"Potion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wilt thou fetch my sleeping potion from the hall? I shall take it more willingly from thine hands. The butler places it ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... pleasures, will you say that any pain has succeeded, though the pleasure is absolutely over? Suppose, on the other hand, a man in the same state of indifference to receive a violent blow, or to drink of some bitter potion, or to have his ears wounded with some harsh and grating sound; here is no removal of pleasure; and yet here is felt, his every sense which is affected, a pain very distinguishable. It may be said, perhaps, that the pain in these cases had its rise from the removal of the pleasure which ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... legs, then lie down: thus it will do its purpose." And at the same time he held out the cup to Socrates. And he having received it very cheerfully, neither trembling, nor changing at all in color or countenance, but, as he was wont, looking steadfastly at the man, said, "What say you of this potion, with respect to making a libation to any one, ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... in advance, an' I'll bring it to you.' And on that understanding the bargain was made, and the time fixed for the delivery of the potion. The intervening time was filled in by the astute wizard journeying to a neighbouring town and procuring from a chemist a sleeping draught, which he paid for out of Mrs. Busker's sovereign. He turned up at Laburnum Cottage at the stipulated hour, handed ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... but eventually in excess. Her spirits drooped, her art was laid aside, and much of the cheerfulness of home was lost to her. There was a child, but it was stillborn, and not long after this disaster, it was found that Mrs. Rossetti had taken an overdose of her accustomed sleeping potion and was lying dead in her bed. This was in 1862, and after two years only of married life. The blow was a terrible one to Rossetti, who was the first to discover what fate had reserved for him. It was ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... recollection of anything else, but that I tried to escape in the midst of a desperate scuffle, and fell into the arms of a very tall woman who started from the bushes and protected me for some time; the rest is all confusion and dread, a dim recollection of a sea-beach and a cave, and of some strong potion which lulled me to sleep for a length of time. In short, it is all a blank in my memory until I recollect myself first an ill-used and half-starved cabin-boy aboard a sloop, and then a schoolboy in Holland, ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... have thought many times of some such thing as this, hoping as it seemed where no hope was, and Annette and I have taken counsel together. Leave it to me to see that all the Castle is filled with feasting and revelry. I will see that the mead which circulates tonight be so mingled with Annette's potion that it will work in the brains of the men till they forget all but rioting and sleep. For mine uncle and his saturnine guest, I have other means of keeping them in the great banqueting hall, far away from the lonely Tower where their prisoner ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... her up a potion of some harmless powder for me to carry to her tent while you go and tell our Jimgrim what has passed. Give her physic that will purge the Lion of Petra without doing worse than make his belly burn. Stay; give croton in a bottle; that ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... straw for nothing. They accordingly provided cellars and places strewed with straw, to which they conveyed those wretches who were overwhelmed with intoxication. In these dismal caverns they lay until they recovered some use of their faculties, and then they had recourse to the same mischievous potion; thus consuming their health, and ruining their families, in hideous receptacles of the most filthy vice, resounding with riot, execration, and blasphemy. Such beastly practices too plainly denoted a total want of all policy and civil regulations, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... a secret rage, indignation, and incredulity impossible to describe. He could not believe it even when it went on before his very eyes. Doctor though he was, and scientific, to a certain extent, Edward Rider would have believed in witchcraft—in some philtre or potion acting upon her mind, rather than in Nettie's voluntary folly. Was it folly? was it heroism? was it simple necessity, as she herself called it? Nobody could answer that question. The matter was as incomprehensible to Miss Wodehouse as to Dr Rider, but not of such engrossing interest. Bessie Christian, ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... Chobodar who hands the Sultan his first garment, the Duelbendar who ties the shawl round his body, the Berber-Bashi who shaves his head, the Ibrikdar Aga who washes his hands, the Peshkiriji Bashi who dries them again, the Serbedji-Bashi who has a pleasant potion ready for him, and the Ternakdji who carefully pares his nails. All these grandees do obeisance to the very earth as they catch sight of the face of the Padishah making his way through innumerable richly carved doors on his way to ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... tried to keep up a reputation for capacity with a naturally slim endowment, was slyly pouring his last potion into an empty beer-case behind him. They fell upon the offender forthwith, whipped him into the ranks again, and resumed their seats, laughing ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... reverie. He had a call to make at the Marlakes'; the children were all three sick. Kate Marlake had been a Grayland, and her sister Stella was recently come to stay with her through that trying time. Lawrence gave one of the children a soothing potion, and said he would wait to see the effect. He went down-stairs, and Kate sent Stella to keep him company. She asked him about the children, and he explained to her the "self-limited" character of the disease and the necessity that they should ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... he was suffering from a bullet wound in the back at about the height of the fifth rib. On probing for the bullet, I found that it had lodged near the heart, and decided that it would be exceedingly dangerous to try to remove it immediately. So I contented myself with administering a sleeping potion. ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... back thought. Baragan; perpetuo Juuenis A Bonance (a Caulme) To drench to potion (to insert) Haggard insauvaged Infistuled (made ...
— Bacon is Shake-Speare • Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence
... this room that our hero was conveyed, and laid upon some bedding in the corner of the room. There was a slide in the partition to admit air, and with it a few faint rays of light. Jasper stirred a little while he was being moved, but the sleeping potion had too much potency to allow him ...
— Frank and Fearless - or The Fortunes of Jasper Kent • Horatio Alger Jr.
... compounded of crabs' eyes, burnt hartshorn, the black tops of crabs' claws, the bone from a stag's heart, unicorn's horn, and salt of vipers. You must take one or two drams—not more—in a glass of hot posset-drink, when you go to bed, and swallow another draught of the same potion ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... me on drink! it gies us mair Than either school or college; It kindles wit, it waukens lair, It pangs us fou o' knowledge. Be't whisky gill or penny wheep Or ony stronger potion, It never fails, on drinking deep, To kittle up our notion By ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... horsehair hanging about her face, a red and black robe, a staff, and cabalistic signs upon her cloak. Hugo demanded a potion to make Zara adore him, and one to destroy Roderigo. Hagar, in a fine dramatic melody, promised both, and proceeded to call up the spirit who would bring the ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... isles that stole the world's delight, And thus produce so rich a Margarite! It is the fountain whence all pleasure springs, A potion ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... from a balloon and demands the release of Betty. It has been the will of Wotan that Merglitz and Betty should meet on earth and hate each other like poison, but Zweiback, the druggist of the gods, has disobeyed and concocted a love-potion which has rendered the young couple very unpleasant company. Wotan, enraged, destroys them with a ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... story old, When Ireland's coast the vessel nears, And Death were fairer to behold, To Tristan gives "the cup that clears." Straight to their fate the helmsman steers: Unknowing, each the potion sips.... Comes echoing through the ghostly years "Give me the philtre ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor
... king of Judea. But it so happened that the power and hopes of his son became the cause of Antipater's destruction. For inasmuch as a certain Malichus was afraid of this, he bribed one of the king's cup-bearers to give a poisoned potion to Antipater. Thus he became a sacrifice to Malichus's wickedness and died after ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... and guests begin to weep the ready tears of the heroic age over the sorrows of the past, and dread of the dim future, Helen comforts them with a magical potion. ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... other gods bear something in their hands, while the hands of the rainbow are empty. This is not without intention. When the person for whose benefit the rites are performed is brought in to be prayed and sung over, the sacred potion is brewed in a bowl, which is placed on the outstretched hands of the rainbow while the ceremony is in progress and only taken from these hands when the draught is to be administered. Therefore the hands are disengaged, that they may hold the ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... the Sheriff, "have a drink." He poured a liberal potion from a bottle standing on the table. Casey drained the glass, his eyes never leaving Scannell's. "Now," resumed the Sheriff, "listen, boy, and take it ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... fashion to love Edward Benden that way," said Tabitha, perversely misinterpreting her father-in-law's words. "I'll mix him a potion 'll help to cleanse his disorder, you'll see. Bitters be good for sick folks; and he's grievous sick. I met Mall a-coming; she saith he snapped her head right ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... perform what you promise, I will enrich you and your posterity; and, besides the presents I shall make you, you shall be my chief favourite. Do you assure me, then, that you will cure me of my leprosy, without making me take any potion, or applying any external medicine? Yes, sir, replies the physician, I promise myself success, through God's assistance, and to-morrow I will make trial ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... of solitude Stirs his ancestral potion in the gloom, And the dark wood Is stifled with the pungent fume Of charred earth burnt to the bone That takes the place of air. Then sudden I remember when and where,— The last weird lakelet foul with weedy growths And slimy viscid things the spirit loathes, Skin of vile ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... 12: Dinah, daughter of a rich London merchant, loves Felix contrary to her father's wishes. Going into the garden she drinks poison. Felix arrives and drains the rest of the potion. Both are ...
— A Syllabus of Kentucky Folk-Songs • Hubert G. Shearin
... draught, and sat down by his bedside. But as soon as she saw it begin to take effect, she withdrew, in the certainty that he would not move for some hours at least. Although he did fall asleep, however, Richard's mind was too restless and anxious to yield itself to the natural influence of the potion. He had given his word to his father that he would ride on the morrow; the morrow had come, and here he was! Hence the condition which the drug superinduced was rather that of dreaming than sleep, the more valuable element, repose, having little place ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... with his Head. There I lay conceal'd, or rather buried for some Time; tho' taken all imaginable Care of, and furnish'd with all the Necessaries of Life by that venerable, and loyal Priest. In the mean Time, his Apothecary enter'd at Break of Day into my Apartment, with a Potion in his Hand, compos'd of Opium, black Hellebore, Aconite, and other Ingredients still more baneful. Whilst this mercenary Officer of the King's Vengeance was thus employ'd, another as inhuman as himself, went to your Lodgings with the silken Cord. Both, however, were disappointed, ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... scholarship. He must have studied the classics at Glasgow University, where he was apprenticed to Mr. Gordon, a surgeon. Gordon, again, was an excellent man, appreciated by Smollett himself in after days, and the odious Potion of "Roderick Random" must, like his rival, Crab, have been merely a fancy sketch of meanness, hypocrisy, and profligacy. Perhaps the good surgeon became the victim of that "one continued string of epigrammatic sarcasms," such as Mr. Colquhoun told Ramsay ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... street, who were coming to find out what he was doing there, Faust left hurriedly. Every night thereafter for a time they met, and Marguerite was persuaded by the Devil to give her old mother a sleeping potion to keep her from surprising them. Then one day the Devil again lured ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... as Flores and Blancheflour, have "the voluptuous qualities of the East," make great use of magic of all kinds, and show the idyllic side of love. The tragedy of love is depicted in the romance of Tristram and Iseult, where a love-potion plays a prominent part. But, although knightly love and valor are the stock topics, we occasionally come across a theme of Christian humility, like Sir Isumbras, or of democracy, as in the Squire of Low Degree and in ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... the covering from M. de Courtornieu's face—he was almost compelled to use force to do it—examined the patient with evident anxiety, then ordered mustard plasters, applications of ice to the head, leeches, and a potion, for which a servant was to gallop to Montaignac at once. All ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... her perforce, To County Paris:—then comes she to me, And with wild looks, bid me devise some means To rid her from this second marriage, Or in my cell there would she kill herself. Then gave I her, so tutored by my art, A sleeping potion; which so took effect As I intended, for it wrought on her The form of death: meantime I writ to Romeo That he should hither come as this dire night, To help to take her from her borrow'd grave, Being the time the potion's force ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... die. Shortly after, hearing that Caesar showed wonderful clemency towards his prisoners, he bewailed his fate and blamed the rashness of his resolution. But on the physician assuring him that what he had taken was only a sleeping potion and not deadly, he sprung up overjoyed, and going to Caesar, received his right hand, and yet he afterwards went over again to Pompeius. This intelligence being carried to Rome made people more tranquil, and some who ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... be!' said the Egyptian, impetuously. 'Fear nothing, Glaucus shall be thine. Yet how, when thou obtainest it, canst thou administer to him this potion?' ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... with the rest of us to consult our good doctor for you, Laura," added Mrs. Leland. "He has prescribed a sleeping potion for to-night, and will call to see you and prescribe ...
— Elsie at Home • Martha Finley
... correspondence lie dormant rather than deal in such trash. I am forced to send Lord Hertford and Sir Horace Mann such garbage, because they are out of England, and the sea softens and makes palatable any potion, as it does claret; but unless I can divert you, I had rather wait till we can laugh together; the best employment for friends, who do not mean to pick one another's pocket, nor make a property of either's frankness. Instead of politics, therefore, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... symbol of an orgiastic cult, and regard her as a goddess of fertility. But the connection is not clear in the story, though in some earlier myth the cauldron may have been her property. As Brangwaine, she reappears in romance, giving a love-potion to Tristram—perhaps a reminiscence of her former functions as a goddess of love, or earlier of fertility. In the Mabinogion she is buried in Anglesey at Ynys Bronwen, where a cairn with bones discovered in 1813 was held to be the ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... as she sat in her loneliness the evening after hearing that news from Mrs. Glegg,—only those who have known what it is to dread their own selfish desires as the watching mother would dread the sleeping-potion that was to still ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... filled up by duty and a striving after knowledge, entirely devoted to warring against the animal element in man, and to educating himself up to an ideal standard of freedom from ignoble instincts, thus shamefully to choke and drown in the muddy lees of a love-potion! ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... despatched it with a letter, asserting that it would certainly heal this or any other case of fever, unless there were poison. A vehement debate followed among the Lords of the Council and the doctors, including the Genevese physician, Dr., afterwards Sir, Theodore Mayerne. Finally, the potion was administered. The patient, who had been speechless, revived sufficiently to speak. But it did not save his life. The populace and the Queen believed that it had been ineffectual because there had been poison. Forty years later, Carew Ralegh referred to ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... obliged, for reasons not stated, to leave the country for a while, and on his return finds his lady-love married by her parents to his rival Delio. In his despair he seeks aid from the priestess of a certain temple, and receives from her a magic potion which drives from him all remembrance of his passion. This very simple and somewhat unsatisfactory story is interwoven with a multitude of episodes and incidental narratives, pastoral and chivalric, and the whole ends with the promise of a second part, which however never ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... to study and practise this Art, witness what I am afraid is too true, that some have made use of the Coculus India Berry for making Drink heady, and saving the Expence of Malt; but as this is a violent Potion by its narcotick stupifying Quality, if taken in too large a degree, I hope this will be rather a prevention of its use than an invitation, it being so much of the nature of the deadly Nightshade, that it bears the same Character; and I am sure the latter is bad enough; for one of ...
— The London and Country Brewer • Anonymous
... encounter or relapse and by mere quiet evasion, given his afternoon and evening to the immediate and the sensible. They formed a qualified draught of Europe, an afternoon and an evening on the banks of the Mersey, but such as it was he took his potion at least undiluted. He winced a little, truly, at the thought that Waymarsh might be already at Chester; he reflected that, should he have to describe himself there as having "got in" so early, it would be difficult to make the interval look particularly ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... low, while Coppenole, with his surly mien, had the air of one of the bears of which his majesty was speaking. The king paid no heed. He had just dipped his lips into the goblet, and he spat out the beverage, saying: "Foh! what a disagreeable potion!" The man who ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... turns knights to stone, or makes them invisible; he introduces enchanted castles, vessels that steer themselves, and the miraculous properties of the Saint Greal, Arthur and Tristram fight with dragons and giants. The loves of Tristram and Isoud arise from the drinking of an amorous potion. The chastity of knight and damsel is determined by the magic horn, whose liquor the innocent drink, but the guilty spill; and by the enchanted garland, which blooms on the brow of the chaste, but withers on that ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... off grumbling. She wished that Ume had shown a more natural indignation. The hot bath, however, notwithstanding Kano's five lost years of pain presumably in solution, brought her ease of body, as did the soothing potion, ease ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... After the potion had been administered, the bleeding was wholly stopped; and in half an hour, his mother could express her wishes in a whisper. When the little doctor arrived, he carefully examined his patient, and then went down stairs with her ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... neighbor said as she came in, bowing her bony back to pass through the opening, "haven't you any laurel leaves? We want to make a potion for Maria Antonia who's not so well today, what with ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... here, make her way through those dreadful passages, save for that? Think of her stealing out of her room in the dead of night, coming alive to what she knew was her tomb, shutting that door upon herself—" I looked at the tarnished cup, and hoped that the witch doctor's potion had given her a speedy sleep. I looked at the blackened candelabrum, and wondered whether that candle had gone out before she had, or whether her head had fallen upon her arm, and she had died wide-eyed in the black, black dark. ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... see nothing here on earth: Or else that in their golden paradise Some sleepy potion dull their sympathies With us: for who could look upon this world, And see mankind divested of the lies That make our comeliness; or, with an eye undimmed, Behold the brutal tragedies of life; And yet find happiness or peace in Heaven? Hell's ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... Iseult's livery to the Lords of Cornwall drew near, her mother gathered herbs and flowers and roots and steeped them in wine, and brewed a potion of might, and having done so, said apart ...
— The Romance Of Tristan And Iseult • M. Joseph Bedier
... lieutenant on board the Lizard; and advised me, now he was my superior officer, to behave with some respect towards him, or else he would find a thousand opportunities of using me ill. This advice was a bitter potion to me, whom pride and resentment had rendered utterly incapable of the least submission to, or even of a reconciliation with, the wretch who had, on many occasions, treated me so inhumanly: however, I resolved to have ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... her that Pao-yue could not even compare with Hsi Jen and wounded her heart so much more to the quick that she began to weep aloud. But the moment she got so vexed she found it hard to keep down the potion of boletus and the decoction, for counter-acting the effects of the sun, she had taken only a few minutes back, and with a retch she brought everything up. Tzu Chuean immediately pressed to her side and used her handkerchief to stop her mouth with. But mouthful succeeded mouthful, and in no time ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... Warr, Wear, and the more pretentious Delawarr. The latter name passed from an Earl Delawarr to a region in North America, and thus to Fenimore Cooper's noble red men. But this group of names must sometimes be referred to the Domesday wars, an outlying potion of a manor. Lock is more often a land name, to be classed with Hatch (Chapter XIII), but was also used of a water-gate. Key was once the usual spelling of quay. The curious name Keylock is a perversion of Kellogg, Mid. Eng. Kill-hog. Port seldom belongs here, as the Mid. English is almost ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... myself with the unguent, and drank of the potion, ha! ha! ha!" cried Dorothy, with a wild gesture, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... potion had possession of me, and entered into every fibre of my brain through the avenues prepared for it by the treacherous anodyne; so that, enervated and intoxicated, I yielded passively, after a brief struggle, ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... night Juliet drank off the potion. She had many misgivings lest the friar, to avoid the blame which might be imputed to him for marrying her to Romeo, had given her poison; but then he was always known for a holy man: then lest she should awake before the time that Romeo was ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... tale of the magnanimous Alexander drinking off the potion, in scorn of the slanderer, to show ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... from that expedition, he sent Lychas for the vestments which he had occasion to use in a sacrifice which it was his intention to offer. Deianira, jealous on account of his passion for Iole, sent him either a philtre or love potion, which unintentionally caused his death, or else a tunic smeared on the inside with a certain kind of pitch, found near Babylon, which, when thoroughly warmed, stuck fast to his skin; and this it is, most probably, which has been termed by poets and historians, the tunic of Nessus. It ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... confusion of good and evil? Because the wise Master did. Because he said that God was Love. Because he taught that he who loves not, knows not God. And because, oh, wonderful spiritual alchemy! because Love is the magical potion which, dropping like heavenly dew upon sinful humanity, dissolves the vice, the sorrow, the carnal passions, and transmutes the brutish mortal into the image and likeness of ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... necessary physic, as her mild persuasions were enforced by no threat, and the prescription appeared to the unenlightened negro a kind of punishment she had no inclination to endure, there was no getting her to swallow the bitter but salutary potion. ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... foundation of the temple and whose top rises to the summit of the dome. I was there buried in a manner; but was saved by the mage; and supplied with all the necessaries of life. At break of day his majesty's apothecary entered my chamber with a potion composed of a mixture of henbane, opium, hemlock, black hellebore, and aconite; and another officer went to thine with a bowstring of blue silk. Neither of us was to be found. Cador, the better to deceive the king, pretended to come and accuse us both. He said that ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... the Queen's knowledge of medicine was accompanied by an acquaintance with the black art, for on the eve of her daughter's departure she entrusted to Brengwain, a lady of Ysonde's suite, a powerful philtre or love potion, with directions that Mark and his bride should partake of it on the night of their marriage. While at sea the party met with contrary winds, and the mariners were forced to take to their oars. Tristrem exerted himself ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... Salome, observing that he was more than ordinarily disturbed, sent in to the king his cup-bearer, who had been prepared long beforehand for such a design, and bid him tell the king how Mariamne had persuaded him to give his assistance in preparing a love potion for him; and if he appeared to be greatly concerned, and to ask what that love potion was, to tell him that she had the potion, and that he was desired only to give it him; but that in case he did not appear to be much concerned at this potion, to let the thing drop; and that ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... an outside of seeming purity, or as he offereth himself to you to be taken down in a cup or taste of golden zeal and simplicity, you may call him physic. Nay, and never let potion give patient good stool if, being truly tasted and relished, he be not as loathsome to the ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... harlot daughters—Catholicism and Protestantism. This God's pure ministry has been preaching for the last two decades. Sectism is in a fallen condition. It is fallen into the depths of worldliness. She has opened her bosom and invited the world in to revel with her. She has prepared a potion of charming delusive spirits, by which she has intoxicated and inflamed the blood of nations. In the last few years the concerts, fairs and socials are frequented by both the professed Christians and non-professors, and in their dress, conversation, and general manner, they are ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... ruddy again," says Wade. "Your potion, Miss Damer, has completed the work of your surgery. I can afford to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... insomuch that at length she fell into a raging fever. The king was informed of her condition by those who saw her. Helim finding no other means of extricating her from the difficulties she was in, after having composed her mind, and made her acquainted with his intentions, gave her a certain potion, which he knew would lay her asleep for many hours; and afterwards in all the seeming distress of a disconsolate father informed the king she ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... great distress, consults the Friar who married her to Romeo. He gives her a potion to create an apparent death in her, to the end that she may be buried in the family vault, taken thence and restored to life by himself, and then conveyed to Romeo. He writes to Romeo, telling him of the plan; but the letter miscarries. Juliet ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... which mediocrity is at a premium Better is the restlessness of a noble ambition Blessed freedom from speech-making Flattery is a sweet and intoxicating potion Forget those who have done them good service His dogged, continuous capacity for work His learning was a reproach to the ignorant History never forgets and never forgives Mediocrity is at a premium No great man can reach the highest position in our government ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... know how much will avail in my own case;" and he watched curiously, while Stevens, applying the flask to his lips, drew from it a draught, which, in western experience of benefits, would have been accounted a very moderate potion. This done, he handed it back to his companion, who, about to follow ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... within its walls under the cold November stars. If his mother had not gone to bed yet, she was sitting beside the cooking-stove in the kitchen, and perhaps his sister was brewing something on it, potion or lotion, for her husband's rheumatism. Miss Vane had talked to him about his mother; she had said he might have her down to visit him, if everything went on right; but of course he knew that Miss Vane did not understand that his mother wore bloomers, and he ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... his purple robe, the emblem of his noble descent, and naked, that, from his marrow already dry and his liver (when at length his eye-balls, long fixed on the still renovated food which is withheld from his famished jaws, have no more the power to discern), may be concocted the love-potion, from which these hags promise themselves the most ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... high-ceilinged chamber, faced with stone and brick. Before him were several odd shaped Chinese vials, and from these he was carefully measuring certain proportions, as if concocting some powerful potion. ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... awoke in him. I believe that it was exactly because the cup, mixed to his taste, was handed to him that he was able to see that there was nothing that was invigorating about the potion. It was not the community life primarily which drew him to Mirfield; it was partly that his power of speech awoke, and more strongly still ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... victuals and drink, which were very nourishing, disposed me to sleep. I slept about eight hours, as I was afterwards assured; and it was no wonder, for the physicians, by the emperor's order, had mingled a sleepy potion in the ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... potion proved its subtle power, And Mahaud's heavy eyelids 'gan to lower. Zeno, with finger on his lip, looked on— Her head next drooped, and consciousness was gone. Smiling she slept, serene and very fair, He took her hand, which ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... least probable that they were both identical with the custom described by old Anthony, and that the charge made in the college book was for the cawdle mentioned above, as provided at the freshman's expense; the whole ceremony going under the name of "salting," from the salt and water potion, which was the most important constituent of it? If this be so, it agrees with Dr. Maitland's idea, that "this 'salting' was some entertainment given by the newcomer, from and after which he ceases to be fresh;" or, as Wood expresses ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 19, Saturday, March 9, 1850 • Various
... fairly; but if I listen And buy thy secret and prove its truth, Hast thou the potion and magic lotion To give me also the heart of youth? With the cheek of rose and the eye of beauty, And the lustrous locks of life's lost prime, Wilt thou bring thronging each hope and longing That made the ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... from hence, as you value your life—for an hour after midnight my husband, the terrible Dead Man, will return, and although you frustrated me, you cannot escape his vengeance, should he find you here. Ah, my God! my brain burns—the deadly potion is at work!' ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... meeting with decided opposition; but Croesus had cleared the way far him by telling Kassandane so much in praise of Sappho, her virtues and her graces, her talents and skill, that Nitetis and Atossa maintained she must have given the old man a magic potion, and Kassandane, after a short resistance, yielded to her ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and thou shalt see what I'll say to thee. [He gives him money.] Well, follow my counsel, and, I'll warrant thee, I'll give thee a love-powder for thy wench, and a kind of nux vomica in a potion shall make her ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... secret which gives to Rafel Santoris his youth and strength and power, as well as his governance over certain elemental forces. But first take this"—and he poured out from a quaintly shaped flask a full glass of deep red-coloured wine—"This is no magic potion—it is simply a form of nourishment which will be safer for you than solid food,— and I know you have eaten nothing all day since your light breakfast. Drink ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... drink! it gies us mair Than either school or college; It kindles wit, it waukens lear, It pangs us fou o' knowledge. Be 't whisky-gill or penny-wheep, Or onie stronger potion, It never fails, on drinkin deep, To kittle up our notion, By ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... implicit metaphor in the use of the terms likens substances to the human body, their production and destruction implies liability to disease, and thus prepares the way for the notion of the elixir, which is first a potion giving long life, and curing bodily ailments, and only after some time a remedy ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... Martha nursed me back to health again, and our stern father hindered her not in her tendance of me. And this very night we made our plans, and she put a concoction of herbs into his nightly potion, which caused him to sleep too sound to awake for any sound within or without the house. Then we softly stole away without let or hindrance—she to go to the Chase, I to walk across the moorland and forest as thou hadst bidden me, to find ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the Spirit himself. Divine music is greatly coveted. Why not, with our thousands of gold, buy this spiritual luxury? Bring the singing men and singing women from the {158} opera and from the concert hall; bid them compound a potion of sanctuary music, which shall entrance all ears and draw to the church those who could not be drawn thither by the plain attractions of the Cross. But what is the exhortation of Scripture? "By him therefore let us offer the ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... for Baldr brewed, over the bright potion a shield is laid; but the AEsir race are in despair. By compulsion I have spoken. I ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... and hearts with her beauty; a reconciliation, entirely for money considerations, which drove another far less erring woman into a madhouse (but that was Sir Guy's fault); and a darker tale still of a certain potion prepared by her hand, which the Baronet was prevented from swallowing only by his invariable habit of contradicting his wife on all points, and which the lady herself had the effrontery to boast "would have ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... of the senses, and he will subdue by reason his animal faculties, that the animal pleasure in food and drink may not delight him too much, but that he may eat and drink as a sick man takes a potion, because it is his duty to preserve his strength for the service of God. This is sobriety of body. A man will preserve moderation in words and actions, in silence and speech, in eating and drinking, in what he does and abstains from doing, as ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... seemed to himself in the position of the doctor, who was obliged to drink his potion before the patient, to show that it contained nothing detrimental; after he had mastered the alphabet, and reported the thing so far safe, Sekeletu and his young companions came forward to try for themselves. He must have resolved to watch the effects of the book against ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... Bruennhilde, Gunther should attach him to his person by giving him Gutrune as wife. This is to be achieved by a draught, which has the power of causing oblivion. Whoever drinks it forgets that ever a woman has existed beside the one, who has tended the potion. Hagen well knows of Siegfried's union with Bruennhilde, but Gunther and Gutrune are both ignorant ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... people began to come in. They were entertained by the rest, by Effie and Tishy, who was allowed to sit up a little, and by Mademoiselle Bourde, who besought every visitor to indicate her a remedy that was really effective against the sea—some charm, some philter, some potion or spell. 'Never mind, ma'm'selle, I've got a remedy,' said Cousin Maria, with her cheerful decision, each time; but the ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... at healing. These herbs were greatly esteemed: such, for instance, as the cynocephalia, or, as the Egyptians themselves termed the asyrites,[133] which was used as a preventive against witchcraft; and the nepenthes which Helen presented in a potion to Menelaus, and which was believed to be powerful in banishing sadness, and in restoring the mind to its accustomed, or even to greater, cheerfulness, were of Egyptian growth. But whatever may be the virtues of such herbs, they were used rather for their magical, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... singing through the night to its brooding mate; June came with its poets leaning out of windows into the night hearing love songs in the rhythmic whisper of lagging feet strolling under the shade of elms. And under cover of a June night, breathing in the sensuous meaning of the time like a charmed potion, Judge Van Dorn, who personated justice to twenty-five thousand people, went forth a slinking, cringing beast ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... preparing his palm for the fee, should pull out a writ against him. Suppose an apothecary, at the door of a chariot containing some great doctor of eminent skill, should, instead of directions to a patient, present him with a potion for himself. Suppose a minister should, instead of a good round sum, treat my lord ——, or sir ——, or esq. —— with a good broomstick. Suppose a civil companion, or a led captain, should, instead ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... content with an old woman reputed to be amazingly well skill'd in herbs and medicines; whom, after a day's trial, she turn'd out of doors. On the fourth day, fearing for my life, she made another descent, and coming to a wayside tavern, purchased a pint of aqua vitae, carried it back, and mix'd a potion that threw me into a profuse sweat. The same evening I ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... see his long-lost appetite return: see his clammy features blossom into health. Give them to some sufferer whose foul blood has burst out in * * till his skin is covered with sores; who stands, or sits, or lies in anguish. He has been drenched inside and out with every potion which ingenuity could suggest. Give him these PILLS, and mark the effect; see the scabs fall from his body; see the new, fair skin that has grown under them; see the late leper that is clean. Give them to him whose angry humors have ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... said. "And since it is your glory to weave, you and yours must weave forever." So saying, she sprinkled upon the maiden a certain magical potion. ...
— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody
... then sprinkled with vinegar. Hence, since we see these things taking place before our very eyes, we can infer that on the same principle even patients with the stone may, in the nature of things, be cured in like manner by means of acid waters, on account of the sharpness of the potion. ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... preparation ready at hand, and places the boor at once on the same footing as the monk: a little more amplitude in the smock, and it becomes a frock. Sister Perpetue was a robust nun from Marines near Pontoise, who chattered her patois, droned, grumbled, sugared the potion according to the bigotry or the hypocrisy of the invalid, treated her patients abruptly, roughly, was crabbed with the dying, almost flung God in their faces, stoned their death agony with prayers mumbled in a rage; ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... a strait-jacket, and was struggling violently against three men, who were striving to hold him, while a physician tried to force him to swallow a potion. ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... said Hokosa quickly, "why do you not go to the white man, that Messenger in whom you believe, and ask him for a potion to ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... a potion strong and good! One golden drop in his wine Shall charm his sense and fire his blood, And ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... required; and late one accursed night, I compounded the elements, watched them boil and smoke together in the glass, and when the ebullition had subsided, with a strong glow of courage, drank off the potion. ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... of theism, is sorcery. Incantation, dancing, fasting, bodily torture, and ecstasism are practiced. Every tribe has its potion or vegetable drug, by which the ecstatic state is produced, and their venerable medicine-men see visions and dream dreams. No enterprise is undertaken without consulting the gods, and no evil impends but they seek to propitiate the ...
— Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians • John Wesley Powell
... guest; The town has whisper'd round the jest. Think on some remedy in time, The Dean you see, is past his prime, Already dwindled to a lath: No other way but try the Bath. For Venus, rising from the ocean, Infused a strong prolific potion, That mix'd with Acheloues spring, The horned flood, as poets sing, Who, with an English beauty smitten, Ran under ground from Greece to Britain; The genial virtue with him brought, And gave the nymph a plenteous draught; Then fled, and left his horn behind, For husbands past their youth to find; ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... rise in the rates and more public interference with the insanitary, because insufficiently financed, private house. What the public wants, therefore, is a cheap magic charm to prevent, and a cheap pill or potion to cure, all disease. It forces all such ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... her child in the adjoining room—a whole lifetime of happiness within reach of his hand, which he had spurned for that vile creature! Now she had admitted that she did not love him, that she loved another. And he, the coward, still longed for her. In heaven's name, what potion had she ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... beloved nephew," said he, "this bag of powder, and when an opportunity presents itself, pour it into your father's cup, or strew it over the meat he eats: it is a love potion—and no sooner shall he have swallowed it, than all his former affection for your dear mother will return. Think, then, what happy days are in store for us all! Agnes will once more take her place amongst ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... under us and was gone. The lulling cadence of the rise and fall, the invariable gentleness of this irresistible force, the great charm of the deep waters, warmed my breast deliciously, like the subtle poison of a love- potion. But all this lasted only a few soothing seconds before I jumped up too, making the boat ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... probably contributed somewhat to one of the noblest and sweetest poems ever written.—Two brothers are wandering in quest of their sister, whom Sacrapant, an enchanter, has imprisoned: they call her name, and Echo replies; whereupon Sacrapant gives her a potion that induces self-oblivion. His magical powers depend on a wreath which encircles his head, and on a light enclosed in glass which he keeps hidden under the turf. The brothers afterwards meet with an old man, also skilled in magic, who enables ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... indeed, madame," continued Monte Cristo, "the secret dramas of the East begin with a love philtre and end with a death potion—begin with paradise and end with—hell. There are as many elixirs of every kind as there are caprices and peculiarities in the physical and moral nature of humanity; and I will say further—the art ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... going to Jerusalem in search of one who is to be born King of the Jews, a great Prince and Deliverer for all men. I dare not delay any longer upon my journey, for the caravan that has waited for me may depart without me. But see, here is all that I have left of bread and wine, and here is a potion of healing herbs. When thy strength is restored thou can'st find the dwellings of the Hebrews among the ...
— The Story of the Other Wise Man • Henry Van Dyke
... be a partial, salvation, is indispensable to the temper of equable cheerfulness of which I have been speaking. Apart from that consciousness, you may have plenty of excitement, but no lasting calm. The contrast between the drugged and effervescent potion which the world gives as a cup of gladness, and the pure tonic which Jesus Christ administers for the same purpose, is infinite. He says to us, 'I forgive thy sins; by thy faith I save thee; go in peace.' Then the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... object present even more than the opposite passion. Love makes everything lovely; hate concentrates itself on the one thing hated. The very sound of Alec's voice became to the ears of Beauchamp what a filthy potion would have been to his palate. Every line of his countenance became to his eyes what a disgusting odour would have been to his nostrils. And yet the fascination of his hate, and his desire of revenge, kept Beauchamp's ears, eyes, and thoughts ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... slip-cord a quick pull. Next comes Hasche{COMBINING BREVE}lapai, who performs the same incantations with the kedan. Again Hasche{COMBINING BREVE}lti enters with the cross-sticks, repeating the former order, after which he gives the patient four swallows of medicine,—a potion different from that first given,—the medicine-man himself drinking what remains in the shell. This closes the ceremony of the first day. There will, perhaps, be considerable dancing outside the hogan, but that is merely ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... The dead child with two heads has itself made its own name impossible. Use that name no more, for the mother who has borne the child is ashamed of it and will hear of it no more. Give the potion another label and another color if you would make men take it, or better, give it no color. And talk as little as possible, but do, act, carry out. Make of the deed your shepherd's staff and of facts your milestones and your guideposts. Let your shepherd ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... world, That be accounted a most Secret Hyperphysico-magical Saturn, and not known, unless to some Cabalistick Christian only. We judge him the most happy of all Physicians, who hath the knowledge of this pleasant Medicinal potion of our Mercury, or of the Medicine of the Son of our Esculapius resisting the force of death, against which there is no Panacea otherwise produced in Gardens. Moreover, the most wise GOD doth not reveal his Gifts of Solomon ...
— The Golden Calf, Which the World Adores, and Desires • John Frederick Helvetius
... its small body. It must have been accustomed to discomfort, and have concluded it to be the condition of mortal life, else it never would have remained so quiet. Perhaps it had been quieted with a sleeping-potion. The two young women were not negligent of it; but passed it to and fro between them, each willingly putting herself to inconvenience for the sake of tending it. But I really feared it might die in some kind of a fit, so hot was the theatre, ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... sanctum, Miss Durant; and as I have a reprehensible habit of night-work, I keep them as a kind of sleeping potion." ...
— Wanted—A Match Maker • Paul Leicester Ford
... Britannicus, who had thrown off with ease the first dose administered to him by Nero. Upon which he had summoned to his presence the woman employed in the affair, and compelling her by threats to mingle a more powerful potion in his own presence, had tried it successively upon different animals, until he was satisfied with its effects; after which, immediately inviting Britannicus to a banquet, he had finally dispatched him. On Agrippina, however, no changes in the poison, whether of ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... hearts' young hopes behind, Friends in this distant world to find; Led by that God, who from His throne Regards the poor man's stifled moan. Like one awaken'd from the dead, The peasant lifts his drooping head, Nerves his strong heart and sunburnt hand, To win a potion of the land, That glooms before him far and wide In frowning woods and surging tide No more oppress'd, no more a slave, Here freedom dwells beyond ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... as enchanted as a child with a fairy story,—and indeed such it was, a modern fairy tale wherein medicine was a magic potion, and the merciful knife a magic wand. Told in simple language which she could understand, his story of the work in which his very life was bound up seemed to her like an epic, and, when he paused, she drew her breath with a sigh of keen delight, and cried, "Oh, granddaddy. Haint thet a wonderful ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... affected till it penetrates thoroughly; then lay the patient in the burning sand, with his head carefully protected. A profuse perspiration comes on, and the cure is complete. In bilious disorders, the grease is lightly warmed, mixed with salt, and administered as a potion. It acts thus as a powerful aperient, and causes great emaciation for the time; but the patient, say the Arabs, having been thus relieved from all the bad humours in his body, afterwards acquires robust health, and his sight becomes singularly good. The flesh of the ostriches, dressed with ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 460 - Volume 18, New Series, October 23, 1852 • Various
... the long process of questions and answers by which he soothed the fears of two old women who sat on each side of the fire, on which stood a large earthenware pot. Byrne thought at once of two witches watching the brewing of some deadly potion. But all the same, when one of them raising forward painfully her broken form lifted the cover of the pot, the escaping steam had an appetising smell. The other did not budge, but sat hunched up, her ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad |
