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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



... attention, the persistence with which all eyes seemed to be turned in the same direction, to be fixed upon the same point of attraction; and as she followed that current of curiosity which magnetized the whole assemblage, the floor as well as the galleries, she saw what everybody was staring at so ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... based upon love; and love, though naturally and normally involving the element of sexual attraction, ought to include also other and deeper elements. A Christian man who has lived a clean and disciplined life ought to be sufficiently master of his passions to avoid mistaking a merely temporary infatuation for such a genuine spiritual affinity ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson

... moth or candle was becoming a moot point. It was moot to me, watching him and Miss Sabine Monroy at Charleston throughout the month of March. The casual observer would have said that she was "playing him up," as a young poet of my acquaintance puts it; but I was not casual. For me Vaness had the attraction of a theorem, and I was looking rather deeply into him and ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors

... lads have told you what they have seen in Belgium; and as they are just now busily employed, I shall endeavor to tell you our doings and enjoyments for the last day in this noble old city. We have been to see St. James's Church, where the great attraction is the tomb of Rubens. The altar is exquisitely fine, and was the work of Duquesnoy. Rubens brought it from Italy. Over the tomb is the famous Holy Family, in which Rubens has introduced himself as St. George, his father as Jerome, his wives as Martha and Magdalene, his grandfather ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various

... constables,—very slowly making his way along the pavement. His movement, indeed, was so slow that any one watching him would have come to the conclusion that that particular part of the High Street had some attraction for him at that special moment. Alas, alas! How age will alter the spirit of a man! Twenty years since Frank Gresham would have thought any one to be a mean miscreant who would have interposed a policeman between him and his foe. But it is to be feared that while selecting that stick he ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... sister, Cecile, possessed a drawl like her mother's. Petite, distractingly pretty, Hamil recognised immediately her attraction—experienced it, amused himself by yielding to it as he exchanged conventionally preliminary observations with ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... that he had made no plans for the morrow, and that he would be delighted to meet her in the library, for a good long 'confab' over the subject that evidently possessed a mutual attraction for them. ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson

... as much of as the guest-house, for the news of the Emissary's return has preceded him, and everybody is alive with curiosity, and he has to stand and deliver in the village temples everywhere. Of course I am the great attraction, and after being scared by it at first I have rather got to like it; the people are so kind, and unaffected, and ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells

... 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 ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... feeling the fascination which Major Milroy had exercised over women infinitely her mental superiors in his earlier life. He had been touched, on his side, by her devotion, and had felt, in his turn, the attraction of her beauty, her freshness, and her youth. Up to the time when their little daughter and only child had reached the age of eight years, their married life had been an unusually happy one. At that period the double misfortune fell on the household, of the failure of the wife's health, ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... love for the game as he had. She played because she always had played, by habit, a second nature that had ousted the first. Her skill was so unerring that for Durant it robbed the game of its last lingering attraction, the divine element of chance. One tinge of consciousness, one touch of fire, and it would have been sheer devilry. As it was he could have been sorry for her, though in her infinite apathy she seemed to be placed beyond his ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair

... of the largest that had come together in Mansfield for years. The evening was delightful, cool and balmy, a bright moonlight adding attraction to the scene. A stand decorated with flags had been erected near the center of the park, with seats in front, and lights gleamed on either hand. I was introduced to the audience by my old friend and partner, Henry C. Hedges, whose remarks were too flattering for ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... Sex attraction is so purely a question of the taste of the individual that the wise man never argues about it. He accepts its vagaries as part of the human mystery, and leaves it at that. To me there was no charm whatever about Mary Campbell. It may ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... marriage has more than justified the choice of her master. Still a young woman, she has already presented her lord with nine children, on the last occasion surpassing herself by giving birth to twins. She has a most pleasant face, and really charming children; but the chief attraction of a Chinese lady is absent in her case. Her feet are of natural size, and not even in the exaggerated murmurings of love could her husband describe them ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison

... also arrived at their Coast residence, and there began to be a quite unprecedented amount of friendly coming and going between the two families. It became evident before long that George Fordyce appeared to find some great attraction at The Anchorage, though in former years he had only presented himself at rare intervals during the months his people were at the sea-side. And those who looked on saw quite well how matters were drifting, and each viewed it in a different light. The most unconscious, of course, was ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan

... wonderingly at him a year previous. He tells her he knows what her name is, and feels a little hurt because that fact does not seem to interest her. He studies his lessons because he is told he must, and plays hard because he enjoys it. He feels no special attraction toward any of his schoolmates until one winter day this same little blue-eyed girl asks him for a place on his sled. He shares it with her as a well-behaved boy should, and so begins the first faint bond of feeling that like a tiny rill on the hillside slowly gathers power, until at last, ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn

... people pay little heed to this great temple, gain but a small impression from it. It decorates the bank of the Nile. You can see it from the dahabiyehs. For many that is enough. Yet the temple is a noble one, and, for me, it gains a definite attraction all its own from the busy life about it, the cheerful hum and stir. And if you want fully to realize its dignity, you can always visit it by night. Then the cries from the village are hushed. The houses show no lights. Only the voices from ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens

... they are, exemplifying the attraction of gravitation or some other long-winded theory of your scientific gentlemen," replied the skipper, who seemed to have got science on the brain this morning, being violently antagonistic to it, somehow or other. "Ah, Fosset, ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson

... country town near Manchester, and at the end of the lane that led from it to the more thickly populated part there was a path crossing a field to the pretty church and church-yard, and this path was a short cut homeward for me. Being so pretty and quiet the place had a sort of attraction for me; and I was in the habit of frequently passing through it on my way, partly because it was pretty and quiet, perhaps, and partly, I have no doubt, because I was inclined to be weak and melancholy at the time, my health being broken ...
— "Surly Tim" - A Lancashire Story • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... this story is that the revolt met with no English support whatever. Not only did Bishop Wulfstan march along with his fierce Norman brethren Ode and Geoffrey; the English people everywhere were against the rebels. For this revolt offered no attraction to English feeling; had the undertaking been less hopeless, nothing could have been gained by exchanging the rule of William for that of Ralph or Roger. It might have been different if the Danes had played their part better. The ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman

... possible particle would be a "molecule" of water. We cannot subdivide this molecule without causing its atoms of hydrogen and oxygen to fly apart—and then there would be no water at all. Well, these molecules manifest a something called Attraction for each other. They attract other molecules of the same kind, and are likewise attracted. The operation of this law of attraction results in the formation of masses of matter, whether those masses be mountains of solid rock, or a drop of water, or a volume of gas. All masses of matter ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... talk has become too discursive, in turning from nuts to ground nuts, and from ground nuts to potatoes; but the subject, bearing as it does on the origin and history of cultivated plants, is one which has great attraction for me, and I hope it may have been of interest to ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fourteenth Annual Meeting • Various

... half-minute survey and closed his eyes again. The face matched the voice. A harsh face, with bold blue eyes, black eyebrows that met over his nose, a mouth slightly prominent, hard and tilted downward at the corners. Over the harshness like a veil was spread a sardonic kind of humor that gave attraction to the man's personality. In the monotone of his voice was threaded a certain dry wit that gave point to his observations. He was an automobile salesman, it appeared, and his headquarters were in Ogden, and he was going through to ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower

... my mind harrowed by the presentation of some psychological study. I can remember WRIGHT, and even HARLEY, and the days when a good piece of fun was the last item of the programme at the Adelphi and the Olympic—the chief attraction of the Pittites, who patronised "half-price." This being so, I am glad to find at the Strand—a theatre recalling memories of JIMMY ROGERS and JOHNNY CLARKE, PATTY OLIVER and CHARLOTTE SAUNDERS, to say nothing of a lady who was not only Queen of Comedy but Empress of Burlesque—"Private ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various

... 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

... 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

... do with Shigramitish women? She merely caught my attention for a minute, and I wondered at the attraction that a dowd has for a certain type of man. I expected to see her walk out of her clothes—until ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... Prussia, on 22nd April, 1724, of humble parentage. He was apparently destined for the Church, since his first efforts were directed towards the study of theology in the university of his native town. But natural science and philosophy proved of far more powerful attraction, and, abandoning Divinity, he earned his livelihood, first of all, by acting as a private tutor in the neighbourhood of Koenigsberg, and afterwards by assuming a similar office in his own university. He subsequently, ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan

... thing—so impossible that they do not feel it a sin that they "walk otherwise"; and so they do not long for this walk in newness of life. They have become so accustomed to the life of impotence, that the life and walk in God's strength has little attraction. But some there are with whom it is not thus. They do wonder if these words really mean what they say, and if the wonderful life each one of them speaks of is simply an unattainable ideal, or meant to be realised in flesh and blood. The more they study them, the more they feel that they ...
— The Ministry of Intercession - A Plea for More Prayer • Andrew Murray

... now, indeed, it must pass a hundred million of miles, wide of the earth and scarcely affect it. But near its destined path, as yet only slightly perturbed, spun the mighty planet Jupiter and his moons sweeping splendid round the sun. Every moment now the attraction between the fiery star and the greatest of the planets grew stronger. And the result of that attraction? Inevitably Jupiter would be deflected from its orbit into an elliptical path, and the burning star, swung by his attraction wide of its sunward rush, would ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... attraction in Ashurst, Giff?" Helen said. "How can he stay there all summer? I should not think he could leave ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland

... elasticity; gravity, electricity, magnetism, galvanism, voltaic electricity, voltaism, electromagnetism; atomic power, nuclear power, thermonuclear power; fuel cell; hydraulic power, water power, hydroelectric power; solar power, solar energy, solar panels; tidal power; wind power; attraction; vis inertiae [Lat.], vis mortua [Lat.], vis viva [Lat.]; potential energy, dynamic energy; dynamic friction, dynamic suction; live circuit, live rail, live wire. capability, capacity; quid valeant ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... answer: Sociology is still of necessity a very vague body of approximate truths. We have not the data necessary for obtaining anything like precise laws. A mathematician can tell you precisely what he means when he speaks of bodies moving under the influence of an attraction which varies inversely as the square of the distance. But what are the attractive forces which hold together the body politic? They are a number of human passions, which even the acutest psychologists are as yet ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen

... curious illustration of the attraction of opposites, that, among our elder poets, the war we are waging finds its keenest expression in the Quaker Whittier. Here is, indeed, a soldier prisoner on parole in a drab coat, with no hope of exchange, but with a heart beating ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell

... she is so small the Moon is not only, next to the Sun, by far the most beautiful, but also for us the most important, of the heavenly bodies. Her attraction, aided by that of the Sun, causes the tides, which are of such essential service to navigation. They carry our vessels in and out of port, and, indeed, but for them many of our ports would themselves cease to exist, ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock

... was now fast filling up with the first of the theatre crowd. DeLong's table was the centre of attraction, owing to the high play. A group of young men of his set were commiserating with him on his luck and discussing it with the finished air of roues of double their ages. He was ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve

... his guard within half an inch of the combatants; then, watching his opportunity, he sprang upon the black warrior, and commenced his operations near the root of his right fore leg, leaving the foe to select among his own members; and so there were three united for life, as if a new kind of attraction had been invented which put all other locks and cements to shame. I should not have wondered by this time to find that they had their respective musical bands stationed on some eminent chip, and playing their ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... story had excited such intense interest had become the object of universal attention. Hyde, hitherto the centre of attraction, was already forgotten, and instead of people going away from the court to canvass his guilt or his innocence, they surged round the witness whose testimony, strange and unexpected, had so altered the probabilities of the case. It was with difficulty that Methley got his ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher

... pay for these luxuries of Panama life. But, so scarce and expensive were they, that, as I afterwards discovered, those hotel-keepers whose larders were so stocked would hang out a chicken upon their signposts, as a sure attraction for the richer and more reckless diggers; while the touter's cry of "Eggs and chickens here" was a very telling one. Wine and spirits were also obtainable, but were seldom taken by the Americans, who are abstemious abroad ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole

... most people have it in some more or less workable quantity, though for many it expresses itself only in a vague attraction or repulsion." ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... how great an attraction so brilliant and picturesque an epoch of history should have for a spirit like Mr. Towle's; but we cannot help thinking it a pity that he should have attempted to reproduce, in such an ambitious form, the fancies which its contemplation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various

... are poyson, and he slayes Moe then you Rob: Take wealth, and liues together, Do Villaine do, since you protest to doo't. Like Workemen, Ile example you with Theeuery: The Sunnes a Theefe, and with his great attraction Robbes the vaste Sea. The Moones an arrant Theefe, And her pale fire, she snatches from the Sunne. The Seas a Theefe, whose liquid Surge, resolues The Moone into Salt teares. The Earth's a Theefe, That ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... time of some kind, when dainty, appetizing refreshments make up a part of the entertainment. To assist the housewife in planning menus for occasions of this kind, a number of suggestions are here given. Suitable decorations are also mentioned in each instance, for much of the attraction of a special dinner or luncheon depends on the form ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... face, the attractive smile, the eyes that interested and compelled. He was an able, masterful man. He surely loved her now. She could feel a power over him that her short miserable marriage had never given her; and her girlhood's attraction ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... parts, and even to stretch them by hanging weights to them. Some of them are said to spend several hours a day at this process, which is considered one of the important parts of the toilet of the Hottentot belle, this malformation being an attraction for the male members of the race. Merensky says that in Basutoland the elder women begin to practice labial manipulation on their female children shortly after infancy, and Adams has found this custom to prevail in Dahomey; he says that ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... because it gave him importance; but he chiefly valued the position as it enabled him to further an ulterior design—an Irish revolution and a republic on the French plan. The example of France had, however, grown by this time rather a terror than an attraction to more cautious men than Tone. Edward Byrne, Sir Thomas French, and other leading Catholics, were openly hostile to any imitation of it, and the dinner at Daly's, to celebrate the passage of the act, was strongly anti-Gallican in spirit and sentiment. Keogh, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... to select the virgin forest, and of all things let him avoid deserted gambier plantations, the soil of which is completely exhausted, the Chinese taking good care never to leave a spot until they have taken all they can out of it. A cleared spot has a great attraction for the inexperienced, and it is not easy to convince a man that it is less expensive to attack the primitive forest, than to attempt to clear an old gambier plantation, overrun with lalang grass; but the cutting down and burning ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... Tenebrae are of a like inspiration and an equal loftiness with those of Quentin Matsys' great work, the Entombment of Christ. The "Regina Coeli" of the Flemish musician Lasso has the same good faith, the same simple and strange attraction, as certain statues of a reredos, or religious pictures of the elder Breughel. Lastly, the Miserere of Josquin de Pres, choirmaster of Louis XII., has, like the panels of the Early Masters of Burgundy and Flanders, a patient intention, ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... imitating all the sounds that are heard in the bush in great perfection. They are about the size of a barn-door fowl, and are not remarkable for any beauty either in the shape or colour, being of a dirty brown, approaching to black in some parts; their greatest attraction consists in the graceful tail of the cock bird, which assumes something the appearance of a lyre, for which reason some ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... brought home by the Crusaders, Venetian artists recovered the antique feeling for pure form, and founded a school which was classical in spirit, Christian only in external and unessential features. The learning and literature which the Eastern Empire inherited from Rome and Athens had no attraction for Venetian merchant princes. But north of the Alps, and especially at Paris, the thirteenth century saw an increasing interest in the Greek language, and in Greek books, so far as they were useful to theologians or scholastic ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis

... is the grand centre of attraction. It is a magnificent building, surrounded by splendid gardens. In front of it is a Chinese pagoda, intended as a music stand for the band, which plays there twice a day. It contains a large assembly-room, where the company dance at times, a restaurant, a theatre, ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic

... are plenty 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 Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams

... canoe which lay along side the ship during a snowstorm; its tiny hands protruding held a piece of blubber, which it sucked with apparent relish, the unique picture of happy contentment. It was quick to feel itself an object of attraction, and its chubby face returned any ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse

... nave, west front, and cloister. The fifth and last change is the introduction of Perpendicular work, chiefly noticeable in the chapter house, the west screen, and the great east window. The day of the great builders was waning fast. The old faith that inspired them was dwindling, the attraction of national concerns was too great for local effort. Moreover, the desire to make intricately beautiful, right enough in itself, had vitiated, as it was bound to do, the taste of architect and builder. The old Norman cathedrals, however rugged, were imposing in their stern and simple strength. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Exeter - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Percy Addleshaw

... The attraction of the show was to see the great Dompteur, Pezon. He had been almost eaten by his lions a few months ago, and was to make his reappearance accompanied by a beautiful songstress who would charm the beasts to sleep. Pezon was just like the other Dompteurs, ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn

... felt for General Bonaparte an attraction caused by a mixed feeling of alarm and confidence. Alarm reigned in the mind of his minister, who made up his mind to set out for Paris as if he were going to martyrdom. "Since a victim is necessary," said he, "I ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... health and pleasure, a great many English; among them several persons of high rank. Here were German princes and counts, so plenty that Percy got tired of wondering they were not more refined and agreeable. She was herself a great attraction there, and, the Colonel said, had many admirers. Among the guests was an English family that took great notice of her, and made many advances towards intimacy. The two young ladies and their father seemed equally pleased and interested in the Lunts, and when they left ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... the Madrusa's key did happen to be Jonathan Driggs, he could afford to breathe more easily. Driggs was another man who had found in China the irresistible attraction, and who for some years had sat behind the radio machines of many ships ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... there was always, on the part of both Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln, a cordial and hearty Western welcome which put every guest at ease. Yet it was the wit and humor, anecdote, and unrivalled conversation of the host which formed the chief attraction and made a dinner at Lincoln's cottage an event to be remembered. Lincoln's income from his profession was now from $2,000 to $3,000 per annum. His property consisted of his house and lot in Springfield, a lot in the town of Lincoln which had been given to him, and 160 acres ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... head, passing on its way countless millions of smaller particles, whose cutting edges scored these grooves. On entering the earth's atmosphere, on account of its great size, this boulder, through the law of attraction, quickly moved to the outermost fringe of the comet's tail nearest the earth, therefore was the first to alight on the top of this mountain, far away from all smaller ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... occasionally, and nodded, or at most spoke a brief greeting, yet each time she would have liked to stop and talk a little. Totty had been Thyrza's close friend; that formerly had been a source of jealous feeling, now it seemed to have become an attraction. Totty gave looks that were not unkind, but did not make advances; she was a little ashamed of the way she had behaved when Lydia came ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing

... firelight the settlers were this evening carrying on various occupations. Mr. Holt's seemed the most curious, and was the centre of attraction, though Robert was cutting shingles, and Arthur manufacturing a walnut-wood ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... of it, can only be persuaded to do so by a thick coating of worldly butter. They may be coaxed to visit the church where the finest anthem is sung, but that where the purest Gospel is preached has no attraction for them. The porter's wife, therefore, suddenly discovered that she had plenty to do at home, and took her departure, much to the relief of the friends on whom she inflicted herself. She had not been gone many minutes when Stephen ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt

... I haven't known what it was to have a husband—since that poor dear boy went on staff duty," promptly answered the diminutive center of attraction, a merry peal of laughter ringing under the dingy archway of the long, long roof. "Why, the Portland has only one stateroom in it big enough for a bandbox, and of course the General has to have that, and there isn't a deck where one couple could turn a slow waltz. No, indeed! wait for ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King

... acquaintance of Alfred de Musset, then in his twenty-third year, and already famous through his just published poem, Rolla, and his earlier dramas, Andrea del Sarto and Les Caprices de Marianne. He rapidly became enamored of the author of Lelia, who for her part felt powerfully the attraction of his many admirable qualities, mutual enchantment leading them so far as to believe they could be the hero and heroine of a happy love tale. In a letter of September 21, addressed to her friend and correspondent Sainte-Beuve, whom she had made the confidant of her previous depression ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas

... between them. They had worked together so long that they had got over all the attraction-repulsion conflicts which operate far beneath the surface mind to cause likes and dislikes. Now they accepted one another in the way a man accepts his own hands—proud of them when they do something with extra skill, making allowances when ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton

... you care to examine, the storekeeper will hook down from aloft capotes of different degrees of fineness. Fathoms of black tobacco-rope lie coiled in tubs. Tump-lines welter in a tangle of dimness. On a series of little shelves is the ammunition, fascinating in the attraction of mere numbers—44 Winchester, 45 Colt, 40-82, 30-40, 44 S. & W.—they all connote something to the accustomed mind, just as do the numbered street names ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White

... of policemen gathering in an 'early drunk' in the Marylebone Road. The procession moved on its stately way to the Babe's father's house, and the last Tony and Charteris saw of Jim, he was the centre of attraction, and appeared to be enjoying himself ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse

... not lessen the attraction of Mrs. Maitland in Smith's eyes, and it was with real admiration in his tone that he ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... drier, colder, and more healthy climate, is largely used for breeding cattle, and as a grazing ground for sheep and oxen. It is here that, in later days, the gold-mining activity proceeds, as almost everywhere there are believed to be rich auriferous deposits. Its mineral deposits have been the attraction of the Transvaal, for the coal-fields invited the attention of some of the first speculators. In fact, the first railway line of the district ran between Johannesburg ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... what to say to the strange woman before her, or how to soften her bitterness of spirit. She had felt an unaccountable attraction to Cathelineau's mother. She had imagined that she could speak to her of her son with affection and warmth, though she could not do so to any other living soul She had flattered herself that she should have a melancholy pleasure in talking of his death, and in assuring ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... was the matter, and found that Miss Fan had made her way to a shelf of 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 when I called ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie

... Mrs. Hildreth, "of course one cannot grudge the money for that. Professional singing is such an attraction! The way Madame Rialto took that high C last ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black

... chemically conditioned cytotropism, which causes the sprouts to find one another and unite. A similar process can be directly observed in isolated segmentation-cells, which tend to unite in consequence of a power of mutual attraction. ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell

... but had stopped and stunted her when only half grown. Her shoulders were unnaturally high, and one leg was considerably shorter than the other. Her face was not in any way beautiful, yet there was a certain mysterious attraction about it. Something looked out of her eyes which Clarice studied without being able to define, but which disposed her to keep on looking. They were dark, pathetic eyes, of the kind with which Clarice had gifted her very imaginary Countess; but there ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt

... the play be "Gertrude's Cherries," or "The Smoked Mixer," or "Fifteen Years of a Drunkard's Life,"—or what not. That quality never failed him. He dresses up all his characters in that brilliant livery. But dialogue is not enough for the stage, and compared with the attraction of an intense action is nothing. Besides, Jerrold found the modern taste for spectacle forming thirty years ago. In his prefaces he complains bitterly of the preference of the public for the mechanical over the higher ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... enemy. That Lee ventured to do so on this occasion can only be explained on one hypothesis, that he did not highly esteem the military ability of his opponent. These flank attacks undoubtedly, however, possessed a great attraction for him, as they did for Jackson, and, in preferring such movement, Lee was probably actuated both by the character of the troops on both sides and by the nature of the country. The men of both armies ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke

... dead one. In a live body, I don't think so. The attraction would be stronger. There would be ...
— A Place in the Sun • C.H. Thames

... this very moment—and less than a hundred yards away—came Terra's foremost attraction for him. His hammering heartbeat would have placed him on the "grounded" list immediately, had there been a medico with a stethoscope hanging about to ...
— Next Door, Next World • Robert Donald Locke

... tourism and increased trade have been key elements in this solid record. Agricultural production accounted for a major portion of growth in GDP in 1996, growth having been adversely affected by drought in 1995. Further privatization, the attraction of increased foreign investment, and improvements in government efficiency are among the ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... of a bright sultry August day, when the flags seem scorching to the feet, and the sun beats down fiercely. It has yet a certain inviting attraction. There is a general air of bustle, and the provincial, trundled along in his cab, his trunks over his head, looks out with a certain awe and sense of delight, noting, as he skirts the Park, the gay colours glistening among the dusty trees, the figures flitting past, the riders, the carriages, all ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald

... metal had the power of bringing a vibrating magnetic needle suspended over it rapidly to rest; and that on causing the disk to rotate the magnetic needle rotated along with it. When both were quiescent, there was not the slightest measurable attraction or repulsion exerted between the needle and the disk; still when in motion the disk was competent to drag after it, not only a light needle, but a heavy magnet. The question had been probed and investigated with admirable skill by both ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various

... own drawing, which made practically no progress; and he would often catch her following his movements with those great eyes of hers, while the sheep-dogs would lie perfectly still at her feet, blinking horribly—such was her attraction. His birds also, a jackdaw and an owl, who had the run of the studio, tolerated her as they tolerated no other female, save the housekeeper. The jackdaw would perch on her and peck her dress; but the owl merely engaged her in combats of mesmeric gazing, which ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... operations or any other exhibitions of suffering, especially those involving bloodshed, blows, and laceration. A craze for cruelty can be developed just as a craze for drink can; and nobody who attempts to ignore cruelty as a possible factor in the attraction of vivisection and even of antivivisection, or in the credulity with which we accept its excuses, can be regarded as a scientific investigator of it. Those who accuse vivisectors of indulging the well-known passion of cruelty under the cloak of research are therefore putting forward a strictly ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw

... us to know Shakespeare and all his high qualities and do him reverence; it will be well for us, too, to see his limitations and his faults, for after all it is the human frailties in a man that call forth our sympathy and endear him to us, and without love there is no virtue in worship, no attraction in example. ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... the North and East, therefore, and the grain and provisions of the Western States are likely to find in Texas a demand, increased by whatever augments intercourse between the two countries, and especially by whatever tends to give attraction to the cities of the United States as marts for the sale of her great and principal ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... few years were spent by Brahms in directing orchestra and chorus at Detmold and elsewhere, and in Switzerland, which has always had great attraction for him. In 1859 he played in Leipsic his first great pianoforte concerto; most of the criticisms thereon were, however, such as now excite mirth. Lately he has played in Leipsic again, conducted several of his works, and was greeted ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews

... around Dawlish make the place peculiarly attractive at first sight, and the attraction is not lessened by familiarity with the town. It enjoys the best of the famous South Devon climate; warm in winter and ever cooled by the sea breeze in summer, it is an excellent holiday centre. Historic Exeter is close at hand and Dartmoor within ...
— Legend Land, Volume 2 • Various

... under the imputation of infidelity. Halifax therefore often incurred Burnet's indignant censure; and Burnet was often the butt of Halifax's keen and polished pleasantry. Yet they were drawn to each other by a mutual attraction, liked each other's conversation, appreciated each other's abilities, interchanged opinions freely, and interchanged also good offices in perilous times. It was not, however, merely from personal regard ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... there was a progressive fall in weights on every level as they went down and that if no unforeseen obstacle interfered they would reach the limit of attraction from the surface downward and in his opinion it would be at fifty miles. I asked him what they would find there and he replied that in his opinion it would be the same subtle and elastic essence that fills stellar space, but ...
— Eurasia • Christopher Evans

... housekeeping—the worthiest domestic management—which makes the home so pleasant and agreeable, that a man feels when approaching it, that he is about to enter a sanctuary; and that, when there, there is no alehouse attraction that can ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... Hindostan for riding elephants. A theatre was as remote from us as an elephant. And therefore we grew up without acquiring or condemning such tastes. They had neither the charm of early association nor the attraction of forbidden fruit. To outsiders the household must have been pervaded by an air of gravity, if not of austerity. But we did not feel it, for it became the law of our natures, not a law imposed by external sanctions. We certainly had a full allowance ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... assembled to wonder at Garrick, in 'Wine Merchant turned Player;' and great and small alike rushed to Goodman's Fields to see him act all parts, and to laugh at his admirable mimicry. It was perhaps, somewhat in jealousy of the counter attraction, that Horace declared he saw nothing wonderful in the acting of Garrick, though it was then heresy to say so. 'Now I talk of players,' he adds in the same letter, 'tell Mr. Chute that his friend Bracegirdle breakfasted with me this morning.' Horace ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... pantheism of the older Vishnuism has in its form and teachings so close a resemblance to the Christian religion that it has always had a great attraction for occidental readers; while the real power of its "Divine Song" gives the latter a charm possessed by few of the scriptures of India. This Divine Song (or Song of the Blessed One) is at present a Krishnaite version of an older Vishnuite poem, and this in turn was ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... the "Newe Isle" languished; the exploration of North America was taken up and carried farther by Portuguese, Bretons and Normans of France, Italians, and Spaniards.[9] It revived again under Henry VIII, owing to the irresistible attraction of the Newfoundland fisheries and the knowledge that the ships from France were returning every autumn with great supplies of fish cured and salted; for an adequate supply of salt fish was becoming a matter of great importance to the markets of western Europe. In 1527 Henry VIII sent two ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... of the person of the opposite sex whom you sincerely love. There is no black art about this, but merely psychological attraction, and by its use you can win the love of the person whose affection ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous

... everything had been lest attainment should dull even that want he had of her, but she found he had spoken truth when he said that that was a quality which grew with having. For fewer men are bored with satiety than kept by a custom that becomes necessity, and his habit for her would in itself be an attraction for him. But Killigrew, for all his cleverness, was not the man to know, if any could have, how passionate her withholding had been, ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... provocations could naturally collect the youth of the neighbourhood up to the ages of ten or twelve. But this corner was also attractive to youth at a later stage; and a young man, not less than twenty-four, was staring into the same shop window. To him, also, the shop was of fiery charm, but this attraction was not wholly to be explained by chocolates; which, however, ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... covered with a gay carpet, two shining brass chandeliers were suspended from the ceiling, the windows were frosted glass with a row of lurid blue and red panes around each, and behind the minister was the centre of attraction and cynosure of all eyes, the choir ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith

... but, among them all, my attention was fixed principally on Lady Byron. She was at this time sixty-one years of age, but still had, to a remarkable degree, that personal attraction which is commonly considered to belong only to ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... unimportant one. In our view, it is the crowning excellence of the first volume,—its distinctive feature and principal attraction. We refer to the third chapter of the volume, from page 260 to page 398,—the description of the condition of England at the period of the accession of James II. We know of nothing like it in the entire range of historical literature. The veil is lifted up from the England of a century and a ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... men shall love me better, all the same. Beauty is not everything, my father. I have a greater attraction than soft eyes ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton

... was dancing, the soul was kneeling; and such a soul, so lovely and so bright, that the good Manitous—those who were crowned with the crimson flowers, and those who wore the wings and plumes of beautiful birds—came flitting to her, drawn by sweet attraction. One minute, they joined hands and wheeled their unseen ring around the human innocent, their presence filling the air with perfume delectable to breathe. Then, suddenly parting, each at a tangent to the whirling circle, away they flew to ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady

... has given up something, in order that the atomic society, or molecule, may subsist. And as soon as any one or more of the atoms thus associated resumes the freedom which it has renounced, and follows some external attraction, the molecule is broken up, and all the peculiar properties which ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley

... character, whether in New England two hundred years ago or in Italy to-day, interested him only as they were touched by this glamour of sombre spiritual mystery; and the attraction pursued him in every form in which it appeared. It is as apparent in the most perfect of his smaller tales, Rappaccini's Daughter, as in The Scarlet Letter, The Blithedale Romance, The House of the Seven Gables, ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis

... had already met, 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 ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling

... to be affected by the prevailing spirit of optimism. For myself the gold had but little attraction, but the adventure was very dear to my heart. Once more the clarion call of Romance rang in my ears, and I leapt to its summons. And indeed, I reflected, it was a wonderful kaleidoscope of a world, wherein I, but a half-year back cooling my heels in a highland burn, should be now part and parcel ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service



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