Ludwig Tieck

“ Andrew muttered, and angrily drew back his chair a little; whereupon Conrad went on:
— Look you man, this art in many countries is not the only one, nor even the highest, profitable as it may be for discovering veins of metal, or even gold and silver. Of much greater weight however, and far more formidable are those who have a power in their eyes to do one an injury, and with a single glance can infect one with a disease, a fever, a jaundice, a fit of madness, or even look one dead. ”

“ Conrad gave the peasant a look of inexpressible contempt, and then turning with ambiguous courtesy to the strange miner, said:
— You are a man of experience and knowledge, as it seems; nevertheless your well-meant advice will hardly meet with acceptance here. For first the old man of the mountain will never have anything to do with sorcery and witchcraft, because he hates every kind of superstition, even that which is pious and unavoidable, much more then one of this sort, which he must needs hold to be utterly accurst. ”

“ When the Zahuri has been promoted from being an apprentice or pounding-lad, to be a brother, and then a master or mine-surveyor, he will seat himself on his chair in his room, here overhead in this inn, or wherever it may be, will think of the warehouse of our old man of the mountain, or of the London docks, or of some place down in Spain where he knows that some banker, jeweller, or ship-master has valuable goods in his hands, and so soon as ever he thinks of them with his eyes, he has them before him, and nobody knows of it or can hinder it. ”

“ That is matter of surprise to me, continued the old miner with the most perfect gravity: for since you come from Hungary, and probably were born there, where you have such a sight of vampires, or blood-sucking corpses, such swarms of goblins and manikins of the mountains, dwarfs and subterraneous creatures, that will often come across you even by broad daylight, I fancied everything belonging to witchcraft must be in high vogue there and generally notorious. ”

“ The solid earth is alive, but in a different manner; and when it happens to draw in its breath, when the old giant yawns and stretches his tired limbs, and tries to arrange them more comfortably, you are all aghast, and set up a howl about earthquakes, while your walled hovels are running after you for variety's sake, and your towers are tumbling into your pockets and slippers. ”

“ I am determined too to die a man of honour, as I have grown old, without ever setting foot under their thatch roofs, or on their threshing-floors; I have preserved myself four and fifty years from this disgrace, and heaven will continue to guard me from it while I live. ”

“ O my good friend, with your leave, ever since the creation, or at all events ever since the deluge, the mountains, and stones, and rocks, and metals, and gems, have been lockt up in their houses and never gadded abroad. We dig and delve in here at top, and hardly get even at deepest below the upper skin of the warts, as the mountains are in comparison to the whole earth, much such a part as a nail-paring is of a man. ”

“ Now should there be a man of this class living here, in the neighbourhood, or even in America, and he took a fancy to rob the warehouse, you will easily understand, with your unassisted reason, that then your peeled and boiled twigs would be of just as much avail, as a basin of well-made water gruel to cure an earthquake. ”

“ Look you, my good stranger, when he has thus reacht the highest degree, he will set himself down before a dish of baked meat, while it is still standing in the oven covered up and shut down, and without anybody being able to observe him will with his mere eyes devour you a goose, or a hare, or whatever it may be, swallowing it up so clean and neat, that, if he chooses, not a bone will be left. ”

“ If life and growth, and the workings by which life is propagated and multiplied, can ever come to a standstill, then in your own realm too, in the places where you fancy you see life, it is a sheer illusion and cheat. ”

“ By these hints the curiosity of some peasants who happened to be present, having come with corn from the plain several miles off to this town high up among the mountains, was vehemently aroused. Conrad, who lookt upon himself as the wisest person in the company, became grave and monosyllabic, waiting to hear what this new device or scheme for detecting the thief, would end in.
— You must lay a charm, said the stranger, which the thief, when he has once set foot within it, will not be able to escape from; and so, as soon as the sun rises, you are sure to find him. ”

“ Just as if a tailor, who had a coat to make, were to keep on prating about nothing but wool, and merino sheep! To such a pitch have people already brought matters, that they can't look at anything as what it is, but search out some great big generality to which they may tie it and slay it and embowel it. ”

“ Place some nuts before him or melons, he will eat up all the kernel or pulp out of them, without making even a single scratch on the shell or rind, but leaving them undamaged just as if everything was still within. He has had a good meal; nobody can prove, or even suspect what he has done; and others have nothing left them but a fruitless search.
— The devil again! cried Andrew; that's the trick I should like, if I could learn the art.
— An artist of this sort, continued the old miner, may however ascend a great deal higher ”

“ Eleazar too grew highly indignant, when he heard that the robberies had been continued during his absence with the greatest impudence; and as he could not justly charge Edward with any negligence or supineness, this first conversation between them, little as they had ever been disposed to agree, took a tone of still more bitterness than usual. As soon as his hateful companion was gone, Edward determined to do what he now could not help regarding as his indispensable duty, by speaking more seriously than ever to Herr Balthasar on this subject. ”

“ In Spain, replied the stranger, there are said to be men, who without the help of a divining-rod can find out treasures and metals with their bodily eyes, even though they should be lying ever so deep under rocks or forests. ”

“ Gold not only grows as a mineral, but even as a plant. However I know a still better story. Once upon a time, when the weather was very damp, a man dropt some ducats in the rocky ground at a short distance from Cremnitz. ”

“ Stones rest in themselves; vegetables feed on light and warmth and moisture, and transform the particles of the earth they stand on into means of growth and enlargement. Then animals start off and break loose from the elements ”

“ The learning the art indeed must probably cost some trouble; and this no doubt is why so very few seem to reach any mastery in it.
— All that you have been telling me, answered the traveller, is mighty strange ”

“ The better and godlier part of these persons hence always of their own accord wear a bandage before one of their eyes — for this power will often exist only on one side — so that they may walk about and deal with their neighbours, without harming them. ”