"Conjuring" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the landing stage, and spent there several amusing half-hours, albeit hotter than the innermost pit. Nothing ever changes there: one sees the same artificers and the same routine; the same flames rage; glass is the same mystery, beyond all conjuring, so ductile and malleable here, so brittle and rigid everywhere else. There you sit, or stand, some score of visitors, while the wizards round the furnace busily and incredibly convert molten blobs of anything (you would ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... sent for. I remember that my father stayed up from town that thrilling morning, and walked up and down in front of the house looking up at the sky. I now know that he was conjuring it to rain with all his power of pity—prayer maybe—though I think, like most commuters, he was weak on prayer. Anyhow, rain it did. The sky had been overcast for two days, drawing slowly at the great beds of moisture in the northeast, and that morning, accompanied by high winds, the first ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... a little. I try to learn something different for them every time. The last time I learned to do conjuring tricks. They'd get tired of me if I didn't bring something new. I'm thinking of learning the penny whistle before ...
— John M. Synge: A Few Personal Recollections, with Biographical Notes • John Masefield
... linen and fine raiment; from footgear to hair-oil their wares ranged. They enlivened their auctioneering with conjuring tricks and witty stories, selling watches by the aid of legerdemain, and fancy vests by ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... looking with more or less interest. He knew how things appear to an excited imagination, and that those who believe in uncanny objects seldom have any trouble about conjuring up specters ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... humiliating superstition, and mingled, as is his wont, a lesson of genuine wisdom in his lay. Being at dinner, he overthrows the salt, and, looking round the room, discovers that he is the thirteenth guest. While he is mourning his unhappy fate, and conjuring up visions of disease and suffering and the grave, he is suddenly startled by the apparition of Death herself, not in the shape of a grim foe, with skeleton-ribs and menacing dart, but of an angel of light, who shews the folly of tormenting ourselves with the dread ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... he deceived a horse-courser at a fair, called Pheifering: for Faustus, through his conjuring, had gotten an excellent fair horse, whereupon he rid to the fair, where he had many chapmen that offered him money; lastly, he sold him for forty dollars, and willing him that bought him, that in anywise he should not ride him over the ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... lay within his power he circled Kilimanjaro and hunted in the foothills to the north of that mightiest of mountains as he had discovered that in the neighborhood of the armies there was no hunting at all. Some pleasure he derived through conjuring mental pictures from time to time of the German he had left in the branches of the lone tree at the bottom of the high-walled gulch in which was penned the starving lion. He could imagine the man's mental anguish as he became weakened from hunger and maddened by thirst, knowing that sooner or ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... tell her father that she could never become even a third-rate musician; and Don Roberto had, after a caustic hour, concluded that he would "throw no more good money after bad;" she had had long and meaning conferences with her mirror, conjuring up phantasms of the beautiful dead women of her race, and decided sadly that the worship of man was not for her. She had never talked for ten consecutive minutes with a young man; but she had a woman's instincts, she had read, she had listened to the tales ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... to examine the subjects: coats of arms, trophies of weapons, or allegories and half-obliterated love-scenes. It is curious to see these homely relics thus exposed in the street, conjuring up the peaceful soul of families gathered round the hearth. From over the wall, the air reaches me laden with hallowed fragrance. I picture the box-bordered walks on the ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... rest of the day I lived upon the memory of that morning, reciting to myself each word that she had uttered, conjuring up in memory the vision of her every look. And my absent-mindedness was visible to Fifanti when I came to my studies with him later. He grew more peevish with me than was habitual, dubbed me dunce and wooden-head, and commended the wisdom ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... when he wrote, having posted it himself, ventured to address his letter to "Mrs. Dutton"; the only other she had received was from her mother, directed, as requested, to B. D. This letter had been rather distressing—filled with vague fears, inspired, she was sure, by Miss Opie, and conjuring her, with promises of inviolable ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... ever conjuring up romances around her, and her life was spent in composing dramatic situations. These idle fancies disturbed my happiness. I, who longed to leave the world and society, in order to devote myself exclusively to her, found her too much taken up by indifferent ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... exclaimed the little hunchback, standing with his arms folded and gloomily conjuring up the scene of yesterday; "Jemmy, we must have mown the poor brutes down like swathes of meadow ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... pull through without outside help, and make Rumania governable, it will be the greatest tour de force I have ever witnessed in my diplomatic career of more than half a century. It will be nothing less than a conjuring trick.' King Carol succeeded; and only those acquainted with Rumanian affairs can appreciate the ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... 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 fly, and burning pocket-handkerchiefs without hurting 'em, and practising in my own room, without anybody to admire, you would never forget as long as you ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... me when the reward will be the privilege, the right to fold you in my arms? I am afraid of nothing that can result from making you my wife. Do not cloud my happiness by conjuring up spectres that only annoy you, that cannot for an instant influence me. Your hands are icy and you have no shawl. ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... mustered sufficient resolution to visit the field that night. He took no one into his confidence, fearing if he discovered treasures of any kind he could not be left in undisturbed possession. During the day the rudiments of imagination which made him a musician had been conjuring up the possible results ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... that the conjuring force of fear, with its dread apparitions, the surmising, half articulate struggles of affection, the dreams of memory, the lights and groups of poetry, the crude germs of metaphysical speculation, the deposits of the inter action ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... actual loss to India on these exchange transactions is not the worst outcome of these conjuring tricks, as they have been contemptuously called by Indian critics of Whitehall. Faith both in the omnipotence and in the honesty of Government was by no means extinct in Indian business circles, and when Government undertook to "stabilise" the rupee at 2s. gold Indian ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... shows Ulrica in her cottage seated at a table conjuring Satan. A crowd of people are around her, amongst them Richard in disguise. A sailor Sylvan advances first to hear his fate, and while Ulrica is prophesying that better days await him, Richard slips a roll of gold with a scroll into Sylvan's pocket and so makes the witch's words true. ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... larger than he had expected—quite a good-sized village, in fact—the abode of Nautch people and conjurors. In all the houses the people were busy, some dancing, some singing, others trying various conjuring tricks or practising beating the drum, and all seemed happy ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... any village church in old England, two thousand miles away. And the hearts of the listeners rose to their throats, and men were quiet whilst the music sounded. The notes reached far, and fell on many a drowsy ear, conjuring up visions in the half-slumbering minds of humble whitewashed village steeples, far and far away. Polson's contingent, drawn from a distance of some two hundred yards, stuffed that ingenious musician with half-cold roast pork, and left him well ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... when Ashmedai, or Asmodeus, the chief of all the devils of mischief, was being led a captive to Solomon, he did several mysterious things while on the way, among others bursting into extravagant laughter, when he saw a magician conjuring and predicting. On being questioned by Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, why he had seemed so much amused, Ashmedai answered that it was because the seer was at the very time sitting on a princely treasure, and he did not, with all his magic and promising ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... incessantly, but very cleverly. Before he goes he dashes off a sketch of South Africa's future with a few words about farming and gold-mining. He gives us a cup of hot cocoa all round, which he produces from nowhere, like a conjuring trick, re-arranges our fire, tells us when the war will be over, and strolls off (daring the old colonels with his eye to so much as look at him) to the farm to give the General his ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... nervous child and rather imaginative, and was always conjuring up possibilities of disaster in his own mind. He did not make these public; he knew better than to do such a thing in a house full of schoolboys, but they existed all the same. He did not wish to "tell tales;" ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... comedy, and it will be hard to find any person for whom Fate had such dreadful visitations in store. Fancy the party, in the days of their prosperity, here gathered at Trianon, and seated under the tall poplars by the lake, discoursing familiarly together: suppose, of a sudden, some conjuring Cagliostro of the time is introduced among them, and foretells to them the woes that ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... on what might have been and dwelling wholly in the realm of his fancies—the actual world might indeed become as a dream, and nothing seem real but his illusions. I dare say that thirteen years of Bayley's Four-Corners would have its effect upon me; though instead of conjuring up golden-haired children of the Madonna, I should probably see gnomes and kobolds, and goblins engaged in hoisting false signals and misplacing ...
— Miss Mehetabel's Son • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... convenient seat as her husband disappeared indoors. Here, half an hour later, still communing with the early twilight as it deepened into dusk, Alice and her father found her, when they came out from the house, arm in arm. Who shall say what spring the words unconsciously released, conjuring up before her unwilling mental vision a picture of the years gone by? Who shall explain the apprehensiveness which came unbidden, causing known certainties to be forgotten because of the disquieting questionings which demanded an ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... squadrons of reserved cavalry, Balen's own, Vere's own, and Cecil's, were all that was left him, and at the head of these he essayed an advance. He seemed the only man on the field not frightened; and menacing, conjuring, persuading the fugitives for the love of fatherland, of himself and his house, of their own honour, not to disgrace and destroy themselves for ever; urging that all was not yet lost, and beseeching them at least to take despair for their master, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... premonition of lurking danger. For a time he sat very still, trying to peer into the shadows beyond the fire and listening to the sounds that came to him from out of the night. As he watched and listened his brain worked ceaselessly, conjuring picture after picture of what that danger might be, and at last he drew out of the firelight and concealed himself in the deep gloom of the bush. From here he could see the camp, and at the same time was safe ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... Lester, but it was the best Bob had to offer. Things turned out just as he said they would. They sat there on the ridge pole for more than four hours, Lester racking his brain, in the hope of conjuring up some plan for driving the dogs away, and Bob grumbling lustily over the ill luck which ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... thought, his mind always conjuring up opposition in the person of Lady Ashton to his new prevailing wish—"what could a woman desire in a match more than the sopiting of a very dangerous claim, and the alliance of a son-in-law, noble, brave, well-gifted, and highly connected; sure to float whenever the tide ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... region must be given up to barbarism like the plains of Asia, with a population as unstable as the Scythians and Tartars. But the shortsightedness of these distant critics can be forgiven when one recalls that Franklin himself, while conjuring up a splendid vision of the western valleys teeming with a thriving population, supposed that the dream would not be realized for "some centuries." None of these observers dreamt that the territories transferred in 1763 would have ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... the God-forsaken place it looks to be, but is a rich possibility. I differ, and that is what queers Maclin with us. His buying those wore-out mines and saying he's going to make the Forest is damaging evidence against him. He ain't no fool: then what is he? That's what we're conjuring with. Maclin ain't seeing himself in partnership with the Almighty, not ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... mighty glad you didn't, Big Bob; for you've given me a whole lot to be thankful over. When I heard some one wanted me at the 'phone I was conjuring up all sorts of evil things happening that would threaten our line-up. Even after I heard your voice I wasn't at all sure but you meant to tell me your father had learned the truth, and ordered you to stay ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... performing a conjuring trick, the old man continued to sit with his hands stretched over the embers. By this time his nose had swollen over the bridge, and bruises risen under his eyes which tended to obscure his vision. Indeed, as he sat there, sat mouthing with dark, ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... I was conjuring up a sort of vision, if you know what I mean, of you as seen through Angela's eyes. Fat in the middle and thin ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... under, water; (8) inflicting all manner of diseases and torments; (9) curing all kinds of diseases; (10) converting people into beasts and minerals; (11) foretelling the future by palmistry, pyromancy, hydromancy, astrology, etc.; (12) conjuring up all manner of spirits antagonistic to men's moral progress, i.e. Vice ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... Conjuring her gracious image out of the dreamy shadows, he found balm for his sore heart in the white gown that fell softly around her, the small white foot that now and then pressed the pedal, the long, graceful line that swept ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... priest, in his Formicarium, speaks of a false Jeanne at Cologne, protected by Ulrich of Wirtemberg, (the Metz chronicle has 'Comte de Warnonbourg'), who took the woman to Cologne. The woman, says Nider, was a noisy lass, who came eating, drinking, and doing conjuring feats; the Inquisition failed to catch her, thanks to Ulrich's protection. She married a knight, and presently became the concubine of a priest in Metz.* This reads like a piece of ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... hold'st at aught,— As my great power thereof may give thee sense, Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red After the Danish sword, and thy free awe Pays homage to us,—thou mayst not coldly set Our sovereign process; which imports at full, By letters conjuring to that effect, The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England; For like the hectic in my blood he rages, And thou must cure me: till I know 'tis done, Howe'er my haps, my joys ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... great encouragement to go on. "If you will allows me to say so, Carmina wants a little amusement." Mrs. Gallilee looked up from her book. Fearing that he might stop altogether if he took his time as usual, Mr. Gallilee proceeded in a hurry. "There's an afternoon performance of conjuring tricks; and, do you know, I really think I might take Carmina to see it. We shall be delighted if you will accompany us, my dear; and they do say—perhaps you have heard of it yourself?—that there's a good deal of science in this ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... so," he said, solemnly, but oh, how fervently. "I will not torture mine own heart and thine by conjuring thee to fly; and now, here, at thy feet, Agnes, noble, generous being, let me swear solemnly, sacredly swear, that should life be preserved to me longer than I now dream of, should I indeed be spared to lavish on thee all a ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... the Bible, on the other, they said it clearly marked out their circumscribed sphere of action: that the demands for political and civil rights were irreligious, dangerous to the stability of the home, the state and the church. Clerical appeals were circulated from time to time, conjuring members of their churches to take no part in the anti-slavery or woman suffrage movements, as they were infidel in their tendencies, undermining the very foundations of society. No wonder the majority of women stood still, and with bowed ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... to do in these districts where belief in them is not yet extinct, with no small degree of regard and affection. It may be that "the good folk" and the "peace-people" (sitchean) were so called that good intention might be compelled by the conjuring influence of a name, as well as to avoid giving offence by uttering real names, as if it were desired to exercise a magical influence by their use. Be that as it may, it is evident from Highland folk-tales that the fairies were oftener the friends than the foes of mankind. When men and women were ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie
... spasmodic ravings, but the bystanders frequently relieved patients in a less artificial manner, by thumping and trampling upon the parts affected. While dancing they neither saw nor heard, being insensible to external impressions through the senses, but were haunted by visions, their fancies conjuring up spirits whose names they shrieked out; and some of them afterward asserted that they felt as if they had been immersed in a stream of blood, which obliged them to leap so high. Others, during the paroxysm, saw the heavens ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Dame Humphreys, who rushed abruptly into the house, lamenting that things should come to this pass, and conjuring his reverence not to think any of her family were concerned in it. It was with difficulty that her agitation permitted her to state, that a mob bent on mischief were coming to the rectory; whether the house or the life of the pastor was threatened ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... as well as a guilty delight in all this conjuring with a magic check-book, and Bertha grew in grace and dignity in her role as hostess. Her circle of acquaintances widened, but the Mosses, her first friends in the city, were not displaced in her affections. To them she continued to play the generous fairy in as many pleasant ways as they ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... to conjuring up any such thing!" broke in Miss Lucy's laughing voice. "Of course—why, Polly!" For the little girl had been brought suddenly face to face with an awful possibility, and her courage had given way. She was sobbing on the ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... exceptional faculty of diction led him to immoderate expressiveness, to immodest sweetness, to a jugglery, and prestidigitation, and conjuring of words, to transformations and transmutations of sound—if, I say, his extraordinary gift of diction brought him to this exaggeration of the manner, what a part does it not play in the matter of his poetry! So overweening a place does it take in this man's art that I believe the words to ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... my drive had not been without its effect on the professor. I could see that he was not confident. He addressed his ball more strangely and at greater length than any one I had ever seen. He waggled his club over it as if he were going to perform a conjuring trick. Then he struck, ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... picture to ourselves, without conjuring up extravagant contingencies, it is not difficult to detect the existence of conditions, in which are latent elements of future disputes, identical in principle with those through which we have passed heretofore. ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... principle and party stood before all other things; and he could not be untrue to one any more than to the other. But the leaders of the Hunker wing did not take kindly to him. They could not forget that the Radical state officers, with whom he coincided in principle, in conjuring with his name in 1844 had defeated the renomination of Governor Bouck; and, though they might admit that his nomination practically elected Polk, by extracting the party from the mire of Texas annexation, they preferred, deep in their hearts, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... salary at term-days, as long as his money lasted. Getting rid of him, they procured another—a licentiate of the Church—who for some time promised well. He seemed steady and thoughtful, and withal a painstaking teacher; but coming in contact with some zealous Baptists, they succeeded in conjuring up such a cloud of doubt around him regarding the propriety of infant baptism, that both his bodily and mental health became affected by his perplexities, and he had to resign his charge. And then, after a pause, during which the boys enjoyed a delightfully ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... returned to his game. I continued watching the players for some hours. The gypsies lost considerably, and I saw clearly that the jockeys were cheating them most confoundedly. I therefore once more called Mr. Petulengro aside, and told him that the jockeys were cheating him, conjuring him to return to the encampment. Mr. Petulengro, who was by this time somewhat the worse for liquor, now fell into a passion, swore several oaths, and asking me who had made me a Moses over him and his brethren, told me to return to ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... d'Arblay to Dr. Burney.) Chenies-street, Alfred-place, May 23, 1813. Oh, how teased I am, my dearest padre, by this eternal unwalkable weather! Every morning rises so fairly, that at every noon I am preparing to quit my conjuring, and repair, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... with the provisions and necessary articles requisite for their journey. While we leave the young men to proceed on their way, and their sister sitting listlessly gazing with tearful eyes through the open window of the drawing-room, conjuring in her imagination the scenes through which her brothers were about to pass, we will cursorily glance at the family whose ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... with splendid material. He declared himself incompetent when he had to criticise their conjuring performances. He said that such mechanical exercises belonged to the School of Arts and Crafts, and that not musical criticism but charts registering the duration, and number of the notes, and the energy ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... obvious preparation is very apt to defeat its end by begetting a perversely quizzical frame of mind in the audience. The desired effect is discounted, like a conjuring trick in which the mechanism is too transparent. Let me recall a trivial but instructive instance of this error. The occasion was the first performance of Pillars of Society at the Gaiety Theatre, London—the first Ibsen performance ever given in England. At the end of the third ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... for instance, the great Government farms as they passed them, standing white and trim upon the prairie, and bade her think of the busy brains at work there—magicians conjuring new wheats that will ripen before the earliest frosts, and so draw onward the warm tide of human life over vast regions now desolate; or trees that will stand firm against the prairie winds, and in the centuries to come turn this ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Thus conjuring up the past, and theorizing on the present, she lay restless, changing her posture from one side to the other and back again. Finally, when courting sleep with all her art, she heard a clock strike two. A minute later, and she fancied she could distinguish a soft ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... applied to her old friends. The little girl was so beautiful that the fairies were struck with admiration; but when questioned by the mother as to the future fate of Princess Rosetta (for such was her name), they one and all pretended to have left their conjuring-book at home, and said they would come another time. "Alas!" cried the queen, "this bodes no good. Yet I do entreat you to tell me the worst." The more unwilling the fairies seemed to speak, the greater desire the queen felt to know what ...
— Bo-Peep Story Books • Anonymous
... presently afterward the same dismal howls repeated. To these, at no great distance, succeeded the shrill whistling signals. Our imaginations had been so highly wrought up that they were apt at horrible conjectures; and, for my part, my own was at that moment very busily employed in conjuring them up. ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... the supernatural was at first attempted, and the superintendent of the Herds, a certain Panhuibaunu, who was deeply versed in magic, undertook to cast a spell upon the Pharaoh, if he could only procure certain conjuring books of which he was not possessed. These were found to be in the royal library. He managed to introduce himself under cover of the night into the harem, where he manufactured certain waxen figures, of which some were to excite the hate of his wives against their husband, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... hoped, sustained the character of a spiritual visitant with considerable dignity. In one particular at least, that, namely, of appetite, I did honour to my supposed source, and as my entertainer would not hear of payment in material kind, all I could do was to show her some conjuring tricks, which greatly increased her belief in my supernatural origin, and to teach her some new hitches and knots, using her fishing-line as a means of illustration, a demonstration which called from her the ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... stuff, in roof or walls, that reacts to the lowered temperatures of night. A thousand rare chance combinations of matter may occur which are capable of examination, and which, under skilled experiment, will resolve their secret. Nothing it more bewildering than a good conjuring trick till we know how it is done, and Nature is the supreme conjurer. We have not found out all her tricks, and never shall do so; but we very well know that a solution to all ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... finding in his cell Greek books which they could not read, imagined them to be conjuring-books, and denounced their too learned brother as a wizard. Aegidius Aucupis fled, and reached the island of Ireland, where he lived for thirty studious years. He went from monastery to monastery, searching for and copying the ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... that is being said and done, receives orders from his master, and transmits them to the various subordinates lounging about. He looks the soul of honesty and watchfullness, his appearance and demeanor naturally conjuring up reflections of faithful servitors about the persons of knights and nobles of old; he is apparently the Khan of Ghalakua's confidential retainer and general supervisor of affairs about his ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... hours up the mountain side and leave it there, so as to make the following day less fatiguing, and this I did, returning to my camp for dinner; but I was panic-stricken all the rest of the day lest I should not have hidden it safely, or lest I should be unable to find it next day—conjuring up a hundred absurd fancies as to what might befall it. And after all, heavy though it was, I could have carried it all the way. In the afternoon I saddled Doctor and rode him up to the glaciers, which were indeed magnificent, and then I made the few notes of my journey from ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... drive away the storms and clouds, that Mother Carey's pool may lie calm from year's end to year's end. And the sun acted policeman, and walked round outside every day, peeping just over the top of the ice wall, to see that all went right; and now and then he played conjuring tricks, or had an exhibition of fireworks, to amuse the ice fairies. For he would make himself into four or five suns at once, or paint the sky with rings and crosses and crescents of white fire, and stick himself in ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Londoner is a good deal of a child, and loves Punch and Judy shows, and conjuring tricks (symbolically speaking)—and is also often dreaming of the chance of meeting some spring novelty, in the way of romance. Although the Mitchells were proud of these successes they were as free from snobbishness as almost anyone could be. On ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... the sheer beauty of the painting: "It smells all right; it makes your head go round; it catches your breath; you feel ticklish all over—and not the faintest clue to how it's done. The man's a sorcerer; the thing's a conjuring-trick, it's a miracle," bursting outright into laughter, "it's dishonest!" Then stopping, solemnly raising his head, pitching his voice on a double-bass note which he struggled to bring into harmony, he concluded, "And ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... modern regard for realism may be noted the "cooking scenes" which have frequently figured in recent plays. The old conjuring trick of making a pudding in a hat never won more admiration than is now obtained by such simple expedients as frying bacon or sausages, or broiling chops or steaks, upon the stage in sight of the audience. The manufacture of paste ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... in town and protect their brethren. The holy sacraments, he there said, are abused by profane Papists; the mass has been said; and in worshipping that idol, the priests have omitted no ceremony, not even the conjuring of their accursed water, that had ever been practised in the time of the greatest blindness. These violent measures for opposing justice were little short of rebellion; and Knox was summoned before the council to answer for his offence. The courage of the man was equal to his insolence. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... Satan!" said his master; "vanish-begone-or my conjuring rod goes about your ears." The boy turned, and disappeared as suddenly as he had entered. "You see," said Lord Dalgarno, "that, in choosing my household, the best regard I can pay to gentle blood is to exclude it from my service—that very gallows—bird ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... indescribable. If it be a spiritual manifestation, of course there is an end of the matter; but if a mere conjuring trick, I would call attention to the following facts. The fastening of Miss Fay's neck to the back of the cabinet at first is utterly gratuitous. It offers no additional difficulty to any manifestations, ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... in the growth of an apocalyptic literature, and in the fantastical and material expectations of the Messianic Kingdom which they encouraged. It has continued down to our own day turning heads as wise as Sir Isaac Newton's, setting religion at conjuring with visions of monstrous beasts and juggling with mystic figures until the name of Prophecy has ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... character; but she had a great deal to hinder him from going instantly home, and putting Partridge to death, which he more than once swore he would do. This point being cleared up, they soon found themselves so well pleased with each other, that Jones quite forgot he had begun the conversation with conjuring her to give up all thoughts of him; and she was in a temper to have given ear to a petition of a very different nature; for before they were aware they had both gone so far, that he let fall some words that sounded like a proposal ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... and he give them the newest things they can think of. After weeks and weeks of patient rehearsal, they bring a new trick to perfection. It is the clou of their performance for a week's engagement at the Paris Folies-Bergere. After a conjuring act, he retires. Comes on again immediately, Petit Patou, apparently seven foot high, in the green silk tights reaching to the arm-pit waist, a low frill round his neck, his hair up to a point, a perpetual grin painted on his face. On the other side enters Prepimpin on ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... intrigue, or to trap birds or a white rabbit or twain; clear streams, most pleasant to fish in; rich, boundless plains, whereon to hunt the hare and fox. Along the street we could see them playing interludes, juggling and conjuring, singing lewd songs to the sound of the harp and ballads, and all manner of jesting. Men and women of handsome appearance danced and sang, and many came hither from the Street of Pride in order to be praised and worshipped. Within the houses we perceived some on silken ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... Superstition babbles of conjuring-spells, by which, without the co-operation of the patient, the evil spirit can be summarily ejected. It would be convenient if one had that power, but, in truth, it is not so: it is long ere the evil desire and the evil habit ...
— Christian Gellert's Last Christmas - From "German Tales" Published by the American Publishers' Corporation • Berthold Auerbach
... pretends to extract; he blows on the seat of pain the smoke from a large cigar, made with an air of great mystery by rolling tobacco in folds of Tauari, and then sucks the place, drawing from his mouth, when he has finished, what he pretends to be the worm. It is a piece of very clumsy conjuring. One of these pajes was sent for by a woman in John Aracu's family, to operate on a child who suffered much from pains in the head. Senor John contrived to get possession of the supposed worm after the trick was performed in our presence, and it turned ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... seemed not to see, but tapped the floor of the cell yet more impatiently with her foot, as was her fashion when angered. Here was the prison door open, and the captive enamored of confinement; at the culminating point conjuring reasons why he should not flee. To have gone thus far; to have eliminated the jailer, and then to draw back, with the keys in his hand—truly no scene in a comedy could be more extravagant. The ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... to the Queen a letter writes, Which he most curiously indites, Conjuring her by all the rites Of love, she would be pleased To meet him, her true servant, where They might, without suspect or fear, Themselves to one another clear And have their ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... the means came in the past quite naturally through ordinary channels, that is no objection; on the contrary the more reason for saying that suitable channels will open in the future. Do you expect God to put cash into your desk by a conjuring trick? Means come through recognizable channels, that is to say we recognize the channels by the fact of the stream flowing through them; and one of our most common mistakes is in thinking that we ourselves have to fix the particular channel beforehand. We say in effect ...
— The Creative Process in the Individual • Thomas Troward
... moving my hand slowly and very openly so she'd have no reason to suspect a ruse, I drew out a blanket and, trying to show her both sides of it in the process, as if I were performing some damned conjuring trick, dropped it gently ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... of heaven, and could take no more joy on earth. I withdrew into an inner world, where my thoughts lived and breathed, and the Vision in the midst of them. Without intending it, I became at once the author and hero of a romance, conjuring up rivals, imagining events, the actions of others and my own, and experiencing every change of passion, till jealousy and despair had their end in bliss. O, had I the burning fancy of my early youth, with manhood's colder gift, the power of expression, your hearts, sweet ladies, should ...
— The Vision of the Fountain (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... was ever uttered by poet. For in this world of plants, which, with its magician, chlorophyll, conjuring with sunbeams, is ceaselessly at work bringing life out of death, - in this quiet vegetable world we may find the elementary principles of all life in almost visible operation." - JOHN FISKE in "Through Nature ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... had sent his mother a long anonymous letter to warn her that he was "ruining himself with a married woman," and the good lady at once conjuring up the eternal bugbear of families, the vague pernicious creature, the siren, the monster, who dwells fantastically in depths of love, wrote to Lawyer Dubocage, his employer, who behaved perfectly in the affair. He kept him for three quarters of an hour trying ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... without; consequently all fear of intrusion from that quarter was entirely removed. However, at times, I could not help ruminating on the malpractices that might have been committed by evil-disposed persons, through this communication; and "busy meddling fancy" was fertile in conjuring up imaginary horrors. Every thing, however, was quiet, and agreeable to my wishes, for some months after my arrival. One moonlight night, in the month of June, I retired to my bed, full of thought, but slept soundly till about ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... did all she could to dissuade prince Perviz, conjuring him not to expose her to the danger of losing two brothers; but he was obstinate, and all the remonstrances she could urge had no effeft upon him. Before he went, that she might know what success he ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... Her words trailed through my mind, conjuring up some adventure, some act of bravery ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... materials. With your own eyes you see nothing but a dull line of ponds, or rather one continued marsh, over which a succession of arches carries the narrow highway: look again, with the poem in your mind, and the wand of a necromancer seems to have been employed in conjuring up a host of beautiful accompaniments, making the whole waste populous with life, and shedding all around the rich image of a grand and appropriate sentiment. Imagination has, in ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... succeeded in entirely unnerving the injured man. He gave as a pretext his need of rest to dismiss the fine fellows, of whose sympathy he was assured, whom he had just found loyal and devoted, but who caused him pain in conjuring up, in answer to his question, the images of all his enemies. When one is suffering from a certain sort of pain, remarks like those naively exchanged between the two Roman imitators of Casal are intolerable to the hearer. One desires ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... So, what I did was this: to try a ventriloquist trick which has offen bin of use in my carere, just as folks were on the boat's gangway. Thro' making that disturbance, and a little skill I have got by doing amatoor conjuring to amuse my wife and famly, I was able to slip the case of my employer's jewls into your breast pocket without your knowing. And I had to take away what you had in, not that I wanted to rob one who had ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... cast them from him without trying a direct appeal to their old friendship for plain dealing. This must be remembered in relation to his treatment of them afterwards. He affords them every chance of acting truly—conjuring them to honesty—giving them a push ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... like admiration for the ingenuity of my elders in conjuring up spooks, hob-goblins, and bugaboos with which to scare me into submission. I conformed, of course, but I never gave them a high grade in veracity. I yielded simply to gain time, for I knew where there was a chipmunk in a hole, and was eager to get to digging him out just as soon as my ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... form circles, hand in hand, and dance in wild delirium until they fell to the ground exhausted, somewhat after the manner of the Ghost-Dance or Messiah-Dance of our North American Indians. In their Bacchantic leaps they were apparently haunted by visions and hallucinations, the fancy conjuring up spirits whose names they shrieked out. Some of them afterward stated that they appeared to be immersed in a stream of blood which obliged them to leap so high. Others saw the heavens open and disclose the Saviour enthroned with the Virgin Mary. The participants ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... Harlequin and his brother Scaramouch invite the attention of the passers-by. In another booth rope-dancing of men and women is offered to the less tragically minded, and in yet another the world-renowned Faux displays the announcement of his conjuring marvels. A peep-show of the siege of Gibraltar allures the patriotic. Toy-shops, presided over by attractive damsels, lure the light-hearted, and the light-fingered too, for many an intelligent pickpocket seizes the opportunity to rifle the pocket of some too occupied customer. ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy |
