"Devilish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... saw the face of the creature opposite. With a sharp catch of my breath I left my chair and stood with clenched fists beside it. Man or beast, which was it? The flame leaped up and then went out, and in the mere red glow of the fire it looked more devilish than before. ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... wife, a young creature when he first made her acquaintance, unaware of her own power, and kept almost in slavery by the relatives of her deceased father, who had left her all his property. Major Marvel made her acquaintance and became interested in her through a devilish attempt to lay the death of her father to her door. I believe the shine of her gold had actually blinded her relatives into imagining, I can hardly say believing her guilty. The major had taken her part and been of the greatest service to her. She was entirely acquitted. But although ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... extremely poor: Cheap eggs, and herbs, and olives still we see; Thus much is left of old simplicity! The robin-redbreast till of late had rest, And children sacred held a martin's nest, Till becca-ficos sold so devilish dear To one that was, or would have been a peer. Let me extol a cat, on oysters fed, I'll have a party at the Bedford-head; Or even to crack live crawfish recommend; I'd never doubt at Court to make ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... proves how torrid your devilish sun is; in one day it has faded my clothing which yesterday was the freshest sea-green, the most tender and coquettish ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... the plan of which was devised with devilish ingenuity for producing unnecessary torture, was about nine feet long and apparently seven or eight in depth, and the struggles of the elephant only had the effect of wedging its huge feet more closely ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... see men fall and die and not complain! To taste the savage taste of blood—to be so devilish! To gloat so over the wounds and deaths ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... compact the poem, how perfect the drama. It is Paradise, perfect in beauty and holiness; attacked with devilish art; in danger; ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... I knows is jes' what I heard. Folks hears lots and dey tells it, and dat's jes' what I is doing now—jes' telling what dey told me when I got big. If folks didn't never tell nothing no worse, it wouldn't make no difference, but often dey takes devilish notions and tells dat what injures, ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... their victims like sleuth hounds, an' there's one thing they never go in for,—that's executions. Mrs. Smith, Farrelly, Dolan, Miss Croughan, and the stationmaster, were all comfortably shot without anyone incurring evil consequences. It's devilish hard to catch an Irishman, an' when ye've caught him it's harder still to convict him. They're improvin' in their plannin', but they are not so sure o' their shootin' as they used to be. They fired at Moloney from both ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... getting his ore off with McGraw; and now, with all the time in the world on his hands, the valley below was silent. Not a scale, not a trill, not a run or roulade; only silence and the frogs with their devilish insistence, their ceaseless eh, eh, eh. He rose up and heaved a stone into the creek-bed below, then went in and turned ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... scandalous thoughts about God and the neighbor, and is withheld from making them known only by external consideration, which are fear of the loss of reputation, honor, gain and fear of the law and of loss of life (n. 5990). Of the devilish spirits who chiefly obsess the interiors of man (n. 4793). Of the devilish spirits who long to obsess the exteriors of man; that such are shut up in hell (n. ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... very skillful in giving offense to no one. "Whoever picks up Blake for a fool," Dexter remarked one night, "will put him down again." Not a shadow of suspicion followed Mr. Taggett in his various comings and goings. He seemed merely a good-natured, intelligent devil; perhaps a little less devilish and a trifle more intelligent than the rest, but not otherwise different. Denyven, Peters, Dexter, Willson, and others in and out of the Slocum clique were Blake's sworn friends. In brief, Mr. Taggett had ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... And the devilish malignity of Iago, whose coarse mind cannot conceive an affection founded purely in sentiment, derives from her love itself ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... resents being accused of meanness; the result, a rupture of familiar relations. One cannot, it seems, prevent sorrows and pains and tragedies; but what is the ironical power which gives us such rich materials for happiness, and then infects us with the devilish power of misusing them, and worrying over them, and hating each other, and despising ourselves? And then the little lives cut relentlessly short, how does that fit in? And even when the life is prolonged, one becomes a puckered, ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... my tinderbox was in my bag on the saddle with the game that I was bringing to my bride that is to be, but that devilish mare has run away with everything, even with my cloak, which she will lose and tear to bits on every branch she comes to." "No, no, Germain; saddle and cloak and bag are all there on the ground at your ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... Babel itself—noises a thousand times more heterogeneous—croaking, chirping, screeching, cawing, whistling, billing, cooing, cuckooing. "What a place to live in!" I thought, fresh as I was from town, "where, if there are noises, one knows something of their meaning—maledictory, yea, devilish as it often is, expressive of the passions of men which will never sleep. But these! what could one make of such a tintamarre? Nothing but the reflection—that is, if you happen to be a philosopher, which, thank God, I am not—that not one note of all this rural ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... compare its best estate with the worst in freedom, is like comparing the best devil with the most inferior saint? Is not a devil's nature incapable of comparison as good, better, best, with anything which is not, in its nature, devilish? According to your conversation just now, it seemed as though being 'owned' always implied an unmitigated transgression; and now when I inquire whether you would prefer degradation to the iniquity of being 'owned' in comfort and usefulness, respectability and happiness, you shrink from the ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... music was his charge: He screw'd the pipes and gart them skirl. [squeal] Till roof and rafters a' did dirl. [ring] Coffins stood round like open presses, That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses; And by some devilish cantraip sleight [magic trick] Each in its cauld hand held a light, By which heroic Tam was able To note upon the haly table [holy] A murderer's banes in gibbet-airns; [-irons] Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen'd ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... know," said Curtis to me one day, "that that fellow Quite So is clear grit, and when we come to close quarters with our Palmetto brethren over yonder, he'll do something devilish?" ...
— Quite So • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Here was genuine disaster. I laid my head in my hands and mused before my lonely fire, drinking much and visioning my ruin. What the Earl said was true. There was trouble in the papers for the old nobleman. That he knew. That I knew. And he knew with his devilish wisdom that I would lose my head rather than see her in sorrow. Well, I could bide a time. I would go to London in company with Paddy and Jem Bottles, since they owned all the money, and if three such rogues ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... whaleboning that he gave me —not a base kick. Besides," thinks I,"look at it once; why, the end of it —the foot part —what a small sort of end it is; whereas, if a broad footed farmer kicked me, there's a devilish broad insult. But this insult is whittled down to a point only." But now comes the greatest joke of the dream, Flask. While I was battering away at the pyramid, a sort of badger-haired old merman, with a hump on his back, takes me by the shoulders, and slews me round. "What are you 'bout?" ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... let us not theologize, Aramis. You must have had enough for today. As for me, I have almost forgotten the little Latin I have ever known. Then I confess to you that I have eaten nothing since ten o'clock this morning, and I am devilish hungry." ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... than they were. We don't feel in images or think in words. The images are about us, the words may be at hand; but it may well be that we are better without them. This world is a tight fit, and life in it, as the Duke said of one day of his own life, is "a devilish close-run thing." If the blessed Gods and the legions of the half-gods in their habit as they live, were to be as clear to us as our neighbour Tom or our chief at the office, what might be the lot of Tom's wife, or what ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... that I am going to swear before I get through this letter, for this pen is what I would call, to use unmissionary language, devilish. My! how familiar and wicked that word looks! I've heard so many hymns and so much brotherly and sisterly talk that it seems like meeting an old friend to ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... his charge; He screwed the pipes, and gart them skirl, {150d} Till roof and rafters a' did dirl. {150e} Coffins stood round, like open presses, That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses; And by some devilish cantrip slight {150f} Each in its cauld hand held a light, - By which heroic Tam was able To note upon the haly table, A murderer's banes in gibbet airns; Twa span-lang, wee, unchristened bairns; A thief, new-cutted frae a rape, Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape; ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... the Snake had had him bound and helpless. As it pursued him in nightmares, his knees had turned to water, great chains had bound his arms, devilish gags had throttled him, he could not breathe, and he had not had a chance to escape nor to fight. He could not even scream for help. He could only cling to a shelf. Now he had a chance. His limbs were free, his eyes were open, ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... mystery to me,' sighed my brother. 'He knows how innocent and healing are these waters and yet he refuses them. He saw me use them on my own eyes—and surely the medicine is unchanged?' And he balanced the bottle sideways above the face of his enemy and allowed the devilish acid to well up and impend upon the very edge of the neck of the bottle, as he murmured: 'But a single drop for each eye! More I cannot spare—to-day. Perchance a drop for each ear to-morrow, and ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... With great hope, at one time; till rumor of it got abroad into the Orthodox imagination, into the Gazetteer world; and raised such a clamor, in those months, as seldom was. "Secularize, Hah! One sees the devilish heathen spirit of you; and what kind of Kaiser, on the religious side, we now have the happiness of having!" So that Kaiser Karl had to deny utterly, "Never heard of such a thing!" Carteret himself had, in politeness, to deny; much ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... children, to conquer evil by conquering it in ourselves—and by refusing to give it power over us! So shall God show us all goodness,—all pity! So shall He cease to afflict His children; so will He cease to torture us with undeserved sorrows and devilish agonies, for which we are ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... lining the gallery. "When our men entered the other end the Bosche here had a machine-gun fixed up and so they played it upon anybody who came near; lit up only by the gun flashes it must have been a ghastly sight. It must have been the scene of devilish fighting judging by the number of bullet-holes all over the place. There are plenty of bloodstains about, somebody caught ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... Hicking to give the articles a little active ill-treatment that they might not look quite new, at which she exclaimed, not being in my secret, and then to forward them to me. I then sent them to Mary and rejoiced in my devilish cunning all the evening, but chagrin came in the morning with a letter from her which showed she knew all, that I was her Mr. Anon, and that there never had been a Timothy. I think I was never so gravelled. Even now I don't know ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... transporting the munitions of war, and then putting forth all their skill and energies in planning and executing, with the aids of the most matured science, and by means of the most ingenious and mighty enginery, the devilish work of ...
— National Character - A Thanksgiving Discourse Delivered November 15th, 1855, - in the Franklin Street Presbyterian Church • N. C. Burt
... he. "Nonsense, my dear sir! I'm only afraid you find it devilish rough. But, at all events, you're coming to dine with ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... his contempt for the makers of the laws. "Judge MacFarlane had no discretion in the matter. Hawk had a perfect right to file an amended petition, and the judge was obliged to act upon it. I'm not saying it wasn't a devilish sharp trick of Hawk's. It was. He saw a chance to smite them under the fifth rib, and he ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... night, a certain degree of anxiety came over us, for we knew not what devilish plan the Indians might hit upon; I placed sentries in every corner of the block-house, and we waited in silence; while our enemies, having lighted a large fire, cooked their victuals, and though we ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... an old man, sir," he said, "and I've walked a mile in the heat of this devilish sun, and all for a patient who is determined to kill himself, and such a fool that it doesn't matter much whether ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... things covered the squirming body, spinning madly as if driven by atomic energy and emitting a myriad high-pitched tones like the angry buzzing of a swarm of bees. Antazzo's body shriveled as the things hummed on in their devilish work. Soon there was but a tiny heap of clothing with the angry black disks whirling and singing their song of hate. And then, in a puff of thick yellow vapor they were gone, their gruesome work completed. The odor of putrefaction lay heavy on ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... The most strange and admirable Discoverie of the three witches of Warboys, arraigned, convicted, and executed at the last assizes at Huntington; for bewitching the five daughters of Robert Throckmorton, Esq., and divers other persons, with sundrie devilish and grievous torments; and also for bewitching to death the Lady Crumwell. Extra rare, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... man, telling him he is fortunate in his choice of a time, for his father is there, leads the way to the office where he is to be found. "Very like me before I was set up—devilish like me!" thinks the trooper as he follows. They come to a building in the yard with an office on an upper floor. At sight of the gentleman in the office, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... never apologetic," Osborn said dryly. "As a rule, they're not truculent, but they're devilish obstinate." ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... the useless ear wabbling, the good ear cocked forward with devilish comprehension. He thrust his head on one side quizzically, and advanced with mincing, playful steps. He rubbed his body gently against the box till it shook and shook again. Leclere teetered carefully to ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... headquarters tent Jim's usual grin was absent as he moved restlessly among the switches and levers that concentrated control of all the Dome's complex machinery. "Darl's been gone a devilish long time," he muttered to himself. "Here it's almost time for shifts to change and ...
— The Great Dome on Mercury • Arthur Leo Zagat
... he cried, "to get back to civilization. That notion that civilization isn't poetical is a civilised delusion. Wait till you've really lost yourself in nature, among the devilish woodlands and the cruel flowers. Then you'll know that there's no star like the red star of man that he lights on his hearthstone; no river like the red river of man, the good red wine, which you, Mr Rupert Grant, if I have any knowledge of you, will be ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... conspiracy and rebellion, confessing that ambition such as theirs had been wickedness and folly; and common frauds, and crimes, and social sins; bad enough, God wot, yet hopeful; but the mean, heartless, devilish criminality of our young Dagon beat them all. If to be hard-hearted were a virtue, the best man there ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... thyself caused to burst forth by devilish arts," rejoined the sheriff. "I owe thee little for the service. If for naught else, thou deservest death for thy evil doings ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... ancient faith. Thus vowed To self-hood, force, insolence, feasting, wrath, These My blasphemers, in the forms they wear And in the forms they breed, my foemen are, Hateful and hating; cruel, evil, vile, Lowest and least of men, whom I cast down Again, and yet again, at end of lives, Into some devilish womb, whence—birth by birth— The devilish wombs re-spawn them, all beguiled; And, till they find and worship Me, sweet Prince! ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... and no sooner did the invaders rush in than they were cut down by those inside; in vain were more men thrust in to take the place of those slain; the advantages of position were too great, and they were obliged at length to desist. But Genghis was not to be balked of his victims, and his devilish cunning suggested the expedient of lighting straw at the mouth of the cave to suffocate those inside, but the size of the place prevented his plan from taking effect; so he at last commanded a large fragment of rock to be rolled to the ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... the antagonistic Being, and anxiously casting about him for the means of securing an equilibrium of power, called around him a small company, consisting of those of his Infernal subjects whom he had previously noted for their excellence, in subtility and devilish invention, and, after fully explaining his wants and wishes to his keenly appreciating auditory, made proclamation among them, that the Demon who should invent a new vice, which, under the name and guise of Pastime, should be best calculated ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... left my room, and that I have not to deplore the shame of having passed two hours with a being such as you. God knows with whom you did pass them, but I mean to find out if the whole story is not the creation of your devilish brain, and when I do so ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... come, didn't I?" she cried in triumph, and turned a tense little face towards Vic, but the instant her eyes moved the wolf-dog leaped away half the width of the room, and stood shivering, more devilish than ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... the full pressure of the situation is hard to exert on Washington. Our Admiral (Sims) and I are trying our best, and we are spending enough on cables to build a destroyer. All this, you must, of course, regard as a dark secret; but it's a devilish ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... the horrors of the slave-trade, with an approximation to the number of lives it yearly destroys! for we feel sure that were even half the truth told and recognized, the feelings of men would be so thoroughly roused, that this devilish traffic in human flesh would be put down at all risks; but neither we, nor any one else, have the statistics necessary for a work of this kind. Let us state what we do know of one portion of Africa, and then every reader who believes our tale ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... dear me! I—I, the Bayport quahaug to—Ho! ho! Hephzy, let me laugh. If there is any fun in this perfectly devilish situation let me enjoy it while ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... crockery to bits. I do not believe that the ostensible motive for this outrage, which, it is true, was to be found in a fact that was a grave menace to public morality, had any weight with me whatever; on the contrary, it was the purely devilish fury of these popular outbursts that drew me, too, like a ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... madness, had chucked it all away to marry poor Paw. Now she had made her bed, she must lie in it. Must sit and say "Thank you!" for Aunt Mollie's leavings, precious scraps she dared not refuse—Maw, who had a pride as fierce and keen as any! It was devilish! Oh, it was kind of Aunt Mollie to give; it was the taking that came so bitter hard. And then they weren't genteel about their giving. There was always that air of superiority, that conscious patronage, as now, when Uncle Clem, breaking off his conversation with the invalid ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... devilish one: But such must now be us'd: walk in, I'le tell you; And if you like it, if the Devil ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (1 of 10) - The Custom of the Country • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... went on Angelique, "one cannot feign—the heart is not yet hardened, and is capable of compassion. But a dreadful idea occurs to me—a horrible suspicion! Is it all a devilish trick—a snare arranged in joke? Tell me that it is not all a pretence! A poor woman encounters so much perfidy. Men amuse themselves by troubling her heart and confusing her mind; they excite her vanity, they compass ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... only looking on, stunned and remorseful at what he sees. His mother's spirit appears to him, but he is already under the influence of the charm, he cannot move. The proceeding goes forward amid hellish noise. A hurricane arises, flames and devilish forms flicker about, wild and horrible creatures rush by and others follow in hot pursuit. The noise grows worse, the earth seems to quake, until at length after Caspar's reiterated invocations Samiel shows himself at the word, "seven". ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... things again. They ha' shown us that i' this world, after a', it's men, not things, that count. They helped to prove that the human spirit was a greater, grander thing than any o' the works o' man. The Germans had all that a body could ask. They had numbers, they had guns, they had their devilish inventions. What beat them, then? What held them back till we could match them in numbers and in a' the ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... He got a mouthful and was very nauseated for half a minute. Also he cursed, we regret to record, and was very, very angry. Carefully he drained the devilish tube, wiped it clean with some fresh waste, and racked his brain for the right thing to say to Michael J. Murphy. Finally he hit upon something he concluded would about fill the bill, so he put his lips to the mouthpiece once more and whistled up the ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... things were the only imperfections. I pronounced her an exceeding piece of art—and infamy. I was much interested to see how she could appear perfect in her soul. I encouraged her to talk. I saw with devilish irony that an angel spoke. And, to cap it all, she assumed the fascinating air of the mediator—for her brother; seeking a reconciliation between us. Her amazing art of person and mind so worked upon me that it became unendurable; it was so exquisite—and so shameless. I was sitting ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... for the wisdom of resisting the temptation of an inquiring mind. This woman's long-suffering, tactful endurance is an example of splendid magnanimity that might be emulated with advantage by those who may come under the devilish lash of similar treatment, and who may be prompted by the spirit of rebellion to make matters worse by indiscreet retaliation. The good woman won back the loyalty of her poor erring partner by her persistent ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... said Jack, cheerfully. "She might be a devilish sight funnier than if she hadn't written it—which ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... Odon d'Artiguelouve, dashing through all the crowd, with his lady-mother and all his mounted attendants—'has he dared to place his devilish claw on ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... animal surpasses it in devilish cunning. For it is not content to merely spring a trap, but it will carry it away—more often for a short distance, but sometimes for miles—and hide or bury it. Later on the wolverine may visit it again, carry it still farther away and bury it once more. The wolverine ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... indeed manufactured most of it) and would pledge the old valour and the old victory of him whom they called the Protestant Hero. We should be using every word with literal exactitude if we said that he was really something devilish like a hero. Whether he was a Protestant hero or not can be decided best by those who have read the correspondence of a writer calling himself Voltaire, who was quite shocked at Frederick's utter lack of religion of any kind. But the little Dissenter drank his beer in all ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... Having once passed the bounds of civilisation, he gave full rein to his savagery. And again and yet again, holding her crushed to him, he kissed her shrinking face. He was as a man possessed, and once he laughed—a devilish laugh—at the weakness ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... enjoying with intense satisfaction the return of the dull glow in Collinson's face, that even seemed to animate the whole length of his angular frame as it turned eagerly towards him. So he went on, experiencing a devilish zest in this description of his mistress to her husband, apart from the pleasure of noting the slow awakening of this apathetic giant, with a sensation akin to having warmed him into life. Yet his triumph was of short duration. The fire dropped suddenly out of Collinson's eyes, the glow from ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... you know the man. Beware of him. He is, indeed, a wolf in sheep's clothing, who wraps his devilish incantations in a cloak of seditious doctrine. Well, I have thwarted him before, for can Darkness stand before Light? and, by the help of those who aid me, I may thwart him again. Now, attend and answer my questions ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err,' do not stray, do not transgress ({me planasthe}),[30] 'my beloved brethren,' it is first 'earthly, then sensual, then devilish;'" he shut the book, and sent us all away terrified, ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... a most devilish Thing! I'm sure the Want of it had like to have ruin'd my dear Philibella, in her Love to Valentine Goodland; who was really a pretty deserving Gentleman, Heir to about fifteen hundred Pounds a Year; which, however, did not so much recommend him, as the Sweetness of ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... Alloway is not far away,—the smallest church that ever filled so large a place in the imagination of the world. The one-mullioned window in the eastern gable might have been seen by Tam O'Shanter blazing with devilish light as he approached it along the road from Ayr, and there is a small square one on the side next the road; there is also an odd kind of belfry, almost the smallest ever made, with a little bell in it,—and this is all. But no ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... man whom he had not till that time seen once, and whose crime he is entirely ignorant of—then—you understand!—I began to feel inexpressibly eerie and sad. Not with the mind, but the heart. Such a devilish muddle is this life. Shall we drink some ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... inner cirque of Hell By kind permission of the Evil One, Behold her devilish presentment, done By Master Aubrey's weird unearthly spell! This is that Lady known as Jezebel, Or Lilith, Eden's woman-scorpion, Libifera, that is, that takes the bun, Borgia, Vivien, ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... said Chatran, laughing; "I then am the diable tout de bon! 'tis well I am no worse; for we reckon the roues a devilish deal worse than the very worst of the devils,—but see, ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Haxall, with a sudden revulsion of feeling. "No, d——d me, not altogether. I thought there was something devilish queer in your voice. So you was the man, and I am the b'hoy. Oh, what a cussed beast I am to insult you! Give us your hand. I ask your pardon, sir. I ask your pardon. And," he added, looking fiercely round, "if there's a man here who crooks his thumb at ye, I swear ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... they seem to show a spite Rather devilish, They move on as with a might Stronger than your wish. Still, however strong they be, They bide man's authority: Xerxes, when he flogged the ...
— The Man Against the Sky • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... speakers, and mentioned Sheridan's speech on the Begums. Fox said, 'You may rest assured that that speech was the finest that ever was made in Parliament.' Lord Holland said, 'It is very well of you to say so, but I think your speech last night was a pretty good one.' Fox said, 'And that was a devilish fine speech too.' ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... his own cutter, Mabel. His gift lies that-a-way, and I'll answer for it, no one can teach him how to keep the Scud out of the hands of the Frontenackers or their devilish Mingo friends. Who cares for round turns in kedges, and for hawsers that are topped too high, Master Cap, so long as the craft sails well, and keeps clear of the Frenchers? I will trust Jasper against all the seafarers of the coast, up here on the ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... of wisdom in what you say, Mr. Brown," replied the Doctor, naively; "but I fear much that it is the wisdom spoken in James, iii. 15, which 'descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.' You avoid the very point of the argument, which is, Is this a sin against God? That it is, I am solemnly convinced; and shall I 'use lightness? or the things that I purpose do I purpose according to the flesh, that with me there should be yea, yea, and nay, nay?' No, Mr. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... moved back and forth. It whistled and screamed and crashed. It spat fire, and unfolded puffs of grey and white and black smoke. It flashed tongues of livid flame, like some devilish ant-eater lapping up its insects... and the insects ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... schemers had tough work before they obtained this success. They found that the King would not consent to their wishes without much opposition. They hit upon a devilish plan to overpower his resistance. Hitherto, they had only been occupied in pleasing him, in amusing him, in anticipating his wishes, in praising him—let me say the word— in adoring him. They had redoubled their attention, since, by the Dauphine's ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... a pause, in which he was perhaps estimating his own powers of persuasion against his brother's powers of resistance, and coming to the conclusion that it was not worth his while to contend with him any longer, "I have come to say this. I am hard up—devilish hard up. But that's not all. It is not enough to offer me a five-pound note or a ten-pound note and tell me to spend it as I please. I want something definite. You seem to have plenty of money: I have none. I want an allowance, ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... altogether beside itself on one point, in especial; it created a nightmare of its own, and gave it the shape of Abraham Lincoln. Behind this it placed another demon, if possible more devilish, and called it Mr. Seward. In regard to these two men English society seemed demented. Defense was useless: explanation was vain. One could only let the passion exhaust itself. One's best friends were as unreasonable as enemies, for the belief in poor Mr. Lincoln's brutality and Seward's ferocity ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... a blast of wind in our faces with a smell of brimstone in it. I smelt it. Then something curled up past us, like a white shroud, and shrieked as it went up. And, before we could look in one another's faces, a great howl of devilish laughter broke over our heads, and drops of blood! Yes. I felt them. Here's one on my sleeve—it burns like fire, I tell you. That was all. We fetched lights and went aloft (who is to be afraid of a spirit or two?) but we saw naught. Not a footstep in the snow, or a sign of man or fiend ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... had had made without Heinrich's knowledge. I thought by examining the studio I could find out who really went there last night; Heinrich brought me a set of the finger prints, and their startling resemblance to mine convinced me that a plot, devilish in its ingenuity, was being concocted and an attempt made to involve me in their machinations. On my way to the studio I saw Heinrich creeping downstairs and followed him. I never for one ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... I'll tell you why, when we get to Thorpe Ambrose," said Allan. "In the meantime we'll call the steward X. Y. Z., and we'll say he lives with me, because I'm devilish sharp, and I mean to keep him under my own eye. You needn't look surprised. I know the man thoroughly well; he requires a good deal of management. If I offered him the steward's place beforehand, his modesty would get in his way, and he would say 'No.' If I pitch him into it neck and crop, ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... amongst the grandees of the island. The following is a fair specimen of the conversation of the dukes and earls at the capital of the Comoros.—'How do you do, sir? Very glad see you. D—n your eyes! Johanna man like English very much. God d—n! That very good? Eh? Devilish hot, sir! What news? Hope your ship stay too long while, very. D—n my eye! Very fine day.' After which, in a sort of whisper, accompanied by a most insinuating smile, his lordship, or his grace, as the rank of the party might be, would add:—'You want orange? You want goat? Cheap! ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 540, Saturday, March 31, 1832 • Various
... before the council of inquisitors. So well-known is the scene that it scarcely requires description. It is too true a picture—an exhibition of devilish ingenuity of man when he desires to tyrannise over his fellow-creatures, unsurpassed in cruelty by the heathen or most barbarous nations of ancient or modern days. There sat the inquisitors in a gloomy vaulted chamber—on one side the fearful rack, with grim, savage executioners ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston
... Nothing can be more pious than the spirit in which this ancient document is conceived; expressly enjoining that morning and evening prayers should be offered on board every ship attached to the expedition, and that neither dicing, carding, tabling, nor other devilish devices—were to be permitted. Here and there were clauses of a more questionable morality,—recommending that natives of strange lands be "enticed on board, and made drunk with your beer and wine; for then you shall know the secrets of their ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... only in hatred—pretending to religious morality, yet pursuing unceasingly, with merciless revenge, those whom he supposed to be his enemies, he combined all the elements of Puritan bigotry and Puritan hate in devilish intensity. He deserted the Federal party in their greatest need, and meanly betrayed them to Mr. Jefferson, whom, from his boyhood, he had hated and reviled in doggerel rhymes and the bitterest prose his ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... just the other sort of things,' he answered. 'Not seeing everything right because one feels right, but seeing everything devilish because one feels devilish.' ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... discourse in my chamber with Mr. Deane, the builder of Woolwich, about building of ships. But nothing could get the business out of my head, I fearing that this afternoon by my wife's sending every [one] abroad and knowing that I must be at the office she has appointed him to come. This is my devilish jealousy, which I pray God may be false, but it makes a very hell in my mind, which the God of heaven remove, or I shall be very unhappy. So to the office, where we sat awhile. By and by my mind being in great trouble I went home to see how things were, and there I found as I doubted Mr. Pembleton ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... over Red Wull, who still lay like a dead thing. As his master handled him, the button-tail quivered feebly; he opened his eyes, looked about him, snarled faintly, and glared with devilish hate at the gray dog and ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... that my lectures had become the laughing-stock of the university. My class was crowded with students who came to see and hear what the eccentric professor would do or say next. I cannot go into the detail of my humiliation. Oh, that devilish woman! There is no depth of buffoonery and imbecility to which she has not forced me. I would begin my lecture clearly and well, but always with the sense of a coming eclipse. Then as I felt the influence I would ...
— The Parasite • Arthur Conan Doyle
... black, grim, and large, To gie them music was his charge: He screw'd his pipes and gart them skirl Till roof and rafters a' did dirl. Coffins stood round like open presses, That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses; And by some devilish cantrip sleight, Each in its cauld hand held a light, By which heroic Tam was able To note upon the haly table, A murderer's banes in gibbet airns; Twa span-lang, wee unchristen'd bairns, A thief, new cutted frae a rape, Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape: ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... he suspects the truth he's disinclined to have any more to do with her—eh? Well," he added, "after all, it's only natural. She's not so devilish clever as you, Mary, otherwise she would never have allowed herself to fall beneath suspicion. ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... Symptoms.—Appear quickly. Terrible convulsions, in paroxysms, devilish grin, the body ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... along her narrow, pallid cheeks. Her eyes were strange and drugged, heavy under their heavy, drooping lids. Her thin bosom shrugged convulsively. He stared back at her, devilish and unchanging. With another strange, sick convulsion, she turned away, as if she were sick, could feel dissolution setting-in in her body. For with her mind she was unable to attend to his words, he caught ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... Well, well! We know how to stop that!" They were worse than Turks, he declared; they believed neither in God nor in the Communion; they were a set of lazy vagabonds. He would soon pay them out for their devilish craft, and sweep them off the face of the earth. And to this end he summoned the Diet, and, by the consent of all three Estates, issued the famous Edict of St. James {July 25th, 1508.}.22 The decree was sweeping and thorough. The meetings of the Brethren, public ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... tittuppy thing in your life? There is not a sound piece of iron about it. The wheels have been fairly worn out these ten years at least—and as for the body! Upon my soul, you might shake it to pieces yourself with a touch. It is the most devilish little rickety business I ever beheld! Thank God! we have got a better. I would not be bound to go two miles in it for fifty ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Home Rule comes home to it, will simply howl with indignation. And we are living in the embodied discontent of the eighteenth century. Adam Smith, Tom Paine, and Priestley would have looked upon this age and seen that it was good—devilish good; and as you know, George, to us it is—well, a bit of a nuisance anyhow. However, most people are like myself, and try to be as comfortable as they can, and no doubt the next generation might do very well with it. And then the pioneer people begin legislating, agitating, and ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... When at home he was the typical country gentleman, a good judge of a horse and in his "pink" a straight rider to hounds. None who met him would have ever dreamed that he was the shrewd, crafty cosmopolitan whose evil machinations and devilish ingenuity made themselves felt in all the capitals of Europe, and whose word was law to certain dangerous characters who would not hesitate to take human life if it were ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... the era of the Rig Veda we now have reviewed. But before passing on to the next period it should be noticed that no small number of beings remains who are of the air, devilish, or of the earth, earthy. Like the demons that injure man by restraining the rain in the clouds, so there are bh[u]ts, ghosts, spooks, and other lower powers, some malevolent, some good-natured, who inhabit ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... the devilish ingenuity of some of these Chinese brigands—there are wild stories and some are true and some are not, but the torture that Red Knife put me to in that stone house up beyond the Hai-Yu Gap was worse than death—or so ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... For they are carnal and devilish, and the devil has power over them; yea, even that old serpent that did beguile our first parents, which was the cause of their fall; which was the cause of all mankind becoming carnal, sensual, devilish, knowing ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... sooner or later to every healthy boy, and the sight of a book which he was meant to read and ought to read was infinitely worse than the ugliest old toad that ever flops out of a hollow tree at dusk, spitting poison and blinking his devilish little eyes at you when you come ...
— The Little City Of Hope - A Christmas Story • F. Marion Crawford
... that, as in the holy instances, they exhibit various manifestations of hysteria. Goerres, with a charming degree of simplicity, details these symptoms and failing, under the influence of the predominant idea which fills him, to recognize their real character, ascribes them without hesitation to devilish agency. Thus he says: ...
— Fasting Girls - Their Physiology and Pathology • William Alexander Hammond
... rustic readers. I have now a review before me, entitled Literary Recreations [1] where my hardship is applauded far beyond my deserts. I know nothing of the critic, but think him a very discerning gentleman, and myself a devilish clever fellow. His critique pleases me particularly, because it is of great length, and a proper quantum of censure is administered, just to give an agreeable relish to the praise. You know I hate insipid, unqualified, common-place ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... of this vulgar incident. "For," said he to himself, "there are some manners so bad that they have a distinct bad smell. He is 'the limit!' The little Severence must be infernally hard-pressed to think of taking him on. Poor child! She's devilish interesting. A really handsome bit, and smart, too —excellent ideas about dress. Yet somehow she's been marooned, overlooked, while far worse have been married well. Strange, that sort of thing. Somewhat my own case. I ought to have been ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... free with my hen-house, committing felonious robbery at the dead hour of night; and here a decent-looking old Welshman, with a pigtail tied with black tape, palmed a grand coat and waistcoat upon me, that were made away with by a man and his son, a devilish deal too long ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... a useful moral from this homely incident, it will not be the first time that the unerring sagacity of animals has been serviceable to man. A stealthy, cunning, unscrupulous, desperate, devilish foe has seized the nation by the throat and threatens its life. The Government is strong, courageous, determined, abundantly able to make a successful resistance, and even to kill the insolent enemy; but—it is muzzled: muzzled here by conservative counsels, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... deluded stockholder's breast, and the morning dew that glitters on it must be the tears of widows and orphans. The laws of a great republic are the foliage (alas, of a tree not too sturdy!) on which its devilish meshes are wrought! There is no exaggeration in stating that the financial history of the past three decades in America has been one of peerless turpitude. Rome under the dying glories of the empire scarcely parallels its knavish ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... the honour, the repute, of the Service," muttered the old officer. "After all, M. de Wissant, the poor fellow did not mean much harm. We sailors have all, at different times of our lives, had some bonne amie whom we found it devilish ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... night, with a very red face drew back the curtain from his grand "Fall of Chapultepec," and watched him with a lean and hungry look, Knowles, who knew no more about painting than a gorilla, walked about, looking through his fist at it, saying, "how fine the chiaroscuro was, and that it was a devilish good thing altogether." "Well, well," he soothed his conscience, going down-stairs, "maybe that bit of canvas is as much to that poor chap as the phalanstery was once to another fool." And so went on through the gas-lit streets into ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... deeply engraved in the heart of nature. It is a truly devilish instinct, since it seems to have created beings not only to eat, but to be eaten. One species of cormorants eats fishes. The fishermen exterminate the birds. And the fish disappear, because they fed on the excrement of the ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... be scorned by this unbreeched heathen?" cried Dudley. "Away with him! He was taken in the very act, and can render no excuse for this devilish malignity." ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... did not seem in great awe of the young M.A., though some years, of course, his senior, "I will take a better instance: who does not know that baptism gives grace? yet there were heathen baptismal rites, which, of course, were devilish." ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... clapped an arm around my shoulders and walked me into the study. "We're not going to bother you. But we just had to get away from town for some road work—and it's devilish conspicuous anywhere near the city, people watching, reporters and ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... overgood, Two sides that to their cost have stood A ten years' hectic cough, Aches, stitches, all the various ills That swell the devilish doctor's bills, ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... to me. I'm getting calmer now. I want to tell you about these New Race women and their University and Amourette and Reginald Willett and the whole devilish business." ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... was impossible, for with devilish foresight, Amos Hiltze had taken the timer from the carburetor, and the little ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... Uncle Roland, slamming down the volume he had just concluded, "he could write a devilish deal better book than this; and how I come to read such trash, night after night, is more than I could Possibly explain to the satisfaction of any intelligent jury, if I were put into a witness-box, and examined in the mildest manner by ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... more than your own gang would do," he mused. "You were contemptible men, I know, but not as bad, perhaps, as those villains who left you here. They must be checked and paid back in double coin for all their devilish work, and I want to be on hand when ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... was a large panther. Belly to earth, tail lashing from side to side, it was crawling slowly, imperceptibly nearer its prey. With ears flattened against the skull and lips drawn back to bare the gleaming fangs in a devilish grin it snarled at the brave child whose ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... world forever. They spent the best part of the morning together. Then Nevil came in for his dinner. When he beheld the girl, fair and deliciously fresh in her old prairie habit, sitting on the bed in the hut, a wave of devilish joy swept over him. He already knew that she had returned to the farm—how, it would have been impossible to say—but that she should still come to his ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... with a clear conscience; but I hope that things are not so bad yet, for I am devilish hungry," continued Newton, looking at the dinner-table, which offered to his view nothing but a table-cloth, with the salt-cellar and the snuff-box. "Why, mother, is it dead low water, or have you stowed all away in the locker?" and Newton repaired ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... will protect you if you will only reveal to me the devilish plot which resulted in his untimely end," ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... chuck-full of gunpowder; and Jack's little brother is to catch six or seven frogs, under pain of a severe licking, which are to be put into one of the vegetable dishes. The old girl has her two nieces home for the holidays—devilish handsome, larky girls—so we have determined to take some mistletoe, and give a practical demonstration of the action of the orbicularis oris and ievatores labiae superioris et inferioris. If either of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 25, 1841 • Various
... stage, artists, literary men and politicians. It was, as a certain wit described it, a social goulash, for in addition to its regular habitues there were those few who came occasionally from the upper stratum of society in the belief that they were doing something devilish. As a matter of fact, slumming parties which began and ended at Feinheimer's were of no uncommon occurrence, and as the place was more than usually orderly it was with the greatest safety that society made excursions into the underworld of crime ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... frank. And devilish cruel too! —Well, write to your husband. Ask him what he thinks, And ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy |
