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Villainy   Listen
noun
Villainy  n.  (pl. villainies)  (Written also villany)  
1.
The quality or state of being a villain, or villainous; extreme depravity; atrocious wickedness; as, the villainy of the seducer. "Lucre of vilanye." "The commendation is not in his wit, but in his villainy."
2.
Abusive, reproachful language; discourteous speech; foul talk. (Archaic) "He never yet not vileinye ne said In all his life, unto no manner wight." "In our modern language, it (foul language) is termed villainy, as being proper for rustic boors, or men of coarsest education and employment." "Villainy till a very late day expressed words foul and disgraceful to the utterer much oftener than deeds."
3.
The act of a villain; a deed of deep depravity; a crime. "Such villainies roused Horace into wrath." "That execrable sum of all villainies commonly called a slave trade."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Villainy" Quotes from Famous Books



... one day, the last one, in the life of Kagax the Weasel, who turns white in winter, and yellow in spring, and brown in summer, the better to hide his villainy. ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long

... Vulcan. After the first week only two things lay between him and death at any moment. One was his inventiveness. Tricky's wickedness was nothing, if not original. Every day he was at some new villainy; and anything new on board ship is sacred. There is no Punch published on board ship; but Tricky was all the comic papers rolled into one. But that was not the main reason. There is a good deal of quiet quarrelling on board ship. The mate spared Tricky because he thought ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond

... know very well what you've done, you young rascal!" puffed the merchant. "Oh, but I'll make you pay dearly for your villainy." ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer

... numerous composites of various groups of convicts, which are interesting negatively rather than positively. They produce faces of a mean description, with no villainy written on them. The individual faces are villainous enough, but they are villainous in different ways, and when they are combined, the individual peculiarities disappear, and the common humanity of a low type ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton

... his equally devilish niece, together with the conjurer and forger, who had assumed the character of the Black Spectre, were all hanged, through the instrumentality of Valentine Greatrakes, who had acquired so many testimonies of their villainy and their crimes as enabled him, in conjunction with the other magistrates of the county, to obtain such a body of evidence against them as no jury could withstand. It was, probably, well for Woodward that the middogue of the outlaw prevented ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... trying to soothe the agitation of Daphne's mother; listening to her tirades against her suddenly masterful son, hearing her protestations of faith in the rectitude of Jack Marston, alternating with her outbursts of anger and grief at his hitherto unsuspected villainy. ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann

... He draws long comparisons between Walpole and Townshend, between Congreve and Wycherley, between Essex and Villiers, between the fall of the Carlovingians and the fall of the Moguls. He follows up a general statement with swarms of instances. Have historians been given to exaggerating the villainy of Machiavelli? Macaulay can name you half a dozen who did so. Did the writers of Charles's faction delight in making their opponents appear contemptible? "They have told us that Pym broke down in a speech, that Ireton had his nose pulled by ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

... to run risks, I believe," replied Gascoyne, in a sad low voice. "It matters not. My being on the island is the result of Manton's villainy—my being here is for poor Henry's sake and your own, as well as for the sake of Alice the missionary's child. You have been upright, Mary, and kind, and true as steel ever since I knew you. But for that I should have been lost ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne

... out that she has been so criminally deceived—when she knows that you are not her husband? No! She will prosecute you to the utmost extent of the law. And, even if it were possible to suppose that she could forgive your black villainy, forget her own deep wrongs, and forego vengeance, do you suppose it possible that Abel Force would ever be brought to recognize your claim to his daughter? Never, you may depend on it! He will repudiate your claim as the most shameful insult to his family. He will protect ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... for proper discounts. Oh, the villainy of those tradesmen! I do believe they charge double in the hope of getting half. As to jewellers . . . !' Then she announced her intention of going up to town again on Thursday, at which visit she would arrange for the payment of the various debts. Stephen tried to remonstrate, but she was obdurate. ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker

... with us," he wrote, "all the dallying with the Swede, all the dallying there will be with the rest, one after another, is merely to keep Lord Robert's enemies in play until his villainy about his wife ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... detestable villainy of Ferrand. "Then," said he to Louise, "you did not dare to complain to your father of the ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... two miles of brick and mortar piled on either side. At last they came to a third-rate house, when a rough, common-looking woman opened the door and shutter. As soon as she saw the man, she let loose her tongue upon him for all the villainy in the world, but something which passed from his hand to hers hushed her in an instant; and observing the merchant, ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... suddenly, "that it was your precious Mrs. Higgs that murdered the man. I'm quite sure she's capable of it, or of any other villainy." ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden

... show them to him, for he would have seen that they were blurred with tears. You perceive that she had come to be tender of the feelings of this earnest and scoundrelly lover, believing in his sincerity and not in his villainy. ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... liasons, of the cloak and the dagger, are some of the old streets, balconies, and portals of Mexico. Here the Spanish cavalier, with sword and muffling cape, stalked through the gloom to some intrigue of love or villainy, and here passed cassocked priest and barefooted friars, long years ago. Here sparkling eyes looked forth from some twilight lattice what time from the street below arose the soft notes of a serenading guitar. As to the sparkling eyes and the serenading lover and the balconies, these are ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... full acknowledgment of all his villainy, telling, as has been before related, the whole story of his wager with Posthumus, and how he had succeeded in imposing ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... Durtal went on, "the priest tolerates the villainy of jolly songs which are served up to him; but at least he does not, like the one at St. Severin, allow strolling women players to lighten up the Office by the shouts of such voices as remain to them. ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... You are fair and honest, and carry on your business with the wise intelligence the Lord gave you, and bring honour upon Israel. But I think if a man be honest himself, he ought not to look indifferently upon other people's villainy; and if he do not prevent it when he can, it is as bad as if he had done it himself. I have heard that a great wrong is going to be done by an Israelite to an innocent man. I can do nothing to prevent it, and I am looking for somebody who might be able to ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko

... his self-reproach grew dominant and clamorous. "It's all my fault—if she dies it'll be my fault! But how was I to know? How could I tell that anything like this would happen? I swear I'd die rather than let her go through this villainy a second time. It's infamous—I'll kill myself before it happens again!" He flung himself on the sofa and turned his face to the wall, muttering invectives, blasphemies—a confused furious arraignment of the ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair

... his eyes, vanquished and perplexed. The picture of the future outlined by Marguerite terrified him. To live with her as a nurse taking advantage of her patient's blindness would be to offer him fresh insult every day. . . . Ah, no! That would be villainy, indeed! He was now ashamed to recall the malignity with which, a little while before, he had regarded this innocent unfortunate. He realized that he was powerless to contend with him. Weak and helpless ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... fashion, may be cologned, and pomatumed, and padded, and diamond-ringed, and flamboyant-cravatted, until they bewitch the eye and intoxicate the olfactories; but they are double-distilled extracts of villainy, moral dirt and blasphemy. Beware of them. "Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. But he knoweth not that ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage

... sordid demands for many days; but at length, realizing that this was kismet and tired of the perpetual upbraiding, she consented to do his bidding. So for three weary years the waters closed over Imtiazan. One day she awoke to find that her husband had crowned his villainy by decamping with her valuables and all her savings. She followed and found him, and, pressing into his hand a little extra money that he had in his hurry overlooked, she bade him a bitter farewell for ever. She rested a day or two to get herself ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.

... he had instantly made up his mind, that, if this should prove to be more than a fancy of delirium—the miraged portrayal of a villainy which had actually occurred—he would track the assassin as he had tracked Spurling, till the last ounce of his strength failed him, that Spurling might be avenged. Perhaps, in the avenging he hoped to clear himself in his own sight of his ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson

... way of satisfying his lustful desire. One day he appeared at break of dawn at the house of Dathan, roused him from his sleep, and ordered him to hurry his detachment of men to their work. The husband scarcely out of sight, he executed the villainy he had planned, and dishonored the woman, and the fruit of this illicit relation was the blasphemer of the Name whom Moses ordered to execution on the ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... of the wickedness he has perpetrated, all wish to act by stealth and without any one being aware of what thy do. Then, if any one be arraigned, the name of God is dragged into the affair and must make the villainy look like godliness, and the shame like honor. This is the common course of the world, which, like a great deluge, has flooded all lands. Hence we have also as our reward what we seek and deserve: pestilences wars, famines, conflagrations, ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther

... system of ten years ago, which kept food and shelter, light and fuel, under lock and key—and made the dollar the only key to fit the lock! Yet this seems worse, somehow; and though I die for it, my last supreme blow shall be against such unutterable, such murderous villainy! So then, comrades—" ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England

... Will you speak?" he added insistently, conscious of a strange tightening of his heartstrings as the man on whom he relied, remained impassive and made no movement to come to his help. "Will you tell them, I pray you, sir, that you know me to be a man of honor, incapable of such villainy as they suggest? ... You know that I did not even ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy

... his perfervid dreams of justice and freedom, he becomes a madman and a criminal. Franz, on the other hand, represents the scheming intellect sundered from conscience and natural feeling. He is a monster of cool, calculating, hypocritical villainy. At the end he cowers in abject terror before the phantom conscience that he has reasoned out of existence in the first act. The portrait of the two brothers, as thus conceived, is crudely simple. There ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... not ambition mock their humble toil, Their vulgar crimes and villainy obscure; Nor rich rogues hear with a disdainful smile, The low and petty ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... have revenge on you fer puttin' the lasso on him. He'll try ter git level with you somehow, Kiddie, sure's a steel trap. You've made him your enemy—a dangerous enemy—an' he ain't no tenderfoot in villainy. He's cunnin' as a coyote, he's unscrup'lous, an' he's ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton

... billiard-room, saving your presence, sir,' says Wickersmith to me." Adrian pantomimed the supposed deference of the butler. Then, loftily, "But, 'Shoo' says I. 'An optical delusion, my excellent Wick. A Christian man would be incapable of such a villainy. The billiard-room, that darksome cavern, on a heaven-sent day like this? Shucks,' says I. Yet"—his attitude became exhortative—"see how mighty is truth, see how she prevails, see how the scoffer is confounded. To the billiard-room I transport myself, sceptically, on the off-chance, ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... Red Knight, and in like manner the damsel would have Fair-hands spare his life. Albeit she spake unto him many contemptuous words, whereof the Red Knight had great marvel, and all that night made three-score men to watch Fair-hands that he should have no shame or villainy. The Red Knight yielded himself to Fair-hands with fifty knights, and they all proffered him homage and fealty at all times to do ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler

... said. "Depend upon it, some big conspiracy has been afoot, and they are now endeavouring to cover up all traces of their villainy. I was discussing it with Norah when we were walking in Richmond ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux

... the other side of the bars, as though he were actually a prisoner within the grounds of this centre of revolutionary plots, of this house of folly, of blindness, of villainy and crime. Silently he indulged his wounded spirit in a feeling of immense moral and mental remoteness. He did not even smile when he ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad

... impartial book, written with personal appreciation of the Southern standpoint: "No man who is acquainted with the change of feeling which occurred in the South between the 16th of October, 1859, and the 16th of November of the same year can regard the Harper's Ferry villainy as anything other than one of the chiefest crimes of our history. It established and re-established the control of the great radical slaveholders over the non-slaveholders, the little slaveholders, and the more liberal of the larger slaveholders, which had already begun to be loosened. It ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam

... the name of all the devils, no, I shall not leave it to you. But did anyone ever meet with such villainy! He wishes to keep what he has robbed ...
— The Miser (L'Avare) • Moliere

... a younger brother, who was equally skillful as a necromancer, and even surpassed him in villainy and pernicious designs. As they did not live together, or in the same city, but oftentimes when one was in the East, the other was in the West, they failed not every year to inform themselves, by their art, each where the other resided, and whether they stood in need ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... that Accident was the parent of many; and well meant critical assiduity of more. Zeal for the Truth is accountable for not a few depravations: and the Church's Liturgical and Lectionary practice must insensibly have produced others. Systematic villainy I am persuaded has had no part or lot in the matter. The decrees of such an one as Origen, if there ever was another like him, will account for a strange number of aberrations from the Truth: and if the ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon

... Corne, "the spotted snake! A fit tool for the Intendant's lies and villainy! I am convinced he went not on his own errand to Tilly. Bigot is at the bottom of this foul conspiracy to ruin the noblest ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... used to say to me: "My Benvenuto, you must know that a prisoner is not obliged, and cannot be obliged, to keep faith, any more than aught else which befits a free man. Do what I tell you; escape from that rascal of a Pope and that bastard his son, for both are bent on having your life by villainy." I had, however, made my mind up rather to lose my life than to break the promise I had given that good man the castellan. So I bore the extreme discomforts of my situation, and had for companion of misery a friar of the Palavisina house, who was a ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... unpaid, Lords of laundresses afraid; Rogues, that nightly rob and shoot men, Hangmen, aldermen, and footmen; Lawyers, poets, priests, physicians, Noble, simple, all conditions; Worth beneath a thread-bare cover, Villainy bedaubed all over; Women, black, red, fair, and grey, Prudes, and such as never pray; Handsome, ugly, noisy still, Some that will not, some that will; Many a beau without a shilling, Many a widow not unwilling; ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... Francisco permitted this water company to go on borrowing money and cooking dividends, under cover of which the cunning financiers crept out of the tottering concern, leaving the crash to come upon poor and unsuspecting stockholders, without offering to expose the villainy at work. We hope the fearful massacre detailed above may prove the saddest result of ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... accents Benito told his story, laying stress on the villainy of others and making light of the ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths

... father believes him to be—why need the old man have been so unreasonable when all the delay you ask is another twelvemonth? Believe me, he had some excellent reason for his anxiety. Finally, if the old villain isn't fomenting some especially foul villainy, why need he sneak from here to-night to the lowest dive in town to meet and confer with a gang leader and murderer like ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... subsists even in the most corrupt societies, in which the ideas of virtue, although completely effaced from their conduct, remain the same in their mind. Let us suppose a matt, who had decidedly determined for villainy, who should say to himself—"It is folly to be virtuous in a society that is depraved, in a community that is debauched." Let us suppose also, that he has sufficient address, the unlooked-for good fortune to escape censure or punishment, during a long series of years; ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach

... bad faith, Punic faith; mala fides[Lat], Punica fides[Lat]; infidelity; faithlessness &c. adj.; Judas kiss, betrayal. breach of promise, breach of trust, breach of faith; prodition|, disloyalty, treason, high treason; apostasy &c. (tergiversation) 607; nonobservance &c. 773. shabbiness &c. adj.; villainy, villany[obs3]; baseness &c. adj.; abjection, debasement, turpitude, moral turpitude, laxity, trimming, shuffling. perfidy; perfidiousness &c. adj.; treachery, double dealing; unfairness &c. adj.; knavery, roguery, rascality, foul play; jobbing, jobbery; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... The circumstances of the origin of this 'poetomachia' are far from clear, and those who have written on the topic, except of late, have not helped to make them clearer. The origin of the "war" has been referred to satirical references, apparently to Jonson, contained in "The Scourge of Villainy," a satire in regular form after the manner of the ancients by John Marston, a fellow playwright, subsequent friend and collaborator of Jonson's. On the other hand, epigrams of Jonson have been discovered (49, 68, and 100) variously charging "playwright" (reasonably identified ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson

... told her, a bit anxiously. "Their reasons for causing my arrest now are simply that that man Swinnerton, not knowing when he is beaten, wants me out of the way for a few days. He is ready to spring another bit of his villainy, I suppose. But I do not think that Wallace is going to serve his warrant in ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory

... like a message from home. I'd give much never to have had it now. All of us saw something good in you; we didn't expect much, so there wasn't much for you to live up to. But what have you done? Dragged us into a heap of filth and villainy and wickedness. We've done with you here—make no mistake about that. You can take the one horse and cart and whatever else you can call your own, and off you go! There's no money to be got; you've wasted more than ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo

... awakening as to the possibilities of the criminal, and society would discover that its best interests were served by reforming its offenders and making them moral and industrious servants of the State, instead of by committing them to institutions where they were brought into contact with consecrated villainy and where the unwholesome influence is calculated to confirm them in criminal habits and make them a constant menace and expense to the community. That our criminal population is on the increase, and that the proportion of recidivists grows larger every year, is scarcely to be wondered at in the ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll

... of two millions of American people in the Southern States, the tyranny of this nation assumes a gigantic form. The magnitude of the crime elevates the indignation of the soul. Such august villainy and stupendous iniquity soar above disgust, and mount up to astonishment. A conflagration like that of Moscow, is full of sublimity, though dreadful in its effects; but the burning of a solitary hut makes the incendiary despicable by the meanness of ...
— Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts - Relative to the Marshpee Tribe: or, The Pretended Riot Explained • William Apes

... Don't it make your flesh creep ever so little? that wicked old devil, up to every villainy under the sun, I'll ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... opinion of a celebrated poet, the best-laid plans of men as well as mice are apt to miscarry. That night the elements contrived to throw men's calculations out of joint, and to render their cupidity, villainy, and wisdom ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne

... commenced to pass. He had, he recollected, plainly stated that he merely desired Alton to be detained a little amidst the ranges, and it became evident to him that what had happened was the result of Hallam's villainy. Hallam had injured him as well as Alton, while there was no controverting the fact that the rancher's decease would relieve him of a vast anxiety, and his first indignation against Hallam also melted when he rose composedly from the chair. He felt that Seaforth expected something ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss

... first place, Ulred, to say nought of this matter to the king," began Wulf. "He will have enough to occupy all his thoughts in the affairs of the kingdom, and in the second place his nature is so open that he will refuse to believe in such villainy unless upon strong proof, and of actual proof we have none. Beorn's appearance here will excite no surprise. He will say that having nought in particular to occupy him he had ridden north to be at the wedding, and finding that he was too late, would at any rate ride back ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty

... he could lash himself—came stalking up to where Morgan held Craddock and the unwounded raider off from the tempting heap of weapons thrown down by the mob. The sheriff began to abuse Craddock, laying to him all the villainy of ancestry and life that his well-schooled tongue could shape. Morgan cut him ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden

... had doubtless business relating to her French estate, which called her to Paris. My daughters are honest women, unless by your villainy, one, who should have been sacred, as your sister by affinity, should bear a blighted name. Give me back my daughter, villain—the girl you lured from her home by the ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... corridors arranged round two courtyards, one appropriated to the men, the other to the women. A few of the men were at work making shoes and baskets, but most were sitting and lying about in the sun, smoking cigarettes and talking together in knots, the young ones hard at work taking lessons in villainy from the older ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor

... experience, as revealed in the history of the race, should be the guide of mankind. But, for that very reason, he did not slavishly worship the past, well knowing that history points not only to the wisdom of sages and the virtues of saints, but also to the villainy of knaves ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.

... since I was here and since M. le Marquis was unconscious, I proceeded then and there to take the precaution which prudence had dictated, and without which, seeing this man's treachery and Theodore's villainy, I should undoubtedly have ended my days as a convict. What I did was to search M. le Marquis's pockets for anything that might ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... who, standing in the doorway with his hands upon either lintel, surveyed her with his saturnine smile, in which for this once I saw something that did not make me recoil, certain as I now was of his innate villainy and absolute connection ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green

... purposes. Mr. G. assured me that he places no confidence in these declarations, nor in the stability of the Sacs and Foxes. He deems the latter treacherous, as usual, and related to me several acts of their former villainy—all in accordance with their late attack and murder of the Menomonies at Prairie du Chien. This murder was committed by a part of Black Hawk's band, who had been driven from their villages on the Mississippi below the rapids. They ascended the river to Dubuque—from thence ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... president is as likely to be a Casey or a Smith as he is to be a Rutherford or a Pendleton, but the chances are that, when given to a great banker, either of the last two names would make a greater impression on "popular" spectators. Again, certain names instantly make us think of villainy, while others as plainly tell us that the owner of the name is an honest man. The authors of the "good old" melodramas used exaggerated names that today would probably be laughed at. "Jack Manly" and "Desmond Dangerfield" would hardly "get by" in modern drama or ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

... and that a worthy man, . . . . . . And though he was worthy he was wise, And of his port as meek as any maid. He never yet no villainy ne'er said In all his life unto no manner wight; He was a very ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... Temple's side; he was speaking low in her ear: I did not doubt he was making disclosures of my villainy; and I watched her eye with painful anxiety, expecting every moment to see its dark orb turn on me a glance of repugnance and contempt. I listened too; and as I happened to be seated quite at the top of the room, I caught most of what he said: ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... the dog that bit me. Now desist: It is not easy; yet it must come out. A letter that I wrote to this same King, Or to his secretary, George Germain,— Imploring favors for my villainy— If I appear unmanned, it's physical, And needs no moment's thought—The letter's here, [Takes a letter from his pocket.] And through its hell of shame as through a gate I see ...
— The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold - A Play for a Greek Theatre • John Jay Chapman

... simple justice—justice to himself and to others—to see that villainy is so sufficiently punished as to deter others from entering upon such courses. But I have little doubt Mr. Wilkins has taken the right steps; he is not the man to sit down quietly ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell

... fellow's villainy and impudence. He reflected, however, that nothing was to be gained by kicking him out of the house, while his offer of reparation was not to be despised. He replied, "You have been faithless to your salt; but I will pardon you on one condition that you help me to regain ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea

... her eyes of horror. "You will soon get used to the idea," he said. "You see, Wyndham doesn't really want you, and I do. That is the one extenuating circumstance of my villainy. I want you so badly that I don't much care what steps I take to get you. And so long as you continue to hate me as heartily as you do now, just by so much shall I continue to want ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... to consist in 'a sound complexion of soul, the purity of human nature in us, a habit of soul, truly generous motives and principles, divine moral laws which were first written in men's hearts, and originally dictates of human nature.' All this villainy against the Son of God, with much more as bad, is comprized within less than the first sixteen pages ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... it for a living, he will already have said these things to himself, with more force and pungency. He may have satisfied himself that he has a necessary desire for "self-expression," which is a parlous state indeed, and the cause of much literary villainy. The truly great writer is more likely to write in the hope of expressing the hearts of others than his own. And there are other desires, too, most legitimate, that he may feel. An English humorist said ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley

... French army a deep humiliation to punish the outrages committed by their Indian allies. In the early days of the war Loudoun, the Commander-in-Chief in America, had vowed that the British would make the French "sick of such inhuman villainy" and teach them to respect "the laws of nature and humanity." Washington speaks of his "deadly sorrow" at the dreadful outrages which he saw, the ravishing of women, the scalping alive even of children. Philadelphians had ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong

... spirit, whence comest thou? I have known this man well, against my will. He is a receptacle of villainy, he is a very heap of the highest ingratitude combined with all the other vices. But why should I tire myself with vain words? Nothing is to be found in him save the accumulation of all sins, and if there is ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci

... miscarriage, and the mother did not survive her more than a month, and ended her days in the Hotel Dieu, one of our common hospitals. Thus, these depraved young men ruined and murdered their benefactress and her child; and displayed, before they were thirty, such a consummate villainy as few wretches grown hoary in vice have perpetrated. This act of scandalous notoriety injured the Irish reputation very much in this country; for here, as in many other places, inconsiderate people are apt to judge a whole nation according to the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... that his blood was not red like that of other men, but black like his skin and his soul. They had good cause to curse his memory, for his villainy had reduced more than half Memphis to ashes that day, and brought the city ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... Vengeance light On others' Heads, no matter whose, if you Are but secure, and have the Cain in Hand: For they're indiff'rent where they take Revenge, Whether on him that cheated, or his Friend, Or on a Stranger whom they never saw, Perhaps an honest Peasant, who ne'er dreamt Of Fraud or Villainy in all his life; Such let them murder, if they will a Score, The Guilt is theirs, while we secure the Gain, Nor shall we feel the ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers

... have to say," Johnson remarked, "except that I shall do my best to help her to forget the past. But if ever you can forget your own cruelty and black treachery and villainy towards her——" ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... bear the slightest mention of the incorrigible guilt of the nation without dissolving into tears; especially when he happened to advert unto the impudence of that hypocrisy which reconciled goodness and villainy, and made it possible for men to be saints and devils both together; whereby religion became ruinous to itself, and faith became instructed ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... you don't know what a sight of villainy there is in the world. We've got to live here a while, likely. Have you seen anything in ...
— Brave and Bold • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... carried round Captain Harding to his way of thinking, much to Tom and Charley's surprise. It was not on account of the new first mate having any ulterior designs on the ship or cargo—that idea may be dismissed at once, for he neither had the villainy nor pluck for such a proceeding. His real object was, that these new men were all fresh to the vessel and had not yet any experience of his persuasive ways; unlike the old hands, who knew Mr Tompkins so well that they hated him and shirked work when he was to the fore—and ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson

... spring from different motives. Prince, we implore, we entreat you to return; no longer give us over to the caprice, the villainy, the tyranny and avarice of Count von Schwarzenberg. He is the evil demon of your father, of your country. Come home and frighten ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... canoe, and some property in land, the cultivation of which last he pays great attention to. Wini's character appears from the accounts I have heard—for others corroborated part of Giaom's statement—to be a compound of villainy and cunning, in addition to the ferocity and headstrong passions of a thorough savage—it strikes me that he must have been a runaway convict, probably from Norfolk Island. It is fortunate that his sphere of mischief is so limited, for a more ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... alone. And that no Bishop of Rome did ever suffer himself to be called by such a proud name before Phocas the emperor's time, who, as we know, by killing his own sovereign Maurice the emperor, did by a traitorous villainy aspire to the empire about the six hundredth and thirteenth year after Christ was born. Also the Council of Carthage did circumspectly provide, that no bishop should be called the highest bishop or chief priest. And therefore, sithence ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel

... solemnly, "you little guess the magnitude of the harm you have been doing; the frightful fate you have been preparing for an innocent and trusting girl; the depth of the villainy you are aiding and abetting. You have been acting, as I say, in ignorance, without realising the awful consequences of your folly and duplicity. But that you should have chosen this sacred place for such illicit and reprehensible behaviour; that by the grave ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... whole adventure, not even the upset, had disturbed the calm and equable current of Mr. Pickwick's temper. The villainy, however, which could first borrow money of his faithful follower, and then abbreviate his name to 'Tuppy,' was more than he could patiently bear. He drew his breath hard, and coloured up to the very tips of his spectacles, as ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... escape, she loftily expostulated with her husband on his villainy in plotting to betray her kinsman, whom she had stipulated that he should protect to the utmost of his power; and she bid him know, that as the danger of the youth had alone induced her to form any connection ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... Tammas of his inherited predatory instincts. He shoots the chickens with bows and arrows and lassoes the pigs and plays bull-fight with the cows—and oh, is very destructive! But his crowning villainy occurred an hour before the trustees' meeting, when we wanted to be so clean and ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster

... had overlooked the logical effect of this discovery on the natural villainy of his tool. In the very moment of his triumphant execution of his patron's suggestions the idea of keeping the treasure to himself flashed upon his mind. He had discovered it—why should he give it up to anybody? ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... banners. 'By the pricking of my thumbs' when I see a Newbury I feel that a mere fraction divides me from the criminal class. And I tell you, I've heard a story about that estate"—the odd figure paused beside the tea-table and rapped it vigorously for emphasis—"that's worse than any other villainy I've yet come across. You know what I mean. ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... very frontispiece; and for the rest of the story his career, if chequered at intervals, was sure of heroic episodes and a glorious close. But his juniors, who had to put up with characters of a clay more mixed—nay, sometimes with undiluted villainy—were hard put to it on occasion to defend their other selves (as it was strict etiquette to do) from ignominy perhaps only too justly merited. Edward was indeed a hopeless grabber. In the "Buffalo-book," for instance (so named from the subject of its principal ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame

... caught sight of her, standing, in habit and terai, on the open space where her tent had been, supervising the departure of her last load of luggage, and listening patiently to tales of coolie villainy and extortion poured forth by her Kashmiri ayah, on ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... protected from contamination, from the moment of conviction. Those who mingled indiscriminately with the prisoners, surpassed them in mischief and wickedness. When landed they were placed in the barracks: some, not more than ten years old, blended the trickery of boyhood with the villainy of age, and had scarcely arrived a week, before they were tied up to the triangles and punished with the cat. Lord John Russell, yielding to humane suggestions, collected a cargo of juveniles from the various prisons, and appointed ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... ship, captain—fired the ship!" says he, with just anger. "Aye, Heaven do to them as they've done to those poor creatures! Did man ever hear of such a villainy—to fire a good ship in her misfortune? It would be a sin against an honest rope to hang such a ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton

... was to do. He had money enough at his bankers to meet the cheque, and no doubt his father would help him when he knew all the circumstances; but then, was it right to give the man this money? Was he justified in doing so, and thus encouraging a villain in his villainy? The more he thought the matter over, the more firmly he became persuaded that, so long as his own life was not seriously threatened and endangered, he ought to hold out against this infamous demand, and be ready to endure days of privation, ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson

... their prey until it becomes savory and tender and ripe for eating, so the Radicals kept these dark corpses to serve up to the public when important elections approached, or some especial villainy was to be enacted by the Congress. People who had never been south of the Potomac and Ohio Rivers knew all about this "Ku-Klux"; but I failed, after many inquiries, to find a single man in the South who ever ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor

... lightly, if at all, of his first luxurious sin, but now to the depth of his secret soul, he felt that he was emmeshed and entangled in the deepest villainy. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... they're up to some villainy, blow them to shivers! Oh, these women are vile creatures! One can't say much for men either; but women!... They are like wild beasts, ...
— The Power of Darkness • Leo Tolstoy

... church, 80,000 francs were extorted. In the communes of Beauvoisin and Generac similar excesses were committed by a handful of licentious men, under the eye of the catholic mayor and to the cries of "Vive le Roi." St. Gilles was the scene of the must unblushing villainy. The protestants, the most wealthy of the inhabitants, were disarmed, whilst their houses were pillaged. The mayor was appealed to:—the mayor laughed and walked away. This officer had, at his disposal, a national guard of several hundred men, organised by his own orders. It would be ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... been the legal advisers of the Amedroz family, and our Mr Joseph Green had had but a bad time of it with Charles Amedroz in the last years of that unfortunate young man's life. But lawyers endure these troubles, submitting themselves to the extravagances, embarrassments, and even villainy of the bad subjects among their clients' families, with a good-humoured patience that is truly wonderful. That, however, was all over now as regarded Mr Green and the Amedrozes, and he had nothing further to do but to save for the father what relics of the property he might secure. And he was ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope

... properly studied his mother-in-law can fail to be aware that woman's perception of heartless villainy and evidences of intoxication in man is often of that curiously fine order of vision which rather exceeds the best efforts of ordinary microscopes, and subjects the average human mind to considerable astonishment. The perfect ease with which she can ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various

... a number of robbers here who remain seated, and do not pay their tithes to God. Now I know who are the robbers. Do you know what should be done with you? I will tell you. There is nothing for you but the fire—the fire! Is it not villainy ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot

... Every witness who could not be corrupted or deceived had been studiously excluded. Anne had been tricked into visiting Bath. The Primate had, on the very day preceding that which had been fixed for the villainy, been sent to prison in defiance of the rules of law and of the privileges of peerage. Not a single man or woman who had the smallest interest in detecting the fraud had been suffered to be present. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... mighty ruler, thee do I beseech who art lord over Pseudolus. Thee do I seek that thou mayst obtain thrice three times triple delights in three various ways, joys earned by three tricks and three tricksters, cunningly won by treachery, fraud and villainy, which in this little sealed missive have I ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke

... his room and shut the door. A fierce repulsion sickened him. He had heretofore held himself with a certain degree of inward loftiness; he had so condemned the follies and sins of other men, and here he found himself involved in a low and common villainy, in the deceits which belonged to his crime, and which preyed upon simplicity ...
— Lodusky • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... advanced age, nor high social standing, had been able to protect her from the ferocity of a black savage. Her sex, which should have been her shield and buckler, had made her an easy mark for the villainy of a black brute. To take the time to try him would be a criminal waste of public money. To hang him would be too slight a punishment for so dastardly a crime. An example ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt

... and chief business, I dare say you should have prospered better. It was one cause, among others, why the children of Israel (though the greater number, and having the better cause too) did twice fall before Benjamin, because, while they made so great a business for the villainy committed upon the Levites' concubine, they had taken no course with the graven image of the children of Dan (Jud. xviii. 30, 31), a thing which did more immediately touch God in ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... not do it. Exert himself as he would, the color would not return to his pallid lips, and he had a shameful consciousness that the old serene and complacent look, when he tried it, was sadly crossed by rigid lines of hard anxiety and shame. The mask was indeed broken—the nakedness and villainy could no more be hidden! And even the voice, faithful and obedient hitherto, always holding the same rhythmical pace, had suddenly broken rein, galloping up and down the gamut in a ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston

... new suggestion required no weighing and fine balancing. You could attribute no villainy whatever to one of the old man's enemies that he would not admit the extreme likelihood of your being right. "Stephen ain't that sort; she's got him by the nose, hell take her! She's drivin' him to it, an' it's Temple drivin' her. An' it's up to you an' me to drive him ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory

... confirms some of us, who are capable of better things, in Lucifer's own pride and stubbornness—that confirms and deepens others of us in villainy—more of us in indifference—that hardens us from day to day, according to the temper of our clay, like images, and leaves us as susceptible as images to new impressions and convictions. You shall judge of its influence on me, John. For more years ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... villainy, treachery, treasons of the Scots, were the chief grounds and causes of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... attainment whose duty it is to invent vigorous testimonials of sufferings relieved by Dr. Charlatan's universal panacea. In many instances persons are hired to give testimonials, and answer letters of inquiry in such a way as to encourage business. The shameless dishonesty and ingenious villainy exhibited are beyond description." ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen

... (France) has been in bad credit, from the villainy of a late Comptroller General, as it is said, one Abbe Terrai, against whose administration the severest things have been uttered and written. He was succeeded by the much esteemed Mons. Turgot, and stocks rose, and a commission ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various

... indignation finds vent in impassioned words, and is only pacified by her determination to forsake a world in which so vile a crime can go unpunished.— When now Luzio brings her tidings of her own brother's fate, her disgust at her brother's misconduct is turned at once to scorn for the villainy of the hypocritical Regent, who presumes so cruelly to punish the comparatively venial offence of her brother, which, at least, was not stained by treachery. Her violent outburst imprudently reveals ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... not to curse at all. He missed Phineas beyond all his conception of the blankness of bereavement. Like himself, Phineas had found salvation in the army. Doggie realized how he had striven in his own queer way to redeem the villainy of his tutorship. No woman could have ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke

... did the countenance of the Emperor make upon John Stanhope that he could never afterwards recall it without a shudder. That sense of an all-dominant will, of a boundless egoism, of a villainy which refused to be limited and could not be gauged by any of the ordinary restrictions applicable to normal humanity, was never subsequently erased from his recollections. It must be emphasised, moreover, that John Stanhope was by temperament and training singularly cosmopolitan in his outlook, ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)

... about it," she said slowly, "I can reassure you. You say that you do not know Dr. Callandar. But I do know him. The whole situation rests upon that. He is a man incapable of the caddish villainy you impute. Why he could not repair the car, I cannot say. I think," with a smile, "that he does not know quite as much about cars as he thinks he does. But he did his best, I know that! When we found his efforts useless ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... fifth year of the reign of Tatius, some of his friends and kinsmen, meeting ambassadors coming from Laurentum to Rome, attempted on the road to take away their money by force, and, upon their resistance, killed them. So great a villainy having been committed, Romulus thought the malefactors ought at once to be punished, but Tatius shuffled off and deferred the execution of it; and this one thing was the beginning of open quarrel between them; in all other respects they were very careful of their conduct, and administered affairs ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... not true, by all that's good," said Don Quixote in high wrath, turning upon him angrily, as his way was; "and it is a very great slander, or rather villainy. Queen Madasima was a very illustrious lady, and it is not to be supposed that so exalted a princess would have made free with a quack; and whoever maintains the contrary lies like a great scoundrel, and I will give him to know it, on foot ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... Margaret's Kirk, Weestminster, where he marrit me! Ou, ay! and I wad hae tell ye a' this in the beginning, only I kenned weel, if I did, ye wad na hae let me gae on gie' ony teestimony agin me ain husband. De'il hae him! But noo, as ye hae heerd the truth anent the grand villainy up in Castle Lone, I dinna mind telling ye wha I am. Ay, and ye may set aside my witness, gin ye like! But the whole coort hae noo heard it. Ay, and the whole warld s'all hear it, or a' be dune! And noo I am thinking ye'll een let the puir mon in the dock ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... which he is made to co-operate with the chief design, and the opportunity which he gives the poet of combining perfidy with perfidy, and connecting the wicked son with the wicked daughters, to impress this important moral, that villainy is never at a stop, that crimes lead to crimes, and ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson

... least so it appeared to the commanding officer. Was this significant, or of no meaning whatever? He didn't know, he couldn't tell. All the truth had departed out of the world as if drawn in, absorbed in this monstrous villainy this man ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad

... they sing, you will be broad awake, and of me, and the worship and service I would have dedicated to you, I do not . . . it is a spectral sunset of a day that was never to be!—awake, and looking on what? Back from a monstrous villainy to the forlorn wretch who winked at it with knots in a string. Count them then, and where will be your answer to heaven? I begged it of you, to save you from those ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... jeering at me, till he regularly worked round me like the snake he is, and flattered, and planned, and talked of the future, till in my weak, vain folly I drank it all in. For I was weak, and he was strong; and at last, though I didn't know it then, I was his slave, Dale, and ready to do every bit of villainy he wished. But there, I need not tell you any more. I only want you, knowing all you do, to go to my poor old father and mother and tell them everything—how it all happened. It will be better than for them only to know it from the papers. They will understand then how it ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn

... not a man to break his word. That signature to the codicil might be his or might not. If his, it had been obtained by fraud. What could be easier than to cheat an old doting fool? Many men agreed with Joseph Mason, thinking that Usbech the attorney had perpetrated this villainy on behalf of his daughter; but Joseph Mason would believe, or say that he believed—a belief in which none but his sisters joined him,—that Lady Mason herself had been the villain. He was minded to press the case on to a Court of Appeal, up even to the House of Lords; but ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... knowledge in his possession which vitally affects the young woman I love. Also he is concerned, perhaps deeply, in the murder on the Dollar Sign road. Yet he has fortified himself so well in his villainy that he ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman

... did not please one of our admirals then in London. Meeting that same admiral, I put in a word for my trip to the naval base, thinking that he might warm up and hurry things along for me. He warmed up, but on the side away from me. He recounted the enormous villainy of that newsman, and in conclusion said: "Perhaps, after all, the best way to do is not to allow you newspaper men to send a ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly

... which neither hope nor fear shall influence me to suppress. I will not sit unconcerned while my liberty is invaded, nor look in silence upon public robbery. I will exert my endeavors, at whatever hazard, to repel the aggressor, and drag the thief to justice,—whoever may protect them in their villainy and whoever may partake of their plunder. ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... she concluded the letter, "we must certainly see her before she goes. What a wretch that persecutor of hers must be! how persevering in his villainy!" ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper

... take any means to get out o' the trap that he's in now. It's comin' home to him, an' he wants to sneak out at any cost! An' so he's incitin' you against the lass. No, August, ... truly, August ... not on that bridge ... you mustn't start for to cross that bridge!... Anybody can see through his villainy! ... He's laid traps enough for the lass. An' if one way don't succeed, he'll try another!... Now he's hit on this here plan.—Maybe he'll separate you two! It's happened in this world, more than once or twice that some devil ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann

... of great crimes; he wished to equal the worst. This striving after the horrible has given him a special place to himself in the menagerie of tyrants. Petty rascality trying to emulate deep villainy, a little Nero swelling himself to a huge Lacenaire; such is this phenomenon. Art ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo

... saying, father?" cried the widow, suddenly infuriated. "Why, they dragged me into the fire with a rope round me when the Verhishins' house was burnt, and they locked up a dead cat in my chest. They are ready to do any villainy...." ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... of the world seem so far from God, we are so tempted to believe that He is remote from it, that nations and their rulers and the field of politics are void of Him. We see craft and force and villainy ruling, we see kingdoms far from any perception that society is for man and from God. We see Dei gratia on our coins, and 'by the grace of the Devil' for real motto. We see long tracks of godless crime and mean intrigue, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... that the count was by no means ready to go to all lengths, for St. Pol states in one of his conferences with the "late king" that Charles of Burgundy had assured him that for two realms such as his he would not do a deed of villainy. ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... been written till after the time of the latest fact which it records. As to the character of the book, it is horrid; it is a military history of rapine and murder, as savage and brutal as those recorded of his predecessor in villainy and hypocrisy, Moses; and the blasphemy consists, as in the former books, in ascribing those deeds to the orders of ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... to Matrimony—obviously a jest. The sly rogue laughs at me. I must confess, however, that he has given me some of my best lines. "Villainy 's afoot!" for example, and "Sink me stern up!" His peaceful school breeds a wealth ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks

... Contents," 1593, he rejects it with scorn: "Riotous vanity (he replies) was wont to root so deeply that it could hardly be unrooted; and where reckless impudency taketh possession, it useth not very hastily to be dispossessed. What say you to a spring of rankest villainy in February, and a harvest of ripest divinity in May? But what should we hereafter talk any more of paradoxes or impossibilities, when he that penned the most desperate and abominable pamphlet of 'Strange News,' and disgorged ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... the direction whence the song was coming. The head disappeared; Morgan ducked also. He could give no guess as to the identity of the man who lay before him. But his mind was made up as to the spy's intentions. Villainy was plainly foreshadowed. He drew his knife from his belt. The footfalls of the traveller were now audible. He came abreast of the lurking foe; he passed him. There was a sudden leap; then another. A steel blade flashed ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... beyond all doubt, had this been the extent. But, Deerham had to learn that the villainy had had a beginning previous ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... I do rejoice to hear it. Truly Jew I have no wish to do thy body harm But thou and thy relations are well known To be so deep in craft and villainy That to recover what is justly due We Christians must resort to rigid means. Go freely with thy daughter. Later on When ev'rything's in order I'll return And you may pay me what the ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... suit, he opens his blanket and shows the scalp of Scammon, to prove that he has avenged her. She looks in horror, but when he flings the bloody trophy at her feet she baptizes it with a forgiving tear. What villainy may this lead to? Ah, none for him, for Bonython now steps in and plies him with flattery and drink, gaining from the chief, at last, his signature—the bow totem—to a transfer of the land for which he is willing to sell his daughter. ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... Ujiji. It is a motley group, composed of Mohamad and his friends, a gang of Unyamwezi hangers-on, and strings of wretched slaves yoked together in their heavy slave-sticks. Some carry ivory, others copper, or food for the march, while hope and fear, misery and villainy, may be read off on the various faces that pass in line out of this country, like a serpent dragging its accursed folds away from the victim it has ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... doth it become you, O daughters of Kings, to harbour mortal men with you and disclose to them our case and yours? Else how should this man, a stranger, come at us?" Hasan's sister made reply, "O King's daughter, in very sooth this human is perfect in nobleness and purposeth thee no villainy; but he loveth thee, and women were not made save for men. Did he not love thee, he had not fallen sick for thy sake and well-nigh given up the ghost for desire of thee." And she told her the whole tale how Hasan had seen her bathing in the basin with her attendants, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... information." "About the use of the word 'seduced,'" the same writer remarks, "I wish to say that the class of women from amongst whom the great bulk of these cases are drawn seem to use it in a sense altogether different from that generally employed. It is not with them a process in which male villainy succeeds by various arts in overcoming female virtue and reluctance, but simply a date at which an incident in their lives occurs for the first time; and, according to their use of the phrase, the ancient legend of the Sacred Scriptures, had it ended in ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... against me: is that my reward? You robbed me of my most precious jewel by fraud, and you hoped to pass a happy life as the king's son-in-law; but now we have turned over a new leaf. You are in my power, and you shall atone to me for all your villainy." "Forgive me, forgive me," said the king's son-in-law. "I know well that I have treated you very badly, but I heartily repent of my fault." But the maiden answered, "Your pleadings and your repentance come too late, and nothing can help you more. I dare ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... son.] He stands not upon any Villainy to establish himself, or strike terror into his People. This made him cut off his only Son, a young man of about Fifteen years. After the Rebellion the Kingdom being setled in the King's hands again, and knowing that the hearts of the People disaffecting him, stood strongly bent towards the Prince, ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox

... found together in their camps. Even the dignity of hatred was wanting to their conflicts, for they changed sides without scruple, and the comrade of yesterday was the foeman of to-day, and again the comrade of the morrow. The only moral salt which kept the carcass of their villainy from rotting was a military code of honour, embodying the freemasonry of the soldier's trade and having as one of its articles the duel with all the forms—an improvement at any rate upon assassination. A stronger contrast there ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... stimulate her in the struggle going on in her own soul. And she very soon understood how the sharp, sparkling, audacious Fanny Newt had become the inert, indifferent woman before her. A clever villain might have developed her, through admiration and sympathy, into villainy; but a dull, heavy brute merely crushed her. There is a spur in the prick of a rapier; only stupidity follows the ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis

... will do anything I can to relieve you, mentally or physically," he answered in tones of tenderest love and concern. "I shall not stir from the house, while to do so would increase your suffering. I perceive there has been some villainy practised upon you, and a promise extorted, which I shall not ask you to break; but rest assured, I shall keep ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley

... Commandeth thee To let her be And set her free, Thou scurvy, cutpurse, outlaw knave, Lest hanged thou be Upon a tree For roguery And villainy, Thou knavish, misbegotten slave; For proud is she Of high degree, As unto ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol



Words linked to "Villainy" :   evil, evilness, evildoing, transgression



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