"Conjurer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... names; names which reduce "arms! and George! and Brunswick!" into tameness and insignificance. If such means of defending Christianity are successful, I shall no longer doubt that it was possible for the Devil Asmodus to have been corked up in a bottle by the hard words of a conjurer.] ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... need not be a conjurer to see that. It makes itself seen at all moments. You are jealous, my lord, and the maid of honour cannot look at another face without yours beginning to scowl. That which you do is unworthy, monsieur; is inhospitable—is, is lache, yes lache:" (he spoke rapidly in French, his rage carrying him ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... into the woods along the side of the mountain. We are on the first plateau before the summit; the snow partly supports us, but when it gives way and we sound it with our legs, we find it up to our hips. Here we enter a white world indeed. It is like some conjurer's trick. The very trees have turned to snow. The smallest branch is like a cluster of great white antlers. The eye is bewildered by the soft fleecy labyrinth before it. On the lower ranges the forests were entirely bare, but now we perceive the summit of every mountain about us ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... quantity of combustibles, nearly consumed, with various half-burnt books and papers, were sending up an expiring flame, and filling the chamber with stifling smoke. Just within the threshold lay the reputed conjurer. He was bleeding, his clothes were scorched, and he appeared lifeless. Antonio caught him up, and bore him down the stairs to a chamber, in which there was a light, and laid him on a bed. The female domestic was despatched for such appliances as the house afforded; but ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... was no doubt the case, he was not yet strong enough to ignore the old popular feelings on the subject, how was it that he was able to laugh in his sleeve at the laws, and to come forth at a moment's notice and cause the people to vote, legally or illegally, just as he pleased? It requires no conjurer to tell us the reason. The outside hulls and husks remain when the rich fruit has gone. It was in seeing this, and yet not quite believing that it must be so, that the agony of Cicero's life consisted. There could have been no hope for freedom, no hope for the Republic, when Rome had been ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... such things to distract your attention from your object, you may lose it entirely, just as you lose sight of something in the hands of a conjurer who has succeeded in directing your attention to something of momentary interest. In this connection it is well to say that the habit of spending must be avoided. Let a large expenditure be a circumstance. You can afford, however, to spend money on charities even to the point of dissipation. ...
— A Jolly by Josh • "Josh"
... alarming situation of his affairs; his distress was so great that, forgetting his dignity and safety, he dismissed his attendants, laid aside his royal robes, was unable to eat bread, and, dressed like the meanest of his people, he took his journey to the abode of the conjurer. In this state of mind, prepared for imposition, he arrives during the night at her residence. He prevails with her, by much solicitation, and probably by ample rewards, to call up Samuel. To discompose still further the disordered mind of ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... during this trip, I have small doubt, that he found the scenery, and perhaps the persons, for that pretty interlude, "The Seven Vagabonds." The story is placed not far from Stamford, and the conjurer in it says, "I am taking a trip northward, this warm weather, across the Connecticut first, and then up through Vermont, and may be into Canada before the fall." The narrator himself queries by what ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... shook the saucepan vehemently, in order to dislodge some more of its contents into my already full dish. As I did so, my treacherous wrist, strained by the weight of the saucepan, gave way, and with the rapidity of a conjurer's trick I found the great black saucepan seated,—yes, that is the only word for it,—seated in the midst of my heap of rice, which was now covered by fine black powder from its sooty outside. All the rice was utterly and completely spoiled. I don't believe that ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... the big square cuffs of his sleeves, as a conjurer will do, and again repeated the names. This time, however, at each name, he rubbed the palms of his hands together. Walker was seized with a sudden longing to rush down into the village and examine the man's right forearm for a bullet mark. The longing grew on him. The witch doctor went steadily ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... of legerdemain that a conjurer might have envied, Morris transferred the pin and ring to his waistcoat pocket and ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... such a low-bred wretch. It was in vain that I told him he was a great merchant, that he had a great deal of money, and that he played like a child. 'He a merchant,' cried Brinon. 'Do not believe that, sir! May the devil take me, if he is not some conjurer.' 'Hold your tongue, old fool,' said I; 'he is no more a conjurer than you are, and that is decisive; and, to prove it to you, I am resolved to win four or five hundred pistoles of him before I go to bed. With these words I turned him ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... only man; A Necromancer and a Conjurer That works for young Mountchensey altogether; And if it be not for Friar Benedick, That he can cross him by his learned skill, The Wench is gone; Fabell will fetch ...
— The Merry Devil • William Shakespeare
... (l. xvi. p. 160, 161) and Cedrenus, (p. 549, 550.) Like Friar Bacon, the philosopher Leo has been transformed by ignorance into a conjurer; yet not so undeservedly, if he be the author of the oracles more commonly ascribed to the emperor of the same name. The physics of Leo in Ms. are in the library of Vienna, (Fabricius, Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p 366, tom. xii. p. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... that," went on Billy. "Look here," and with the air of a conjurer producing a card from the empty air, he dived into his pocket and then, after a moment's fumbling, held out a round gold ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... taking a trip northward, this warm weather," replied the conjurer, "across the Connecticut first, and then up through Vermont, and may be into Canada before the fall. But I must stop and see the breaking up of the ...
— The Seven Vagabonds (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... "I am not a conjurer," pursued the captain, "and don't think me so, or I shall right soon undeceive you. Likewise don't think, if you please, though I do come from that country of the babies, that I am asking questions for question-asking's sake, for I am not. ...
— A Message from the Sea • Charles Dickens
... first part, and the second opens ten years afterwards in a Greek Conjurer's house in Constantinople, with Paracelsus writing down the result of his work. And ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... peep from the front windows and see their gigantic forms grandly silhouetted against the evening sky. Gog is Gog, and Magog is Magog; and the idea of mistaking the one for the other seems ludicrous in the extreme. The solar system is as full of mysteries as a conjurer's portmanteaux; but, of all the mysteries that it contains, the mystery of individuality is surely ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... and drew back among the trees and undergrowth, where, by the noise they made, they seemed to be holding a "pow-wow," or incantation to procure victory; but the keen and fearless Seth Wyman crept up among the bushes, shot the chief conjurer, and broke up the meeting. About the middle of the afternoon young Frye received a mortal wound. Unable to fight longer, he lay in his blood, praying from time to time for his comrades in a faint ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... and pictures, sitting before them and examining them for an hour at a time. He was also very much given to voyages of discovery, dark continents having a peculiar fascination for him. Even the lion's mouth had no terror for him. I once produced him from the interior of a brand-new top hat like a conjurer an omelette. Again, we were very much surprised at breakfast one morning to see Peter walk out of a rabbit-pie in which ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... supporter; for, if a distinct effect implies a distinct cause, we do not see why distinct terms should not be employed to express the difference, or how the legitimate term for one can in any way be applied to signify a particular degree of the other. Like the two Dromios, they sometimes require a conjurer to tell which is which. If only Perfection, which is a generic term implying the summit of all things, be meant, there is surely nothing to be gained (if we except intended obscurity) by substituting a specific term which is limited to a few. We speak not here of ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... was worth twenty-five thousand pounds or twenty- five thousand pennies!" retorted I. "It belonged to Lady Orstline—not to you or your daughter or to me. I know that you are a skillful conjurer and I won't ask you how it found its way into my pocket. I am only glad I have had an opportunity of returning it to ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... his dark figure corresponded with each other. The apartments, choaked up with lumber, scarcely admitted his body, though of the skeleton order. Perhaps leanness is an appendage to the science, for I never knew a corpulent conjurer. ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... fantasia, the subject was regarded as too extravagant, and, it may be, too coarsely worded for publication. It was no doubt in the first instance a 'metrical experiment', but it is to be interpreted allegorically. The 'Rash Conjurer', the me damne, is the adept in the black magic of metaphysics. But for that he might have been like his brothers, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... reproached him for his scepticism, and every editor has remarked that his plays are heathenish in spirit. Lamb not only calls attention to the fact that "Marlowe is said to have been tainted with Atheistical positions," but remarks that "Barabas the Jew, and Faustus the Conjurer, are offsprings of a mind which at least delighted to dally with interdicted subjects. They both talk a language which a believer would have been tender of putting into the mouth of a character though but in ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... his own good deed by which he punished and put out all witches so short a time before. Such fortune let them look for, who play the same part! I see many do so, who in a great loss send to seek a conjurer to get their belongings again. And marvellous things there they see, sometimes, but never great of their good. And many a silly fool is there who, when he lies sick, will meddle with no physic in no manner of wise, nor send his urine to no learned man, but will send his ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... the quickness of a conjurer, and, like a base-born cockney as he was, fell instantly to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Papers [he means Almanacks], I proposed to lay down my pen and leave the Drudgery of Calculation to those who have more leisure and a Clearer Brain than I can pretend to. Indeed, the Contempt with which a writer of Almanacks is looked on and the Danger he is in of being accounted a Conjurer"—a negro-mancer—"should seem sufficient to deter a man from publishing anything of this kind. But when I consider that all this is the effect of Ignorance, and, therefore, not worth my Notice or Resentment, ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... day. How the stocks did tumble down! Harrison had about nine millions on his hands; he couldn't keep such a fund, and was forced to sell at any price, and lost just one third. Just as he was beginning to pick himself up after the shock and wonder, like the sailor whom the conjurer blew up, what was to come next? Mr. Whitey of the Jacobin, now the honorable Pompey Whitey—and one doesn't see why he shouldn't be, for after all an editor is not, generally speaking, a greater blackguard than most of our Congressmen—Whitey, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... is a theological argument, disguised in the form of a play, that relies for its effects on clever conversation, the moving of pictures, and a mysterious person who may have been a conjurer and may have also ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... himself delighted with the vindication of KLINGSOR, who was undoubtedly, like ROGER BACON, a first-rate conjurer, far in advance of his time, and with limited resources was yet capable of producing illusions which would not have disgraced the stage of St. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 3rd, 1920 • Various
... in the park, the house-party joined them by way of the gardens. A conjurer from London gave an entertainment under a huge tree, and children found white rabbits taken from their pockets and oranges from their caps, with squeals of joy and shouts of laughter. Lady Maria's guests walked about and looked on, laughing with ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... place of the ordinary musical critic of The Times will be taken at the next performance of Parsifal by Mr. WATERER, the great floricultural expert, and Mr. DEVANT, the eminent conjurer, with a view to their contributing their impressions of the flower maidens and the methods of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 • Various
... in the pocket indicated, and with the air of an inexpert conjurer whose trick has succeeded contrary to his expectations produced a silver-plated fork. He regarded it with surprise; then he ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... the most notable individuals in the plot was a certain Jack Purcell, commonly called Gullah Jack,—Gullah signifying Angola, the place of his origin. A conjurer by profession and by lineal heritage in his own country, he had resumed the practice of his vocation on this side the Atlantic. For fifteen years he had wielded in secret an immense influence among a sable constituency in Charleston; and as he had ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... In Shakespeare's time, 'exorcist' and 'conjurer' were used indifferently. The former has since come to mean only 'one who drives away spirits'; the latter, 'one ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... puzzle. Most children seem to know it, and yet, curiously enough, they are invariably unacquainted with the answer. The question they always ask is, "Do, please, tell me whether it is really possible." I believe Houdin the conjurer used to be very fond of giving it to his child friends, but I cannot say whether he invented the little puzzle or not. No doubt a large number of my readers will be glad to have the mystery of the solution cleared up, so I make no apology ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... him in his own house, you must not carry his lunch about with you. You must not produce a veal cutlet from your tail-coat pocket. You must not conceal poached eggs about your person. You must not, like a kind of conjurer, produce baked potatoes from your hat. In short, the canvasser must not feed the voter in any way. Whether the voter is allowed to feed the canvasser, whether the voter may give the canvasser veal cutlets and baked potatoes, is a point of ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... for going about," said the latter, "though I s'pose if you can eat and drink as much as you want it don't matter. I s'pose you mightn't be a conjurer from London, sir?" ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... women who could stretch their necks to the length of their arms, or thrust their lips up to cover their eyebrows, and a hundred other curious tricks. The price of admission was one rin each to children, and finally they chose the conjurer's booth, and saw him spout fire from his mouth, swallow a long sword, and finally exhibit a sea-serpent, which appeared to be made of ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Japan • John Finnemore
... vanished in the air. Where he went to was a mystery. There was no hole; no depth of water; no hiding-place anywhere that I could discover or that the dog could discover, and yet the mink had disappeared. It was like some conjurer's trick. ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... wore a black frock-coat, but was without waistcoat and collar—perhaps because he had been sent for in such a hurry. He had spectacles on, and looked on the whole a man of authority. He had a distinguished appearance, somewhat like a town-crier or a conjurer from the market-place. His voice was shrill and cracked, and he had an ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... many footsteps was indeed audible, coming toward the hollow from the woods beyond. With a burst of cries, the priests and the conjurer whirled away to bear the welcome of Okee to the royal worshipper, and at their heels went the chief men of the Pamunkeys. The werowance of the Paspaheghs was one that sailed with the wind; he listened ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... come off victorious. To secure themselves still further, some of the boats carry conjurers or priests on board, who, by their incantations, are supposed to preserve them from the attacks of the shark. Of course, if a diver is picked off by a shark, the conjurer asserts that he has not properly obeyed his directions, and thus does not lose his credit. The saw-fish is another of the diver's foes, more dangerous, because more difficult ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... looked once, and she saw there was something wrong with Wally. A shadow of depression hung over him—a shadow which he tried to hide with bursts of cheerfulness. But his old air of eagerness was gone—that air with which he had once looked at the future as a child might stare with delighted eyes at a conjurer drawing rabbits and roses out of ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... this wireless is located on the shores of Great Bear Lake. In fact, I believe it is run by an independent trader operating at the east end of that lake, on Conjurer's Bay. A year ago he brought in a small electric plant, to light his trading post, he said. Now this plant is capable of producing an almost unlimited amount of electrical power, provided only time is given. Batteries of great power ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... to them. One result is that the child develops a dangerous inferiority complex. I knew one boy who was a duffer at mathematics. His weakness was due to the inferiority he felt when he saw the learned mathematical master juggle with figures as easily as a conjurer juggles with billiard balls. The little chap lost all hope, and when he worked problems he worked solely ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... elderly female, bearing tracts, scattered them into the shadows. They left her standing, slightly bewildered, with the empty bottle in her hands. She had the air, for all the world, of a member of the audience suddenly abandoned on a conjurer's stage. ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... are you of this mind? How is it that you know so much about the white man's way? Did I not see you in the wigwam of Kistayimoowin, the chief, whose brother is the great medicine man of the tribe? How is it that you, the chief's daughter and the conjurer's niece, should have such ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... He took pleasure in complimenting this strange stiff beauty, partly because it threw her a little off her balance. But as he went upstairs to his floor he drew a deep breath and whistled, saying to himself: "So she has got into the hands of that conjurer upstairs with his golden eye." For, little as he knew or cared about the new religion of Kalon, he had heard of his ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... of puddled mire to quench the hair: My master preaches patience to him, and the while His man with scissors nicks him like a fool; 175 And sure, unless you send some present help, Between them they will kill the conjurer. ...
— The Comedy of Errors - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... A conjurer had obtained admittance, and was showing his laughing audience the tricks of his trained ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... dipping oneself in the seclusion of a monastic cell. Nowadays the image of the world, with all its sheets of detailed news, all its network of communications, sets too deep a mark upon one's spirit. We tend to believe that a man is lost unless he is overwhelmed with occupation, unless, like the conjurer, he is keeping a dozen balls in the air at once. Such a gymnastic teaches a man alertness, agility, effectiveness. But it has got to be proved that one was sent into the world to be effective, and it is not even certain ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... man with the cool head and the keen sight and nerves of iron, who sat up in his loft, with his hand on a magic wand, and played with trainfuls of his fellowmen—a mere question of life or death to be answered over and over again; played with them as the conjurer tosses his handful of pretty globes into the air and catches them without one click of the ivories. It was a forcible reminder of Clapham Junction; the perfect system that brings order out of chaos, and saves a little world, but a mad one, from the total annihilation that threatens it every ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... subject from a Vienna newspaper, which I will now read to you, translating as I go. You can see for yourselves; it is printed in the German character." And he held the cutting out for verification, much as a conjurer passes a trick orange along the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... city. Yadah, Jadagari, Jadah-tash, science and stone of weather-conjurer. Yaik River. Yaju, and Majuj, see Gog and Magog. Yak (dong), their tails carried to Venice; used in India for military decorations. Ya'kub Beg of Kasghar. Yakuts. Yalung River. Yam, or Yamb (a post-stage or post-house). ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Veiled Being"? Surely it is not enough that it should simply refrain from "asserting" anything at all on the subject. If "God" is outside ourselves ("a Being, not us but dealing with us and through us," p. 6) we cannot leave him hanging in the void, like the rope which the Indian conjurer is fabled to throw up into the air till it hooks itself on to nothingness. If we are to believe in him as a lever for the righting of a world that has somehow run askew, we want to know something of his ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... Phadrig. The Prince assures me that he is not a conjurer in the professional sense, and would be deeply insulted to be called one; also that no amount of money would induce him to give a display of his powers just for money. He will come to-day, if you like, and do wonderful things, which, ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... old Man consider'd of it, took the Devil's Counsel, and listed in his Pay; so he, that had plaid his Pranks twenty five Years as a Conjurer, when he was no Conjurer, was then forc'd really to deal with the DEVIL, for fear the People should know he did not: Till now he had ambo dexter, cheated the Devil on one Hand, and the People on the other; but the Devil gain'd his Point ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... to the formulas the book contains about twenty pages of Scripture extracts in the same handwriting, for Gahuni, like several others of their shamans, combined the professions of Indian conjurer and Methodist preacher. After his death the book fell into the hands of the younger members of the family, who filled it with miscellaneous writings and scribblings. Among other things there are about seventy pages of what was intended to be a Cherokee-English ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... her as he sat smoking before his lodge, his face blackened and blanket torn in mourning for an enemy he had killed. She resolved to heed the appeal of the manitou. When Red Deer heard how she had been promised to the old conjurer, he was filled with rage. Still, he became thoughtful and advised caution when she told him of the water spirit's counsel, for the dwellers in the lakes were, of all immortals, most deceitful, and had ever been enemies of the Dakotas. "I will do as I am bidden," she said, sternly. "Go away ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... the conjurer at various parties and despised him utterly. He despised his futile jokes and high-pitched laugh and he knew his tricks by heart. They sat in rows in front of him—shining-faced, well-brushed little boys in dark Eton suits and gleaming collars, ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... shoot you," he said gravely. "It would be us they would kill if they took the notion. Whatever their conjurer tells them ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... there in which human folly will not believe?—We have all read of the bottle-conjurer.{1}—The prevalence of curiosity is universal. I could safely stake any money, that if public notice was given of a person who would leap down his own throat, he would gain belief, and a full audience would ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... uniformly consistent. But in the twelfth year the conflict became actually dangerous, and Mr. Clark all at once dropped his consistency. The great suddenness—the extreme abruptness—of the change, gave to it the effect of a trick of legerdemain. The conjurer puts a pigeon into an earthen pipkin, gives the vessel a shake, and then turns it up, and lo! out leaps the little incarcerated animal, no longer a pigeon, but a rat. It was thus with the Rev. Mr. Clark. Adversity, like Vice in the fable, took upon herself the character of a juggler, ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... back among his cohort. And as if some conjurer had flourished a wand of magic, in the twinkling of an eye the first century had formed in marching order; every legionary had flung over his shoulder his shield and pack, and at the harsh blare of the military trumpet ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... innumerable others which may be collected from the books of natural history, we cannot but be convinced that the fetus or embryon is formed by apposition of new parts, and not by the distention of a primordial nest of germs included one within another like the cups of a conjurer. ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... great Conjurer, as appears by the Sequel. The Seretee or Santee Indians were gone to War against the Hooks and Backhooks Nations, living near the Mouth of Winyan-River. Those that were left at Home, (which are commonly old People and Children) had heard no News a long ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... case I allude to, he set up no less than seven defences to account for the unhappy duck's finding its way into his client's pocket, and the charm of them all was their variety. Inconsistency was not the word to apply reproachfully. Inconsistency was Codd's merit. He was like a conjurer who asks you to name a card, and as surely as you do so you draw it from ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... will be, these gods, in their day, each of them an old bearded simian up in the sky, who begins by fishing the universe out of a void, like a conjurer taking a rabbit out of a hat. (A hat which, if it resembled a void, wasn't there.) And after creating enormous suns and spheres, and filling the farthest heavens with vaster stars, one god will turn back and long for the smell of ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... for a moment had so much in it of bitter realism that it drove the blood from my wife's cheeks. I could not follow Dawson's movements; his hands flickered like those of a conjurer, there came a sharp click, and the handcuffs were upon my wrists! I stared at them speechless, wondering how they got there, and, looking up, met the coldly triumphant eyes of the detective. I realised then exactly how the professional manhunter glares at the prey ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... ideas of a world more glorious, more rich, more witty, more enterprising, than their own. But the glory has been the glory of pasteboard, and the wealth has been a wealth of tinsel. The wit has been the wit of hairdressers, and the enterprise has been the enterprise of mountebanks. An audacious conjurer has generally been his hero,—some youth who, by wonderful cleverness, can obtain success by every intrigue that comes to his hand. Through it all there is a feeling of stage properties, a smell of hair-oil, an aspect of buhl, a remembrance of tailors, ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... let us say, which the necromancer was uttering, only sounded but too much like "hokey-pokey kickeraboo abracadabra," and the rest of the mysterious sounds with which the conjurer at juvenile parties seeks to invest his performance with additional wonder, for the benefit ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... The Giant and the conjurer now knew that their wicked course was at an end, and they stood biting their thumbs and shaking within fear. Jack, with his sword of sharpness, soon killed the Giant, and the magician was then carried away by a whirlwind; and every knight and beautiful lady who had been changed into birds and ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... by the end, canst not help foisting it in at every period! The devil take me, if I don't think thou wouldst rather give her poison with thy own hands, rather than she should recover, and rob thee of the merit of being a conjurer! ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... this? Good Mr. Conjurer, stand by—and don't fright the Gentlewoman with your elegant ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... soldier, the general travels "light," and all his worldly possessions were crowded ready for mobilization into a small compass. He had his sword, his field blanket, his trunk, and the tin despatch boxes that held his papers. From these, like a conjurer, he would draw souvenirs of all the world. From the embrace of faded letters, he would unfold old photographs, daguerrotypes, and miniatures of fair women and adventurous men: women who now are queens in exile, men who, lifted ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... you could trust your life with him. If he didn't, you could "look up" for trouble. He was honest and "square"—if he liked you—but he could make things disappear by "sleight of hand" in a manner worthy of a West End conjurer. ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... senses, it was they, not the nominal proprietor, that lived Friedrich Wilhelm's life. For the next seven years, a figure went about, not doubting it was Friedrich Wilhelm; but it was in reality Seckendorf-and-Grumkow much more. These two, conjurer and his man, both invisible, have caught their royal wild Bear; got a rope round his muzzle;—and so dance him about; now terrifying, now exhilarating all the market by the pranks he plays! Grumkow, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... number of children who are coming here on Twelfth Night, in honor of Charley's birthday, for which occasion I have provided a magic lantern and divers other tremendous engines of that nature. But the best of it is that Forster and I have purchased between us the entire stock in trade of a conjurer, the practice and display whereof is intrusted to me. And O my dear eyes, Felton, if you could see me conjuring the company's watches into impossible tea-caddies, and causing pieces of money to ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... shipwreck, which he believed to be owing to the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe. We then went to the village to call on the bishop, the Ylustrisimo Senor Campos, whom we found in his canonicals, and who seems a good little old man, but no conjurer; although I believe he had the honour of bringing up his cousin, Senor Posada, destined to be Archbishop of Mexico. We found him quietly seated in a large, simply-furnished room, and apparently buried over some huge volume, so that he was not at ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... and which embodied the legends regarding these great men which had passed current for two hundred years. The same ignorant indifference to useful learning which made Roger Bacon, the great philosopher of the thirteenth century, "unheard, forgotten, buried," represented him after his death as a conjurer doing tricks for the amusement of a king. "The Famous Historie of Frier Bacon," is written in a clear and simple style, very similar to that of "Thomas of Reading," and recounts: "How Fryer Bacon made a Brazen Head to speake, ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... Sir Gawayne, with a troubled eye, Looked up, and saw his lady standing by. Quoth he: "And if this conjurer unblest Win no acceptance of his bitter jest, How then in after days shall Arthur's court Confront the calumny and foul report Of idle tongues?" The wrath in Gawayne's eyes Hashed for an instant; then in humbler wise He spoke on: "Yet God ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis
... said. "I'm not a conjurer. If everybody stood well back I used to be able to produce an egg, broken or unbroken according to the temperature of my hands, from a handkerchief about six feet square. People were very nice about it, very nice. But an inability to introduce a quart into a pint pot has always been among ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... important personages Punch and Judy, and makes their movements even tolerably responsive to the sentiment of the dialogue, the spectator will be infinitely more disposed to refer the sounds to the lantern jaws and the timber lips of the puppets than to the conjurer himself, who presents to them the picture of absolute ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various
... that these childish devices were intended to deceive Sir Charles Vandrift. Not quite the sort of man (as the City of London knows) to be taken in by hocus-pocus. And all this, I saw, was the cheapest and most commonplace conjurer's patter. ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... mule, drawing a light road-cart, trotted past. The driver was a short, squat man, his face almost hidden in hair. It was Dr. Buzzard. He was known for miles as a successful "conjurer" and giver of "hands." Most of the people around had perfect faith in his cures and revelations, and had advised Religion to try him, but the girl objected, vaguely questioning reason and conscience, and Min was getting ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... side, but the slope was empty and even with our glasses we could not discover a sign of life on the plain, which stretched away to the horizon apparently as level as a floor. It had been swallowed utterly as though by the magic pocket of a conjurer. ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... will make the performance so much the more interesting. And now, as the conjurer says when he begins, observe that there is no deception. That is the figure of speech called lying, because there is to be nothing but deception from beginning to end. Did you ever consider the nature of a lie, Unorna? It is ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... the Jungle Comrades Under Castro For Home and Honor From Switch to Lever Little Snap, the Post Boy Zig-Zag, the Boy Conjurer ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... Street; so that I must have seemed ungrateful, when, in truth, I was only modest. The last offence may be forgiven, as not common in a lawyer {p.025} and poet; the first is said to be equal to the crime of witchcraft, but many an act of my life hath shown that I am no conjurer. If I were, however, ten times more modest than twenty years' attendance at the Bar renders probable, your flattering inscription would cure me of so unfashionable a malady. I might, indeed, lately ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... than 'La Finta Semplice.' The plot of the little work is an imitation of Rousseau's 'Devin du Village,' telling of the quarrels of a rustic couple, and their reconciliation through the good offices of a travelling conjurer. It was significant that the Italian and German schools should be respectively represented in the two infant works of the man who was afterwards to fuse the special beauties of each in works of immortal loveliness. ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... pavement, and the conflicts in the streets betrayed the lamentable usurper more and more clearly to himself and others; until at length the unchained spirits of revolution seized and devoured the incapable conjurer. The infamous butchery, through which he perished, condemns itself, as it condemns the aristocratic faction whence it issued; but the glory of martyrdom, with which it has embellished the name of Tiberius ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... very pretty deception," said the doctor's friends; careless, however, for they had witnessed greater miracles at a conjurer's show; "pray ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... all my heart," muttered Fairthorn, "coming here to do such astonishing mischief! But, sir, I can't obey you; 'tis no use talking. You must get some one else. Parson Morley will do it—with pleasure too, no doubt; or that hobbling old man whom I suspect to be a conjurer. Who knows but what he may get knocked on the head as he is looking on with his wicked one eye; and then there will be an end of him, too, which would be a ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... tribes, about 1766, relates that once when he was with a band of Christinos, or Crees, on the north shore of Lake Superior, anxiously awaiting the coming of certain traders with goods, the chief told him that the medicine-man, or conjurer, or "clairvoyant" as we should say, would try to get some information from the Manitou. Elaborate preparations were made. In a spacious tent, brightly lighted with torches of pitch-pine, the conjurer, wrapped in a large elk-skin, and corded with about forty yards of elk-hide ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... constitution... As nothing is easier than to perfect a daydream, all perturbed minds gather, and become excited, in this ideal realm. They start out with curiosity and end up with enthusiasm. The man in the street rushes to the enterprise in the same manner as a miser to a conjurer promising treasures, and, thus childishly attracted, each hopes to find at once, what has never been seen under even the most liberal governments: perpetual perfection, universal brotherhood, the power of acquiring what one lacks, and a ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... been the order of the day. Some men's cards are all trumps, whilst others have carte blanche; some honours count, whilst others stand for nothing. For instance, did not the little man who cast up his final accounts a short time back at St. Helena, like a Corsican conjurer, shuffle and cut about among kings and queens, knaves and asses, (aces I mean) dealing out honours when he liked, and taking trumps as he thought fit?—did he not deal and take up again almost as he pleased, having generally an honour in his ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... words are spoken. Then there is a long one, perhaps the best preserved of all, to be recited by the sufferer, who is supposed to be under the effects of an evil spell, and from which it is evident that the words are to accompany actions performed by the conjurer. It is divided into parallel verses, of which the first ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... over the counter—he really had an extraordinarily long body—this amazing person produced the article in the customary conjurer's manner. "Paper," he said, and took a sheet out of the empty hat with the springs; "string," and behold his mouth was a string-box, from which he drew an unending thread, which when he had tied his parcel he bit off—and, it seemed ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... Familiar, or Demon, he did presently cast it down upon the rocks, and it became a great black serpent, which mine informant saw crawl off into some bushes, very nimble. This Passaconaway was accounted by his tribe to be a very cunning conjurer, and they do believe that he could brew storms, make water burn, and cause green leaves to grow on trees in the winter; and, in brief, it may be said of him, that he was not a whit behind the magicians of Egypt ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Prestigiation itself is wonderful, but that its phases and phrases should be changed is not wonderful. Not now, I ween, is the gibeciere of the Ancient Wizard seen; not now the "Presto, pass!" of the less ancient conjurer heard. Nay, all things change, yet I change not; that which is not yet cannot yet have taken place—at least not its proper place; that which shall not be may yet come to a bad pass, and the blind race of man watches ...
— HE • Andrew Lang
... entered, and down they sat together, and the old man began to speak as follows: "Son, I see by your belt you are the great conqueror of giants, and behold, my son, on the top of this mountain is an enchanted castle; this is kept by a giant named Galligantua, and he, by the help of an old conjurer, betrays many knights and ladies into his castle, where by magic art they are transformed into sundry shapes and forms. But above all, I grieve for a duke's daughter, whom they fetched from her father's garden, carrying her through ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... Cleopatra, clapping her hands; "callest thou that magic? Why, it is an old trick that any wayside conjurer can do. I have seen it a score ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... learned Agrippa, whose fame for astrology had doubtless reached her, to consult the stars concerning the destinies of France. This Agrippa refused, and complained of being employed in such follies. His refusal aroused the ire of the Queen; her courtiers eagerly took up the cry, and "conjurer," "necromancer," etc., were the complimentary terms which were freely applied to the former favourite. Agrippa fled to the court of Margaret of Austria, the governor of the Netherlands under Charles V., and was appointed the Emperor's historiographer. He wrote a history of the reign ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... him as he swung round on the music-stool, she undid the bag, and drew from it some folded stuff which she slowly shook out, rather in the manner of a conjurer, until it was revealed as a ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... below Fourth Street (except that everything seems to me to have been just below Fourth Street when not just above,) with the scene of my great public exposure somewhat later, the wonderful exhibition of Signor Blitz, the peerless conjurer, who, on my attending his entertainment with W. J. and our frequent comrade of the early time "Hal" Coster, practised on my innocence to seduce me to the stage and there plunge me into the shame of my sad failure ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... escaped his lips during the journey. For my own part, I had charge of a couple of dark lanterns, while Legrand contented himself with the scarabaeus, which he carried attached to the end of a bit of whip-cord; twirling it to and fro, with the air of a conjurer, as he went. When I observed this last, plain evidence of my friend's aberration of mind, I could scarcely refrain from tears. I thought it best, however, to humor his fancy, at least for the present, or until I could adopt some more energetic ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... black ring. The surface of the lake, when we had reached the center, was slightly luminous from the starlight, and the dark, even forest-line that surrounded us, doubled by reflection in the water, presented a broad, unbroken belt of utter blackness. The effect was quite startling, like some huge conjurer's trick. It seemed as if we had crossed the boundary-line between the real and the imaginary, and this was indeed the land of shadows and of spectres. What magic oar was that the guide wielded that it could transport me to such a ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... failed, however, to consult their oracles, those spirits which the medicine-man was looked upon as an adept at invoking, and whose counsel was ever diligently sought by the superstitious natives. The conjurer crept within his skin-covered lodge, where, crouched upon the earth, he filled the air with inarticulate invocations to the surrounding spirits; while outside, squatted on the ground, the dusky auditors looked and listened with ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... from the old standard. It lasted two or three years. The chief of the slaves had at one time two hundred thousand followers, inclusive, probably, of women and children. He was a Syrian of Apamea, named Eunus, and had been a prophet and conjurer among the slaves. To his prophecies and tricks he owed his elevation when the rebellion broke out. According to some accounts, he was rather a cunning than an able man; but it should be recollected that his enemies only have drawn his portrait. The victories he so often won over ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various |
