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Attraction   /ətrˈækʃən/   Listen
Attraction

noun
1.
The force by which one object attracts another.  Synonym: attractive force.
2.
An entertainment that is offered to the public.
3.
The quality of arousing interest; being attractive or something that attracts.  Synonym: attractiveness.
4.
A characteristic that provides pleasure and attracts.  Synonyms: attracter, attractive feature, attractor, magnet.
5.
An entertainer who attracts large audiences.  Synonyms: attracter, attractor, draw, drawing card.



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"Attraction" Quotes from Famous Books



... parade it in its cerements—the American party movement began. Its first enlistment included practically all the Gentiles in Salt Lake City who resented the claim of the Prophet that they acquiesced in his crimes and his treasons. But the most promising sign for the party was its attraction of hundreds of independent Mormons of the younger generation. As one Mormon of that hopeful time expressed it: "The flag represents the political power. The golden angel Moroni, at the top of the Temple, represents the ecclesiastical authority. I will not pay to either one a deference which ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins

... and dependence on India's financial assistance. The industrial sector is technologically backward, with most production of the cottage industry type. Most development projects, such as road construction, rely on Indian migrant labor. Bhutan's hydropower potential and its attraction for tourists are key resources. The government has made some progress in expanding the nation's productive base and improving social welfare. Model education, social, and environment programs are underway with support ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... husbandmen, and he asked his own supporters among the drovers to bring their herds, if they liked, into his dominions and leave them there, while he treated the enemy's cattle as booty wherever he could, so that his allies found attraction in the campaign. For the risk was no greater if they took what they needed, while the knowledge that they were living at the enemy's expense certainly seemed to lighten the labour ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... window, and studied them long: but, then, she stopped and looked at caps, hats, fashions, confectionery (all of the humble kind common in that quarter), so how should he have known that any particular attraction existed among the flowers? Morin came more regularly than ever to his aunt's; but Virginie was apparently unconscious that she was the attraction. She looked healthier and more hopeful than she had done for months, ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell

... imperial princes, named Tzu Liang,[626] cultivated the society of eminent monks and enjoyed theological discussions. From the specimens of these arguments which have been preserved we see that the explanation of the inequalities of life as the result of Karma had a great attraction for the popular mind and also that it provoked the hostile criticism of ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... whom I saw, I was the most pleased with Madame Moszynska, the widow of the grand-treasurer of the crown. She received me most affectionately, and I feel a strong attraction toward her. She expressed much admiration for me; but indeed, I received commendation everywhere, and everywhere did I hear that I was beautiful. Perhaps I owe a great part of these praises to my costume; I was so well dressed! ... much better than at Barbara's ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... there was some force of attraction attached to this family and name of Colbert. Treasures arose from the earth to give themselves ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... appearance of population. The only place where we could refresh the horses was a small house, over the door of which was the pompous designation of Hotel d'Angleterre. I know not if this be intended as a ridicule on our country, or as an attraction to our countrymen, but I, however, found something besides the appellation which reminded me of England, and which one does not often find in houses of a better outside; for though the rooms were small, and only ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... around the lower part of the wigwam, forming a band of pictures. Be the covering either cloth or paper, it will look well decorated, but the covering must be taken off and the pictures pasted on. The covering should then be adjusted over the poles. One great beauty and attraction of this newspaper Indian material is that effective results can be produced quickly and ...
— Little Folks' Handy Book • Lina Beard

... denoting beauty and prosperity in describing the missions, but no less can be said of these mighty and bountiful institutions, who, even in their regal ruins are California's chief attraction to this day. ...
— Chimes of Mission Bells • Maria Antonia Field

... religion. It is probable that the first intention was only to represent love as heaven-born, and that it afterward became sensual in the time of Herodotus. (See Sayce's edition Smith's "C.A. of Gen.," p. 50.) The presence of the women may have been intended at first to present an innocent attraction. See also Rawlinson's "Ancient Monarchies," vol. iii. ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous

... of the East has ever had a great attraction for the sons of rural New England, and I was no exception to the rule. In 1851 I made known to my parents my ambition to see and know more of the world, and to this end I purposed to make my way to New York in search of fame and fortune—a wider horizon and a larger ...
— Sixty years with Plymouth Church • Stephen M. Griswold

... sergeants marched a squad of twelve or fourteen shabby-looking young fellows into the barrack yard, the whole party wearing the ribbons of the recruit, and toward this group, as it they were an attraction, the fat drill-sergeant and some half-dozen more from different parts of the ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn

... reign of Christendom. The English cardinal remonstrated with the pope that this love for one, in the heart of a woman who was the joy of all, was an infamous depravity, and that he ought with a brief in partibus, to annul this marriage, which robbed the fashionable world of its principal attraction. But the love of this poor woman, who had confessed the miseries of her life, was so sweet a thing, and so moved the most dissipated heart, that she silenced all clamour, and everyone forgave her her ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... her actual beauty, it is said, was not in itself so remarkable that none could be compared with her, or that no one could see her without being struck by it, but the contact of her presence, if you lived with her, was irresistible; the attraction of her person, joining with the charm of her conversation, and the character that attended all she said or did, was something bewitching. It was a pleasure merely to hear the sound of her voice, with which, like an instrument of many strings, she could pass ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... think, they require no emendation. Love (says Laertes) is the passion by which nature is most exalted and refined; and as substances refined and subtilised, easily obey any impulse, or follow any attraction, some part of nature, so purified and refined, flies off after the attracting object, after the ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson

... 'the fete would have wanted its most brilliant features if Mr. Schnackenberger or his dog had been absent. No, no: without flattery he must allow them to call him the richest fund of amusement—the brightest attraction of the evening.' But Schnackenberger shook his head incredulously; said he wished he could think so: but with a deep sigh he persisted in his own opinion; in which he was the more confirmed, when he perceived that the princess, who was now passing him to the supper-room, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... Of all The fools who flocked to swell or see the show, Who cared about the corpse? The funeral Made the attraction, and the black the woe, There throbbed not there a thought which pierced the pall; And when the gorgeous coffin was laid low, It seemed the mockery of hell to fold The rottenness of eighty ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... contended that, if he and Alice were not actually engaged, they understood each other, and he was going away because he wanted to tell his family, or something of that kind. Between the two opinions Miss Cotton wavered with a sentimental attraction to either. "What do you really think?" she asked Mrs. Brinkley, arriving from lunch at the corner of the piazza where the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... for abandoning the project of a Canal, and recommending that of a Railway, and having also pointed out the adopted line, the next duty which presents itself to their notice is the Revenue;—the nature and quantity of Tonnage which is likely to come upon the line, and within the limits of its attraction;—and give to each such a charge as will equally benefit the various consumers. Such as we conceive to be of the most general importance, first attracts notice, which ...
— Report of the Knaresbrough Rail-way Committee • Knaresbrough Rail-way Committee

... Christmas morning to see the Johnkannaus. Without them, Christmas would be shorn of its greatest attraction. They consist of companies of slaves from the plantations, generally of the lower class. Two athletic men, in calico wrappers, have a net thrown over them, covered with all manner of bright-colored stripes. ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)

... success of the institutions of the United States would prove a loadstone which would bring under the flag all peoples of the New World, while those of the Old World would strike off their shackles and remold their governments on the American pattern. Attraction, not compulsion, was the method to be used, and none of the paeans of American prophets in the editorials or the fervid orations of the fifties proposed an additional battleship ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish

... as it was now too late to return to Machynleth whilst the day-light lasted—and as the ruins of Ap Gauvon were both in themselves and in their accompaniments of scenery, according to the description which had been given of them, an object of powerful attraction to Bertram,—he resolved to go forward in the track pointed out. After advancing a couple of miles, he bent his steps through the valley which opened on his left; and soon reached a humble ale-house into which he turned for the ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey

... the real attraction was a large library of fine books, which was left to dust and spiders since Uncle March died. Jo remembered the kind old gentleman, who used to let her build railroads and bridges with his big dictionaries, tell her stories about queer pictures in his Latin books, ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... can show hundreds of such scenes; but the quiet rusticity and woodland features here come with a special touch of soothing and repose after the long, bare moorlands, sandy dunes, and stern, naked cliffs. There is also another attraction—the convent of Lanherne, once the manor-house of the Arundells. Mr. Baring-Gould says that "Lanherne lies in the loveliest vale in Cornwall"; Mr. Hind says, "the Vale of Lanherne did not rouse my enthusiasm." Most visitors ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon

... present at these monthly issues of flour, and the reason that the average attendance is not greater, is, that immediately after collecting at Moorunde, at the full of the moon, to receive their flour, from 100 to 300 would usually set off to Adelaide, where there are so many objects of interest and attraction, and re-remain there for several months at a time, and especially during the winter. As fast, too, as one party returned to their own districts, another would go into town, and thus the average number would be constantly kept down. A third reason why the musters do not appear so large as they ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... of paper with spots, at equal intervals; and then imagine any kind of attraction you choose, or any law of attraction, to exist between the spots, and try how, on that permitted supposition, you can attract them into the figure of a Maltese cross, in ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... those marks of character which transform traditional types into living personalities; everything except those analyses of feeling which are for us the primary raison d'etre of the modern novel and its chief attraction. The old knight's book is a vast compilation in which he has melted down and mixed together a large number of tales about Arthur, Lancelot, Gawain, Galahad, Percival, and all the Knights of the Round Table. An infinite number of short chapters, written ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand

... Pauline—together. One is her likeness to himself. Another is her tractability, though I hate to hitch so big a word on to so small a lady. And still another is the fact that she is a girl. There's a subliminal play of sex-attraction about it, I suppose, just as there probably is between Dinkie and me. And there's something very admirable in Pauline Augusta's staid adoration of her dad. She plays up to him, I can see, without quite knowing she's doing it. She's hungry ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... in 1836, when their mutual attraction had been sufficiently strong; and in 1839, when Prince Albert, with his elder brother Ernest, was again visiting England, the impression already produced became ineffaceably deep. The Queen, whom her great rank compelled to take the initiative, was not ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling

... about him with unseeing eyes, trembling with the exertion of his vain effort. But he could not as yet allow himself to despair. Never before had that curious power of attraction failed him. He felt himself to be so strong in this respect that he was persuaded if he exerted himself to the limit of his capacity, something—he could not say what—must come of it. If it was only a self-delusion, an hallucination, he told himself ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... four-and-twenty then—so I naturally thought that it was not in my nature to love. But it has always seemed to me that it MUST be HEAVENLY to be loved blindly, passionately, wholly . . . worshipped, in fact—and the very fact that Percy was slow and stupid was an attraction for me, as I thought he would love me all the more. A clever man would naturally have other interests, an ambitious man other hopes. . . . I thought that a fool would worship, and think of nothing else. And I was ready to respond, Armand; I would have allowed myself to be worshipped, and given ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... ballast is most easily accomplished, as you will readily perceive, by confining and removing water, which is easily moved and has a considerable weight. How we purpose to apply these aqueous brakes to check the wabbling of the earth, by means of the attraction of the ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor

... Countess at midnight; she was apparently calm, but depressed, and had some secret purpose which no perspicacity could guess. I found the Count a few paces off, in the Rue Saint-Maur. Drawn by an irresistible attraction, he had quitted the spot on the Boulevards where ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac

... very clear signs of the decay of prostitution in civilisation, there can hardly be a doubt that civilisation is unfavourable to houses of prostitution. They offer no inducements to the more intelligent and independent prostitutes, and their inmates usually present little attraction to any men save those whose demands are of the humblest character. There is, therefore, a tendency to the natural and spontaneous decay of organised houses of prostitution under modern civilised conditions; the prostitute ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... they could not run away. It seemed impossible for them to avoid reviling each other, to avoid remaining there to suffer and cause pain. They proved obstinate in their hatred and cruelty. A sort of repulsion and attraction separated and kept them together at the same time. They behaved in the identical manner of two persons who, after quarrelling, wish to part, and who, nevertheless, continue returning to shout out fresh insults ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola

... he cannot give to matter that invisible agency by which all the component parts of the immense machine of the universe have influence upon each other, and act in motional unison together, without any apparent contact, and to which man has given the name of attraction, gravitation, and repulsion, he supplies the place of that agency by the humble imitation of teeth and cogs. All the parts of man's microcosm must visibly touch. But could he gain a knowledge of that agency, so as to be able to apply it in practice, we might then say ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... M. was attired in an elegant 'pate de foie gras,' made expressly for her, and was greatly admired. Miss S. had her hair done up. She was the center of attraction for the envy of all the ladies. Mrs. G. W. was tastefully dressed in a 'tout ensemble,' and was greeted with deafening applause wherever she went. Mrs. C. N. was superbly arrayed in white kid gloves. Her modest and engaging ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... buying and selling went on as vigorously as if the people had come together solely for that end. Crowds were in constant motion, going from place to place to see what could be seen, and stopping where there was any special attraction, or, as happens in our own crowded streets, stopping where a few were incidentally collected. By the afternoon, singers, experts in tricks, and show-people of every description, commenced their operations, and were sure of admiring ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy

... be a fire. Look! The door to that room down there seems to be the center of attraction. Hold on! Don't go over there, Lorry. There may be something to unnerve you, and that must not happen now. Let us go down this stairway—it leads to a side entrance, I think. "They were half way down the stairs when the thunder of rushing feet in the hall above came to their ears, causing ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... considered throughout these pages from any standpoint but that of sport, much that is of interest in connection with a bird essentially the sportsman's must necessarily be omitted. At the same time, although this gorgeous creature, the chief attraction of social gatherings throughout the winter months, appeals chiefly to the men who shoot and eat it, it is not uninteresting to the naturalist with opportunities for studying its habits under conditions more favourable than ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo

... in the city things are changed. There no attraction is necessary but the fine house, gay parties, and understood rank of Mrs. Peony to draw men to Miss Rosa's side. In Newport it does very well not to dance with her. But in the city it doesn't do not to be at Mrs. Peony's ball. Who knows it so well as that excellent lady? Therefore darling ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis

... good word for the attraction, I thought, and I would repeat it to the chauffeur. But it rose over the horizon of my intellect probably because the guide talked of Countess Alix, last heiress of the great House of Les Baux. "As she lay dying," he said, "the star that had watched over and guided the fortunes of her ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... the whole of forethought in most animals; but that it should remain any part of the mental equipment of human civilized life is an absurdity. I find that the fear clement of forethought is not stimulating to those more civilized persons to whom duty and attraction are the natural motives, but is weakening and deterrent. As soon as it becomes unnecessary, fear becomes a positive deterrent, and should be entirely removed, as dead flesh is removed from living tissue. To assist in the analysis ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... that when death first enters a family circle, and creates a breach; it is the signal of its speedy dissolution! one falls, then another, and another, until the central point of attraction is removed; and the individuals who are left, are by the force of circumstances, each made to feel themselves the centre of a new circle of interests, which in time will melt away as former ones have done. The occurrence of such an event ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth

... impossible for her to fall in love, because she knew that kings no longer marry beggar-maids, and she was far too well brought up to fall in love, except as a preliminary to marriage. No heroine of Miss Austen would permit herself even to feel attraction to a quarter from which no offer of marriage was possible; therefore Anastasia could not have fallen in love. She certainly was not in the least in love, but it was true Lord Blandamer interested her. He interested her ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... Sinbad's actions Dane guessed that the plant did hold for the cat the same attraction those stimulants produced in human beings. He carefully broke off a small stem supporting three leaves and presented it to the Salarik, who stared at him and then, snatching the twig, raced from the hydro garden as if ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton

... sometimes a pretty Sullenness in the leaning of her Head, and now and then a Down-cast of her Eyes on her Fan: Neither her Imagination nor her Health would ever give her to know that she is turned of Twenty; but that in the midst of these pretty Softnesses, and Airs of Delicacy and Attraction, she has a tall Daughter within a Fortnight of Fifteen, who impertinently comes into the Room, and towers so much towards Woman, that her Mother is always checked by her Presence, and every Charm of Honoria droops ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... him. "If we were in that car, the nine of us, it would come down here, wouldn't it? Don't you know what the attraction of ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... Captain, I find so many objects of attraction in this neighbourhood, that I would gladly ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock

... beyond the term of legal freedom, to offset the half-dozen of boyish, heedless extravagance, before he should put money into his son's hands to begin responsible work with, or consent approvingly to his making of what might be only a youthful attraction, a tie to bind him solemnly and ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... of higher mountains, but it is the decided isolation—the absolute standing alone in full majesty of its own mightiness—that forms the attraction of Rainier. * * * It is no squatting giant, perched on the shoulders of other mountains. From Puget Sound, it is a sight for the gods, and one feels in the presence of the gods.—Paul Fountain: "The Seven Eaglets of the West" ...
— The Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams

... an unintentional, unconscious attraction in her, which won every one. Her notorious origin was not visited upon her, and even the rich girls in the village gladly made her their friend. While at work in the fields she sang in a ringing voice; in the spinning-room, in winter, she was full of jests and merry ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau

... greater part of the structure was the brain, sending enormous nerves to the eyes, ear, and tactile tentacles. Besides this were the bulky lungs, into which the mouth opened, and the heart and its vessels. The pulmonary distress caused by the denser atmosphere and greater gravitational attraction was only too evident in the convulsive ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... timidity are portrayed in a manner which, however charming in itself, is totally inconsistent with her worship as a great goddess. We are not surprised to hear that this statue inspired a personal passion; she is the goddess of love, and is represented as not beyond the reach of human attraction; but she is brought down to the level of mortals, rather than capable of raising mortals to a higher sphere by her contemplation. It is the same, though perhaps to a less degree, with other statues of the gods made in the fourth century. The motives with ...
— Religion and Art in Ancient Greece • Ernest Arthur Gardner

... robe became for a while the centre of attraction. It was as great a surprise to Aunt Marcia as to her husband, and she admired it extremely, praising the young ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard

... career now lay open; he took part also in the Cimbrian war, and manifested his singular talent for organization in the management of the difficult task of providing supplies; yet even now the pleasures of life in the capital had far more attraction for him than war or even politics. During his praetorship, which office he held in 661 after having failed in a previous candidature, it once more chanced that in his province, the least important of all, the first victory over king Mithradates and the first treaty with the mighty Arsacids, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... unaccountable attraction of the mind to trifles, which is often incidental to a state of doubt and confusion, the Carrier as he walked slowly to and fro, found himself mentally repeating even these absurd words, many times. So many times that he got them by heart, and was still conning them over and over, like ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens

... must end in collapse. I fought against it for a moment and then my resistance gave way. Not all at once but as if yielding to an irresistible pressure (for I was not conscious of any irresistible attraction) I found myself with my head resting, with a weight I felt must be crushing, on Dona Rita's shoulder which yet did not give way, did not flinch at all. A faint scent of violets filled the tragic emptiness of my head and it seemed impossible to me that I should ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... of the bridge, she leaned on the parapet and gazed at the rapid waters of the stream. Little by little, she began to experience that strange fascination caused by the attraction of the abyss; and as her eyes followed the swift current, she felt overtaken by a sort of vertigo and drawn more and more toward the ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue

... penalties for heretical teaching and writing, and grant privileges to the orthodox clergy (exemptions from regular taxes and benefit of the clergy).... Christianity becomes a monopoly defended by the state.... Psychological power and attraction in the elaborate symbolism and ritual of the church.... Allegory put an end to all literary criticism.... Flourishing of the miraculous; any unusual or startling occurrence attributed to the intervention of either God or the Devil.... Older conceptions of disease ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski

... the dresser, about two feet from the ground, and was endeavoring to find a comfortable place to lie down, among the plates and dishes. I soon observed that it was the shelter of the shelf above her head that was the great attraction, and that she was in the habit of seeking out a place of repose under a chair, or something approaching to an "umbrageous bower." So after this I took care, as the hour for her morning nap approached, to open a large green parasol, and set it on the matting in the corner—then ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie

... was a great attraction at the thought of going into the country. She hated the machine-work. But, all the same, somehow or other she did not ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade

... suggests unity of action as to what is going on in that place. All the forces in opposition to the Suitors are secretly gathering there and organizing. It is the center of attraction which is drawing out of the universe every atom of congenial energy for punishing the transgressors. It has brought Ulysses from Phaeacia, Telemachus from Sparta, and possesses already the faithful Eumaeus ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider

... point. Follow me no further, for you will not believe my story, nor enter into the feelings which I am about to reveal. But if there are any to whom all that is human is of interest, who have felt in their own consciousness some stirrings of invincible attraction to one individual and equally invincible repugnance to another, who know by their own experience that elective affinities have as their necessary counterpart, and, as it were, their polar opposites, currents not less strong of elective repulsions, let them ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... general mother, and, with eyes Of conjugal attraction unreproved, And meek surrender, half-embracing leaned On our first father; half her swelling breast Naked met his, under the flowing gold Of her loose tresses hid; he, in delight Both of her beauty and submissive charms, Smiled with superior love ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... study can compare with the study of human nature and human experience, as illustrated in individual examples. If the students are curious as to the secrets of greatness, and are emulous of excellence, the attraction is enhanced when they deal with persons of extraordinary powers and careers. It then becomes fascinating. Beautiful and noble characters can find nothing so enchanting as a beautiful and noble character. It was truly said by Vauvenargues, "Sooner or later, we ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... all of course in his sleep, then he went back to bed and slept on. At the same time he spoke very loudly, but quite unintelligible things and one could actually observe that the moon exercised an attraction over him. My younger healthy brother said that it was frightful, the many things that he uttered in the night. I also climbed out of bed one night when sixteen or seventeen years old, because I could not find the moon, and sought it and met ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger

... our general Mother, and with eyes Of Conjugal attraction unreproved, And meek surrender, half embracing lean'd On our first father; half her swelling breast Naked met his under the flowing Gold Of her loose tresses hid: he in delight Both of her beauty and submissive ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... property in that neighborhood was owned by our estate. I have been in that joint on Forty-eighth Street—I'll admit that. But, you know, I'm no gambler. I've gone simply to see the life, and—well, it has no attraction for me. Racing cars and motorboats don't go with poker chips and the red and black—not with me. As for the other place, I don't know any more about it than—than ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve

... the student takes shall be counted, measured and verified every three months by a certificate, and each year by an examination; at these examinations there shall be no optional matters, no estimate of collateral studies or those of complimentary or superior importance. The student finds no attraction or benefit in studies outside of the programme, and, in this programme he finds only official texts, explained by the bill of fare, one by one, with subtlety, and patched together as well as may be by means of distinctions and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... ample farm of nearly two square miles, to staff it with the best labour to be got, on a basis of copartnership, to bring herds of magnificent cattle into these park-like prairies, to set up horse-breeding, and to establish on the borders of the farm a large creamery which was already proving an attraction for settlers. It was going to put into Elizabeth's hands the power of helping the young University of Strathcona just across the Albertan border, and perhaps of founding in their own provincial capital of Regina a training college for farm-students—girls and boys—which ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... color but brightly golden; a gold, it must be said in all honesty, her own, a metallic gold crisply and solidly marcelled; with hazel-brown eyes, and a mouth which, set against her daughter's deep-blue gaze, was her particular attraction. It was rouged to a nicety, the under lip a little full and never quite against the upper. If Linda's effect was cool and remote, Mrs. Condon, thanks to her mouth, was reassuringly imminent. She was, too, friendly; ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer

... sight of Helen, she drew back; but she smiled exultingly when she saw that all the splendour of beauty she had so lately beheld and dreaded was flown. Her unadorned garments gave no particular attraction to the simple lines of her form; the effulgence of her complexion was gone; her cheek was pale, and the tremulous motion of her step deprived her of the elastic grace which was usually the ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... child! my child! She is dying, and condemns me—[to Milton] Thou art wise, Prudent, and skill'd in learned rhetorick— Think'st thou 'twere sad to gaze upon the look, That sudden on the harlot's painted features, Set in the stale attraction of forc'd smiles, Darkens so wildly—that, like one amaz'd, From the crack'd glass she staggers, to her brow Lifts her wan, jewell'd finger—tries to think? The wanton provocation of her features ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards

... "The attraction was the opportunity for self-sacrifice. Whatever she's makes of Mr. Majendie, she's bent on making a martyr of herself." Miss Proctor met the vague eyes of her circle with a glance that was defiance to all mystery. "It's quite simple. This marriage ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair

... strict attention to business. The vagaries of wallabies and kangaroo, of cat and parrot and cockatoo, had no attraction for the dusky leader of ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce

... man's rent, leaving for other creditors at best but a small balance, and not always a balance, of his earnings. Add to this that in bad seasons many fishermen depend on the merchants for larger advances than one season's fishing can repay, and it becomes apparent that the attraction to the merchant's shop is not only the possibility of present credit, but gratitude for past favours, and the certain expectation of having to ask for similar favours in future. It is quite true, as Mr. Irvine says, that 'one great drawback ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... ominous appearance. Anton was now swept off by the crowd to its opposite side, where the custom-house stood, made conspicuous from afar by the national escutcheon suspended near the windows. That was now the point of attraction, and Anton saw from a distance a man plant a ladder against the wall, and hack away at the escutcheon till, amid profound silence, it fell to the ground. Soon, however a drunken rabble fell upon it with wild yells, ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... of his life. A clever, ambitious, active boy of his own standing, whom he had long secretly admired, took a pronounced fancy to him. He was a boy, Hugh saw afterwards, with a deeply jealous disposition; and the first attraction of Hugh's friendship had been the fact that Hugh threatened his supremacy in no department whatever. Hugh was the only boy of the set who had never done better than he in anything. But then there came in a more generous feeling. Hugh's heart awoke; there ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... ignorance of English is shown in her back hair, which is a foot longer than the average hair of previous "Lady Macbeths," and is as thick and massive as a lion's mane. Wicked and punnish persons go so far as to call it her mane attraction. They are wrong, however. JANAUSCHEK does not draw by the force of capillary attraction. By the bye, did any one ever notice the fact that while a painter cannot be considered an artist unless he draws well, an actress may be the greatest ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various

... the attraction of seeing Mr. Rochester so soon again, would not have put off a series of visits which she was about to make, had not Lord Grayleigh's letter decided her. She therefore arrived at Silverbel on the 22d of September, and was quickly conducted to Sibyl's room. She had not seen Sibyl for ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade

... work, and having received instructions to take a team and join in the road work next day, he had gone down the walk between the beds of four o'clocks and petunias to the lane. Turning to latch the gate, he saw through the dusk the white dress under the tree and drawn by the greatest attraction known in nature, had re-entered the ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick

... passed up the main street in Peabody's sleigh on the way to Anderson Crow's home, was the centre of attraction. He was the hero of the hour, for was not Rosalie Gray herself, pale and ill with torture, his most devoted slave? What else could Tinkletown do but pay homage when it saw Bonner's head against her shoulder and Anderson Crow shouting approval from the bob-sled that carried ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon

... two ancient Universities, and cathedral cities generally, have not yielded such ample fruit to the explorer, perhaps because there has always been a species of magnetic attraction, by which any spoils of the kind are drawn into the local libraries and museums. A graduate of Oxford or Cambridge, a canon of this or that church, a loyal dweller in Winchester or Lincoln, possesses ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt

... Williams. Her Majesty received this suitable emblem of the effect which her royal visit was expected to produce with smiles, and most graciously acknowledged the simple but significant gift. The bird was held out by her majesty to the royal children, to whom it at once became an object of attraction. The Prince of Wales soon obtained possession of the bird, which seemed to absorb his attention. In the evening Dublin was illuminated, and maintained its well-established fame for ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... armies they call for executions, and several of those on whom the lot has fallen to march against the enemy have stipulated, at the tribune of the Jacobins, for the heads they exact as a condition of their departure,* or as the reward for their labours. The laurel has no attraction for heroes like these, who invest themselves with the baneful yew and inauspicious cypress, and go to the field of honour with the dagger ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... improved process consists in placing the hides with the solution of tan in close vessels, and then exhausting the air. The consequence of this is to withdraw any air which might be contained in the pores of the hides, and to employ the pressure of the atmosphere to aid capillary attraction in forcing the tan into the interior of the skins. The effect of the additional force thus brought into action can be equal only to one atmosphere, but a further improvement has been made: the vessel containing the hides is, after exhaustion, filled ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 559, July 28, 1832 • Various

... he said. "Do you know, I'm getting the mineral-water habit, Patty! I'm afraid plain water will have no attraction ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... ought not to ask for any other attraction than the subject itself, in order to find interest in China and its teachers. The Chinese Empire, which contains more than five millions of square miles, or twice the area of the United States, has a population of five hundred ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... perplexing. She always disliked the way Fanny would welcome the most promiscuous acquaintances in their joint dressing-room at all times. She thought now that it must have been contempt which she had read in this man's eyes, and apart from their attraction—for in an indefinite way they had attracted her—the idea spurred ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson

... considerations. Thus, we have already adverted to the law of periodical irregularities in the solar system. Any one before it was discovered seemed entitled to expatiate upon the operation of the disturbing forces arising from mutual attraction, and to charge the system arranged upon the principle of universal gravitation with want of skill, nay, with leading to inevitable mischief—mischief or evil of so prodigious an extent as to exceed incalculably all the instances of evil and of suffering which ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham

... reason, ground, call, principle; by end, by purpose; mainspring, primum mobile[Lat], keystone; the why and the wherefore; pro and con, reason why; secret motive, arriere pensee[Fr]; intention &c. 620. inducement, consideration; attraction; loadstone; magnet, magnetism, magnetic force; allectation|, allective|; temptation, enticement, agacerie[obs3], allurement, witchery; bewitchment, bewitchery; charm; spell &c. 993; fascination, blandishment, cajolery; seduction, seducement; honeyed words, voice ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... that the garden and grounds, filling up the ruins of Whalley Abbey, offered abundant points of picturesque attraction, all of which—with the exception of the ruined conventual church—had been visited by the two girls. They had tracked the labyrinths of passages, scaled the broken staircases, crept into the roofless and neglected chambers, peered timorously into the black ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... party abroad; myself and Mrs. Hunt were living a true fashionable life, and we entered into all its levities and follies. This course of life had drawn us into more fashionable, more accomplished society; and I own that to me polished manners were a great attraction, and that those who possessed them, possessed superior powers to fascinate. Amongst this number I frequently met a lady, who had been bred up and educated in the highest and most fashionable circles; she was tall, fair, and graceful, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt

... when dinner was over; but returned again in the evening, for there was an attraction there he could not resist. And it was then that Mrs. Chapman joined their hands, invoked a blessing on their heads and ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams

... Oliver, "but I have already breakfasted more than an hour ago, and am on my way to visit my patients. Indeed, I have to blame myself for calling at so early an hour, and would not have done so but for the irresistible attraction of ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne

... breezy Heights, with flag-staff and panorama; on the other, broad and level water-meadows, skirted by the dark-flowing Mullet, running to the sea between its tortuous banks: for neighbourhood, Pacton Park is one great attraction—the pretty market-town of Eyemouth another—the everlasting, never-tiring sea a third; and, at high-summer, when the Devonshire lanes are not knee-deep in mire, the nevertheless immeasurably filthy, though picturesque, mud-built village ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... was his way in all things. Others had their opinion of what was good for him. He had his own, and his own was the only opinion that ever influenced him. The Lower Third suited him. For him personally the Upper Fourth had no attraction. ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... accidentally parted on the left cheek, she shot quick side-glances at him. Okoya, balancing himself on his heels, quietly observed her. It was impossible to devote to her his whole attention, for her mother had already taken her seat close by him and was claiming his ear. She offered slight attraction to the eye, for her squatting figure was not beautiful. Okoya grew lively, much more lively than he had been on ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... girl's beauty, her breeziness, her virile, alluring womanhood—by the appeal she made to the love of the good and the true in his character. His affection for Hester Keyes, he had long known, had been merely the vanity-tickling regard of the callow youth—the sex attraction of adolescence, the "puppy" love that smites all youth alike. For Rosalind Benham a deeper note had been struck. Its force rocked him, intoxicated him; his head rang with the ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer

... passed him by. They saw the raw stranger stand in the gutter and stretch his neck at the tall buildings. At this they ceased to smile, and even to look at him. It had been done so often. A few glanced at the antique valise to see what Coney "attraction" or brand of chewing gum he might be thus dinning into his memory. But for the most part he was ignored. Even the newsboys looked bored when he scampered like a circus clown out of the way ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry

... stuff. There was nothing of the milksop about him, and the dangers of which his mother and sister spoke so eloquently had no terrors for him, but, on the contrary, constituted a positive and very powerful attraction; besides, as he pointed out to his companions, he would not always be clinging to the face of a precipice, or endeavouring to cross an impassable mountain torrent. Storms did not rage incessantly in Peru, any more than they did elsewhere; Mr Richards had assured him that the climate was healthy; ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood

... age; but if persons get into over-full vehicles they should not expect first-comers to turn out of their seats merely because they happen to be men." This writer acknowledges, indeed, that he is not very sensitive to the erotic attraction of women, but it is probable that the changing status of women will render the attitude he expresses more and more ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... experiment of placing the loadstone on a float in water, and observed that the poles always revolved until they pointed north and south, which he explained as due to the earth's magnetic attraction. In this same connection he noticed that a piece of wrought iron mounted on a cork float was attracted by other metals to a slight degree, and he observed also that an ordinary iron bar, if suspended horizontally by a thread, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... then man would have an innate means for determining the truth. But such reminiscences being, in their nature, imperfect and uncertain, we never can attain to absolute truth. With Plato, the Beautiful is the perfect image of the true. Love is the desire of the soul for Beauty, the attraction of like for like, the longing of the divinity within us for the divinity beyond us; and the Good, which is beauty, truth, justice, is ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... living single till, with luck, he got a rise, and married inevitably one of his female acquaintances, to live in the suburbs on three hundred a year.... And she was such a splendid creature—otherwise he would not have thought of it—but in attraction she could give points to any girl, and her beauty, having flowered late, would probably last a ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith

... find the young man already entered upon the career of adventure in which the rest of his life was to be spent. He had sailed to Canada, the place of attraction for ambitious French youth, and there he remained several years, making the familiar acquaintance of the Indians and learning their language, while he was dreaming, like many others, of the passage to China through the rivers that came down from the westward. He had looked, too, in ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... this house is the centre of attraction for all Hellenic interests in Egypt, and of more importance to us politically, than our temple, the Hellenion itself, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... I spoze the money will all be safe and gainin' interest, so if that is what a woman is married for she will keep her attraction and even increase it. But fifty years hence where will her beauty be, if she wuz married alone for that? Where are its powerful attractions? All gone. If she had nothing but the beauty of snowy brow and brilliant eye and clustering locks and ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley

... weakness for helping masculine sinners are alike in one thing, no matter what their color may be—wickedness has a strange attraction for them. It was the peril in which she considered Dolf, that made Clo so lenient towards him; it would be such a triumph to win him from his wicked ways, and lead him up to a height where he would be secure from the craft of the evil one, and what was more important, beyond the wiles ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... all. After this, we hear no more of him until he experienced religion and was received into the First Church. Whether he and Procter became reconciled again is not known. Probably they did; for they seem to have had points of attraction, and each of them traits of kind-heartedness and generosity, under a rather rough exterior. The manner in which they bore themselves in their last hours is a matter of history, and stamps them ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... orchard and a whole row of nice looking out-buildings in the rear. There was no place on earth so full of joy for me. The swallows' nests on the barn; the turkeys, geese, and chickens; the colt, lambs, and little pigs; in short, everything had an ever-increasing attraction, far exceeding any pleasures to be found within the limits of the ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... Constantinople, a most splendid entertainment, to which we did ample justice. One of his fancies was dining at all sorts of out-of-the-way places. Somebody popped upon him in I know not what coffee-house in the Strand—and what do you think was the attraction? Why, that he paid a shilling (I think) to dine with his hat on. This he called his "hat house," and used to boast of the comfort of being ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... with a few German sentences. Then Mr. Tower was heard in praise of his august countryman. In the course of his remarks he said he could hardly find words enough to express his delight at the presence of the popular American. Then followed the greatest attraction of the evening, an impromptu speech by Mark Twain in the German language, which it is true he has not fully mastered, but which he nevertheless controls sufficiently well to make it difficult to detect any harsh foreign accent. He had entitled his speech, "Die Schrecken der Deutschen Sprache" ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... Railroad at Medford, which is 328 miles south of Portland, and about ninety miles from the lake, which can be reached by a very good wagon road. The lake is about six miles wide by seven miles long, but it is not its size which is its beauty or its attraction. The surface of the water in the lake is 6,251 feet above the level of the sea, and is surrounded by cliffs or walls from 1,000 to over 2,000 feet in height, and which are scantily covered with timber, and which offer at but ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax

... people that needed it most, on the single condition that they would use it, and respect the rights of others. To such a people, increasing steadily, year by year, in all that makes for well-being, the wild denunciations, and if possible wilder promises, of paid agitators can have little attraction. It may be possible by careful generalship to stir a small section of such a people to the hysterical excitement of an industrial war, but the mass of the people would be certain to resent it, and the movement will be ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various

... myself under this necessary course of preparation, was to find the Doctor's house. It was not in that part of Highgate where Mrs. Steerforth lived, but quite on the opposite side of the little town. When I had made this discovery, I went back, in an attraction I could not resist, to a lane by Mrs. Steerforth's, and looked over the corner of the garden wall. His room was shut up close. The conservatory doors were standing open, and Rosa Dartle was walking, bareheaded, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... ruthless with her, he stopped in at the jeweler's the next morning and sent her a tiny jeweled watch. Lily was touched and repentant. She made up her mind not to see Louis Akers again, and found a certain relief in the decision. She was conscious that he had a peculiar attraction for her, a purely emotional appeal. He made her feel alive. Even when she disapproved of him, she was conscious of him. She put him resolutely out of her mind, to have him reappear in her dreams, not ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... were as empty as the pockets of the farmers who were soon to swell its ranks; and this made a campaign of the usual sort impossible. One big meeting was held in Chicago in August, with Samuel F. Cary, the nominee for Vice-President, as the principal attraction; and this was followed by a torchlight procession. A number of papers published by men who were active in the movement, such as Buchanan's Indianapolis Star, Noonan's Industrial Age of Chicago, and Donnelly's Anti-Monopolist of St. Paul, labored not without avail to spread the ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck

... conceptions. The plays matured, as it were, on the stage itself; there they received their final shape and completion. As mentioned before, that which had displeased was struck out, whilst the passages that had obtained applause were often augmented, in order to confer upon the play the attraction of novelty. 'Enlarged to almost as much-againe as it was' is an expression which shows that 'Hamlet' had drawn from the very beginning. The poet, thereby encouraged, then worked out this drama into the powerful, comprehensive ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis

... now, one listening above the other to the same play following around the sunrise. Every one is affected by it—a kind of soul-suction—a great pulling from the world. People who do not want to write at all feel it—a kind of huge, soft, capillary attraction apparently—to a pen. The whole planet kindles every man's solitude. Continents are bellows for the glow in him if there is any. The wireless telegraph beckons ideas around the world. "How does a planet applaud?" dreams the young author. "With a faint flush of light?" ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee

... Linyanti to his wife, Livingstone makes the best he can of his long detention. She seems to have put the matter playfully, wondering what the "source of attraction" had been. He says: ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... up on to the ledge. The loose bar gave way after a very little coaxing, and next minute I was out of the casement and in the little courtyard. One or two windows overlooked it, but either these were too high for any one to look from, or there was no one to look, or if there was, the attraction of the ghastly scene going on at the other side took them the other way. And to this same attraction, no doubt, was due the fact that no sentry was patrolling the back of ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed

... being pledged, which, seeing it is yet too early for any one to come upon the field, I must regard as a polite evasion. Yet all advise me to stand, as it might serve me against the next vacancy. So stand I shall, unless things are changed. As it is, with my health this summer class is a great attraction; it is perhaps the only hope I may have of a permanent income. I had supposed the needs of the chair might be met by choosing every year some period of history in which questions of Constitutional Law were involved; but this is ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Iraklei Virubov, a clerk in the local treasury. In short, I could never glance out of the window at the cemetery on the other side of the strip of dead, burnt, polluted earth without reflecting that, by comparison, that cemetery was a place of sheer beauty, a place of ceaseless attraction. ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... spirit which impels a man to sing at his labor. On the whole, I found Mr. Wigglesworth an entertaining, and often instructive, if not an interesting, character; and, partly for the charm of his society, and still more because his work has an invariable attraction for "man that is born of woman," I was accustomed to spend some hours a day at his workshop. The quaintness of his remarks and their not infrequent truth—a truth condensed and pointed by the limited sphere of his ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... ounces, brandy one ounce. Put the oil on the sewing machine, and absorb the brandy between meals. The brandy will no doubt fly right to your head and either greatly assist your hair or it will reconcile you to your lot. The great attraction about brandy as a hair tonic is, that it should not build up the thing. If you wish, you may drink the brandy and then breathe hard on the scalp. This will be difficult at first but after awhile it will ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... moving, we very imprudently set her on fire before she was clear of the ship's side; and as we were on a wind, it was some minutes before we could get her clear. In the meantime the fire began to blaze up in a very alarming manner under the mizzen chains, where, by the attraction of the two floating bodies, she seemed resolved to continue; but on our putting the helm up, and giving the vessel a sheer the contrary way, as soon as we were before the wind, she parted from us, to our great joy, and was soon ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... 'fooling among boats' on a summer day, the thrill of a well-hit ball, the rapture of a skilful dive, are no more easy to explain than the more complicated pleasures of literature, or art, or religion. And why is it—to come closer to our theme—that the round or the whirling have such attraction for us? What is the secret of the fascination of the circle? Why is it that the turning of anything, be it but a barrel-organ or a phrase, holds one as with an hypnotic power? I confess that I can never genuinely pity a knife-grinder, however needy. Think ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne

... birds frequent the whole Pampas to the foot of the Cordillera, but I never saw or heard of one in Chile: in Peru they are preserved as scavengers. These vultures certainly may be called gregarious, for they seem to have pleasure in society, and are not solely brought together by the attraction of a common prey. On a fine day a flock may often be observed at a great height, each bird wheeling round and round without closing its wings, in the most graceful evolutions. This is clearly performed for the mere pleasure of the exercise, or perhaps ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... imbittered the clergyman's placid relations with the woman whom he loved. Of the few resident gentlemen in the neighborhood, none were ever admitted by Mrs. Armadale to more than the merest acquaintance with her. Contentedly self-buried in her country retreat, she was proof against every social attraction that would have tempted other women in her position and at her age. Mr. Brock and his newspaper, appearing with monotonous regularity at her tea-table three times a week, told her all she knew or cared to know of the great outer ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... the forty-odd tanka which I have translated, their chief attraction lies, I think, in what they reveal to us of the human nature of their authors. Tanabata-tsum['e] still represents for us the Japanese wife, worshipfully loving;—Hikoboshi appears to us with none of the luminosity of the god, but as the young Japanese husband of the sixth or seventh century, ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn

... for the moon to rise before we started for home, and in the meanwhile another cloud arose and made demonstration. This storm, however, was neither so long nor so violent as the first, and we found attraction in viewing the lightning striking into ghastly convulsions the landscape—so that the falling rain—the bowed trees—the drenched earth—the streaked mill, and the gleaming water-fall were opened to our view for an instant, and then dropped as it were again into the blackness. But ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various

... Mrs. Purp know of the change in his condition, and every morning left his lodging at the usual time. By some curious attraction he felt drawn to that downtown region where his kinsman's office was. This part of the city he had not ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley



Words linked to "Attraction" :   force, lure, enticement, gravitation, allurement, quality, chemical bond, affinity, entertainer, magnetism, bond, repulsion, attention, binding, attracter, travelog, temptingness, coming attraction, fascination, characteristic, van der Waal's forces, magnetic force, gravitational force, show, travelogue, drawing power, gravity, showstopper, show-stopper, allure, come-on, attract, feature



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