You are right not to meet my glance, my lord, for then I see into your heart too clearly. It is a mirror which retains the image which it has reflect… - Alessandro Cagliostro

Your highness is forgetting that I see as clearly in your heart what is going on now as I saw your carriage coming from the Carmelite convent, traversing the town and stopping under the trees fifty paces off from my house.

Now, my enemies think I am crushed. They have said to one another ‘let us trample under foot this man who knows us too well’; but they do not know that in spite of their efforts I shall rise triumphant, when the time of trial is over. They rejoice in the wounds they have inflicted upon me; but these foolish people in their mad transports do not see hovering over them the cloud from which the lightning will dart.

Balsamo walked over to the elevator, and with a stamp of the foot, caused it to carry him down to the other floor. Mute, crushed by the genius of this wizard, he was forced to believe in impossible things by his doing them.