"Black art" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which his eyes were stealthily riveted, Hubert's eagerness to know all that his master concealed had no limit. He resolved to discover the secret, even though he should perish in the attempt; he feared that there was good reason for the accusation of dealing in the Black Art, which, more than all others, the monks of Bacon's own convent countenanced, but this apprehension only stimulated him the more. For some time Hubert waited without an opportunity occurring for gratifying the secret longing of his heart; at last it ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... convinced that it was playing in an honorable and respectable private house, and very naturally spread abroad the fame of it throughout the whole city. But when the fat pigeon at last appeared, the band put forth all its forces, all the wiles of the black art, and in a few hours made up for the generous losses of a month of honorable and irreproachable ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... thirty years later, was still holding out against it on the scientific side; and, as to the theological side, it was the period when that great churchman, Dean Cockburn, was insulting geologists from the pulpit of York Minster, and the Rev. Mellor Brown denouncing geology as "a black art," "a forbidden province" and when, in America, Prof. Moses Stuart and others like him were belittling the work of ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... "therefore we will be plain with you. You shall be lodged here with suitable means for your experiments until such time as your pretensions are justified—if they are. Should you prove yourself a wizard, a dabbler in the black art and a deceiver of the people, you shall be so punished that all men may know we share not in your guilt. Reflection hereupon may perchance quicken your understanding. Until you have news of ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... would cause me to destroy him sooner or later." Ku dragged it into the house, and said, "Let us wait till to-morrow to talk it over; we shall then be more calm." Next day the young lady arrived, and Ku inquired about her knowledge of the black art; but she told Ku not to trouble himself about such affairs, and to keep it secret or it might be prejudicial to his happiness. Ku then entreated her to consent to their union, to which she replied that she had already been as it were a daughter-in-law to his mother, and there was no need to push ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... deeply read As he that made the brazen head; Profoundly skill'd in the black art; 345 As ENGLISH MERLIN for his heart; But far more skilful in the spheres Than he was at the sieve and shears. He cou'd transform himself in colour As like the devil as a collier; 350 As like as hypocrites in show Are to true ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... persisted. "And if they could have been headed off, or burned, most of us would still be living in mud caves at the foot of the cliff on which stood the nobleman's castle; and kings would still be kings by divine decree, scientists—if there were any —workers in the black art, and every phenomenon we failed to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... wound, implies that the snake is not only scotched, but killed. When it is merely stupefied or lulled to sleep it awakes again and the disciple uses his knowledge and his power for his own ends, and is a pupil of the many masters of the black art, for the road to destruction is very broad and easy, and the way can be found blindfold. That it is the way to destruction is evident, for when a man begins to live for self he narrows his horizon steadily till at ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins
... and hell and flowers which vomit blood. God's death! Heard ever man the like? If thou knowest not of what thou pratest, thou hast lied, and that deserves a beating. If thou dost know, thou hast the black art of magic,—an evil-doer, with familiars who tell thee things not to be known of earth; and ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... the killing of me, and I lay among the rafters, under the thatch of my mother's house, and listened to them miscalling me, the black killer—the bloody man that had the black art and the evil eye; and it came over my heart to catch them by the hair, and pull them up to me as they were speaking, and let my black knife kiss their hearts. It was all red, red before me, up there under the thatch, and them down below, and my sisters shaking when ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... her father the king unwrapped the necklaces, "my lover is here again. This necklace," she said, touching the one she had given Juan, "is not a counterfeit" for it is written in the magician's book of black art that no human being shall be able to imitate either of the magic necklaces.—Where is the owner of this necklace, old man?" she ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... descendant of the Moors who first landed at Algeziras, and from them had descended to her that knowledge of the black art which has been peculiar to that race. She, therefore, replied that although she could count on the resistance her almogavares, or garrison soldiers, would offer to the forces of the baron, still she would do her utmost to avoid ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... by astronomy. Alchemy and the black art gave way to chemistry. Science is destined to take the place of superstition. In my judgment, the religion of ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... wagon. How can we look with indifference on such a survival of barbarism?" The commonest manifestations of hatred and superstition, however, were, as in other countries, the charge that Jews were magicians, using the black art to avenge themselves on their persecutors, and that they used Christian blood for their observance of the Passover. The latter crime, the imputing of which was sternly prohibited by an edict of the liberal Bathory, in 1576, was so frequently laid at their door, that in the short period ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... near and nearest to the wall Of those who wish and work its fall, With deeper skill in War's black art, Than Othman's sons, and high of heart As any Chief that ever stood Triumphant in the fields of blood; 100 From post to post, and deed to deed, Fast spurring on his reeking steed, Where sallying ranks ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... project, the more I congratulated myself on having conceived such a scheme; but, alas! in this very imperfectly organised world of ours brilliant ideas are seldom realised, and in this case I was destined to be disappointed. Did the old woman's black art warn her of approaching danger, or was she simply actuated by a feeling of professional jealousy and considerations of professional etiquette? To this question I can give no positive answer, but certain ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... catawba," said Mifflin, "in which the grape and the sunshine very pleasantly (and cheaply) fulfil their allotted destiny. I pledge you prosperity to the black art ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... were produced by some other art than transcription; and on further inquiry they found that Faust had sold a considerable number exactly similar. Orders, therefore, were given without delay to apprehend and prosecute him as a practitioner of the black art in multiplying Holy Writ by aid of the devil. Hence arose the popular fiction of the Devil and Dr. Faustus, which, under different phases, has found its way into every country in Europe, and probably gave rise to Goethe's ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... business, and other slight-of-hand work. Well, the very moment I put my neb within the door, I was visibly convinced of the smell of burnt roset, with which I understand they make lightning, and knew, as well as maybe, what they had been trafficking about with their black art; but, nevertheless, having a stout heart, I determined to sit still, and see what they would make of it, knowing well enough, that, as long as I had the Psalm-book in my pocket, they would be gay and clever to throw any of ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... from the exiles at the Burgundian court, who had also taught him the use of the longbow, building from architects and masons, painting from artists, and, more imaginatively, astrology from a wonderful flaming sphere in the sky, and the black art from a witch inspired by a long-tailed demon perched on her shoulder. No doubt "the young white king" made an exceedingly prominent figure in the discourse, but it was so quaint and so brilliant that ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Chrysophrasia, in delight. "I have found out all about him. He was not exactly an alchemist; he was an astrologer, and there are the ruins of his tower in the park. There are some old books up-stairs, upon the Black Art, with his name in them, Johannes Carvellius, written in the most ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... that short space Could see a glimpse of his bright face; When on some gilded cloud or flower My gazing soul would dwell an hour, And in those weaker glories spy Some shadows of eternity; Before I taught my tongue to wound My conscience with a sinful sound, Or had the black art to dispense A several sin to every sense, But felt through all this fleshly dress Bright shoots ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... incantation which she required to work her spells, and which she called Warlocks; but such women were not to be found. Thereupon a search was made throughout the house, to see whether anyone knew this [incantation]. Then says Gudrid, Thorbiorn's daughter: "Although I am neither skilled in the black art nor a sibyl, yet my foster-mother, Halldis, taught me in Iceland that spell-song, which she called Warlocks." Thorbiorg answered: "Then art thou wise in season!" Gudrid replies; "This is an incantation and ceremony of such a ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... the most part he assumes that the facts of mediumship are somehow, and necessarily, in opposition to somebody's religion. He finds it sustained (or opposed) by the Bible, or he fancies it mixed with deviltry or the black art. He trembles for fear it will affect the scheme of redemption or assist some theosophical system. Whereas, a man like Bottazzi is engaged merely with the facts; he lets the inferences fall where they may. He is not concerned with whether Eusapia's manifestations oppose Christian ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... found which in manners and customs are much the same with their ancestors who crossed the ocean. The horseshoe is still nailed above the door as a protection against the troublesome spook, and the black art is still practised. Rough in their manners, and plain in their appearance, they yet conceal under this exterior a warm hospitality, and the stranger will much sooner be turned away from the door of the "chivalry" than from that of the German farmer. Seated by his blazing fire, with plenty of apples ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... affection of the person of the opposite sex whom you sincerely love. There is no black art about this, but merely psychological attraction, and by its use you can win the love of the person whose ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... . . Little did we fear his magic we who feared nothing in heaven or earth or in the waters beneath Alvaro and I, old freebooters of the Spanish Main; but they others Luiz Fonseca, Jose Albuquerque, and Antonio Mendez brave men, but ignorant shipmen, they were fearful of the witch-doctor and his black art. ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... gentlemen!" Meanwhile his brother, sly John Doughty, sought To fan the seamen's fear of the unknown world With whispers and conjectures; and, at night, He brought old books of Greek and Hebrew down Into the foc'sle, claiming by their aid A knowledge of Black Art, and power to tell The future, which he dreadfully displayed There in the flickering light of the oily lamp, Bending above their huge and swarthy palms And tracing them to many a grisly doom. So many a night and day westward ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... DO THE BLACK ART.—Containing a complete description of the mysteries of Magic and Sleight of Hand, together with many wonderful experiments. ...
— The Bradys Beyond Their Depth - The Great Swamp Mystery • Anonymous
... its open basket. The creature instantly sat up, with a surge of splendid passion, hissing, bowing, and expanding angrily its great tawny hood. The garuda put his pungi to his lips, and blew for a while upon it a low and wheezy drone,—the invariable prelude to a little jadoo, or black art,—which the beautiful animal appeared to appreciate: and then, pointing with the end of his pipe to the "spectacles" on its hood, he said, with that silky, insinuating smile which is characteristic of the scamp: ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain
... write. Nevertheless, we are frequently in touch with an old peasant as witness who gives the impression of absolute integrity, reliability, and wisdom, so much so that it is gain for anybody to talk to him. But though the black art of reading and writing has been foreign to him through the whole of his life, nobody will have any accusation to make against him about ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... the unreal, he refused to treat the latter supernaturally. That mystery which lesser minds found in the occult, he saw in nature all about him. He denied the existence of spirits, just as he urged the foolishness of the will-o'-the-wisps of former ages,—alchemy and the black art. In one sentence he destroyed the pretensions of palmistry. "You will see," he wrote, "great armies slaughtered in an hour's time, where in each individual the signs of ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... or double, was so common, especially when looking-glasses were full of flaws, designedly cast faulty to give "magical" effects for conjurors, that old books on the black art teem with instances. Lincoln was right to demonstrate that the vision was founded on fact, and no supernatural sight at all. His trying the repetition was like Lord Byron's quashing a similar illusion, ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... thirty-third year of the reign of his holiness Meramen-Ramses the Nile was late in its overflow. Earth-tillers, ascribing this misfortune to the black art of foreigners resident in the province of Hak, fell to wrecking the houses of Hittites, Jews, and Phoenicians, during which time a number of persons were slain by them. At command of his worthiness the nomarch, those guilty were brought to the court; twenty-five earth-tillers, two masons, and five ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... through the loaded hour Ere, roaring like the gale, The Harrild and the Hoe devour Their league-long paper bale, And has lit his pipe in the morning calm That follows the midnight stress— He hath sold his heart to the old Black Art We call ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... subchaunter in Bristol Cathedral and had held the mastership in a local free school. We are told that he was fond of reading and music; that he made a collection of Roman coins, and believed in magic (or so he said), studying the black art in the pages of Cornelius Agrippa. With all the self-acquired culture and learning that raised him above his class (his father and grandfathers before him for more than a hundred years had been sextons to the church of ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... be an adept in the "black art," an astrologer, or a fortune-teller, but I have no pretentions whatever to any such titles; this report has got abroad in consequence of a maid-servant having once had the temerity to peep through the key-hole, and observed on the wall opposite her "line of sight," some triangular ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various
... to do things well: twelve years of the other's friendship has not cured him of this. Being seized with a peculiar desire to learn conjuring, he had made the acquaintance of an eerie and supernatural young man, who instructed him in the Black Art: a gaunt Mephistophelian sort of individual, who our subject half thought was a changeling. Our subject has not quite got over the idea yet, though for practical social purposes he calls him Lucian Oldershaw. Our subject met Lucian Oldershaw. 'That night,' as Shakespeare ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... Consul thought that it was not old Lizzie, which, nevertheless, was as clear as the sun at noon-day, but my poor daughter who brewed the storm;—for, beloved reader, what could it have profited her, even if she had known the black art? This, however, did not strike Dom. Consul, and Satan, by the permission of the all-righteous God, was presently to use us still worse; for just as we got to the Master's Dam, [Footnote: It is also called to the present day, and is distant a mile from Coserow.] he came flying over us in the ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... can arrive at any clear comprehension of the matter, Science is not, as many would seem to suppose, a modification of the black art, suited to the tastes of the nineteenth century, and flourishing mainly in consequence of the decay of ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... not a few of the household were far from satisfied that lord Herbert's known occupations in the Yellow Tower were not principally ostensible, and that he and his man had nothing to do with the black art, or some other of the many regions of occult science in which the ambition after unlawful ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... laws against it were repealed in 1736, Scotchmen in the highest stations of church and state remonstrated against the repeal as contrary to the law of God; and William Forbes, in his "Institutes of the Law of Scotland," calls witchcraft "that black art whereby strange and wonderful things are wrought by a power derived ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... concern private right, excepting for the evident utility of the subjects within Scotland.' When the old gentleman came to the passage, which you will mark in italics, he always clenched his fist, and exclaimed, 'Nemo me impune lacessit!' which, I presume, are words belonging to the black art, since there is no one in the Modern Athens conjuror enough to understand their meaning, or at least to comprehend the spirit of the sentiment which my grandfather ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... "Just told it—and there you are. Is that a miracle, or is it black art, or what is it? And what do you think's the matter with me? That's ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... was beyond seas, of poisoning my Lord of Pembroke, Sir Fulk de Breaut, and my sometime Lord of Canterbury's Grace. He might have spent his life in poisoning every body! Then, lastly, they said he had obtained favour of the Lord King by help of the black art." ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... other fancies he was engaged in re-making the brazen speaking head of Roger Bacon and Albertus. Many persons might have felt alarmed at the peculiarity of my situation, but being accustomed to mingle with eccentric characters, and having no fear from any pretensions of the black art, I was infinitely ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 342, November 22, 1828 • Various
... some more rare occasions, even of generosity, which had served to silence his calumniators, and by degrees he had established a very fair reputation—suspected, it is true, of being a little inclined to the Black Art, and of a strange inclination to starve Jackeymo and himself,—in ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... of referring for advice and support to a sage volume entitled The Complete British Family Housewife, which she would sit consulting, with her elbows on the table and her temples on her hands, like some perplexed enchantress poring over the Black Art. This, principally because the Complete British Housewife, however sound a Briton at heart, was by no means an expert Briton at expressing herself with clearness in the British tongue, and sometimes might have issued her directions to equal purpose in the Kamskatchan language. In any crisis of ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... only corrupted or quite frivolous versions of it, this statement set its real and rare self forth with the utmost purity, value, and completeness, in a degree "known to only a few of all the families of Egypt." As such a weighty bit of Black Art did Mr. Antrobus make its details into a book. As such he printed it. Doubtless he thought that a betrayed secret may lawfully be re-betrayed as ...
— The Square of Sevens - An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory Note • E. Irenaeus Stevenson
... the figure cut by the wearer might almost have passed for that of Mynheer Ten Broek of many-trowsered memory. But it was vastly more amusing to watch him than to play with him. He had a devil 'most undoubted.' Only with the help of black art and by mortgaging one's soul would it have been possible to accomplish some of the things which he accomplished. For the materials of croquet are so imperfect at best that chance is an influential element. I've seen tennis-players in the ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... right," said the Marshal heartily, "as results have shown. And doubtless there is no truth in the rumour that you still retain some proficiency in the Black Art." ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... contemporary Tendency to Magic, Necromancy, the Black Art.—The Philosopher's Stone, ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... her Lima beans, whose long slender shoots had been vainly feeling round for a support the last few days. Her first impulse was to clap her hands with delight and exclaim: "How, in the name of wonder, could he do it all in a night! Oh, Malcom, you are a canny Scotchman, but you put the 'black art' to very white uses." ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... gray hairs on a young head, had perplexed and confounded this Blunt to such a degree that he at last came to the conclusion it must be the result of the black art, wrought upon him by an enemy; and that enemy, he opined, was an old sailor landlord in Marseilles, whom he had once seriously offended, by knocking him down in ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... the wondrous grace of the holy sacrament, or of the sweet beauty of God's world, clothed in the radiance of Good Friday; now it would reveal the sorrows of the gentle Herzeleide, or the awful anguish of Amfortas, or the deep rumblings of Klingsor's black art, or the fascinating music of the flower-maidens. Often came the pure tones that told of the guileless One, or the strong chords of mighty faith, or the ebb and swell of mystic bells, or the glory of ...
— Parsifal - A Drama by Wagner • Retold by Oliver Huckel
... us. The poet brought into the ranks of the dramatis personae!—the creator of fictions converted himself into a fictitious personage!—there seems some strange confusion here. It is as if the magic wand were waved over the magician himself—a thing not unheard of in the annals of the black art. But then the second magician should be manifestly more powerful than the first. The second poet should be capable of overlooking and controlling the spirit of the first; capable, at all events, of animating him with an eloquence and a poetry ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... In great dismay, the young woman shouted the name of her sweetheart, but all in vain, he came not to her. The sun had now risen, and, almost broken-hearted, she returned home and related the events of the previous night. She was advised to consult a man who was an adept in the black art. She did so, and the conjuror told her to go to the same place at the same time of the night one year and one day from the time that her lover had disappeared and that she should then and there see him. She was farther instructed how to act. The conjuror warned her ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... of chivalry. Necromancer, lit. one who by magical power can commune with the dead (Gk. nekros, a corpse); hence a sorcerer. From confusion of the first syllable with that of the Lat. niger, black, the art of necromancy came to be called "the black art." ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... tooth of the Witch of Endor!" I cried, "if you can construe all that from his appearance you are dealing in nothing else than black art." ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... is regarded by the Indian as essential to the existence of man. Magic, however, as a black art is the most heinous crime which he can conceive. The difference between the two consists mainly in their purpose; the manipulations are substantially the same, so are the objects. To know those details is one of the attributes of ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... Time and again I surrendered when an attendant was about to chastise me. But at least a score of patients in the ward were not so well equipped mentally, and these were viciously assaulted again and again by the very men who had so thoroughly initiated me into the mysteries of their black art. ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... of course, so good as a scandal, but when it relates to dark and dreadful practices—to the exercise of unearthly powers—could anything be more piquant? It explains, too, the singular influence the man has upon me. It is the undefinable in his art—black art. Seriously, dear, I quite tremble when he looks me full in the eyes with those unfathomable orbs of his, which I have already vainly attempted to describe to you. How dreadful if he has the power to make one fall in love! ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce |
