"Ravishing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Hinpoha, touching the strings again. Then, looking up and seeing the twinkle in Nyoda's eye, she added, "Weren't the Harpies beautiful maidens that sat on the rocks and played harps and lured the sailors to destruction with their ravishing songs? Oh, I say, they were too," she finished feebly, amid a perfect shout of laughter from the girls. "Well, what were they, then? Horrible monsters? Oh, what a shame! What a misleading thing the English language is, anyway! You'd naturally expect a harpy ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... that God after Whom the world, with strange inconsistency, has felt, "if haply they might find Him." He has discovered Himself to some extent in nature, but more perfectly in the Incarnation; now He waits to show Himself in ravishing fulness to the humble of soul and the pure ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... of Sally's breathless thanks and made off briskly, to return much too soon to suit one who would have been glad of longer grace in which to become more intimately acquainted with this new donation of her ravishing good fortune. ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... avoid a debtor's prison, we took the open road again. But war was ravishing the land; there was no work for him to do. We starved slowly southward, day by day, shivered and starved from town to town ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... the girl of my love, My ravishing, radiant one, There seems to shower light from above, And I look for the summer-time sun. What is it that dazzles my sight, That rivals the roseate skies? What is it, my Love, but the light,— The ...
— Soldier Songs and Love Songs • A.H. Laidlaw
... also men whose business was to ravish and take away virginity from young girls. These girls were taken to such men, and the latter were paid for ravishing them, for the natives considered it a hindrance and impediment if the girls were ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... orchard gardens."[47] Madame de Warens was the semi-divine figure who made the scene live, and gave it perfect and harmonious accent. He had neither transports nor desires by her side, but existed in a state of ravishing calm, enjoying without knowing what. "I could have passed my whole life and eternity itself in this way, without an instant of weariness. She is the only person with whom I never felt that dryness in conversation, which turns the duty of keeping it up ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... his ease. He thought of Flora Lockhart. Her sea-eyes and red lips were as clear and bright as a picture in his brain. Her wonderful, bell-like voice rang in his ears like fairy music. The spell of her was like a ravishing fire ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... How—how was she to think of him? Her overthrown ideals no longer even interested her, belonging as they did to some far off time when she had not come herself to dream upon these ravishing shores. And now the surrender of the past three weeks had been far more rudely disturbed. Would even Nevis dominate again? Must not such a man, even in his ruin, cast his shadow over any scene of which he was a part? And of Nevis he was a part! She had been ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... standing there) this trator, wha hes committed divers poinets of his treasone against his Majestie's civill lawes, to his grait dishonour and offence of his guid subjects, namlie, taking of his peacable subjects on the night out of thair housses, ravishing of weimen, and receating within his hous of the King's rebels and ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison
... around him approvingly upon the apartments. I believed that he had never seen anything more beautiful than the petite palace of Honoria, or more ravishing than herself. He said little, in a low voice, and always to one person at a time. His answers and remarks were simple ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... ravishing women, so copious and so choice of speech, who fence with men and pass their guard, are heartless! Is it not preferable to be the pretty idiot, the passive beauty, the adorable bundle of caprices, very feminine, very sympathetic, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... in cap and kerchief as the most ravishing of young Priscillas, rose obediently at the request. "May I read to her a little if she ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... exhilaration and delighted her eyes with the picture for a number of minutes, until an intoxicating breakfast aroma began to steal up from Cindy's domain. Then, spurred by a positive agony of hunger, it took the singer lady the fewest possible number of minutes to complete a dainty and most ravishing breakfast toilet. ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Dorado from the westward, starting from New Granada and going down the rivers, is trying to settle on the Orinoco mouth; that he is hanging the poor natives, encouraging the Caribs to hunt them and sell them for slaves, imprisoning the caciques to extort their gold, torturing, ravishing, kidnapping, and conducting himself as was usual among ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... astonished eyes the supernatural calm which reigns in your countenance; your health seems to me a prodigy, your beauty was never so ravishing; but this barbarous garb pierces me ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... fashion at that epoch. He brought two of Buisson's coats and all his finest linen He brought his pretty gold toilet-set,—a present from his mother. He brought all his dandy knick-knacks, not forgetting a ravishing little desk presented to him by the most amiable of women,—amiable for him, at least,—a fine lady whom he called Annette and who at this moment was travelling, matrimonially and wearily, in Scotland, a victim to certain suspicions ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... With a ravishing swagger, half-lifted wings, and deep, guttural hissing, the lover approached again. He suddenly lifted his body, but she coolly rocked forward on the limb, glided gracefully beneath him, and slowly sailed into the Limberlost. He ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... the season was the reappearance of Rachel, ravishing all hearts by her acting of Camille in Les Horaces, and winning ovations of every kind up to roses dropped from the ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... seemed as high, though they were entirely different in their impress upon the beholder. Tahiti from the sea was like a living being, so vivid, so palpitating was its contour and its color, but Moorea, when far away, was cold and black, a beautiful, ravishing sight, but like the avatars of a race of giants that had passed, a sepulcher or monument of their achievements and ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... by my father, because it was merely fostering and giving scope to propensities, which he considered as hurtful, and because his avarice desired that this inheritance should fall to no one but himself. To me, it was a scheme of ravishing felicity, and to be debarred from it was a source of anguish known to few. I had too much experience of my father's pertinaciousness ever to hope for a change in his views; yet the bliss of living with my aunt, ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... swoon far down in thy snow, Whose warm drifts of wonder they only can know; And hidden they lie there all rocked by thy breath, And pressed in soft odors to ravishing death. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... at work. I called to mind the Arabian story of a prince, borne away during sleep by a good genius, to the distant abode of a princess of ravishing beauty. I do not pretend to say that I believed in having experienced a similar transportation; but it was my inveterate habit to cheat myself with fancies of the kind, and to give the tinge ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... enthusiasm; but no, I take into account, perfectly, the pains, the blood, the treasure we shall have to expend to maintain this declaration, to uphold and defend these States; but through all these shadows I perceive rays of ravishing light and joy, I feel that the end is worth all the means and far more, and that posterity will rejoice over this event with songs of triumph, even though we should have cause to repent of it, which will not be, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... latent flame, so did she breathe on my mouth, and, in that wise, rendered the divine fire that slumbered in my heart more uncontrollable than ever, and this I felt at that very moment. Thereafter, opening a little her purple robe, she showed me, clasped in her arms against her ravishing breast, the very counterpart of the youth I loved, wrapped in the transparent folds of a Grecian mantle, and revealing in the lineaments of his countenance pangs that were ...
— La Fiammetta • Giovanni Boccaccio
... in the neighbor's yard, adjoining to Mrs. Bargrave's house, heard her talking to somebody an hour of the time Mrs. Veal was with her. Mrs. Bargrave went out to her next neighbor's the very moment she parted with Mrs. Veal, and told her what ravishing conversation she had with an old friend, and told the whole of it. Drelincourt's Book of Death is, since this happened, bought up strangely. And it is to be observed, that notwithstanding all the trouble and fatigue Mrs. Bargrave has undergone ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... circumstances, which operated, at this period, to work an important revolution, and subject the poetry of the Peninsula to a foreign influence. The Italian Muse, after her long silence, since the age of the tricentisti, had again revived, and poured forth such ravishing strains, as made themselves heard and felt in every corner of Europe. Spain, in particular, was open to their influence. Her language had an intimate affinity with the Italian. The improved taste and culture of the period led to a diligent study of foreign models. ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... are hoarding it like misers; but like prodigals, they 're squandering sound. The ear of mortal never heard such a delirious, delicious, such a crystalline, argentine, ivory-smooth, velvety-soft, such a ravishing, such an enravished tumult of sweet voices. Showers, cascades, of pearls and rubies, emeralds, diamonds, sapphires. The weather, says Anthony Rowleigh. He could n't stand the weather. The weather is as perfect as a perfect work of art—as perfect ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... of my dream-tortured night The intoxicating fruits of my day dream, The fiery lotus of my senses' delight That rises from the abyss of my life. The abysmal heaven of love and living Now bruised, burnt, torn and thrown To the winds of thy ravishing rejoicing Whose inarticulate words of delight and moan Make the ever-yielding music ...
— Sandhya - Songs of Twilight • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... Without acquaintance of more sweet companions Than the old inmates to my love, my thoughts, I day by day frequented silent groves And solitary walks. One morning early This accident encounter'd me: I heard The sweetest and most ravishing contention That art and nature ever were at strife in. A sound of music touch'd mine ears, or rather Indeed entranced my soul; as I stole nearer, Invited by the melody, I saw This youth, this fair-faced youth, upon his lute With strains of strange variety and harmony Proclaiming, as it seem'd, ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... captivating, enchanting, enrapturing, entrancing, magical, fascinating, winning, ecstatic, siren, delightful, winsome, seductive, ravishing. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... the old fortune follows—all in my brain yet, but the bright weather helps and I will soon loosen my Braccio and Puccio (a pale discontented man), and Tiburzio (the Pisan, good true fellow, this one), and Domizia the Lady—loosen all these on dear foolish (ravishing must his folly be), golden-hearted Luria, all these with their worldly-wisdom and Tuscan shrewd ways; and, for me, the misfortune is, I sympathise just as much with these as with him,—so there can no good come of keeping this wild company any longer, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... were some that sped cheerily onward, With white sails gallantly spread Yet ever there sat at the look-out, One, watching for danger ahead. No fragrant and song-haunted island, No golden and gem-studded coast Could win, with its ravishing beauty, The ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... particular formula, seems a most depressing doctrine. Madame Roland read the celebrated book in her romantic girlhood, and her impression may be taken for that of most generous natures. "Helvetius made me wretched: he annihilated the most ravishing illusions; he showed me everywhere repulsive self-interest. Yet what sagacity!" she continues. "I persuaded myself that Helvetius painted men such as they had become in the corruption of society: I judged that it was good to feed ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... have been spell-bound by the ravishing tones of Patti, Sontag, Malibran, and Grisi; we have heard the wondrous warblings of 'the Nightingale;' and we have listened with delight to the sweet melodies of the fair daughter of Erin: but we hesitate ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... artists, especially of the later school, sometimes toil to depict such subjects, but are apt to stiffen the lithe tendrils in the process. The poets succeed better, with Tennyson at their head, and often produce ravishing effects by dint of a tender minuteness of touch, to which the genius of the soil and climate artfully impels them: for, as regards grandeur, there are loftier scenes in many countries than the best ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... was to follow the picnic, and thither we resorted about ten o'clock and found the chairs placed for a German. Georgy Lenox was there, radiant in a ravishing toilette, waiting for Frank to lead the cotillon with her. She nodded to me pleasantly as she took her seat. I was angry with myself for my disappointment, doubly angry with her for causing it. It cost me my self-respect ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... to scratch her arm, and it bled, and she screamed, and it was mighty round and white, and I tied it up, and I believe was permitted to kiss her hand; and though it was as big and clumsy a hand as ever you saw, yet I thought the favour the most ravishing one that was ever conferred upon me, and went ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to the little room. She ran first to the piano, commenced playing and found that she played remarkably well. She then tried the harp and drew from it the most ravishing sounds, and ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... in a dream, Sofia rose presently and bathed, then, robed in a ravishing negligee of rare brocade, breakfasted on melon, tea, and toast from ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... until I could almost have touched her. It seemed a grossness of which I was incapable to break up her reverie by speech. I stood and drank her in with my eyes; how the light made a glory in her hair, and (what I have always thought the most ravishing thing in nature) how the planes ran into each other, and were distinguished, and how the hues blended and varied, and were shaded off, between the cheek and neck. At first I was abashed: she wore her beauty like an immediate halo of refinement; she ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... prevent any visitors being admitted to see him, or any from another cell coming into his own, until he had finished his first meditation and said his office. And there began to fall upon him a kind of mellow peace that rose at times of communion and prayer to a point so ravishing, that he began to understand that it would not be a light cross for which such preparatory ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... wanted. Seeing, however, who it was that had knocked, he forthwith drew the bar and allowed them to enter, which was into a pleasant policy adorned with jonquils and jelly-flowers, and all manner of blooming and odoriferous plants, most voluptuous to the smell and ravishing to behold, the scents and fragrancies whereof smote my grandfather for a time, as he said, with the very anguish of delight. But, on looking behind to see who had given them admittance, he was astounded when, instead of an armed and mailed soldier, as he had thought the drumly-voiced sentinel ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... at the twin Photographs and working it like a Slide Trombone, one could get ravishing glimpses of Trafalgar Square, Lake Como, and the ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... she was. Hung with millions of electric bulbs, crowned and diademed, and laced with jewels of white flame, she signaled to them out of the mystery and immensity of the night. For a moment they were dumb, they stood still, as if they paused on the brink and struggled, protesting against this ravishing of their souls by the Exhibition. Straight in front of them, monstrous yet fragile, its substance withdrawn into the darkness, its form outlined delicately in beads of light, in brilliants, in crystals strung on invisible ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... and young, Her Sable Hair in careless Dresses hung, Which added to her beauteous Features, show'd Like some fair Angel peeping through a Cloud? Her Breasts, her Hands, and every Charm so bright, She seem'd a Sun by Day, a Moon by Night; Her shape so ravishing, that every Part, Proportion'd was to the nicest Rules of Art: So awful was her Carriage when she mov'd, None could behold her, but he fear'd and lov'd, She danc'd well, sung well, finely plaid the Lute, Was always witty in her Words, or Mute; Obliging, not reserv'd, nor yet too ...
— The Pleasures of a Single Life, or, The Miseries Of Matrimony • Anonymous
... are always contending for the mastery. She longs for eternal sleep, and rest from her evil passions, but Klingsor holds her in his power. Parsifal enters, and the scene changes to a delightful garden filled with girls of ravishing beauty in garments of flowers. They crowd about him, and by their fascinating blandishments seek to gain his love, but in vain. He is still the "guileless fool." Then Kundry appears in all her loveliness, and ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... accordingly applied to his mouth the silver instrument that hung at the button-hole of his jacket, by a chain of the same metal, and though not quite so ravishing as the pipe of Hermes, produced a sound so loud and shrill, that the stranger, as it were instinctively, stopped his ears, to preserve his organs of hearing from such a dangerous invasion. The prelude being thus executed, Pipes fixed his eyes upon the egg of an ostrich that depended from the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... most delicious view around. 'Oh, my friend,' said I to M. Robert, 'how great is our good fortune! I care not what may be the condition of the earth; it is the sky that is for me now. What serenity! what a ravishing scene! Would that I could bring here the last of our detractors, and say to the wretch, Behold what you would have lost had you arrested ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... "for heaven's sake stick that saddle of yours in a glass case and glut yourself with the sight of its ravishing beauties next WINTER. For the present do gaze on the mountains. That's what you ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... now entered the city at the head of a band of cavalry. Maestricht was recovered, and an indiscriminate slaughter instantly avenged its temporary loss. The plundering, stabbing, drowning, burning, ravishing; were so dreadful that, in the words of a cotemporary historian, "the burghers who had escaped the fight had reason to think themselves less fortunate than those who had died with arms in ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... But as the ravishing notes of her sweet voice died upon the air, her hands sank listlessly to her side. Music could not chase away the mysterious shadow from her heart. Again she rose. Putting on a white crape bonnet, and carefully drawing a pair of lemon-colored ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... vanity of a lengthy toilette to a natural anxiety to set herself right with Lucian, and appeared shortly in a ravishing costume fresh from Paris. Perhaps by arraying herself so smartly she wished to assure Denzil more particularly that she was a lady of too much taste to buy rabbit-skin cloaks in Bayswater: or perhaps—which was more probable—she was not averse to ensnaring so handsome a young man into ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... of any active moral principle in social life, all the ecstasies, all the ravishing emotions, of an abandonment to excessive sensibility. The soul was to be, no longer the "little bark attendant" that "pursues the triumph and partakes the gale" in Pope's complacent Fourth Epistle, but an aeolian harp hung in ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... her eyes and leaned forward, thus bringing her torso into a ravishing position. She had the air of one who has done many things besides work in the Treasury Department. No least detail, as she observed, was lost on Mr. Sluss. He noted her shoes, which were button patent leather with cloth tops; ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... was called "vates," which is as much as a diviner, foreseer, or prophet, as by his conjoined words "vaticinium," and "vaticinari," is manifest; so heavenly a title did that excellent people bestow upon this heart- ravishing knowledge! And so far were they carried into the admiration thereof, that they thought in the changeable hitting upon any such verses, great foretokens of their following fortunes were placed. Whereupon ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... hear music: it was the ravishing Nis air, which charms the mind into sweet confusion and oblivion, and Manuel did not make any apparent attempt to withstand its wooing. He hastily undressed, knelt for a decorous interval, ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... the poet is always moved at the instance of feeling. Poetry having its birth in feeling, no man can enjoy or value it but through feeling. But what moves him to embody and shape his feeling is that ravishing sentiment which will have the best there is in the feeling, the sentiment which seeks satisfaction through contemplation or entertainment of the most divine and most perfect, and ever rises to the top of the refined joy which such ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... he asked, and as he spoke he crept toward the bed like a man in a dream drawn to some ravishing delight. He sat down on the edge of the bed. He caught the child's little hand in his own. The nerves of his whole yearning soul seemed centered ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... his white hair, standing, hat in hand, to help my Lady to and from the carriage. One observes my Lady, how recognisant of my Lord's politeness, with an inclination of her gracious head and the concession of her so-genteel fingers! It is ravishing! ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... soul-ravishing, Shines from his prayer, that now he be shriven Of all the past! And penitence lavishing, All he confesses; with glad homage given Mirrors and masses Deep the mountains' ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... I frowned, made myself long, and confessed I had the honor to be from that city. Whereupon she let her long-lashed eyes take on as ravishing a covetousness as though I had been a ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... a King's daughter, who had no equal in her time for beauty and loveliness and symmetrical stature and grace, brilliancy, amorous lace and the art of ravishing the wits of the masculine race and her name was Al-Datma. She used to boast, "Indeed there is none like me in this age." Nor was there one more accomplished than she in horsemanship and martial exercises and all that behoveth ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... harmonist rather than a melodist. There are, no doubt, some exquisite melodies (like the "Sabrina Fair ") among his earlier poems, as could hardly fail to be the case in an age which produced or trained the authors of our best English glees, as ravishing in their instinctive felicity as the songs of our dramatists, but he also showed from the first that larger style which was to be his peculiar distinction. The strain heard in the "Nativity Ode," in the "Solemn Music," and in "Lycidas," is of a higher mood, as regards metrical construction, ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... Scotland), and when his valet, scraping and bowing, informed Fitzhugh Williams, aged nine, that it was time to get up, and tub, and go forth in a white sailor suit, and be of the world worldly, Fitzhugh declined. A greater personage was summoned—Aloys, "the maid of madame," a ravishing creature—to whom you and I, good Americans though we are, could have refused nothing. But Fitzhugh would not come out of his feather-bed. And when madame herself came, looking like a princess even at that early hour, he only pulled the ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... wife heard them covering the table, and the clattering of the plates, and the shouts of joy with which they celebrated their banquet. When it was over, and it drew near to midnight, they began to dance to that ravishing fairy air which charms the mind into such sweet confusion, and which some have heard in the rocky glens, and learned by listening to the underground musicians. As soon as Aslog caught the sound of the air she felt an irresistible ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... thinkes, the cloudes in throngs The lightning leaps too, at my ravishing songs; Iris about my neck hangs round, And with her divers colour'd bow, I'me bound. Being now my selfe, and newly wak'd, My not unwelcome dreames, just now off shak'd; Thrice o're my Lute, I ...
— The Odes of Casimire, Translated by G. Hils • Mathias Casimire Sarbiewski
... lovely in spirit should she be! how thankful, how pious, how virtuous, how rich in inward charms! These are what God asks in return. Think of it, young women, as it really is. See God clothing your forms with Beauty, rich and ravishing in its charms; see that Beauty winning for you flowery paths of life, softening all hearts that approach you, making it easy, ay, almost a necessity, for them to love and esteem you; think how much you prize it, ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... towards the spot whence the sound proceeded, and saw before me a female form. No! I cannot describe to you the beauty of this form. My first feeling was one of awe, which, however, soon gave place to ravishing surprise." ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... sweet a companion), I could have been down at the Hall, in hopes to have confirmed the poor woman in her newly assumed penitence. God give her grace to persevere in it!—To be an humble means of saving a soul from perdition! O my dear Miss Darnford, let me enjoy that heart-ravishing hope!—To pluck such a brand as this out of the fire, and to assist to quench its flaming susceptibility for mischief, and make it useful to edifying purposes, what a pleasure does this afford one! How does it encourage ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... fail to see that the slight girlish figure was of ravishing perfection. The waist was slender, the partly revealed arms were as delicate as lilies, the tiny hands with their tapering fingers were like those of a fairy, while the countenance was one of the fairest that ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... favourite character's part, which he did to the life. We also made out our own "reports" for home, and played a most spirited game of croquet in the hall, with potatoes for balls and brooms for mallets, besides treating our prisoners to a ravishing concert by an orchestra of one dinner-bell, two dish-covers, two combs and paper, and one ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... shout from Hallin, and the most poetic corner of a famous garden revealed itself. Amid the ruins of a cloister that had once formed part of the dissolved Cistercian priory on whose confiscated lands Castle Luton had arisen, a rich medley of flowers was in full and perfect bloom. Irises in every ravishing shade of purple, lilac, and gold, carpets of daffodils and narcissus, covered the ground, and ran into each corner and cranny of the old wall. Yellow banksia and white clematis climbed the crumbling shafts, or made new tracery for the empty windows, and where ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... guess the name or period. There was a player-piano to match the furniture, and a cabinet of rolls. Near by stood a specially made Victrola with an extensive selection of records. There were bronze lamps, ravishing bits of bric-a-brac, lace curtains of which she could judge the quality, and heavy hangings, sheathed now in their summer coverings. The decorations of the room were harmonious and bespoke a reckless disregard ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... should have no significance, that inquiry concerning art alone should be made of one desiring to become a master-singer. Kothner passes thereupon to the question: "Of what master are you a disciple?" And then is born into the world a new, a ravishing melody—which has all the delight in it that can be compressed into the space. Airily, confidently, debonairly, Walther delivers himself, in the sweet ingenuousness of his heart, "new," as he had said, ignorant as yet of the jealous world's ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... spirits rose. The swift-flashing eyes brightened. His body felt to be bursting with a ravishing joy of life. His purpose was his own. The joy was his alone. He had found excuse for satisfying his own greedy lust, a lust for battle which no overwhelming odds could diminish. He was a savage. He knew it; he gloried in it. Peace to him was a wearisome burden ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... said Count Victor, "I am—what do you call it?—a somnambulist. In that condition it has sometimes been my so good fortune to wander into the most odd and ravishing situations. But as it happens, helas! I can never recall a single incident of them when I waken in the morning. Ma foi!" (he remembered that even yet his suspicions of the Baron were unsatisfied), "I would with some pleasure become a nocturnal conspirator myself, and ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... which makes all the difference—haw! haw! haw! You seem to have but a shortish pack, I think—ten, twelve, fourteen couple—'ow's that? We always take nine and twenty with the Surrey". "Why, you see, Mister Jorrocks, stag-hunting and fox-hunting are very different. The scent of the deer is very ravishing, and then we have no drawing for our game. Besides, at this season, there are always bitches to put back—but we have plenty of hounds for sport.—I suppose we may be after turning out," added Jonathan, looking ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... of the great floor, holding the instrument delicately poised, and still awaking its ravishing voice, stood a figure, the sight of which almost ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... down the island, gathering plants to right and left; seating myself now in smiling lonely nooks to dream at my ease, now on little terraces and knolls, to follow with my eyes the superb and ravishing prospect of the lake and its shores, crowned on one side by the neighbouring hills, and on the other melting into rich and fertile plains up to the feet of the pale blue ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... before it; but we found some compensation for our disappointment, in contemplating so much of this charming country as was visible from our ship. The magnificent scenery of Brazil has often been described, but no expression can do justice to its ravishing beauty. Imagination can scarcely picture the exquisite variety of form and colouring of the luxuriant and gigantic vegetation that thickly clothes the valleys and mountains even to the sea-shore. A breeze from the land wafted to us the most delicious perfumes; and crowds of beautiful insects, ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... musicians, warriors, and poets slept side by side around me; some beneath the gorgeous monument, and some beneath the simple headstone. But the political intrigue, the dream of science, the historical research, the ravishing harmony of sound, the tried courage, the inspiration of the lyre—where are they? With the living, and not with the dead! The right hand has lost its cunning in the grave; but the soul, whose high volitions it obeyed, still lives to reproduce itself ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... fallen in the debauch and been carried off by the valets, who in gorgeous liveries waited on the table. A band of musicians sat up in a gallery at the end of the hall, and filled the pauses of the riotous feast with the ravishing ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... illustrious friend in Paris. Close was their union, great their joy. It was engrossing admiration and devotion on one side; absorbing sympathy, respect, and gratitude, on the other. The power and charm of Madame Recamier were not merely in her ravishing beauty, imperturbable good nature, and all-subduing graciousness, but also in her mind and character. Madame de Stael, who was a great critic, and no flatterer, says ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... false conviction. You have surely never seen me before, and I most certainly have never laid eyes upon you until now. If I had, I should not be likely to forget it," I said, insinuating something of the profound admiration, with which her ravishing beauty inspired me, in my tone ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... silver and covered with arabesques. Above all those beauties, I could see the shape of two globes which Apelles would have taken for the model of those of his lovely Venus, and the rapid, inequal movement of which proved to me that those ravishing hillocks were animated. The small valley left between them, and which my eyes greedily feasted upon, seemed to me a lake of nectar, in which my burning lips longed to quench their thirst with more ardour than they would have drunk from the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... sunny earth above. The flowers and herbs glittered indeed; but they seemed to be juiceless, and looked as if formed of crystal. Even the butterflies had a peculiar motion, like that of an involuntary sleepwalker. Only the harmonious strains, which now rang louder and louder, more and more ravishing, were so ecstatic, so inviting to joyous devotion, that Maud would fain have shouted aloud for joy; but she felt that she could not speak, could not cry out, and sight, touch, and hearing, were more alive ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... explanation admitted of no reply; and Mien-yaun was about to resume his way with a sigh, when the young lady insinuated a third osculatory hint, more penetrating than either of the others, and bestowed on him, besides, a most ravishing smile. He fluttered internally, but succeeded in preserving his outward immobility. He entered into conversation with the elderly female, observing that it was a fine day, and that it promised to continue so, although destiny was impenetrable, and clouds ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... hold out, and Kitty sacrificed the waist to the train, for a train she must have or the whole thing would be an utter failure. A little sacque was eked out, however, and when the frills were on, it was "ravishing," as Kitty said, with a sigh of mingled delight and fatigue. The gored skirt was a fearful job, as any one who has ever plunged into the mysteries will testify; and before the facing, ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... pictured to himself the content he might have had with such a woman for a wife. But then the thought of his disgrace—a disgrace he could not share with a wife—always dissipated the beautiful vision and made the hard reality of what was, seem tenfold harder for the ravishing beauty of what ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... should I want to join that?" was the question they put. But it pleased Johnny McComas, both by its present manifestations and its latent possibilities. It was richly in unison with his own nature, and I believe he had a ravishing vision of ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... Maeterlinck puts into the mouth of Pelleas is exquisitely enforced by the music. There is ravishing tenderness and beauty here, and an intensity of expression as penetrating as it is restrained. As Melisande's doves come from the tower and fly about the heads of the lovers, we hear, tremolo in the strings, a variation of her motive. Golaud enters by the winding stair, and ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... in savouring the style of Conrad, a delicious ravishing thrill in the mere look of the words, as we see them so carefully, so scrupulously laid side by side, each with its own burden of intellectual perfume, like precious vases full of incense on the steps of a marble altar. To write as delicately, ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... and that the state would still be rich enough to pay the tribute to the Romans: which assertion he proved to be true. But now those persons who, for several years past, had maintained themselves by plundering the public, were greatly enraged; as if this were ravishing from them their own property, and not as dragging out of their hands their ill-gotten spoil. Accordingly, they instigated the Romans against Hannibal, who were seeking a pretext for indulging their hatred ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... beheld a more gay and charming face than that of your betrothed? Can one be more white and blonde? are not her hands perfect? and that neck—does it not assume all the curves of the swan in ravishing fashion? How I envy you at times! and how happy you are to be a man, naughty libertine that you are! Is not my Fleur-de-Lys adorably beautiful, and are you not desperately ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... discordant music. These fits are not the consequence of violent or contending passions: they grow not out of sorrow, or joy, or hope, or fear, or hatred, or despair. For in the hour of affliction the tones of our fellow-creatures are ravishing as the most delicate lute; and in the flush moment of joy where is the smiler who loves not a witness to his revelry or a listener to his good fortune? Fear makes us feel our humanity, and then we ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... momently conscious of a ravishing fragrance which seemed to pervade and invite the consciousness to all ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... His voice each joyous Vanar raised, And Rama, conquering Rama, praised. Soft from celestial minstrels came The sound of music and acclaim. Soft, fresh, and cool, a rising breeze Brought odours from the heavenly trees, And ravishing the sight and smell A wondrous rain of blossoms fell: And voices breathed round Raghu's son: "Champion of Gods, well done, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... of Leonarda's type consists we are not fully informed, but we are led to infer that she represents a purer and truer humanity than the women bred in the traditions of feudalism, with their hypocritical arts and conventions. She is not meant to be seductive, but radiant, ravishing. ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... thinking that he never had seen a more ravishing picture, and somewhat regretful that it was out of the question for him to be permitted to make ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... ever so small in quantity, sufficed to impart a pleasant flavor to a whole cask of wine. The race of Monte Beni—so these rustic chroniclers assured the sculptor—had possessed the gift from the oldest of old times of expressing good wine from ordinary grapes, and a ravishing liquor from the choice growth of ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... blooming youth, with all the attractions of heavenly beauty! Loose, wanton, gay, all flowing her bright hair, and languishing her lovely eyes, her dress all negligent as when I saw her last, discovering a thousand ravishing graces, round, white, small breasts, delicate neck, and rising bosom, heaved with sighs she would in vain conceal; and all besides, that nicest fancy can imagine surprising—Oh I dare not think on, lest my desires ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... that sex which tenderness most exquisitely becomes. Her countenance displayed all the cheerfulness, the good-nature, and the modesty, which diffuse such brightness round the beauty of Seraphina, [5] awing every beholder with respect, and, at the same time, ravishing him with admiration. Had it not been indeed for our conversation on the small-pox, I should have imagined we had been honored with her identical presence. This opinion might have been heightened by the good sense she uttered ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... this fascination may lead to is to be seen in that terrible paradise of the gambler, Monaco, on the shore of the lovely Mediterranean. I have lately heard a most thrilling account of what is to be seen in that fearfully attractive palace of despair. Lovely gardens are there, ravishing music, an exquisite salon where the entranced players meet to throw away fortune, peace, and hope. At first you might imagine you were in a church, so still and serious are the deluded mammon- worshippers. And what follows? I will mention ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... "Ha! The most ravishing creature in all Matanzas. All the men were mad over her." Cueto's eyes gleamed craftily, for he believed he had measured Cobo's caliber. "She should have married old Castano and all his money, but she was heart and soul in the revolution. She and the boy were spying on us, you ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... spend a thing so precious On him that cannot weare it. No, no; no Musick; But if you needs will charme my o're-watcht eyes, Now growne too monstrous for their lids to close, If you so long to fill these Musick-roomes With ravishing sounds indeed; unclaspe that booke, Turne o're that Monument of Martyrdomes, Read there how Genzerick has serv'd the gods And made their Altars drunke with Christians blood, Whil'st their loath'd bodies flung in funerall piles ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... I found my way to what I called Moray Lodge, and met them there. And there too, to be sure, was Glorioli, "the tall, good-looking swarthy foreigner from whose scarcely parted, moist, thick, bearded lips issued the most ravishing sounds that had ever been heard from throat of man or ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... their necks as I could, quietly inhale their odours, and talk all the time. Not every woman smelt nice to me, and when they did, it was not patchouli, for I got patchouli, which I liked, and perfumed myself with it. This delicate sense of smell of a woman I have had throughout life, it was ravishing to me afterwards, when I embraced the naked body of a fresh, ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... further extracts from Bougainville's narrative, it appears apropos to warn the reader not to accept these descriptions au pied de la lettre. The fertile imagination of the narrator embellished everything. Not content with the ravishing scenes under his eyes, the picturesque reality is not enough for him, and he adds new delights to the picture, which only overload it. He does this almost unconsciously. None the less, his descriptions should be received with great caution. We find a strange example of this tendency ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... very commonplace of the theatre: the wish to have it both ways, to show, yet not to reveal—the "dramatic situation," in short, set out because it is dramatic, not because it is true. We cannot suppose that Browning meant Earl Mertoun for a mere seducer, ravishing from a maiden that which she did not desire to give—yet the words he here puts in Mildred's mouth bear no other interpretation. Either she is capable of passion, or she is not. If she is, sorrow for the sorrow that her recklessness may ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... Goethe's work makes it, indeed, a novel. Conventional society and the actual conditions of life are, with respect to eternal truth, but the novelties of time. The novelist is to picture these, and, in picturing, subordinate them to that which is perpetual and inspiring. Just so far as he opens the ravishing possibilities of life in commanding reconciliation with the formal civilization of a particular time, he does ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various |
