Above the Kolocha, in Borodino and on both sides of it, especially to the left where the Voyna flowing between its marshy banks falls into the Kolocha, a mist had spread which seemed to melt, to dissolve, and to become translucent when the brilliant sun appeared and
magically colored and outlined everything.
Happily, an inhabitant of the kitchen made more despatch: a lusty dame, with tucked-up gown, bare arms, and fire-flushed cheeks, rushed into the midst of us flourishing a frying-pan: and used that weapon, and her tongue, to such purpose, that the storm subsided
magically, and she only remained, heaving like a sea after a high wind, when her master entered on the scene.
We struck a polished chute, the opening above us closed as
magically as it had opened, and we shot down, unharmed, into a dimly lighted apartment far below the arena.
He was also a good deal in debt: it was difficult to live in London like a gentleman on three hundred a year; and his heart yearned for the Venice and Florence which John Ruskin had so
magically described.
After the ruin of the village, the destruction of the forts which dominated it, a ruin and destruction
magically wrought without the co-operation of a single human being, the flames were extinguished, the smoke began to subside, then diminished in intensity, paled and disappeared entirely.
Then as you walk round, pulling her, you see little men running about her deck, and sails rise
magically and catch the breeze, and you put in on dirty nights at snug harbours which are unknown to the lordly yachts.
By this time twilight was approaching, so they ate the fine supper which the Wizard
magically produced from the kettle and then went to bed in the cozy tents.
But nothing could be done until the rainy season had fairly set in; until the long-looked-for element that was to
magically separate the gold from the dross in those dull mounds of dust and gravel had come of its own free will, and in its own appointed channels, independent of the feeble auxiliaries that had hopelessly riven the rocks on the hillside, or hung incomplete and unfinished in lofty scaffoldings above the settlement.
The play and slight agitation of the water, in its upward gush, wrought
magically with these variegated pebbles, and made a continually shifting apparition of quaint figures, vanishing too suddenly to be definable.
On the contrary, it seemed to have kindled
magically somewhere within me a glow of assurance, of unaccountable confidence in myself: a warm, steady, and eager sensation of my individual life beginning for good there, on that spot, in that sense of solidarity, in that seduction.
The homely little house stood there, its panels and brasses shining in the firelight, as if
magically created to receive them.
In the meanwhile, the personage who had so
magically turned the tempest into dead calm, as our old and dear Corneille puts it, had modestly retreated to the half-shadow of his pillar, and would, no doubt, have remained invisible there, motionless, and mute as before, had he not been plucked by the sleeve by two young women, who, standing in the front row of the spectators, had noticed his colloquy with Michel Giborne-Jupiter.