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... to get numb," he said, "tell me, and I'll get out and walk a spell.... How clear the air is! Seems as if you could stretch out your hand and touch the mountains. Do you see that shadow half way up—on the left—about three feet off? Carcasonne House is somewhere in that shadow. And it's forty ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... down to soothe the weary eyes, How all the griefs and heart-aches we have known Come up like pois'nous vapors that arise From some base witch's caldron, when the crone, To work some potent spell, her magic plies. The past which held its share of bitter pain, Whose ghost we prayed that Time might exorcise, Comes up, is lived and suffered o'er again, Ere sleep comes down to soothe the ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... there is such a thing in Nature; when I see a Head where there was no Head, Sense in Posse where there is no Sense in Esse, Wit without Brains, and Sight without Eyes, 'tis all Devil-Work: Could G—— write Satyrs, that could neither read Latin or spell English, like old Sir William Read, who wrote a Book of Opticks, which when it was printed, he did not know which was the right Side uppermost, and which the wrong? Could this eminent uninform'd Beau turn Atheist, and make wise Speeches against that ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... George's sake, that Lord H(olland)(265) has been with you, but you could not be surprised to find, in one of that family, a disposition to loquacity. He is, I believe, a very good boy, and his tutor is, they say, a very sensible man; but he has a most hideous name, and if you do not know how to spell it, I, for my part, can with difficulty pronounce it, the sound of it being so near ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... sate, till night grew late, Bound by a weary spell. Then a face came in at the garden-gate, ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... come about in the girl Yule was aware. He observed her with the closest study day after day. Her health seemed to have improved; after a long spell of work she had not the air of despondent weariness which had sometimes irritated him, sometimes made him uneasy. She was more womanly in her bearing and speech, and exercised an independence, appropriate indeed to her years, but such ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... honest-hearted rustics, I am credited with having cast a deadly spell upon certain unfortunate pigs, with having fought hand to hand with the hosts of the nethermost pit, and with having sold my soul to the devil—may I trouble you ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... talking to his sister, and occasionally, though without any particular empressement, addressing Bluebell, who thought his voice sweeter than any man's she had ever heard. It made her unconsciously modulate her own, which as yet had the untuned accents of early girlhood; but the spell was on her, and she felt, for the first time, at a loss for words. Yet when Mrs. Rolleston shortly after sent her to the piano, it was more of disappointment than a relief. Some one was following to turn the ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... very anxious about this and wishful that she could get away by some vessel or otherwise. His wife's name is Lucy Morris; the child's name is Lot Morris; the lady's name she lives with is a Mrs. Hine (I hope I spell her name right, Hine), at the corner of Duke street and Washington street, in Norfolk city, Virginia. She is hired out to this rich old widow lady. James Morris wishes me to write you—he has saved ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... ought to have it given me. I ought to have ... oh, nothing very much, perhaps ... a little gladness ... a glad memory ... the thought that my life will not have been entirely wasted.... The thought that I too shall have had my spell of love.... But that short spell I ask for ... I beg for ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... aloud, a command the boy obeyed with alacrity, starting of his own accord at the beginning of the book. So the two sat there, and followed their pilgrim through the perils and triumphs of his way, each acknowledging in his heart the spell of the wonderful story, and feeling himself a braver man for every step he took ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... weird and legendary lore Invests our young, our golden Austral shore With that romance the poet loves too well, When Inspiration breathes her magic spell." ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... fairest as well as most familiar instance of this enthralling spell over his readers, is too well known a story to tell in detail. But how intensely and painfully distinct is the opening description of the silent, inflexible Austin Ruthyn of Knowl, and his shy, sweet daughter Maude, the one so resolutely ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... company certainly did not detract from her fascination upon a closer acquaintance. Of those who fell under the spell, the more fortunate came at once to terms of friendship with her, which remained undisturbed through life. Thus, of one among this numerous brotherhood, Francois Rollinat, with whom she would congratulate herself on having realized the perfection of ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... friend unwarned fell To bottomless perdition, there to find A dread abode where he for aye must dwell; Who erst were men are now like hounds of Hell And with unceasing energy entice To dire combustion all with wily spell, And to themselves have ta'en the devils' guise, Their power and skill all ill to ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... we all hope to see eventually, but none of us are anxious to start for; because a correspondent has no right to carry a rifle during war time, a thing I never do unless I am out hunting. I gave my tired horse a spell, whilst I searched the veldt with my glasses, then slipping through a gully I made my way out on to the veldt, got in touch with a donga that ran the way I wanted to travel, got into its bed, gave my horse a drink, and rode on until dark; then I made my way into camp, and religiously held my peace ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... that when they returned to the camp-fire they seemed freed from this spell of the desert. The blaze-lit circle was shut in by the darkness; and the immensity of their wild environment, because for the hour it could not be seen, lost its paralyzing effect. Hare fell naturally into a talkative mood. Mescal had developed a vivacity, an ambition which contrasted strongly ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... of very great importance that women should grasp firmly this truth: the virtue of chastity owes its origin to property. Our minds fall so readily under the spell of such ideas as chastity and purity. There is a mass of real superstition on this question—a belief in a kind of magic in purity. But, indeed, chastity had at first no connection with morals. The sense of ownership has ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... drinks around for everyone save Mayer, who shook his head in distaste. If only for a brief spell, some of the tenseness left the air while the men from ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... the Egyptian Gallery of the British Museum. It is a curious coincidence that in the Ethiopic version of the Pseudo-Callisthenes, Alexander is said to have been the son of Nectanebus II., who threw a spell over Olympias, the wife of Philip of Macedon, and won her love by the exercise of nefarious magic. (See the Life and Exploits of Alexander the Great, by E. A. Wallis Budge, Litt.D., F.S.A., Keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... You couldn't tell to save you what it was, but after you'd seen her she'd seem to be with you for days, and you couldn't think much about anything else, even if you wanted to. People used to go around in a kind of spell; they couldn't think of anything or talk of anything but Dora Preston. It didn't matter much what she did; everything she did made you feel like a boy falling in love the first time. It made you think of apple-blossoms and moonlight just to ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... be once forgotten; the spell of it once broken! The legions of assiduous ministering spirits rise on you now as menacing fiends; your free orderly arena becomes a tumult-place of the Nether Pit, and the hapless magician is rent limb from limb. Military mobs ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... cry of a soul in torture! The spell-bound officers sprang to their feet. Spectators climbed on their chairs ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... his biography. He was, to use his own words, engendered by the sun shining on a dunghill at his father's door,' and began his career as a flea; but his identity was, somehow, shifted to a boy of nine years old. He has had a long spell of humanity, and awaits the great change—which is to turn him to a bee. It will not find him unprepared; he has long practiced humming, in anticipation. A faithful friend, called Caffyn, used to visit him every week. Caffyn ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... she shall have forgotten by now how to spell his name," saith Father. "There be ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... The few scandals caused by some of her early indiscretions were soon dissipated, and she lived down all unpleasant rumors. She, indeed, seemed to possess some talisman, as potent as the magic ring that bewitched King Charlemagne, by whose spell she disarmed envy and silenced detraction. This attaching power she exercised on every person who came within the sphere of her influence. Even the gossiping Duchess D'Abrantes has only words of respectful admiration for her. The preconceived prejudices of Madame ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... sure 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 ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... poem, no less than a jest's prosperity, lies in the ear of him that hears it. Yield to its spell, accept the poet's mood: this, after all, is what the sages answer when you ask them of its value. Even though the poet himself, in his other mood, tell you that his art is but sleight of hand, his food enchanter's ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... a chair, and found the book, and laid it on Benjulia's lap. "I don't so much mind trying to spell a word," she explained. "What I hate is being asked what it means. Miss Minerva won't let me off. She says, Look. I won't let you off. I'm Miss Minerva and ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... proscenium and the edge of the asbestos curtain lights flashed up: and simultaneously there came a sudden diminution of the noise from the body of the house. The stalls, snatched from the intimidating spell of the darkness and able to see each other's faces, discovered that they had been behaving indecorously and checked their struggling, a little ashamed of themselves. The relief would be only momentary, but, while it ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... change of clothes and a cooking pot. Katchiba promised to take the greatest care of her, and to supply her with all she might require; offering to become personally responsible for her safety; he agreed to place a spell upon the door of our hut, that nothing evil should enter it during my absence. It was a snug little dwelling, about nine feet in diameter, and perfectly round; the floor well cemented with cow-dung and ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... ride seemed very brief, and, almost before West realized it, the car whirled in through the Coolidge gate, and came to a stop at the door. Coolidge by this time had recovered from his spell of ill-nature, or else chose to so appear, and the party separated pleasantly. Natalie disappeared somewhere within, while the two men strolled out to the tennis court where the guests were enjoying a spirited game. All met again at lunch, and ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... the King kissed his head and said to him, "O Badr Basim, tell me thy history from commencement to conclusion." So he told him his whole tale, concealing naught; and the King marvelled thereat and said to him, "O Badr Basim, Allah hath saved thee from the spell: but what hath thy judgment decided and what thinkest thou to do?" Replied he, "O King of the Age, I desire thy bounty that thou equip me a ship with a company of thy servants and all that is needful; for 'tis long since I have been absent and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton |
