"Conjuror" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... because it is the ruin of a joke to be unintelligible. A man may pretend to be a poet: he can no more pretend to be a wit than he can pretend to bring rabbits out of a hat without having learnt to be a conjuror. Therefore, it may be submitted, there was a certain discipline in the old antithetical couplet of Pope and his followers. If it did not permit of the great liberty of wisdom used by the minority of great geniuses, neither did it permit of the great liberty of folly which is ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... to Merlin will be explained by a glance at the parallel sonnets above. Merlin was entirely Coleridge's idea. A conjuror of that name was just then among ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... head-first into the original Eagle (now duly repaired) with the velocity and agility of a man long accustomed to the fact that seconds are more precious than six-pences and minutes than banknotes. And Carthew slammed the door on him like a conjuror performing the final act of a trick before an audience of three ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... had with the far-famed wizard of the Moor. "Isabella has all the luck at home and abroad! Her hawk strikes down the black-cock; her eyes wound the gallant; no chance for her poor companions and kinswomen; even the conjuror cannot escape the force of her charms. You should, in compassion, cease to be such an engrosser, my dear Isabel, or at least set up shop, and sell off all the goods you do not mean to keep ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 (in ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... passed and all were not by. One sat down for a few minutes behind the wind-screen of the destroyer's bridge, only to look back and see more Dreadnoughts going by. A spectator had not realized that there were so many in the harbour. He had a suspicion that Admiral Jellicoe was a conjuror who could take Dreadnoughts ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... Madame Tussaud, and the Horticultural Gardens, and the new conjuror who makes a woman lie upon nothing. The idea of my going to London! And then I suppose I shall be one of the bridesmaids. I declare a new vista of life is opening out to me! Mamma, you mustn't be dull while I'm away. It won't be very ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... Buccleuch, with whom Fanny and I have been having luncheon, says that Dizzy is like a clever conjuror. "Is that the card you wished for, sir?-and is that yours, and yours, and yours?" But politics are rather disgusting than otherwise. ... Fanny and I went yesterday to see the Queen lay the first stone of the Hall of Science and Art. [67] It was a grand sight—great ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... information, he put himself to considerable trouble to give me all he could. He made a quantity of Hypadu or Coca powder that I might see the process; going about the task with much action and ceremony, as though he were a conjuror ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... was done only for a joke, he went away unsatisfied: and to the day of his death, he fully believed that the facetious Quaker was a conjuror. ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... does not 'admit of formal proof,' since the proof is as 'formal' and rigorous by this new method of Kant as by the old obsolete methods of Sam. Clarke and the schoolmen.[Footnote: The method of Des Cartes was altogether separate and peculiar to himself; it is a mere conjuror's juggle; and yet, what is strange, like some other audacious sophisms, it is capable of being so stated as most of all to baffle the subtle dialectician; and Kant himself, though not cheated, was never ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... fatality of Balzac's creatures. None of them ever appear to be free agents. Planet-like they revolve in an orbit, or meteor-like they rush headlong, and their course in the one or the other case is guessable from the beginning. Not that change or development is precluded. The conjuror provides for large transformation; but the law of such transformation is one of iron necessity, and, when he brings in at the end his interferences of Providence, they shock us as an inconsequence. However, though bound by their weird, his people are extraordinarily various in their ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... in snaring woodcocks requires both skill and experience, and a thorough knowledge of the woods, the winds, the colour of the clouds, the age of the moon, the state of the atmosphere; and, in fact, short of being a poacher or a conjuror, how is it possible to know that the woodcocks will pass one spot rather than another in a space of several score of square miles, and amongst so many and such intricate paths. The braconnier alone is infallible on these points, and curious specimens ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... Soames, induced to put on a sort of Conjuror's dress, has been waiting to deliver his lecture the same time that I have; he is equally cold, but not cross, as he anticipates being a means of instruction ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... kitchen, which she had been just about doing when 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 and ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... which thou tellest me, that the Royal Sceptre is but a piece of gilt-wood; that the Pyx has become a most foolish box, and truly, as Ancient Pistol thought, "of little price." A right Conjuror might I name thee, couldst thou conjure back into these wooden tools the divine virtue ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... be called parson, like the devil.) "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, ...
— English Satires • Various
... Inside us, it is the sovereign judge, the supreme arbiter, the prophet, almost the god omnipotent; outside us, from the moment that it quits its shelter and manifests itself in external actions, it is nothing more than a fortune-teller, a bone-setter, a sort of facetious conjuror or telephone-operator, I was on the verge of saying a mountebank or clown. At what particular instant is it really itself? Is it seized with giddiness when it leaves its lair? Is it we who no longer hear it, who no longer understand it, as soon as it ceases to speak ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... yellow; There are many now—now one— Now they stop and there are none: What intenseness of desire In her upward eye of fire! With a tiger-leap half-way Now she meets the coming prey, Lets it go as fast, and then Has it in her power again: Now she works with three or four, Like an Indian conjuror; Quick as he in feats of art, Far beyond in joy of heart. Were her antics played in the eye Of a thousand standers-by, Clapping hands with shouts and stare, What would little Tabby care For the plaudits of the crowd? Over happy to ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... 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; and every knight and beautiful lady, who had been changed into birds ...
— The Story of Jack and the Giants • Anonymous
... No one had entered the cabin. No one had come out of it. As for the dagger with which M. d'Ormeval had been stabbed between the shoulders, it could not be traced. And all this would have suggested the idea of a trick of sleight-of-hand performed by a clever conjuror, had it not concerned a terrible murder, committed under ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... figures.[8] There was at that time a great passion for automata in France, which gave rise to many highly ingenious devices, such as Camus's miniature carriage (made for Louis XIV. when a child), Degennes' mechanical peacock, Vancanson's duck, and Maillardet's conjuror. It had the effect of introducing among the higher order of artists habits of nice and accurate workmanship in executing delicate pieces of machinery; and the same combination of mechanical powers which made the steel spider crawl, ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... splash he could produce; and suddenly whipping the fish over the side into the boat, he began flapping it about as if it were plunging in the death-struggle. As soon as he had affected to kill it, he held it up in triumph before the castle conjuror, who was quite taken in by the feint, and ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... panoply round their persons. In case of 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 ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... might be in a larger, said about the remaining attempts in English fiction before the middle of the sixteenth century. The later romances, down to those of Lord Berners, show the character of the older with a certain addition of the "conjuror's supernatural" of the Amadis school. But the short verse-tales, especially those of the Robin Hood cycle, and some of the purely comic kind, introduce an important variation of interest: and even some of the longer, ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... could suggest. With these he contrasts the true men of science. It is difficult for us now to understand how a man setting out in life with such pure and noble views should descend at last (if indeed he did descend) to be a quack and a conjuror—and die ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... 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 she ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... narrator, "because one day when I was passing by the palace garden, I met and had a chat with a cuckoo, who, as you know, is a conjuror, and can foretell what will happen. As we were discoursing with each other on the affairs of the palace, he ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... steep, And brightly beautiful continuous smiles A fecund blessing on those Indian Isles! Like eastern woods which sweeten as they burn, So, the parched earths to odorous flowrets turn, And feathered fayes their murmurous wings expand, Waked by the magic of his conjuror's wand, Flash their red plumes, and vocalize each dell Where browse the fecho and the dun-gazelle,[11] While half forgetful of her changing sphere, The loathful summer lingers year by year. Here, in the light of God's supernal eye— His realms unbounded, ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... reflection, he gave this up. "If he did come by, I couldn't bring him a line—not even from the conjuror in High 'Oborn—and Satan might make me put my hand to something binding, and I shouldn't be no better off. No; I don't see no way of getting back my ring and poor Tillie's cloak, nor yet getting rid of that goddess, any more than before. There's ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... known to have extended his journeys beyond the Rhine and the Moselle on one side, and beyond the Rhone and Garonne on the other. Of all the conjurors of his day he was the most famous and the most successful, always, of course, excepting that Corsican conjuror who ruled for so many years the destinies of France. From those who have seen that famous trickster, we have learned that the Charleses, the Alexandres, even the Robert-Houdins, were children compared ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... Virginians where Horace is made to describe his first interview with one of the heroes, has ever quite imitated them. Their style, though recognisable at once, is not a matter so much of phrase as of attitude. His revelations of character—his own that is to say, for Horace was no conjuror with any one else's—are constant but not deeply drawn. He cannot, or at least does not, give a plot of any kind: every letter is a sort of review of the subject—larger or smaller—from the really masterly accounts ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... along nicely together. They leased a theatre in the town for the whole winter and sublet it for short periods to a Little Russian theatrical company, to a conjuror and to the local ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... occurred to him that there were no real hares in Lismore. He threw away his gun in terror and fled home; and next day he heard that a notorious witch was laid up with a broken leg. A man need be no conjuror to guess how she came by that broken leg.[774] Again, at Thurso certain witches used to turn themselves into cats and in that shape to torment an honest man. One night he lost patience, whipped out ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... it required no conjuror to perceive that it was not done willingly or cordially. It was a handshaking of that character which seemed to imply on each side, "I don't like you, but I don't know positively any ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... a low voice on the chance of there being vast and rich countries still undiscovered between Florida and the River of Canada. Raleigh's half-scientific declamation and his often quotations of Doctor Dee the conjuror, have less effect on Osborne than on Cumberland (who tried many an adventure to foreign parts, and failed in all of them; apparently for the simple reason that, instead of going himself, he sent other people), and Raleigh is fain to call to his ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... promised to sign, I made up my mind to return to His Sheriffian Majesty with a view to setting things right. I considered it advisable to be accompanied by Herr VON POPOFF, as I counted upon that eminent conjuror's valuable aid to assist me in carrying out what I venture to submit, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 20, 1892 • Various
... garlands unto the 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 Jews again "stirred up the Gentiles, and made their minds ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... a fanciful present from an admiring Marchesa, curiously embroidered with algebraic figures like a conjuror's robe, and with a skull-cap of black satin on his hive of a head, the man of gravity was seated at a huge claw-footed old table, round as the zodiac. It was covered with printer papers, files of documents, rolls of manuscript, stray bits of strange models in wood and metal, odd-looking ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... without apparatus, in a series of rather grotesque movements which supple and prepare the body for more muscular feats: these are calisthenic exercises. Such are being at last introduced, thanks to Dr. Lewis and others, into our common schools. At the word of command, as swiftly as a conjuror twists his puzzle-paper, these living forms are shifted from one odd resemblance to another, at which it is quite lawful to laugh, especially if those laugh who win. A series of windmills,—a group of inflated balloons,—a flock of geese all asleep on one leg,—a circle of ballet-dancers, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... chase too soon, or losing his pigeon by an over eager desire to pluck him. 5. He must be content to lose a little at first, that he may thereby make a final hit decisive. 6. He must practise like a conjuror in private, that his slippery tricks in public may escape observation. Palming the digits requires no ordinary degree of agility. 7. He must secure a confederate, who having been pigeoned, has since been enlightened, and will consent to decoy others to the net. 8. He should have once held the ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... 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 ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... one 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 them out ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... I don't know how you can think of so many gay and serious things all at the same time. It is as if you took your conjuror's hat out and produced eggs, cannon-balls, perfume flowers, and a whole live, quivering beef at the same stroke. You are a ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... the Nith. This mansion is indeed very large; but to us it appeared like a gathering together of little things. The roof is broken into a hundred pieces, cupolas, etc., in the shape of casters, conjuror's balls, cups, and the like. The situation would be noble if the woods had been left standing; but they have been cut down not long ago, and the hills above and below the house are quite bare. About a mile and a half from Drumlanrigg is a turnpike gate at ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... characteristic of him at the pleasant old season, and were frequently renewed in future years. "The best of it is" (31 Dec. 1842) "that Forster and I have purchased between us the entire stock-in-trade of a conjuror, the practice and display whereof is entrusted to me. . . . In those tricks which require a confederate I am assisted (by reason of his imperturbable good humour) by Stanfield, who always does his part exactly the wrong way, to the unspeakable delight of ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... one would go to such expense for me! But I have an idea that my guv'nor will hardly laugh when I tell him this. Still, thank you all the same, m'sieur, and au revoir." He was darting off when a sudden thought detained him. "Excuse me," said he, with conjuror like volubility; "I was so horrified that I forgot business. Tell me, m'sieur, if the count dies, you'll take charge of the funeral arrangements, won't you? Very well; a word of advice then. Don't go to the regular undertakers, but ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... began, opening fire without further parley, "the major has come to ask your aid in a case of singular and mystifying interest. You may or may not have heard of a music-hall artiste—a sort of conjuror and impersonator—called 'Zyco the Magician,' who was assisted in his illusions by a veiled but reputedly beautiful Turkish lady who was billed on the programmes and posters ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... written in the hopes that it may prove of interest to the thousands who reside in India, and those other thousands who, visiting its coral shores from time to time, often discuss in wondering amazement how the Indian conjuror performs his tricks. It is also written to uphold the reputation of the Western conjuror against the spurious ascendancy ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... 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 she might ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... central idea of the bill, but they 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 election to-morrow would for ever deprive ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... the picture, 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 seemed ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... continued. "They rob the mountains of their poetry, which is or should be their greatest charm. Mont Blanc can have no mystery for a man who has been up it half a dozen times. It's like getting behind the scenes at a ballet, or making a conjuror explain his tricks." ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... at him with an almost musing sweetness. She had the aspect of a conjuror who, with a last light puff of breath or touch of a magic finger, puts forth the final resource of a stupefying dexterity. So delicately, so softly, with a calm that knew no doubt or hesitation, she shook ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... Christian boy became acquainted with the character of Tisquantum, the stronger became this fear, and the more he despaired of any influence proving sufficiently strong to break the chains of error and superstition that bound him to heathenism. The Chief was a distinguished Powow, or conjuror; and was regarded by his own people, and even by many other tribes, as possessing great super natural powers. His pretensions were great, and fully accredited by his subjects, who believed that he could control the power of the subordinate evil ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... Claim Jumpers The Westerners The Blazed Trail Arizona Night Blazed Trail Stories The Cabin Camp and Trail Conjuror's House The Forest The Rules of the Game The Riverman The Silent Places The Adventures of Bobby Orde The Mountains The Pass The Magic Forest The Sign at Six The Land of Footprints African Camp Fires The ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... among the whites, particularly since the founding of a mission school by Elias Neau in 1704 as an agent of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The plot was brewed by some Coromantee and Paw Paw negroes who had procured the services of a conjuror to make them invulnerable; and it may have been joined by several Spanish or Portuguese Indians or mestizoes who had been captured at sea and unwarrantably, as they contended, reduced to slavery. The ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... a man of his beard was a token of ignominious subjection, and is still a common mode of punishment in some Asiatic countries. And such was the treatment that the conjuror Pinch received at the hands of Antipholus of Ephesus and his man, in the Comedy of Errors, according to the servant's account of the outrage, who states that not only had they "beaten the maids a-row," ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... own home was still in Boston. David and his family had reached this little tenement by way of a long trail through Iowa, Dakota, Montana, Oregon and Northern California. We who had all started, from the same little Wisconsin Valley were here drawn together, as if by the magic of a conjuror's wand, in a city strange to us all. Can any other country on earth surpass the United States in the ruthless broadcast dispersion of its families? Could any other land furnish a more incredible momentary ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... 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 this ...
— Wonders of Creation • Anonymous
... cause to fear—I am thy friend, Merlin by name, a conjuror by trade, And to my art ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... Brandt says it is an alloy containing more copper than exists in brass, and consequently made by fusing various proportions of copper with brass.) Pinchbeck often exhibited his musical automata in a booth at Bartholomew Fair, and, in conjunction with Fawkes the Conjuror, at Southwark Fair. He made, according to Mr. Wood, an exquisite musical clock, worth about L500, for Louis XIV., and a fine organ for the Great Mogul, valued at L300. He died in 1732. He removed ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... professional singer 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) ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... at his son in a singular manner, and repeated, "No, it shall never be more!" Then, with a sneering laugh, he added, "You are a conjuror!" ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... interest you 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 ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... unencumbered by the "fiddles." The Captain scorns the aid of such mechanical contrivances, and chatters away unconcerned, gracefully balancing his soup-plate in his hands the while. I followed his example as one to the manner born, but had I not been a bit of an amateur conjuror I am afraid that I should not have been so successful. The Captain challenged me, however, to make a sketch with the same ease as I ate my dinner—and again I was ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... Amadis cycle and in romances like Arthur of Little Britain all this undergoes a change—not by any means for the better. What has been unkindly, but not perhaps unjustly, called the "conjuror's supernatural" takes the place of the poet's variety. One of the personages of the Knight of the Sun is a "Bedevilled Faun," and it is really too much not to say that most of such personages are bedevilled. In Arthur of (so much the Lesser) Britain ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... and efficient in the highest degree. His duties ranged from those of a nurse to those of a diplomat. He produced, at a moment's notice, as a conjuror produces rabbits and goldfish, the latest hot- water bottle from a village pharmacy in Elba, special trains from haughty and reluctant officials of State railways, bales of newspapers mysteriously collected ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland |
