"Conjuror" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... my first physician, 'my learned brother seems to think that you want a conjuror, ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... livelihood." No, not if support were given only to other ways. A man may make a round sum at a rowing match which cripples his strength for life; or by leaping across Passaic Falls, till he breaks his neck; he may set up for a wizard or a conjuror or a quack doctor,—he may pick your pocket or fire your house,—all in the way of business. The only question is in which way will you help him on. Things must be judged of quite apart from their money-making results. The ...
— Tired Church Members • Anne Warner
... long that I fancy you will think yourself in the condition of the conjuror, who after having a great deal of trouble in raising the devil, could not get rid of him after he had once made his appearance. But the Highlands is an immense field, and it would have been much more easy for me ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... Celtic twilight myself. It has a tendency to get on the chest." The Duke, annoyed by this love of fairies, has blundered, in his usual way, on an absurd compromise between the real and the ideal. A conjuror is to come that very night. When explanations have gone so far, the Duke at last makes his entry. The stage directions tell us that "in the present state of the peerage it is necessary to explain that the Duke, though an ass, is a gentleman." His thoughts are the most casual on earth. He is always ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... good-looking pair. But their hands were the thick spread muscular hands of the acrobat. Where the deuce did he get his long, thin delicate fingers from? Already he can pass a coin from back to front——" he flicked an illustrative conjuror's hand—"at eight years old. To teach him was as easy as falling off a log. Still, that's mechanical. What I want to know is, where did he get his power of mimicry? That artistic sense of expressing personality? 'Pon my soul, he's damn well ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... slave hath brought, most gracious Queen, is the renowned Doctor Aboulfahrez, high conjuror to the Khan of Tartary, and physician to the Great Mogul. He doth drive hence all pains and diseases whatsoever, and will cure your great majesty of any disorder of the spirit, by reason of charms or ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... still more, here is a cutting on the subject from a Vienna newspaper, which I will now read to you, translating as I go. You can see for yourselves; it is printed in the German character.' And he held the cutting out for verification, much as a conjuror passes a trick orange along ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... toes without moving other organs learn to do so. There is a man at the Agricultural Hall now {153a} playing the violin with his toes, and playing it, as I am told, sufficiently well. The eye of the sailor, the wrist of the conjuror, the toe of the professional medium, are all found capable of development to an astonishing degree, even in a single lifetime; but in every case success has been attained by the simple process of making the best of whatever ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... are an out-of-work conjuror," said Kettle to the retreating figure, "you've come to the wrong place to get ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... proposals, from such a tried friend, they answer with a stare. The tardy conferences speedily break up; the Third Estate, now ready and resolute, the whole world backing it, returns to its Hall of the Three Orders; and Necker to the Oeil-de-Boeuf, with the character of a disconjured conjuror there—fit only for dismissal. (Debates, 1st to 17th June 1789 ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Georgic. He is, I may tell you, a poet, and the most marvellous that ever lived; so marvellous, that the middle ages mistook him for a magician. That any age is likely to mistake me—his translator—for a conjuror I think improbable. Nevertheless I do my best. And while translating I hold this book in my hand, not that I can see to read a line of it, but because the mere touch of it, my companion on many campaigns, seems to unloose my memory. Except in handling this small volume, I have none ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... game to the exclusion of everything else! At last we discover that this property is communicated to the iron itself, which is, so to speak, endowed with life. We go to the fair one day [Footnote: I could not help laughing when I read an elaborate criticism of this little tale by M. de Formy. "This conjuror," says he, "who is afraid of a child's competition and preaches to his tutor is the sort of person we meet with in the world in which Emile and such as he are living." This witty M. de Formy could not guess that this little ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... to-day. Prophets—so my father believed, and so Madame—must be connected with the suburbs or with outlying districts. They must not, indeed they cannot, be properly prophetic within the radius. A central atmosphere would reduce them to the level of the conjuror or the muscular suggestionist. Malkiel the First, my father, was born himself in Peckham, and met my mother when coming ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... cousin Val. Did you never see a conjuror pull out yards and yards of shavings from his mouth, and then roll them up till they were as small as a pea, and swallow them? This is conjuring too. We say, 'Underneath this hazelin mote;' that's the forked-stick, you know; and while we say it ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... Conjuror's House is a Hudson Bay trading post where the head factor is the absolute lord. A young fellow risked his life and won a bride on this ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... be impossible out of Ireland, and is absolutely incomprehensible even there; but the fact remains that it is done, and all one can remark is to echo the patter of the conjuror:— ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... I flattered myself, was selected with no little cleverness and originality. A celebrated conjuror who had recently exposed the frauds of the Davenport Brothers was at the moment creating a sensation in the town where the school was situated, and from that incident I determined to draw my inspiration. The magnitude of the design and the importance of the occasion ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... to Nice the next day; and that evening the de Vignolles had gone down to the Casino and Vera hadn't gone. It would have been all right if the children had not been allowed to sit up to see the conjuror conjuring in the lounge. But they had sat up; and that had brought it to ten o'clock before he had Vera for ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... be observed, is first to plunge the hand into cold water, and then dry it gently with a soft towel, but so as to leave it still a little moist. This discovery was made by a French philosopher, M. Boutigny, and has been practically proved both by him and M. Houdin, the celebrated conjuror, by thrusting their hands into molten iron, as it flowed from the furnace. The latter describes the sensation as like what one might imagine to be felt on putting the hand into liquid velvet.[1] The reason why ...
— Wonders of Creation • Anonymous
... Gibraltar would be the only land expedition for the present campaign. In a few weeks time, when West India successes may be compared to those in Europe, my gazettes and predictions will have a greater degree of certainty, but one must not be a conjuror to see that England is in such a way that one may defy her to get up again, and that a happy peace, blessed with American independence, will, in this or the ensuing campaign, be the certain effect of the ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... the night of his return, and having given an account of the wonders he had seen, announced that he could make money. Satisfaction at such gift being tempered by doubt, the boy took his stand before the expectant semicircle, and having admirably mimicked a conjuror's patter, shouted—"Money!" A half-crown flashed in the air-to be deftly caught and exhibited ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... Cristo should never explain. The conjuror who reveals his mechanism is no longer a conjuror. George Brand only laughed, and said he hoped Miss Lind would always find people ready to welcome her ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... them, and so forth, until the very Druid himself is lost in a mass of crystallisations from without. The insular Druids, to which our national traditions refer, were far more likely to be mere "wise men," or "witch doctors," with perhaps a spice of the conjuror. This, at all events, seems to be the case at the time when we first acquire any positive information concerning them. Theirs it would be to summon the rain clouds and to terrify the people by their charms. The Chief Druid of ...
— Stonehenge - Today and Yesterday • Frank Stevens
... a conjuror if you do," answered little Maitland, who had a good deal of native impudence about him, "considering we haven't been twenty-four hours ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... years appeared the inspectors from Winnipeg, true lords of the North, with their six-fathom canoes, their luxurious furs, their red banners trailing like gonfalons in the water. Then this post of Conjuror's House feasted and danced, undertook gay excursions, discussed in public or private conclave weighty matters, grave and reverend advices, cautions, and commands. They went. Desolation again ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... course," said he, "you're thinking of my friend 'Bias Hunken! I almost took ye for a conjuror, first-along—upon my word I did! But once I get the drift o' your cunning, 'tis easy as easy." He gazed at Mr Benny ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Doctor, as if she had slipped off her infirmities and years like an outer garment. All those fine instincts of observation which came straight to her from her savage grandfather looked out of her little eyes. She had a kind of faith that the Doctor was a mighty conjuror, who, if he would, could bewitch any of them. She had relieved her feelings by her long talk with the minister, but the Doctor was the immediate adviser of the family, and had watched them through ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... a white sheete about him, and at midnight came into the chamber of a rich woman that was in bed, and fashioning himself like a spirit, hee thought to put her in such feare, that shee would procure a conjuror or exorcist to talke with him, or else speake to him herselfe. The woman desired one of her kinsmen to stay with her in her chamber the next night. This man making no question whether it were a spirit ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 348, December 27, 1828 • Various
... gates, and would have done sacrifice with the people;" [77:2] but the Jews looked on in sullen incredulity, and kept alive an active and implacable opposition. At Cyprus, the apostles had to contend against the craft of a Jewish conjuror; [77:3] at Antioch, "the Jews stirred up the devout and honourable women, and the chief men of the city, and raised persecution" against them, "and expelled them out of their coasts;" [77:4] at Iconium, ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... although the Highlanders, accustomed to such incidents, and prepared for them, had suffered no harm themselves. A wigwam was erected almost in an instant, where Edward was deposited on a couch of heather. The surgeon, or he who assumed the office, appeared to unite the characters of a leech and a conjuror. He was an old smoke-dried Highlander, wearing a venerable grey beard, and having for his sole garment a tartan frock, the skirts of which descended to the knee, and, being undivided in front, made the vestment serve at once for doublet and breeches. [Footnote: ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... reflection was, "How alike is the superstition of the ignorant and of the wicked! My poor neighbours stealing to the conjuror's tent in the lane, and this wretched lady, hope alike to bribe Heaven in their extremity—they by gifts and rites, she by remorse and reparation.—How different from the faith which say; 'Not as I will, but ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... greenhorn &c (dupe) 547; dunce &c (ignoramus) 493; lubber &c (bungler) 701; madman &c 504. one who will not set the Thames on fire; one who did not invent gunpowder, qui n'a pas invente' la poudre [Fr]; no conjuror. Phr. fortuna favet fatuis[Lat]; les fous font les festinas et les sages les mangent [Fr]; nomina stultorum parietibus harrent [Lat]; stultorum plena sunt ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... called to see Hugh. The much-needed supper of the travellers must be still waited for; but the fire was burning now, the room was cosily warm and bright, and Marion drew up her chair with a look of thoughtful contentment. Fleda felt as if some conjuror had been at work here for the last few hours—the room looked so like ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... Pennsylvania, a boat propelled by an engine which moved an endless chain to which little paddles were attached. The next year, Fitch's second boat, operated by twelve paddles, six on a side—an arrangement suggesting the "side-wheeler" of the future—successfully plied the Delaware off "Conjuror's Point," as the scene of Fitch's labors was dubbed in whimsical amusement and derision. In 1787 Rumsey, encouraged by Franklin, fashioned a boat propelled by a stream of water taken in at the prow and ejected at the stern. In 1788 Fitch's third boat traversed the distance from ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... afraid of it till you turn conjuror," said Alice; "so hasten to the well, where you are like still to find the woman, and let her know that Alice Lee desires none of her gifts, any more than ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... meditates on humanity, the more one becomes disgusted with its artificialness and bad taste. People flock after trifles, they are devoid of refinement, a conjuror will have an immense number of admirers, a third-rate music-hall will fill, even to suffocation, while the man of genius, unless he be rich, often remains unnoticed. He who produces most exquisite poetry, soaring high above his fellow countrymen, carrying ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... with the baker, to the ragged urchins, pitch-polling in the gutter and the dust. And there she caught sight of the string, justices and others, who came flowing out of the office of Mr. Carlyle. So many of them were they that Miss Corny involuntarily thought of a conjuror flinging flowers out of a hat—the faster they come, the more it seems there are to come. "What on earth is up?" cried Miss Corny, pressing her nose flat against the pane, that ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... dangerous illness, sorcery had been always contemplated as the main or sole remedy, and those who rejected its use were reproached, as rather allowing their sick relations to die, than incur the expense of a conjuror. But the most general and pernicious application of magic was made in judicial proceedings: when a charge was advanced against any individual, no one ever thought of inquiring into the facts, or of collecting evidence—every ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... her strange sense for tongues, with which she juggled as a conjuror at a show juggled with balls or hoops or lighted brands—it wasn't at least entirely that, for he had known people almost as polyglot whom their accomplishment had quite failed to make interesting. He was polyglot himself, for that matter—as was the case too with so many of his friends and relations; ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... new one, caused an Iliad of calamities: his master's palace jumped from Bagdad to some place on the road to Ashantee; Mrs. Aladdin and the piccaninies were carried off as inside passengers; and Aladdin himself only escaped being lagged, for a rogue and a conjuror, by a flying jump after his palace. Now, mark the folly of man. Most of the people I am going to mention subscribed, generally, to the supreme excellence of Milton; but each wished for a little change to be made— which, and which only was wanted to perfection. ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... Jack had read this, he seized the trumpet, and blew a shrill blast, which made the gates fly open, and the very castle itself tremble. The giant and the conjuror now knew that their wicked course was at an end, and they stood biting their thumbs and shaking with fear. Jack with his sword of sharpness, soon killed the giant, and the magician was then carried away by a whirlwind. All the knights and beautiful ladies, who had been changed ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... of restless curiosity we have to ascribe the passionate declamations of the tragic actor, and the splendid music of the opera; the cunning feats of the village conjuror, and the lascivious pantomime of the city ballet-dancers; the disgusting varieties of bull-fights, and the celebrated feats of pugilism; the locomotive zeal of the great pedestrians, and the perfect quiescence ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... must fill up somehow, and they praise his artfulness, how he dodged this, and dexterously managed that. They have nothing but admiration for his jugglery and House-of-Commons tricks. They bring him down to the level of a practised conjuror or a thimblerigger. But, with all his wonderful cleverness, he is not admired or supported by any intelligent body of public men. The gag-trick ought to settle him. We in Ulster feel sure that a general ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... to Conjuror Trendle's son in Egdon—years!" said the dairyman bitterly. "And he was nothing to what his father had been. I have said fifty times, if I have said once, that I DON'T believe in en; though 'a do cast folks' waters very true. But I ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... know where this damned Gloster is, I'll have the devils rous'd to find that devil, O[r] else I'll conjure the old conjuror. I'll to Blackheath, and there with friends conspire, But I'll have ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... turned into gold. But the matter must not go further. And then you will no longer question my chance of discovering the elixir of life. Only I should like to punish that beggarly vagrant, that rascally herb-culler, and pitiful conjuror, as he deserves. Let him only come for once into my quarters! With all his contemptible jugglery, I would astound him! I am so enraged with the fellow, the blood runs into my head at the very ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... no cause to fear—I am thy friend, Merlin by name, a conjuror by trade, And to my art thou ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... counteth this blessed person, this Son of God, a magician, a conjuror, a witch, or one that did, when he was in the world, what he did, by the power and spirit of the devil (Matt 9:34; 12:24,25,&c.; Mark 3:22-30). Now he that has this opinion of this Jesus, cannot be willing to cast himself at his feet for life, or to come to him as the only way to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... a thought, just as your punishment might be. Heru, come here." And when the girl, speechless with amazement, had risen and slipped over to me, I straightened her pretty hair from her forehead, and then, in a way which would make my fortune if I could repeat it at a conjuror's table, whipped poor Yang's gemmy crown from my pocket, flashed its baleful splendour in the eyes of the courtiers, and placed it on the tresses of the first royal lady who had worn it since its rightful owner died a hundred ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... great mind submits itself to vulgar adulation, and renounces unwillingly, if it renounces at all, the unenviable reputation of supernatural agency. In cases where self-interest and ambition are the basis of this peculiarity of temperament, and in an age when the conjuror and the alchemist were the companions and even the idols of princes, it is easy to trace the steps by which a gifted sage retains his ascendancy among the ignorant. The hecatomb which is sacrificed ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... both intellectual and moral. No story is too extraordinary to be told of Hindu gods. They are the magicians of the universe who sport with the forces of nature as easily as a conjuror in a bazaar does tricks with a handful of balls. But though the average Hindu would be shocked to hear the Puranas described as idle tales, yet he does not make his creed depend on their accuracy, as many in Europe make Christianity depend on miracles. The value of truth in religion ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... "Truly," says he, "Mrs. Nab, it might become you to be more civil; If your money be gone, as a learned divine says, d'ye see: You are no text for my handling; so take that from me: I was never taken for a conjuror before, I'd have you to know." "Law!" said I, "don't be angry, I am sure I never thought you so; You know I honour the cloth; I design to be a parson's wife, I never took one in your coat for a conjuror in all my life." With that, he twisted his girdle at me like a rope, ...
— English Satires • Various
... my great fame had already reached the town, the court-yard was filled with spectators in less than an hour. My master rejoiced to see such a plenteous harvest, and resolved to show himself that day a first-rate conjuror. The entertainment began with my leaping through a hoop. He had a willow switch in his hand, and when he lowered it, that was a signal for me to leap; and when he kept it raised, I was not ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... he played the piano, the accordion, and other musical instruments. For his mysterious 'gift' he might be invited to puzzle and amuse royal people (not in England), and continental emperors, and kings. But he did much more than what Houdin or Alexis, a conjuror and a clairvoyant, could do. He successively married, with the permission and good will of the Czar, two Russian ladies of noble birth, a feat inexplicable when we think of the rules of the continental noblesse. A duc, or a prince, ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... a sign Of them anywhere under the shade of the pine, But get the pine out of the way, you may burn The pasture all over until not a fern Or grass-blade is left, not to mention a stick, And presto, they're up all around you as thick And hard to explain as a conjuror's trick." "It must be on charcoal they fatten their fruit. I taste in them sometimes the flavour of soot. And after all really they're ebony skinned: The blue's but a mist from the breath of the wind, A tarnish that goes at a touch of the hand, And less ...
— North of Boston • Robert Frost
... his dog: so I'll keep my tester in my pocket, and not be giving it to this king o' the gipsies, as they call him: who, as near as I can guess, is no better than a cheat. But there is one secret which I can be telling this conjuror himself: he shall not find it such an easy matter to do all what he thinks; he shall not be after ruining an innocent countryman of my own whilst Paddy M'Cormack has a ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... does or can exist. The thing has been tried, and found a failure. Its uses are remarkable and various: like the "death's-head and cross-bones" of the pirates, or the wand, globe, and beard of the conjuror, it is their sure and unvarying sign. We have in our mind's eye one of the species even now—we see him coquetting with the fork, compressing it with gentle fondness, and then (that all senses may be called into requisition) resting it against ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... Circle," p. 25, is that of Mr. Bellachini, also a professional conjuror, of Berlin, Germany. His interview was with the celebrated medium, Mr. Slade. From his testimony we ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... until he reaches his smashing climax, in which he fixes indelibly in your mind the impression which he desires to create. It is all like a great piece of legerdemain; your eyes cannot follow the processes, but your mind is amazed and then convinced by the triumphant proof of the conjuror's skill. ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... about eight miles from Barnsley, and I decided to make for that town, cutting across the fields. I passed the house, I remember, where the father of Bosco, (best known as "Curley Joe"), the famous conjuror, was born. I walked into Barnsley about eight o'clock the same morning. After weighing the matter over in my mind, I sought out and made for the wooden theatre in connection with which I had accepted an engagement at Halifax the ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... three scenes are united under the title "Paracelsus attains;" but the attainment is not at first visible. We find him at Constantinople, in the house of the Greek conjuror, nine years after his departure from home. He has not discovered the magical secret which he came to seek; and his tone, as he reviews his position, is full of a bitter and almost despairing sense of failure. His desultory course has borne scanty and confused results. His powers have been ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... first steps in Spiritualism. I was still a sceptic, but at least I was an inquirer, and when I heard some old-fashioned critic saying that there was nothing to explain, and that it was all fraud, or that a conjuror was needed to show it up, I knew at least that that was all nonsense. It is true that my own evidence up to then was not enough to convince me, but my reading, which was continuous, showed me how deeply other men had gone ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle
... I, "I am quite at a loss to guess at your meaning. Davus sum, non Oedipus—I am Jedediah Cleishbotham, Schoolmaster of the parish of Gandercleuch; no conjuror, and neither reader of riddles, nor ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... the penny post—all these matters and persons are of secondary importance to this greater question—whether the female who hands the Queen her gown shall think Lord Melbourne a "very pretty fellow in his day;" or whether she shall believe my friend Sir Robert to be as great a conjuror as Roger Bacon or the Wizard of the North—if the lady can look upon O'Connell and not call for burnt feathers or scream for sal volatile; or if she really thinks the Pope to be a woman with a naughty name, clothed in most exceptionable scarlet. It is whether Lady Mary thinks black, or ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various |
