Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Ravishing   /rˈævɪʃɪŋ/   Listen
Ravishing

adjective
1.
Stunningly beautiful.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Ravishing" Quotes from Famous Books



... regard yourself, and pronounce that you are ravishing," Victorine said at length, folding her hands with a sigh of satisfaction, as she fell back in an ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... club's guest at a supper under the shade-trees in the exhibition grounds. Mr. Kosztovitz and another gentleman who can speak English act as interpreters, and here, amid the merry clinking of champagne-glasses, the glare of electric lights, with the ravishing music of an Hungarian gypsy band on our right, and a band of swarthy Servians playing their sweet native melodies on our left, we, among other toasts, drink to the success of my tour. There is a cosmopolitan and exceedingly interesting crowd of visitors at the international exhibition: ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... manner. The Spirit comes upon the soul in waves of terrible power. Now in a rapture God descends upon the soul, catching her suddenly up in a marvellous embrace: magnetising her, ravishing her. He is come, and He is gone. In an ecstasy the soul goes out prepared to meet Him, seeking Him by praise and prayer, pouring up her love towards Him; and He, condescending to her, fills her with unspeakable delights, and at rare times ...
— The Golden Fountain - or, The Soul's Love for God. Being some Thoughts and - Confessions of One of His Lovers • Lilian Staveley

... said Vendramin, "do not omit the last service that my elixir will do me. After hearing ravishing voices and imbibing music through every pore, after experiencing the keenest pleasures and the fiercest delights of Mahomet's paradise, I see none but the most terrible images. I have visions of my beloved Venice full of children's faces, distorted, like those of the dying; of women covered with ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac

... mother to be made slaves and carried to Morocco. You may easily imagine all we had to suffer on board the pirate vessel. My mother was still very handsome; our maids of honour, and even our waiting women, had more charms than are to be found in all Africa. As for myself, I was ravishing, was exquisite, grace itself, and I was a virgin! I did not remain so long; this flower, which had been reserved for the handsome Prince of Massa Carara, was plucked by the corsair captain. He was an abominable negro, and yet believed that he did me a great deal of honour. Certainly the ...
— Candide • Voltaire

... watched it following upon the unconscious footsteps of the girl Esmay. Then, again, the fair-haired woman who only a few minutes ago had come to meet Quinton Edge on the north terrace, an apparition so ravishing that Constans must needs confound it with the flesh-and-blood presentment ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... all the delights of love. The idea I have formed of it is quite seductive. Do you think that deep in my heart I desire to enjoy its charms less than you? But the more its image is ravishing to my imagination, the more I fear it is not real, and I refuse to yield to it lest my happiness be too soon destroyed. Ah, if I could only hope that my happiness might endure, how feeble would be my resistance? But will you not abuse my credulity? Will you not some day punish me for having ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.

... like you to have a style of your own, but it looks odd and people will think you are mean if you don't make more show. Besides, you don't do justice to your beauty, which would be both peculiar and striking if you'd devote your mind to getting up ravishing costumes." ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... eatable food in one dish, and like things vile and refuse with wine in one cup, and thus eat and drink: in this manner they act with the love of the sex, fornication and keeping a mistress, with adultery of a milder sort, of a grievous sort, and of a more grievous sort, yea with ravishing or defloration: moreover, they not only mingle all those things, but also mix them in marriages, and defile the latter with a like notion; but where it is the case, that the latter are not distinguished from the former, such persons, after their ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg

... obstinately rejected by my father, because it was merely fostering and giving scope to propensities, which he considered as hurtful, and because his avarice desired that this inheritance should fall to no one but himself. To me, it was a scheme of ravishing felicity, and to be debarred from it was a source of anguish known to few. I had too much experience of my father's pertinaciousness ever to hope for a change in his views; yet the bliss of living with my aunt, in a new and busy scene, and in the unbounded ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown

... had her dream—ravishing and brief—but the awakening was terrible as the struggle back to life from a swoon or deathful lethargy. As to thinking, I believe nobody thinks at such seasons. Nature shrinks in speechless horror at sight of the descending ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... a famous garden revealed itself. Amid the ruins of a cloister that had once formed part of the dissolved Cistercian priory on whose confiscated lands Castle Luton had arisen, a rich medley of flowers was in full and perfect bloom. Irises in every ravishing shade of purple, lilac, and gold, carpets of daffodils and narcissus, covered the ground, and ran into each corner and cranny of the old wall. Yellow banksia and white clematis climbed the crumbling shafts, or made new tracery for the empty windows, and ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... mystery how the Reverend Joshua Moody could have survived to write four thousand sermons, but it is no mystery why the Reverend John Mitchell was called "a truly aged young man" at thirty,—especially when we consider that he was successor at Cambridge to "the holy, heavenly, sweet-affecting, and soul-ravishing Mr. Shepard," in continuance of whose labors he kept a monthly lecture, "wherein he largely handled man's misery by sin and made a most entertaining exposition of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... mingled with the silver beams of the moon; around were the glittering tents and the silent woods; on all sides flashing eyes and picturesque forms. Cadurcis glanced at his companions, and gazed upon the scene with feelings of ravishing excitement; and then, almost unconscious of what he was saying, exclaimed, 'At length I have found ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli

... I should have done the deed, Had not sweet pleasure conquered deep despair. Have not I made blind Homer sing to me Of Alexander's love and Oenon's death? And hath not he, that built the walls of Thebes With ravishing sound of his melodious harp, Made music with my Mephistophilis? Why should I die, then, or basely despair? I am ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... Sylvia came in view! her irresistible Idea! With all the charms of blooming youth, with all the attractions of heavenly beauty! Loose, wanton, gay, all flowing her bright hair, and languishing her lovely eyes, her dress all negligent as when I saw her last, discovering a thousand ravishing graces, round, white, small breasts, delicate neck, and rising bosom, heaved with sighs she would in vain conceal; and all besides, that nicest fancy can imagine surprising—Oh I dare not think on, lest my desires grow mad and raving; let it suffice, oh adorable ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn

... will not vouch. Only of this be sure. 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy.' More and more the light peeps through the chinks. Soon, amidst music ravishing, the curtain will rise, and the glorious scene be displayed. Adieu! Remember me. Ha! 'tis dawn," Pinto ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... in soon after this, and before long the two girls had to go and dress for their dinner. Daisy, in the highest spirits, rushed in again to say good-night to the aunts before starting, a ravishing figure. ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson

... presence of an audience presided over by so great a man, and in the midst of so numerous and distinguished a gathering of learned men who come kindly disposed to hear. For my part, if I were skilled to make ravishing music on the lyre, I should never play save before crowded assemblies. ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius

... gazing around them the while and regarding the trees which bore for burthen ambergris and lign-aloes, sandal, cloves, and gelsamine,[FN35] all with flowers and fruits bedrest whose odours broadened the breast and excited the sprite. There also the birds warbled, with various voices, notes ravishing and rapturing the heart by the melodies of their musick. So Mubarak turned to the Prince and asked him saying, "How seest thou this place, O my lord?" and the other answered, "I deem, O Mubarak, that in very truth this be the Paradise promised to us by the Prophet ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... more and more clearly into his soul; an extraordinary light; a light at once ravishing and terrible. His past life, his first fault, his long expiation, his external brutishness, his internal hardness, his dismissal to liberty, rejoicing in manifold plans of vengeance, what had happened to him at the Bishop's, the last thing that he had done, that ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... sweet companions Than the old inmates to my love, my thoughts, I day by day frequented silent groves And solitary walks. One morning early This accident encounter'd me: I heard The sweetest and most ravishing contention That art and nature ever were at strife in. A sound of music touch'd mine ears, or rather Indeed entranced my soul; as I stole nearer, Invited by the melody, I saw This youth, this fair-faced youth, upon his ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford

... the abandoned stone, though dampness has since laid its blossoms of mouldy greenery upon it. On the facade, side by side with the tracery of one window, another window presents its masses of jagged stone carved only by the hand of time. Here, to the least artistic and the least trained eye, is a ravishing contrast between this frontage, where marvels throng, and the interior frontage of the chateau of Louis XII., which is composed of a ground-floor of arcades of fairy lightness supported by tiny columns resting at their base on a graceful platform, ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac

... Blinded, not of lust or ambition, but of ideality. Saul met Christ at noon, and was blinded by his vision; and would not all brave men covet blindness thus incurred? And better to be blinded, as Don Quixote, by a ravishing ideal, than to see, besotted in soul and shut out from God. That humorous figure astride lean Rosinante, esquired by pudgy, sensible Sancho; eager for chances to be of use; faithful to his love as dawn to sun; strong in his desire of being all eyes ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... forest, no longer in hunting garb, but dressed in Turkish trousers, vest and slippers with upturned toes. Jewels glittered about her waist and neck and arms, her wrists jangled with heavy bangles, in her ears two great pendants swayed—her eyelids were darkened and her lips reddened. She was a ravishing houri of the harem, and I gasped ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell

... skill. "I could not do it more neatly myself!" he said. "Oh, dear Miss Dobson, will you but accept my hand, all these things shall be yours—the cards, the canister, the goldfish, the demon egg-cup—all yours!" Zuleika, with ravishing coyness, answered that if he would give her them now, she would "think it over." The swain consented, and at bed-time she retired with the gift under her arm. In the light of her bedroom candle Marguerite hung not ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm

... few days of frightful illness she began to feel better, and was able to be moved from her cabin to the ladies' lounge. Wrapped in one or other of Diana's ravishing boudoir garments of silk and fur, she was supported there every morning, ensconced on the most luxurious sofa, and surrounded by attentions from the other semi-invalids. Nothing was too good for the peer's delightful daughter, and everyone behaved as if she were an angel ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley

... the first place that the requirement has been from time immemorial that wherever there is contest as between artistic and moral beauty, unless the moral side prevail, all is lost. Let any sculptor hew us out the most ravishing combination of tender curves and spheric softness that ever stood for woman; yet if the lip have a certain fulness that hints of the flesh, if the brow be insincere, if in the minutest particular ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... pretty,' said the hostess, speaking a few words of English, 'c'est mon dada, voyez-vous—ma collection! —Tenez—I cannot say dat in English, Monsieur; explain to your sister. My shoes are my passion, next to my foot. I am not pretty, but my foot is ravishing. Dalou modelled it for his Siren. That turned my head. Sit down, Mademoiselle—we will ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... about him, pulled himself together, and got up and looked at himself in a mirror. He was elegant and genteel, at any rate, that everybody would be bound to allow. His whole get-up was unexceptionable—his chin was clean-shaven, his moustache and whiskers were downright picturesque, his cravat was ravishing, and his vest magnificent. ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai

... which he was so regardful as to manage by gentle degrees, I took care not to complain. In the mean time, the soft strait passage gradually loosens, yields, and, stretched to its utmost bearing, by the stick, thick, indriven engine, sensible, at once, to the ravishing pleasure of the feel and the pain of the distension, let him in about half way, when all the most nervous activity he now exerted, to further his penetration, gained him not an inch of his purpose: for, ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... Majesties Royall approbation to our ecclesiastick constitutions, and conclusions, knowing that a truly Christian minde and royall heart inclined from above, to religion and piety, will at the first discern, and discerning be deeply possessed with the love of the ravishing beautie, and heavenly order of the house of God; they both proceeding from the same Spirit. But as the joy was unspeakable, and the hopes lively, which from the fountaines of your Majesties favour did fill our hearts, so were we not a little troubled, when wee ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland

... the universe With ECSTASIES of heat, of hue, of harmony! Its INNER gaze creating Life in Fact, So, robing sheer Reality in colors ravishing, Giving it Voice, forming within it Heart, And vitalizing All with Feeling—Being's blood. This is our Eye, ...
— Mastery of Self • Frank Channing Haddock

... he stepped out! the thunder had leapt into the west, the air was clean and sweet, and a ravishing scent came ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... Besides—ah—don't say anything about it to anybody up here, but I'm getting a trifle tired of Venus. She is still beautiful, but you can't get over the idea that she's over four thousand years old. Furthermore, I met a little Fury down below last season who is simply ravishing." Here Adonis gave me a wink which made me rather curious to ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs

... How ravishing the thing had been while it lasted, judge by these other stray symptoms; hastily picked up, partly at Berlin, partly at Brunswick; which show us the bright meridian, and also the blaze, almost still more radiant, which ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... to preserve her chastity, devoting herself to heavenly things, and shunning the pleasures and vanities of the world. As she excelled in music, she turned her good gift to the glory of God, and composed hymns, which she sang herself with such ravishing sweetness, that even the angels descended from heaven to listen to her, or to join their voices with hers. She played on all instruments, but none sufficed to breathe forth that flood of harmony with ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands

... last swoon far down in thy snow, Whose warm drifts of wonder they only can know; And hidden they lie there all rocked by thy breath, And pressed in soft odors to ravishing death. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... seen Tarzan of the Apes, but many times had he dreamed that he had seen him and always was the giant ape-man avenging the wrongs that had been committed upon him and his by the ruthless hands of the three German officers who had led their native troops in the ravishing of Tarzan's peaceful home. Hauptmann Fritz Schneider had paid the penalty of his needless cruelties; Unter-lieutenant von Goss, too, had paid; and now Obergatz, the last of the three, stood face to face with the Nemesis ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... there) this trator, wha hes committed divers poinets of his treasone against his Majestie's civill lawes, to his grait dishonour and offence of his guid subjects, namlie, taking of his peacable subjects on the night out of thair housses, ravishing of weimen, and receating within his hous of the King's rebels and ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison

... Chad was in the act of remarking to him that they of course both counted on him—he himself and the other earnest person—for cheer and support. It was brave to Strether to hear him talk as if the line of wisdom they had struck out was to make things ravishing to the Pococks. No, if Madame de Vionnet compassed THAT, compassed the ravishment of the Pococks, Madame de Vionnet would be prodigious. It would be a beautiful plan if it succeeded, and it all came to the question of Sarah's being really bribeable. The precedent of his own case helped ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... first from the close, dreary room on the fifth floor, so different from his large, airy apartment at home, which though very plainly furnished, had about it an air of refinement and respectability in striking contrast to this ten by twelve hole, where Daisy made the most ravishing toilets of the simplest materials, with which to attract and ensnare any silly moth ready to singe its wings at her flame. She had settled the point that if Archie could not earn his living because he was a McPherson, ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes

... was. Hung with millions of electric bulbs, crowned and diademed, and laced with jewels of white flame, she signaled to them out of the mystery and immensity of the night. For a moment they were dumb, they stood still, as if they paused on the brink and struggled, protesting against this ravishing of their souls by the Exhibition. Straight in front of them, monstrous yet fragile, its substance withdrawn into the darkness, its form outlined delicately in beads of light, in brilliants, in crystals strung on invisible threads, the Water ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... spirits had caught each tone as it came from the peasant's horn, and had deified it there among the clouds, and had repeated it over and over with divinest variations, to show man how crabbed were the sounds which he produced, and yet how ravishing they might one day become, when to the symphony of silver strings they rang out amid the seraph harps and choral harmonies of heaven. All the party stood still in rapturous attention, and even Cyril forgot for ten minutes his ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... could be heard in the tempestuous accompaniment. After the words: "I suffer pain...." he heaved a slight sigh, dropped his eyes, and lowered his voice,—morendo. When he had finished, Liza praised the motive, Marya Dmitrievna said: "It is charming;"—while Gedeonovsky even shouted: "Ravishing! both poetry and harmony are equally ravishing!..." Lyenotchka, with childish adoration, gazed at the singer. In a word, the composition of the youthful dilettante pleased all present extremely; but outside of the ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff

... the island between them. Splendid, aren't they? Look at the diamonds on her lovely arms, and his ravishing moustache. Isn't he your ideal of Prince Djalma, in The ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott

... Atlantic. Philosophers, historians, musicians, warriors, and poets slept side by side around me; some beneath the gorgeous monument, and some beneath the simple headstone. But the political intrigue, the dream of science, the historical research, the ravishing harmony of sound, the tried courage, the inspiration of the lyre—where are they? With the living, and not with the dead! The right hand has lost its cunning in the grave; but the soul, whose high volitions it obeyed, still ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... her; she seemed to lose energy and a part of her interest in those things which had occupied her most. She changed her dress less frequently, ignoring dressmakers, and she showed no longer the ravishing elegance of the bride. She often lay in bed till noon, she who had always entered the dining-room at nine o'clock precisely to dispense his coffee and listen to his remarks on the contents of the newspaper. ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... says to Bran, "there is nothing rough or harsh, but sweet music striking on the ear." It sounded from birds on every tree, from the branches of trees, from marvellous stones, and from the harps of divine musicians. And this is recalled in the ravishing music which the belated traveller hears as he passes fairy-haunted spots—"what pipes and timbrels, what wild ecstasy!" The romantic beauty of Elysium is described in these Celtic tales in a way unequalled in all other sagas or Maerchen, and it is insisted on by those who ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch

... came to her palace and sang and played before her; he made music so ravishing and so sad that all who heard him wept save the Queen, who listened and smiled, listless and indifferent. But her smile filled him with such a passion of wonder and worship that he resolved to rest no more until he had found her heart, for he knew the tale. So he sought the whole ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring

... Juice to nourish and feed the Body, such quickening Acids to compel the Appetite, and grateful vehicles to court the Obedience of the Palate, such Vigour to renew and support our natural Strength, such ravishing Flavour and Perfumes to recreate and delight us: In short, such spirituous and active Force to animate and revive every Faculty and Part, to all the kinds of Human, and, I had almost said Heavenly Capacity too. What shall we add more? Our Gardens present us with them all; and whilst the Shambles ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn

... midst of this profound calm, a fresh sound arose; a sound as celestial, divine, ineffable, ravishing, as the other had been horrible. It was a hymn which issued from the gloom, a dazzling burst of prayer and harmony in the obscure and alarming silence of the night; women's voices, but voices composed at one and the same time ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... instance John Flavel and Mrs. Jonathan Edwards, and so close. John Flavel being once on a journey set himself to improve the time by meditation, when his mind grew intent, till at length he had such ravishing tastes of heavenly joys, and such a full assurance of his interest therein, that he utterly lost the sight and sense of this world and all its concerns, so that for hours he knew not where he was. At last, perceiving himself to be faint, he sat down at a spring, where he refreshed ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte

... beautiful Fairies arose and joining hands on the rocks they sang to the now dying Sun a chorus of Fairy Land! Now and then these ravishing melodies are permitted to reach to mortal ears: chiefly in dreams to the sick and sorrowful, for Fairies have great compassion on such, and allow them a distant taste of this, the most exquisite of ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty

... trunkful of the most ravishing new clothes—an evening gown of rainbow Liberty crepe that would be fitting raiment for the angels in Paradise. And I thought that my own clothes this year were unprecedentedly (is there such a word?) beautiful. I copied Mrs. Paterson's wardrobe with the aid of a cheap dressmaker, and though the ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster

... flat-headed, squat-nosed, cross-eyed thing. She did not even look good. One virtue she appears to have had, however. It was faith. She believed what the label said, she did what the label told her. She is now a tall, ravishing young person, her only trouble being, I should say, to know what to do with her hair—it reaches to her knees and must be a nuisance to her. She would do better to give some of it away. Taking this young ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome

... jasper swung back upon their golden hinges, making the most ravishing music, and the Saint, stepping ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce

... as sweet as ditties highly penn'd, Sung by a fair queen in a Summer's bower, With ravishing ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... deal with—one can tell that by merely glancing at his eyes—and I have a firm conviction that if you were perchance to offend him, he would without compunction stab you, or do you some other dreadful injury—perhaps kill you outright. Therefore,"—with a most ravishing smile, and a tightening of her grip upon my arm—"you will be pleased to consider yourself as ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood

... shrewdly of opinion that the jam factories could take care of themselves, which rather disappointed his wife. She was vaguely disappointed too, in Bar-le-Duc. I think she expected to smell a ravishing fragrance of Jim's favourite confiture as we entered the town. It had been a tiring day for her, with all our stops and sightseeing, and she had less appetite for history than for jam. We had passed through lovely country since Chalons, decorated ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... the "bloody tragedies of burning, murdering, and ravishing," of which the provinces had so long been the theatre, it was resolved that, "Rhetoric's sweet comedies, amorous jests, and farces," should gladden all eyes and hearts. A stately procession of knights and burghers in ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... no bard in all the choir, ....... Not one of all can put in verse, Or to this presence could rehearse The sights and voices ravishing The boy knew on the hills in spring, When pacing through the oaks he heard Sharp queries of the sentry-bird, The heavy grouse's sudden whir, The rattle of ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin

... The error was fatal; he had designed to get her on her feet and then stand away. But no sooner had he raised her and succeeded in disengaging his hands, than soft round arms were clasped tightly about his neck and her face—if possible, more ravishing in tears than when first he had seen it—pillowed on his breast. And for the first time ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance

... mighty passion that now raged in the heart of Ferdinand Armine, as, pale and trembling, he withdrew a few paces from the overwhelming spectacle, and leant against a tree in a chaos of emotion. What had he seen? What ravishing vision had risen upon his sight? What did he feel? What wild, what delicious, what maddening impulse now pervaded his frame? A storm seemed raging in his soul, a mighty wind dispelling in its course the sullen clouds and vapours of long years. ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli

... masterly a manner, that I had never in my life heard anything so exquisite. So great was my amazement that I could scarcely breathe. Awakened by the violent emotion, I instantly seized my Violin, in the hope of being able to catch some part of the ravishing melody which I had just heard, but all in vain. The piece which I composed according to my scattered recollection is, it is true, the best of my works. I have called it the 'Sonata del Diavolo,' but it is so far inferior to the one I heard in my dream, that I should have dashed my ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart

... woman; and there are still current in obscure parts of Scotland wild legends of his having thus tempted even godly men to sin.—In Asiatic tales rakshasas, ghuls (ghouls), and such-like demons frequently assume the appearance of heart-ravishing damsels in order to delude and devour the unwary traveller. In many of our old European romances fairies are represented as transforming themselves into the semblance of deer, to decoy into sequestered places noble hunters of whom they had ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... scheme. I remember when I was a boy, Gautier set us crazy in Paris with his color sense. His pages glowed with all the pigments of the palette; he vied with the jeweller in introducing precious stones of the most ravishing brilliancy within the walls of his paragraph; I sickened of all this splendor, this Ruskin word-painting, and went in for cool grays, took up Baudelaire and finally reached Verlaine, whose music is the echo of music heard in ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... happiness cherished by men take in an immensely wide range, and bring into action all the peculiar attributes of the composite natures of man. The brutal instinct cries out: "Kill! kill!" Bloodsheding is its ravishing delight. When it arrives at a point where it may not destroy its fellows, the whole created animal kingdom—including woman—is its prey. Wars and rumors of wars will never cease on this planet until humanity at large develops out of this grade which expects ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield

... his hand, ponderous, massive, gleaming. He tormented Maria into a second repetition of the story—into a third. The more his mind dwelt upon it, the sharper grew his desire. Then, with Maria's refusal to continue the tale, came the reaction. Zerkow awoke as from some ravishing dream. The plate was gone, was irretrievably lost. There was nothing in that miserable room but grimy rags and rust-corroded iron. What torment! what agony! to be so near—so near, to see it in one's distorted fancy as plain ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris

... Halitus: also Parietria Lutea, Musk, Lemmon, and Mastick: Thyme, Spike, Cammomile, Balm, Mint, Marjoram, Pimpernel, Serpillum, etc., which upon the least pressure and cutting, breathe out and betray their ravishing Odors.' Plantations of trees were also to be made and nurseries formed, which would have the additional advantage, besides mere beauty and ornament, of providing for the fields—'better Shelter, and Pasture for Sheep and Cattel then now; that they lie bleak, expos'd and abandon'd to the ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... often invited to a bathe.... When the lake was too rough for rowing, I would spend the afternoon scouring the island, botanizing right and left. I often sat down to dream at leisure in sunny, lonely nooks, or on the terraces and hillocks, to gaze at the superb ravishing panorama of the lake and its shores—one side crowned by near mountains, the other spread out in rich and fertile plains, across which the eye looked to the more distant boundary of blue mountains.... ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... travels through Britain I never beheld anything with more pleasure. . . . Nor is it difficult, in viewing this ground, to say where the Covinarii, or Charioteers, stood. In fine, to an Antiquary, this is a ravishing scene." He adds the argument "that Galgacus's name still remains on this ground, for the moor on which the camp stood is called to this day Galdachan, or Galgachan Rosmoor." All this lore Gordon illustrates by an immense chart of a camp, and a picture of very small Montes Grampii, about ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... was no serious commerce. Perhaps she had not much of that coin. Nothing significant came from her. It could not be said that she had received from the contacts of the external world impressions of a personal kind, different from other women. What was ravishing in her was her quietness and, in her grave attitudes, the unfailing brilliance of her femininity. He did not know what there was under that ivory forehead so splendidly shaped, so gloriously crowned. He could not tell what were her thoughts, her feelings. ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad

... the morning hues of primrose, or of palest amber, pervade the whole society. It is a court of gentle and harmonious souls; and though this style of beauty might cloy, at first sight there is something ravishing in those yellow-haired white-limbed, blooming deities. No movement of lascivious grace as in Correggio, no perturbation of the senses as in some of the Venetians, disturbs the rhythm of their music; nor is the pleasure of the flesh, though felt by the painter and communicated ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... strong wings that took the sun From inward, fledged with might of sorrow and mirth And father's fire made mortal in his son. Nor was not spirit of strength in blast and breeze To exalt again the sun's child and the sea's; For as wild mares in Thessaly grow great With child of ravishing winds, that violate Their leaping length of limb with manes like fire And eyes outburning heaven's With fires more violent than the lightning levin's And breath drained out and desperate of desire, Even so the spirit in him, when winds grew strong, Grew great with child of song. Nor less ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... are not high enough, little bird; You mount and wheel, and eddy and soar, And with every turn yet more and more Your wonderful, ravishing music is heard. ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth

... which they revived in his memory, than of the sweet oblivion which they brought of the many painful and perilous prospects with which he had more recently become familiar. He had no thought of the present, and the pictures of the past were all rich and ravishing. To his wandering sense at that moment there came a sweet vision of beauty and love—of an affection warmly cherished—green as the summer leaves—fresh as its flowers—flinging odors about his spirit, and re-awakening in its fullest extent the partially slumbering passion—reviving many a ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... welcomed and half resented the putting off of the decisive moment He was in a dreadful nervous flutter, his hopes alternately flying like a flag in a high wind, and drooping in a sick abandonment of everything. And May was more ravishing than ever. She had stuck the stem of a rose in one little ear like a pen, and the full flower itself nestled drooping at her cheek. There was never anything in the world more demure than her face and ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... been acted these many, many years, yet to all who treasure the historical memories of the stage it should be recalled with interest, for it was in this gay comedy that the ravishing Nance shone forth in all the silvery light of her resplendent genius. Read the pages of the old play in unsympathetic mood and they may look musty and worm-eaten, but imagine Oldfield as the sprightly ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... day of blue sky, a day when from the heavens some of the sparkle and brightness descends to earth. The green of tender grass and young wheat was of a ravishing delicacy, even the dun woods borrowed something from the azure ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon

... which were transported on the shoulders of the Indian porters, and, after being carefully registered, were placed in safe deposit under a strong guard. They now began to believe that the magnificent promises of the Inca would be fulfilled. But, as their avarice was sharpened by the ravishing display of wealth, such as they had hardly dared to imagine, they became more craving and impatient. They made no allowance for the distance and the difficulties of the way, and loudly inveighed against the tardiness with which the royal commands were executed. They even suspected Atahuallpa of devising ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... indignantly. "You don't mean I'm not to look at anyone! I can't even express a little tame approval without your accusing me of grabbing a new soul mate. You can't say she isn't simply ravishing, and just because she's alive instead of being a picture or statue or some such made-up thing, you want me to turn up my nose at her. I must say you are getting to be awfully extreme, Elinor Kendall. You'll want me to wear a ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther

... a series of those grey-brown streets, neither commodious nor picturesque, in which the eastern quarter of the city abounds. Lucy soon lost interest in the discontent of Lady Louisa, and became discontented herself. For one ravishing moment Italy appeared. She stood in the Square of the Annunziata and saw in the living terra-cotta those divine babies whom no cheap reproduction can ever stale. There they stood, with their shining limbs bursting from ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster

... in no wise, however, because I loved him less, but them more. I would fain write particularly of some of these beloved friends, comrades of my heart, from whom I first learned the undreamed-of possibilities of human friendship, and how ravishing the satisfactions of sympathy may be. Who, among those who may read this, has not known that sense of a gulf fixed between soul and soul which mocks love I Who has not felt that loneliness which oppresses the heart that loves it best! Think no longer that this gulf is eternally fixed, or is ...
— To Whom This May Come - 1898 • Edward Bellamy

... of course, and I suggest only twelve bridesmaids. I intend to be preceded to the altar by Sue in an embroidered silk muslin I will provide, with a bonnet of tulle in which nestles a pink rose to match the ones in her basket. There will also be a display of pink knees that will be ravishing and—" ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... modestly on the arm of a tall figure in military uniform, and advancing slowly up the hall, is a girl of some sixteen summers. Her finely-rounded form is in harmony with the ravishing vivacity of her face, which is beautifully oval. Seen by the glaring gaslight her complexion is singularly clear and pale. But that freshness which had gained her many an admirer, and which gave such a charm to the roundness of early youth, we look for in vain. And yet there is a softness ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... invest him with a romantic glamour, which, even though concealed by conventionality or etiquette, is profoundly felt and makes the winner more or less irresistible. The applause of men and of mates is sweet and even intoxicating, but that of ladies is ravishing. By universal acclaim the fair belong to the brave, strong, and victorious. This stimulus is wholesome and refining. As is shown later, a bashful youth often selects a maiden onlooker and is sometimes quite unconsciously dominated in his every ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... another took it up, and another; and then another. Slowly so the soft night was filled with musical cries which quavered about me as fitfully as fire-flies gleam and glance in all quarters of a garden of olive-trees. It was enchantment to the ear, a ravishing sound; but it was my eyes which claimed me now, for soon I saw them coming from all quarters. Or rather, I saw them there, for I can't say definitely that I saw any one of them on the way. It is truer to say that I looked and they were there. Where had been ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett

... one Hardbeen, who came from Helsingland, gloried in kidnapping and ravishing princesses, and used to kill any man who hindered him in his lusts. He preferred high matches to those that were lowly; and the more illustrious the victims he could violate, the more noble he thought himself. No man escaped unpunished who durst measure himself with ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... talents excited envy, and he was accused of magical arts: his harp had been heard to pour forth strains of ravishing beauty when no human hand was near, and other like prodigies, savouring of the black art, were said to attend him, so that he fled the court, and took refuge with his uncle, ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... away from my eyes. I saw the colour spreading in a slow wave over her cheeks; it was like those tints of early dawn that are so ravishing to the souls of poets. "In four or five months from now—-" And ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair

... tenderness most exquisitely becomes. Her countenance displayed all the cheerfulness, the good-nature, and the modesty, which diffuse such brightness round the beauty of Seraphina, [5] awing every beholder with respect, and, at the same time, ravishing him with admiration. Had it not been indeed for our conversation on the small-pox, I should have imagined we had been honored with her identical presence. This opinion might have been heightened by the good sense ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding

... approaches. The fallen knights seek to hinder his progress, but he easily vanquishes them all, and stands victorious upon the battlement of the castle, gazing in childish astonishment at all this unknown silent splendor below. Soon, however, the scene becomes animated. The ravishing enchantresses appear in garments of flowers, and each seeks to win the handsome youth for herself. He remains, however, toward them what he is—a fool. Suddenly he hears a voice. He stands astonished, for he heard the name with which in times long ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl

... from the cabin of Silver Cloud, and the old walls of the castle certainly seldom, if ever, rang with such music as was discoursed there that night. The domestics had so far recovered from their fright that they now crowded the adjoining hall to hear the singing. So ravishing was the harmony to their semi-barbaric ears that, conjoined with the marvelous manner of their coming among them, these poor creatures were ready to fall down and worship them as heavenly visitants. The Count himself seemed to enjoy the music exceedingly, and encored long and loudly. When ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman

... pervasive charm. We are constantly reminded, in endless, almost wearisome, imagery, of gold and purple, foreign languages, esoteric philosophies, foods the names of which strike the ear as graciously as they themselves might strike the tongue. From Huysmans he has learned the formula for ravishing all our senses. Words are often used for their own sakes to call up images, colour flits across every page, across, indeed, every line. We taste, we smell, we see. There is the pomp and circumstance of the Roman Catholic ritual in these pages, the Roman Catholic ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten

... mortification, the girl seemed unaware of his presence, and read steadily, occasionally looking up and chirping with a pair of ravishing lips at a blackbird, which hung in a wicker cage from ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs

... could hear music: it was the ravishing Nis air, which charms the mind into sweet confusion and oblivion, and Manuel did not make any apparent attempt to withstand its wooing. He hastily undressed, knelt for a decorous interval, and climbed ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell

... adjust the telescope for you, Tedril," said Trevalyon. "I know it well, now, Mrs. Tompkins, you have a fine view taking in as you see a ravishing bit of Richmond a very embodiment of rest, at least where you are gazing, with the music which you are to imagine of the Thames ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny

... and the Duchess had, indeed, exhausted French art in turning the grand old place into a land of ravishing enchantment, with its many lights, its flowers, its works of art. Her abode was truly an enlivening scene, with its variety of maskers, ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.

... flood of summer upon a world of virgin forest. The sky was without blemish. A dome of perfect azure roofed in the length and breadth of Nature's kingdom. Nevertheless the fairness of the summer day, with its ravishing accompaniment of soft, mystery sounds from an unseen world and the lavish beauty of shadowed woods were fit setting for the pulsing of savage emotions. It was far out in the lost world of Northern Quebec. It was far, far beyond the widest-flung frontiers of civilisation. It was out there where ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum

... but we found some compensation for our disappointment, in contemplating so much of this charming country as was visible from our ship. The magnificent scenery of Brazil has often been described, but no expression can do justice to its ravishing beauty. Imagination can scarcely picture the exquisite variety of form and colouring of the luxuriant and gigantic vegetation that thickly clothes the valleys and mountains even to the sea-shore. A breeze from the land wafted to us the most delicious perfumes; and ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue

... that there are no shoe stores here. Shoo stores!! "Booteries," these are. Combined with "hosieries." Countless are the smart hat shops for women. That is to say, the establishments of "chapeaux importers." In the miniature parlours framed by the windows' glass these chic and ravishing creations, the chapeaux, rise in a row high upon their slim and lovely stems. This one is the establishment of Mlle. Edythe, that of Mme. Vigneau. Countless, too, are the terrestrial heavens devoted to "gowns." Headless they stand, these symphonies in feminine apparel, side by side here ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday

... "we shall get there a little before five—play for a couple of hours—then have tea on the lawn, perhaps—a little dance, and home by moonlight." It was a ravishing prospect for their unemployed imaginations, and they left no time ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris

... just adore having such a ravishing experience as that," said Lily Pearl Montgomery from the window seat, "but how can one have any thrilling experiences in a stupid old school! Now there are Polly and Peggy; think of all they could tell us if they only would. You girls must be fairly bursting with the most wonderful stories ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... was dressed low enough in the neck to admit full scope to the devil's fancies. Her face, too, was so oval that nature could not have added one line more to its perfection; while her complexion was of deep olive, made ravishing by the carnatic flush of her cheeks. And she had what poets and lady novelists call great Italian eyes, beaming lustrous of soul and energy; and hair that floated in raven blackness over shoulders that seemed chiseled. I began to think myself the happiest of men, for my system ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... things?' 'Fair my soul,' rejoined the abbot, 'marvel not, for that sanctity nowise abateth by this, seeing it hath its seat in the soul and that which I ask of you is a sin of the body. But, be that as it may, your ravishing beauty hath had such might that love constraineth me to do thus; and I tell you that you may glory in your charms over all other women, considering that they please holy men, who are used to look upon the beauties of heaven. Moreover, abbot though I be, I am a man like another and am, as ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... other. One observes my Lord with his white hair, standing, hat in hand, to help my Lady to and from the carriage. One observes my Lady, how recognisant of my Lord's politeness, with an inclination of her gracious head and the concession of her so-genteel fingers! It is ravishing! ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... ornament in her brown hair, however, nor were her little pink ears made hideous by ear-rings. Her face was a jewel sufficient unto itself. I had never seen her in an evening gown before. The effect was really quite ravishing. As I looked at her standing there by the big oak table, I couldn't help thinking that the Count was not only a scoundrel but all kinds of ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... our inner eye only that which the names of foreign places awake in ourselves. We should not really have seen the wonders of the world through the eyes of his soul and with the glow of his hope. The drama would have given dead names to our ear; the photoplay gives ravishing scenery to our eye and shows the fancy of the young fellow in the ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg

... a lady. Returning with two friends from supper at Lord Bristol's, the adventurous knight relates in his Private Memoirs, how they came beneath a balcony where a love-lorn fair one stood touching her lute, and how they loitered awhile to admire her beauty, and listen to her "soul-ravishing harmony." Their delightful contemplations, however, were soon arrested by a sudden attack from several armed men, who precipitated themselves upon the three Britons. Their swords were instantly drawn, and a fierce combat ensued; but the valiant ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner

... left the attic, however, than she too hastened down the steep, narrow stairs. She spent the remaining hours before train-time in donning her beautiful lace gown, and in making the woman within it as young and ravishing as possible. And lovely, indeed, Blossy looked this day, with a natural flush of excitement on her cheek, a new sparkle in her bright, dark eyes, and with her white hair arranged in a fashion which might have excited a ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund

... creatures. He spent many years in ascetic penances at the source of the river Ganga. The accomplished and lovely Ganga, one day, assuming the form of a beautiful female, and rising from the waters, made up to the monarch. The celestial maiden, endued with ravishing beauty, approached the royal sage engaged in ascetic austerities, and sat upon his right thigh that was, for manly strength, a veritable Sala tree. When the maiden of handsome face had so sat upon his lap, the monarch said unto her, 'O amiable one, what dost thou desire? What ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... diseased, misguided, and franticly abandoned to its passions. He is admirable where the subject calls chiefly for emotion, and makes no higher requisitions; and he is still more so where pathos and moral beauty are united. Few of his pieces are without passages of the most ravishing beauty. It is by no means my intention to deny him the possession of the most astonishing talents; I have only stated that these talents were not united with a mind in which the austerity of moral principles, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... the skin of a serpent, whose scales were as large as an ordinary piece of gold, and had the virtue to preserve from sickness those who lay upon it. 3. In 50,000 drams of the best wood of aloes, with 30 grains of camphire as big as pistachios. And, 4. A female slave of ravishing beauty, whose apparel was ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous

... return to Paris when you ennuied yourself so enormement?" asked a yellow-haired English girl who had painted countless vaporous and ravishing Eurydices and filmy Echoes from broad-waisted, pug-nosed Cockney models, and who always declared that she would recognize a "professional" even among the shining ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... conquering young gentleman himself, who at twenty-five had already made his mark in the City, shrewd, clever, cool-headed as a fox, except where a pretty face and shapely hand or ankle were concerned; of Nellie Fanshawe, then in the pride of her ravishing beauty, who loved none but herself, whose clay-made gods were jewels, and fine dresses and rich feasts, the envy of other women and ...
— The Philosopher's Joke • Jerome K. Jerome

... more days or years at most, My troubles sell be o'er; I hope to join the heavenly host On Canaan's happy shore. My raptured soul shall drink and feast In love's unbounded sea; The glorious hope of endless rest Is ravishing to me." ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell

... six weeks, and still no burning: for the place seems to plead with me, it is so ravishing, so that I do not know why I did not live here, and spare my toils during those sixteen nightmare years; for two whole weeks the impulse to burn was quieted; and since then there has been an irritating whisper ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel

... departed, dividing themselves into two companies and marching away, the dogs marching two abreast in front of each company. They sang as they went away the most entrancing music that was ever heard. The man, spell-bound, stood where he was, listening to the ravishing music of the Fairies, and he did not enter his house until the last sound had died away ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... about that," replied the genial gentleman. "I've seen a great many concerts, and I've heard a great many good games of pool, but the concert last night was simply a ravishing spectacle. We had a Cuban pianist there who played the orchestration of the first act of Parsifal with surprising agility. As far as I could see, he didn't miss a note, though it was a little annoying to observe how ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs

... take into account, perfectly, the pains, the blood, the treasure we shall have to expend to maintain this declaration, to uphold and defend these States; but through all these shadows I perceive rays of ravishing light and joy, I feel that the end is worth all the means and far more, and that posterity will rejoice over this event with songs of triumph, even though we should have cause to repent of it, which will not ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... was a high-class Brahmana, skilled in counsel, and versed in all the Sastras. His object was to possess himself of the bows, the quivers and the other material implements belonging to the Pandavas; and he had been watching for an opportunity of ravishing Draupadi. And that wicked and sinful one was named Jatasura. And, O king of kings, Pandu's son (Yudhishthira) had been supporting him, but knew not that wretch like unto ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... to emerge by and by from the random fingerings—a rhythm, a tonal theme.—Then I had it, and there seemed to stand before me again the swarded "high place," with torches flaring over upturned faces and mounting walls of green. Almost I sensed again the beat in my blood, the eye-ravishing vision of that gold-brown flame of motion, that ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... with these Avari; it had something to do with that worthy's trip to visit the Empress of the East; there was a squabble about fares, river dues and such matters. However, this is vieux jeu, and has nothing to do with Prague. The Avari were devoted to the time-honoured practice of robbing and ravishing their neighbours, among them the Bohemians. These latter seem to have borrowed one Samo the Frank, a strong man, from one of the northern Slavonic tribes, and as he proved a success, invited him to be ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker

... other he was distrait that evening all the way over to Hollis Creek. Only when he met Miss Stevens did he brighten, as he might well do, for Miss Stevens, charming in every guise, was a revelation in evening costume; a ravishing revelation; one to make a man pause and wonder and stand in awe, and regard himself as a clumsy creature not worthy to touch the hem of the garment which embellished such a divine being. Nevertheless he conquered that wave ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester

... a soft, melting, ravishing tune began, and a young man with curly hair bowed before her. She would have to dance, out of politeness, until she could find Meg. Very stiffly she walked into the middle; very haughtily she put her hand on his sleeve. But in one minute, ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield

... A large beaufet was set out with all sorts of gold plate, so finely wrought, that the workmanship was much more valuable than the weight of the gold. Several bands of beautiful women richly dressed, and whose voices were ravishing, began a concert, accompanied by the most harmonious instruments he had ever heard. When they were seated, the fairy took care to help prince Ahmed to the most delicious meats, which she named as she invited ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.

... are such ministers as discharge their ministry amiss; ravishing away the goods of the widows and fatherless; and serve themselves, not others, out of those things ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... in Marescotti's creed, spite of his belief in the stern precepts of Savonarola—the plastic creed of an artist, made up of heavenly eyes, ravishing forms, melodious sounds, rich color, sweeping ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot

... Victor, "I am—what do you call it?—a somnambulist. In that condition it has sometimes been my so good fortune to wander into the most odd and ravishing situations. But as it happens, helas! I can never recall a single incident of them when I waken in the morning. Ma foi!" (he remembered that even yet his suspicions of the Baron were unsatisfied), "I would with some pleasure become a nocturnal conspirator myself, and ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... indeed, a novel. Conventional society and the actual conditions of life are, with respect to eternal truth, but the novelties of time. The novelist is to picture these, and, in picturing, subordinate them to that which is perpetual and inspiring. Just so far as he opens the ravishing possibilities of life in commanding reconciliation with the formal civilization of a particular time, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various

... "vates," which is as much as a diviner, foreseer, or prophet, as by his conjoined words "vaticinium," and "vaticinari," is manifest; so heavenly a title did that excellent people bestow upon this heart- ravishing knowledge! And so far were they carried into the admiration thereof, that they thought in the changeable hitting upon any such verses, great foretokens of their following fortunes were placed. Whereupon grew the word of sortes ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney

... despair, Princess!" cried the banker. "But no one is quite responsible for his movements in such a crush!... I am very much afraid that I have stepped on the muslin of your ravishing toilette and have ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... catarrh. But who could play with it? Who could tweak it passionately, as a prelude to kissing? Who could linger over it tenderly with a candle, or a lump of mutton fat, when cold had laid its cruel hand upon it? It is not tip-tilted like a flower; it is not whimsical with some ravishing and unexpected little crook. It is straight, like a mathematical line. But it has no parts. Her cheeks are round and fair. Each has its dimple and blush. They are thoroughly healthy, Mrs. Smith's digestion ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay

... and the glory and soul-ravishing goodness of that presence, is a thing that the world understands not, nor can they as such desire to know ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... tribes, the hour has come, the hour has come! All the promises of ages, all the signs of sacred sages, meet in this ravishing hour. Where is now the oppressor's chariot, where your tyrant's purple robe? The horse and the rider are both overthrown, the horse and the ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli

... a hundred seconds or so he had her in the drawing-room, and she was actually pouring out gin for him. She looked ravishing in that peignoir, especially as she was munching an apple, and balancing herself on the arm ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... to them whose minds have been enlightened and made large and free by study and much reflection, and whose eyes have been taught to behold the beauty and fitness of things, and whose ears have been so opened that they can hear the ravishing harmonies of the creation, the life of a planter is very desirable even in this wilderness, and notwithstanding the toil and privation thereunto appertaining. There be fountains gushing up in the hearts of such, sweeter than the springs of water ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... green crossed from the shoulders under each breast, and her hair, tightly bound, was decorated with another narrow band of green. She looked younger than in the city—almost virginal. Stooping low, she gathered a handful of blue scylla from the grass, Mary barely checking an exclamation at this ravishing of her beloved bulbs. Then Felicity lay down upon the grass; her eyes closed; she seemed asleep. They waited silently for some minutes. ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... ambition in the worldly sense. Ambition is a red devil of a horse, but he gets you somewhere. One overcomes Inertia in riding far and long on that mount. He takes you to the piled places where the self may satisfy for the moment all its ravishing greeds. This is not a great thing to do. One sickens of this; all agony and disease comes of this. The red horse takes you as far as you will let him, on a road that must be retraced, but he gets you somewhere! ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort

... had fallen in the debauch and been carried off by the valets, who in gorgeous liveries waited on the table. A band of musicians sat up in a gallery at the end of the hall, and filled the pauses of the riotous feast with the ravishing strains ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... buttoned up to the top with gilt buttons. He brought every variety of collar and cravat in fashion at that epoch. He brought two of Buisson's coats and all his finest linen He brought his pretty gold toilet-set,—a present from his mother. He brought all his dandy knick-knacks, not forgetting a ravishing little desk presented to him by the most amiable of women,—amiable for him, at least,—a fine lady whom he called Annette and who at this moment was travelling, matrimonially and wearily, in Scotland, a victim to certain suspicions which required a passing sacrifice ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac

... died Rachael indeed became almost as dear to the stricken parents. When she went back to London they gave her not only gifts but money, and for two years she returned to them for long visits. So America had a chance to admire the ravishing Miss Fairfax, too, and Rachael had many conquests and one or two serious affairs. The girls had their first dances at the Belvedere Club; Rachael met them all, who were later to be her neighbors: the Morans and Parmalees, the Vanderwalls and the Torrences, and ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris

... laughter. Benvolio prepares the audience for the stealthy visit of the lover to the object of his admiration; and fully did the amateur give the expression to one sense of the words uttered, for he was indeed the true representative of a thief stealing onwards in the night, "with Tarquin's ravishing strides," and disguising his face as if he were thoroughly ashamed of it. The darkness of the scene did not, however, show his real character so much as the masquerade, when he came forward with hideous grin, and made what ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow



Words linked to "Ravishing" :   beautiful



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com