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Conjuring   Listen
noun
conjuring  n.  Invoking a spirit or devil. See conjure, v..






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Conjuring" Quotes from Famous Books



... after which, to amuse their unexpected visitant, they shewed forth their night diversions in music and dancing; likewise the means by which they obtained their livelihood, such as tinkering, fortune-telling, and conjuring. That the narrator might be satisfied whether he had obtained their confidence or not, he represented his dangerous situation, in the midst of which, they all with one voice cried, 'Sir, we would kiss your feet, rather than hurt you!' ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb

... guile; fraudulence, fraudulency^; covin^; knavery &c (cunning) 702; misrepresentation &c (falsehood) 544; bluff; straw-bail, straw bid [U.S.]; spoof [Slang]. delusion, gullery^; juggling, jugglery^; slight of hand, legerdemain; prestigiation^, prestidigitation; magic &c 992; conjuring, conjuration; hocus-pocus, escamoterie^, jockeyship^; trickery, coggery^, chicanery; supercherie^, cozenage^, circumvention, ingannation^, collusion; treachery &c 940; practical joke. trick, cheat, wile, blind, feint, plant, bubble, fetch, catch, chicane, juggle, reach, hocus, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... was competition to meet. A great deal of competition, for counter-attractions were being offered in all directions. Thus, "Professor" Anderson was conjuring rabbits out of borrowed top hats; Thackeray was lecturing on "The English Humourists"; Macready was bellowing and posturing in Shakespeare; General Tom Thumb was exhibiting his lack of inches; and Mrs. Bloomer was advancing ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... believe it all," Aurora said. "It is a dream I have been conjuring up." She withdrew from him. "Stay here, vision of a soldier. Do not stir. I am going to get my reason back." She turned, and walked slowly away the length of the room. "He is not here: it was a dream," she said, then turned again, uttered a sweet cry of joy, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various

... in the style of the "Greek Slave." "Elegant Extracts," and the British Poets as edited by Gilfillan. Corkscrew Curls and Prunella Boots. Album Verses. Quadrille-dancing, and the Deux-temps. Popular Science. Proposals on the bended Knee. Conjuring and Variety Entertainments. The Sentimental Ballad. ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... carefully composed and diplomatic creed, is to so disguise truth that it shall be no more recognisable. Myself, I believe the Jesuits to be the lineal descendants of those priests who served Bel and the Dragon. The art of conjuring and deception is in their very blood. It is for the Jesuits that I have invented a beautiful new verb,—'To hypocrise.' It sounds well. Here is the present tense,—'I hypocrise, Thou hypocrisest, ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... Proctor paid for his temporary absence. All-Souls was not the Elysium it had been before that brief disastrous voyage into the world. The good man felt the stings of failure; he felt the mild jokes of his brethren in those Elysian fields. He could not help conjuring up to himself visions of Morgan with his new wife in that pretty rectory. Life, after all, did not consist of books, nor were Greek verbs essential to happiness. The strong emotion into which his own failure ...
— The Rector • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... Yours, for instance, looks for all the world like a tablet of curious hieroglyphics in a gold frame. But don't go and lay this to your eyes. You always wrote hieroglyphically, yet not to come up to the mystical notations and conjuring characters of Dr. Parr. You never wrote what I call a schoolmaster's hand, like Clarke; nor a woman's hand, like Southey; nor a missal hand, like Porson; nor an all-of-the-wrong-side-sloping hand, like Miss Hayes; nor a dogmatic, Mede-and-Persian, peremptory hand, like ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... in a sheltered corner, and perhaps forty winks until tea-time—surely a much more sensible proceeding than to stand there, idly conjuring up phantoms of affright. ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... replied, "O accursed woman, had he been a god he had defended himself!" Quoth she, "Stroke me and I will forgive thee all thou hast done." But he replied, saying, "I will do nought of this." And she said, "By the virtue of my faith, I will torture thee with grievous torture!" So she took water and conjuring over it, sprinkled it upon him and he became an ape. And she used to feed and water and keep him in a (loses, appointing one to care for him; and in this plight he abode two years. Then she called him to her one day and said to him, "Wilt thou hearken to me?" ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... they a poor pittance wherewithal to purchase some little comfort or luxury, or ornament to their persons; for vanity had not forsaken some in their rusty squalor, and they sought to please her, their mistress or their bride. There you saw accomplished men conjuring before their eyes, on the paper or the canvass, to feed the longings of their souls, the lights and the shadows of the dear days that far away were beautifying some sacred spot of "la belle France"—perhaps some festal ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... want of a conjuring conference, of all persons in the world, with poor little Mrs. Nutter? Mrs. Mack had done in this respect simply as she was bid. She had indeed no difficulty to persuade Mrs. Nutter to grant the interview. That harmless little giggling creature could not resist the mere mention of a fortune-teller. ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... to this Herod's last appearance in Scripture, we get further lessons. He desired to see Jesus that he might see a miracle done to amuse him, like a conjuring trick. Convictions and terrors had faded from his frivolous soul. He has forgotten that he once thought Jesus to be John come again. He sees Christ, and sees nothing in Him; and Christ says nothing to Herod, because He knew it ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... of the visit, Wilhelmina admits, her Brother was a little kinder. But on the fourth day there came, by estafette, a Letter from the Queen, conjuring him to return without delay, the King growing worse and worse. Wilhelmina, who loved her Father, and whose outlooks in case of his decease appeared to be so little flattering, was overwhelmed with sorrow. Of her Brother, however, she strove to forget ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... the world ignored the matter entirely. In general, the press, editorially, wrote in a humorous vein, conjuring up many ridiculous possibilities of what was about to happen. The public followed this lead. It was amused, interested to a degree; but, as a mass, ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings

... as is his wont, a lesson of genuine wisdom in his lay. Being at dinner, he overthrows the salt, and, looking round the room, discovers that he is the thirteenth guest. While he is mourning his unhappy fate, and conjuring up visions of disease and suffering and the grave, he is suddenly startled by the apparition of Death herself, not in the shape of a grim foe, with skeleton-ribs and menacing dart, but of an angel of light, who shews the folly of tormenting ourselves with the dread of her approach, when she is ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... finished his lay, wrote it off and gave it to the damsel, conjuring her to present ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... other genius, Lord Byron had the magic power of conjuring up before our imagination the ideal image of his subject. He was not at all perplexed how to clothe his ideas. That quality, so sought after by other writers, and so necessary for hiding faults, was quite natural to him. When he describes women, a few rapid strokes ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... already appeared in the public journals. As in the battles of ancient times, the shades of the departed were sometimes seen among the combatants, so I thought I might manage to remedy the thinness of my ranks, by conjuring up a few dead and forgotten ephemerons ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... London, in proof whereof he declaimed to the amazed Master Vallance many flowing periods from Beaumont, Fletcher, Massinger, and their kind—mental fireworks that bedazzled the innkeeper. Of his voyages, indeed, he spoke more vaguely if not more sparingly, conjuring up gorgeous visions to the landlord of pampas and palm-lands, where gold and beauty forever answered to the ready hand. But Master Halfman, for his part volubly indistinct and without seeming to interrogate at all, was soon in possession of ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... watching the players for some hours. The gypsies lost considerably, and I saw clearly that the jockeys were cheating them most confoundedly. I therefore once more called Mr. Petulengro aside, and told him that the jockeys were cheating him, conjuring him to return to the encampment. Mr. Petulengro, who was by this time somewhat the worse for liquor, now fell into a passion, swore several oaths, and asking me who had made me a Moses over him and his brethren, told me to return to the encampment ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... was one never to be forgotten by Leland. The pain of his wound, and the still greater pain of his thoughts, prevented a moment's sleep. Hour after hour he gazed into the smoldering embers before him, buried in deep meditation, and conjuring up fantastic figures in the glowing coals. Then he watched the few stars which were twinkling through the branches overhead, and the sighing of the solemn night-wind made music that chorded with the feelings of ...
— The Ranger - or The Fugitives of the Border • Edward S. Ellis

... less diligent to guard against the danger of having the new forms of worship, now practised at Wittenberg, made into a law for all evangelical brethren without distinction. He gave an account and estimate of them in the form of a letter to his friend Hausmann, the priest at Zwickau, 'conjuring' his readers 'from his very heart, for Christ's sake,' that if anyone saw plainly a better way in these matters, he should make it known. No one, he declared, durst condemn or despise different forms practised by others. Outward customs and ceremonies were, indeed, indispensable, ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... the accountant's wicket and poked the ball of money at him with a quick convulsive movement as if I were doing a conjuring trick. ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock

... exists between the ruins of Pompeii and the historic fragments of Rome or Athens. When we gaze upon the well-known sites of the vanished glories of the Palatine or the Acropolis, we experience no effort in looking backward through the vista of the past and in conjuring up some vague representation of the scenes that were once enacted in these places; the more imaginative feel the very air vibrating with the unseen spirits of men and women famous in the world's history. He must be indeed a Philistine or a dullard who cannot contrive to arouse a passing exaltation ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... Eligi uttered a frightful inprecation, and hastily reloaded his rifle; but, struck by the calm confidence of the young man, who stood motionless before him, and by the old man, who, impassive and undisturbed, seemed to be conjuring God in the name of a father's authority, disconcerted by his fall, his knees shaking and his arm jarred, he felt the chills of death running in his veins. Attempting, nevertheless, to master his emotion, he took aim a second ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - NISIDA—1825 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... after that time (just as the family were going to bed) they came up to the doors of the house, and rapping violently, gave the alarm of fire, conjuring all the inhabitants to make their way out immediately, as they ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald

... MacWilliams. "Put 'em on, put 'em all on. Give the girls a treat. Everybody will think they were given for feats of swimming, anyway; but they will show up well from the front. Now, then, you look like a drum-major or a conjuring chap." ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... guessed the reason why she was so flushed and excited. They were standing just then in the center of the great dining-room, with its massive furniture of black mahogany, and she was saying that it ought to be papered in dark red, and was conjuring up the effect to herself. "Something rich, you know, to set off the ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair

... I said, as the Indians darted away and began to creep out and around the vague and moving group of shadows. And as we sped forward I whispered brokenly my instructions, conjuring her to obey. ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... were fifteen or twenty miles from my house, nearly twice that from their homes, but the world, itself, seemed very remote from us. We reveled in a new luxurious world of rare deeds, rare dreams all our own. I was conjuring up some new argument to put before Helena should I ever see her again—as of course I never should—when Lafitte rolled over on the grass and looked ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough

... recognized no more obligation of good fellowship toward them than he would have done toward a company of ground-hogs. He lay back, one fine and nervous hand across his eyes, trying to obliterate the image of the saloon and all its inmates by conjuring up a vision of the world he had left, the winsome young cosmopolitan Paris of the art student. The streets, the cafes, the studios; his few men, his many women, friends—Adolph Jensen, the kindly Swede who loved ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... I went about my own business," I said, conjuring up a smile, although it must have been a dreary one, "and ceased to interfere with the affairs of other people. Good-by, Isobel. Anything I can do, you know you may command. Good-by, Coverly. I am deeply ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer

... with their quick eyes. One of them shut the door, leaving Savage on this side of it as though they meant him to be present. Then they walked towards us, each of them carrying an ornamental basket made apparently of split reeds, that contained doubtless their conjuring outfit and probably the snake which Savage had found in his pocket. To my surprise they came straight to me, and, having set down the baskets, lifted their hands above their heads, as a person about to dive might do, and bowed till the points of their fingers touched the floor. ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard

... indisposed to face the obloquy, if it must be so, and that all depended upon the conduct of the Lords, and upon their affording the Government a decent pretext for taking the Bill. I asked how. He said that what he thought of was this—earnestly conjuring me not to commit him and his friends by saying he had suggested any such thing (which satisfied me that it was not only his own idea, but that of others also belonging to the Government)—that last year the Lords had thrown out the Bill, because the appropriation clause being a money clause, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... for whom Fate had such dreadful visitations in store. Fancy the party, in the days of their prosperity, here gathered at Trianon, and seated under the tall poplars by the lake, discoursing familiarly together: suppose, of a sudden, some conjuring Cagliostro of the time is introduced among them, and foretells to them the woes ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... are too much inclined to look backward instead of forward, to idealize the far past rather than to illuminate the future, and to delineate the deformities of national character produced by ages of repression, rather than to aid in conjuring into being a virile, ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... first spoken of, but at some comic reminiscence of them, a moment afterwards, she was smiling through her tears. 'Do you remember so-and-so?' and 'What has become of such-a-one?' were types of the questions they asked each other, conjuring up old friends and enemies like ghosts out of the past. Incidentally, he had described Porto Rico and its negroes and its Spaniards, its climate, its fauna and ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland

... so," said John Howland, doubtfully, "but 't is as likely they mistook him for a devil. It once befell that some Indians, finding a negro astray in the forest, were minded to destroy him by conjuring, thinking him a demon. To be sure 't is but a year since the Narragansetts helped the English destroy the Pequot stronghold, and the few Pequots who were neither killed nor sold they still hold in subjection. Whatever their idea, it bodes no good either to Zeb or to us, ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... finished the note he was writing; at which Li Tee, as if struck by some coincident recollection, lifted up his long sleeve, which served him as a pocket, and carelessly shook out a letter on the table like a conjuring trick. The Editor, with a reproachful glance at him, opened it. It was only the ordinary request of an agricultural subscriber—one Johnson—that the Editor would "notice" a giant radish grown by the subscriber and ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte

... afflicted; from strife, sorrow and starvation which surround you; close your eyes and hands upon them; shut out from your thoughts and feelings the human misery which is real, tangible, and within your reach, to indulge your morbid imagination in conjuring up woes and wants among a strange people in distant lands, and offering them succor in the shape of costless denunciations of their best friends, or by scattering among them "firebrands, arrows and death." Such folly and madness, such wild mockery and base imposture, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... contention, however, that they were the first to fire, has the testimony of every eye-witness on the side of the volunteers against it. All the Garibaldian bugles sounded 'Cease firing,' and Garibaldi walked down in front of the ranks conjuring the men to obey. While he was thus employed, a spent ball struck his thigh, and a bullet entered his right foot. At first he remained standing, and repeated, 'Do not fire,' but he was obliged to sit down, and some of his officers carried him under a tree. The whole 'feat of arms,' ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... the attempt...." Her words trailed through my mind, conjuring up some adventure, some ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold

... aloud, and conjuring him to hear her, ran after him; he paid her no regard, but, flying faster than she had power to pursue, reached his own dressing-room, shut himself into it with violence, and just as she arrived at the door, turned the ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney

... these niches are white paper panels; the standing shelves and inside partitions, consisting of light woodwork, are put together almost too finically and too ingeniously, giving rise to suspicions of secret drawers and conjuring tricks. We put there only things without any value, having a vague feeling that the cupboards ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... listening for some sound to indicate the presence of a human being, but hearing nothing, longing intensely the while for some breakfast; and just as he was conjuring up visions of a country-house meal, with hot bread, delicious butter, and yellow cream, he detected in the distance the cooking of home-made bacon, and as if to add poignancy to the keen edge of his hunger, a hen began loudly to announce that somewhere or other ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn

... missionaries the Cayuse Indians and Nez-Perces occupied the elbow of the Columbia, and the region of the musical names of the Wallula, the Walla Walla, and Wauelaptu. They were a superstitious, fierce, and revengful race. They fully believed in witchcraft or conjuring, and in the power to work evil through familiar spirits. Everything to them and the neighboring tribes had its good or evil spirit, or both—the mountains, the rivers, the forest, the sighing ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth

... between our city and the hush and peace of trees. Our streets are all treeless, and our great heave of masonry comes up to the very edge of our green oases. Even the smaller parks which fill but a block or two, when twilight enfolds them, blurring the harsher outlines and conjuring out the shadows, can captivate the senses. If you chance to wander in Brooklyn—which no self-respecting inhabitant of Manhattan permits himself to do except under compulsing!—you may come upon Fort Greene Park when the evening ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton

... most beautiful exhibition of lightning gun-pulling ever witnessed in the Southwest. As Sharp's pistol was being raised—and the act was really quicker than the eye could follow—a glittering .44 appeared as if by some conjuring trick in the right hand of Mr. Standifer, who, without a perceptible movement of his arm, shot Benton Sharp through the heart. It seems that the new Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics, and History has been an old-time Indian fighter and ranger for many years, which accounts for ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... more traces of the theology of the schools than the others. Eabani's speech, while conveying sentiments that thoroughly represent the popular beliefs of Babylonia, is couched in terms that give to the address the character of a formal declaration of doctrines. The conjuring up of the spirit of Eabani is also a feature that appears to be due to theological influences, and the whole episode of Gilgamesh's wandering from place to place seeking for information appears to be a 'doublet' suggested ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... seems very funny," replied his aunt; "but, like most conjuring tricks, I dare say the explanation would be very simple ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery

... better for being in the main subjective (to use the convenient word Mr. Ruskin is so angry with); for a young writer can only follow the German plan of conjuring things up "from the depths of his inward consciousness." The moment our author quits this sure ground, her touch becomes uncertain and her colors inharmonious. Character-painting is unessential to a romance, belonging as it does properly to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... his flexile and excitable fancy was conjuring up a thousand shapes along the transparent air, or upon those shadowy violet banks. He was not thinking, he was imagining. His genius reposed dreamily upon the calm, but exquisite sense of his happiness. Alice was not absolutely in his thoughts, but ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... found, and the pranks which the spirits are said to play on those who believe in them have been practised, with all their orthodox frolic, on certain converts to the system. Tables dance jigs, mysterious messages are received, and the conjuring celestials manifest their power by displacing household articles. The Coloram sect of the southern Luzon provinces has, it is estimated, over 50,000 adherents whose worship is a jumble of perverted Christian mysticism and idolatry. The Baibailanes of Negros are not entirely pagans; there ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... mourned the absence of his mightiest knight, and drove from his councils those false lords who, for malice and envy, had defamed him. These he outlawed for ever from his realm. The King wrote letters to Eliduc, conjuring him by the loving friendship that was once between them, and summoning him as a vassal is required of his lord, to hasten to his aid, in that his bitter need. When Eliduc heard these tidings they pressed heavily upon him, by reason of the grievous love he bore the dame. She, too, loved him ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France

... attested in its remarkable nomenclature. Consider its range in ancient, medieval and modern thought as shown in some of its definitions: Magic, sorcery, soothsaying, necromancy, astrology, wizardry, mysticism, occultism, and conjuring, of the early and middle ages; compacts with Satan, consorting with evil spirits, and familiarity with the Devil, of later times; all at last ripening into an epidemic demonopathy with its countless ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor

... Conjuring, &c. "If any of them had bound the spirit of gold by any charmes in cares, or in iron fetters, under the ground, they should, for their own soule's quiet (which, questionless, else would whine up and down,) not for the good ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare

... reckon: but that's according as he pleases the old Vulture: for, if he can find out what never an Injun Medicine has been able to do, it may be, the old chief will feed him up and make him his conjuror. They say, he's conjuring with the ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... that Wizzards are not so unwise as to do such things in the sight or hearing of others, but it is certain that they have very often been known to do so: How often have they been seen by others using Inchantments? Conjuring to raise Storms? And have been heard calling upon their Familiar Spirits? And have been known to use Spells and Charms? And to shew in a Glass or in a Shew-stone persons absent? And to reveal Secrets which could not be ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather

... exceptional faculty of diction led him to immoderate expressiveness, to immodest sweetness, to a jugglery, and prestidigitation, and conjuring of words, to transformations and transmutations of sound—if, I say, his extraordinary gift of diction brought him to this exaggeration of the manner, what a part does it not play in the matter of his poetry! So overweening a place does it take in this man's art ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell

... shows Ulrica in her cottage seated at a table conjuring Satan. A crowd of people are around her, amongst them Richard in disguise. A sailor Sylvan advances first to hear his fate, and while Ulrica is prophesying that better days await him, Richard slips a roll of gold with a scroll into Sylvan's pocket and ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... the evidence for the authenticity of our present Gospels for an avowedly dogmatic purpose. He believes in the dogma of the impossibility of the supernatural; he must, for this purpose, discredit the witness of the four, and he would fain do this by conjuring up the ghost of a defunct Gospel, a Gospel which turns out to be far more emphatic in its testimony to the supernatural and the dogmatic than any of the four existing ones, and so the author of this pretentious book ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler

... belief in them is not yet extinct, with no small degree of regard and affection. It may be that "the good folk" and the "peace-people" (sitchean) were so called that good intention might be compelled by the conjuring influence of a name, as well as to avoid giving offence by uttering real names, as if it were desired to exercise a magical influence by their use. Be that as it may, it is evident from Highland folk-tales that the fairies ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie

... humiliating and degrading trickery that is its sensational form. I only repeat what I said yesterday, that no lofty or educated mind could do anything but resent the idea of being subjugated to a mere material will, and being forced by that will to perform conjuring tricks in order that a small portion of the civilised world should gape, and gaze, and cry out 'How wonderful!' To deny that spirits exist, aye and work, would be to deny the very crudest faith ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)

... perpetual mystery to Andrew Lackaday. Prepimpin and he give them the newest things they can think of. After weeks and weeks of patient rehearsal, they bring a new trick to perfection. It is the clou of their performance for a week's engagement at the Paris Folies-Bergere. After a conjuring act, he retires. Comes on again immediately, Petit Patou, apparently seven foot high, in the green silk tights reaching to the arm-pit waist, a low frill round his neck, his hair up to a point, a perpetual ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... any sort of religious worship; though perhaps the muttering of the old man before he distributed the putrid blubber to his famished party, may be of this nature. Each family or tribe has a wizard or conjuring doctor, whose office we could never clearly ascertain. Jemmy believed in dreams, though not, as I have said, in the devil: I do not think that our Fuegians were much more superstitious than some of the ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... they can tell the way to the king's bedchamber, or wait by the mysterious door of Madame de Maintenon; or remember which prince had rooms opening out on to the Terrace near the Orangery, and which great family had apartments in the new wing. More than this, Saint-Simon has the art of conjuring up—often in a phrase or two—those curious intimate visions which seem to reveal the very soul of a place. How much more one knows about the extraordinary palace—how one feels the very pulse of the machine—when ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey

... little child. To him principle and party stood before all other things; and he could not be untrue to one any more than to the other. But the leaders of the Hunker wing did not take kindly to him. They could not forget that the Radical state officers, with whom he coincided in principle, in conjuring with his name in 1844 had defeated the renomination of Governor Bouck; and, though they might admit that his nomination practically elected Polk, by extracting the party from the mire of Texas annexation, they preferred, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... sarcasm and invective he was often exceedingly strong, and denounced with a power that made transgressors tremble; but the bent of his nature being kindly and tolerant of error, he took more pleasure in exciting the laugh, than in conjuring the spirit of censure ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... Moses! Your Miracles were but conjuring-tricks, your Prophecies lucky Hazards, and your Laws a Gallimaufry of ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey

... the meaning;—few, perhaps, do, beyond a feeling that they would like to lick the Russians, or to get the better of the Americans in a matter of fisheries or frontiers. But he invented a pseudo-patriotic conjuring phraseology which no one understood but which many admired. He was ambitious that it should be said of him that he was far-and-away the cleverest of his party. He knew himself to be clever. But he could only be far-and-away the ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... Franky seemed to have died for this. Franky, who had come crying to her one day because a school-fellow had laughed at the patch on this trousers: Franky who had begged so hard only a few hours before his death for a little box of conjuring tools like Willy Spratt's, which had to be denied him. Her little Franky crushed to death beneath the wheels of the Forcus carriage! In her heart the mother would have liked Deleah to reject the good things offered her by the ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann

... one's starting to run when he is afraid after night. There is probably no doubt that the running would relieve his fear providing he could do it and not picture the threatening something as pursuing him. But, with his imagination conjuring up dire images of frightful catastrophes at every step, all control is lost and fresh waves of terror surge over ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts

... "can they afford to dress their young women in silks and laces, and give both boys and girls an education? They must have some fairy talisman for conjuring wealth out of the rocks on which their ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai

... Avernus, her hair on her head stiff and erect, like the quills of the sea-hedge-hog, or the bristles of a hunted boar; and another, who is believed by all the neighbourhood to have the faculty of conjuring the stars and the moon down from heaven, contributes ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin

... habitually impelled to create them where he does not find them. To these qualities he has added a disposition to be affected more than other men by absent things as if they were present; an ability of conjuring up in himself passions, which are indeed far from being the same as those produced by real events, yet (especially in those parts of the general sympathy which are pleasing and delightful) do more nearly resemble the passions produced by real events, than anything which, from the ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... rest of the day I lived upon the memory of that morning, reciting to myself each word that she had uttered, conjuring up in memory the vision of her every look. And my absent-mindedness was visible to Fifanti when I came to my studies with him later. He grew more peevish with me than was habitual, dubbed me dunce and wooden-head, and commended the wisdom of those who had determined upon ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini

... it only a delusion of my own? Was my mind so steeped in the thought of that girl—was my heart so impressed by her beauty, that I could not look upon a fair woman's face without conjuring up her likeness in the pictured countenance? However this may be, I looked long and tenderly at the face which seemed to me to ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... circled Kilimanjaro and hunted in the foothills to the north of that mightiest of mountains as he had discovered that in the neighborhood of the armies there was no hunting at all. Some pleasure he derived through conjuring mental pictures from time to time of the German he had left in the branches of the lone tree at the bottom of the high-walled gulch in which was penned the starving lion. He could imagine the man's mental anguish as he became weakened from hunger and maddened by thirst, knowing that sooner or ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... she was ever conjuring up romances around her, and her life was spent in composing dramatic situations. These idle fancies disturbed my happiness. I, who longed to leave the world and society, in order to devote myself exclusively ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet

... However it gave me my cue; and, all things considered, I afterward performed to a miracle. Her own enthusiastic torrent swept all before it, and gave me time. She was in an ecstasy; reasoning, supplicating, conjuring, panting. I, her friends, the whole world must join her: and join her I did. It was the very relief of which hypocrisy stood in need. I entreated this straight-backed youth, stiff in determination, to condescend to lend a pitying ear to our petitions; to suffer ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... a little. I try to learn something different for them every time. The last time I learned to do conjuring tricks. They'd get tired of me if I didn't bring something new. I'm thinking of learning the penny whistle before ...
— John M. Synge: A Few Personal Recollections, with Biographical Notes • John Masefield

... for the reason that although his music is an evocation of past times, a conjuring up of the buried Muscovy, it is a glad and exuberant one. It has the tone neither of those visions of departed days inspired by yearnings for greener, happier ages, nor of those out of which there speaks, as there speaks out of the "Salammbo" of Flaubert, ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... was opened at Bristol. —But there is no end of such speculations. Facts are clear and incontrovertible. Whatever might have been the cause of his delay, it is not denied that he acknowledged this forgery to his friend Mr. Ruddall; conjuring him at the same time not to reveal the secret imparted to him. If this had been a mere frolick, what need of this earnest injunction of secrecy? —His friend scrupulously kept his word till the year ...
— Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley (1782) • Edmond Malone

... to a mountain, which appeared to be their place of rendezvous. Someone in the neighbourhood, bolder than the rest, having guarded himself with the sign of the cross, approached one of these armed men, conjuring him in the name of God, to declare the meaning of this army, and their design. The soldier or phantom replied, "We are not what you imagine; we are neither vain phantoms nor true soldiers, we are the spirits of those who were killed on this spot a long time ago. ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... sorrowful and heartrending complaints. My father, who always loved me most affectionately, tried every means to console me. I listened to him, but his words were without effect. I threw myself at his feet, in the attitude of prayer, conjuring him to let me return to Paris, and destroy the monster B——. 'No!' cried I; 'he has not gained Manon's heart; he may have seduced her by charms, or by drugs; he may have even brutally violated her. ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost

... finger on her lips, conjuring silence, then, clutching her silken skirts, she started up the iron ladder, reached the top, and, exerting all her strength, lifted the hinged scuttle ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers

... that he cannot live long; yet this man was the most enthusiastic of them all. His master tried to dissuade him from joining in the sport this year; but he broke forth into such pathetic entreaties, conjuring him "by the life of the Seorita," etc., that he could not withhold ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... blanched lips. And another, and another, and then silence; for Kenrick was now crouching at the cliff's foot furthest off from the swelling flood, with his eyes fixed motionless in a wild stare on its advancing line of foam. He was conjuring up before his imagination the time when those waves should have reached him; should have swept him away from the shelter of the shore, or risen above his lips; should have forced him again to struggle and swim, until his strength, already impaired ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... Dame Humphreys, who rushed abruptly into the house, lamenting that things should come to this pass, and conjuring his reverence not to think any of her family were concerned in it. It was with difficulty that her agitation permitted her to state, that a mob bent on mischief were coming to the rectory; whether the house or the life of ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... alchemy, and your algebra, Your minerals, vegetals, and animals, Your conjuring, cozening, and your dozen of trades, Could not relieve your corps with so much linen Would make you tinder, but to see a fire; I gave you countenance, credit for your coals, Your stills, your glasses, your materials; Built you a furnace, drew you customers, Advanced all your ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson

... little reached those who stood nearest the windows, while the rest, at the farther end of the prison, were totally excluded from all relief, and continued calling upon their friends for assistance, and conjuring them by all the tender ties of pity and affection. To those who were indulged it proved pernicious, for instead of allaying their thirst, it enraged their impatience for more. The confusion became general and horrid; all ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... atrocities recorded of Deputy Carrier and his noyades during the French Revolution were but the freaks of compassionate human beings. In Bolshevist Russia brutality assumed forms so monstrous that the modern man of the West shrinks from conjuring up a faint picture of them in imagination. Tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands were done to death in hellish ways by the orders of men and of women. Eyes were gouged out, ears hacked off, arms and ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... Mavis Pellington earnestly, and her request was echoed by nearly everyone present. Even those who were not open to conviction were perfectly willing to be entertained by an exhibition of amateur conjuring. ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... be much more wary of determining their children to the trade of Learning. And if some of undoubted knowledge and judgement, would offer their advice; and speak their hopes of a lad, about 13 or 14 years of age (which, I will assure you, Sir, may be done without conjuring!); and never omit to inquire, Whether his relations are able and willing to maintain him seven years at the University, or see some certain way of being continued there so long, by the help of friends or others, as also upon no such conditions as shall, in likelihood, deprive him of ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... say so, Carmina wants a little amusement." Mrs. Gallilee looked up from her book. Fearing that he might stop altogether if he took his time as usual, Mr. Gallilee proceeded in a hurry. "There's an afternoon performance of conjuring tricks; and, do you know, I really think I might take Carmina to see it. We shall be delighted if you will accompany us, my dear; and they do say—perhaps you have heard of it yourself?—that there's a good deal of science in this ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins

... the subjects: coats of arms, trophies of weapons, or allegories and half-obliterated love-scenes. It is curious to see these homely relics thus exposed in the street, conjuring up the peaceful soul of families gathered round the hearth. From over the wall, the air reaches me laden with hallowed fragrance. I picture the box-bordered walks on the ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc

... faults will see. Poets, like lovers, should be bold and dare, They spoil their business with an over care; And he, who servilely creeps after sense, Is safe, but ne'er will reach an excellence. Hence 'tis, our poet, in his conjuring, Allow'd his fancy the full scope and swing. But when a tyrant for his theme he had, He loosed the reins, and bid his muse run mad: And though he stumbles in a full career, 20 Yet rashness is a better fault than fear. He saw his way; but in so swift a pace, To choose the ground ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... Seventh), embezzling of goods committed by the master to the servant above the value of forty shillings (Ann. 17 of Henry the Eighth), carrying of horses or mares into Scotland (Ann. 23 of Henry Eight), sodomy and buggery (Ann. 25 of Henry the Eighth), conjuring, forgery, witchcraft, and digging up of crosses (Ann. 33 of Henry Eight), prophesying upon arms, cognisances, names, and badges (Ann. 33 of Henry Eight), casting of slanderous bills (Ann. 37, Henry Eight), wilful killing by poison (Ann. ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed

... If he wished to secure their attention and admiration, he should excel as a rifle shot and sportsman. If musical, he should play ' the Highland bagpipes. He should be clever as a conjurer, and be well provided with conjuring tricks, together with a magic lantern, magnetic battery, dissolving views, photographic apparatus, coloured pictorial illustrations, &c., &c. He should be a good surgeon and general doctor, &c.; and be well supplied with drugs, remembering that natives ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... begging bare-headed on one side of her palfrey, conjuring her by the former bonds of friendship, alliance, consanguinity, &c.—Cousin, aunt, sister, mother,—for virtue's sake, for your own, for mine, for Christ's ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... bear a son,) and not to any distant future time. It was that kind of prophesying that corresponds to what we call fortune-telling; such as casting nativities, predicting riches, fortunate or unfortunate marriages, conjuring for lost goods, etc.; and it is the fraud of the Christian church, not that of the Jews, and the ignorance and the superstition of modern, not that of ancient times, that elevated those poetical, musical, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... following morning Mr. Penrose set out to call on the old pastor at the house of Dr. Hale, conjuring up as he went pictures of the man whom he knew only by report, and, as he deemed, exaggerated report too. To Rehoboth people Mr. Morell was a prodigy—a veritable prophet of the Most High; and his successor's sojourn was not a little embittered by the ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather

... corruption. The gospels, in fact, stand alone. The Bible as a whole is not to be compared to them. Here we are among Jews: this is the first thing to be borne in mind if we are not to lose the thread of the matter. This positive genius for conjuring up a delusion of personal "holiness" unmatched anywhere else, either in books or by men; this elevation of fraud in word and attitude to the level of an art—all this is not an accident due to the chance talents of an individual, or to any violation of nature. The thing responsible ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche

... in Monzie, quha for her sorcerie and witchecraft was brunt fourscoir of yeir since or thereby." Spite of all he had done for the "bestiall," and all the testimonials he had from patients whom he had cured of their "seiknessis" by enchanted drinks, Glendovan and Mukhart mould, and sympathetic conjuring of "sarkis, coller bodies, beltis, and utheris pertaining als weill to men as to wemen," John was found guilty and condemned to be strangled and burned. These were the real Dark Ages, when intimations were frequently made from the Glendevon and other pulpits ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various

... afterward the same dismal howls repeated. To these, at no great distance, succeeded the shrill whistling signals. Our imaginations had been so highly wrought up that they were apt at horrible conjectures; and, for my part, my own was at that moment very busily employed in conjuring them up. ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... hazard deter me when the reward will be the privilege, the right to fold you in my arms? I am afraid of nothing that can result from making you my wife. Do not cloud my happiness by conjuring up spectres that only annoy you, that cannot for an instant influence me. Your hands are icy and you have no shawl. Let me take ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... every secret intrigue, or to trap birds or a white rabbit or twain; clear streams, most pleasant to fish in; rich, boundless plains, whereon to hunt the hare and fox. Along the street we could see them playing interludes, juggling and conjuring, singing lewd songs to the sound of the harp and ballads, and all manner of jesting. Men and women of handsome appearance danced and sang, and many came hither from the Street of Pride in order to be praised and worshipped. ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... an extent, forgot Peter. He tried to deaden within him the impulses which Yellow Bird's conjuring had roused. He tried to see in them a menace and a danger, and he repeated to himself the folly of placing credence in Yellow Bird's "medicine." But his efforts were futile, and he was honest enough to admit it. The ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood

... wetness of a mass of thick heather roots, which we added to it. We were in the possession of some raw venison;—do not open your eyes so, reader; it was most unromantically and honestly come by, being duly entered in the bill at worthy Mrs Clarke's inn, at Braemar. Having brought certain conjuring utensils with us, we proceeded to cook our food and make ourselves comfortable. Water was easily obtained in the neighbourhood, and being in possession of the other essential elements of conviviality, we resolved that, as the weather was determined ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... I do not find, and translate it as ahe[c]il, the practice of conjuring, or sorcery. But it is quite possibly for ahuitzil, dwellers in the sierra. The next line is corrupt, and I can only guess at the meaning. The date, Nov. 9, 1546, is correct, and the history here given of the insurrection of the natives at that time is substantially the same as is told ...
— The Maya Chronicles - Brinton's Library Of Aboriginal American Literature, Number 1 • Various



Words linked to "Conjuring" :   conjuring trick, conjury, magic, evocation, summoning, conjure, conjuration, invocation



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