Page:Eothen, or, Traces of travel brought home from the East by Kinglake, Alexander William.djvu/99

 bright, wakeful eye of command—I have known all these surrender themselves to the really magic-like influence of other people's minds; their language at first is, that they are "staggered;" leading you by that expression to suppose that they had been witnesses to some phenomenon, which it was very difficult to account for, otherwise than by supernatural causes, but when 1 have questioned further, I have always found that these "staggering" wonders were not even specious enough to be looked upon as good "tricks." A man in England, who gained his whole livelihood as a conjuror, would soon be starved to death if he could perform no better miracles than those which are wrought with so much effect in Syria and Egypt; sometimes, no doubt, a magician will make a good hit (Sir Robert once said "a good thing"), but all such successes range, of course, under the head of mere "tentative miracles," as distinguished by the strong-brained Paley.