"Mischievous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Serge returned easily. "You mean, about this gentleman? If you ask me, I think he'd be far less potentially mischievous ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... and in the corners of the fence. Or, perhaps, a chicken hawk, that had been sailing on outstretched wings in ever narrowing circles, would drop from the blue sky to claim his share of the plunder only to be frightened away again by the sound of the teacher's voice raised in sharp rebuke of some mischievous urchin. ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... he was compelled to present a Goneril and a Regan, it was most carefully to be avoided;—and therefore the only one conceivable addition to the inauspicious influences on the preformation of Edmund's character is given, in the information that all the kindly counteractions to the mischievous feelings of shame, which might have been derived from co-domestication with Edgar and their common father, had been cut off by his absence from home, and foreign education from boyhood to the present time, and a prospect of its continuance, ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... Harry with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, but the boy's face expressed such blank disappointment that he took pity upon him, and, picking up a newspaper, ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... continued the General, who took a mischievous delight in making trouble for the worthy Desvanneaux. "Every one knows quite well that you have by no means renounced ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... thankfully acknowledges "the success which the merciful God has given to the sedulous and assiduous endeavors of our honorable rulers to defeat the abominable witch crafts which have been committed in the country, humbly praying that the discovery of those mysterious and mischievous wickednesses may be perfected. It is pleasant to note, after all, the ministers' advice to the civil rulers not to rely too much on "the devil's authority"—on the evidence, that is, of those possessed. ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... were somewhat strengthened in the opinion of the public by the fact that he was at first left out of the restored administration; and when subsequently, after a speech which showed that he could be mischievous if not propitiated, he was readmitted, it was precisely to the same office he had held before,—an office which did not admit him into the Cabinet. Lumley, burning with resentment, longed to decline the offer; but, alas! he was poor, and, ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book III • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... little villages all asleep, and silent as the adjacent churchyards; and as we two tumbled into our cots at midnight we voted that we had spent "a fine day" in spite of the mischievous tendency of things ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... Pyrenees. He was a very excellent and pious prince, valiant and courteous; but he had one great fault, an inordinate love of hunting, which in the end proved his bane. For once, on the occasion of some solemn fete, while he was in the church assisting at the mass, some mischievous friend brought him word, that a fine wild boar had just appeared at a very short distance from the holy precincts. In a moment, his respect for religion, his reverence for the sacred ceremony in which he was engaged, all were put ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... to himself. Then he looked up and met at the deadliest of ranges, the smiling, mischievous eyes of the Japanese brunette. Despite himself, ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... glasses—God be marciful to us all—an' dthrink all he could come at—an' small blame to him for that same; and then if any of the family id be comin' in, he id be up again in his place, looking as quite an' as innocent as if he didn't know anything about it—the mischievous ould chap. ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... all the while that I was lying there. But by degrees I grew calmer. There were rats enough in the hold. I had heard them, and why should he not have attributed the slight rustling noise I made to one of the mischievous little animals? ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... said Mrs. Watton with ponderous force, throwing up her hands as she spoke. Then she turned to Lord Fontenoy. "Don't you regard her as the source of half the mischievous work done by this precious Government in the last two ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... treatment of us by the British. I added that the non-Brahmins should be placated without any ado or bargaining. But my remarks were never intended to encourage the powerful non-Brahmins of Maharashira or Madras, or the mischievous element among them, to overawe the so-called Brahmins. I use the word 'so-called' advisedly. For the Brahmins who have freed themselves from the thraldom of superstitious orthodoxy have not only no quarrel with non-Brahmins ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... regard to defense; but they did not consider the matter of sufficient moment to require them to make it public. Indeed, they were inclined to think that as there had been no acts of violence in the county, these warnings were merely the acts of mischievous youngsters who desired to frighten them into a display of fear. This seemed to be a more serious demonstration, but they were not yet prepared to give full credence to the threat conveyed ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... the eaves before the window, and the far-off sough of the wind. Then Phemie suddenly broke into a constrained giggle, which she however quickly smothered as she had the accordion, and with the same look of mischievous distress. ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... and his eyes "skrinkled up." Maida saw with a mischievous delight that he, in his turn, was trying ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... glory: it exciteth, moveth and stirreth the strong, hardy warriors, for the great laud that they have after they lie dead, promptly to go in hand with great and hard perils in defence of their country: and it prohibiteth reproveable persons to do mischievous deeds for fear of infamy and shame. So thus through the monuments of writing which is the testimony unto virtue many men have been moved, some to build cities, some to devise and establish laws right, profitable, necessary and behoveful ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... that you and your ladies might visit the Duchess de Duras, you should have advanced the clock by half an hour, and sent your husband to bed at half-past ten, when of course he found no one in his apartments to wait upon him. [Footnote: Campan. 129.] All Paris has laughed at this mischievous prank of the queen. Can you deny this, my ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... man will bear watching," thought the principal grimly. "He's my best pupil, and one of the most mischievous. I'd rather have any youngster ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... characteristic of Mr. Ray for anything?" exclaimed Mrs. Turner. "I wonder if any other officer would be in such a hurry to risk his scalp in chasing the regiment? You wouldn't, would you, Mr. Gleason?" she added, with the deliberate and mischievous impertinence she knew would sting, and meant should sting, and felt serenely confident that her victim could not resent. ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... young Ogresses had all of them very fine complexions, because they used to eat fresh meat like their father; but they had little grey eyes, quite round, hooked noses, wide mouths, and very long sharp teeth standing at a good distance from each other. They were not as yet over and above mischievous; but they promised very fair for it, for they already bit little children, that they might suck their blood. They had been put to bed early, with every one a crown of gold upon her head. There was in ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... on his spade, and pushed back his straw hat to gaze over the blue waters to the misty, far-off horizon, a softer look stole over the wrinkled face. He had forgotten, the mischievous boys perched on the wall above, forgotten Jerry, the returned wanderer, in the thought of that home to which he would willingly enough depart, where the old man's human treasures were already housed, ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... sky Two pewits sport and cry, More white than is the moon on high Riding the dark surge silently; More black than earth. Their cry Is the one sound under the sky. They alone move, now low, now high, And merrily they cry To the mischievous Spring sky, Plunging earthward, tossing high, Over the ghost who wonders why So merrily they cry and fly, Nor choose 'twixt earth and sky, While the moon's quarter silently Rides, ...
— Poems • Edward Thomas
... afterwards told me, that he never had heard it. She proposed that he should have some cold sheep's head for breakfast. Sir Allan seemed displeased at his sister's vulgarity, and wondered how such a thought should come into her head. From a mischievous love of sport, I took the lady's part; and very gravely said, 'I think it is but fair to give him an offer of it. If he does not choose it, he may let it alone.' 'I think so,' said the lady, looking at her brother with an air ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... attraction, every attachment, every love between the sexes must lead to marriage—that no love can be tolerated but with that end in view—is a very false and mischievous one. It deprives men and women of the strength and happiness they might have in pure friendships and pure loves, and it leads to a multitude of false and bad marriages. Two persons are drawn together by strong attractions and tender sentiments for ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... to the justice of their methods—their beliefs are "one with the falling rain and with the growing corn." By doubt they are established, and open inquiry is their bosom friend. Such men have no fear of traditions however venerable, and no respect for them when they become mischievous and obstructive; but they have better than mere antiquarian business in hand, and if dogmas, which ought to be fossil but are not, are not forced upon their notice, they are too happy ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... all along of the new Act for Uniformity which was printed and set forth this last May. You were too full at that time of your apprehensions for these young ladies to be curious to read that mischievous Act; but, since it touches my father nearly, he mastered its meaning with great pains, and has thought of little else for many days; and the upshot of all this is, that next Bartholomew-tide he will go forth, like Abraham of old, to wander he knows not whither;' at ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... wrong, of course," he hurried to add with oratorical emphasis. "Nothing like that! There never was anything mean or sneaking about Jeddy, s'far as I can recollect. Just mischievous—mischievous and up and coming all the time. But there were folks," Judge Maynard's voice became heavy with righteous accusation—"it's always that way, you understand—and there were folks, even right here in Jeddy's own village, who used ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... the noise when they left the gun and when they burst, reminded him of the passage with cymbals in the divine scherzo of the Ninth Symphony. When he heard overhead as from an airy music-box the buzzing of these steel mosquitoes, mischievous, imperious, angry, treacherous, or simply full of amiable carelessness, he felt like a street boy rushing out to see a fire. No more fatigue; mind and body on the alert; and when came the long-awaited order "Forward!" one jumped to one's feet, light as a feather, and ran ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... disappeared. He couldn't find it anywhere, so he called me and asked me what I had done with it. I said I hadn't touched it, hadn't seen it, didn't even know he had bought one; and that was the truth. But he wouldn't believe me; he said I must have taken it, for I was the only mischievous person about the place, and if I didn't own up and show him where it was, he'd horsewhip ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... with this explanation, and would probably have continued the conversation much longer had he not been interrupted by the voice of his mischievous satellite, Davie Summers, who touched his forelock and said: "Please, Mr Mivins, shall I lay the table-cloth, or would it be better to slump ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... let them come in," said they, "they will wander about the streets a while, but they will soon get tired and go away; whereas, by opposing and thwarting them, we only make them the more violent and mischievous." ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... course pursued by the Imperial Government, with respect to the quarrel of the two races, as having been rounded on an utter ignorance of, or disregard to the real question at issue, as having fostered the mischievous pretensions of French nationality, and as having, by the vacillation and inconsistency which marked it, discouraged loyalty and fomented rebellion. Every measure of clemency, or even justice, towards their opponents, they regard with jealousy, as indicating a disposition towards that ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... persistent perfidy wherewith he has been retained for several years in bondage, in violation of the express agreement of his captors. The whole collection is, in its general effect, delusive and mischievous, the purpose being to exhibit War as always glorious and France as uniformly triumphant. It is by means like these that the business of shattering knee-joints and multiplying orphans is ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... said—until to-night. I assure you the resemblance is so great, that if we have all female Deerham in fits, I shall not wonder. It strikes me—it is the only solution I can come to—that some one is personating Frederick Massingbird for the purpose of a mischievous joke—though how they get up the resemblance is another thing. Let me advise you to ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... could know how unpleasant and mischievous their manner of talking to their servants about religion is. Omar confided to me how bad it felt to be questioned, and then to see the Englishman laugh or put up his lip and say nothing. 'I don't want ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... them abundantly. Neither do they now stay with such of these fruits as are wholesome in their kinds, but adventure further upon such as are very dangerous and hurtful, as the verangenes, mushrooms, etc., as if nature had ordained all for the belly, or that all things were to be eaten for whose mischievous operation the Lord in some measure hath given and ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... Voltaire, and would destroy both under the guise of hatred of superstition, he despised those sentimentalities with which Rousseau and his admirers would veil their disgusting immoralities. To him hypocrisy and infidelity, under whatever name they were baptized by the new apostles of human rights, were mischievous and revolting. And as an experienced statesman he held in contempt the inexperience of the Revolutionary leaders, and the unscrupulous means they pursued to accomplish even ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... entertain Lloyd, but the problem was solved when she found the journal, in which she had written the history of the eventful winter when her sister's little daughter Virginia and her brother's two boys had been left in her charge. Lloyd had taken part in many of the mischievous adventures, and she sat smiling over the novelty of hearing herself described with all the imperious ways, naughty temper, and winning charm that had been hers at ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... did return home to be the mediator between her incensed and stern father and his wayward and mischievous, but not incorrigible sons, is part of the sequel to this letter. What her daughter, Mary Field French, afterwards became to the sons of the younger of the reprehensible pair of youthful collegians will appear later ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... but harmonious union, under the peculiar regime indicated above, is already a remarkable exception in the present state of Hindu society. On careful inquiry it will be found that women are at the bottom of that mischievous discord which eats into the very vitals of domestic felicity. Separation, therefore, is the only means that promises to afford relief from this social incubus; and to separation many families have now resorted, much after the fashion of the dominant race, with a view ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... and danger lie in the exact reproduction of ancient or early books, not always with any mischievous or fraudulent intention. Such a piece of supercherie as the History of Prince Radamanthus, professedly re-printed from a unique copy by Wynkyn de Worde, or the Life and Death of Mother Shipton, dated 1687, and actually issued in ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... the ground on all fours, and often descend in numbers on a plantation, and carry off all the fruits they can lay hands on. We must take care to keep them at a distance, for from what I have heard they are as daring as the gorilla, and, though not so powerful, more mischievous." ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... wearing similar regimentals, were overflushed and frolicksome, no doubt having already begun their celebration for the victory of the Flatbush birds, which they had backed so fortunately at the Coq d'Or. Sir Peter, too, was in mischievous good spirits, examining my very splendid costume as though he had not chosen it for me at ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... watched them down the lane in the moonlight—Sara walking demurely in one runner track, and Felix stalking grimly along in the other. I fear the romantic beauty of that silver shining night was entirely thrown away on my mischievous brother. ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... are the things that some foolish people call DANGEROUS subjects,— as if these vices which burrow into people's souls, as the Guinea- worm burrows into the naked feet of West-Indian slaves, would be more mischievous when seen than out of sight. Now the true way to deal with those obstinate animals, which are a dozen feet long, some of them, and no bigger than a horse hair, is to get a piece of silk round their HEADS, and pull them out very ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... monarchy but for the fatal law which secured that assembly from dissolution. [409] There was, it must be owned, a flaw in this reasoning which a man less shrewd than William might easily detect. That one restriction of the royal prerogative had been mischievous did not prove that another restriction would be salutary. It by no means followed because one sovereign had been ruined by being unable to get rid of a hostile Parliament that another sovereign might not be ruined by being forced to part with a friendly ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Instead of which, however, she finished her sentence with a "madam" that brought a blush to my weather-beaten face. I was the only one concerned who did blush, however, I assure you! The girl smiled into my eyes, with a mischievous twinkle, and minded not at all. A former generation would have simpered, but this young person hasn't a simper ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... is high time we were finding them. There is no knowing what they might do, they are so daring and mischievous. We'll outline a systematic plan for the hunt. Each one will go in a different direction and scour all the paths in that section of the Park, looking around every cage that we see. Then when the clock strikes twelve we will meet in front of the yard where the elephants ...
— Billy Whiskers' Adventures • Frances Trego Montgomery
... knavish, naughty, malevolent, malicious, unrighteous, degrading, dissolute, libertine, hardened, wanton; injurious, prejudicial, pernicious, detrimental, baneful, unwholesome, baleful, deleterious, mischievous, noisome, malign, malignant, noxious, unpropitious, disadvantageous; offensive, serious, grave, severe, mortal; defective, imperfect, incompetent, inferior; untoward, depressing, unwelcome, adverse, grievous, unfavorable, inauspicious; infertile, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... no regular employment; they have no chores to do and no regular occupation. Evenings and vacations find them on the streets. Then Satan always finds mischief for idle hands to do. These children become passive except under the impulses of instinct or of mischievous ideas; they have no regular and systematic work to do; everything is done for them. During their early years habits of idleness, of passive receptivity, of mischief, and possibly of crime, are ingrained. And though this kind ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... how to handle this mischievous fairy. Not one man on earth could do anything with him. So they let him have his own way. Yet all the time, though he was enjoying his own tricks and lively fun, he was, with his own voice, calling on human beings to use him properly, and harness ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... attacks every principle of belief, can destroy none. As long as the foundations of knowledge are allowed to remain on the same level with the maxims of life, the whole system of human conviction must continue undisturbed.... Skepticism has practical consequences of a very mischievous nature. This is because its universality is not steadily kept in view and constantly borne in mind. If it were, the above short and plain remark would be an effectual antidote to the poison. But, in practice, it is an armory ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... theories be true, among the foremost and withal the most mischievous of the old theories which will fall, will be that figment of the imagination—the Nebular Hypothesis.[14] How strangely, and how strongly, has that hypothesis maintained its ground, even after nebulous masses have been resolved into clusters ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers
... sate, making a salutation with his hat in a very stately and polite manner, so that Hoskins himself was, as it were, obliged to bow; the glee-singers murmured among themselves (their eyes rolling over their glasses towards one another as they sucked brandy-and water), and that mischievous little wag, little Nadab the Improvisatore (who had just come in), began to mimic him, feeling his imaginary whiskers, after the manner of the stranger, and flapping about his pocket-handkerchief in the most ludicrous ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... mistake—indeed a grosser blunder—could not have been made, than to have prosecuted those who attended the early meetings, or to have sent the police or the military to put those meetings down. An acquittal in the one case, or a conflict in the other, would have been attended with most mischievous consequences; and, as to the latter, it is clear that the executive never ought to interfere unless with a force which renders all resistance useless. It appears perfectly clear to us, even now, that a prosecution for the earlier meetings must have failed; for there existed then none of that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... them again, as I had first seen them at the meeting in the Basin school-house; the firm, brown hand grasping the sailor's bonnet; eyes omnipotent with health and joy, casting their mischievous, beautiful glances over toward Vesty—she, patient, struggling, with ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... compound of calumnies. I may reserve it for my pen. But inasmuch as the basis of all the calumnies lies in general ignorance concerning the relation of the Magyars to other races of Hungary, permit me to speak on the question of NATIONALITIES, a false theory of which plays so mischievous a part in the destinies of Europe. No word has been more misrepresented than the word Nationality, which is become in the hands of absolutism ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... could mistake his character so grievously, and prefer such cruel charges against him. He called him—the best, the most intelligent and reliable of all his servants—a seditious man; he charged him with being self-willed, stubborn, and proud, and said he was mischievous and disobedient to the state. Oh, believe me, that accusation is what troubles Stein! The King of Prussia has humbled his pride so deeply and unjustly, that a reconciliation between them is out of the question. Stein lives, thinks, and grieves only for his country, and yet the ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... affectionate confidence, to Coligny, begging him to come to Amboise and give her his advice. He arrived in company with his brother D'Andelot, and urged the queen-mother to grant the Reformers liberty of conscience and of worship, the only way to checkmate all the mischievous designs and to restore peace to the kingdom. Something of what he advised was done: a royal decree was published and carried up to the Parliament on the 15th of March, ordaining the abolition of every prosecution on account of religion, in respect ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... all be saved:" the second all be is a most unnecessary tautology. The poem was perfect and faultless, if you could have let it alone. I wonder how your mischievous flippancy could help maiming that most new and beautiful expression, "sponge Of sins;" I should not have been surprised, as you love verses too full of feet, if you have changed it to ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... this Great Unrest a sign of decadence and a presage of destruction, would be as fallacious as to say that electricity is an entirely mischievous force. Both are mischievous when undirected, and both are ...
— Three Things • Elinor Glyn
... themselves into atheism; and indeed I have allowed all along, that atheistical books convert men to freethinking. But suppose that to be true; I can bring you two divines who affirm superstition and enthusiasm to be worse than atheism, and more mischievous to society, and in short it is necessary that the bulk of the people should ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... expectations, and almost against our belief, it also sounded right astern, and further away than any of the others. I was ready to cry with vexation. It seemed like the work of magic, and as if a set of mischievous imps or spirits, like those on Prospero's island, were employed in trying our tempers and patience. There seemed no use in going on thus, to be constantly baulked; so I ordered the men to lay on their oars, resolved to wait either till the mist cleared off, or till we could devise ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... of the enclosed extract from my letter of May the 27th, 1786, will, I fear, have very mischievous effects. It will tend to draw on the Count de Vergennes the formidable phalanx of the Farms; to prevent his committing himself to me in any conversation which he does not mean for the public papers; to inspire the same diffidence into all other ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... ashes of rose; Mrs. Edwards in a brown and black silk; Miss Edwards in crimson, and Mrs. Grimsly in blue watered silk. Just before starting downstairs, Mrs. Lincoln's lace handkerchief was the object of search. It had been displaced by Tad, who was mischievous, and hard to restrain. The handkerchief found, all became serene. Mrs. Lincoln took the President's arm, and with smiling face led the train below. I was surprised at her grace and composure. I had ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... monstrous, lurid, and hideously melancholy. Mr. Cruikshank alone has had a true insight into the character of the "little people." They are something like men and women, and yet not flesh and blood; they are laughing and mischievous, but why we know not. Mr. Cruikshank, however, has had some dream or the other, or else a natural mysterious instinct (as the Seherinn of Prevorst had for beholding ghosts), or else some preternatural fairy revelation, which has made ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hearty nature of the scene on Newlyn beach in days of yore was not so very different as one might suppose from that of the present time. The men were not less energetic then than now; the women were not less eager; the children were quite as wild and mischievous, and the bustle and noise apparently, ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... private person, to raise uneasiness among near relations, and to expose whole families to derision, at the same time that he remains unseen and undiscovered. If, besides the accomplishments of being witty and ill- natured, a man is vicious into the bargain, he is one of the most mischievous creatures that can enter into a civil society. His satire will then chiefly fall upon those who ought to be the most exempt from it. Virtue, merit, and everything that is praiseworthy, will be made the subject ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... she, stretching herself out upon some of the fallen leaves at the foot of the tree—'Oh, that I had never listened to that deceitful, mischievous magpie!' ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin
... quip about Alfonso and "the absurdities of creation" from Bayle (Dict., 1735, art. "Castile"), who devotes a long note (H) to a somewhat mischievous apology for the king's apparent profanity. Bayle's immediate authority is Le Bovier de Fontenelle, in his Entretiens sur la Pluralite des Mondes, 1686, p. 38, "L'embaras de tous ces cercles estoit ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... her wistfully. Clara had a wicked temper when she was in liquor, and had the ordinary human proneness to lying, to mischievous gossip, and to utter laziness. The life she led, compelling cleanliness and neatness and a certain amount of thrift under penalty of instant ruin, had done her much good in saving her from going to pieces and becoming the ordinary sloven and drag on the energies of some man. "Lorna," she now ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... by his desire to defend his charges against the injurious effect of a judgment which had been pronounced by a noted authority. M. Renan had put forth, among the many theories which distinguish his celebrated work on the Semitic languages, one which seemed to M. Cuoq as mischievous as it was unfounded. M. Renan held that no races were capable of civilization except such as have now attained it; and that these comprised only the Aryan, the Semitic, and the Chinese. This opinion was enforced ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... was Thomas, called "Tad," a constant companion of his father's little leisure, now dead. An elder boy, Robert, has lived to be welcomed as Ambassador in this country, and was at this time a student at Harvard. Willie, a clever and lovably mischievous child, "the chartered libertine of the White House" for a little while, had died at the age of twelve in the early days of 1862, when his father was getting so impatient to stir McClellan into action. ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... or merely rumour, but it is generally believed. Everyone is talking of the fight at the gate of St. Denis. Some say that it was forced open by order of the Duke of Burgundy, while others affirm that Caboche, and that mischievous varlet John de Troyes, went in great haste to the duke when they received the news, that he declared to them that he knew nothing whatever of the affair, and that whatever was done was certainly done without ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... his ancient appearance was very mischievous on my part, and I regretted it a moment after; but he was so much pleased to learn that he had nothing to fear from the Indians that he readily forgave me for alluding to a subject upon which he was usually very sensitive. ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... rear-guard, to see whether the Austrians would not perhaps try to make some Winter Campaign of it, and if so, whether they would attempt on Prince Henri or on him. The Austrians did not attempt on either; showed no such intention,—though mischievous enough in other small ways. Friedrich wrote the ELOGE of Voltaire [OEuvres de Frederic, vii. 50 et seq. ("finished Nov. 26th, 1778").] while he waited here at Schatzlar, among the rainy Mountains. Later on, as prospects altered, he ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... packet-boat," remarked Mr. Williams, with mischievous smile, as he lifted his charge from the "hack-carriage," and led her toward one of these boats, a trifle dirtier than the rest, with planks laid across for seats, and several inches of water in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... judgement, and the other talents of the mind, however they may be named, or courage, resolution, perseverance, as qualities of temperament, are undoubtedly good and desirable in many respects; but these gifts of nature may also become extremely bad and mischievous if the will which is to make use of them, and which, therefore, constitutes what is called character, is not good. It is the same with the gifts of fortune. Power, riches, honour, even health, and the general well-being and contentment with one's condition which is called ...
— Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals • Immanuel Kant
... hearty and lion-like in his actions, but mild and quiet in disposition. Jack was a general favourite, and had a peculiar fondness for me. My other companion was Peterkin Gay. He was little, quick, funny, decidedly mischievous, and about fourteen years old. But Peterkin's mischief was almost always harmless, else he could not have been so much beloved ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... the tower over Ear-gate two great guns, the one called High-mind and the other Heady. Unto these two guns they trusted much; they were cast in the castle by Diabolus's ironfounder, whose name was Mr. Puff-up, and mischievous pieces they were. They in the camp also did stoutly, for they saw that unless they could open Ear-gate it would be in vain to batter the wall.' And so on, through many allegorical, and, if sometimes somewhat laboured, yet always ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... anomaly of two allegiances (of which that of the State comes nearest home to a man's feelings, and includes the altar and the hearth, while the General Government claims his devotion only to an airy mode of law, and has no symbol but a flag) is exceedingly mischievous in this point of view; for it has converted crowds of honest people into traitors, who seem to themselves not merely innocent, but patriotic, and who die for a bad cause with as quiet a conscience as if it were the best. In the vast extent of our country,—too vast by far ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... hasty promenade to the walls to see the people at work upon them. They received with great contentment the military salutes of the officers of their acquaintance, which they acknowledged with the courtesy of well-trained internes, slightly exaggerated by provoking smiles and mischievous glances which had formed no part of the lessons in politeness taught them ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... of propagation or enlargement used by commonwealths is that of Switzerland and Holland, equal leagues; this, though it be not otherwise mischievous, is useless to the world, and dangerous to themselves: useless to the world, for as the former governments were storks, these are blocks, have no sense of honor, or concern in the sufferings of others. But as the AEtolians, a state of the like fabric, were reproached by Philip of Macedon ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... vexation, to see if Miss Mott were listening, and caught a gleam of mischievous intelligence ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... to seek some way of exit, also moves a savage: it was not so much indifference to kindness, as the passion for roaming—the habit of the race. Nor were they managed always with prudence: they were left to the mischievous influence of low white men, who delighted to terrify, even when they did not positively injure them. It was not until thirty had escaped, nearly equal to the whole number taken, that it was discovered, that to retain them, even their prejudices required tenderness, ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... English nursery-lore the frost is personified as a mischievous boy, "Jack Frost," to whose pranks its vagaries are due. In old Norse mythology we read of the terrible "Frost Giants," offspring of Ymir, born of the ice of Niflheim, which the warmth exhaled from the sun-lit land of Muspelheim caused to drop off into the great Ginnunga-gap, the void ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... cease now to apply to Laetitia; it would be an echo of Lady Busshe. Nay, were all in the secret, Thrice jilted! might become the universal roar. And this, he reflected bitterly, of a man whom nothing but duty to his line had arrested from being the most mischievous of his class with women! Such is ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... perfect Harpado—nothing better than a wild bull. The circumstances require the interference of vir gravis pietate et moribus, and you bring it a Highland piper to blow a Highland charge, the more mischievous that it possesses much wild ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... substratum of suspicion against the General Government, nor of conspiracy to employ its enginery for special or local designs. At the South it has been vital and significant from the first, and it has grown more mischievous to the last. President Lincoln, in his first message, discussed, ably enough, the right of secession as a mere constitutional or legal right. Others have done the same before and since. The opinion of the lawyer is all very well, but it has no special ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... one of the quotations from Anacreon in ancient writers is to be found in these poems, which further contain no references to contemporaries, whereas Strabo (xiv. p. 638) expressly states that Anacreon's poems included numerous allusions to Polycrates. The character of Love as a mischievous little boy is quite different from that given by Anacreon, who describes him as "striking with a mighty axe, like a smith,'' and is more akin to the conceptions of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... surer guide for the ultimate happiness, both of the race and of the individual, than any amount of deliberate consultation. It is not the foolish fancies of youth that will have to be got rid of, but the foolish, wicked, and mischievous ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... finances; and to me it appears strange indeed that anyone should doubt that the entire control which the President possesses over the officers who have the custody of the public money, by the power of removal with or without cause, does, for all mischievous purposes at least, virtually subject the treasure also to his disposal. The first Roman Emperor, in his attempt to seize the sacred treasure, silenced the opposition of the officer to whose charge it had been committed by a significant allusion to ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... misinformed on that point, Mr. Brent," he said. "There may be—no doubt are—mischievous persons that would say such things, but I never heard nothing of the sort, sir. Political feeling, perhaps; but ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... the head and of the eyes, according to which are predominant in the case of an individual, tell much of his character. The villain on the stage habitually looks out of the corners of his eyes. So does the mischievous ingenue. But the hero turns his whole head when he looks about. And the look of innocence in the eyes of the heroine is straightforward; her head is pointed directly in line with her gaze. Apply the principle in your ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... eighteenth century. He sold himself to the highest bidder, and he could be bought at a very low price. He wrote well; sometimes as pointedly as Junius or Cobbett (who had his bones brought to England). Neither excelled him in coining telling and mischievous phrases; neither surpassed him in popularity-hunting. He had the art, which was almost equal to genius, of giving happy titles to his productions. When he denounced the British Government in the name of 'Common ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... stipulate, but her eyes implored them to judge leniently the irrepressibility of her beautiful one. There were cakes sufficient—a hasty glance reassured her upon that point—and Teresita was in one of her mischievous moods. The mother who had reared her sighed resignedly and poured the wine into the small glasses with a quaint design cut into their sides, perfectly unconscious of the good the ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776, Andrew was nine years old, and his father had long been dead. He was a tall, slender, freckled-faced, barefooted boy, with eyes full of fun; the neighbors called him "Mischievous ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery
... somewhat younger. He is with my mother in London, the darling of the ladies, who think him a perfect beauty, and laugh at all his mischievous pranks. As to my little sisters, you will be surprised to hear that I have only seen them once, when I rode with their father to see them at the farm houses ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... seemed to come in his eye. With a wink down toward Billy he went to work. Crack, crack, crack! The shell was open. Crack! And a large section fell, whirling spinning down, straight down. The squirrel paused in his nibbling and cocked an eye again with that mischievous twinkle as if he enjoyed the joke, watching the light bit of shell in its swift descent, plump on the end of Billy's nose. It couldn't have hit straighter if Chippie had been pitcher for the Sabbath Valley base ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... devoted to promiscuous visiting and the relief (or otherwise) of her poorer and busier neighbors. Mr. Carnegie had refused to accept the plea of her good heart in excuse of her bad practice, and had denounced her, in a moment of extreme irritation, as a presumptuous and mischievous woman; and Miss Wort had publicly rejoined that she would not call in Mr. Carnegie if she were at death's door, because who could expect a blessing on the remedies of a man who was not a professor of religion? The most cordial ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... even equipped with a pirate ghost," contributed Ricky with a mischievous glance in her ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... was one Jennie Shelby, who was but little more than twenty; she was a blonde, of graceful figure, with a peculiarly animated expression of countenance. Her complexion was beautiful, her dimples deep and mischievous, her large blue eyes full of latent fire, and her features would pass muster among sculptors. Suitors had she by the score. At last she had met her fate. Elmer Charleston accepted a position in the town and at once began to court the ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... their return, after eating nuts and apples, they agreed to have a little singing. They struck up "Hark, from the Tombs a Doleful Sound," to the tune, Bangor. They sang it slowly and solemnly, now and then casting at him glances from their mischievous eyes. He sat a silent listener, while their song, sung in fun, made an earnest impression of which he could ...
— A Story of One Short Life, 1783 to 1818 - [Samuel John Mills] • Elisabeth G. Stryker
... uncles, would prove racy reading through many chapters. "The Twins" were the father's text for spicy stories galore many years before their death. From the first, they were "two young sinners." They both had active minds— overactive in devising deviltry. Mischievous as little fellows, never punished, practically never corrected by their father, humored by sisters, house-servants, and the plantation-hands, feared and admired by other boys, they seemed proof against any helpful influence from ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... consequence, but it was lost by a majority of 63 against 13. Nine of the minority entered a strong protest against the address—the first ever made upon an address—which concluded with these words: "Whatever may be the mischievous designs or the inconsiderate temerity, which leads others to this desperate course, we wish to be known as persons who have ever disapproved of measures so pernicious in their past effects and their future tendency; and who are not in haste, without inquiry or information, to commit ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... how general are religious animosities. Everywhere in the world the devotees of each local faith abhor the devotees of every other, and abstain from murder only so long as they dare not commit it. And the strangest thing about it is that all religions are erroneous and mischievous excepting mine. Mine, thank ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... all the rest; for observing the manner in which I had disposed my books on the table before me, he very dextrously displaced one of them, and put an obscene jest-book of his own in the place. However I took no notice of all that this mischievous groupe of little beings could do; but went on, perfectly sensible that what was ridiculous in my attempt, would excite mirth only the first or second time, while what was serious would be permanent. My ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... has arisen and been largely canvassed, on the relation between the parable and one[43] recorded in Luke xiv. 16-24 regarding a certain man who made a great supper and bade many. Around this subject much useless and some mischievous debate has accumulated. The criticism which assumes that only one discourse on the subject was spoken by Jesus, and that consequently two reports of it differing from each other, cannot be both correct, is ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... know whether these birds were the same as our sparrows, which are so common everywhere, even in the busy streets London, and so mischievous in the country, eating the grain, and stealing the peas, and nipping off the young ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... finding himself once more at home, after several months in Madrid, he stood for some time motionless in the patio, looking up at the balconies of the first story, then at the attic windows—from which in mischievous years gone by he had many a time withdrawn his head at the sound of his mother's scolding voice—and lastly, at the veil of luminous blue above—a patch of sky drenched in that Spanish sunlight which ripens the oranges to clusters of ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... band, he started from his seat, a la cavalier, and bounding into the air, alighted upon the backs of the horses, a leg upon each. The lady was expected to have followed this graceful action, but its effect appeared to astonish the beasts, and the off steed, as mischievous a Mustang as ever munched at a manger, suspicious of a design to make him carry double, commenced curveting, and disturbed the equilibrium of the lady considerably. Then he seemed determined upon a separation "a vinculo," and spreading out, placed the gentleman ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... Library Journal remarks on the list, "Guest's Lectures on English History is better than Dickens's, and the 'Prudy' children are so mischievous, so full of young Americanisms, and so far from being 'wells of English undefiled,' that they are not always good companions for boys and girls. I have known a child's English spoiled ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley
... necessary, and to watch them with the utmost caution and circumspection: for a rogue, he wisely said, like gunpowder, must be used with caution; since both are altogether as liable to blow up the party himself who uses them as to execute his mischievous purpose against some ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... head upon her left shoulder contracted her brows over her mischievous eyes, clasped her hands to her breast, and fell into ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... rebels, bearing a flag of truce, and exchanged the women for guns and ammunition. I kept the little one, notwithstanding the five months of march we must make, before returning to Tlemcen. She had grown gentle, was inclined to be mischievous, but was yielding and almost affectionate with me. She ate with the rest, never wanting to sit down, but running from one to another around the table. She had proud little manners, as if she knew herself to be a daughter of the chief's favorite, obeying only the officers and treating ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... his father discovered what had happened to his favorite tree. He came into the house in great anger, and demanded to know who the mischievous person was who had cut away the bark. Nobody could ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... malkompreni. Misapprehension malkompreno. Misanthrope homevitulo. Misbehave malbonkonduti. Miscalculation kalkuleraro. Miscarry malsukcesi. Miscellaneous miksita, diversa. Mischance malfelicxo. Mischief malboneco, malpraveco. Mischievous malbonema. Misconception malkompreno—eco. Misconduct malbonkonduti. Miscreant malbonulo. Misdeed malbonfaro. Misdemeanour krimeto. Miser avarulo. Miserable malgaja. Miserly avara. Misery mizero. Misfortune malfelicxo. Misinterpretation kontrauxsenco. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... strife. They have for a long time, to use a significant vulgarism, set the people by the ears, and live by the spoil they caught up in the scramble. There is some reason to hope that this regulation will diminish their number, and restrain their mischievous activity. But till trials by jury are established, little justice can be expected in Norway. Judges who cannot be bribed are often timid, and afraid of offending bold knaves, lest they should raise a set of hornets about themselves. The ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... Such a decision is worse than disobedience—it is lawlessness. Unless a severe example is made of the offenders, the standard of the school will be lowered. Therefore, I intend to sift this matter to the bottom and find out what mischievous influence prompted this act ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... indeed, in that of most travelers, to any other meat. We shall meet with no other kind of creature fit for food up here. The birds, indeed, supply us amply, but for the men it is desirable that we should obtain fresh meat when we have the chance. These baboons are very mischievous creatures, and are not to be attacked with impunity. Let four of the Houssas with their guns come ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... connected view of the recent proceedings in the House of Delegates on the subject of the abolition of slavery and a succinct account of the doctrines broached by the friends of abolition in debate, and the mischievous tendency of those proceedings and doctrines (Richmond, 1832). These letters were first published in the Richmond Enquirer, ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... really believe this is of my own making." "Fielding," I inquired, "how does your dairy thrive, and have you any new stock on your farm? Come give us a little touch of the country." He gave me a mischievous look and said, "I will not tell you a word until you let me know all about that full-blooded cow, of which I have heard something. You need not try to hide that story any longer." So we yielded to his coaxing. It was about ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... willing to trust her half-trained servants to watch it, she gave the precious oil in charge to this youth, who was one of her favorites, bidding him, after a stated time, remove it from the chimney to a cooling-place; now not finishing her directions, the lad indulged his mischievous propensities by attempting to place the kettle of boiling lard to cool in the square-room fire-place; but finding it heavier than his strength could carry, its contents were suddenly deposited on the carpet, save such ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... of us spoke of the frequently false and mischievous statements purporting to come from spirits—predictions which did not come to pass, descriptions which were wholly wrong, and sending credulous believers on wild-goose chases after hidden treasure, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... confinement to making those complaints to the governor, which would have led to their release, and reinstation in their former situations of labour. Governor Hunter no sooner made himself acquainted with the mischievous extent to which this conduct was carried, than he published an order, in which he prohibited every person in trade from "crediting the servants of the crown, under the plea of their being at liberty to imprison ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... strong, keen, frank, and a little hard and mordent, brought him too near a mischievous disbelief in the dignity of men and their lives, at least it kept him well away from morbid weakness in ethics, and from beating the winds in metaphysics. But of this we shall see more in considering his public pieces than can be gathered ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... In another instant mischievous Cadet Holmes would actually be slipping a shell into the reveille gun, if it were not already loaded, and then attaching a cord, to lay a trap for ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... of the Island, with many gentlemen, expecting us on the beach. We had, as at all other places, some difficulty in landing. The craggs were irregularly broken, and a false step would have been very mischievous. ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... the people would become very uneasy under the government, and lament that they ever put additional powers into their hands. He was surprised to see another memorial on the same subject, and that signed by a man who ought to have known the constitution better. He thought it a mischievous attempt, as it respected the persons in whose favor it was intended. It would buoy them up with hopes, without a foundation, and as they could not reason on the subject, as more enlightened men would, they might be led to do what they would be punished for, and ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... been written about the mischievous doings of the sparrow, and war has been waged against it to a certain extent both here and in England. But the sparrow holds its ground well, and proves in many ways that even if it may drive away robins, and injure ...
— Harper's Young People, February 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... tribes above mentioned and to remain at peace until the fourth day of October, 1865, when they were to meet the Government commissioners at Bluffs Creek about forty miles south of the Little Arkansas. This agreement did not take in the South Cheyennes, who had been more mischievous than any of the tribes, but this tribe kept south of the Arkansas, retaining all the stock they captured, and none of them were punished for the murders they committed. It was a business matter on their part to remain at peace only until ...
— The Battle of Atlanta - and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. • Grenville M. Dodge
... everything slowed down: I was wrong. Studying intensified for me. The folklore of the British Isles intrigued me. I delved into the Black Welsh tales, the mischievous fancies of the Irish, the English legends of the prowling werewolf. For me it was a relief from political science, which suddenly palled and which smacked of treason in the light of current events. My extracurricular research consumed the better part of my evenings. My books were and always have ...
— Each Man Kills • Victoria Glad
... which each player will aver that he received from the player before him. I am afraid that too much of the average gossip of every city, town, and village is little more than a game of "Russian Scandal;" with this difference, that while one is but a game, the other is but too mischievous earnest. ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... that word deriding grinn'd, Then wagg'd the head and spake: "Hear his device, Mischievous as he is, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... to themselves? Nearly all public dealing with it has been left to men who can praise the only doctrines that they can preach as true, or who else can condemn as false the doctrines that they deplore as mischievous. As for the others, whose mental and moral convictions are at variance, they have neither any heart to proclaim the one, nor any intellectual standpoint from which to proclaim the other. Their only impulse is to struggle and to endure in silence. ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... The mischievous Raven flew laughing away; Bumpety, bumpety, bump! And vowed he would serve them the same the next day; Lumpety, ...
— The Panjandrum Picture Book • Randolph Caldecott
... not Tchizhov, you spiteful, mischievous woman. I'll give the boy a hiding. Catch him, catch him, he was laughing ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... knife. But on no account stick a fork into the lean. We are taking ever so much care to keep the juices in, and if you stick a fork in you let them out most abundantly. It would not be so mischievous to stick the fork into the fat, but to stick it ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... actual merits, in the light of reason and common sense, its teachings about woman would have had no authoritative weight; but when millions have for centuries been brought up to believe that the Bible is an inspired and infallible revelation from God, its influence has been mischievous in a ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... country where your numbers are such as to endanger our majority, or afford temptation to demagogues to inflame your prejudices and passions by historical appeals to them, and severe as it may seem not to let you form military companies, (which would also be mischievous in the same way) we nevertheless propose to exclude you from this right of suffrage, and from separate organizations, for our own defence, and that we may preserve our institutions for our proper descendants. We ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... of her, and named them, and the sums each had spent upon her. I know no kind of calumny more frightful or frequent than this which takes away the character of women, no men more reckless and mischievous than those who lightly use it, and no kind of cowards more despicable than the people who invent ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... convicted men. Others are with them occasionally, he is with them all day long, and unless he comes to his task with a full knowledge of the delicate and difficult nature of the duties he has to perform, he will probably exercise a mischievous and irritating influence on the prisoners committed to his charge. On the other hand, a well-instructed officer can work wonders in the way of good, while insisting with inflexible firmness on the rules of discipline, he is able at the same time by tact and kindliness ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... they were willing to proceed in investigating, we did not seek to examine into the particulars of the conduct of the Democratic visitors in Louisiana. To let the testimony show the original resolutions of inquiry to be both useless and mischievous, serving no purpose but the spread of unjust scandal, seemed to us, in view of all former inquiries in the same direction, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... Elfrida. "I believe she is not well and is confined to her room; you will introduce me, won't you?" she added eagerly. "Of course, when we heard that there was an Atherly here we inquired about you; and I told them you were a relation of ours," she went on with a half-mischievous shyness,—"you remember the de Bracys,—and they seemed surprised and rather curious. I suppose one does not talk so much about these things over here, and I dare say you have so much to occupy your mind you don't talk of us in England." With the quickness of a refined perception ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... by which I had been bed-ridden for nearly six months. Unhappily, among my neighbour's and landlord's books were a large parcel of medical reviews and magazines. I had always a fondness (a common case, but most mischievous turn with reading men who are at all dyspeptic) for dabbling in medical writings; and in one of these reviews I met a case, which I fancied very like my own, in which a cure had been effected by the Kendal Black Drop. In an evil hour I procured it:—it worked ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... and mischievous humor with which Swinburne gave his account of this projected play exhibited a side of his character which I have never even seen mentioned, and the appreciation and surprise of his audience were obviously a great delight to him. He ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... Charitable thinks they may be down here to meet their own friends," remarked Leila with a mischievous glance toward Marjorie. "You guileless infant! Don't you know what has happened? The Sans are going to do just what some of us said the other night they wouldn't take the trouble to do. They have gone into ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... however, limited the Europeans in China to very small bounds. Some persons occasionally violate them, and attempt a longer walk. Once round the city walls has frequently been effected, but always at the risk of a scuffle, an assault and battery, from the idle and mischievous among the native population. On former occasions, some of the foreign tourists have returned to the factories relieved of the burden of their watches and clothes. An English baronet was once, on his passage round, robbed of his watch, and stripped either ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... Mollie was almost always in action, Grace in repose. Mollie was dark, Grace fair. Mollie was quick-tempered— Grace very slow to arouse. Perhaps it was the French blood in Mollie— blood that showed even more plainly in her mother, a wealthy widow— that accounted for this. Or perhaps it was the mischievous twins— Dodo and Paul— whose antics so often annoyed their older sister, that caused Mollie to "flare ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope
... cashier's will in all things; but Castanier, who could read the inmost thoughts of the soul, discovered the real motive underlying this purely physical devotion. He amused himself with her, however, like a mischievous child who greedily sucks the juice of the cherry and flings away the stone. The next morning at breakfast time, when she was fully convinced that she was a lady and the mistress of the house, Castanier uttered one ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... a great comfort to her; she was outgrowing her wild, mischievous ways, and she was so bright and quick. She promised to be pretty, too. Grandma compared her favorably with her own grandchildren, especially Mrs. Dorcas' eldest daughter Martha, who was nearly Ann's age. "Marthy's a pretty ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... I unluckily inquired if she had seen the Hindoo—and, hearing that she had, I still more unfortunately asked her to tell me what he was like. She described him as being very tall and lean, with a dark brown complexion and glittering black eyes. My mischievous fancy instantly set to work on this horrid combination of darknesses. Try as I might to resist it, my mind drew a dreadful picture of the Hindoo, as a kind of monster in human form. I would have given worlds to have been excused from going down into ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... like that at his age," said little Marie, with a mischievous smile. "Well, my little Pierre, are you looking for the top of your cradle? It's made of green leaves to-night, my child; but your father's having his supper, all the same. Do you want to sup with him? I haven't eaten your share; I thought ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... better go along with you now," put in Bess, with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. "I'm afraid it will be a case where two is ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... reviewer, 'is an inflated jargon, composed of terms picked up in all countries, and wholly irreducible to any ordinary rules of grammar and sense. The sentiments are mischievous in tendency, profligate in principle, licentious and irreverent in the highest degree.' The first part of this accusation was only too well founded, but the licentiousness of which Lady Morgan's works were invariably accused in the Quarterly Review, can only have existed in ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... the kitchen, he fussed about for some time among what seemed the cookery arrangements, and at length drew from a chest that stood firmly fixed under an old deal table near a spacious fire-place, in which was a monster back-log, from behind which the ferret eyes of three mischievous urchins peered curious and comical, his judicial suit. Again from the chest the Squire drew forth a large steel chain, and a very mysterious-looking book, and began decorating himself in the most shocking manner. This done, he repaired to the door, ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... distraction, the Florentine boys, who were never wanting in any street scene, and were of an especially mischievous sort—as who should say, very sour crabs indeed—saw a great opportunity. Some made a rush at the nuts and dried figs, others preferred the farinaceous delicacies at the cooked provision stalls—delicacies to which certain four-footed dogs also, ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... Company. He thinks that unless Directors selected writers and cadets we should have an inferior sort of people in India. I have no objection to the patronage being in a corporate body, but I am satisfied the present system leads to a degree of delay which is more mischievous than misdirection. He acknowledges, however, that the service is much changed. The exhibition made by Courtenay Smith has produced a strong impression upon his mind. He has done more injury to the Company in his mind than all the ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... glorious confusion a mischievous Pug[103] Contrived of the claret to empty each jug, But not unperceived by young Miss Exclamation,[104] Who by her loud cries caused immense consternation. Meanwhile came the Sweep,[105] with the ...
— The Emperor's Rout • Unknown |
