"Evil spirit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a few moments meditating thus, the old man raised his head and looked up at her, with eyes that burned like red-hot coals under his shaggy white brows. The look scared her. There was something awful in it, like the gaze of an evil spirit, a soul in torment, and she began to move away, with side-long steps, her eyes riveted ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... tyrannical King. To begin with, I will now go out to him and tell him that thou art possessed of a genie, and hence thy madness; but, that if he will loose thee from thy bonds, I will engage to heal thee and drive away the evil spirit. So, when he comes in to thee, do thou give him fair words, that he may think I have cured thee, and all will be accomplished as we desire.' Quoth she, 'I hear and obey;' and he went out to the King, full of joy and happiness, and said to him, 'O ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... or Degial, the evil spirit, who, according to the Koran, betrayed Adam to transgression, and yet seeks to inflict ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... created came from two principles, the one essentially good, and the other essentially bad. Two other groups, the Concorrezenses and the Bagolenses, like the ancient Gnostics, held a modified form of dualism; they pretended that the evil spirit had so marred the Creator's work, that matter had become the instrument of evil in the world. Still they agreed with the pronounced dualists in nearly all their doctrines and observances; their few theoretical differences were scarcely ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... of Wun Sing, that he had brought from far away California, along with some garden seeds and roots, the hen had been entered by an evil spirit and the days of Wun Sing were numbered. Already he felt the dread sickness stealing over him, as it had already stolen upon his old neighbor of San Diego—the so afflicted Mateo. He had been praying and offering gifts to his little ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... enough when one considers how prone mankind is to act differently was that, although the Itatines knew an evil spirit under the name of Ana, yet they paid little adoration to him, apparently content to know as little of him and his laws as they did of ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... the pangs of jealousy, I owed it only to the great and steadfast trust I had gladly placed in him. And Gotz, who had endured so much anguish and toil to be faithful to his other sweetheart, was not less worthy of my faith, and it must be my task to fight against the evil spirit with all the strength ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... eyes are crossed by the Evil Spirit. Even the babes are affrighted when they gaze upon her, and it is said the bald-face gives ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... plain they have right notions of him as a Devil or evil Spirit, because the best reason, and in some places the only reason they give for worshiping him is, that he may do them no hurt; having no notions at all of his having any power, much less any inclination to do them good; so that indeed they ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... with all the moral strength of his being to destroy her image in his mind, her face in its golden setting, her frail, white girlish body pierced through each curtain, each wall, each thought with which he strove to conceal the evil spirit that would not be exorcised ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... highest deities, appears in the Avesta as an evil being.[143] Sura (Cura), one of the most ancient names of Shiva, is also denounced and opposed in the Avesta[144] as a Daeva, or Dew. And the third (Naoghaithya, Naouhaiti), also an evil spirit in the Avesta, is the Nasatya of the Veda,[145] one of the Acvinas or twins who precede the Dawn. The Dews or Daevas of the Avesta are demons, in the Vedas they are gods. On the other hand, the Ahuras, or gods, of the Avesta are Asuras, or demons, in the Vedic belief. The original land ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... came to report that she was better. I went to see her and to my great surprise she was better. While there a famous idol arrived to drive out the evil spirit. I said, 'Do you want me, or do you want the idols? We cannot work together.' They insisted that I continue to prepare my medicine and said that the idol could wait. He did wait twenty minutes, and I have been told since that no one ever dared to ask an idol to wait before. ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton
... satire against some pretty good comedies, which were exhibited very innocently every night before their majesties. He quoted the authority of the Rabbis, and some passages from St. Bonaventure, to prove that the OEdipus of Sophocles was the work of the evil spirit; that Terence was excommunicated ipso facto; and added, that doubtless Brutus, who was a very severe Jansenist, assassinated Julius Caesar for no other reason but because he, who was Pontifex Maximus, presumed to write a tragedy the subject of which was OEdipus. Lastly, he declared that ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... knelt to the girl, he kissed the hem of her robe, and for the moment ambition, luxury, pomp, pride fled from his soul, and left there only the grateful tenderness of the man, and the lofty instincts of the hero. But just then—was it the evil spirit that sent him?—the boughs of the vine were put aside, and Gongylus the Eretrian stood before them. His black eyes glittered keen upon Pausanias, who rose from his knee, ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... produces cholera now and then, is producing always, and all day long, stunted and diseased bodies, drunkenness, recklessness, misery, and sin of all kinds; and the cholera will be a blessing, a cheap price to have paid, for the abolition of the evil spirit of dirt. ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... the nightmare is caused by some evil spirit. The way in which they get rid of this evil being is by jumping up, seizing a lighted brand from the fire, twirling it round the head, and muttering a variety of imprecations; they then throw the stick away in the direction they conceive the spirit to be in. ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... fancy that these visions of wishes fulfilled were the work of some evil spirit, conjured up in order to entice us away from that painless state which ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... things happen all same time. Evil spirit get loose. Sake help me fight. Me nice boy. Me ve'y good boy but I no like ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... advertisements are very funny. 'I want a compleat young man that will wear a livery, to wait on a very, valuable gentleman, but he must know how to play on a violin or flute.' Was the 'very valuable gentleman,' we wonder, troubled like Saul with an evil spirit, that could be exorcised by music? Tastes certainly differ, for this advertisement reminds us of a venerable old lady of our acquaintance, who was kept in a chronic state of irritation by a favorite footman, whom she did not choose to discharge, through ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... insolent tribunal. No more of this;—in everlasting silence Be buried all the cruelties I suffer'd! See—I will throw the blame of all on fate, 'Twas not your fault, no more than it was mine, An evil spirit rose from the abyss, To kindle in our hearts the flames of hate, By which our tender youth had ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... the chimney like an evil spirit in torment; with fearful strength, it shook the whole ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... Eastern race, whose forefathers perhaps had seen that very Magian worship of the Light; and in those tents birth had already taken place. Under the Night of winter—under the power of dark Ahriman, the evil spirit of Destruction—lay bud and germ in bondage, waiting for the coming of Ormuzd, the Sun of Light and Summer. Beneath the snow, and in the frozen crevices of the trees, in the chinks of the earth, sealed up by the signet of frost, were the ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... Lina pass, from the breakfast-room window, and his heart smote him. What had she done, poor, dear girl, to warrant his present feelings? What evil spirit possessed him to think ill of her, so pure, so truly ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... you had always been so kind to me. Oh God! how forlorn I am now! Yes I meant to love my husband Eleazar with all my heart, and to do everything to please him; for heaven must grant him thus much, since he is hated and shunned by all mankind just like a leper or an evil spirit. I too can't bear him, if I were merely to follow my own feelings; for he is a thoroughly utterly odious creature. But for his sake, and out of love to my father, and for your sake too, Edward, I had made up my mind so peaceably to all this; and therefore ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... punishment was not merely to be shunned by his fellows or—in some cases—plundered of his goods. Divine vengeance in one or other form would swiftly fall upon him—probably in the practical shape of the entry into his body of an evil spirit to gnaw him to death with cruel teeth. Men whose terror of such punishment as this, and whose vivid faith in the imminence thereof, were strong enough to kill them were much more, ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... to visit once more this other land, the fair France of his birth, and the apparent impossibility of ever doing so, that made the white chief unhappy, and caused his people to regard him sorrowfully, as one troubled by an evil spirit. The old medicine men of the tribe used their most powerful incantations against it, and made charms with which to drive it away; but they did not succeed, because they could not understand it, and did not even know its name, which ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... its chief magician, Jesus, exorcising devils from men and driving them into swine. There are numerous passages of the Bible which speak of the Devil, the Devil and his angels, spirit of an unclean devil, dumb spirit, foul spirit, unclean spirit, evil spirit, witch, witchcraft, wizards, necromancers, satan, the tempter, prince of the power of the air, prince of ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... on which God showed Himself merciful to Moses and to His people, was the tenth day of Tishri, the day on which Moses was to receive the tables of the law from God for the second time, and all Israel spent it amid prayer and fasting, that the evil spirit might not again lead them astray. Their ardent tears and exhortations, joined with those of Moses, reached heaven, so that God took pity upon them and said to them: "My children, I swear by my lofty Name that these your tears shall be tears of rejoicing for you; that this day shall be a ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... and she came close up to me, so close I heard the beads and shells on her leggings shake with soft sound. But I could not understand what she said. And when I would have risen she pushed me back with her knee and dropped something heavy in my lap. I screamed, for I knew not what manner of evil spirit it might be. But she pressed it down with her two hands, and the child woke and cried, and reaching up flung its arms around my neck, while the woman flitted swiftly away. And I tried to hush the sobbing little thing, who almost strangled me ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... the regal elevation over the awe-struck subjects of their interiors; who might otherwise revolt, pull down, scatter, dishonour, expose for a shallow fiction the holiest, the most vital to them. A democratic evil spirit is abroad, generated among congregations, often perilously communicating its wanton laughter to the desperate wickedness they know (not solely through the monition of Mr. Stuart Rem) to lurk within. It has to be excluded: ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... evil spirit, malicious and revengeful, is common to all primitive peoples, and Brittany has its full share of demonology. Wherever, in fact, a primitive and illiterate peasantry is found the demon is its inevitable accompaniment. But we shall not find these Breton devils ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... departure, he called Burnet into his closet, and, in firm but mournful language, spoke of the dangers which on every side menaced the realm, of the fury or the contending factions, and of the evil spirit which seemed to possess too many of the clergy. "But my trust is in God. I will go through with my work or perish in it. Only I cannot help feeling for the poor Queen;" and twice he repeated with unwonted tenderness, "the poor Queen." "If you love me," he added, "wait ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the admiral, "if it were an evil spirit it would not come to warn men to prepare for death. To my mind it is of the same nature as the lightning, but harmless. Several times before have I seen it, and on each occasion the storm has shortly after ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... which that night reigned in the pirate ship was in horrid unison with the raging elements around her; contention and quarrelling followed the brutal ebriety of the pirates; each evil spirit sought the mastery of the others, and Soto's, which was the fiend of all, began to grasp and grapple for its proper place—the head of such a ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... whole career of song, will exert a very different influence, not only on earth, but in eternity, on the destiny of their amateurs. We need not argue this position as though, among a Christian people, it were a doubtful or debatable position. If the evil spirit, or the melancholy demon, that fitfully possessed the first king of Israel, was expelled by the skilful hand of his successor, even when his youthful fingers awoke the melodies of the lyre, how much more puissant the exquisite Odes of the sweet Psalmist, inspired ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of grim satisfaction when, after a time, the little figure, which at first had skipped along ahead with all the airiness of a bird, began to lag, and even pant for breath, as the way grew steeper and the path more stony and rough. Anna's evil spirit was in the ascendant that afternoon, steeling her heart against Lucy's doleful exclamations, as one after another her delicate slippers were torn, and the sharp thistles, of which the path was full, penetrated to her soft flesh. Straight and unbending as a young Indian, Anna walked on, shutting ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... it had been all a dream!—a most worldly life, a damning life, a life of Sardanapalus. One single look too freely cast upon a woman well-nigh caused me to lose my soul; but finally by the grace of God and the assistance of my patron saint, I succeeded in casting out the evil spirit that possessed me. My daily life was long interwoven with a nocturnal life of a totally different character. By day I was a priest of the Lord, occupied with prayer and sacred things; by night, from the instant that I closed my eyes I became a young nobleman, a fine connoisseur ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier
... vapors are near his lips, And close to his wire-net lamp, Unseen, as an evil spirit comes, Up ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... he said pleasantly, "what the Chief Evil Spirit are you doing up there?" adding persuasively, "Come down, there's a good fellow. I have something important ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... them, - but the beautiful figure of Jesus, which as a work of art might have been immortal and beneficent, embellished with Pauline metaphysics and mixed in the Byzantine sorcerer's pot with Egyptian and Chaldean hodgepodge, has become an evil spirit ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... changed me. My home I could not go near—the sight of it and of the children would have driven me utterly mad. I lived in the town. For a week or so I tried hard to keep up appearances—but the evil spirit was on me, and I could not withstand him. I had not then learnt to look to a Greater for strength. I must fly once more from one ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... came to pass on the morrow, that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house: and David played with his hand, as at other times: and there was a javelin in Saul's hand. And Saul cast the javelin; for he said, I will smite David even to the ...
— The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations, Complete • Anonymous
... man with long hair and a white beard. It was about a foot high. It had on a red shirt, a pair of green trousers, a golden cap, and a pair of black shoes. At last Mabait answered in a trembling voice, "I don't want to be a friend of an evil spirit." ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... would not carry him, or, if they did, they would halt on the road and attack you when you were not prepared. An evil spirit for you and yours has been going through the land for months, and now the fire has sprung ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... sex much more impressive to the primitive mind, with far-reaching sociological consequences. "Ignorance of the nature of female periodicity," says A. E. Crawley, "leads man to consider it as the flow of blood from a wound, naturally, or more usually, supernaturally produced."[69] In Siam an evil spirit is believed to be the cause of the wound. Amongst the Chiriguanas the girl fasts, while women beat the floor with sticks in order to drive away "the snake that has wounded the girl." Similar beliefs are found very generally among people in a low stage of culture, ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... continued eyeing her with cold curiosity, but was ready at the first moment to second the promptings of the evil spirit ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... a few steps from the door—but why did not the Graces come springing out to meet her? Why did she see no birds, no flowers in the window? Was she deceived, was she dreaming or was she tricked by some evil spirit? The door of the dear home-like little dwelling was wide open and the sitting-room was absolutely empty, not a chattel was left behind, forgotten—not a leaf from a plant was lying on the ground; for dame Doris, in her tidy fashion, had swept out the few ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... about the spirits: how there were evil ones, such as that which dwelt in the great mushroom stone out yonder to sea, which was very powerful and wicked, so that the stone, being in fear, always trembled, yet could not fall, because the evil spirit would not let it: and then there were others which haunted the little valley beyond Esquinel Point, where you must not go after dark, for the spirits took the form of Little Men, who had the power to send astray the wits of any that met ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... looked round the room; it no longer seemed the same place to her. Beth's cheerful chatter had already driven away the evil spirit of dejection, and taken the old lady out of herself. Untidy child! She had left her work on the floor, her scissors on the bed, disarranged the window-curtain, and upset a chair. If she would not do any more unpicking when she returned, she must ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... also the First-born of every creature, and who was born of a Virgin, and made a man subject to suffering, and was crucified by your nation in the time of Pontius Pilate, and died, and rose again from the dead, and ascended into heaven, every evil spirit is ...
— The Virgin-Birth of Our Lord - A paper read (in substance) before the confraternity of the Holy - Trinity at Cambridge • B. W. Randolph
... and I a man in the prime of manhood's strength. But the devil was in him that night. It was not my boy's own hand that struck the blow which forced me to leave my hold, and sent me staggering back against the wall. No, it was but the evil spirit within him; and even as I released him from my embrace, he glided to the door, undid the fastenings, and still calling out that he was coming, that he would be there anon, he slipped out into the still forest, ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... of one of the twins is an evil spirit or devil. But they don't know which one's father was a devil, so they kill both to be sure of getting ...
— White Queen of the Cannibals: The Story of Mary Slessor • A. J. Bueltmann
... and their type underwent little change from the earliest days. The principal instrument of the older time was the Kinnor, or little triangular harp, which we find in the record of the primeval Jubal, and which more than 1,000 years later was played before Saul to defend him from the evil spirit. This also was the instrument most prominent in the temple service, and this again was hung upon the willows of Babylon. The name kinnor is said to have been Phoenician, a fact which points to this as the source of its derivation. It is not easy to see how this could well be, unless we regard the ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... rather than those of his wife, it might be permitted her to relieve some necessitous lover, in neighbourly charity, provided she could do it conscientiously, and to direct her inclinations in so just a, manner, that the evil spirit should have no concern in it. Mr. Wetenhall, a zealous partisan for the doctrine of the casuists, would not perhaps have approved of these decisions; but he ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... these Poems proceeds from the Authors. Milton has, in the general disposition of his Fable, very finely observed this great Rule; insomuch that there is scarce a third Part of it which comes from the Poet; the rest is spoken either by Adam and Eve, or by some Good or Evil Spirit who is engaged either in ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... is persuaded and assured of the evil spirit having been abroad, and the punt appeared unto him diversely from what ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... a drunken man, annoying people with his senseless talk and impertinences, impelled to perform eccentricities by an evil spirit in him; and a pale little boy, with a bandaged leg, whom his father brought out of the tavern and put into a barouche. Then the boy heedfully placed shawls and cushions about his leg to support it, his face expressive of pain and care,—not transitory, ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... at the disadvantage of taking anything for granted, or accept the clearest hint for a plain statement. She not merely continued silent, but looked so utterly void of interest, or desire to speak, that her mother, recognizing her own child, and quailing before the evil spirit she had herself sent on to the generations to come, yielded ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... of power, like Mother Carey: Maka Ina who is Mother Earth; El Sol, the Sun in the Sky, and Diablo the Evil Spirit of Disease and Dread. But over all is the One Great Spirit, the Beginning and the Ruler with these and many messengers, who do His bidding. But mostly you shall hear of ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... calamities. The great Medecines declared that the country would soon be drowned in the blood of their nation. They prayed in vain, and offered, without any success, two hundred of their fairest virgins in sacrifice on the altars of Takwantona. The evil spirit laughed, and answered to them with his destructive thunders. The earth was shaken and rent asunder; the waters ceased to flow in the rivers, and large streams of fire and burning sulphur rolled down from the mountains, bringing with them terror and death. How long it lasted ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... Dick that his father and mother were making altogether too much of this strange girl, and the evil spirit of jealousy reared its ugly head in his heart. He wished he had not brought those two home ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... tells us that the Hos (an aboriginal non-Aryan race) are of the same opinion as the Puwarrees. 'They hold that all disease in men or animals is attributable to one of two causes: the wrath of some evil spirit or the spell of some witch or sorcerer. These superstitions are common to all classes of the population of this province.' In the New Hebrides disease and death are caused, as Mr. Codrington found, by tamates, or ghosts. ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... are several inquirers. Some of the Christians give great satisfaction, others are not so satisfactory. One man, a Christian, tells me that his wife was possessed by an evil spirit, and to please her and cure her he had to allow the re-establishment of the worship of that spirit for her benefit. No sooner was this done than the woman was cured! Such things are firmly believed in by ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... it is forbidden to say, publicly or in private, that the said nuns are not possessed by the Evil Spirit, or to doubt of the power of the exorcists, under pain of a fine of twenty thousand ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... may have. They believe the existence of two Great Spirits, a good and a bad. They do not, as I have said, invoke the Good Spirit; but they pray to the bad, in order to avert from their persons and possessions the evils which he might inflict upon them. They pray to the evil spirit, not because they think him almighty; for it is the Good Spirit whom they believe so; but because, according to them, he governs the air, the seasons, the rain, the fine weather, and all that may benefit or hurt the ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... Some were burning incense and praying before their Joss. The interpreter told us that every time a steamer passes they go through these rites to keep the Devils away from the souls of the shipwrecked Chinese. Before any Evil Spirit can reach a soul it must go through each one of the holes in the burnt papers that were ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... sacrifice, as the heathen kings did; and when sent forth to destroy all belonging to the Amalekites, he spared the king and the choicest of the spoil. For this he was sentenced not to be the founder of a line of kings, and the doom filled him with wrath against the priesthood, while an evil spirit was permittted to trouble his soul, Samuel's last great act was to anoint the youngest son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, the great grandchild of the loving Moabitess, Ruth, the same whom God had marked beside his sheepfolds as the man after His own Heart, the future father of ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Queen's curiosity is much like other people's. She must have a view of the evil spirit inside the instrument, which seemed to play so unwillingly, judging from the shrieks it gave out on being wound up. The poor organist protested he had "lost the key." But ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... excrement, with leprosy, madness and any form of disease. Among all races in a certain grade of development such associations are vaguely felt to be dangerous and to impair vitality. In a later stage the taint is regarded as alive, as a demon or evil spirit alighting on and passing into the things and persons exposed to contamination. In general, water, cows' urine and blood of swine are the materials used in ablutions. Of these water is the commonest, and its efficacy is enhanced if it be running, and still more if ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... leaning against the mantelpiece, with his head resting on his arms. When he raised it, it was the same dashing, handsome head, which a painter might have painted for an angel or an evil spirit, according as the mood seized him. But now it was the former face, with the mouth quivering with emotion, and something not unlike ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... children backward in imploring help and protection from the Most High. They earnestly prayed that no dangerous creature might come near to molest them during the hours of darkness and helplessness, no evil spirit visit them, no unholy or wicked thoughts intrude into their minds; but that holy angels and heavenly thoughts might hover over them, and fill their hearts with the peace of God which passeth all understanding.—And the prayer of ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... watched, the thought came to me—the mad thought, that I had, perhaps, lost something—that I had, perhaps, put something from me. Oh, it was a possession! A possession of some evil spirit!" ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... my man Friday; and told him, that the pretence of their old men going up to the mountains to say O to their god Benamuckee was a cheat; and their bringing word from thence what he said was much more so; that if they met with any answer, or spake with any one there, it must be with an evil spirit: and then I entered into a long discourse with him about the devil, the original of him, his rebellion against God, his enmity to man, the reason of it, his setting himself up in the dark parts of the world to be worshipped instead of God, and as God, and the many stratagems he ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... reason, his will, his affections. But, to satisfy the fathers, it must operate like a drug—like sympathetic powders—like an amulet—or like a conjurer's charm. Precisely the monkish effect of a Bible when hurled at an evil spirit—not the true rational effect of that profound oracle read, studied, and laid to heart—was that which the fathers ascribed to the mere proclamation of Christianity, when first piercing the atmosphere circumjacent to any oracle; ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Supreme Being, whose name is BALI PENYLONG, and a number of minor deities presiding over special departments of nature and human life. The Kenyahs recognise the following minor deities: BALI ATAP protects the house against sickness and attack, and is called upon in cases of madness to expel the evil spirit possessing the patient. A rude wooden image of him stands beside the gangway leading to the house from the river's brink; it holds a spear in the right hand, a shield in the left; it carries about its neck a fringed collar made up of knotted strips of rattan; the head ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... I don't believe in them; yet they're always making themselves felt. Are these elves the souls of the unhappy, who still await redemption? If so, I am the child of an evil spirit. Once I believed I was near redemption—through a woman. But no mistake could have been greater: I was plunged ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... gossip, I hear. Have a care of yon fellow. I think an evil spirit is in him, and so do many beside me, ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... tired of me, and he showed it. I loved him. Oh! I loved him better, and better, as I saw him drifting away. He neglected me, spent his leisure where he met the woman he had once intended to marry. I was so maddened with jealous heart-ache, some evil spirit prompted me to try and punish him with the same pangs. That was my first sin of deception; I pretended an attachment I never felt, hoping to rekindle my husband's affection. Like many another heart-sick wife, I was caught in my own snare; and while I was as innocent of any wrong ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... for more than a hundred feet, perpendicular as a wall. It was at the abrupt termination of this path that a Highlander once saw a beautiful child smiling and stretching out its little hand to him, as it hung half in air by a slender twig. But he well knew that it was no child, but an evil spirit, and that if he gave it the assistance which it seemed to crave, he would be pulled headlong into the chasm, and never heard of more. And the boulder still bears, it is said, on its side,—though I failed this evening to detect the mark,—the stamp, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... prayers as the Southrons read out of their auld blethering black mess-book there, may not be as powerful to invite fiends, as a right red-het prayer warm from the heart may be powerful to drive them away; even as the evil spirit was driven by the smell of the fish's liver from the bridal chamber of ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... Doctor," and the mother looked me steadily in the face, which stood out clear, as the lamp shone full on every feature. "From the moment of our arrival, Mrs. Allen has seemed like one possessed of an evil Spirit. How she conducted herself before, is known to me only as reported by the servants. From the little they have communicated, I infer that for some time past she has not been ii her right mind. How is it? You must know as to ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... with authority instead of quoting reputed "authorities" as he unfolded the Scriptures. Suddenly the service was interrupted by the cries of a man who was possessed by an unclean spirit. Jesus rebuked the demon and compelled him to come out of the man. There can be little doubt that the evil spirit which Jesus thus controlled was an actual malign being who controlled the poor sufferer whom Jesus graciously relieved; yet such an "unclean spirit" is a type of the demoniac power of envy and of lust and of anger, ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... But his challenge to the Duyvil was his last, as at that moment his Satanic Majesty, in the form of an enormous moss bunker, took him at his word. This phrase is repeated a thousand times a day by men on the railroad with no idea of invoking the evil spirit. Here it was that the Indians came out to attack the men on the Half-Moon with bows and arrows. Here, too, was the rendezvous of the Indians who menaced Manhattan in early Colonial days. Nearly a thousand braves, hideous in war-paint and ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... jeremiads of this sentimental sniveller? Since Eve, women have disliked all that is noble, frank and loyal; to fall is an unconquerable necessity of their nature; they have always preferred, to the voice of an honorable man, the perfidious whisper of the evil spirit, which shows its painted face among the leaves and wraps its slimy ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... alongside. They had had a rough passage, and the mare was considerably subdued by sickness, so that there was less difficulty in getting her ashore, and she paced for a little while in tolerable quietness. But with every step on dry land, the evil spirit in her awoke, and soon Malcolm had to dismount and lead her. The morning was little advanced, and few vehicles were about, otherwise he could hardly have got her home uninjured, notwithstanding the sugar with which he had filled a ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... overbearing nor mean-spiritedness, neither stupidity nor violence, neither poverty nor deceit, neither puniness nor deformity, neither huge teeth nor bodies beyond the usual meassure." The inhabitants suffered no defilement from the evil spirit. They dwelt amid odoriferous trees and golden pillars; their cattle were the largest, best, and most beautiful on the earth; they were themselves a tall and beautiful race; their food was ambrosial, and never failed ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... murdered themselves.—And why?—except that we have brought among them the skill and industry which they possessed not; and because wealth, which they would never else have seen in Britain, was the reward of our art and our toil. Roschen, this evil spirit is spreading wider daily. Here we are more safe than elsewhere, because we form a colony of some numbers and strength. But I confide not in our neighbours; and hadst not thou, Rose, been in security, I would long ere this have given up all, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... rug beside the bed, when something hard in one of the pockets knocked against his knee. Searching, he found and drew forth a small bottle which, for many a month past, had lain in the drawer of a table where he had placed it on his return from the Soudan. It was an evil spirit which sent this tiny phial to his hand at a moment when he had paid out of the full treasury of his strength and will its accumulated deposit, leaving him with a balance on which no heavy draft could be made. His pulse quickened, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... anything which they could do to give peace to his spirit. And the ghost beckoned to Hamlet, that he should go with him to some more removed place, where they might be alone; and Horatio and Marcellus would have dissuaded the young prince from following it, for they feared lest it should be some evil spirit, who would tempt him to the the neighbouring sea, or to the top of some dreadful cliff, and there put on some horrible shape which might deprive the prince of his reason. But their counsels and entreaties could not alter Hamlet's determination, who cared too little about life to fear the ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... there, a demon, descrying him, is about to attack him, but Virgil so vehemently proclaims they are here by Heaven's will that the evil spirit drops his fork and becomes powerless to harm them. Perceiving the effect he has produced, Virgil then summons Dante from his hiding-place, and sternly orders the demon to guide them safely through the ranks of his grimacing fellows, all of whom ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... her spirit being in arms, she made one more mad scramble for the vagrant hat, which now seemed possessed with an evil spirit, for it flew back and forth, and bounded here and there, like a living thing, finally distinguishing itself by blowing between the horse's front and hind legs, Rebecca trying to circumvent it by going around the wagon, and meeting ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... said to himself, "if my astrologer plays his part and tells the weak king that this Lord of Montcorbier is his evil spirit." ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... anything to my mother about my knowing Miss Leonard," he said, the last thing at parting; and I nodded and said, No, not unless he bade me; and I tried not to wonder, and went back to the house satisfied. And I was very merry all the evening; but at night, in my bed, I listened for his return. An evil spirit reminded me of Rachel's face when John said "I will go," and her quickness in arranging that I should not accompany him. I said, "Margery, I am ashamed of you; curiosity and jealousy are hateful; have nothing to do with them." And I turned on my pillow and ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... to itself at poor 'old bodies' in omnibuses, because, forsooth, they are stout, and out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh. One thinks of Falstaff's plaintive 'If to be fat is to be hated!' At displays of natural feelings of any sort this comfortless evil spirit ever curls the lip. Inhabiting modern young ladies, it is especially superior to the maternal instinct, and cringes from a baby in a railway carriage as from an adder. At the dropping of an 'h' it shrinks as though the weighty letter had ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... nicknamed "Nick," or "Old Nick," and then he became a demon, or the Devil, or the "Evil spirit of the North." In Scandinavia he was always associated with water either in sea or lake, river or waterfall, his picture being changed to that of a horrid-looking creature, half-child and half-horse, the horse's feet ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... Spirit of Night. Said to have been seen lately. An evil spirit which tears bark from the wigwam, and in ...
— Contribution to Passamaquoddy Folk-Lore • J. Walter Fewkes
... beginning to break when the leper spoke. His mewings had not been satisfactory up to that point. The beast had fainted from exhaustion and the house was very still. We unstrapped the leper and told him to take away the evil spirit. He crawled to the beast and laid his hand upon the left breast. That was all. Then he fell face down and whined, drawing in his breath as he ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... or embarrassment could hardly be determined. The Cardinal said nothing,—Babette trembled a little,—what a dreadful boy Henri really was, she thought!—Madame Patoux shut up her eyes in horror, crossed herself devoutly as against some evil spirit, and was about to speak, when Henri, nothing daunted, threw himself into the breach again, and turned with a fiery vehemence of appeal towards the young and ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... hand to release him from the thraldom of his passion, that a man should so drive headlong on to the quicksands of perdition (9)—what are we to say of such frenzy? The wretch who can so behave must surely be tormented by an evil spirit? (10) ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... best harbours were without ships, and leagues of its best land were without inhabitants; yet what gives to the contest its lofty and fearful interest, is, that the foreigners who come so far and fight so bravely for the prize, are a Pagan people, drunk with the evil spirit of one of the most anti-Christian forms of human error. And what is still worse, and still more to be lamented, it is becoming, after the experience of a century, plainer and plainer, that the Christian natives, while defending with unfaltering courage their beloved country, are yet descending ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... can, Leonore," said he. "It is a feeling stronger than myself. I don't know what evil spirit it is which now, for some time, has set itself firmly in my heart; but there it is steadfastly rooted; and if I am aware only of Stjernhoek's presence, it is as if a sharp sword passed through me; before him my heart contracts itself; and if he only touch me, I feel as if burning lead went through ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... timid man; he was not afraid of death. But the preceding terrible night had quite exhausted his courage and self-control. It crossed his mind that Rotgier or the evil spirit was barring his way, and his hair stood up on his head and his brow was ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... want of health, from the evil spirit of the ulcer, from the spreading quinsy of the gullet, from the violent ulcer, from the noxious ulcer, may the king of heaven preserve, may the king of ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... up to the holy sacrament, which had been explained to me as due to malingering and the trickery of the "clericals," arose probably in the most natural manner. Both the women who supported her and the invalid herself fully believed as a truth beyond question that the evil spirit in possession of her could not hold out if the sick woman were brought to the sacrament and made to bow down before it. And so, with a nervous and psychically deranged woman, a sort of convulsion of the whole organism always took place, and was bound to take place, ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... "I can't bear it by myself. It's too, too awful. It's not Me; it's something that takes my place. I saw it once. It's an evil spirit. O God, what have I done that such a thing should happen to me! I've ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... rule for discerning between the good and the evil spirit, it is no other, according to all theologians, than that of the Gospel. A fructibus eorum cognoscetis eos. By their fruits you shall know them. It must be examined in the first place whether the person who professes to have revelations mistrusts ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... loosened from the hillside, a tree which fell upon the passer-by and crushed him. But often too the murderer was of the unseen world, and so was hidden, his presence being betrayed in his malignant attacks only. He was a god, an evil spirit, a disembodied soul who slily insinuated itself into the living man, or fell upon him with irresistible violence—illness being a struggle between the one possessed and the power which possessed him. As soon ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Jesus was preaching, a man came into the synagogue who had in him an evil spirit; for sometimes evil spirits came into men, and lived in them and spoke out from them. The evil spirit in this man cried ...
— The Wonder Book of Bible Stories • Compiled by Logan Marshall
... not hope with David's harp to chase The evil spirit from the troubled breast; Enough for me if I can find such grace To listen to the ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble
... the King, "some evil spirit is abroad this morning; and the wenches are all bewitched, I think. Cheer up, my girl. What, in the devil's name, has changed thee at once from a Nymph to a Niobe? If thou standest there longer thou wilt grow to the very marble wall—Or—oddsfish, George, have you been bird-bolting ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... believe all you tell me, dear Henrich,' answered the ingenuous girl; 'for I am sure you would never say the thing that is not.[*] But what do you mean by a Savior? Is it some one who will save you from the power of the evil spirit Hobbamock—the ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... white, but she faced her tormentor unflinching, her eyes like stars. And it came to Mrs. Bathurst with unpleasant force that she had taken a false step which it was impossible to retrace. It was then that the evil spirit that had been goading her entered in and took ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... performing muscular feats which heightened their complexions considerably. Not to be behind-hand in the bustle, Mr Quilp went to work with surprising vigour; hustling and driving the people about, like an evil spirit; setting Mrs Quilp upon all kinds of arduous and impracticable tasks; carrying great weights up and down, with no apparent effort; kicking the boy from the wharf, whenever he could get near him; and inflicting, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... deal of ingenuity: the excessive anxiety of the old man for his pot of gold, and all that he does to save it, are the very cause of its loss. The subterraneous treasure is always invisibly present; it is, as it were, the evil spirit which drives its keeper to madness. In all this we have, an impressive moral of a very different kind. In Harpagon's soliloquy, after the theft, the modern poet has introduced the most incredible exaggerations. The calling on the pit to discover the theft, which, when ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... to him and then as suddenly released her, and rising, strode rapidly to and fro across the chamber as though he endeavored by violent exercise to master and subdue some evil spirit that had laid hold upon him. Ringing through his brain and heart and soul like some joyous paean were those words that had so altered the world for Gahan of Gathol: "I love you, Turan; I love you so!" And ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... circuit to avoid them. Though they have no notion that their god must always be conferring benefits, without sometimes forgetting them, or suffering evil to befall them, they seem to regard this less than the attempts of some more inauspicious being to hurt them. They tell us, that Etee is an evil spirit, who sometimes does them mischief; and to whom, as well as to their god, they make offerings. But the mischiefs they apprehend from any superior invisible beings, are confined to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... a fourth thing, of which we already know too much. There is an evil spirit whose dominion is in blindness and in cowardice, as the dominion of the Spirit of wisdom is in clear sight ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... grounds, had knocked the saint down for remonstrating. Another scene shows the death bed of the saint, and the conversion of a possessed man at the foot of the bed: a lady is throwing her arms above her head in astonishment while the evil spirit flies from its victim into the air. Later, the saint is seen going to the grave in a cart ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... whom they sought. The cruel man was devoured by the mice, which attacked him by scores. In his despair he offered his soul to the Evil One, if he would release his body from such awful agony. The Evil Spirit came, freed his body, but took his ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... Councillor was not a little excited at this news; he engaged horses; he took his seat in the carriage. "Stop!" he cried suddenly. "Why, there's not a shadow of doubt," he murmured to himself, "that as soon as Angela sets eyes upon me again, the evil spirit will recover his power and once more take possession of her. And since I have already thrown her out of the window, what could I do if a similar case were to occur again? What would there be left for me to do?" He got out of the carriage, and wrote an affectionate letter to his wife, making graceful ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... are to exorcise the evil spirit that possesses you, to shut him up in this pot, and throw ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... would resist all our attempts to break it; sometimes we would push big floes with comparative ease and sometimes a small floe would bar our passage with such obstinacy that one would almost believe it possessed of an evil spirit; sometimes we passed through acres of sludgy sodden ice which hissed as it swept along the side, and sometimes the hissing ceased seemingly without rhyme or reason, and we found our screw churning the ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... the said cave was haunted at that time, not by torngaks or other ghosts, but by two men, one of whom at least was filled with an evil spirit. ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... very ill at ease. He had played, to use his nomenclature, two trump cards running, and was by no means satisfied that he had played them well. He had no right, certainly, to be satisfied with either move; for both had been made in a somewhat evil spirit, and certainly for no very ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... had brought him—a vast genius, a magnificent genius, a genius wonderfully bright, and dazzling, and strong,—to seize, to know, to see, to flash upon falsehood and scorch it into perdition, to penetrate into the hidden motives, and expose the black thoughts of men,—an awful, an evil spirit. ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... dear—no less than the loss of his kingdom for a time. Solomon was in the habit of daily plying Ashmedai with questions, to all of which the fiend returned answers, furnishing the desired information, until one day the king asked him a particular question which the captive evil spirit flatly refused to answer, except on condition that Solomon should lend him his signet-ring. The king's passion for magical knowledge overcame his prudence, and he handed his ring to the fiend, thereby depriving himself of all power over his captive, who immediately ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... devils," said David, who, in spite of his uselessness, never dreamed of deserting his trust. "If David tamed the evil spirit of Saul, it may not be amiss to try the potency ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... cottage, three versts off, where he had been to the wedding of a niece, when just as he came to the wood by the side of the hill he saw a Leechie looking out at him from among the trees. He did not cry out, for he is a brave fellow, but tried to pass this evil spirit as fast as he could. He did not think of his cross, though, and he did not say his prayers, so the Leechie caught hold of him, and kept knocking him about, against the trunks of the trees and over the fallen branches and roots, till he had scarcely a whole bone left in his body. ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... had played your trick on old Chissel, and what he has seen was really an evil spirit, how very dreadful it would have been for you to have met the unnameable thing ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... when he has come and filled the believer, the result is a kind of passive activity, as of one wrought upon and controlled rather than of one directing his own efforts. Under the influence of strong drink there is an outpouring of all that the evil spirit inspires—frivolity, profanity, and riotous conduct. "Be God-intoxicated men," the apostle would seem to say; "let the Spirit of God so control you that you shall pour yourself out in psalms and hymns and spiritual ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... to borrow a horse and cart and drove them in to the homeopathist. He did it very unwillingly. Not because he did not care for the girl, and it might be possible, as Maren said, that as she slept, an animal or evil spirit might have found its way into her mouth and now prevented the food from going down. Such things had been heard of before. But actually to make fools of themselves on this account—rushing off with horse and cart to the doctor just as the gentry did, ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo |
