"Witchery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her passengers danced till late, for there was no resisting the hospitality of Hogarth, or the witchery of those vistas and arcades, grand hall and lost grot, salons and conservatories, there in the dark of the ocean, or such an enchantment of music, and fabulousness of table; the host, too, pleaded prettily for himself; and now ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... o'er the golden wire Bend with such lovely witchery, Nor feel each tone like living ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20. No. 568 - 29 Sept 1832 • Various
... her up. He had abandoned hope; he had put aside possibilities, for he could see none. But here she was in his arms, a living, breathing, vital, passionate figure, her heart beating against his own, pleading with him to take her away. Here was love with all its witchery, with all its magic, with all its power, attacking the defenses of his heart; and the woman whom he adored as his very life, with all the passion in his being, was urging, imploring, begging him to take her away. He was weakening, wavering, and the woman who watched ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... your hands—they are strangely fair! Fair—for the jewels that sparkle there,— Fair—for the witchery of the spell That ivory keys alone can tell; But when their delicate touches rest Here in my own do I love them best As I clasp with eager, acquisitive spans My glorious ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... see wisps of frosted stubble in place of the wavy locks of brown, and jet, and gold! Ah, well, it is a comfort to think that some folks defy time, and are as young at seventy as at seventeen. Beauty fades, and witchery takes unto itself wings, but true hearts, like wine, ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... the following melodramatic description, by Thiebault, of Napoleon's appearance on Sunday, June 11th: "His look, once so formidable and piercing, had lost its strength and even its steadiness: his face had lost all expression and all its force: his mouth, compressed, had none of its former witchery: and his gait was as perplexed as his demeanour and gestures were undecided: the ordinary pallor of his skin was replaced by a strongly pronounced ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... was the tribute paid by the American public to the master who had given to it such tales of conjuring charm, of witchery and mystery as "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "Ligeia"; such fascinating hoaxes as "The Unparalleled Adventure of Hans Pfaall," "MSS. Found in a Bottle," "A Descent Into a Maelstrom" and "The ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... her singing, the four of us—or five it may be, for I can not now rightly recall whether Sawney MacAllister came ashore that night or not—sat before her beauty as though it were a part of witchery, for there was a bookish strangeness to it that on this wild coast, in a nest of smugglers and free-traders, after a cruise of rough living and deep drinking, we should be listening to the voice of a girl whose beauty ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... lovely, who so glorious as Dorothy?" thought Richard, on whom her beauty grew with ever-increasing witchery, like a deep, ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... as she had given promise of doing, was controlling the forces of her small world. Doing it as once she had done it in the nursery, with a radiant witchery that had gained its ends with all ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... she looked back and their eyes met in understanding, as true subjects of His Majesty, and then they looked skyward to see what changes the Master's witchery had wrought. In supreme intoxication of the senses, breathing that dry air which was like cool wine coming in long sips to the palate, they rode down the winding trail, till, after a surpassing outburst, the Eternal Painter dropped ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... little too wretched to arrive at that determination after this conversation. You must go alone to hear your old flame, Morabita, sing. Only, if her voice is still as sympathetic as of old, if it moves you from your present insensibility, you may read remembrance of some aspects of my visit into the witchery of it if you like. It may occur to you ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... best but a bitter sweet; and when sweetest, it is the friendship mingled with it that makes it so. Love, too, wastes away with years. Friendship is eternal. It rests upon qualities that are a part of the soul. The witchery of the outward image helps not to make it, nor being lost as it is with age, can dissolve it. Friendship agrees too with ambition, while love is its most dreaded rival. Need I point to Antony? If, Piso, ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... exceeding even what I expected from your well-known kindness to me; they are charmingly executed, and with great taste. I own too that Grignan is grander, and in a much finer situation, than I had imagined; as I concluded that the witchery of Madame de S'evign'e's ideas and style had spread the same leaf-gold over places with which she gilded her friends. All that has appeared of them since the publication of her letters has lowered them. A single letter of her daughter, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... So bare was thy fine throat, and curls of black, So lightsomely dropped in thy lordly back, So crisply swaled the feather in thy bonnet, So glanced thy thigh, and spanning palm upon it, That my weak soul took instant flight to thee, Lost in the fondest gush of that sweet witchery! ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... banished my dark thoughts, for a time I allowed love, rather than duty, to fill my world, and I yielded to the gentle witchery of her presence. I had made up my mind to tell her all; but I postponed it for a while. "Time enough yet," I said; "let me have some happiness before eternal night ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... principles; its literature and pleasures. It is dominated by a peculiar spirit which the apostle calls a lust or fashion, and resembles the German Zeit-Geist: an infection, an influence, a pageantry, a witchery; reminding us of the fabled mountain of loadstone which attracted vessels to itself for the iron that was in them, and presently drew the nails from the timbers, so that the whole fabric fell a helpless, shapeless mass into the waves. The votaries of the world ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... his still more intimate acquaintance with the late William Wilfred Campbell, poet, whom he had seen in the same moment feed his pigs in a near suburb of Ottawa, and create a line of poetry—which King quoted—"The wild witchery of the winter woods." He was seized with the idea that a Foundation such as the Rockefeller should subsidize poets and song-writers. The pity of it always is that the world is far too desperately cynical in high places to accommodate such generous impulses. ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... by the witchery of his brush and his needle, has transmuted the confusion and sordidness and filth of this Thames-side into exquisite emotion. The essence of beauty is harmony, but that harmony is not to be reduced to rule and measure. In the very chaos of the Locomotive Works we may feel beauty; in the thrill ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... witchery of this bittersweet thorn. It is well worth our further careful study. Seen collectively, the thorny rose branch is instantly suggested, but occasionally, when we observe a single isolated specimen, especially ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... and the fair daughters of Arles, in their picturesque costumes,—see the wild bulls of the Camargo, the Pampas of the Mediterranean. We are among the growers of the silk-worm; we hear the home-songs and talks of the Mas, listen to the people's legends and tales of witchery, and can study the Middle-Age spirit that still in these regions endows every shrine with miracles, as we follow the pilgrimage to the chapel ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... not the scent of flowers stole on Duncan Rowallan's senses, quickening his pulses, and making him breathe faster to take it in. He was very near the dark, bird-like head from which the June wind had blown the love-locks. A balmy breath surrounded him like a halo—the witchery of youth's attraction, which is as old as Eden, ambient as ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... with her utmost witchery of manner). Don't look so disappointed, Dr. Paramore. Cheer up. You've been most kind to us; and you've done ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw
... pore? And have not her members cried to heaven that the destroyer might perish? And now, when God has put into their hands a weapon by which it may at once be exterminated, will they hesitate? Will they hang back? Will they say, we cannot make the sacrifice? O where lies this astonishing witchery? What has put the church to sleep? What has made her angry at the call to come out from the embrace of her deadliest foe? O what has he, who drinks the cup of the Lord, to do with the cup of devils? Does he need it to make him serious or prayerful, or to enable him better to understand the ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... when thou art fled, how vain The witchery of earth and skies, Love's look, or music's sweetest strain, ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... occult art, occult sciences; magic, the black art, necromancy, theurgy, thaumaturgy[obs3]; demonology, demonomy[obs3], demonship[obs3]; diablerie[Fr], bedevilment; witchcraft, witchery; glamor; fetishism, fetichism, feticism[obs3]; ghost dance, hoodoo; obi, obiism[obs3]; voodoo, voodooism; Shamanism [Esquimaux], vampirism; conjuration; bewitchery, exorcism, enchantment, mysticism, second sight, mesmerism, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... topmost peak we round, Then alight ye on the ground; The heath's wide regions cover ye With your mad swarms of witchery! (They let themselves down.) ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... bitter line, the worn pathway of a sneer, curved at one corner of his mouth. "Unwholesome, anaemic," was Serviss's inward comment as he turned away to address the girl, whose change of manner exerted a new witchery over him. ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... and fine coloring? Here is that too; for over all,—over the splendid emperors and humble princes, and the red, and blue, and gold, of oak, and hickory, and maple, droops that magical veil whereof we spoke—that delicate witchery, which lies upon the gorgeous picture like a spell, melting the headlands into distant figures, beckoning and smiling, making the colors of the leaves more delicate and tender—turning the autumn mountains into a fairy land of unimagined ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... of witchery was in that mouth, slightly parted, and exhibiting within the pearly teeth that glistened even in the faint light that came from that bay window. How sweetly the long silken eyelashes lay upon ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... ecstasy the year mounts upward. Up from the south come the odor-laden winds, Angels and ministers of life, Dropping seeds of fruitfulness Into the bosoms of flowers. Elusive, alluring secrets hide in wood and hedge Like the first thoughts of love In the breast of a maiden; The witchery of love is in rock and tree. Across the pasture, star-sown with daisies, I see a young girl—the spirit of spring she seems, Sister of the winds that run through the rippling daisies. Sweet and clear her voice calls father and brother, And one whose name her ...
— The Song of the Stone Wall • Helen Keller
... lovers lingering on the road till the moon rose and the witchery of night came to make the girlish eyes more brilliant, softening their gayety into a wistful tenderness, only to these did the close of the day seem as sweet and momentous as the morning. While the trusty horse jogged on, impatient of the slow pace set by his driver, the lovers ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... and Petre, and reduced to writing and signed by these three noblemen, soon after quitting the Prince's presence. Over the meeting at which this indictment was preferred, Lord Fingal presided, and the celebrated "witchery" resolutions, referring to the influence then exercised on the Prince by Lady Hertford, were proposed by his lordship's son, Lord Killeen. It may, therefore, be fairly assumed, that the existence of the fourth pledge was proved, the first and second were never denied, and as to the third—that given ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... not, perhaps, confess the fact to yourself, what you really want to buy is not the contents of a shop; you want the shop and the shopkeeper, and streets of shops with their draperies and their inhabitants, the whole city and the bay and the mountains begirdling it, and Fujiyama's white witchery overhanging it in the speckless sky, all Japan, in very truth, with its magical trees and luminous atmosphere, with all its cities and towns and temples, and forty millions of the most lovable ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... smiled. "It was a case of witchery and fascination. He probably divined how eager you were to help me, and he was glad to yield to the agreeable ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... thither, watching the patient horse plodding along the tow-path, throwing bits of bread to the white-winged gulls which hovered in the wake of the boat, chattering to bargee, who had speedily become her willing captive, enchained in the meshes of her sunny hair, held fast by the innocent witchery of her long-lashed ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... her life? Had she not a power and witchery of her own? Might she not even distance Addie in the race? "I've more brains than she ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... The witchery of the dawn turned the gray river-reaches to purple, gold, and opal; and it was as though the lumbering dhoni crept across the splendours ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... of my old companions, some dead, one sleeping in the middle of the great Atlantic, many scattered over distant parts of the world, almost all far away. Yes, I feel that I have not quite cast off the witchery of the "Battle of Morgarten." Early associations can give to verse a charm and a hold upon one's heart which no literary excellence, however high, ever could. Look at the first hymns you learned to repeat, and which you used to say at your mother's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... person is old. They take the body to the church for the night and they gather there and watch. He believes the soul rises from the ground on the Resurrection Day. He believes some people can put a "spell" on other people. He said that was witchery. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... the clouds more than two miles overhead; gigantic precipices of many-colored granite rising sheer for thousands of feet above the foaming, glistening, roaring rapids; it has also, in striking contrast, orchids and tree ferns, the delectable beauty of luxurious vegetation, and the mysterious witchery of the jungle. One is drawn irresistibly onward by ever-recurring surprises through a deep, winding gorge, turning and twisting past overhanging cliffs of incredible height. Above all, there is the fascination of finding here and there under the swaying vines, or perched on top of ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... kept his eye on her as she galloped her managed palfrey through the umbrageous orchard, or skimmed in her light bark over the pellucid bosom of the silver lake. For many years such had been her unvarying course; and if loveliness has a charm—if innocence has an attraction—if youth has a witchery—all—all—were concentrated in the noble figure and exquisitely-chiselled countenance of the subject of our sketch. The colouring of a Titian, the elasticity of a Rubens, the magnificence of a Michael ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... these ladies concentrated in the person of one perfect woman would have had no witchery for the banker. His heart was dead. He had given all the truth, all the passion of which his nature was capable, to the one woman who had possessed the power to ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... Yellow-throat is represented in all parts of the United States by one of its forms. They are ground loving birds, frequenting swamps and thickets where they can be located by their loud, unmistakable song of "Witchery, w i t c h e r y, witch." They nest on or very near the ground, making their nests of grass, lined with hair; these are either in hollows in the ground at the foot of clumps of grass or weeds, or attached to the ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... Hall at the invitation of her husband. He thus met the object of his early idolatry in the very scene of his tender devotions, which, as he says, her smiles had once made a heaven to him. The scene was but little changed. He was in the very chamber where he had so often listened entranced to the witchery of her voice; there were the same instruments and music; there lay her flower garden beneath the window, and the walks through which he had wandered with her in the intoxication of youthful love. Can we wonder that ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... so to speak; immersing herself utterly, as she did, in the interests that devoured him. All Angels forgot his gloom in the radiance of her charms,—the sweet genuineness of her formal pieties, the tender glow and universality of her sympathies, the witchery of her ever ready, never too ready playfulness. It was captivating to see how instantly and entirely she had fitted herself into a partnership so exacting; though it was pitiful to note, on second glance, how the tint and contour of her cheek were losing their perfection, and her eyes ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... Bosphorus, Constantinople is, probably, the most glorious spot on earth. Ascend its mountains, and overlook the gulfs of Salerno and Gaeta, as well as its own waters, the Campugna Felici and the memorials of the past, all seen in the witchery of an Italian atmosphere, and the mind becomes perfectly satisfied that nothing equal is to be found elsewhere; but enter the bay of Rio, and take the whole of the noble panorama in at a glance, and even the experienced traveller is staggered with the stupendous ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... more graceful, but Daphne is more winning—bright eyes—white hands! sweet smiles! and the delicious dress, so simple, yet so captivating! the white corset that I could not venture to look at—the gown of silk that couldn't hide the points of the charming little feet. 'Tis witchery—enchantment—Venus and Diana—I shall inevitably go mad. Ah, cousin! you ought to have come long ago, and all this might never ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... over men that Frances Stuart cast the spell of her witchery. One of her earliest and most ardent admirers was none other than my Lady Castlemaine herself, who alone claimed to hold her Sovereign's heart. So secure she thought herself of her supremacy that she not only took the French beauty into favour, but actually ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... and she gave birth to a male child, as he were a piece of the moon. He had not his match for beauty and he put to shame the sun and the resplendent moon; for he had a shining face and black eyes of Babylonian witchery[FN2] and aquiline nose and ruby lips; brief, he was perfect of attributes, the loveliest of the folk of his time, without ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... must not forget the illusions of all art. If my reader thinks he does not get from Nature what I get from her, let me remind him that he can hardly know what he has got till he defines it to himself as I do, and throws about it the witchery of words. Literature does not grow wild in the woods. Every artist does something more than copy Nature; more comes out in his account than ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... been some witchery in that south-east wind. She knew it was madness to go, that she was only entangling herself more closely in a mesh which could not be unravelled for many days. Yet within half an hour she was out there in the darkness, with the wind tearing at her hair and flickering ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... them all was Adrien. All day long it seemed as if her very soul were laughing for joy. And all day long she kept close beside Jack, chaffing him, laughing at him, rallying him on his solemn face and driving him half-mad with her gay witchery. ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... to expect that Charles II. had much to do with its completion, for he was, in his own estimation, more pleasantly employed than in watching the flight of time by heavenly luminaries. His attractions were on earth, where the splendour of a wicked court and the witchery of bright eyes eclipsed all other pursuits. Still, the licentious king was not forgotten by the inventer of the dial. Among the pictures on some of the glasses were portraits of the king, the two queens, the duke of York, prince Rupert, &c. In the king's picture, the hour was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 400, November 21, 1829 • Various
... think we should be thankful if we find that as regards our favourite books and authors our taste remains unchanged; that the calm judgment of our middle age approves the preferences of ten years since, and that these gather strength as time gives them the witchery of old remembrances and associations. You enthusiastically admired Byron once, you estimate him very differently now. You once thought Festus finer than Paradise Loft, but you have swung away from that. But ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... be a true poet, it seems to me, without at least an abiding love and sympathetic appreciation of the finest in music, or a great musician without a love of poetry and a responsiveness to its witchery. The two arts are interdependent and well nigh inseparable. A great musician may compose a song without words, but sooner or later there will be born a poet-soul who, hearing the song, will be irresistibly ...
— Edward MacDowell • Elizabeth Fry Page
... of Witch Hazel's witchery, or inspiration, that she named Miss Craydocke; for Miss Craydocke was an old, dear friend of Mrs. Geoffrey's, in that "heart of things" behind the fashions, where the kingdom is growing up. But of course Hazel could not have known that; ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... Witchery, twitchery, kangaroo, Thunder and lightning, Kalamazoo! Lengthen her, strengthen her, rip, bazoo, Make her ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... labours, he at first turned to alchemy as he would have turned to the plough,—as he had turned to conspiracy,—simply as a means to his darling end. But by rapid degrees the fascination which all the elder sages experienced in the grand secret exercised its witchery over his mind. If Roger Bacon, though catching the notion of the steam-engine, devoted himself to the philosopher's stone; if even in so much more enlightened an age Newton had wasted some precious hours in the transmutation of metals, it was natural that the solitary ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... romantic style, Though of romance therein I fail To see aught—never mind meanwhile) And about dawn upon his breast His weary head declined at rest, For o'er a word to fashion known, "Ideal," he had drowsy grown. But scarce had sleep's soft witchery Subdued him, when his neighbour stept Into the chamber where he slept And wakened him with the loud cry: "'Tis time to get up! Seven doth strike. Oneguine waits on us, ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... does anybody else, but they do happen out of a world 'twixt earth and heaven. They call them uncanny in our land, which only means they are unknown, the mysteries of them, but some day they will grow clear and be no more black witchery, only golden light. ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... secured. A narrow lane ran between this villa St. Illario and its rustic church of the same name. The villa had two projecting wings with belvederes and roofed terraces, one of which connected with the author's study. Herein he wrote of "the witchery of Italy"—the land he loved next to his own. His letters give glorious glimpses of the Arno, their strolls to Bellosguardo's heights, the churches, monasteries, costumes, and songs of the peasants—all attuned to poesy. Frequent were ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... youthful, mischievous face towards him in the moonlight. The witchery of her blue eyes was still there as of old, the same frank irresponsibility beamed from them; her parted lips seemed to give him back the breath of his youth. He ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... sleep bring counsel. He did intend to ask Daisy to marry him, but he was not quite certain when he should do so. And then there outlined itself behind the darkness of his closed lids Jeannie's face, with its great dark eyes, its mass of hair growing low on the forehead, the witchery ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... a slipper of velvet, embroidered with gold or silver lace. Two or three great gold ornaments completed their costume. Add to this their sparkling black eyes, regular features, and an air of naivete—inseparable from Spanish girls, and you have some idea of the witchery ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... islands lying in the western sea. It is a rugged land, but a nurse of gallant sons; and sweet, ah! very sweet, is the name of home. Never hath my heart been turned from that dear spot, no, not by all the loveliness of Calypso, nor by all the witchery of Circe, but ever I remained faithful to the one lodestar ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... himself in love with her, because she had not resented his action. He had even walked over with her from the village, when she had been home visiting her parents one night, and had felt more and more the witchery of her pretty face and the lure of her fine ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... and held out a lamp into the stormy night, so as to show them the figure of an aged Priest, who started back as the radiant beauty of Undine flashed upon his sight. Well might he suspect magic and witchery, when so bright a vision shone out of a mean-looking cottage; he accordingly began a canticle, "All good spirits give ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... with glittering stars inlaid, Nor gallant ships o'er tranquil ocean dancing, Nor gay careering knights in arms advancing, Nor wild herds bounding through the forest glade, Nor tidings new of happiness delay'd, Nor poesie, Love's witchery enhancing, Nor lady's song beside clear fountain glancing, In beauty's pride, with chastity array'd; Nor aught of lovely, aught of gay in show, Shall touch my heart, now cold within her tomb Who was erewhile my life and light below! So heavy—tedious—sad—my days unblest, That I, with ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... moccasin flowers, the changing hues of the grainfields at noon-day as the drifting clouds threw racing shadows over them, were all possessed of a new charm, a new power to thrill her heart, for the old miracle of love and hope had come to Martha, the old witchery that has made "blue skies bluer and green things greener," for us all. There was the early rising in the dewy mornings when the river-valley was filled with silvery mist, through which the trees loomed gray and ghostly; there was ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... been living in a dream for two years, cherishing wild thoughts of exquisite happiness. He would have been content, had the dream never been disturbed; but this return to hard and practical life of her whose unconscious witchery had thrown a spell over his existence, roused him to the reality of his position, and it was ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... brought me a short manuscript saying, "If that seems worth while to you, you may copy it—I don't know whether there is anything in it or not." It was "The Rainbow," which appeared some months later in a popular magazine—a little gem, and a good illustration of his ability to throw the witchery of the ideal around the facts of nature. The lad with us had been learning Wordsworth's "Rainbow," a favorite of Mr. Burroughs, and it was no unusual thing of a morning to hear the rustic philosopher while frying the bacon for breakfast, singing contentedly in a sort of tune ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... met many times during the season, and with every meeting her witchery over Joe had become more potent. He had stolen a glove from her during one of his visits to Goldsboro, her home town in the South, and during the exciting games of the last World's Series he had worn it close to his heart when he had pitched his team ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... When you are married you will approve this reserve. Enough that nothing was lacking either of satisfaction for the most fastidious sentiment, or of that unexpectedness which brings, in a sense, its own sanction. Every witchery of imagination, of passion, of reluctance overcome, of the ideal passing into reality, ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... the earth tremble with his heavy tread, and distancing everything with his long, untiring stride. Then, on his return, he would be the prince of good-fellows once more, and fascinate the merry revellers with the witchery of his tongue. Even when a boy, he had won a bet by walking six miles in two minutes less than an hour. He once dined in Grosvenor Square, and made his appearance at Oxford at an early hour the next morning, having walked the fifty-eight miles at a tremendous pace. In his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... cooked, cooled, and cut into squares. As our fathers and mothers pulled taffy, as our grandfathers and grandmothers conjured with maple sugar, and as their parents worked the mysterious spell with some witchery of cookery to this generation unknown, so is fudge in these piping times the worker of a strange witchery. Observe: Through a large room, perhaps forty feet one way and twenty-five feet the other way, flits a young woman in the summer twilight. She goes about ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... sleep hath been taken Beneath the cold moon, As the spell which no slumber Of witchery may test, The rythmical number ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... was the key to the riddle. All Nature: its golden sunsets and its silvery dawns; the glory of piled-up clouds, the mystery of moonlit glades; its rivers winding through the meadows; the calling of its restless seas; the tender witchery of Spring; the blazonry of autumn woods; its purple moors and the wonder of its silent mountains; its cobwebs glittering with a thousand jewels; the pageantry of starry nights. Form, colour, music! The feathered choristers of bush and brake ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... and visual quality of the atmosphere with which he pervades his narrative he has no equal among the writers of English prose-fiction until Sir Walter Scott appears. "Apuleius has enveloped his world of marvels in a heavy air of witchery and romance. You wander with Lucius across the hills and through the dales of Thessaly. With all the delight of a fresh curiosity you approach its far-seen towns. You journey at midnight under the stars, listening in terror for the howling of ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... 'pon my life, I cannot say which, one of these two excited the most of my admiration. There was Nora, with her good-nature, her wit, her friendliness, her witchery, her grace, the sparkle of her eye, the music of her laugh. But there, too, was Marion, whose eyes seemed to pierce to my soul, as twice or thrice I caught their gaze, and whose face seemed to have some weird influence over me, puzzling and bewildering ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... a great poet which satisfy the ear, capture the imagination, and live in the memory for ever. Milton's pages are studded with them like stars; Gray has a few, Wordsworth many, and Keats some not to be surpassed for witchery. Of such poetically suggestive lines Thomson has his share, and although it seems unfair to remove them from their context, the excision may be made in a few cases, since they show not only that a new ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... with the point of your shovels and let's see what witchery there is concealed there," cried the ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... challenge, as though to force the wanton witchery to do his bidding. Wild cries of riot answer him; the rosy cloud grows denser round him; entrancing perfumes hem him in and steal away his senses. In the most seductive of half-lights his wonder-seeing eye beholds a female form indicible; he hears a voice that ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... and characteristics of Willis, that it would be but repetition to dilate upon his genius now. In looking over the present volume, we cannot see that the sparkle and fire of his poetry becomes dim, even as read by eyes which have often performed that pleasant task before. The old witchery still abides in them, and the old sweetness, raciness, melody and power. That versatile mind, gliding with such graceful ease over the whole ground of "occasional" pieces, serious and mirthful, impassioned and tender, sacred and satirical, looks out upon us with the same freshness from his ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... be supposed that superstition when brought to act upon weak and ignorant minds, is capable of producing temporary impotence. The pretended charm or witchery common in France as late as the close of the 17th century, and known by the name of nouer l'aiguillette (point tying) is a proof ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... strictly poetical criticism, he no doubt ranks only with those poets who have expressed easily and acceptably the likings and passions and thoughts and fancies of the average man, and who have expressed these with no extraordinary cunning or witchery. To go further in limitation, the average man, of whom he is thus the bard, is a rather sophisticated average man, without very deep thoughts or feelings, without a very fertile or fresh imagination or fancy, with even a touch—a ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... frock caught a deeper warmth from the firelight, her black hair shone like a bird's wing, the jewels on her fingers sent out sparkles of light and flame. As Saint Harry continued to gaze at her the forest with all its haunting, dreaming witchery vanished, the high invitation of the mountains, "Come ye apart," ceased to echo in his ears. The world environed, encompassed her; he seemed to discern the yearning of her spirit for it, the airy rush of her winged feet toward it; and yet her eyes, those ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... may I rue the day I fancied first the womenkind; For aye sinsyne I ne'er can hae Ae quiet thought or peace o' mind! They hae plagued my heart, an' pleased my e'e, An' teased an' flatter'd me at will, But aye, for a' their witchery, The pawky things I lo'e them still. O, the women folk! O, the women folk! But they hae been the wreck o' me; O, weary fa' the women folk, For they winna let ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... balls,—"a masquerade party," she explained, "of only forty guests at the most, and those the chief personages of Roman society. I ferret out all their secrets and can see through their masks; but I use no witchery about it. My guests are admitted by ticket only, and my major-domo, who receives these cards, writes on the back of each a short description of the bearer's costume. So I have only to go to him and consult his notes to learn my ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... aloud at his own weakness and folly. He had not wanted her rose—yet, at the moment, the propinquity of her beauty had magnetised him and given him the desire for a closer intimacy—possibly a kiss!—so he had put his lips to the rose! Feminine witchery had made utter fools of men through the ages! Given further chances of intimacy, a rose might ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... young lady owned that he had never sighted amongst his women aught fairer than this, a model of beauty and loveliness and brilliancy and perfect face and stature of symmetric grace. Her eyes were black and their sleepy lids and lashes were kohl'd with Babylonian witchery, and her eyebrows were as bows ready to shoot the shafts of her killing glances, and her nose was like unto the scymitar's edge, and her mouth for magical might resembled the signet-ring of Sulayman (upon whom be The Peace!), and her lips were carnelians ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... the name of Sophie on account of the softer sound of its syllables. Her debut, September 15, 1757, was one of most brilliant success, and in a night Paris was at her feet. Her genius, her beauty, her voice, her magnificent eyes, her incomparable grace and fascinating witchery of manner, were the talk of the city; and the opera was besieged every night she sang. Freron, in speaking of the waiting crowds, said, "I doubt if they would take such trouble to get into paradise." ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... earnestness of an energetic, intelligent, and spontaneous woman. She had been barely civil to Lucius Ahenobarbus before; to-night the young man began to persuade himself that the object of his affections was really a most adorable coquette, who used a certain brusqueness of speech to add to her witchery. He had heard that there had been some very disagreeable scenes at Praeneste, when Lentulus had told his niece that Drusus, on account of his dangerous politics, was unfit to be her husband. But Ahenobarbus was sure that either these accounts were exaggerated, or more likely, ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... William Wirt, at the trial of Aaron Burr for treason, and many a schoolboy since has echoed the question, as many a schoolboy will hereafter, while impassioned oratory is music to the ear and witchery to the breast. The eloquent lawyer went on to answer himself, and painted in glowing colors a character which history sees in a colder light. But though Blennerhassett was not the ideal that Wirt imagined, he was the generous victim of a cold and selfish man's ambition, and the ruin of his ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... solemn strains of the harp, which soothed and composed his troubled thoughts, may well have seemed to the hag-ridden king the very voice of God or of his good angel whispering peace. Even in our own day a great religious writer, himself deeply sensitive to the witchery of music, has said that musical notes, with all their power to fire the blood and melt the heart, cannot be mere empty sounds and nothing more; no, they have escaped from some higher sphere, they are outpourings ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... taste that nature moulded into her composition, has taken a remnant of exquisite silver gauze and drawn it around her forms, with an effect that gives Adam his first idea of the witchery of dress. He beholds his spouse in a new light and with renewed admiration; yet is hardly reconciled to any other attire than her own golden locks. However, emulating Eve's example, he makes free with a mantle of blue velvet, and ...
— The New Adam and Eve (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Homeric picture—but what else? There was still left one of the three supreme Homeric qualities—the very quality which no one ever supposed could be secured for our literature, or, indeed, for any other—Homer’s quality of naïf wonder. There is no witchery of Homer so fascinating as this; and did any one suppose that it could ever be caught by any translator? And could it ever have been caught had not Nature in one of her happiest moods bethought herself ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... his large and rather sickly eyes upon her. For a moment he was in doubt, but belief in the witchery of sound prevailed, for he had yet to meet a being insensible to the "music of the soul," and so with a fond and fatuous murmur he pinched the martyred atmosphere once more, and ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... irresistible witchery of music, of rhythmic cadences. We hear the martial note of the drum, and unconsciously our feet beat time. We hear the first deep chords of the orchestra, and involuntarily our fingers mark the time of the measure. With the soft, mellow harmony of triplet melodies ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... her sweetest deep tones, and there was a supplicating beam in her eyes, unintelligible to the direct Englishwoman, except under the heading of a power of witchery fearful to think of in one so young, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... poor humanity allied? Can she, like Wisdom, bid thy soul sustain 250 Its post of duty in a life of pain! Can she, like meek Religion, bid thee bear Contempt and hardship in a world of care! Yet let not my rebuke decry, In all, her blameless witchery, Or from the languid bosom tear Each sweet illusion nourished there. With dignity and truth, combined, Still may she rule the manly mind; Her sweetest magic still impart 260 To soften, not subdue, the heart: Still may she warm the chosen ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... a large, beautiful room, rich and picturesque in the soft, dim light which the maid had turned low. She went and stood at an open window and looked out upon the deep tangle of the garden below. All the mystery and witchery of the night seemed to have gathered there amid the perfumes and the dusky and tortuous outlines of flowers and foliage. She was seeking herself and finding herself in just such sweet, half-darkness which met her moods. But the ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... is feverish impatience, George's careless words had rolled away the stone from the sepulchre, and its prisoners were free. Not dead, not having lost a shade of color from their wings, they nestled and gleamed through his heart, filling the summer day with just such intangible perfect witchery as those other days had been full of. Perhaps, too, time and absence had heightened the charm. Imagination has such a way of catching up little scenes and words and looks, and, without altering one of the facts, haloing ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... may be, some peculiar and appropriate charms of their own; as didst thou, Emily the "Wild-cap!"—That sobriquet all forgotten now—for now thou art a matron, nay a Grandam, and troubled with an elf fair and frolicsome as thou thyself wert of yore, when the gravest and wisest withstood not the witchery of thy dancings, thy ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... to his dauntless soul. Through adverse winds that threatened wreck, and nights Of rayless gloom, thou pointed ever to The north star of his great ambition. He Who once has lost an Eden, or has gained A paradise by Eve's sweet influence, Alone can know how strong a spell lies in The witchery of a woman's beckoning hand. And thou didst draw him, tidelike, higher still, Felipa, whispering the lessons learned From thy courageous father, till the flood Of his ambition burst all barriers, And swept him onward to ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... with gracious speech draw near And gently charm Vibhishan's ear, Till he the soothing witchery feel And all his secret heart reveal. So thou his aims and hopes shalt know, And hail the friend ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... was startled to see how the witchery of the scene possessed her companion. His face took on a set, half-smiling expression, and he dropped her arm as if they had arrived at the place of entertainment to which he had been escorting her. He no longer ...
— A Summer Evening's Dream - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... men, the scent of the salt water, and all the occult unrecognized, but keenly felt life of the ocean, were ministers to their love, and forever and ever blended in the heart and memory of the youth and maid who had set their early dream of each other to its potent witchery. Time went swiftly, and suddenly Cornelia remembered that she was subject to hours and minutes, A little fear came into her heart, and closed it, and she said, with a troubled air, "My mother will be anxious. ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... witchery and colouring and poetry of the East, but I do offer you the biggest love there has ever been in a man's heart for ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... raptures which Clinton always expressed when he alluded to her first appearance on the rustic bridge, as the youthful goddess of the blooming season. She knew it by her own experience, when she first beheld Clinton in all the witchery ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... languor of spring was in his veins, and he bent forward again, sniffing the mild air. The witchery of spring had also drawn his neighbor to her window, where she leaned on the sill, cheeks in her hands, listlessly watching ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers |
