"Talismanical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... apathy of the present age, that the accomplished swindler, of exterior allurement, intermixes, sans inquiry, with honourable rank; and even where inquiry is deemed necessary, all minor considerations vanish before the talismanic influence of Wealth! "Is he rich? Incalculably so! Then, let's have him, by all means." Thus the initiated of Chesterfield obtain admission into polished society, although the Principles of Politeness inculcated by that nobleman, contain, as a celebrated lexicographer said of them, "the morals ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... be demonstrated. In the present, as in many other instances, this thoughtful and elegant writer has perceived an important truth, but only by halves. Finding, in the case of geometrical axioms, that general names have not any talismanic virtue for conjuring new truths out of the well where they lie hid, and not seeing that this is equally true in every other case of generalization, he contended that axioms are in their nature barren of consequences, and that the really fruitful truths, the real first principles ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... was excessive. This talismanic word changes the current of my thoughts at once. It had so often and so powerfully operated in my favour, that I could scarcely doubt its effect once more; yet before me were the stern realities of confinement. What spell was equal to those stonewalls, what dexterity of man or friendship, or even ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... the distinguished body was memorable. They adopted the celebrated "Georgia Platform," whose utterances were talismanic. Charles J. Jenkins reported the resolutions. They recited, first, that Georgia held the American Union secondary in importance to the rights and principles it was bound to perpetuate. That as the thirteen original colonies found union impossible without compromise, the thirty-one of ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... abstracted, is less full than might have been expected. The ascending-room (which the Persian prince describes as "rising like an eagle with large wings into the atmosphere, till, after an hour's time, it stopped in the sky, and opened its beak, so that we came out") he merely alludes to as "the talismanic process by which I was carried to the upper regions;" and though the panoramic view of London is pronounced to be, "of all the wonders of the metropolis the most wonderful," it is dismissed with the remark that "it is useless to attempt to describe it in detail. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... pathways for elves. But the connection between lightning and plants extends over a wide area, and Germany is rich in legends relative to this species of folk-lore. Thus there is the magic springwort, around which have clustered so many curious lightning myths and talismanic properties. By reason of its celestial origin this much-coveted plant, when buried in the ground at the summit of a mountain, has the reputation of drawing down the lightning and dividing the storm. It is difficult, however, ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... most painfully with her noblest product. I was not without hours of deep spiritual insight, and consciousness of the inheritance of vast powers. I touched the secret of the universe, and by that touch was invested with talismanic power which has never left me, though it sometimes lies dormant for a ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... have often longed for a sight of that precious bit of arolite, that talismanic moon-stone and bewildering boulder, to which the lips of all devoted to infantile education must ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Prince Charlie' of our faithful beau-ideal, still the same eagle-featured royal bird which I had seen on his own mountains, when he spread his wings towards the south; and once more I felt the thrilling talismanic influence of his appearance, the sight so dear, so deeply-rooted in the hearts of the ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... stimulated to a still closer, happier, and not restless search after fuller possession. The man that knows where to get anything and everything that he needs, and to whom desires are but the prophets of instantaneous fruition; surely that man has in his possession the talismanic secret of perpetual gladness. They who thus dwell in Christ by faith, love, obedience, imitation, aspiration, and enjoyment, are like men housed in some strong fortress, who can look out over all the fields alive with enemies, and feel that they are safe. They who thus dwell in Christ ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Shakespeare's works of any belief in the many quaint and curious superstitions current in his day regarding the talismanic or curative virtues of precious stones. This is quite in keeping with the thoroughly sane outlook upon life that constituted the strong foundation of his incomparable mind. Not but that, like every true poet, the sense of mystery, ...
— Shakespeare and Precious Stones • George Frederick Kunz
... His voice sounded to himself very far away. Suddenly the external world, too, seemed removed to a distance, far from his centre of consciousness. He felt himself moving in strange and distorted surroundings; he heard himself repeating to each of a number of wavering, gigantic figures the talismanic words that had accomplished the dissolution of the earth for himself: "They've opened the channel." At last he felt hard planks beneath his feet, and, shaking his head with an effort, he made out the pilot-house of the SPRITE and a hollow-eyed man leaning against ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... the phaeton, drawn by two fine bays, is called the White Doe, from her first deer protector; and although somewhat on the decline, she is yet an exhibit of no mean attraction, and a lady of fortune. Thanks to the liberality of an old hewer of stone, and the talismanic powers of the golden Ball, deserted by her last swain since his marriage, she now reclines upon the velvet cushion of Independence, enjoying in the Kilburn retreat, her otium cum dignitate, secure from the rude winds ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... scruples, and permitting me to shawl her. One has always a tremendous power of argument with the uninitiated abroad, by a reference to a standard of manners and habits totally different from our own. Thus the talismanic words—"Oh! don't be shocked; remember you are in France," did more to satisfy my young friend's mind than all I could have said for an hour. Little did she know that in England only, has an unmarried young lady any liberty, and that the standard of foreign propriety on this ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... my bed, I was longing to lie down in it; and having made those ablutions which our journey rendered necessary, I at length lay down, having first religiously stuck my talismanic pin, with the head of sealing-wax, ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... she withdrew her hand and motioned Eloisa to a corner among the cushions on the curving marble slab, grotesquely wrought with talismanic symbols, which outlined the end of the loggia where they sat. "Thou art come a-propos: for the Lady Margherita hath promised us a tale of ancient Cyprus, and we of Venice wish to know these legends of our ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... He supped in her company. Then he would have embraced her. So he drew her to his bosom, and immediately the girl collapsed in his arms like a dead thing, as she is always wont to do whenever a man touches her, at the same time uttering certain magical talismanic words of evil portent, from which may the Prophet guard every true believer! For she spoke the name of that holy woman whose counterfeit presentment the Giaours carry upon their banners, and whose name they pronounce when ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... those bygone times. Yet those sequences remain intact, cried aloud by indifferent voices and cast out from empty hearts, plead, groan, and implore even with efficacy, by their virtual power, their talismanic might, their inalienable beauty by the almighty confidence of their faith. The Middle Ages have left us these to help us to save, if it may be, the soul of the modern and ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... need for any of his money—we had plenty of our own then!—that the old Magic Cabinet, as he called it, had once been the property of a rich Rajah, who had received it from the hands of a wise Buddhist priest; that there was something talismanic about it, which gave it the power of averting misfortune from its owners; and that it would be a great mistake ever to part ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... evenings with some fair female friend, and he heartily wished that his name were James or John, and that he were an ordinary farmer's son who could earn his living without going out for it into the wide, wide world. So may Dick Whittington have meditated as he trudged the London road, but Amyntas had no talismanic cat and no church bells rang him inspiring messages. Besides, Dick Whittington had in him from his birth the makings of a Lord Mayor—he had the golden mediocrity which is the surest harbinger of success. But to Amyntas the world seemed ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... fill the glass, with scientific nicety of proportion, from both pots at once, launches into it a thin slice of lemon, and then pronounces the talismanic word ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... spoke Robert Edward Lee, the soldier, hero, Christian, and philanthropist: and when we come to study the life and character of WILLIAM HENRY FITZHUGH LEE we are impressed with the fact that he took duty as his talismanic word, that it was the star that guided him, and that he followed it as faithfully as the "wise men" followed the Star from "the East" to Jerusalem ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various
... dinner that night, Ruth was no longer an interesting phenomenon, something figuratively to tear apart and investigate: she was talismanic. So long as she stood beside him, the Hand would ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... Quicksilver for Mercury and Lead for Saturn. Each finds it own sphere of action within the temporary abiding place of the human soul on earth—the physical body. So, likewise, the twelve constellations and their corresponding talismanic gems, representing in their glittering array the anatomical Zodiac of the human frame, and typifying the spiritual quality of the atoms, there congregated, in every degree of life. These, and a thousand other mysteries, had we ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... long-dead roses rustle through the winding passages, where the windows are hung with cobwebs, greyed at last from iridescence to despairing shadows, a barrier may fall at the sound of a talismanic name, for the hands of women are small and slow to build and the hearts of women ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... his descent from the celebrated historian of that name, but will not insist upon this genealogy. As for the studies, from certain signs we fancy them tending towards theology; the descendant of Egyptian priests is to become a Christian clergyman! Nevertheless, he still wears his talismanic ring. Does he believe it saved him from the crocodile? Does his Christian enlightenment not set him free from ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... of the Joan of Arc episode (and this adds to its marvel), it was the wind that brought the talismanic gift. It was a day in early November—bleak, bitter, and gusty, with curling snow; most persons were indoors. Samuel Clemens, going down Main Street, saw a flying bit of paper pass him and lodge against ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... or down to the depths of hell; if she had been fenced about in a rock-girt fortress, or if wrathful archangels had guarded her with flaming swords, she would not have been so completely shielded from him as by that talismanic name—"Madame ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... beginning to the end of Chaldaean civilization the custom was preserved of consecrating a building by hiding in its substance objects to which a divine type and an engraved text gave both a talismanic and a commemorative value. ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... not raise his eyes from his talismanic ring; it might have been supposed that it had fascinated him. Still, his expression denoted profound commiseration, and he shook his head thoughtfully. The idea had occurred to him that this unfortunate ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... of the ceremony, the sakaki branches used in it were eagerly bid for, and sold at high prices, being believed to possess talismanic virtues. ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... large fellow, standing over six feet, with the neck and shoulders of a Hercules. Besides being guide, he is a fundi, sometimes called Fundi Asmani, or hunter. A very superstitious man, who takes great care of his gun, and talismanic plaited cord, which he has dipped in the blood of all the animals he has ever shot. He is afraid of lions, and will never venture out where lions are known to be. All other animals he regards as game, and is indefatigable ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... knew what had become of him. His power only belonged to him under certain conditions, and, happily for him, during those two days he was a private soldier in the service of the demon to whom he owed his talismanic existence. But at the appointed time, in the evening, he was waiting—and he had not long to wait—for the carriage. The mulatto approached Henri, in order to repeat to him in French a phrase which he seemed to ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... stretched, and stretched and rubbed, until the poor sufferer's limb is nearly severed from his body. Manipulation ought to have made the fourth mode of cure laid down by my marabout, after burning, blood-letting, and talismanic writing. However, I believe manipulation, aided by the bath, frequently effects important cures. Some Moors indeed, consider this the sovereign remedy for every hurt and disease. Found the Touatee again with the Rais. He amused us both by giving his opinion about the inexhaustible ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... uttered the talismanic word in the thinnest thread of a whisper and instantly she stopped. You could spell Whoa! on your fingers, and she would stop. You could take a pencil and a piece of paperout of your pocket and write down Whoa!—and she would stop; but, compared ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... supplied from Jewish sources to Mr. Gordon Hills, who states that Falk was "in touch with the French Court in the person of 'Prince Emanuel,'[490] whom he describes as a servant of the King of France," and adds that the talismanic ring which he gave to the Due d'Orleans "is still in the possession of the family, having passed to King Louis Philippe and thence ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... beyond him, but he looked amazingly considerate—delicately rubbed his polished forehead with the second finger of the right hand, then regarded his ring, and turned it thrice slowly round, but the talismanic action produced nothing, and he received timely relief by a new turn given to the conversation, in which he was not, he thought, called upon to take any share—the question indeed appeared to him irrelevant, and ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... had wrought itself into the vitals of mankind, and choked their original nature in its deadly gripe. Yet how powerless over these young inheritors of earth's hoarded wealth! And here, too, are huge, packages of back-notes, those talismanic slips of paper which once had the efficacy to build up enchanted palaces like exhalations, and work all kinds of perilous wonders, yet were themselves but the ghosts of money, the shadows of a shade. How like is this vault to a magician's ...
— The New Adam and Eve (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... acquired more and more a mystical significance in Mazzini's mind; the very name of Rome, for instance, had for him a sort of talismanic fascination, not unlike that possessed by Jerusalem for the mediaeval Christian. When he spoke of the people or the republic he frequently used those terms in an ideal and visionary sense (as theologians use the Church) rather than in one strictly corresponding ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... such a traffic? Suppose he could, with the same ease, diffuse profaneness, and insanity, and robberies, and murders, and suicides, and should advertise all these to be propagated through the land, and could prevail on men to buy the talismanic nostrum for gold—what would the community think of such a traffic as this? True, he might plead that it brought a vast influx of money—that it enriched the city, or the country—that the effects were not seen there; but what would be the public ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... What talismanic virtue this prophet of evil attributes to a vote in the hand of a Negro out of Barbados, where for years the black man's vote has been operating, harmlessly enough, Heaven knows, we cannot imagine. At all events, as ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... even more strange were attempted: paradoxical as it may seem, they were used to cover up crime. Fort tells us that among nuns and consecrated women in convents, some erring sisters applied the preventive talismanic influence of a sacred shirt or girdle to suppress the manifestation of conventual irregularities of a sexual character. Animals as well as human beings were treated for sickness, and relics were used to free captive birds ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... sought in her face for some trace of the ideal loveliness which only the other day, so it seemed, had made her so charming. She began to fancy that the woman was under some evil spell and that if anyone could but repeat the talismanic word, her former loveliness would be restored ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... view, the last structure to fade being the grand and sacred old Abbey. During my first fourteen years of absence my thought was almost daily, as it was that morning, "When shall I see you again?" Few days passed in which I did not see in my mind's eye the talismanic letters on the Abbey tower—"King Robert The Bruce." All my recollections of childhood, all I knew of fairyland, clustered around the old Abbey and its curfew bell, which tolled at eight o'clock every evening and ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... Fritz," replied Eric cheerfully, the name of the skipper having the talismanic effect of making him curb his own wishes anent the immediate exploration of the island, which he had planned out for the next day's programme. "We'll do the garden ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... effect he was speaking, while I, standing by the chair in which he sat, toyed with his hand, and gazed curiously upon the talismanic jewel, and got into my mind an impression of it that never was lost. My uncle soon after left the house, and we ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... field-sports, or [188] bodily exercises, or business, or popular agitation,—who take up with one of these exclusively, and neglect Mr. Smith's nobler master- concern, because of the mechanical form which Hebraism has given to this nobler master-concern, making it stand, as we have said, as something talismanic, isolated, and all-sufficient, justifying our giving our ordinary selves free play in amusement, or business, or popular agitation, if we have made our accounts square with this master-concern; and, if we have ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... signalizing the collapse of the Confederacy at Richmond. The President, at the front, sent the news of victories to the Cabinet at home. After the battles, the advance of the triumphing Unionists. On Monday morning Lincoln was enabled to telegraph the talismanic words so often dreamed of in the last agonizing years ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... the medius terminus—my uncle Toby was in fact as ignorant of the whole lecture, and all its pros and cons, as if my father had been translating Hafen Slawkenbergius from the Latin tongue into the Cherokee. But the word siege, like a talismanic power, in my father's metaphor, wafting back my uncle Toby's fancy, quick as a note could follow the touch—he open'd his ears—and my father observing that he took his pipe out of his mouth, and shuffled his chair nearer the table, as with a desire to profit—my father with great pleasure ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... "The Arabian Nights' Entertainments," one may read of Spirits good, and bad, and indifferent; of slaves of lamps, of rings and amulets, and talismanic charms; and of the marvels and wonders they performed. But never did Afrit, Djinn, or Genie perform greater miracles than steady-eyed, soft-voiced Peterby. For if the far away Orient has its potent charms and spells, so, in this less romantic Occident, have we also a spell whereby all things are ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... of the commencement of the deluge, and seven persons accompanied him into the ark, which rested on Mount Ararat on the seventh month; Solomon was seven years in building the temple: and there are hundreds of other instances of the prominence of this talismanic number, if there were either time ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... knowledge of the art of diamond-cutting; but it is at the same time very clear, that the nations of the West knew nothing of it till a very late period. Even to the latter part of the fifteenth century, the diamond was appreciated principally for its supposed talismanic properties and its hardness; and as that hardness prevented its hidden beauties from being brought to light by cutting and polishing, it was regarded more as a rare cabalistic curiosity than a precious ornament. Some diamonds, however, whose natural form and polish ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... (we have Books that already number some hundred-and-fifty human ages); and yearly comes its new produce of leaves (Commentaries, Deductions, Philosophical, Political Systems; or were it only Sermons, Pamphlets, Journalistic Essays), every one of which is talismanic and thaumaturgic, for it can persuade men. O thou who art able to write a Book, which once in the two centuries or oftener there is a man gifted to do, envy not him whom they name City-builder, and inexpressibly ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... much esteemed among neighbouring clergy for his unostentatious manners and general worth. He frequently officiated in the Parish Church. Eventually he went to Chester, as Curate of St. John's Church in that city, where he remained many years, taking pupils. There was probably a talismanic attraction in the name of Grosvenor; Eaton Hall, the seat of Lord Grosvenor (now Duke of Westminster) being in the immediate vicinity. He was consequently very successful in obtaining pupils; and made money, whereby he acquired considerable ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... curious devices, highly elaborate and ingenious. The balconies outside were generally filled with flowers of various hues: but notwithstanding the wonders which surrounded me, and made me fancy myself in a world of talismanic creation, my spirits were for some time depressed, and this immense city seemed to me worse than the tomb; for I had not yet recovered from the bewilderment into which all that I had ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... the firing-line, now that neither shot nor shell could harm her boy. 'For He shall give His angels charge over thee.' She had come to think her secret daily repetition of the ninety-first Psalm talismanic. ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... placing at the same time in his hands, as tokens by which she might afterwards be recognised, various costly ornaments, especially a ring which had been given her by the king at their nuptials, bearing "the royal symbol engraven within a circle on the talismanic stone Pantarbe," and a fillet on which was embroidered, in the Ethiopic character,[59] the story of the child's birth. Under the guardianship of Sisimithres, she remained seven years; till, fearing for her safety if she continued in Ethiopia, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... the little glass box by the entrance to the library inspected us and passed us on, with a silent benediction, to the lobby, whence (when I had handed my stick to a bald-headed demigod and received a talismanic disc in exchange) we entered the enormous rotunda of ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... kept? We have often longed for a sight of that precious bit of aerolite, that talismanic moon-stone and bewildering boulder, to which the lips of all devoted to infantile education must ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... after the Restoration, and in which Monsieur and Madame de Mortsauf both took the deepest interest, the Cassine and the Rhetoriere, move me more than the sacred names of the Holy Land or of Greece? "Who loves, knows!" cried La Fontaine. Those names possess the talismanic power of words uttered under certain constellations by seers; they explain magic to me; they awaken sleeping forms which arise and speak to me; they lead me to the happy valley; they recreate skies and landscape. ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... was like a triumphal journey. All hands were in high spirits. The gloom of a few hours before was dispelled by the talismanic words, "'Yankee' and 'Niagara' will sail ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... that had suddenly started up; and yet the accursed diamond began to haunt him,—the German authority was so positive on the point, and that authority had in many respects been accurate. Nor was this all,—the diamond was to be no vulgar diamond; it was to be endowed, by talismanic skill, with certain properties and virtues; it was to be for a certain number of hours exposed to the rays of the full moon; it was to be washed in a primitive and wondrous elixir, the making of which consumed no little of the finest gold. This ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... choicest warriors instantly volunteered to follow Blue John in this hazardous enterprise. They prepared for it with the solemnity and devotion peculiar to the tribe. Blue John consulted his medicine, or talismanic charm, such as every chief keeps in his lodge as a supernatural protection. The oracle assured him that his enterprise would be completely successful, provided no rain should fall before he had passed through the defile; but should ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... imagine, before starting, that should he reach such a country as Italy, he will there feel as if home was very distant, and the events of his former life far removed in point of time. He thinks that a journey across the Alps has somehow a talismanic power to change him. He crosses the Alps, but finds that he is the same man still. Home has come with him: the friendships, the joys, the sorrows, of his past existence are as near as ever; nay, far nearer, for now he is alone with them; and though he goes southward, and kingdoms and mountain-chains ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... thought not of himself in time of danger, but was ready to serve in any way, and to sacrifice official rank and self-glorification to the good of the cause. He was eminently a soldier for the occasion. His name has long been a favorite one with young and old; one of the talismanic names of the Revolution, the very mention of which is like the sound of a trumpet. Such names are the precious jewels of our history, to be garnered up among the treasures of the nation, and kept immaculate from the tarnishing breath of the ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... taken, without exception, from the class of Grecian citizens, who are represented in the ordinary routine of polished social existence, amidst their gardens of villas, and occupied by their banquets and processions, and the business of their courts of law. There are no unexpected revelations, no talismanic rings, no mysterious secret affecting the fortunes of any of the personages, who are all presented to us at the commencement in their proper names and characters. The interest of the story, as in the Ethiopics, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... (Leber, Inventaires, p. 235.) The description "de alba awmbre," as in the enumeration of strings of beads appended to the shrine of S^r William, at York Minster, may have been in distinction from jet, to which, as well as to amber, certain virtuous or talismanic properties were attributed. There were, however, several kinds of amber,—succinum rubrum, fulvum, &c. The learned professor of Copenhagen, Olaus Worm, alludes to the popular notions and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 67, February 8, 1851 • Various
... Neither would he. "Scots wa hae," "Let us do or die," implanted before his teens, has pulled many a Scottish boy through the crises of life when all was dark, as it will pull others yet to come. Altho Burns and Scott had yet to appear, to crystallise Scotland's characteristics and plant the talismanic words into the hearts of young Scots, Watt had a copious supply of the national sentiment, to give him the "stout heart for the stye brae," when manhood arrived. His mother had planted deep in him, and nurtured, precious seed from her Celtic garden, ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... mysterious titles, or are difficult of attainment. Man has been so long accustomed to regard with a species of awe the hieroglyphics on orthodox prescriptions, that he finds it difficult to dissociate from it the idea of talismanic power. ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... declared purpose, added much to its strength. "In great revolutions," she says, "confusion in popular ideas is fatal. The South avoided this. She set up one idea as paramount; she seized a great principle and uttered it. She shouted the talismanic words, 'Oppression and Liberty,' and said, 'Let us achieve our purpose or die!' The masses, blinded by falsehood, caught the spirit of the leaders, and verily believe they are struggling for freedom. We have ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... out in search of adventure, rescued the suffering, and righted wrong, just as Krishna, Perseus, Theseus, OEdipus, Romulus, Remus, Siegfried, and Wolf-Dietrich did before him. He is an Aryan legendary and mythical hero-type that has existed for ages. The talismanic cup and spear are equally ancient; they have figured in legend from time immemorial. The incidents of their quest, the agonies wrought by their sight, their mission as inviters of sympathetic interest, and the failure ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... began Bazarov, 'reminds me of my childhood; it grows at the edge of the clay-pits where the bricks were dug, and in those days I believed firmly that that clay-pit and aspen-tree possessed a peculiar talismanic power; I never felt dull near them. I did not understand then that I was not dull, because I was a child. Well, now I'm grown up, the talisman's lost ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... witness, angels have recorded, that he is worthy of praise. Therefore, in no cold and measured terms shall the writer speak of the dear and venerated dead, Abram J. Ryan, priest and poet — once magic name, still revered and possessed of talismanic power. If we cannot crown thee, O child of genius, with a wreath of justice, let us, at least, endeavor to crown thee with a garland of love, composed of thy ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... course no chance Directed. Talismanic art Thou held by this nomadic tribe: For, when the First Wacumic ruled The band, from all the hosts of field And feathery flock of heaven, thou wert Elected Totem. Favored One! Their fate forever linked to thine; Thy image crested ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... and raised me from a lowly position. I had been imprisoned and escaped; I had been shot at, without scathe. I had gained what I prized most in all the world. I fear I exaggerated; certainly I had never before ascribed any talismanic power to the coin which I had kept for no other purpose than to humiliate the man who had humiliated me. But in this extremity I saw the possibility of working on the negro's superstitious mind, and I would ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... articles are conveyed for sale. If there were a road from Mombas direct to Bornou, this agate would be cheap enough. But then, perhaps, it would not be esteemed or valued at half its present cost. It would not be blessed at Mekka, and so lose all its talismanic and mysterious power. The name is derived from Yaman, evidently from the first country in Arabia, to which they were brought ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... large loose nest on the summit of a tall tree, and she abandons her home when the hand of man has violated it. The Somal have many superstitions connected with this hawk: if it touch a child the latter dies, unless protected by the talismanic virtues of the "Hajar Abodi," a stone found in the bird's body. As it frequently swoops upon children carrying meat, the belief has doubtlessly ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... for seeing poor people at his house, he was too good-natured to keep strictly to them, and this day, as Flora had predicted, there was a procession of them not soon got rid of, even by his rapid queries and the talismanic figures made by his left hand on scraps of paper, with which he sent them off to the infirmary. Ethel tried to read; the children lingered about; it was a trial of temper to all but Tom, who obtained Richard's attention to his lessons. ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... return and be taken also," he continued rapidly. "Come, Katharine," he said more loudly, rising. "Dearest child, we must go,—you must bear this, my daughter; it is for our country we suffer." But the talismanic word apparently had lost its charm ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... the silver current which flowed steadily from the Spanish coffers into India went many of the emeralds also; for in those regions this gem is regarded as foreign stone, and the natives, investing it with the possession of certain talismanic properties, prize it above ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... inesculent vegetable) who or what sucks up either the water or the infection. I think the proximity of wine a matter of much more importance than the longinquity of water. You are here within a quarter of a mile of the Thames, but in the cellar of my friend, Mr. Crotchet, there is the talismanic antidote of a thousand dozen of old wine; a beautiful spectacle, I assure you, and a model ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... prayer[FN38] in gratitude to God for my preservation. Then I fell asleep under the dome and saw in a dream one who said to me, "O son of Khesib, when thou awakest, dig under thy feet and thou wilt find a bow of brass and three leaden arrows, inscribed with talismanic characters. Take the bow and shoot the arrows at the horseman on the top of the dome and rid mankind of this great calamity. When thou shootest at him, he will fall into the sea and the horse will drop ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... to-day—and I want you to take possession of the whole of the back seat, put yourself in a comfortable position, and spend the rest of the daylight in Italy with my sister. When it gets dark you may go to sleep. And here is the talismanic paper by whose help you must ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... had thus one end, that of the transference of spirit force—to the gods, to the victor who suspended the head from his house, and to all who drank from the skull. Represented in bas-relief on houses or carved on dagger-handles, the head may still have been thought to possess talismanic properties, giving power to house or weapon. Possibly this cult of human heads may have given rise to the idea of a divine head like those figured on Gaulish images, or described, e.g., in the story of Bran. His head preserved the land from invasion, until Arthur ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... heard the gay, manly voice of Mr. Jerrold, in an animated conversation with Helen, who now, in her right element, laughed and talked incessantly. Again welled up the bitter fountain in her heart, but that talismanic word dispersed it, and it was gone, like spray melting on the sunny shores of the sea. When she placed the supper on the table, she moved around with such calm self-possession—such an airy, light motion of modest grace, that Walter Jerrold, who ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... string, which they loosen when at prayer, and which a Parsee is never, under any circumstances, permitted to dispense with. No engagement or business transaction is legally binding if by any chance this talismanic cord was left off by either party when the contract was made. The cord is first placed on children when they have completed their ninth year, and this serves to mark the most important epoch of their lives. Before ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... there is a dome of fine brass, supported by pillars of the same metal, and on the top of that dome stands a horse, likewise of brass, with a rider on his back, who has a plate or lead fixed to his breast, upon which some talismanic characters are engraver. Sir, the tradition is, that this statue is the chief cause why so many ships and men have been lost and sunk in this place, and that it will ever continue to be fatal to all ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... frolicking, racing, playing ball, driving hoop, &c., but contriving to do it without making a hideous racket. How French children are taught to play and enjoy themselves without disturbing every body else, is a mystery. "C'est gentil" seems to be a talismanic spell; and "Ce n'est pas gentil ca" is sufficient to check every rising irregularity. O that some savant would write a book and tell us how it is done! I gazed for half an hour on the spectacle. A more charming sight my eyes ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the western extremity of the county, where numerous objects have been found at various times on the shifting of the sand, such as firearms, an astrolabe, and silver dollars. This ring is of gold, much bent and defaced, and inscribed with mystic words inside and outside the hoop. Their talismanic character seems to be sufficiently proved by the English medical manuscript preserved at Stockholm, already alluded to, in which, among various cabalistic prescriptions, is one "for peynes in theth.... Boro ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... in thine Eastern chamber Rehearse the dream that brings the long release: Through jasmine sweet and talismanic amber Inhaling Herba Santa in ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville |
