"Witch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... trick, but it does not make the fire burn. There is a better; (setting the poker perpendicularly up at right angles with the grate.) In days of superstition they thought, as it made a cross with the bars, it would drive away the witch.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... make you see the gilded walled city, in which history of the ages is being laid in dust and ashes, while the power that made it is hastening down the back alley to a mountain nunnery for safety! Peking is like a beautiful golden witch clothed in priceless garments of dusty yellow, girded with ropes of pearls. Her eyes are of jade, and so fine is the powdered sand she sifts from her tapering fingers it turns the air to an amber haze; so potent its magic ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... all? The little motherless darlin', with the goold hair I combed the knots out iv many's the time? The little witch that run barefoot an' ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... the gondolier, "to risk your life in behalf of such a frightful witch? Never did I see you so ready with your rapier, flashing it in people's eyes as though it had been one ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... knows; but 'pears to me marster's never been right in his headpiece since Hollow-eve night, when he took that ride to the Witch's Hut," replied Wool, who, with brush and sponge, was engaged in rejuvenating ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... was just in the sweating stage of an intermittent, and the path to the town lay through a wet valley, I declined going. Kolimbota, who knows their customs best, urged me to go; but, independent of sickness, I hated words of the night and deeds of darkness. "I was neither a hyaena nor a witch." Kolimbota thought that we ought to conform to their wishes in every thing: I thought we ought to have some choice in the matter as well, which put him into high dudgeon. However, at ten next morning we went, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... them rode "straddle-legs" on night birds or moths, while some flew along on a funny thing that was horse before and weeds behind. I judge this must have been the buchailin buidhe or benweed, which the faeries bewitch and ride the same as a witch mounts ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... Christina arrested them. They looked out to sea. What was this sudden and awful thing? Instead of the starboard green light, behold! the port red light—and that moving! Oh, see! how it recedes, wavering, flickering through the whirling vapor of the storm! And there again is the green light! Is it a witch's dance, or are they strange death-fires hovering over the dark ocean-grave? But Hamish knows too well what it means; and with a wild cry of horror and despair, the old man sinks on his knees and clasps his hands, and stretches them out to the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... mayd" and she were near of kin. But whether her parents, as they looked into the baby's clear dark eyes, saw there anything weird or elfish,—or whether the name 'grew,'—of that there remains no record. She had been a pretty quiet witch hitherto; but now— ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... shouting, "He stays, he stays!" and I heard the words repeated among the groups of negresses, who loved her; it seemed to be the burthen of a general song, the glad realisation of some prophecy; for, ere the night was an hour old, the old witch, who had had the tuition of Josephine, had already made a mongrel sort of hymn of the affair, whilst a circle of black chins were wagging to a ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... named Diocles had been told by a witch that he should become Emperor by the slaughter of a boar. He became a great hunter, but no wild boar that he killed seemed to bring him nearer to the purple, till, when the army was fighting on the Tigris, the ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... confess I always thought him an impostor, but I could never have imagined him so simple a one as we found him. In my life I never heard so ridiculous a discourse as he made us, and no old woman who passes for a witch could have been more puzzled to seek what to say to reasonable people than he was. He asked us more questions than we did him, and caught at everything we said without discerning that we abused him and said things purposely to confound him; which we did so perfectly that ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... they please; and I think that's right: is not it now? so flap ee hand, and make wry mouth oo-self, sauci doxi. Now comes DD. Why sollah, I did write in a fortnight my 47th; and if it did not come in due time, can I help wind and weather? am I a Laplander? am I a witch? can I work miracles? can I make easterly winds? Now I am against Dr. Smith. I drink little water with my wine, yet I believe he is right. Yet Dr. Cockburn told me a little wine would not hurt me; but it is so hot and dry, and water is so dangerous. The worst ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... not go out to play in the afternoon, and she didn't even run when Jim said, "Nora wanted her for something special." But she really had no conscience about fooling her father several times. He pretended to be so surprised, and said, "Oh, you little witch!" It was a day on which you had need to keep your ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... means on his side, for, as Professor Gilbert Murray has so well said, 'the Medea and Jason of the Argonautica are at once more interesting and more natural than their copies, the Dido and Aeneas of the Aeneid. The wild love of the witch-maiden sits curiously on the queen and organizer of industrial Carthage; and the two qualities which form an essential part of Jason—the weakness which makes him a traitor, and the deliberate gentleness which contrasts him with Medea—seem incongruous in the father of Rome.' But though ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... To GLASENAPP.] I'm curious to see what the result of all this will be. Mr. Motes has finally agreed to offer witnesses. He says the Dreier woman, that old witch of a pastry cook, once stood within earshot when Fleischer expressed himself disrespectfully. How old is the ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... porter almost beyond endurance, was the certainty he felt that she was mocking him. "For she didn't give me her name or address, the old witch!" he growled. "She had better look out, if I ever get hold ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... they returned to New York, Kathi having begged some more money from Vienna. She was already a worn, old witch of a woman, dressed gayly in remnants of past grandeur and always painting her face. She and her son held together in a partnership strained and rasping, but unbreakable, united by the mysterious tie of blood and a deep-rooted moral resemblance. They led a wandering life, following races, hanging ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... where they enter, he has created for them a peculiar language, which, although composed of the usual elements, still seems to be a collection of formulae of incantation. The sound of the words, the accumulation of rhymes, and the rhythmus of the verse, form, as it were, the hollow music of a dreary witch-dance. He has been abused for using the names of disgusting objects; but he who fancies the kettle of the witches can be made effective with agreeable aromatics, is as wise as those who desire that hell should ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... runs, interpreted to mean that he could conquer the Romans, whereas the oracle subsequently explained to him that the real meaning was that the Romans could conquer him. Similar to this, as Shakspeare makes the Duke of York point out, is the witch's prophecy in Henry VI (Second Part, ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... her to liberty. She retired to Havering Bower in Essex, where her grandson, the unfortunate Gilles de Bretagne, was reared and educated with Henry VI. She died in 1437, and the memory of "Joan the witch queen" was long held in awe by the people ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... no be for going right intil the cave? Would it no do you to shout when you got to the mouth of it? I dinna like that cave with the red sides till it. I'm thinking maybe there was red sides to the cave where the witch of Endor dweft. Are you no sure that there isna something of that kind, something no right ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... "You know that witch Gloria, goes with one of the Boomer Dukes? She opened her big mouth to my girl. Yeah, opened her mouth and much bad talk came out. Said Fayo primed some jumper with a zip and the punk cooled him, and then a couple of the Boomers ...
— The Day of the Boomer Dukes • Frederik Pohl
... to be fudge, too, which Nancy had the knack of making. The chums had a chafing dish hidden away, and this was brought forth and the ingredients made ready, while Nancy hovered over the dish like a gray-robed witch. ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... protest, is excellently soft, thou wicked witch!' said the rascal. 'If thou wilt now try thy hand at fishing for the town market, thou shalt be entertained the while with the finest band of music in the world. Be good and pretty, and take up thy angling-rod. Trumpets and drums, flutes and clarinets, shall all ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... delectation of your eyes. Watch it shifting then. Darkness and emptiness in a can-can. Watch the tumbling streets that have no meanings. No meanings? Yet there's a torment in them that can hoist you up by your placid little heels and swing you round ... round, and send you flying. A witch's flight with the scream of stars whistling through it. Flight that has no ending and no direction ... no face of Rachel at its ending. Burning eyes, devouring eyes ... face like a mirror of stars. There's a face in the world ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... you that—a witch has told you!" shrieked the poor little man, and stamped so furiously with his right foot that it sunk into the earth up to the hip; then he seized his left foot with both hands with such violence, that he tore himself ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... be inferred from their constant intercourse that he had the field entirely to himself. Gallants of divers pretensions—first-class, mediocre, and contemptible—considered with a practical eye to "settlement," hovered about the fascinating witch as moths about a gas-burner, and had no citable cause of complaint of non-appreciation, inasmuch as she shed equal light upon all, save one. "My very old friend, Mr. Chilton," she was wont to denominate him in conversation with those who inwardly ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... I saw you together through the key-hole of the closet one night, like Saul and the witch of Endor, turning the sieve and shears, and pricking your thumbs, to write poor innocent servants' names in blood, about a little nutmeg grater which she had forgot in the caudle-cup. Nay, I know something worse, if I would speak ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... consented, although not willingly, and went my way. The next morning I sought him again not certain but that in the night he and my sword and the charm had all flown out of window together and gone to join the Witch of Endor. But no, there he sat, and the sword before him, as if they never had stirred since I left. And the old man gave me a bit of parchment covered with crabbed Latin script, and told me I should ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... same witch in my boyhood. But what should we fear? She is flesh and blood like ourselves; and, in spite of the prevailing belief, I could never suppose power would be granted to some, generally the most wicked and the most worthless, which from the rest ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... said Finette, trembling. "The giant has a witch for a godmother; I fear that she will revenge on me the insult offered to her godson. My art tells me, my dear Yvon, that if you quit me a single instant until you give me your name in the chapel of the Kervers ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... the squire, who, sword in hand, 'stood like a bulwark' between his lord and the serpent. Duessa, full of wrath at being foiled, turned the serpent on him, but not one foot would the squire move till, beside herself with anger, the witch drew out her cup and sprinkled him with the poisonous water. Then the strength went out of his arms and the courage from his heart, and he sank helpless on the ground before the snake, who fain would have trampled ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... in goodness which Nathaniel Hawthorne has told in similar fashion in his tale of Young Goodman Brown; and the most horrible touch of all is introduced when Faust in disgust leaves the revel, because out of the mouth of the witch with whom he had been dancing there had sprung a small red mouse. Throughout the whole play the sense of holy and splendid ideals shines at its brightest in lurid contrast with the hopeless and sordid ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... with Rima in the forest under the mora tree had proved so delightful that I was eager for more rambles and talks with her, but the variable little witch had a great surprise in store for me. All her wild natural gaiety had unaccountably gone out of her: when I walked in the shade she was there, but no longer as the blithe, fantastic being, bright as an angel, innocent and affectionate as ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... the finger-bone of a Lincoln man. She turned aside a flower to cull, From a vase which was made of a human skull; For to make her forget the loss of her slaves, Her lovers had rifled dead men's graves. Do you think I'm describing a witch or ghoul? There are no such things—and I'm not a fool; Nor did she reside in Ashantee; No—the lady fair was ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... which closes his correspondence with Mather, he makes his solemn and severe appeal: "Though there is reason to hope that these diabolical principles have not so far prevailed (with multitudes of Christians), as that they ascribe to a witch and a devil the attributes peculiar to the Almighty; yet how few are willing to be found opposing such a torrent, as knowing that in so doing they shall be sure to meet with opposition to the utmost, from the many, both of Magistrates, Ministers, and people; and the name of Sadducee, ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... friends then immediately set about requiting her with the just penalties of a perfidious breach of contract. Their threats induced her instant flight toward my house for the usual protection, but the enraged friends of the dead man gave hot chase, and overtook the witch just inside the limits of the garrison, where, on the parade-ground, in sight of the officers' quarters, and before any one could interfere, they killed her. There were sixteen men in pursuit of the doctress, and ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... accents of one voice, and out of the crowd of faces, began to distinguish more and more clearly the features of the writer; for all the world like some lovelorn girl, who, gazing with her soul in her eyes, finds in the witch's cauldron the ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... said; that was certain, but the tale was, that a secret way led down from the lowest cellar of this cave house, continuing—if one could only find it—to the enchanted cavern far below, where Taven, the witch, kept and cured of illness the girl loved ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... Gerald suddenly let go the horse and leaped forwards, almost on to Gudrun. She was not afraid. As he jerked aside the mare's head, Gudrun cried, in a strange, high voice, like a gull, or like a witch screaming out from ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... patient has bad dreams, looks black around the eyes, or feels tired, while the disease is assigned such names as "when they dream of snakes," "when they dream of fish," "when ghosts trouble them," "when something is making something else eat them," or "when the food is changed," i.e., when a witch causes it to sprout and grow in the body of the patient or transforms it into a lizard, frog, or ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... witches, was not repealed till the 9 Geo. II, c. 5. In Scotland, so late as the year 1722, when the local jurisdictions were still hereditary [see post, Sept. 11], the sheriff of Sutherlandshire condemned a witch to death.' Penny Cyclo. xxvii. 490. In the Bishopric of Wurtzburg, so late as 1750, a nun was burnt for witchcraft: 'Cette malheureuse fille soutint opiniatrement qu'elle etait sorciere.... Elle etait folle, ses ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... scene of her downfall, the witch caught at a slip of a bough and swung herself athletically to the top of the bank. Thence she turned a glowing face ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... I was extremely inquisitive about witches and witch-stories. My maid, and more legendary aunt, supplied me with good store. But I shall mention the accident which directed my curiosity originally into this channel. In my father's book-closet, the History of the Bible, by Stackhouse, occupied a distinguished ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... cannot?" "Precisely," replied the shade. "But though the percentage of those that can return and reappear on earth is small, their number is fairly large. History has many cases. We know that the prophet Samuel raised the witch of Endor at the behest of Saul; that Moses and Elias became visible in the transfiguration; and that after his crucifixion and burial Christ returned to his disciples, and was seen and heard by many others." "How," asked Bearwarden deferentially, "do ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... sea-shore, where he transformed himself into the likeness of one of his half-clad heathen ancestors, debased himself by whisky, and revelled in the hula-hula. He is said also to have been so far under the empire of the old superstitions, as to consult an ancient witch on ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... and on a bright September morning the anchor was hove up, and the Virginie started upon her cruise. The shoals outside the harbour were cleared in due time, the brig working like a top, and sailing like a witch, to the unbounded delight of all hands; and then George hauled sharp up on the port tack, his intention being to cruise for a few days in the Windward and Caycos Passages before shaping a course ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... if I recollect my discussion with you going down to Southampton. Very well, my dear Hal, and your appearance especially, which, in that witch's travelling-cap of yours, is so extremely agreeable to me that you recur to me in it constantly, and as often I execrate your bonnet. How much I do love beauty! How I delight in the beauty of any one that I love! How thankful I am ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... existence of a phantasm like Miss Mehetabel's son, who, after all, was less unearthly than Mr. Jaffrey himself, and seemed more properly an inhabitant of this globe than the toothless ogre who kept the inn, not to mention the silent Witch of Endor that cooked our meals for us ...
— Miss Mehetabel's Son • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... not, however, wholly prepared for what happened next. The man in green, riding the frail topmost bough like a witch on a very risky broomstick, reached up and rent the black hat from its airy nest of twigs. It had been broken across a heavy bough in the first burst of its passage, a tangle of branches in torn and scored and scratched ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... when it was ripe. A blue-painted barrel-churn stood by the door; young Aaron turned it in the morning, while the finches called in the plum-trees, but now and then not all the strength of his sturdy shoulders nor patient hours of turning could 'fetch' the butter, for a witch ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... the fathers were taking away so many souls from his captivity, and tried to drive them from that province of Calamianes. He availed himself of a witch and her son, appearing in person to them, and ordering them to use all the delusions and witcheries that they knew, in order to frighten the Spanish soldiers who were in a fortress near by, so that the gospel ministers should by this means be induced to ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various
... a turmoil of thoughts that seethed in his brain, like a brew in a witch's cauldron—some of them dark and some golden bright, and some of them red with lust for many things—he proceeded down street to McCoppet's place, to find himself locked out of the private den, where the gambler was closeted ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... extended along the back of the sofa, the white gleam of the big eyeballs setting off the black, fathomless stare of the enlarged pupils, impressed Razumov more than anything he had seen since his hasty and secret departure from St. Petersburg. A witch in Parisian clothes, he thought. A portent! He actually hesitated in his advance, and did not even comprehend, at first, what the rasping ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... lower and lower. There were splashes of ruddy light on the smooth gray beech-boles, and that was all. Soon these would fade, and all would be gloom. The grove had an awful look already. One would expect to meet some ghostly Druid, or some witch of eld, among the shadowy tracks left by the forest wildings. Vixen went about her work languidly. She was really tired, and was glad to think her day's labours were over. She went slowly in and out among ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... obleeged to live in a four-square box because every other man-Jack in Pow'tan County builds his in that way. Miss Nancy was always mighty nervous from the time she was a child; I knew it when I married her. Fact is, she says to me: 'Cap'n Gates, I'm as nervous as a witch, and I'm afraid you'll get out of patience with me sometimes, and I wouldn't blame you if you did.' And, says I,—my hand right on my heart,—'Miss Nancy Miller! if you'll take me as I am, I'll be proud and happy to take you as you are, nerves and all!' says ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... "You little witch!" he said. "Ye certainly made a booby of ole Larry. But don't you be coming between me ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... means of redress. None was to be had. Exile, imprisonment and even death, awaited the most eminent citizens; Winthrop's entry into Boston was met by gloomy silence, and for it all, Welde and Symmes protested Anne Hutchinson to be responsible, and denounced her as a heretic and a witch. ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... little white goat-skin apron, adorned with numerous charms, and used a paddle for a mace or walking stick. He was not an old man, though he affected to be so—walking very slowly and deliberately, coughing asthmatically, glimmering with his eyes, and mumbling like a witch. With much affected difficulty he sat at the end of the hut beside the symbols alluded to, and continued his coughing full half an hour, when his wife came in in the same manner, without saying a word, and assumed the same affected style. The king jokingly looked at ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... What witch's hand unhasps Thy keen claw-cornered wings From under the barn roof, and flings Thee forth, with chattering gasps, To scud the air, And nip the lady-bug, and tear Her ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... I asked about Bridget Ruane and her brother said:—'Some people call her "Biddy Early" (after a famous witch-doctor). She has done a good many cures. Her brother was away for a while, and it is from him she got her knowledge. I believe it's before sunrise she gathers the herbs; any way no one ever saw her gathering them. She has saved many a woman from being brought away when her ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... spiritual threshings by and through which it is brought again under its blessed influence. In his 'Cristabel' he has exhibited the dark principle of evil, lurking within the good, and ever struggling with it. We read it in the spell the wicked witch Geraldine works upon her innocent and unsuspecting protector; we read it in the strange words which Geraldine addresses to the spirit of the saintly mother who has approached to shield from harm the beloved child for whom she died; we read ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... drawn out,' and must have cost the gallant Colonel a pile of stamps. Declining an invitation to visit the stables,—for our new millionaire is a lover of horse-flesh, as well as the narcotic weed—and leaving that gentleman to 'witch the world with wondrous horsemanship,' the 'Tattler' reporter withdrew, 'pierced through with Envy's venomed darts,' and satisfied that his courtly entertainer had been ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... man of might, Skilled in magic, huge of limb; Giant, wizard, goblin, sprite, Ghost, witch, devil, imp of night, All had fled ...
— Fleurs de lys and other poems • Arthur Weir
... is to quit it, but to go to the pump—and see that each animal has its food to a minute. The devil's roysterers! a Manhattan negro takes a Flemish gelding for a gaunt hound that is never out of breath, and away he goes, at night, scampering along the highways like a Yankee witch switching through the air on a broomstick—but mark me, master Euclid, I have eyes in my head, as thou knowest by bitter experience! D'ye remember, ragamuffin, the time when I saw thee, from the Hague, riding the beasts, as if the devil spurred them, along the dykes of Leyden, ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... very sad,' said the young maidens. 'What proud beauty could have secured his love, or what forsaken one has caused some Thessalian witch to cast a spell on him? Has that cabalistic ring (which he is said to have found hidden within the flanks of a brazen horse in the midst of some forest) lost its virtue, and suddenly ceasing to render its owner invisible, betrayed him to the astonished ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... was a witch, and had witnessed the departure of the two children: so, sneaking after them secretly, as is the habit of witches, she had enchanted all the springs in ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... Charon, leaning forward on his knee and speaking confidentially; "just as this chap was putting off,—with some of Davy's belongings, likely,—Davy up and cuts a slice of flesh and blood off him. Well, he takes this slice and fixes it up one way or another, and makes a witch out of it,—handsome as she can be,—enough to draw a chap's heart right out through his jacket. Now, being as she's his own flesh and blood, d' yer see, this chap I'm telling yer on's bound to come back after her afore he dies. ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... a bottle of witch hazel as I rose. Impulsively, I drank off half the contents. It sent a warmth through ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... as he appeared to his rivals and partisans, the veteran knight in magnificent apparel, pearls, and silver armour, haughty and subtle, tanned, hardened, and worn with voyages to the Spanish Main and fighting at Cadiz, 'Ralegh the witch,' the 'scourge of Spain,' the 'soldier, sailor, scholar, courtier, orator, historian, and philosopher.' We do not see the daredevil trooper of Languedoc and Munster, the duellist, the master of the roistering ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... "Rosalie," late "Perdita," all this time? Why, there she goes, with never a tack, through the narrow strait, lying over under the press of her white dimity like a witch on a black broomstick, as she shoots out ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... Wellington." Kentish's "Hudibrastic History of Lord Amherst's Visit to China." "The London Directory and London Ambulator." "Golden Key of the Treasures of Knowledge." "The Little World of Great and Good Things." E. Thomson's "Adventures of a Carpet." "Raphael's Witch; or, Oracle of the Future" (ten coloured designs). "The London Stage" (a collection of about 180 plays, with a cut to each play; 4 vols.). Portrait of Mr. Oxberry as "Humphrey Gull" in the ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... dull, cold, muddy, leaden, dun, wan, sallow, dead, dingy, ashy, ashen, ghastly, cadaverous, glassy, lackluster; discolored &c. v. light-colored, fair, blond; white &c. 430. pale as death, pale as ashes, pale as a witch, pale as a ghost, pale as a corpse, white as ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... it?" said Barney, glancing about as if he did not like even the thought. "Thot ould witch wor kapin' me hid away from the officers in thot wee bit av a house roight behind the three over there, and all the ixercoise Oi could git wor whin Oi could shlip out av noights and walk round and swally a brith av fresh air. Oi t'ought Oi had kilt the thramp and ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... servant, wilt thou forsake me now? having so often sold thyself to me to work wickedness, wilt thou forsake me now? Thou horrible wretch, dost not know, that thou hast sinned thyself beyond the reach of grace, and dost think to find mercy now? Art not thou a murderer, a thief, a harlot, a witch, a sinner of the greatest size, and dost thou look for mercy now? Dost thou think that Christ will foul his ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan
... two that death had left her; she could not bear them out of her sight for an instant. A very weird-looking cummer was the grand-dame—with a broken, piping voice—tremulous hands, and jaws that, like the stage witch wife's, ever munched and mumbled. She seldom spoke aloud, except to groan out a startlingly sudden ejaculation of "Oh, Lord," or "O dear;" these widows' mites cast into the conversational treasury did not greatly ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... arms and necks which gave that semblance of amorous vitality to her fruit. On the stall next to her an old woman, a hideous old drunkard, displayed nothing but wrinkled apples, pears as flabby as herself, and cadaverous apricots of a witch-like sallowness. La Sarriette's stall, however, spoke of love and passion. The cherries looked like the red kisses of her bright lips; the silky peaches were not more delicate than her neck; to the plums she seemed to have lent the skin from ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... sitting in the kitchen doorway had seemingly missed the heights of life he might have trod, and had walked his close on fifty years through level meadows of mediocrity, a witch in every finger-tip waiting to be set to work, head among the clouds, feet stumbling, eyes and ears open to hear God's secret thought; seeing and hearing it, too, but lacking force to speak it forth again; ...
— A Village Stradivarius • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... 'they' I don't know, and I don't think he knew himself—'they won't send her back to the witch, you don't think, do you?' he burst out, growing ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... coming on. Under these circumstances I determined on returning to the little harbour from which we had started in the morning, but the wind being directly against us, we made very little head. "We shall never get to the Nob," said Mr. Witch, who had the steer oar, to me; "it blows too hard, Sir." "What are we to do, then?" said I. "Why, Sir," he replied, "we must either beach or run out to sea," "We will beach, then," I said; "it is better to ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... was a Jesuit father who won distinction as a poet and also as an opponent of the witch-burning mania. His collection of lyric poems called Trutz-Nachtigall, or Match-Nightingale, is interesting for its singular blend of erotic imagery with sincere religious feeling. The poems indicate a genuine delight in certain aspects of nature. ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... always delightful; and, like things she says, they often seem to come in answer to something you have been thinking about, and which you would never imagine she could know, unless she was a witch. This was the knowing bit in that letter:—"Your dear father's note this morning did me more good than bottles of tonic. It is due to you, my trustworthy little daughter, to tell you of the bit that pleased me most. He says—'The children seem ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... "Wenman does the Kitchen Witch now (I altered it this morning) and Mead the old one—the climber. Poor old chap, he'll not ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... think there was," said the other complacently. "Give me a bottle of witch hazel, a package of invisible hair-pins and a box of parlor matches. Quick; ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... "A witch," said the girl, demurely. "I am as old as the world, and can fly through the air on a broomstick, so don't think to escape me again, step-mamma. I trust you will enjoy your brief repose, for it will soon be morning, and if I don't see your fair face at the ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... in their hay without damage, while most of that in the neighbouring village was spoiled. This occasioned very great noise in the country, and so greatly provoked were the people who resided in the other parishes that they absolutely accused her of being a witch, and sent old Gaffer Goosecap, a busy fellow in other people's concerns, to find out evidence against her. The wiseacre happened to come to her school when she was walking about with the raven on one shoulder, the pigeon on the other, the lark on her hand, and the lamb and the dog by her ...
— Bo-Peep Story Books • Anonymous
... perilous position in the hands of Pringle Blowers; and, further, that the communication was effected by the negro man Pompe, who we have before described in connection with Montague at the time of his landing from the witch-like schooner. This Pompe was sold to Blowers but a few months before Annette's recovery, and acting upon the force of that sympathy which exists among fellow slaves of a plantation, soon renewed old acquaintance, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... sweetest voice was mute That river-valley ever heard From lip of maid or throat of bird; For Mabel Martin sat apart, And let the hay-mow's shadow 'fall Upon the loveliest face of all. She sat apart, as one forbid, Who knew that none would condescend To own the Witch-wife's ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... enormous, awful notion of what I was doing; above all, the unbearable thought, which was like touching hot iron, of what Arthur would think of it. A Carstairs a thief; and a thief of the Carstairs treasure! I believe my brother could see me burned like a witch for such a thing, But then, the very thought of such fanatical cruelty heightened my old hatred of his dingy old antiquarian fussiness and my longing for the youth and liberty that called to me from the sea. Outside was strong sunlight with a wind; ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... Grundtvig somehow experienced a wonderful rebirth of his hope in the spring of 1824, an experience to which he gave eloquent expression in his great poem, "New Year's Morning." He writes in the preface that he has "long enough battled with a witch called indifference, and has discovered that the battle wherein one is most likely to be defeated is the battle against nothing." He therefore urges his friends to ignore the witch and join him in a determined crusade for a reawakening of the Northern spirit ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... further said that she had given him a valuable ring, and if he would not give her the gold chain, she insisted upon having her own ring again. On this Antipholus became quite frantic, and again calling her sorceress and witch, and denying all knowledge of her or her ring, ran away from her, leaving her astonished at his words and his wild looks, for nothing to her appeared more certain than that he had dined with her, and that she had given him a ring, ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... the hunter. Here was no wolf. He felt sure that the bullets had reached their mark, yet the beast was unharmed. Dave was a mighty hunter but, like most ignorant people, he was superstitious. He had often heard tales of the loup-garou, or witch wolf, whom no bullet could kill. With a hand that trembled slightly he laid his gun across his knees, deciding not ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... of the State of Kansas is a man of authority—not only intelligent but intellectual, always a rare combination, and it needs no witch to predict a great future for him. He remained at Mrs. Shields's lovely house in Cherry Street from 11.30 till 6 in the evening, in spite of having an appointment at 4, by which I inferred he ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... around The realm you rule, for this is haunted ground! Here stalks the Sorcerer, here the Fairy trips, Here limps the Witch with malice-working lips, The Graces here their snowy arms entwine, Here dwell the fairest sisters of the Nine,— She who, with jocund voice and twinkling eye, Laughs at the brood of follies as they fly; She of the dagger and the deadly bowl, Whose charming horrors thrill the trembling soul; ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... probably well accustomed to missiles of the kind, paid little attention to. The monarch was warned too, we are told, by another wild apparition, which suddenly appears out of the mists for this purpose—a Highland witch of the order of those who drove Macbeth's ambition to frenzy, but whose mission now was to warn James of the mischief brewing against him. The King was brave and careless, used to the continual presence of danger, keeping his Christmas ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... it into the back of his mind, however, striving to recall a memory which eluded him. What had Billie told him of a witch's cauldron in the grove of zapote trees, where the old crone had wrought magic which to her, at least, was very real? Could the explanation of this amazing evanescence be ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... 'The witch for the lost children? No, no, Maria, she is only gathering fir cones, and completing the picture in her red basquine, brown jacket, and great hat. I would ask her the way, but that we could not ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and chilled Mr. Ferriday. He worked none the less for her and himself and he tried in a hundred ways to surprise the little witch into an adoration complete enough to make her forget herself, make her capable of that ultimate altruism to which a woman falls or rises when she stretches herself out on the ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... large pumpkin on a stand or table from which hang as many ribbons as there are guests. Have one end of the ribbon attached to a small card in the pumpkin on which may be a little water color sketch of pumpkin, apples, witch, ghost or other appropriate design together with a number. Have red ribbon for the girls and yellow ribbon for the boys, with corresponding numbers. Let each guest draw a ribbon from the pumpkin and find their partner ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... Clear the track! The witches are here! They've all come back! They hanged them high,—No use! No use! What cares a witch for a hangman's noose? They buried them deep, but they wouldn't lie still, For cats and witches are hard to kill; They swore they shouldn't and wouldn't die,— Books said they did, but they lie! ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... o' seemed to sit scornful while he was a-talkin'. Folks said, if it was in old times, Ketury wouldn't have been allowed to go on so; but Parson Lothrop's so sort o' mild, he let her take pretty much her own way. Everybody thought that Ketury was a witch: at least, she knew consid'able more'n she ought to know, and so they was kind o' 'fraid on her. Cap'n Eb says he never see a fellow seem scareder than Cack did when he ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the senores took their seats around the board. The orchestra was stationed in an elevated alcove in the next room. On the benches sat the women, from the dainty Juliana in her pink cotton hosiery and white kid slippers to the old witch Paola, the town scold. We knives or forks. Heaping platefuls of rice were served with the stewed meat—cut in small pieces that "just fit the hand," and cooked with vegetables. At my request the monkey had been roasted ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... come, whither going, and what designing? What did the poet mean to make of her? What could he have made of her? Could he have gone on much farther without having had recourse to some of the ordinary shifts of witch tales? Was she really the daughter of Roland de Vaux, and would the friends have met again ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... is admirable," I said; "but what," I jeered, "makes you think you can point to the spot, because your map says something like, 'Through the Sunken Valley to Witch's Caldron, four points N. by N. E. to Gallows Hill where the shadow falls at sunrise, fifty fathoms west, fifty paces north as the crow flies, to the Seven Wells'? How the deuce," I demanded, "is any one going to ...
— My Buried Treasure • Richard Harding Davis
... rid of Holda, but no one can tell how long. She's a terror." "Why don't you travel?" "I have, I swear I have, but she has a trick of finding where my luggage goes and then turns up at Pau or Paris as if I expected her. She's a witch! That's what she is." ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... the same psychological treatment. We can readily see this in the following extreme example: An aborigine suffering from a psychological problem certainly wouldn't be a candidate for psychoanalysis as we know it. He could, no doubt, be helped much more readily by a witch doctor. It also stands to reason that the sophisticated Westerner would not be influenced by the incantations of a tribal ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers
... mental powers and peculiarities were such that, a hundred years before, she might have been burned for a witch, and fifty years later might have been honoured as a prophetess. But she missed the crest of the wave both ways and fell in the trough; her views on religious matters procured neither a witch's grave nor a prophet's crown, but ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... we could see, through the twinkling leaves and the twinkling atmosphere, the great hills across the lake, taking their afternoon naps, with their clouds drawn like handkerchiefs over their heads. It was very hot, and the red and purple ooze of the unwholesome river below "burnt like a witch's oils." It was indeed but a fevered joy we snatched from Nature there; and I am afraid that we got nothing more comfortable from sentiment, when, rising, we wandered off through the unguarded fields toward a ruined tower on a hill. It ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... the smell of burning. Blouses, pink and green, and cream, and blue, were stirred into a seething mass in the fireplace, as in a witch's cauldron, their fluffy laces burnt and blackened. Chiffon fichus torn in ribbons strewed the carpet. An ivory fan had been trampled into fragments on the hearth-rug, and a snow-storm of feathers from a white boa had drifted over the furniture. On the wash-stand a spangled white tulle ...
— Rosemary in Search of a Father • C. N. Williamson
... have burned me for a witch? Perhaps they would: I think quite likely they burned women who made better martyrs. But I didn't have to call in Flibbertigibbet. The programme is a carefully guarded secret, to be sure; but it is known—it ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... Rufus appeared all dripping with Gore, his Seconds would cool him out and rub him with Witch Hazel ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... exaggerated form. At the time, furthermore, when he took healthy romantic interest in the picturesque Dusseldorf life, his imagination was morbidly stimulated by furtive visits to a woman reputed to be a witch, and to her niece, the daughter of a hangman. His earliest poems, the Dream Pictures, belong in an atmosphere charged with witchery, crime, and the irresponsibility of nightmare. This coincidence of incompatible ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... His overruling operation. He condescends, though He gives no sanction, to the altars and shrines of imposture, and He makes His own fiat the substitute for its sorceries. He speaks amid the incantations of Balaam, raises Samuel's spirit in the witch's cavern, prophesies of the Messias by the tongue of the Sibyl, forces Python to recognize His ministers, and baptizes by the hand of the misbeliever. He is with the heathen dramatist in his denunciations of injustice and tyranny, and his auguries ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... Abel, sartinly. But I'll never read like thee," he added, despairingly. "Drattle th' old witch; why didn't she give I some schooling?" He spoke with spiteful emphasis, and Abel, too well used to his rough language to notice the uncivil reference to his mother, said ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... inexorable fate. This idea I have pointed out before in the case of Hamlet; but it occurs repeatedly in Shakespeare; for as Hamlet is driven by the ghost into straits which he cannot pass through, so is Macbeth by witches, by Hecate, and by the arch-witch, his wife; Brutus by his friends; nay, even in Coriolanus, we find a similar thing—in short, the conception of a will transcending the capacity of the individual is modern. But as Shakespeare represents this trouble of the will as arising not from within but ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... a bowldish piece o' goods, was the youngster, simmin'ly, for 'a dedn' mind the stranyer a dinyun,[G] though 'a was like an owld black witch,[H] they do say. Anyhow, the two beginned jawin' together, soon got thick as Todgy an' Tom. An' by-an'-by the stranyer wormed out of un how 'a was all'ys troubled in 'es mind 'cause 'a cudn' onderstaand ...
— Drolls From Shadowland • J. H. Pearce
... Dunsmore filled with milk every vessel that was brought to her till an envious witch tried to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 59, December 14, 1850 • Various
... business to hunt the eggs. I fell off a beam in the barn loft yesterday, while I was trying to crawl over to a nest that the black hen has stolen. And when I came in with a scratched knee, Mrs. Semple bound it up with witch-hazel, murmuring all the time, 'Dear! Dear! It seems only yesterday that Master Jervie fell off that very same beam and scratched ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... [Footnote: See the examination of the authorities and the evidence in Corbett, Drake and the Tudor Navy, i., ch. viii.] on charges which may be summed up as those of treason and incitement to mutiny, wherewith was apparently mixed up a conviction on Drake's part that Doughty exercised witch-craft to bring on bad weather. It is not improbable at least that Doughty was really acting in the interests of that party in England which was opposed to the whole policy of the raid, and believed that he ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... Is good to distil When babies are fractious and witches do ill. But why should we waste What gives such a taste To Summer-time salads that with it are graced? Old witch, work your will! Sweet babe, take a pill! And I'll eat my ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 14, 1917 • Various
... 'Awa', awa', ye ill woman, You 'r nae come here for good; You 'r but some witch, or wile warlock, Or mer-maid ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... hear Elephant turning from side to side. Perhaps his arms pained him; and thinking thus Frank was sorry he had not insisted on swabbing them with some witch hazel which they kept handy in the shop, in case of bruises while working. But he did not think it good policy to disturb the entire bunch again in order to relieve the slight pain of Elephant who must sooner or later ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... at the bare thought of Medea—"la pessima Medea"—worse than her namesake of Colchis, as he calls her. His long clemency is a result of mere fear of laying violent hands upon her. He fears her as something almost supernatural; he would have enjoyed having had her burnt as a witch. After letter on letter, telling his crony, Cardinal Sanseverino, at Rome his various precautions during her lifetime—how he wears a jacket of mail under his coat; how he drinks only milk from a cow which he has milked in ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... old!" I exclaimed, in horrified amazement: its size was that of a rickety baby under three, while its wizened face was that of a spell-struck creature of no assignable age, or the wax image of some dwindling life wasting away before the witch-kindled fire of a diabolical hatred. The tiny hands and arms were pitiably thin, and showed under the yellow skin sharp little bones no larger than a chicken's; and at her wrists and temples the blue tracery ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... She leered, witch-like, at him, clutched suddenly at his sword-hilt, and kissed it with a frenzy of words, then sped off, singing madly as ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... And did you hear That little twitter-and-cheep, Breaking inordinately loud and clear On this still, spectral, exquisite atmosphere? 'Tis a first nest at matins! And behold A rakehell cat—how furtive and acold! A spent witch homing from some infamous dance - Obscene, quick-trotting, see her tip and fade Through shadowy railings into a pit of shade! And now! a little wind and shy, The smell of ships (that earnest of romance), A sense of space and water, and thereby A lamplit bridge ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... "Ah, you witch-mother, you sorceress! How is a Christian man to win a game off you? I should have sprinkled the board with holy water before we began. You've not won that game by fair means, now, ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... Italian narrative, with motives and events that require historical analysis. The poem is impatient with those very things which make the environment of the bard Sordello, and treats them in curt lines. A character is jammed into a sentence, like a witch into a snuff-box, the didactic parts grow metaphysical, and the life of Sordello does not fuse the events of the poem into one long rhythm. He thinks and dreams apart, and Palma's ambition for him is an aside, and the events swing their arms and strike ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... answer; "but if the old men come to me and say, 'kill the witch,' I must do it. For you know I am Maseua, head-war-chief, and whatever the principals command I must do, even if it takes the life ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... Edward, an irrepressible smile breaking through his assumed anger, "you are a witch, and a wicked witch, too. It is like your race to be cruel and merciless, indifferent to the pain ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam |
