"Spellbound" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sitting on the bottom step of the Green Stairs with Georgina beside him, telling the most thrilling pirate story he knew. And he told it more thrillingly than he had ever told it before. The reason for this was he had never had such a spellbound listener before. Not even Justin had hung on each word with the rapt interest this boy showed. His dark eyes seemed to grow bigger and more luminous with each sentence, more intense in their piercing gaze. His sensitive mouth changed expression with ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... talked of Balderson for United States Senator, and, at the laying of the corner-stone of the capitol, the Denver papers spoke of the masterly oration of former Governor Balderson of Kansas, whose marvellous word-painting of the Battle of Look Out Mountain held the vast audience spellbound for an hour. A few months later a cloudburst carried away the Big Burro dam, and times went bad, and the stockholders in Balderson's company, who would have rebuilt the dam, could not find Balderson when they ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... mile or so the boy sat spellbound, drinking in the casual comments of "Scotty" upon the dogs in the team, as if they were pearls of wisdom dropping from the lips of an Oracle. He was not so much interested in the Woman's replies, for they displayed a lack of technical information that contrasted unfavorably in the boy's ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... was beginning to frighten Claire, he began again. At first his words were indistinct, but as she leaned closer, they cleared of guttural sounds. She listened spellbound. ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... near him, spellbound by the animation of his face, the seeming reality of his plea. He was not a singer; he was the ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... life of the flowers and little trees, taking what came, sunshine and rain, and just living and smiling, breathing fragrant breath from morning to night, and sleeping a light sleep till they should waken to another tranquil day. He listened as if spellbound. There were but three verses, and though he could not remember the words, it seemed as though the rose spoke ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... a spellbound chateau on a towering crag that held it up as if on a tall black finger, above a village which might have fallen off a canvas by Gustave Dore. Farther on lay a strange place called Prades, memorable for a huge buttress of rock exactly like the carcass of a mammoth petrified ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... him with black-dilated, spellbound eyes. But he sat glistening and obstinate, forcing the wheeling mare, which spun and swerved like a wind, and yet could not get out of the grasp of his will, nor escape from the mad clamour of terror that resounded through her, as the trucks ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... spellbound, they saw presently the old woman trudge along after her, still muttering the unintelligible gibberish, easily translatable into wrath and fury, ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... spellbound by the amazing romance of it all.... A bare eight days since that afternoon when a whim, born of a love now lifeless, had stirred him out of his solitary, work-a-day life in London, had lifted him out of the ordered security of the centre of the world's civilisation and sent him whirling dizzily ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... man spoke, his eyes seemed to flash. His cheeks were no longer pale. The rough men before him frowned and gazed as if their anxiety had been roused. The women leaned forward with eager looks of sympathy. Even the children were spellbound. One hulking fellow, with a broken nose and a black eye, sat clutching both knees with his muscular hands, and gazed open-mouthed and motionless at the speaker, who went on to say that when things were at their worst, and death stared the perishing people in ...
— The Thorogood Family • R.M. Ballantyne
... event which I had planned, I was not prepared for such phenomenal success, and I stole nearer the temple spellbound by ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... Dame, form the chief ecclesiastical monuments of the city. St. Maclou, which dates from the early fifteenth century, though not of the grand proportions of either of the other great churches, being rather of the type of the large parish church as it is known in England, holds one spellbound by the very daring of its ornaments and tracery, but contains no trace of non-Gothic. The French passion for the curved line is nowhere more manifest than here (and in the west front of Notre Dame), where flowing tracery of window, doorway, portal, and, in general, all exterior ornament, ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... of "telling" you a poem. She was perfectly natural about it, a recitative semi-tone yet full of expression and dramatic breadth, at times almost a chant. With those dark and glowing eyes looking into mine, I have listened until I forgot everything about me, and was simply spellbound. Mr. Fields described Tennyson's reciting his own poems in much the same way. Whittier once said to a friend, "I consider Miss Proctor one of the best woman poets of the day," and then added, "But why do I say one of the best; why not ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... stupendous and inspiring sight Of cosmic grandeur of the universe, A sense of vague and overwhelming awe; Of inconceivable immensity, The being's inmost recess permeates; And man, the atom in comparison, In spellbound admiration, mutely stands; With speculative meditation, dwells On that most solemn of impressive thoughts, The goodness of the ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... between the divide and the glacier separated the massive picture from everything else. I could see only the one sublime mountain, the one glacier, the one lake; the whole veiled with one blue shadow—rock, ice, and water close together without a single leaf or sign of life. After gazing spellbound, I began instinctively to scrutinize every notch and gorge and weathered buttress of the mountain, with reference to making the ascent. The entire front above the glacier appeared as one tremendous precipice, slightly receding at the top, and bristling with spires and pinnacles ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... heart, 10 And each diversely exercised her art By force or circumstance or sleight To prove her dreadful might Upon that poor domain. Desire presented her [false] glass, and then 15 The spirit dwelling there Was spellbound to embrace what seemed so fair Within that magic mirror, And dazed by that bright error, It would have scorned the [shafts] of the avenger 20 And death, and penitence, and danger, Had not then silent ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... Schubert's Serenade now that rose from voice and violin together. No one stirred. The canoes were now close inshore, and the long, soft fingers of fir and cedar brushed Margaret's cheek as she sat motionless, spellbound. It was a world of soft darkness, black upon black: the silver world they had just left seemed almost garish as she looked back on it. Here in the cool shadow, the voices of the night pouring forth their wonderful ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... soul!" cried the old man, after gazing spellbound upon it for some seconds. The track of the mysterious footprint in the sand excited no more surprise in the mind of Robinson Crusoe than Grandfather Coster felt at the sight which met his eyes. There, distinctly impressed ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... French men of letters in the latter part of the seventeenth century. But his fame to-day rests upon his authorship of the traditional Tales of Mother Goose; or Stories of Olden Times, and so long as there are children to listen spellbound to the adventures of Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, and that arch rogue Puss in Boots, his memory ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... by the amazed listeners and every word from the strangers was as distinct. Surely the newcomers were friends of long standing. When their heavy wraps were removed the trio stood forth before as curious an audience as ever sat spellbound. The men were young, well dressed and handsome; the woman a beauty of the most dashing type. Tinkletown's best ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... tomahawks were always ready to descend on the heads of unlucky travelers who crossed their path—told so many blood-curdling stories of meetings between white men and Indian warriors that the little boys, James and Thomas, and little black-eyed Patty and older Virginia, were spellbound as they listened. ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... chat with Mrs. Marteen than had fallen to his lot for many a long day. His tremendous power had long made his position so secure that he had met extraordinary situations with the calm of one who controls them. He had startled and held others spellbound by his own infinite foresight, resource and energy. The situation was reversed. He gazed fascinated in the fine blue eyes of ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... of their rivals held the three boys almost spellbound for a moment. The possibility that someone should seek to get possession of the whale they had brought ashore after such labor, and almost as soon as they landed, had never occurred to them. Yet the fishermen seemed determined, for one of them ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... ever faster—faster toward the pounding rapids—impotently, though still desperately, wielding their paddles. Bob and Shad stood spellbound and horror-stricken. The Indians were nearing the first white foam! In a moment their canoe would strike it! It was in the foam! It rose for an instant upon a white crest, the Indians' paddles still working—then was swallowed up in the swirling tumult of waves ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... shut like a vice. "Then God help you both, my friend; God help you both." His voice was soft, but horribly menacing; and as the curtain dropped behind him, the Kid, who had been listening spellbound, understood for the first time the type of man who represented ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... his, then, suddenly nerveless, relaxed. With an effort she lifted her head; their eyes met, spellbound. ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... were removed from nearly all parts of the Town Hall, and the curious sight of the sea of faces when Mr. Bright appeared lingers in my memory still. One curious thing I observed at this gathering was that so long as our member was speaking the vast assembly was held spellbound. But when he paused for a moment to turn over his notes or take a sip of water, the tightly squeezed audience swayed for a little bodily relief and expansion, and this resulted in big surging waves of humanity, which rolled from one end of the body of the hall ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... and the rumble of Dyckman's answer. Then Gilfoyle strode forward. He saw Kedzie coiled on the floor with her elbows on Dyckman's knees. He caught her eye, and her start of bewilderment held him spellbound a moment. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... lips to hers. When he released them, she looked at him as if spellbound, with eyes veiled with wonder and dismay—with eyes which revealed the great awakening which had taken ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... at the expense of that empire, and, notwithstanding the inclination to revolt evinced by the people in different parts of Germany, more particularly in Westphalia, the terror inspired by Napoleon kept them, as though spellbound, beneath their galling yoke. ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... bodies of men pierced by bullets or torn to fragments by shells. He pictured a bayonet plunged into the abdomen of a man; he made you see the ghastly deed, and feel its shuddering wickedness. Men and women and children sat spellbound; and for once no man could say aloud or feel in his heart that the pictures of a Socialist agitator were overdrawn—no, not even Ashton Chalmers, president of the First National Bank of Leesville, or old Abel Granitch, proprietor of ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... this scene stood as if spellbound. As far as sound or motion went these two might have been in the room alone. Presently the sound of sobbing ceased, and Fred, raising his head, began gently to stroke the hand he held in his. Sometime in his wild career, ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... ethereal in its beauty, yet flashing with manliness. He looked as she had seen him that night two years before, when he had held even her and her worldly friends spellbound, had made them thrill with ideas of nobility and human helpfulness foreign to their everyday selves. She sat silent when he had finished, ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... Hast strayed Too far from native strand. Lost in a maze, the savage gaze Becomes a frightened, spellbound gaze, ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... or calicos. Here in this spot was the first settlement of the preachers of the gospel, of the conquering forces of France, and of the roaring blades who brought the culture of the world to a powerful and spellbound people. Here swarmed the crews of fifty whalers in the days when "There she blows!" was heard from crows'-nests all over the broad Pacific. These rough adventurers, fighters, revelers, passionate bachelors, stamped Tahiti with its first strong imprint of the white man's modes and vices, contending ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... story should be told, opinions differ. It must be well told with a well-modulated voice and with slight but effective gesture. But the model should be the story as told in the home, not the story told from a platform. The children need not be spellbound all the time, but should be free to ask sensible questions and to make childlike comments in moderation. The language should fit the subject; beautiful thoughts need beauty of expression, high and noble deeds must be told in noble language. A teacher who wishes ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... moment Alice and Ruth were almost paralyzed with fear. They stood spellbound, and could only gaze horrifiedly at the tawny beast stretched out on the limb of ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope
... passed carelessly by the masterpieces of Rembrandt and Van der Helst, and went into raptures over an ugly picture by Van der Venne, representing a sea fight between the Dutch and English. They also stood spellbound before a painting of two little urchins, one of whom was taking soup and the other eating an egg. The principal merit in this work was that the young egg-eater had kindly slobbered his face with the yolk ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... it angered him, the tense activity of the construction camp was fascinating, too. Especially was his attention held spellbound by the ruthless work of the advancing blasting gangs. What power lay hidden in those tiny sticks of dynamite! How lightly one of them had tossed that poor unfortunate in air and left him lying mangled, broken, helpless on the ground when it had spent its fury! ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... whole of the way lay through the jungle, here and there narrowing to little more than a track over which great forest-trees stretched their boughs. It was all new country to Olga, and the quiet, sunless depths as they advanced, held her awe-struck, spellbound. She gazed into the thick undergrowth with half-fearful curiosity. Once, at a sudden loud flapping of wings, ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... the Phoenix beckoned to the spellbound David. Together they walked across the glade, leaving behind them a wake of swirling butterflies. An immense oak stood at the edge of the forest. At its foot, on a bed ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd
... and their profound enjoyment of her playing, burned into her mind by the telepathic, almost hypnotic power of the Norlaminian mentality, raised her to heights of power she had never before attained. Playing as one inspired, she went through one tremendous solo after another—holding her listeners spellbound, urged on by their intense feeling to carry them further and ever further into the realm of pure emotional harmony. The bell which ordinarily signaled the end of the period of relaxation did not sound; for the first time in thousands of years the planet of Norlamin ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... some of them past the meridian, others young subalterns, stood looking on in evident interest, and Stuyvesant halted spellbound, not knowing ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... fourth! And Raskolnikoff felt suddenly seized as with a general paralysis, the same as happens when a person has the nightmare and fancies himself pursued by enemies; they are on the point of catching him, they will kill him, and yet he remains spellbound, ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... to the poor farm if Grandpa hadn't come along just about that time." Before Peace was aware of it, she had poured out the whole history of the little brown house in Parker, while the other crippled girl listened spellbound. ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... sure he was right, he beheld lying—apparently almost dying—a young woman. Beside the bed, kneeling with upraised head and clasped hands, was a strangely familiar form. Then came forth a sweet voice, pleading to the throne of Mercy for the sufferer. He gazed spellbound for a moment. Then slowly and softly he retraced his steps to the door. Then he almost flew along the streets until he reached Mr. Fairleigh's, just as his father and Miss Bland were ascending the steps. Seizing the former very unceremoniously, ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... promulgation of those two letters to the world. Newman stands in the general view a disgraced man—and all men, all principles, with which he has had to do, disgraced in proportion to the proximity of their connection. And further I am persuaded that were he not spellbound and entranced, he could not fail to see the gross moral incoherence of the parts of his two statements; and that were I upon the terms which would warrant it, I should feel it my duty, at a time when as now, summa res agitur, to tell him ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... they saw instinctively. But what they saw beyond all this caused the Circus Boys to pause almost spellbound. ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... dimensions became more and more apparent as, spellbound, they watched it approach closer ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... Howard Lewis of Buffalo, a well known philanthropist; Mrs. Maud Nathan, president of the New York Consumers' League; Mrs. Rodgers and Mrs. Gabrielle Mulliner, lawyers—all urged the legislators to submit the question to the voters. Dr. Shaw held the audience spellbound until 6 o'clock. John Spargo, the well known socialist, spoke independently with much power, demanding the vote especially for working women. The use of the Assembly Chamber was granted for an evening ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... of the thing upon Eve's delicious nape, he could feel that she was trembling. He surveyed the dazzling string. She also surveyed it, fascinated, spellbound. Even Mr. Prohack began to perceive that the reputation and value of fine pearls might perhaps be not entirely ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... doubt and hesitation the stranger began again to speak, first in broken, disconnected sentences. But gradually the strange, far-away tone like that of a man talking in his sleep became clearer and more connected, and soon Jason and I were gazing at him as though spellbound, and drinking in every word of the queer archaic-sounding Portuguese in which he told his weird story fragment, delirium, wanderings of a madman, ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... rose, and, as he ended, there was absolute silence for an instant. Then the ranchers took their spellbound eyes from the quivering Indian and looked at the pale face of the speechless Lamson. The store-keeper looked with the others, and it was his ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... I had listened spellbound to this extraordinary story. My friend rose now and paced up and down the room, his hands in his pockets, and an expression of the most profound gravity upon ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... and the water seems spellbound with expectation, as it beats softly against the raft. A great sadness, and a timid questioning is heard in that faint sound—the only voice of the night—accentuating still more the silence. "We want a ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... intoxication; and after a while, I drew a very deep sigh. And she came towards me, very slowly, as I stood rooted to the ground; and she put up her arms, and laid one hand on each shoulder, with a touch like the fall of a flake of snow. And she said: I know what is the matter: thou art spellbound by a return of thy original delusion. But it will leave thee, and thy senses will return to thee, once thou hast said good-bye. And then, seized with frenzy, I caught her in my arms, and suddenly she prevented me from kissing her by putting her hand over my mouth. And she said with a smile: Wait! ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... came the quick telepathic response, and immediately my gaze fell upon the loveliest woman on earth—Arletta—nature's companion to my soul. I am utterly powerless to describe the feeling of joy experienced as our eyes met in mutual admiration. Being held momentarily spellbound by her loving glance, I fully recognized the fact that she was the acme of purity—the guiding star of my life. And with such a guide there was no such ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... he stood spellbound. Then he sprang into action. He dressed as best he could, called to the others to bridle and saddle a horse, and leaped into the saddle. His whole body rebelled at the movement. But he set his jaw grimly, and, clutching at his bandaged arm, yet keeping ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... brilliant enough to fascinate anyone, and the two eggs stood spellbound while their eyes ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... may be found alike by philosopher and winsome youth. The story is no more immoral than a drop of dew or a lotus bloom; and, as to interest, in the land of the improviser and the story-teller one is obliged to be interesting. For there the audience is either spellbound, or quickly fades away and leaves the poet to realize that ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors
... Mississippi and the Sea of Galilee. At his bidding we have laughed at a thousand absurdities. By a laborious process of reasoning he has convinced us that the Egyptian mummies are actually dead. He has held us spellbound upon the plain at the foot of the great Sphinx, and we have joined him in weeping bitter tears at the tomb of Adam. To-night we greet him in the flesh. What name is there in literature that can be likened ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simple credulity. His appetite for the marvellous, and his powers of digesting it, were equally extraordinary; and both had been increased by his residence in this spellbound region. No tale was too gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow. It was often his delight, after his school was dismissed in the afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed of clover bordering the little brook that whimpered by his schoolhouse, and there con over old Mather's direful tales, ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... spellbound out across the rolling panorama of river, swamp, woods, and fields. "I don't believe it occurs very often, either—the chance to see an entire army all at once, encamped right at your feet. What a ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... their frames; smoke-blackened paintings wherein the eagle eyes and long moustaches of black hussars, contemporaries of Sobieski, or magnates in furred robes, with aigrettes in their caps, and curved sabres garnished with precious stones and enamel, attracted and held spellbound the silent child, while through the window floated in, sung by some shepherd, or played by wandering Tzigani, the refrain of the old patriotic ballad 'Czaty Demeter', the origin of which is lost ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... heart heaves madly in her panting bosom; and she expands to sight, and her voice is more than mortal, now the god breathes on her in nearer deity. 'Lingerest thou to vow and pray,' she cries, 'Aeneas of Troy? lingerest thou? for not till then will the vast portals of the spellbound house swing open.' So spoke she, and sank to silence. A cold shiver ran through the Teucrians' iron frames, and ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... the reader's voice had held us spellbound, and the poem was well received; but after the usual compliments there was a pause, and then Ideala burst out impetuously: "I am sick of those old Italian lovers," she said; "they float into everything. Their story is the ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... boldly driven across the lawn, and Leah Einstein leaped lightly to the ground. She was all unveiled now, and Irma Gluyas uttered a faint cry as the handsome Jewess stood spellbound before the astounded prisoner. ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... vision. You cannot begin to imagine anything so real and extraordinary as this first awakening.... I awoke in a realm of golden light. I heard the voices of friends who had gone before calling to me to follow them. At the moment the thrill of joy was so intense I was like one standing spellbound before a beautiful panorama. The music which filled my soul was like a tremendous symphony. I had never heard nor dreamed of ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... and resumed his seat. The fight went on. There were little sobs and tremors of excitement, strange banks of silence. Both men seemed out of condition. The sound of their hoarse breathing was easily heard against the curtain of spellbound silence. For a time their knives stabbed the empty air, but from the first the end seemed certain. The Englishman attacked wildly. His adversary waited his time, content with avoiding the murderous blows ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... tear of a life without interest or ideals; their minds were dull and heavy, and yet here they responded to the divine spirit of the music. There is no more impressive sight than that of thousands of people held spellbound by a melody; it is by turns sublime, ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... There seemed no end to them, each more beautiful and costly than the other. The maid put them on the sofa; then, picking up the opera cloak, she laid it out on top of the dresses in the trunk. Even the humble colored menial was spellbound by the beauty of these ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... because at the moment she felt absolutely incapable of speech. Dismay at the thought that she was to be a governess held her spellbound. She certainly had not gathered from anything that Eleanor had said that she was expected to teach, and two naughty unruly children into the bargain. No wonder that she grew paler even than her wont at the appalling thought. Luckily for her, ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... night, light following darkness, darkness following light, thus has time flickered before them throughout their stupendous age. As we creep nearer and climb higher they seem to rise and rise in size. Silently we seat ourselves on a stone, forgetting the shivering wind, and we stare and gaze spellbound at the triumphant eager expression on those mighty features, which, as the dawn spreads, softens to a deep complacence. Then the pink changes to a splendour of living gold, which sweeps over like a curtain, and the full majesty of ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... San Francisco found a new adventure. It listened spellbound to golden eloquence, extolling the virtues of a favored candidate. Meanwhile Acting Sheriff Townes rushed his prisoners to the county jail without anyone so ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... Indian name of the eastern point—juts out into the sea, are hills and rolling downs which rise and fall like the sea when the waves are running "mountains high." Here and there we pass a pond, and often startle the cattle that graze over the greater part of Montauk; and at length pause, spellbound by the view from the hills looking down upon Fort Pond, or Kongonock. The road runs past its southern extremity, where, until the embankment was built, the ocean-surf frequently broke across; and after ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... if the most delicate of gossamer curtains had been brushed aside so that he could look at a new world. What he saw there rooted him to his chair, holding him spellbound. Yet not so much because it contrasted sharply with his own little world, this bare flat of Barber's in the lower East Side, as that it seemed to fit in perfectly with ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... in her deep mourning dress, with her fair hair unbound and floating softly around her pale, sweet face, every eye in that court was spellbound by her almost unearthly beauty. Before proceeding with what she was about to say, she turned upon Traverse a look that brought him immediately ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... her hand she began to beat time nervously against the cushion of the box. Selina Storace was singing the "Che faro" to an audience that hung spellbound upon the prima donna's lips. Chauvelin did not move from his seat; he quietly watched that tiny nervous hand, the only indication that his ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... rational philanthropy, with its adaptation of means to ends, and that spiritual knight-errantry which undertakes the championship of every novel project of reform, scouring the world in search of distressed schemes held in durance by common sense and vagaries happily spellbound by ridicule. He must learn that, although the most needful truth may be unpopular, it does not follow that unpopularity is a proof of the truth of his doctrines or the expediency of his measures. He must have the liberality to admit that it is barely possible ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... question, not only whether he was not setting the most ruinous of precedents, but whether any man could be so sure of himself as to go on dealing justly with gifts in his hands. But Bacon, who never dared to face the question, what James was, what Buckingham was, let himself be spellbound by custom. He knew in the abstract that judges ought to have nothing to do with gifts, and had said so impressively in his charges to them. Yet he went on self-complacent, secure, almost innocent, building ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... suggestion seemed, it offered the only possible explanation of the scene. No officer would have dared to order troops to such certain destruction as apparently awaited them on the fire-crowned slopes of Missionary Ridge. Spellbound Grant followed the men as they crept further and further up the height, expecting every instant to see them hurled back as Pickett's heroes were at Gettysburg, when suddenly wave upon wave of blue broke over the crest, the ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... in the course of long morning rambles; these he rehearsed with their accomplished author; these he declaimed in the solitude of his bed-chamber—until, one day, Mrs Bowldler (whom terror arresting, had held spellbound for some minutes on the landing) knocked in to know if Palmerston ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Tossed to fat lips his chalice, drank off his chalice tiny, sucking the last fat violet syrupy drops. His spellbound eyes went after, after her gliding head as it went down the bar by mirrors, gilded arch for ginger ale, hock and claret glasses shimmering, a spiky shell, where it concerted, mirrored, bronze ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... hushed to silence, and spellbound from curiosity. Sherakim the Orator gazed on the king. The king, with an angry brow, gazed on the stranger. The stranger, in return, cast a withering glance on the king, and stood in his presence with form erect and fearless. He lifted his hand on high, ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones
... head, crowned with long, grey hair, a quick, nervous toss, and drew his bow across the strings softly, sweetly, with a heart-breaking sound that fell on his listeners like the sob of a thousand winds. For five minutes he held them spellbound. It was only when he half smiled and stepped into the stage wings that they realized that it was over. Then with one accord the entire audience broke into a storm of applause—all but Archie, who sat with locked fingers and tense face; for the life of him he could not ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... and far away still, yet confounding at first sight! I gazed spellbound. It oppressed my heart. Nielsen stood like a statue, silent, absorbed for a moment, then he strode on. I followed, and every second saw more and different aspects, that could not, however, change the first stunning impression. Immense, unreal, ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... gasped Harkness. He was spellbound with utter awe at the spectacle he beheld. This brilliant world a-gleam to its farthest horizon with golden, glorious sunlight, softly spread and diffused! This, this! was the ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... hands to turn his paper aroused a vague memory. Fascinated, the lad watched. What was it that rendered the figure so familiar? He had never seen the man before in his life—he was certain of that. And yet, had he? And if so, where? What was the haunting association that held him spellbound and made it impossible for him to remove his gaze from this person whose features were almost entirely screened from view behind the outspread pages of ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... began a struggle for the mastery of the stairs that held Wilson spellbound. Each advance marked a victory worthy of a battlefield. But at each step he was forced to pause and rally all his forces before he went on to the next. First he would twine his long fingers about the rail reaching up as far as he was able; then he would ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... herself. Should she yield? The pride of birth, the disobedience of a youthful son to a mother of her indulgent nature, the stigma of a low connection upon a noble family name—all these things pleaded urgently, No. She looked up vindictively at the gaping congregation, which seemed spellbound in wanton curiosity, wherewith was mingled not a little religious dread. And then, again, she turned her eyes down upon the innocent face beside her bosom, so guileless, to be the cause of such varying passions in the throng ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... one touch of gorgeous color needed to make the whole scene utterly unearthly and unlike anything he had ever dreamed of, or had seen in pictures, or had had described to him. He stood at gaze—forgetful of the stone that had attracted him and of the fakir—spellbound by the wonder-blend of hues branch-backed, and framed in gloom as the birds' scream was framed ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... wrought-iron arch that once held an oil-lamp, and up a short but rather steep flight of steps, which led to a brick porch built out at the side. Then he let himself in, and stood spellbound with perplexed amazement,—for he was in a ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... as if spellbound, forgetting the boat and my mission as I crouched there in the dark, feeling that a tragedy was at hand, though I could not grasp all and divine that this was the crowning-point of ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... conception. Then there were the cities, alive with varying industries, and teeming with their strangely mixed American population. Above all was the amazing natural beauty of scenery hitherto undreamed of. Hour after hour Bob sat spellbound at the window of the observation-car, never tiring of watching the shifting landscape as it whirled past. His interest and intelligence caught the notice of a gentleman who occupied the section opposite the boys, and soon the three formed one of those pleasant ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... said Mary, rising with a great effort, so strong was her feeling of being spellbound by the uncanny old man, ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... and cultivated understandings have come away from gatherings addressed by men famous as good speech-makers and confessed to something like the following: "I was held spellbound all the time he was talking, but for the life of me, I can't tell you one thing he said or one idea he impressed upon me." A student should judge speeches he hears with such things in mind, so that he can hold certain ones up as models, and discard ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... look—a look which no girl could sustain without emotion; and spellbound under it, I stood in a maze, alone ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green
... concerned met at the memorial service in the morning before the Bishop quitted them, where many parishioners gathered who had been spellbound in Angela's freakish days of early girlhood, and who were greatly touched when the committal to the deep was inserted from the Forms of Prayer to ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... keeping on his track with the constancy of Doom. Or I was standing a witness to their first meeting in the grim Dark on that lonely road, their eyes of hate and fear staring wildly into each other. Sometimes I found myself spellbound between the two, the centre upon which their fearful sympathies revolved, the object upon which their long pent-up passions were about to burst. Starting from those visions, my waking fancies were hardly less tormenting. I was just at that season of youth, before the calmer and nobler faculties ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... me spellbound. There is a wistful strained, plangent pathos in the tune; but beneath those masterly old hands it cried softly and bitterly the solitude and desperate estrangement of the world. Arthur and his lady-love vanished from my thoughts. No one could put into ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... change had taken place in the aspect of sea and sky during those ten minutes! As we stood, spellbound, watching the gorgeous changes of colour that were taking place along the eastern horizon, a broad ray of white light, the edges slightly tinged with violet, suddenly shot vertically aloft from the horizon, piercing the cloud-masses ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... left to do. I'll go an' try. [She goes to the door of the bedroom, stands still as if spellbound and listens.] Wilhelm! You might answer.—[Louder and more frightened.] Wilhelm! You're not to frighten me this way! Maybe you think I don't know that you're still awake!!—[In growing terror.]—Wilhelm, I tell you!... [BERTHEL ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... "look at this!" The two men stood spellbound before the easel, and Thornly watched ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... gazed spellbound at the nightmare assortment of grotesqueries that gradually assembled around us, attracted no doubt by our light. The things were mainly sightless and of indescribable shape. Most of them were phosphorescent, and they avoided ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... his affection for his friends by walking under their feet and getting his own feet stepped on, or by sitting so close to their chairs that they rock on his tail. He has been known to hold two persons literally spellbound for minutes, with his tail under the rocker of one chair and both ears under the rocker of another one. Roy's greatest faults are barking at horses' heels and running away. This last is very serious, and often it is annoying; but there is always some excuse for it. He ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton
... Apocalypse he did not know, but he did not doubt that connection for a moment. His love for Natasha, Antichrist, Napoleon, the invasion, the comet, 666, L'Empereur Napoleon, and L'russe Besuhof—all this had to mature and culminate, to lift him out of that spellbound, petty sphere of Moscow habits in which he felt himself held captive and lead him to a ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... from hurling himself upon the other and biting and tearing in a vain effort to rend the life out of him. The thought—the fever, desire, craving—was there, but the will, the personality, of the Breed held him spellbound, an inert mass of flesh incapable of physical effort—incapable almost of thought, but a prey to an ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... later, as he was hastily gathering together his possessions, he came suddenly upon a picture, at sight of which he paused, then stood spellbound, all else for the time forgotten. It was a portrait of Kate Underwood, taken in the gown she had worn on that night of her first reception. It served as a connecting link between the past and present. Gazing at it he was able to understand how the young girl whom he faintly ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... the large quantity of neat spirit which he had drunk acted—as Tress had malevolently intended that it should—as an antidote. It seemed to me that he would never succumb. On went the creature—on, and on, in its infinitesimal progression. I was spellbound. I would have given the world to scream, to have been able to utter a sound. I could do nothing else ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... for a moment. He had tried to interrupt her but with a warning finger Josie had held him spellbound. At ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... man's heart stood still. For a long minute he gazed at the Count's back, spellbound and unable to stir. Then, as Tavannes ate on without looking round, he began to take courage. Possibly he had entered so quietly that he had not been heard, or possibly his entrance was taken for that of a servant. In either case, there was a chance that he might retire after the same ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... his visitor of the Governor's suite and soon had the young man at ease, with a Corona between his teeth. Then followed a full three-quarters of an hour, during which the visitor discoursed in his very best style and his caller sat spellbound, making occasional hieroglyphic hen tracks upon his note paper and congratulating himself upon his good luck in striking a man like this in one of his rare, talkative moods. Gray had set himself deliberately ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... and when the morning of the 25th dawned—a cold and bitter morning with snow-flakes filling the air and whirling across the landscape—they found themselves looking down the steep slopes of the plateau of Douaumont, towards the German positions, and watching, spellbound almost, another demonstration of the power and skill ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... and her blond hair was flying in the breeze created by her rapid descent. I wish I could affirm that by her gentle dignity and serene self-control she awed the company into silence, or that there was a holy dignity about her that held them spellbound; but such, unhappily, is not the case. It was her pet blue pitcher that had been broken—the pitcher that was to serve as just the right bit of colour at the evening's feast. She took command of ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... gates, where the music could be distinctly heard, which played the better. Mr. Trood had just returned from Gravesend in the cool of the summer evening, about ten o'clock, and stood in the road opposite listening, "spellbound," to the delightful music. Miss Dickens played ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... book might have been written just as well, hadst thou not had the heart of a woman. It bespeaks a superior intellect, but paralyzed and spellbound by the sorcery of a worldly-minded expediency. Where, oh, where in its pages are the outpourings of a soul overwhelmed with a sense of the heinous crimes of our nation, and the necessity of immediate repentance? ... Farewell! ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... Elinor, spellbound with terror at his outburst of fury, stood rooted to the spot. She realized the madness of her words, seeing plainly that the man's condition was one which made both prayers and entreaties useless. Again he filled a cup and dashed it ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... that I was spellbound with astonishment and horror. I ought to have seized the author of the infamous sacrilege—I ought, at any rate, to have called to the priest—but I could do neither. I trembled before this mysterious man. My frame literally shook. I knew what fear ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... spellbound to his strange words. He was inspired; anger and sorrow drove him remorselessly on and a chill finger seemed to touch Flamby's heart as she listened; for resignation ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... through his mind as he gazed, spellbound, at the mysterious movements of Rocco. The door between the bathroom and the bedroom was wide open, and his own situation was such that his view embraced a considerable portion of the bedroom, including the ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... was made to turn. Spain held him in the hollow of her hand. The Infanta, with two million crowns in dowry, was promised, withheld, brought forward again like a puppet to please or irritate a froward child. Gondemar, the Spanish ambassador, held him spellbound. Did he falter in his opposition to the States—did he cease to goad them for their policy in the duchies—did he express sympathy with Bohemian Protestantism, or, as time went on, did he dare to lift a finger or touch his pocket in behalf ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... "There it is again! The beating of wings." And they listened like men spellbound. McCurdie kept his hand uplifted, and gazed over their heads at the wall, and his gaze was that of a man in a ...
— A Christmas Mystery - The Story of Three Wise Men • William J. Locke
... stood watching his master's fingers, delicate and white, as they played. Thus, of his own accord, he had begun to watch them when a child of six; and the Padre had taken the wild, half-scared, spellbound creature and made ...
— Padre Ignacio - Or The Song of Temptation • Owen Wister
... before. And Crummell's dignity and bearing in the pulpit, his polish and refinement, his lucid exposition of the text, his sublimity of thought, beauty of diction, and fire and force of utterance for nearly an hour held that cultured audience spellbound. Crummell made history for the race on that Sunday morning in 1848. And I suppose that Crummell's eulogy on Clarkson, delivered in New York City in 1846, in its grandeur of thought, sublimity of sentiment and splendor of style, surpasses any oratorical ...
— Alexander Crummell: An Apostle of Negro Culture - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 20 • William H. Ferris
... exclaimed Martha indignantly, addressing the spellbound line, staring at her blankly. "Shame on you! To stand there gawkin', an' never raisin' a finger to this poor little fella, an' him just perishin' for the touch of a real mother's hand. Get out of this—the whole crowd o' you," and before the force of her ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... little park was never lonely, nor did I spend much time dreaming over Cheyenne. The moment I appeared in the morning my lively host began his vocal gymnastics, while I sat spellbound, bewitched by the magic of his notes. In spite of being absorbed in listening to him, I retained my faculties sufficiently to reflect that the chat had probably other employment than entertaining me, and that doubtless his ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... gaiety and richness of the shops and restaurants, the picturesque kiosks where they sold newspapers and flowers—all this made up a picture so utterly unlike anything he was familiar with at home that Jefferson sat spellbound, delighted. ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... spellbound, and in a moment he would have gone, had not Teddy with a big sob made a spring forward and seized him by ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... he bowed with a little air of ceremony that for an instant held her spellbound. She stood staring at him—only recalled to herself and to a sense of shame for her rudeness by the sudden entrance of ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... the drama. Victurnien was living through this infernal poem, and alone. He saw visions of himself—a friendless, solitary outcast, reading the words carved on the stone, the last words on the last page of the book that had held him spellbound—THE END! ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... standing where he had left him, gazing out into the distance with painful intensity. The fast-sinking sun lit up his heavy face and figure with a transforming glow, and hung a golden mist above the meads, at which he stared like one spellbound. But when Jan turned to pursue his way to the windmill, the schoolmaster turned also, and ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... she answered, and sang two songs, in which she revealed the cause of their misunderstanding; and when Mord pressed her to speak out, she told him how she and Hrut could not live together, because he was spellbound, and that ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... her face brightened, her eyes beamed with a strange brilliancy, and she kept us spellbound, so eloquent and yet so sad were her words, and then tears trickled down her aged cheeks and her voice trembled with emotion. Under our father's roof she lacked none of the comforts of life. We knew that her children ...
— Acadian Reminiscences - The True Story of Evangeline • Felix Voorhies
... spirits. The last time I came home the Mediterranean way I had a struggle with myself against excusing our sandy landscape, when we came in sight of it, with its summer cottages for the sole altitudes, to some Italian fellow-passengers who were not spellbound by its grandeur. I had to remember the Rocky Mountains, which I had never seen, and all the moral magnificence of our life before I could withhold the words of apology pressing to my lips. I was glad that I succeeded; but now, going ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... But no sooner did the Grandmother appear than the General stopped dead in the middle of a word, and, with jaw dropping, stared hard at the old lady—his eyes almost starting out of his head, and his expression as spellbound as though he had just seen a basilisk. In return, the Grandmother stared at him silently and without moving—though with a look of mingled challenge, triumph, and ridicule in her eyes. For ten seconds did the pair remain ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... unnoticed by both, as it had happened many times before, but in that heavily-charged atmosphere it took on a new significance. Both blushed hotly, and as their eyes met each saw that which held them spellbound. Slowly, almost as if without volition, Crane put his other arm around her. A wave of deeper crimson swept over her face and she bent her handsome head as her slender body yielded to his arms with no effort to free itself. Finally Crane spoke, ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... started to grow. Anyway, Mortimer has been pushin' inquiries: an' that makes Secondly. Thirdly, I don't know much about play-actors, but Mortimer tells me he gets goin' at seven-thirty an' holds 'em spellbound till something after ten; which means that by the time we've carted back the scenery an' shipped an' stowed it, an' got the tarpaulins on, an' harnessed up, we shan't get much change out o' midnight. Don't lose your patience now, because we haven't come to the end of it yet—not ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch |
