"Evil eye" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... these things. The next evening she told me that an old woman had been to the house and asked for me. For days my first wife lurked in the neighborhood, beseeching me to come back to her. But I told her that in the eyes of God she was not my wife. Then, in revenge, she cast the evil eye upon the child—sul bambino—and for six weeks it ailed and then died. Again the witch asked me to go with her, and again I refused. This time she cast her evil eye upon my wife—and Rosina grew pale and sick and took to her bed. There was only one thing to do, you ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... continent, were listened to with the liveliest interest and without the slightest misgiving. She had, moreover, well-settled convictions of her own concerning a number of things which lay beyond Cranbrook's horizon. She had a great dread of the evil eye and knew exactly what remedies to apply in order to counteract its direful effects; she wore around her neck a charm which had been blessed by the pope and which was a sure preventive of rheumatism; and under the ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... for her wealth and hated her for her pride, And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her—that she died! How shall the ritual, then, be read?—the requiem how be sung By you—by yours, the evil eye,—by yours, the slanderous tongue That did to death the innocence that died, ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... was an exemplification of a strange but universal superstition among the Turks. With these eastern people there is a traditionary belief in what is called the evil eye, answering to the evil spirit that is accredited to exist by more civilized nations. Any human being bereft of reason, or seriously deformed in any way, is held by them to be a protection against the blight ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... and curious and capricious combinations of pretty much every imaginable thing have all been so used. Birth girdles worn by women in childbirth eased their pain. A circular piece of copper guarded against cholera. A coral was a good guard against the evil eye and sail-cloth from a shipwrecked vessel tied to the right arm was a preventive as well as a cure for epilepsy. There is almost no end to such instances. The list of charms and incantations is quite as curious. There are forms ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... charms against the evil eye, and the red sickness, and death by violence. But, also love-charms now and then, and now and then a death-charm to a man who has an enemy and lacks swordsmanship or courage. I trade with each and every man, sahib, and listen to the talk of each, ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... reached the chamber of the Enchantress. Her snoring had ceased. She had begun to rub her eyes and move uneasily, with many a grunt and snort. She was about to awake. Who could have told what mischief one glance of her evil eye would have effected. "Strike! strike!" said the Fairy. The Prince struck the bed. Instantly loud shrieks and groans, and cries most terrific, were heard filling the air, and shouts most horrible of mocking laughter, and bellowings, ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... showed humanity to Cauchon's victim. During the examinations it was the wont of Isambard to place himself as near as possible to Joan of Arc, and by nudging her, or by some sign, he attempted to help her and advise her in her answers to the questions of the judges. Cauchon's evil eye, however, at length detected Isambard's conduct, and he informed Warwick of it. Soon after, Isambard was confronted by Warwick, and the latter, with many abusive words, threatened to have him drowned in the Seine if he ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... Almost while writing these words I receive first-hand evidence that such a tradition is not yet extinct in Welford-on-Avon, a village, four miles from Stratford, with which Shakespeare must have been perfectly familiar. The witch, as usual, was an old woman, credited with the "evil eye" and the power of causing the death of cattle and farm-stock by "overlooking" them; and the native of Welford, from whom the story was communicated to me, would be prepared to produce eye-witnesses of various transformations of the old woman ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... hath bound. The ignorance and mistake of this high point hath heaped up one huge half of all the misery that hath been since Adam. In the Gospel we shall read a supercilious crew of Masters, whose holiness, or rather whose evil eye, grieving that God should be so facile to man, was to set straiter limits to obedience than God had set, to enslave the dignity of Man, to put a garrison upon his neck of empty and over-dignified precepts: and ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... sight of a priest threw him into a violent rage; he shook his fist and grimaced at him, and touched a piece of iron when the priest's back was turned, forgetting that the latter action showed a belief after all, the belief in the evil eye. Now when beliefs are unreasonable one should have all or none at all. I myself am a Freethinker; I revolt at all the dogmas which have invented the fear of death, but I feel no anger towards places of worship, be they Catholic, Apostolic, Roman, Protestant, Greek, Russian, Buddhist, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... in a farm-yard Where all the poultry eyed him hard— They looked on him with evil eye, And mocked his sumptuous pageantry: Proud of the glories he inherited, He sought the praises they well merited. Then, to surprise their dazzled sight, He spread his glories to the light. His glories spread, no sooner seen Than rose ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... the exclamation wards off the Evil Eye from the Sword and the wearer: Mr. Payne notes, "The old English exclamation 'Cock's 'ill!' (i.e., God's will, thus corrupted for the purpose of evading the statute of 3 Jac. i. against profane swearing) exactly corresponds to the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... every one, not even excepting his master, a grim, severe reserve—keeping much alone, seldom indulging in cooked meat, more seldom still in raw, and never tasting his corn-dodgers. The red barbarian, in particular, he regarded with an evil eye—holding him in worse and worse odor, as the rest received him into higher and higher favor. Time and again did the captain essay to explain to his lieutenant how matters stood between them and their prisoner, but in vain. With that consistency of mind ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... simplicity. It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem. Every new relation is a new word. Also we use defects and deformities to a sacred purpose, so expressing our sense that the evils of the world are such only to the evil eye. In the old mythology, mythologists observe, defects are ascribed to divine natures, as lameness to Vulcan, blindness to Cupid, and ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... puff him up. But 'tis a fine spirit!" said the Sirdar, beaming even while he made the sign to avert the evil eye. "Nevertheless, delight of my heart, sit thou at the foot of the Sahib, for verily that is where all Granthistan ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... from year to year, except such differences as are brought about by the change of seasons; no civic improvement troubles its sedate gloom—no adventurous speculator regards it as a promising site for building blocks of offices—no railway company casts an evil eye upon its seclusion within the area formed by the church and the tall dim houses which have mouldered into ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... only that this table-turning simply proves that educated society—so called—is no higher than the peasants. They believe in the evil eye, and in witchcraft and omens, ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... hymns within - What evil eye can entrance win Where guards like these abound? If chance some heedless heart should roam, Sure, thought of these will lure it home ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble
... for their military prowess." The next day his three sons went with him to the war, and all were stricken down. God summoned the angels and said to them: "Behold the being I have created in my world. A father as a rule refrains from taking his sons even to a banquet, lest he expose them to the evil eye. Saul goes to war knowing that he will lose his life, yet he takes his sons with him, and cheerfully accepts the ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... had been like animals, not at all like Adam and Eve. "Do you think I believe that Eve ate an apple and that the serpent could speak? Non credo mente. Such things are like mal'occhi (belief in the evil eye)." And without any transition, she begins, sempre allegra, as she calls herself—to sing a gay song. Just now she is exceedingly delighted with a certain large red shawl. There came a pedlar to the door; she sighed deeply at the sight ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... apart; and above all, they persuaded them, that the religion of others was impious and abominable. By this unworthy artifice, the ambitious knaves established, their usurpation over the minds of their followers, rendered them unsociable, and made them regard with an evil eye all persons who had not the same mode of worship and the same ideas as they had. Thus it is, that Religion has shut up the heart and for ever banished from it the affection that man ought to have for his fellow-creature. Sociability, indulgence, humanity, those first virtues ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... the child was going to be roasted, and did not know that what he saw was simply the act of disenchantment, which was being carried out by the wise woman of the village on a child born with the evil eye. ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... dream was a mere invention of Oloffe Van Kortlandt, who, it is said, had ever regarded Communipaw with an evil eye, because he had arrived there after all the land had been shared out, and who was anxious to change the seat of empire to some new place, where he might be present at the distribution of "town lots." But we must not give heed to such insinuations, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... spells, which fill the popular poetry of all Northern nations, are absent in Italian songs. In the whole of Tigri's collection I only remember one mention of a ghost. It is not that the Italians are deficient in superstitions of all kinds. Every one has heard of their belief in the evil eye, for instance. But they do not connect this kind of fetichism with their poetry; and even their greatest poets, with the exception of Dante, have shown no capacity or no inclination for enhancing the imaginative effect of their creations by an appeal to the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... Domenichino thought of going as a pedlar, with a basket of cheap crosses and rosaries. The people like to buy those things and ask the Cardinal to touch them; then they put them round their babies' necks to keep off the evil eye." ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... blinds began to wink. One heard the creak of opening windows, and voices: "Why doncher separate 'em? Why cancher shut that plurry row?" With the new light one saw the crowd against a ground of chocolate hue. Here and there a cigarette picked out a face, glowing like an evil eye. All ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... chiefs changed constantly as one more powerful for the moment arose; the wizards did not appear to have any political power, acting as general physicians and confining their efforts apparently to simple magic for the growing of corn, the curing of the evil eye and wounds. They were terrified of the Wongolo, much to Mungongo's pride, who never let slip an opportunity of swaggering and bruiting abroad the fame of his master as the greatest of magicians the world had ever seen. Never was he ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... literature. This very primitive type of song took its rise in Etruria; it derives its name from Fescennium, an Etrurian town, though others connect it with fascinum, as if originally it were an attempt to avert the evil eye. [13] Horace traces the history of this rude banter from its source in the harvest field to its city developments of slander and abuse, [14] which needed the restraint of the law. Livy, in his sketch of the rise of Roman drama, [15] alludes to these verses ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... obedient, I reached inside and found an opening. Some papers rustled in my hand. I clutched them like a madman, violently drew them forth and, perceiving that they were the precious documents, waved them about like a dancing dervish. The soldiers were distinctly disappointed and cast an evil eye on Marie, as though holding her personally responsible for cheating them out of ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... Hiawatha's daughter had been out, probably with other women, into the adjacent woods, to gather their light fuel of dry sticks for cooking. She was great with child, and moved slowly, with her faggot, across the sward. An evil eye was upon her. Suddenly the loud voice of Atotarho was heard, shouting that a strange bird was in the air, and bidding one of his best archers shoot it. The archer shot, and the bird fell. A sudden rush took place from all quarters toward it, and in the rush Hiawatha's ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... Honour, Justice, numberless the forms, Glorious and high the stature, she assumes; But watch the wandering changeful mischief well, And thou shalt see her with low lurid light Search where the soul's most valued treasure lies, Or, more embodied to our vision, stand With evil eye, and sorcery hers alone, Looking away her helpless progeny, And drawing poison from its very smiles. For Julian's truth have I not pledged my own? Have I not sworn Covilla ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... resign. He did so with the worst possible grace, as might be expected from such a character. His father, Elatha, was a Fomorian sea-king or pirate, and he repaired to his court. His reception was not such as he had expected; he therefore went to Balor of the Evil Eye,[39] a Fomorian chief. The two warriors collected a vast army and navy, and formed a bridge of ships and boats from the Hebrides to the north-west coast of Erinn. Having landed their forces, they marched to a plain in the barony of Tirerrill ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... forgave. This woman believed in the power of her hatred; she made an evil fate of it and bade it hover above her enemy. This fatal power she employed against the man who had jilted her. Events which seemed to prove the influence of her "jettatura"—the casting of an evil eye—confirmed her superstitious faith in herself. Though a minister and peer of France, this man began to ruin himself, and soon came to total ruin. His property, his personal and public honor were doomed to perish. At this crisis Madame Evangelista in ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... mentioned, wherever general utility is the object. Let us observe, that many of the first dignities of the church are bestowed, and properly bestowed, upon men who have educated the highest ranks of our nobility. Those who look with an evil eye upon these promotions, do not fairly estimate the national importance of education for the rich and powerful. No provision can be made for women who direct the education of the daughters of our nobility, ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... has met Mr. Greenleaf in London. I always think he has the contrary to the evil eye. Whatever he takes in ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... late frequently frightened the Grand Duke, who, in despair, would perhaps grant a constitution if Beckendorff would allow him. But the Minister is conscious that the people would not be happier, and do not in fact require one: he looks with a jealous and an evil eye on the charlatanism of all kinds which is now so prevalent at Court: he knows, from the characters of many of these philosophers and patriots, that their private interest is generally the secret spring of their public virtue; that if the Grand Duke, moved by their entreaties, or seduced ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... trappings, whilst on the harness itself appears in more than one place the little brazen hand, which is supposed to ensure the steed's safety from the dangers of any chance jettatore, the unlucky wight endowed with the Evil Eye. Nor is the swarthy picturesque ruffian who acts as our driver unprovided with a talisman in case of emergency, for we observe hanging from his heavy silver watch-chain the long twisted horn of pink coral, which is popularly supposed to catch ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... was scairt to death, but I'm a mother and I had to come. How I had the courage I don't know, when I thought you and Mis' Tree might meet my eyes both layin' dead in this entry. Where is he? Don't you help or harbor him now, Direxia Hawkes! I saw his evil eye as he stood on the doorstep, and I knew by the way he peeked and peered that he was after no good. Where is he? I know he didn't go out. Hush! Don't say a word! I'll slip out and round and get Hiram ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... very limited gamut for giving expression to the human capacities of sublimity or of horror. We read it in the fearful composition of the sphinx. The dragon, again, is the snake inoculated upon the scorpion. The basilisk unites the mysterious malice of the evil eye, unintentional on the part of the unhappy agent, with the intentional venom of some other malignant natures. But these horrid complexities of evil agency are but objectively horrid; they inflict the horror suitable to their compound ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... each other threateningly. Then there had been the crack of the unexpected, unseen rifle; the dust struck up between them; the second shot. And the smoking rifle-barrel was not three feet from where Terry stood, Blenham's convulsed face laid against the stock, Blenham's one evil eye lining ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... the contents of this little three-cornered bag to restore Naomi's eyesight? Why, by charming away the wicked spirit who had cast an evil eye upon her. Or perhaps Naomi had chanced to rub her eyes upon waking before she had washed her hands. Being unclean, the devil present had slipped from her fingers into her eyes, and now must be charmed out again by the ...
— Christmas Light • Ethel Calvert Phillips
... and short of it," continued Mrs. Boxall. "Do you see that little vein there, the color of 'urts. That's a sure sign. Some one bears the poor creature no love, and has cast an evil eye ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... excepting that, as to the rise of that sin; for even that, with all the rest, ariseth and proceedeth out of the heart—the soul; 'For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil things come from within, and defile the man' (Mark 7:21-23). That is, the outward man. But a difference must always be put betwixt defiling and being defiled, that which defileth being the worst; not but that the body shall have ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... nearly dressed, was now holding the pot of lamp-black and oil with which Head-nurse, after the Indian custom, would put a finishing touch to her work by smearing a big black smut on the child's forehead, lest he should be too sweet and so attract an envious, evil eye, looked up at the words, his face ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... adherent was his dog Wolf, who was as much henpecked as his master; for Dame Van Winkle regarded them as companions in idleness, and even looked upon Wolf with an evil eye, as the cause of his master's going so often astray. True it is, in all points of spirit befitting an honorable dog, he was as courageous an animal as ever scoured the woods; but what courage can withstand ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... saw the Martians inside making desperate efforts to train their engine upon us, for after their first disastrous stroke we had rapidly shifted our position. Swiftly the polished knob, which gleamed like an evil eye, moved round to sweep over us. Instinctively, though incautiously, we ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... aggageers gazed with dismay at their departed prize, and, with superstitious fear, they remounted their horses without uttering a word, and rode away; they attributed the sudden death of the animal to the effect of my "evil eye." We turned towards our camp. My Tokrooris were delighted, and I heard them talking and laughing together upon the subject, and remarking upon the extremely "bad eye" of ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... the three sons of Turenn, were Dedanaan chiefs. They slew Kian, the father of Luga of the Long Arms, who was grandson of Balor of the Evil Eye. Luga imposed an extraordinary eric fine on the sons of Turenn, part of which was "the cooking-spit of the women of Fincara." For a quarter of a year Brian and his brothers sailed hither and thither over the wide ocean, landing ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... pouring down that unconscious man's throat, hourly doses of a villainous compound of most loathsome things, over which the old hag muttered her incantations, and worked her Satanic spells. She watched us with her evil eye as we looked pityingly upon the poor sufferer, and glared menacingly when we told the poor wife that he was no better; that ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 9, September, 1889 • Various
... But an evil eye had noted the kindly act; and the proud Pharisee thought within himself, if Jesus were the prophet He professes to be, He would certainly have known that the woman was a great sinner, and would not have allowed her to touch Him. But Jesus ...
— Mother Stories from the New Testament • Anonymous
... but when she saw the tall, haggard woman gazing at her child, and noticed the disagreeable expression which had formerly induced her to compare her to a sharp thorn, a terrible dread of this woman's evil eye which might harm her boy seized the mother's heart and, overwhelmed by an impulse beyond control, she covered his face with her ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... cult, shrouded in deep mystery to even the initiates themselves, has remained an almost insoluble problem for the modern critic. It was said that the wishes of the initiates were always granted, and they were feared as to-day the 'jettatori' (spell-throwers, casters of the evil eye) in Sicily ...
— Peace • Aristophanes
... Snow-white; "she will not harm me." So she unbolted the door, and told her to come in. Oh, how delighted Snow-white was with the pretty things; she bought several trinkets, and a beautiful silk lace for her stays, but she did not see the evil eye of the old woman who was watching her. Presently she said, "Child, come here; I will show you how to lace your stays properly." Snow-white had no suspicion, so she placed herself before the old woman ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... Athenians who would pass that cleft in the Areopagus where the "Avengers" had their grim sanctuary without a quick motion of the hands to avert the evil eye. Thieves and others of evil conscience would make a wide circuit rather than pass this abode of Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, pitiless pursuers of the guilty. The terrible sisters hounded a man through life, ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... heard the witches singing a chorus of carnage at Rocbert; another saw, towards the Minquiers, a great army like a mirage upon the sea; others declared that certain French refugees in the island had the evil eye and bewitched their cattle; and a woman, wild with grief because her child had died of a sudden sickness, meeting a little Frenchman, the Chevalier du Champsavoys, in the Rue des Tres Pigeons, thrust at his face with her knitting-needle, and then, Protestant ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... principle, as long as I remained amongst them in that county. My having dared to ask a question and to expose the two venerable representatives of the county in such a public manner was an offence not to be forgiven; and accordingly I was set down as a jacobin and leveller, and was looked upon with an evil eye by the cunning supporters of the system, the parsons, lawyers, and attorneys. I received the thanks of many of the freeholders privately; but the poor sycophants did not dare to shew their, approbation publicly. How ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... be if I am living for myself—straggling, envying, casting an evil eye on those more fortunate than I; perhaps letting loose against them a cruel tongue? If I am doing thus, God forgive me. What have I of the mind of Christ? What likeness between me and him who emptied himself of self, who humbled himself, gave himself up utterly, ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... Each of the young men, in saluting the new-comer, made mechanically, and with care to conceal it from him, a slight gesture or sign with their fingers; for Arbaces, the Egyptian, was supposed to possess the fatal gift of the evil eye. ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... Cabinets, one of his stale, and by no means Delphic oracles, predicting the success of Burnside's campaign, and immediately follows a bloody and disgraceful calamity! Such is always the result of Seward's prophecies! A diplomat calls Seward the evil eye of the Cabinet, and of the country. I suggested to some of the senators that a resolution be passed prohibiting Mr. Seward from playing either the prophet ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... perhaps really believed in a personal god; but though atheists, they could not forswear their superstition. Piso, the censor, who notoriously feared neither divine nor human law in his reckless life, spat thrice to ward off the effects of the evil eye, if ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... villain could slink away, I had him by the neck. It needed no cudgelling of my brains to guess who it might be; for once and again that day while we worked I had marked the fellow's evil eye on Ludar. Ludar had laughed when I had told him of it, and had not deigned so much as to turn his head to see if I spoke true. And in the bustle that had followed I too had forgot our enemy of the whip. But he had ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... which it once belonged; cuttings of hair or clippings of nails are enough to put their owner magically in your power; and that is the reason why, if you are a prudent person, you will always burn all such off-castings of your body, lest haply an enemy should get hold of them, and cast the evil eye upon you with their potent aid. In the same way, if you can lay hands upon anything that once belonged to an elf, such as a fairy-bolt or flint arrowhead, you can get its former possessor to do anything you wish ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... evil eye shall not fall upon it After I came to Boston, I took a room and began working ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... along, she sprang off, and ran up a sand hill, like a white doe. Never having witnessed any thing like this before, I was so astonished that she was returning, ere I could overtake her to ask if an ogre had lured her with his evil eye. 'O, no,' she cried,—'look here! You like flowers, but did you ever see any so lovely as this?—Smell it,—'tis so sweet, that the rose, if growing near it, loses its beauty and fragrance, from envy ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... uncle, Ulric Czillei. This Czillei was a great nobleman of Styria, but was withal possessed of large estates in Hungary. As a foreigner and as a relative of King Sigismund, he had long viewed with an evil eye Huniades' elevation. On one occasion Huniades had to inflict punishment on him. He consequently now did everything he could to induce the young king, his nephew, to hate the great captain as he himself did. He sought to infuse jealousy ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... when he comes to his operation, so gathered, or borne, or hung upon the neck, it mightily helps to drive away all phantastical spirits." These are the blossoms which have been hung in the windows of European peasants for ages on St. John's eve, to avert the evil eye and the spells of the spirits of darkness. "Devil chaser" its Italian name signifies. To cure demoniacs, to ward off destruction by lightning, to reveal the presence of witches, and to expose their nefarious practices, are some of the ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... Anthea, as they went on down the grassy lane, "she is so very grateful for so little. And she is such a gentle old creature really, though the country folk do call her a witch and are afraid of her because they say she has the 'evil eye,'—which is ridiculous, of course! But nobody ever goes near her, and she is dreadfully lonely, poor ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... researches of Logothetos, the Prince of Samos, prove that there is little of value, among its manuscripts. Before the door hangs a wooden globe, which is supposed to be efficacious in neutralizing the influence of the Evil Eye. There are many ancient altars and fragments of pillars scattered about the courts, and the Turks have even commenced making a collection of antiquities, which, with the exception of two immense sarcophagi of red porphyry, contains nothing of value. They show, however, one of the brazen ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... witch," whispered Beppina, making the devil's horns with her fingers to protect herself from the Evil Eye. "Let's ...
— The Italian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... Yin, the ship will be saved. If one goes into a conflict and calls on the name of Kuan Yin, the sword and spear of the enemy fall harmless. If the three thousand great kingdoms are visited by demons, call on her name, and these demons cannot with an evil eye look on a man. If, within, you have evil thoughts, only call on Kuan Yin, and your heart will be purified, Anger and wrath may be dispelled by calling on the name of Kuan Yin. A lunatic who prays to Kuan Yin will become ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... sweep that flat and open stretch of country so as to render it untenable by the enemy. Lord K. demonstrated this cross fire upon the map. He toiled over the wording of his instructions. They were headed "Constantinople Expeditionary Force." I begged him to alter this to avert Fate's evil eye. He consented and both this corrected draft and the copy as finally approved are now in Braithwaite's despatch box more modestly headed "Mediterranean Expeditionary Force." None of the drafts help us with facts about the enemy; the politics; the country ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... getting herself talked of at a Club! And she of all young ladies should have been the last to draw round her that buzz of tongues. On such a subject!—The parents pursuing their career of cynical ostentation in London, threw an evil eye of heredity on their offspring in the egg; making anything credible, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... not," he exclaimed; "it is false of thy father's child, false of thy mother's son, falsest of my dault! I offer my gage to heaven and hell, and will maintain the combat with him that shall call it true. Thou hast been spellbound by an evil eye, my darling, and the fainting which you call cowardice is the work of magic. I remember the bat that struck the torch out on the hour that thou wert born—that hour of grief and of joy. Cheer up, my beloved. Thou shalt with me to Iona, and the good St. Columbus, with the whole choir ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... other ever made him an equal return of Gentleness and Sincerity. Ben was naturally Proud and Insolent, and in the Days of his Reputation did so far take upon him the Supremacy in Wit, that he could not but look with an evil Eye upon any one that seem'd to stand in Competition with him. And if at times he has affected to commend him, it has always been with some Reserve, insinuating his Uncorrectness, a careless manner of Writing, and want of Judgment; the Praise of seldom altering or blotting out what he writ, which was ...
— Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709) • Nicholas Rowe
... can't git this stone up!" Washington said. "Look at what a little stone it is, but I can't lift it. Something must have happened to me. Maybe some one put th' evil eye on me! ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... them. In short, although she lost a lace which Thome Reid gave her out of his own hand, which, tied round women in childbirth, had the power of helping their delivery, Bessy Dunlop's profession of a wise woman seems to have flourished indifferently well till it drew the evil eye of the ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... commerce; he soon had other business to mind. F. Olivarez, who, on the representation of P. Ydalgo, as a person of a jealous, turbulent, and dangerous disposition, had been excluded from the mission to the Assinais, being then at the court of the Viceroy, saw with an evil eye the Person who had settled F. Ydalgo in that mission, and resolved to be avenged on him for the vexation caused by that disappointment. He joined himself to an officer, named Don Martin de Alaron, a person peculiarly protected by the Marquis of Balero: and they succeeded ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... the thump of tomtoms and the squeak of kaffir fiddles. There was one very drunk old Barotse, who sat close to me, and, accompanying himself with thumps on his tomtom, sang in one droning key a song about a man who kept snakes and lions inside him, and from whose chest the evil eye looked out. At least, so far as I could gather that was roughly the gist of the song; but as his tomtom was particularly large and most obnoxious I politely took it away from him, and Jack and I used it as a table for our gourds of kaffir ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... suppressed desperation. "I'm going to break our engagement this very night. I know it will nearly break my heart, and father will be very angry; but, Elmer, come nearer; let me tell you about it. I'm afraid of him. He has such an evil eye, and you remember the chimney—the day you came—I thought he would kill ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... them. Older people he seldom spoke to when out on his solitary rambles; but sometimes he would flash out such a glance from beneath his broad-brimmed hat and shaggy eyebrows as would make timid country-folk hasten on their way filled with vague thoughts and fears of the evil eye. Mr. John Murray has referred to this love of mystery on the part of his father's friend, and also to his moody and variable temperament; while Mr. G. T. Bettany has related how he enjoyed creating a sensation by riding about on a fine Arab horse ...
— George Borrow in East Anglia • William A. Dutt
... castle-gates. Very soon it became noised about that Siegfried and a company of strange knights, fair and tall, had come again to Burgundy and to the home of the Burgundian kings. But when it was certainly known that neither Gunther the king, nor Hagen of the evil eye, nor Dankwart his brother, had returned, the people felt many sad misgivings; for they greatly feared that some hard mischance had befallen their loved king. Then Gernot and the young Giselher, having heard of Siegfried's arrival, came out ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... nunneries, the Child is, I believe, always clothed, or the Mother partly infolds him in her own drapery. In the Umbrian pictures of the fifteenth century, the Infant often wears a coral necklace, then and now worn by children in that district, as a charm against the evil eye. In the Venetian pictures he has sometimes a coronal of pearls. In the carved and painted images set up in churches, he wears, like his mother, a rich crown over a curled wig, and is hung round with jewels; but such images must be considered as out ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... subverted before any great progress could be reasonably expected. These evils were most remarkable in the church itself and almost extinguished the light which Christ and his apostles had kindled. The church looked with an evil eye on many of the greatest improvements and agitations of the age, and attempted to suppress the spirit of insurrection which had arisen against the abuses and follies of past ages. Great ideas were ridiculed, and daring spirits were crushed. ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... the right soil it germinates and spreads, and then all manner of wicked souls get the infection. I believe that in the old days everybody guessed this instinctively, without being able to express it scientifically,—and that's why they ran to the Church for protection agaiast curses, and the evil eye, and things of that sort. See how some of the old Scottish curses cling even to this day! The only way to take the sting out of a curse is to get it transposed"—and she smiled, glancing meditatively ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... as, for example, Thebes or Megara, both of which are well-governed cities, will come to them as an enemy, Socrates, and their government will be against you, and all patriotic citizens will cast an evil eye upon you as a subverter of the laws, and you will confirm in the minds of the judges the justice of their own condemnation of you. For he who is a corrupter of the laws is more than likely to be a corrupter of the young ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... us and evil!" a woman cackled from the darkness of a hut. "Come in, children, he may have the Evil Eye." ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... I will tell you, Getzel?" he said to himself a few minutes later. "Let us forgive one another. Let us be friends. The Lord helped me. It was my luck to win so many nuts—may no evil eye harm them! Why should we not enjoy ourselves? Let's crack a few nuts. I should think they are not bad! Well, ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... nervous by nature and training, do not venture far from their homes and remain veiled to the eyes. But the children—dark, picturesque, half-naked boys and girls—are nearly free from fear if not from doubt. The tattoo marks on their chins keep them safe from the evil eye; so they do not run much risk from chance encounter with a European. They approach in a constantly shifting group, no detail of the unpacking is lost to them, they are delighted with the tent and amazed at the number of articles required to furnish it, they refuse biscuits and sugar, though Salam ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... having treated him unworthily, he adjured him much as he had adjured the unjust judge; and a fortnight afterward the official had gone to join the judge. It is hardly surprising if there were a vague feeling toward this really excellent man and scholar as toward one having the evil eye, whom people dread to meet and fear ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... strong point of the closing question, I looked with an evil eye of longing on this very easy way of disposing of such cases. A few sympathizing words, a few expressions of hope that I did not feel, a line written to turn the case into somebody else's hands,—any expedient, in fact, to hide ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... cushiony nose, like the last new strawberry. He wore a fur cap and shorts, and was of the velveteen race velveteeny. He sent word that he would 'look round.' He looked round, appeared in the doorway of the room, and slightly cocked up his evil eye at the goldfinch. Instantly a raging thirst beset the bird, and when it was appeased he still drew several unnecessary buckets of water, leaping about the perch and sharpening his bill with ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... woman. His feelings were different in regard to men; he sympathised at a very early age with the bold and the energetic; his favourites among the peasantry were ever those who excelled in athletic sports; and, though he never expressed the opinion, he did not look upon the poacher with the evil eye of his class. But a coarse and violent woman jarred even his young nerves; and this woman was his mother, his only parent, almost his only relation; for he had no near relative except a cousin whom he had never even seen, the ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... Europe. As the Sultan passed by, he was greeted by the acclamations of the military, but not of the people. The soldiers closed the procession; but their bearing is not nearly so haughty as that of the horses. The reason of this is simple enough—no one dares look upon the Arabians with an evil eye, but the soldiers are entirely subject to the caprice of their officers. I would certainly rather be the Sultan's horse ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... friends too. But there is a great difference between the eye of an enemy and the eye of a friend. The eye of an enemy seeks for faults with which to accuse and persecute; and when no real fault can be found the evil eye seeks to make faults by looking at our actions and motives in a false light, and if possible getting others to regard them in the same false light. But not so the eye of a friend. A wise father watches his children, not to find faults with which to accuse, but in ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... cried Saxon, 'it is ever thus! A gibbet draws witches as a magnet draws needles. All the hexerei of the country side will sit round one, like cats round a milk-pail. Beware of her! she hath the evil eye!' ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... its infamy and the reproach it casts upon the nation, and who most denounce it to each other, dare to set their heels upon, and crush it openly, in the sight of all men: then, I will believe that its influence is lessening, and men are returning to their manly senses. But while that Press has its evil eye in every house, and its black hand in every appointment in the state, from a president to a postman; while, with ribald slander for its only stock in trade, it is the standard literature of an enormous class, who must find their reading in a newspaper, or they ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... with the German, Must keep a sharp look-out. We have been called Over the Baltic, we have saved the empire From ruin—with our best blood have we seal'd 130 The liberty of faith, and gospel truth. But now already is the benefaction No longer felt, the load alone is felt.—— Ye look askance with evil eye upon us, As foreigners, intruders in the empire, 135 And would fain send us, with some paltry sum Of money, home again to our old forests. No, no! my Lord Duke! no!—it never was For Judas' pay, for chinking gold and silver, That we did leave our King by the Great Stone.[696:1] 140 ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... it up; on the cover was written an address which showed that my visitor must have walked a long distance in order to see me: "A. Crief."—"A Grief," I thought; "and so she is. I positively believe she has brought all this trouble upon me: she has the evil eye." I took out the manuscript and looked at it. It was in the form of a little volume, and clearly written; on the cover was the word "Armor" in German text, and, underneath, a pen-and-ink sketch of a helmet, ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... That which comes out of the man, that defiles the man. (21)For from within, out of the heart of men, come forth evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, (22)thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, wantonness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. (23)All these evil things come forth from within, and defile ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... line, and by mocking all faithful and free preaching of the word, and by bearing down the power of godliness, deriding and hating all the lovers and followers thereof, by being impatient of the discipline and censures of the church, but also looking upon the government of the church with an evil eye, and strongly inclining some of them, that church government be put in the hands of a few prelates, most of them that it may be wholly devolved upon the civil government? Fifth instance. There is still a party in ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... man created something of a commotion, and one or two started to their feet. The mulatto looked about him with an evil eye. ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... rough basins glazed green inside, heaped up in stacks and protected from one another by straw. There were hanks of rope, fans of hawks' feathers for blowing the fire, palm-leaf brooms and oil-jars big enough for thieves. There were horns on the walls to keep off the evil eye, prints of the Madonna, some with sprigs of camomile stuck into the frame, a cheapissimo coloured lithograph of S. Giuseppe with the Bambino, and in front of it on a little bracket, in half a tumbler of oil, floated ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... claes, and I've got a hole in my shoulder, and Andra took a bash on his tin that wad hae felled onybody that hadna a heid like a stot. But, sirr, the prisoner taks no scaith. Our boys are feared of him. There was an Irishman says to me that he had the evil eye, and ye can see for yerself that he's ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... and brazen vessels." "Nay," said Jesus, "you are beginning at the wrong end, you are concerned about the wrong things, for from within, out of the heart of men, evil thoughts proceed, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, covetings, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, railing, pride, foolishness: all these evil things proceed from within." Deep in the heart of man evil has its seat, and until that ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... was not content with this illumination of the facts. Something more lay behind it all. He sat down beside a prostrate column to penetrate the gloom. As he gazed before him into the dark heavens, the blast furnace winked like an evil eye, then silently belched flame and smoke, then relapsed into its seething self. The monster's breath illumined the dusky sky for a few moments. Blackness then fell over all for two minutes, and again the beast reappeared. Far away to the west came through the night a faint ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... as the roots and fibres of the ill-omened plant with a crackling noise were released from the soil, a wonderful being, which had been buried underneath it—a wicked fairy with an evil eye—uncoiled herself, and rose up straight and tall before him. She gave a malicious smile, and simpered out flattering words ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... evil eye. Cattle sickened in the fields, and when there was no proof that she had looked over the gate, the idea was suggested that she crossed them as a hare. One day a neighbour's dog started a hare in a meadow where some cows were grazing. This was observed ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... Valier; but I never knew what it was. People used to shake their heads and cross themselves when speaking of her, as they do now when speaking of Aunt Josephte, whom they call La Corriveau; but they tremble when she looks at them with her black, evil eye, as they call it. She is a terrible woman, is Aunt Josephte! but oh, Mademoiselle, she can tell you things past, present, and to come! If she rails at the world, it is because she knows every wicked thing that is done in it, and the world rails at her in return; but ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... been his feelings on whom the evil eye had glared,—against whom the spell had been pronounced; on whom misfortunes came thick and fast, by flood and field, at home and abroad, in business and in pleasure; whose cattle died, whose crops were blighted, and about whose bed and ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... practice with Eastern nations to keep a child (especially a son and one of unusual beauty) concealed until a certain age, for fear of the evil eye. See my "Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night," Vol. III. p. 234; Vol. IX. p. 67, ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... not allow, and he ended by confessing that he had been much concerned to find his people using the sign of the cross, but since he had learned the explanation his mind was satisfied. For Vigours had the Evil Eye, a common thing in a country of Europe called Italy, where men were often struck dead by that kind of devil, and it appeared the sign of the cross was a charm against ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... much reason to fear that the hedge-trees will, in the end, meet with a worse fate still. Practical farmers are beginning to look upon them with an evil eye—an eye sharp and severe with pecuniary speculation; that looks at an oak or elm with no artist's reverence; that darts a hard, dry, timber-estimating glance at the trunk and branches; that looks at the circumference of its cold shadow on the earth beneath, ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... directed to Heemskirk, who, with his back to him and with his hands still up to his face, was hissing curses through his teeth, and (she saw him in profile) glaring at her balefully with one black, evil eye. ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... churlishness &c. (discourtesy) 895. hardness of heart, heart of stone, obduracy; cruelty; cruelness &c. adj.; brutality, savagery; ferity[obs3], ferocity; barbarity, inhumanity, immanity|, truculence, ruffianism; evil eye, cloven foot; torture, vivisection. ill turn, bad turn; affront &c. (disrespect) 929; outrage, atrocity; ill usage; intolerance, persecution; tender mercies [ironical]; "unkindest cut of all" [Julius Caesar]. V. be malevolent ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... once wore gay clothes and well-dressed hair, I, who, though poor, could please a greedy fair, I, who could sit from mid-day o'er Falern, Now like short meals and slumbers by the burn: No shame I deem it to have had my sport; The shame had been in frolics not cut short. There at my farm I fear no evil eye; No pickthank blights my crops as he goes by; My honest neighbours laugh to see me wield A heavy rake, or dibble my own field. Were wishes wings, you'd join my slaves in town, And share the rations that they swallow down; While that sharp footboy ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... all good, according to their ideas, and on special occasions aid them in their enterprises. When a man has his hair cut, he is careful to burn it, or bury it secretly, lest, falling into the hands of one who has an evil eye, or is a witch, it should be used as a charm to afflict him with headache. They believe, too, that they will live after the death of the body, but do not know anything of the state of the Barimo ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... dust of the country off his feet?—From this direct attack he recoiled, casting up his hands as if against the evil eye. What next? But exclaim as he might, now that the idea had put on words, it was by no means so simple to fend it off as when it had been a mere vague humming at the back of his mind. It seized him; swept his brain bare of other thoughts. He began to look worn. And never more ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... Church, besides their rich parishes in the City." The author of this tract, once widely celebrated, was Thomas Long, proctor for the clergy of the diocese of Exeter. In another pamphlet, published at this time, the rural clergymen are said to have seen with an evil eye their London brethren refreshing themselves with sack after preaching. Several satirical allusions to the fable of the Town Mouse and the Country Mouse will be found in the pamphlets of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the eye of the cottager; that evil eye sparkled. He passed his hand over his brow. "I am thinking, sir," he said in a more civil tone than he had yet assumed, "that as you are so tired and the hour is so late, ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... wish—which, I believe, I expressed with intense hatred—was never forgotten either by my own men or by the Turks. Believing firmly in the evil eye, their superstitious fears ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... the prejudice hitherto manifested by Minard pere against old Phellion was transformed into an unequivocal disposition towards friendly cordiality; there is nothing that binds and soothes like the feeling of a checkmate shared in common. Judged without the evil eye of paternal rivalry, Phellion became to Minard a Roman of incorruptible integrity and a man whose little treatises had been adopted by the University,—in other words, a man of sound and ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... of them to be obstinate in any opinion, that the other had previously asserted the contrary. If the one proposed any amusement, the other constantly objected to it: they never loved or hated, commended or abused, the same person. And for this reason, as the captain looked with an evil eye on the little foundling, his wife began now to caress it almost equally with her ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... duties of distributing hay and corn, and keeping an account thereof, anything but disagreeable, particularly after I had acquired the good-will of the old ostler, who at first looked upon me with rather an evil eye, considering me somewhat in the light of one who had usurped an office which belonged to himself by the right of succession; but there was little gall in the old fellow, and by speaking kindly to him, never giving myself any airs of assumption, but, above all, by frequently reading the newspapers ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... assigns the cause of bewitchment to the fact that corporeal matter has a natural tendency to obey spiritual substance rather than natural contrary agents. Therefore when the soul is of strong imagination, it can change corporeal matter. This he says is the cause of the "evil eye." ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... the rules. Monty agreed he was in the wrong. However, when it came to moving his ball back to its former lie in the hazard there was more blooming trouble. Monty placed the ball to suit him, and then he transfixed me with an evil eye. ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... not done anything—that's why I beat him—he's incorrigibly idle. He and his sister spend all their time amid the trees yonder conversing with the bad spirits. They learned that trick from Guska, with the evil eye. She has bewitched them. She was shot to death with arrows in the market-place last year, and my only regret is that she wasn't put out of the way ten years sooner. Ah! there's that wicked girl Yarakna—she's been hiding from me all the day. I must punish her, too!" ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... darkness beyond. He stood listening until the purr of a great motor rose and died on the snow-muffled air. "He's gone!" he said, and turned back into the room. He spread his arms out and dropped them to his sides. "Swastika!" he said. "And God keep us from the evil eye!" ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... among the farmers in that part of the country. The evil eye is as common and as much dreaded as in Italy, and people who are suspected of that misfortune are frequently murdered by unknown hands to rid the community of a common ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... Populism take it for granted that 'twas on these curious disks that our "infant industry" cut its teeth. The "In God We Trust" inscription may be regarded as a barbaric hoodoo to prevent infantile bellyache or the evil eye, but the dollar mark will be entirely unintelligible to a people so many thousand years removed from the savage superstition of metallic money. Of course woman will have ruled the world so long that "tyrant man" will be regarded as a sun myth, and the Goddess of Liberty on our coins be ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... accompanied with some religious ceremonies, and with a feast to which kinsfolk were invited. Thus named he was enrolled in some family or state register. The next care was to protect him from the malignant influence of the evil eye by hanging round his neck a gilded bulla, a round plate of metal. (The bulla was of leather if he was not of gentle birth.) This he wore till he assumed the dress of manhood. Then he laid it aside, possibly to assume it once more, if he attained the crowning honor to which a Roman could aspire, ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... me to-night, complaining he's being watched. He claims the —— has got the evil eye. Says he can see you through a two-inch bulkhead, and the like. The Chink's laying in his bunk, turned the other way. "Why don't you go aboard of him," says I. The Dutcher says nothing, but goes ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... wife and myself from pretty glass vases with narrow necks as a sign of welcome. The incense of the priests was supposed to avert the "evil-eye" from the gipsy van and our party. I felt much obliged for the good intention, but I did not mind the "evil eye" so much as the water-spouts. In my experience of travelling I never met with such kind and courteous people as the inhabitants of Cyprus. The Dali population had already blocked the narrow streets from curiosity at our arrival, and soon understanding the cause of our dilemma, they mounted the housetops ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... with great humility, making horns with his fingers behind his back to ward off the evil eye, and edging away in the direction of the ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... considered an omen of death. In Northamptonshire he is said to tap three times at the window of a dying person's room. In the Haute Marne district of France he is also thought a bird of ill omen, and is called Beznet—meaning "the evil eye." ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... happening to meet, Zebah screamed and fell into a swoon. The young heir was instantly hurried away, but not before the old hag had cast a withering glance on the boy's beautiful face; every one was now fully convinced that he had been struck by the "evil eye," which was but too clearly proved by the event, for from that day he sickened and pined away till reduced to ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... converts made by the early Christians, the <gr 'Efesia grammata>, or little scrolls upon which magic sentences were written, formed an extensive trade up to the fourth century. These "writings" were used for divination, as a protection against the "evil eye," and generally as charms against all evil. They were carried about the person, so that probably thousands of them were thrown into the flames by St. Paul's hearers when his glowing words convinced them ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... condition made upon the people of the gasse was wonderful. Those who had danced with her that evening on the wedding now first recalled her excited state. Her wild actions were now first remembered by many. It must have been an "evil eye," they concluded—a jealous, evil eye, to which her beauty was hateful. This alone could have possessed her with a demon of unrest. She was driven by this evil power into the dark night, a sport of these malicious potencies which pursue men step ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... bottle, safe under lock and key; and as for the testimonial, those who read it said that it was not worth the paper it was written on. Most probably every one of these poor follows had either employed the Obeah-man themselves to avert thieves or evil eye from a particularly fine fruit-tree, by hanging up thereon a somewhat similar bottle—such as may be seen, and more than one of them, in any long day's march. It was said again, that if asked by an Obeah-man to swear to his good character, they could not well refuse, under penalty of finding ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... considering the number of trumps that he had held, and that he had turned up an honour in becoming solicitor-general. He was not now in a happy condition. He was living alone in his fine house in Eaton Square; he was out of office; he was looked on with an evil eye by his former friends, in that he had endeavoured to stick to office too long; he was deeply in debt, and his once golden hopes with reference to Mr. Bertram were becoming fainter and fainter every day. Nor was this all. Not only ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... industry, which the cottagers said failed because Babb was engaged in it; and years after his granddaughter, Ursula Babb, was pointed out as the last of the race with the curse on it, and, as she was reported to possess the evil eye, became a great object of fear ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... with many-colored glass beads; ribands are tied in his mane; and bunches of wild flowers nod from his foretop. The stranger may not praise the Circassian's wife or child for fear of shedding over them the malign influence of the evil eye, or for other reasons less fanciful; but to the praises of his steed the warrior's ear is ever open. The faithful animal is his companion on all his excursions; he drinks with him the waters which flow through the plains of the enemy; he looks down ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... frequently polluted the judicial ermine." The Montreal Witness said: "Such a gigantic wrong cannot exist on the same continent with us without affecting the people of Canada in one way or another. Slaveholders long looked at Canada with evil eye. If the slavers get Anderson back they will execute him before the slaves. It would be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... a yellow and evil eye. Wayaka was a good lad—he had proved it more than once—but he was a representative of the conquering and hated race. Heraka had said that his fate, the most terrible that could be devised, must come some day, but Wayaka was not to know the hour of its coming; ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... A reference to the superstition of the "evil eye," still rife among the peasants in Russia. Though it has died out among the educated classes, yet the phrase, "not to cast an evil eye," is still made use ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... relating my story, the Governor enquired of what nation were the Pirates? I answered, Spaniards. He asked how I could affirm that, if I could not speak Spanish. My reply was, "I can tell a Spaniard as far as I can see his evil eye." He bit his lip, shrugged his shoulders, and concluded by observing, "Spaniards have to ...
— Narrative of the shipwreck of the brig Betsey, of Wiscasset, Maine, and murder of five of her crew, by pirates, • Daniel Collins
... Revolution takes is a man to be suspected. There are whole castes already tried and condemned. There are callings which carry their doom with them. There are relations of blood which the law regards with an evil eye. Republicans of France!" yelled the renegade Girondist, the old enemy of the Mountain,—"Republicans of France! the Brissotines led you by gentle means to slavery. The Mountain leads you by strong measures to freedom. Oh! who can count the evils which a false compassion may produce?" When the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... jugglery, by music and song. In no part of the East are they more numerous than in Turkey, especially in Constantinople, where the females frequently enter the harems of the great, pretending to cure children of 'the evil eye,' and to interpret the dreams of the women. They are not unfrequently seen in the coffee-houses, exhibiting their figures in lascivious dances to the tune of various instruments; yet these females are by no means unchaste, however their manners and appearance may denote the ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... afternoon." But her tone was neither solicitous nor sincere, and she hid her hands in such a way that she might have been making with her fingers the little horns that are supposed to be a protection against the evil eye. ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... friendly, but remembered in time that if the child fell ill afterwards I should be credited with the Evil Eye, and that is a horrible possession. 'Sit thou still, Thumbling,' I said, as it made to get up and run away. 'Where is thy slate, and why has the teacher let such an evil character loose on the streets when there are no police to protect us weaklings? In which ward dost thou ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... would have believed had he been told that a shower of rain had fallen, or that the night frost had killed the buds upon his fruit trees. If his cattle died, he found the cause in the malice of Satan or the evil eye of a witch; and if two or more witnesses could have been found to swear that they had heard an old woman curse him, she would have been burnt for a sorceress. The man of science, on the other hand, knows nothing of witches and sorcerers; when he can find a natural cause he refuses ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... Dirk. "And don't look at me like that" (for he feared the evil eye), "or I'll brain you with ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... 'brasses' worn by the modern cart-horse are a direct survival of the amulets which bedecked the horses of the time of Julius Caesar. They are worn on the farthingale as charms against the Evil Eye."—Daily Paper. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... diploma signed by the Shaykh El Islam of Mecca, and the passport already mentioned of Cardinal Wiseman. To his star-sapphire he added some little canvas bags containing horse chestnuts which he carried about "against the Evil Eye, and as a charm to ward off sickness." [169] Beside Burton and Speke, the party consisted of two Goa boys, two negro gun-carriers, Sudy Bombay, and ten Zanzibar mercenaries. Dr. Steinhauser, who had hoped to join them, was restrained ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... pretensions ascribed to me, there is another: of all possible positions that of master of a school, or leader of a sect, or chief of a party, appears to me to be the most undesirable; in fact, the average British matron cannot look upon followers with a more evil eye than I do. Such acquaintance with the history of thought as I possess, has taught me to regard schools, parties, and sects, as arrangements, the usual effect of which is to perpetuate all that is worst and feeblest in the master's, leader's, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... cannon are taken than are necessary for fighting." I seldom have heard her speak well of any of her absent friends without letting slip something to their prejudice. What she did not see with an evil eye she looked upon with one of ridicule, and her friend Margency was not excepted. What I found most insupportable in her was the perpetual constraint proceeding from her little messages, presents and billets, to ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... diamonds, were readily despoiled of their treasure, but the Great Carbuncle burned on, two thousand feet above them, at the head of the awful chasm of Oakes Gulf, and baffled seekers likened it to the glare of an evil eye. ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... just in time, for t'other night I laid two straws across at Margery's door, And afterwards I fear'd that she might do me A mischief for't. There was the Miller's boy Who set his dog at that black cat of hers, I met him upon crutches, and he told me 'Twas all her evil eye. ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... with the dog!' answered another hoarsely, and I saw that it was the same officer to whom I had been given as a slave. 'It is that Englishman, and he it is who brought us ill luck. Cast the Jonah overboard and let him try his evil eye upon ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... too well," said Baroudi calmly, "When she is gone, I shall burn the alum upon the coals and give it to be eaten by a dog that is black. That girl has the evil eye." ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... 'evil eye' on the boat, anyway," said Jim; "for if we don't finish it, how can we ever give you a ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... the family room with the basket of fish on his arm, the little crusty old man fixed the glance of his evil eye upon him. ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... movement, he flung a heavy bundle on the floor by the door. As he turned to ascend again he met her eyes, and backing from her he made with two of his fingers the ancient sign which southern people still use to ward off the evil eye. Then, half shamefacedly, half recklessly, he blundered upstairs again. A moment, and he came stumbling down; but this time he was careful to keep the great bundle he bore between himself and her eyes, until he ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... Style; accordingly they collect it and use it for a variety of purposes. Mixed with tar and sprinkled on the door-posts it prevents snakes and scorpions from entering the house: sprinkled on heaps of threshed corn it protects them from the evil eye: mixed with an egg, henna, and seeds of cress it is an invaluable medicine for sick cows: poured over a plate, on which a passage of the Koran has been written, it strengthens the memory of schoolboys who drink it; and if you mix it with cowdung ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer |
