"Devilish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hath your highness seen into this duke; And, had I first been put to speak my mind, I think I should have told your grace's tale. The duchess by his subornation, Upon my life, began her devilish practices; Or, if he were not privy to those faults, Yet, by reputing of his high descent, As next the king he was successive heir, And such high vaunts of his nobility, Did instigate the bedlam brain-sick duchess By wicked means to ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... course, I fully intended to come round—but, dash it all, I must get back. Can't hear a word the fellow says. Does nothing but play tunes." The Pumpkin rose and stalked to the door. "Well, I'll come round another morning, my boy. I wonder, by Jove! if that last one was meant for this head-quarters? Devilish near, you know." He walked up the stairs, followed by his staff officer. "Good mornin'—mind you see about that ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... wild uproar; Mayor, Aldermen, laid down the uplifted fork; The Bench of Bishops half forgot to snore; Stern Cobbett,[Sec.]—who for one whole week forbore To question aught, once more with transport leapt, And bit his devilish quill agen, and swore With foes such treaty never should be kept, While roared the blatant Beast,[Sec.Sec.] and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... Colt's devilish invention, has deluged the West and South with blood. Murder's prime minister hangs in every man's belt. Colonel James Bowie's awful knife is a twin of this monstrous birth. In long years of dark national shame our country ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... Christian men and women, to lay to heart the duty of Christ's followers in reference to the influence and leavening of public opinion upon this matter, and to see to it that, in so far as we can help, we set ourselves steadfastly against that devilish spirit which still oppresses with an incubus almost intolerable, the nations of so-called Christendom. Lift up your voices be not afraid, but cry, 'We are the followers of the Prince of Peace, and we war against the war that is ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... as abominable an operation as the other, the shutting up with its mental suggestions of bang, snap, crash and the empty silence outside— where an instant before you were—you were—and now no longer are. Perfectly devilish. And the release! I don't know which is worse. How do they do it? Pull the string, door flies open, man flies through: Out you go! Adios! And in the space where a second before you were not, in the silent space there is a figure going away, limping. ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... Such is men's blindness, glorying even in their blindness. And now I was chief in the rhetoric school, whereat I joyed proudly, and I swelled with arrogancy, though (Lord, Thou knowest) far quieter and altogether removed from the subvertings of those "Subverters" (for this ill-omened and devilish name was the very badge of gallantry) among whom I lived, with a shameless shame that I was not even as they. With them I lived, and was sometimes delighted with their friendship, whose doings I ever did abhor -i.e., their "subvertings," wherewith ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... against calling in question the just severity which God-fearing magistrates had at length been compelled to exercise. He spoke of the danger of pity—in some cases a commendable and Christian virtue, but inapplicable to this pernicious sect. He observed that such was their devilish obstinacy in error that even the little children, the sucking babes, were hardened and desperate heretics. He affirmed that no man without Heaven's especial warrant should attempt their conversion lest while he lent his hand to draw them from the slough he should himself ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... this animal," he thought, eyeing his companion, whose round face, the round eyes, and even the twisted-up jet black little moustache seemed animated by a mental exasperation against the incomprehensible. And aloud he observed rather reproachfully, "The general is in a devilish fury with you!" ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... unsatiability which is characteristic of several passions. It is best to be observed in passions for property, especially such as involve the sense-perception of money. It is quite correct to speak of the overwhelming, devilish power of gold, of the sensual desire to roll in gold, of the irresistible ring of coins, etc. And it is also correctly held that money has the same definite influence on man as blood on preying animals. We all know innumerable examples of quite decent ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... to return. The devilish mechanism was set ready to receive him. But the artist within him demanded that he should unmask the mystery ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... Shun friendship with the accurst. And thou dost know How all the world doth flee us, since the death Of my false uncle, Pelias, whom some god In devilish sport caused to be strangled. Thus The people whisper that I slew him, I, Thy husband, from that land of magic come. Dost thou not ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... must be discovered from the peril. Else the mud of it would cling to Joan all her life. She would be spoilt. Harry Luttrell, too! If he married her, if he did not. But Martin could not think of a way out. The whole plan was an artful, devilish piece of hard-headed cunning. Martin fell to wondering where was Jenny Prask's weak joint. She certainly looked, with her quiet strength, as if she had not one ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... little beauty, and as hard to manage as a three-year-old colt. The old man and his daughter had been on a trip to the East, and were now returning home again, after bein' away several months. Well, the young woman, as I have said, for all she was as pretty as a picture, had a devilish wicked look in her flashing black eyes, that made a fellow kind 'o wilt when she looked him square ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... in de Maupassant's humour is an indication of a clear intellectual consciousness of something monstrously, grotesquely, wrong; something mad and blind and devilish about the whole business, which we miss completely in all English writers except ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... though he would not look—though he looked at his plate, and at the busts over his head, and the long portraits of Saint Werner's worthies on the walls, and on this side and on that—Kennedy knew full well that Brogten's eye had been on him from beginning to end, and that Brogten was enjoying, with devilish malignity, the sense of power which he had gained from the knowledge of another's sin. The thought was intolerable to him, and, finishing his dinner with hasty ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... convey you home to his own habitation. There is an old legend about a saint who was to choose one of the seven mortal sins, and he chose, as he thought, the least—drunkenness; but in that state he perpetrated all the other six sins. The human nature and the devilish nature mingle. This is the sixth glass; and after that all the germs of evil thrive in us, every one of them spreading with a rapidity and vigour that cause them to be like the mustard-seed in the Bible, 'which, indeed, is the least of all seeds; but when ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... secrets of Satan, such as are suggestions to question the being of God, the truth of his word, and to be annoyed with devilish blasphemies; none more acquainted with these than the biggest sinners at their conversion; wherefore thus also they are prepared to be helps in the church to relieve ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan
... inwardly. He knew better than that. Nevitt's consummate mastery of his chosen instrument was but of a piece, after all, with the way he could play on all the world, as on a familiar gamut. It was the very skill of the man that made him so dangerous and so devilish. Guy felt that under the spell of Nevitt's eye he himself was but as clay in the hands ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... his way with devilish ingenuity through mazes of narrow streets, scattering with his hooter little groups of gibbering, swarthy foreigners, Aaron Thurnbrein, bent double over his ancient bicycle, sped on his way towards the Commercial Road and eastwards. With narrow cheeks ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "The devilish stupid sameness of this country gets on a man's nerves." He put his disgust into drawling words. "Suppose it's like this ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... called her widow. I know now why my brother, who never deceived me before, has deceived me about this. I understand the part that your daughter has been playing—and I am as certain as if I had heard it, of the devilish lie that one of you—perhaps both of you—must have told my poor child. No, no; I had better not see Catherine. Many a man has killed his wife, and has not had such good reason for doing it as I have. You are quite right to keep me away ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... my dear fellow," said Sir Hugh presently, lifting the sole of his boot to the fire, "you've got devilish bad manners. You are devilishly impertinent, I ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... reassurance sang gayly through him. He had expected this—this was what he had predicted. Hamdi was no foul friend. He was a devilish uncomfortable customer with antiquated notions of revenge, but now he had shot his wad and was going ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... soul, I am devilish glad to find you. Compared with this castle, the Cretan labyrinth was intelligible; and unless some kind Ariadne gives me a clue, I shan't have the pleasure of seeing ...
— Speed the Plough - A Comedy, In Five Acts; As Performed At The Theatre Royal, Covent Garden • Thomas Morton
... acknowledge that, considering the kind of warfare the world is seeing today, I doubt very much if it is worse to be asphyxiated than to be blown to pieces by an obus. But this new and devilish arm which Germany has added to the horrors of war seemed the last straw, and within a few weeks, I have seen grow up among these simple people the conviction that the race which planned and launched this great war has lost the very right to live; and that none of the ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... white, but, as one in the grip of some devilish hypnotic fascination, he could not tear his eyes away from the revolting, amazing achievement of his brilliant enemy. The Eurasian with the cruelty of a cat picked that awful moment ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore
... weather. Temperature below freezing, a cutting wind, rain, mud, and a smell of naphthaline, because my maman has taken all her wraps out of her trunks. A devilish morning! It is the 7th of August, 1887, the date of the solar eclipse. I may here remark that at the time of an eclipse every one of us may, without special astronomical knowledge, be of the greatest service. Thus, for example, anyone of us can (1) take the measurement ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... "No, I mentioned him. Devilish impudent of me, if you want to take it that way, Moya. But, then, as you've said, I'm in loco. Got to grub around and ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... a most devilish light in his black eyes, and said, "Well, well, I might have even more. Marriage, they say, makes the sweetest woman wersh. But I hope you'll not grudge me, my dear Elrigmore, some anxiety ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... in full light; it was through a shade of gloom that her grave face of concern looked down upon the game on the chess-board. Truly Daisy looked concerned and grave. She thought she did not like to play such things as this, One of the figures below her was so very wicked and devilish in its look; and Hamilton leaned over the pieces on the board with so well-given an expression of doubt and perplexity, his adversary's watch was so intent, and the meaning of the whole was so sorrowfully ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... tinkers, road-menders, labourers, and the like! We cannot fight against the rich who ride us down! There's no law for us, because we can't pay for it. We can't fee the counsel or dine the judge! The rich can pay. They can trample us down under their devilish motor-cars, and obliging juries will declare our wrongs and injuries and deaths to be mere 'accident' or 'misadventure'! But if they can kill, by God!—so can we! And if the law lets them off for murdering our children, ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... "Devilish poor traveling companions," whispered Mercier, leaning from his saddle toward the guard; "lustful fellows who get no fun out of their lusts, as merry as death, and ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... existence save in your own perverse imagination. Know, cursed woman, that I never 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 ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... which I was, through my Former Career—or Vagabond Habits, as he had the face to call it—in no wise Fitted. Finally, he ironically wished me a Good Deliverance from the hands of the Assessors of the Commercial Tribunal, and, with a Devilish Sneer, recommended his Housekeeper Betje to my care. O Mr. Vandepeereboom, Mr. Vandepeereboom! if ever we meet again, old as I am, there shall be Weeping in Holland for you—if, indeed, there be anybody left to shed tears for ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... supernatural, an intensely real conviction of the divine and devilish forces by which the universe was guided and misguided, was the inheritance of the Elizabethan age from Catholic Christianity. The fiercest and most lawless men did then really and truly believe in the actual personal presence of God or the devil in every ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... China showed a willingness to abandon its axenic attitude towards foreign devils and all things foreign-devilish, the European Powers turned their eyes and energies towards her, and a strenuous commercial and diplomatic race after prospective concessions for railways, mines, and undertakings of all kinds began. Each Power feared that ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... here, where she herself has said she has her home, here everything thrives and blossoms more luxuriantly than I have ever seen! Is not that the operation of secret arts? Olaf she has snared so securely in her devilish net that he fled out of the village in the wildest storm to follow her. My house she burned clear to the ground; all the openings and doors she barred on the outside;—it was a miracle of God that the servants brought ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... devilish shame!" the first was saying; "not a soul here for the funeral but our four selves—I say ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... Trefoil has memories—a fact: something which she doesn't give to the world, generous as she is. It is the shade to her abounding and sparkling passages of light. Only her deep art, I dare say; but devilish pleasant and refreshing when you get tired of laughing—gives a little repose to facial muscles. The Trefoil has decidedly made a sensation. At the races she was as popular as the winner. She must have got home with a chariot full of money. Of course, when she bet, she won—or she didn't ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... foul crime, interruption to which he had possibly barred by drugging his landlady. His presence at Liverpool (whither he really went by the second train) would corroborate the cabman's story. That night he had not undressed nor gone to bed; he had plotted out his devilish scheme till it was perfect; the fog came as an unexpected ally to cover his movements. Jealousy, outraged affection, the desire for revenge, the lust for political power—these were human. They might pity the criminal, they could not find ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... was almost invariably cruel. He found something in them that roused all the most devilish rancours in his nature; and he used to tell them tales till the poor ladies did not know where to tuck their heads. When reproved afterwards by Mrs. Burton, he would say: "Yaas, yaas, no doubt; but they ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... enormous expression of a man of genius, strung and stung, till irritation had to find its explosion through the one art of which he was absolute master—in a fearful caricature exaggerating beauty itself to the bounds of the devilish. ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... Magazine, called 'Waren, or the Divine Afflatus of the Hindoos,' the writer gives a lengthened description of that strange possession (which he calls daimoniac, preferring that word to demoniac—the latter being exclusively evil or devilish, while the former implies a superhuman power for good as well as evil), with all its varied manifestations. This faith, if it may be so called, prevails over the whole of Western India, its greatest stronghold being the province of Concan, not far from Bombay. There are ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various
... man Carter has persistently stood between me and the realisation of my cherished ambitions. He has won cup after cup and medal after medal which would have fallen to me were it not for his devilish combination of skill and luck. But he shall not thwart my love! He shall not; I swear it; he shall not! Smile, John Henry Smith, you do not love ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... "Devilish hard no, I don't mean that;" and Dan bit his lips, for the forbidden word slipped out in spite of him, and he wanted to be more careful with Demi than with ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... upon a former occasion when he was so unaccountably muzzled, broke forth with resistless and overwhelming force. He spoke for three hours, and delivered such an oration as no other man in existence is capable of: devilish in spirit and design, but of superhuman eloquence and masterly in execution. He assailed the Ministers with a storm of invective and ridicule; and, while he enveloped his periods in a studied phraseology of pretended loyalty and devotion, ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... of smoking!" he said, and puffed vigorously. "I'm lucky to have fallen upon you, Kemp. You must help me. Fancy tumbling on you just now! I'm in a devilish scrape—I've been mad, I think. The things I have been through! But we will do things ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... positive tonic to resentment, as a high incentive to her course—this was what put him so beautifully in the right It was what might signify in a woman all through, he said to himself, the mere imagination of such machinery. Truly what a devilish conception and what ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... Captain MacMadden mildly, 'you're devilish peppery. Hadn't the slightest intention to affront anybody, upon my word. Nothing further from thoughts. ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... Eagle Nest House. Devilish rugged and out-of-the-way place. Mrs. Van Haltford is called Aunt Josephine. She and Miss Debby Crozier have rooms on the third floor. Mine is next to theirs, Havens's is next to mine, and Mrs. ...
— The Purple Parasol • George Barr McCutcheon
... my valet, and, perceiving a wildness in his looks, asked if he had seen his grandfather's ghost? "Ghost!" said he, "I am sure I have seen a devil incarnate! Who would have thought that so much devilish malice and Billingsgate could lurk under so much sweetness of countenance and modesty of behaviour? Ah! God help us! Fronti nulla fides—nimium ne crede colori—but we ought to down on our knees, and bless God for delivering us from the jaws of that painted sepulchre!" I was pretty ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... he said with a whimsical look on his face, that Josie now noticed was drawn and white. "It's that devilish lumbago that has got me. I hope I ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... "That's all devilish well!" said Sir Peter crossly. "But I shall worry! Do I know more about the world or do you? Not that I want to quarrel with you, my dear boy," he added hastily. "I admit things are awkward for you—damned awkward—still it's no use sitting down ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... very willingness to endure privation and even the fiendish savage tortures for the sake of their faith. "What manner of men are these?" he wrote, apropos of the account of Bressani, who had undergone the most devilish inflictions which savage ingenuity could devise, and yet returned maimed and disfigured the following spring to "dare again the knives and fiery brand of the Iroquois." Clemens was likely to be on the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... crash and in the flickering light of the fire I 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
... almost laughed at the devilish humor of that little word 'mistake,' as applied to his ruined life. "Well, yes, Edith; I made ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... iron bars covered with pitched fabric, and weave cloth like this they're wearing, and use oil-flares in metal baskets, aren't mistaking us for gods. The way they've handled me proves it. Might be a good thing if they weren't so devilish intelligent!" ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... 1799 he was principal in a rather stormy scene at the Vivetiere, when he threatened the Marquis de Montauran with swearing allegiance to the First Consul if he did not immediately obtain noteworthy advantages in payment of seven years of devoted service to "the good cause." "My men and I have a devilish importunate creditor," said he, slapping his stomach. One of the brothers of Jean Cottereau, was nick-named the "Chouan," a title used by all the Western rebels ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... hiding within my breast! Hark to my bidding, fluttering breezes! Arise and storm in boisterous strife! With furious rage and hurricane's hurdle waken the sea from slumbering calm; rouse up the deep to its devilish deeds! Shew it the prey which gladly I proffer! Let it shatter this too daring ship and enshrine in ocean each shred! And woe to the lives! Their wavering death-sighs I leave to ye, winds, ...
— Tristan and Isolda - Opera in Three Acts • Richard Wagner
... will mother say,—I'm ruined." "Well it's no use crying, you are in for it." A few tears, then a fuck, a piddle, a wash,—and then refreshed we go through the ceremony, of inspecting privates, and so fucking, looking, smelling, frigging, and finger-stinking we lay till devilish hungry. Then we got up, and after going to a chop-house and having food, I put her into a cab to go home. I enjoyed myself much that night, a fresh cunt is always charming, and there is such delight in killing modesty in a woman who has ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... either Pagan or Popish; and as for the centuries before the Reformation, they and all in them belonged utterly to darkness and the pit. As for the heroes of early Christianity, they were madmen or humbugs; their legends, devilish and filthy puerilities. They went to the artists and literary men, and received the same answer. The medieval writers were fools. Classical art was the only art; all painters before the age of Raphael ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... the natives of this country, I find them entirely savage and wild, strangers to all decency, yea, uncivil and stupid as garden poles, proficient in all wickedness and godlessness; devilish men, who serve nobody but the Devil, that is, the spirit which in their language they call Menetto; under which title they comprehend everything that is subtle and crafty and beyond human skill and power. They have so much witchcraft, divination, sorcery and wicked arts, ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... were spoken with a coolness and maliciousness of good-nature quite devilish, and August's fist involuntarily doubled itself to strike him, if only to make him cease smiling in that villainous rectangular way. ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... not to feel a warmth of satisfaction, and she asked shortly, 'Why not?' 'She wouldn't understand. You're human. I'm devilish lonely. Well, you know my circumstances.' A shadow which seemed to affect the brightness of the autumn day, even deadening the clear shouting of the men and the jingling of the chains attached to the horses, passed over Francis Sales's ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... enough that Shakespeare was atrimmin' His own unruly ship and furling sail To meet a British tempest or a gale, And keep cold water from his wine and women. Now I'll admit, when he's a little mellow, The Devil himself's a devilish clever fellow, And, though his cheeks and paunch are somewhat shrunk, He only lacks a cowl to make a monk. Time is the mother of twins et hic et nunc; Come, hood your horns and fill the mug abrimmin', For we are cheek by jowl on wit ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... stove smoking a clay pipe. The old woman had apparently met with some accident; her head and shoulders were bound up, and she seemed in pain. Barrett talked with her considerably and once when I caught sight of his face, it was devilish with some black passion I did not recognize. Although I felt sure the girl was now all right for the night, there was something about this meeting I didn't like; so I lay around until just daylight when Jackson and Lige Smith came through the bush as pre-arranged ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... barn-door fowl. The sensitive youth was a recluse, upon whose imagination had fallen the gloomy mystery of Puritan life and character. Salem was the inevitable centre of his universe more truly than he thought. The mind of Justice Hathorn's descendant was bewitched by the fascination of a certain devilish subtlety working under the comeliest aspects in human affairs. It overcame him with strange sympathy. It colored and controlled ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... how he turned the trick on you, don't you? But—don't look at me like that! I didn't know what he was doing, I swear I didn't! I thought he just wanted his sweetheart near him, or that she insisted on coming, or something like that. I thought it was devilish bold of him, bringing the girl where everybody knew her. But then, he really wasn't taking such a chance, because nobody ever went near the Old Place, except upon my invitation, and he drove her over from the next township in ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... returned to the Netherlands, whence he had been kidnapped while a school boy at Louvain, by order of the Duke of Alva. Rarely has there been a more dreary fate, a more broken existence than his. His almost life-long confinement, not close nor cruel, but strict and inexorable, together with the devilish arts of the Jesuits, had produced nearly as blighting an effect upon his moral nature as a closer dungeon might have done on his physical constitution. Although under perpetual arrest in Madrid, he had been allowed ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... a good republican, he barely escapes, and the same with others like him. All educated men were persecuted," he states a month after Thermidor 9;[41141] "to have acquaintances, to be literary, sufficed for arrest, as an aristocrat.... Robespierre... with devilish ingenuity, abused, calumniated and overwhelmed with gall and bitterness all who were devoted to serious studies, all who professed extensive knowledge;... he felt that cultivated men would never bend the knee to him [41142]..... Instruction was paralyzed; they wanted to burn the libraries..... ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... personality. 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 really ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... fancying there was something amiss in the piece he had been helped to. "Believe what? why, madam, that Charles Lamb was a backbiter?" Hood gave one of his short, quick laughs, gone almost ere it had come, whilst Lamb went off into a loud fit of mirth, exclaiming: "Now, that's devilish good! I'll sup with you to-morrow night." This eccentric flight made everybody very merry, and amidst a most amusing mixture of wit and humour, sense and nonsense, we feasted merrily, amidst jocose ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... who 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
... and Lord Lee make a proposal to end this devilish warfare; the French oppose; newspapers open a crusade, here against France, there against Great Britain; the vital interests of humanity are at stake; the door will either be opened to disarmament or closed against peace for another fifty years; and Christ is silent—the Church does not lift ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... picturesque touch.... Uncommon ingenious, I call it. All the same, there were only about a dozen bits of tiling that didn't fit into her mosaic a little bit.... I think they're all tarred with the same stick—all but the girl. And there's something afoot a long sight more devilish and crafty than that shilling-shocker of madam's.... Dorothy Calendar's got about as much active part in it as I have. I'm only from California, but they've got to show me, before I'll believe a word against her. Those infernal ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... is some impostor, some clever rogue; and the Neapolitan shares booty, and puffs him off with all the hackneyed charlatanism of the marvellous. An unknown adventurer gets into society by being made an object of awe and curiosity; he is devilish handsome; and the women are quite content to receive him without any other recommendation than his own ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Suppose the ambassador from the French comes back; Tells Harry—that the king doth offer him Katharine his daughter; and with her, to dowry, Some petty and unprofitable dukedoms. The offer likes not: and the nimble gunner With linstock[5] now the devilish cannon touches, ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... 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
... devilish good thing it was YOU said that, Weary. If it had been anyone else I'd punch his face ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... is a digression, and it must be admitted that there is no such thing as a man's "creating". But anyhow, when you take up your pen you do something devilish pleasing: there is a prospect before you. You are going to develop a germ: I don't know what it is, and I promise you I won't call it creation—but possibly a god is creating through you, and at least you are making believe ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... pile o' money out West, Bill. I'm glad of it. We fellers back here don't make anything. It's a dam tight squeeze. Agg, it seems to me the flies are devilish thick today. Can't you drive 'em out?" Agnes felt that she must vindicate herself a little. "I do drive 'em out, but they come right in again. The screen door is broken, and ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... invented during these twenty centuries. The rack, the thumbscrew, the tomahawk, the fagot belong among these devilish instruments. ...
— The Blot on the Kaiser's 'Scutcheon • Newell Dwight Hillis
... 90, "January-March, 1743."] 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 more, and for dire cause, had Haslang ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... for other matters—poesy, for instance. Leigh Hunt's poem is a devilish good one—quaint, here and there, but with the substratum of originality, and with poetry about it, that will stand the test. I do not say this because he has inscribed it to me, which I am sorry for, as I should otherwise have ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... "Devilish fine-looking woman that!" observed the Advocate-Depute across the table. "Where did your friend Mr Strachan ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... have had a devilish deal of trouble in getting this business off your hands. But you see, I have ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... engaged to his cousin, all the world knows it: not a bad coup of Lady Rosherville's, that. I should say, that the young man at his father's death, and old Mr. Foker's life's devilish bad: you know he had a fit, at Arthur's, last year: I should say, that young Foker won't have less than fourteen thousand a year from the brewery, besides Logwood and the Norfolk property. I've no pride about me, Pen. I like a man of birth certainly, but dammy, I ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... cunning developed in the almost incessant tribal feuds were extraordinary. Competent observers thought the Maoris of two generations ago the most warlike and ferocious race on earth. Though not seldom guilty of wild cruelty to enemies, they did not make a business of cold-blooded torture after the devilish fashion of the North American Indians. Chivalrous on occasion, they would sometimes send warning to the foe, naming the day of an intended attack, and abide thereby. They would supply a starving garrison with provisions in order that an impending conflict ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... Thou devilish, accursed witchery! I tread thee in the dust, thou spawn of Hell! And O that I could trample with these feet The witch herself! Haha! I was to take thee Unto his father, unto Samarkand? I fancy That Samarkand ...
— Turandot, Princess of China - A Chinoiserie in Three Acts • Karl Gustav Vollmoeller
... not this is so, there it stands, and sullenly stares from age to age out across the changing sea—there it stood two thousand years and more ago, when Amenartas, the Egyptian princess, and the wife of Leo's remote ancestor Kallikrates, gazed upon its devilish face—and there I have no doubt it will still stand when as many centuries as are numbered between her day and our own are added to the year that bore us ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... pressed forward to the ruins. A few gendarmes had come up, and very soon a party of labourers was at work clearing away the lighter rubbish under the lurid glare of pitch torches stuck into the crevices and cracks of the rent walls. The devilish deed was done, but by a providential accident its consequences had been less awful than might have been anticipated. Only one-third of the mine had actually exploded, and only thirty Zouaves were at the ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... demanding overtime even when necessitated by their own devilish destruction. He knew the added risk since the recent camp fight. But the suggestion of danger threw precaution to the winds. Taking a nickel whistle from his pocket he stepped on the trestle and blew ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... your hand to retain its present grace and beauty always? Because you fool away devilish little of ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Sheriff Jones is concerned, it is now manifest that this was a devilish conspiracy against the people of Lawrence, to cut their throats and burn up the town. How far the men that were with him were conscious partners in his guilt, or how far they were ignorant dupes of a man that had murder in ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... seem to satisfy them. I am continuously being reminded, when I do a thing thus and so, that John Cardigan does it otherwise. Your respected parent is the basis for comparison in this country, Cardigan, and I find it devilish inconvenient." He laughed indulgently and passed his cigarette-case ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... Mr. Jellicoe?" the inspector asked. "I want to carry out my contract to the letter, you know, though it's getting devilish late." ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... your wicked black flag, an' he has made evil impossible to ye. He has ta'en from ye the shame an' the wretched wickedness o' bein' a pirate. Think o' that, Master Bonnet, ye are no longer a pirate. That most devilish o' all demons has presarved the rest o' your life from the dishonour an' the infamy which ye were labourin' to heap upon it. Ye are a poor mon now, Master Bonnet; that Beelzebub will strip from ye everything ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... found. A little cottage built of sticks and reeds, In homely wise, and wall'd with sods around, In which a witch did dwell in loathly weeds, And wilful want, all careless of her needs; So choosing solitary to abide Far from all neighbours, that her devilish deeds, And hellish arts, from people she might hide, And hurt far off, unknown, whomsoever ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... own sake," said Carrington gently. "The law is so devilish undiscriminating. Also, I ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... bill. "Go to the ant, thou sluggard!" was an instigation to murder in the flicker, who loves young ants as much as wild-cherries or Indian corn, and is capable of taking any such satire seriously upon things to eat. Not so elfin and devilish as the small black woodpecker, he is ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... those assumed by the celebrated knight of Nettesheim, in the preface to his first Book of Magic: "Some," says he, "may crie oute that I teach forbidden arts, sow the seed of heresies, offend pious ears, and scandalize excellent wits; that I am a sorcerer, superstitious and devilish, who indeed am a magician. To whom I answer, that a magician doth not among learned men signifie a sorcerer or one that is superstitious or devilish, but a wise man, a priest, a prophet, and that the sibyls prophesied most clearly of Christ; that magicians, as wise ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... vases to put them in; they'd have to be stuck in a bedroom water-jug. Giovanna won't let me have flowers in my room, anyhow; she says they are bad for me. Don't be offended! I know you mean nothing but to be kind, but the thing you are doing is devilish.... What do you think I am made of? I don't want you to be offended, but I have got to say what I can to keep you from coming to this house and troubling me in my illness. I have got to say it plainly and fully because you, Aurora, never ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... of the house wherein her husband was murdered on the very night the crime was committed. Also she must state Ferruci's reason for hiding in the back yard, and tell me plainly who Wrent is, and why he helped the pair of them in their devilish plans. I am doubtful if she will speak; but altogether the evidence I have collected inculpates her so strongly that it will be quite sufficient grounds upon which to obtain a warrant for her arrest. And sooner than risk that, I expect she will tell as much ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... wonder Mr. Carlisle's eye went from one to another to note the individual varieties of the general character; and as it took in the details, wandered horror-stricken, from the nameless dirt and shapeless rags which covered the person, to the wild or stupid or cunning or devilish expression of vice in the face. Beyond description, both. There were many there who had never slept in a bed in their lives; many who never had their clothes off from one month's end to another; the very large ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... thar newfangled thing a flashing by clockwork on Numbskull Nob. It did make the old man hot, sure. 'Shet the window, mate,' he said to me when he was dying and wanted air badly. 'I can't go off in peace with that devilish thing of Numbskull Nob a winking at me.' Duck Agin, all hands! 'Sary Ann' swings around here. Thar's Killykinick ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... Mr. Copplestone. I confess that the whole business puzzles me, though you and your friends here seem to find it devilish amusing. When I told the Chief Constable, the manager of the shipyard, and the Admiral Superintendent of Naval Work that you were the guilty party, they all roared. For some reason the Admiral and the shipyard ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... photographed the phenomenon from the rear. This reproduction of a tenuous mass blown along the discoloured earth will show coming generations how the Boche introduced to the black art of warfare its most devilish ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... place though, this," he smiled, staring round imperturbably through his glass; "so—er—so devilish grimy and smutty and gritty—quite a number of horseshoes, too. D'ye know, cousin, I never before remarked what a number of holes there are in a horseshoe—but live and learn!" Here he paused to inhale a pinch of snuff, very ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... She could not make a sound. As they lay upon the steps, the captain beneath, the man seized his victim by the neck with both hands, pressing his great thumbs deeply into his throat. Apparently he did not notice Olive. All the efforts of his devilish soul were bent upon stifling the voice and the life out of the witness of his attempted crime. Olive sprang down, and stood over the struggling men. Her uncle's eyes stared at her, and seemed bursting ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... Souza drawled with a devilish smile. "He is old and weak. You were with him up at Bekwando where there are no white men—no one to watch you. You gave him brandy to drink—you watch the fever come, and you write on the concession if one should die all goes to the survivor. And ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... particular species of knots called bow-knots;—there is so little address, or skill, or patience required in the unloosing them, that they are below my giving any opinion at all about them.—But by the knots I am speaking of, may it please your reverences to believe, that I mean good, honest, devilish tight, hard knots, made bona fide, as Obadiah made his;—in which there is no quibbling provision made by the duplication and return of the two ends of the strings thro' the annulus or noose made by the second implication of them—to get them slipp'd ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... her off with the utmost eagerness, leaped on board the ship like a tiger, his eyes flashing and his face full of blood, ordered the anchor aweigh, and the topsails set, the four guns, two on a side, loaded with all sorts of devilish stuff, and wore her round, and, keeping as close into the bamboo village as he could, gave them both broadsides, slam-bang into the midst of the houses and people, and stood out to sea! As his excitement passed off, headache, languor, fever, set in,— the deadly ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... suffered to converse or speak with them, during the time of their imprisonment, which shall be no longer than necessity requires. And it is ordered, if any person shall knowingly import into any harbour of this jurisdiction, any Quakers' books or writings, concerning their devilish opinions, shall pay for such book or writing, being legally proved against him or them the sum of five pounds; and whosoever shall disperse or conceal any such book or writing, and it be found with him or her, or in his or her ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... except that she gets fatter every day in spite of sorrow and worries.—Girl, girl, how fragrant you are! [He presses her to him.] Do you know that you're a devilish dangerous person? ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... negligens of the ferryman overwhelming the boat uppon the roap set there to help, by reason of the vehement and high waters. Oct. 18th, Mr. Adrian Gilbert and John Davys reconcyled themselves to me, and disclosed some of Emery his most unhonest, hypocriticall, and devilish dealings and devises agaynst me and other, and likewise of that errant strompet her abominable wordes and dedes; and John Davis sayd that he might curse the tyme that ever he knew Emery, and so much followed his wicked cownsayle and advyse. So just is God! Oct. ...
— The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee - And the Catalog of His Library of Manuscripts • John Dee
... the boldest and most bloodthirsty of our small mammals; indeed, none of our larger beasts are more so. There is something devilish and uncanny about it. It persists like fate; it eludes, but cannot be eluded. The terror it inspires in the smaller creatures—rats, rabbits, chipmunks—is pitiful to behold. A rat pursued by a weasel has been known to rush into a room, uttering dismal cries, and seek ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... for her imagination ran to the gruesome, and she never planted a precept but she drove it home with a case in point. As a result night was often shattered by a yell from some sleeper whose dreams had trespassed on devilish domains. The Vrouw Grobelaar believed most entirely in Kafir magic, in witchcraft and second sight, in ghosts and infernal possession, in destiny, and in a very personal arch-fiend who presided over a material hell ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... That devilish Isabelle sowed her poisonous information rather than pronounced it. "She has been seen with a new diamond-studded ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... living as long as the warm weather lasts.... There's not a boy in the countryside, save a few in whom I've managed to instil the fear of the Lord, that doesn't think he's a perfect right to throw stones at them, and, worse, to catch them on devilish little hooks and as likely as not throw them aside to die when caught. Grown men do it—it's quite a trade. I know one who, if he catches on his hooks a bird he does not want, wrenches its beak open and, tearing the hook out, flings the bird away to ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... to be regretted by every wise man. It often came to pass that noble "Ingenia" were destroyed by barbarous oppressors of art; for if they saw figures traced in a few lines they thought it nought but vain, devilish sorcery. And in destroying them they attempted to honour God by something displeasing to Him; and to use the language of men, God was angry with all destroyers of the works of great mastership, which is only attained by much toil, labour, and expenditure ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... 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 ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... was constantly carried by himself, and his overseer. He had a son, too, who could wield it wickedly as either. None of the three ever went abroad without that pliant, painted, switch—a very emblem of devilish cruelty—in their hands; never returned home, without having used it in the castigation of some unfortunate "darkey," whose evil star had caused him to stray across their track, while riding ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... went up the stairs I heard screams and I thought that the pinching had begun. I got up quickly and opened the door and found the woman lying flat on the floor by the bed, dragging out the child who had hidden under it. The woman's face was devilish, and so was her voice. I heard her threats. She got on her feet and dragged the child up and held her between her knees. She clapped her hand over mouth to stifle her shrieks. There I stopped her. She had a fright at sight of me which ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of this Greek visit. I haven't been to Greece myself, and don't mean to go, and I can't imagine any of my friends going. It is altogether too big for our little lot. Don't you think so? Italy is just about as much as we can manage. Italy is heroic, but Greece is godlike or devilish—I am not sure which, and in either case absolutely out of our suburban focus. All right, Freddy—I am not being clever, upon my word I am not—I took the idea from another fellow; and give me those matches ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... listen. Lablache's lashless eyes were fixed with a steady, unblinking stare upon the half-breed's face. Not a muscle of his own pasty, cruel face moved. Gautier was talking to, at least, one man who was more cunning and devilish ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... absolute power over his fellow men. They think as unfavorably of the influence of this power on the slaveholder, as your own Jefferson did. They think that it tends to make him impatient of contradiction, self-willed, supercilious, cruel, murderous, devilish; and they think that they can establish this opinion, not by the soundest philosophy only, but by the pages of many of your own writers, and by those daily scenes of horrid brutality which make the Southern States, in the sight both ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... resolute, he liked the design, and told me, I should not go alone, but he would go with me; but he would go first, and bring a stout fellow, one of his countrymen, to go also with us; "and one," said he, "as famous for his zeal as you can desire any one to be against such devilish things as these." In a word, he brought me his comrade a Scotsman, whom he called Captain Richardson; and I gave him a full account of what I had seen, and also what I intended; and he told me readily, he would go with ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... 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 innocence ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... up as she said this, for she felt herself to be anything but a humble paysanne. She nourished a secret pride in her heart over the perfect success of her devilish ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Though Alexander left his ally a free hand in Spain, he refused to join him in a diplomatic menace to Austria; and Napoleon saw that "those devilish Spanish affairs" were at the root of this important failure, which was to cost him the war on the Danube in the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose |
