"Magician" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... can tell me what it means." The Chaldeans answered the king, "There is no man on earth who can do what the king asks, for no king, however great and powerful, has ever asked such a thing of any wise man or magician, or of one who studies the stars. What the king asks is too hard. There is no one else who can tell it to the king, except the gods, who do not live with men." This made the king very angry and he ordered all the wise men ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... of Philip, in the war which bears his name, does not stand out so prominently as the figure of Pontiac in the later struggle. This may be partly because Pontiac's story has been told by such a magician as Mr. Francis Parkman. But it is partly because the data are too meagre. In all probability, however, the schemes of Sassacus the Pequot, of Philip the Wampanoag, and of Pontiac the Ottawa, were substantially the ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... architect across the awful abyss to a mighty pile of rock that rose like a column from the very middle of the waves. About a hundred feet from the shore this gallery terminated in a circular tower, which—if the connecting terrace had fallen in—would have looked like the work of a magician. This small corridor appeared the more dreadful, because the raging element below had long since forced a passage beneath it; and, the breach being continually widened by the equinoctial storms, it was at length so far undermined that it seemed ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... beforehand, by the name of Momus and Zoilus, complain sorely of his extra-judicial proceedings, and protest against him as corrupt, and his judgment void and of none effect, and put themselves in the protection of some powerful patron, who, like a knight-errant, is to encounter with the magician and ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... the literary character. Solitude is the nurse of enthusiasm, and enthusiasm is the true parent of genius. In all ages solitude has been called for—has been flown to. No considerable work was ever composed till its author, like an ancient magician, first retired to the grove, or to the closet, to invocate. When genius languishes in an irksome solitude among crowds, that is the moment to fly into seclusion and meditation. There is a society in the deepest solitude; in all the men of genius of ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... the immensity of time and space as you read the geological writings of Cuvier? Carried by his fancy, have you hung as if suspended by a magician's wand over the illimitable abyss of the past? When the fossil bones of animals belonging to civilizations before the Flood are turned up in bed after bed and layer upon layer of the quarries of Montmartre or among the schists of the Ural range, the soul receives with dismay a glimpse of ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... Dhuva. I've been wondering about the people in Casperton. Like Doc Welch. I used to see him in the street with his little black bag. I always thought it was full of pills and scalpels; but maybe it really had zebra's tails and toad's eyes in it. Maybe he's really a magician on his way to cast spells against demons. Maybe the people I used to see hurrying to catch the bus every morning weren't really going to the office. Maybe they go down into caves and chip away at the foundations of things. Maybe they go up on rooftops and put on rainbow-colored robes and ...
— It Could Be Anything • John Keith Laumer
... sent a bullet through a man's heart, I no longer entertained the same feeling of contempt for it. Not again would I make light of it—this potent engine of destruction which had procured me the character of being a magician. I would hide it from human gaze and cherish it as a sort of fetich. So I bought a walking-stick and an umbrella, and strapped it up with them, wrapped in my plaid; and when, shortly after, an unexpected remittance from an aunt supplied me with money enough to buy a horse ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... exclaim to himself, "What in hell am I talking about?" And a momentary awe would overcome him—the awe of listening to himself give utterance to fantastic ideas that he knew had no existence in him—a cynical magician watching a white rabbit he had never seen before crawl naively out of his own sleeve. Thus his phrases assembled themselves on his tongue and pirouetted of their ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... festivities, whilst his guests were engaged with the seductions of beauty, the intoxications of the most delicious wines of France, and the voluptuous vapor of perfumed India smoke, uniting the vivid satisfactions of Europe with the torpid blandishments of Asia, the great magician himself, chaste in the midst of dissoluteness, sober in the centre of debauch, vigilant in the lap of negligence and oblivion, attended with an eagle's eye the moment for thrusting in business, and at such times was able to carry without difficulty points of shameful enormity, which at ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Highness. I am wise like your Highness's uncle, Khaemuas the mighty magician, whose sandals I used to clean when I ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... moment he was like a magician battling with a giant. The other was half a head taller than he, and the muscles of his arms stood out like the rugged bark of an oak's trunk. Black Mask was much the slimmer. But every muscle in his frame seemed made of steel. His gigantic adversary might pitch ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... of "o'ertaken as by some spell divine". They are brought, as it were, under the influence of some magician, who, by the exercise of his power, transports them from their own world to that in which ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... upon the moonlight. It was by no means like going to meet the lights of a city. It was literally "a light better than any light that ever shone," and it wrapped them round first like a veil and then like a mantle. Dimly, as if released from the censer-smoke of a magician's lamp, boughs and glades, lines and curves were set free of the dark; and St. George and Amory could see about them. Yet it did not occur to either to distrust the phenomenon, or to regard it as unnatural or the fruit of ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... second chapter of the first epistle of St. John. You know that Antichrist is come, and that there are many Antichrists. He thinks the Antichrist already come was Barchochebas, and that the other Antichrists are Simon the Magician ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... story, though it requires judgment to do this in such a manner, as that the whole may have some happy and continued allusion to truth. We can imagine, for instance, with great ease something as impossible as Ariosto's Magician pursuing the man who had taken off his head. But it will be found a much more difficult task, either to throw out one of those strokes of Nature which penetrate the heart, and cleave it with terror and with pity; or to paint Thought in such striking colours, as to render it immediately ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... down the wrath of Mr. Swinburne, and found expression in an epigram which violates all the proprieties of literary language. Look at the full-length portrait in the Life of Sterling. Each oracle denies his predecessor, each magician breaks the wand of the one who went before him. There were Americans enough ready to swear by Carlyle until he broke his staff in meddling with our anti-slavery conflict, and buried it so many fathoms deep that it could never be fished out again. It is rather singular ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... region of politics, too, there are wheels within wheels—an imperium in imperio. The House of Commons bears, in some respects, a remarkable affinity to a puppet-show. You cannot always see the magician who pulls the strings, and moves the political machine obedient to his will. And of no man in the House of Commons is this more true than of Mr. Dalglish. Unless one is under his magic spell, it is impossible to understand its mainspring, although it is easy to feel ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... became "magical" in our sense of the term only when the growth of knowledge revealed the fact that the measures taken were inadequate to attain the desired end; while the "magician" continued to make the pretence that he could attain that ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... pudding if he will also take the pudding-bag. You know what I mean. At some points our history—especially our early history—is still so vague, so dubious, so full of mystery. It is all the fault of little Mannanan, our ancient Manx magician, who enshrouded our island in mist. Or should I say it is to his credit, for has he not left us through all time some shadowy figures to fight about, like "rael, thrue, reg'lar" Manxmen. As for the ...
— The Little Manx Nation - 1891 • Hall Caine
... high bulwarks, and must have had more than the usual four-foot draught of water, for she carried plenty of heavy stone ballast to stiffen her under sail. With the "Crane" as his flagship, Olaf sailed northward to attack the Viking Raud, pirate and magician, who held out for the old gods and the old wild ways. Raud had another exceptionally large ship, the longest in Norway, and till the "Crane" was built the swiftest also. The bow, carved into a dragon's head and covered with brazen scales, gave Raud's ship the name of ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... "Sophie's a magician," I thought for the thousandth time, as, for the millionth, Aaron looked at her sitting so demurely regal at his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... perverts, as they were designated, but enough has been said to show how Association football gained a hold on the young and rising generation, and how it spread all over the western and north-western portion of the country, and, like the proverbial Eastern magician's wand, caused goal-posts and corner-flags to spring up in every village and hamlet with remarkable rapidity. Close to the shores of several Highland lochs, where a big kick by a stalwart half-back endangers ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... instances, however, it reverts to the purpose and also the manner (with a difference) which have always obtained, and becomes music in the purer sense. Then the would-be dramatist is swallowed up in the symphonist, and Strauss is again the master magician who can juggle with our senses and our reason and make his instrumental voices body forth "the forms ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... a pause, "a warning I can scarce call it, since I know not from what quarter the danger impends. Proximus ardet Ucalegon; but there is no telling which way the flames may spread. I can only advise you that the Duke's growing infatuation for his German magician has bred the most violent discontent among his subjects, and that both parties appear resolved to use this disaffection to their advantage. It is said his Highness intends to subject the little prince to some mysterious treatment connected with the rites of the Egyptian priesthood, ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... in due time Philautus, in accordance with the prophecies of Euphues though much to his disgust, falls in love. The lady of his choice, however, has unfortunately given her heart to another, by name Surius. The despondent lover, after applying in vain to an Italian magician for a love-philtre, at length determines to adopt the bolder line of writing to his scornful lady. The letter is conveyed in a pomegranate, and the incident of its presentation is prettily conceived and displays a certain amount of dramatic power. The upshot is that Philautus ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... circumstantial account of the fictitious circumstances of the birth of Alexander. According to this, which is pretty constantly preserved in all the fabulous versions of the legend (a proof of its age), Nectanabus, an Egyptian king and magician, having ascertained by sortilege (a sort of kriegs-spiel on a basin of water with wax ships) that his throne is doomed, quits the country and goes to Macedonia. There he falls in love with Olympias, and during the absence of her ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... turn to the Life of Apollonius of Tyana by Philostratus. He will there see that the Magician of Cappadocia on his arrival in Babylon was told that Bardanes had been reigning two years and as many months; Apollonius stopped in the palace of the king twenty months; then he started on a tour to India; he travelled about the Asiatic Peninsula for ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... with colour, trying, by a strange variation of the alchemist's dream, to discover the secret, not of an elixir to make man's natural life immortal, but rather of giving immortality to the subtlest and most delicate effects of painting, he seemed to them rather the sorcerer or the magician, possessed of curious secrets and a hidden knowledge, living in a world of which he alone possessed the key. What his philosophy seems to have been most like is that of Paracelsus or Cardan; and much of the ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... acting and suffering in the same personal manner as the rest of 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, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... moment Micky could not find his tongue. If he had thought this girl pretty last night with the tears in her eyes he thought her a thousand times prettier now. She looked as if some magician hand had wiped the distress from her face and convinced her that the ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... quite sure about the age of the moon?" inquired the pretended magician. Being assured there was no mistake on that point, he ciphered again for a few minutes, and then answered, "Thou wilt find the thief in the ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... or other missiles thrown by magicians. Here the person whom it is intended to injure may be miles away, so that the object could not possibly strike him merely through the force imparted to it by the thrower. But when the magician has said charms over the missile, communicating to it the power and desire to do his will, he throws it in the proper direction and savages believe that it will go of its own accord to the person against whom it ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... A modern magician to make the semblance of a human being, with two laths for legs, a pumpkin for a head, etc., of the rudest and most meagre materials. Then a tailor helps him to finish his work, and transforms this scarecrow into quite a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... time there lived a beautiful fairy, who was condemned to death by a cruel magician, who had no reason to do so. This good fairy, Eilene, finally decided to take the shape of a bird and to fly through the tiny window of her prison to her ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... are the result of this psychic phenomena. That is to say, the creatures and objects are not really produced—they are but astral appearances resulting from the projection of powerful thought-forms from the mind of the magician or other wonder-worker, of whom India has a plentiful supply. Even the ignorant fakirs (I use the word in its true sense, not in the sense given it by American slang)—even these itinerant showmen of psychic phenomena, are able to produce phenomena of this kind which ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... watched the chronometer. The tossing seas rose round the labouring ship. They had already lost their leaden hue, and here and there bright green tints could be seen, while their crests no longer hissed and foamed as before. Suddenly, as if by a stroke of the magician's wand, the clouds parted, and the bright sun shone forth in a clear space of blue. The men on deck cheered as they saw it. To them it seemed an augury of safety. A satisfactory observation was taken, the exact longitude was obtained, at noon they would find the true latitude, ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... fired as it used to be in youth. Andante con moto in the Voluntaries, and the thing about the trees at night (No. XXIV. I think) are up to date my favourites. I did not guess you were so great a magician; these are new tunes, this is an undertone of the true Apollo; these are not verse, they are poetry—inventions, creations, in language. I thank you for the joy you have given me, and remain your old friend and present ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... spirit invested her with new piquancy, and he laughed aloud. At that moment the sleigh emerged upon the brow of the hill and caught the full force of the wind. A violent gust filled her hood and threw it back upon her shoulders, disclosing, as by the touch of a magician's wand, the mass of soft curls blowing wildly about her little head, her flushed cheeks and shining eyes. She saw the wide, desolate sweep of the valley, dotted here and there with twinkling lights, the belt of crimson against the distant hills; and ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... a Farmer's Daughter. The Regret which arose in my Mind upon the Death of my Companions, my Anxieties for the Publick, and the many Calamities still fleeting before my Eyes, made me repent my Curiosity; when the Magician entered the Room, and awakened me, by telling me (when it was too late) that he was ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... magician who accomplished that happy miracle. Ma always contrived to accomplish everything, so of course she managed rent day along with the rest of the wonders she performed. She made no secret, either, of how she did it. She sewed! Yes, she sewed for a dressmaker who sent ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... contributions to poetry, philosophy, or any specific province of human literature or enlightenment, had been small and sadly intermittent; but he had, especially among young inquiring men, a higher than literary, a kind of prophetic or magician character. He was thought to hold, he alone in England, the key of German and other Transcendentalisms; knew the sublime secret of believing by "the reason" what "the understanding" had been obliged to fling out as incredible; and could still, after Hume and Voltaire had ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... all the flat field, till there was a quarry between them a quarter of a mile deep, and the bottom filled with black water; and before the giants could get round it, the prince and princesses were inside the kingdom of the great magician, where the high thorny hedge opened of itself to everyone that he chose to let in. There was joy enough between the three sisters, till the two eldest saw their lovers turned into stone. But while they were shedding tears ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... this restless world we range, Nothing seems constant saving constant change. Like some magician waving mystic wand, Improvement metamorphoses the land, Grubs up, pulls down, then plants and builds anew, Till scenes once loved are banished from our view. The draughtsman with officious eye surveys What capabilities a site displays: How things may be ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... in a new home, the house became transformed as if a magician of the Arabian Nights had touched it with his wand. There was not a dark or gloomy corner to be seen. Lights blazed everywhere. The rarest pictures and choicest furniture were to be seen. Everything was magnificent and harmonious. The tall stature of the Count, ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... inside were narratives of bloody fights, of the building and besieging of fortresses, of the terrible swordthrusts exchanged by Roland and Renaud, who was at last about to free the Holy Land, without mentioning the tales of Maugis the Magician and his marvellous enchantments, and the Princess Clarisse, the King of Aquitaine's sister, who was more lovely than sunlight. Her imagination fired by such stories as these, Bernadette often found it difficult to get to sleep; ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... invariably declared that they had not a drop, that the goats were dry, or had strayed away; and some paltry excuses were offered until the temper of the Turk became exhausted, and the coorbatch assisted in the argument. A magician's rod could not have produced a greater miracle than the hippopotamus whip. The goats were no longer dry, and in a few minutes large gourds of milk were brought, and liberally paid for, while I was ridiculed by the Turk, Hadji Achmet, for so foolishly throwing ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... re-arranging the files with such exactness of system that she could—as is the vaunt of the model of orderly perfection—lay her hand upon any document "in the dark." She was punctuality's self and held herself in readiness at any moment to appear at the Duchess' side as if a magician had instantaneously transported her there before the softly melodious private bell connected with her room had ceased to vibrate. The correctness of her to deference to the convenience of Mrs. James the housekeeper ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of Scandinavia. The latter, the Mahomet of the North, instituted a religion adapted to the climate and to the people. Numerous tribes on either side of the Baltic were subdued by the invincible valor of Odin, by his persuasive eloquence, and by the fame which he acquired of a most skilful magician. The faith that he had propagated, during a long and prosperous life, he confirmed by a voluntary death. Apprehensive of the ignominious approach of disease and infirmity, he resolved to expire as became a warrior. In a ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... the lamp, the stove, and the visitor, who stands there like a magician in the midst of these wonders, they draw back almost frightened. Paulette is the first to comprehend it, and the arrival of the grandmother, who is more slowly mounting the stairs, finishes the explanation. Then ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... border-land of Arabia and Palestine, was courted and dreaded as a wizard who could perplex whole armies by means of spells. His fame extended far and wide; he was summoned from his home beyond the Euphrates in the mountains of Mesopotamia by the Syrian tribes to repel the invading enemy. This great magician was, it seems, universally regarded as 'the rival and the possible ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... toys without number, teachers, companions, and everything that money could buy or ingenuity devise; but for all this, the young prince was unhappy. He wore a frown wherever he went, and was always wishing for something he did not have. At length a magician came to the court. He saw the scowl on the boy's face, and said to the king: "I can make your son happy, and turn his frowns into smiles, but you must pay me a great price for telling him this secret." "All right," said the king; "whatever you ask I will give." The magician took the boy ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... if by the touch of the magician's wand, the scene now passes, in an instant, from parched wastes to the geen, and lovely islands of Abyssinia, presenting one scene of rich and thriving cultivation. The baggage having at length been consigned to the shoulders ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... whatever useless charms and talismans they wore, stood for the unknown quantity in spiritual life. A magician is a man who lays hold on the unseen for the mere joy of it, who steals, if necessary, the holy bread and the sacred fire. He is often of the remnant of an ostracized and disestablished priesthood. He is a free-lance in the soul-world, owing ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... western constellation, Of the grand, united countries, On the continent of freedom, The astrologer now gazes On a weird and crimson shadow. Stars of fixed and cruel brightness, Stars of fitful gleam and shining. Stars of strange and faint illuming, Reads the national magician; Stripes of gory hue adorning, All the mammoth constellation; Stripes extending down the shadow Of the shifting, warning picture. What broad stream pursues its flowing, Through the fateful, dark camera? What bedews the starry emblem, With the startling shade of crimson? 'Tis, alas! ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... strange appearance there, at the door of the dingy office, in the middle of the busy and thriving town. He seemed to have been translated thither, from the far forest wilds, by the wave of some magician's wand, so little did he appear to be a portion of the scene. Verty looked even wilder than ever, from the contrast, and his long bow, and rugged dress, and drooping hat of fur, would have induced ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... even by the praises of his master the "shirra," whom he considers "not a bit proud," notwithstanding he has such "an awfu' knowledge o' history!" Or it may be we recline amid the purple heather and listen to the deep tones of the great magician himself, as he delights our ear with some quaint tradition of the olden time, while Maida, grave and dignified as becomes the rank he holds, crouches beside his master, disdaining to share the sports of Hamlet, Hector, "both mongrel, puppy, whelp and hound" ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... very pleasant—not, perhaps, so much from any great expectation of sport, because at that time (many years ago now) we were young at the pastime, but more from the feeling of treading the ground made classical by the great Magician of the North, as the scene of the most stirring incidents in 'Rob Roy.' Attached to a big tree in front of the hotel at Aberfoyle there hangs a coulter, which tradition assigns as the veritable article which Bailie Nicol Jarvie made red-hot and used as a weapon of offence ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior
... the romance of trade, and casts contempt upon all its sober realities. It renders the stock-jobber a magician, and the exchange a region of enchantment. It elevates the merchant into a kind of knight-errant, or rather a commercial Quixote. The slow but sure gains of snug percentage become despicable in his eyes; no "operation" is thought worthy ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... South was concerned the revolution is easily accounted for. Slavery became profitable. A Yankee magician had touched it with a wand of gold, and from being a languishing, struggling system, it quickly developed into ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... Clarendon. She would ride—show him, she needed no hand in riding. The great beast settled down to his famous trot, pulling the chestnut mare to a run. Clarendon was steady as a car; the faster his trot, the easier to ride.... She turned and watched this magician beside her; his bridle-arm lifted, the leather held lightly as a pencil; laughing, asking nothing, needing not to ask. And she was unafraid, rejoicing in his power. All fear and slavishness and rebellion, all that was bleak and nineteenth ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... an old myth found in many forms, all turning upon the attempt to cheat a magician out of his promised reward. See Brewer's Reader's Handbook, Baring-Gould's Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, Grimm's Deutsche Sagen, and the Encyclopaedia Britannica. There are ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... nothing to read, nothing to do, nothing to hear, and nothing to see. I was steeped in nothing. And as the senses were unexercised, thought worked on memory till the brain seemed gnawing itself, as a shipwrecked man might assuage his thirst at his own veins. Then imagination, the magician, lovely in weal but terrible in woe, began to weave his spell, and visions arose of dear loved ones agonising beyond the prison walls, to whom my heart yearned through the dividing space with an intense passion that seemed as though its ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... picked up an apple off the ground and examining it he saw it was quite sour, whereupon he objected:—"Such miracles as these are worthless since it leaves the fruit uneatable." Mochuda blessed the apples and they all became sweet as honey, and in punishment of his opposition the magician was deprived for a year of his eyesight. At the end of a year he came to Mochuda and did penance, whereupon he received his sight back again ...
— The Life of St. Mochuda of Lismore • Saint Mochuda
... were permitted to act as mediators between God and man. To them alone was the will of God declared. They only could penetrate the future. And they alone predicted the future to those who sought of them therefor. In later days the name Magi became synonymous with sorcerer, magician, alchemist, &c.[24] ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield
... through Portugal, in full anticipation of "driving the leopards into the sea," he suddenly saw before him the frowning lines of Torres Vedras, the great fortress which had sprung from earth, as it were, at the touch of a magician's wand? ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... the comparison is therefore peculiarly natural and graceful. Dew on a bramble is no more like a woman's eyes than dew anywhere else. There is a very pretty Eastern tale of which the fate of plagiarists often reminds us. The slave of a magician saw his master wave his wand, and heard him give orders to the spirits who arose at the summons. The slave stole the wand, and waved it himself in the air; but he had not observed that his master used the left hand for that purpose. The ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... seems to have been either a Huron slave or an Iroquois magician, "your enemies are spread up and down! Sleep not! They have heard your noise! They wait for you! They are sure of their prey! Believe me—keep together! Spend not your powder in vain to frighten your enemies by noise! See that the stones of your arrows be not ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... able to read sealed letters. Just before the appointed day, Reed's patient died suddenly of heart-disease, leaving a sealed letter on his desk. The doctor, fully alive to the singular opportunity, put the letter in his pocket and hastened to the medium. The magician took it in his hand and pondered. At last he said: 'This was written by a man now in the spirit world. I cannot sense it. There isn't a medium in the world who can read it, but if you will send it to any person anywhere on the planet and have it read and resealed, I will ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... dance, when a noise was heard at the door. Some person insisted on being admitted, and the door-keepers resisted him. But the intruder carried with him a small staff, on the one end of which was a brass crown, and on its side the letters G. R. It was a talisman potent as the wand of a magician; the doorkeepers became powerless before it. The intruder entered the room—he passed through the mazes of the whirling dance—he approached Mr. Morris—he touched him on the shoulder—he put a piece of paper in his hand—he whispered in ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... these were made doubly possible by the enormous reserve of power still available in the rapids at St. Marys. They glanced into the woods as though there were still mysterious treasures waiting to be revealed at a wave of the hand of this magician. ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... harder, Jessica. For who can pronounce upon anything but a plain truth or a plain falsehood? and I am too confused to extricate either from such a hotch-potch of magic as came to pass without the help of any real magician. ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... Volga. He puts out in his canoe and crosses arms of the sea, as a pastime, makes a tent of his boat if it rains, fighting the desperadoes of all climes with the superstition, for which he is indebted to their imagination for his safety in running phenomenal hazards, that he is a magician. Marco Polo was not so great a traveler or so rare an adventurer as Bigelow, and, having left Florida under a thunder cloud of the scowl of an angry army for untimely criticisms, he has invaded the celestial empire in his ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... domains they had suffered wreck, a chief mighty in stature and in power. In one of his villages was a pit, six feet deep and as wide as a hogshead, filled with treasure gathered from Spanish wrecks on adjacent reefs and keys. The monarch was a priest, too, and a magician, with power over the elements. Each year he withdrew from the public gaze to hold converse in secret with supernal or infernal powers; and each year he sacrificed to his gods one of the Spaniards whom the fortune of the sea had cast upon his shores. The name of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... we hearken to Mr. Lecky, is purely Rationalistic, because purely progressive. The world has emerged from its blindness and ignorance by the innate force of the mind. Reason, the great magician, has uplifted its wand; and lo, the creatures of night disappear! It has dispelled the foolish old notions of magic, witchcraft, and miracles. It has overcome the spirit of persecution, the childish conception of original sin, and the doctrine of eternal ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... sea birds fluttered around our masts, for this colder region is the home of the beautiful sea dove, the great white albatross and an innumerable multitude of smaller kinds, that on the approach of stormy weather seem to rise, as by the stroke of a magician's wand, from the sea. One of the few changes one meets with on a voyage to Africa is angling for birds, for they are as easily taken as the finny tribe, by baiting a fish-hook with a piece of fat meat, and especially so in those rough seas, upon whose ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... ballad of Goethe's ("De Zauberlehrling") which tells how a magician's apprentice, who had learned enough of his master's craft to be dangerous to himself, once succeeded in raising spirits during the wizard's absence, but was quite unable to dismiss them. A similar tale is told of Flavel's servant-maid. During her master's absence at church she unwarily opened ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... know that hard is iron, And that mud when black is bitter. Painful, too, is boiling water, And the heat of fire is hurtful, Water is the oldest medicine, Cataract's foam a magic potion; 200 The Creator's self a sorcerer, Jumala the Great Magician. ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... now left unread, which is very far from being the case, his would be an enviable fame—for was he not one of the favored poets of Walter Scott, and whenever the closing scene of the great magician's life is read in the pages of Lockhart, must not Crabbe's name be brought upon the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... however, disabused; for on their drawing nearer they observed that faithless population gathered about "ANOTHER DISTINGUISHED FOREIGNER," with a remarkably long beard and a fierce pair of horns, who proclaimed himself a magician from beyond the land where the sun rose, and rejoiced in the name of Doctor Capricornus, A.V.G.T., and M.U.H.S., which the great learning of Herr Schwein interpreted by A Very Great Traveller, or Thief, and Member of the Universal Herbage or Humbug ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... said,] "Whoever attains to the knowledge of astrology for any other explanation than the three aforementioned, then verily he has attained to a branch of magic. An astrologer is a magician, and a magician is a necromancer, and a necromancer ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... sigh at the prospect of the difficulties that lay in the way of his pet project of house-building, and wished that "that old magician who built the castle with a thousand windows for Aladdin, in a single night, would only be clever enough to lend us his assistance." But upon second thought, he concluded that there would be "no fun" in having our house ready-made ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... 27th of January it was 150 years since Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born. A grandmaster of music, a magician who leads the soul from the depths of life to its sunary heights. Mozart transposed life into music, Wagner and his pupils transposed problems of life. Wagner questions and receives no answer. Mozart affirms life. His "Don Juan" liberates, "Tannhaeuser" leads into ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... of all his trouble was this. In an old red stone castle, the turrets of which were just visible above the trees on the other side of the stream, there lived a magician who had long had his eye upon the beautiful maiden who was the young man's promised bride. To win her he appeared as a wealthy middle-aged suitor, ready to lay all his riches at her feet, his real character being carefully concealed; ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... chest, Of earthly warriors first and best, Whose fame through all the regions rings, Proud scion of a hundred kings; Who guards his life and loves to lend His saving succour to a friend: Whose bow no hand but his can strain,— Thy lord, thy Rama is not slain. Obedient to his master's will, A great magician, trained in ill, With deftest art surpassing thought That marvellous illusion wrought. Let rising hope thy grief dispel: Look up and smile, for all is well, And gentle Lakshmi, Fortune's Queen, Regards thee with a favouring mien. Thy Rama with his Vanar train Has thrown ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... the beam was nothing but a straw. So she cried, "You people, do you not see that it is a straw that the cock is carrying, and no beam?" Immediately the enchantment vanished, and the people saw what it was, and drove the magician away in shame and disgrace. He, however, full of inward anger, said, ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... had had no greater opportunities of distinguishing himself than had fallen to the lot of his father, and yet legends grew up round his name as round that of Pakruru: he was reputed to have been a great soothsayer, astrologist, and magician, and medical treatises were ascribed to him, and almanacs much esteemed by the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... exemplify a transition from earlier and less specialised forms to later and more specialised ones, Professor Marsh would simply turn to his assistant and bid him fetch box number so and so, until Huxley turned upon him and said,] "I believe you are a magician; whatever I want, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... poet; artificial light was withdrawn, and the moonlight streamed through the window upon his noble figure. Wife and son, doctors and nurses, were silent around him. And as Death put the last cold touch on the once passionate heart, it found him still clasping the book of the mighty magician. * Let it be also noted that no Christian priest was at his bedside. He needed not the mum-lings of a smaller soul to aid him in his last extremity. Hope he may have had, but no fear. His life ended like a long summer day, ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... all things, and will be able to act wisely. Inside the cap you will find a pair of silver-rimmed spectacles. With these on you will see everything as it really is, no matter how it may look to other people. You must, however, be careful, as the Evil Magician has always coveted these treasures and if he finds out that you have them he will do his best to get them from you. Let no one know that you possess them, and always keep them concealed about you. As the Magician ...
— The Enchanted Island • Fannie Louise Apjohn
... old Nokomis now set him a difficult task. "In a land lying westward, a land of fever and pestilence, lives the mighty magician, Pearl-Feather, who slew my father. Take your canoe and smear its sides with the oil I have made from the body of Nahma, so that you may pass swiftly through the black pitch-water and avenge my father's murder." Thus spoke old Nokomis, and Hiawatha did as she bade him, smeared the sides ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... the drama Ratnavali a magician makes the characters see an imaginary conflagration of the palace and also a vision of heaven. His performance seems to be accepted as merely a remarkable ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... fear sprang up in the young lady's expressive black eyes. "Why, you are like a magician," said she. "How do you know that?" She smiled, but there was no answering smile ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... parlor magic. He had even paid considerable sums to traveling conjurers in exchange for their secrets. Naturally gifted, he had mastered some of the most difficult tricks, and his skill in card conjuring would not have done discredit even to a professional magician. ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... scene below. A slight blue haze hung over the clustering towers, and the city looked dim through it, like a city seen in a dream. It was well that it should so appear, for not less dim and misty are the memories that haunt its walls. There was no need of a magician's wand to bid that light cloud shadow forth the forms of other times. They came uncalled for, even by fancy. Far, far back in the past, I saw the warrior-princess who founded the kingly city—the renowned Libussa, whose prowess and talent inspired the women of Bohemia to rise at ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... Goblin Pony An Impossible Enchantment The Story of Dschemil and Dachemila Janni and the Draken The Partnership of the Thief and the Liar Fortunatus and his Purse The Goat-faced Girl What came of picking Flowers The Story of Bensurdatu The Magician's Horse The Little Gray Man Herr Lazarus and the Draken The Story of the Queen of the Flowery Isles Udea and her Seven Brothers The White Wolf Mohammed with the Magic Finger Bobino The Dog and the Sparrow The Story of the Three Sons ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... morning, had hardened the moisture into ice. Every bush, every tree, the fences, were covered with a shining mail, from which and from the crisped surface of the snow, the rays of the sun were reflected, and filled the air with a sparkling light. Transmuted, as by a magician's wand, the bare trees were no longer ordinary trees. They were miracles of vegetable silver and crystal. Mingled among them, the evergreens glittered like masses of emerald hung with diamonds. Aladdin, in the enchanted cavern, saw ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... place of the ordinary musical critic of The Times will be taken at the next performance of Parsifal by Mr. WATERER, the great floricultural expert, and Mr. DEVANT, the eminent conjurer, with a view to their contributing their impressions of the flower maidens and the methods of the magician Klingsor respectively. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 • Various
... a magician. An able naturalist, who happened to know something of the arcana of nature, was immediately suspected of magic. Even the learned themselves, who had not applied to natural philosophy, seem to have acted with the same feelings as the most ignorant; ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... which can be readily man[oe]uvred upon it be getting ready for another conflict, while the palace which the Genius of the Lamp had builded, as in a night, shall be a thing of the past, as if whirled away by the malevolent magician. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... mighty operation of nature; and when we think or speak of him, it should be with humility where we do not understand, and a conviction that it is rather to the narrowness of our own mind than to any failing in the art of the great magician, that we ought to attribute any sense of weakness, which may assail us during the contemplation of his ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... throughout the whole country, and the Inquisition called upon all good Christians to lodge information with the proper authorities whenever they "heard that any person had familiar spirits, and that he invoked demons in circles, questioning them and expecting their answer, as a magician, or in virtue of an express or tacit compact." It was also their duty to report anyone who "constructed or procured mirrors, rings, phials, or other vessels for the purpose of attracting, enclosing, and preserving a demon, who replies to his questions and assists ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... so, Hiram. I thought so, and that's why I am here. I saw you on Wall Street to-day, and read your difficulty at once in your eyes, and I resolved to help you. I am a magician, and one or two little things have happened of late to make me wish to prestidigitate in public. I knew you were after a show of some kind, and I've come to ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... a magician," he said to me. "A theatrical entertainer. I deal in tricks—how to fool an audience—" His keen, amused gaze was on Ob Hahn. "This gentleman from Venus and I have too ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... a giant called Blunderbus," she said, "who lives in a great castle ten miles from here. He is a terrible magician, and years ago because I would not marry him he turned my—my brother into a—I don't know how to tell you—into a—a tortoise." She put her hands to her face ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... occupy during his stay; and his appearance was generally the signal of a visit from their supernatural guest. To be sure, the strange sights he beheld rested on his testimony alone; but his word was never questioned, and his coming was of equal potency with the magician's wand in ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... if you knew how horrid it all was. Just now, as I was sitting alone, I felt like a poor little princess shut up in an enchanted tower. Giles is the magician, and Etta is the wicked witch. I was making up quite ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... there may well be in such a pursuit, but this quality is perhaps traceable to affinities and associations with other more substantial interests, or is due to the ingenious temper it denotes, which touches that of the wit or magician. Mathematics, if it were nothing more than a pleasure, might conceivably become a vice. Those addicted to it might be indulging an atavistic taste at the expense of their humanity. It would then be in the position now occupied by mythology and mysticism. Even as it is, mathematicians share ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... In order to rid herself of his importunities, she vowed never to yield to his suit till he could "make her garden at midwinter as gay with flowers as it was in summer" (meaning never). Ansaldo, by the aid of a magician, accomplished the appointed task; but when the lady told him that her husband insisted on her keeping her promise, Ansaldo, not to be outdone in generosity, declined to take advantage of his claim, and from that day forth was the firm and honorable ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... the wealth which is being accumulated at Basildene is won in far different fashion, and that this miserable boy, who is the helpless slave and tool of his master's illicit art, is an unwilling agent in showing the so-called magician the whereabouts of hapless travellers, and in luring them on to their destruction. But that the old man is wealthy above all those about him may not now be doubted; and it is this growing wealth, gotten no man knows how, that makes ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... under discussion, the European, the Chinaman, and the Indian, the average European conjuror is the most skilled particularly at sleight-of-hand. He certainly excels in card manipulation which is seldom touched by the Oriental magician. In illusions he is beyond comparison, as many of our readers may certify who have seen the wonderful productions by Messrs. Maskelyn and Cooke, Devant, and their many followers. The gradual disappearance of a lady in evening dress, visibly, and in mid stage growing smaller and smaller until she ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... guards would not permit us to enter Macedonia, and, as a final argument against the undertaking, we were warned that the whole country reeked with fever. But when I told the Governor-General of Albania, General Piacentini, what I wished to do every obstacle disappeared as though at the wave of a magician's wand. ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... first Pope of the name, said to have converted Constantine and his mother by restoring a dead ox to life which a magician for a trial of skill killed, but could not restore to life; is usually represented by an ox lying beside him, and sometimes ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... defeat reached the King of Persia he was wroth beyond expression, and could not sleep for rage. So the next morning he called for his magician. ...
— Welsh Fairy-Tales And Other Stories • Edited by P. H. Emerson
... predicament. At sight of a wedding party that passed rejoicing along, he wept; but he burst into uncontrollable laughter when he heard a man order at a shoemaker's stall a pair of shoes that would last seven years; and when he saw a magician at his work he broke forth into shrieks ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... confidence. Lovingly, tenderly, he drew the bow across the strings. The coldly critical eyes no longer gazed at him. The unsympathetic audience melted away. He and his violin were one and alone. In the hands of the great magician the instrument was more than human. It talked; it laughed; it wept; it controlled the moods of men as the wind ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... shadow-dance that fixed us all in sound for ever. Each could tell the very notes meant for him; and as long as he played, we could not stop, but went on dancing and dancing after the music, just as the magician—I mean the musician—pleased. And he punished us well; for he nearly danced us all off our legs and out of shape into tired heaps of collapsed and palpitating darkness. We won't go near him for some time again, if we can only remember it. He had been very miserable all ...
— Cross Purposes and The Shadows • George MacDonald
... Sweetly, the magician smiled, Like the summer sun, and said: "Hither, Baby." But the child, By the sweet smile unbeguiled, ...
— Fleurs de lys and other poems • Arthur Weir
... screen of foliage, or like a lamp as she perched panting upon some leaf, or hung glowing from some bough; or like a wandering meteor as she eddied gleaming over the summits of the loftiest trees; as she often did, for she was an ambitious Firefly. She learned to know the Magician, and would sometimes alight and sit shining in his hair, or trail her lustre across his book as she crept over the pages. The Magician admired ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... believe that the tender passion is useless, that love is tom-foolery, or that it does not exist. To these blind blasphemers, who thus deny its power, I would respectfully say, Come to Le Morvan, and observe the woodcock, and then dare to say that love is an untruth. Why, love is the great magician of the universe, the sun of our minds, a path of fragrant violets, a perfect copse of millefleurs, before which we all bend our hearts, aye, and, with vastly few exceptions, our heads too. Yes, we all, at some period of our lives, taste the delicious draught, ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... country that Nature herself has planned and mapped out into wide fields, with gentle declivities and slopes, fit for the reception of the modest channel that shall convey the living water over the great pasture lands; and now we want the magician to come, and, with the wand of human skill, bring the interior waters to the surface, and make the ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... time, not so very long ago," he began, "a young prince lived in this castle. But one day a wicked magician disguised as a poor beggar came to the kitchen door and asked for bread. Now it happened to be baking day, and the Royal Baker had just placed a thousand loaves of dough in the oven. He was tired and hot and said ...
— The Iceberg Express • David Magie Cory
... their own work or by the employment of a "Fire Artist." Although seldom presenting it in his recent performances, Ching Ling Foo is a fire-eater of the highest type, refining the effect with the same subtle artistry that marks all the work of this super-magician. ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... Magician Thought, informed of Love, Hath fixed her on the air— Oh, Love and I laughed down the fates And ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... Egyptian convinced thee of the necessity of our dwelling together in unity? Has he not convinced thee of the wisdom of deluding the people and enjoying ourselves? If not, oh, brother! he is not that great magician he is esteemed.' ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... hesitation; within a week, and before leaving Venice, he had despatched a confidential messenger to secure Alexander's formal compliance with his transfer to Spain. He was under the spell of the magician, for it was probably Napoleon who prompted his thoughts. After that of Charles the Great, the empire of Charles V had been the most splendid in Europe, and Joseph perhaps dreamed that if not first he might be second, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... opening picturesquely known as Merlin's Cave. The tide was coming in fast, and she could hear the waves boom hollowly as they slid over its stony floor, only to meet and fight the opposing rush of other waves from the further end—since what had once been the magician's cave was now a subterranean passage, piercing right through ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler |
