"Ventriloquism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... booked to arrive on Monday, had consented to come earlier, for the purpose of joining in the festivities, and would appear in the character of a humorist, and give some wonderful exhibitions of lightning changes of costume and ventriloquism. The uncertainty as to what might be expected certainly enhanced the pleasure of anticipation. Not a girl would have ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... Illustrations would be given of selfish schemes to take things easy at the expense of others, clownish processions to create laughter, or marriage ceremonies in which, when it came to the point, the bride rebelled and would not have her husband. Ventriloquism also was attempted, in which, as they say, "voices spoke ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... charming bird is a sad tease. 'There is no sound, whether made by bird or beast about him, that he cannot imitate so clearly as to deceive every one but himself. Very rarely can you find a mocking-bird without intelligence and mischief enough to appreciate his ventriloquism. In Sidney Lanier's college note-book was found written this reflection: "A poet is the mocking-bird of the spiritual universe. In him are collected all the individual songs of all individual natures." Later ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... would please the sick girl better. Once she made Maude laugh, as she took off little Billy, imitating his voice so perfectly that a person outside would have said he was in the room. Jerrie's talent for imitation and ventriloquism had not deserted her, although as she grew older, she did not so often practice it as when a child; but she brought it into full play now to amuse Maude, and imitated every individual of whom she spoke, except ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... was not a mechanical device within the image. It was not a clever piece of ventriloquism. Of this we are assured—the image actually spoke. God's word cannot lie, and John, under the command of God, wrote it down: "It was given the false Prophet to give spirit to the image of the Beast, that the image of the ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... answering hiss came from the vitals of the shipmaster, as if a snake were actually lurking there and had been aroused by the call of its brother reptile. If there were in fact any such sound, it might have been caused by a malicious exercise of ventriloquism on ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... him, and wished to make quite sure of its identity. His doubts were speedily dispelled, however; for the stout man having blown a thick cloud from his pipe, a hoarse voice, like some strange effort of ventriloquism, emerged from beneath the capacious shawls which muffled his throat and chest, and slowly uttered these ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... try to impose on me by such a story? It's that wretched little astrologer man. Ventriloquism and Conjuring always go together, and I'll be bound he's underneath the table now!... Well," she said, after she had satisfied herself by looking, "if he's not there, he's somewhere in ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... they asked for the Swede. No information forthcoming. 'What's in that bag?' asked the minions. 'Sleighbells,' replied the accomplices. The minion kicked the bag, and there came forth from under it the cry, 'Yingle! Yingle!' We know a Dutchman who is addicted to the same sort of ventriloquism." (Monterey Journal, ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... Dactylomancy^; by numbers, Arithmancy^; by drawing lots, Sortilege^; by passages in books, Stichomancy^; by the letters forming the name of the person, Onomancy^, Nomancy; by the features, Anthroposcopy^; by the mode of laughing, Geloscopy^; by ventriloquism, Gastromancy^; by walking in a circle, Gyromancy^; by dropping melted wax into water, Ceromancy^; by currents, Bletonism; by the color and ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... this world have been distributed fairly equally, and you may be sure that the young girl who has been born a ventriloquist very likely is totally unable to spell difficult words correctly or carry even a simple tune. Ventriloquism, by the way, is also passing out as a form of dinner party diversion, and it is no longer considered a priceless accomplishment to be able to make a dog bark or a baby cry ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... inflation. In the Greek it is [Greek: engastrimuthos], a ventriloquist. The text (1 Sam. ch. xxviii.) is a simple record of the facts, the solution of which the sacred historian leaves to the reader. I take it to have been a trick of ventriloquism, got up by the courtiers and friends of Saul, to prevent him, if possible, from hazarding an engagement with an army despondent and oppressed with bodings of defeat. Saul is not said to have seen Samuel; the ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... members of the 33rd degree, to say nothing of Misraim dignities. I submit, however, that the episode of the bottle would split the rock of Peter, that the absence of Signor Pessina for twenty minutes previous to the performance, eked out with a little ventriloquism, and some Pepper accessories would explain much, and that there is also another hypothesis which I will leave to the discernment of my readers, and to which I ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... presence the most masculine and robust voices make communications, even when her own mouth is covered. I have myself investigated the direct voice in the case of four different mediums, two of them amateurs, and can have no doubt of the reality of the voices, and that they are not the effect of ventriloquism. I was more struck by the failures than by the successes, and cannot easily forget the passionate pantings with which some entity strove hard to reveal his identity to me, but without success. One of these mediums was tested afterwards by having the mouth filled with coloured water, ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle
... may only make him bark by practising upon this fact. Tyrrell's private performance with the Adorned C. is one that irresistibly reminds the spectator of Lieutenant Cole's with his figures, and would scarcely be improved by ventriloquism itself. The Adorned C. prefers biting to barking, and his bite is worse than his bark—bites always are, except in the proverb. This is why Tyrrell holds the Adorned C. pretty tight whenever he touches him. The ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... stayed to listen. A general frantic rout ensued. The possibility of ventriloquism was unknown to their limited experience. All had heard the voice and those who had distinguished the words and their seeming source needed no argument. In either case the result was the same. Within ten minutes the grounds of the famous barbecue and bran dance were deserted. The cumbrous ...
— Una Of The Hill Country - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... were like children when he performed for them. They would be good if he would make one live chicken into two live ones by pulling it apart. They would pitch the tents without fighting if he would swallow a dozen eggs and produce them presently from under a camel's tail. If he would turn on his ventriloquism and make a camel say its prayers, they were willing to forgive—for the moment anyhow—even their ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... with every symptom of extreme gratification. "I am glad of that, for, to tell you the truth, I am a bit out of practice, and the idea did not occur to me until Inaguy mentioned the idol this afternoon. Then I thought that if, by means of ventriloquism, I could make the idol speak, it would cause our friends here to sit up and take notice, as it did. Ventriloquism, Dick, is a very useful accomplishment for a man who goes much among savages, as I have done, and it has got me out of an extremely ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... fact, they were? No; because Coleridge had blown upon these withered anatomies, through the blowpipe of his own creative genius, a stream of gas that swelled the tissue of their antediluvian wrinkles, forced colour upon their cheeks, and splendour upon their sodden eyes. Such a process of ventriloquism never has existed. He spoke by their organs. They were the tubes; and he forced through their wooden machinery his own ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various |
