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More "Charm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a pleasure to know of their life-long exemption from all such restraints. That accounted in great measure for their beautiful freedom of motion, for that wondrous grace and charm. Did you ever think what a complexity of muscles, bones, joints, tendons and other arrangements, enter into the formation of the knees, hoofs, legs of a horse; what a piece of mechanism the ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... with several other mysterious ingredients, the nature of which she did not disclose. Following instructions given her, Aunt Jane buried the bottle in Carteret's back yard, one night during the full moon, as a good-luck charm to ward off evil from the little grandson of her dear mistress, so long since ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... thought, from the manner in which the subject was treated by the family, that they felt no apprehensions. The gaiety of Anne, too, had not failed of its design. It was, indeed, scarcely possible to be in the presence of this sweet girl without feeling the charm which, like the sun, radiated light and happiness about her. It was the overflow of an innocent and happy heart, and as natural to her as light to the sun, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... of armies; but that I was, on the contrary, to bear in remembrance the adage about "brevity" being the "soul of wit," and, when I had nothing to write, to write nothing. By so doing, it was added, I should please the editor and charm the public, one of whose minor griefs is, as regards newspapers, that it is brought into a state of disgust with every event of this life long before it has happened, and thoroughly nauseated with it long after it is past,—to say ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... I cannot. There will be no one near us when I do tell you, and except as a souvenir of that very fine old man, you need not keep them, because my love is a still greater and surer charm to bring you the great ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... hesitated as to whether he should make her plain or pretty. If she were ugly she would have more character, would arouse more thought and emotion, would contain more philosophy. If pretty, she would be more seductive, would diffuse more charm, and would please better. ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... GROUND (fig. 687).—The peculiar charm of this most unpretending pattern is chiefly due to the variety of material and colour introduced into it. The netted ground is made of dark brown Cordonnet 6 fils D.M.C No. 25, worked over, in the ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont
... the deep. The Gods of the sea vouchsafed me, on being received by them, kindred honours, and they entreated Oceanus and Tethys to take away from me whatever mortality I bore. By them was I purified; and a charm being repeated over me nine times, that washes away {all} guilt, I was commanded to put my breast ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... to great advantage from the outside: its chief charm is undoubtedly the interior. It stands in a hollow, on what is probably the lowest ground in the city. The best view of the cathedral is obtained from the low ground to the eastward near the river, and close to Pull's Ferry; here the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Norwich - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. H. B. Quennell
... would I ask thee food? When did I thirst, or drink thy bullocks blood? Can I be flatter'd with thy cringing bows, Thy solemn chatterings and fantastic vows? Are my eyes charm'd thy vestments to behold, Glaring in gems, and gay ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... gift to our prince; wherefore the architectonic art is here in its essential perfection, and hence are derived all the rules of that art which are known and practised in the world." The angel further said, "You may possibly conceive that such objects charm our eyes, and infatuate us by their grandeur, so that we consider them as constituting the joys of our heaven: this however is not the case; for our affections not being set on such things, they are only contributory to the joys of our hearts; and therefore, so far as we contemplate ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... and there was a growing vivacity and sparkle to him. "That is my quality—a power to charm, a power to achieve, a power to triumph. Well, I choose now to win you again for myself. It is my whim. To rekindle a love which one has lost is a test of any man's power, n'est-ce pas? You are fond of me. I see it. Am I not right, ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... Haldin twined the fingers of both her hands together in demonstration, then separated them slowly, looking straight into my face. "That's what poor mother found to torment herself and me with, for all the years to come," added the strange girl. At that moment her indefinable charm was revealed to me in the conjunction of passion and stoicism. I imagined what her life was likely to be by the side of Mrs. Haldin's terrible immobility, inhabited by that fixed idea. But my concern was reduced to silence by my ignorance of her modes of feeling. Difference of ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... us into our shanty when the evening meal was ready. Our host wished to slaughter a lamb, but we deferred that till the morrow, and we ate what we had brought with us. It was, barring the smoke, a delightful experience, and its charm never diminished. That hour spent before turning in, after supper, when the tobacco tins circulate, and the shepherds crowd in from the neighbouring huts, made an impression which it will ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... resort is not half so well known as it deserves to be. For the lover of the beautiful, for the man with an artistic eye, it possesses a charm which words would fail to describe. The little bay is a favourite resort for artists; they, at least, know how to appreciate its beauties. It would be well for any who may desire to visit this ...
— Christie, the King's Servant • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... the charm of the evening—it had been so wonderful to him! But now his vision seemed to have grown keener, to be piercing deeper. His memory of each moment was marvellously clear. How vivid still was the picture of Mrs. ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... me to him with great ardour, and said, Hide your dear face in my bosom, my beloved Pamela! your innocent freedoms charm me!—But then ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... off-drive; but you shouldn't have come in without knocking. Eh? Is that Harry Brooks?" Her face grew grave for a moment before she turned upon Mr. Rogers that smile which, if usually latent and at the best not entirely feminine, was her least dubitable charm. "Now, upon my word. Jack, you have more thoughtfulness than ever I gave ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... into their places. The proconsular box has been more or less reconstructed, and the great converging passages of approach to it are still majestically distinct; so that, as I sat there in the moon-charm stillness, leaning my elbows on the battered parapet of the ring, it was not impossible to listen to the murmurs and shudders, the thick voice of the circus, that died away fifteen hundred ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... Uncivilized men, in every zone, make great use of these gramina with high stalks. The Greeks, with truth, said that reeds had contributed to subjugate nations by furnishing arrows, to soften men's manners by the charm of music, and to unfold their understanding by affording the first instruments for tracing letters. These different uses of reeds mark in some sort three different periods in the life of nations. We must admit that the tribes of the Orinoco ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... that her request was granted. But, at length, the answer to her prayer was complete and marvelous. A strange light came over the sacred page. A fascination held her to her Bible. She discovered a depth, a meaning, a curiosity, a charm, which were all new and most wonderful. Sometimes, when she had finished reading her Bible for the night, and had closed the book and had moved towards her bed, she would go back again and enjoy the luxury of a ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... idealistic method of portraiture, the verbalism and factitiousness of much of their wit, and their conventionality of plot. Above all things, the man who drew so many fancifully delightful types of womanhood must have been intensely appreciative of the charm of sex; and it is on that side that we are to look for his first contacts with the deeper forces of life. What marks off the Shakspere of thirty-five, in fine, from all his rivals, is just his peculiarly true and new[148] expression of the living grace of ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... are threaded, the suburbs of the city are passed, the open country is gained; and now along the bank of the Arno rushes the monster, by the margin of that pure stream to whose enchanting vale the soft twilight lends a more delicious charm. ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... a basket and tied it around the leading mule's neck. Immediately the dingue, alarmed, began dingling like a cow-bell. It acted like a charm on the other mules, and they gravely filed off after their leader, following the bell. Dorothy and I, hand in hand, brought ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... lady. The coolness, audacity lofty intelligence, and rough and imperious character of the ex-socius have overawed this proud woman, and inspired her with a sincere admiration. Even his filthy habits and often brutal repartees have their charm for her, and she now prefers them to the exquisite politeness and perfumed elegance of the ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... unforgivable inertia, and the egotism that enveloped him like an atmosphere, there was a charm to the man that put my impatience to sleep. I tried to think that this indifference and sunny idleness were perhaps the natural reaction of that larger life of emotion and activity from which he had just emerged. I reflected a great deal on that life, and, though I lamented ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... solitary man. You desired to make friends for me, and had a sufficiently good opinion of my work to think that the spreading of it abroad would gain friends for me. Dear friend, by that very means you have at this moment lifted me up as by a charm. It is not to complain, but merely to convince you of the force of that impression, when I tell you that just now, in the very week when you gave my "Tannhauser" at Weimar, our manager insulted me in so gross a manner that for several days I was discussing ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... hedgehogs and horse-chestnuts, they have prickles all over them, and cannot be handled. On the other hand, a gentle, pliable, condescending disposition, which is ready to give way to others, is a living charm. It is like the honeycomb which attracts every sort of fly; it becomes everybody's master, because it makes itself everybody's servant; being all things to all men, ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... are exquisite in their refinement, and yet robust in their appreciation of some of the rougher phases of woodcraft. "This is a book full of delight. An additional charm lies in Mr. Bull's faithful and graphic illustrations, which in fashion all their own tell the story of the wild life, illuminating and supplementing the pen pictures of ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... lend to the ancient Roman epitaphs their peculiar interest and charm. They give us a glimpse into the every-day life of the people which a Cicero, or a Virgil, or even a Horace cannot offer us. They must have exerted an influence, too, on Roman character, which we with our changed conditions can scarcely appreciate. We ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... sang his warsong, and announced the particular war-charm or 'medicine' of his clan, according to the custom. The youths were vying with one another in brave tales of what they would do on the morrow. The voice of Red Horn was loud among the boasters, for he was known to be a vain youth, although truly not without reputation. Little Eagle, who was also ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... dames of the city take such heed of their inferiors! This will charm my cousin, for she has great desires to be noted by ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... humor of the Maverick Deep-Sea Hotel, its rag-time, its boarders from the yacht, the charm of the row of tents with the girls in them sleeping their healthful sleep out in the midst of the river wind, the masts, the chimneys, stars, and city lights, all served to deepen the impression of the lack of normal pleasure in most ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... was amused but not impressed. What did impress her about Barbran was a certain gay yet restful charm; the sort of difficult thing that our indomitable sculptress loves to catch and fix in her wonderful little bronzes. ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... same conventional monotone, "he begged me to take the chain and locket to a girl whom he said I would find either in London or in New York. He gave me the address of her banker. He said: 'Take it off my neck before you bury me; tell her I wore it ever since she gave it to me. That it has been a charm and loadstone to me. That when the locket rose and fell against my breast, it was as if her heart were pressing against mine and answering the beating and throbbing of ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... she stood talking—she had refused the chair. He was more than favorably impressed. But the deciding element was not Mildred's excellent figure or her charm of manner or her sweet and lovely face. It was superstition. Just at that time Crossley had been abruptly deserted by Estelle Howard; instead of going on with the rehearsals of "The Full Moon," in which ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... young ladies be warned against the dangerous encouragement given them by Society to confide in their want of beauty). A human being in this aged nation of ours is a very wonderful whole, the slow creation of long interchanging influences: and charm is a result of two such wholes, the one loving ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... setting of pleasure and elegance to embellish her—these disadvantages seemed as nothing to Amherst against the warmth of personality in which she moved. And besides, she would never be drawn to the kind of man who needed fine clothes and luxury to point him to the charm of sex. She was always finished and graceful in appearance, with the pretty woman's art of wearing her few plain dresses as if they were many and varied; yet no one could think of her as attaching much importance to the upholstery of life.... No, the man who won her ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... command over a child whom she loved at the bottom of her heart with a kind of wild passion, though she would menace and strike him, and who often precipitated these paroxysms by denying his mother that duty and affection which were, after all, the great charm ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... helpful agencies are at work. Not only the systematic moulding of the child's mind by art instruction, and of the citizen's mind by beautiful public buildings, but a thousand features of the day aid in bringing charm and melody ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... remark put a different aspect on everything and Fifth Avenue didn't hold quite the same charm for me that it had. Just the same," she added, brightly, "I like New York mighty well. The only thing I didn't like about it was that it didn't hold my girls, and I did miss ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... many a hearty laugh from the lady testified to her appreciation of Morris' naive conversation. The hour passed pleasantly for Morris, too, since the lady's unaffected simplicity set him entirely at his ease. To be sure, she was neither young nor handsome, but she had all the charm that self-reliance and ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... have declared him the most perfect as the most powerful of men were it not for one little spot on the bright sun of his fame. They did not like his domestic habits. The daughter who stood by his side on the watch tower was a young girl of charm, a fair, frail maiden, a slender lily under the towering shadow of her dark father. The citizens did not, perhaps, understand his instincts of paternity; and, indeed, if they understood them they would not have given them the sanction of their ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... fellow swam on his back, keeping his body up by a gentle, secret paddling motion with his hands, while with his feet he lashed the water into foam, like some river stern-wheeler. If he could cry: "Hoo! hoo! hoo!" in hoarse falsetto to mimic the whistle, it was an added charm. ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... before him, but he made no use of it. He often glanced around with a kind of half-triumphant smile at the restless crowd, whose feet could scarcely be restrained from bounding to the magic measure. It was the horn of Oberon realized. The composition of the music displayed great talent, but its charm consisted more in the exquisite combination of the different instruments, and the perfect, the wonderful exactness with which each performed its part—a piece of art of the most elaborate and ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... "is also a trait common with all savages, to regard all articles which have a luster, as a charm. The Druids, in ancient times, used balls of crystal as part of their superstitious worship, and even in the present day, in our own civilized country, we have plenty of people who have an idea that hypnotism ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... and both were sad; Like a queen she leaned on her full white arm, With that regal indolent air she had; So confident of her charm! ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... posted. He spoke up with feeling, and said it was a blot on the county that a man whose marvelous exploits had filled the world with their fame and their ingenuity, and whose histories of them had won every reader's heart by the brilliancy and charm of their literary setting, should be visited under the Stars and Stripes by an outrage like this. He apologized in the name of the whole nation, and made Holmes a most handsome bow, and told Constable Harris to see him to his quarters, and hold himself personally responsible ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... noble science. It is the charm of my heart; it is enchantment to my inmost soul. Ah, sir, I have been nearly ruined by it many times! I carried it too far, you know. Not content with one instrument, I procured almost all kinds; and, sir, there is scarcely an instrument but I am perfectly at home ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... should claim the power to work this miracle—to charm the dead back through the Gates of Death as Orpheus charmed Eurydice? Yet Stella did this thing—but how? He turned to the volume and page of her diary which dealt with the drawing down of Gudrun. Yes, here she spoke of continual efforts and of "that ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... only of late that Lady Mary had determined to lay away in lavender the luxury of sorrow. When a woman is thirty ambition looms as an excellent substitute for romance, and there had been unexpected opportunities to charm a wealthy peer during the past five weeks. She hated poetry and thought this poet a horror, but he was an excellent weapon in the siege of Hunsdon Towers. She was not jealous of Anne, for she divined that Hunsdon's suit, if suit it were, was hopeless, and believed that her new friend's ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... and chilling mist. Let anyone try the experiment with a poem like Gray's "Elegy," or Goldsmith's "Traveller" or "Deserted Village," of substituting other words for those the poet has chosen, and he will readily perceive how much of the charm of the lines depends upon their ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... self-sacrifice of Ion; and who does not feel that but for him, these great plays might never have obtained their hold upon the stage, or ranked among those masterpieces which this age will leave to posterity? And what charm and what grace, not their own, he has given to the lesser works of an inferior writer, it is ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... potent charm Binding her on that strong right arm; 'T was softer than the cold gray stone, 'T was sweeter thus ...
— Daisy Dare, and Baby Power - Poems • Rosa Vertner Jeffrey
... deity. Many of the real memoirs of the day give pleasant examples of the quiet and amiable lives of the less ambitious clergy. There is the charming Gilbert White (1720-1793) placidly studying the ways of tortoises, and unconsciously composing a book which breathes an undying charm from its atmosphere of peaceful repose; William Gilpin (1724-1804) founding and endowing parish schools, teaching the catechism, and describing his vacation tours in narratives which helped to spread a love of natural scenery; and Thomas Gisborne (1758-1846), ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... have murmured, "Talk on forever." And in this gift lay one main secret of the man's strange influence over all who came familiarly into his intercourse; so that if Darrell had ever bestowed confidential intimacy on any one not by some antagonistic idiosyncrasy steeled against its charm, and that intimacy had been withdrawn, a void never to be refilled must have been left in ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... apparently at will, and might, many thought, have won a fellowship with little effort; but his passion was for change. Whatever bore upon the rogueries of letters, the frauds of literature, had an irresistible charm for him; and he once declared that he would almost rather have been Ireland than Shakespeare; and then it was his delight to write Greek versions of a poem that might attach the mark of plagiarism to Tennyson, ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... being collected in our provinces before the peasantry have forgotten them altogether: the artlessness of some of the expressions, the boldness of the imagery, the awkwardness and somewhat abrupt character of some of the passages, communicate to both that wild charm which we miss in the most perfect ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... trembling mountains leap; "Loud roar the ground; and from the tombs the ghosts "Affrighted walk. Thee, Luna, too I draw "From heaven, by all the threatening clash of brass "Deterr'd not: pale the brighter car becomes, "My spells once utterr'd: by my poisons charm'd, "Pallid Aurora seems. You, plants! for me, "Blunted the ardor of the flaming bulls; "Press'd with the yoke, their necks impatient bent, "And dragg'd the crooked plough. You bade the race "Snake-born, upon themselves their warring rage "To turn. In sleep ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... frequently in the south of Ireland folk. His mouth was straight, the upper lip a bit fuller than the under one, as is the case when intellect predominates, and his hair was of a singularly dull and wavy black. But set these and many more things down, and the charm of him has not been written at all, for the words give no hint of his bearing, his impertinent and charming familiarity, the surety of touch, the right word, ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... population are just on or a little below the line of bare subsistence; that the great majority of town workers have hopelessly monotonous work, stuffy housing, poor air, and little leisure. But there it is—the charm of the lighted-up unknown, of company, and the streets at night! The countryman goes to the town in search of adventure. Honestly—does he really find it? He thinks he is going to improve his prospects and his mind. His prospects seldom brighten. He sharpens his mind, only ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... chiefly of that cunning, cruel, carnivorous animal, man, had confined all the day to her lurking-place, sports wantonly o'er the lawns; now on some hollow tree the owl, shrill chorister of the night, hoots forth notes which might charm the ears of some modern connoisseurs in music; now, in the imagination of the half-drunk clown, as he staggers through the churchyard, or rather charnelyard, to his home, fear paints the bloody hobgoblin; now thieves and ruffians ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... forests, glacial valleys, lakes and canyons, for I am confident that in one or two decades from now its circle of admirers and regular visitors will include people from all over the civilized world, all of whom will declare that it is incomparable as a lake resort, and that its infinite variety of charm, delight and healthful allurement ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... and ill-tongued servants; done unto them somtimes by their men, but generally by the foolish and stifnecked Maids. These can make their Master totally forget his Base Viol and singing of musick, and their Mistriss the playing upon the Virginals. It was a much less trouble for Arion and Orfeus to charm all the senceless creatures both of Sea and Land in those daies; then it is now for house-keepers to bring their servants to a ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... Bench he has been known as a citizen of wealth, of retired habits, but of influence in public affairs, and retaining to the full the conversational gifts which have made him the life and charm of social and professional circles. Indeed it may be said that either at the Bar, in well remembered efforts of marked brilliancy as an advocate, or on the Bench, occasionally illuminating the soberness of judicial proceedings, or in assemblies on prominent public occasions ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... The road from Leatherhead hence is a constant succession of hill and dale, richly clothed with wood, interspersed with elegant villas in all tastes—from the pillared and plastered mansion, to the borrowed charm of the cottage orne. The whole of this district is called the Vale of Norbury, from the romantic domain of that name, which extends over a great portion of the hills on the right of the road. Shortly before you reach Box Hill, stands Mickleham, a little village with an ivy-mantled ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 337, October 25, 1828. • Various
... find that many of these small phalli were worn for personal decoration; and here we come to a still lower decadence in sex worship,—the period of superstition. A phallus was worn as a charm, somewhat as a fetish to ward off disease. Such charms were supposed to bring good luck and prosperity to the owner and they were used particularly as a charm against barrenness in women. A sign which could be made by the hand, the phallic hand, was used as a protection against the evil eye. ...
— The Sex Worship and Symbolism of Primitive Races - An Interpretation • Sanger Brown, II
... modest side line to Liskane and St. Lowe. Here there was every kind of excitement for Jeremy. Anyone who has any kind of passion for observation must have discovered long ago that a side line has ever so much more charm and appeal about it than a main line. A main line is scornful of the station in whose heart it consents for a moment to linger, its eyes are staring forward towards the vast cities who are impatiently awaiting it; but a side line has its very home here. ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... these signs of perfect manner, these series of noble sentiments that the "noble" never get off, are forcibly, clearly, and persuasively handed out—eloquently, even beautifully expressed, and with such personal charm, magnetism, and strength, that their profound messages speed right through the minds and hearts, without as much as spattering the walls, and land right square in the middle of the listener's vanity. For all this is ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... and glory in their shame; that his nature would save him from such a deed, though his principles might not.' I told him, moreover, 'that I did not despair of his looking upon Christianity with a favorable judgment in good time. He had been willing to hear; and there was that secret charm in the truths and doctrines of Christ's religion, and especially in his character, that, however rudely set forth, the mind could scarcely resist it; against its will, it would, oftentimes, find itself subdued and changed. The seeds I have now dropt upon your hearts, I trust, will some day spring ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... elysium. Voyagers have traversed the deep in all directions, and found no Hesiod's islands of the blessed. The Mohammedan's celestial debauchery and the Indian's eternal hunting-ground for vast multitudes have no charm. But here rolls in the Bible heaven. No more sea—that is, no wide separation. No more night—that is, no insomnia. No more tears—that is, no heart-break. No more pain—that is, dismissal of lancet and bitter draught and miasma, ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... Camelot] Yet, though Sir Launcelot thus abided at the court of the King, he ever loved the open world and a life of adventure above all things else. For he had lived so long in the Lake that these things of the sturdy life of out-of-doors never lost their charm for him. So, though he found, for a while, great joy in being at the court of the King (for there were many jousts held in his honor, and, whithersoever he rode forth, men would say to one another: "Yonder goeth that great knight, Sir Launcelot, who is the greatest knight in the world"), yet he ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... fear, Gorgeous as if the fairest blooms Of earth had glorified their plumes. Look where the sheltering covert shows The trooping deer, both bucks and does, That occupy in countless herds This mountain populous with birds. Most lovely to my mind appears This place which every charm endears: Fair as the road where tread the Blest; Here holy hermits take their rest. Then let the army onward press And duly search each green recess For the two lion-lords, till we Rama once ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... charm of his manners, by his urbanity, by his brilliant and thought-provoking conversation, the Oriental repaid his host a hundred times over. To most of his fellow-guests he played the part of teacher, while seeming to act that of disciple; but to none was his manner so deferential and his air ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... argument, he is too frank to conceal the least or greatest of his own shortcomings. Delight and strength of a friendship like that between Steele and Addison are to be found, as many find them, in the charm and use of a compact where characters differ so much that one lays open as it were a fresh world to the other, and each draws from the other aid of forces which the friendship makes his own. But the deep foundations of this friendship were laid ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... on mankind. We have quoted above from a book, the reliability of which will not be called in question, to show that the design of secrecy, on the part of Masons, is to take advantage of "a weakness in human nature," and to invest with a charm things which, if generally known, "would sink into disregard." So, also, "the aid of the mysterious" is resorted to by Odd-fellows to render their "meetings attractive," and to "stimulate applications for membership." (Proceedings of Grand Lodge, 1859, App., p. 10.) It will scarcely be disputed ...
— Secret Societies • David MacDill, Jonathan Blanchard, and Edward Beecher
... Doolan with an eloquence would charm ye When he talks of shooting landlords and of peaceful themes like that: But I'd like to undesave him on the subject of the Army— Sure the things he says about us are the idlest kind of chat! We are all (says he) seditious, and the most of us is Fenians: (And it's true I am a ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... separable from its political quality; for I should not hope to interest any one else in what I had myself often found very tiresome. I suspect, indeed, that political satire and invective are not relished best in free countries. No danger attends their exercise; there is none of the charm of secrecy or the pleasure of transgression in their production; there is no special poignancy to free administrations in any one of ten thousand assaults upon them; the poets leave this sort of ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... of 'Niram's long-dead father came to life and tried to push his way into the story, a delightful, gentle, upright man, with charm and a sense of humor, such as none of the rest of my stark characters possessed. I felt that he was necessary to explain the fierceness of the sisters' rivalry for him. I planned one or two ways to get him in, in ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... sojourn of the descendants of Jacob in Egypt, of the Exodus, of the conquest of Canaan and the apportionment of the land among the twelve tribes of Israel,—all this marvellous story is told in the Hebrew Scriptures with a charm and simplicity that have made it the familiar possession ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... unmov'd behold, A scarlet suit with glittering gold; And tho' a son of war and strife, Detest the listless languid life; Then coolly, Sir, I say repent, And in derision hold a tent; Leave not the sweet poetic band, To scold recruits, and pore on Bland,[42] Our military books won't charm ye, Not even th' enchanting list ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... communion, deep and delightful; the affectionate and affecting attraction in the charm of a language—there is hardly more in the universe besides its languages which are foreigners—there is left a personal and delicate preference for certain forms of landscape, of monuments, of talent. ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... Banu, "The Exalted One of the Palace," whose dust it was built to shelter, was a queen as beautiful in character as she was in form and feature. We know but little about her. There are pictures which are supposed to carry some suggestion of her charm; there are records to show that it was in 1615 that she became the bride of the prince who later began to rule as "His Imperial Highness, the second Alexander (Lord of the two Horns) King Shah Jehan," and we may see in Agra the rooms in the palace ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... the destruction of the Mohawk villages by Tracy and Courcelles, and the influx of a considerable population into Canada, the conditions became more favourable for exploration and the fur trade. The tame and steady life of the farm had little charm for many restless spirits, {171} who had fought for France in the Carignan Regiment. Not a few of them followed the roving Canadian youth into the forest, where they had learned to love the free life of the Indians. The priest, the gentilhomme, ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... for his melancholy temperament was a solitary life in chambers. Charles Lamb, on the other hand—as we see, for instance, from his essay on the Old Benchers of the Inner Temple—delighted in the Temple and all its ways. The sense of its charm may be said to have been born and bred in him, for he was born and spent his childhood in Crown Office Row. In later life, for seventeen years from 1800, he and his sister occupied chambers now no longer in existence, first in Mitre Court Buildings, and afterwards in ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... all its ponderous force The axe was hurtling down; What spell could stay its savage course? What charm ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... sat down on the grass with Mamma and Baby. Immediately Baby became interested in a silver charm which she wore on a chain around her neck which tinkled fascinatingly. Then he tried to sit on her head. She spent some time gently but firmly discouraging this. Juan Jimenez was squatting between Mike and Mitzi, ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... Gallatin in that year, and describes him as a "beau vieillard de quatre-vingt ans," who has fully preserved his faculties. Bacourt alludes to his remarkable face, with its clear, fine cut features, and his "physiognomie pleine de finesse;" and dwells also upon the ease and charm of his conversation. ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... new friend was adored by the whole family, and they showed it by doing all in their power for her. They had agreed that she differed absolutely from Mea's former friends. They could not analyze wherein lay the charm which pervaded her whole personality. The children had never known anybody who was so polite towards everyone, including Kathy, who only spoke affectionate, tender words, and always seemed so grateful ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri
... her back eventually to Michael. Now she knew that they had all been endured in vain. Spiritually her self-elected year of discipline might have fitted her to be the wife of "Saint Michel." But the undimmed physical beauty and charm which Michael, the man and artist, would crave in the woman he ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... balanced herself easily upon one ill-shod foot and rubbed herself softly with the other. The action to those who knew her ways denoted mental perplexity and embarrassment. This assignation was bristling with peril as well as charm. Her grandfather had the eyes of a turkey-buzzard, eyes which she contrasted involuntarily with the soft, kindly orbs now bent upon her. She decided instantly that blue was a prettier colour than yellow. Rinaldo's skin, too, commended itself. She had never seen ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... and proportions of this old porch are so good that in spite of the rough and meagre detail it has an irresistible charm. ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Vol 1, No. 11, November, 1895 - The Country Houses of Normandy • Various
... good sense; he was "entheat," as if full of God, as the old poets called it. It was this ardor, this superabounding life, this immediateness of thought and action, idea and emotion, setting the whole man a-going at once—that gave a power and a charm to everything he did. To adopt the old division of the Hebrew Doctors, as given by Nathanael Culverwel, in his "Light of Nature:" In man we have—1st, {pneuma zoopoioun}, the sensitive soul, that which lies nearest the body—the very blossom and flower of life; 2d, {ton ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... of the very young Australian girl. She is like a peach, a beautiful, smooth, rich peach, that has come to ripeness almost in a day, and that hastens to rub off the soft, delicate bloom that is its chief charm, just to show its bright, warm colouring more clearly. Aldith had, to her own infinite satisfaction, brushed away her own "bloom," and was at present busily engaged in trying to remove Meg's, which was very soft and lovely ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... Faith paid her timid respects in the drawing-room at last, made her welcome with a peculiar grace and empressement that had their own flattering weight and charm; for the lady was a sort of St. Peter of fashion, holding its mystic keys, and admitting or rejecting whom she would; and culled, with marvelous tact and taste, the flower of the up-growing world of Mishaumok ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... you wouldn't read it to me," said Mrs. Alsager, as they lingered a little near the fire before he took leave. She looked down at the fire sideways, drawing her dress away from it and making her proposal with a shy sincerity that added to her charm. Her charm was always great for Allan Wayworth, and the whole air of her house, which was simply a sort of distillation of herself, so soothing, so beguiling that he always made several false starts before departure. He had spent some such good hours there, had forgotten, in her warm, golden ...
— Nona Vincent • Henry James
... aware that you were hunting for it, it took a fiendish delight in dodging you. If, said I, one could only let the thing suppose it was not being looked for it would be taken off its guard. I put the idea into operation, and I rejoice to say it works like a charm. ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... the common type; but by all means let it be no more than a slight divergence. Too much is monstrous: even a very slight excess is what we call ugliness. Gladly I perceive in my neighbor's face, voice, gait, manner, a certain charm of peculiarity; but if in any the peculiarity be so great as to suggest a doubt whether he be not some other creature than man, may he not be neighbor ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... Sweet has been the charm of childhood on my spirit throughout my ramble with little Annie. Say not that it has been a waste of precious moments, an idle matter, a babble of childish talk and a reverie of childish imaginations about topics unworthy of a grown man's notice. Has it been merely this? Not so—not ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... first embrace they drew their heads back as serpents do, ready to attack or to charm, with a thousand questions trembling on their swift tongues. And then Nancy noticed that prosperity had descended upon Lou, manifesting itself in costly furs, flashing gems, and ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... general election was imminent, and Lord Monmouth returned to London. He was weary of Paris; every day he found it more difficult to be amused. Lucretia had lost her charm: they had been married nearly three years. The marquess, from whom nothing could be concealed, perceived that often, while she elaborately attempted to divert him, her mind was ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... guests. Even the waxed floor seemed to take on new reverberations as the pianoforte sounded the sweet despair of the Pole. To her dismay Ermentrude caught herself drifting away from the moment's hazy charm to thoughts of her poet. It annoyed her, she sharply reminded herself, that she could not absolutely saturate herself with the music and the manifold souvenirs of the old hotel; perhaps this may have been the ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... of his convictions, this purely American event could be reported on his canvas with all its native character; and yet it could be made to appeal to the enlightened eye with the charm of a French subject, and impressionism could be fully justified of its follower in Pymantoning as well as in Paris. That golden dust along the track; the level tops of the buggies drawn up within its ellipse, and the groups scattered ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... well for the sake of the story itself to give a creation myth from India, but I shall have other use for it than its particular charm. ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... Calderon moved arm in arm, While Milton and Sidney were there, Pope, Dryden, and Moliere added their charm, And Bunyan, ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... lady represented by a doll" (p. 24). It is superfluous to add that this lady was no other than his mother. Also the following passage I think is significant: "I was by nature endowed with as great a sensitiveness to womanly charm as to womanly dignity and this inclination toward the other sex grounded in my psychical constitution was nurtured by circumstances from my earliest youth on. I could but recognize very soon the high intellectual and moral ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... her. It was she who had inherited all her father's gayety and spirit. Jose had none of them, and, being slow and simple, had always found her a wonder and a strange pleasure. She had, indeed, been the one bright thing in his life, and even her wilfulness had a charm for him. He always gave way to it and was content. Had she not even once defied the uncle when no one else would have dared to do it? holding her little head up and confronting him in such a burst of pretty ...
— The Pretty Sister Of Jose - 1889 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... hoards health and money, his only two objects: he has chronicles in behalf of the air, and battens on tokay, his single indulgence, as he has heard it is particularly salutary. But the savageness of the scene would charm your Alpine taste - it is tumbled with fragments of mountains, that look ready laid for building the world. One scrambles over a huge terrace, on which mountain ashes and various trees spring out of ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... (however wise in itself,) and the consequent subdivision of estates, will always put country life, in the English sense of the words, out of the question here. Our houses will continue to be tents; trees, without ancestral associations, will be valued by the cord; and that cumulative charm, the slow result of associations, of the hereditary taste of many generations, must always be wanting. Age is one of the prime elements of natural beauty; but among us the love of what is new so predominates, that we have known ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... now able to remember many incidents in their acquaintance. He recalled their first meeting at The Pines on that June day five years ago. How beautiful the old place must look now! But without Kate's presence the charm would be lost for him. He regretted he had started homeward quite so soon; the time would not have seemed so long among the mining camps of the great Northwest as here, where everything ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... was painted a kangaroo in the act of feeding, two stone spearheads, and two black balls; one of the spearheads was flying to the kangaroo, and one away from it; so that the whole subject probably constituted a sort of charm by which the luck of an enquirer in killing game could ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... public as they thought good, without the officious instrumentality of an editor. These men needed no such interference, though their modesty and good sense availed them, undoubtedly, in profiting by the merely verbal corrections of friendship; and their own productions have the charm of simplicity and genuineness of narrative, which, it is certain, the ability acquired by mere drudgery in composition is by no means ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... reference to the Classical Dictionary? We reply, the interruption of one's reading by either process is so annoying that most readers prefer to let an allusion pass unapprehended rather than submit to it. Moreover, such sources give us only the dry facts without any of the charm of the original narrative; and what is a poetical myth when stripped of its poetry? The story of Ceyx and Halcyone, which fills a chapter in our book, occupies but eight lines in the best (Smith's) Classical Dictionary; and ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... understand that," he answered, but quietly, critically, still studying her face. "It has a warmer charm than any other religion ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... signified to the Turkish vizier his desire to return to Sweden. The vizier neglected no means to rid his master of so troublesome a person. Charles returned to his country impoverished, but not discouraged. The charm of his name was broken. His soldiers were as brave and devoted as ever, but his resources were exhausted. He succeeded, however, in raising thirty-five thousand men, in order to continue his desperate game of conquest, not of defence. Europe ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... they brought together at Blackfriars a remarkable troupe of boy-players, who, with Jonson and Chapman as their poets, began to astonish London. For, in spite of certain limitations, "the children" could act with a charm and a grace that often made them more attractive than their grown-up rivals. Middleton advises the London gallant "to call in at the Blackfriars, where he should see a nest of boys able to ravish a man."[321] Jonson gives eloquent ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... scene, too, for the tobacco was ripe, and the fields were alive with labourers of all colours, from the full-blooded negro to the pure Spaniard, gathering the crop. At length, when they had been travelling for about a couple of hours, and when, despite the charm of everything that he saw around him, Jack began to grow conscious of the fact that he was aching in every joint from the rolling and jolting of the carriage, the vehicle turned off the main road into a lane, access to which was gained through a pair of massive ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... herself at once, had been snipping at the pattern of a gown with which, in her fancy, she was to charm those men who did not wear lumbermen's socks and neglect their razors. But now even Mary was asleep. It was cold in the room, and outside the world was bitter, but Ham was far from sleep. In his mind still worked and seethed ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... on hope, and if it dies with it, Rodrigo can no more charm your heart; you know of the combat in which Chimene involves him; since he must die in it, or become her husband, your hope is dead and ...
— The Cid • Pierre Corneille
... was chiefly in this,—that she should yet be driven to marry some man without even fancying that she could love him! And this was Lady Mabel Grex, who, on his own first entrance into London life, now not much more than twelve months ago, had seemed to him to stand above all other girls in beauty, charm, and popularity! ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... be left there. Co-operation as a word is a mere charm, like Evolution. There has been, and there may be co-operation in doing wrong. That action has become common does not prove that it is right; and an ideal implies at least some ethical judgement. Therefore, ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... extremity of his indignation, and no one yet had dared to lay the finger of violence upon him. He was following close in the footsteps of his father. The young men and the young squaws, each in their way, admired him. The one would always follow him to war, and he was esteemed to have unrivaled charm in the eyes of the other. Perhaps his impunity may excite some wonder. An arrow shot from a ravine, a stab given in the dark, require no great valor, and are especially suited to the Indian genius; but Mahto-Tatonka had ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... mention that many are employed as nurses for small children. Another explanation is that women with bound feet bear finer children and stronger; but the real reason lies in another direction, quite beyond the scope of this book. The question of charm may be taken into consideration, for any Chinaman will bear witness to the seductive effect of a gaily-dressed girl picking her way on tiny feet some three inches in length, her swaying movements and delightful appearance of instability conveying a general ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... breathing, dimly aware of an invisible presence. I overcame my aversion and looked at her. I was melancholy and jealous. He must love her, thought I, to go so near and defend her, to kiss her, imbued as She is with the evil charm. Would He hold me to ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... image of my sorcerer and sorceress; I have humbled myself before you and bring to you my cause Because of the evil they (i.e., the witches) have done, Of the impure things which they have handled,[384] May she[385] die! Let me live! May her charm, her witchcraft, her sorcery (?) be broken. May the plucked sprig (?) of the binu tree purify me. May it release me; may the evil odor[386] of my mouth be scattered to the winds. May the mashtakal herb[387] which fills the earth cleanse me. Before you let me shine like ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... Northern India is one of extremes. Six months ago European residents were seeking in vain suitable epithets of disapprobation to apply to the weather; to-day they are trying to discover appropriate words to describe the charm of November. It is indeed strange that no poet has yet sung the praises of the perfect climate of the ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... to have them for my own,' she answered, 'to carry them near my heart, and keep them in my room. They tempt me when they grow here; they seem to say, "Come and do something with us;" but once I have cut them and put them by, the charm is laid, and I can look at them with ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... on swimmingly, my smart nephew," said Clameran; "your receipts acted like a charm. Ah, you are a partner worth having. I congratulate you upon your success. Forty thousand francs ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... Euryalus, Theseus and Pirithous, Damon and Pythias, or Achilles and Patroclus, to whom they confidentially related their divers opinions upon my dress and colour. The words "Musungu kuba" had as much charm for these people as the music of the Pied Piper had for the rats of Hamelin, since they served to draw from within the walls across their stream so large a portion of the population; and when I continued the journey to the Ungerengeri, distant four miles, I feared that the ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... was emphatic, rather than choice. Entirely without education, she made no pretense at being what she was not and therein perhaps lay her chief charm. As Howard stooped to kiss her, she ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... Greeks, who knew the gods so well, To you I burn my sacrificial fire! Again reveal the mystic hidden rune Whereby to find the slopes of asphodel— Ah, then to hear Apollo charm his lyre And see Diana 'neath the ...
— The Rose-Jar • Thomas S. (Thomas Samuel) Jones
... as existing in all human minds, cannot be ignored or despised. In individuals it accompanies enthusiasm for the beautiful, and the graceful charm of sympathy. It maintains continuity between specimen and specimen, between artist and artist, between century and century; and it is this which enables an adept to say with certainty of consecutive styles, "This is Spanish work of the sixteenth ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... these jovial people, who were hastening forward, with such spirit, to some end, and he had not gone far, before he turned down a side street to be out of their way. Vaguely damped by his environment, which, with the sun's retreat, had lost its charm, he gave himself up to his own thoughts, and was soon busily engaged in thinking over all that had been said by his quondam acquaintance of the dinner-table, in inventing neatly turned phrases and felicitous replies. He walked without aim, in a leisurely ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... Inconvenience and straitened quarters were as nothing, for was not her Nursing Home exactly where she wished it, with the ebb and flow of the High Street at its feet? Dr. Inglis always rejoiced greatly in the High Street, in the charm of the precincts of St. Giles, that ineffable Heart of Midlothian, serenely catholic, brooding upon the motley life that has surged for centuries about its doors. Here, where she loved to be, The Hospice is finding a new home, an adequate building, modern equipment, ...
— Elsie Inglis - The Woman with the Torch • Eva Shaw McLaren
... wanderings, his reading, his culminating grand passion, Mr. LE GALLIENNE renders his account of them all, and does it in a fresh and breezy style which suits his pleasant subject admirably. There is a special charm too about the graceful lyrics which sparkle here and there in the pretty little volume. In fact Mr. LE GALLIENNE is an artist. I don't say a genuine artist, because ...
— Punch, Volume 101, September 19, 1891 • Francis Burnand
... them. A close observer, with a keen sense of humor and unfailing tact, fond of personal anecdote, and with a mind stored with recollections from association with every grade of society, he was a most engaging companion. The charm of his manner was not conventional, nor due to intercourse with refined society, but came from a sense of delicacy and a refinement of feeling which was innate, and which showed itself in him under all circumstances. He was in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various
... had crowded to the door, bidding their mistress good bye, and then it was Arthur's turn. Oh, who shall tell of the tempest which raged within as he held for a moment her soft, white hand in his and looked into the face which, ere he saw it again, might lose its girlish charm for him, inasmuch as a husband's kisses would have been showered upon it. Many times he attempted to speak, but could not, and pressing his lips to hers, he hastened away, going straight to Nina's grave which had become to him of ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... half-dollar if you come out tonight'. Den de gals charmed us wid honeysuckle and rose petals hid in dere bosoms. Now de gals goes to de ten cent sto' and buys cheap perfume. In dem days dey dried cheneyberries (chinaberries) and painted dem and wo' dem on a string around dere necks to charm us. ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... ringleader; it was, indeed, some such folly that had compelled him to quit Germany sooner than himself or his parents desired. He had nothing of the sober Englishman about him. Whatever was strange and eccentric had an irresistible charm for Ernest Maltravers. And agreeably to this disposition, he now revolved an idea that enchanted his mobile and fantastic philosophy. He himself would educate this charming girl—he would write fair ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... no fear of ridicule or of incredulity that led Nathan Stoddard to keep secret what he had witnessed. But it was like some deep and holy experience that would lose its charm if it were spoken of to another. So he went back to his shop, and sat looking upon the church, and watching, almost with dread, the doves that lighted upon its roof, and fluttered about, and beat ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... forehead-gems, Set like sapphires gleaming In kingliest anadems; Even the great gold Sun-God, Blazing through the sky, Serves thee but for crest-stone, Jai, jai! Hari, jai! As that Lord of day After night brings morrow, Thou dost charm away Life's long dream of sorrow. As on Mansa's water Brood the swans at rest, So thy laws sit stately On a holy breast. O, Drinker of the poison! Ah, high Delight of earth! What light is to the lotus-buds, What singing is to mirth, Art thou—art thou that slayedst Madhou and Narak grim; That ridest ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... was the fate of a child of the underworld—something to which she was pathetically resigned. With her there was no struggle. She knew that when she ceased to charm she must go her way and find another man; a ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... under a bush or in his hole, the digging stick soon brings him within reach of the fearless hand; then sprinkling a pinch of corn meal on his snakeship and uttering a charm and prayer, the priest siezes the snake easily a few inches back of the head and deposits him in the pouch. Should the snake coil to strike, the snake whip (two eagle feathers secured to a short stick) is gently used to induce him to ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... long till she was as attractive as she had ever been in all the years of her girlhood. Elizabeth was barely twenty-three, and there was a good constitution back of her which rest could set right; she was one of nature's favourites to whom colour and spirits return quickly. Every charm of person she had was enhanced by her present surroundings, for the brightness and freedom which came from John's absence were the crowning things needed to complete ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... unintelligible and the artificial plots bewildering; but to one interested in the adult literature of the same periods of history an acquaintance with these amusement books of past generations has a peculiar charm and value of its own. They then become not merely curiosities, but the means of tracing the evolution of ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... the committee from the Convocation for dinner, that evening. They came aboard stiffly hostile—most understandably so, under the circumstances—and Prince Trevannion exerted all his copious charm to thaw them out, beginning with the pre-dinner cocktails and continuing through the meal. By the time they retired for coffee and brandy to the parlor where the conference was to be held, the Lords-ex-Masters ...
— A Slave is a Slave • Henry Beam Piper
... successes. On the 13th we resumed the march; winding along the banks of the tortuous Pamunkey, enchanted by the lovely scenery which constantly met our gaze. The profusion of flowers in the forests, the bright green meadows, and the broad fields of newly springing wheat, offered a perpetual charm; and as we passed along, the women and negroes watched us with conflicting sentiments of interest. All the white men capable of bearing arms, and every able-bodied negro, had been swept along by the rebel army in its retreat, and none but women and children and aged negroes ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... reception hall, where the sunlight flooded a rosy-latticed paper, an old white Colonial mantel and fiddle-backed chairs, and struck dazzling gleams from the brass fire-dogs and irons. The drawing-room had its own charm; the largest room in the house, it had French windows on three sides, each one giving a separate and exquisite glimpse of lawns and garden beyond. Upon its dark and shining floor were stretched a score of ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... Tobacco Works to the garden of the Eiffel Tower! The river winds along with sovereign gracefulness; the avenue stretches out under superb foliage. You can really saunter there amid delicious quietude, instinct as it were with all the charm ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... disposed of a possible opponent. She has all to gain, and nothing to lose by such procedure. Unless I greatly mistake the Rincon character, the lad will yield to our inducements and his mother's prayers, the charm of the Church and the bias of her tutelage, and ultimately take the oath ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... you for your delightful narratives, and beg you to continue them. I told you how your Saturday's conversation with Lady Davers, and your Sunday employments, charm us all: so regular, and so easy to be performed—That's the delightful thing—What every body may do;-and yet so beautiful, so laudable, so uncommon in the practice, especially among people in genteel life!—Your conversation and decision in relation to the two parsons (more than charm) transport ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... author's own life, except in so far as he may be assumed to have practised his own preachings; the Meditations reflect mood by mood the mind of him who wrote them. In their intimacy and frankness lies their great charm. These notes are not sermons; they are not even confessions. There is always an air of self-consciousness in confessions; in such revelations there is always a danger of unctuousness or of vulgarity for the best of men. St. Augus-tine is not always clear of offence, and John Bunyan ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... quaint devices, Rude emblems, baked funeral meats, Strong incense, rare wines, and rich spices, The ashes, the shrouds, and the sheets; Does our thraldom fall short of completeness For the magic of a charnel-house charm, And the flavour of a poisonous sweetness, And the ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... the isolated youth was finding such an increasing charm in the companionship of the gifted minds who spoke to him from the printed pages of his little library that he felt the ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... sinned in this line, and defended my general line of argument of inventing a theory and seeing how many classes of facts the theory would explain. I added that I would endeavour to modify the "believes" and "convinceds." He took me up short: "You will then spoil your book, the charm of (!) it is that it is Darwin himself." He added another objection, that the book was too teres atque rotundus—- that it explained everything, and that it was improbable in the highest degree that I should ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... it when the shifts changed at midnight; kept the oncoming force outside for five minutes. It works like a charm." ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... first of the painters to take the individual faces of those about him as models for his sacred characters, and clothe them in contemporary costume. Piety is not very pronounced in any of his works, though he is not without imagination and feeling, and there is in his women a charm of sweetness. His tendency was ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... its marvellous script and the rich treasures of its literature that the Chinese language depends for its unique fascination and charm. If we take a page of printed Chinese or carefully written manuscript and compare it with a page, say, of Arabic or Sanskrit, the Chinese is seen at once to possess a marked characteristic of its own. It consists of a number of wholly independent units, each of which would fit into a small square, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... bark they all rushed in pursuit of the unfortunate negro. Had the wolves caught up to old Dick in this moment of fury, he might have appealed in vain to his fiddle. By running he had destroyed the charm, and the coyotes would not have stopped to listen to him even had he played like Orpheus in the olden times, or ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... AEschylus in the boldness and originality of his characters, or the loftiness of his sentiments, or the colossal grandeur of his figures; but in the harmony of his composition, and the grace and vigor displayed in all the parts—the severe unity, the classic elegance of his style, and the charm of his expressions he is his superior. These two men carried tragedy to a degree of perfection never afterward attained in Greece. It was not merely a spectacle to the people, but was applied to moral and religious purposes. The heroes of AEschylus are raised above the sphere ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... himself on news of that warrior's death, saying, 'What is left worth living for?' This was not a sacrifice to the Manes of Nicholson. The sacrifice of the mourner's hair, as by Achilles, argues a similar indifference to personal charm. Once more, the text in Psalm cvi. 28, 'They joined themselves unto Baal-Peor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead,' is usually taken by commentators as a reference to the ritual of gods who are no gods. But it rather seems to indicate an acquiescence in foreign burial rites. ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... result is (though I won't own it to any of them) that I find my idea of him in the days of my blindness—oh, so unlike the reality! The one thing that is not a disappointment to me, is his voice. When he cannot see me, I close my eyes, and let my ears feel the old charm again—so far. ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... little, in the mind of any boy, stood obviously clear to me. There was no inhibition, so long as the man was in the house, that would be strong enough to hold these two apart; for if it be hard to charm serpents, it is no very difficult thing to cast a glamour on a little chip of manhood not very long in breeches. I recalled an ancient sailor-man who dwelt in a lone house beyond the Figgate Whins (I believe, he called it after Portobello), and how the boys would troop out of Leith on a Saturday, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... analyse him ruthlessly; his childish lack of self-criticism, his placidity, his insatiable vanity, his almost deliberate exploitation of his personal charm, all these things she cast aside and ignored. She came then to his thoughts, and here she was baffled because she knew so little of his history. Beyond his thoughts lay that in which she was passionately ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... bird dart firm scar card char spar hurl lark hurt part arch turn blur purr pert spur hard barn darn carp herd dark burn term hark yard start shirt bark yarn harp sharp clerk skirt chirp park spark shark mark spurt third parch smart churn perch harm charm starch march ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... going, Zoe!" exclaimed Violet in a tone of disappointment. "That will rob the excursion of half its charm for me. Is she ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... glance as we took our way over the desert that stretched between us and the ranch. Here another night was passed, and then we set out for home. The brief sojourn "near to Nature's heart" had been a delightful experience, holding for many of us the charm of novelty, and for all ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... who bring their works to birth without effort and with a certain grace which others cannot give to their creations, either by study or by imitation. It is a truly celestial gift, which pours down on these works in such a manner, that they ever have about them a loveliness and a charm which attract not only those who are versed in that calling, but also many others who do not belong to the profession. And this springs from facility in the production of the good, which presents no crudeness or harshness to the eye, such as is often shown by works wrought with ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari
... a Farm" indicates the possession of great power rather than consummate skill in the use of it. Full of charm as it is, it cannot by any stretch of language be called a masterpiece. Two years later, however, Gogol produced one of the great prose romances of the world, "Taras Bulba." He had intended to write a history of Little Russia and a history of the Middle Ages, ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... his duties; to prevent him from being unjust and mischievous demanded a tightened curb.[2103] All sense of conviction, under this regime, had died out; no body would serve gratis as in 1789;[2104] nobody would work without pay; disinterestedness had lost all charm; ostentatious zeal seemed hypocrisy; genuine zeal seemed self-dupery; each looked out for himself and not for the community; public spirit had yielded to indifference, to egotism, and to the need of security, of enjoyment, and of ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... that is theirs. Theirs is the whole empire of Spain in America. That stroke finishes all. I should be glad to see our suppliant negotiator in the act of putting his feather to the ear of the Directory, to make it unclench the fist, and, by his tickling, to charm that rich prize out of the iron gripe of robbery and ambition! It does not require much sagacity to discern that no power wholly baffled and defeated in Europe can flatter itself with conquests in the West Indies. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... was honour'd with a Greater Name, Homer is Greece's Glory and her Shame. How could Learn'd Athens with contempt refuse, Th' immortal labours of so vast a Muse? Thee, Colophon, his angry Ghost upbraids, While his loud Numbers charm th' Infernal Shades. Ungrateful Cities! Which could vainly strive For the Dead Homer, whom they scorn'd Alive. So strangely wretched is the Poet's Doom! To Wither here, ...
— Discourse on Criticism and of Poetry (1707) - From Poems On Several Occasions (1707) • Samuel Cobb
... not without charm to a young man accustomed to more traditional views. George Darrow had had a fairly varied experience of feminine types, but the women he had frequented had either been pronouncedly "ladies" or they had not. Grateful to both for ministering to the more ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... compare bodies that are weak and sickly with the healthy and robust. There also, probably, he met with Homer's poems, which were preserved by the posterity of Cleophylus. Observing that many moral sentences and much political knowledge were intermixed with his stories, which had an irresistible charm, he collected them into one body, and transcribed them with pleasure, in order to take them home with him. For his glorious poetry was not yet fully known in Greece; only some particular pieces were in a few hands, as they happened to be dispersed. Lycurgus ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... primitive cults and the sacred title of the stone (lapis manalis), it is practically certain that the original ritual was the purely imitative process of pouring water over the stone. A similar rain-charm may possibly be seen in the curious ritual of the argeorum sacra, when puppets of straw were thrown into the Tiber—a symbolic wetting of the crops to which many parallels may be found among other primitive peoples. A sympathetic charm of a rather different ...
— The Religion of Ancient Rome • Cyril Bailey
... brother, with a good-humored but significant smile—"larning may be very good in its place; in the mane time, lave the business in our hands rather than in your own head—or if you have e'er a scrap of Greek or Latin that 'ud charm ould Sobersides out, where was the ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... Preface, biographical and critical, to each Authour, by Samuel Johnson, LL.D." which I see advertised. I am delighted with the prospect of it. Indeed I am happy to feel that I am capable of being so much delighted with literature.[316] But is not the charm of this publication chiefly owing to the magnum nomen in the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... ingenuity of plot, the power and subtlety of the portrayal of character, the charm of the romantic environment,—the entire atmosphere, indeed,—rank this novel at once among ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... For an apprentice Musketeer the young woman was almost an ideal of love. Pretty, mysterious, initiated in almost all the secrets of the court, which reflected such a charming gravity over her pleasing features, it might be surmised that she was not wholly unmoved; and this is an irresistible charm to novices in love. Moreover, d'Artagnan had delivered her from the hands of the demons who wished to search and ill treat her; and this important service had established between them one of those sentiments of gratitude which so easily assume a ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... course be pleasing to the prospective wooer. That which is desirable in young girls means, naturally, that which is desirable to men. Of all cultivated accomplishments the first is "innocence." Beauty may or may not be forthcoming; but "innocence" is "the chief charm of girlhood." ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... in the South the Moon Shone full against the island. The North-star, Sparkling and blazing like a silver sun, Stood at the Zenith, as a lamp hung out From heaven to charm the endless Arctic night;— And thus a soft profusion of pure light, More exquisite than sunshine, fell abroad. Unnipped by daintiest frosts, in every field Flowers crowded thick; and trees, not tall nor rude, ...
— The Arctic Queen • Unknown
... could not avoid? And again, is there not some truth in the statement that much that we call evil has been incidental to the progress of the race, just as the discords produced by the learner on a musical instrument are necessary incidents in the process which will teach him by and by to charm the ear with the perfect harmony? Such questions are frequently put forward; let us see if we are able to clear away the misunderstandings to which ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... (1731-1814), daughter of Charles, second Duke of Richmond, as celebrated for her beauty and charm as her sisters, Lady Holland, Lady Louisa Connolly, and Lady Sarah Bunbury, The reference is evidently to her approaching ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... more specific in its terms, subjected to the same penalty all persons "invoking any evil spirit, or consulting, covenanting with, entertaining, employing, feeding, or rewarding any evil spirit, or taking up dead bodies from their graves to be used in any witchcraft, sorcery, charm, or enchantment, or killing or otherwise hurting any ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... Youth's charm has like a fleeting shadow gone, With eagle wings the hours of life have flown. Alas! the time when pleasure I have known, I may not now ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... longer, the contrast was too painful, he must break the sweet charm, the hallowed song, for the sky was reddening yet more luridly behind him, and each moment he expected to see Dorchester burst forth into flames. ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... He was witty, he had humour, he had imagination; but he was, before all things, gentle—with the gentlest voice, the gentlest eyes, the gentlest manners. His gentleness, she told herself, was the chief element of his charm—his gentleness, which was really a phase of his modesty. 'He was very gentle, he was very modest, he was very graceful and kind,' she said; and she remembered a hundred instances of his gentleness, his modesty, his kindness. Oh, but he was ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... the full bloom of her beauty, beauty even more brilliant in its mourning garb—a beauty so wonderful that it shed around her a charm which no one whom she wished to please could escape, and which was fatal to almost everyone. About this time, too, someone made her the subject of a song, which, as even her rivals confessed, contained ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Riis' How the Other Half Lives. At the time of its appearance it created nothing short of a literary sensation, and it is still found among the widely read and discussed publications. The present volume is a continuation or an elaboration of that work. In it Mr. Riis tells with that charm which is peculiarly his own and with a wonderful fidelity to life, little human interest stories of the people of the "other half." He has taken incidents in their daily lives and has so set them before ...
— Sight to the Blind • Lucy Furman
... has hinted to me that she intends to store a great deal of my own porcelain and pottery away in the butler's pantry. I had hoped that when we got into the new house we should have plenty of space for displaying the platters, plates, bowls, teapots, etc., etc., to which age has added a special charm, and the collection of which has involved the expenditure of much time and ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... upon the subject of music, of which she possesses a surprisingly solid knowledge, and she was telling me that Debussy and his school held no particular charm for her, when Possum set ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... has a cause? You cannot buy devotion at a price. "It hath never been heard of in the land of Chanaan, neither hath it been seen in Theman. The children of Agar, the merchants of Meran, none of these have known its way." What then is that wonderful charm, which makes a thousand men act all in one way, and infuses a prompt obedience to rule, as if they were under some stern military compulsion? How difficult to find an answer, unless you will allow the obvious one, that they ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... with a Silver Dog's Head on it, and Zendavesta had a Watch Charm that pulled the Buttonholes out ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade
... Bougainville, "the Marchioness is all-powerful—prime minister." Bougainville saw the Marchioness, Madame de Pompadour, and read to her some of Montcalm's letters. She showed no surprise and said nothing—her habit, as Bougainville said. By this time the name of Montcalm was one to charm with in France. Bougainville wrote to him "I should have to include all France if I should attempt to give a list of those who love you and wish to see you Marshal of France. Even the little children know your name." There had been a time when the court thought the ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... Brooklyn and over the distant stretch of the Hudson river islands, the sparkling waves and dancing craft in the bay, and all the dear familiar maze of spars and rigging in the docks; it is wonderful how such sights, and the knowledge that you are close to the haven where you would be, charm away the sore memories of the voyage past, and incline you to feel that it hasn't been such ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... scene of his labors. But then, voiceless, powerless, without control of his own genius, without the consciousness of his prophetic mission, he brooded alone and out of harmony with the beautiful and mundane city. The charm of the hills and gardens of Valdarno, the loveliness of Giotto's tower, the amplitude of Brunelleschi's dome—these may have sunk deep into his soul. And the subtle temper of the Florentine intellect must have attracted his own keen spirit by a secret sympathy. For ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... like our manners, and he mightn't like the smell Which is half the charm of Dawson; and he mightn't live to tell Of the acres of wild roses that grows on every street; And he mightn't like the winter, or he ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... court. Those of former times, of hereditary pretensions and high-bred minds and manners, were scandalised at all this; and they complained, with justice, that the whole TONE of society was altered; that the decorum, elegance, polish, and charm of society was gone; and I among the rest (said Sir James) felt and deplored their change. But, now it is all over, we may acknowledge that, perhaps, even those things which we felt most disagreeable at the time ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... their camp and was caught, and by means of the charm about my neck, which thou knowest, it was established that I was the son of some man in the regiment: according to the prophecy of the Red Bull, which thou knowest was common talk of our bazar.' Kim waited for this shaft to sink into the letter-writer's heart, cleared his throat, and continued: ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... honours apparently at will, and might, many thought, have won a fellowship with little effort; but his passion was for change. Whatever bore upon the rogueries of letters, the frauds of literature, had an irresistible charm for him; and he once declared that he would almost rather have been Ireland than Shakespeare; and then it was his delight to write Greek versions of a poem that might attach the mark of plagiarism to Tennyson, or show, by a Scandinavian ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... self-denying; and yet, in spite of his intentions, he had fallen into such a condition of things with Mr. Houghton's wife, that were the truth to be known, he would be open to most injurious proceedings. To him the love affair with another man's wife was more embarrassing even than pleasant. Its charm did not suffice to lighten for him the burden of the wickedness. He had certain inklings of complaint in his own mind against his own wife, but he felt that his own hands should be perfectly clean before he could deal with those inklings magisterially and maritally. How would he look ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... silent breath. After all, he knew everything. He mechanically dropped a little the arm on which her hand rested, that it might slip farther within. Her timid remoteness had its charm, and he fell to thinking, with amusement, how she who was so subordinate to him was, in the dimly known sphere in which he had been groping to find her, probably a person of authority and consequence. It satisfied a certain domineering quality ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... head. This to-day, those yesterday—there is, I see, and know, thus much goodness in line after line, goodness to be scientifically appreciated, proved there—but over and above, is it in the writing, the dots and traces, the seal, the paper—here does the subtle charm lie beyond all rational accounting for? The other day I stumbled on a quotation from J. Baptista Porta—wherein he avers that any musical instrument made out of wood possessed of medicinal properties retains, being put to use, such virtues undiminished,—and that, for instance, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... points to, and partly explains, the charm of the poems in A Shropshire Lad . The fastidious care with which each poem is built out of the simplest of technical elements, the precise tone and color of language employed to articulate impulse and mood, and the reproduction of objective substances for a ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... dying by the arrow of Heracles, which had been dipped in the venom of the Hydra, persuaded the bride Deanira, whose beauty was the cause of his death, to keep some of the blood from the wound as a love-charm for her husband. Many years afterwards, when Heracles was returning from his last exploit of sacking Oechalia, in Euboea, he sent before him, by his herald Lichas, Iole, the king's daughter, whom he had espoused. Deanira, when she had discovered this, commissioned Lichas when he returned ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... anger of hatred, but the cold anger of a man who has had too many attempts on his life, who has escaped narrowly from an unseen plotter twice because of pure luck and does not intend to fall victim to the dictum that "the third time's a charm." ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... followed he dwelt in her mind as she sat at her desk and stared out across the river, and several times that summer she started to walk to Silliston. But always she turned back. Perhaps she feared to break the charm ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... himself on a chair. He had word from Mahommed— that upon which he counted so certainly as a charm in counteraction of the depression taking possession of his spirit. There it was in his hand, a declaration of confidence unheard of in an Oriental despot. Yet the effect was wanting. Even as he sat thinking the despondency deepened. He groped for the reason in vain. He ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... shamed the mellow vermeil of the wreath Which in her jetty locks became her well, And mingled fragrance with her sweeter breath, The while her haughty lips more beautifully swell With consciousness of every charm's excess; While with becoming scorn she turned her face From every eye that darted its caress, As if some god alone might hope for ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... of late. It was a picture of an old-fashioned rose-garden in the light of an English summer morning, with a young wife walking there, herself taller and fairer than any flower. Would she sing, in her gladness, the songs of other lands, to charm the sweet English air? There was that one about O dolce ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... characteristic of Irving's books, do not by any means exhaust his variety, but they afford a fair measure of his purely literary skill, upon which his reputation must rest. To my apprehension this "charm" in literature is as necessary to the amelioration and enjoyment of human life as the more solid achievements of scholarship. That Irving should find it in the prosaic and materialistic conditions of the New World as well as in the tradition-laden atmosphere of the Old, is evidence ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... burial he laid his hand on the old horseshoe nailed as a charm to the foremast, and solemnly told us that, in less than three weeks, not one quarter of our number would remain aboard the ship—by that time they would have left her ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... in a more sheltered place amid the dark evergreen trees. His depression of spirit was such that for a long time he left his abode only when hunger compelled him to hunt for his necessary food. When he did resume his wanderings they were generally in the night. The singing of the birds had no charm for him, and the brightness of the summer days chased not away his gloom. More congenial to him were the "watches of the night," when the few sounds that fell upon his ears were weird and ghostly. Here, amid the gloomy shadows where the only sounds were the sighing of the winds ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... depths of darkling life where sin Laughs piteously that sorrow should not know Her own ill name, nor woe be counted woe; Where hate and craft and lust make drearier din Than sounds through dreams that grief holds revel in; What charm of joy-bells ringing, streams that flow, Winds that blow healing in each note they blow, Is this that the outer darkness ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... though far from beautiful, possessed a certain charm, due entirely to their wildness. Unlike most Tibetan women, they had good teeth. Their complexion was not specially dark. Only the black ointment, with which their cheeks, noses, and foreheads were smeared, made them appear darker than they really were, ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... and faculty and trustees and public in such friendly fashion that he may rightly say 'we' from any point of view. His many readers will look for noteworthy diction amounting to a new use of words, grace of speech and charm of phrase, a startling power of insight, a passion for social service and the revelation of the spiritual in all human affairs, with the inspiration which compels. These things Dr. Peabody's readers expect of him, but it ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... likely, we think, that the big volume lay open, while the scholar's eyes glowed and shone with cherished reminiscences of that enchanting city in which his best days had flown, and Mary Stewart responded to his recollections with all her gay wit and charm of pleasant speech. Many are the tragic associations of Holyrood: it is well to note that other companions more sober than Signor Davie, more calm than Chastelar, shared now and then the Queen's leisure. ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... He had not only converted the scoffer, but he now found that the gang's plans for the evening no longer held a charm for him. What a peach of a time he ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... exhaust, the smell of the bacon cooking, the sight of their outer garments drying in the cheery warmth, while the wind howled outside and the rain beat down upon the low roof the situation was not half bad and an occasional lurch of the old hull gave a peculiar charm to their ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... and charm form the raw materials of the most entertaining city life in the country. For whatever San Francisco is or is not, it is never dull. Life there is in a perpetual ferment. It is as though the city kettle had been set on the stove to boil half a century ago and had never ...
— The Californiacs • Inez Haynes Irwin
... fifteen minutes. Lylda interpreted for us as well as she could, though I must confess we were all three at times completely at a loss. But Lylda's bright, intelligent little face, and the resourcefulness of her gestures, always managed somehow to convey her meaning. The charm and grace of her manner, all during the talk, her winsomeness, and the almost spiritual kindness and tenderness that characterized her, made me feel that she embodied all those qualities with which we of this earth idealize our ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... this through the Forbes-Robertsons. He was at one time engaged to one of the girls, but it was a good thing it ended in smoke. With all his charm, Wills was not cut out for a husband. He was Irish all over—the strangest mixture of the aristocrat and the sloven. He could eat a large raw onion every night like any peasant, yet his ideas were ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... mother," said Bettina, with a sudden trembling of the lip and suffusion of the eyes which gave her a new charm, in revealing the fact that this young goddess had a human heart which could ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... aside useless; others he works, plays, and pensions; still others serve as jackals or servitors and proudly flaunt his livery; a few, the strong, independent souls, tempted with great rewards and beguiled by the man's baleful, intellectual charm into his clutches, preserve a semblance of freedom; but let the boldest of these turn restive—he is maimed or ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... Philippine literature. Zuniga did for the island of Luzon what Arthur Young did for France a few years earlier, or to take an apter parallel, what President Dwight did for New England. His careful observations, relieved of tedium by a rare charm of style, his sweetness of temper, quiet humor, his love of nature and of man all combine to make his "Travels" a work that would be accorded a conspicuous place in the literature of any country. An English translation will appear in ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... palliating circumstances, he admitted, he undertook to exemplify in her the beauty and exaltation of noble suffering. His Mary (which has always been a favorite with tragic actresses) is in my opinion as devoid of that insinuating, sense-compelling charm which alone can account for this extraordinary woman's career as is the heroine of Bjoernson's play. In fact Bjoernson's Mary lies half-way between the amorous young tigress of Swinburne and the statuesque martyr ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... knowledge of Wessex types, and especially, his subdued but permeating pessimism. There is nothing in his writings more quietly, deeply hopeless than most of the tales in the collection "Life's Little Ironies." One shrinks away from the truth and terror of them while lured by their charm. The short stories increase one's admiration for the artist, but the full, more virile message conies from the Novels. It is matter for regret that "Jude the Obscure," unless the signs fail, is to be his last testament in fiction. For such a man to cease from ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... strong vein of piety in her character; and this crowning grace gave to her an inexpressible charm. Whatever men may say, there are few who do not reverence, and hope to find in those they love, this feeling. The world is a hard school, and men must strike alone everywhere. In the struggle, it is almost impossible to prevent the mind from gathering those bitter experiences which ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... air and the kind treatment of the Vigilance Committee acted like a charm upon them, and they improved very rapidly from their exhaustive and heavy loss of blood. Desiring to retain some memorial of them, a member of the Committee begged one of their silk shrouds, and likewise procured an artist to take the photograph ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... They all see that no beauty recommends a wife so much to her husband as the probity of her life and her obedience; for as some few are caught and held only by beauty, so all are attracted by the other excellences which charm all the world. ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... of Edgar the Dreamer was filled with the subtle charm of mystery. It was a secret life. The world in which he moved was a secret world—an invisible world, to whose invisible door he alone held the key. Edgar the Dreamer was himself an invisible person, for the only outward difference between him ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... picked up something better than either of these, at least in appearance. This was a little blue flower resembling the violet, with glossy green leaves that were its especial charm. ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... "Worked like a charm, Bud," he remarked; "and if the famous Wright brothers could have seen what you did, after only glimpsing the article long ago, they would have said, just as I do, that you deserve a ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... factitiousness of much of their wit, and their conventionality of plot. Above all things, the man who drew so many fancifully delightful types of womanhood must have been intensely appreciative of the charm of sex; and it is on that side that we are to look for his first contacts with the deeper forces of life. What marks off the Shakspere of thirty-five, in fine, from all his rivals, is just his peculiarly true and new[148] expression of the living ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... "is just what I was getting at. Generally I feel a placid contentment with things in general, but once in a while a sort of fever stirs my blood, and I long to get out and rough it somewhere. I tell you, a wild life has a certain charm about it that dies out reluctantly when the fever once gets into a man's blood. Some day I really believe I'll return to Africa, or some other wild land, for big game. I ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... faltered, "that I haven't asked you before, but—but—" then, with the impulsiveness which was one of her characteristics, and to her guardian her great charm, she looked him full in the face and added, "but I hoped you would understand that—that I understood a little better. I should like to ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... unfailing talisman and charm used for keeping all things in their places. Everybody was dressed for a Fancy Ball that was never to leave off. From the Palace of the Tuileries, through Monseigneur and the whole Court, through the Chambers, the Tribunals of Justice, and all society (except the scarecrows), ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... operation. It is, he seems to mean, a direct perception of beauty in character applied to the regulation of conduct. Virtue corresponds to an instinctive and so far ultimate appreciation of beauty of character. Mackintosh insists upon this intrinsic charm of virtue in the language which struck Mill as simply foppish affectation. The pleasure of 'benevolence' itself, says Mackintosh, is infinitely superior to the pleasures to which it may lead. Could it become 'lasting and intense,' it would convert the heart ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... nice parks with beautiful and delightfully fragrant flowers and shrubbery lend a charm to ...
— A Soldier in the Philippines • Needom N. Freeman
... the fire, "how it would simplify the whole matter if Jill were to become a motion-picture artist and win fame and wealth in her profession. And there can be no reasonable doubt, my boy, that she would. As you say, with her appearance and her charm . . . Which of these women whose names you see all along Broadway in electric lights can hold a candle to her? Once started, with the proper backing behind her, her future would be assured. And then. . . . Of course, as regards her feelings I cannot speak, as I know nothing of them, but ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... galling, Willard felt the charm of the morning too strongly to admit of anger or to ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... focusing of the child's attention on what he ought not to do, and an added note to the disturbance. Then an American across the aisle having surveyed the situation took out of his pocket a folder full of brightly colored views. The charm worked beautifully—the meal went on free from disturbance—and the child ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... der Neer, the painter of night; Ruysdael, the painter of melancholy; Hobbema, the painter of windmills, cottages, and kitchen-gardens; and with others who contented themselves with expressing the charm of the modest scenes ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... they knew that they would consider them cowards if they could not bear to look upon that which others no older than themselves endured. There was also the incessant, terrible wailing of the whistle, which seemed to charm ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... length, and their shields half-a-foot higher than their persons, and pierced with two openings through which they could see their adversary. The arms had to be shown to the Court, and each champion was obliged to make oath on the Gospels that he had upon him neither writing, charm, nor any other arms than those shown to the Court. The combatants were then placed and fought. Near at hand stood the warders of the field, so that they might catch the words "I repent" in the event of their being uttered. In that case they said to the other party, "You have done enough"; and he ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... her a root to hold, and to give him to smell on his return. He changed himself into a pard, killed one of the nilgai, and came bounding back for the root; but the terrified woman lost her nerve, flung away the charm, and rushed from the place. The husband hunted about wildly for the root, but in vain; and then inflamed with rage he pursued her, and tore her to pieces and continued to wreak his vengeance on the human race. Such was the history of the man-eating ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... was tall for her age, and seemed likely to become as tall as Pauline. Her breast was perhaps a little small, but perfectly shaped, her hands were white and plump, her feet small, and her gait had something noble and gracious. Her features were of that exquisite sensibility which gives so much charm to the fair sex, but nature had given her a beautiful body and a deformed soul. This siren had formed a design to wreck my happiness even before she knew me, and as if to add to her triumph she ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... were eager to rush forward and at once attack the monster. I restrained them, dogs and all. I had heard—who has not?— of the power of fascination which these reptiles possess. I knew not whether to believe or disbelieve it. Here was an opportunity to test its truth. Would it charm the bird? We should see. One and all of us remained motionless and silent. The snake ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... personal feeling; but I am certain that unless a book can rise to the magnitude of the War it had best leave it alone. Still it may well be that others will find interest, and even consolation, in these little papers. They have at least the charm of simplicity, and are obviously the products of a gentle and sympathetic nature. Thus, Miss ORCHARD can still see the pathos of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 1, 1916 • Various
... had been gazing at her with passionate earnestness, as if her fair face possessed an irresistible charm for him, now addressed her ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... Mrs. Tickell) to her sister, Mrs. Sheridan, though containing nothing remarkable, yet, as warm with the feelings of a moment so interesting in Sheridan's literary life, will be read, perhaps, with some degree of pleasure. The slightest outline of a celebrated place, taken on the spot, has often a charm beyond the most elaborate ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... hips sent out for the mansions of Arjuna. And in that mood and with her crisp, soft and long braids decked with bunches of flowers, she looked extremely beautiful. With her beauty and grace, and the charm of the motions of her eye-brows and of her soft accents, and her own moon like face, she seemed to tread, challenging the moon himself. And as she proceeded, her deep, finely tapering bosoms, decked with a chain of gold and adorned with celestial unguents and smeared with ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... dreamt of mythology, all that you had ever seen of statuary, thronged upon you at that supreme moment, and, evolved from your own fancy, the river god was born. It is your own, chere enfant, as much the offspring of your genius as the exquisite atmosphere you have caught, the charm of light and shadow that you have brought away. Accept my felicitations. You have little more to learn ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... away slanting silkily to the temples across the nearly imperceptible upward curve of his brows there—felt more than seen, so slight it was—and gave to his profile a bold beauty, to which his bashful, breathless air was a flattering charm. An arrow drawn to the head, capable of flying fast and far with her! He leaned a little forward, drinking her in with all his eyes, and young Love has a thousand. Then truly the System triumphed, just ere it was to fall; and could Sir Austin have been content to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... salt and pepper, and water. The turnip-tops I put in the bottom of the dish, then laid on the potatoes, covering with water and adding salt. I then covered this with another wash-basin, and started my fire. We were not allowed to have fires, and this gave the mulligan all the charm of the forbidden. ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... wrong, and the consequent misery and restlessness, can ever be healed until you go to Christ—the forgiving Christ—and let Him lay His hand upon you; and from His own sweet and infallible lips hear the word that shall come as a charm through all your nature: 'Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.' 'Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened; then shall the lame man leap as an hart';—then limitations, sorrows, miseries, will pass away, and forgiveness will bear fruit in joy and power, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... finishes with these noble and avenging threats:—'But let them not be deceived; wherever they put them, such captives have, on their side, the two most powerful advocates in the whole world—their innocence and their misfortune. No Cicero, no Demosthenes can so charm the ear, or so powerfully rouse the mind, as these two defenders; because, among other privileges, God has given them that of being always present, to cry out for justice, to serve both as witnesses and advocates, and to terminate one of those processes which God alone judges in this ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... him alone. From time to time, his eyes wandering from the fingers of the pianist to the long gloves hanging from the music stand, which still retained the form of those hands, still preserved an inexpressible charm in the small opening at the wrist where, but a short time ago, a tiny morsel of her soft ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... we've got for conjuring him," quoth the other. "And we only want Swanny to dig, and then if the charm is only a sham charm, the adder ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... reach with your riding? What is the charm of the chase? Just the delight and the striding swing of the jubilant pace. Danger is sweet when you front her,— In at the death, every hunter! Now on the breeze the mort is borne In the long, clear ...
— Music and Other Poems • Henry van Dyke
... her true worth, to adjust the balance between her merits and her demerits, is a difficult task. A woman of a hundred opposing facets; of rare culture and charm, and of whims and fancies and strange enthusiasms each battling with the other. Thus, by turns tender and callous, hot-tempered and soft-hearted; childishly simple in some things, and amazingly shrewd in others; trusting and suspicious; arrogant and humble, yet supremely indifferent to public opinion; ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... lay there drinking in her beauty for several moments before she chanced to glance downward and observe that I was awake. The evidences of past exposure and strain were not absent from her features, yet had not robbed her of that delicate charm which to my mind separated her so widely from all others,—her rounded cheek yet retained the fresh hue of perfect health, her clear, thoughtful eyes were soft and earnest, while the luxuriant hair, swept back ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... word that makes the dictionary heavy. It is because you do not know its meaning that you women, or perhaps I ought to use the despised term, 'ladies,' become the very beautiful and useless articles that you are—works of art, which may thrill and charm a man for a moment, when he has time to look at them, but which bear little relation to the stress of life which you ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... corruptions. A scheme of perfection to be realised in a Monarchy, far beyond the visionary Republic of Plato. The whole scenery was exactly disposed to captivate those good souls, whose credulous morality is so invaluable a treasure to crafty politicians. Indeed, there was wherewithal to charm everybody, except those few who are not much pleased with professions of supernatural virtue, who know of what stuff such professions are made, for what purposes they are designed, and in what they are sure constantly to end. Many innocent gentlemen, who had been talking prose all their lives ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... not a fairy story. Neither need it be set lightly down as a curious coincidence. I know the charm that the old man said. I cannot give it here. It will only work successfully if taught by man to woman or by woman to man; nor do I pretend to say that it will work for every one. I believe it to be a personal and wholly incomprehensible ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... Francis Varney. "It seems a nice comfortable old house; and the grounds, too, appear to be amazingly well wooded, which, to one of rather a romantic temperament like myself, is always an additional charm to a place. I was extremely pleased with it the first time I beheld it, and a desire to call myself the owner of it took possession of my mind. The scenery is remarkable for its beauty, and, from what I have seen of it, it is rarely ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... going? This is a Lord: Oh Noble misery To be i'th' Field, and aske what newes of me: To day, how many would haue giuen their Honours To haue sau'd their Carkasses? Tooke heele to doo't, And yet dyed too. I, in mine owne woe charm'd Could not finde death, where I did heare him groane, Nor feele him where he strooke. Being an vgly Monster, 'Tis strange he hides him in fresh Cups, soft Beds, Sweet words; or hath moe ministers then we That draw his kniues ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... onward—gospel in one hand and musket in the other—amid a hail of bullets. Neither he nor his book was hit; and when the citadel was captured, Taumatakura was the hero of the day. Evidently his book was a charm of power: his words must be obeyed. Not only were his stipulations observed, but anything else he taught was now received with implicit deference. He did not know much, but at least he proclaimed the sanctity of the Ra-tapu or weekly ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... no matron, I asked Mrs. Marsh to join us. We do not regard it of importance, and you will not a little later; but just at first it is perhaps as well. Do you know Mr. Fleisch by reputation? He plays with an artistic charm, rare even in this musical epoch. He is a follower of Mr. Spence, and is seeking to apply his principles of moderation to music with striking success. Ah! you must excuse me, dear, ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... "a toast-to ourselves. Singly? Collectively. Lady Caroom, I drink to the delightful memories with which you have peopled Enton. Sybil, may you charm society as your mother has done. Brooks, your very good health. May your entertainment this evening ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... which has since been republished in a volume of collected poems with his name to them, many of which are strikingly unlike it in character. The gay Etonian is now the vicar of Rugby; and the story of his experiences has been told by himself with a singular charm in his "Dream of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 232, April 8, 1854 • Various
... Titian with his masterpiece of painting only half satisfied the requirements of his patron. Bellissima this Magdalen undoubtedly is, but hardly lagrimosa pin che si puo. She is a belle pecheresse whose repentance sits all too lightly upon her, whose consciousness of a physical charm not easily to be withstood is hardly disguised. Somehow, although the picture in no way oversteps the bounds of decency, and cannot be objected to even by the most over-scrupulous, there is latent in it a jarring note of unrefinement in the presentment of exuberant youth and ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... and creeks of clear water flow through the hollows in the shadow of thick bluffs. There are many ponds, and here and there a shallow lake shines amidst the sweep of grass. The clear air and the distance the view commands give the landscape a distinctive charm. One has a sense of space and freedom; all the eye rests upon ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... having been broken, the supper was proceeded with. The fish was succulent and the cake delicious. A lofty and religious Sabbath sentiment enhanced the charm of the whole meal. Then a prayer of thanks was offered, the dishes were cleared away and the family settled themselves at ease, to discuss the topics ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... fiction, and Valera came forward as the leader of a more national and more healthily vitalised species of imaginative work. The pure and exquisite style of Valera is, doubtless, only to be appreciated by a Castilian. Something of its charm may be divined, however, even in the English translation of his masterpiece, Pepita Jimenez. The mystical and aristocratic genius of Valera appealed to a small audience; he has confided to the world that when all were praising but few ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... his chivalry, in hopes of breaking it. Unfortunately, his wounded horse fell under him. It was in vain his followers called out, "It is our viceroy, the brother of your queen!" The words had no charm for a Spanish ear, and he was despatched with a multitude of wounds. He received fourteen or fifteen in the face; good proof, says the loyal serviteur, "that the gentle prince had never ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... tender passions, and for the influence which the fair sex exercises, not only in all the domestic but in the civil and political relations of life. There is, in the society of the Spanish lady, a distinctive feature of character, called franqueza, which, above all others, gives her the greatest charm in the eyes of a foreigner. She is eminently sociable, and is the life and essence of Spanish society, in which she maintains an imperium over all tastes, affections, and operations. Besides this, it is the universal ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... the victory," repeated Frank. The words seemed to have a charm for him. "It is wonderful, ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... exacting rules which are the products of his own subjective and somewhat peevish intelligence. "I like," says Sydney, "to tell you these things, because you never do so well as when you are humbled and frightened, and, if you could be alarmed into the semblance of modesty, you would charm everybody; but remember my joke against you about the moon: 'D—n the solar system! bad light—planets too distant—pestered with comets—feeble contrivance; could make ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... intelligently and prayerfully, is close akin to this last. It lies in the right sort of expository preaching. I have in my mind such exposition as will be found in Dr Vaughan's sermons on the Philippian Epistle. The charm and power of those sermons lie, I know, very much in the extraordinary excellence, the curiosa simplicitas, of their literary style, so unpretentious and so masterly. But it lies also in the fact that the preacher takes us over a familiar ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... us hear some of them." But I said, "A visitor is [naturally] bashful; do thou begin." "True," answered she and recited some of the choicest verses of the poets, past and present, so that I knew not whether more to marvel at her beauty and grace or at the charm of her diction. Then said she, "Is thy bashfulness gone?" "Yes, by Allah!" answered I. "Then, if thou wilt," rejoined she, "recite us somewhat." So I repeated to her a number of poems by old writers, and she applauded, saying, ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... too beautiful for words. Not being a poet, I cannot find appropriate language to describe their wonderful charm. ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... every day should swell my store; That when the fates would send their minion, To waft me off on shadowy pinion, I might some hours of life obtain, And bribe him back to hell again. But since we ne'er can charm away The mandate of that awful day, Why do we vainly weep at fate, And sigh for life's uncertain date? The light of gold can ne'er illume The dreary midnight of the tomb! And why should I then pant for treasures? Mine be the brilliant round of pleasures; The ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... country in which literature is least attended to, a large number of persons are nevertheless to be found there who take an interest in the productions of the mind, and who make them, if not the study of their lives, at least the charm of their leisure hours. But England supplies these readers with the larger portion of the books which they require. Almost all important English books are republished in the United States. The literary genius of Great Britain still darts its rays into the ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... have, as if his mind had separate niches for keeping each particular, and with its complete rejection of all worthless and superfluous matter, as if the same mind had some fine machine for acting like a fan, casting off the chaff and the husk. But it had besides a peculiar charm from the pleasure he took in conveying information where he was peculiarly able to give it, and in joining with entire candor whatever discussion happened to arise. Even upon matters on which he was entitled to pronounce ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... the date and the name of the informant, in order that those who use the collection may know exactly what it is that they are handling. In all such matters, absolute accuracy, absolute literalness, wherever attainable, is surely the one thing necessary. Not all the charm of diction, not all the ingenious theories in the world, can for a moment be set in the balance against rigid exactness, even if some of the concomitants of rigid exactness are such as to spoil the subject ...
— Aino Folk-Tales • Basil Hall Chamberlain
... loved to wander alone; the sweet stillness of a countryside which was uncontaminated by the residence of men stilling the vague unrest of his youth, and the mountains towering in the light lending to the scene the charm of the unknown. ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... which belonged to her. Chance alone had decided, and each one had given her word not to betray the number of her cabin. From this arose a seeking and spying, a following and listening, which gave a peculiar charm to the fete. Every nymph or goddess could find a refuge in her cabin; having entered it, it was only necessary to display the ivy wreath, which she found within, to protect herself from any further pursuit, ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... answer, she heard Lady Dunstable carelessly—but none the less peremptorily—inviting her women guests to see their rooms. Doris walked by her hostess's side towards the house. Every trace of animation and charm had now vanished from that lady's manner. She was as languid and monosyllabic as before, and Doris could only feel once again that while her clever husband was an eagerly welcomed guest, she herself could only expect to reckon as his appendage—a ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... Of many pounds weight. How fair the vine must grow 60 Whose grapes are so luscious; How warm the wind must blow Through those fruit bushes.' 'No,' said Lizzie, 'No, no, no; Their offers should not charm us, Their evil gifts would harm us.' She thrust a dimpled finger In each ear, shut eyes and ran: Curious Laura chose to linger Wondering at each merchant man. 70 One had a cat's face, One whisked a tail, One tramped ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... entered the house, repeating a short prayer, or charm, which was supposed to possess uncommon efficacy in relieving cases of the nature she was then called upon ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... my head. "I haven't the faintest notion," I answered frankly. "It certainly can't be on account of the charm of my appearance. I've just been looking at myself ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... revealed. How well must one come to know them, stone by stone, highways, homes and habitants, ere they will disclose their secret. I have rejoiced too often in the splendid serenity of St. Jean des Vignes, felt too deeply the charm of those ancient streets, hoped and suffered too intensely within its confines that Soissons should not mean more to me than to the average zealous newspaper correspondent, come there but to make note of its wounds, to describe ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... the lack of chairs, we squatted on the narrow stateroom floor, under the old man's kindly eye. The fruit minded us of sunlit vines, and the careless rapture of the South. To me the situation was one of rare charm. She ate daintily, and as we talked, I studied her face as if I would etch ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... a normal humor would dispute the fact that Clementine Willis was a strikingly handsome girl. One might even be moved, by a burst of enthusiasm, to declare her beautiful. There was about her that subtle, elusive charm of perfection in minute detail, possible only to the wealthy who can discriminate between art and that which is artificial, and who can take advantage of all of art's magic resources, without imparting the slightest ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... worship it and find it miraculously potent. But suppose some insane person should pull it down, tread it under foot and throw it into a dirty pond and suppose some one should discover it and carry it back to its original sacred abode, you will find the charm has gone from it. Ever since the days of monarchical government the people have looked on the monarch with a sort of divine reverence, and never dared to question or criticize his position. After a period of republicanism, however, this attitude on ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... profound. A lecture ought to be something which all can understand, about something which interests everybody. I think, that, if any experienced lecturer gives you a different account from this, it will probably be one of those eloquent or forcible speakers who hold an audience by the charm of their manner, whatever they talk about,—even when they don't ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... wondered whether all accepted lovers were as undemonstrative as her own, and she would have been happier had he occasionally forgotten professional aspirations, in the charm of her presence; but her confidence in the purity and fidelity of his affection was unshaken, even by the dismal predictions of Miss Patty, who found it impossible to reconcile herself to the failure of her darling scheme, that Leo should marry her second cousin, Leighton Douglass, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... this idealism is the nature of his love, ardent, but etherial, "uebersinnlich." This is reflected also in his lyrics, which are statuesque and beautiful, but lacking in passion and sensuous charm. Hoelderlin's earliest love-affair, that with Louise Nast, is important for his Weltschmerz only in its bearing upon the development of his general character. This influence was a twofold one: in the first place his sweetheart was herself inclined ...
— Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry • Wilhelm Alfred Braun
... historian. It is no doubt true that there are some fields of history where the primary facts are so little known, so much contested or so largely derived from recondite manuscript sources, that a faithful historian will be obliged in justice to his readers to sacrifice both proportion and artistic charm to the supreme importance of analysing evidence, reproducing documents and accumulating proofs; but in general the depreciation of the literary element in history seems to me essentially wrong. It is only necessary to ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... won, but he helped in largest measure to draft the chart by which the Nation was guided; and he was the first chosen of the people to put in motion the new Government. His was not the boldness of martial display or the charm of captivating oratory, but his calm and steady judgment won men's support and commanded their confidence by appealing to their best and noblest aspirations. And withal Washington was ever so modest that at no time ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... o'er thy cradle I will coax, By every lucky charm, The friendship of the fairy folks To ...
— Child Songs of Cheer • Evaleen Stein
... which had been hurt while working in the rapids with the sunken canoe had taken a turn for the bad and developed an abscess. The good doctor, to whose unwearied care and kindness I owe much, had cut it open and inserted a drainage tube; an added charm being given the operation, and the subsequent dressings, by the enthusiasm with which the piums and boroshudas took part therein. I could hardly hobble, and was pretty well laid up. "But there aren't ...
— Theodore Roosevelt • Edmund Lester Pearson
... The charm of this little play is delightful and natural; its comedy is beautifully balanced and its pathos ... ...
— The Turn of the Road - A Play in Two Scenes and an Epilogue • Rutherford Mayne
... few among many illustrations of the pleasant, gossipy information conveyed in these Memoirs, whose great charm is the free and straightforward manner in which the writer chronicles his impressions of ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... putting on an artificial complexion. Her careless refinement of manner was so different from the studied dignity and anxious courtesy of the actor-manager, that Lydia could hardly think of them as belonging to the same profession. Her voice was not her stage voice; it gave a subtle charm to her most commonplace remarks, and it was as different as possible from Cashel's rough tones. Yet Lydia was convinced by the first note of it that she was Cashel's mother. Besides, their eyes were so like that they ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... ampleness that had nothing of oversufficiency in it, nor anywhere a threat that some day there might be too much of her. Not quite seventeen when he had last seen her, now, at twenty-four, her amber hair elaborately becoming a plump and regular face, all of her old charm came over him once more, and it immediately seemed to him that he saw clearly his real reason for coming back to Canaan. She had been the Rich-Little-Girl of his child days, the golden princess playing in the Palace-Grounds, and in his early boyhood ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... for him who passed away Ere frame or spirit knew touch of decay, Ere time had deadened one feeling warm, Or his genius robbed of one single charm. As he was when death struck, his image shall dwell In the countless hearts that loved him ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... it is Marcus Aurelius, it is Julian, it is sometimes Abbe Chaulieu, with whom I sup," he further wrote; "there is the charm of retirement, there is the freedom of the country, with all those little delights which the lord of a castle who is a king can procure for his very obedient humble servants and guests. My own duties are to do nothing. I enjoy my leisure. ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... of the descendants of Jacob in Egypt, of the Exodus, of the conquest of Canaan and the apportionment of the land among the twelve tribes of Israel,—all this marvellous story is told in the Hebrew Scriptures with a charm and simplicity that have made it ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... gate of the palace, one of the sergeant porters told them they could not at present enter, as her Majesty was in the act of coming forth. The gentlemen used the name of the Earl of Sussex; but it proved no charm to subdue the officer, who alleged, in reply, that it was as much as his post was worth to disobey in the least tittle the commands ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... immodest passions, where all that is sensual comes to the surface, and the courtesan is the queen of ignoble fancy, that has brought forth this most perfect embodiment of purity among the nations. This is of itself one of those miracles which captivate the mind and charm the imagination, the living paradox in which the soul delights. How did she come out of that stolid peasant race, out of that distracted and ignoble age, out of riot and license and the fierce thirst for gain, and failure of every noble faculty? ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... hinterland of Zanzibar as far west as the frontier of the Congo Free State, thus sterilising the idea of an all-British route from the Cape to Cairo, which possessed for some minds an alliterative and all-compelling charm. ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... not be uninteresting to add to the records of the "Snail-charm" (Vol. iii, p. 132.), that in the south of Ireland, also, the same charm, with a more fanciful and less threatening burden, was used amongst us children to win from its reserve the startled and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 71, March 8, 1851 • Various
... map conclude, with Mr. Matthew Arnold, who has applied his critical and appreciative mind to the study of the Celtic character, that "the Celtic genius has sentiment as its main basis, with love of beauty, charm, and spirituality for its excellence," but, he adds, "ineffectualness and self-will for its defects." On these last words we may be allowed to make ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... our shanty when the evening meal was ready. Our host wished to slaughter a lamb, but we deferred that till the morrow, and we ate what we had brought with us. It was, barring the smoke, a delightful experience, and its charm never diminished. That hour spent before turning in, after supper, when the tobacco tins circulate, and the shepherds crowd in from the neighbouring huts, made an impression which it will not be ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... to cheer her trubbled mind, Wi' tender words endearin; An raand her neck mi arms entwined, But grief her breast wor tearin. "Why should mi parents sell for gold, Ther dowter's life-long pleasure? Noa charm 'at riches can unfold, Can match a true ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... it a fantastic tale, you lover of fantastic things, and urged me to write it out at once, although I protested that, in such matters, to write is to exorcise, to dispel the charm; and that printers' ink chases away the ghosts that may pleasantly haunt us, as efficaciously as gallons of ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... had carefully maintained in Miss Henley's estimation. In the contradictory confusion of feelings, so often found in women, this deceitful and dangerous creature had been conquered—little by little, as she had herself described it—by that charm of sweetness and simplicity in Iris, of which her own depraved nature presented no trace. She now spoke with hesitation, almost with timidity, in addressing the woman whom she had so cleverly deceived, at the time when ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... recital, he accentuated the rhythm, he colored his composition, through his modulations, with a profusion of hues not only suitable to his subject, but imperiously demanded by it. Life, warmth, and passion again circulated in his Polonaises, yet he did not deprive them of the haughty charm, the ceremonious and magisterial dignity, the natural yet elaborate majesty, which are essential parts of their character. The cadences are marked by chords, which fall upon the ear like the rattling of swords drawn from their scabbards. The soft, warm, effeminate pleadings of love ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... price of a sandwich in his tramp days. Here was one of the wonderful things about the Socialist movement, that it broke down the barriers of class, and gave you exciting glimpses of higher worlds of culture and charm! ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... ministrations of the manga-anito. Attention has been called to the string of dried berries, called "a-gata," which the Negritos of Pinatubo wear around their necks for convenience in case of pains in the stomach. In southern Zambales what seem to be these same berries are used as a charm against snake bite. Here for pains in the stomach they boil a piece of iron in water and drink the water hot. Pieces of certain woods are believed efficacious for rheumatism, and old men especially may often be seen with them tied around the limbs. ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed
... know what every fool says of me," Nadyezhda Fyodorovna said coldly, and the amusing thought of playing with handsome young Atchmianov suddenly lost its charm. ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... heads asleep on their pillows. Four precious kiddies all my own. And not the least of my blessings, you to tell my happiness to. Has my trip interested you, dear friend? I hope you liked it. It will lose a little of its charm for me ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... Russian's pale blue ones. According to all rules he should have started a dramatic speech, beginning with "Madame!" hand on heart. But Schabelitz the great had sprung from Schabelitz the peasant boy, and in the process he had managed, somehow, to retain the simplicity which was his charm. Still, there was something queer and foreign in the way he bent over Mrs. Brandeis's hand. We do not bow like ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... scale of good, if only they proved themselves the men they should be. He had only to look around to see what wherever the spirit of emulation (2) is most deeply seated, there, too, their choruses and gymnastic contests will present alike a far higher charm to eye and ear. And on the same principle he persuaded himself that he needed only to confront (3) his youthful warriors in the strife of valour, and with like result. They also, in their degree, might be expected to attain to some unknown height of ...
— The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians • Xenophon
... without question a very great Charm; but under the Notion of being unconstrained and disengaged, People take upon them to be unconcerned in any Duty of Life. A general Negligence is what they assume upon all Occasions, and set up for an Aversion to all manner of Business and Attention. ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... depressed. Exuberance of spirits is apt to wax offensive when divorced from good taste. At times she frankly disliked both husband and wife, and meditated an immediate return to Norton; but as a rule she was absorbed in the interest and charm of the grey old city, which was so unlike anything she had yet visited. It was like turning back a page of history, to see with her own eyes those historical landmarks, of which she had read since childhood; to drive about looking at the names of the streets, ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Hartmut hesitated a moment. How came this heavily-veiled and richly-attired stranger into the lonely wood, and why did she speak so familiarly to him whom she had never seen before? But the mysteriousness of her behavior beginning to charm him, he followed. ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... pale-blue gown and it fitted her well. Neither in the gown nor in the big hat with its coquettish flowers nodding over the brim was there much of fashion. But there was a certain distinction in her walk and her manner of wearing her clothes; and to a pretty face and a graceful form was added the charm of ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... most horrible things acceptable to the mind which becomes blind to their deformity, and even the most detestable things, desirable, by a certain feigned sanctity which it attaches to them. But the charm once broken, the rational mind becomes transformed into another image, totally different, and entirely repugnant to the things which it before venerated as divine. You very justly remark, that if truth be in any way connected with endless misery, you are ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... Could they offend you? What do they contain that could wound my darling? Do I not know your affection, and do I not know that you love me? Yes, you have not deceived me, I did not kiss a lying mouth; when seated on my knees you lulled me with the charm of your words, I believed you. I wished to bind myself to a burning iron bar; weariness preys upon me and devours me. I feel a maddening desire to recover life. Is it Paris that produces this effect upon me? I always yearn to be in places where I am not. I live here to ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... and never to refrain when awake Patriotism is usually the refuge of the scoundrel Please state what figure you hold him at—and return the basket Principles is another name for prejudices She bears our children—ours as a general thing Some civilized women would lose half their charm without dress The Essex band done the best it could Time-expired man, to use Kipling's military phrase To exaggerate is the only way I can approximate to the truth Two kinds of Christian morals, ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Mark Twain • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
... with Homer's poems, which were preserved by the posterity of Cleophylus. Observing that many moral sentences and much political knowledge were intermixed with his stories, which had an irresistible charm, he collected them into one body, and transcribed them with pleasure, in order to take them home with him. For his glorious poetry was not yet fully known in Greece; only some particular pieces were in a few hands, as they happened to be dispersed. ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... made use of your own hand all unconscious in sleep, to excite me to a still greater pitch; last night I had enjoyed you to the utmost, kissing your lovely budding and hidden charms, and must have unconsciously dropped off to sleep with my hand still pressing yours against my secret charm. But now I must initiate you into the same joys, even in a more ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... it oft, And love the sweet charm of its spell, For sometimes it wispers so soft, It seems but the ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... letter and the way in which it came to me, gave it a special charm. Some recent traveller, describing his sensations at Heidelberg Castle, speaks of a German song which he heard, at the moment, from a female at some distance and out of sight. This letter, like that song, derives much of its effect from the unconsciousness ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... a half-hour's interval of play, and then the class of French literature from four till dinner-time at six—a class that was more than endurable on account of the liveliness and charm of Monsieur Durosier, who journeyed all the way from the College de France every Saturday afternoon in June and July to tell us boys of the quatrieme all about Villon and Ronsard, and Marot and Charles d'Orleans (exceptis excipiendis, ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... themselves down, and were buried in deep sleep. Even Spike and Mulford took the rest they needed, the cook alone being left to look out for the changes in the weather. In a word, everybody but this idler was exhausted with pumping and bailing, and even gold had lost its power to charm, until nature ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... dream-like beauty of which words are wholly inadequate to describe. But I am willing to confess that my admiration lost a great deal of its ardour when Mr Austin informed me that the mist which imparted so subtle a charm to the scene was but the forerunner of the deadly miasmatic fog which makes the Congo so fatal a river to Europeans; and I was by no means sorry when we found ourselves, three-quarters of an hour later, once ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... though genius bless To some divine excess, Faint 's the cold work till thou inspire the whole; What each, what all supply, May court, may charm our eye, Thou, only thou, canst ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... familiarity; but his poetical and chivalrous nature was gratified by the notice of a Crimean hero, and he infinitely admired the dignity and courtesy of Lady Merrifield, and the grace and ease of her daughters, finding himself in a new world of exquisite charm for him. ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... evenings were passed in the society of his friends, a mode of enjoying his time in which he was eminently calculated to shine, since abundant testimony has come down to us from many competent judges of the charm of his conversation; the liveliness of his disposition acting as a most attractive frame to the extent and ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... have felt beauty; I have known that mysterious charm which Nature has lent to animate form; and the clay which lives has given to me that shudder of delight which makes the lover and the poet. But I have never known either how to love or how to sing. Now in my memory—all encumbered ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... towards Excess; and tho' both by Spaniards and Italians, and the more Southern People, familiarly eaten, with almost every thing, and esteem'd of such sigular Vertue to help Conception, and thought a Charm against all Infection and Poyson (by which it has obtain'd the Name of the Country-man's Theriacle) we yet think it more proper for our Northern Rustics, especially living in Uliginous and moist places, or such as use the Sea: Whilst we absolutely forbid it entrance into our Salleting, ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn
... been consigned to a well-merited oblivion, have of late years been disinterred and held up for public admiration, chiefly upon the ground that they are ancient and unknown. The man who reads for the sake of having done so, not for the sake of the knowledge gained by doing so, finds as much charm in these petty writers as in the greater, and hence their transient and undeserved popularity. It would be well, then, for every earnest student, before beginning the study of any one having pretensions to the position of a master, and who is not of our own generation, to ask himself, ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... impressed as he was, her beauty drew him with its subtle charm, but his doubt and her pride interposed barriers which even he dared not disregard; and at the end of two months he was no nearer than at the beginning that understanding which he would have established with any other ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... the judgement of Quintilian, was an orator of considerable genius. In the conduct of a prosecution, he was remarkable for a certain urbanity, that gave a secret charm to his whole speech. It is to be regretted that he was not a man of better conduct and longer life. Multum ingenii in Caelio, et praecipue in accusando multa urbanitas; dignusque vir, cui et mens melior, et vita longior contigisset. Quint, lib. x. cap. 1. His letters to Cicero make ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... to, and partly explains, the charm of the poems in A Shropshire Lad . The fastidious care with which each poem is built out of the simplest of technical elements, the precise tone and color of language employed to articulate impulse and mood, and the reproduction of objective substances for a clear visualization of character ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... new acquaintance had a kind of charm in it, and used such arguments, and had so much the power of persuasion, that there was no resisting him. He told us it was preposterous not to take the fruit of all our labours now we were come to the harvest; that we might see the hazard the Europeans run with ships and men, and at ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... gold. At the end of the table the queen sat waiting for him, and her face was hidden by a veil of silver gauze. She raised the veil and looked at the prince, and when he saw her face he stood as one wonder-struck, for not only was she so beautiful, but she set a spell upon him with the evil charm of her eyes. No one sat at the table but the queen and the prince, and a score of young pages served them, and sweet music ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... Redgrave chatted in a vein of seductive familiarity, saying nothing that Dora Leach might not have heard, but frequently softening his voice, as though to convey intimate meanings. His manner had the charm of variety; he was never on two occasions alike; today he seemed to relax in a luxurious mood, due in part to the influence of sound, and in part, as his eyes declared, to the sensuous pleasure ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... tender cares and mild domestic loves With furtive watch pursue her as she moves, The female with a meeker charm succeeds.... ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... eye is subtle enough to see it, in the hollows and angles of the architecture and folds of the dress, than in all the etchings of Rembrandt put together. The unexciting color will not at first delight you; but its charm will never fail; and from all the works of variously strained and obtrusive power with which it is surrounded, you will find that you never return to it but with a sense of relief and of peace, which can only be given you by the tender skill which is wholly without ...
— Lectures on Landscape - Delivered at Oxford in Lent Term, 1871 • John Ruskin
... part of the island, and was not disposed to retrace her steps without at least making the attempt. They accordingly once more moved forward, Ned leading the way, and directing his steps as best he could with the aid of a small compass which he wore attached as a charm ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... of our peoples may enable us to aid each other. We of the north are somewhat more sturdy in our efforts, and there are those who claim we work too hard. We are too strenuous in our lives. I wish that my people could gather some of the charm and grace of living in Bahia. We may give to you some added strength and strenuousness; you may give to us some of the beauty of life. I wish I could make you feel—I wish still more that I could make my countrymen feel—what delight I experience in visiting ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... my way up from the ship and the sea-shore. But on my way, as I drew near through the glades to the home of the enchantress Circe, there met me Hermes with his golden rod, in semblance of a lad wearing youth's bloom on his lip and all youth's charm at its heyday. He clasped my hand and spake and greeted me. 'Whither away now, wretched wight, amid these mountain-summits alone and astray? And yonder in the styes of Circe, transformed to swine, thy comrades lie penned and make their ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... Austria, entered Brussels. A natural son of Charles V, at the age of twenty-four he had made himself famous by the naval victory of Lepanto, and his name still more celebrated in popular legend on account of his innumerable amours. That he had some charm of manner must be assumed; that he had ability in certain directions cannot be denied; but his aristocratic hauteur, his contempt for a nation of merchants and his disgust at dealing with them, made ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... aspired to carry her away out of these deadly futilities of pronunciamientos and reforms. All this was wrong—utterly wrong; but she fascinated him, and sometimes the sheer sagacity of a phrase would break the charm, replace the fascination by a sudden unwilling thrill of interest. Some women hovered, as it were, on the threshold of genius, he reflected. They did not want to know, or think, or understand. Passion stood for all that, and he was ready ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... the greens of the various trees around gave an additional charm to what was always a very beautiful landscape, for here it was never dry, and the consequence was that every tree, plant, and tender herb was in the ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... Sabbath one may carry a grasshopper's egg as a charm against earache, the tooth of a living fox to promote sleep, the tooth of a dead fox to prevent sleep, and the nail of one crucified (as a remedy) for inflammation or swelling. For cutaneous disorders he is to repeat Baz ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... aspect of war; while the military connoisseur admires the ability and skill of the feats of arms, so faithfully rendered that he forgets he is not looking at real soldiers in action. In the landscapes and objects of the foreground or background, there are not that charm of color and aerial depth and transparency in which the eye revels, yet there is a hard vigorous actuality which adds to the force and energy of the actors, and strengthens the idea of presence at the battle, without attracting or charming away the mind from the terrible inhumanities principally ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... without any factitious stimulus, which only exhausts their excitability, and renders them incapable of being amused by a variety of common objects, which would naturally be their entertainment. We do not here speak of the attempts made to sooth a child who is ill; "to charm the sense of pain," so far as it can be done by diverting the child's attention from his own sufferings to outward objects, is humane and reasonable, provided our compassion does not induce in the child's mind the expectation ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... gave it to me. I tell you she has overlooked me; and all this doctor's stuff is no use, unless you can say a charm as ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... correspondence. Wordsworth may, perhaps, be classed as a notable exception; for Wordsworth's letters are dull, being at their best more like essays or literary dissertations than the free outpouring of intimate thought. They have none of the charm which comes from the revelation of private doubt or passionate affection that is ordinarily stifled by convention; they are, on the contrary, eminently respectable, deliberate, and carefully expressed. 'It has ever been the habit of my mind,' he writes, 'to trust that expediency ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... circumference. Though the women tell fortunes, and mix the 'dark man' and the 'light man,' the 'journey' and the 'letter' to perfection, till the ladies half believe, I doubt if they know much of true palmistry. The magic of the past always had a charm for me. I had learned to know the lines, from that which winds along at the base of the thumb-ball and if clear means health and long life, to that which crosses close to the fingers and indicates the course of love, and had traced ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... began to confess our own private faults and weaknesses. Though the confessions did not go very deep,—no one betraying any thing we did not all know already,—yet they were sufficient to strengthen Hollins in his new idea, and it was unanimously resolved that Candor should thenceforth be the main charm of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... years seemed to have deserted him. He knew that the end was coming, and he bore the knowledge with characteristic courage. On March 18, 1745, he died at his London house in Arlington Street. Life could have had of late but little charm for him. He had always lived for public affairs and for power. He had none of the gifts of seclusion. Except for his love of pictures, he had no in-door intellectual resources. He could not bury himself in literature as Carteret could do; or, at a later day, Charles James Fox; or, at a ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... sketches give the article a more than common interest. Of all American architects who have been attracted by the picturesque features of English and French domestic work, no one has shown a closer sympathy or been able in his sketches to render more of its charm ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Vol. 1, No. 10, October 1895. - French Farmhouses. • Various
... of children, not only because they were innocent, but because they were young: and he loved to romp with them—anticipating by nearly seven centuries the simple discovery of their charm, and he would coax half words of wondrous wit from their little stammering lips. They made close friends with him at once, just as did the mesenges or blue tits who used to come from woods and orchards of Thornholm, in Lindsey, and perch upon him, ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... action, flinging the foam now here, now there, diminishing in size, and dimming in colour, as they receded from the spectator. "De Loutherbourg's genius," we are informed, "was as prolific in imitations of nature to astonish the ear as to charm the sight. He introduced a new art—the picturesque of sound." That is to say, he imitated the noise of thunder by shaking one of the lower corners of a large thin sheet of copper suspended by ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... the ardour of the fury, and others, who, being grown old, find themselves less impotent by being less able; and one, who found an advantage in being assured by a friend of his, that he had a counter-charm of enchantments that would secure him from this disgrace. The story itself is not, much amiss, and ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... During the interval between the second and third Parliaments of James, the nation was absolutely governed by the Crown. The prospects of the Lord Keeper were bright and serene. His great place rendered the splendour of his talents even more conspicuous, and gave an additional charm to the serenity of his temper, the courtesy of his manners, and the eloquence of his conversation. The pillaged suitor might mutter. The austere Puritan patriot might, in his retreat, grieve that one on whom God had bestowed without measure all the abilities which qualify men to take the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the reason she never would let me look at it, or open it," said Dora. "She always said, when I asked about it, that it was to go to heaven with her; and, when she got there, she'd open it. So I supposed it was a charm or relic, such as some of our soldiers used to carry about their necks; and I never meddled ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... about him eagerly. It was all so like, and yet so different—shrunken somewhat, and faded, but yet, like a woman one loves, carried into old age something of the charm of youth. The old town, whose ripeness was almost decay, whose quietness was scarcely distinguishable from lethargy, had been the home of his youth, and he saw it, strange to say, less with the eyes of the lad of sixteen who had gone to the war, ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... p. 211, 212) composes an elaborate and rational apology, which is not, however, exempt from the puerilities of Greek rhetoric. Orpheus could only charm the wild beasts of Thrace; but Theodosius enchanted the men and women, whose predecessors in the same country had ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... striking that it is difficult to conceive that the Singhalese historian of the 5th century was entirely ignorant of the works of the Father of Poetry. Wijayo and his followers, having made good their landing, are met by a "devo" (a divine spirit), who blesses them and ties a sacred thread as a charm on the arm of each. One of the band presently discovers the princess in the person of a devotee, seated near a tank, and she being a magician (Yakkhini) imprisons him and eventually the rest of his companions in a cave. The Mahawanso then proceeds: ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... watch chain was a rather odd charm which Mr. Bangs had possessed for many years. "Twiddling" it was a habit of his. In fact, he had twiddled it so much that the pivot upon which it had hung broke and Martha had insisted upon his sending the ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... good practice in any art be lost? we have only to answer that we are not bound to account for a notorious fact with regard to arts in general. Many have been totally lost; but the troubles, the plague, and dispersion of artists in Italy, and the charm of novelty, may be sufficient to account for these changes. Lanzi every where laments them, and tells us that Nicolo Franchini became famous for detaching pieces of paint from old pictures of inferior value, to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... to have belonged to Madame de Pompadour, Persian rugs, et cetera. For a last graceful touch, all these elegant things were subdued by the half-light which filtered through embroidered curtains and added to their charm. On a table between the windows, among various curiosities, lay a whip, the handle designed by Mademoiselle de Fauveau, which proved that the countess rode ...
— Paz - (La Fausse Maitresse) • Honore de Balzac
... speculation upon this subject rests on unverified, and at present unverifiable, assumptions, of course everybody would rejoice if such a thing were possible, for consider what zest and charm would be added to human life if messages, even of the simplest description, could be sent to and received from intelligent beings inhabiting other planets! It is because of this hold that it possesses ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... the pastoral life of the Patriarchs, the marvellous history of the Hebrew nation, the beautiful scenery in which they lived and moved, the stately ceremonial of their liturgy, and the promise of a Messiah. Its chief strength and charm is that it personifies inanimate objects, as in the sixty-fourth Psalm, ...
— The Interdependence of Literature • Georgina Pell Curtis
... happier for him if he had not been so good-looking, as you will see presently. He must have had much charm of manner, too. A court lady, Abigail, Lady Darcy, invited him to her house to preach, and there, beside all the people who had assembled to hear him, many other much grander listeners were also present although unseen, 'lords, ladies, ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... system of Sufism. Within the area of this magnificent scheme, the boldest ever formulated under the name of religion, he found the liberty which his soul desired. Early discipline had made him a morally sound man, and it is the goodness of Sa'di that lends such a warm and endearing charm to his works. The last finish was given to his intellectual training by the travels which he took after the Tartar invasion desolated Persia, in the thirteenth century. India, Arabia, Syria, were ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... and who maintains the order of the universe. Our vows were fervent, and we experienced from our prayers the cheering influence of hope. It is necessary to have been in similar situations, before one can rightly imagine what a charm it is to the heart of the sufferer the sublime idea of a ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... worst of it is that we old fellows look so plain to one another; I dare say young people don't find us so bad. I can remember from my own youth that I thought old men, and especially old women, rather attractive. I am not sure that we elders realize the charm of a perfectly bald head as it presents itself to the eye of youth. Yet, an infant's head ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... voluminous correspondence with Scott and the rest of that brilliant school. Who ever thinks of George Ellis? But Ellis was the most learned of antiquaries, and devoid of the pedantry which so often makes antiquarian discourses repellent. His polished expositions have the charm that comes from a gentle soul and an exquisite intellect, while his criticism is so luminous and just that even Mr. Ruskin could hardly improve upon it. Then there were Mr. Skene, Joanna Baillie—alas, poor forgotten Joanna!—Erskine, the Shepherd, the Duke of Buccleuch, ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... are often served up with a sentimental and moral sauce which naturally does not tend to hide the flavor of the meat—for then all its charm would be gone—on the contrary it increases its spicy quality by means of contrast, at the same time making the product more marketable; this hypocritical disguise giving it a certain varnish of propriety. The trick of clothing pornographic ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... were left alone. To the adorable gentleness which usually gave to the fine features of the missionary so touching a charm, there had succeeded in this moment a remarkable expression of sadness, resolution, and severity. Rodin not having seen Gabriel for some days, was greatly struck by the change he remarked in him. He had watched him silently all the way from the Rue ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... title which she lived nine years to enjoy, she won golden opinions by her modest dignity, her large-heartedness, and by the cleverness and charm of her conversation, which none admired more than ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... Annie Emery had been an orphan of twenty-three, bravely starting in business for herself amid the plaudits of the admiring town; and John had fallen in love with her courage and her sense and her feminine charm. But alas, as Ovid points out, how difficult it is for a woman to please only one man! Robert also had fallen in love with Annie. Each brother had accused the other of underhand and unbrotherly practices in the pursuit of Annie. Each was profoundly hurt by the accusations, and each, ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... in your way." He was very quick at noticing any mannerisms or favourite words. "All good writers have mannerisms, of course," he would say, "but the moment that the reader sees that it is a mannerism the charm is gone." His praise was rarely given, and when it came it was generous and rich. "That is excellent," I can hear him say, "You have filled your space exactly, and filled it well. There is not a word ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Albany. Yet I could quite understand the mutual attraction between Raffles and this much younger man; indeed he was a mere boy, but like so many of his school he seemed to have a knowledge of the world beyond his years, and withal such a spontaneous spring of sweetness and charm as neither knowledge nor experience could sensibly pollute. And yet I had a shrewd suspicion that wild oats had been somewhat freely sown, and that it was Raffles who had stepped in and taken the sower in hand, and turned him into the stuff of which Blues are made. At least I knew that ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... it, or to hold himself strictly to account for it, was the secret of the power in the man which would bring about the material results he desired; and this simplicity of the motive involved had its charm. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... reading Dowden's "Life of Southey." Be delighted with the ease, the charm, of Dowden's style: dwell upon it. Consider his fine powers as a biographer, but be impressed with the unsurpassed diligence of ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... "Glory" on seeing the Stars and Stripes, as though it had been a banner of protection and liberty, instead of the emblem of a power which hitherto had kept them and their ancestors in bondage. The "old flag" has a peculiar charm for those who have served under it. It was noticeable that wherever we marched in the South, particularly in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia, we found men at the roadside who had fought in the Mexican War, often with tears streaming down their cheeks, who professed sincere ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... the peoples who dwell in the woods and the hills, and turned their minds against the men from the land of the sun-rising. They will fight them if any man can discover a charm that will protect them from the thunder and lightning that ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... understanding in dealing with some of his associates and assumed, perhaps unconsciously, an air of authority and an attitude of superiority which was resented. Where his pre-eminent position was unquestioned, as in his relations with the students and with the people of the State, the charm and graciousness of his manner and his parental kindness won him universal friendship and respect. Moreover Dr. Tappan was courageous, generous, and direct in all his dealings, in spite of that touch of condescension. ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... had adjusted his disappointment to the new life of the West. To say that he had fallen in love with the situation would be to misrepresent him. But the role of lonely cow-puncher loyally wedded to the thought of his first love was not without charm to Peter. How long his constancy would have survived the test of propinquity to a woman of Judith Rodney's compelling personality, other things being equal, it would be difficult to hazard a guess. The coming of Judith from the convent increased ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... he said gravely, but his lips curled a little as he watched her delight bring back her color, her smiles, her every fairy charm. ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... decoration unlike that of any other; and, moreover, there are variations in the shafts of the arcading—some are plain, some decorated in one way, some in another. The same love of variety may be seen here that lends so great a charm on a larger scale to Flambard's glorious nave at Durham. No doubt this north transept had attached to its east wall an apsidal Norman chapel similar to that which still exists on the eastern side of the south transept, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Wimborne Minster and Christchurch Priory • Thomas Perkins
... cheerful. The brilliancy of Louis de Gonzague showed more sombrely, as melting gold flows in a crucible. No one who saw the picture could fail to deny its physical beauty, but many would deny it the instant, the appealing charm which caught at the heart of the spectator with the first glance he gave to the canvas that portrayed Louis de Nevers. In contrast, too, were the very garments of the two men, for the dead duke affected light, airy, radiant ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... a French dancer who had sufficient charm to attract a royal press agent, who could draw crowds and ...
— Who Was Who: 5000 B. C. to Date - Biographical Dictionary of the Famous and Those Who Wanted to Be • Anonymous
... the dear little creature arrived with the elephant's proboscis hanging out of its divine little bill. However, after the first astonishment was over, his majesty, who to be sure was wisdom itself, and who understood natural philosophy that it was a charm to hear him discourse of those matters, and who was actually making a collection of dried beasts and birds in twelve thousand volumes of the best fool's-cap paper, immediately perceived what had happened, and taking out of the side-pocket of his breeches a diamond ...
— Hieroglyphic Tales • Horace Walpole
... manifested Presence the name of "the Christ" may rightly be given, and it was He who lived and moved in the form of the man Jesus over the hills and plains of Palestine, teaching, healing diseases, and gathering round Him as disciples a few of the more advanced souls. The rare charm of His royal love, outpouring from Him as rays from a sun, drew round Him the suffering, the weary, and the oppressed, and the subtly tender magic of His gentle wisdom purified, ennobled, and sweetened the lives that came into contact with His own. By ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... and roads natural. Now, in Russia, roads are nearly all of the unmade, natural kind, and are so conservative in their nature that they have at the present day precisely the same appearance as they had many centuries ago. They have thus for imaginative minds something of what is called "the charm of historical association." The only perceptible change that takes place in them during a series of generations is that the ruts shift their position. When these become so deep that fore-wheels can no longer fathom them, it becomes necessary to begin making a new pair of ruts to the right ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... looked straight into the flaming eyes, it seemed to him that they were losing their light and terror, that they were growing tame and dull; the open jaws closed, the neck fell backward and downward on the coil from which it rose, the charm was dissolving, the numbness was passing away, he could move once more. He heard a light breathing close to his ear, and, half turning, saw the face of Elsie Venner, looking motionless into the reptile's eyes, which had shrunk and faded under the stronger ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... to escape by walking fast, had timed him to a second from the other side of the street. There was the wonted warmth in the sunny squares, and the old familiar damp and stench in the deep narrow streets. But some charm had gone out of all this. The artisans coming to the doors of their shallow booths for the light on some bit of carpentering, or cobbling, or tinkering; the crowds swarming through the middle of the streets on perfect terms with the wine-carts and cab horses; the ineffective grandiosity of the ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... Americans: Melville and Charles Warren Stoddard; and at the christening of the first and greatest, some influential fairy must have been neglected: 'He shall be able to see,' 'He shall be able to tell,' 'He shall be able to charm,' said the friendly godmothers; 'But he shall not be able to hear,' exclaimed the last. The tribe of Hapaa is said to have numbered some four hundred, when the small-pox came and reduced them by one-fourth. Six months later a woman developed tubercular consumption; the disease spread ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... handled with science. Above all, there was no progression toward higher ideals of fitness and beauty. Rudimentary art displayed itself mainly in objects of worship, or in carvings on canoes and weapons, executed as talismans to ward off misfortune or to charm the unseen powers; but even this art was sterile and never grew of itself into civilized ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... Serpent, of casting its skin, and apparently renewing its youth, made it an emblem of eternity and immortality. The Syrian women still employ it as a charm against barrenness, as did the devotees of Mithras and Saba-Zeus. The Earth-born civilizers of the early world, Fohi, Cecrops, and Erechtheus, were half-man, half-serpent. The snake was the guardian of the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... tribute paid by the American public to the master who had given to it such tales of conjuring charm, of witchery and mystery as "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "Ligeia"; such fascinating hoaxes as "The Unparalleled Adventure of Hans Pfaall," "MSS. Found in a Bottle," "A Descent Into a Maelstrom" and "The Balloon ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... sure!" corroborated the physician, as his arm went around the little girl. "Fort Benton will be a second St. Louis! Mark my words, Latimer." He turned to his companion, whose charm of manner appealed unconsciously to ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... to draw together a collection of etymologies which have been woven into verse. These are so little felt to be alien to the spirit of poetry, that they exist in large numbers, and often lend to the poem in which they find a place a charm and interest of their own. In five lines of Paradise Lost Milton introduces four such etymologies, namely, those of the four fabled rivers of hell, though this will sometimes escape the notice ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... revelation of God, that is, of the Good. Or, as Nietzsche said, "Vieler Edlern naemlich bedarf es, dass es Adel gebe!" Our appreciation of Midsummer Night's Dream does not prevent us from appreciating Alice in Wonderland, just as our esteem for the man does not hinder our feeling for the peculiar charm of the child. ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... been undermining the stamina of health, which is commonly the case with diseases, or what has violently shocked it by accident, can only be removed by slow degrees. Medicines will not operate like a charm; and even when they are most efficacious, time is required to recover from the languid state to which persons are always reduced, both by accident and by disease. When the period is arrived at which sick persons may be said to be out of danger, a great deal ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... tall, and, as it seemed to me, exceedingly beautiful, though, perhaps, one who was more experienced and more critical might have thought that her charm lay in the past rather than the present. Her queenly figure was moulded upon large and noble lines, while her face, though already tending to become somewhat heavy and coarse, was still remarkable for the brilliancy of the complexion, ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a charm in writing for the pure and intelligent young worth all the plaudits of sinister or hypocritical wisdom. At a certain age, and while the writings that please have a gloss of novelty about them, hiding the blemishes that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... beautiful city by the Itchen is full of quiet charm, for life's ever-changing drama has but one and the same background. The actors come and go, but the stage remains much the same, and the devotions, the meditations, and the acts of men who lived centuries ago were set in the amphitheatre of the same green hills, and took place beside the ...
— Winchester • Sidney Heath
... narratives have a charm for me, which I do not find in the works of modern tourists. There is an honest homeliness and unreserve about them, which I would not exchange for any graces of style. The writers need no apologetic or explanatory preface; they sit down with the pressure ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... shriek, shaking off the unlucky spider as if it had been the Black Death in concrete. Then she looked round with flaming cheeks, to see if her scream had been heard by the hay-makers. No, they were far away, and too busy to take heed of her. But the charm was broken. Queen Hildegarde had plenty of courage of a certain sort, but she could not face a spider. The golden throne had become a "siege perilous," and she abdicated in favor of the grasshopper and his black ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... of which Mesdemoiselles Sugar, Wave of the Sea, Flower, Seashore, and Chrysanthemum are pressing in their invitations to you to enter and rest. Not beautiful these damsels, if judged by our standard, but the charm of Japanese women lies in their manner and dainty little ways, and the tea-house girl, being a professional decoy-duck, is an adept in the art of flirting,—en tout bien tout honneur, be it remembered; for she is not to be confounded with the ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... opinion that poets ought to apply themselves to the imitation of Nature, and make a conscience of digressing from her; but he is none of these. The ancient magicians could charm down the moon and force rivers back to their springs by the power of poetry only, and the moderns will undertake to turn the inside of the earth outward (like a juggler's pocket) and shake the chaos out of it, make Nature show tricks like an ape, and the stars run on errands; ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... virgin rapture that was June, And cold is August's panting heart of fire; And in the storm-dismantled forest-choir For thine own elegy thy winds attune Their wild and wizard lyre: And poignant grows the charm of thy decay, The pathos of thy beauty, and the sting, Thou parable of greatness vanishing! For me, thy woods of gold and skies of ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... sinned like other men, and, perhaps, more than most; that his senses had led him away by their charm, and that he had not repressed or constrained them as he should; but none the less, he had always held that Faith which the men of his line had left him, he had always clasped close the Creed and the unity of the Catholic Church; that, in ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... with its master absent, the handsome apartment bore the impress of his personality. The detective's quick imagination called up the attractive, sympathetic figure of the man he had seen at the gate, as his quick eye took in the details of the room. All the charm of Herbert Thorne's personality, which the keen-sensed Muller had felt so strongly even in that fleeting glimpse of him, came back again here in the room which was his own little kingdom and the expression ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... his injustice and brutality. She felt nothing but that he was angry at her, that he kept his eyes averted and repelled her timid advances. Her heart ached, and she would have grovelled at his feet, had he permitted her. In her desperation, she made up her mind to try on him the love-charm of the Sioux women. It might soften his heart toward her. She would have sacrificed anything and all ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... where appeared a gentleman of high, dignified bearing. He was tall and vigorous, like a German oak; the head of a Jupiter surmounted his broad shoulders and chest. Time, with its wrinkling hand, had tried in vain to deform the imperishable beauty of that countenance; age could not touch the charm and dignity of his features; the grace of youth still played on his classic lips, and the ardor of a young heart was beaming from his dark eyes as they looked calmly at ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... returning the smile in a way which made those who observed decide at once that these other two were old and familiar friends. Miss Carew, though she was not precisely a pretty girl, was really beautiful when she smiled, and had, at all times, an undeniable charm about her which came from one knew not just what. She was rather tall but very graceful, and her manner had about it an indefinable something which made one like to watch her, admiring each move she made as something done just a little differently ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... words used by jugglers, previous to their deceptions, as a kind of charm, or incantation. A celebrated writer supposes it to be a ludicrous corruption of the words hoc est corpus, used by the popish priests m consecrating the host. Also Hell Hocus is used to express drunkenness: as, he is quite hocus; he ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... fete. The weather is charming, and every one goes to see the cannon and inspect the barricades, Men, women, and children mount the hilly streets, and they all appear joyous ... for what, they cannot say themselves, but who can resist the charm of sunshine? If it rained, the city would be in mourning. Now the citizens have closed their shops and put on their best clothes, and are going to dine at the restaurant. These are the very enemies ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... differed in temperament and in many of the outward signs of character; but these two little books will very distinctly show how wholly they agreed as to essentials. For Addison, Literature had a charm of its own; he delighted in distinguishing the finer graces of good style, and he drew from the truths of life the principles of taste in writing. For Steele, Literature was the life itself; he loved ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... first beams, the healthful breeze, All Nature charm, and gay was every hour:— But ah! not Music's self, nor fragrant bower Can glad the trembling sense of wan Disease. Now that the frequent pangs my frame assail, 5 Now that my sleepless eyes are sunk and dim, And seas of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... as this person was our old friend Montalais, the king found himself completely hemmed in every time he paid Madame a visit; he was surrounded, and was never left a moment alone. Madame displayed in her conversation a charm of manner and brilliancy of wit which eclipsed everything. Montalais followed her, and soon rendered herself perfectly insupportable to the king, which was, in fact, the very thing she expected would happen. She then set Malicorne at the king, who found the means of ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... most improvident of men, launched out into extravagances more suited to an income of L5000 a year than the paltry L150 which was all he could command. He entertained on a lavish scale; and his wit and charm, supplemented by his wife's beauty and gift of song, soon surrounded them with a fashionable crowd eager to eat his dinners and to attend his wife's soirees. Sheridan was in his element in this environment of luxury and prodigality; but the Bath Nightingale would ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... fewest and least demands upon their followers most speedily fall away; those that call for the utmost are most likely to meet the enthusiastic response. There is a frank honesty about the biblical appeal which holds a charm for all men in whom there are any sparks of real manhood. The severities of the Christian life are nowhere disguised. Men are never lured on by false pretenses. The path is the path of cross-bearing, ...
— Understanding the Scriptures • Francis McConnell
... quietly, brought the rebel back to reason. Of course there was charm and eloquence in her speech, but how much more charm and eloquence in the tenderness of ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... opined old Blue Grass friends wouldn't naturally hitch on to them fancy doins," he said, glancing around the apartment to avoid her clear eyes, as if resolutely setting himself against the old charm of her manner as he had against the more recent glory of her surroundings, "but I thought I'd just drop in for ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... benevolently through his spectacles as he passed, and for a moment seemed about to speak. Belle quickly forgot him, however, for the ring occupied her thoughts to the exclusion of everything else. Even the story so fascinating an hour ago, had lost its charm. ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... had the outer bleakness of most private homes of South America, but if it was huge and its windows were barred, the patio into which Bell was ushered by a bewildered and suspicious major-domo made up in color and in charm for ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... and wife of the senior member for Edinburgh, Mr. Duncan McLaren, so much esteemed that he was sometimes spoken of as the "Member for Scotland," unites in her own person all the requisites for a leader of the movement. She has the charm and dignified grace so generally found among Quaker ladies, and the pathetic eloquence which belong to her family. She is clear-sighted in planning action, and enthusiastic and warm-hearted in carrying it out, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... faults remember, Forgetting every charm, Soon would impartial reason The tyrant love disarm: But when enraged I number Each failing of her mind, Love still suggests each ...
— The Duenna • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... forget the fate of his companions, or the warning which it afforded him to how sudden or slight an accident his own life might at any time fall a sacrifice. But it is certain that, where no such sense of constraint is felt, not only the notion, but even the reality, of savage life has a strong charm for many minds. The insecurity and privation which attend upon it are deemed but a slight counterbalance to the independence, the exemption from regular labour, and above all the variety of adventure, which it promises ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... ached, that she had "no nice place to cry." You didn't know that through the long, weary day, her mamma never took her gently on her lap,—or kissed her pale face,—or read her pretty stories, to charm her pain away,—or told her of that happy home, where none shall say, I'm sick. You didn't know that she never went to her little bed at night, to smooth her pillow, or put aside the ringlets from the flushed ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... direction and to attend meetings addressed by those skilled in the art of oratory. Many stories are told of his local reputation as a speaker and story-teller even before he moved to Illinois, much of his success then as in later life being due to the singular charm of his personality. Lincoln never overcame a certain awkwardness, almost uncouthness of appearance, and he never acquired the finer arts of oratory for which his rival Douglas was so conspicuous. But in spite ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... affairs, jest answer WOODEN LEG! Ef they aint settisfied with thet, an' kin' o' pry an' doubt An' ax fer sutthin' deffynit, jest say ONE EYE PUT OUT! Thet kin' o' talk I guess you 'll find 'll answer to a charm, An' wen you 're druv tu nigh the wall, hol' up my missin' arm; Ef they should nose round fer a pledge, put on a vartoous look An' tell 'em thet 's percisely wut ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... despair, like a vulture, gnaws every heart, and discord and misery reign around. In the Heavenly Jerusalem all is peace and eternal harmony, the beginning, fulfilment, and end of everything being pure and perfect happiness; the city is filled with splendid buildings, decorated in such a manner as to charm every eye and enrapture every sense; the inhabitants of this delightful abode are overflowing with rapture and exultation, the gardens gay with lovely flowers, and the trees covered with delicious fruits which give eternal life. In the city of Hell nothing ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... which the Bible has been given to the people would seem to have been devised with a design of robbing its writings of every natural charm, as the best means of making men feel its supernatural power. The fresh sense of "letters" disappears in this conventional form. These many books of many ages have been bound up together, with the most imperfect classification either as to period or character. ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... domain somewhat resemble the more affluent ones that she admired. Though her family had been decidedly plain, they had given her "advantages" in education and dress, and her own prettiness, her vivacity and charm, had won her way into whatever society Kansas City and Denver could offer. She had also visited here and there in different parts of the country,—once in New York, and again at a cottage on the New England coast where there were eight ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs to the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with "The Angel" are ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... flagpole on the farm And flung Old Glory to the sky, And it's another touch of charm That seems to cheer the passer-by, But more than that, no matter where We're laboring in wood and field, We turn and see it in the air, Our promise of a greater yield. It whispers to us all day long From dawn to dusk: "Be true, be strong; Who falters now with plough ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest
... some distance from them, over rocky cliffs, and through deep ravines, we came to a couple of huts, from which came a whistling noise, such as, with us, the people use to charm quails, in order to capture them. We stooped down among the grass, and listened for a long while, in order to find out whether it came from a bird, or whether there were people in the huts. As it was not ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... from street to street among fair and spacious dwellings, set in amaranthine gardens, and adorned with an infinitely varied beauty of divine simplicity. The mansions differed in size, in shape, in charm: each one seemed to have its own personal look of loveliness; yet all were alike in fitness to their place, in harmony with one another, in the addition which each made to the singular and tranquil splendour ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... partiality for the English. His Chronicles have been, perhaps, more popular in their English form than in their original French. Two prominent English translations have been made, of which the later, that by Thomas Johnes, is now most read. Sir Walter Scott thought the earlier excelled in charm of style. ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... despair. The second point in which she had suffered harm was of more serious nature. She was subject to fits of hysteria, preceded and followed by the most painful collapse of that buoyant courage which was her supreme charm and the source of her influence. Without warning, an inexplicable terror would fall upon her; like the weakest child, she craved protection from a dread inspired solely by her imagination, and solace for an anguish of wretchedness to which she could give no ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... was agitated, and alluded to her maternal relatives, she spoke with ever so slight a foreign accent, which gave a great charm to her clear ringing voice. "No," she continued, kindling as she spoke to the Captain; "I can endure poverty, but not shame—neglect, but not ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... lost and never used as a great modern road. This was the way along which the French feudal cavalry trailed to the disaster of Crecy, and just beyond Crecy it goes and loses itself in that exasperating but fascinating manner which is the whole charm of Roman roads wherever the hunter finds them. You may lay a ruler along this old forgotten track, all the way past Domqueur, Novelle (which is called Novelle-en-Chaussee, that is Novelle on the paved road), on past Estree (where from the height you overlook the battlefield ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... RIDER HAGGARD'S many books, but as far as my experience of them goes I find a delightfully fresh quality in this tale. It may be old-fashioned and over-sentimental, but in spite of these defects it has a very definite charm, and its conclusion makes a curious and legitimate appeal to the emotions. All the other stories are well up to standard, and it is amazing that an author who has written so much still shows no symptoms either of weariness ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 15, 1920 • Various
... neighboring tenements. To them he was all gentleness and fun, while his command of invective in a public meeting was little short of terrible. Great ladies and the country-houses courted him because of a certain wit, a certain charm—above all, a certain spiritual power—which piqued the worldling. He flouted and refused the great ladies—with a smile, however, which gave no offence; and he knew, notwithstanding, everybody whom he wanted to know. Occasionally he made quiet spaces in his life, and ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... gift of informing her characters with life and charm.... The book cannot fail to consolidate the position which the authoress has won by ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... Augustine's plagiarism from them; yet the De Civitate Dei, which is largely devoted to refuting Varro's pagan theology, is a perennial monument to his fame. St. Augustine says (VI, 2): "Although his elocution has less charm, he is so full of learning and philosophy that ... he instructs the student of facts as much as Cicero delights ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... might be employed, and what an empire might be so founded, little by little, in the mind of any boy, stood obviously clear to me. There was no inhibition, so long as the man was in the house, that would be strong enough to hold these two apart; for if it be hard to charm serpents, it is no very difficult thing to cast a glamour on a little chip of manhood not very long in breeches. I recalled an ancient sailor-man who dwelt in a lone house beyond the Figgate Whins (I believe, he called it after Portobello), and how the boys would troop out of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... father how swiftly and enthusiastically the old Faith had come back with Mary Tudor after the winter of Edward's reign. And if, as some estimated, a third of England were still convincedly Catholic, and perhaps not more than one twentieth convincedly Protestant, might not Mary Stuart, with her charm, accomplish more even than Mary Tudor with her lack ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... Heroine—a creature of resplendent form and feature, With a spell in every motion and a charm in every look: I'd a Villain—worse than Nero,—I'd a most superior Hero: And the host of minor persons which is ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... this potent charm is imputed, was one of the Magi who followed the tenets of Zoroaster. He had come to the court of this youthful Princess, who received him with every attention which gratified vanity could dictate, so that in a short time her awe ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... Count Lamberg and his countess, who, without being beautiful, was an epitome of feminine charm and amiability. Her name before marriage was Countess Dachsberg. Three months after my arrival, this lady, who was enciente, but did not think her time was due, went with Count Fugger, dean of the chapter, to a party of pleasure at an inn three quarters of a league from Augsburg. I was present; ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Marie) is a little too good, and it seems rather surprising that somebody did not say something about Germain and Marie arriving next morning instead of overnight. But never mind this. The scenery and the writing of the book have real charm. The long conversation by the watch-fire in the wood, where Germain tries to break off his suit to the widow already and transfer himself to Marie, with Marie's cool and (for she has loved him already) ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... you! When you rode on your lonely path, I should go out to meet you and give you the drink of forgetfulness from the golden horn. I should mix therein my magic and charm so that you would forget both heaven and earth, forget where you were born and reared, what name you answered to, and where your kinsmen fared,—one thing alone should you remember, one thing alone should fill ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... "Eia Mater," is built up on an exceedingly brief motive, which is augmented with surprising power in choral form. It is a work of scholarly skill, and yet is full of charm and grace, and will always commend itself even to the untutored hearer by its ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... monstrous charms of terrible delight. Our present theme the German Muse supplies, But rather aims to soften than surprise. Yet, with her woes she strives some smiles to blend, Intent as well to cheer as to amend: On her own native soil she knows the art To charm the fancy, and to touch the heart. If, then, she mirth and pathos can express, Though less engaging in an English dress, Let her from British hearts no peril fear, But, as a ...
— Lover's Vows • Mrs. Inchbald
... pleasant to find that this charm is not peculiar to English children, but prevails in places as remote from each other as Naples ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... brave and sweet you might secure from that brief description both her manner and her charm. He half crossed the room to meet ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... upon him with extravagant manifestations. Coleman played his part with skill. To both the professor and Mrs. Wainwright his manner was a combination of modestly filial affection and a pretentious disavowal of his having done anything at all. It seemed to charm everybody but Marjory. It irritated him to see that she was apparently incapable of acknowledging that he was ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... general to Mademoiselle D——. "I am not fierce enough for a soldier," replied the fair one, with a bewitching smile. "Well then," observed the sun-browned general, "should the war ever be renewed, you shall attend me to charm away its calamities." ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... coming along with us; and soon we found ourselves, thanks to a penny tram fare, in fresher, cleaner quarters. We got down at the corner of Parliament Hill. The sun had just set and the clear spring twilight lent a wonderful charm of serene peace to the scene. The undulating expanse of Heath was growing darker and darker; in the west still lingered the last sunset hues of pink and saffron and green; and overhead in the deep blackening blue of night the stars were just becoming visible. We had strolled on ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... incantations, a belief in witchcraft and an evil eye, a resort to "wise men," and even to the minister of the parish as being a "Master of Arts," or for some of the offertory money, out of which to have a charm-ring made. They are likewise inclined to give credence to tales of apparitions, and to regard sickness and accident as fated and inevitable. From their having been for so many generations an isolated and peculiar people, most of them are ignorant ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... would at all times have given me great pleasure, gave me still more here than they would if I were with you on the other side of the Atlantic. I am not cosmopolitan enough to love any nature so well as our American nature, and in addition to the charm of its poetry, every piece brought up to me the scenes amidst which it had been written. . . . How dear these associations are your husband will soon know when he too is separated from his native shores and from those he ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)
... wheeled toward him and he wearily lighted another cigarette. "Get a flash of this chap," Henshaw was saying. The subject leaned forward in his chair, gazing with cynical eyes at the fevered throng. Wine, women, song, all had palled. Gambling had no charm—he looked with disrelish at the cigarette he had but ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... with trembling care Her faded form; she bowed to taste the wave, And died. Does youth, does beauty read the line? Does sympathetic fear their breasts alarm? Speak, dead Maria; breathe a strain divine; E'en from the grave thou shalt have power to charm. Bid them be chaste, be innocent, like thee; Bid them in duty's sphere as meekly move; And if so fair, from vanity as free, As firm in friendship, and as fond in love,— Tell them, though 'tis an awful thing to die, (Twas e'en ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... up the stairs, and Jennie, who had been standing at the head of the stairs listening, felt the magnetic charm of his personality. It seemed, why she could hardly say, that a real personage had arrived. The house was cheerier. The attitude of her mistress was much more complaisant. Everybody seemed to feel that something must be done ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... of personal emolument; it tends to form, it does form, we see that it has formed, a political combination, united by no common principles or opinions among its members, either upon the powers of the Government or the true policy of the country, but held together simply as an association, under the charm of a popular head, seeking to maintain possession of the Government by a vigorous exercise of its patronage, and for this purpose agitating and alarming and distressing social life by the exercise of a tyrannical party proscription. ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... on my neck; every one was overjoyed. They did not understand what was passing in my soul, and thought that I, too, was happy. Every one looked on me as a noble being. And grown-ups and children alike felt that a noble being was walking about their rooms, and that gave a peculiar charm to their manner towards me, as though in my presence their life, too, was purer and more beautiful. Anna Alexyevna and I used to go to the theatre together, always walking there; we used to sit side by side in the stalls, our shoulders touching. I would take ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Suppose you sing me that last verse again. It had a taking charm. The music was like a ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... humour and irony, the apt, pert thumbnail-sketches of the subsidiary characters, the tender love of country things and moods; and saw that I'd been an ass to take it all too seriously. It was written to charm—and it's charming. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 28, 1914 • Various
... What romantic charm those little London work-girls have, with their short, tossing frocks and tumbling hair! There are no other work-girls in the world to compare with them for sheer witchery of face and character. The New York work-girl is a holy terror. The ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... to Mr. and Mrs. Laurie; and a Poet's warmest wishes for their happiness to the young ladies; particularly the fair musician, whom I think much better qualified than ever David was, or could be, to charm an evil spirit out ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... young and old it was a marvellous thing; The serpents writhed about as seeking food, And learned men to see the wonder came, And sage magicians tried to charm away That dreadful evil, but no ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... the older, taller bushes, as the goats browsed as high as they could stand and reach on their hind legs; the driftage of the pasture grasses that followed in the wake of the clearing by the goats. Yes, the continuity of such dreaming was its charm. Came the day when the men with axes chopped down all the taller brush so as to give the goats access to the leaves and buds and bark. Came the day, in winter weather, when the dry denuded skeletons of all these bushes were gathered into heaps and burned. Came the day when I moved ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... when he spoke to her, as it did not use to beat when she was sitting to him for her picture, and listening to his passionate love-making. And, with all her faculties, she studied him. What was the charm of his presence? He was himself, and himself only. He seemed perfect, but he seemed to have arrived at perfection like a statue, not like a picture—by what had been taken away, not by what had been laid on. He was as natural ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... not seen; Newts and blind-worms do no wrong, Come not near our fairy queen. Philomel, with melody Sing in our sweet lullaby, Lulla, lulla, lullaby, lulla, lulla, lullaby; Never harm. Nor spell nor charm, Come our lovely lady nigh So goodnight ...
— Sleep-Book - Some of the Poetry of Slumber • Various
... 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 (gods, ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... on every eminence; and scattered houses in the clefts and gullies of the hills; made it very beautiful. The great height of these, too, making the buildings look so tiny, that they had all the charm of elegant models; their excessive whiteness, as contrasted with the brown rocks, or the sombre, deep, dull, heavy green of the olive-tree; and the puny size, and little slow walk of the Lilliputian men and women on the bank; made a charming picture. ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... the first time he realized how fully she had developed. It was not surprising that her metamorphosis had escaped his attention, for he had never taken time to do more than briefly appraise her. With leisure for observation, however, he noted that she had made good her promise of rare physical charm, and that her comeliness had ripened into real beauty—beauty built on an overwhelming scale, to be sure, and hence doubly striking—moreover, he saw that all traces of her stolidity had vanished. She was an intelligent, wide-awake, vibrant person, and at ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... eyes upraised to mine, And baby fingers on my breast, Steep all my soul in sweet content,— Charm even such ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... World-Tournament, or the Hochheim vineyards at all: I see the young man's Yacht dashing in swift gallop, not without danger, through the Gap of Bingen; dancing wildly on the boiling whirlpools of St. Goar, well threading the cliffs;—the young man gloomily insensible to danger of life, and charm of the picturesque. Coblenz (CONFLUENTIA), the Moselle and Ehrenbreitstein: Majesty, smoking on deck if he like, can look at these through grimly pacifying tobacco; but to the Crown-Prince life itself ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... first married, he took his wife over the house, and gave up to her care all its contents. Then he went into their bedroom, and made her kneel with him before Madonna, and prayed God to give them wealth, friends, and male children. After that he told her that honesty would be her great charm in his eyes, as well as her chief virtue, and advised her to forego the use of paints and cosmetics. Much sound advice follows as to the respective positions of the master and the mistress in the household, the superintendence of domestics, and the right ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... and brushed and washed, and so free from defects that she was rather irritating, began to sing, then people listened. Karl von Rosen listened. She really had a voice which always surprised and charmed with the first notes, then ceased to charm. Leila MacDonald was as a good canary bird, born to sing, and dutifully singing, but without the slightest comprehension of her song. It was odd too that she sang with plenty of expression, but her own lack of realisation seemed to dull it for her listeners. ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... horrible things acceptable to the mind which becomes blind to their deformity, and even the most detestable things, desirable, by a certain feigned sanctity which it attaches to them. But the charm once broken, the rational mind becomes transformed into another image, totally different, and entirely repugnant to the things which it before venerated as divine. You very justly remark, that if truth ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... Mediumistic Development, Sealed Letters, and Materialization were the occasion of acrimonious and violent attack on the whole work of the Commission by those periodicals devoted to spiritualism and its propaganda. Age cannot wither the charm of the good humoured satire with which the Acting-Chairman treated these subjects; and it was largely the spirit in which they were thus approached that inspired the intense hostility on the part of the spiritual mediums ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... had a suit similar to the prince's, so that, when they were out on the street, they looked very much alike. The only difference between them was that he was black, and the prince was white. Yet he owned a ring, a charm which had been given him by a woman for saving her from the hands of a robber. This ring gave him power to call for anything he wanted; and this was the reason, doubtless, why he was treated with kindness by ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... most miserable, Absolute, whole, defiant of defence, Inevitable, inexplacable, intense, More vast than heaven is high, more deep than hell, Past cure or charm of solace or of spell, Possesses and pervades the spirit and sense Whereto the expanse of the earth pays tribute; whence Breeds evil only, and broods on fumes that swell Rank from the blood of brother and mother and wife. 'Misery of ...
— Studies in Song • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... with blue stockings and a black cap. He has with him a sword, made of the wood of the peach or date tree, the hilt and guard of which are covered with red cloth. Written in ink on the blade of the sword is a charm against ghosts. Advancing to the altar, the priest deposits his sword on it. He then prepares a mystic scroll, which he burns, collecting and emptying the ashes into a cup of spring water. Next, he takes the sword in his right hand and the cup in his left, and, after ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... much we were pleased with the proof you have given us that we are not unworthy of enjoying and appreciating your delightful works—pray accept our very best thanks, and I hope as an authoress you will not feel offended if I say that they will now have an added charm in our eyes from the regard which our personal acquaintance with the writer has engendered. I knew that, to those who do not mix much in society, the acquaintance with strangers is often irksome: we therefore feel the more obliged to you for having allowed us the pleasure of knowing you, ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... 'Come in your shipwreck clothes, it shall not matter to Luis. I recollect now, sir, you are the American sailor he saw one time in Colon. He has conversed many times of you. The senora will not like it, you understand, you a sailor, but with the senorita, it is but to charm the more. She loves me, her hard dog of an uncle, because I, who have adventured, can tell her a thousand tales. You have adventured also and she is yet her father's child. Do not mind that I speak frankly, but come. If I speak thus ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... as she walks in full-orbed brightness through the heavens; the soft witchery of the morning and the evening star; the imperial splendors of the firmament on a bright, unclouded night; the comet, whose streaming banner floats over half the sky,—these are objects which charm and astonish alike the philosopher and the peasant, the mathematician who weighs the masses and defines the orbits of the heavenly bodies, and the untutored observer who sees nothing beyond the images painted ...
— The Uses of Astronomy - An Oration Delivered at Albany on the 28th of July, 1856 • Edward Everett
... was rather pleasing, but that beauty was out of the question, nor did I understand his brother to have made any remark conveying the idea that she possessed that charm so ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... shock of each separate pulsation, in its complex form, is received by the bridge, and communicated to such undamped strings as may, by their lengths, be sensitive to them; thus producing the AEolian tone commonly known as sympathetic, an eminently attractive charm in the tone of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... nothing in the farm to hold Emmanuel, no charm in the veld nor interest in the work. He was barely a man when he would ride on to the dorp and its saloons, and in time he was there oftener and oftener, drinking and soiling his hands with all the strange foulness of life the English bring with them. We, ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... souls, deep hidden and rarely ever entirely revealed. How well must one come to know them, stone by stone, highways, homes and habitants, ere they will disclose their secret. I have rejoiced too often in the splendid serenity of St. Jean des Vignes, felt too deeply the charm of those ancient streets, hoped and suffered too intensely within its confines that Soissons should not mean more to me than to the average zealous newspaper correspondent, come there but to make note of its ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... at this moment that the Beauchenes and the Seguins reappeared with Mathieu, and stopped short, struck by the charm of the spectacle before them. Between a framework of tall trees, under the patriarchal oak, on the thick grass of the lawn the whole vigorous family was gathered in a group, instinct with gayety, beauty, and strength. Gervais and Claire, ever active, were, with Frederic, hurrying ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... muffled tramp of the Museum guard Once more went by me; I beheld again Lamps vainly brighten the dispeopled street; Again I longed for the returning morn, The awaking traffic, the bestirring birds, The consentaneous trill of tiny song That weaves round monumental cornices A passing charm of beauty. Most of all, For your light foot I wearied, and your knock That was the glad reveille of my day. Lo, now, when to your task in the great house At morning through the portico you pass, One moment glance, where by the pillared wall Far-voyaging island ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... have wasted myself upon vain and worthless women, and at the thought all my being went out in love and tenderness to my dear mistress, my dear lady, who had come at last and compelled me—compelled me by her invincible charm for me—to ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... and, certainly, he was a man of high and patriotic feeling, and of skill and conduct to match. But he lacked that touch of nature and that power of sympathising with others which gave to such men as M. de Rosny and the king, my master, their peculiar charm; though after what I have related of him in the last chapter it does not lie in my mouth to speak ill of him. And, indeed, he ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... must confess we were all three at times completely at a loss. But Lylda's bright, intelligent little face, and the resourcefulness of her gestures, always managed somehow to convey her meaning. The charm and grace of her manner, all during the talk, her winsomeness, and the almost spiritual kindness and tenderness that characterized her, made me feel that she embodied all those qualities with which we of this earth ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... upon the sensual intercourse between the sexes, the delight of which he ascribed chiefly to imagination. 'Were it not for imagination, Sir, (said he,) a man would be as happy in the arms of a chambermaid as of a Duchess. But such is the adventitious charm of fancy, that we find men who have violated the best principles of society, and ruined their fame and their fortune, that they might possess a woman of rank.' It would not be proper to record the particulars ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... children almost as clearly and as tenderly as Lamb saw them. For days afterwards you will not be able to look upon a child without recalling Lamb's portrayal of the grace of childhood. He will have shared with you his perception of beauty. If you possess children, he will have renewed for you the charm which custom does very decidedly stale. It is further to be noticed that the measure of his success in picturing the children is the measure of his success in his main effect. The more real they seem, the more touching is the revelation of the fact that they do not exist, and ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... not the man to shrink with loathing from the companionship of thieves, highwaymen, forgers, coiners, and pirates. Curiosity was a much stronger power with him than disgust. Newgate had something of the charm for Defoe that a hospital full of hideous diseases has for an enthusiastic surgeon. He spent many pleasant hours in listening to the tales of his adventurous fellow-prisoners. Besides, the Government ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... mother said no more, but gave her a camel and some food, and a negro and his wife to take care of her, and she fastened a cowrie shell round the camel's neck for a charm, and bade ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... tender grass of the meadows, joined in the joyous epithalamium—the virgin bud timidly put forth its blushes, "the voice of the turtle was heard in the land," and the heart of man dissolved away in tenderness. Oh, sweet Theocritus! had I thine oaten reed, wherewith thou erst did charm the gay Sicilian plains; or, oh, gentle Bion! thy pastoral pipe wherein the happy swains of the Lesbian isle so much delighted, then might I attempt to sing, in soft Bucolic or negligent Idyllium, the rural beauties ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... Him to help us, And He will keep us from harm; Only to whisper, "Jesus!"— His Name is a holy charm: "Jesus, save me!" we need but say, And the night of temptation ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... is so delightful to us as the old English drama. Even its inferior productions possess a charm not to be found in any other kind of poetry. It is the most lucid mirror that ever was held up to nature. The creations of the great dramatists of Athens produce the effect of magnificent sculptures, conceived by a mighty imagination, polished with ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... helpfulness. But even these abundant illustration can do little more than suggest how far the artistic achievement is the finest yet seen in America. No book can adequately represent this World's Fair. Its spell is the charm of color and the grandeur of noble proportion, harmonizing great architectural units; its lesson is the compelling value, demonstrated on a vast scale, of exquisite taste. It must be ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... her to ask this, for the subject seemed to have an inexhaustible charm for her. She would sit rapt and motionless as long as he cared to talk of his sister, in her wide, meditative eyes the shadow of a great unvoiced longing. It always seemed to make her grave and thoughtful, he had noticed, so he had tried ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... wanted to speak. Juliana couldn't step out of the surgeon's quarters to walk across the parade-ground without making every soldier in the fort conscious of her. She was well-shaped and tall, and a slight pitting of the skin only enhanced the charm of her large features. She used to dress unlike anybody else, in foreign things that her aunt gave her, and was always carrying different kinds of thin scarfs to throw over her face and tantalize ...
— A British Islander - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... one thing more than another that she could not stand it was one of those soft women with what men called 'charm' about them, and for Mrs. Soames she always had an ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... so different yet so like, were almost equally agreeable to the poor invalid. Miss Tippet was "so funny but so good," and Emma's sprightly nature seemed to charm away her pain for a time; while grave, gentle, earnest Ziza made her happy during her visits, and left a sensation of happiness after she went away. All three were equally untiring in talking with her about the "old, old story"—the ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... must have had a charm unapproached by those of any city now in existence. The stores, indeed, were wretched little dens. Two or three of them commonly occupied the front of a house on either side of the entrance, the ostium; but when the door lay open, as was usually the case, a passerby could look into ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... opened the glorious possibilities of our existence beyond the grave. In no classic picture or statue is there anything akin to that divine affinity that is apparent in the Madonnas of the Italian masters of the sixteenth century, investing them with a charm that lingers like an autumn sunset In the recollection of long-departed years. Compare the loveliest of the Madonnas of Correggio and Raphael with the Venus of Cos, and we perceive the inferiority of mere physical perfection to that spiritual ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... which this event took place, the strapping young man and the little active youth sat together at the open window of a comfortable though small parlour, enjoying a cup of tea. The view from the window was limited, but it possessed the charm of variety; commanding as it did, a vista of chimney-pots of every shape and form conceivable—many of which were capped with those multiform and hideous contrivances, with which foolish man vainly endeavours ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... false, it is still evident, that pain and pleasure, if not the causes of vice and virtue, are at least inseparable from them. A generous and noble character affords a satisfaction even in the survey; and when presented to us, though only in a poem or fable, never fails to charm and delight us. On the other hand cruelty and treachery displease from their very nature; nor is it possible ever to reconcile us to these qualities, either in ourselves or others. Thus one hypothesis of morality is an undeniable ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... thin; she had a pathetic expression; one could imagine her attending, helping, nursing, holding a child in her arms, but not his intellectual equal, guiding and directing like his mother; and without the social brilliance and charm of Edith. ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... have a peculiar charm for Edison, whether they relate to large or small things; and although the larger matters have contributed most to the history of the arts, the same carefulness of thought has often been the means of leading to improvements of permanent advantage even in minor details. For instance, in the very ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... of the first sensations of Christianity, Lucy found and took unauthorised possession of a gold cross. Retiring to a secluded spot on the bank of the river, she hung the cross to a string round her neck, imagining it to be a charm, by the magic of which she would become a white girl. Twenty-four hours of patient expectancy passed without any change in Lucy's complexion, so she lost faith in the golden symbol, and bartered it to a Malay pieman ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... escape. Every iota of cleverness must be given to find a way out of Schloss Szolnok. What if, in spite of all, the things that Leo Goritz had confessed were true! She doubted it and yet—if he loved her—! Here was a woman's revenge, to bait, to charm, to spurn; and then to outwit him! A test of the sincerity of his professions, and of her own feminine art—a dangerous game which she had once before thought of playing, until his cruelty had atrophied ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... own Christian name, to wit "Dear Duncan!!" Yet there was nothing Germanic in Catherine's ancestry; it was only her apologetic little way of addressing me as though nothing had ever happened, of asking whether she might. Her own old tact and charm were in that tentative burial of the past. In the first line she had all but won my entire forgiveness; but the very next ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... from him. Insensibly he came to see that the display of his legal knowledge, of his carefully chosen ties, of his splendid equipment in house, horses, and automobiles, had something of the major-domo's strut in parti-colored hose. The day came when he understood that the effort to charm her by the parade of these things was like the appeal to divine grace by means of grinding on a prayer-mill. It was a long step to take, both in thought and emotion, leading him to see love, marriage, women's hearts, and all kindred subjects, from a different point of view. Love ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... plain combination of them; practice writing until it can be written easily and rapidly and stick to it. Don't confuse your banker by changing the form of a letter or adding flourishes. Countless repetitions will give a facility in writing it that will lend a grace and charm and will stamp it with your peculiar characteristics in such a way that the forger will pass you by when looking for an "easy mark." Plain signatures of the character noted above are not the ones usually selected by forgers for simulation. Forgers are always hunting for the illegible as in ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... will see that each of them appears as if its head had been dipped into coal-dust. There is a congregation of the blackest of all insects hiding in horrid congestion among the leaves and flowers at the top. Compared to them, the green-fly on the roses has almost charm. There is something slummy and unwashed-looking about the black blight. These insects are as foul as a stagnant pond. Though they have wings, they seem incapable of flight. They are microbes of a larger growth—a disease and a desecration. On the other hand, there ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... gave some elephants' tusks, worth 30 Pounds, for another medicine which was to make him invulnerable to musket balls. As I uniformly recommended that these things should be tested by experiment, a calf was anointed with the charm and tied to a tree. It proved decisive, and Sechele remarked it was "pleasanter to be deceived than undeceived." I offered sulphur for the same purpose, but that was declined, even though a person came to the town afterward and rubbed his hands with a little before ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... for several moments; he seemed perceptibly moved by the manner of the young man, as well as by the matter of his discourse. In fact, one would suppose that Charles Holland had succeeded in investing what he said with some sort of charm that won much upon the fancy of Sir Francis Varney, for when he ceased to speak, the latter said in ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... for such discoveries as these that astronomers examined the surface of the moon. The examination of mere peculiarities of physical condition is, after all, but barren labour, if it lead to no discovery of physical variation. The principal charm of astronomy, as indeed of all observational science, lies in the study of change—of progress, development, and decay, and specially of systematic variations taking place in regularly-recurring cycles. And it is in this relation that the moon has been so disappointing ...
— Half-hours with the Telescope - Being a Popular Guide to the Use of the Telescope as a - Means of Amusement and Instruction. • Richard A. Proctor
... Cupid's golden arrow-heads as, later, sitting by the side of Aphrodite, he floated along the shores of queenly Hellas, in gleeful mischief shooting landward and piercing many a heart. Ah, love in youth! The cold reasoning world shall never take away that charm; and when the years shall cover with senile snows those who have felt it, then Intuition and not Reason shall give Faith to them as the only substitute for glories that have ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... it is, from morn to night. To him nature has no beauty—life no charm. For three years I have never seen him smile" (the gloom of Bingley's face was fearful to witness during these comments of the faithful domestic). "Nothing diverts him. O, if he would but attach himself to any living ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... wooings, gentle June? Thou hast a Naiad's charm; Thy breezes scent the rose's breath; Old Time gives thee her palm. [5] The lark's shrill song doth wake the dawn; The eve-bird's forest flute Gives back some maiden melody, Too pure ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... patient in the buggy. His profile cut against the sky was blameless; and a humorous shrewdness which showed in the wrinkle at his eye and in the droop of his yellow mustache gave its regularity life and charm. It occurred to her that if Dr. Mulbridge caught sight of Mr. Libby before he saw her, or before she could explain that she had got one of the gentlemen at the hotel—she resolved upon this prevarication—to drive her to Corbitant in default of another conveyance, he would have ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... old to try my hand at that," replied Mr. Granger, with a bitter smile. He was mentally comparing himself with George Fairfax, the handsome soldier, with that indescribable charm of ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... again, is there not some truth in the statement that much that we call evil has been incidental to the progress of the race, just as the discords produced by the learner on a musical instrument are necessary incidents in the process which will teach him by and by to charm the ear with the perfect harmony? Such questions are frequently put forward; let us see if we are able to clear away the misunderstandings ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... the worst of us Have not we all something to hide—with or without shame? In all secrets there is a kind of guilt Pathetically in earnest Things that once charmed charm less ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Edgar the Dreamer was filled with the subtle charm of mystery. It was a secret life. The world in which he moved was a secret world—an invisible world, to whose invisible door he alone held the key. Edgar the Dreamer was himself an invisible person, for the only outward difference between him and his twin brother, ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... 'lectioneerin' round, some curus chaps should beg To know my views o' state affairs, jest answer WOODEN LEG! Ef they aint settisfied with thet, an' kin' o' pry an' doubt An' ax fer sutthin' deffynit, jest say ONE EYE PUT OUT! Thet kin' o' talk I guess you 'll find 'll answer to a charm, An' wen you 're druv tu nigh the wall, hol' up my missin' arm; Ef they should nose round fer a pledge, put on a vartoous look An' tell 'em thet 's percisely wut I never ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... outlays and small savings, that belonged to the man who wasn't generally afraid. There were things enough, goodness knew—for it was the moral of his plight—that he couldn't afford; but what had had a charm for him if not the notion of living handsomely, to make up for it, in another way? of not at all events reading the romance of his existence in a cheap edition. All he had originally felt in her came back ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... Ibsen, too, has been far more widely translated (and is easier to translate) into English than Bjornson. Much of the latter's finest work, especially in his lyrical poetry and his peasant stories, has a charm of diction that it is almost impossible to reproduce in translation. Ibsen and Bjornson, who inevitably suggest comparison when either's work is dealt with, were closely bound by friendship as well as admiration until a breach was caused by ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... to have a peculiar charm for Edison, whether they relate to large or small things; and although the larger matters have contributed most to the history of the arts, the same carefulness of thought has often been the means of leading to improvements of permanent advantage even in minor details. For instance, ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... mountains were clothed in soft, rich splendors of melting color, and some of the cliffs were veiled in slanting mists. I recognized it all. It was just as I had seen it long before, with nothing of its beauty lost, nothing of its charm wanting. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... much speculation during the short period of its exercise, the bay during February, March, and April of each year presents a wondrous spectacle, for here Jews, Indians, merchants, jewellers, boatmen, conjurors to charm off the dreaded sharks, Brahmins, Roman Catholic priests, and many other professions and nationalities are represented, all in a state of speculation, hope, and excitement that fill their faces with animation and their frames ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... man before his time and since, has paid tribute to the loveliness of the girls of Cork. There is a graceful charm about them before which the most inveterate bachelor succumbs. The accents of the Siren singers were never so insinuating and caressing as the Munster brogue as it slips off the tongue of a gentlewoman. Blue eyes predominate, but are ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... a private estate, looked like an old castle, and the dwellings that were its nearest neighbors were owned by old and wealthy residents. No stores had ever broken the charm of the locality, and the sleepy old town had supposed that they never would, yet around the corner of a little back street, an enterprising Italian had purchased a wee cottage. After three days a sign appeared in his front window. It stunned the ...
— Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore • Amy Brooks
... stamp begin as their own dupes. He walked up through L'Houmeau, shame at the manner of his return struggling with the charm of old associations as he went. His heart beat quickly as he passed Postel's shop; but, very luckily for him, the only persons inside it were Leonie and her child. And yet, vanity was still so strong in ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... La Palice, and indeed the whole siege of Ruvo, is told by Jean D'Auton in a truly heart-stirring tone, quite worthy of the chivalrous pen of old Froissart. There is an inexpressible charm imparted to the French memoirs and chronicles of this ancient date, not only from the picturesque character of the details, but from a gentle tinge of romance shed over them, which calls to mind ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... Groome could not have wished to encounter, and consequently his disapproval of those "absurd new-fangled notions of hers" which were "an effectual bar, sir," as he said himself, "the kind of thing that destroys a woman's charm, and makes it impossible to get on with her," mounted to his forehead in ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... touched from within with the hue of abounding health, and her crimson mouth was less tender than it was wont to be. But she leaned back in her chair in a posture of grace that displayed to advantage the slender, curving charm of her body, and her eyes, shining golden in the soft light of the room, met ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... hat. Almost at once Fyne caught me up and slowed down to my strolling gait which must have been infinitely irksome to his high pedestrian faculties. I am sure that all his muscular person must have suffered from awful physical boredom; but he did not attempt to charm it away by conversation. He preserved a portentous and dreary silence. And I was bored too. Suddenly I perceived the menace of even worse boredom. Yes! He was so silent because he had something to ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... to wait for the train. It was all a world of delight to Matilda. She watched eagerly the gathering people, the busy porters and idle hack drivers; the expectant table and waiters in the station restaurant; every detail and almost every person she saw had the charm of novelty or an interest of some sort for her unwonted eyes. And then came the rumble of the train, the snort and the whistle; and she was seated beside Norton in the car, with a place by the window where she could still watch everything. The daylight was dying along the western shore ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner
... moment the sweet, quivering face put forth its appeal to the lower nature of the man. The girl was young enough, and new enough to sway Jude after a fashion, but the charm died almost at birth. ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... face with the ordeal, the Franciscans raised such difficulties that it was very plain the heart of their champion was failing him. The first fear they expressed was that Fra Bonvicini was an enchanter, and so carried about him some talisman or charm which would save him from the fire. So they insisted that he should be stripped of all has clothes and put on others to be inspected by witnesses. Fra Bonvicini made no objection, though the suspicion was humiliating; ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... changing moods, her sweet gravity, her tender seriousness, her pretty rogueries, her demureness, her thousand winsome tricks of gesture and expression, the vital ring of her sweet voice, her long-lashed eyes, the dimple in her chin, and all the constant charm and wonder of her. But what pen could do the sweet soul justice, what word describe her innumerable graces? Surely not mine, so would it be but vain labour and mayhap, to you who take up this book, great weariness ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... repetition of notes by taking a staccato T-stop in blowing, is well known. The flute generally goes with the violins in the orchestra, or sustains long notes with the other wood wind instruments, or is used in those conversational passages with other instruments that lend such a charm to orchestral music. The lower notes are not powerful. Mr. Henry Carte has, however, designed an alto flute in A, descending to violin G, with excellent results. There is a flute which transposes a minor third higher than the ordinary flute; but it is not much used in ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... supplemented by a white under-waistcoat, and yet again beneath this gleamed the edge of a red knitted under-jacket, to put you in mind of Garat's five waistcoats. A huge white muslin stock with a conspicuous bow, invented by some exquisite to charm "the charming sex" in 1809, projected so far above the wearer's chin that the lower part of his face was lost, as it were, in a muslin abyss. A silk watch-guard, plaited to resemble the keepsakes made of hair, meandered down the shirt front and secured his watch ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... slowly rising in her. The great artist, who held thousands spellbound and breathless, could not submit easily to losing in such a way the only friendship that had ever meant much to her. The man who had just told her that she had lost her charm for him meant that she was sinking to the level of her surroundings, and he was the only man she had ever believed that she loved. Two years ago, and even less, she would have been generously angry with him, and would have spoken out, and perhaps all would have been over; but those two years ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... burning wrath which is to come, In words like flakes of sulphur, such as thaw 15 The frozen tears... If Satire's scourge could wake the slumbering hounds Of Conscience, or erase the deeper wounds, The leprous scars of callous Infamy; If it could make the present not to be, 20 Or charm the dark past never to have been, Or turn regret to hope; who that has seen What Southey is and was, would not exclaim, 'Lash on!' ... be the keen verse dipped in flame; Follow his flight with winged words, and urge 25 The strokes of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... were precisely those most calculated to impress and charm Maurice, and he regarded Ronald with unbounded admiration, mingled with a sickening sense of regret when he reflected upon the trammels which reined in the ready impulses and crushed the instinctive aspirations which were ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... which played on his brow, and listened to the dash of the waves on the beach, that left against the rocks a lace of foam as white as silver. He was for some time without reflection or thought for the divine charm which is in the things of nature, specially after a fantastic dream; then gradually this view of the outer world, so calm, so pure, so grand, reminded him of the illusiveness of his vision, and once more awakened memory. He recalled his arrival on the island, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... little sentimental. At the beginning of the second act she is not yet herself; she can still laugh like a light-hearted girl, but when she again succumbs to Tannhaeuser's unearthly (and to her fatal) charm, and realises how irrevocably he has surrendered himself to Venus, she rises to true greatness and resolutely faces the swords unsheathed to punish the offender. Before our eyes she is transformed into the saint ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... that the charm of music rests on a more unreasoning basis, and is more dependent on what we are accustomed to, than the pleasure given by the other arts. We now find all the ecclesiastical modes, except the Ionian ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... remembrance of Madam de Warrens, who was born there; of my father, who lived there; of Miss Vulson, who had been my first love, and of several pleasant journeys I had made there in my childhood, mingled with some nameless charm, more powerfully attractive than all the rest. When that ardent desire for a life of happiness and tranquility (which ever follows me, and for which I was born) inflames my mind, 'tis ever to the country of Vaud, near the ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... that of some saint-like nature towards the acolyte whom it attracted upwards. He had once, just before Enguerrand's death, spoken to Isaura with a touching candour as to his own predilection for a monastic life. "The worldly avocations that open useful and honourable careers for others have no charm for me. I care not for riches nor power, nor honours nor fame. The austerities of the conventual life have no terror for me; on the contrary, they have a charm, for with them are abstraction from earth and meditation on heaven. In earlier years I might, like other men, have cherished dreams ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... brothers and sisters, Ambroise had always been the boldest, most captivating and self-assertive. The others might be better than he, but he reigned over them like a handsome, ambitious, greedy boy, a future man of gayety and conquest. And this indeed he proved to be; by the charm of his victorious intellect he conquered old Du Hordel in a few months, even as later on he was destined to vanquish everybody and everything much as he pleased. His strength lay in his power of pleasing and his power of ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... Chesney, it was an aim with him to write out his account of daily events while they were still fresh in his mind. He was afraid many of the little details might be forgotten if he delayed; and in the end those were what would give most of the charm to the ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... upon my ear with peculiar and indescribable charm, like the gentle murmur of a brook stealing forth in the midst of roses, or the soft sweet accent of an angel's whisper in the bright joyous dream of sleeping innocence. Duluth! 'T was the name for which my soul had panted for years, as the hart panteth for the water brooks. I was ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... had such an effect on me, that not only several of her songs have ever since remained on my memory, but some I have not thought of from my infancy, as I grow old, return upon my mind with a charm altogether inexpressible. Would any one believe that an old dotard like me, worn out with care and infirmity, should sometime surprise himself weeping like a child, and in a voice querulous, and broken by age, muttering out one of those airs which ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... you come in, Edie?" said he; for Mrs. de la Vere's delicate aristocratic beauty seemed to be the natural complement of her sporting style, and to-night there was a wistful charm in her face that the lively Reginald had not ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... artists, and even to the moderately gifted, for their worth is, in part, already manifested in their lives. But it is not so easy to apply or justify the principle in the case of the obscure masses, whose lives are uneventful, unilluminated by talent, charm, or conspicuous service, and who, as individuals at least, it might appear, could well be spared without impairing the progress of the human race. And yet this doctrine of the worth of all is the cornerstone of our democracy. Upon it rests the principle of the equal ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler
... times during one afternoon in the Maze. The LORD CHANCELLOR is another frequent visitor. For one who has the mitigation of the harsher features of our marriage laws so much at heart, these Courts, where "bluff KING HAL" celebrated so many of his cheeriest weddings, have a special charm. It is true that the eighth Henry was a little one-sided in his ideas of reform, but that was the fault of his age rather than himself, and, like the present National Party, he had, as the LORD CHANCELLOR put it, the great heart of the people ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 5, 1920 • Various
... life is not what they take it to be. They think it long; it is short. They think it happy; it is full of cares and sorrows. This two-fold illusion widens the horizon of life and tinges it with gold. It gives to youth its charm and makes of it a blessed time to which we ever turn regretful eyes. But I am wrong to call illusion that which in truth is but an omen of the divine possibilities of man's nature. To the young, life is not mean or short, because ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... as an aureole to illuminate it and to set it off a manner that was wholly devoid of mannerisms—of those that men and women think out and exhibit to give added charm to themselves—tricks of cuteness, as lisp and baby stare; tricks of dignity, as grave brow and body always carried rigidly erect; tricks of sweetness and kindliness, as the ever ready smile and the warm handclasp. Susan, the interested in the world about her, Susan, the self-unconscious, ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... during his long membership of the House of Commons. He had neither grace of diction nor charm of oratory. But he had a way of getting Bills through all their stages which exceeded the average attained by more attractive speakers. In his references to Parliamentary life he mentions that GLADSTONE, when he proposed to abolish the Income Tax, told him that he intended to meet the deficiency ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 30, 1914 • Various
... from his work, for he thought he heard a loud laugh somewhere in the near distance. But all seemed silent and he turned back to his willows. The beauty of the landscape about him was much too familiar a thing that he should have felt or seen its charm. The violet hue of the distant woods, the red gleaming of the heather-strewn moor, with its patches of swamp from which the slow mist arose, the pretty little village with its handsome old church and attractive ...
— The Case of The Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study • Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner
... shalt thou be clad. Thou hast been a good daughter to me, and thus I reward thee. But remember carefully the charm. Only to the magic words, "For love's sweet sake," will the necklace give up its treasures. If thou shouldst forget, then must thou be doomed alway to bear thy ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... rouse to more healthful activity man's torpid feelings of justice, mercy, and clemency. And so, also, if woman had free scope for the full exercise of the heavenly graces that men so gallantly award her, truth, love, and mercy would be invested with a more sacred charm. But while they continue to enforce obedience to arbitrary commands, to encourage love of admiration and a desire for frivolous amusements; while they crush the powers of the mind, by opposing authority and precedent to reason and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... without overlooking any of them, bring about the answers she desired and avoid those that were dangerous. Things of a very simple nature, when related by her, assumed the aspect of confidences. Her slightest smile gave rise to dreams; in short, her charm, like the exquisite scent which she usually carried about with her, was ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... He had followed the stage all his life, but he was of the sort that tear passion to tatters and he had never risen above third-rate parts. In every respect save declamation he had all the elegances and charm of manner that the stage can give, and he would receive and bow out a scrubwoman who had fallen down a flight of back stairs and wanted to make the landlord pay for her broken head with a grace truly Chesterfieldian. ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... suggest activity and in simplest relationships, found in the little world bounded by home, neighborhood, Kindergarten and Sunday School. Nature makes strong appeal, not on the aesthetic side of tint and shadow, but through the charm of her multiform movements and family life akin to the child's. The bird's nest fascinates because there is connected with it the story of the building and the hungry little brood it sheltered. Tales of animals, fairies and real folk, busy in simple and familiar occupations hold him entranced, ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux
... Everyone knows Cookham in its summer dress, with a plentiful crowd of holiday-makers on the water; but in the very early spring, before the foliage has begun to appear, and when the light-hearted champagne bottle still nestles in its straw, it has also a very great charm of its own. The fresh air, and the change to new scenes, together with the strong stream caused by winter rains, make the men feel like young bullocks, and the boat moves with twice the spring it had before. The jolly lounging life in between whiles, diversified ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... is always in proportion with the other portions of the body, consequently a well-shaped arm, small hands and small wrists, with full muscular development, is a charm and beauty not inferior to the face itself, and those who have well-shaped arms may be proud of them, because they generally keep company with a fine bust and ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... with them and assist in rounding up the cattle preparatory to leaving them for the winter. They would pay me good wages and then, the Smiths returning, we would all go home together. The free wild life of the prairie having an almost irresistible charm for me, it did not require much persuasion to induce me ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... of the various trees around gave an additional charm to what was always a very beautiful landscape, for here it was never dry, and the consequence was that every tree, plant, and tender herb was in the highest state ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... which had long been failing, now broke down completely, and the whole winter was one long strain of acute anxiety, which culminated in his death, in March, 1885. The blow was a crushing one for Emma. Truly, the silver cord was loosed, and the golden bowl broken. Life lost its meaning and charm. Her father's sympathy and pride in her work had been her chief incentive and ambition, and had spurred her on when her own confidence and spirit failed. Never afterwards did she find complete and spontaneous expression. She decided to go abroad as the best means of regaining composure ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... new look and rich luster charm of a high-priced fabric. You can find this same quality in Linette at only thirty-nine cents a yard, and then—just think—it will stay in your dress through wearing, washing and wetting, and you will be surprised ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... where Philomela holds darkling the poplar awake, 85 So melting her soul into music, you'd vow 'twas her passion, her own, She plaineth—her sister forgot, with the Daulian crime long-agone. Hark! Hush! Draw around to the circle ... Ah, loitering Summer! Say when For me shall be broken the charm, that I chirp with the swallow again? I am old; I am dumb; I have waited to sing till Apollo withdrew— 90 So Amyclae a moment was mute, and for ever a wilderness grew. Now learn ye to love who loved never—now ye who have loved, ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q
... revolution a few days had effected in all my tastes and desires, did not escape me at this moment. But a week or two before and I should have regarded an order for foreign service as anything rather than unpleasant—now the thought was insupportable. Then there would have been some charm to me in the very novelty of the locale, and the indulgence of that vagrant spirit I have ever possessed; for, like Justice Woodcock, "I certainly should have been a vagabond if Providence had not made me a justice of the peace"—now, I could not even contemplate the thing as possible; and would ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... his, with a sudden gauche movement that was not without a girlish charm. Ishmael found himself looking at the pale chubby face, and the only thing he noticed in it was the mouth. Georgie Barlow stayed in his mind as "the girl with the mouth," as she frequently did to those who met her even once. She had a wonderful ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... and already as tall as her mother, was a bright, lively girl, full of fun and frolic. She was not a beauty, but had a clear complexion and fine dark eyes, and good humor and intelligence lent a charm to her face that made ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... bright at the tales of our chivalry, And every boy will want to fight, no matter what cause it be — When the children run to the doors and cry: 'Oh, mother, the troops are come!' And every heart in the town leaps high at the first loud thud of the drum. They'll know, apart from its mystic charm, what music is at last, When, proud as a boy with a broken arm, the regiment marches past. And the veriest wreck in the drink-fiend's clutch, no matter how low or mean, Will feel, when he hears the march, a ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... beast of a Rento was asleep, snoring like a pig that he was, while his betters must keep awake and gaze at this desolating prospect; the Patron was in the cabin with the miser, and no one thought of the individual who alone gave charm to the schooner. He, Franci, would make himself as comfortable as might be, and would not care a puff of his cigar if the schooner and all that were in it, except himself, should go to the bottom the next minute. No! Rather would he dance for joy, and wave his hand, ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... of the science to the actual demands of the art lies the opportunity for the educator to prove himself a creative artist; and it is in the difficulty involved in this practical work that the interest and charm of the educator's ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... endeavour, then, to picture her features to you in any nicely picked words. Her chief charm ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... captain and the painted and gilt luxuriousness of her saloon, whereas the Ganymede was fitted out mainly for cattle transport, and to be avoided by coastwise passengers. The humblest Indian in the obscurest village on the coast was familiar with the Cerberus, a little black puffer without charm or living accommodation to speak of, whose mission was to creep inshore along the wooded beaches close to mighty ugly rocks, stopping obligingly before every cluster of huts to collect produce, down to three-pound parcels of indiarubber bound in ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... habitual thought brought a new suggestion. There was something hanging by a cord round his bare neck; something apparently so paltry that the piety of Turks and Frenchmen had spared it—a tiny parchment bag blackened with age. It had hung round his neck as a precious charm when he was a boy, and he had kept it carefully on his breast, not believing that it contained anything but a tiny scroll of parchment rolled up hard. He might long ago have thrown it away as a relic of his dead mother's superstition; but he had thought of it as a ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... than Luscinda, and to Luscinda more beautiful than Dorothea, and all the bystanders felt that if any beauty could compare with theirs it was the Moorish lady's, and there were even those who were inclined to give it somewhat the preference. And as it is the privilege and charm of beauty to win the heart and secure good-will, all forthwith became eager to show kindness and ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... midst of those surging tempests of love? But yet again she failed completely to picture Rose so mastered, so possessed, by any man; Rose the queen whom all men worshipped with reverence from afar. She wondered again how Sir Eustace had managed to elude the subtle charm she cast upon all about her. He had actually declared that her perfection bored him. It was evident that she left him cold. Dinah marvelled at the fact, so certain was she that had he humbled himself to ask for Rose's favour it would ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... lost to me now. There is nothing more in life for me. If the injustice of mankind has stained my honour beyond repair, has robbed me of every chance of happiness at any time and in any place, then I die easily, beloved, for there is little charm in such a life as would ...
— The Case of the Registered Letter • Augusta Groner
... don't regret it," said he, returning the smile in a way which made those who observed decide at once that these other two were old and familiar friends. Miss Carew, though she was not precisely a pretty girl, was really beautiful when she smiled, and had, at all times, an undeniable charm about her which came from one knew not just what. She was rather tall but very graceful, and her manner had about it an indefinable something which made one like to watch her, admiring each move she made as something done ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... own peculiar charm of style and simple, subtle character-painting comes her new gift, the delightful story before us. The scene mostly lies in the moors, and at the touch of the authoress a Scotch moor becomes a living thing, strong, tender, beautiful, ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow
... attraction for the human mind. There is such a charm in novelty, says Dr. John Mason Good, that it often leads us captive in spite of the most glaring errors, and intoxicates the judgment as fatally as the cup of Circe. But is not variety at hand ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... a little disconcerted. This was not turning out as he had expected. He had diagnosed a tourist, and now discovered that he had been entertaining a job-seeker unawares. But the girl's charm and appeal held good; she was looking at him trustfully and expectantly, and he surrendered. He set his glasses straight with a fumbling hand and resumed his countenance of friendly ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... door" stories for girls, of vital interest and compelling charm. The wholesome spirit and beautiful aims of the "Campfire Girls" have never been more attractively described, and the fun and merriment of the outings will prove fascinating to every live girl. The ...
— Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall - or, Leading a Needed Rebellion • Janet D. Wheeler
... susceptibilities of the old lady with some raillery of himself, and did not again interrupt the even good-humored communion of the party. The rain beating against the windows and the fire sparkling on the hearth seemed to lend a charm to their peculiar isolation, and it was not until Mrs. Scott rose with a warning that they were trespassing upon the rest of their patient that they discovered that the evening had slipped by unnoticed. When the ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... been pointed out to me by a lady who herself in early life was affected by the sexual associations of whipping, a child only sees the naked body of elder children when uncovered for whipping, and its sexual charm may in part be due to this cause. We further have to remark that the spectacle of suffering itself is, to some extent and under some circumstances, a stimulant of sexual emotion. It is evident that a number of factors contribute ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... lavished attention upon me, and put charm without end into those numberless trifles to all seeming, that make up half of our existence nevertheless. As we sat together before a crackling fire, on silken cushions surrounded by the most desirable creations of Oriental luxury; ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... soul is given a fit dwelling-place; alike in that noble carriage and commanding dignity, exercising a mesmeric influence and a hidden power which could not be repressed, upon all who came within its charm; alike in the remarkable combination and symmetry of their intellectual attributes, all brought up to the same equal level, no faculty of the mind overlapping any other—all so equal, so well developed, the ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... would ten times ten rather be "away to the woods, away!" I recollect that when I was a little boy—my parents said I was a little naughty boy—I got into endless scrapes. But people will talk. Roaming in the woods had an especial charm for me; and Peace Close Wood was my favourite haunt. Some people had the bad grace to let me hear that my visits to the wood were not very much sought for. It was said that I had a habit of peeling bark off as many trees as I could conveniently—sometimes it got ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... fine scorn. "The boche he is no borned who can do it. Bruce has what you call it, in Ainglish, the 'charm life.' He go safe, where other caniche be pepper-potted full of holes. I've watch ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... grounds to the gate. He had a three-mile walk before him for his pains in coming home in the carriage with Miss Lenox, but he vowed that the pleasure he always found at The Headlands recompensed him for any labor. He burst into enthusiastic talk about the old times at Belfield: he remembered the charm of my mother's house, he said, and the good times we boys had enjoyed together. How was Holt now-a-days? and where was Dart? Was it true that Jack himself had thrown Miss Lenox over, or was the fault on her side? "She is much admired," he went on. "How do you ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... So I charm'd their ears, That calf-like they my lowing follow'd through Tooth'd Briers, sharp Furzes, ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... occurred to him that he might stoop down under the table, and then creep unobserved out of the door. He did so; but just as he was going, the others remarked what he was about; they laid hold of him by the legs; and now, happily for him, off fell his fatal shoes—and with them the charm was ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... their height, nor the beauty of their outline, nor the size of the trunks which still linger on them here and there, which gives these islands their special charm. It is their exquisite little land-locked southern coves—places to ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... (smiling). It is easy to read your thoughts. I am one of those women who are accustomed to rule the world through men. Man is ruled by beauty, by charm. The men who are not have no influence. The Salic Law, which forbade women to occupy a throne, is founded on the fact that when a woman is on the throne the country is ruled by men, and therefore ruled badly; whereas when a man is on the throne, the country is ruled by women, ...
— Press Cuttings • George Bernard Shaw
... and paints, strewn over the tiny table, made bright spots of color for the eye to dwell on. When she had left her seat and stood lighting my lamp, one must have been under the yoke of a terrible passion indeed, not to admire her faintly flushed transparent hands, the girlish charm of her attitude, the ideal grace of her head, as the lamplight fell full on her pale face. Night and silence added to the charms of this industrious vigil and peaceful interior. The light-heartedness that sustained such continuous toil could only spring from devout submission ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... but almost at the same time, and this is no accident, it conquered new regions in the dogmatic of the Church through the spread of the writings of the pseudo-Dionysius; it began to fertilize Christian mysticism, and filled the worship with a new charm. ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... say the fox flattered the crow when he told him he had a sweet voice? Yet one of the most musical sounds in nature proceeds from the crow. All the crow tribe, from the blue jay up, are capable of certain low ventriloquial notes that have peculiar cadence and charm. I often hear the crow indulging in his in winter, and am reminded of the sound of the dulcimer. The bird stretches up and exerts himself like a cock in the act of crowing, and gives forth a peculiarly clear, vitreous sound that is sure to ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... live—this only charm Warms the blood and nerves the arm, As the stout pine stronger grows By ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... we encounter the lovely Natalie Haldin, a sister in spirit to Helena, to Lisa, to any one of the Turgenieff heroines. Charm is hers, and a valiant spirit. Her creator has not, thus far, succeeded in bettering her. Only once does he sound a false note. I find her speech a trifle rhetorical after she learns the facts in the case of Razumov (p. 354). Two lines are superfluous at the close of this ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... during the first year of Her Majesty's reign that we find Father Mathew, the Irish Capuchin friar, initiating his vast crusade against intemperance, and by the charm of his persuasive eloquence and unselfish enthusiasm inducing thousands upon thousands to forswear the drink-poison that was destroying them. In two years he succeeded in enrolling two million five hundred thousand persons on the side of sobriety. ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... boy? The ship is as quiet as the Quaker meeting in the Jerseys, before your good old grandfather used to break the charm of silence with his ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... but don't you be alarmed; he will run with his own kind, and there's plenty of them. That is the main charm of heaven—there's all kinds here—which wouldn't be the case if you let the preachers tell it. Anybody can find the sort he prefers, here, and he just lets the others alone, and they let him alone. When the ...
— Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven • Mark Twain
... it was often necessary to follow them forward from behind by means of map and compass. Seen by pale moonlight, these derelict roads, in places pitted with huge craters or flanked by shattered trees, wore a mysterious charm. More eloquent of catastrophe than those thrown down by gale or struck by lightning are trees which shells have hit direct and sent, splintered, in headlong crash from the ranks of an avenue. If wood and earth could speak, what tales ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... for the three young men from Iruath and brought them to the High King. "These are comely men," said the High King, "good in their shape and having a good name. And could you find any charm, my sons," he said, "that will drive out these three enemies that are destroying the Fianna of Ireland?" "We would do that if we could find those men near us," said they; "and it is where they are now," ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... my friend's methods, it was not difficult for me to follow his deductions, and to observe the untidiness of attire, the sheaf of legal papers, the watch-charm, and the breathing which had prompted them. Our client, however, stared ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... could wound my darling? Do I not know your affection, and do I not know that you love me? Yes, you have not deceived me, I did not kiss a lying mouth; when seated on my knees you lulled me with the charm of your words, I believed you. I wished to bind myself to a burning iron bar; weariness preys upon me and devours me. I feel a maddening desire to recover life. Is it Paris that produces this effect upon me? I always yearn to be in places where I am not. ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... a life without a to-morrow, so that when we parted we did not know whether we should ever meet again, and it became our habit to say Adieu instead of Au revoir—lasted for me about five months. Melancholy enough, indeed, it had notwithstanding a charm of its own, a charm that sprang partly, perhaps, from the consciousness of dangers incurred for a noble object, and from the feeling of grave moral responsibility that we all had. A few episodes of that time are ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... one who was a familiar and an honoured figure in this place, Mr. Andrew Lang. Whatever may be the judgment of posterity on his theories—and all our theories on these subjects are as yet more or less tentative and provisional—there can be no question but that by the charm of his writings, the wide range of his knowledge, the freshness and vigour of his mind, and the contagious enthusiasm which he brought to bear on whatever he touched, he was a great power in promoting the study of primitive man not in this country only, ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... one and we must do the best we can without it," answered Tom. "Songbird, supposing you try to charm 'em with some of that soothing poetry of yours. Or ...
— The Rover Boys in Camp - or, The Rivals of Pine Island • Edward Stratemeyer
... of his aim, his instinctive sympathy with every noble impulse and humane endeavor, his fine intellectual cultivation, all made him the friend of the best men and women of his time and neighborhood, and none among them but acknowledged the singular charm of a companion who asserted his convictions by his character, and with whom controversy was impossible. Mr. Bradford had the temperament, the tastes, and the acquirements of a scholar; a fondness for nature, and a knowledge which made him her interpreter; yet still more ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... to lip is pleasant altogether, But there is no charm in lip to leather All the bards who've sung of osculation, Down from OVID to song's last sensation, Could not lend romance, or even sense, To the Court's poor labial pretence, Always meaningless, and most unpleasant. Here the past is bettered by the present. Kissing is the due of Love ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various
... ever he got an opportunity he should mysteriously tease her on the subject of illegal night excursions! Yes, he should be very witty and ironic. "Nothing but cheek!" He was confirmed in his hostility to her. She had no charm, and yet the entire Orgreave family was apparently infatuated about her. Her interruption on behalf of Victor Hugo seemed to be savage. Girls ought not to use that ruthless tone. And her eyes were hard, even cruel. She was ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... was written in a far more quiet and subdued vein. It never keeps up that prolonged strain upon the feelings which characterizes the work that preceded it, and which while a defect in the eyes of some is to most readers its special charm. There are, indeed, in many of Cooper's stories, situations more thrilling and scenes more stirring than can be found in "The Prairie," though in it there is no lack of these. But of all his tales it is much the most poetical. Man sinks into insignificance in the presence of these mighty solitudes; ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... wife of a famous physician. Once more, as in Realidad, and as in Tristn, we are shown a husband who pardons. But here the treatment of the theme lacks vitality, and the abstract idea is not beautified by the veil of poetry which gives charm to Los condenados, Alma y vida, and ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... Erica, with all the charm of manner which she had inherited from her father. "'Tis very late, but I didn't like to go to bed ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... to the class of poets whose inner history excites most curiosity, because his readers feel that there lies the spring of his power, the secret of his charm, as well as the key to the riddles and inconsistencies which his writings present: they are so imbued with the essence of a common humanity that the heart that beats, the tears which start, the blood which courses through them, keep time with our own. The desire ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... as the most powerful of men were it not for one little spot on the bright sun of his fame. They did not like his domestic habits. The daughter who stood by his side on the watch tower was a young girl of charm, a fair, frail maiden, a slender lily under the towering shadow of her dark father. The citizens did not, perhaps, understand his instincts of paternity; and, indeed, if they understood them they would not have given them the sanction of their approval. ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... rising up tall and slender, vying in gracefulness with the tapering minarets of the mosques, and with their feathery foliage mingling with and overtopping the white stone buildings, lends a charm to Alexandria that is found wanting in Constantinople —albeit the Osmanli capital presents by far the more lovely appearance from the sea. Massive marble seats are ranged along the Khediveal Boulevard beneath the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... music burst from out the hidden choir, rising and dying fitfully. The whole scene was beautiful enough; but,—what a pity there should be a "but" in everything,—when you came to look on the scene in the light of a service, the charm passed away. There were plenty of performers but no audience; the congregation consisted of four peasant-women, two men, and a child in arms. The town below was crowded. The service was one of the chief ones in the year, but somehow or ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... Then turning more to them,—and speaking louder, he added: 'Brethren, God will strengthen me when the time comes, when such resignation as you speak of is needed. Till then I cannot feel it; and what I do not feel I will not express; using words as if they were a charm.' He was getting chafed, I could see. He had rather put them out by these speeches of his; but after a short time and some more shakes of the head, ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... once hidden; while in another place the turf rises, and they seem to slowly sink into the earth. The monotonous and yet pleasing cry of the peewits, the sweet titlark singing overhead, and the cuckoos flying round, filled the place with the magic charm of spring. ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... defective respiratory action. Hence whipping the lungs to increased action by the application of blisters over the origin of the respiratory nerves, a remedy so inexpedient and so often contra-indicated in most of the maladies of the white man, has a magic charm about it in the treatment of those of the negro. The magic effect of a blister to that part of the Ethiopian's body, in a large class of his ailments, although well known to most of the planters and overseers of the Southern States, is scarcely ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... is the prayer of a lazy man, is it not? but there are several reasons why I must publish, and the strongest is that the various copies I have lent out are said to still find readers, though by this time they have lost the charm of novelty. Of course, it may be that the booksellers say this to flatter me. Well, let them flatter, so long as fibs of this kind encourage me to study the ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... furnished with elegant simplicity; the smooth green lawns, bordered with lovely flowers of every hue; the magnificent avenues of grand old trees, and the innumerable, lovely little nooks to be found here and there in the park, all breathed a charm which reminded Carmen of what she dimly remembered about her father's plantation ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... high-school manner, and arrived with her husband. Will Brangwen, ruddy, bright, with long limbs and a small head, like some uncouth bird, was not changed in the least. The little Baroness was smiling, showing her teeth. She had a real charm, a kind of joyous coldness, laughing, delighted, like some weasel. Anna at once respected her, and was on her guard before her, instinctively attracted by the strange, childlike surety of the Baroness, yet mistrusting it, fascinated. The little baron was now quite white-haired, very ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
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