"Devilry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... income. He seemed so certain of being able to do it that Lord Stanley consulted a lady friend, and the two together succeeded in frustrating the infamous design. This sordid and callous rascal tried hard to lead people to suppose that he and Burton were hand and glove in various kinds of devilry, and a favourite phrase in his mouth was "I and Burton are great scamps." Percy Smythe [161] then an official under Lord Stratford, commented on hearing the saying: "No, that won't do, —— is a real scamp, ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... they go, though the U.B. boat (Friederich Althofen) made her incoming position the day before yesterday as off Dungeness, so it looks as if the barrage at Dover which got Weissman has got Althofen as well. I wonder what new devilry they ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... Bollerjahn, the hangman, has arrived, and when he hears of the devilry he shakes his head, but thinks he could make the girl speak, if they only let him try his way a little. But they must first get authority from the mayor. Now the mayor had not gone to the hunt, for some friends arrived to visit him, whom ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... a prologue, with entirely new scenery, dresses, and peculiar appointments, imagined by, and introduced under the direction of, Mr. Yates." Now, any person, entirely unprejudiced with a taste for devilry and free from hydrophobia, who sees this production, must have an unbounded opinion of the manager's imagination,—what a head he must have for aquatic effects! In vain we look around for its parallel—nothing but the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 9, 1841 • Various
... either devilry or disease." Tyson's eyes twinkled wickedly as he stroked his blonde mustache. He felt a diabolical delight in teasing Miss Batchelor. There was a time when Miss Batchelor had admired Tyson. He was not handsome; but his face had character, ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... I am level with him on that, anyhow. Then I lost sight of him. That was when he picked up with this outcast padre here. I found that they had set up housekeeping together at this place on the line that she had to pass for the station. I kept my eye on her after that, for I knew there was some devilry in the wind. I saw them from time to time, for I was anxious to know what they were after. Two days ago Woodley came up to my house with this cable, which showed that Ralph Smith was dead. He asked me ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... town. Poor thing, she'd sent me about my business once or twice before: for she couldn't bear the sight of anything as wasn't handsome; and I'd got this damaged leg of mine. Your Reverence recollects how I ventured up into a dancing saloon, where seafaring men was carrying on with drink and devilry, as the saying goes. And then, when I was for giving them a bit of an admonition ...
— Ghosts • Henrik Ibsen
... say, Will Blanchard," answered Mr. Blee, "an' theer it do lie in a nutshell. A man's gate-post is his awn as a common, natural gate-post; but bein' a sainted cross o' the Lard sticked in the airth upsy-down by some ancient devilry, 't is no gate-post, nor yet every-day moor-stone, but just the common property of all ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... forward, yet round? Not altogether so:—much, to the experienced eye, is not what it seems! Chancery and certain other Law-Courts seem nothing; yet in fact they are, the worst of them, something: chimneys for the devilry and contention of men to escape by;—a very considerable something! Parliament too has its tasks, if thou wilt look; fit to wear-out the lives of toughest men. The celebrated Kilkenny Cats, through their tumultuous ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... him up in a moment, and added of her own devilry a trumpet and banner. She set out from Charing Cross bravely enough, and a trumpeter being an unwonted spectacle, the eyes of all the town were clapped upon her. Yet none knew her until she reached Bishopsgate, ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... not one plunged more whole-heartedly into the folly of the moment than Quita. She had stationed herself opposite the door where Lenox stood, and the very spirit of devilry seemed to have entered into her, driving her to italicise every trait in herself that must needs grate on his fastidiousness where a woman's conduct was concerned. Her effervescent gaiety dominated the 'set,' which speedily degenerated into a ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... Mephistopheles again appears, Faust is in a very different state of mind, and Mephistopheles is also in a different shape. He is decked out with silken mantle and with cock-feathers in his hat, ready for any devilry. Faust is in the depths of morbid despair and bitterness at ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... trample through my woodland. I might have guessed that only a couple of idle boys like yourselves, knowing no better, would have pushed their way to a spot that all worthy dwellers in Bosekop, and all true followers of the Lutheran devilry, avoid as though the plague ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... the whole truth, there is yet a real element of truth in the assertion of Nietzsche: "We believe that severity, violence, slavery, danger in the street and in the heart, secrecy, stoicism, tempter's art and devilry of every kind, everything wicked, tyrannical, predatory and serpentine in man, serves as well for the elevation of the human species as its opposite."[220] To ignore altogether the affirmation of ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... East seems to have obliterated any (all?) sentiments of chivalry, for he is never weary of recording disparaging estimates of women, and apparently delights in discovering evidence of 'feminine devilry"' (p. 184). This argumentum ad feminam is sharpish practice, much after the manner of the Christian "Fathers of the Church" who, themselves vehemently doubting the existence of souls non- masculine, falsely ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... pages we have Fielding's philosophy of goodness and greatness, delivered in words that already display an unrivalled perfection of style. Speaking of his third volume, that poignant indictment of devilry the Life of Mr Jonathan Wild the Great, it is thus that Fielding exposes the iniquity of villains in "great" places:—"But without considering Newgate as no other than Human Nature with its mask off, ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... themselves.' Hence came courage, devotion, victory. With their lives in their hands they flung themselves on the foe, and nothing could stand against the onset of men who recked not of themselves. There is one grand thing even about the devilry of war—the transcendent self-abnegation with which, however poor and unworthy may be the cause, a man casts himself away, 'what time the foeman's line is broke.' The poorest, vulgarest, most animal natures ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Mr. Perryman. How much?'—looking 'ard at my 'at all the time. I guessed she was up to some devilry, so I thought I would put her wrong a bit. 'A guinea, ma'am,' says I. She looks at my 'at again and says, 'Mr. Perryman, you've been took in. Twelve-and-six would have been more than enough for that 'at.' 'Oh,' says I to myself, 'you've been nosing round already, 'ave you?' I suppose I must have ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... when they came to him, and had not even returned a visit except Mr. De Baron's. Why had he come there at all? That was the question which all the Brothershire people asked of each other, and which no one could answer. Mr. Price suggested that it was just devilry,—to make everybody unhappy. Mrs. Toff thought that it was the woman's doing,—because she wanted to steal silver mugs, miniatures, and such like treasures. Mr. Waddy, the vicar of the parish, said that it ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... corner-lines, the chimneys—look how clean, How new, how naked! See the batch of boats, Here at the stairs, washed in the fresh-sprung beam! And those are barges that were goblin floats, Black, hag-steered, fraught with devilry and dream! And in the piles the water frolics clear, The ripples into loose rings wander and flee, And we—we can behold that could but hear The ancient River singing as he goes New-mailed in morning to the ancient Sea. ...
— The Song of the Sword - and Other Verses • W. E. Henley
... died for each other had been easy, but to surrender this pen-point was impossible. And, alas! as they always do, the devils found out this needle's end—and danced. For their purpose it was as good as a platform. It gave them joy indeed to think what stupendous powers of devilry they could concentrate on ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... exhibited their superiority only in acting a higher mask, and singing a loftier strain. The gossips did not hesitate to suspend the honeyed topic, to give sage counsel on the subject of the masking "bulziements;" and anon they turned a side look at the minor actors, the imps of devilry, who passed along with their smoking horns often made of the stem or "runt" of a winter cabbage, wherewith that night they would inevitably smoke out of "house and hauld" every devil's lamb of every gossip that did not open her hand and "deal her ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... Mitau, in the middle of the summer of 1838, that I set to work on this composition, and by so doing roused myself to a state of enthusiasm which, considering my position, was nothing less than desperate dare- devilry. All to whom I confided my plan perceived at once, on the mere mention of my subject, that I was preparing to break away from my present position, in which there could be no possibility of producing my work, and I was looked upon as light-headed and ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... forced to leave their untasted meal just as they were in the very act, so to speak, of putting it into their mouths, and with its tantalising taste and smell vexing them all the more, that the 'old man' only roused them out again from sheer malice and devilry, to make another fresh tack or short board, with the object of 'hazing' or driving them, as only slaves and sailors can be driven in these days by a brutal captain and ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Idigi, almost humble in his awe—for blue eyes in a brown face are a great sign of devilry, "this is no smiling palaver, ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... had a decided advantage over the Chinese horticulturist, for, whereas the countenance of the latter gentleman expresses (if indeed it can be said to express anything) only meek astonishment, Coleman's small black eyes danced and sparkled with such a spirit of mischief and devilry, while such a fund of merriment, and, as it now for the first time struck me, of good-nature also, lurked about the corners of his mouth, that it seemed impossible to look at him without feeling that there was something contagious ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... a pandemonium as this came small parties of the cavalry, most of them already excited with drink and ready for any devilry. Among the noisiest and most quarrelsome of the dragoons were two non-commissioned officers—brutal-looking ruffians both of them—who made their way from group to group, drinking wherever the chance offered, shouting obscene songs, ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... steadily, and she read no fear in his, either, for none was there. In hers he saw ambition—triumph already— excitement—the gambler's love of all the hugest risks. Behind them burned genius and the devilry that would stop at nothing. As the general had told him in Peshawur, she would dare open Hell's gate and ride the devil down the Khyber for the fun ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... the charge of the boss, and let me know how things go with you. I shall be gladder than I can tell you to hear as you're making your way, and I shall be anxious like till I hear as you have got safely over this journey, for they do say as the Indians are playing all sorts of devilry with the caravans. Well, there's one thing, you are a good shot now; but be careful, lad, and don't get into no fights if you can keep out ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... never be so over-proud as not to confess when they are in fault; and from what happened, I am free to admit, that James, harmless as a sucking dove, was no match in such a matter for the like of Cursecowl, who was a perfect incarnation, for devilry and cunning, of ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... for any kind of devilry, and were willing to undertake all risks at Grim's bidding. Jail, fighting, hardship, meant to them no more than temporary inconvenience. But to have asked them to let a prisoner escape, and submit to shameful abuse for it afterward in the presence ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... mind. Not for fellows like me. But we all agreed that you must be preserved for our country. Of that we have no doubt whatever—I mean all of us who have heard Haldin speak of you on certain occasions. A man doesn't get the police ransacking his rooms without there being some devilry hanging over his head.... And so if you think that it would be better for ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... know," rejoined de Batz placidly, holding his podgy hands to the warm glow of the fire. "For you have started torture in your house of Justice now, eh, friend Heron? You and your friend the Public Prosecutor have gone the whole gamut of devilry—eh?" ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... satanic work by putting an end to both sin and death. He announces that the kingdom of God is at hand, when the "Prince of this world" shall be finally "cast out" (John xii. 31) from the cosmos, as Jesus, during his earthly career, cast him out from individuals. Then will Satan and all his devilry, along with the wicked whom they have seduced to their destruction, be hurled into the abyss of unquenchable fire—there to endure continual torture, without a hope of winning pardon from the merciful God, their Father; or of moving the glorified Messiah to one more act ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... and, springing into the saddle, went off at a gallop, leaving me staring after him, wondering what devilry lay behind his words. I watched him till he rounded the elbow of the wood that lay without the gates, and then, sheathing my sword, went slowly ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... with one foot on the parapet, and watched her, and in the vague starlight his eyes burned with the old mocking devilry behind which he had so ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... of his sheep," said the parson, watching intently. "Strange thing they don't break!" But they didn't. There was no waiting, no coaxing; it was drive and devilry all through. He brought his sheep along at a terrific rate, never missing a turn, never faltering, never running out. And the crowd applauded, for the crowd loves a dashing display. While little M'Adam, ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... feet firmly out, takes a better grip of the reins, and crams his hat well on to his head. We ignorant new-chums sit perturbed, for we don't know what is coming, only we do not admire the grim determination of our driver's mouth, or the devilry flashing from his eyes. The rest of the passengers say nothing. They know Dandy Jack, and are philosophically resigned ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... become the light of hell. There was no air but horror. Across Benham's skies these fly-blown trophies of devilry dangled mockingly in the place of God. He had no thought but to ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... seriously,' rejoined Ralph, 'what I told you this minute. Stay. Let me look at you. There's a liquorish devilry in your face. ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... you, Laennec," said Doctor Break. "Jerry has been practising some devilry or other on these poor wretches, and they've asked ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... you light?" he cried violently. "Eh?" He added something in which the words "Old hag's devilry!" were alone audible. "Do you hear?" he continued, more coherently. "Why don't you light? What black games are you playing, I'd like to know? I want ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... and the result of it was that, long before ten, Mr. Silas Q. Scuddamore presented himself in unimpeachable attire at the door of the Bullier Ball Rooms, and paid his entry money with a sense of reckless devilry that was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his steed, and the death-pack coming to its precincts, ceased into the hill. Here, in November twilights, when the dumb birds cowered in the dark pines, you might hear from the summit a horn blown-very clearly, with tuneful devilry, and a scattered sound of deep barking like the noise of sawing timber, and then the blood-curdling tumult of the pack at ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... Winthrop. Mr. Winthrop is fifty-three. He has been in the hotel since this time last year, and he makes accurate forecasts of the weather. My experience is that a man who makes accurate forecasts of the weather may get up to any devilry. And he protests too much. He keeps coming up to me and making long speeches to prove that he didn't do it. But I never said he did. Somebody else started that rumour, but of course he thinks that I did. That comes of being a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various
... sayings, I asked myself if it were not possible that the behaviour of certain eminent statesmen was due to some strange devilry of the East, and I made a vow to abstain in future from the Caerlaverock curries. But last month my brother returned from India, and I got the whole truth. He was staying with me in Scotland, and in the smoking-room the talk turned on occultism in the East. I declared myself a sceptic, and ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... archaeological cove. Goes about the country beating up old ruins and fossils and things. There's an Archaeological Society in the school, run by him. It goes out on half-holidays, prowling about, and is allowed to break bounds and generally steep itself to the eyebrows in reckless devilry. And, mark you, laddie, if you belong to the Archaeological Society you get off cricket. To get off cricket," said Psmith, dusting his right trouser-leg, "was the dream of my youth and the aspiration of my riper years. A noble game, but a bit too ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... to foresee what was to be his punishment. He was a man of the highest courage, the stoutest heart, yet in that hour he was astonied. His knees smote together; he clenched his teeth in a vain effort to prevent their chattering. All his devilry, his assurance, his fortitude, his strength, seemed to leave him. He stood before them suddenly an old, a broken man, facing a doom portentous and terrible, without a spark of strength or resolution left to meet it, whatever it might be. And for the first time in his life he played the craven, ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... was a thing of the utmost horror. He had known how to brace himself for that other authority—there had, at any rate, been consistency and even a kind of chiselled magnificence in that stiff brutality—now there was degradation, crawling devilry, things unmentionable.... ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... the "gentleman in black" with various other wonderful powers and attributes. They could transform themselves into the likeness of any animal in the creation, and therefore the better execute their schemes of devilry; but, it appears, that they always wanted that essential part—the tail; and there was a trial gravely reported by a Lancashire jury, that a soldier having been set to watch a mill from the depredations of some cats, skilfully ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various
... the same deadly, causeless duplicity I have watched with so much surprise in my two cowards. 'Tis true, I saw a hint of the same nature in another man who was not a coward; but he had other things to attend to; the Master has nothing else but his devilry." ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... idea," he said, suddenly, "to stop the confounded presses and spoof old Fox. He's up to some devilry. And, by Jove, I'd like to get my knife in him; Jove, I would. And then chuck up everything and leave for the Sandwich Islands. I'm sick of this life, this dog's life.... One might have made a pile though, if one'd known this smash ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... refused to yield them up—as Natalya could fancy her refusing—out of sheer temper and devilry? What if, amply subsidized by her well-to-do parent, she wished to keep the little ones by her and revenge upon them their father's desertion, or hold them hostages for his return? Why, then, Natalya would use cunning—ay, and force, too—she would even kidnap them. ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... little story,—"The Lion and the Lamb,"—so that it might more readily attract attention. It read very nicely in print. It had all that religious unction which is so necessary for Christian Examiners, and with it that spice of devilry, so delicious to humanity that without it even Christian Examiners cannot be made to sell themselves. He was very busy with his two dozen damp copies before him,—two dozen which had been sent to him, by agreement, as the price of his workmanship. He made ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... my prescription," the doctor replied. "Drive that gypsy lassie out of the town before the soldiers reach it. She is firing the men to a red-heat through sheer devilry." ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... staggered out into the dark. It is an experience that makes a man feel that the very earth is rocking beneath him; it makes him wonder if it is possible for a good man to be somehow caught in a hot gust of devilry and swept clean off his feet. But the thing that has impressed me as I have counted such names sadly on my fingers is that, without an exception, they were all in the forties, most of them in the early forties. Youth, of ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... Lord, how could you, of all people, hurt me?" he gently laughed at her. "Unless you turned me down, gave me to understand that, on second thoughts, you didn't find me up to your requirements or some mean class devilry of that kind—of which, by the way, had I judged you capable, you may be sure I should have been uncommonly careful never to come near you again.—No, it isn't that you hurt me; but that you delight me a little overmuch, so that it ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... good-bye, promising to see that my message was properly delivered. When he had gone I laid myself back in my chair for a good think. The situation was a peculiar one in every way. If he were up to some devilry I had probably warned him. If not, why had he ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... and erratic of the whole brood, for the sedatest role? But perhaps Fate, too, had calculated unscientifically. Mischief was always possible, if one gave one's mind to it. Or was she growing too old to have the spirit for thorough-going devilry? Youth seemed rather an affair of mental outlook than of years. She felt twenty years older since her marriage. She wondered why it was that marriage did not make all women wicked,—openly and actively ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... late lord had endowed. The estate has vastly improved under his Lordship's careful management. The trees in Hackton Park are all about forty years old, and the Irish property is rented in exceedingly small farms to the peasantry; who still entertain the stranger with stories of the daring and the devilry, and the wickedness and the ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sobered in a moment, wondering if he suspected anything; then she said she believed she didn't want them. Wilson said to himself, "The drop of black blood in her is superstitious; she thinks there's some devilry, some witch business about my glass mystery somewhere; she used to come here with an old horseshoe in her hand; it could have been an accident, but I ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Wolverstone, and persisted in that belief cursing Spanish devilry until Cahusac crawled up out of the dark bowels of the ship, and stood blinking in ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... design, and sought to parry or break the force of the projected blow by a defensive-offensive against Ypres. The attack was not their real offensive for 1915, but they developed the habit of distracting attention from their main objectives by decking out their subsidiary operations with some new devilry of ingenuity; and just as in 1918 they bombarded Paris with guns having a range of 75 miles when their real objective was the British front, so in 1915, when their main effort was against the Russians, they treated the defenders of Ypres to their ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... the Gandharvavivaha form of marriage, see note to page 28 of Captain R. F. Burton's "Vickram and the Vampire; or Tales of Hindu Devilry." Longman, Green & Co., London, 1870. This form of matrimony was recognised by the ancient Hindus, and is frequent in books. It is a kind of Scotch Wedding—ultra-Caledonian—taking place by mutual consent without any form or ceremony. The Gandharvas are heavenly ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... This morning at the police office, I heard particulars of at least half a dozen cases of unoffending people being ruthlessly ridden down, and Heaven only knows how many more there may be of which the details are not yet to hand. The sheer devilry of his progress is simply amazing. What it comes to is this, Sutgrove. If I can't get hold of him within the next week I may as well resign the force at once. If I don't resign I shall be ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... from 'is sanguinary encounter with a gang of Pathans, an' B Comp'ny was drinkin' 'emselves into Clink by squads. So there never was no Thursday p'raid. But the Kernal, when 'e 'eard of our galliant conduct, 'e sez, 'Hi know there's been some devilry somewheres,' sez 'e, 'but I can't bring it ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... name, the courtyard being overhung with green vines and swelling clusters of grapes. The host is a canny old boy, up to any joke and any devilry, I should say. He had already taken a fancy to me on my first visit, for I cured his daughter Vanda of a raging toothache by the application of glycerine and carbolic acid. We went into his cellar, a dim tunnel excavated out of the soft tufa, from whose darkest and chilliest recesses he drew ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... Belial, unforeseen, Survives and amplifies itself in you? What manner of devilry has ever been That your obliquity may ...
— The Man Against the Sky • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... hands closed more readily round a pipe-stem than a sword-hilt—not out of want of valour, you understand, but because they are genial, open souls, who would rather be on good terms with all men. I did not know then that beneath that homely surface there lurks a devilry as fierce as, and far more persistent than, that of ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... first; there was a latent devilry in his slant eyes as he sat there moodily, and knowing what he was capable of I scented trouble in store for Charlotte. Rosa I was not so sure about; she sat demurely and upright, and looked far away into the tree-tops in a visionary, ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... she almost feared her good fortune. Fancies find rooms in the strongest minds. Here, in a churchyard old as civilization, in the worst of weathers, was a strange woman of curious fascinations never seen elsewhere: there might be some devilry about her presence. However, Elizabeth went on to the church tower, on whose summit the rope of a flagstaff rattled in the wind; and thus she came to ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... least sign of devilry, or out-facingness, or insolence in that lean shadowy steady head; and yet he himself was compelled to sidle his glance away, so much the face shook him. He closed his eyes, too, as a cat does after exchanging too direct a ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... afraid, and at once rushed back again like a flock of glib-tongued and playful monkeys. I could not comprehend a word they said; but the bevy squealed with quite as much pleasure as if I did, and peered into my eyes for answers, with impish devilry at my ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... make his escape, his head only sufficiently excited to increase his sentimentality; so, instead of riding home direct, he took a round of some eight miles, to have a look at Merryvale, for there dwelt Fanny Dawson—the Darling Fanny Dawson, sister to Dick, whose devilry was more than redeemed in the family by the angelic sweetness of his lovely and sportive sister. For the present, however, poor Edward O'Connor was not allowed to address Fanny; but his love for her knew no abatement notwithstanding; and ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... Head Inn was ill at ease. This sort of thing—so common in Sim MacTaggart,who made friends with every gangrel he met—was like a week-day sermon, and they considered the Sunday homilies of Dr. Macivor quite enough. They much preferred their Simon in his more common mood of wild devilry, and nobody knew it better than ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... from superstitions, but the phenomenon which interested him was so mysterious that all sorts of uncanny devilry intruded into his mind against his will. All the evening he was imagining that the incognito Fedyukov was the spirit of some long-dead clerk, who had been discharged from the service by Navagin's ancestors and was now revenging ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... showed what he meant. "You thought that some devilry was intended." That was what the look meant. "You proposed to nurse this man in order to watch for and to discover this devilry. Very well, what have ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... period of the Terror that exemplary ruffian, Joseph Lebon of Arras, the unfrocked priest, who organised pillage and massacre throughout the Pas-de-Calais, frightened the good people of Aire into a frenzy of destruction and devilry. The Church of St.-Pierre was then a collegiate church, but it was turned over to the worship of the Supreme Being invented by Robespierre, desecrated and defaced and left in a deplorable state. It had already suffered, like ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... as you call it—will last my time—and his. And I jolly well don't care what happens afterward. He's not going to do us much harm. England's a deal tougher proposition than he thinks. It's you women who get up such a hullabaloo—I declare you make politics a perfect devilry! But then"—he shrugged his shoulders fiercely—"I'm not going to waste time in arguing. I just came to tell you what I intend to do; and then I'm going up to town. I've ordered the motor ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... fascinated by the beauty of his betrothed sought to win her from him. Defeated in this, he used force. Then followed a succession of plots and cunning intrigue, and, finally, through the avarice and greed of his love's father, through social influence, and through devilry of the worst kind, he, the pirate captain, was robbed of the one for whom he would have died, while she became disgraced and ruined. Then his passion burned to white heat, and revenge was his one object. He did not rest until he had killed his rival, after which ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... The Board. "S.D.R.," in one of his chatty gossips anent the old taverns of Birmingham, tells of a somewhat similar scene from the Quinton side of the town, the bait, however, being not a fox, but the trail-scent of a strong red herring, dragged at his stirrup, in wicked devilry, by one of the well-known haunters of old Joe Lindon's. Still, we have had fox-hunts of our own, one of the vulpine crew being killed in St. Mary's Churchyard, Feb. 26, 1873, while another was captured (Sept. ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... to obey. Grizzie had been up for more than an hour, and was going about with the look of one absorbed in a tale of magic and devilry. Her mouth was pursed up close, as if worlds should not make her speak, but her eyes were wide and flashing, and now and then she would nod her head, as for the Q. E. D. to some unheard argument. Whatever Cosmo required, she attended to at once, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... Antoinette's existence; for once, in the days long ago, when she was femme de chambre to a luminary of the cafes concerts, it had met around her waist. She had treasured the cast-off finery of this burned-out star—she beamed in the seventies—for all these years, and now its immortal devilry transfigured Carlotta. She was also washed specklessly clean. An aroma that no soap or artificial perfume could give disengaged itself from her as she moved. Her gold-bronze hair was superbly ordered. I noticed her arms which the sleeves of the gay garment left bare to ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... "I'm contented that you left devilry for revelry." And, Marotte announcing dinner, she took the arm of Captain Sengoun as the ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... me follow him and wed him; it was a power that he possesses—a magnetic thing—what they call the 'evil eye' in Italy. I have been cruelly and wickedly wronged and I do not deserve all that I have suffered, for it was the magic of hypnotism or some kindred devilry that made me see him falsely ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... well knew would be the case, I was obliged to look at last, and, as I anticipated, I underwent a most violent shock. In lieu of a face I saw a raw and shining polyp, a mass of waving, tossing, pulpy radicles from whose centre shone two long, obliquely set, pale eyes, ablaze with devilry and malice. The thing, after the nature of all terrifying phantasms, was endowed with hypnotic properties, and directly its eyes rested on me I became numb; my muscles slept while my faculties remained ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... silent, guns! for Bernard is invested, And wheresoe'er the slaves of strife are found Let your grim offices be now arrested, Nor the hot rifle shoot another round, Nor the pale flarelights toss, But for a space all devilry be barred, While Mars hangs motionless in pleased regard And the hushed lines look West to Palace Yard, Where on his breast our KING ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 8, 1917 • Various
... parting queries and instructions of my kind old uncle to five as roaring, mischievous urchins as ever stole whisky to soak the shamrock on St. Patrick's day. The chief director, schemer, and perpetrator of all our fun and devilry, was, strange to say, "my cousin Bob:" the smallest, and, with one exception, the youngest of the party. But Bob was his grandmother's "ashey pet"—his mother's "jewel"—his father's "mannikin"—his nurse's "honey"—and the whole world's "darlin' little devil of a rogue!" The expression of a face ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... country, had been arranged here; the spirit of them had been extracted, refined, criticised and renovated, and then stored up in bottles. With what may be called great aptitude, if it was not genius the grandmother had taken as it were the flavor of this and of that poet, and had added a little devilry, and then corked up the bottles for use ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... mother, Elizabeth. Boh a warse offender than either on us stonds afore yo. This woman is Nance Redferne, grandowter of the owd hag, Mother Chattox. Ey charge her wi' makin' wax images, an' stickin' pins in 'em, wi' intent to kill folk. Hoo wad ha' kilt me mysel', wi' her devilry, if ey hadna bin too strong for her—an' that's why hoo bears me malice, an' has betrayed me to Squoire Nicholas Assheton. Seize her, an' ca' me as a witness ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... brightest smile. Yet his bronzed forehead was low, and his mouth rather impudent and bold than truly strong. And there was a touch of foppery about him, in the enormous white tie and the much-cherished whiskers of the fifties, which was only redeemed by that other touch of devilry that he had shown me in the corridor. By the rich brown of his complexion, as well as by a certain sort of swagger in his walk, I should have said that he was a naval officer ashore, had he not told me who he was of ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... and once he had begun Simpson ate heartily of it. The tacit devilry fell away from his surroundings as his hunger grew less, and his companions became no more than a middle-aged negress in a turban, a black boy pitifully deformed, and a beautiful child. He looked at his watch—he had not thought of the time for hours—and found ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... famish'd horse, The greedy hound a-striving To rival thee in gluttony, Both at the bowels riving. Thou called the true bird![149]—Never, Thou foster child of evil,[150] ha! How ill match with thy feather[151] The talons[152] of thy devilry! But when thy foray preys on Our harmless flocks, so dastardly, How often has the shepherd With trusty baton master'd thee; Well in thy fright hast timed thy flight, Else, not alone, belabouring, He 'd gored thee with the Staghead, Up-raising his ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... instantaneously even to a world whose distance is measured in millions of miles, so does this sublime conception of the great Oneness shatter the foundations on which all outside redemptions, priests, sacrifices, formalisms, rituals, sacraments, devilry, hell fire, and the rest repose, by showing every man that he is his own priest and sacrificer. No anointing or ordering can make him more than he is in himself (not through Christ or any man), the true-born son of God, one in nature with whatsoever is Highest in ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... not been brought into touch, at so many points, with things that Browning had seen. Pippa Passes has, among Browning's dramas, the same kind of peculiar interest which belongs to the Tempest and to Faust among Shakespeare's and Goethe's. Faery and devilry were not Browning's affair; but, within the limits of his resolute humanism, Pippa Passes is an ideal construction, shadowing forth, under the semblance of a single definite bit of life, the controlling elements, as Browning imagined them, in all life. For ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... to conceive what fire and devilry they get into these hammering finales; all go together, voices, hands, eyes, leaves, and fluttering finger-rings; the chorus swings to the eye, the song throbs on the ear; the faces are convulsed with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of young artists are working on unceasingly every day. Kirk's ideas about it were in a delightfully vague state. He had a notion that it might turn out in the end as "Carmen." On the other hand, if anything went wrong and he failed to insert a sufficient amount of wild devilry into it, he could always hedge by calling it "A Reverie" or ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... people, and the chief festival of the year with them is the magh parah. It is held in the month of January, "when the granaries are full of grain, and the people, to use their own expression, full of devilry." It is the festival of the harvest-home, the termination of the year's toil, and is always held at full moon. The festival is a saturnalia, when all rules of duty and decorum are forgotten, and the utmost liberty ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... gallant chaps who love a hunting day: In bad times you know that farming is a trade that doesn't pay, Barbed wire's the cheapest kind of fence; the farmer can't afford Tempting post-and-rails and timber—for he's getting rather bored. Therefore, if we want to ride with our old devilry and dash, We must put our hands in pockets deep and shovel out the cash. When you want to hire a shooting you will gladly pay a "pony," Yet when asked to give it to the hounds you're apt to say you're "stony." Pay the piper, and the sport you love so well will flourish ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... venerable, with a sanctity which had caused him to be selected as a judge, all this not withstanding. As soon as the depositions were completed, and the poor wench heard, it remained clear that although this merry doxy had broken her religious vows, she was innocent of all devilry, and that her great wealth was coveted by her enemies, and other persons, whom I must not name to thee for reasons of prudence. At this time every one believed her to be so well furnished with silver and gold that she could have bought the whole county of Touraine, if so ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... bending, leathery goblin exulting over some drowned traveller, the meteor lamp he carries casting a downward flicker on the dark water. Such darkness, such wicked speed, such bad, Puck-like malice, such devilry, Hoffman and Poe together could not have better devised. Many a May exhibition has not half the genius in all its pictures that focuses in that gem of jet." The description is admirable; but Walter Thornbury has altogether misconceived the artist's ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... more I think it over, the hotter I get at my son's devilry! I'm ruined, eradicated, tortured every way! Every kind of trouble is upon me: I've died every ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... library. On the way I met no one; the house seemed dead. I sat down with a book to await the noontide: not a sentence could I understand! The mutilated manuscript offered itself from the masked door: the sight of it sickened me; what to me was the princess with her devilry! ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... pantomime of literature. There is the same variety of character, the same diversity of story, the same copiousness of incident, the same research into costume, the same display of heraldry, falconry, minstrelsy, scenery, monkery, witchery, devilry, robbery, poachery, piracy, fishery, gipsy-astrology, demonology, architecture, fortification, castrametation, navigation; the same running base of love and battle. The main difference is, that the one set of amusing fictions ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... story of Old Jeffrey. The explanations have been, trickery by servants (Priestley), contagious hallucinations (Coleridge), devilry (Southey), and trickery by Hetty Wesley (Dr. Salmon, of Trinity College, Dublin). Dr. Salmon points out that there is no evidence from Hetty; that she was a lively, humorous girl, and he conceives that she ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... Joe: 'a fellow who has no goodwill to you, and who has the daring and devilry in him of twenty fellows. I know him of old. Once in the house, HE would have found you, here or anywhere. The rest owe you no particular grudge, and, unless they see you, will only think of drinking themselves dead. But we lose ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... a rise came the plough, drawn by two stout horses, driven by a sturdy figure that loomed gigantic against the sky. Glancing back, Doris saw this figure, and an odd little spirit of dare-devilry entered into her. She did not want to come face to face with the ploughman, neither did she want to beat a retreat before the five-barred ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... conversation. I suppose it was the devil who tempted me to put a bullet through the man's heart. He was an enemy to the flag under which I fought, but he was no enemy to me—I had no right to become his executioner; but still the desire to kill him, for the mere devilry of the thing, came so strongly upon me that I no longer tried to resist it. I rose slowly upon my knees; the moon was shining very bright at the time, both he and his companion were too earnestly engaged ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... and Nick removed their cloaks, and sat displayed as a geisha and a contadina, respectively. Musa had already unmasked his devilry. The cafe was not in the least disturbed by these gorgeous and strange apparitions. An orchestra began to play. Lobster arrived, and high glasses full of glinting green. Audrey ate and drank with gusto, ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... went on, with a soft chuckle, as at recollections of unspeakable devilry, "did I ever tell you chaps of a tremendous scrape I very nearly got into up at the 'Varsity? Well, you must know there's a foolish rule there against smoking in the streets. Not that that made any difference to some of us! Well, one night about nine, I was strolling ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... open hand upon the chimney. "Witch!" he said, "there is not your match for devilry in Europe. Service! the thing runs ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dear, policemen: but (the Lord be praised) I was too much for him. There are legal formalities to fulfil yet; and I won't budge an inch, Lois, not one inch, my dear, till he's fulfilled every one of them. Mark my words, child, that boy's up to some devilry.' ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... I sat still, and kept my ears open. The gardens were comparatively quiet now, and only an occasional grunt or squeal came up to me. I did not like this silence; it made me wonder on what devilry the creatures were bent. Twice, I left the tower, and took a walk through the ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... such cruel and perfidious Idolaters that it is very devilry! They say that they burn the bodies of the dead, because if they were not burnt worms would be bred which would eat the body; and when no more food remained for them these worms would die, and the soul belonging to that body would bear the sin and the punishment of their death. And that ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... plenty of it too, for they no sooner appears aloft than a fine ship and her crew goes down close alongside of us; and as soon as that bit of work was over, away they go somewhere else to light up the scene of further devilry, I make no ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... Denis had made a supreme effort. It was an effect in white flannels with a superb foulard tie of navy blue and wonderful white buckskin shoes. He reached the breakfast-table at Brineweald Park unusually early, so eager was he to discover what further sartorial devilry Lord Henry would be guilty of, and he was not a little disappointed to find only Guy ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... mocked at all the Vidocqs, and Dupins, and Sherlock Holmeses, whether amateur or professional, French or English, German or American, that ever had been or ever could be pitted against him, and who, for sheer devilry, for diabolical ingenuity and for colossal impudence, as well as for a nature-bestowed power that was simply amazing, had not his match in all ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... was infectious. The charm of it lingered after it had passed. Her eyes were green like Billy's, only softer. They had a great deal of sweetness in them, and a spice—just a spice of devilry as well. The rest of the face would have been quite unremarkable, but the laughter-loving mouth and pointed chin wholly redeemed it from the commonplace. She was a little brown thing like a woodland creature, and her dainty air and quick ways put Scott irresistibly ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... such pieces are rare, and the infirmity of human nature has sometimes made us sigh over these pages at the recollection of the cordial cheeriness of Scott's letters, the high spirits of Macaulay, the graceful levity of Voltaire, the rattling dare-devilry of Byron. Epistolary stilts among men of letters went out of fashion with Pope, who, as was said, thought that unless every period finished with a conceit, the letter was not worth the postage. Poor spirits cannot be the explanation of the ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 3 of 3) - The Life of George Eliot • John Morley
... did not much think he would do that, for I guessed that the scoundrel would do with me as he had in some other cases; namely, take me and carry me back to the house, and there either threaten to shoot me, or hang me up over a fire, or some such devilry, to make those inside give in. I was determined this shouldn't be, and that if I could not shoot him I would be shot myself; for otherwise he would have got my father and mother, and it would have been three lives instead ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... "universe" it is, that we suffer so cruelly from its ironic "diablerie." A universe entirely composed of the bodies and souls of beings whose primordial emotion is so largely made up of malice is naturally a malicious universe. The age-old tradition of the witchery and devilry of malignant Nature is a proof as to how deep this impression of the system of things has sunk. Certain great masters of fiction draw the "motive" of their ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... asunder: but he held firm, and ripped the tongue out by the roots, so that it was the death of the wolf. It is the opinion of some men that this beast was the mother of King Siggeir, and that she had taken this form upon her through devilry and witchcraft."—(c. 5.) ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... features, that although seen but the moment before, we could hardly believe them the same. The dark complexion—the long and bushy beard were there—but instead of the sleepy and solemn character of the oriental, with heavy eye and closed lip, there was a droll, half-devilry in the look, and partly open mouth, that made a most laughable contrast with the head-dress. He looked stealthily around him for an instant, as if to see that all was right, and then, with an accent and expression I shall never forget, said, "I'll ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... will never solve the Indian problem till the Indian is extinct. They have treated them after a fashion which has intensified their treachery and "devilry" as enemies, and as friends reduces them to a degraded pauperism, devoid of the very first elements of civilization. The only difference between the savage and the civilized Indian is that the latter carries firearms and gets drunk on whisky. The Indian Agency ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... of revelry or devilry by night in the enemy's camp, ours was not passed in music, and we could not therefore listen to the low harmonics that undertone sweet music's roll. Gibson got one of the horses which was in sight, to go and find the others, while Mr. Tietkens took Jimmy with him to the top of a hill in order to ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... "Give it fair play, give it fair play!" And he came after his own hat quickly but cautiously, with burning eyes. The hat had seemed at first to droop and dawdle as in ostentatious langour on the sunny lawn; but the wind again freshening and rising, it went dancing down the garden with the devilry of a pas de quatre. The eccentric went bounding after it with kangaroo leaps and bursts of breathless speech, of which it was not always easy to pick up the thread: "Fair play, fair play... sport of kings... chase their ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... praised, which is often, when they want to be mastered, which is sometimes; and when they want no nonsense, which is seldom. Just now the first feeling was in the ascendant with Bathsheba, with a dash of the second. Moreover, by chance or by devilry, the ministrant was antecedently made interesting by being a handsome stranger who had evidently ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... gamblers, out of sheer devilry and diversion, similarly attach their stuffs, and gallop over the ground with the prints trailing fifty yards behind them. In the frenzied frolic that had seized hold of them they forgot their slain comrades, still unburied. They whoop, shout, and laugh till the cliffs, ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... Goatry's face in the mirror. The dark devilry faded out of his eyes. His lips moved in a whispered oath. Every ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... the honor of the regiment, but no one of us had any knowledge of the real meaning of honor, and if any one had known it, he would have been the first to ridicule it. Drunkenness, debauchery and devilry were what we almost prided ourselves on. I don't say that we were bad by nature, all these young men were good fellows, but they behaved badly, and I worst of all. What made it worse for me was that I had come into my own money, and so I ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... answers too horrible for record, both in themselves and in the strange devilry of their garnish of oaths, followed. Mr Cupples did not flinch a step from his post. But, alas! his fiery sword had by this time darkened into an iron poker, and the might of its enchantment vanished as the ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... man, without taking offence, "you mistake, kind sir, I meant familiar in witchcraft, in devilry—not (as it were) in levity ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... screamed. 'Passive, relentless, and deadly, they follow in your wake and will not be denied. The strong, the helpless, the coarse and the beautiful—all you have killed and mutilated in your wanton devilry—they are on your heels like a pack of spectre-hounds, and sooner or later they will have you in their cold arms and hale you down to the secret places of terror. Look at Beston, who leads, with a fearful smile on his mouth! Look at that pale girl you tortured, ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... felt at the time, a reign that showed that the Pope was something more than the friend of the English throne—he was in matters of Church discipline its checkmate. This was the time that England trembled at the devilry of a king and rejoiced at the sun of a new learning that was slowly dispelling the ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... Margaret had artfully prepared the way for it. It fitted in too well with their view of feminine nature. In the smoking-room, after dinner, the Colonel put forward the view that Miss Schlegel had jumped it out of devilry. Well he remembered as a young man, in the harbour of Gibraltar once, how a girl—a handsome girl, too—had jumped overboard for a bet. He could see her now, and all the lads overboard after her. But Charles ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... glimmer each man's thought ran swiftly to his own homestead and the green fields and the hedgerows and dwellings all blown to atoms—left merely as a place of skulls. They spoke of great and horrible implements of modern warfare, invented, to their minds, by the devilry of the West. Each man chipped in with a little color, and the company broke up in fear of dreaming of the things of which they had heard, afraid to go to their ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... "the active life" for me, as Galloper to "Gen'ral" C., the loyal Ulsterman, to free from acts of Irish devilry. I thanked "whatever gods may be" for training with ...
— Punch, Volume 156, January 22, 1919. • Various
... most wonderful devilry!" Polunin declared, "and, do you know, there is another painter—Bosch. He has something more than devilry in him. You should see his Temptation of ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... vastly, if he would prune his speeches down to an hour's delivery. Burdett is sweet and silvery as Belial himself, and I think the greatest favourite in Pandemonium; at least I always heard the country gentlemen and the ministerial devilry praise his speeches up stairs, and run down from Bellamy's when he was upon his legs. I heard Bob Milnes make his second speech; it made no impression. I like Ward—studied, but keen, and sometimes eloquent. Peel, my school and form fellow (we sat within two of each other), strange to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... know what to make of it. Perhaps some new devilry of the gods was about to be perpetrated on him. He walked slowly and cautiously, prepared to be assailed at any moment. He did not know what to do, it was all so unprecedented. He took the precaution to sheer off from the ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... lass," rejoined her father. "They do say that Buck Tom is a gentleman, and often keeps back his boys from devilry—though he can't always manage that, an' no wonder, for Jake the Flint is the cruellest monster 'tween this an' Texas if all that's said ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... batch of cakes, made and cooked by herself. Le Mierre was at her side at once and a pretty flirtation sprang up, for the master was in an excellent temper and the girl was marvellously taken by the handsome power and devilry of the captain of the work. Never had she seen him look half so well, she said to herself. Ah, if he proposed, she would not feel inclined to refuse him! She leant over the hedge and looked out to sea, ...
— Where Deep Seas Moan • E. Gallienne-Robin
... guessed the secret of his inner struggle—the secret of the sad spirit that travailed against itself. Oddly enough his progress was rapid. He soon outpointed in brilliancy and deftness the most talented of the group of Liszt's young people, and once, after playing the Mephisto Walzer with abounding devilry, Liszt cried, "Bravo, child," and then muttered, "And ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... to see in the conduct of individual opponents simply and solely the dominating influence of that spirit, from which certain pernicious tendencies, according to his own convictions, proceeded and had to be combated. Thus it was in this instance. It was all visionary nonsense, nay, sheer devilry, and be attacked it in language of proportionate violence. From Zwingli a different attitude was to be expected, from the amicable titles of his treatises and the personal correspondence with Luther which he himself invited. He adopted here for the most part, as in other matters, a calm and ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... the cope-stone of Imperialism. It is the grim expression of a faith that is everlasting, of a love that shall endure the shocks of years, and all the cunning devilry of such as the Barbarous Huns. Hence this little book. It is an inspiration of the Dardanelles, where I met many of our Australasian friends. It is not an official history. I have, in my own way, endeavoured to picture what like these warring Bohemians are. The cloak of fiction ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... the others he's bent on punishing. God direct myself, I wish at any rate that I never had act or hand in it. As for your time o' life and mine, Polly, you know that age puts it out of our power ever to be much the betther one way or the other, even if Ginty does succeed in her devilry. Very few years now will see us both in our graves, and I don't know but it's safer to lave this world with an aisy conscience, than to face God with the guilt of sich a black saicret ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... had made a calculation which had convinced him that if the outflow were suddenly closed, the small space in which he now stood would in a few minutes be full up to within three or four feet of the vault. He would have given much to know whence the water came and whither it went, and what devilry had made it rise suddenly and drown a man when the excavations had been made ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... of devilry that must have appeared a veritable pandemonium to the spirits of the air, were any such looking down on the wrathful, sanguinary scene from the clear blue heavens above, all radiant now with a golden glow that came from the west, ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... me you shall have neither money nor strong drink: not a guinea to spend in riot; not a drop to fire your heart with devilry. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... thought, at any rate, that he knew for certain what this unpleasant business must be. Evidently Mills had given him away. For what reason he had done so he could not guess; after his experience of yesterday it might have been from pure devilry, or again he might have feared that in desperation, Taynton would take that extreme step of prosecuting him for blackmail. But, for that moment Taynton believed that Morris's agitation must be caused by this, and it says much for the iron of his nerve ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson |
