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'You ought not to lose faith in the lamp, answered the Master, 'for it gives you all you have, and all you are. And you ought not to leave Abra, for Abra only is Abracadabra. And you ought not to light a lamp of your own, for it would lead you into darkness. 'Is that all? asked Calladon.
The words, or sounds, let us say, which the necromancer was uttering, only sounded but too much like "hokey-pokey kickeraboo abracadabra," and the rest of the mysterious sounds with which the conjurer at juvenile parties seeks to invest his performance with additional wonder, for the benefit of his youthful audience. Dick was in a rage. "Confound his impudence," he exclaimed; "I'll give him one."
"In no land," says Tobias Cohn, "is the practice of summoning up devils and spirits by means of the Cabbalistic abracadabra so prevalent, and the belief in dreams and visions so strong, as in Poland." All this, though it strengthened religious fervor in some, undermined it in others. Sects came into being, struggled, and, having brought added misery upon their followers, disappeared.
Willis says that charms resisting agues have often been applied to the wrist with success. ABRACADABRA, written in a peculiar manner, that is, in the form of a cone, it is said, has cured the ague; the herb lunaria, gathered by moon-light, has, on some high authorities, performed surprising cures.
These illusions were merely mechanical devices such as the mysterious opening and shutting of doors on the sound of a certain word like "Abracadabra." These devices can be duplicated by our skilful mechanics, but would not be worth very much these enlightened days as a lucrative investment.
Then Hans was frightened, for he thought, 'What shall I do with two roast geese at once? and he shouted loudly, 'Little mill, stop grinding, Abracadabra, and the mill stopped, and the other goose, which had only began to come out, you see, doubled itself up, and went back again into the inside of the mill as fast as it came.
And you can melt it down as long as you like, and mutter all the jargon and abracadabra, aldeboronti fosco fornio of science that mental monkey-tricks can teach you, you won't get anything in the end but a formula and a lie. The atom? Why, the moment you discover the atom it will explode under your nose. The moment you discover the ether it will evaporate.
After that, the fairy never appeared except when he was at school: but long after, when I was looking in a lumber-room with my brother for some mislaid toys, I found in a box the mask of Abracadabra and the horn. I put it hurriedly on, and blew a blast on the horn, which seemed to be of tortoise-shell with metal fittings.
They were only a little different from the first, but in that slight difference all the importance lay. As he repeated his "Abracadabra," trying ever so many other syllables after it, the cloak only went faster and faster, skimming on through the dusky, empty air. The poor little Prince began to feel frightened.
He sat on the rail, a burly carcass, the incarnation of materialism, while the doctor, feeling the size of a sandflea, put one finger into his mouth and touched the molar, while he repeated the most mystic nonsense he could think of, "Abracadabra Tiddlywinkum Umslopoga" and then jumped the finger out lest the patient might close his ponderous jaw.
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