"Magnetism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... seniors whom he didn't like. In some, cases, especially among the enlisted men, they would appear to have been spoken for the captain's especial benefit. Devers, while a painstaking officer and not unmindful of the care of his men, was one who "lacked magnetism," to say the least, and never won from them the enthusiastic homage they often lavished on others among their superiors. The fact that Lieutenant Davies, finding Moore and Rupp actually so weak from lack ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... charm and personal magnetism must have been a powerful factor in all that movement," said Salemina, plunging hastily back into the topic to avert any further recrimination. "I suppose we feel it even now, and if I had been alive in 1745 I should probably have made myself ridiculous. 'Old maiden ladies,' ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... or stage of civilization—as transcendent not in some of the virtues, but in them all—as never subject to prejudice, or the impulse of passion, never losing that perfect poise which it has been impossible for the greatest of men to achieve—as possessed of a mysterious magnetism which carried conviction to His hearers even when claiming to be one with the Infinite—as inspiring thousands with a love which has led them to give their lives for ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... fluid magnetism in the rush of Jasper Ewold's junketing verbiage which carried the listener on the bosom of a pleasant stream. Jack was suddenly reminded that it must be very late and he had far overstayed the retiring hour of the desert, where the Eternal ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... about the company she was keeping in the East. To her these "friends" seemed in no proper sense either her friends or one another's. Drawn together from all parts of America, indeed of the world, by the magnetism of millions, they had known one another not at all or only slightly in the period of life when thorough friendships are made; even where they had been associates as children, the association had rarely been of the kind that creates friendship's ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... the nightmare of the Revolution, and the Kings of Europe had agreed to conquer and dismember her, there arose a dark-faced man in the tribune of the French Congress. He was a man of terrible personal power and magnetism. Hope must have cradled him in his babyhood. He hurled a defiance at Europe that fairly shook France to a delirium of patriotism, and as he was drawing to a close he thundered; "What needs France to vanquish her enemies, to terrify them? Naught but audacity!—still more audacity!—always! ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... was the warm friend of all the family, and on the most familiar footing with them. As she was a woman of strong personal magnetism, and knew just how to win Alida's confidence, it was not long before her judicious questions had drawn out the reason of the girl's grief. After Alida had finished her recital of the conversation at the dentist's, there was a ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... and magnetism do in iron and steel, the Holy Spirit does in the spirits of men who believe on Jesus, follow Him wholly, and trust Him intelligently. He dwells in them, and inspires them, till they are all alive with the ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... bluff, hearty man, with the personal magnetism which goes with the making of a successful physician. He had mounted the stairs quietly but rapidly, evidently prepared to ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... of what is known about electricity and magnetism, the more prominent modern applications, and the principles on which they are ...
— Volcanoes: Past and Present • Edward Hull
... so!" said he woefully. "But to talk of that is to talk of an impossibility. I am wedded to you so closely that I feel as if I were the same person. Our essences are one, our bodies and spirits being united, so that I am drawn towards you as by magnetism, and, wherever you are, there must ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... deal in such things, though it seems quite against the reason. Indeed your father says, "Why not? A charm must be accompanied by a strong wish on the part of the charmer that it may succeed,—and what is magnetism but a wish?" I don't quite comprehend this; but, like all your father says, it has more than meets the ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... time, special request, conveyed to the leader by Prince Ferdinand. True, most true, she longs to be home across the water. But be it admitted, that to any one loving colour, music, chivalry, the Island of Drab is an exile. Imagine, then, the strange magnetism drawing her there! Could warmer ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a concentric coil is completed or broken. Notices similar effects when a wire bearing a current approaches another wire or recedes from it. Rotates a galvanometer needle by an electric pulse. Induces currents in coils when the magnetism is varied in their iron or steel cores. Observes the lines of magnetic force as iron filings are magnetized. A magnetic bar moved in and out of a coil of wire excites electricity therein,—mechanical motion is converted into electricity. Generates a current by spinning a copper plate in a horizontal ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... lest the knowledge of it might make Wilbur offish and so embarrass her efforts. There were eight in the party, and the affair seemed to Selma to go off admirably. She was enthralled by the idea of using her own personal magnetism to promote her husband's business. She felt that it was just the sort of thing she would like and was fitted for, and that here was an opportunity for her individuality to display itself. She devoted herself with engaging assiduity to Mr. Parsons, pleased during the active process of ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... apparently fallen as suddenly and unaccountably under the magic of his manner—to detain him longer, he stepped lightly away, his voice presently rising again in melody as he descended the hill. Nor was it at all remarkable that the others, apparently drawn by the same inevitable magnetism, were impelled to follow him, naturally joining their voices with his, leaving Steptoe and Van Loo so markedly behind them alone that they were compelled at last in sheer embarrassment to close up ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... to his coal-black steed, and never drew rein until, his horse covered with foam, he dashed upon the battle-field. Riding down the lines, he shouted, "Turn, boys, turn; we're going back." Under the magnetism of his presence, the fugitives followed him back to the fight ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... cottage had been transformed, and Joyce was developing into one of those women who are inherent home-makers. Such women can accomplish more with the bare necessities of life than others with the world's wealth at their command. It is like personal magnetism, difficult ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... my boy," replied Mr. Middleton, entirely carried away by the powerful magnetism of ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... lecture which he was giving before another learned society during the following week. With that he felt that he ought to be content. Nevertheless, he left her a little dissatisfied. He was perfectly well aware that the magnetism which he was usually able to exert over her sex had so far availed him nothing with her. Her eyes met his freely, but without any response to the things which he was striving to express. She had seemed interested all the time, but ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... on this," she might not have been so puzzled between her two Hyperions. But as it was, it was a sorrowful struggle. One had the advantage of distance and imagination,—one of presence, and of the magnetism of eye and lip. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... married Dorothy Mileham, a lady of good family in Norfolk; thereby not only improving his social connections, but securing a wife "of such symmetrical proportion to her worthy husband both in the graces of her body and mind, that they seemed to come together by a kind of natural magnetism." Such at least was the view of an intimate friend of more than forty years, Rev. John Whitefoot, in the 'Minutes' which, at the request of the widow, he drew up after Sir Thomas's death, and which contain the most that is known of his personal appearance and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... received what was even more welcome, the new Romance "from the Author." While I was too ill to read, my wife read it to me, so that you have been playing physician to my heartaches and headaches at once, with the magnetism of ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... extends a welcome to Western science, but remains the irresistible opponent of Western religion; and the foreign zealots who would strive against it are astounded to find the power that foils their uttermost efforts indefinable as magnetism and invulnerable as air. Indeed the best of our scholars have never been able to tell us what Shinto is. To some it appears to be merely ancestor-worship, to others ancestor-worship combined with nature-worship; to ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... centuries astrology and divination have exercised an influence not only (as at present) over the uneducated, but over the greatest minds, over kings and queens and wealthy people. Animal magnetism, one of the great sciences of antiquity, had its origin in occult philosophy; chemistry is the outcome of alchemy; phrenology and neurology are no less the fruit of similar studies. The first illustrious workers in these, to all appearance, untouched ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... denied his Caesarean attributes. He had the qualities and vices conspicuously absent in Dennis. He was Barker, of Barker's Inlet. The mere mention of his name in certain saloons was enough to put the fear of God into men even bigger than himself. A sort of malefic magnetism exuded from every pore of his skin. When he held up his finger Mamie crawled to him. She believed, probably, that she was escaping from a drunken father, and she knew that Tom could and would supply many things for which she had yearned—a parlour, for instance, possibly a piano, ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... could converse with him, because there was none who could understand him; none could refute him, because none could follow his winding logic, which led to heights where the air was too rarefied for mortals to breathe. He speculated on magnetism, chemistry, astronomy, anatomy, geology and spiritism. He believed a thing first and then set the mighty machinery of his learning to bear to prove it. This is the universal method of great minds—they divine things first. But no other scientist the world has ever known ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... History, Chemistry, Astronomy, Chronology, Hydrostatics, Meteorology, Logic, Pneumatics, Geology, Ontology, Electricity, Mineralogy, Mathematics, Galvanism, Physiology, Mechanics, Literature, Anatomy, Magnetism, Music, Zoology, Navigation, ...
— Percy - A Tragedy • Hannah More
... you are!" he murmured, though the words had not been necessary to express his sense of her magnetism. ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... by sheer coolness is as much a matter of personal magnetism as anything else. An instance of this, which impressed me much, occurred in a coiner-ghost story told by Mr. T.P. O'Connor, which I venture ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... who are acquainted with the history of animal magnetism during the present century know that it has nobly fulfilled its mission as a system of therapeutics, by alleviating or curing all forms of disease of both body and mind. That which cures bodily diseases and sometimes overcomes ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various
... last words, in the look which went with them, there was something very difficult for Esther to withstand. It was so far from presuming, it was so delicate in its urgency, there was so much wistfulness in it, and at the same time the whole magnetism of his personal influence. Esther placed her hand within his, she could not help that; the bright colour flamed up in her cheeks; ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... told. How could she paint the fascination of the man who was my husband? She had never known the charm of him as I had known it in those few brief months before our marriage. She had never felt the caress of his voice, or the magnetism of his strange, smoldering eyes glowing across the smoke-dimmed city room as I had felt them fixed on me. No one had ever known what he had meant to the girl of twenty, with her brain full of unspoken dreams—dreams which were all to become glorious ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... attention of the section to a very extraordinary case of animal magnetism. A private watchman, being merely looked at by the operator from the opposite side of a wide street, was at once observed to be in a very drowsy and languid state. He was followed to his box, and being once slightly rubbed on the palms of the hands, fell into ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... that follow as natural penalties of broken laws,—the obvious consequences of the special bit of wrong-doing, whatever it may be. The child's will is addressed in such a way as to draw it on, if right; to turn it willingly, if wrong. Coercion in the sense of fear, personal magnetism, nay, even the child's love for the teacher, may be used in such a way as to weaken his moral force. With every free, conscious choice of right, a human being's moral power and strength of character increase; and the converse of this ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... something essentially distinct from all others, and exempt from subjection to those laws from which no other substance is exempt? It differs, indeed, from all other substances, as electricity, and light, and magnetism, and the constituent parts of air and earth, severally differ from all others. Each of these is subject to change and to decay, and to conversion into other forms. Yet the difference between light and earth is scarcely greater than that which exists between life, or thought, and fire. The difference ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... fortune for her. After spending a fortnight in the city, he had not been able to hold out against the desire to see her, and he had walked from Saturday night to Monday morning. He intended to return to Paris; but the moving sight of his little friend nailed him to Provins. A wonderful magnetism (still denied in spite of many proofs) acted upon him without his knowledge. Tears rolled from his eyes when they rose in hers. If to her he was Brittany and her happy childhood, to him she ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... like partly rubbed-out slate-pencil marks; or else, when cleared of those drifts, presenting only an indistinguishable map of zigzag lines of straggling wagons and horses, unintelligible to any eye but his—the singular magnetism of the chief was felt everywhere: whether it was shown in the quick closing in of resistance to some sharper onset of the enemy or the more dogged stand of inaction under fire, his power was always dominant. A word or two of comprehensive direction sent ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... to have heard all the great orators of America who have become singularly famed about the world's circumference. I know what was the majesty of Webster; I know what it was to melt under the magnetism of Henry Clay; I have seen eloquence in the iron logic of Calhoun; but O'Connell was Webster, Clay, and Calhoun in one. Before the courts, logic; at the bar of the senate, unanswerable and dignified; on the platform, grace, wit, and pathos; before the masses, a whole man. Emerson says, ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... these was an important requirement of Mr. Cowperwood's position. As a result, he had become the soul of caution. Unfortunately, for him, he lacked in a great measure the two things that are necessary for distinction in any field—magnetism and vision. He was not destined to be a great financier, though he was marked out to ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... ago physicians accurately discovered the nature of his power, even before he exercised it himself. They played with that weapon of their new Lord, the sway of a mysterious will over the human soul, which had become enslaved. They called it magnetism, hypnotism, suggestion ... what do I know? I have seen them amusing themselves like impudent children with this horrible power! Woe to us! Woe to man! He has come, the ... the ... what does he call himself ... the ... I fancy that he is shouting out his name to me and I ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... girl is extraordinary. One could imagine that some magnetism radiated from her; or perhaps it is her voice, and her clear faith, and her enthusiasm. When she said something to old Anton Pepczinski, on bidding him good-bye—not about herself, or about him, but about what some of us were hoping for—he ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... Ann's). I looked up, and my eyes were caught and held with a strange fascination by fearless blue ones that gazed down into them. I give you but a poor description of the owner of these blue eyes, for personal magnetism springs not from one feature or another. He was a young man,—perhaps five and twenty as I now know age,—woodsman-clad, square-built, sun-reddened. His hair might have been orange in one light and sand-colored in another. With a boy's sense of such things I knew ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... going to dislike Jack Fyfe if he were thrown much in her way. There was something about him that she resented. The difference between him and the rest of the rude crew among which she must perforce live was a question of degree, not of kind. There was certainly some compelling magnetism about the man. But along with it went what she considered an almost brutal directness of speech and action. Part of this conclusion came from hearsay, part from observation, limited though her opportunities ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... it's a simple fact—that some men have a magnetism, a force or power to find water as ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... robber, or what the law calls a thief. I can only say, as I said before, I have lived upon my wits, and they have been a tolerable capital on the whole. I have been an actor, a money-lender, a physician, a professor of animal magnetism (that was lucrative till it went out of fashion, perhaps it will come in again); I have been a lawyer, a house-agent, a dealer in curiosities and china; I have kept a hotel; I have set up a weekly newspaper; I have seen almost every city in Europe, and made acquaintance with some of its gaols; ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... caused them. "May Heaven forgive me for every wrong note I have struck!" he exclaimed to a youthful admirer after one of his concerts in this country during the season of 1872-3. Certainly the listener under the spell of his magnetism could forgive, almost forget. Hans von Buelow (1830-1894) was the objective artist, whose scholarly attainments and musicianly discernment unraveled the most tangled web of phrasing and interpretation. His Beethoven recitals, when he was in America ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... reason can descend from her throne, to pass her sentence upon the things compared, drives us towards the object proportioned to our faculties, by an impulse gentle, yet irresistible; for the harmonick system of the Universe, and the reciprocal magnetism of similar natures, are always operating towards conformity and union; nor can the powers of the soul cease from agitation, till they find something on which they can repose." To this nothing was opposed; and Amaranthia was acknowledged ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... as visibly as from a steel struck with a flint, and causing iron or steel to move without any visible agent, would also give the idea of a miracle, if we were not acquainted with electricity and magnetism; so also would many other experiments in natural philosophy, to those who are not acquainted with the subject. The restoring persons to life who are to appearance dead as is practised upon drowned persons, would also be a miracle, if it were not known that ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... a person of delicate instinct. The repudiation which he had twice suffered by the better element of the Republican Party, seemed only to redouble his determination to be its candidate. He had much personal magnetism. Both in his methods and ideals, he represented perfectly the politicians who during the dozen years after Lincoln's death flourished at Washington, and at every State capitol in the Union. By the luck of a catching phrase applied to him by Robert G. Ingersoll, he stood before ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... turn to what is undoubtedly the most curious part of this story, in which automatically moving astronomical models and perpetual motion wheels are linked with the earliest texts on magnetism and the magnetic compass, another subject with a singularly troubled historical origin. The key text in this is the famous Epistle on the magnet, written by Peter Peregrinus, a Picard, in an army camp at the ...
— On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass • Derek J. de Solla Price
... Tree, but he did not have the Tubes to enable him to Spout. When he got up to Talk, it was all he could do to hear himself. The Juries used to go to sleep on him. He needed a Megaphone. And he had about as much Personal Magnetism ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... were honest foremen or commonplace clerks from the stores, of a very different calibre from the young Irishman. Of an evening when they gathered together his joke was always the readiest, his conversation the brightest, and his song the best. He was a born boon companion, with a magnetism which drew good humour from all ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... appeared to have got things in the shape he wanted, and he turned to face us. He always had a magnetism that was inexplicable, and now we felt it as never before. His features were perfectly calm, but there was a light in his eyes that seemed electric. As if disdaining to make a direct reply to the heated words of Jack and Henry he ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... I am heartily rejoiced to see you. I was hard at work. Just pass your hand over my forehead; it will relieve the pressure upon my brain. My mission is now fully revealed to me; everything is reform, reform. I have been led here step by step. Your magnetism is very soothing. The old crumbling walls of creeds and conventionalities are to be swept away, and their foundations subjected to the plough and the harrow. I am in the harness. I have no motive for concealment; I tell you frankly where ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... circumstances connected with them. It was a gift which counted as an unspeakably important factor in the establishment and maintenance of unusually cordial relations with all those with whom he came in contact. No one brought within the radius of his personal magnetism long resisted it. It was only those who judged him from a distance, as did the press and the rank and file of his party, or those who deliberately misinterpreted him, as did his political enemies, who permitted themselves anything short of enthusiasm for ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... of the year 1804, Laplace, at the Institute, proposed to take advantage of the means offered by aerostation to verify at great heights certain scientific points—as, for example, those which concern magnetism. This proposition was made at a favourable time, and was, so far, carried out in the best possible way. The aeronauts who were appointed to carry out the expedition were Biot and Gay-Lussac, the most enthusiastic ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... bolts. The insulated barrage of the Wandl ship withstood them. There was a shower of ether sparks close to the ship, and a reddening of the hull, but nothing more. It seemed that the electro-barrages of the Wandl and allied ships were very similar in nature, an aura of electro-magnetism, enclosing the ship like a curtain fifty feet away, absorbed the electronic stream of the enemy bolt. The Wandl ship flung no bolts; she loosed a score of the whirling discs during the passing. They were of varying sizes, but ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... United States, Bryant was soon followed by a succession of poets whose productions clearly revealed the magnetism of the English revival, and gave promise of the rise of that poetic art which we have seen reach its culmination in our own day. Richard H. Dana wrote the "Buccaneer"; Fitz-Greene Halleck, "Marco Bozarris"; Edgar A. Poe "The Raven"; the ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle
... resented his injustice, made me feel that there was something more in practical Socialism than I had imagined, especially when I read it over afterwards, away from the magic of Mr. Bradlaugh's commanding eloquence and personal magnetism. It was a sore pity that English Socialists, from the outset of their movement, treated Mr. Bradlaugh so unfairly, so that his friends were set against Socialists ere they began to examine their arguments. I must confess that my deep attachment to him led me into injustice to his Socialist foes in ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... to the hospitals I found it was in the simple matter of personal presence, and emanating ordinary cheer and magnetism, that I succeeded and help'd more than by medical nursing, or delicacies, or gifts of money, or anything else. During the war I possess'd the perfection of physical health. My habit, when practicable, was to prepare for starting out on one ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... of seeing Maggie Howland again. Maggie had made a remarkable impression on her. She made that impression on all her friends. Wherever she went she was a leader, and no one could quite discover where her special charm or magnetism lay; for she was decidedly plain, and not specially remarkable for cleverness—that is, she was not remarkable for what may be termed school-cleverness. She was indifferent to prizes, and was just as happy at the bottom of her form as at the top; but wherever she appeared girls clustered ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... her—when their discourses were as if carried on between the right and the left hands of the same body? He had despaired of reaching her by argument; and it was almost as a discovery to him that he could reach her by a magnetism which was as superior to words ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... looked closely into those that were sometimes so radiant with mischief, but now so solemnly earnest. The look was very long and silent—an evident acceptance of the strange invitation given. Before it was ended, that subtle magnetism which truth and goodness radiate to the true, had done its work. ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... under the militant banners and on the personal staff of the Sin Killer. Amply then was the prior design of his new commander justified. For if it was the eloquence, the magnetism, the compelling force of the revivalist which brought the penitents shouting down the tan-bark trail to the mourner's bench, it was the harmonious croonings of Prof. Fringe as he conducted the introductory program—now rendering ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... that sex emotion and the emotion of fear are translatable. In this way there might be constructed a fundamental monism of emotion in the same sense that energetics is a science which unifies electricity, heat, magnetism, etc. It would not seem to me, however, appropriate to identify all kinds of ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... published, of a National Convention are always interesting, but lose much of the impression and force of actuality with which an auditor and spectator is affected. The gayety and magnetism of numbers, the scintillations of brain in special advocacy, followed by tumultuous accord. The intensity, the anxiety depicted, while results far-reaching and momentous are pending, furnish a scene vivid and striking that cannot be pictured. Here is being formed ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... on the predictions of Mr. Worthington seemed likely to be fulfilled, and it looked as if Judge Graves would have a useless bill to pay for gas in the new town hall. The judge had never been a man who could compel a following, and he had no magnetism with which to lead a cause: the town tradesmen, especially those in the new brick block, would be chary as to risking the displeasure of their best customer. At half-past seven Mr. Graves: came ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... enough, however, that a lecturer be free. He must have something fresh to say, or a fresh and attractive way of saying that which is not altogether new. Individuality, and a certain personal quality which, for lack of a better name, is called magnetism, are also essential to the popular lecturer. People desire to be moved, to be acted upon by a strong and positive nature. They like to be furnished with fresh ideas, or with old ideas put into a fresh and practical form, so that they can ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... people of these States shall be alienated from each other, when the fraternal spirit shall give way to cold indifference, or collision of interests shall fester into hatred, the bonds of political association will not long hold together parties no longer attracted by the magnetism of conciliated interests and kindly sympathies; and far better will it be for the people of the disunited States to part in friendship with each other than to be held together by constraint. Then will be the time for reverting ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... philosophy,—certainly not of medicine. Besides being an infinitesimal homeopathist this man was a devotee to mesmerism. He became very friendly towards me, and supplied me with books; telling me that I would not only make a good homeopathic physician, but also an excellent medium for mesmerism, magnetism, &c. At all events, I was glad to get the books, which I read industriously; while he constantly supplied me with new ones, so that I had quite a library when he left the place, which he did before ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska
... magnifying the advantage of slave over free labor, Wade of Ohio, who sat listening intently, turned to a neighbor and exclaimed: "That man lives off of all traveled roads!" He had neither the arts nor the magnetism of the popular politician; he won no such personal following as Clay and Jackson; but the South more and more accepted him as the most logical and far-seeing champion of its ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... professor in Paris at twenty-six, and, a few months later, a member of the Institute. James Kent, the great commentator on American law, began his lectures in Columbia College at the age of thirty-one. Henry was not far from thirty years of age when he made his world-renowned researches in electro-magnetism; and Dana's great work on mineralogy was first published before he was twenty-five years old, and about four years after he graduated at New Haven. Look at the Harvard lists:—Everett was appointed Professor of Greek at twenty-one; Benjamin Peirce, of Mathematics ...
— The History Of University Education In Maryland • Bernard Christian Steiner
... something of this same mood before one had a chance to speculate at all as to whether there was any causal relation between the specific quality of tobacco the youngster was smoking, and that contagious, undeniable delight. What is called personal magnetism is perhaps more than anything else the ability to provoke in others sympathetic experiences of ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... up and asked leave to present his friend Perry. The doctor, like all young men who knew Mrs. Waldeaux, had succumbed to her peculiar charm, which was only that of a woman past her youth who had strong personal magnetism and not a spark of coquetry. George's friends all were sure that they would fall in love with a woman just like her—but not a man of them ever thought of falling in love ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis
... in her feelings for this man and it frightened her. She became conscious suddenly that she had always been afraid of him. Watching Carroll receive the congratulations of many of those present, she saw that he dominated them as he had her. His magnetism was over-powering; his great stature seemed to fill the room; his easy careless assurance emanated from superior strength. When he spoke lightly of the game, of Crane's marvelous catch, of Dalgren's pitching ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... in 1856, was Lemaitre's second great creation. Those who saw him in this part in his younger days so rave about it that even Dickens's warm eulogy seems cool in comparison. Such unheard-of developments of passion and disorder! such incredible fire and magnetism! such subjugation of a vast audience to his will!—language fails to express the rapturous accounts which those old Frenchmen now living who saw him then will give you with many a roll upward of the eyes, many a hopeless shake of head and shrug ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... man.' This performance was received with contempt or credulity by the spectators according to their faith: but the credulity of the believers could hardly exceed that of a large number of educated people, who in our own generation detect in the miracles of animal magnetism, or the legerdemain of jugglers, an infernal ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... she had faced Garman fearlessly two nights before—straight, strong, self-reliant—and was confident that her absence was of her own doing, and that whatever the circumstances she was free of the influence of her aunt, of her father, of the drugging magnetism of Garman, and in control ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... been unable to do for her, the generous Colonel fully accomplished. She was taken away to a most excellent school and, after five years, returned to him a thoroughly proficient young lady. Graceful, possessing a finish and magnetism which her wild origin made more peculiarly attractive, sympathetic, frank, normal, and exceedingly good to look upon, she excelled even those hopes which he had built during her absence. A fortnight later the quail and whip-poor-wills, near the thicket where the wounded mountaineer's ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... it that makes it so hard sometimes to determine whither we will walk? I believe that there is a subtile magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright. It is not indifferent to us which way we walk. There is a right way; but we are very liable from heedlessness and stupidity to take the wrong one. We would fain take that walk, never yet taken by us ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... agreed to call genius. No man could ever tell us precisely what it is, and yet there is none who is not inevitably aware of its presence and its power. Let talent writhe and contort itself as it may, it has no such magnetism. Larger of bone and sinew it may be, but the wings are wanting. Talent sticks fast to earth, and its most perfect works have still one foot of clay. Genius claims kindred with the very workings of Nature ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... pressing an almondy finger-nail to one of the Aphorisms, which instanced how age and adversity must clay-enclose us ere we can effectually resist the magnetism of any human creature in our path. "Can you understand ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... gun he was cleaning so assiduously, and the smoke from his pipe curled up into an odd twist between me and the black beard and oriental, sun-tanned face. The magnetism of his look and expression brought more sense of conviction to me than I had felt hitherto, and I realised that there had been a sudden little change in my attitude and that I was now much more inclined to go in for the adventure with him. At least, I thought, with such a man, one would be ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... gospel and yet unable to live without religion of some sort. Among the active members of the sect were at one time Pierre Leroux, Jules and Michel Chevalier, Lerminier, [and] my personal friend Dr. Poyen, who initiated me and so many others in New England into the mysteries of animal magnetism. Dr. Poyen was, I believe, a native of the island of Guadeloupe: a man of more ability than he usually had credit for, of solid learning, genuine science, and honest intentions. I knew him well and esteemed him highly. When I knew him his attachment to the new ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... had managed, without ammunition or supplies, we did not fool ourselves with the belief that Schillingschen, with his brutal personal magnetism and profound knowledge of natives, would not do better. The probability was he would stir up the ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... individual in the boxes (dress circle of course) actually did lend him, the Wizard, a cool hundred! Conceive the power, in a metaphysical sense, the conjuror must have had over the lender's mind! Was it animal magnetism?—was it terror raised by his extraordinary performances, that spirited the cash out of the pocket of the man? who, perhaps, thought that such supernatural talents might be otherwise employed against his very existence, thus occupying his perturbed soul with the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various
... of Iron Vessels, with a Short Treatise on Terrestrial Magnetism. By Fairman Rogers. New York: D. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... apparently active properties of bodies in the material. It would be like the attempt to destroy (if it were in our competence to destroy) the expansive force of fixed air in nitre, or the power of steam, or of electricity, or of magnetism. These energies always existed in Nature, and they were always discernible. They seemed, some of them unserviceable, some noxious, some no better than a sport to children,—until contemplative ability, combining with practic skill, tamed their wild ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Cavour once called "his powerful intellectual organisation" made an immediate impression on the Prince President, as he was still styled. Louis Napoleon cultivated an impassible exterior, but at bottom his character was emotional, and, like all emotional persons, he was susceptible to the magnetism of a stronger brain and will. Cavour summoned Rattazzi to Paris to present him to the future Caesar. "Whether we like it or not," he wrote at this time, "our destinies depend on France; we must be her partner in the great game which will be played sooner or later in Europe." A few weeks later Napoleon ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... said the bass voice of Doctor Brown, "and until you show me the source of this 'occult' energy, I shall so contend. Animal magnetism and sleight-of-hand! What do ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... the undulatory theory of light called for the extension of the same theory to heat, electricity, and magnetism, and this promptly suggested the hypothesis of a correlation, material connection, and transmutability of heat, light, electricity, magnetism, etc.; which hypothesis the physicists held in absolute suspense until very lately, but are now generally ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... chair with his own hands and shifted it so that it would be in tune with the magnetic lines of Earth. I couldn't object. The Chinese had insisted upon such placement of household articles, particularly their beds, long before the Earth's magnetism had been discovered by science. The birds had had their direction-finders attuned to it, long ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... may almost say the keynote—of the PRIME MINISTER'S character is rather a personal magnetism such as has never been exercised by any statesman before or after. When he rises to speak in the House all eyes are riveted on him as though with a vice until he has finished speaking. Even when he has finished they sometimes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 • Various
... secret societies with oaths and pledges. The habit of talking about matters of government spread more and more.[Footnote: Cherest, ii. 101. Droz, i. 326. See in Brissot ii. 415, an account of a club to discuss political questions, under pretense of studying animal magnetism. Lafayette, d'Espresmenil, and others were members. Their ideas were vague enough. Brissot was for a republic, D'Espresmenil for giving the power to the Parliament, Bergasse for a new form of government of which he was to be the Lycurgus. Morellet, ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... from the magnetism of hers, he frowned and bit his lip. Was she feigning madness, or under the terrible nervous strain, did her ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... a small piece of wire and has an indicator or hand, C, which moves to either right or left, depending on which half of the magnet is magnetized. If the back armature, D, of the magnet is removed the moving armature will work better, as this will prevent the magnetism from acting on both ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... cried, putting his hand on my knee, "what a power for God you would be, if you would only give over your eccentricities and become a Christian ... a chap with your magnetism—in spite ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... even now read Professor Gregory's "Letters on Animal Magnetism" and the "Manual of Psychometry," published in Boston, he might make a new departure, might understand the vast extent of his own powers, which he has not yet developed, and show to those whom he has already astonished that there is much more in the mysteries ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various
... Mason no magnetism to attract young men, and I do not remember ever to have asked his advice or opinion. In this he presented a strong contrast to all the other Commissioners. Mr. Slidell was as old a man and as experienced in public affairs as Mr. Mason, but he was a genial companion even to ...
— The Supplies for the Confederate Army - How they were obtained in Europe and how paid for. • Caleb Huse
... the fashion to ridicule the idea of "love at first sight;" but those who think, not less than those who feel deeply, have always advocated its existence. Modern discoveries, indeed, in what may be termed ethical magnetism or magnetoesthetics, render it probable that the most natural, and, consequently, the truest and most intense of the human affections are those which arise in the heart as if by electric sympathy—in a word, that the brightest and most enduring of the psychal fetters are ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... 1836 that illustrious philosopher and statesman, Baron Alexander Von Humboldt, addressed to the Duke of Sussex, then President of the Royal Society, a letter upon the means of perfecting the knowledge of terrestrial magnetism, by the establishment of magnetic stations and corresponding observations; and solicited the powerful concurrence of the Royal Society in favor of the labors then already undertaken by a learned association in Germany, and which, radiating at once from several great scientific ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... said Mr. Calthrop, with a sigh and his calm and wistful smile. "I know myself too well! I know my own soul. I am cursed with a fatal magnetism which women find it impossible to resist. And I am continually tempted to permit it to exert itself. This is the cross that ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... In the magnetism of the bright presence of the young soldier, all the sad forebodings seemed to vanish into thin air. While listening to his brave words of hope, they forgot that the sunny hours of this most happy day were hastening by. Already the shadows lay long upon the grass, and ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... English tongue in my day!" I think he was right. I remember the solemnity of Webster, the grace of Everett, the rhetoric of Choate; I know the eloquence that lay hid in the iron logic of Calhoun; I have melted beneath the magnetism of Sergeant S. Prentiss of Mississippi, who wielded a power few men ever had; it has been my fortune to sit at the feet of the great speakers of the English tongue on the other side of the ocean; but I think all of them ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... and she are, as a matter of fact, six of the one and half a dozen of the other. Of this one thing the story feels certain, that had Miss Dickenson been conscious of her neighbour's incorporation into a unit of magnetism—he being its victim—of her mere outward show in the evening light with the subject-matter of her discourse, this little lecture on the ethics of kissing would never have seen the light. But let her finish it. Consider that she gives a pause to the ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... While we had had excellent leaders all through the campaign, one always felt that there was a need for some electrifying personality at the head of things. In a mysterious (p. 255) way the knowledge that Foch had taken the conduct of the war in hand gave us just that touch of magnetism which we needed. As matters stood, the German attacks had been successful up to a certain point, but we were still waiting for their main offensive. When or where this was to begin we did not know, ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... begun to tingle, and in a few moments more it might have been too late to make peace with these proud and self-respecting people, who had never submitted to indignity. But in the space of six seconds the magnetism of the Cherub had begun to do its work. He murmured, nodded, and smiled, took the family into his confidence with a few graphic gestures, explained that the ladies were upset by an accident, appealed to the landlord's chivalry, and the landlady's ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... head, stopped short, less I think, from human respect, than from one of those movements of profound surprise which affect the limbs, creep down the length of the spine, and cease only in the sole of the feet, to nail you to the ground. I have often produced effects of this nature, a sort of animal magnetism which becomes enormously powerful when the relations are reciprocally precise. But, my dear fellow, this was not stupefaction, nor was she a common girl. Morally speaking, her face seemed to say: 'What, is it you, my ideal! ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... obtain the greatest results with the smallest means. On the contrary, rags, mean huts, poverty, and inanition, are the inevitable lot of every nation which seeks and finds in iron, fire, wind, electricity, magnetism, the laws of chemistry and mechanics, in a word, in the powers of nature, an assistance to its natural powers. We might as well say with Rousseau—"Every man that thinks is a ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... Jonathan Zane as he strode across the porch. She could see that a certain constraint had momentarily fallen upon the company. It was an involuntary acknowledgment of the borderman's presence, of a presence that worked on all alike with a subtle, strong magnetism. ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... progress of civilisation engendering the magnetism they find so trying, had, however, by the date with which we are now dealing—the fourteenth century—already given rise to a very general movement towards Thibet on the part of the previously dissociated occultists. Far more widely than was held to be consistent with the safety of mankind was ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... be only a mode of motion. It may be of physico-chemical origin, as much so as heat, or light; and yet it is something as distinctive as they are among material things, and is involved in the same mystery. Is magnetism or gravitation a real thing? or, in the moral world, is love, charity, or consciousness itself? The world seems to be run by nonentities. Heat, light, life, seem nonentities. That which organizes the different parts or ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... this faculty accepts as real impressions which would not pass muster if inspected by the critical eye of the waking intelligence. The whole secret of cures alleged to have been wrought by animal magnetism or mesmerism, may be explained by mental influence; and so likewise those affected by metallic tractors, anodyne necklaces, and a host of other devices. We have indeed an intelligible explanation of the rationale ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... one's only paternal parent, but Keg bore up under it pretty manfully. He dug into his work harder than ever—and he was a good student. Latin words stuck to him like sandburrs. That wasn't his fault, of course. Some men are born with a natural magnetism for Latin words; and others, like myself, have to look up quoque as many as nine times in a page of Mr. Horace's celebrated metrical salve-slinging. Keg went into a literary society, too, and developed ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... notes an article by Medwin on Animal Magnetism, and Shelley, who suffered severely at this time, shortly afterwards tried its effect through Medwin. The latter bored Mary excessively; possibly she found the magnetising a wearisome operation, although Shelley is said to have been relieved ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... futile and unconvincing about an attempted description of an intangible thing. Some call it personality; some call it magnetism; some a rhythm sense; and some, genius. It's all these things, and none of them. Whatever it is, she had it. And whatever it is, Sid Hahn has never failed ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... I received a letter from Rachel Weaver, who had been bereft of her mother and had lost every means of support. She earnestly desired to return to me; and as the letter brought with it the magnetism of a former attachment, I wrote to ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... spread a sombre pall over the entire institution of matrimony. But Jessica's was a dominant personality, and I was easily influenced. In my humble way I followed her example; and though, lacking her beauty and magnetism, the havoc I wrought was vastly less than hers, I nevertheless succeeded in temporarily blighting the lives of two middle-aged professors, one widower in the dry-goods line, and the editor of a yellow newspaper. ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... likeable, as every world traveller knows. They all have the magnetism of force, which is quite another thing from the magnetism of charm. What the public demands is that they shall win victories, whether personally likeable or not. But if they are likeable and simple and human and a sailor besides—well, we know ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer |
