Spell

“ A spell is woven of shadow and falling light, and of chimes floating over meadow and stream. Yet this sense of something remotely and unutterably beautiful, this transfiguration of life, is as real and vital an experience as the daily, dreary toil, and to be welcomed as such. ”

“ But how will the magic word act when you are part of the spell—you who are the most wonderful thing in the whole world, who are the flower of the earth's crop of beauty, who have such a genius for just being! ”

“ Spell′-work, that which is wrought by spells or charms: power of magic.—Spell backward, to spell, repeat, or arrange in reverse order: to understand in a contrary sense: to turn wrong-side out, misconstrue one's qualities ”

“ I tried to break the spell—the heavy, mute spell of the wilderness—that seemed to draw him to its pitiless breast by the awakening of forgotten and brutal instincts, by the memory of gratified and monstrous passions. ”

“ What subject, indeed, is there in the whole boundless range of imagination, which some English author has not treated in his mother tongue with a nicety of definition, an accuracy of portraiture, a gorgeousness of coloring, a delicacy of discrimination, and a strength and force of expression, [215] which fall scarcely short of perfection itself? Is there not something almost like sorcery in the potent spell which some of these mighty magicians of language are able to exercise over the soul? ”

“ You labor under some illusion, but no curse. As for this strange, natural spell, which you have been exercising, and of which I have heard before, though I never believed in, nor expected to witness it, I am satisfied that you still possess it. ”

“ Their descendants, the literary men, still go on with the process, morticing their verbal formulas together, and, before the power of the finished spell, trembling with delight and awe. Rabbits out of empty hats? No, their spells are more subtly powerful, for they evoke emotions out of empty minds. Formulated by their art the most insipid statements become enormously significant. ”

“ We talk here, naturally, not of non-poetic forms, but of those whose highest bid is addressed to the imagination, to the spiritual and the æsthetic vision, the mind led captive by a charm and a spell, an incalculable art. ”

“ This must be called magic, for it is not a thing which can be explained by ordinary laws, or defined in precise terms; but the spell is there, real, insistent, undeniable; it seems to make a bridge for the spirit to pass into a far-off, dimly apprehended region; it gives us a sense of great issues and remote visions; it leaves us with a longing which has no mortal fulfilment. ”

“ On the other hand, there is reason to believe that the magical spell proper is a self-contained and self-sufficient form of utterance, and that it lies at the root of much that has become address, and even prayer in the fullest sense. ”

“ The next 'reading at sight' lesson will begin with a hunt for the familiar words, and then--
"Up above the world so high, Like a diamond in the sky," should be gone through in the same way. As spelling is simply the art of seeing, seeing the letters in a word as we see the features of a face--say to the child, 'Can you spell sky?'--or any of the shorter words. ”

“ The rout is Folly's circle, which she draws
With magic wand. So potent is the spell,
That none, decoy'd into that fatal ring,
Unless by Heaven's peculiar grace, escape.
There we grow early grey, but never wise; ”

“ Magical Rites.—The magic of names leads us up to the magic of the spoken word in general. The spell or incantation and the magical act together make up the rite. (a) The manual acts are very frequently symbolic or sympathetic in their nature; sometimes they are mere reversals of a religious rite; such is the marching against the sun (known as widdershins or deisul) ; sometimes they are purificatory; and magic has its sacrifices just as much as religion. ”

“ This implies both brightness and illusion. spells. A spell is properly a magical form of words (A.S. spel, a saying) : here it refers to the whole enchantment employed. spongy air: so called because it holds in suspension the magic powder.
155. Of power to cheat ... and (to) give, etc. These lines are attributive to ‘spells.’ The preposition ‘of’ is thus used to denote a characteristic; thus ‘of power’ = powerful; comp. l. 677. blear illusion; deception, that which deceives by blurring the vision. Shakespeare has ‘bleared thine eye’ = dimmed thy vision, deceived (Tam. Shrew, v. 1. 120) . ”

“ How are we to explain this magic spell which rules all the affairs of life? Do men submit to it from a want of energy? Men who have the strongest wills are subject to it. Is it default of memory? People who possess this faculty in the highest degree yield to its fascination. ”

“ For the underlying conception in all cases is that a spell has fallen on an object which man is appropriating to his use. The spell extends to everything, be it man or beast, that comes within the range of its influence, and the unmaking of the spell necessitates going back step by step to the point at which it originated.
Halliwell compared a piece current in Denmark with This is the House that Jack built:—
Der har du det haus som Jacob bygde. ”

“ According to legends, magic power was exerted in two ways,—by a magician, as you suggested, and by ordinary mortals who happened to find a wand or spell or some potent secret by which they and any one could perform marvels. ”

“ It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself. ”

“ A spell follows for summoning a visible deity. Then we have a recipe for making a ring which will enable the owner to know the thoughts of men. The god is threatened if he does not serve the magicians. ”

“ The use of charms, rites and spells, having been established in one department—say, hunting—may be extended to others by analogy, and is confirmed there in the same way, namely, by still doing one’s best. Having obtained the charms and learnt, or invented, the rites and spells, one applies them, but at the same time makes war or love as cunningly as one can, cultivates one’s garden, drives a bargain, and so forth, and ascribes all good results to the Magic. ”

“ Sorcery, magic, enchantment, witchcraft; the use of supposed supernatural powers by the agency of evil spirits called forth by spells, incantations, &c., on the part of the magician, sorcerer or witch. ”

“ Don't worry, though. I got the touch, like with poetry. Same thing, in fact. All magic spells rhyme, see? Well, I used to rhyme, back before I really started swinging. Anybody can rhyme. And the rest is just instinct. ”

“ He stood a spell on one foot fust,
Then stood a spell on tother,
An' on which one he felt the wust
He couldn't ha' told ye, nuther. ”

“ There is an almost superstitious veneration felt by most of us for the spellings we learnt at school; they seem to us sanctified by antiquity; and perhaps even an inquiry into the history of the language is not always enough to disestablish this reverence for false gods. ”

“ ‘Do you spell it with a “V” or a “W”?’ inquired the judge.
‘That depends upon the taste and fancy of the speller, my Lord,’ replied Sam; ”

“ And that palm is part of the spell, and the reliefs upon the walls and even the Coptic crosses that are cut into the stone.
But at the end, one can only say that this place is indescribable, and not because it is complex or terrifically grand, like Karnak. Go to it on a sunlit morning, or stand in it in late afternoon, and perhaps you will feel that it “suggests” you, and that it carries you away, out of familiar regions into a land of dreams, where among hidden ways the soul is lost in magic. Yes, you are gone. ”

“ Many of them bear after them the note written in the hand of the scribe that he has tested them and found them efficacious. The pains, too, which the author takes to give variations of the process recommended in them—as for example in the quotations from a “man of Heracleopolis” in the first of the spells given above—all show that he had a more or less honest belief in the efficacy of the spells he is transcribing. ”

“ A hand of shadow, but with granite grip, may steal forth and draw you away into some region where they dwell among changeless symbols like themselves, a region vast, ancient and undifferentiated as the desert that has produced them. Their effect in the end is weird, difficult to describe, but real. Talk with a mind that has been steeped for years in their atmosphere and presence, and you will appreciate this odd reality. The spell of Egypt is an otherworldly spell. ”

“ Each wight, who reads not, and but scans and spells, Each word-catcher, that lives on syllables, Even such small critics some regard may claim, Preserved in Milton's or in Shakespeare's name. ”

“ But thou hast evoked in me profounder spells than the evoking one, thou face! For me, thou hast uncovered one infinite, dumb, beseeching countenance of mystery, underlying all the surfaces of visible time and space. ”

“ In fact, there is a great deal that I blame myself for.”
“The blame belongs to me, Miss Thayer,” Armstrong asserted, firmly.
“For being away from Helen so much?”
“Yes; and for many other acts of selfishness and neglect. I am to blame for all that you feel against yourself.”
“Against myself?” Inez repeated.
Armstrong paused long before he continued. “You have passed through this spell with me,” he said, at length. “You, better than any one else, know its power, and can understand the cause of my attitude toward you and Helen, which was as inexplicable as it was unpardonable. ”

“ The gods had given me almost everything. But I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and sensual ease. ”

“ Then sweetly she mocked his scruples, and softly she him beguiled:
"You, who are verily man among men, speak with the tongue of a child.
We have outlived the old standards; we have burst, like an over-tight thong,
The ancient, outworn, Puritanic traditions of Right and Wrong."
Then the Master feared for His angel, and called him again to His side,
For oh, the woman was wondrous, and oh, the angel was tried! ”

“ Rhyme, that exquisite echo which in the Muse’s hollow hill creates and answers its own voice; rhyme, which in the hands of the real artist becomes not merely a material element of metrical beauty, but a spiritual element of thought and passion also, waking a new mood, it may be, or stirring a fresh train of ideas, or opening by mere sweetness and suggestion of sound some golden door at which the Imagination itself had knocked in vain; rhyme, which can turn man’s utterance to the speech of gods ”

“ Rhyme,—the most striking characteristic of our modern poetry as distinguished from that of the ancients, and a main source, to our poetry, of its magic and charm, of what we call its romantic element— rhyme itself, all the weight of evidence tends to show, comes into our poetry from the Celts. ”

“ I might even say that the rhyme is there in the theme, thought, and image themselves. Ask the fact for the form. For a verse is not a vehicle to carry a sentence as a jewel is carried in a case: the verse must be alive, and inseparable from its contents, as the soul of man inspires and directs the body; and we measure the inspiration by the music. In reading prose, I am sensitive as soon as a sentence drags; but in poetry, as soon as one word drags. Ever as the thought mounts, the expression mounts. ”

“ All the charms of the magicians,
All the magic powers of evil;
Come to me; ascend, Osseo!
⁠"'Taste the food that stands before you:
It is blessed and enchanted,
It has magic virtues in it,
It will change you to a spirit. ”

“ To make verse speak the language of prose without being prosaic—to marshal the words of it in such an order as they might naturally take in falling from the lips of an extemporary speaker, yet without meanness, harmoniously, elegantly, and without seeming to displace a syllable for the sake of the rhyme, is one of the most arduous tasks a poet can undertake. ”

“ To marre the subiect that before was well,
For to no other passe my verses tend,
Then of your graces and your gifts to tell.
And more, much more then in my verse can sit,
Your owne glasse showes you, when you looke in it. ”

“ The magic of his art lies largely in the syllables he selects, in their sound and in their color. Not their meanings merely are important to him, but their suggestions also—not what they denote more than what they connote. An American psychologist has recently told us that every word has not only its own note but also its overtones. ”

“ There shall not be found with thee any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, one that useth divination, one that practiseth augury, or an enchanter, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a consulter with a familiar spirit, or a wizard, or a necromancer. ”

“ As those [Pg 485] of magic, because it is a knowledge of more than is lawful to be known; divination, from a revealing of things past, present, or to come; enchantment, from a working by charms or ceremonious rites; sorcery, from the casting of lots to bring hidden things to light; necromancy, from the calling up and consulting the devil, in form of some dead person; fascination, from the hurting creatures by envious looks, and eye-biting, or by words, etc. Those who practise this art are, in like manner, termed witches, magicians, diviners, enchanters, sorcerers, necromancers, fascinaters. ”

“ Magician! who can thus inspire
At once the pencil and the lyre.—
—It fades away,—my heath-born flower,
Oh teach me thy Promethean power,
Warmth to infuse in lifeless clay,
And snatch the dying from decay. ”

“ One can forget, for one walks in beauty.
Lovely are the doorways in Philae, enticing are the shallow steps that lead one onward and upward; gracious the yellow towers that seem to smile a quiet welcome. And there is one chamber that is simply a place of magic—the hall of the flowers.
It is this chamber which always makes me think of Philae as a lovely temple of dreams, this silent, retired chamber, where some fabled princess might well have been touched to a long, long sleep of enchantment, and lain for years upon years among the magical flowers—the lotus, and the palm, and the papyrus. ”

“ Alchemy, Magic, Witchcraft—how exhaustively they have been investigated will appear from the list of authorities which I have drawn up for the reader’s convenience. They have been studied by ‘adepts,’ and by critics, as realities and as delusions; and almost the last word would seem to have been said by Science—though not on the side of the adepts, who still continue to dream of the Hermetic philosophy, to lose themselves in fanciful pictures, theurgic and occult, and to write about the mysteries of magic with a [Pg vi] simplicity of faith which we may wonder at, but are bound to respect. ”