"Seance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the evening, our party assembled for what, in foreign phrase, is called 'une seance magnetique.' Anna M——, our mesmerisee, was already with us. Mr K—— arrived soon after, and was introduced to his young patient, whose name we had purposely avoided mentioning to him in the morning; not that we feared imposition on either hand, but that we were determined, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... de la raison et de la fermete que le roi a mises dans cette rude seance."—Marie Antoinette to Joseph II., August 22d, 1785, ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... and "calinda"—and sinister spells were cast. Later the voudous went to more secluded spots on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain, and on St. John's Eve, which is their great occasion, many of the whites of the city used to go to the lake in hopes of discovering a voudou seance, and being allowed to see it. A friend of mine, who has seen several of these seances, says that they are unbelievably weird and horrible. They will make a gombo, put a snake in it, and then devour it, and they will wring a cat's neck and drink its blood. And of course, along with these ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... and let out a long cloud of smoke. It is not a little to his credit that he performed these rites with so much composure, for almost before he had begun them the table at which he sat had begun to revolve, first slowly, and then rapidly, as if at an insane seance. ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... former. Thus, telepathy being a power of the subjective mind, messages may be conveyed from one to another at any time, neither of the parties being objectively conscious of the fact. It follows that a telepathist at any following seance with the recipient can reach the ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... very next moment; contrasted the real madness the author has portrayed in the plays of Hamlet and Lear by the side of these extravagant imitations, to save, if possible, even dunces, and dreamers, and criticasters from being taken in by the latter; and at their next seance pitched into the doctor's pet chimera, and what with logic, fact, ridicule, and the author's lines, knocked it ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... the story of the fight in Devil's Canyon and how he had left Abe at Wolf Wells, Texas said: "Now Mr. Holmes, you just keep quiet right here. Barbara'll take care of you and we'll have Abe home before noon to-morrow. Also, we'll arrange for a little seance with them greasers what put you and ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... experience I have ever had, for it is a rather singular fact that, although I have seen many spontaneous phenomena in haunted houses, I have never seen anything resembling, in the slightest degree, a genuine spirit form, at a seance. Therefore, I repeat, I do not base my statement, as to the occasional materialisation of bona fide earth-bound spirits, on any of my experiences, but on those of "sitters" with whom I am intimately acquainted. What benefit can be derived ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... date a generation—that is thirty years—ago. As I read over this column recently I had quite a start as I saw my own name, and read the reprint of a letter which I had written in 1887, detailing some interesting spiritual experience which had occurred in a seance. Thus it is manifest that my interest in the subject is of some standing, and also, since it is only within the last year or two that I have finally declared myself to be satisfied with the evidence, that I have not been hasty in forming my opinion. If ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle
... play and development of character. In the Lysis and Charmides the youths are the central figures, and frequent allusions are made to the place of meeting, which is a palaestra. Here the place of meeting, which is also a palaestra, is quite forgotten, and the boys play a subordinate part. The seance is of old and elder men, of whom Socrates is ...
— Laches • Plato
... interrupted. "If someone else were to tell you that they had an East Indian yogi who was going to give a seance this very afternoon you would hotfoot it to the telephone to inform Trudy that you must break your engagement with her, and send word to your original hostess as well. That is about all your plans ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... decisively affirming it. For instance: towards the close of Act I Madame d'Aubenas has gone off, nominally to take the night train for Poitiers, in reality to pay a visit to her lover, M. de Stoudza. When she has gone, her husband and his guests arrange a seance and evoke a spirit. No sooner have preliminaries been settled than the spirit spells out the word "O-u-v-r-e-z." They open the window, and behold! the sky is red with a glare which proves to proceed from the burning of the train in which Madame d'Aubenas is supposed ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... for the spiritualist medium, the faith healer, and the mind curer. You will find there the most advanced emancipation from theological superstition combined in the most extraordinary way with a more than half belief in the incoherences of a spiritualistic seance. The Boston Christian Scientists have just erected a handsome stone church, with chime of bells, organ, and choir of the most approved ecclesiastical cut; and, greatest marvel of all, have actually had to return a surplus of $50,000 (L10,000) that was subscribed for its building. ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... for the seance had been made the Angakok's head was covered and in a few moments he began to utter untelligible exclamations, which were shortly punctuated by shouts and screams and ravings. He fell to the floor and seemed stricken with a fit, and Bob thought the man had gone stark mad. He ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... office in accord with the first number of his programme, and Steering got up, too. While Madeira shut up his desk, Steering threw away the stump of his cigar and brought his flexed arms back to his shoulders with an expansive pull on his chest that sent a big influx of air into his lungs. After his seance with Madeira he felt as though he had been pummelled down flat. Madeira had to open his desk again for something he had forgotten and Steering passed on to the door, impatient for some outside air. As he opened the door, with his eyes rather thoughtfully fixed upon the floor, he saw, ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... know? That's like a tradesman shutting up shop when he's made his fortune, or a prima donna going off the stage. It ain't so easy to make out, is it, how the Forno-Populo can retire from the world? She can't be going to take poison, like the great Sarah, and give us a grand dying seance in Lady Randolph's drawing-room. That would be going a bit too far, don't ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... merchants in the city and strangers and seacaptains and, as each came, enquired of him anent the city of Babel and its peninsula[FN391] and the garden of Iram; but none of them knew these places nor could any give him tidings thereof. However, when the seance broke up, one of them said, "O King of the Age, an thou be minded to ken this thing, up and hie thee to the land of China; for it hath a vast city[FN392] and a safe, wherein are store of rarities and things of price and folk of all kinds; and thou ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... silence. So it was with these rival spooks. They interfered, but they did not produce silence or darkness. On the contrary, as soon as Eliphalet and the officer went into the house, there began at once a series of spiritualistic manifestations, a regular dark seance. A tambourine was played upon, a bell was rung, and a flaming banjo went ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... gratitude, my oath of devotion!"—and next he proclaimed that there was nobody to surpass him in determined consecration "to the defence of order and to the establishment of the Republic." [Footnote: Seance du 26 Septembre 1848: Moniteur, 27 Septembre.] Good words these. Then again, when candidate for the Presidency, in a manifesto to the electors he gave another pledge, announcing that he "would devote himself altogether, without ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner
... of its—diagnosis; (we must have a fine word now and then!) Its action on the wing, is mere flutter or flirt, in and out of the hedge, or over it; but its manner of perch, or literally 'bien-seance,' is admirable matter of interest. So also in the birds which are on the water what these are on land; picking up anything anywhere; lazy and fortunate, mostly, themselves; fat, floating, daintiest darlings;—their balance on the ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... a wooden spoon dressed in clothes like a doll: this spoon had been carried to the grave of a dead man, and becoming inspired at full moon, in fact lunatic, it danced about convulsively, like a table or a hat at a modern spirit seance.'[1] Now M. Lefebure has pointed out (in 'Melusine') that, according to De Brosses, the African conjurers gave an appearance of independent motion to small objects, which were then accepted as fetishes, being visibly animated. M. Lefebure next compares, like ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... Navy in his first administration, equally rich and hospitable, had often "the road gang," as a certain group, mainly senators, was called, to dine, with the inevitable after-dinner soiree or seance. I was, when in Washington, invited to these parties. At one of them I chanced to sit between the President and Senator Don Cameron. Mr. Carlisle, at the time Speaker of the House—who handled his cards like a child and, as we ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... I want you to help me with. I know that Belle will want to make it a seance with relaxed robes and collapsed ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... anyone else. As they say of marriage, it's a lottery. They might have roulette, or a spiritual seance, or Kubelik, ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... its multitudes of slaughters, proceeds to the wilderness of Sinai; and there again, the Prophet Moses goes into a secret seance and finally announces that God had delivered laws to him, which had been issued from ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... seen, heard, felt, tasted. We want a reality above the traffic and deception of the senses. Vaguely, but insistently we feel the call to the life of the spirit, and when its definition eludes us, we prefer silence and faith. It is then that the familiar prattle of the seance-room offends us. We sought freedom, light, absolution from the trammels of personality, and we are told that the dead appear in bodies and clothes, that they toil and fret, that they inhabit houses ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... opened her mouth my wife recognized her as the person who has been trying for several months to get me on the telephone to tell me how the spirit of Jack London is seeking to communicate with me! The seance was a public one, a gathering composed, half of wealthy and cultured society-women, and half of confederates, people with the dialect and manners of a vaudeville troupe. A megaphone was set in the middle of the floor, the room was made dark, a couple of hymns were sung, and then the spirit of ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... suspended, and every thing, in the mean time, kept secret. The members, the next morning (the 20th) repairing to their house, as usual, found the doors shut and guarded, a proclamation posted up for a seance, royale on the 22nd, and a suspension of their meetings in the mean, time. Concluding that their dissolution was now to take place, they repaired to a building called the Jeu de paume (or Tennis court), and there bound themselves by ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... young Cain, ostracised from the studio during the seance, whistled in through the keyhole sympathetic inquiries concerning the only woe his little soul knew, "Watty matter in yare? Ennybuddy dut e tummuck-ache?" that they chorused with laughter at their ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... know how long the seance lasted," she continued; "some hours, I suppose, for it was dark when I again realised where I was. And after dinner, there was another; and then at midnight he led me to the roof and invoked what he called an astral benediction—a ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... continued to increase, and it became necessary to call for a detail of policemen to drive back the curious people. In the Mayor's office were Detectives Crim and McDermott with the Mayor and Chief of Police, who for nearly two hours held a seance with the accused men in their effort to reach the truth. The examination of Walling by the mayor was severe to a ...
— The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan - or: the Headless Horror. • Unknown
... sa troupe donnant des seances dans une petite ville se trouvaient par suite de mauvaises recettes reduits a la pile necessite. Le prestidigitateur alla trouver les autorites et proposa de donner une seance au benefice des pauvres, si la ville voulait consentir a payer la location de la salle, etc. L'amorce philanthropique fit son effet, la recette remplit la caisse et l'envoye de la Municipalite se presenta le lendemain ...
— French Conversation and Composition • Harry Vincent Wann
... coals burn with fierce heat: Al-Hariri (Vth Seance). This Artemisia is like the tamarisk but a smaller growth and is held to be a characteristic of the Arabian Desert. A Badawi always hails with pleasure the first sight of the Ghaza, after he has sojourned ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... consistently calm, businesslike, indifferent to all save to the work in hand. The soi-disant Ernest Berty spoke invariably in French, either dictating his orders or seeking information, and I made verbal translation into English of all that he said. The seance lasted close upon an hour, and presently I gathered that the affair was terminated and that I could ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... with thine eyes", says the youthful lover; but when the seance is over he goes out and orders ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... disturb me," he said, "I have only to tell the provost the truth. Members of the Imperial Police caught without proper uniform inside German lines are shot, seance tenante." ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... themselves, notwithstanding their horror of all luxury, hardly found its comforts sufficient for them. The Club Favie, with its paintings on the walls and its lustres, has a most aristocratic air in comparison with this new hall of democracy. To judge by its first seance, the Club Marseillaise promises well. Last night enough treasons were unveiled to make the fortune of most other clubs for a week at least. From the commencement of the war we have been in the meshes of a vast network of ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... Boult drew out his watch, the audience hushed itself, as for a conjuring seance. Mr Hambly passed a hand over his ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... that the quartet met regularly for their seance. Old Reinhardt, the violin teacher, was first violin and leader; Mr. Bauermeister (in everyday life a well-to-do wholesale plumber) was second violin; Professor Marshall played the viola, and old Professor Kennedy bent his fine, melancholy ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield |
