"Villain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... December. Poor Widow Cot lost her entire flock of twenty sheep, and the fiery cross went forth early in the morning. With guns unconcealed the burly farmers set out to follow to the finish the tell-tale tracks in the snow, those of a very large fox, undoubtedly the multo-murderous villain. For a while the trail was clear enough, then it came to the river and the habitual cunning of the animal was shown. He reached the water at a long angle pointing down stream and jumped into the shallow, unfrozen current. ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... "that the rascally manager has given his men too much leeway. He's encouraged them in mischief until they've taken the bit between their teeth and turned against even their master. I have no personal acquaintance with the villain, but I imagine it serves ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... in which there is ever something not wholly to approve or to condemn. There is the desperate devotion of a fond heart to a false object, which we cannot respect; there is the vain, weak man, half good and half bad, who is more despicable in our eyes than the decided villain. There are the irretrievably wretched education, and the unquenchably manly instincts, both contending in the confirmed roue, which melt us to the tenderest pity. There is the selfishness and self-will which the possessor of great wealth and fawning relations can hardly avoid. There is the vanity ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... take it out on the human race by getting others in the same mess. It's just like that jealous old Heathfield, who, when he is up to his girths in a squire-trap, never halloos ''ware bog,' till five or six more are in it. I can fancy the hoary-headed villain gloating hideously over us now. I wish I had him here. I could be so unkind to him! He talked about the shooting and the society. Bah! there's about one cock to every thousand acres of forest; and as for women fair to look upon, I've not flushed ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... him you's sole me to pay yo' gamblin' debts en dat you lied to me en was a villain, en dat I 'quires you to git dat money ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... thou villain mist, O ho! What plea hast thou to plague me so? I scarcely know a scurril name, But dearly thou deserv'st the same; Thou exhalation from the deep Unknown, where ugly spirits keep! Thou smoke from hellish stews uphurl'd To mock and mortify the world! Thou spider-web of giant race, Spun out ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... but the most copious is contained in his own narrative, addressed to Sir Tristram Gorges, whom he constituted sole executor of his will. In this, Sir Thomas attributes his miscarriage to the cowardice and defection of one of his officers, in the following terms:—"The running away of the villain Davis was the death of me, and the decay of the whole action, and his treachery in deserting me the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... establish order and compromise, or, in other words, that he thought that nothing was the very best thing he and his people could do. There is something peculiarly characteristic of Browning in thus selecting not only a political villain, but what would appear the most prosaic kind of villain. We scarcely ever find in Browning a defence of those obvious and easily defended publicans and sinners whose mingled virtues and vices are the stuff of romance and melodrama—the generous rake, the kindly drunkard, the strong ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... yes!" and "No, love, no!" to everything he said, as if afraid to differ from him on any subject. Norah jumped on her seat the first time he spoke to her, for his voice sounded so loud and angry. He said, "I am afraid you have had a cold drive," in much the same tone as that in which the villain on the stage would cry—"Base villain, die a thousand deaths!" and when he called for mustard, the very rafters seemed to ring. "What on earth must he be like when he is really angry, if he is like this when he is pleased?" asked Norah of herself; but there was something in the Squire's keen, ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... doctor gave the certificate without viewing the body. Well, it struck me that we had here the making of a good story, and I vaguely outlined it for a certain editor. In my synopsis I suggested that it was a woman who proposed to pretend to die thus so as to lull the suspicions of a villain to sleep, and thus possess herself of certain vital documents. My synopsis falls into certain hands. The owner of those hands asks me how the thing was done. I tell her. In other words, the so-called murder that ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... to the unhappy Leocadia was to embrace her, and attempt a repetition of his offence; but she defended herself with hands, feet, and teeth, and with a strength he could not have supposed her capable of exerting. "Base villain," she cried, "you took an infamous advantage of me when I had no more power to resist than a stock or a stone; but now that I have recovered my senses, you shall kill me before you shall succeed. You shall not have reason to imagine, from my weak resistance, that I pretended only to faint ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... a low-lived dog and a deep-dyed villain besides," he was frank to admit to himself. "But right now I'm having the time of my life. And I wouldn't bet two bits which way she's going to jump next, either—never having met just ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... slippery—I won't trust anybody but you to tie the knot for me!" That, of course, was what Ascham would think he was wanted for. Granice, at the idea, broke into an audible laugh—a queer stage-laugh, like the cackle of a baffled villain in a melodrama. The absurdity, the unnaturalness of the sound abashed him, and he compressed his lips angrily. Would ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... to us on the subject, and I have never heard the full story. If he has been, as is suggested, the victim of a scoundrel, and Captain Rayner was at fault in his evidence, no punishment on earth could be too great for the villain who planned his ruin, and no remorse could atone for Captain Rayner's share. I never saw so sad a face on mortal man as Mr. Hayne's. Steven Van Antwerp, I wish I were a man! I would trace that mystery to the ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... offence, sir," returned the captain with a twinkle of fun in his eye, "but it sometimes happens that a very honest and honorable man may be well acquainted with the appearance of some dastardly villain." ...
— Elsie at the World's Fair • Martha Finley
... answers I made in a way that quite daunted me. It doesn't sound much, but I can tell you, Mary, it was really appalling at the time. I am quite certain there was such a man once, and a most horrible villain he must have been. ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... not been to Paris and Switzerland," replied the little villain, as he led his companion to the forecastle, where no one could overhear them. "We are going to have the time we bargained for when we sailed in the Josephine. If we go with the rest of the fellows, ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... would have done quite right," said M. Noel, entering the room at that moment; and he, too, was greatly excited. "There's not a single word of truth in that villain's article. My master never came to Paris until last year. From Tunis to Marseille, and Marseille to Tunis, that's all the travelling he did. But that scurvy journalist is taking his revenge on us for refusing him twenty ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... been shamefully jilted by Captain Matamore, who has deserted her for Isabelle, the daughter of a certain Pandolphe, and demands instant reparation for this outrage, adding that her brother is ready to exact it at the point of the sword, or avenge the insult by taking the life of the heartless villain who has ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... after the time above referred to, that I found myself compelled by business to make a journey to Natchez. I had often thought of poor Clarke's misfortune, and, in conjunction with my friends, had done all in my power to discover the villain who had robbed him of his child. Hitherto all our endeavours had been fruitless. The facts were circulated in every newspaper, were matter of conversation at every teatable in the country; rewards were offered, researches made, but not the smallest trace of the boy or his stealer ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... women in need who cherish her as if she were their sister or their mother. Although the press once misrepresented her, it would hardly venture to do so now, for her standing with the public is such that not to know Miss Anthony argues one's self unknown, and to vilify her argues one's self a villain. ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... "Villain!" he cried in a terrible voice, "dead and buried as all men supposed, at last, at last I have you! You, Rudge, slayer of my brother and of his faithful servant! Double murderer and monster, I arrest you ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... our heavy woes; And that we may have aright Weapons suited to the fight, He the mountain shaketh now— From its brow Rattling down Stone on stone Through the thicket spread appear. Brethren, seize them! Wherefore fear? Now the villain crew assail, As though with a storm of hail, And expel the strangers wild From these regions soft and mild Where the sun ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... The young villain then put a charge of powder and ball into the pistol he handed his grandmother, who took steady aim at her reflection in the mirror, and at the words, "Ready—fire!" bang went the pistol—the magnificent ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... for making Cromwell out to be such a wretch—a mean blackguard, not even a great bad man. But in plays the villain must not compete for sympathy with the hero, or both fall to the ground! I think that Wills showed himself a true poet in his play, and in the last act a great playwright. He gave us both wonderful opportunities, yet ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... living. Yes, art, that is the word! To me life appears like a great tragi-comedy. It has its shadows as well as its lights, but we would not lose one of them, for fear of destroying the harmony of the whole. Call it good, or call it bad, no matter, so it is. The villain no less than the hero claims our applause; it would be dull without him. We can't afford to ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... but the vehement selfishness seemed to have gone from his love, and without a fierce note of selfishness love becomes as pale as friendship. She had been a wonder, a revelation, a great glory; she had become merely an attractive, handsome girl, rather exuberant in her affection. If Done were our villain we could show him unmanly, ignoble, and vile for all this, but not one voluntary impulse went to the making of his present attitude; it was a development entirely foreign to his will, and that much at least must be remembered in the defence ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... heathen learning right here in the Thanatopsis. And as for trying to make a whole town in this Colonial architecture you talk about——I do love nice things; to this day I run ribbons into my petticoats, even if Champ Perry does laugh at me, the old villain! But just the same I don't believe any of us old-timers would like to see the town that we worked so hard to build being tore down to make a place that wouldn't look like nothing but some Dutch story-book and not a bit like the place we loved. And don't you think it's sweet now? All the trees ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... curriers, and selected the soft skin of the young ox which hangs above me, fitted it to my shoulders, and filling it at the river, marched up to the bazaar. No sooner did I appear than all the water-carriers called out, 'That villain, Yussuf, is about to take away our bread. May Shitan seize him. Let us go to the cadi and complain.' The cadi listened to their story, for they accused me of witchcraft, saying that no five men could lift the skin when it was full. He sent one of his beeldars to summon me before him. I had ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... story, but it does not satisfy her completely. She says, in her whimsical way, that it needs another villain to account properly ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of the principals caught, my lord?" demanded Wilton. "I confess, I believe that man, Sir John Fenwick, to be as great a villain as any upon earth; nor do I look upon him as a man of much ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... for, father?" said I. "Have you come to any hurt?" "Hurt enough," sobbed the old man; "I have been just tricked out of the best ass in England by a villain who gave me nothing but these trash in return," pointing to the stones before him. "I really scarcely understand you," said I, "I wish you would explain yourself more clearly." "I was riding on my ass from market," said ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... Sunday-school books, taken from the precious store of the Methodist Sunday School opposite our house. They seemed to me to be stupid beyond all words. There was not one really good fight in them all, and after an honest villain like Brian de Bois Guilbert, the bad people in these volumes were very lacking in stamina. The "Rollo" books were gay compared to them. I concluded that if anything on earth could make a child hate ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... nothing of the matter. He is innocent. The villain who did it is a bad man, who has ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... and we go up all mountain, always go up, and 'bout two hour, he got off him mule and he put him hand so, and set down on de rock. He twist, and he turn and he groan for half an hour, and den he look at me, as much as to say, you black villain, you do this? for he not able to speak, and den I pull out de paper of de powder, and I show him, and make him sign he swallow it: he look again, and I laugh at him—and ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Quilp, Krook, Smike, Smallweed, Miss Mowcher, and the dwarfs and wax-work of Nell's caravan; and runs entirely wild in Barnaby Rudge, where, with a corps de drame composed of one idiot, two madmen, a gentleman fool who is also a villain, a shop-boy fool who is also a blackguard, a hangman, a shrivelled virago, and a doll in ribands—carrying this company through riot and fire, till he hangs the hangman, one of the madmen, his mother, and the idiot, runs the gentleman-fool through in a bloody duel, and burns and crushes the ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... which he had taken from them, and piled up as a trophy on the shore. Rinaldo attacked him, but with as bad success as the rest, for the bridge-ward struck him so violent a blow with an iron mace that he fell to the ground. But when the villain approached to strip him of his armor, Rinaldo seized him, and the bridge-ward, being unable to free himself, leapt with Rinaldo into the ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... is there who has not broken the law of the god we were taught to worship, Lady? If in truth you have done anything of the sort by flying from a murderous villain to one who loves you well, which I do not believe, surely there is forgiveness ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... may be too cunning for thy Honesty; the very Scout that he had set to give Warning discover'd it to me—and threaten'd me with half a Dozen Mirmidons—But I think I maul'd the Villain. These Afflictions ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre
... Smyth, glancing up and down the terrace after the manner of a stage villain. 'Three years ago I was an officer's servant. I polished my subaltern-fellow's buttons, cleaned his boots, and mended his unmentionables. One day this young gentleman and myself were billeted on an old French artist. When I saw those canvases, I felt the old Adam in me thirsting for expression. ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... If the murder of his adoptive father, Sir Michael, was actually the first of his crimes, we know of three other poor souls who beyond any shadow of doubt were launched into eternity by the Black Arts of this ghastly villain—" ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... "Hath the villain dared to steal into my family-circle, concealing this disgusting and disgraceful fact!—Hath he endeavored to engraft the impurity of his source on the untarnished stock of a noble and ancient family! There is something exceeding ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... effort recovered his equanimity, and said,—'Prevarication or denial I suppose to be useless. You have probably outbid me for the confidence of this miserable villain. What ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... language made few proselytes. They had too often already been the dupes of his hypocrisy, the victims of their own credulity; they scrupled not, both in public companies, and from the pulpit, to pronounce him "a dissembling perjured villain;" and they openly threatened him with "a worse fate than had befallen the last tyrant." If it was necessary to silence these declaimers, it was also dangerous to treat them with severity. He proceeded with caution, and modified his displeasure ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... "The villain!" said Haennchen to herself when she was outside the room. "Now I know that master was right when he said that Heinrich was no fit suitor to ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... was speaking, one of the little singing-birds came tumbling head over heels from the roof into the yard. The cat was after him, but he had escaped from her with a broken wing, and so came tumbling into the yard. "That's just like the cat, she's a villain," said the Portuguese duck. "I remember her ways when I had children of my own. How can such a creature be allowed to live, and wander about upon the roofs. I don't think they allow such things in Portugal." She pitied the little singing-bird, ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... Peterkin, after a pause, "I love you. D'you think I'd say so if I didn't, you black villain? I love you because I've got to take care of you, and to look after you, and to think about you, and to see ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... possession of Jocelyn Gordon. The programme was simple; but, racked as he was by anxiety, weakened by incipient disease, and paralysed by chronic fear, the difficulties were too great to be overcome. To be a thorough villain one must possess, first of all, good health; secondly, untiring energy; and thirdly, a certain enthusiasm for wrong-doing for its own sake. Criminals of the first standard have always loved crime. Victor Durnovo was not like that. He only made use of crime, and had no ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... shoulder and shot the would-be murderer dead on the spot. Then turning to me he said quite calmly, 'I call you to witness that that man intended to murder me.' How differently all would have ended had my gun been loaded! The villain would have shot my chief, taken both guns, and galloped off, leaving me ignominiously ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... this is a pretty bad state of things. And the melodramatic instinct of the public, always demanding; that every wrong shall have, not its remedy, but its villain to be hissed, will blame, not its own apathy, superstition, and ignorance, but the depravity of the doctors. Nothing could be more unjust or mischievous. Doctors, if no better than other men, are certainly ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... have detained you thus, and with a mile to walk this murky and unpleasant night. They say, too, that the streets are dangerous of late, haunted by dissolute night-revellers—that villain Clodius and his infamous co-mates. I tremble like a leaf if I but meet them in broad day—and what if you should fall in with them, when flushed with wine, and ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... morning before breakfast slaughtered six, leaving their carcasses where they fell. There are traditions of persons having been smitten blind or senseless when about to commit some heinous offense, but the fact that this villain escaped without some such visitation throws discredit ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... and dreading above all things to lose her comfortable attentions, and be left to the doubtful mercies of Mary L'Oiseau, he yielded, though with the worst possible grace, swearing all the time that he hoped the villain would swing ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... all 'brigands'," said Pulitzer as we came away, "differing according to individual character, to race and pursuit. Now, if I were writing that play, I should represent the villain as a tyrannous City Editor, meanly executing the orders ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... an insolent villain!" replied Furibon, "and if ever you come into my presence again, ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... she was a truer Lampton than she ever suspected. "Oh, don't 'poor' me, Freddy! I can't bear it. It sounds as if I were half an imbecile, or as if Michael was a villain! I've got my wits all right—and Egypt has given me super-wits. It has shown me things beyond. If there is such a thing as conscience, then I should be sinning against mine if I doubted my ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... turned me against my own. You have goaded me to slay my own son. You have intended to use my secret against me. I read it in your eyes from the first. Cruel, murderous villain, taste the fate which you have yourself given to so many others. This is your doom. I ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Cuthbert, the latter said: "Good father, I have determined not to endeavor to make off in disguise. I doubt not that your wit could contrive some means by which I should get clear of the walls without observation from the scouts of this villain noble. But once in the country, I should have neither horse nor armor, and should have hard work indeed to make my way down through France, even though none of my enemies were on my track. I will therefore, if it please you, go down boldly to the mayor and ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... been working on this case for nearly six months, working for barely enough to keep body and soul together, and now they expected him to go on the and have a story like that brought out in the papers, and have the prosecution hiring witnesses to prove him a villain. "No, sir!" said Peter. "I'm thru with this case right now. You put McCormick on the witness stand and let him save Goober's life. You can't use me, I'm out!" And shutting his ears to the lawyer's pleading, he stormed out of the office, and over to ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... So that's your revenge?... But you're to reckon with me, Jack Belllounds! You villain! You devil! You—" Suddenly she shrank back with a strong shudder. She gasped. Her face grew ghastly white. "Oh, my God! ... horrible—unspeakable!"... She covered her face with her hands, and every muscle of ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... and was out of sight before the officers of justice could get ready their boats to follow him. He was captured again in 1826, tried at Mayence, and sentenced to death. He was a tall, strong, handsome man, and his fate, villain as he was, excited much sympathy all over Germany. The ladies especially were loud in their regret that nothing could be done to save a hero so good-looking, and of adventures so romantic, from the knife ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... agent of Rughbur Sing in these districts, now wrote a letter of condolence to the Rajah, on the death of his faithful servant, Benee Ram—told him that he had dismissed from all employ the villain Maharaj Sing, and appointed to his place Kurum Hoseyn, who would make all reparation and redress all wrongs. This letter he sent by a very plausible man, Omed Rae, the collector of the Rahooa estate. Kurum Hoseyn resumed charge of his office, and went unattended to the Rajah, ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... shouts of encouragement—to the villain. "Kill him!"... "Shoot one to his kidneys!"... "Ahhhhh," as the villain hit the hero in the stomach.... "Muss his hair. Attaboy!"... "Kill the skunk!" And finally groans of despair when the hero won ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... Virtue and her friends a friend, Still may my voice the weak defend: Ne'er may my prostituted tongue Protect the oppressor in his wrong; Nor wrest the spirit of the laws, To sanctify the villain's cause." ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... saw fourscore knights in complete armour around the house, with the Earl Dwnn at their head. "Where is the knight that was here?" said the Earl. "By thy hand," said he, "he went hence some time ago." "Wherefore, villain," said he, "didst thou let him go without informing me?" "My Lord, thou didst not command me to do so, else would I not have allowed him to depart." "What way dost thou think that he took?" "I know not, except that he went along the high road." And they turned their horses' heads ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... fool to steal his plans," drawled the other with deadly sarcasm, "like a second-rate, one-night-stand villain. Don't forget to ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... to see the villain discharge his musket, for I knew that Smith was so near that he could not well be missed. I would have shot the fellow myself, but my rifle was empty; still thinking to save him, I ran hastily towards the parties; ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... more truly deserve it. For seven years he had been my inseparable companion, and in a multitude of instances had given evidence of all the noble qualities for which we value the animal. I had rescued him, when a puppy, from the clutches of a malignant little villain in Nantucket who was leading him, with a rope around his neck, to the water; and the grown dog repaid the obligation, about three years afterward, by saving me from the bludgeon ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... take me If I affect him, he's a lustfull villain, (But yet no coward) and sollicites me To my dishonour, that's indeed a quarrel, And truly mine, which I will so revenge, As it shall fright such as dare only think To ...
— The Little French Lawyer - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont
... here and unhurt, I trust," Albert replied. "The villain released her and ran off, and I saw her figure sway, and ran forward just in time to save her from falling. I think ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... treasure-bearers lodged in the grove near that town on their way from Jubbulpore to Sagar. At night they were set upon by a large gang of Thugs, and sixteen of them strangled; but the seventeenth laid hold of the noose before it could be brought to bear upon his throat, pulled down the villain who held it, and made his way good to the town. The Raja, Dharak Singh, went to the spot with all the followers he could collect; but he found there nothing but the sixteen naked bodies lying in the grove, with their eyes apparently starting out of their sockets. The Thugs had all gone off ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... "old-fashioned" and enjoy thoroughly, there is usually a scene in which the hero, or the heroine, or both, are about to be drowned in the sinking ship or roasted in the loft of the burning building, or butchered by the attacking savages, or executed by the villain and his agents. The audience enjoys some delightful thrills while watching this situation—whichever it may be—develop, but is spared any acute anxiety, knowing from experience that just at the last moment the rescuing ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... did not impugn him. The similarity merely appealed to me. Let us get down into the valley and question that villain Atsu. I would know what became of ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... himself, the drunken villain, and the three very idle gentlemen styled his creditors, were all seen, no longer than two or three days ago, in a tippling house in the suburbs, having just returned, with money in their pockets, from ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... had done so, knowing how thankless it was to try and clear myself at her expense, I let people say what they would; it didn't matter. And you don't believe me; I can see you don't. Sexual pride won't let you believe me. In such a case the man must necessarily be the villain.' ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... talks with the old gentleman. I don't know what he says, but it's sure to be something wicked. I expect he does all he can to set him against you. Oh, he's a cunning villain, he is, even if he is your cousin, ...
— Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World • Horatio Alger
... gloomy street again. A plot in our head, but who's the villain and who's the heroine and the hero? An easy answer to that. The crowd here—sad faced, tired-walking, bundle-laden. The crowd continually dissolving amid street cars ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... lay myself under any restraint, nor very solicitously copy his diction, or his mien, however matured by age, or modelled by experience. If any man shall, by charging me with theatrical behavior, imply that I utter any sentiments but my own, I shall treat him as a calumniator and a villain; nor shall any protection shelter him from the treatment he deserves. I shall, on such an occasion, without scruple trample upon all those forms with which wealth and dignity intrench themselves, nor shall anything but age restrain my resentment; age ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... should be a veritable surprise—i. e., be unexpected. This is a matter that is rather easily managed, for it is a poor plot that does not afford at least two settlements—either the heroine marries the hero, or she marries the villain; and often there is a third possibility, that she marries neither. If he has provided a proper plot, the author has but little to do with making the surprise genuine, and that little is rather negative. He opens the possibility of the hero doing ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... enjoying life (if he could only get to the other side of the river), that I thought it would be hard for him to die merely in order to give me a character for energy. Acting on the result of these considerations, and reserving to myself a free and unfettered discretion to have the poor villain shot at any future moment, I magnanimously decided that for the present he should live, ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... see that man? He is just out of prison. What was he in prison for? For beating his wife. Oh! what a villain, what a coward! How cruel he looks! Respectable people, and kind people, don't like to go near him, they are afraid of him. What a strong, brutal face he has! But the blessed Jesus isn't afraid. See, He is standing by this bad man, and He ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... people could he see and enjoy that which gladdens every Christian heart. If slavery be, necessarily, "the sum of all villanies," as you and many use the expression, the relation cannot exist without making each slave-holder a villain, in all the degrees of villany. You will do well to look into the cant phrases of "freedom," before you indulge in the use of them. The bishops and clergy of the noble army of Methodists in the South would not sustain their great ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... all, but it was an accentuation of a long series of spiteful injuries wrought him by the wrinkled old villain. Maso endured, hating the old man daily more and more; tried little tricks, little revenges, upon him, upset his baskets, hid his pipe; but they generally failed or recoiled with a nasty swiftness ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... turning up again of Number One, unrecognised and surrounded by the trappings of god-head and the adoration of the Elect, creates for Nancy a very pretty and absorbing problem in social ethics. But Mr. HOWELLS has done more than this. Having shown Dylks as the arch-villain and impostor that he is, he proceeds to the subtler task of enlisting our sympathy for him. It is this that gives the story its higher quality. The horror of the poor wretch's position, driven on by his own words, almost, in time, coming himself to a kind of belief ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 31, 1917 • Various
... undoubtedly, originated the intimacy, strengthened by his asserting falsely that he was a relative of the priest, which subsequently enabled him to rob the poor widow and her orphans of their entire means. Accomplished villain as he was, Religion had not yet lost her whole sway over his soul, and by way of punishing himself, but in reality, making bad worse, the second day after his liberation from arrest consequent on the theft, ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... "Villain!" shouted Fritz, "dog, bigstiff! Dot mule he has a soreness by his mouth. I vill knock off your shoulders ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... and wrongs of making war, Newman asks, "Why does one murder make a villain, but the murder of thousands a hero?" And again, "Why do princes and statesmen, who would scorn to steal a shilling, make no difficulty in ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... heard before, was examined in the King's house in the Tower, and the judges tried to make him give up the names of his companions; but villain as he was, Guy Fawkes was no coward, and he refused to turn traitor. Finding that he was obdurate, the judges decreed that he should suffer the torture of the rack, and accordingly he was racked ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... villain who killed that man!" cried the boy. "They've carried the body off in the swamp to hide the evidence of their crime. Come, Old King Brady, alight here and see if ...
— The Bradys Beyond Their Depth - The Great Swamp Mystery • Anonymous
... at last he begins to thry the same game with us; and as he saw that Mr. Brooke was very fond of high play, and would bet any thing one offered him, the ould Count sends for a great gambler from Vienna, the greatest villain, they say, that ever touched a card. Ye may have heerd of him, tho' 'twas long ago that he lived, for he was well known in them times. He was the Baron von Breckendorf, and a great friend afterward of the Prince Ragint and all the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... ever in circumstances more terrible. The situation is stronger if we suppose her guilt, and that what we see before us is a great spirit carried away by passion—that something beyond reason, beyond all human power to restrain, which sometimes binds an angelic woman to a villain, and sometimes a man of the highest power and wisdom to a lovely trifler or a fool. It seems to me as at once more consistent with the facts and with human nature to realise the position of the unhappy Queen as transported by that overwhelming sentiment, and wrought ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... do with him," he answered sternly. "Where is the good of keeping a villain from being as much of a villain as he has got it in him to be? I will sign you a blank cheque, which your uncle can fill up with the amount he has stolen. Come for it as soon ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... worshipped the ground he walked on, and he threw me aside like a broken toy,' she said over and over again. 'And the worst of it is that, villain as he is, I cannot unlove him, though I am that mad with him sometimes that I could almost ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... come into difficulties. One would imagine that under such circumstances the first act of young Cadogan West would be to seize the villain and raise the alarm. Why did he not do so? Could it have been an official superior who took the papers? That would explain West's conduct. Or could the chief have given West the slip in the fog, and West started at once to London to head him off from his own rooms, presuming ...
— The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans • Arthur Conan Doyle
... are generous to a fault. You could not say that man is a villain and a scoundrel when you really would have proof of his villany in ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... well," he wrote. "Father, as you value my sister's future peace, expose her not to his many fascinations. If he has endeavoured to win her heart, if he has paid her marked attentions, he is a villain! I dare not be more explicit, I am pledged to silence, and only to you, my dear father, and on such an emergency, am I privileged to write thus much. Desire Caroline to give him no more encouragement, however slight; ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... "It's that villain of a Michaud who has put him up to it," said Tonsard. "My mother heard him say he would; she told me at Ville-aux-Fayes where I went to carry her some money and her clothes. Well; let that countess keep her money! our five hundred francs shall help Godain buy the land; and we'll revenge ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... the empress's manner towards him, and in his despair he took sanctuary in S. Sophia, and assumed the garb of a monk. The perfidy of Apocaucus might have stopped at this point, and allowed events to follow their natural course. But though willing to act a villain's part, he wished to act it under the mask of a friend, to betray with a kiss. Accordingly he went to S. Sophia to express his sympathy with Gabalas, and played the part of a man overwhelmed with sorrow at a friend's misfortune so well that Gabalas forgot for a while his own griefs, and undertook ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... Christian character, come to that. And I didn't know but that even a pa'son might backslide to such things in these gory times—I won't say on a Zunday, but on a week-night like this—when we think what a blasphemious rascal he is, and that there's not a more charnel-minded villain towards womenfolk in the ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... have never doubted that from the first. Captain Black is either the most original villain living, or the whole story is a silly dream—besides, we have yet to learn if he is the commander of the nameless ship: we have also to learn if the nameless ship is not a myth. Time alone will tell, ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... "Villain!" cried Andrew, and the other started round—but with our fisherman at all times it was but a word and a blow—and his blood, which before had been heated and fermenting, now boiled—he raised his hand and dealt a blow ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... He did not know how to go on with his speech, or in truth what to say to her. Florence Burton was still present to his mind, and from minute to minute he told himself that he would not become a villain. But now it had come to that with him, that he would have given all that he had in the world that he had never gone to Stratton. He sat down by her in silence, looking away from her at the fire, swearing to himself that he ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... inclined to let the villain drop; but it did not suit my purpose to be hung for murder, so I swung him back again on the sward, where ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... Soden! I can trust you. Will you stay here and see that villain does not slip out and escape? He's gone into the house. I'll go to ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... heir, they were to fall in to the lord to be re-granted according to his discretion. It was also inscribed that any one of the copyholders, who would not perform his services to the manor (the refractory and others), was to forfeit his tenement and his privileged rank, and to go back to villain in gross and to be subject to corporal punishment as before. "Thus," says Mr. Steele, "we run no risk whatever in making the experiment by giving such copyhold-tenements to all our well-deserving Negroes, ...
— Thoughts On The Necessity Of Improving The Condition Of The Slaves • Thomas Clarkson
... view that woman was in a fair way to change his friend, the best, the most upright of men, into a shameless villain. There was no possibility of doubt that Risler knew of his dishonor, and submitted to it. He was ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... thought at one time that I could make myself heard, having no idea of the desolate position of the place. But I soon gave up the attempt and abandoned myself to despair. There it was that Selim used to come occasionally, and talk to me through the bars. That was better than nothing, and the villain amused his leisure moments by teaching me to speak Turkish. One day he brought me a book, which I hailed with delight. It was an old French method for learning the language. I made great progress, as I studied from morning to night. Selim grew more familiar to me, and I confess with shame that ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... Chateau-Renard. Then he went with me to Vincennes, and, though he had never been there in his life before, Lucien walked straight to the spot where his brother had fallen. He turned round, walked twenty paces, and said, "This is where the villain stood, and to-morrow he will ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... altogether in the party registering. This number included the manager, who, both on and off the stage, quite successfully impersonated the villain—a rather heavy-jawed, middle-aged fellow, of foreign appearance, with coarse, gruff voice; three representatives of the gentler sex; a child of eight, exact species unknown, wrapped up like a mummy; and four males. Beyond doubt the ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... to whom we owe much. She has saved your life to-night, for I would not have known you were in danger if she had not warned me, and she saved me from worse than death in preventing the carrying out of the farce of an illegal marriage with that villain, by giving me a glimpse of his real character ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... The drunken villain then stumbled about the deck till he found the lines which kept the hogsheads in place under the guards. Groaning, crying, and swearing, he untied and threw the ropes overboard. Some of the casks, relieved of the pressure on them ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic
... old one, the rain had filled it almost to the brim, and he ground his teeth, knowing that the spy had outwitted them after all. He knew now that, in spite of Hawke's shots, the villain with the charmed life must have chanced his arm and kept straight on between the two shell-holes, and would even then be nearing the German position, ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... with a brush nearly two feet long! Brown as the ploughed field you were looking at just now, save for the tip of his brush, which is white as snow. He trots off along the wall, offering the easiest of broadside shots if you were villain enough to take advantage of it. He does not hurry; he stops and looks round after a bit, as much as to say, "I trust you." But when you steal cautiously towards him he once more lollops along. You follow, to see where he goes to when he has jumped over the high wall into the ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... friends of the attacks made on him by the supporters of Walpole. On February 9, 1730, he wrote a letter to Swift, in which he says that "certain people" had been driven by want of argument "to that last resort of calling names: villain, traitor, seditious rascal, and such ingenious appellations have frequently been bestowed on a couple of friends of yours." "Such usage," he complacently adds, "has made it {306} necessary to return the same polite language; and there has been more Billingsgate ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... Payton," said Jessie, with her best heavy-villain scowl. "My patience is dangerously near ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... To common minds it is a relief under irremediable misfortune to find an object for blame; and accordingly, though no direct evidence of the fact was produced, it was universally believed that some villain had administered to him "an ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... and the settlers gave him the name of Boss Boy Billy, while Nannie Vennor, now a mother of grown sons, each Christmas time sends him a little souvenir, to show him that she has not forgotten her boy lover who fought his first duel to save her from a villain. ...
— Beadle's Boy's Library of Sport, Story and Adventure, Vol. I, No. 1. - Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Boyhood to Manhood • Prentiss Ingraham
... Parisian by birth, and also in Rabelais, despite his disguising grossness. This finer morality comes possibly from a wider and a deeper survey of the universe; and it is as different as possible from the morality which is externally applied and which always punishes the villain in the ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... The girl from the shop came through the door into the passage, with his card in her hand—a large gilt card with his name, and a coronet above it, and these lines underneath in pencil: 'Dear lady' (yes! the villain could address me in that way still)—'dear lady, one word, I implore you, on a matter serious to us both.' If one can think at all, in serious difficulties, one thinks quick. I felt directly that it ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... a bomb-laden conspirator, pulling secret strings in Mexico or Canada or Japan from the safe protection afforded to his embassy, really he was the most innocent of men, anxious for nothing but to keep unsophisticated America from being trapped by the wiles of the villain Britisher. One has it all on the best of authority—his own—in My Three Years in America (SKEFFINGTON). Of course awkward incidents did occur, which have to be explained away or placidly ignored, but really, if the warlords at home ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... to rise within him, as an angry wind comes rising in the night. The Stranger was beneath his outraged roof. Three steps would take him to his chamber-door. One blow would beat it in. 'You might do murder before you know it,' Tackleton had said. How could it be murder, if he gave the villain time to grapple with him hand to hand! He ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... meal than my lord DEVONPORT allowed me would be required to induce a mood sufficiently tolerant to face without impatience the welter which followed. The three incredible people—mercenary virgin, heavy father and aimless smiling villain—that walked straight out of the Elephant and Castle into the Second Act were not, I suspect, any elaborate (and quite irrelevant) joke of the actor-author's at the expense of the transpontine method, but just queer puppets ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 14, 1917 • Various
... Next faithful Silence hath a sure reward; Within our breast be every secret barr'd! He who betrays his friend, shall never be Under one roof, or in one ship, with me: For who with traitors would his safety trust, Lest with the wicked, Heaven involve the just? And though the villain'scape a while, he feels Slow vengeance, like a bloodhound, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... For never yet did villain turn honest, nor honest man false, in one short hour. When he was asked to serve against the duke he showed his stuff. He was no traitor; he was no coward; he was no liar. I think he is not ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... exclaimed Mr. Taggett. "Any expression of friendliness from you would finish me! For nearly ten days I have looked upon you as a most cruel and consummate villain." ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Roue and villain as Lester Stanwick was, he could not help feeling touched by the innocence and beauty of little Daisy, and from that instant he loved her with a wild, absorbing, passionate love, and he made a vow, then and there, that ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... backward and forward over the ice, until they were once more close to the ship. A dog stood there, below the gangway, wanting to get on board; the bear made a spring on it, and it was there, by the ship's side, that the villain met his fate. ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... that I, on receiving the news, had fainted. This, by provoking deeper sympathy with the hero and greater execration of the villain, acted like paraffin oil on the flames. Before the masters realised that anything more than disappointment was abroad, rebellion looked ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... vacant. His brother, the Lieutenant-General, some say is made an earl. He is come down to Edinburgh, and is gone up again. He is the old man, and has abused [deceived] me strangely. For he swore to me to make amends. Tarbat is a great villain. Besides what he has done at Edinburgh, he has endeavoured to seduce Lochiel by offers of money which is under his hand. He is now gone up to secure his faction (which is melting), the two Dalrymples and ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... young villain, when I've done with you, but not before. I'll teach you to steal my melons; and then you can go home and tell your father how it is done," replied the farmer, as he twisted the cravat of the poor boy till he could ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... Barker was responsible in some measure for having introduced this villain to the Countess and to the Duke. But how could Mr. Barker, a creature of sunny, lamb-like innocence, be expected to know an impostor at first sight? Claudius had acted his part so very well, you know, and Barker had been deceived by his ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... "That villain Stango," exclaimed the captain "I saw him pass a minute ago. He leaned over and whispered ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... in consequence of some derangement of his wires, hovered about the couch like a vulture, and gave medical opinions in the air. He was almost as good as Low, though the latter was great at all times—a decided brute and villain, beyond all possibility of mistake. Low was especially fine at the last, when, hearing the doctor and the valet say, 'The Emperor is dead!' he pulled out his watch, and wound up the piece (not the ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... girl living at Widford in Hertfordshire with her blind grandmother. The girl is beloved by young Allan Clare, and one evening, wandering in sheer joy over the scenes of past delightful rambles, she is assailed by a villain. Her blind grandmother finding her gone from the cottage dies of a broken heart, and poor Rosamund, disgraced and terrified, seeks the home of Allan and his sister and there dies. It is a terrible story told with a beautiful ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... depended on keeping him under my eye, and I told him to watch me like a cat. "Don't go thinking how grand you are, that way," I cried to him angrily. "If you make a blunder of it, the gentlemen will cudgel you, mark you that. Do you as I direct you. And the string, curse you. Mind your cloak!" The villain had bethought him of his flowered waistcoat, and with a comic air flung back his coat to display it. "Take your fingers out of your mouth. Stop scratching your shin with your foot. Leave your hair alone. 'Tis as ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... so much to heart, sweet sister. Heaven knows that you were innocent, and the earth shall know it, too; as for him, he was a villain and a hypocrite not worth a ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... Chesterton tells us, Dickens was in a merrier mood, and published 'Our Mutual Friend,' a book that has, as our critic says, 'a thoroughly human hero and a thoroughly human villain.' This work is 'a satire dealing with the whims and pleasures of the leisured class.' But this is by no means a monopoly of the so-called idle rich: the hardworking middle and poorer classes have whims and pleasures in a like manner, ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke |
