"Witchery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was Adrien. All day long it seemed as if her very soul were laughing for joy. And all day long she kept close beside Jack, chaffing him, laughing at him, rallying him on his solemn face and driving him half-mad with her gay witchery. ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... "Witchery," laughed his father. "Even your clumsy description has strangely stirred my youthful blood, and 'I longs fer ter see this hyar wonderful child dryad of ther primeval forest.' If you ever go back there, you had better wear magic ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... Witchery, twitchery, kangaroo, Thunder and lightning, Kalamazoo! Lengthen her, strengthen her, rip, bazoo, Make her ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... river, springing from a cleft in the Lozere chain, winding its impetuous way, enriched by many a mountain torrent, through the Aveyron, Tarn, and Garonne, finally disemboguing into the Garonne, has lavished all its witchery on ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... much troubled, called then on his druid Coran, to put forth his power against the witchery of the banshee: "O Coran of the mystic arts and of the mighty incantations, here is a contest such as I have never been engaged in since I was made King at Tara—a contest with an invisible lady, who is beguiling my son to Fairyland ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... find delightful scenery. Hidden behind the folded hills, approached by lovely little glades and winding bridle-path, tosses and foams the Gave d'Aspe, its banks thickly set with willow and salicornia, its solitary coves inviting the bather. The witchery of these mountain streams grows upon us in the Pyrenees. We hunger for the music of their cascades when far away. The sun-lit, snow-lit peaks, towering into the brilliant blue heavens, are not deserted as they appear. Shepherd farmers throughout ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... has come some witchery over my eyes," she said with her invariable little laugh of ingratiation, "when I see you. I always feel a kind of new surprise. Is it the minister that has changed you so? ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... crowded with fashionable and intelligent audiences. Mrs. Mowatt was not a great actress. Delicacy was her most marked characteristic. "A subdued earnestness of manner, a soft musical voice, a winning witchery of enunciation, and indeed an almost perfect combination of beauty, grace, and refinement fitted her for a class of characters in which other actresses were incapable of excelling." Mrs. Mowatt was born at Bordeaux, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... I had the privilege of listening to Ole Bull's witchery with his violin, he gave an hour to Norwegian folk-songs, his wife at the piano. She played with finish, feeling, and restraint. She first went through the air, then he joined in with his violin with indescribable charm. Critics said he lacked technique. I am glad he did: his music ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... assisted to build a grander structure than the Coliseum, and to shatter it with a more picturesque decay. Byron's celebrated description is better than the reality. He beheld the scene in his mind's eye, through the witchery of many intervening years, and faintly illuminated it as if with starlight instead of this broad glow ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Belle came to the last half-mile of the plank walk, scarcely a footstep sounded behind them. After passing the Green Stairs there was an unobstructed view of the harbor. A full moon was high overhead, flooding the water and beach with such a witchery of light that Georgina moved along as if she were in a dream—in a silver dream ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... mobile[Lat], keystone; the why and the wherefore; pro and con, reason why; secret motive, arriere pensee[Fr]; intention &c. 620. inducement, consideration; attraction; loadstone; magnet, magnetism, magnetic force; allectation|, allective|; temptation, enticement, agacerie[obs3], allurement, witchery; bewitchment, bewitchery; charm; spell &c. 993; fascination, blandishment, cajolery; seduction, seducement; honeyed words, voice of the tempter, song of the Sirens forbidden fruit, golden apple. persuasibility[obs3], persuasibleness[obs3]; attractability[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... fine hair, and very beautiful hands and arms. But he wondered at himself, and could have laughed at his own blindness. The power of analysis had gone out of him because he was in love. She was merely a soft, dazzling splendour in aspect now, and every look and tone and attitude was a witchery and a wonder. ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... Catholic Delegates was speedily followed by its suppression under the Convention Act. But the influence of O'Connell was rapidly growing; there were already ominous signs of a possible agitation for the repeal of the Union, and the indignation of the Catholics was significantly shown by the famous 'witchery resolutions,' which were unanimously carried by the aggregate meeting of the Catholics in the June of 1812, reflecting on the influence which Lady Hertford was believed to exercise over the Prince. After calling for the 'total and unqualified ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... the point of your shovels and let's see what witchery there is concealed there," cried ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... man looked most approvingly at her form and at the subtle witchery which the eagerness of imprisoned thought gave to reticent features, at the depth of her blue eye. "I wish, my dear, that you could see your way to give up your ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... minarets, and Golden Horn, and Bosphorus, Constantinople is, probably, the most glorious spot on earth. Ascend its mountains, and overlook the gulfs of Salerno and Gaeta, as well as its own waters, the Campugna Felici and the memorials of the past, all seen in the witchery of an Italian atmosphere, and the mind becomes perfectly satisfied that nothing equal is to be found elsewhere; but enter the bay of Rio, and take the whole of the noble panorama in at a glance, and even the experienced traveller is staggered with the stupendous as well as bewitching character ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... AND GOOD SIRS: Since last this play Was acted on this stage, has passed away Its noble author from the gaze of men, No more, alas! to wield his facile pen. In Knebworth's ancient park, across the sea, Lord Lytton sleeps, but not his witchery. The dramatist, romancer, poet, still Can touch our hearts and captivate our will; For laureled genius has the power to brave Death's fell advance, and lives beyond the grave: Bear witness, this grand audience ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... book says to the amateur, in effect:—"What if you have not all advantages of clockwork and observatory equipment. You may know something of the witchery of the heavens even with a little telescope of three to five inches aperture!" "Pleasures of the Telescope" is popular in style rather than technical. For setting forth "the chief attractions of the starry heavens," a complete set of star-maps ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... its misery to own? With all a woman's power thou this night Hast led me on by th' fascinating light Of thy dear eyes and voice, till almost blind To reason, I allowed my wandering mind To follow as a willing captive thine; I listened with a will not wholly mine. But now when freed from th' witchery of thy voice I see no wisdom in thy new made choice. Thou art a woman pure, whose noble heart Would fain do, in this world, its earnest part; But Hilda, with a girl's weak, erring hand, Thy hopes are builded ...
— Love or Fame; and Other Poems • Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
... noon, when by the forest's edge He lay beneath the branches high, The soft blue sky did never melt Into his heart,—he never felt The witchery of ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... person a stray dog and a mongrel boy and rendering himself responsible for their destinies, Paragot must now saddle himself with a young woman. Had she been a beautiful gipsy, holding fascinating allurements in lustrous eyes and pomegranate lips, and witchery in a supple figure, the act would have been a commonplace of human weakness. But in the case of poor Blanquette, squat and coarse, her heavy features only redeemed from ugliness by youth, honesty and clean teeth, the eternal ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... the tribute paid by the American public to the master who had given to it such tales of conjuring charm, of witchery and mystery as "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "Ligeia"; such fascinating hoaxes as "The Unparalleled Adventure of Hans Pfaall," "MSS. Found in a Bottle," "A Descent Into a Maelstrom" and "The Balloon Hoax"; such tales of conscience as "William Wilson," "The Black Cat" ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... full credit, in a witchery sort of way!" Oswald laughed. "Never saw anything like your luck, Randolph. I've got the entire staff tied up doing the follow-up for tonight. You needn't worry about libel, either. We've got the whole legal staff turned out, going over ...
— Prologue to an Analogue • Leigh Richmond
... Ion; or, Marriage, was probably the very worst novel ever written by a man who was finally to make a great success. The Daughter of Heth achieved this result, and The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton, A Princess of Thule and Macleod of Dar deepened, one by one, the witchery the first threw over us. The author's power was especially shown in investing his maidens with glamour and piquancy: Coquette and Sheila led their captives away from the suffocating dusts and the burning heats of life. Then his backgrounds were so well chosen—those mysterious reaches ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... But in China woman does nothing of this. Her life is unaesthetic to the last degree. No happy improvisations or touches of the stamp of personality enter her home; one cannot trace the touches of witchery in the tying of a ribbon. Everywhere you find the same class of furniture and garniture, the same shape of table, of stool, of form, of bed, of cooking utensils, of picture, of everything; and all the details of her housekeeping are so apathetically uninteresting. The Chinese ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... Worst among these tormentors was the gnome Mooaleo, who, in the guise of a big mole, burrowed under houses and caused them to settle, with a thump. The prince caught this fellow within a circle he had drawn on the earth, for the witchery of the spear was so strong that the effect of drawing that line was felt to the centre of the globe. Burrow as he would,—and he did burrow until he reached fire,—Mooaleo could not escape from it. The magic barrier confined ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... peculiar and appropriate charms of their own; as didst thou, Emily the "Wild-cap!"—That soubriquet all forgotten now—for now thou art a matron, nay a Grandam, and troubled with an elf fair and frolicsome as thou thyself wert of yore, when the gravest and wisest withstood not the witchery of thy dancings, thy singings, ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... the hoarse voices of the sailor men, the scent of the salt water, and all the occult unrecognized, but keenly felt life of the ocean, were ministers to their love, and forever and ever blended in the heart and memory of the youth and maid who had set their early dream of each other to its potent witchery. Time went swiftly, and suddenly Cornelia remembered that she was subject to hours and minutes, A little fear came into her heart, and closed it, and she said, with a troubled air, "My mother will be anxious. I had forgotten. I must go home." So they turned northward again, and ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... dauntless soul. Through adverse winds that threatened wreck, and nights Of rayless gloom, thou pointed ever to The north star of his great ambition. He Who once has lost an Eden, or has gained A paradise by Eve's sweet influence, Alone can know how strong a spell lies in The witchery of a woman's beckoning hand. And thou didst draw him, tidelike, higher still, Felipa, whispering the lessons learned From thy courageous father, till the flood Of his ambition burst all barriers, And swept him onward ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... that makes you—though you may be staunch Republicans—see more beauty in a queen than in her rivals, though at the bar of an impartial aesthetics the latter would be judged the more beautiful. A certain something, a peculiar witchery, surrounds her—the witchery (excuse the word) of servility; this it is, and not your aesthetic judgment, which cheats you into believing that the diamond lends a higher charm than the rose-wreath. Let the rose become the symbol of authority ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... as I felt my wife's warm breath on my cheek; I clasped her waist more closely, I held her little gloved hand more firmly. She felt the double pressure, and, lifting her white eyelids fringed with those long dark lashes that gave such a sleepy witchery to her eyes, her lips parted in a ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... dim sweep of coast where the haze hides the temples of Paestum; at another the Bay of Naples opens suddenly before us, Vesuvius and the blue deep of Castellamare and the white city-line along the coast seen with a strange witchery across twenty miles of ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... contained just those matters that had proved so difficult to procure. Here were prayers, songs, and prescriptions for the cure of all kinds of diseases—for chills, rheumatism, frostbites, wounds, bad dreams, and witchery; love charms, to gain the affections of a woman or to cause her to hate a detested rival; fishing charms, hunting charms—including the songs without which none could ever hope to kill any game; prayers to make the corn grow, to frighten ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... my good fortune, in the happy years gone by, to have had the personal acquaintance of some of the most eminent of your profession. Under the witchery of this inspiring presence, 'the graves of memory render up their dead.' Again I hear from the lips of Barrett: 'Take away the sword; States can be saved without it!' 'How love, like death, levels all ranks, and lays the shepherd's crook beside ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... know. I've been dull lately, and I thought I might go somewhere else." Caught in a witchery no lack of possession could dispel, and which the prospect of loss made only stronger while it lasted, he took little thought of what he said; little thought of anything but of the gladness it was to ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... rue the day I fancied first the womenkind; For aye sinsyne I ne'er can hae Ae quiet thought or peace o' mind! They hae plagued my heart, an' pleased my e'e, An' teased an' flatter'd me at will, But aye, for a' their witchery, The pawky things I lo'e them still. O, the women folk! O, the women folk! But they hae been the wreck o' me; O, weary fa' the women folk, For they winna let a ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... nor does anybody else, but they do happen out of a world 'twixt earth and heaven. They call them uncanny in our land, which only means they are unknown, the mysteries of them, but some day they will grow clear and be no more black witchery, only golden light. ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... hands—they are strangely fair! Fair—for the jewels that sparkle there,— Fair—for the witchery of the spell That ivory keys alone can tell; But when their delicate touches rest Here in my own do I love them best, As I clasp with eager acquisitive spans My glorious treasure ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... leave only the simulacrum of a chorus. Some small effects in the line of the picturesque can be achieved by means of costuming, marching and grouping, but the rest can be nothing but elocution,—a frosty appeal to the ethical sense, offered as a surrogate for the witchery of song and rhythmic motion. One may be pardoned for thinking that a good ballet would ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... girl, and find that she has regularly installed herself in a corner of your heart, there is scarcely a thing she can do you'll not discover a good reason for; and even when your ingenuity fails, go and pay a visit; there is some artful witchery in that creation you have built up about her—for I heartily believe most of us are merely clothing a sort of lay figure of loveliness with attributes of our fancy—and the end of it is, we are about as wise about our idols as the South Sea ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... life, I cannot say which, one of these two excited the most of my admiration. There was Nora, with her good-nature, her wit, her friendliness, her witchery, her grace, the sparkle of her eye, the music of her laugh. But there, too, was Marion, whose eyes seemed to pierce to my soul, as twice or thrice I caught their gaze, and whose face seemed to have some weird influence over me, puzzling and bewildering me by suggestions of another face, which ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... picnic; an hour of isolated wandering in a garden of tombs; the witchery of the moment; the word too much; the glance that lingered to a look;—and the irrevocable was upon them. Desmond had returned to the Frontier, to a circle of silently amazed brother officers; and in less than three months from their ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... series of V's as the girl paddled slowly toward the cove. Behind the banca a rippling wake flashed metallic; the cold, clear water caressed the primitive hull, murmuring with soft cadences, in the old, familiar music of the time when there were men on earth. The witchery of it stirred Beatrice; she smiled, looked up with joy and wonder at the beauty of that perfect morning, and in her clear voice began to sing, very low, very softly, to herself, a song whereof—save in her brain—no memory now remained in ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... minute, the curling lashes were lifted suddenly, and beneath their shadow two eyes looked out—deep and soft and darkly blue, the eyes of a maid—now frank and ingenuous, now shyly troubled, but brimful of witchery ever and always. And pray what could there be in all the fair world more proper for a maid's eyes to rest upon than young Alcides, bare of throat, and with the sun in his curls, as he knelt to moisten the neckerchief ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... impelled him to espouse her cause and fight her battles and win her gratitude, at the very same time held him back and bade him avoid her, and tear her image from his heart. For who was he, and what was he, that he should yield to this overmastering spell which had been thrown over him by the witchery of this young girl? Had he not his wife? Was she not at Chetwynde Castle? That odious wife, forced on him in his boyhood, long since grown abhorrent, and now standing up, an impassable barrier between him and the dearest longings of his heart. So he crushed ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... name, falling from Nell's pouting lips, had power to raise in me a picture, and the picture spread, like a very painting done on canvas, a screen between me and the alluring eyes that sought mine in provoking witchery. She did not know her word's work, and laughed again to see me grow yet more grave ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... high-born beauty in vain! Love! did he love her? Again and again he told himself that what he felt for her was far more akin to hate. He marvelled; he could not comprehend himself! He was often inclined to believe that the old tales of philtres and of witchery were not all false, and that he was in truth bewitched; and he struggled angrily against the spell, and at such times hated the beauty that had tangled him ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... love," she thought slowly, her black eyes wearing an intent look, her large lips tightly compressed. Her companion did not break upon her reverie, he sat quiet, studying her profile as he had often done before; there was a certain witchery in the hour, the lateness, the stillness, the roseate lights above them, then what we have all felt, the sweet bliss of sitting in enforced quiet beside a loved one; our brain is quiet, our hands idle; we dread to break the spell, we then as at no other time literally ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... won, and perhaps she thought that, since this was to be the last wooing she could enjoy, she would make the most of it. He also resolved to make the most of this phase of life, and to enjoy to the utmost all of her shy witchery, her airy, hovering nearness to the thought uppermost in his mind, as if she were both fascinated by it and afraid. He little dreamed that her feminine grace and finesse were but the practical carrying out of her father's suggestion, to "keep him ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... or much cared to know, full summer. Love had taken its revenge on her now for all slighted love offered her in the past; for the one hated love that had to-night been on its knees to her. They said it must always come once to every man and woman—this witchery, this dark sweet feeling, springing up, who knew how or why? She had not believed, but now she knew. And whatever might be coming, she would not have this different. Since all things changed, she must change ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... warring opinions united themselves for the contest. The adherents of the old faith, the orthodox, were vexed, that, in the trunk of the vast tree, no niche with its holy image was to be found; nay, that even the naked Dryads of paganism were permitted to play their witchery there; and gladly, with consecrated axe, would they have imitated the holy Boniface, and levelled the enchanted oak to the ground. The followers of the new faith, the apostles of liberalism, were vexed on the ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... that the spiritism of to-day is only a revival of old-time witchery and necromancy, that it is as prevalent now as it was then, perhaps more prevalent. "Only," as Father Lambert remarks, "the witch of to-day instead of going to the stake as formerly, goes about as Madam ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... [Music from the banquet-room is heard. There's a dark spirit walking in our house. And swiftly will the destiny close on us. It drove me hither from my calm asylum, It mocks my soul with charming witchery, It lures me forward in a seraph's shape, I see it near, I see it nearer floating, It draws, it pulls me with a godlike power— And lo! the abyss—and thither am I moving— I have no power within me not ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... dubious sound, As of goodly melody; Which first was faint as if in swound, Then burst so suddenly In warring concord all around, That, whence this thing might be, To see The very marrow longed in me! It seemed of air, it seemed of ground, And never any witchery Drawn from pipe, or reed, or string, Made such dulcet ravishing. 'Twas like no earthly instrument, Yet had something of them all In its rise, and in its fall; As if in one sweet consort there were blent Those archetypes celestial Which our endeavouring ...
— Sister Songs • Francis Thompson
... one, came stronger and stronger upon him, and filled him with bitter doubt as to his power. Still he went on boldly. It had been a part of his plan to seem to come eagerly, as a lover should come; and so he came. When he got close to Stephen, all the witchery of her presence came upon him as of old. After all, he loved her with his whole soul; and the chance had come to tell her so. Even under the distressing conditions of his suit, the ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... that girl of yours, that blossom of old Spain, All glamour, grace and witchery, all passion, verve and glow. How maddening she must have been! You made me see her plain, There by our little camp-fire, in the silence and the snow. You loved her and she loved you. She'd a husband, too, I think, A doctor chap, you told ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... all these ladies concentrated in the person of one perfect woman would have had no witchery for the banker. His heart was dead. He had given all the truth, all the passion of which his nature was capable, to the one woman who had possessed the ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... 'l-Jamal, show thou some clemency * To one those lovely eyes opprest with witchery! By rights of beauteous hues and tints thy cheeks combine * Of snowy white and glowing red anemone, Punish not with disdain one who is sorely sick * By long, long parting waste hath waxed this frame of me: This is my wish, my will, the end of my desire, * And Union is my hope an ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... fashionable life. She had, it is true, no fortune, but that of my friend was ample; and he delighted in the anticipation of indulging her in elegant pursuit, and administering to those delicate tastes and fancies that spread a kind of witchery about the sex.—"Her life," said he, "shall be like ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... power of a pair of blue eyes, when the black ones were not at hand to counteract their witchery, that Windybank determined straightway to play the honest man that he had determined to become. He whistled for his dogs, called to his groom, got him upon a sturdy pony, and hurried away to the hunt. He was late, but he knew that the quarry was to be roused in the Abbot's Wood, ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... the desultory breeze caressed, Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover, It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its strings Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes Over delicious surges sink and rise, Such a soft floating witchery of sound As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land, Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers, Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise, Nor pause, nor perch, hovering ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... A-flame, pricked by the words that glow and gleam In those imperial paeans, which might arm Pale cowards for the fray. Touched by his hand The simple sweetness, and the homely charm Of our green garden-land Take on a witchery as of Arden's glade, Or verdant Vallombrosa's ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various
... idolatry in the very scene of his tender devotions, which, as he says, her smiles had once made a heaven to him. The scene was but little changed. He was in the very chamber where he had so often listened entranced to the witchery of her voice; there were the same instruments and music; there lay her flower garden beneath the window, and the walks through which he had wandered with her in the intoxication of youthful love. Can we wonder that amidst the tender ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... at your having surprised me by exceeding even what I expected from your well-known kindness to me; they are charmingly executed, and with great taste. I own too that Grignan is grander, and in a much finer situation, than I had imagined; as I concluded that the witchery of Madame de S'evign'e's ideas and style had spread the same leaf-gold over places with which she gilded her friends. All that has appeared of them since the publication of her letters has lowered them. A single letter of her daughter, that to Paulina, with a description of ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... that was not the scent of flowers stole on Duncan Rowallan's senses, quickening his pulses, and making him breathe faster to take it in. He was very near the dark, bird-like head from which the June wind had blown the love-locks. A balmy breath surrounded him like a halo—the witchery of youth's attraction, which is as old as Eden, ambient ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... as the dead person is old. They take the body to the church for the night and they gather there and watch. He believes the soul rises from the ground on the Resurrection Day. He believes some people can put a "spell" on other people. He said that was witchery. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... were brilliant overhead, and the wide void of the air between her and the earth below seemed full of wonder and mystery. Now and then she fancied some distant sound the cry of the leopard: he might be coming nearer and nearer as they went! but it rather added to the eerie witchery of the night, making it like a terrible story read in the deserted nursery, with the distant noise outside of her brothers and sisters at play. The motion of her progress by and by became pleasant to her. Sometimes her feet would brush the tops of the heather; but when they came to rocky ground, ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... off his hat, and his dark, handsome, excited face was distinctly visible under the untidy, slightly curly mass of peculiarly silky, silver-grey hair. Brigit drew a deep breath. Victor Joyselle! She had often heard him play. Those were the hands, in the brown dogskin gloves, that worked such witchery with his violin. That was the violin in the shabby box beside him. His dark eyes, over which the lids dropped at the outer corners, were now fixed on hers, he was trying to see through her veil. He was a magnificent creature, even now, with his youth ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... authority of Webster, and of Mr. Ewbank, the Commissioner of Patents, in whose report the article in question was published by the Government of the United States, it will not be considered, perhaps, as putting faith in "water-witchery," to suggest that, possibly, Elkington did really possess a faculty, not common to all mankind, of detecting running water or springs, even far below the surface. We have the high authority of Tam o' Shanter for the opinion, that witches cannot cross a stream of water; for, when pursued ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... maidens with cheeks rosy with healthy blood, graceful in figure with well developed forms—the chaste, pure spirit shining in their eyes, with witchery and common sense combined? Where are the fathers and mothers whose good fortune it is to possess such children as these? Can it be that they should deem these caricatures of fashion worthy of their fond desire?—these whose days ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... as into truth and beauty. Ridiculing the loose touches of Lawrence, he was frequently as faulty, without ever reaching the real fascination of his rival's style. He had not the Lawrence sense of expression and charm; he could not give to his heads the vivacity and flutter, the brilliance and witchery, of Sir Thomas's portraits. They both took up Reynolds's theory about it being 'a vulgar error to make things too like themselves,' as though it were a merit to paint untruthfully. And painting people of fashion, they had to paint—especially in their ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... your people, who think me foolish and a witch with the evil eye. Ha! ha! When I think of silly Maggie Donahue pulling the shawl across her baby's face when we pass each other on the sidewalk! A witch I have been, 'tis true, but my witchery was with men. Oh, I am wise, very wise, my dear. I shall tell you of women's ways with men, and of men's ways with women, the best of them and the worst of them. Of the brute that is in all men, of the queerness of them that breaks the hearts of stupid women who do ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... come the odor-laden winds, Angels and ministers of life, Dropping seeds of fruitfulness Into the bosoms of flowers. Elusive, alluring secrets hide in wood and hedge Like the first thoughts of love In the breast of a maiden; The witchery of love is in rock and tree. Across the pasture, star-sown with daisies, I see a young girl—the spirit of spring she seems, Sister of the winds that run through the rippling daisies. Sweet and clear ...
— The Song of the Stone Wall • Helen Keller
... her unperceived, the slim young figure in the shaded lamplight, the shining hair, the slender neck—all vivid, instinct with life; and she comprehended the witchery that had caught Mordaunt's heart. Of the man himself she knew but little. He was not expansive, and circumstances had not thrown them together. But what she knew of him she liked. She was aware that her brother valued his friendship very highly—a friendship begun on a South African battlefield; ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... Morton, thee watch her, and see that she doesn't coax too much, or come it over them with any unlawful witchery. Take the hay thyself, Emily, and we'll ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... Sunday, June 11th: "His look, once so formidable and piercing, had lost its strength and even its steadiness: his face had lost all expression and all its force: his mouth, compressed, had none of its former witchery: and his gait was as perplexed as his demeanour and gestures were undecided: the ordinary pallor of his skin was replaced by a strongly pronounced ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... Holy Grail, The Holy Grail should serve him by its power; And he would seize it in his own right hand, And some day be the master of them all. Henceforth he waged a subtle, ceaseless war Against Monsalvat and the holy knights. He gave himself to dark and evil life And learned the witchery of magic arts To work the ruin of the Holy Grail. Fair gardens he created by his art, Through all the deserts, and therein he placed Maidens of winsome witchery and power, Who bloomed like flowers in beauty and in grace. And in these subtle ...
— Parsifal - A Drama by Wagner • Retold by Oliver Huckel
... the sepulchre, and its prisoners were free. Not dead, not having lost a shade of color from their wings, they nestled and gleamed through his heart, filling the summer day with just such intangible perfect witchery as those other days had been full of. Perhaps, too, time and absence had heightened the charm. Imagination has such a way of catching up little scenes and words and looks, and, without altering one of the facts, haloing them with such ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... on the road till the moon rose and the witchery of night came to make the girlish eyes more brilliant, softening their gayety into a wistful tenderness, only to these did the close of the day seem as sweet and momentous as the morning. While the trusty horse ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... hot-blooded youth. How shall he resist temptation, unless he has some fear of God before his eyes? There are moments in the experience of the young, when all power of resistance seems to be taken away, by the very witchery and blandishment of the object. He has no heart, and no nerve, to resist the beautiful siren. And it is precisely in these emergencies in his experience,—in these moments when this world comes up before him clothed in pomp and gold, and the other world is so entirely lost sight ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... the ice and the ships it inclosed and we ourselves were all but embodied dreams, half come to consciousness, and rubbing our surprised moon-eyes to gaze upon each other. The power of this mist to multiply distance was not the least part of its witchery. A schooner ten rods off looked as far ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... grieved to hear it. But why did the devil stir up her to cry so, but because that was the way to blemish the gospel, and to make the world think that it came from the same hand as did her soothsaying and witchery? (verse 16-18). 'Holiness, O Lord, becomes thy house for ever.' Let, therefore, whoever they be that profess the name of Christ, take heed that they scandal not that profession which they make of him, since he has so graciously offered us, as we are sinners of the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... head and smiled. "It was a case of witchery and fascination. He probably divined how eager you were to help me, and he was glad to yield to the agreeable spell of your ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... has succeeded to the title by right of conquest, and gives his baby son the title of "King of Rome," and just a thousand years after the death of Charlemagne, in 814, Napoleon retires to Elba. There is a witchery about Rome even to-day, and an emperor still sits imprisoned there, claiming for himself the right to rule the spiritual and intellectual world: "sedet, ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... throat and began: "Diotti combines tremendous feeling with equally tremendous technique. The entire audience was under the witchery of his art." Diotti slowly negatived that statement with bowed head. "His tone is full, round and clear; his interpretation lends a story-telling charm to the music; for, while we drank deep at the fountain of ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... something," he declared, "something which brought the men in crowds around the stage at the 'Ambassador's.' I don't know what you'd call it—a sort of witchery, almost suggestiveness. She sings better perhaps. But I don't think she lays hold ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the betrothal to give her up. He had abandoned hope; he had put aside possibilities, for he could see none. But here she was in his arms, a living, breathing, vital, passionate figure, her heart beating against his own, pleading with him to take her away. Here was love with all its witchery, with all its magic, with all its power, attacking the defenses of his heart; and the woman whom he adored as his very life, with all the passion in his being, was urging, imploring, begging him to take her away. He ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... boast in the way of equipment. The only interesting thing in sight is the children themselves, rows of them on the floor, writing letters in the sand. Unwashed they are, uncombed and almost unclothed, but with all the witchery of childhood in their eyes. In that bare room lies the possibility of transforming the life of the Village of ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... spirit of the Gypsy, captivating, fresh and invigorating and compelling as the winds of the mighty Sierras and plains of the land she inhabited, enveloped and animated her. The rushing, whirling climaxes up to which she worked were startling—tremendous. The subtle, hypnotic influence and witchery of her presence filled her entire surroundings and so held and dominated the spectators that they were swept irresistibly along with her as the rhythm of the dance increased. She swayed and enthralled the imagination and emotions ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... challenge, as though to force the wanton witchery to do his bidding. Wild cries of riot answer him; the rosy cloud grows denser round him; entrancing perfumes hem him in and steal away his senses. In the most seductive of half-lights his wonder-seeing eye beholds a female form indicible; he hears a voice that sweetly murmurs out the siren call, ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... oratory, burning, resistless, such as we suppose Demosthenes and Patrick Henry poured out; or whether it were polished and skilful declamation—those old listeners were like lovers. They did not know; they did not care. They remembered the magic tone, the witchery of grace, the exuberant rhetoric; they recalled the crowds clustering at his feet, the gusts of emotion that in the church swept over the pews, the thrills of delight that in the hall shook the audience; their ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... splendor, set forth before the public gaze. Nothing was too mundane to be transformed by the holiday's magic into a thing mystic and unreal. Even such a prosaic article as a washtub, borrowing luster from the season's witchery and in shining blue dress became a thing ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... pockets, and instead of politics talked some bewildered nonsense about coming back with their families next summer. For myself, I must count as half-lost the year spent in Venice before I took a house upon the Grand Canal. There alone can existence have the perfect local flavor. But by what witchery touched one's being suffers the common sea-change, till life at last seems to ebb and flow with the tide in that wonder-avenue of palaces, it would be idle to attempt to tell. I can only take you to our dear little balcony ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... man as he lives in houses and the bee and bird and fox, and I cannot help believing that those who have no sympathy with them have none for the forest and road, and cannot be rightly familiar with the witchery of wood and wold. There are many ladies and gentlemen who can well-nigh die of a sunset, and be enraptured with "bits" of color, and captured with scenes, and to whom all out-of-doors is as perfect as though it were painted ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... gold or silver lace. Two or three great gold ornaments completed their costume. Add to this their sparkling black eyes, regular features, and an air of naivete—inseparable from Spanish girls, and you have some idea of the witchery ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... and radiant. Her gown was of that thin, black fabric whose name through the change of a single vowel seems to summon visions ranging between the extremes of man's experience. Spelled with an "e" it belongs to Gallic witchery and diaphanous dreams; with an "a" it drapes ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... There was a marvellous witchery about the clasped hands and bent head before him. But he did not mean to let his idiotic sentimentality carry him away again. So long as the enchantress was speaking, the spell was wholly impotent. Therefore he should not suffer ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... in particular I remember—a castle in the distance, a wood, a ghastly man at the head of a rearing horse, and a white, mist-like, fleeting ghost, the cause of the consternation. These books had a large share in the witchery of the chamber. ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... still more intimate acquaintance with the late William Wilfred Campbell, poet, whom he had seen in the same moment feed his pigs in a near suburb of Ottawa, and create a line of poetry—which King quoted—"The wild witchery of the winter woods." He was seized with the idea that a Foundation such as the Rockefeller should subsidize poets and song-writers. The pity of it always is that the world is far too desperately cynical in high places to accommodate such ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... worth having. With the witchery that some girls know, she had made a very picture of herself that morning, as I have said. Some soft blue muslin stuff was caught up around her in airy draperies—nothing stiff or frilled about her: all was soft and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... witchery in the hour, and Thornton felt its spell, speaking out at last, and asking Anna if she would be his wife. He would shield her so tenderly, he said, protecting her from every care, and making her as happy as love and money ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... ineradicable native growth, was the crime of witchcraft; and, though that crime was known in England too, and occupied English law-courts, Scotland maintained her fearful superiority in witch-trials and witch-burnings. "There is much witchery up and down our land," wrote Baillie: "the English be but too sparing to try it, but some they execute." Against crimes of other orders the English judges were willing enough to act; and nothing is more startling to one who is new to such facts than to find how ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... however, as happens in the visions of solitary ascetics, some strange queen or female magician, with stars in her eyes and witchery in her voice, some loose woman who held up the symbolical lamp immodestly, to light up her radiant nudity, and the pink and white bouquet of her sweet-smelling skin, some woman in search of voluptuous pleasures, whose lascivious appeals it is impossible for any man to listen to, without ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... changed, too; he leaned forward, studying her minutely—the splendid gray eyes, the delicate mouth and nose, the full, sweet lips, the witchery of wrist and hand, and the flowing, rounded outline of limb and body under the pretty gown. Could this be she? This lovely, mature woman, wearing scarcely a trace of the young girl he had never forgotten—scarcely a trace save in the beauty of ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... spontaneous woman. She had been barely civil to Lucius Ahenobarbus before; to-night the young man began to persuade himself that the object of his affections was really a most adorable coquette, who used a certain brusqueness of speech to add to her witchery. He had heard that there had been some very disagreeable scenes at Praeneste, when Lentulus had told his niece that Drusus, on account of his dangerous politics, was unfit to be her husband. But Ahenobarbus was sure ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... be supposed that superstition when brought to act upon weak and ignorant minds, is capable of producing temporary impotence. The pretended charm or witchery common in France as late as the close of the 17th century, and known by the name of nouer l'aiguillette (point tying) is a proof ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... This chic, this witchery, with which reputation credited her—had not Gittel possessed it all? Had not her heroines enchanted ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... wood she dealt the reptile a blow, but the stick being decayed and brittle, inflicted little injury on the serpent, and only caused it to turn itself towards Mrs. Jameson, and fix its keen and beautiful, but malignant eyes, steadily upon her. The witchery of the serpent's eyes so irresistibly rooted her to the ground, that for a moment she did not wish to ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... Give him his wish, Gisenya—" and Gisenya, obediently detaching a sprig of myrtle from the wreath Sah-luma had worn all day, handed it to Theos with a graceful obeisance— "For who knows but the leaves may contain a certain witchery we wot not of, that shall endow him with a ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Messenger of Light swept on her course. From nearby came the voice of Professor Herndon relating his experiences to a missionary who was returning from the Marquesas. A soft island melody was wafted from the fo'c'stle, and the night was alive with all the witchery of ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... derivation from European witchery. In the Bresl. Edit. (xii. 304) one of the women rides ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... maiden forms that thick enwreathed The broad piazza, and sweet witchery breathed, With innocent faces budding all arow, From balconies and windows high and low, Who was it felt the deep mysterious glow, The impregnation with supernal fire Of young ideal love, transformed desire, Whose passion is but worship of that Best Taught by the many-mingled ...
— How Lisa Loved the King • George Eliot
... with his feelings for a moment, and hated himself heartily for even debating his attitude. But he fell, as he had done before, dazzled by her witchery. His eyes blazed, his blood leaped, and he took the cup with a mumbled attempt at thanks. Dolores smiled at his confusion, and in that smile was the allure of ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... while alive, however, she feared not to show, nor yet to twist and frizz as in the days when it was so beautiful and so fair.]—her noble open forehead, eyebrows which could be only blamed for being so regularly arched that they looked as if drawn by a pencil, eyes continually beaming with the witchery of fire, a nose of perfect Grecian outline, a mouth so ruby red and gracious that it seemed that, as a flower opens but to let its perfume escape, so it could not open but to give passage to gentle words, with a neck white and graceful as a swan's, hands of alabaster, with a form ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... in a regimen of admiring a fine woman; and in proportion to the adorability of her charms, in proportion are you delighted with my verses. The lightning of her eye is the godhead of Parnassus, and the witchery of her ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... prettily-sounding words, some are rare and choice and exquisite, some are charged with feeling, you can't touch them with your finger-tips without feeling an "affective" thrill. That is in part the goeteia, the witchery, of his style. ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... clings to that traditional characteristic, peculiarly his own—the art of sacred vision, but with what new life he animates it, and what poetical witchery he throws into this creation of his ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino
... shining minarets of the city, and the Pyramids follow us as we go, photographing their outlines on our memory forever; the soft green plain slopes gently to the river; and as if stirred to life by the witchery of the surroundings, our bird-like boat flings her great wings to the breeze, and skims the waters, bounding along, as if with conscious joy, between the green plains ...
— Harper's Young People, January 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... immersing herself utterly, as she did, in the interests that devoured him. All Angels forgot his gloom in the radiance of her charms,—the sweet genuineness of her formal pieties, the tender glow and universality of her sympathies, the witchery of her ever ready, never too ready playfulness. It was captivating to see how instantly and entirely she had fitted herself into a partnership so exacting; though it was pitiful to note, on second glance, how the tint and contour of her cheek were losing their perfection, and her eyes were showing ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable |
