"Sorcery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... suffering themselues to be allured and inticed by the Diuell whom they serued, and to whome they were priuatelye sworne: entered into the detestable Art of witchcraft, which they studied and practised so long time, that in the end they had seduced by their sorcery a number of other to be as bad as themselues: dwelling in the boundes of Lowthian, which is a principall shire or parte of Scotland, where the Kings Maiestie vseth to make his cheefest residence or abode: and to the end that their detestable wickednes which they priuilye had pretended against ...
— Daemonologie. • King James I
... with little steepled towns Is such a shy, transforming sorcery Of special lights and swift, incredible crowns, That grave men wonder how such things may be. No friendly spire, no daily-trodden way But somehow alters in the April air, Grown dearer still, on some enchanted day, For shining garments they have come ...
— Ships in Harbour • David Morton
... Richard III., he is joined by the ghosts of all the other members of Adelaide's family whom Leubald has slain. From the incessant importunities of these ghosts Leubald seeks to free himself by means of sorcery, and calls to his aid a rascal named Flamming. One of Macbeth's witches is summoned to lay the ghosts; as she is unable to do this efficiently, the furious Leubald sends her also to the devil; but with her dying breath she despatches the whole crowd of spirits who serve her to ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... what is known as chemical sorcery; so that when Claribel Sudds came next day at two o'clock he showed her a small box filled with compounds that closely ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... (prayer) and of moral fellowship (church attendance, baptism, and the Lord's Supper); but to find in these symbolic ceremonies means of grace and to seek to purchase the favor of God by them, is an error of the same kind as sorcery and fetichism. The right way leads from virtue to grace, not in the opposite direction; piety ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... farlies[1] fathers told Of fiends and hags of hell; And how that Circes, when she would, Could skill of sorcery well; ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... India owes the weakening, if not the entire destruction, of the Mussulman yoke. No taller than an ordinary woman, and with the hand of a child, he was, nevertheless, possessed of wonderful strength, which, of course, his compatriots ascribed to sorcery. His sword is still preserved in a museum, and one cannot help wondering at its size and weight, and at the hilt, through which only a ten-year-old child could put his hand. The basis of this hero's fame is the fact that he, the son of a poor officer in the service of a Mogul emperor, like ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... although immortal, were it not for author-borrowers, through age grown obsolete, might virtually perish. But by and by, just as some precious thought is being lost unto the world, let there come some Medea, by whose potent sorcery that old and withered idea receives new life-blood through its shrunken veins, and it starts to life again with recreated vigor—another AEson, with the bloom of youth upon him. Besides in this way playing the physician to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... account in my opinion than those of a council of Aztecs. If a man picks your pocket, do you not consider him thereby disqualified to pronounce any authoritative opinion on matters of ethics? If a man hangs my ancient female relatives for sorcery, as they did in this neighborhood a little while ago, or burns my instructor for not believing as he does, I care no more for his religious edicts than I should for those ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... the last Hanavave suffered from cannibalism and extreme sorcery. The taua, the pagan priest, was still powerful, however, and his gods demanded victims. The men here conspired with the men of Hanahouua to descend on Oi, a little village by the sea between here and Oomoa. ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... prophesies. The third order of the clergy is that of Kilo, diviners or magicians. With these may be classed the Kilokilo, the Kahunalapaau and Kahunaanaana, a sort of doctors regarded as sorcerers, to whom was attributed the power of putting to death by sorcery and witchcraft.[9] The Kahunaanaana and the Kahunalapaau have never been considered as belonging to the high caste of ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... which thou mayst improve thy fields if they will not produce well or if any evil thing is done to them by means of sorcery or witchcraft: ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various
... Christianity on Slavonic Language," p. 103, that one of the Gothic words used by Ulfilas to express the Greek daimonion is skohsl, which "is purely Slavonic, being preserved in the Czekh kauzlo, sorcery; in the Lower-Lusatian-Wendish, kostlar means a sorcerer. (But see Grimm's "Deutsche Mythologie," pp. 454-5, where skohsl is supposed to mean a forest-sprite, also p. 954.) Kost' changes into koshch whence our Koshchei." There is also a provincial word, ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... only of this word war, a kind of terror seizes upon me, as though I were listening to some tale of sorcery, of the Inquisition, some long past, remote abomination, ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... off large flocks of cattle—and many Argentines, as captives. They were pursued to the River Colorado, however, when part of the stolen cattle was recovered, and several captives liberated. They are under the belief that when death does not occur, in consequence of violence, it is owing to sorcery. ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... quite aware of the greediness of all who surrounded the palace. She had spirit enough too to feel the galling tyranny to which the king was subjected. That the people hated the omnipotent favourite, and believed the king to be under the influence of sorcery, she was well aware. She had even a dim notion that the administration of the empire was not the wisest nor the noblest that could be devised for the first power in Christendom. But considerations of high politics scarcely troubled her mind. Of a People she had perhaps ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... "withdraw your displeasure, for this same lady was the falsest lady living, and by enchantment and sorcery she has destroyed many good knights. She it was who through falsehood and treachery caused ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... monster horrible. Then craftily he moves his pawns (Whenas a moan escapes each soul) As bleary sons of noble lords Sway twin censers' fumes in silence, Until in myrtle groves we see A blazing arch where agate eyes Doth peer malignly from a crypt Thro' turbid phials of violence,— A scene of impish sorcery! Where, in furbished chambers there lies— As vypers write on evil script The ghastly deeds that sinners wrought— A glow-worm's fagot that arrays Dim shapes of souls of men that were. And cyphers nights of doomes ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... the boy for him to know that he was the Medicine Man of the tribe, whom the chieftain had been kind enough to send to his help. Instead of giving the youth the few simple remedies he required, he resorted to incantation and sorcery as has been their custom for hundreds of years. The barbarian fraud continued to chant and rattle and dance back and forth, until Jack's eyes grew weary of following the performance. The mind, too, which was so nigh its own master in the morning, grew weaker, and finally ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... The record of what actually is, and has happened in the series of human events, is perhaps the smallest part of human history. If we would know man in all his subtleties, we must deviate into the world of miracles and sorcery. To know the things that are not, and cannot be, but have been imagined and believed, is the most curious chapter in the annals of man. To observe the actual results of these imaginary phenomena, and the crimes and cruelties they have caused us to commit, ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... "the affairs of purgatory are in my ministry, and I am bound to inform you that there is sorcery going on ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... swung wider and the sorcery of drug and dream pushed me through, I knew that all sights and glories were at an end; for in that new realm was neither land nor sea, but only the white void of unpeopled and illimitable space. So, happier than I had ever dared hope to be, I dissolved again into that native infinity of ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... that Vaudois comes from Vaudes, a sorcerer, it would be more correct to say that the term sorcerer was one applied by the inhabitants of the plains to those who were Vaudois, or hill-men, under the notion that the inhabitants of such localities practised sorcery. Hence we are compelled to assume that the name is purely geographical, and applied from time immemorial to the persons living in those valleys of Piedmont which have ever formed part of the Italian territory, and are not to be confounded with the Swiss ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... they came to me in a body, just as the camels and Jali were about to depart, and commenced a series of absurd excuses for their intended desertion. The old grey-headed Moosa, by whose fortune-telling and sorcery the party were invariably guided, had foretold evil. This had confirmed them in their determination to return home. They were not a bad set of fellows, but, like most of their class, they required peculiar management. If natives ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... touched me, Herbert, until I met you, and I sometimes think that you have brought back with you the eastern sorcery of which I have heard—at least such may perhaps make excuse for my unmaidenly behaviour. Herbert, I am Beatrix of Gudenfels, Countess von Falkenstein, who is and ever will be, if you refuse to pardon her, a most ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... in that species of murder dignified with the name of duelling. But enough; we are heart-sick. What meaneth all this? Are slaveholders worse than other men? No! but arbitrary power has wrought in them its mystery of iniquity, and poisoned their better nature with its infuriating sorcery. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Buldeo justice, if he had been ten years younger he would have taken his chance with Akela had he met the wolf in the woods, but a wolf who obeyed the orders of this boy who had private wars with man-eating tigers was not a common animal. It was sorcery, magic of the worst kind, thought Buldeo, and he wondered whether the amulet round his neck would protect him. He lay as still as still, expecting every minute to see Mowgli ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... the sentiments of the people while we have their rulers on our side! Absolution is the sorcery that binds these libertines of Rome to our will. We know what converted Constantine—politic flattery and ready absolution; the people will tell you it was the sign of ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... when I saw him last week on his horse awry, Threaten'd loudly to turn me to stone with his sorcery, But, I think, little Dan, that in spite of what our foe says, He will find I read Ovid and his Metamorphoses, For omitting the first (where I make a comparison, With a sort of allusion to Putland or Harrison) ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... appeared to him as if sorcery were come right upon him, to tempt and corrupt him. He struck with his hand at the forest dove and cried in such a loud voice that it rang throughout the forest, "Go thou back to hell, ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... had learned magic and sorcery from the Tengus, or long-nosed elves of the mountains, and could fly high in the air with incredible swiftness. Speaking a few words of incantation, he put on the wings of a Tengu, mounted a white cloud and rode on the east ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... near them; where they are Christians, as they call themselves, of the Greek church; but even these have their religion mingled with so many relics of superstition, that it is scarce to be known in some places from mere sorcery and witchcraft. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... everything," and another, desirous of persuading hers that he was not of sound mind, took the measure of his length and across his head. In a Zurich Ms. of 1393, "measuring" is included among the unchristian and forbidden things of sorcery. In the region about Treves, a malady known as night-grip (Nachtgriff) is ascertained to be present by the following procedure: "Draw the sick man's belt about his naked body lengthwise and breadthwise, then take it off and hang it on a nail with the words ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... them more in his power. For an hour he continued, rising from one important subject to another, until the breath was fairly suspended in the excitement. An uninterested spectator would have supposed that he had used sorcery in thus transfixing his auditors. While all others forgot, he noticed the day was drawing to a close, he turned and looked toward the setting sun, and apostrophized its fading glory—then in his most touching voice and ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... ever before been, not as the seat of pagan emperors, but as the city of St. Peter's successors, the seat of a spiritual hierarchy which was not only to become more powerful than any secular prince, but through the magic of its fatal sorcery was to exercise dominion over the kings of the earth. Thus was Rome given to the papacy; and the decree of Justinian, issued in 533, and carried into effect in 538, constituting the pope the head of all the churches and the corrector of heretics, ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith
... been noticed by most thoughtful historians, and has been considered to tell strongly in the tribunal of equity in favor of the Templars. Instead of these probable or possible crimes, we find nothing but monstrous charges of sorcery, idolatry, apostasy, and such like, instances of which we know are to be found in those strange times; but which it seems altogether unlikely would infect a large body whose fundamental principle was ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... and other articles in common use. This knowledge which he claimed to possess was tested by actual demonstration during the trial for his life. His superior skill in planning was universally admitted by his fellow workmen. He did not, however, attribute this superior influence to sorcery, conjuration or such like agencies, for he had the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... he grew gloomy and silent. Yet, although he bethought him that it was all sorcery, and her arms were hairy almost like a beast's, and although he determined and really tried to keep away, nevertheless he could not help going thither, and whenever he had been away from her a whole week, she grew quite unmanageable, and laughed ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... word sorcery (malefice)? From maleficiendo, which means male de fide sentiendo.[72] A curious etymology, but one that will hold a great deal. Once trace a resemblance between witchcraft and evil opinions, and ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... your errand here was not so practical. Omens and wonders surround you. Birds forget their natural life for you. Iron ceases to be occult when you take it up. Your birthplace in this world disappears by fire the night before you foreclose a mortgage upon a gentleman's daughter. Is all this sorcery inseparable from that necromancer's Hat you ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... raving on the wonders of that speech; for my part, I cannot believe it was so supernatural as they say.' He affirms that there must be a witchery in Mr. Sheridan, who had no diamonds—as Hastings had—to win favour with, and says that the Opposition may be fairly charged with sorcery. Burke declared the speech to be 'the most astonishing effort of eloquence, argument, and wit united, of which there was any record or tradition.' Fox affirmed that 'all he had ever heard, all he had ever read, when compared with it, dwindled into nothing, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... my arm, thus blasted, dry, and wither'd, [pulling up his sleeves. Shrunk like a foul abortion, and decay'd, Like some untimely product of the seasons, Robb'd of its properties of strength and office. This is the sorcery of Edward's wife, Who, in conjunction with that harlot Shore, And other like confed'rate midnight hags, By force of potent spells, of bloody characters, And conjurations horrible to hear, Call fiends and spectres from the yawning deep, ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... old, in waggons, their shabby and ragged clothes, yet the heaps of gold and silver they had with them, their trains of horses, mules and asses, their love of music (to this day they are great experts with the violin), their favourite practice of fortune-telling, magic, palmistry, and those arts of sorcery, of which we hear so much in the Annals, the author of which must have been further impressed with their giving out that, though heathens coming from Lower Egypt, they wanted to embrace the Christian faith. This vagabond ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... i.e. of Tibetan Buddhism, and a great master of enchantments. The doctrines of Sakya, as they prevailed in Udyana in old times, were probably strongly tinged with Sivaitic magic, and the Tibetans still regard that locality as the classic ground of sorcery and witchcraft. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... of Kana, Uli, the grandmother of Kana, goes up to Paliuli to dig up the double canoe Kaumaielieli in which Kana is to sail to recover his mother. The chant in which this canoe is described is used to-day by practicers of sorcery to exorcise an enemy.] ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... those who have never been seasoned in youth to the enchantments of art. Tenors and prima donnas, pianists and violinists, actors and actresses enjoy powers of seduction which in the middle ages would have exposed them to the risk of being burnt for sorcery. But as they exercise this power by singing, playing, and acting, no great harm is done except perhaps to themselves. Far graver are the powers enjoyed by brilliant persons who are also connoisseurs in art. The influence they ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... Carle ruled in Sarraguce. Unto one thousand men he gave command To search throughout the city's synagogues And mosques for all their idols and graved signs Of gods—these to be broken up and crushed By ax and iron mallet he ordains. Nor sorcery nor falsehood left. King Carle Believes in God and serves him faithfully. Then bishops bless the fountains, leading up The Heathens to the blest baptismal Font. If one perchance resist the King, condemned Is he to ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... in his Church Convention. The note of the conference became tinged with exasperation, and certain gentlemen seized the opportunity to relieve their pent-up feelings on the subject of the President and his slavish advisers,—some of whom, before they came under the spell of his sorcery, had once been sound lawyers and sensible men. With the exception of the great Banker himself, who made few comments, Theodore Watling was accorded the most deference; as one of the leaders of that indomitable group of senators who had dared ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... crusaders, widows, orphans, and the helpless. Then all cases where the rites of the Church, or its prohibitions, were involved came ordinarily before the church courts, as, for example, those concerning marriage, wills, sworn contracts, usury, blasphemy, sorcery, heresy, and ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... desired. Max made frequent efforts to obtain a private moment with her, that he might ask a few questions concerning her wonderful knowledge of his ring—they had been burning him since the night of her sorcery—but, though she knew quite well his desire to question her, ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... Spring, with its eternal sorcery, caressed the great city. Its spell threw a sheen over the drab things Beryl remembered so well, the brick schoolhouse, the Settlement, the dirty narrow street flanked by dull-brown tenements with their endless fire ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... little reason to love, whether it were true or not that she had attempted to weave spells against him. In fact, there were few of the new-comers from England who did not, like Bedford, impute the transparency of Henry's hands, and the hollowness of his brightly-tinted cheek, to some form of sorcery. ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of Antony Ferrara, as herein related, are intended to illustrate certain phases of Sorcery as it was formerly practised (according to numerous records) not only in Ancient Egypt but also in Europe, during the Middle Ages. In no case do the powers attributed to him exceed those which are claimed for ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... for Roman freedom," and adds: "As for Roman freedom, what hope is left to us of that? Would that there were any such hope." To the charge of "hoping for Roman freedom" was added an accusation of sorcery. ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... me, always saying that it was wrong to beat an apprentice, and that those who so did were lacking in their senses. And this is but another proof of his sorcery, for who, other than a sorcerer, could handle his ...
— Indirection • Everett B. Cole
... confine liberty would end in explosion. In that hour Northern men made tentative overtures looking to the purchase of all slaves. But slavery, Delilah-like, made the southern leaders drunk with the cup of sorcery. They scorned the proposition. In the light of subsequent events we see that in saving her institution the South lost it, and with it her wealth, while in losing her slaves the North gained her wealth. Under free labor the North doubled ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... is, couldst read its writ aright, Thine eyes would never again look on others, red or white. Free-flowing speech and amorous looks would teach Harout[FN47] himself The arts of sorcery and spells of magic ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... ridiculous. LET THE FRENCH GO ON, said he, I WILL RETAKE IN A DAY WHAT IT HAS COST THEM YEARS TO ACQUIRE [s]. His stupidity and indolence appeared so extraordinary, that the people endeavoured to account for the infatuation by sorcery, and believed that he was thrown into this lethargy by some magic or witchcraft. The English barons, finding that their time was wasted to no purpose, and that they must suffer the disgrace of seeing, without resistance, the progress of the ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... Dr. Mackey,[39] there was, besides the divine Cabala of the children of Seth, the magical Cabala of the children of Cain, which descended to the Sabeists, or star-worshippers, of Chaldea, adepts in astrology and necromancy. Sorcery, as we know, had been practised by the Canaanites before the occupation of Palestine by the Israelites; Egypt India, and Greece also had their soothsayers and diviners. In spite of the imprecations against sorcery contained in the law of Moses, the Jews, disregarding these ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... now for a while, and Beaupere took up the matter of the miraculous sword of Fierbois to see if he could not find a chance there to fix the crime of sorcery ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... priests of the Median religion, greatly developed the practices of incantation and sorcery. Among these rites they "pretended to have the power of making fire descend on to their altars by means of magical ceremonies." [Footnote: Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, 226, 238.] Moses appears to have been ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... ripened into beautiful womanhood, Arbaces determined to claim her life and her love for himself alone; but his first overture not only met with rebuff, but revealed the fact that she already loved Glaucus. Angered by a fate which not even his dark sorcery could remove, and which the prophecy of the stars had foretold, he is further enraged by the violent opposition of Apaecides, the brother of Ione, who on his own account threatens and has prepared to expose the lewd deceits and hypocrisy of the worship of Isis. Arbaces murders Apaecides, ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... be long.' Mendozo [56] 'hates all women, waxe-lightes, antique bed-postes,' &c.; 'also sweete sheetes.' Aurelia, parodying the words Hamlet addresses to his mother, asks herself: 'O, judgement, where have been my eyes? What bewitched election made me dote on thee? what sorcery made ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... earth, the bane And blessing of man's heart and brain— That draught of sorcery which brings Phantoms of fair, forbidden things— Whose drops like those of rainbows smile Upon the mists that circle man, Brightening not only Earth the while, But grasping Heaven too in their span!— Then first the fatal wine-cup rained Its dews of darkness thro' my lips, Casting ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... not in vain. In the whole majesty of her great wrong, she loses the originally vulgar character of the witch. It is not as the consequence of a poison-speck in her own heart that she has recourse to sorcery. She does not love witchery for its own sake; she loves it only as the retributive channel for the requital of a terrible offence. It is throughout the last hour of her three-days' conflict, merely, that we see her, but we know her then not more for the revengeful ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... Winchester. It must have been in his father's hall that the fair, diminutive boy, with scant but beautiful hair, caught his love for "the vain songs of heathendom, the trifling legends, the funeral chaunts," which afterwards roused against him the charge of sorcery. Thence too he might have derived his passionate love of music, and his custom of carrying his harp in hand on journey or visit. Wandering scholars of Ireland had left their books in the monastery of Glastonbury, as they left them along the Rhine and the ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... people know little of Mahomet's religion save its externals, and are practically "barbarous atheists." The people are largely governed by omens; they sometimes offer sacrifices to their old-time idols, but these have little real hold on them. Sorcery has great vogue among them, and Corralat and other powerful chiefs excel in it; this is one source of their ascendancy. Combes describes their mode of life: their food (which is little besides boiled rice), their ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... myself that it had been some silly prank of a romantic amateur, hidden in the gardens of the shore or gliding unperceived on the lagoon; and that the sorcery of moonlight and sea-mist had transfigured for my excited brain mere humdrum roulades out of exercises of Bordogni ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... fact, to be nothing which could account for such an attempt being successfully made unless recourse was had to an accusation of sorcery. The idea of handing him over to the ecclesiastical authorities was briefly discussed, but proofs were necessary, and the judges hesitated. It is a principle of justice, which has become a precept in law, that in cases ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARTIN GUERRE • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... only the oldest dowagers and some sick girls presented themselves, and among them I saw the most repulsive being I ever met,—an old shrivelled-up hag. At sight of such a creature one cannot wonder that old women were often accused of sorcery. ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... of Russia, and even in parts of civilized Germany, Jews are accused of all manner of sorcery. The Cabala is the principal religious authority of the lower classes among the Russian Jews, and this may perhaps inspire such a preposterous notion. The Jews, themselves, frequently believe that some one of their own number is in possession of supernatural secrets which give him wonderful ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... my son. Elymas, the sorcerer, was permitted to practise his arts—gained from the devil—that it might be proved, by his overthrow and blindness, how inferior was his master to the Divine Ruler; but it does not therefore follow that sorcery generally was permitted. In this instance it may be true that the evil one has been permitted to exercise his power over the captain and crew of that ship, and, as a warning against such heavy offences, the supernatural ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... herself. It was even said that in the quiet winter nights she held wonderful conversations with her goat and with her fowls, which she housed in her room during the winter. The entire wild army of tales of witchcraft and sorcery, banished by school education, came back and attached ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... too many marvels in this man's life. It was marvel enough that he beat the Morholt, but by what sorcery did he try the sea alone at the point of death, or which of us, my lords, could voyage without mast or sail? They say that warlocks can. It was sure a warlock feat, and that is a warlock harp of his pours poison daily into the King's ...
— The Romance Of Tristan And Iseult • M. Joseph Bedier
... cannot say, who make no pretense of sorcery, but 't is certain that the mice linger and spiders swing low from the rafters with presentiment of tragedy as Tim Cannon stands his last guard in the corner of the doomed old terminal. Twice he catches glimpses ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Muslims, is the head-quarters of sorcery and it is there that the two fallen angels, Harout and Marout, who are appointed to tempt mankind by teaching them the art of magic, are ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... delude the people, or to abuse their understanding by exercise of the pretended arts of witchcraft, conjuration, enchantment, or sorcery, or by pretended prophecies, shall be punished by ducking and whipping, at the discretion of a jury, not, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... others is changed. Oe and tana are never used now in place of the plural outou and tatou; but in old folk-lore it is the classical style of addressing the gods in the collective sense. Tahutahu means sorcery, and also ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... shadows alone healed all the ailments of men. The devils, whom ye dread as gods, they not only cast forth from men's bodies, but even drave out of the world itself by the sign of the cross, whereby they destroyed all sorcery, and rendered witchcraft powerless. And these men, by curing every disease of man by the power of Christ, and renewing all creation, are rightly admired as preachers of truth by all men of sound mind. But what hast thou thyself to say of thy wise men and orators, ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... dangerous for morals, all erotic writings, and all novels; next the various bibles in the vulgar tongue, for the perusal of Holy Writ without discretion was not allowable; then the books on magic and sorcery, and all works on science, history, or philosophy that were in any way contrary to dogma, as well as the writings of heresiarchs or mere ecclesiastics discussing religion, which should never be discussed. All these were wise laws made by different popes, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... task-that of constructing a solid road through the inundated marshes, throwing bridges over the deeper channels, and building a causeway elsewhere. But in the face of an active enemy this was no easy task; and so frequently were the Normans surprised by Hereward that they believed he must be aided by sorcery, and employed the "witch," who perished by fire (as mentioned in another Note), to counteract his magic, ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... agony that disturbed Laval. Scarcely a night passed but some victim like herself writhed under his remorseless eyes. Their mortal fear and sufferings were his recreation before the sterner business of sorcery that followed; and the more demonstrative they were in their pain, the more highly spiced was his pleasure. At first Ninon's beautiful and expressive face kept his whole attention; but after a time he began to note the strange-appearing little ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... "There is sorcery for you, and a doll worth having; being one of the sort that can shut its eyes; it was going to bed, but its mamma relented and lends it to us for the night. I told Mrs. Dodd you wanted her, and couldn't wait, so she sent her clothes; ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... and godlessness; devilish men, who serve nobody but the Devil, that is, the spirit which in their language they call Menetto; under which title they comprehend everything that is subtle and crafty and beyond human skill and power. They have so much witchcraft, divination, sorcery and wicked arts, that they can hardly be held in by any bands or locks. They are as thievish and treacherous as they are tall; and in cruelty they are altogether inhuman, more than barbarous, ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... income could be won which would give the same advantage, but not with the same security of permanence and independence. The fields for talent were war, civil administration, and religion, the last including all mental activity. Men of talent had to win their place by craft and charlatanism (sorcery, astrology, therapeutics). Their position never was independent, except in church establishments. They had to win recognition from warriors and landowners, and they became comrades and allies of the latter. Merchants and bankers were the aristocracy at Carthage, Venice, Florence, ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... representative then present. This man would then question the Janta on all points regarding his own family, his connections, worldly goods, and what gods he worshipped, ask who was the witch, who taught her sorcery, and how and why she practised it in this particular instance. But the witch-doctor, having taken care to be well coached, would answer everything correctly and fix the guilt on to the witch. A ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... VIII. adjudged all witchcraft and sorcery to be felony. A like Act was passed 1 James, c.12, and also in the reign of Philip and Mary. The ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... Jeffrey put Moore aside for later consideration, and made up his mind pretty generously to talk things over. The habit of his later years had been all for silence, and the remembered confidences of the time before had involved Esther. Of that sweet sorcery he would not think. As he stood now, the immediate result of his disaster had been to callous surfaces accessible to human intercourse and at the same time cause him, in the sensitive inner case of him, to thank the ruling powers that he need never again, seeing how ravaging it is, give ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... do it," Tanno declared. "Never heard of it from Nemestronia, and she'll talk 'leopard' by the hour, if you let her. Never suspected any such sorcery from Hedulio. How does he do ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... course aware of the matters on which the holy office exercises its functions. I need scarcely mention sorcery, Judaism, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... little eminence, blew most furiously at us, and performed other equally efficacious ceremonies. I however felt just as well after we had been subjected to this dire sorcery as I did before; and we continued to pull gently along the shore, still trying to induce them to approach, which they at last did, having nothing but a fishing-spear in their hands. To entice them towards us I had made Kaiber ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... the Greeks made laws they did not perceive that by their laws they condemned their gods. For if their laws are righteous, their gods are unrighteous, because they committed transgressions of the law in that they killed one another, practised sorcery, and committed adultery, robbed, stole, and lay with males, not to mention their other practices. For if their gods have done right in doing all this, as they write, then the laws of the Greeks are unrighteous in not being made according to the will of their ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... Platonic school), he will unconsciously call forth the evil, dark powers which lurk around humanity, the undying, grim creations of human crimes and vices, and thus fall from theurgia (white magic) into goetia (or black magic, sorcery). Yet, neither white nor black magic are what popular superstition understands by the terms. The possibility of "raising spirits," according to the key of Solomon, is the height of superstition and ignorance. Purity ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... victoria had whirled away down the crowded quay I stood looking after it, mazed in the web of that ancient enchantment whose spell fell over the first man in Eden, and whose sorcery shall not fail till the ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... in the Itinerary of Clement it is said in the narrative of Nicetas to Peter, that Simon Magus, by sorcery retained power over the soul of a child that he had slain, and that through this soul he worked magical wonders. But this could not have been without some corporeal change at least as to place. Therefore, the separate soul has the power ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... to influence our career; but the relations of men are far more complicated and numerous than of yore; and in the play of the passions, and in the devices of creative spirits, that have thus a proportionately greater sphere for their action, there are spells of social sorcery more potent than all the necromancy of Merlin or ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... Christ's view of it, is not merely something a man does, it is what he is. Go through Paul's long and dismal catalogue of "the works of the flesh": "Fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths, factions, divisions, heresies, envyings, drunkenness, revellings, and such like." Yet even this is not the whole of the matter. Sin is more than the sum-total of man's sins. The fruits are corrupt because the tree which ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... recorded. In the darkest of all 'dark ages,' when, on the current hypothesis, such tales as we examine ought to be most plentiful, even witch-trials are infrequent. Mr. Lecky attributes to these benighted centuries 'extreme superstition, with little terrorism, and, consequently, little sorcery'. The world was capable of believing anything, but it believed in the antidote as well as in the bane, in the efficacy of holy water as much as in the evil eye. When, with the dawn of enlightenment in the twelfth century, superstition ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... a theatre when it is empty and dark; but did you ever go into a private bar that was empty and dark? A private bar is as eternal as the hills, as changeless as the monomania of a madman, as mysterious as sorcery. Always the same order of bottles, the same tinkling, the same popping, the same time-tables, and the same realistic pictures of frothing champagne on the walls, the same advertisements on the same ash-trays on the counter, the ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... half-understood for want of practical demonstration, had taught me that chemistry is concerned with the shuffle of matter, uniting or separating the various elements. But what a strange idea I formed of this branch of study! To me it smacked of sorcery, of alchemy and its search for the philosopher's stone. To my mind, every chemist, when at work, should have had a magic wand in his hand and the wizard's pointed, star studded ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... night, on the contrary, she showed her connection with him outwardly in her form, whilst her mother's mind and heart inwardly became hers. What art could release her from the power which exercised such sorcery over her? The Viking's wife felt much anxiety and distress about it, and yet her heart hung on the poor little being, of whose strange state she thought she should not dare to inform her husband when he came home; for he assuredly, as was the custom, would put the poor child out on the ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... ye joyn'd with hell in triple knot Against th'unarmed weakness of one Virgin Alone, and helpless! Is this the confidence You gave me Brother? Eld. Bro: Yes, and keep it still, Lean on it safely, not a period Shall be unsaid for me: against the threats Of malice or of sorcery, or that power Which erring men call Chance, this I hold firm, Vertue may be assail'd, but never hurt, Surpriz'd by unjust force, but not enthrall'd, 590 Yea even that which mischief meant most ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... with religious ceremonies, and that because of the ecstasy induced. In some cases drug-taking and dancing go together. In others, reliance is placed on dancing alone. This latter is the case with the 'devil dancers' of Ceylon. In Africa the witch doctor discovers who has been guilty of sorcery by the aid of inspiration furnished during a dance. The whirling dance of the Eastern dervish is well known. Dancing also figures in the Bible. The Jews danced around the golden calf (Ex. xxxii. 19) in a state of nudity. David, too, danced naked before the Lord. Dancing ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... is charming—and I use the epithet in all the significance of its sorcery. She conveys to me each morning his Excellency's instructions for my day's work; and it is only by a mighty effort I can tear myself from the magic thrill of her voice, and the captivation of her manner, to follow what I have to reply to, investigate, and ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... persuasion of its own plump words, Acting upon mercurial temperaments, Makes hope as prophecy. "Our Emperor Will show himself [say they] in this exploit Unwavering, keen, and irresistible As is the lightning prong. Our vast flotillas Have been embodied as by sorcery; Soldiers made seamen, and the ports transformed To rocking cities casemented with guns. Against these valiants balance England's means: Raw merchant-fellows from the counting-house, Raw labourers from the fields, who thumb for arms Clumsy untempered ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... [Sidenote: 1547] Venice also fought against its introduction but nevertheless finally permitted it. [Sidenote: 1544] During the sixteenth century in that city there were no less than 803 processes for Lutheranism, 5 for Calvinism, 35 against Anabaptists, 43 for Judaism and 199 for sorcery. In countries outside of Italy the Roman Inquisition did not take root. Bishop Magrath endeavored in 1567 to give Ireland the benefit of the institution, but naturally the English Government ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... may not understand. The miracles of the New Testament are purely natural; but the people did not comprehend the laws which gave them birth, and hence they magnified them. "Where the people believed," says Mr. Davies, "rightly or wrongly, in evil spirits and sorcery, in malignant and disorderly influences proceeding from the spiritual world, there the powers of the true kingdom, the powers of order and freedom and beneficence, were put forth in acts which appealed directly to the minds of ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... magician does not fail to seize, of talking about serpents and toads. But, after a long enumeration of the bones, stones, and livers of animals that cause love, the alchemist, urged by Philautus, ends by confessing that the best sorcery of all to gain the loving regard of a woman, is to be ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... and ruin of their enemies became more and more the objects towards which their occult powers were directed: and thus turned from their lawful use, and practised for all sorts of selfish and malevolent purposes, they inevitably led to what we must call by the name of sorcery. ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... that appeared to him to conflict with human intelligence and the law of his soul—he disregarded or denied. "I deny them all," he wrote in his answer to the Holy Synod's excommunication (1901); "I consider all the sacraments to be coarse, degrading sorcery, incompatible with the idea of God or with the Christian teaching." And, as the briefest statement of the law ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... sacrifice, no myth brings it down to his comprehension, it is not installed in his temples. Man cannot escape the belief that behind all form is one essence; but the moment he would seize and define it, it eludes his grasp, and by a sorcery more sadly ludicrous than that which blinded Titania, he worships not the Infinite he thinks but a base idol of his own making. As in the Zend Avesta behind the eternal struggle of Ormuzd and Ahriman looms ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... of you may be inclined to smile if I use the word "sorcery," but at the present day, under one name or another, scientific or semi-scientific, it is nothing but the old-world sorcery which is trying to find its way among us as the hidden power. Sorcery is the inverted use of spiritual power. That is the definition ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... his ailment may be, not one of our infirmarers can make out; his tongue is purple, and he hath such strange shiverings and contortions in all his limbs, that they are at their wits' end, and some hold that he must have undergone some sorcery in his passage ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hampering and denouncing scientific discoveries.... Witchcraft in its modern form emerges clearly in the 15th century.... Great prevalence of witchcraft during the 16th and 17th centuries in Protestant and Catholic countries, alike.... Trial of those suspected of sorcery. Tortures to force confession. The witches' mark. Penalties, burning alive, strangling, hanging. Tens of thousands of innocent persons perished.... Those who tried to discredit witchcraft denounced as 'Sadducees' and atheists.... The psychology of intolerance. Fear, vested interests, ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... for many a long year we have both been working hard to entice a silly fellow down below. He was first tempted by the desire to learn something of sorcery, and he ended by becoming an accomplished scoundrel. After giving him time to commit a great many crimes and thus forfeit his soul, we handed him over to safe keeping. Now we want to divide his property between us. He has left three things, which by every right belong to us. The ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko
... whose waters were now flowing from the sea to the land, men came in dingeys, not rowing, but bending their bodies indolently and without effort, because they were back-watering with the tide, so that their swift advance looked as if it were made easy by sorcery. They slackened speed before they came to the wharf, which just here by the station jutted out in a grey bastion surmounted by the minatory finger of a derrick, and some of them climbed out and put round baskets full of shining fish upon their heads, and, walking struttingly to brake their ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... and he sat there, motionless; and gradually the bitterness became less perceptible as he drifted, intent on drifting, back through the exotic sorcery of dead years—back into the sun again, where honour was bright and life was young—where all the world awaited happy conquest—where there was no curfew in the red evening glow; no end to day, because the golden ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... sorcery are the most astonishing in the book, displaying on the part of this otherwise hard and practical nature a credulity almost without limit. After having related how he had a certain negro sent out of ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... half-a-dozen among the fervent hundreds who call themselves "Occultists," who have even an approximately correct idea of the nature of the Science they seek to master. With a few exceptions, they are all on the highway to Sorcery. Let them restore some order in the chaos that reigns in their minds, before they protest against this statement. Let them first learn the true relation in which the Occult Sciences stand to Occultism, and the difference between the two, and then feel wrathful if they ...
— Studies in Occultism; A Series of Reprints from the Writings of H. P. Blavatsky • H. P. Blavatsky
... your youth, When expectation soared on pinions high, And hope shone out on boyhood's cloudless sky, Seeming all truth— When all looked fair to fancy's ardent eye, And pleasure wore an air of sorcery? ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... could be obtained by the regent during his greatest distresses: and men enlisted slowly under his standard, or soon deserted, by reason of the wonderful accounts which had reached England, of the magic and sorcery, and diabolical power of the maid of Orleans.[*] It happened fortunately, in this emergency, that the bishop of Winchester, now created a cardinal, landed at Calais with a body of five thousand men, which he was conducting ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... objects are generally of sacrificial nature, and the stones with which soma is pressed are divine like the plant. Yet often there is no sacrificial observance to cause this veneration. Hymns are addressed to weapons, to the war-car, as to divine beings. Sorcery and incantation is not looked upon favorably, but ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... he trapped the King by aid of Lady Gowrie (July 1593), recovered power for a while, he defended himself on this charge of witchcraft. He had consulted and employed the wizard, Richard Graham, who now accused him of attempting the King's life by sorcery. But he had only employed Graham to heal the Earl of Angus, himself dying of witchcraft. Bothwell was charged with employing a retainer, Ninian Chirnside, to arrange more than twenty-one meetings with the wizard Graham; the result being the procurement of a poison, 'adder skins, toad ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... the Bakuba tribe of Abyssinia was almost wholly Pagan as the natives believed fully in witchcraft, sorcery, myths and superstitions. The witch doctor held absolute sway over the members of the tribe and when his reputation as a giver of rain, bountiful crops or success in the chase was at stake the tribes were called together and those accused by the witch ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... without their leader's knowledge, they had sent forth, returned, announcing that the approaching army had been commanded to spare no Hebrew, and to show by the sharp edge of the sword, even to those who sued for mercy, how Pharaoh punished the men by whose shameful sorcery misery and woe had come upon ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers |
