Word: charlatan
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Harry Houdini, prestidigitator, handcuff king, foe of charlatan spiritists: "As I was about to perform my 'Chinese water-cell trick'* on the stage of the Capitol Theatre at Albany, N. Y., faulty stage tackle let the ponderous wood-and-iron stock fall upon my left foot, crushing it. Though my supple feet and ankles constitute great assets to me in my escapes from fetters, piano boxes, safes and other receptacles, I risked swelling and infection, stayed on the stage, did other tricks. Afterwards one of my staff said something about a 'jinx,' whereat I rebuked...
These terms are perhaps a bit unusual. The college lecturer is not a charlatan. Neither was Socrates. But his lectures were apparently interesting, his audience attentive. And college audiences are not filled with sour critics, but with boys who have come definitely for the inspiration and high amusement which education should afford. When a lecturer months his lines, when he forgets his part and fills up the gap with decadent verbiage, he is "strutting his hour" rather ill. And the man in the front of the orchestra who coughs and clacks at the wrong time is equally at fault...
...this man a Moses, fitted to lead the people out of a wilderness which is his own creation, only? Is he of the George Washington type, as counsel would have you believe ? Is he not rather of the all too familiar charlatan and demagog type?like Alcibiades, Catiline, and except for a decided difference in poise and mental powers in Burr's favor, like Aaron Burr? He is a good flyer, a fair rider, a good shot, flamboyant, self-advertising, wildly imaginative, destructive, never constructive except in wild non-feasible schemes, and never overly careful as to the ethics...
...doctor who writes for a newspaper, is not necessarily a charlatan. He may be using his specialized knowledge, not for the exploitation of his name, but with the sincere purpose of promoting a better understanding of the body. But since this specialized knowledge is possessed, to a greater or less degree, by thousands of his confreres, gentlemen who make no fanfaronade of what they know, any doctor who writes for a newspaper is, indubitably, "loud." Dr. Evans writes for 70 newspapers. His querulous and meticulous criticism of Dr. Arrowsmith is unsound on the following score...
Probably he would have continued enthroned in the German mind, had not party ambition betrayed him to his enemies. He is no longer the symbol of a lost cause, but a grey-headed politician, and the reverence that he once commanded lies turned to scorn. Charlatan or genius, fool or master, he and his glorious reputation will be dragged in the mire of politics...