"Cabalistical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... magical artist be expert, and endowed with an exceedingly potent will, his charm may become very powerful, when worn by the person for whom it was prepared. But, if this one grand essential be lacking, no amount of cabalistical figures and sacred names will have any effect, because, there can be no potency in symbols apart from the ideas and mental force they are capable of arousing in the mind of the maker. Solomon's Seal is no more powerful, when drawn upon virgin parchment, with a weak will, or in a mechanical ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... by an inviolable sanctity, he stood long motionless, realizing, his followers felt, the Cabalistic teaching as to the Messiah, incarnating the Godhead through the primal Adam, pure, sinless, at one with himself and elemental Nature. At last he raised his luminous eyes heavenwards, and said in clear, calm ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... distinctly audible, utters the cabalistic words, "Two forty." Another voice, as audible, asks, "Which'll you bet on?" It was not soothing. It did seem as if the imp of the perverse had taken possession of that terrible nag to go and make such a display at such a moment. But as his will rose, so did mine, and as my will ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... he asks, has blown upon this letter, which in no language (Balzac's acquaintance with German was probably limited) commands more than fifty words? The name is composed of seven letters, and seven is most characteristic of cabalistic numbers. If M. Gozlan's narrative be authentic, Balzac was right to value this name highly, for he had spent many hours in seeking for it by a systematic perambulation of the streets of Paris. He was rather vexed at the discovery that the Marcas of real life was a tailor. 'He deserved a better ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... appearance. She had followed so quickly upon Stamfordham's steps that he was still standing looking round him at his strange surroundings, Lady Adela facing him with a smile of welcome. The apparatus of the fortune-teller apparently consisted in certain cabalistic properties—wands, dials with signs upon them, and the like—arranged round a table. Stamfordham spoke first. He was absolutely convinced that Rachel had come to appeal to him for mercy, and was as absolutely clear that it was an appeal to which ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... age you had only to answer "Seventy-eight," passing your hand through your sable locks as you spoke—"Only that? I thought you looked older," the accommodating individual would answer, at the same time putting into your hand a paper on which was written some cabalistic sign. One day I had taken it into my head to go and spend two hours at Bougival, and my pass bore the strange word "Carnivolus" written on it. Provided with this mysterious document, I was enabled to procure a first-class ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... parabola once more, imagine it rolling on an indefinite straight line and ask what course does the focus of this curve follow. The answer comes: The focus of the parabola describes a 'catenary,' a line very simple in shape, but endowed with an algebraic symbol that has to resort to a kind of cabalistic number at variance with any sort of numeration, so much so that the unit refuses to express it, however much we subdivide the unit. It is called the number e. Its value is represented by the following series ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... horsehair hanging about her face, a red and black robe, a staff, and cabalistic signs upon her cloak. Hugo demanded a potion to make Zara adore him, and one to destroy Roderigo. Hagar, in a fine dramatic melody, promised both, and proceeded to call up the spirit who would ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... Solomon to do it," said the Captain. "All these signs that you appear to consider so cabalistic form a language the clearest, the shortest, and the most logical, for all those ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... education. Though it defies analysis and the rule of thumb, the boy is conscious of it and can say with the man who was born blind, "One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see," and no cabalistic marks in a grade-book can express the value of the change indicated ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... physician to Lorenzo de' Medici, Duc d'Urbino, Catherine's father. This physician was called Ruggiero the Elder (Vecchio Ruggier and Roger l'Ancien in the French authors who have written on alchemy), to distinguish him from his two sons, Lorenzo Ruggiero, called the Great by cabalistic writers, and Cosmo Ruggiero, Catherine's astrologer, also called Roger by several French historians. In France it was the custom to pronounce the name in general as Ruggieri. Ruggiero the elder was so highly valued by the Medici ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... particular; and therefore they were forced to change it to the number three, whence some have endeavoured to squeeze out a dangerous meaning that was never thought on. And indeed the conceit was half spoiled by changing the numbers; that of four being much more cabalistic, and therefore better exposing the pretended virtue of numbers, a superstition then ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... cyclopean voice, engraved with cabalistic writing, which might be, as it professed to be, a temple bell of Yamato over five hundred years old, or else the last year's product of an Osaka foundry for antique brass ware. Geoffrey called it ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... sceptre of Solomon could be found only in the unknown sepulchres of the ancient Hebrew monarchs, and that none might dare to touch it but one of their descendants. Armed with the cabalistic talisman, which was to guide him in his awful and difficult researches, Alroy commenced his pilgrimage to the Holy City. At this time, the love of these sacred wanderings was a reigning passion among the Jews as well as ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... around them, while they lay idly rotting or sprouting with uncouth funguses, not unsuspect of poison. But they will not be wasted. Lumbermen, foes to idleness and inutility, swarm again about their winter's trophies. They imprint certain cabalistic tokens of ownership on the logs,—crosses, xs, stars, crescents, alphabetical letters,—marks respected all along the rivers and lakes down to the boom where the sticks are garnered for market. The marked logs are tumbled into the brimming stream, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... Brown's heart leaped. Was that some cabalistic sign which he ought to recognize? But she was merely signaling the conductor, who promptly pulled the bell and lifted her basket for her ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... last meeting took place in 1760 and you recall that shortly afterward the movement of Judaism started. It is now 1787 years since the destruction of Jerusalem and this year is designated for a meeting of the Cabalistic Sanhedrin. This is the day of the meeting; the place is this city. I want to be present at this meeting in spite of the danger and am ready to take you along ...
— The History of a Lie - 'The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion' • Herman Bernstein
... inside, a newspaper office is a retreat where, amid cigarette smoke and the rumour of continual event, clever people write what they like when they like, while others, only one degree less gifted, correct, by means of cabalistic signs, proofs, with the rapidity of lightning and the omniscience of gods, exchanging at intervals brilliant repartee with the beings who write. Round these are supposed to hover boys, compositors, porters, famous contributors and ...
— Journalism for Women - A Practical Guide • E.A. Bennett
... you at present," he said. "I take it that the line across the island signifies this gap or canyon, and the small intersecting line the cave. But 32 divided by 1, and an 'X' surmounted by a dot are cabalistic. They would cause even Sherlock Holmes to smoke at least two pipes. I ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... the latter metal, which were put into the crucible. When melted, the Hijiemmee took from his turban a paper containing powder of a yellowish hue, which he threw into the crucible, over which he repeated some cabalistic words while he stirred the melting metal. At length he took it from the fire, and to his astonishment Mazin beheld a large lump of pure gold, which the Hijicminee desired him to carry to a goldsmith's and get it exchanged for coin He did did so, and received a handsome sum, with which he ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... Bray? Impossible. It was all very perplexing. But here in his hand he held the tangible evidence of McGuire's fears. "You know what I've got and I know what you've got." The sentence seemed to have a cabalistic significance—a pact—a threat which each man held over the other. Perhaps it wasn't money only that "Hawk" wanted. Whatever it was, he meant to have it, and soon. The answer the man expected was apparently something ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... to nearly ten Mr. Vandeford spent in slowly munching the refreshment retrieved from the automat by Mr. Adolph Meyers and thinking out loud to that dignitary who took down his thoughts on paper in cabalistic signs of shorthand. They were all notes of what could and must be done in the next few days in the fight for the good fate of ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Perhaps we shall have no other service to render our brave Chapron than to arrange a duel for him under the most dangerous conditions. Ah, but I became inopportunely angry!.... But why the deuce did Gorka select such a second? It is incomprehensible!.... Did you see what the cabalistic word gentleman means to those rascals: Steal, cheat, assassinate, but have carriages perfectly appointed, a magnificent mansion, well-served dinners, and fine clothes!.... No, I have suffered too much! Ah, it is not right; and on what a day, too? God! That the old man might ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... shall be brought out, and the world shall find Apollos in his men, and Venuses in his women, which before were only meaner beauties; Vanitas shall loiter round his easel and command his pencil with ready gold; and Art-Journals shall rehearse his praises in strange, cabalistic words. Scripsit, who has digested his paltry rasher in moody silence, shall touch the hearts of men with new-born words of flame; and the poor epic, which once had served a clownish huckster's vulgar need, shall travel far and wide, in blue and gold, and lie on tables ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... brought to the door the farce commenced. Taking a live cock in his hand, the priest pricked its comb in three several places, and with the blood proceeded to mix some vermilion paint, in a small china vessel. With this pigment he now described three cabalistic signs on a piece of yellow paper, which he stuck on the monster's forehead, at the same time touching with his brush the eyes, the cavernous jaws, and horrible fangs of the animal. This completes the business, and the dragon ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... a ceremonious leave of his family. He cut off a lock of his hair, and divided it into three parts. One of these he fastened to the top of his wife's head, and blew on it three times with the utmost violence, at the same time uttering certain cabalistic words. The other two portions he fastened with the same formalities to the heads ...
— The Pioneers • R.M. Ballantyne
... pedant rejoined; "these four Latin words, which have a cabalistic sound, not unlike the croaking of certain batrachians, and might have been borrowed, one would say, from the 'Comedy of the Frogs,' by one Aristophanes, an Athenian poet, contain the very pith and marrow of all theories of love and lovemaking; they would make a capital rule to regulate ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... a true magician, has pronounced three cabalistic words: ASSOCIATION—COMMUNITY—FRATERNITY. We have understood the sense of these words, and the wonders you have seen have sprung from them, to our great advantage; and also, I repeat, to the great advantage of ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... astronomy he had made important discoveries, and he carried on an extensive correspondence with observers of stellar phenomena in many far corners of the world. His name in the Madison catalogue was followed by a bewildering line of cabalistic letters testifying to the honor in which other institutions of learning held him. Wishing to devise for him a title that combined due recognition of both his naval exploits and his fine scholarship, the undergraduates called him "Capordoc"; and it ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... pulse and skin, as well as hearing his story, would go softly with it to Peter's room; and there think and ask herself how her father, whose system she had long quietly observed, would have treated the case. Then she would write an illegible scrawl with a cabalistic letter, and bring it down reverently, and show it the patient, and "Could he read that?" Then it would be either, "I am no reader," or, with admiration, "Nay, mistress, nought can I ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... fashion. A recent invitation card bid its members to attend a "Rip-Snorter at the Club House," stating that "provisions and provisos would be provided and Frou Frous be on tap." The exact significance of this cabalistic description is known only to the members and their guests. The same card announced that the new Constitution and By-Laws would be finally voted upon at the same meeting, and further announced the conditions of a forthcoming sketch ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Vol. 1, 1895 • Various
... carried a "bina," a second an ordinary school-slate covered with crude cabalistic signs and a third a rude book, something like a Vani's "chopda," filled with Marathi characters, which doubtless plays a part in the fortune-telling and spirit-scaring that form the stock-in-trade of these wandering hierophants. Hardly had they disappeared than four Sadhus hove ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... the Young Men's C. A. of Iowa City, after having regularly engaged Miss OLIVE LOGAN in their lecture course, concluded to back out, the cabalistic ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various
... posted on the walls of Rome. It was observed, however, amidst the growing darkness; and no sooner was the word amnesty read than a cry of enthusiasm was heard. People hastened from their houses in all directions, the passers-by stopped in crowds to read, by torchlight, the cabalistic words. Among the fast-assembling masses there was but one feeling. They embraced and even wept for joy. In the depth of their emotion, and whilst yet, as may be said, intoxicated with delight, they sought how to express their ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... the most difficult as well as one of the most successful essays in psychological analysis ever attempted by an author; and in his wonderful portrait, which must be closely studied, and not epitomized or reproduced in extracts, we see glowing enthusiasm united to cabalistic profundity, and the most morbid tension of the intellectual powers united to clear and well-defined hopes. How has the author succeeded in making Mordecai so human and so true to nature? By mixing the gold with an alloy of commoner metal, and by giving the angelic ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... ventured to hope. For I promptly found my conceived arrangement of my material open the door wide to ingenuity. I remember that in sketching my project for the conductors of the periodical I have named I drew on a sheet of paper—and possibly with an effect of the cabalistic, it now comes over me, that even anxious amplification may have but vainly attenuated—the neat figure of a circle consisting of a number of small rounds disposed at equal distance about a central object. The central object was ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... placing the spiritual life of the Jews under police supervision. In 1836 a censorship campaign was launched against Hebrew literature. Hebrew books, which were then almost exclusively of a religious nature, such as prayer-books, Bible and Talmud editions, rabbinic, cabalistic, and hasidic writings, were then issuing from the printing presses of Vilna, Slavuta, [1] and other places, and were subject to a rigorous censorship exercised by Christians or by Jewish converts. Practically every Jewish home-library consisted of religious works of ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... trees of the valley of La Belle Riviere. And as I saw the white-hot sheets of iron issuing from those crunching rollers, driven by the power of seven thousand horses, I felt that the youth with the stamping iron should have put a fleur-de-lis upon each with all his other cabalistic markings, for who of us can know that any metal would ever have flowed white from the furnaces in that valley if the white-metal signs of Louis XV had not first been carried ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... a real sorcerer, I solemnly thrust a pin through a lighted candle, and pronounced some cabalistic words. After which, blowing out the candle, and turning to ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... of the iron grate, which, dividing the infinite into squares, thereby subjects it to itself. K. listened to my words with emotion, looking with the horror of an ignorant man at the figures which must have seemed to him to be cabalistic, but which were nothing else than the ordinary figures used ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... carved certain cabalistic signs on the big beech-tree you would presently appear to me in a pink cloud—you faithless ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... the demon. Gerbert uttered some cabalistic words, and in a moment the apartment held two Pope Silvesters, entirely indistinguishable save by their attire, and the fact that one limped slightly with ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... was no cabalistic writing. The writer at the very first gave his reasons for employing this device. He had chosen the Arabic letters so that all would try to read it from right to left, and so fail to discover its meaning. In case ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... Then, clasping in his nerveless hand the baton, ornamented with its fleurs-de-lis, he cast on it his eyes, which had no longer the power of looking upwards towards Heaven, and fell back, murmuring strange words, which appeared to the soldiers cabalistic—words which had formerly represented so many things on earth, and which none but the dying man any ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Jerusalem the more would be enabled to die there—which was the aim of a good Jew's life. As for the Messiah, he would come assuredly—in God's good time. Thus Karlkammer at enormous length with frequent intervals of unintelligibility and huge chunks of irrelevant quotation and much play of Cabalistic conceptions. Pinchas, who had been fuming throughout this speech, for to him Karlkammer stood for the archetype of all donkeys, jumped up impatiently when Karlkammer paused for breath and denounced as an interruption that ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... fanciful figures of anchors, hearts, and cables, sometimes decorating small portions of seamen's bodies. It was a sort of tattooing such as is seen only on thoroughbred savages—deep blue, elaborate, labyrinthine, cabalistic. Israel remembered having beheld, on one of his early voyages, something similar on the arm of a New Zealand warrior, once met, fresh from battle, in his native village. He concluded that on some similar early voyage Paul must have undergone the manipulations of some pagan artist. Covering ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... years hence, will render the tracing of their derivation an Herculean task, unless Trenches multiply in proportion to the necessities of the times. If I ever wished the old lion to put forth all the majesty of his indignation, I had only to whisper the cabalistic words, "Phonetic spelling!" Yet Landor was not very exacting. In the "Last Fruit off an Old Tree," he says, through his medium, Pericles, who is giving advice to Alcibiades: "Every time we pronounce a word different from another, we show our disapprobation of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... trifle over two feet in length, the ends united by a massive ring supporting a medallion. The links, so to speak, of the necklace consisted of twelve magnificent emeralds, each engraved upon one side with certain cabalistic characters, the meaning of which Escombe could not guess at, and upon the other with a symbol which was easily identifiable as that of the sun; these emeralds were massively set— framed would be almost the more appropriate ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... University, and we probably distorted the method, and I was busy trying to find the least common multiple of Hamlet and the greatest common divisor of Macbeth, and I began asking him whether stories were constructed by cabalistic formulae. At length he sighed wearily and shook ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... the knowledge of public life and of scholastic theories, together with the love of occult and cabalistic science, and the craft of Provencal poetry, Dante received from his Florence of the thirteenth century the knowledge of this new, this exotic and esoteric intellectual love. And, as it is the mission of genius to gather into ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... round to your astronomer's for some indication concerning the future. After bumping about in dim religious gloom among stuffed crocodiles and such-like accessories to science of those days, you discovered your astronomer deeply engaged in describing cabalistic figures on parchment; he would raise his eyes with a far-away look, as if no henchman had hurried round a few minutes earlier to say that "the old man was carrying on something awful," your astronomer would descend to earth for a space and then at ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... contracted into a singularly soothing and almost voiceless whistle—Richelieu's own peculiar accomplishment. But no stone appeared. Like most of his genus he was superstitious, and repeated to himself the cabalistic formula: "Losin's seekin's, findin's keepin's"—presumed to be of great efficacy in such cases—with religious fervor. He had laboriously reached the end of the veranda when he noticed the open window of Louise's room, and stopped ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... It was a cryptogram, of course—an arrangement of cabalistic signs instead of letters, but I could make nothing of it. The message, whatever it is, would take hours of careful study to decipher; and even then, without the key, one might fail. I have seen nothing quite like it, in all ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... have buried myself in libraries to extract from the nonsense of ancient days new nonsense of my own. I have turned over volumes, which, from the pot-hooks I was obliged to decipher, might have been the cabalistic manuscripts of Cornelius Agrippa, although I never saw "the door open and the devil come in." [Footnote: See Southey's Ballad on the Young Man who read in a Conjuror's Books.] But all the domestic inhabitants of the libraries ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... without scruple; but they will not partake of the beast of the uncloven foot, and the fish which has no scales. They pay no regard to the denunciations of holy prophets against the children of sin, but they quake at the sound of a dark cabalistic word, pronounced by one perhaps their equal, or superior, in villainy, as if God would delegate the exercise of his power ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... not find either on a printed page, and further, could not tell wherein they differed when found for her; that, also, Emmy Lou made her figure 8's by adding one uncertain little o to the top of another uncertain little o; and that while Emmy Lou might copy, in smeary columns, certain cabalistic signs off the blackboard, she could not point them off in tens, hundreds, thousands, or read their numerical values, to save her little life. The Large Lady, sorely perplexed within herself as to the proper course to be pursued, in the sight of the fifty-nine other First Readers pointed ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... of cheese, and straw-covered oil-flasks dangling in festoons before his door. Over the way is the Government depot, where the coarsest of salt and the rankest of tobacco are sold at monopoly prices. Those gay, parti-coloured stripes of paper, inscribed with the cabalistic figures, flaunting at the street corner, proclaim the "Prenditoria di Lotti," or office of the Papal lottery, where gambling receives the sanction of the Church, and prospers under clerical auspices to such an ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... under his breath and led the way to an inner courtyard where stood four immense black boxes painted with death-heads, splintered bones, fountains of blood and cabalistic symbols all ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... flowers, in whose centre, above a low mound covered with stone slabs, rises a plain iron cross. Rudolf entered the sinister circle and paused beside it. Very peculiar emotions stole over him. It seemed as though he were standing within a cabalistic line which divided him from the world and life. The air within the magic circle appeared more chill than without. He imagined he felt a stir and tremor in the ground beneath his feet as if the dead below were moving, and scraping with their bony fingers ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... of little comfort to me who of this necessity took that honourable post. In the narrowest part of the valley, on the south side, was a great cliff of rock, rising sheer, of smooth and even surface. Hereon were graven certain cabalistic signs, and many figures of men and animals, fishes, reptiles and birds; suns and stars; and many quaint symbols. Some of these latter were disjointed limbs and features, such as arms and legs, fingers, eyes, noses, ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... in diameter, at a height of about seven feet from the floor. Yet what will the energy of true genius not effect? I resolved to clamber up to this hole. A vast quantity of wheels, pinions, and other cabalistic—looking machinery stood opposite the hole, close to it; and through the hole there passed an iron rod from the machinery. Between the wheels and the wall where the hole lay there was barely room for my body—yet I was desperate, and determined to persevere. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the margin. Now the "Red Stars" have a meeting, With their weird, uncanny customs; Now the "Knights of Pythias" cluster 'Round a shrine of secret magic; Now the "Eastern Star" is dawning, With its cabalistic mottoes; Now the "Julipeans" revel 'Neath the awnings on the greensward, With their mighty dignitaries, With Sockdologers, Sapsuckers, With their Knockemstiffs, Lawgivers, With their Orators and Wise-Men, With their visitors and laymen— All their corps of jolly members 'Neath the cooling, woodland ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... of the mountain, and he recognized the low, dark building looming through the mists, its roof aslant, its chimney cold, the big doors closed, the shutter fast. As he neared the place a sudden shrill guffaw smote the air, followed by a deep, gruff tone of disconcerted remonstrance. Certain cabalistic words made the ...
— His Unquiet Ghost - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... (?) in a foot-note that it is "Ascribed to a prince of the Barmecide race, an ancestor of the Gran Vizier Giafar." The word "Jafr" is supposed to mean a skin (camel's or dog's), prepared as parchment for writing; and Al-Jafr, the book here in question, is described as a cabalistic prognostication of all that will ever happen to the Moslems. The authorship is attributed to Ali, son-in-law of the Prophet. There are many legendary tales concerning its contents; however, all are mere inventions as the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... other side of the table, I find that sleep has overtaken him in an overt act of hoary wickedness. The very pages I have devoted to an exposition of his deceit he has quietly abstracted, and I find them covered with cabalistic figures and wild-looking hieroglyphs traced with his forefinger dipped in ink, which doubtless in his own language conveys a scathing commentary on my composition. But he sleeps peacefully, and there is something in his face which tells me that he has already wandered away to that dim region ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... reply to the questions addressed to heaven and eternity; and they went to the fountains of mysticism and secret knowledge to quench the thirst of the soul. There sprung up the visionary Gnostics among the Gentiles, and the Cabalistic Mystics among the Jews. History notices the same rotation continually—idealism, sensualism, scepticism, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... would have been appetizing to one who had not breakfasted. On the shady side stood half a dozen two-wheeled carts, loaded with lightwood and drawn by diminutive steers, or superannuated army mules branded on the flank with the cabalistic letters "C. S. A.," which represented a vanished dream, or "U. S. A.," which, as any negro about the market-house would have borne witness, signified a very concrete fact. Now and then a lady or gentleman passed with leisurely step—no one ever hurried in Patesville—or ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... Among other figures, probably nothing more than dolls of French make, there was a leaden model of a man and woman in the act of copulation, with the brass mould from which it had been cast. There was a black scarf ornamented with white crosses, papers with cabalistic signs, and sundry other exhibits which appear to have created superstitious fear in the crowd about the court. It is amusing to note that while those exhibits were being examined one of the scaffolds erected for seating gave way or cracked ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... muttered; "I long to be with them;" and then with his clenched fist he knocked four times on the door. There was a sudden silence which lasted about a minute, and was broken by a voice within, asking who was there. Tomlinson answered by some cabalistic word; the door was opened, and a ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the cabalistic signs was headed with certain words, which were all but illegible, and this he ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... answered the captain. "All those signs that look so cabalistic to you form the clearest and most logical language for those who know how to ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... Antonio Exili, who had caused it to be made, ostensibly for the safe-keeping of his cabalistic formulas and alchemic preparations, when searching for the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life, really for the concealment of the subtle drugs out of which his alembics distilled the aqua tofana and his crucibles prepared ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... motion doubly mystic, Resumed his juggling cabalistic. The aspects here again were various; But seemed to indicate Aquarius. Thereat portentously he frowned; Then frowned again, then smiled:—'twas found! But 'twas too simple to be tried. "What is it, then?" at once ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... swiftly wrote a few cabalistic symbols. There was a house to the left, as we sat feeing our rear, and I saw that they kept their eyes on that almost continually. Curious to know why, I shouted in the ear of one, asking the reason. He wrote, 'Meade's headquarters,' and then I shared their solicitude. That it ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... the teaching of Christianity among their other beliefs. They conceived that the Almighty had to be propitiated by signs and symbols. Words, they considered, were the direct gift of God to man, and, therefore, signs representing words were of great avail. Hence arose the use of amulets and cabalistic signs, or, rather, the common use, for they had been in evidence long prior to the foundation of this sect. Amulets were worn on the person. The Jews had phylacteries or bits of parchment on which were written passages from the Scriptures. In the first century after Christ, ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... and lost in mazes concerning the cabalistic figures in the book, and the chapter of directions to beginners; for he could with difficulty read at all; yet, in the end, if not interrupted, he somehow managed to arrive at a conclusion satisfactory to him. So that, as he generally wore a good-humored ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... he swore the book was not written by Michelet. (Not such a wild shot, though not correct in this particular instance, for the world has since discovered that several books posthumously attributed to Michelet were written by his widow.) The etcher was interested in the cabalistic arts. On one of his large plates he drew some eagles, and when Baudelaire objected that these birds did not frequent Parisian skies he mysteriously whispered "those folks at the Tuileries" often launched as a rite the sacred eagles to study the omens and presages. ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... house, whither he wished to repair. Other witnesses deponed that Rebecca muttered to herself in an unknown tongue, that the songs she sang were peculiarly sweet, that her garments were of a strange mystic form, and that she had rings with cabalistic devices. A soldier testified that he had seen her cure a wounded man in a mysterious way. He said she made certain signs upon the wound, and repeated words he understood not. The result, he declared, was that the iron head of a cross-bow bolt disengaged itself from the wound, the bleeding was ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... sparkled as if diamonds had been flung against it by the double handful. The brilliancy might have be fitted Aladdin's palace rather than the mansion of a grave old Puritan ruler. It was further decorated with strange and seemingly cabalistic figures and diagrams, suitable to the quaint taste of the age which had been drawn in the stucco, when newly laid on, and had now grown hard and durable, for the admiration of ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... moving lights; but in this recess there was a stronger light, against which the heads of the encircling spectators stood in dark relief as Tito was gradually pushed towards them, while above them rose the head of a man wearing a white mitre with yellow cabalistic ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... to write her question on; she placed it in a cleft stick and burnt it in a lamp; but the stick was cleft at both ends, and Mike managed it so that she burnt the blank sheet, while he read what she had written. Very trivial; inferior of course to Casanova's immense cabalistic frauds, but it bears out my contention ... Have you ever read the Memoirs? What a prodigious book! Do you remember when the Duchesse de Chartres comes to consult the cabale in the little apartment in the Palais Royal as to the best means of getting rid of the pimples ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... the room opposite the telegraphic machine, from which the "tape" was issuing with a monotonous click. On this "tape"—a narrow strip of paper seemingly endless, which fell on the floor in serpentine coils—were inscribed at regular intervals some cabalistic characters unintelligible to the general public, but full of meaning to ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... in these degenerate days I am become the slave of quack doctors and newspapers. I am driven from pillar to post and hurried up and down, sometimes with stencil-plate and paste-brush to defile the fences with cabalistic legends, and sometimes in grotesque and extravagant character at the behest of some driving journal. I attended to that Ocean Bank robbery some weeks ago, when I was hardly rested from finishing up the pow-wow about the completion ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and took our seats; the little elderly gentleman with the hooked nose prayed, and we all stood up. When he had finished most of us sat down. The gentleman with the hooked nose then muttered certain cabalistic expressions, which I was too much frightened to remember, but I recollect that at the conclusion I was given to understand that I was married to a young lady by the name of Frances Fairchild, whom I perceived ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... written testimony in its behalf. It was adopted by the author of the Revelation, by Justin Martyr, by Irenaeus, and by a long succession of the fathers. As the theory is animating and consolatory, when it is divested of cabalistic numbers and allegorical decorations, it will no doubt always retain a ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... irritating little notebook of red leather, the sort of thing that is advertised when lost as 'of no value to anyone but the owner.' It was full of mysterious little marks and unintelligible little notes. He put down, in cabalistic signs, 'Hyacinth's dinner, eight o'clock.' He enjoyed writing her name, ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... many lines of close and delicate script, interspersed with curious cabalistic signs, in which that of the cross reversed could frequently be detected. Gilles de Retz wrote rapidly, rising only at intervals to throw a fresh log of wood across the vast iron dogs on either side of the wide fireplace, ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... reply to Godfrey's courtesy, broke the seal of the letter, and gazed upon the cabalistic characters therein written. Had they been Chinese, she would have learned as much from them as she did. She handed back the letter with a request that he would read it to her, if he possessed the art of reading; if not, she ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... before the old courthouse, which now served as regimental headquarters and bore the magic letters A.O.K. as a sort of cabalistic sign on its front, a military band played every afternoon from three to four at command of His Excellency. This little diversion was meant to compensate the civilian population for the many inconveniences that the quartering of several hundreds of staff officers and ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... etwas zu grell and zu breit angefuhrte Schilderung."[168] "Ego scelestus," says Ballio himself.[169] He calmly and unctuously pleads guilty to every charge of "liar, thief, perjurer," etc., and can never be induced to lend an ear until the cabalistic charm ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... one day just like another: my brother looked at the sun every day, and put down a few cabalistic figures on a slate, but his steady business was reading novels to his wife and drinking weak claret ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... simplest of all conventional alphabets one of the grandest of Morse's inventions, and one which has conferred great good upon mankind. It is used to convey intelligence not only by electricity, but in many other ways. Its cabalistic characters can be read by the eye, ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... area was perfectly well known to the Spanish priests and civil authorities. The ceremonies, formulas and methods of procedure were everywhere identical or alike. This itself was justly regarded as a proof of the secret intelligence which existed among the members of this cabalistic guild.[29-[]] ...
— Nagualism - A Study in Native American Folk-lore and History • Daniel G. Brinton
... occult literature, and the fantastic curiosities which served as a hobby for himself, and an amusement for his friends. A wealthy man of refined and eccentric tastes, he had spent much of his life and fortune in gathering together what was said to be a unique private collection of Talmudic, cabalistic, and magical works, many of them of great rarity and value. His tastes leaned toward the marvellous and the monstrous, and I have heard that his experiments in the direction of the unknown have passed all the bounds of civilization and of decorum. ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... exhibiting, in the most imposing if less intelligible way, their superior knowledge, were probably the mixed causes which led such distinguished scholars as Paracelsus, Cornelius Agrippa, Cardan, and Campanella to oppress themselves and their readers with a mass of unintelligible rubbish and cabalistic mysticism.[112] Slow and gradual as are the successive advances in the knowledge and improvement of mankind, it would not be reasonable to be surprised that preceding generations could not at once attain to the knowledge of a maturer ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... and among which were large triangles, circles, and stars, cut apparently out of the stems of huge bamboos. After traversing this avenue for nearly three hundred yards we saw the tree trunks which Hassan had mentioned, and which were deeply scarred with cabalistic messages to the fierce Nat, which we could not of course understand. Affixed to some of the trees farther on we saw a number of spears and dahs mingled with shorter weapons, the latter being made of some species of hard ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... is a little room some eight feet square, and from a wayward fancy of my own, closely resembles the cell of an alchymist. Its walls are hung with black drapery, on which appear the mystical signs of the planetary bodies, Hebrew, Persian, and various cabalistic characters, the dark enigmas of the work of transmutation, and the invocations or prayers for success employed by the alchymist. Here and there pieces of their quaint and uncouth shaped apparatus, the aludel, the alembic, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various
... the cabalistic signs and mysterious words that proclaim the Ala's prerogative in resisting and defeating him, has overcome and killed him, the corpse is not buried but is placed in an upright position between the roots of ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... scene ensued between the regent and the Duke de Bourbon, little to the credit of either, both having been deeply implicated in the cabalistic operations of the system. In fact, the several members of the council had been among the most venal "beneficiaries" of the scheme, and had interests at stake which they were anxious to secure. From all the circumstances of the case, I am inclined ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... wizard; let us go in here!" Robin had spied a dim, mysterious booth, outside of which were triangles and cones and fiery serpents coming forth from a golden pot, with cabalistic signs and figures about the sides of it. Standing there was a tall, aged man, clad in a long red robe and leaning upon a ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... Kingsland took the folded paper and sought his room. There in the pale day-dawn he tore it open. One side was covered with cabalistic characters, Eastern symbols, curious marks and hieroglyphics. The other side was written in French, in long, clear, legible characters. There was a heading: "Horoscope of the Heir of Kingsland." Sir Jasper sat down ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... connection with certain things I myself saw on the planetoid, prove beyond question that our Roger went to Harvard University at the same time he did. Roger was a grown man then, and the elder Penrose noted that he was marked, like this," and the American sketched a cabalistic design. ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... sure they were alone. He advanced one step and came to a halt; he made his figure rigid and gave first the grand hailing-sign of the Afro-American Society of Supreme Kings of the Universe, then the private signal of distress which invokes succor and support, and he wound up by uttering the cabalistic words which bind a fellow Supreme King in the vows of eternal secrecy on pain of having his heart cut out of his bosom and burned and the ashes scattered to the four winds. For his part, AEsop Loving arose and, obeying the ritual, made ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... was a crowd of super-men with voices of rolled steel. They called out cabalistic formulae of which the most intelligible to the ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... true. Eva had driven immediately to the hypnotist's, and he had been instructed about her coming. At his door she had knocked, and an old, evil-visaged man, in flowing robes which were marked in cabalistic signs, had opened the door. In true fakir fashion he salaamed almost to the floor while in flowery ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... called up his customers, and bawled into the telephone the condition of the market and the significant gossip of the far-off exchange halls. It was so strange, and yet so familiar, that he went away with his head full of those cabalistic sentences— ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... unconsciously an immortal reputation by a species of flattery to which the Welsh are most open. I had learnt, after no little application, a Welsh toast—a happy specimen of the language; it was but three words, but they were truly cabalistic. No sooner had I, after a "neat and appropriate" preface, uttered my triple Shibboleth, (it ended in rag, and signified "Wales, Welshmen, and Welshwomen,") than the whole party rose, and cheered at me till I felt ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... of 1849 that I went into residence at the little college and was assigned a very unprepossessing room in a very ugly barrack. Entering my new quarters I soon discovered about me various cabalistic signs, some of them evidently made by heating large iron keys, and pressing them against the woodwork. On inquiring I found that the room had been occupied some years before by no less a personage than Philip Spencer, a ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... retraced, with more or less of variety, arguments already employed. In referring to the indictment, he said that it was the history of the last nine months; and that he defied the most brilliant imagination to grasp the monstrous accumulation of matter. Its entire strength rested on the meaning of that cabalistic word, "conspiracy." He continued:—"If, my lords, I look into the dictionary for the meaning of that word, I find that it is 'a secret agreement between several to commit a crime;' and that is the rational, common-sense definition of it. This word, however, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... that, if she pleased, he would cause her nightingale to revive every morning, and entertain her with his tunes as long as she thought proper. The dervise accordingly laid himself on a sopha, and by means of certain cabalistic words, transported his soul into the body of the nightingale, and began to sing. Fadlallah watched his time; he lay in a corner of the room unobserved; but no sooner had the dervise deserted his body, than the king proceeded to take possession of it. The first thing he did was ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... East. And this we can understand when we know that he was the companion of Rabbis, whose portraits he has left us, and the friend of Manasseh ben Israel, one of the most learned men of his age. On the other hand, we may admit that this Protestant Dutchman engrafted on this stock of cabalistic learning and Mosaic ceremonial an attentive and assiduous study of the Old Testament, for he possessed a Bible, which was sold by auction with his furniture to ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... herself. Elsie disdained the ordinary sign of betrothal; a ring, she explained to the astonished girls, was a badge of servitude to which no self-respecting woman should submit, and she wore in its place a gold locket, bearing strange cabalistic signs, the meaning of which the ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... white, coarse hair. His costume is of cotton khaki, decorated with beads, bits of looking-glass, and feathers. He wears no feathers on his head. A piece of fur is fastened to his shoulders. His blanket is black, with white cabalistic signs. It can ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... for raking in Chaucer for antiquated words.' By and by he heard a wish here and a wish there, whether real or otherwise he does not know, which said something about 'type,' 'press,' and used other cabalistic words, such as 'copy,' 'devil,' etc. Then there was a gathering of papers, a transcribing of passages from letters, an arranging in alphabetical order, a correcting of proofs, and the work was done,—poorly it may ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... conceit among uncivilized tribes, for it still prevails in Europe. On many of the French and German soldiers, killed during the last German war, were found talismans composed of strips of paper, parchment or cloth, on which were written supposed cabalistic words or the name of some saint, that the wearer firmly believed to be possessed of the power of ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... rearing of a mountain peak into the pale dawn that gave me a deep religious appreciation of my significance in the Grand Scheme, as though I had heard and understood a parable from the holy lips of an Avatar. And the vast plains of my native country are as a mystic scroll unrolled, scrawled with a cabalistic writ of ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... to fan their own bigotry, and arouse that of the Suaheli. A few now assume an air of superiority in matters of worship, and would fain take the place of Mullams or doctors of the law, by giving authoritative dicta as to the times of prayer; positions to be observed; lucky and unlucky days; using cabalistic signs; telling fortunes; finding from the Koran when an attack may be made on any enemy, &c.; but this is done only in the field with trading parties. At Zanzibar, the regular ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... (Visitation, 1592). In the neighbourhood there was a noted Robert de Arderne, of co. Norfolk, 1315, whose seal bears two shields side by side in fesse; Dext. ermine a fesse chequy Arden; Sinist. on a fesse three garbs with cabalistic letters, explained in Journ. ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... taxed all Calandrino's art and craft for the whole of the evening; but having at length taken him, he brought him with the other matters to Bruno: who, having withdrawn into a room by himself, wrote on the skin some cabalistic jargon, and handed it to him, saying:—"Know, Calandrino, that, if thou touch her with this scroll, she will follow thee forthwith, and do whatever thou shalt wish. Wherefore, should Filippo go abroad to-day, get thee somehow up to her, and touch her; ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... accommodated half that number. They sat almost one upon the other, on hard dirty benches, closely packed together. This was not the only school in Szybow but none of the others was so eagerly sought after by parents as the one conducted by Reb Moshe, known by his piety and cabalistic knowledge, the favourite of the Rabbi. It must not be thought that Reb Moshe initiated his scholars into the first steps of learning; this would have been sheer waste of his capabilities—which aimed ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... appearance excited the mirth or commiseration of the passers-by. When he reached the entrance to the Daily News office he was followed by a motley crowd of noisy urchins whom he dismissed with a grimace and the cabalistic gesture with which Nicholas Koorn perplexed and repulsed Antony Van Corlear from the battlement of the fortress of Rensellaerstein. Then closing the door in their astonished faces, he mounted the two flights of stairs to the editorial rooms, where he recounted, ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... as a razor, took care to say that the same oath that I had taken had been imposed on her by the oracle, and that she could not communicate the cabalistic secret to anyone without the permission of her genius, under pain of ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... hard words, which the commentators confess they can make nothing of. Various, however, are the derivations, and numerous the guesses made about them. The English reader may, if he pleases, call them not improperly, especially the first, Cabalistic. ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... of Paris." Full of confidence that the trey cherished for twenty-one years was about to triumph, she now imposed upon herself enormous privations, that she might stake a large amount of savings upon the last drawing of the year. When she dreamed her cabalistic visions (for all dreams did not correspond with the numbers of the lottery), she went and told them to Joseph, who was the sole being who would listen, and not only not scold her, but give her the kindly words with which an artist knows how to soothe the follies of the mind. All ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... salaamed before the General Lord Sahib. Then he extracted from his ear a minute section of quill sealed at both ends. The General's son opened the strange envelope forwarded by a postal service so hazardous, and unrolled a morsel of paper which seemed to be covered with cabalistic signs. The missive had been sent out from Lucknow by Brigadier Inglis, the commander of the beleaguered garrison of the Lucknow Residency, and its bearer was the stanch and daring scout, Ungud. As I write the originals of this communication and of others which came in the same way lie ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... which customers were to stand before the table-counter. The wholesome smell of plaster and whitewash pervaded the apartment. A very small "Matilda Jenkyns, licensed to sell tea," was hidden under the lintel of the new door, and two boxes of tea, with cabalistic inscriptions all over them, stood ready to disgorge ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... his character, "a nature which combines the characteristics of Scorpio with some of those of Sagitarrius, as is the case," she explained gravely, "with persons born near the cusp," a term which produced no impression upon his mind, though he said, "Oh, indeed," politely. She made some cabalistic marks on a square of paper and turned to him with a somewhat startled expression, which faded at once, and the mocking eyes looked full into his as ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... view I followed my peremptory guide from the narrow street into what appeared to be a spacious court, but as the only light it received was from a blinking candle in the window of the conciergerie, I could not determine. After exchanging some cabalistic sentences with a toothless old woman, the proprietor of the candle, Afra turned to the right, and walking a few steps came to a door opening on a stairway, which we mounted. I can think of nothing black enough for comparison with the darkness surrounding ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... prowl; steal into, steal out of, steal by, steal along; play at bopeep[obs3], play at hide and seek; hide in holes and corners; still hunt. Adj. concealed &c. v.; hidden; secret, recondite, mystic, cabalistic, occult, dark; cryptic, cryptical[obs3]; private, privy, in petto, auricular, clandestine, close, inviolate; tortuous. behind a screen &c. 530; undercover, under an eclipse; in ambush, in hiding, in disguise; in a cloud, in a fog, in a mist, in a haze, in a dark corner; in the shade, in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... proper angle. At last he managed to form the letters of his name, which was John Hamilton. After some deliberation, he followed this with "England." The proprietor, who acted as his own clerk, drew the book toward him, and after some time, deciphered the cabalistic signs. ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... pincers of steel, or the claws of a lobster, when they picked up any precious object, an onyx cup, a Venetian glass, or a platter of Bohemian crystal. This curious old fellow had an air so thoroughly rabbinical and cabalistic, that, from mere appearance, he would have been burned at the stake three ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... a journal. It looked like a sibyl's conjuring book, or an Assyrian manuscript; a seeming endless strip of paper was rolled upon a reed; at the head of this there were two varieties of the Egyptian sphinx and a cabalistic star drawn in red ink,—and under these mysterious signs I wrote down, upon the full length of the paper and in a cipher of my own invention, daily events and reflections. A year later, however, because of the labor involved in transcribing ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... sign of the Golden Horn. Its very door-way is blocked up for the moment by an enormous bale of goods, puffy, and covered with cabalistic characters. When we at length enter the outer gate of the house, we find ourselves in a small court-yard paved with stone and open to the sky, but now choked with boxes and packages, piled one upon the other in such confusion, ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... audience had begun to assemble when we arrived. Collins went into the shilling places, while I ensconced myself in the second row of reserved seats. I had an excellent view of the stage. There, in the middle of the platform, stood the conjuror's table—a quaint, cabalistic-looking piece of furniture with carved black legs and a deep bordering of green cloth all round the top. A gay pagoda-shaped canopy of many hues was erected overhead. A long white wand leaned up against the wall. To ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... Gourd; carved all over with cabalistic triangles, and hypogrifs; by study of which a reputed prophet, was said to have obtained his ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... been provided: three, representing enemies (the queen being one of the number), had their arms hanging down; the other two, representing persons whose favor was desired, had them raised aloft. With certain cabalistic words and occult rites the puppets were next secretly hidden beneath an altar whereon the mass was celebrated, and the mysterious "sacrifice" was believed to complete the efficacy of the charm. It was no new superstition imported ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... there are many ways. Mrs. Nieve boasted that, by just saying a few cabalistic words over a sick cow, she could heal it. A charm put on the top of the enclosure where the animals are herded will keep away sickness. To cure a bucking horse all that is necessary is to pull out its eyebrows and spit in its face. Let a lame horse step on a sheepskin, cut out the piece, ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... his dreams, and which had like to have proved fatal. Then shutting his eyes, he advanced backward, sword in hand, toward the enchanter, who at the first moment he saw him, began those mysterious wavings of the hand with which he was wont to put his victims to sleep, and those cabalistic words which changed men into beasts, insects, and reptiles. But the prince having his eyes shut, and his back toward him, could not see his motions, and the enchanter being horribly affrighted, as well as naturally a great blockhead, was so long in recollecting the formula of his ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... day! Well a day! All he can say Is but just so much trouble and time thrown away; Not a man can be tempted to join the melee: E'en those words cabalistic, "I promise to pay Fifty pounds on demand," have for once lost their sway, And there the Knight stands Wringing his hands In his agony—when on a sudden, one ray Of hope darts through his midriff!—His Saint!— ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... this freak of fate he obtained more fame from his horoscopes than from his canvasses. He "prognosticated," says Burton, "that I was to become a great astrologer." Straightway Burton buried himself in astrological and cabalistic books [56], studied the uncanny arts, and became learned in "dark spells and devilish enginery," but his own prophecies generally proved to be of the Moseilima type; that is to say, the opposite invariably happened—a fatality that pursued him to the end of life. The Rev. Robert ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... subsidiary altars, nod looks specifically snug. It is a particularly small confessional, and a very stout penitent would find it as difficult to get into it as to reveal all his sins afterwards. There is nothing either harrowing or cabalistic in the place; and you can see nothing but two forms, a screen, and ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... discrimination between rogueries, all the other knaves in the country took it for granted that they had at last found the Elysian fields and came trooping here by hundreds to ply their various trades. The McCord case stood out like a cabalistic sign upon a gate-post telling all the rascals who passed that way that the city was full of honest folk waiting to be ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... probably originated from the belief that certain properties or virtues were impressed upon substances by planetary influences. "A talisman," says Pettigrew, "may in general terms be defined to be a substance composed of certain cabalistic characters engraved on stone, metal, or other material, or else written on slips of paper." Hyde quotes a Persian writer who defines the Telesm or Talismay as "a piece of art compounded of the celestial powers and elementary bodies, appropriated to certain ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten |
