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More "Spellbound" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... spellbound with horror, and the next, realising what had happened, were kneeling down beside the piteous head. The thin crust of earth had given way beneath the animal's hindquarters as it grazed over the turf, and before it could recover itself it had slipped bodily through ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... wonderful &c. adj.; beggar description, beggar the imagination, baffle description; stagger belief. Adj. surprised &c. v.; aghast, all agog, breathless, agape; open- mouthed; awestruck, thunderstruck, moonstruck, planet-struck; spellbound; lost in amazement, lost in wonder, lost in astonishment; struck all of a heap, unable to believe one's senses, like a duck ion thunder. wonderful, wondrous; surprising &c. v.; unexpected &c. 508; unheard of; mysterious &c. (inexplicable) 519; miraculous. indescribable, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... in the midst of his heavy trials, and his truly Christian fortitude in his final sufferings—these formed a rhetoric which made its way to all hearts. Against such influences the eloquence of Greece would have been vain. The nation was spellbound; and a majority of its population neither could ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... 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
... melancholy night rejoice, and brought a glow into its dark face as it hovered about the door and windows, peeping curiously in above the shoulders of a dozen loungers. As to this idle company, there they stood, spellbound by the place, and, casting now and then a glance upon the darkness in their rear, settled their lazy elbows more at ease upon the sill, and leaned a little further in: no more disposed to tear themselves away than if they had been born to cluster round ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... 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 of the ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... him a sudden picture of a garden, and the sweet 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 and ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... nightingales (poetically fabled to sing only by night), the chirping of multitudinous sparrows, wrens, and linnets, and the twittering of swallows. At the outer gate sat two or three aged monks, picturesque and sculpturesque at once, like enchanted porters at the doors of some spellbound palace, their long, gray beards and sunken, listless eyes according with their own and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... hand the match burned down until it left a mark like charcoal, and without calling attention. One and all they stood spellbound, their eyes on the floor, their lips unconsciously uttering the speech universal of anger and of horror, the ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... black bat. There was not a soul anywhere near him, but by the occasional flashes of light Thomson could see soldiers and hurrying people in the Admiralty Square, and along the Strand he could hear the patter of footsteps upon the pavement. But he himself remained alone, a silent, spellbound, fascinated witness of this epic of ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... by his idea, Planchette took an empty flower-pot, with a hole in the bottom, and put it on the surface of the dial, then he went to look for a little clay in a corner of the garden. Raphael stood spellbound, like a child to whom his nurse is telling some wonderful story. Planchette put the clay down upon the slab, drew a pruning-knife from his pocket, cut two branches from an elder tree, and began to clean them of pith by blowing through them, as if ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... strongest appeal. Youth, with its inexperience, is seldom tempted to bring fiction to the test of reality, or to scorn it on the ground of its improbability, and we may be sure that Shelley and his cousin, Medwin, as they hung spellbound over such treasures as The Midnight Groan, The Mysterious Freebooter, or Subterranean Horrors did not pause to consider whether the characters and adventures were true to life. They desired, indeed, not to criticise but to create, and in the winter ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... Blanco Diablo was speeding low, fleet as an antelope, fierce and terrible in his devilish action, a horse for war and blood and death. He seemed unbeatable. Yet to see the magnificently running Blanco Sol was but to court a doubt. Gale stood spellbound. He might have shot the raider; but he never thought of such a thing. The distance swiftly lessened. Plain it was the raider could not make the opening ahead of Ladd. He saw it and swerved to the left, ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... to time with a blunt "I beg your pardon, Innstetten," which he interjected in a variety of ways. The Baron mechanically nodded assent, but in reality paid little attention to what was said. He turned his gaze again and again, as though spellbound, to the wild grape-vine twining about the window, of which Briest had just spoken, and as his thoughts were thus engaged, it seemed to him as though he saw again the girls' sandy heads among the vines and heard the saucy call, ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... for the Himalayas in a buoyant spiritual mood,' he explained. 'Inspiration filled me at the prospect of meeting the masters. But as soon as Mukunda said, "During our ecstasies in the Himalayan caves, tigers will be spellbound and sit around us like tame pussies," my spirits froze; beads of perspiration formed on my brow. "What then?" I thought. "If the vicious nature of the tigers be not changed through the power of our spiritual trance, shall they treat us with ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... The boys were spellbound by the intense language of the strange man. All fears that he might be one of the ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... grasp its full meaning, was too eagerly engaged scanning its imposing array of creams, scents, powders, oils, salves, cosmetics, tresses of hair, and other "aids," to be able to remember what she had come for, and simply stood there like one fascinated and spellbound. ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... of Notre 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, ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... the whole heaven was aflame with a whirlwind of scarlet and gold and crimson, of violet and blue and emerald, flecked with copper and bronze and shreds of smoky clouds in shadow, a tempestuous riot of color so wild and extraordinary as to hold one spellbound. ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... airship was constructed and how the daring young aviator and his friends made the hazardous journey through the clouds from the new world to the old, is told in a way to hold the reader spellbound. ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... 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, his ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... light, silence and, best boon of all, an unexpected solitude—a solitude that invested the white building with a glamour of unreality and converted the slight-stemmed, moss-grown trees into spellbound sentinels. ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... child and cat, Through the dire time of slaughter sat, By terror both spellbound; But when night came, a silence drear Fell on the coast; and far or near, No voice caught Edric's wakeful ear, Save water's lapping sound. He wandered from the stern to prow, Ate of the stores, and marvelled how He yet might reach the ground; Till low and lower sank the tide, Dark ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... more strange tales were told than of the bloody buccaneer himself. That the walls of his house were ceiled with jewels, shedding their accumulated lustre of years so that never candle need shine in the place, was well known. That the spellbound souls of all those on his red-handed ancestor's roll were fain to keep watch and ward over their once treasures, by night and noon, white-sheeted and faint in the glare of the sun, wan in the moon, blacker shadows in the starless dark, found belief. And there were those who had seen his seraglio;—but ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Huckleberry Street, and I mean to have you some day, old fellow." And the perfect assurance with which he said this, and the settled conviction of final success that was visible in his quiet gray eyes, fascinated Charley Vanderhuyn, and he felt spellbound, like the wedding guest held ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... sheer, the tremendous cliffs of them apparently unbroken, soaring superbly to more than twenty thousand and seventeen thousand feet respectively: Denali, "the great one," and Denali's Wife. And the little peaks in between the natives call the "children." It was on that occasion, standing spellbound at the sublimity of the scene, that the author resolved that if it were in his power he would restore these ancient mountains to the ancient people among whom they rear their heads. Savages they are, if the reader please, since "savage" means simply a forest dweller, and the ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... emerged of such fantasy and variety of color that the two boys were spellbound. Elephants and camels, llamas and horses, all richly caparisoned in Eastern silks, passed along with their riders. Guards with curved swords and many-thonged whips formed a double hedge between those in the procession and the bystanders. ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... Professor Featherwit sent the air-ship higher, even as it sped onward at quickened pace, his face as pale as his eyes were glittering, intense anticipation holding him spellbound for the time ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... shadow fell upon him, and turning around he found himself face to face with Mary Barner who stood spellbound, listening to her lately installed Band ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... think that he's an investigating magistrate," panted Lecoq, left spellbound on the quay. "Has he gone mad?" As he spoke, an uncharitable thought took possession of his mind. "Can it be," he murmured, "that M. d'Escorval holds the key to the mystery? Perhaps he wishes ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... 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, unable to ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... to him was "Annie Laurie," and he sang it through with taste and effect. As his sweet, boyish notes fell on the ears of the crowd they listened as if spellbound, and at the end gave him ...
— Ben's Nugget - A Boy's Search For Fortune • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... of that moment was greater fur than all the agonies which Hilda had ever known. Her heart stopped beating; all life seemed to ebb away from the terror of that presence. Wildly there arose a thought of flight; but she was spellbound, her limbs were paralyzed, and the dark, luminous eyes of the horror enchained her own gaze. Suddenly she made a convulsive effort, mechanically, and sprung to her feet, her hands clutching one another in a kind of spasm, and her brain reeling beneath ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... piano upon which Laurencine had played! The embrasure of the window! The corner in which Irene had sat spellbound by Jules Defourcambault! The portraits of Irene, at least one of which would perpetuate her name! The glazed cases full of her collections!... The chief pieces of furniture and all the chairs were draped in the pale, ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... 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 has waked up and ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... 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 to ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... faint as dreams. Now and then a bird uttered a piercing little chatter from the branches of the tall larches, and ducks talked in the reeds, but their talk was only a soft murmur, hardly louder than the rustle of the reeds now in full leaf. Everything was spellbound that day; the shadows of reed and island seemed fixed for ever as in a magic mirror—a mirror that somebody had breathed upon, and, listening to the little gurgle of the water about the limestone shingle, one seemed to hear ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... she was, stood for an instant spellbound, and for one moment of not unpardonable panic, tried to tell herself that she had been mistaken. Almost immediately, however, there came from the direction of the hall a dull chunky sound as though something ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... revealing the whole line of the great peaks that stand as sentinels at the eastern end of the vast Tibetan plateau. Westward from that snow-topped line there is no low land until you reach the plains of India. For a few minutes we stood spellbound, and then the clouds shut down again, leaving only a glorious memory to cheer the descent through a grey, ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... suggestion and reminder, had tempted him into talking "shop." He had been lured into the role of monologuist for the benefit of his host, Arthur Sloane. He had talked brilliantly, at length, in detail, holding his three hearers in spellbound and fascinated interest while he discoursed on crimes which he had probed and criminals whom ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... one wishes to keep up one's 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 ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... through The somber robe of Silence drew A thread of golden gossamer: So pure a flute the fairy blew. Like beggared princes of the wood, In silver rags the birches stood; The hemlocks, lordly counselors, Were dumb; the sturdy servitors, In beechen jackets patched and gray, Seemed waiting spellbound all the day That low, entrancing note to ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... case, indeed!" Mr. King was exploding at intervals, while the torrent was rushing on in execrable French as far as accent went. No one else of the spellbound group could have spoken if there had been occasion for a word. Then he pulled out the pocket-book again, and taking out several franc notes of a good size, he pressed them between the man's dirty fingers. "Go and get something to eat," ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... Every word of joyous greeting was heard 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 ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... The audience had never heard a colored man preach 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 effort of any colored ...
— Alexander Crummell: An Apostle of Negro Culture - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 20 • William H. Ferris
... a shapeless, sodden mass, but the human outline was preserved, and the clothes were there, recognizable. It was a grisly, a hideous sight, and it held them all spellbound. ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... one who sees things dimmed to those of only natural powers. With what figures, Wrayson wondered, idly, was he peopling that empty avenue, what were the fancies which had crept out from his brain and held him spellbound? He had admitted a more or less intimate acquaintance with the place: was he, perhaps, a former lover of the Baroness, when she had been simply Amy de St. Etarpe? Wrayson forgot, for a while, his own affairs, in following out these mild speculations. The soft twilight stole down ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... friend made Dan spellbound, and he gazed at the corpse in horror. Then he felt his arm seized by Poke Stover, and in a minute more found himself being hurried ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer
... he exclaimed; "it is false of thy father's child, false of thy mother's son, falsest of my dault! I offer my gage to heaven and hell, and will maintain the combat with him that shall call it true. Thou hast been spellbound by an evil eye, my darling, and the fainting which you call cowardice is the work of magic. I remember the bat that struck the torch out on the hour that thou wert born—that hour of grief and of ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... at 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 thumped slowly, heavily, horrifying, ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... his experience, and opportunities to embody them, it seemed to be no longer the same high and mysterious faculty that so ruled the tides of the feelings of others. He then appeared a more ordinary poet—— a skilful verse-maker. The necromancy which held the reader spellbound became ineffectual; and the charm and the glory which interested so intensely, and shone so radiantly on his configurations from realities, all failed and faded; for his genius dealt not with airy fancies, but had its power and ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... to sing — to sing as she had never sung before. Sweet, thrilling, her voice poured forth into the crowded auditorium. The people sat spellbound. There was a moment of silence; no one offered to applaud. And then she ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... afternoon we came to Dunkerque, lying peacefully between its harbour and canals. The bombardment of the previous month had emptied it, and though no signs of damage were visible the same spellbound air lay over everything. As we sat alone at tea in the hall of the hotel on the Place Jean Bart, and looked out on the silent square and its lifeless shops and cafes, some one suggested that the hotel would be a convenient centre for the excursions we ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... He stood staring, spellbound, at the partly open door of the nearest freight car. His cane had fallen from his hand, his head was thrown up as if he had been struck a stunning blow under the chin, and even at the distance ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... beyond himself; in a physical ecstasy he spoke out that which clamored at his lips, caring nothing for his audience, unconscious of them utterly. And because that is the one thing which will grip men's minds and compel them, he held them spellbound, in spite of themselves,—until, abruptly, in a flash, he became conscious of himself, seeing himself, hearing himself. That moment he lost his hold of them. And he knew it, and stopped short. And for an instant there ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... all seemed waiting; and all were silent but the captain, whose vulgar champing reached me through the crazy lattice, as I stood spellbound and ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... the dog; he remained immovable—conscious of some mysterious coming thing that held him spellbound. I tried to go to the poor creature, and fondle and ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... hand trembled under his, then, suddenly nerveless, relaxed. With an effort she lifted her head; their eyes met, spellbound. ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... ruins of two of the finest structures I have ever seen in Peru. Not only were they made of selected blocks of beautifully grained white granite; their walls contained ashlars of Cyclopean size, ten feet in length, and higher than a man. The sight held me spellbound. ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... he rarely "gagged," or interpolated, upon the stage. Yet he did not lack for a ready wit. One time during the final act of Rip Van Winkle, a young countryman in the gallery was so carried away that he quite lost his bearings and seemed to be about to climb over the outer railing. The audience, spellbound by the actor, nevertheless saw the rustic, and its attention was being divided between the two when Jefferson reached that point in the action of the piece where Rip is amazed by the docility of his wife under the ill usage of her second husband. He ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... surprise she had recognized one among the groundlings in front of the stage after the performance. It was Sir Guy, very plainly dressed and gazing fixedly upon her. Doubtless he had been there during the entire play, waiting in vain for one sign of recognition. But Shylock had held her spellbound, and even for her lover she ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... was soon 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 ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones
... accept it at last as the word of God. That is the secret of the power of all demagogues and emotional orators. The slickest horse-thief that ever operated in the West was a revivalist who migrated there with a tent. While he held the crowd spellbound with his eloquence, his confederates loosed the horses in the woods and got them to a safe place. Oratory is one of the cheapest tricks ever played on man, but an everlastingly effective one, because it is ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... the time for it was not yet ripe. But as the minutes lengthened and the flow of Richard's speech not only continued, but gained in volume and in force, sympathy, anxiety, tenderness, were merged in an emotion of ever-deepening anguish, so that she sat as one who contemplates, spellbound, a scene of veritable horror. From regions celestial to regions terrestrial she had been hurried with rather dislocating suddenness. But her sorry journey did not end there. For hardly were her feet planted on solid earth again, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... kneeling down beside Anicza on the steps of the altar, and raising his eyes towards the black vault of the cavern as he recited the words of a new oath, which kept all the listeners spellbound, so full it was of grisly images and hellish fancies. So deep indeed was the general attention that nobody observed in the meantime that, in the dark background formed by the distant walls of the cavern, a multitude of strange faces were popping up. First two men descended through the ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... the four elements that frame the 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 Fear ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... alone. Other tricks of virtuosity, such as tuning up the A string by a semi-tone, left hand pizzicato, or his double thirds, were executed with such stupendous technique that they held connoisseurs and amateurs spellbound. His individuality, in fact, was so abnormal that it rendered him unfit to play with others in quartets or other chamber music. As a man he had all the worst faults of a genius. The vast sums of money which he accumulated ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... day, I took the usual promenade in the Seraglio Park, and was accosted by a very pretty little woman, Kariana, wife of Dumba, who, very neatly dressed, was returning from a visit. At first she came trotting after me, then timidly paused, then advanced, and, as I approached, stood spellbound at my remarkable appearance. At last recovering herself, she woh-wohed with all the coquetry of a Mganda woman, and a flirtation followed; she must see my hair, my watch, the contents of my pockets—everything; but that ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... Mamma with the two girls settled down to needlework. Mamma's kindly interest invited confidence under these pleasant circumstances, and it was not long before the young man was pouring his story into her sympathetic ears. Prudence listened spellbound. It was not often that one had romance brought to one's very door—by a hero with a sprained ankle too! Such a romantic affliction! But Mollie was too much preoccupied by that haunting likeness to listen properly to what the hero was saying, ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... when in a picture-gallery, a work, noted by the casual spectator as '......Titian—remarkably fine,' breaks through the defences of some Forsyte better lunched perhaps than his fellows, and holds him spellbound in a kind of ecstasy. There are things, he feels—there are things here which—well, which are things. Something unreasoning, unreasonable, is upon him; when he tries to define it with the precision of a practical ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... had traveled all over the world, and because she was interested in all the little things, her adventures had been many. She told them to-night about one ride she had taken for miles inland and held every one of them spellbound ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... audience that listened spellbound to that oration, arose and left the Capitol like persons in a dream. Never were they to forget the ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... them then and there. He had just put one into his mouth when the tutor leaned forward, and his eyes, glowing in the firelight, met MacGreedy's, who had not even the presence of mind to shut his mouth, but remained spellbound, with a raisin in ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... not know how long I stood there, spellbound, the woman lost in the artist, scribbling frantically in my notebook, when an onslaught of rain brought me to my senses and I looked ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... captives, who were guarded and forced to their labor by armed savages. As the heavy-hearted spectators were about to turn away from this distressing sight, a thrilling incident absorbed their attention, and held them spellbound. ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... table they were intercepted by a woman who, with two cavaliers, had since the moment of her entrance been standing near the door of the restaurant, apparently spellbound with admiration. Through a rising clatter of tongues her voice cut clearly but not at ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... of 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 ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... songs I sing . . . Called from the tomb of some enchanted past By that strange sphinx, my soul, they slowly rise And settle on white pages wing to wing . . . White pages like flower-petals fluttering Held spellbound there till some blind hour shall bring The perfect voice that, delicate and wise, Shall set them free in fairyland at last! That garden of all dreams and ecstasies Where my soul sings through an eternal spring, Watching alone with enigmatic ...
— The Inn of Dreams • Olive Custance
... opponents. In the excitement of the play he became confused, when lo! he leaped into flight toward the wrong goal. Dashing around Princeton's left end he reversed his field and crossed over to the right. Phil King, Princeton's quarterback, was so amazed at the performance that he was too spellbound to tackle his comrade. Down the backfield the player sped towards his own goal. Shep Homans, his fullback, took in the impending catastrophe at a glance and dashed forward, laid the halfback low with a sharp tackle, thereby preventing a safety. The game was unimportant, ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... 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 of ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd
... through nineteen centuries to find their application from the lips of an orator to-day; the sense of remoteness in the strange language and the far-off heathen origin; the deep and moving note in the speaker's voice, thrilled the imagination of the audience and held it spellbound, lifting for a moment the whole subject of debate into a region far above party conflicts. Spoken by any one else, the passage culminating in these Lucretian lines might have produced little effect. It was the voice and manner, ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce
... 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 ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... dazed and intoxicated. He had never seen so many books before; he had never conceived of such lovely pictures. And yet in some vague way he thought he must have dreamt of them at some time. He had mounted a chair, and was gazing spellbound at an engraving of a sea-fight ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... the old 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 ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... visitor, with rounder face, dressed in country tweeds, a flower in his buttonhole, the picture of a prosperous man, yet with a curious, almost disturbing likeness to the pale, over-nervous, loose-framed youth whose eye had been attracted by its presence, and who was gazing at it, spellbound. ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... sounded, the curtain was drawn back, and the play began. Upon the ruder sort in the audience silence fell at once: they that followed the sea, and they that followed the woods, and all the simple folk ceased their noise and gesticulation, and gazed spellbound at the pomp before them of rude scenery and indifferent actors. But the great ones of the earth talked on, attending to their own business in the face of Tamerlane and his victorious force. It was the fashion to do so, and in the play to-night the ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... better goods. Papa enjoyed my business venture immensely, and was never tired of joking about it. He actually went and bought balls for four small black boys who were gluing their noses to the window one day, spellbound by the orange, red, and blue treasures displayed there. He liked my partner's looks, though he teased me by saying that we'd better add lemonade to our stock, as poor, dear Almiry's acid face would make lemons unnecessary, and sugar and ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... 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 ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... by side spellbound. The tiny flames licked past them in the tarweed; they did not heed. The horsemen rode up, twenty strong. It seemed to Bob that they said things, and shouted. Certainly a half-dozen leaped spryly off their horses and in ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... clarion of a single curve Hung at his side by slender bands; And when he blew, with faintest nerve, Life burst throughout those lonely lands; Graves yawned to hear, Time stood aghast, The whole world rose and clapped its hands. Then on the other shape I cast My eyes. I know not how or why He held my spellbound vision fast. Instinctive terror bade me fly, But curious wonder checked my will. The mysteries of his awful eye, So dull, so deep, so dark, so chill, And the calm pity of his brow And massive features hard and still, Lovely, but threatening, and the bow Of his sad neck, as if he told Earth's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... night, a gentle April shower fell; and as the thoughts were carried by it, spellbound, from the chamber where she was born, to her newly-made grave,—that night being the first of her sleeping there,—it seemed very plain that, though Death had been conquered, the Grave still kept possession of the field.—Christ "will be thy destruction," O Grave, as he has been "thy plagues," ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... is this more true than in preaching. It is such a glorious thing to be able to gather great congregations; but even this may be done and the messenger fail. It is such a delightful thing to a preacher to watch a multitude waiting spellbound beneath his eloquence in rapt attention, or swept by waves of emotion; but that multitude may disperse, the great end of preaching still unwrought and the whole attempt a splendid failure. It is possible to attract people to your ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... respected—Mrs. Acland, the wife of the well-known doctor and professor. And Liddon, with a wonderfully happy instinct, had added to his sermon a paragraph dealing with Mrs. Acland's death, which held us all spellbound till the beautiful words died into silence. It was done with a fastidious literary taste that is rather French than English; and yet it came from the very heart of the speaker. Looking back through my many ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... tense interest held us all spellbound. We could see nothing but some stray glimpses of an ivy-clad wall. A weathercock, that had once been gilded, stood out black against the evening sky. The Grey Lady in the rustling silk, through whom you could see the rain drops splash on the gravel stones, was by no means ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... ballroom of the Hotel Taftoftia, during Christmas week, William K. Spriggs, Ph.D., held a number of fashionable audiences spellbound with his marvellously lucid dances in Euclid and Algebra up to Quadratics. Perhaps the very acme of the Terpsichorean art was attained in the masterly fluency of body and limbs with which Mr. Spriggs demonstrated that the sum of the angles in any triangle is equal ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... I could not speak or yell. All was intense excitement on that boat. I jumped up on the stern, holding the bait Captain Dan had put on my hook. Then I paused to look. We all looked, spellbound. That was a sight of a lifetime. There he swam, the monster, a few feet under the surface, only a rod back of the boat. I had no calm judgment with which to measure his dimensions. I only saw that he was tremendous and beautiful. His ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... interblend of which, produces the dynamic intonation, that chords with the inward rhythmic vibrations of the soul. Once this magical, dynamic, vibration is produced, there immediately springs into being the whole elemental world belonging thereto, by correspondence. Vocalists who hold their audiences spellbound do so by virtue of the magical vibrations they produce, and are in reality practical, even though unconscious, magicians. The same power, to a degree, lies in the voice when speaking, the graceful movement of the hand when obeying the ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... intense silence. Dredlinton was listening, indifferently at first, then as though spellbound, his lips a little parted, his cheeks colourless, his eyes filled with a strange terror. Presently he laid down the receiver, although he failed to replace it. He turned very slowly around, and his eyes, still filled with a ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to be done?' he asked. 'Here's these legal ferrets has got our Puddin' in their clutches, and here's us, spellbound with anguish, watchin' them wolfin' it. Here's a situation as would wring groans from the breast of ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... able to explain it exactly, they felt that it was just the kind of singing that belonged to the kind of day: it was right and natural, a fresh and windy sound in the careless notes, almost as though it was a bird that sang. So exquisite was it, indeed, that they listened spellbound without moving, standing hand in hand beneath the dark bushes. And Uncle Felix evidently heard it too, for he turned his head; instead of examining the tree-tops he peered into the rose trees just behind him, both hands held to his ears to catch the happy song. There was both ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... conditions was he to protest or interfere. He set his teeth 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 struck at him, striving all the time to steal underneath the other's guard. And then, almost ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a door is always open. Profound silence in the salon, a long colloquy on the landing. At last the old servant—she had been in the family as long as the lamp—introduced a young man, a perfect stranger, who stopped suddenly, spellbound, at sight of the charming picture presented by the four darlings grouped about the table. He entered with an abashed, somewhat awkward air. However, he set forth very clearly the purpose of his call. He was recommended to apply to M. Joyeuse by a worthy ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... she burst out one day, after being held thus spellbound. "Oh, my dear, what a splendid man your brother is! I feel sometimes I could sink through the floor with shame at my ignorance, when 'e talks ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... displayed itself in her expressive and strongly marked features. For almost a minute, until the sound of Uncle David's footsteps had died away, she stood absolutely rigid; while my wife and I gazed at her spellbound. ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... be some faults in it." But we all exclaimed that we had done our prettiest at finding fault,—that there wasn't a ghost of a fault in it. For the incarnate beauty and ideality and truthfulness of her little stories had melted into our being, and left us spellbound, till we were one with each other and her; one with the Seven Little Sisters, too, and they seemed like our very own little sisters. So they have rested in our imagination and affection as we have seen them grow into ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews
... evening.[30] In Parsifal Gurnemanz explains all the circumstances to the Knappen. How undramatic are these explanations we shall realize when we compare them with such soliloquies as Tannhaeuser's account of his pilgrimage or Siegmund's story of his life, which, though equally lengthy, keep us spellbound from the first bar to the last, because they directly lead up to and form part of the scene which is actually before us. Tannhaeuser's wild aspect and manner, Siegmund's desolation and longing for community with other human beings, ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... office,—you say you're the head of it,—and order them to give Torpenhow my sketches,—every one of them. Wait a minute: your hand's shaking. Now!' He thrust a pocket-book before him. The note was written. Torpenhow took it and departed without a word, while Dick walked round and round the spellbound captive, giving him such advice as he conceived best for the welfare of his soul. When Torpenhow returned with a gigantic portfolio, he heard Dick say, almost soothingly, 'Now, I hope this will be a lesson to you; and if you worry me when I have settled down to work with any nonsense ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... ancient violin, began to read a chapter from his old Book which began with the exhortation, "Let brotherly love continue," and laid down a course of moral conduct that seemed so impossible that I sat spellbound to the last words, "Grace be ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... years ago,— When apple trees were white with snow Of fragrant blossoms, and the air Was spellbound with the perfume rare,— Upon a farm horse, large and lean, And lazy with its double load, A sun-browned youth and maid were seen Jogging ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... missionary stood spellbound, gazing over the lovely, fairylike scene, Mr. Ritchie touched ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith
... medley of old Southern airs she played. The audience sat spellbound while the strains of "Old Black Joe," and "Old Folks at Home" were heard throughout the auditorium, and when Dorothy swung into the quick measures of her beloved "Dixie," such a roar shook the building as Aunt Betty had never ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... band of enthusiasts at the lecture; it seemed her fate to run up against enthusiasm she could not share. Young ladies, middle-aged ladies, even old ladies, all listening spellbound—at least if not absolutely spellbound, spellbound compared to Henrietta—to an elderly gentleman discoursing on Aristotle. For most of them Aristotle, and the satisfaction of using their minds were sufficient, ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... sodden mass, but the human outline was preserved, and the clothes were there, recognizable. It was a grisly, a hideous sight, and it held them all spellbound. ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... to end war," the war "to make the world safe for democracy" came to a formal ending, and for a few hours the world gazed spellbound on golden hopes. Greater than the disillusionment of war was that of the making of the peace. There had never been a war, not even the "Thirty Years' War" in Germany, the "Hundred Years' War" in France or the wars of Napoleon, that was ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... moments, too, when in a picture-gallery, a work, noted by the casual spectator as '......Titian—remarkably fine,' breaks through the defences of some Forsyte better lunched perhaps than his fellows, and holds him spellbound in a kind of ecstasy. There are things, he feels—there are things here which—well, which are things. Something unreasoning, unreasonable, is upon him; when he tries to define it with the precision ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... for the last few minutes had been held spellbound at the top of the ladder, in spite of the claims of discipline, "of all the sea-devils of crafts that I've ever heard of, I should say that was the worst. Four destroyers gone in five minutes, and here ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... "all Bungey did was to try to disenchant the Lord Warwick, whom yon miscreant had spellbound. Poor Bungey! he is a friend to the people: and when he found that Master Adam was making a device for their ruin, he spared no toil, I assure ye, to frustrate the iniquity. Oh, how he fasted and watched! Oh, how many a time he fought, tooth and nail, with the devil in person, to get at the infernal ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... man was so startling, his muttered exclamation—so natural that its profanity never even grated. His eyes seemed to be starting out of his head, his lips were drawn back from his teeth. Blank, unutterable surprise held him, dumb and spellbound, as he stared at a half-sheet of type written notepaper. She herself, amazed at his transformed appearance, found words for the moment impossible. Then a queer change came into his expression. His eyebrows drew closer together, his lips turned malevolently. ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... 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, ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... it not been for the lump in her throat. A step came nearer and nearer, from some distant part of the house, accompanied by a cheery, familiar whistle. Still the stern, malicious face held her spellbound, and even when Harlan came in with his load of wood, she ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... the fervour and fire, the gesticulation were the perfect interpretation of a poet, a mystic, a veritable Thespian. On and on Jim went in uninterrupted, almost breathless silence. Phil was anxious for his friend's well-being, but he stood at the door listening spellbound, as did the Orientals about Jim, and the low whites who had straggled in toward the end of the ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... 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, unable ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... and people began to come more, after I lent Almiry some money to lay in a stock of better goods. Papa enjoyed my business venture immensely, and was never tired of joking about it. He actually went and bought balls for four small black boys who were gluing their noses to the window one day, spellbound by the orange, red, and blue treasures displayed there. He liked my partner's looks, though he teased me by saying that we'd better add lemonade to our stock, as poor, dear Almiry's acid face would make lemons unnecessary, and sugar ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... just at that moment when, infuriated by the latest theft of his property, Samuel Clemens was engaged in his rotary denunciation of the criminals, oblivious of every other circumstance. Mr. Rising stood spellbound by this, to him, new phase of genius, and at last his friend became dimly aware of him. He did not halt in his scathing treadmill and continued in the slow ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the Nausicaae?" asked the stranger, whilst Cimon gazed on him spellbound, asking if ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... a gentle April shower fell; and as the thoughts were carried by it, spellbound, from the chamber where she was born, to her newly-made grave,—that night being the first of her sleeping there,—it seemed very plain that, though Death had been conquered, the Grave still kept possession of the field.—Christ ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... house was full of melody. Clear, sweet, and powerful, her notes penetrated to the kitchen, where the maids were busy, and they stopped in spellbound wonder, with dish or utensil in hand. Mrs. Muir listened with her hair-brush suspended, while methodical Mr. Muir laid down his razor, and, going to the door, set it ajar. The song poured into the room like an harmonic flood. Before the first stanza was completed Mrs. Muir ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... of service is this more true than in preaching. It is such a glorious thing to be able to gather great congregations; but even this may be done and the messenger fail. It is such a delightful thing to a preacher to watch a multitude waiting spellbound beneath his eloquence in rapt attention, or swept by waves of emotion; but that multitude may disperse, the great end of preaching still unwrought and the whole attempt a splendid failure. It is possible to attract people to your preaching, possible to win the crown of their approval, and yet ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... lost. We conducted the sculptor to the chamber of death, that he might superintend the casts from the body. No sooner did his eyes fall upon it, than they glowed with admiration and filled with tears. He waved the assistants aside, clasped his hands, and gazed spellbound upon the dead child. Its brow was ideal in contour, the hair of wavy gold, the cheeks of angelic outline. "How beautiful!" exclaimed Bartolini; and drawing us to the bedside, with a mingled awe and intelligence, he pointed out how the rigidity of death coincided, in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... 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
... of their passion of fear the moon rose. Siegmund started to see the rim appear ruddily beyond the sea. His struggling suddenly ceased, and he watched, spellbound, the oval horn of fiery gold come up, resolve itself. Some golden liquor dripped and spilled upon the far waves, where it shook in ruddy splashes. The gold-red cup rose higher, looming before him very large, yet still not all discovered. By degrees the horn of gold detached itself from ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... to speak to him, but when I looked into his face I felt as if it were impossible to do so. That eye—the eye of the serpent—fixed and held me spellbound. And withal, about the man's whole person there was a dignity, an air of pride and station and superiority, that would have made anyone, habituated to the usages of the world, hesitate long before venturing upon a liberty or impertinence. And what could I say? what was ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... We stood spellbound for a minute at the sudden change of scene and of feeling. From the still choking blazing steam of the leeward glen, we had stepped in a moment into coolness and darkness, pervaded by the delicious rush of ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... telling stories to the children, but that I might go right up and walk in. I opened the door softly, though I don't think the children would have noticed if I had fired a cannon in their midst, and stood there, spellbound by the loveliest, most touching scene I ever witnessed. The room has an open fire, and in a low chair, with the firelight shining on her face, sat that charming, impulsive girl who gave me the flowers at the cemetery—I told you about her. She was telling stories ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... of writer always gets all the thrills. He speaks of "blanched cheeks," of the "thrilling suspense," and so on down the gamut of the shilling shocker. His stuff makes good reading; there is no doubt of that. The spellbound public likes it, and to that extent it has fulfilled its mission. Also, the reader believes it to the letter-why should he not? Only there is this curious result: he carries away in his mind the impression of unreality, of a country impossible to be understood and gauged and ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... The boys gazed spellbound at the awe-inspiring spectacle, and for a time none of them uttered a word. Lester was the first to break the ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... the peasant life, but inspired by books and literature, written and spoken. His yesterday was of no definite past, for he had been born in a revolution when the immediate past was obliterated. In his vision a thousand years were no more than the watch of some spellbound chivalry, waiting for the voice that should say, "It is the time." Cuchulain and Robert Emmet were his inspirations, but the champion of the legendary Red Branch cycle and the young revolutionary of Napoleon's days were ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... I stood rigid, spellbound, watching the white wake of the torpedo. It struck us on the starboard side almost amidships. The vessel rocked as though the sea beneath it had been uptorn by a mighty volcano. We were thrown to ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... think. The truth is that I was entering into our nefarious undertaking with an involuntary zeal of which I was myself quite unconscious at the time. The romance and the peril of the whole proceeding held me spellbound and entranced. My moral sense and my sense of fear were stricken by a common paralysis. And there I stood, shining my light and holding my phial with a keener interest than I had ever brought to any honest avocation. And there knelt A. J. Raffles, ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... instant's pause, and Cordova had begun Lucia's song again at the beginning, and her marvellous trills and staccato notes, and trills again, trills upon trills without end, filled the vast darkness and stopped those four thousand men and women, spellbound ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... his impenetrable shell of silence. Doris made reply on his behalf and her own with a dainty graciousness that covered all difficulties, and finally extricated herself and Jeff from the situation with a dexterity that left him spellbound. ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... jungle path, about a mile ahead of my followers, to look out for game. Upon arriving at the open country in the neighbourhood of Cowdellai, I got a shot at a deer at a killing distance. She was not twenty yards off, and was looking at me as if spellbound. This provided me with venison for a couple of days. The rapid decomposition of all things in a tropical climate renders a continued supply of animal food very precarious, if the produce of the rifle is alone to be depended upon. Venison killed on one day would be uneatable ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... some this, some that, as surprise and consternation, or anger, or incredulity moved them. But I did not answer them, for Henry, remaining silent, held me spellbound and awed by the marvellous change which I saw fall on his face. His eyes became on a sudden suffused with blood, and seemed to retreat under his heavy brows; his cheeks turned of a brick-red colour; his half-open lips showed his teeth gleaming through his beard; ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... in full flow:—a wraith of a man in a salmon-coloured garment; his eyes, deep in their sockets, gleaming like black diamonds. And he was holding his audience spellbound:—Hindus of every calling; students in abundance; a sprinkling of Sikhs and Dogras from the lines. Some form of hypnotism,—was it? Perhaps. Even Roy could not listen unmoved, when the spirit shook the frail creature like a gust of wind and the hollow chest-notes vibrated ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... 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 ...
— Alexander Crummell: An Apostle of Negro Culture - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 20 • William H. Ferris
... listened spellbound to that oration, arose and left the Capitol like persons in a dream. Never were they to forget the effect ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... if spellbound. The bread of life was broken to those starving souls. Christ was lifted up before them as above popes, legates, emperors, and kings. Luther made no reference to his own perilous position. He did not seek to make ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... under the old 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 ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... Dot watched him spellbound, not breathing. Hill stood near her, also closely watching, with brows slightly drawn. Suddenly something impelled her to look beyond the man at the table, and in the shadow on the farther side of the room she again saw Harley's face, grey, withered-looking, with ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... come that the President and Secretary Seward have been assassinated,' said Gramp. Ad dropped his axe and stood looking at Gramp, as if spellbound. 'It cannot be!' he said. 'I am afraid it ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... an instant, spellbound, her eyes wide, her bosom swelling; then, all at once, turned and fled, darting across the plank that served for a foot bridge over the creek, gaining the opposite bank and disappearing with a brisk rustle of underbrush, such as might have been made by the ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... silence in the room. Anderson was as if spellbound, his eyes fixed on the child, who stood like a youthful prophetess, her head thrown back, her beautiful face full of solemn light, her arm raised in awful appeal. The woman threw her apron over her head and began to cry. The man moistened ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards
... began at three. Everybody is amazed at this for the West-End! The audience is very select, we never having published a bill. Pray much, dear friend, that God may do a deep and permanent work in this Babylon. It seems as though He gave me words of fire for them, and they sat spellbound.' ...
— Catherine Booth - A Sketch • Colonel Mildred Duff
... a face before whose perfect loveliness the memory of Dorothy Armstrong's laughing prettiness faded like a star in the sunrise, nevermore in the fullness of the day to be remembered. Yet it was not of her beauty I thought as I stood spellbound before her. I seemed to see a dim little valley full of whispering pines, and a girl standing under their shadows, looking at me with the same great, greyish-blue eyes which gazed upon me now from Marian Lindsay's face—the same face, matured into gracious womanhood, that I had seen ten years ago; ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... case; very bad case, indeed!" Mr. King was exploding at intervals, while the torrent was rushing on in execrable French as far as accent went. No one else of the spellbound group could have spoken if there had been occasion for a word. Then he pulled out the pocket-book again, and taking out several franc notes of a good size, he pressed them between the man's dirty fingers. "Go and get something to eat," was all he said, ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... there could be no doubt that they were flowers,—the wonderful orchids of Formosa! Mackay was a keen scientist, always highly interested in botany, and he was charmed with this sight. There were many such in the forest, and often he would stop spellbound before a blaze of flowers hanging from tree or vine or shrub. Then he would look up at the tangled growths of the bamboo, the palm, and the elegant tree-fern, standing there all silent and beautiful, and he would be struck by the harmony ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith
... from his chariot and stood spellbound. What was that plaintive sound? The Gaelic words, his dear daughter's voice more enchanting even than of old, and yet, before and around, only the lone blue lake. The haunting music rang clearer, and as the last ...
— Celtic Tales - Told to the Children • Louey Chisholm
... inharmonious tones; gradually he becomes aware of a subtle, astonishing, and unlooked-for harmony; finally, from this harmony emerge completely realized and exquisitely related forms. After which, if he has any sense of art, he remains spellbound and uncritical, and ceases to bother about how the thing was done. That, at least, is my impression of Renoir's latest style. Examples of it abound in Paris, notably M. Maurice Gangnat's collection; and it is said that the artist intends these pictures ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... to cross the threshold, but could not. I was spellbound, or there was an invisible barrier erected against me, which I could not overleap. The buzzing in my ears, the pain and throbbing in my head, and racking aches, once more bent me to the earth, ill and reduced as I was, a relapse, thought I; and I felt my judgment once more ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... battery of round blue eyes gazed on unwinking; the poet's dewlaps quivered with stored emotion, and the spellbound audience breathed as people breathe when the hostess at table attempts to smooth over a bad break by ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... that made one think of a panther as she postured there against a background of barbaric color. The grace of her movements, the exquisite blending of the colors on the stage, the skillful grouping of the throng of worshipers, made up a picture which held the audience spellbound and in silence ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... 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 has waked up and wails.] Berthel, you look out an' ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... you will find the inhabitants crouched by hundreds around their native musicians. When we were there, one old duffer—the Wagner, doubtless, of the place—was having an immense success. No matter at what hour of the day we passed through that square, there was always the same spellbound circle of half-clad Turks and Arabs squatting silent while “Wagner” tinkled to them on a three-stringed lute and chanted in a high-pitched, dismal whine—like the squeaking of an unfastened door in the wind. At times, for no apparent reason, the ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... hardened sceptics protested that, even if her facts were wrong, there could be no doubt as to her sincerity, her ingenuousness. Ah, she was a woman in a thousand! Often had Mr. Parker sat at her feet, a respectful disciple, listening spellbound and striving to acquire that secret—a secret which was, after all, not so much art as nature. He could never hope to rival ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... bicycles, rum, novels, and silks 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 ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... what one felt and knew counted. A crowd is spellbound in watching a steeplejack at work, or an aviator doing a "loop-the-loop," or an acrobat swinging from one bar to another above the sawdust ring, or the "leap of death" of the movies; and here we were in the presence of a multitude who were running a far greater risk in an untried effort, ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... of people, but nobody had as yet said a word; awe and wonder held everybody in spellbound silence. Judith was the first to speak. She pushed through the crowd to Salome. Her face was blanched to a deadly whiteness; and her eyes, as Mrs. William Blair afterwards declared, were enough to give a body ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... head dismally and pointed ashore, and Mr. Chalk, following the direction of his finger, gazed spellbound at a figure which was signalling wildly from the highest point. Tredgold and Stobell, approaching the side, ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... cried Pinchas. 'Were you but to say your lines, leaving all the others to be read by the prompter, the house would be spellbound, like Moses when ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... to the dog; he remained immovable—conscious of some mysterious coming thing that held him spellbound. I tried to go to the poor creature, and ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... Deacon said, and much more. He began his speech with considerable warmth of utterance, but as he progressed in praises of Mount Olivet and her faith he waxed hotter and hotter until his spellbound hearers were fairly deluged in a mighty avalanche of his rustic oratory, and he wound up with the sweeping statement that the doctrine of holiness must be abolished from the ...
— The Deacon of Dobbinsville - A Story Based on Actual Happenings • John A. Morrison
... Carey had been for many voyages on many seas, but the fascination of a storm in the bay attracted him irresistibly still. He had no sympathy with the uneasy crowd in the saloons. He even exulted in the wild tumult of wind and sea and blinding rain. He was as one spellbound in ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... it was a medley of old Southern airs she played. The audience sat spellbound while the strains of "Old Black Joe," and "Old Folks at Home" were heard throughout the auditorium, and when Dorothy swung into the quick measures of her beloved "Dixie," such a roar shook the building as Aunt Betty had ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... 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 ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... seat to listen. A group of boys were around the piano while others were scattered through the building attracted as I had been. At the old French piano was a small khaki-clad figure, coaxing from its keys with wizard fingers such strains as we had not dreamed were possible. We were held spellbound until the musician, having finished, quietly walked away, leaving his auditors suspended somewhere between earth and heaven. One by one we walked silently out to our respective duties of helping to make the world ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West
... Then spellbound stood the lad and gazed around, Amazed at all the glory of the hall, And all the solemn splendor of the scene, Till Gurnemanz stooped down and whispered low: "Now give good heed, and if thy heart be pure, And thou art called, ...
— Parsifal - A Drama by Wagner • Retold by Oliver Huckel
... the globe. With him as our guide we have traversed alike the 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 to his? Perhaps some of the distinguished gentlemen about this table ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Small boys stood spellbound before this picture, and they were still more astonished when the real live bear was led into the ring and marched up and down with a wooden gun upon his shoulder, while the performance of his bottle-trick always created a rustle ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... one man stealthily that night, and another by luck rather than skill—perhaps it was that. Again, villain as the man was, I did not relish being one of a crowd against him—perhaps it was that. But stronger than either of these restrained feelings came a curiosity and a fascination which held me spellbound, watching for the ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... seconds it was like a tableau, the strange young man, more ragged than before (if that were possible) standing in the midst of the clearing, and gazing as though spellbound at the girls in the ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... profile, the azure of the sky lost by comparison with that which glowed serene from her great eyes. John Vanderlyn was really dismayed to find that they were everywhere. He had not been susceptible, as youths go, in the past; now he found himself enthralled, spellbound by the appeal of this small German girl who traveled cheaply in the steerage of a slow ship toward America, a part of a large company of needy aliens seeking a new home in what they thought the land ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... bard ceased playing no shout arose from the mighty multitude, for the strains of his harp, long after its chords were stilled, held their hearts spellbound. ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... 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 he must ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors
... gazing 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 lot of people ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... overslept. Much vexed, he began to dress in haste, when he was startled by a brilliant prelude on the piano, and a voice of wonderful power and sweetness struck into an air that he had never heard before. Soon the whole building was resonant with music, and Dennis stood spellbound till the strange, rich sounds died away, as before, in a few instrumental notes that had seemed in his dream like the song ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... properly dramatic close when the unexpected happened: the screen-door opened and a stranger entered. As the blowing of a horn by the paladin broke the repose of a century, and called back to life the spellbound princess and her court, so these slumbering churchmen were startled from their dreams by the intruder. The choir-boys fell to giggling, the choir-men stared, clerk Janaway grasped his mace as if he would brain so rash an adventurer, and ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... very pale, and, when he puts his thin arm within ours, we feel how frail a body may contain a spirit of fire. We go into his modest abode and listen to his wonderful talk, wishing all the while that the hours were months, that we might linger there, spellbound, day and night, before the master of our English tongue. He proposes a ramble across the meadows to Roslin Chapel, and on the way he discourses of the fascinating drug so painfully associated with his name in literature,—of Christopher North, in whose companionship ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... inspiration, which in no case called for strict exactitude of detail. There was, first, the pleasure of talking about himself; there was, next, the desire to give his career the advantage of a romantic light; and there was, thirdly, the story-teller's natural instinct to hold his hearer spellbound. The little more or the little less could not matter to a man whom he didn't know, in talking about a woman whose name he hadn't given; while, on the other hand, there was the satisfaction, to which the Latin is so sensitive, of showing ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... showed them homes blown to pieces, cities given to the flames, the 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 the Empire ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... theatre was filled with yells of merriment. Only the people in the boxes were still silent, staring coldly at the protege who had played them so odious a prank. Lady Belmore rose and called for her chariot. Her example was followed by several ladies of rank. The rest sat spellbound, and of their number was Miss Tylney Long, at whose rigid face many glasses were, of course, directed. Meanwhile the play proceeded. Those lines that were not drowned in laughter Mr. Coates spoke in the most foolish and extravagant manner. He cut little capers ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... than one hand the match burned down until it left a mark like charcoal, and without calling attention. One and all they stood spellbound, their eyes on the floor, their lips unconsciously uttering the speech universal of anger and of horror, the ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... had been sitting as if spellbound, started up, gave his arm to his daughter, and led her out of the court and to the fly that was in attendance to convey them back to the "Highlander." Ishmael followed, with the countess on his arm. And the professor, having the three negroes in charge, brought ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... hand, and Castanier rose, and the two men went into the drawing-room. There was no light in the room, but Melmoth's eyes lit up the thickest darkness. The gaze of those strange eyes had left Aquilina like one spellbound; she was helpless, unable to take any thought for her lover; moreover, she believed him to be safe in Jenny's room, whereas their early return had taken the waiting woman by surprise, and she had hidden the officer in the dressing room. It had all happened ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... was said that this Undine of the Rhine, the enchantress Lore, had a most melodious and seductive voice. When she sang those who heard her listened spellbound. If the boatmen displeased her, she entranced them by her song, and drew them into the whirlpools under the rocks, where they disappeared forever. To the landsmen who offended her, she made the river appear like a road, and led them to fall over the rocks to destruction. With ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... commissioners and Indian chiefs at Chillicothe the governor summoned them to a great council. Tecumseh was to speak on behalf of the red men. Upon him was centred the attention of all. He spoke for three hours, during which he held his listeners spellbound. He assured them that it was far from his intention to take up the hatchet against the pale-face, but that he would sternly resist any trespass upon his people's rights. Rapidly reviewing all the treaties ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... sound of a door turning on its hinges, and almost immediately afterwards the tapestry was drawn aside, and the owner of all these riches stood before the two young men. Albert instantly rose to meet him, but Franz remained, in a manner, spellbound on his chair; for in the person of him who had just entered he recognized not only the mysterious visitant to the Colosseum, and the occupant of the box at the Teatro Argentino, but also his extraordinary host ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... be the last occasion on which such a penalty should be mine. But, alas! the very next day the confectioner had a wonderful negro figure in his window made all of sweets, his face of liquorice and his shirt of sugar, his lips of candy and his eyes of brandy-balls. I was spellbound, and could not tear myself away. And when I did, to add to my misfortunes, there was a crowd outside the omnibus stables to watch the harnessing of a new and very frisky horse. Of course I had to witness this spectacle, and the consequence ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... lips were parted fearfully. For she saw a lovely, radiant, queenly woman, magnificently gowned, the center of a throng of people, and Lover was beside her, his face flushed with pride, his eyes shining with admiration. Her fine voice, like music, held every one spellbound. Precious clasped her tiny hands over her rose-bud ears and shivered. She shut her eyes hard and opened them and—what nonsense! There was no queenly lady, there was no loud, clear, ringing voice. But her ears were tingling. She turned to ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... 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 needed him, and certain creditors of the company, hitherto ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... for the last hour, Joe Whittle being a spellbound witness of the proceedings; and so it chanced that nobody saw two persons, a man and a woman who entered quietly—one might almost have said timidly, as if doubtful of a welcome in the crowded place. It was Abby ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... a short one, yet it was sufficient to disclose the facts of clear, very child-like hazel eyes, fresh dashes of colour in the cheeks, and an exceedingly shapely pair of ankles and legs. Roger remained spellbound on the top step for so long a space that his aunt turned back ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... yonder?—two thousand op'ratives, an' I doubt if the place has ever seen a travellin' theayter since it 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 ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... waiting; and all were silent but the captain, whose vulgar champing reached me through the crazy lattice, as I stood spellbound and ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... 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 ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... But he is stopped, spellbound, abashed and defeated by the mother of the children, who is in another room and, all unaware of the danger, is singing a version of the Coventry Carol (which, in its original, is addressed to the Christ Child) as a lullaby to her ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare
... round of forgiveness! But the truth is, we must fight until we die; and when we die there can be no quiet for mankind but complete resumption into - what? - God, let us say - when all these desperate tricks will lie spellbound at last. ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... metal rod a yard or so distant and plunged it in the ground again. There was the same hollow sound. For a moment they all sat spellbound, mystified. Then, as if seized by a sudden thought, Brownie hurried to the edge of the little island, exploring with his hands. He lifted up some grassy soil that drooped and hung in the water, and tore it away. As he did so there was revealed a ridge of heavy wood over which it had ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the wonderful outline of his ministry. When he had finished the reading, he told the people that this prophecy was now fulfilled in their ears. That is, he said that he was the Messiah whose anointing and work the prophet had foretold. For a time the people listened spellbound to his gracious words, and then they began to grow angry, that he whom they knew as the carpenter of their village should make such an astounding claim. They rose up in wrath, thrust him out of the synagogue, and would have hurled him over the precipice ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... defence of your comrades; but I must commend you particularly for the readiness with which you listened to the counsel and obeyed the commands of your superior officer. The time may come," he continued, and the deep tones, vibrating with unsuspected resolution, held his audience spellbound, "when your State will need your services; and if that time does come, then draw your swords ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... The two listened spellbound to this amazing sermon of sin. Karl's arm slipped down to Olga's waist. He felt himself drawing her ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... policy 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 of his daughter and the unlucky Elector-Palatine; did he, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... aside, and the red heart of the globe been laid bare?" If this first witness was not at once overcome by the beauty of the earthly revelation before him, or terrified by its strangeness and power, he must have stood long, awed, spellbound, speechless with astonishment, and thrilled with delight. He may have seen vast and glorious prospects from mountaintops, he may have looked down upon the earth and seen it unroll like a map before him; but he had never before ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... guarded and forced to their labor by armed savages. As the heavy-hearted spectators were about to turn away from this distressing sight, a thrilling incident absorbed their attention, and held them spellbound. ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... left there by himself, under such desolate circumstances, and after all he had seen and heard that night, Solomon would have followed, but there had been something in Mr Haredale's manner and his look, the recollection of which held him spellbound. He stood rooted to the spot; and scarcely venturing to breathe, looked up with ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... 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 ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... fashion to break the torturing suspense. Jean Graham, whose eyes were wide with apprehension, noted that her face was bloodless to the lips. Neither had as yet been rudely confronted with tragedy, and both felt held fast, spellbound, without the power ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... sharply. Once more she would have gone, but this time she was held spellbound by the ringing scorn in the low, ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... voice, which was like the notes given out by an ancient violin, began to read a chapter from his old Book which began with the exhortation, "Let brotherly love continue," and laid down a course of moral conduct that seemed so impossible that I sat spellbound to the last words, "Grace ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... fleet as an antelope, fierce and terrible in his devilish action, a horse for war and blood and death. He seemed unbeatable. Yet to see the magnificently running Blanco Sol was but to court a doubt. Gale stood spellbound. He might have shot the raider; but he never thought of such a thing. The distance swiftly lessened. Plain it was the raider could not make the opening ahead of Ladd. He saw it and swerved to the left, emptying his six-shooter as he turned. ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... harmony and the very air shook under the peal. It was like a triumphal strain. The soul became filled with thoughts of power and glory; every sense was changed into one dim, indistinct emotion of rapture which held the spirit as if spellbound. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... deep curiosity to know. Not that Miss De Courcy refrained from mentioning him. On the contrary, she told heart-rending incidents of his cruelty, as she tilted back and forth lazily in her rocking-chair, while Druse sat by, spellbound, her thin hands clasped tightly over the work in her lap, neglecting even the bon-bons that Miss De Courcy ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... Cordova held the party at Craythew spellbound while other things were happening very near them which would have interested them much more than her trills, and her 'mordentini,' and her soaring runs, and the high staccato notes that rang down from the ceiling as if some astounding and invisible ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... Spanish setters and that it was they who created the true pointer—the animal that fascinates game by its gaze. By the same pull of their draw net they enveloped in its meshes both the setter and the prey that it held spellbound. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various
... him, but was grateful to him with a frankness that only natures so pliant and so sweet have the gift to show. In a few hours, as it seemed to him, she had passed from fevered anguish into a state which held him often spellbound before her, so consonant was it to the mystical instincts of his own life. He thought of her with the tenderest reverence, the most sacred rejoicing. Through his intercourse with her, moreover, while he guided and sustained her, he had ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Mrs. Barker stood there spellbound, silenced. To be sure, if Miss Esther's head was so busy with the angels, she was in a sort lifted up above the small matters or accidents of common earthly life. And as much as the words the girl's face awed her too, its expression ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... without pausing. The dancers separated, each group to itself, the gray panther in the foreground. Spellbound, the boy watched the beautiful swaying creature. He had been taught to fear the "painter," as it was called in Arkansaw, but he had no fear now. He almost felt that he must himself step out into that enchanted circle and join ...
— The Arkansaw Bear - A Tale of Fanciful Adventure • Albert Bigelow Paine
... hear every sound that the world contains,—birds singing and wind whistling, children laughing and children crying, people talking and people quarrelling, pretty sounds and ugly sounds, one after another, until the children were spellbound with astonishment. ...
— All the Way to Fairyland - Fairy Stories • Evelyn Sharp
... gray eyes took her literally, since his nation are not slow at seizing opportunity. He launched without a word more of preliminary into a lecture on Germany that lasted hours and held his audience spellbound. It was colorful, complete, and it did not seem to have been memorized. ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... dreamy languor of her large, dark eyes, made a hundred-fold more effective by the silvery whiteness of her hair, which had partly escaped from her comb, and fell upon her neck! And then her sublime, tranquil indifference! That I was near, spellbound with admiration, did not interest her so much as a sail, no larger than a gull's wing, far ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... my breath, without wiping the cold sweat from my face, I rose instantly on my knees to watch the bedtop. I was literally spellbound by it. If I had heard footsteps behind me, I could not have turned round; if a means of escape had been miraculously provided for me, I could not have moved to take advantage of it. The whole life in me was, at that moment, ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... suddenly by the couch with an air of having forgotten all about the errand which had brought her into the room, clasped her hands round her knee, and began a series of disconnected childish memories, while Sylvia gazed spellbound at the beautiful, dreamy face, and wondered how she could ever have thought ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... sacred slope The small Plataean band Bring hearts that swell with patriot hope, To wield a common brand With Theseus' sons, at danger's gates, While spellbound Sparta stands, And for the pale moon's changes waits With stiff and stolid hands; And hath no share in the glory rare, That Athens shall make her own, When the long-haired Mede with fearful speed Falls ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... but stood spellbound like his young companions at what was taking place, for Don Ramon was better supplied with information than he had believed, and as the attacking forces of the enemy sprang up, he found that the direction of the battery's fire had been altered to left and right, and the attacking ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... their Superiors sat spellbound. They quite forgot the preacher, and were carried away by his words into a greater love of God. When at last he ceased, and walked quietly down from the pulpit, his eyes on the ground, deep humility in his heart, his hearers ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... cautiously traversing it, bent on spying out its weaknesses, was attracted to a large tent within which Charlemagne was attending the service of the mass. Led by an irresistible impulse, the pagan entered the tent, and stood gazing in spellbound wonder at the ceremony, marvelling what the strange and impressive performance meant. As the priest elevated the host, the chief, with astounded eyes, beheld in it the image of a child, of dazzling and unearthly beauty. He could not conceal his ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... heart and trembling finger, He stooped the wondrous gem to clasp, But, spellbound, seemed a while to linger, Ere yet he made ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... ready wit. One time during the final act of Rip Van Winkle, a young countryman in the gallery was so carried away that he quite lost his bearings and seemed to be about to climb over the outer railing. The audience, spellbound by the actor, nevertheless saw the rustic, and its attention was being divided between the two when Jefferson reached that point in the action of the piece where Rip is amazed by the docility of his wife under the ill usage of her second husband. He took in ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... and Mamma with the two girls settled down to needlework. Mamma's kindly interest invited confidence under these pleasant circumstances, and it was not long before the young man was pouring his story into her sympathetic ears. Prudence listened spellbound. It was not often that one had romance brought to one's very door—by a hero with a sprained ankle too! Such a romantic affliction! But Mollie was too much preoccupied by that haunting likeness to listen properly to what the hero was saying, ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... We sat spellbound as Garrick unfolded the dreadful, awe-inspiring possibilities of the machine behind the screen. He walked slowly to the back of ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... last a female form, wildly flinging her arms into the air, could be seen emerging from the half buried chair. Glenville and Barton had run away before the chair fell, but, hearing the fall, looked back, and were at first spellbound with terror at what had happened. When, however, they saw the Drag emerge, they fairly fled for their lives by a circuitous way little frequented by night, and reached home just before the rest of us arrived. There was some alarm when Miss Candlish did not arrive for about twenty minutes ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... emotion. And that man's Joseph Conrad. Perhaps in his youth the sea came upon him too suddenly, or his boyhood sea-dreams awed too deeply his then unformed mind. At all events, the men in his stories are like lonely spirits, sailing, spellbound, through the immense forces surrounding the world. "There they are," one of them says, as he stands at the rail, "stars, sun, sea, light, darkness, space, great waters; the formidable Work of the Seven Days, into which man seems to have ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... wind, 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 much as noticing ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... accosted by a very pretty little woman, Kariana, wife of Dumba, who, very neatly dressed, was returning from a visit. At first she came trotting after me, then timidly paused, then advanced, and, as I approached, stood spellbound at my remarkable appearance. At last recovering herself, she woh-wohed with all the coquetry of a Mganda woman, and a flirtation followed; she must see my hair, my watch, the contents of my pockets—everything; but that was not enough. I waved adieu, but still she followed. I offered ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... first moment she had loved it. Throughout the long railway journey and during the five mile drive from the station, she had anticipated, and the actuality had outstripped her anticipation. The beauty of the park, the herds of grazing deer, had delighted her; the old grey house itself had stayed her spellbound. She had not imagined anything half so lovely, so impressively enduring. She had seen nothing to compare with its fine proportions, with the luxury of its setting. It differed utterly from the French Chateaux where she had visited; ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
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