"Sleight" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you begin to draw general conclusions from your own private experience, I must beg pointedly and finally to differ. You will not have forgotten, I believe, my daring and single-handed butchery of the five secret witnesses? Nor the sleight of mind and dexterity of language with which I separated Lelio from the merchant's family? These were not virtuous actions; and yet, how am I to tell you? I was conscious of a troubled joy, a glee, a hellish gusto in my author's bosom, which seemed to renew my vigour with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I can possess it any moment I choose. You don't know my skill in sleight of hand; I might practise as a conjuror if I liked. Mamma says sometimes, too, that I have a harmonizing property of tongue and eye; but you never saw ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... succession, he would have reigned, was fully persuaded that his mother was not really pregnant. By whatever evidence the fact of his birth had been proved, a considerable number of people would probably have persisted in maintaining that the Jesuits had practised some skilful sleight of hand: and the evidence, partly from accident, partly from gross mismanagement, was open to some objections. Many persons of both sexes were in the royal bedchamber when the child first saw the light but none of them enjoyed any large measure of public confidence. Of the Privy Councillors ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... love give her joy! I am so farre From envie of her honour, that I sweare, Had he encounterd me with such proud sleight, I would have put that project face of his 15 To a more ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... mysteries of weaving thoroughly enough to make a good mat, it is very easy to "turn them into" various articles. There is no sleight of hand ...
— Hand-Loom Weaving - A Manual for School and Home • Mattie Phipps Todd
... the earth, and Hermes came, the bringer of luck, and prince Apollo came, the archer. But the lady goddesses abode each within her house for shame. So the gods, the givers of good things, stood in the porch: and laughter unquenchable arose among the blessed gods, as they beheld the sleight of cunning Hephaestus. And thus would one speak, looking to ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... chief, doing sleight-of-hand tricks with a bundle of letters which lay on his desk. 'Get on with your work, Psmith. We have a ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... with the ideas which it is nevertheless made to convey, is often very effectual language. Much lying, and all irony depends on tampering with covenanted symbols, and making those that are usually associated with one set of ideas convey by a sleight of mind others of a different nature. That is why irony is intolerably fatiguing unless very sparingly used. Take the song which Blondel sang under the window of King Richard's prison. There was not ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... obtain'd the prize, Both by the judgment of the English eyes, And of some sent from that sweet enemy France; Horsemen my skill in horsemanship advance; Townfolks my strength; a daintier judge applies His praise to sleight which from good use doth rise; Some lucky wits impute it but to chance; Others, because of both sides I do take My blood from them who did excel in this, Think nature me a man of arms did make. How ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... that's about all thou canst do. Dost think that a man's greatness hangs on so little a thing as his sleight of hand at cutting ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... of Sleight: "The deed is the righting of wrong, And the quelling a bale and a sorrow that the world hath endured o'erlong, And the winning a treasure untold, that shall make thee more than the kings; Thereof is the Helm of Aweing, the ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... down the decks. A great tub was dragged into the waist, and then one of the men went over into the chains, and slipped in behind a band fastened to the shrouds, and leaning over, began to swing a bucket into the sea by a long rope; and in that way with much expertness and sleight of hand, he managed to fill the tub in a very short time. Then the water began to splash about all over the decks, and I began to think I should surely get my feet wet, and catch my death of cold. So I went to the chief mate, and told him I thought I would just step below, till this ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... fair Hippodamias' sake, the daughter of Onomaus, king of Elis: when that hard condition was proposed of death or victory, they made no account of it, but courageously for love died, till Pelops at last won her by a sleight. [5446]As many gallants desperately adventured their dearest blood for Atalanta, the daughter of Schenius, in hope of marriage, all vanquished and overcame, till Hippomenes by a few golden apples happily obtained his suit. Perseus, of old, fought with a sea monster for Andromeda's sake; ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... ground, who shall say at what time they cease to be members of the parent tree? In the case of cuttings from plants it is easy to elude the difficulty by making a parade of the sharp and sudden act of separation from the parent stock, but this is only a piece of mental sleight of hand; the cutting remains as much part of its parent plant as though it had never been severed from it; it goes on profiting by the experience which it had before it was cut off, as much as though it had never been ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... room for deception, though many of the tricks performed by Indian jugglers are really the result of clever sleight-of-hand." ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... painting portraits of the members of guilds and societies in groups, and some such works of his at Haarlem are very fine. I have told a story of his rapid manner in the sketch of Vandyck. He was the first master to introduce that free, bold, sleight-of-hand manner which was afterward used by the Dutch masters, and is so strong in its effect. This painter led a merry, careless life. His portraits of single heads or figures are rare, and his small genre subjects still more so. In the Hotel de Ville at Haarlem there are as many as eight ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... caste maize heel bawl course quire chord chased tide sword mail nun plain pour fate wean hoard berth isle throne vane seize sore slight freeze knave fane reek Rome rye style flea faint peak throw bourn route soar sleight frieze nave reck sere wreak roam wry flee feint pique mite seer idle pistol flower holy serf borough capital canvas indict martial kernel carat bridle lesson council collar levy accept affect deference emigrant prophesy ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... mucilaginous character, was rendered pure, and soft to the touch. The next and last operation was in fact the making of the paper; and was performed by Karl himself. It was simple enough, though requiring a certain dexterity, or sleight of hand, to do it well. It consisted in placing a quantity of the pulp upon the sieve before mentioned; and cradling the frame about—all the time held under water—until the substance became equally and uniformly ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... afeard to see it, for they would have had him to have bore a part in saying the words, in the roome of one of the little girles that was so young that they could hardly make her learn to repeat the words, did, for feare there might be some sleight used in it by the boy, or that the boy might be light, call the cook of the house, a very lusty fellow, as Sir G. Carteret's cook, who is very big, and they did raise him in just the same manner. This is one of the strangest things I ever heard, but he tells it me of his owne knowledge, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... entertainments, such as races, walking matches, quoits, and like games. Commander J. V. Bleecker, en route to take charge of the Mercedes reclaimed in Manila Bay, was a masterly artist in sleight-of-hand performances, and contributed much ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... early drawings done as preliminary studies for engravings, the method of his pen strokes had changed less than the character of the forms they rendered; the conception of the design as a whole had advanced more rapidly than the skill and sleight of hand which expressed it. The engraver has by 1511 become capable of expressing a greater variety of speed in the stroke, makes it taper more finely, and can follow the tongue-like lap and flicker as the pen rises and dips again before ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... please, Forgot a father's part, and with his cruel knife Unto the gods did sacrifice his dearest daughter's life. Ulysses wailed the loss of his most faithful men, Whom Polyphemus did devour enclosed in his den But when his hands by sleight had made the Cyclops blind, Most pleasant joy instead of former tears possessed his mind. Hercules famous is for his laborious toil, Who tamed the Centaurs and did take the dreadful lion's spoil. He the Stymphalian birds with piercing arrows strook, ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... Aries-Scorpio, his ascendant Capricorn, his descendant Cancer and his sinister aspect Libra." Now when the astronomer saw her acuteness and comprehensive learning and heard her fair answers, he bethought him for a sleight to confound her before the Commander of the Faithful, and said to her, "O damsel, tell me, will rain fall this month?" At this she bowed her head and pondered so long, that the Caliph thought her at a loss for an answer and the astronomer said to her, "Why dost thou not speak?" Quoth she, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... S. Consul tells me," said Yerkes, "that the Congo government is the rottenest aggregate of cutthroats, horse-thieves, thugs, yeggs, common-or-ordinary hold-ups, and sleight-of-hand professors that the world ever saw in one God-forsaken country. He says they're of every nationality, but without squeam of any kind—hang or shoot you as soon as look at you! He says if there's any ivory buried in those parts they've either got it and sold ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... request, with the song of "Mr. Dooley," in the chorus of which the audience joined with vigor. The song is not new, but Smith's particular version, as well as his vocal rendition, was. The dwarf, who posed somewhat as a magician and sleight-of-hand man, undertook for some reason or other to attempt the great Indian box trick. Two gentlemen from the audience were invited to come on the stage to tie the performer with a rope. This was a most unfortunate move. Two well-known ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... God, to be perpetual thrall unto the devil. If he threaten us with imprisonment, let us tell him that we would rather be man's prisoner a while here in earth than, by forsaking the faith, be his prisoners for ever in hell. If he put in our minds the terror of the Turks, let us consider his false sleight, for this tale he telleth us to make us forget him. But let us remember well that, in respect of himself, the Turks are but a shadow. And all that they can do can be but a flea-bite in comparison with the mischief that he goeth about. The Turks are but his tormentors, ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... damning vice. You must deceive your kindred, you must deceive society, you must deceive all but God, and Him you cannot deceive. Deception does not injure others so much as it injures ourselves. Marriage is too important a crisis in one's life to be decided by sleight of hand, or a sort of jugglery which says: "Presto, change! Now you see her, ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... Expecting which should take or kill. This HUDIBRAS observ'd; and fretting Conquest should be so long a getting, He drew up all his force into 820 One body, and that into one blow. But TALGOL wisely avoided it By cunning sleight; for had it hit, The upper part of him the blow Had slit as ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... was restarted, and the greater noise had diminished to the sensitive uneasy murmur which responded like a delicate instrument to the fluctuations of the game. Each feat and manoeuvre of Knype drew generous applause in proportion to its intention or its success, and each sleight of the Manchester Rovers, successful or not, provoked a holy disgust. The attitude of the host had ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... again from this "sleight of hand with Fancy's golden apples," to the novel, in the 'O.T.' (1836), which marks no advance on the 'Improvisatore'; and in the next year he published his best romance, 'Only a Fiddler,' which is still charming for its autobiographical touches, its genuine humor, and its deep pathos. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... left us he went to the county bridewell, where he remained until the assizes, an interval of about a month. He was tried; direct evidence was strong against him, and he defended himself with so much ingenuity and sleight of intellect that the jury could not doubt his sleight of hand and morals, too. He was found guilty, identified as a notorious thief, and condemned to twelve months' imprisonment and ten years' transportation. He returned to the ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... imposing subject for a speech. If it should ever be printed on a programme, it would prove awe-inspiring. Next to making a good speech, I'd like to be skilled in sleight-of-hand affairs. I'd like to fish up a rabbit from the depths of an old gentleman's silk tile, or extract a dozen eggs from a lady's hand-bag, or transmute a canary into a goldfish. I'd like to see the looks ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... upon the vulgar the fact that these inscrutable powers would do what he might ask of them. Hence, presently, a knowledge of certain natural processes which could be turned to account for spectacular effect, together with some sleight of hand, came to be an integral part of priestly lore. Knowledge of this kind passes for knowledge of the "unknowable", and it owes its serviceability for the sacerdotal purpose to its recondite ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... But two memories of my fourth year are perfectly defined. The first is the fire which destroyed Covent Garden Theatre on the 5th of March, 1856. "During the operatic recess, Mr. Gye, the lessee of the Theatre, had sub-let it to one Anderson, a performer of sleight-of-hand feats, and so-called 'Professor.' He brought his short season to a close by an entertainment described as a 'Grand Carnival Complimentary Benefit and Dramatic Gala, to commence on Monday morning, and terminate with a bal masque on Tuesday night.' At 3 on the Wednesday morning, the Professor ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... located. It was a criminal offense to sell or mortgage government land, but who could wait six months or a year for the government to issue a patent (deed) to the land? Many of the settlers must borrow money to make proof. So the homestead loan business became a sleight-of-hand performance. ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... exclamation as he drew his hand from the straw behind him, and produced an egg. The Mexicans glanced up. Pete dug in the straw and fetched up another egg—and another. Brevoort leaned forward as though deeply interested in some sleight-of-hand trick. Egg after egg came from the abandoned nest. The Mexicans laughed. The supply of eggs seemed ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... on the blackboard was over and Michael was showing a set of pictures, Will sat down in a corner with a string from his pocket and began showing two of the boldest of the group some tricks. This took at once, and when he added a little sleight-of-hand pulling pennies from the hair and pockets and hands of the astonished youngsters and allowing them to keep them after the game was over, they were ready to take him into their inner circle ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... college at exactly this time; namely, to obtain him as a chum for his wife's nephew, with the advantage of a tutor's room thrown in as an extra inducement. He advised Hawthorne to place Julian in charge of a Harvard professor who was supposed to have a sleight-of-hand faculty for getting his pupils through the examinations. Julian worked bravely, and succeeded in entering Harvard the following July; but he was nine months (or a good school year), younger than the average ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... indure worse luck sometime, or you will never make a good Angler. But what say you now? there is a Trout now, and a good one too, if I can but hold him; and two or three turns more will tire him: Now you see he lies still, and the sleight is to land him: Reach me that Landing net: So (Sir) now he is mine own, what say you? is not this ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton
... one has little patience with the foreign jugglers who annoy and importune travelers to witness performances of snake-charming, sleight of hand, and deceptive tricks generally, to the sound of a fife and drum, but we witnessed one exhibition at Yokohama in the open air, which was remarkable, not for any mystery about it, but as showing to what degree of adroitness and skill the human hands may be trained by patient practice. ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... of Magic and Sleight of Hand in the Town Hall this evening, commencing at 8 o'clock. In the course of the entertainment he will amuse the audience by his wonderful exhibition of Ventriloquism, ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... Joseph, famed for self-command, Was seen, conspicuous midst his kindred band. Then stretching far my sight amid the train That hid, in countless crowds, the shaded plain, Good Hezekiah met my raptured sight, And Manoah's son, a prey to female sleight; And he, whose eye foresaw the coming flood, With mighty Nimrod nigh, a man of blood; Whose pride the heaven-defying tower design'd, But sin the rising fabric undermined. Great Maccabeus next my notice claim'd, ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... a retrospective light in his eye. "He first joined us as a sleight-o'-hand man in the side-show. That cussed little brother of 'is got a job taking tickets. Dick 'ad been in jail a couple of times and he decided to turn over a new leaf. He'd 'a' been all right if it 'adn't been for Ernie. Ernie didn't think he was making enough money by being honest, so ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... always been my best audience and my keenest critic at the innumerable sleight-of-hand performances that I have had the pleasure of ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... No matter how apparently deep their slumber, they saw every falling crumb, they knew where we had hung our fish, and were ready as we turned our backs to make away with it. It was impossible to leave anything eatable for a single instant. Nothing but the sleight of hand of a conjurer could equal the mystery ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... mouth quite naturally, against her will. She removed it with an expression of disgust and hurled it at Andrew, who caught it between his lips, smoked it for a second or two and grinned his thanks. With a polite gesture he threw it, as the audience thought, back to her; but by a sleight-of-hand trick the cigar vanished and she caught, to her delighted astonishment, a pearl necklace, which, as she clasped it round her neck, vanished likewise. After which he overwhelmed her with disappearing jewels. At once it became a popular ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... tell me who thou art and who brought thee into this my apartment." Answered he, "O Princess, I am known as Ni'amah bin al-Rabi'a of Cufa and I have ventured my life for the sake of my slave-girl, Naomi, whom Al-Hajjaj took by sleight and sent hither." Said she, "Fear not: no harm shall befall thee;" then, calling her maid, she said to her, "Go to Naomi's chamber and send her to me." Meanwhile the old woman went to Naomi's bedroom and said to her, "Hath thy lord come to thee?" "No, by Allah!" answered ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... entitled "Joe Strong, the Boy Wizard; Or, The Mysteries of Magic Exposed." Joe, whose mother had been a circus rider under the name Madame Hortense, and whose father, a sleight-of-hand worker, was known as Professor Morretti, was, at the opening of the story, an orphan, living with Mr. and Mrs. Amos Blackford in the town of Bedford. Deacon Blackford had taken care of Joe since the boy was about five years old, and was, ...
— Joe Strong, the Boy Fish - or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank • Vance Barnum
... that he vnderstood not these ceremonies, demanded of the Paracoussy what these things meant: which answered him slowly, Thimogoa, Thimogoa, without saying any more. (M440) Being more displeased then he was before with so sleight an answere, he turned vnto another Indian the Paracoussyes brother, who was a Paracoussy as well as his brother, called Malica, which made him a like answere as hee did at the first, praying him to aske no more of these matters, and to haue patience for that time. The subtil ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... an idea," he told her. "Doctors are like parsons—they can't keep up with the times. The age is outgrowing them. Only the fakirs in either profession get anything out of it, nowadays. It's all mystery and sleight-of-hand and the confidence trick—medicine is—and if you haven't got just the right twist of the wrist, you're not in it. But an artist stands on his merits. There is his work—done by his own hands. It speaks for itself. There's no deception—it's easy enough to tell ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... were left untouched. To the owners of these a number of silver pieces were tossed—tossed so deftly that we might almost say it rained silver on those regions of the table. No wizard of legerdemain ever equalled the sleight of hand with which these men pitched, reckoned, manipulated, ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... at the water in bewilderment, as if her senses were the victim of some sleight of hand. Not a speck or spot resembling a man's head or face showed anywhere. By this time she was alarmed, and her alarm intensified when she perceived a little beyond the scene of her husband's bathing a small area ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... chuckled. "He calls it a gang—him, and Jim Narnay, and a boy. They've all got a sleight with the axe, I do allow; and the boy handles the ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... that stuff he used, anyhow?" asked Cecil Hedden, the lad responsible for the organization of the Deep Forest Throng. "He must be a wonder. Does he do sleight-of-hand tricks?" ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... the tendency of the time may be almost as much due to him as he to the tendency. Mainly, we have to fall back upon his own idiosyncrasy: he was born with a boundlessly whimsical perception, which he trained into an inimitable sleight-of-hand in the twisting of notions and of words; circumstances favored his writing for fugitive publications and skimming readers, rather than under conditions of greater permanency; and the result is as we find it in his ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... little difficult to amuse; a Serious-minded Lady from Brixton, with a more frivolous Friend; a pair of Fiances; and an Unsophisticated Father, with an Up-to-date little Daughter. An exhibition of "Pure Sleight-of-Hand" has just been given on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 8, 1893 • Various
... lacking? Nay, a great thing—wherefore should I deceive you?—a great thing and a difficult: a messenger to bear it. The woods—y' are not ignorant of that—lie thick with our ill-willers. Haste is most needful; but without sleight and caution all is naught. Which, then, of this company will take me this letter, bear it to my Lord of Wensleydale, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Conjuration, sleight of hand, magic, witchcraft, were the subjects of the evening. Miss Pole was slightly sceptical, and inclined to think there might be a scientific solution found for even the proceedings of the Witch ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... valley Governor Bolton witnessed a most interesting ceremony which, so far as the writer is aware, is quite unknown to the balance of the tribe. His quotation follows: "One religious dance contained a sleight of hand performance, considered by the people as a miracle, but the chiefs were evidently initiated. A man dressed himself as a woman, and with the gongs and drums beaten rapidly he danced, whirling round and ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... tirer's art had decked with snare and sleight, * And robed with rays as though the sun from her had borrowed light: She came before us wondrous clad in chemisette of green, * As veiled by his leafy screen Pomegranate hides from sight: And when he said, "How callest thou the fashion of thy dress?" ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... scornful laugh of the Queen was heard throughout earth as she triumphed over Shibli Bagarag with hundreds of Shagpats, Illusions; and he knew not where to strike at the Shagpat, and was losing all sleight of hand, dexterity, and cunning. Noorna shrieked, thinking him lost; but Abarak seized his bar, and leaning it in the direction of Aklis, blew a pellet from it that struck on the eye of Aklis, and this sent out a stretching finger of beams, and singled forth very ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... short, let us subordinate mere knowledge to the work of invigorating the will, energizing productive effort and clarifying moral vision. Let us make safe men rather than vociferous mountebanks; let us put deftness in daily labor above sleight-of-hand tricks, and common sense, well trained, above classical smatterings, which awe the multitude but butter ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.
... gentleman whom you have so graciously permitted me to bring to your house. This is Phadrig the Adept, as he is known in his own ancient land of Egypt, a worker of wonders which really are wonders, and not mere sleight-of-hand conjuring tricks. He has been good enough to accompany me in order to convince the learned of the West that the Immemorial East could still teach it ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... flowry Meddowes, and the pastures o're; Where the greene Grove its coole shade yeilds To th'stately grasse plotts, and ripe swelling fields: Straight, 'mid'st the river Swans, up hyer A winged fowle above the cloudes I'aspire; The lively Lakes below, I sleight, And with sweet straines ...
— The Odes of Casimire, Translated by G. Hils • Mathias Casimire Sarbiewski
... Annawan was caught, with the dove of his nest and her squab, far from his own dwelling, and among the men of thy colour. Thy race had killed or driven away the beasts of the chace; and there was nothing upon which the red archer could show the sleight of his hand and the truth of his eye. White men would give him no food, but drove him from their cabins, saying, 'You are an Indian.' At the door of ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... For the Dolphin, I stand here for him: what to him from England? Exe. Scorne and defiance, sleight regard, contempt, And any thing that may not mis-become The mightie Sender, doth he prize you at. Thus sayes my King: and if your Fathers Highnesse Doe not, in graunt of all demands at large, Sweeten the bitter Mock you sent his Maiestie; Hee'le call you to so hot an Answer ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... nothing in Mr Kipling's achievement save only for his power to create an illusion of reality and enthusiasm by sheer finish of style. She is not a creation. She is only the best possible example of the clever sleight-of-hand of an accomplished artificer. She is in literary fiction cousin to the witty, flirtatious ladies of the modern English theatre. Her conversation is delightful, but it belongs to nobody. It does not even belong to her author. Mrs Hawksbee talks ...
— Rudyard Kipling • John Palmer
... on ropes, who rouged and roaring stand, Who cheat the eyes by wondrous sleight of hand, From whose wide mouth the ready riband falls, Who swallow swords, or urge the flying balls, Here with French poodles vie, and harness'd fleas, Nor strive in vain our easy tastes to please. Whilst ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... when the earth was heaped over him, he began shouting to the Moorman whom he believed to be his uncle, and praying him to lend a hand that he might issue from the souterrain and return to earth's surface; but, however loudly he cried, none was found to reply. At that moment he comprehended the sleight which the Maroccan had played upon him, and that the man was no uncle but a liar and a wizard. Then the unhappy despaired of life, and learned to his sorrow that there was no escape for him; so he fell to beweeping with sore weeping the calamity had befallen him; and after a ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... is! A working jeweller, with his nippers, cuts a ring with a date engraved upon it: 23rd of October. It's a simple little trick of sleight-of-hand, one of many which I have in my bag. By Jove, I didn't spend six months with Dickson, the conjurer,[C] ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... cry or fret, Just like those others—down in the parquet. This hero has a head by one dram swirled; That is in doubt whether his love be right; A third you hear despairing of the world,— Full five acts long you hear him wail his plight, And no man ends him with a merciful sleight! But the real beast, the beautiful, wild beast, Your eyes on that, ...
— Erdgeist (Earth-Spirit) - A Tragedy in Four Acts • Frank Wedekind
... Argantes met, and glad of an opportunity to settle their quarrel, withdrew to a glade in the forest. Tancred, stung by the taunts of cowardice for his former failure to keep his appointment, fought bitterly. He had not the sheer strength of his antagonist, but his sleight at last overcame, and Argantes fell. Weakened by pain and loss of blood, Tancred fell senseless, and was thus found by Erminia, who had met Vafrino the spy in the camp of the Egyptians and had fled with him. They revived Tancred, ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... rain began to fall, and the scene was brought to a dramatic conclusion by the exhausted chief being ignominiously carried away on the back of a strong young man. At the house another stone was produced by the same sleight-of-hand, but more strenuous measures had to be adopted in order to remedy the ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... them, and hews at Thrain with his axe, "the ogress of war," and smote him on the head, and clove him down to the teeth, so that his jaw-teeth fell out on the ice. This feat was done with such a quick sleight that no one could get a blow at him; he glided away from them at once at full speed. Tjorvi, indeed, threw his shield before him on the ice, but he leapt over it, and still kept his feet, and slid quite to the end of the ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... only be seal'd up With a Feather through his nose, that he may only see Heaven, and think whither he's going, Nay beyond-Sea Sir, we will proclaim you, you would be King Thou tender Heir apparent to a Church-Ale, Thou sleight Prince of single Sarcenet; Thou Royal Ring-tail, fit to fly at nothing But poor mens Poultry, and have every Boy Beat thee from that too with his Bread ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... lions upon it, and one can also best have a care of robbers, and above all things not to suffer anybody to come near one upon the road. The cunningest robbers in the world are in that country. They use a certain slip with a running noose which they can cast with so much sleight about a man's neck, when they are within reach of him, that they never fail, so that they can strangle him in a trice. They have another cunning trick also to catch travellers with. They send out a handsome woman upon ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... anchored himself by pure trick of balance, and was pulling with a steady hand almost as soon as Skin, collecting his wits, could reach out to fend the ladder off from crushing the edge of the eaves. Ten seconds later, by seaman's sleight of foot, he had gained a second anchorage half-way up the slope, had gathered up all the slack of the rope into a seaman's coil, and with a circular sweep of the arm had flung it deftly around the chimney. The end, instead of sliding down to his hand, hitched itself ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... and newspapers and letters in rich profusion meet our gaze; with a quick sleight the captain distributes them, sends a half dozen to their owners in the forecastle by the steward, and then ensues a silence broken only by the snapping of seals, and the rattling of paper. Suddenly Mr. Stewart uttered an exclamation of surprise, and looking up from my letter, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... great performer, but sacrificed his art to his avarice. His mastery over the violin was almost marvellous, though he made an ignoble use of his power by employing it to captivate the mob of pretended amateurs by feats little better than sleight-of-hand. His performance on a single string, and the perfection of his harmonics, were very extraordinary; but why, as was asked at the time, be confined to one string when there are four at command that would answer every musical purpose so much better? ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... [Sleight-of-hand theories alone cannot explain the mysteries of "magic" as practiced by that eminent Frenchman who revolutionized the entire art, and who was finally called upon to help his government out of a difficuity—Robert-Houdin. The success of his most famous performances hung not only ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... suspected his daughter of lying he cast her into a "Druidic sleep," in which she revealed her wickedness.[1117] In other cases spells are cast upon persons so that they are hallucinated, or are rendered motionless, or, "by the sleight of hand of soothsayers," maidens lose their chastity without knowing it.[1118] These point to knowledge of hypnotic methods of suggestion. Or, again, a spectral army is opposed to an enemy's force to whom it is ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... in a Miss-spending life, are feeling the prick of a fraying collar. Even Fifth Avenue is constantly feeding it. A couturier's model gone hippy; a specialty-shop gone bankrupt; a cashier's books gone over. Its shops are second-hand, and not a few of its denizens are down on police records as sleight-of-hand. At night women too weary to be furtive turn in at its family entrances. It is the cauldron of the city's eye of newt, toe of frog, wool of bat, and tongue of dog. It is the home of the most daring all-night eating-places, the smallest store, the largest store, ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... string to it, wrapped it in a paper, and gently let it down into the sewer, corner of State and Washington Streets." The associate in this was a man whom he had found endeavoring to make electrical apparatus for sleight-of-hand performances. ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... taxes were reduced as they are now?' Here is a fallacy which you will be careful to detect. I know that the taxes have been reduced; that is to say, nominally reduced, but not so in fact; on the contrary, they have, in reality, been greatly augmented. This has been done by the sleight-of-hand of paper money. Suppose, for instance, that four years ago, I had a hundred pounds to pay in taxes, then a hundred and thirty bushels of wheat would have paid my share. If I have now seventy-five pounds to pay in taxes, it will require a hundred and ninety bushels of wheat to ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... shell, or the palm of his hand. In the meantime one of his attendants has prepared a young cocoa-nut, by peeling off the outer rind with his teeth, an operation which to an European appears very surprising; but it depends so much upon sleight, that many of us were able to do it before we left the island, and some that could scarcely crack a filbert. The master when he chooses to drink takes the cocoa-nut thus prepared, and boring a hole through the shell with his fingers, or breaking ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... imagine that our forren trades of merchandise haue bene comprised within some few yeeres or at least wise haue not bene of any long continuance, let vs now withdraw our selues from our affaires in Russia, and ascending somewhat higher, let vs take a sleight suruey of our traffiques and negotiations in former ages. First therefore the reader may haue recourse vnto the 137 page [Footnote: This refers to the original edition] of this Volume & there with great delight and admiration, consider out of the iudicial Historiographer Cornelius ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... please," whispered the lieutenant. But the veteran seemed an interminably long time in opening the dainty envelope in his hand. Official communications he opened with a dexterity suggesting sleight-of-hand, but now he took a penknife from his pocket, opened its smallest, brightest blade, and carefully cut Mrs. Wittleday's envelope. As he opened the letter his lower jaw fell, and his eyes opened wide. He read the letter through, and re-read it, his countenance ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... distant relationship to your future wife for so much cash down to the Church. If your inamorata were your first cousin, you could remove her several degrees with five hundred dollars, and make her no relation at all for a little more. Such little sleight-of-hand performances are as nothing to a well-trained clergyman. Slip a check into one hand, and a request to marry your aunt into the other, let a clergyman shake them up in the coffers of the Church, and when one comes out gold, the other will appear as a blushing bride not even related to ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... ring, to use the old slang, like a thorough "glutton," and honestly enjoys a telling facer from his adversary. Cockshot is bottled effervescency, the sworn foe of sleep. Three- in-the-morning Cockshot, says a victim. His talk is like the driest of all imaginable dry champagnes. Sleight of hand and inimitable quickness are the qualities by which he lives. Athelred, on the other hand, presents you with the spectacle of a sincere and somewhat slow nature thinking aloud. He is the most unready man I ever knew ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... black, grim, and large! [shaggy dog] To gie them music was his charge: He screw'd the pipes and gart them skirl. [squeal] Till roof and rafters a' did dirl. [ring] Coffins stood round like open presses, That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses; And by some devilish cantraip sleight [magic trick] Each in its cauld hand held a light, By which heroic Tam was able To note upon the haly table [holy] A murderer's banes in gibbet-airns; [-irons] Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen'd bairns; A thief new-cutted frae the rape— Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape; ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... of the pre-Socratic philosophy, to whose ancient sages thought had still presented itself with sensuous vividness. The researches of physical science—which, suitably treated, afford even now so excellent a handle for mystic delusion and pious sleight of hand, and in antiquity with its more defective insight into physical laws lent themselves still more easily to such objects—played in this case, as may readily be conceived, a considerable part. His theology was based essentially on that strange medley, in which Greeks ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... of Mansoul, and he wisely observed their doings. My Lord Mayor, my Lord Willbewill, and Mr. Recorder were also all taken with the words of this tattling Diabolonian gentleman, forgetting that their Prince had given them warning before to take heed that they were not beguiled with any Diabolonian sleight; he had further told them that the security of the now flourishing town of Mansoul did not so much lie in her present fortifications and force, as in her so using of what she had, as might oblige her Emmanuel ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... at Myrtlewood was a battle-field, of which Alison used to carry her sister amusing and characteristic sketches. The two leading players were Miss Keith and Mr. Touchett, who alone had any idea of tactics; but what she did by intuition, sleight of hand or experience, he effected by calculation and generalship, and even when Conrade claimed the command of his own side, the suggestions of the curate really guided the party. Conrade was a sort of Murat on the croquet field, bold, dashing, often making wonderful hits, but uncertain, ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sleight-of-hand Irene suited the deed to the word, for a cold frog of enormous size suddenly began to crawl along Rosamund's neck. Rosamund suppressed a shudder, for she would not for the world show the girl that she loathed ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... way, where's the dagger she produced with such lightning sleight-of-hand last night?" Anstice put the question casually as he turned towards the door. "It would not be wise to leave it about, in case she felt ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... liberty that may be, I will not be far off though, nor I will not be jealous, Nor trust too much, I think she is vertuous, Yet when I hold her best, she's but a Woman, As full of frailty as of faith, a poor sleight Woman, And her best thoughts, but weak fortifications, There may be a Mine wrought: Well, let 'em work then, I shall meet with it, till the signs be monstrous, And stick upon my head, I will not believe it, [Stands private. She may be, and ...
— The Little French Lawyer - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont
... Carminatti was doing sleight-of-hand to entertain the ladies. Afterwards the Neapolitan was seen pursuing the Marchesa Sciacca and the two San Martino girls in the corridors. They shrieked shrilly when he grabbed them around the waist. The devil of a Neapolitan ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... squire, "gone! Why, the villains can't (for my part, I never believe, though I have heard such wonders of, those sleight of ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... aside the inky napkin which he had pulled out of his desk expecting an upset, and prepared for the worst. A note was dashed off in two minutes,—signed, sealed, addressed, in half a minute, and Mr Sudberry leaped off his stool. His hat was thrown on his head by a species of sleight of hand, and he appeared in the outer office ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... love Ishi as a brother, and he looked upon me as one of his people. He called me Ku wi, or Medicine Man; more, perhaps, because I could perform little sleight of hand tricks, than because ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... though he had been absent from his boyhood. In addition to the dancing, the billiards, and the bowling, one of the gentlemen of the party was an elocutionist, and gave several "readings" in the parlor. A celebrated writing-master, who was a guest at the hotel, gave an exhibition of his sleight of hand tricks, in which he was almost as skillful as in the use of his pen. At the end of the third day it was voted that, in spite of the weather, the party had enjoyed themselves to the utmost. Mr. Bennington and Leopold were unremitting in ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... Spring was one of those four fountains rare, Of those in France produced by Merlin's sleight, Encompassed round about with marble fair, Shining and polished, and than milk more white. There in the stones choice figures chiseled were, By that magician's god-like labour dight; Some voice was wanting, these you might have ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... tiers of seats; we need not call to mind that this place is sometimes the scene for the foolery of the mime, the dialogue of comedy, the sonorous rant of tragedy, the perilous antics of the rope-walker, the juggler's sleight of hand, the gesticulation of the dancer, with all the tricks of their respective arts that are displayed before the people by other artists. All these considerations may be put on one side; all that we need consider is this, the discourse of the orator and the reasons for the presence ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... a sword, and along a level string, and the like;—the father performing in the presence of his two children, who encouraged him continually with short, sharp cries, like those of animals. Then there was some fairly good sleight-of-hand juggling of little interest; ending with a dance by the juggler, first as an animal, and then as a goblin, Now, there was this great difference between the Japanese masks used in this dance and our common pantomime ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... the honey-bee reminds me that the subtle and sleight-of-hand manner in which she fills her baskets with pollen and propolis is characteristic of much of Nature's doings. See the bee going from flower to flower with the golden pellets on her thighs, ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... to be recompensed for his services; but he found a cold reception at the Treasury. He had gone down to Lancashire chiefly in order that he might, under the protection of a search warrant, pilfer trinkets and broad pieces from secret drawers. His sleight of hand however had not altogether escaped the observation of his companions. They discovered that he had made free with the communion plate of the Popish families, whose private hoards he had assisted in ransacking. When ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... have made us think we know the whole road, in spite of his having almost ostentatiously blindfolded us at every step in the journey. The 'Origin of Species' would thus prove to be no less a piece of intellectual sleight-of-hand than ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... are simply hemispheres of sheet-brass, and fitted closely over the eyeballs, beneath the lids. The conjurer's eyes water visibly after the brass covers are removed; and well enough they might; there is no sleight-of-hand about this—it is ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... and gentlemen. Amuses old and young; *The Album Writer's Friend*, 275 select Autograph Album Verses, in prose and verse, (new); *50 Choice Conundrums or Riddles*, with answers, (new); *13 Magical Experiments*, astonishing, including Mind Reading, Sleight of Hand Tricks, &c., Chemical Processes, Optical Illusions; *11 Parlor Games*; *Magic Music*; Order of the *Whistle and Game of* Letters. We guarantee package is worth ten times the amount we ask for it. It is the best collection of Games, etc., ever offered ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... but it is none the less a dishonourable imputation on me, and you in your turn must confess that those who think that I won by sleight of hand, or by an agreement with a ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... If by sleight of hand, or nimbleness of foot, all these wonders can be performed, he that shall neglect to attain the free use of his limbs may be justly censured as criminally lazy. But I am afraid that no specimen of such effects will easily be shown. If ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... clustered here, and its fleets perform their tactics. There was nothing mean in Nature's mood when she planned the harbor of New York. And, after all that mellow time and consecrating tradition, the traveller's enthusiasm, the poet's fancy, and the painter's sleight have done for the beauties of the Bosphorus, the Bay of Naples, the harbor of Rhodes, and other "fine old ports" and "gems of the first water," I know of few more picturesque effects, whether of color or of grouping, than that which the North-River ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... and to try anther place, where odd jobs were found for the man, and where the woman made friends in private families, for whom she did a little sewing. But it was too late for the man; his privations had destroyed his sleight of hand, though he knew it not; the fine workman was gone. He took painters' paralysis, and very often when work was offered his hand would drop before he could begin it; then the long years of tramping about had made him restless; from time to time he was fain to borrow ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... cried, "did you tell Uncle Neb to wait with the sleight? Those sleigh-bells are beginning ...
— Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration • Leona Dalrymple
... allegiance would be transferred to some new claimant of occult powers, and the breaking of the monopoly of magic would be followed by a temporary lightening of the burdens. Some of the most lurid of Alaskan legends deal with the thaumaturgic contests of rival medicine-men, and one judges that sleight of hand and even hypnotic suggestion were cultivated to a ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... hopes that he will be thought to have disputed civilly and Modestly enough for one that was to play the Antagonist and the Sceptick. And if he any where seem to sleight his Adversaries Tenents and Arguments, he is willing to have it look'd upon as what he was induc'd to, not so much by his Opinion of them, as the Examples of Themistius and Philoponus, and the custom of such ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... else's, too—to hear the peculiar bugle-call which announces that another competitor is about to enter the lists! There was a mystery here; I couldn't account for this thing. Next, I noticed Merlin gliding away from me; and then I noticed that my lasso was gone! The old sleight-of-hand expert had stolen it, sure, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain |
