"Villainy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... themselves, and all were compelled to go out in pearling vessels just as the exigencies of the industry required. Jacky Jacky himself was kept at this work for upwards of three years; and he told me many terrible stories of the white man's indescribable cruelty and villainy. He and his companions were invariably chained up during the night and driven about like cattle in the daytime. Many of his mates at the pearling settlement had been kidnapped from their homes in a cruel and contemptible manner, and herded off like sheep by men on ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... the lower rank of the inhabitants of London is to draw a most disagreeable caricature, since the blackest vices and the most perpetual scenes of villainy and wickedness are constantly to be met with there. The most thorough contempt for all order, morality, and decency is almost universal among the poorer sort of people, whose manners I cannot but regard as the worst in the whole ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... I've heard of it. There's some villainy here; the things must have been hidden near my house with the object of strengthening suspicion ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... outnumbered and without arms, submitted after a brief struggle. The mate gave them fair words—no doubt with a view of inducing those below to yield, for they had no difficulty in hearing all that was said on deck. The result proved his sagacity, no less than his diabolical villainy. All in the forecastle presently signified their intention of submitting, and, ascending one by one, were pinioned and then thrown on their backs, together with the first six—there being in all, of the crew who were not concerned ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... well-being and even for the existence of society, that crime should be suppressed. Hence, in addition to moralists and ministers who seek to educate and convert, there must be police and soldiers—in short, the full organized force of the community—ready to stamp out incorrigible villainy, if need be with blood and iron. Similarly, it is essential for the well-being and even for the existence of the polity of peoples—the growing society of nations—that aggression should be prevented, that treacherous intrigues should be frustrated, that ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw
... said Jack, "I see that he has the same hankering after the place where most of his villainy ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"
... overwhelming emotions which now possessed her, as she was at the miserable position in which malignity had so lately placed her. Whilst Victor was being conveyed to the jail, where he was to suffer the punishment due to his villainy, Julia was conducted home to her now rejoicing parent, amidst the congratulations, caresses, and praises, of troops of friends. The day after her acquittal, the throne was again set up in the Grande Allee, and the ovation to her ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various
... not survive her more than a month, and ended her days in the Hotel Dieu, one of our common hospitals. Thus, these depraved young men ruined and murdered their benefactress and her child; and displayed, before they were thirty, such a consummate villainy as few wretches grown hoary in vice have perpetrated. This act of scandalous notoriety injured the Irish reputation very much in this country; for here, as in many other places, inconsiderate people are ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... this insect achieved the very acme and culmination of repulsive villainy. Fortunately she has mitigated it in two ways. The stench is volatile and soon disappears; while settler's noses get used to it in a measure. Were it not for these merciful provisions, colonization in ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... (he replies) was wont to root so deeply that it could hardly be unrooted; and where reckless impudency taketh possession, it useth not very hastily to be dispossessed. What say you to a spring of rankest villainy in February, and a harvest of ripest divinity in May? But what should we hereafter talk any more of paradoxes or impossibilities, when he that penned the most desperate and abominable pamphlet of 'Strange News,' and disgorged his stomach ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... development. Between the pretty little girl who wept on seeing a new toy in her brother's hand and the Lydia Maitland, forcer of locks, author of anonymous letters, driven by the thirst for vengeance, even to villainy, no dramatic revolution of character had taken place. The logical succession ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... for a career of villainy, though I must say in self-defence that it was Aline who lit the match. "The woman tempted me, and I ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... chequered life of much sour experience, old Nick instinctively mistrusted Richard. He had known him for a fool, a weakling, a babbler, and a bibber of wine. Out of such elements a villain is soon compounded, and Trenchard had cause to fear the form of villainy that lay ready to Richard's hand. For it chanced that Mr. Trenchard was second cousin to that famous John Trenchard, so lately tried for treason and acquitted to the great joy of the sectaries of the West, and still more lately—but yesterday, in fact—fled the country to escape the rearrest ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... the Magic Mead through cruelty and villainy. They made it out of the blood of a man. The man was Kvasir the Poet. He had wisdom, and he had such beautiful words with it, that what he said was loved and remembered by all. The Dwarfs brought Kvasir down into their caverns and they killed him there. "Now," they said, "we have Kvasir's ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum
... a whisper. For he knew that he and the man he spoke to were the only honest men in this lonely camp; and that the others would not hesitate to put either himself or the professor out of the way if once they suspected that their villainy was known, he never doubted. Not that he was afraid; but here in the wilds, with six well-armed and determined men against him, he saw the need for caution. The professor he did ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... acknowledgment of all his villainy, telling, as has been before related, the whole story of his wager with Posthumus, and how he had succeeded in ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... I chose this time to make my escape, as I was certain that my flight would not be noticed till late in the morning. Another reason for my determination to hurry my escape, when I could no longer doubt the villainy of my detestable companion, seems to me ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... being sent Treasurer into Sicily, and Pro-consul into Cilicia and Cappadocia,[94] in such a time as covetousness reigned most: (insomuch that the captains and governors whom they sent to govern their provinces, thinking it villainy and dastardliness to rob, did violently take things by force, at what time also to take bribes was reckoned no shame, but to handle it discreetly, he was the better thought of, and beloved for it) he shewed plainly that he regarded not money, and gave forth many ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... Fift' Avnoo," he ordered. "I got two guns—not a woid from youse!" His erstwhile amiable physiognomy, now gnarled into an unrecognizable mask of low villainy bespoke his desperate earnestness. The men obeyed. This was apparently a gangster, of gangsters—their fear of the dire vengeance of a rival organization of cut-throats instilled an obedience more ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... Then he dropped the easy, bantering manner with a suddenness that was startling. Gallic fire blazed up through British training. "Let us speak plainly, my Lord Rotherby. This marriage is no marriage. It is a mockery and a villainy. And that scoundrel—worthy servant of his master—is no parson; no, not so much as a hedge-parson is he. Madame," he proceeded, turning now to the frightened lady, "you have been grossly ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... have written on the topic, except of late, have not helped to make them clearer. The origin of the "war" has been referred to satirical references, apparently to Jonson, contained in "The Scourge of Villainy," a satire in regular form after the manner of the ancients by John Marston, a fellow playwright, subsequent friend and collaborator of Jonson's. On the other hand, epigrams of Jonson have been discovered (49, 68, and 100) variously ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... packet from New Orleans, this essential witness was heralded by the impatient prosecution, till at last he burst upon the stage with all the eclat of the hero in a melodrama—only to retire bated and perplexed, his villainy ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... in one of the fairest cities of Europe with my faithful d'Altenstein, and for those years the Duke Waldemar left me in peace, being, I suppose, occupied in some other villainy. ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... an' he wants to sneak out at any cost! An' so he's incitin' you against the lass. No, August, ... truly, August ... not on that bridge ... you mustn't start for to cross that bridge!... Anybody can see through his villainy! ... He's laid traps enough for the lass. An' if one way don't succeed, he'll try another!... Now he's hit on this here plan.—Maybe he'll separate you two! It's happened in this world, more than once or twice that some devil with his evil schemes has tore asunder people that God ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... make-believe about that. I am afraid it was not before my thought about myself that my moral sense began to operate and my hatred of Pethel set in. Put it to my credit that I did see myself as a mere detail in his villainy. You deprecate the word "villainy"? Understand all, forgive all? No doubt. But between the acts of understanding and forgiving an interval may sometimes be condoned. Condone it in this instance. Even at ...
— James Pethel • Max Beerbohm
... Mr. Touchwood," answered Tyrrel; "and I return you the same good wishes, with, as I sincerely hope, a much greater chance of their being realized.—You relieved me, sir, at a time when the villainy of an agent, prompted, as I have reason to think, by an active and powerful enemy, occasioned my being, for a time, pressed for funds.—I made remittances to the Ragion you dealt with, to acquit myself at least of the pecuniary part of my obligation; but the bills were ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... "that it was your precious Mrs. Higgs that murdered the man. I'm quite sure she's capable of it, or of any other villainy." ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... the decided steps she had taken in flying from the two men and one woman, whom she entitled "that murderous gang." She described their appearance in glowing colours, and I noticed that every time she went over the story some fresh trait of villainy was added to their appearance. One was tall—he grew to be gigantic in height before we had done with him; he of course had black hair— and by-and-by it hung in elf-locks over his forehead and down his back. The other was short and broad—and a hump sprouted out on his ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... I stood does not appear very favourable to thought; yet for the next moment or two I thought profoundly. I had, I told myself, scored one point. Be Rupert Hentzau's errand what it might, and the villainy he was engaged on what it would, I had scored one point. He was on the other side of the moat from the King, and it would be by no fault of mine if ever he set foot on the same side again. I had three left to deal with: two on guard and De Gautet in his bed. Ah, if I had ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... the nature of double- dealing. Royson's remarkable proficiency in most matters bearing on the navigation of a ship had amazed him in the first instance, and this juggling with names led him to suspect some deep-laid villainy with which the midnight attack on von Kerber was not ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... is villainy in it," cried Tom, with wild eyes, "the blackest villainy that ever was done upon earth. I'll go—I'll see him to-night. By heavens, I shall know the truth!" He rushed furiously downstairs and through the bar. There ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... you must promise not to be offended, if I tell you of a little mistake we made. We heared a sight of talk about some pirate craft as hoisteth his Majesty's flag upon their villainy. And when first you come up, in the ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... which he drew from the tail of his coat. "I am thankful to have got these things here in—I devoutly trust!—safety. Specimens? Well, not exactly; though, to be sure, they may be specimens of—I don't quite know what villainy yet. Objects?—certainly! Perhaps, my dear Professor, you will ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... anything I can to relieve you, mentally or physically," he answered in tones of tenderest love and concern. "I shall not stir from the house, while to do so would increase your suffering. I perceive there has been some villainy practised upon you, and a promise extorted, which I shall not ask you to break; but rest assured, I shall keep guard over my ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... September; good, peaceful men, known to me personally, going with untroubled tranquillity to perpetrate the most beastly, senseless, and vile of crimes. Had not they some means of stifling their conscience, not one of them would be capable of committing a hundredth part of such a villainy. ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... foretold it; A feeble government, eluded laws, A factious populace, luxurious nobles, And all the maladies of sinking States. When publick villainy, too strong for justice, Shows his bold front, the harbinger of ruin, Can brave Leontius call for airy wonders, Which cheats interpret, and which fools regard? When some neglected fabrick nods beneath The weight of years, and totters to the tempest, Must heaven despatch ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Davitt. And he certainly has been active in doing so; and now the agitators, when they want to have an estate transferred to the Board, commence by preventing its being let or used, and so compelling the owner to leave it derelict and unprofitable; then, when by every description of villainy and boycotting it has been rendered almost worthless, the Congested Districts Board (who have carefully lain by until then) step in with a preposterous offer which the unfortunate owner has no choice but to accept. This may appear strong language to use with reference to a Government ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... but feeling in his heart that he "who sows the wind, must reap the whirlwind;" that such were the rewards from villainy, to its vile instruments; he could not but say to himself, "I have deserved it of my God, but not of thee!" and sobbing over the remains of his equally criminal wife, by the assistance of his comrades he removed her from the now hated presence of ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... practised, and the victims once in the clutches of their reverend captors had to pay heavily for the illegal ceremony. Ladies were trepanned into matrimony, and Smollett in his History observes, that the Fleet parsons encouraged every kind of villainy. It is astonishing that so great an evil in the heart of London should have been allowed to exist so long, and it was not until the Marriage Act of Lord Hardwicke in 1753, which required the publication ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... gruesome are active within the gaily decorated walls of the sacred lamassery. But all that the outsider sees is a weak, debased-looking man whose vices should soon end his days even if he escapes the lamas' villainy. Formerly he amused himself with Western toys, photography, and especially motor-cars. It is true the millions of Mongols look to the Gigin as their divine leader, but after all there are ranks even in divinityship, and when the Dalai Lama, fleeing from Lhasa before ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... say," replied Roland. "This man Rovinski is a scientific jackal; he has ambitions of the very highest kind, and he seeks to gratify them by fraud and villainy. It is now nearly two years since I have found out that he has been shadowing me, endeavoring to discover what I am doing and how I am doing it; and the moment he does get a practical and working knowledge of anything, he will go on with the ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... the world seem so far from God, we are so tempted to believe that He is remote from it, that nations and their rulers and the field of politics are void of Him. We see craft and force and villainy ruling, we see kingdoms far from any perception that society is for man and from God. We see Dei gratia on our coins, and 'by the grace of the Devil' for real motto. We see long tracks of godless crime and mean intrigue, and here and there a divine gleam ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... Matrimony—obviously a jest. The sly rogue laughs at me. I must confess, however, that he has given me some of my best lines. "Villainy 's afoot!" for example, and "Sink me stern up!" His peaceful school breeds a ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... for themselves, for their reality. It is ever amazing to me that the hand which drew the pathetic and beautiful creations, the kindly humored men, the lovely women, the unfortunate little ones, could portray also with such marvellous accuracy the villainy and craftiness of such characters as Bumble, Bill Sykes, Pecksniff, Uriah Heep and Squeers. Undoubtedly from his earliest childhood he had possessed the quick perception, the instinct, which could read in people's characters their tendencies ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... protection of miscreants. By exercising it they are able to show their power over the authorities of the country—a fact which impresses the masses. That is why in the neighbourhood of many mosques one sees a great number of ruffianly faces, unmistakable cut-throats, men and boys whose villainy is plainly stamped on their countenances. As long as they remain inside the sacred precincts—which they can do if they like till they die of old age—they can laugh at the law and at the world at large. But let them come out, ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... his blood was not red like that of other men, but black like his skin and his soul. They had good cause to curse his memory, for his villainy had reduced more than half Memphis to ashes that day, and brought the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... who was endeavoring to ruin him. And he felt certain, also, that Jacko was true to him. He knew, too, that he had plainly declared his suspicion to the man himself. But he had resolved upon doing this. He could in no way assist himself in circumventing the man's villainy by keeping his suspense to himself. The man might be frightened, and in spite of all that had passed between him and Medlicot, he still thought it possible that he might induce the sugar grower to co-operate with him in driving Nokes from the neighborhood. ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... system. So why not draw it at anything the other fellow does to make money. In adopting this simple rule, we not only preserve the moralities from destruction but also establish our own virtue and the other fellow's villainy. Truly, never is the human race so delightfully, so unconsciously, amusing as when it ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... to show you the dishonour into which the villainy and mendacity of the defendant have brought our country, passing by all besides, I will mention a fact known to you all. Formerly, men of Athens, all the other Hellenes used to watch attentively, to see what had been resolved in your Assembly; ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... a measure of compensation. Had he not run the man to earth? And was not the avenging of the girl he loved yet to come? Yes, this had been so, and he dwelt on the courage and patience which governed the simple women who listened to the details of man's merciless villainy. ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... town, there are some villains—you know what I mean, one must not speak too loudly on this ship. There is a man called O'Brien, who mismanages my uncle's affairs. What do I know? The good Tomas has been in some villainy that is no affair of mine. He is a good friend and a faithful dependent of my family's. He certainly had that man's watch—the man we met by evil chance at Liverpool, a man who came from Jamaica. He had bought it—of a bad man, perhaps, I do not ask. It was Castro your police wished to take. But ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... put into a two-acre paddock near the house. We put her there because of her wisdom. She was a chestnut, full of villainy, an absolutely incorrigible old rogue. If at any time she was wanted when in the grass paddock, it required the lot of us from Dad down to yard her, as well as the dogs, and every other dog in the neighbourhood. Not that she had any brumby element in ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... villainy in Sydney are not surpassed by those in Melbourne; but, with regard to drunkenness and prostitution, the latter place is far worse than Sydney. The Theatre Royal contains within itself four separate drinking-bars. The Cafe de Paris, in the same building, has two bars. In the theatre itself ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... like this should overcome a Beverley! it fills me with astonishment! A wretch, so mean of soul, that even desperation cannot animate him to look upon an enemy. You should not thus have soared, Sir, unless, like others of your black profession, you had a sword to keep the fools in awe, your villainy has ruined. ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... they sing, you will be broad awake, and of me, and the worship and service I would have dedicated to you, I do not . . . it is a spectral sunset of a day that was never to be!—awake, and looking on what? Back from a monstrous villainy to the forlorn wretch who winked at it with knots in a string. Count them then, and where will be your answer to heaven? I begged it of you, to save you from those blows ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... he is sly, subtle, full of stratagem, yet has so much command of himself (which makes him more dangerous), as not to precipitate his designs; but can wait with patience till he thinks himself secure of his prey, and then pulls off the mask at once; and, if he succeeds, glories in his villainy. Yet does his father beg of the dean to permit his visits, for he wishes him to marry Miss L. though greatly unequal in fortune to his son, wishing for nothing so much as that he would marry. And the dean, ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... was on his honesty, I could not, one second, but I do upon his villainy and love of money. I have promised him enough, and it all depends on whether he'll ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... Sleight had overlooked the logical effect of this discovery on the natural villainy of his tool. In the very moment of his triumphant execution of his patron's suggestions the idea of keeping the treasure to himself flashed upon his mind. He had discovered it—why should he give it up to anybody? He had run all the risks; if he were detected at that ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... quiet sea, the captain's thoughts were centred on material things and the reception he was likely to have on meeting the men his mind's eye pictured as cut-throat ruffians. He had several conferences with the interpreter, whose look and speech he regarded as a revelation of villainy. He was tall and slim, with ricketty legs, dark shifty eyes, a low receding forehead, and a mouth and chin that indicated the animal. The captain felt instinctively the approach of trouble, and frankly told the wretch, who he knew was deceiving him, that every bale of tobacco would ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... society would discover that its best interests were served by reforming its offenders and making them moral and industrious servants of the State, instead of by committing them to institutions where they were brought into contact with consecrated villainy and where the unwholesome influence is calculated to confirm them in criminal habits and make them a constant menace and expense to the community. That our criminal population is on the increase, and that the proportion of recidivists grows larger every ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... he cuts me off, wavin' his hands. "One of the camera men, another infernal idiot, kept turning the crank while this disgraceful brawl was at its height and I have proof of your villainy on film! I'll use it as a basis to sever my contract ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... and any attempt to speak only increased my pain. I relate these facts about the agony that I suffered simply to show what a terrible weapon of war this deadly phosgene gas is, and to emphasize the villainy of the Hun government in using it after having agreed with other nations years before not to ...
— In the Flash Ranging Service - Observations of an American Soldier During His Service - With the A.E.F. in France • Edward Alva Trueblood
... Durtal went on, "the priest tolerates the villainy of jolly songs which are served up to him; but at least he does not, like the one at St. Severin, allow strolling women players to lighten up the Office by the shouts of such voices as remain to them. Nor has he accepted the solo on the English horn which ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... aside; and shows how rapidly he was getting his American Notes into shape. "At the Isle of Thanet races yesterday I saw—oh! who shall say what an immense amount of character in the way of inconceivable villainy and blackguardism! I even got some new wrinkles in the way of showmen, conjurors, pea-and-thimblers, and trampers generally. I think of opening my new book on the coast of Cornwall, in some terribly dreary iron-bound spot. I hope to have finished the ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... for Cumnor, declaring that the earl had ordered it for his own safety. But no sooner was the lady gone than Leicester repented of the consent Varney had wrested from him. An interview with Tressilian and the recovery of a letter written by Amy at Cumnor revealed all Varney's villainy. Too late he acknowledged his marriage to the queen, and when the fury of Elizabeth's anger had somewhat subsided, she ordered Tressilian and Sir Walter Raleigh to repair at once to Cumnor, bring the countess to Kenilworth, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... my mother can see through the wretched thing. My father says little, and he has not spoken harshly; for which I gave thanksgiving this morning in the chapel of the Ursulines. Yet you are in a dungeon, covered with wounds of my brother's making, both of you victims of others' villainy, and you are yet to bear worse things, for they are to try you for your life. But never shall I believe that they will find you guilty of dishonour. I have watched you these three years; I do not, nor ever will, doubt you, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... all traces of Professor Kell's villainy. Although he is no more, still someone might notice that his body actively remains. And no one ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... partly to save his life, for she heard he was in a consumption. So these two mad wits were reconciled and made a match of it, after Claudio and Hero were married; and to complete the history, Don John, the contriver of the villainy, was taken in his flight and brought back to Messina; and a @@brave punishment it was to this gloomy, discontented man to see the joy and feastings which, by the disappointment of his plots, took place ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... copies of all Zurich's letters to you. You have been endeavoring to ruin your cousin, fearing that McClintock might relent and remember Stanley in his will; you have succeeded at last. Whatever new villainy you have to propose, it now should be easier to name it, since you are relieved from the necessity of beating round ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... in her hands and decided that there could be no doubt whatever of the villainy of Dick. To justify herself, she began, unwomanly, to weigh the evidence. There was a boy, and he had said he loved her. And he kissed her,—kissed her on the cheek,—by a yellow sea-poppy that nodded its head exactly like the maddening dry rose in the garden. Then there was ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... the codicil might be his or might not. If his, it had been obtained by fraud. What could be easier than to cheat an old doting fool? Many men agreed with Joseph Mason, thinking that Usbech the attorney had perpetrated this villainy on behalf of his daughter; but Joseph Mason would believe, or say that he believed—a belief in which none but his sisters joined him,—that Lady Mason herself had been the villain. He was minded to press the case on to a Court of Appeal, up even to the House of Lords; but ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... to his country, and to all kinds of virtue, than HE, I answer thus; Whether there be two different goddesses called Fame, as some authors contend, or only one goddess sounding two different trumpets, it is certain that people distinguished for their villainy have as good a title for a blast from the proper trumpet, as those who are most renowned for their virtues have from the other; and have equal reason to complain if it be refused them. And accordingly the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... however, the primary desire for vengeance and vengeance of the bitterest kind proved master of his mind. Captain Tremayne had been led by his villainy into a coil that should presently crush him, and Sir Terence promised himself an infinite balm for his outraged honour in the entertainment which the futile struggles of the victim should provide. With Captain Tremayne lay the ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... that fashion! A rascal who for so many reasons should be the first to keep secret what I trust him with! To go and tell everything to my father! Ah! I swear by all that is dear to me not to let such villainy go unpunished. ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere
... of her, standing, in habit and terai, on the open space where her tent had been, supervising the departure of her last load of luggage, and listening patiently to tales of coolie villainy and extortion poured forth by her Kashmiri ayah, on ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... when I held the clue. I think he must have got from Riderhood in a paper, the drug, or whatever it was, that afterwards stupefied me, but I am far from sure. All I felt safe in charging on him to-night, was old companionship in villainy between them. Their undisguised intimacy, and the character I now know Riderhood to bear, made that not at all adventurous. But I am not clear about the drug. Thinking out the circumstances on which I found my suspicion, they are only two. One: I remember his changing a ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... say—"it isn't the word—bored to death. Why, my dear Chris, if you'd heard the conversation of the lady next me to-night, you'd have thought that the premier said, every morning when his shaving-water was brought him, 'Another day! Whose happiness can I mar? Whose ruin can I effect? What villainy ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... me now, ye men of Ithaca, to the word that I will say. Through your own cowardice, my friends, have these deeds come to pass. For ye obeyed not me, nor Mentor, the shepherd of the people, to make your sons cease from their foolish ways. A great villainy they wrought in their evil infatuation, wasting the wealth and holding in no regard the wife of a prince, while they deemed that he would never more come home. And now let things be on this wise, and obey my counsel. Let us not go forth against him, ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... she took an interest in me enough to make me wonder why, and she was always keeping her eyes open like a pilot to see that I didn't meet any man who might be after me. To tell the truth, she talked so much of the villainy of males and the horrors of marriage that finally I believed what she said and turned my young face away from all men, just as if good, timid, and bad were run out of the ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... fell, and carried her to a sofa. It was the first time he had held her in his arms since he had had a lover's right to do so, and all the man-soul in him rose in a desperate revolt of love and pity against the coldly calculating villainy of the man who had used the vilest of means to rob him ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... see it or know it; and no one is so bold as to boast to all the world of the wickedness he has perpetrated, all wish to act by stealth and without any one being aware of what thy do. Then, if any one be arraigned, the name of God is dragged into the affair and must make the villainy look like godliness, and the shame like honor. This is the common course of the world, which, like a great deluge, has flooded all lands. Hence we have also as our reward what we seek and deserve: pestilences wars, famines, ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... so no longer! God has given me the power to stop them; and God do so to me, and more also, if I do not use that power. To-morrow I sweep out this Augean stable of villainy, and leave not a Jew to blaspheme ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... and happy spirit whence comest thou? Well have I known this man, much against my will. This one is a receptacle of villainy; he is a perfect heap of the utmost ingratitude combined with every vice. But of what use is it to fatigue myself with vain words? Nothing is to be found in them but every form of sin ... And if there should be found among them any that possesses any good, they ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... like a call to judgment, and who, in any such ambiguous case, fill up the moments of suspense with wild conjecture, and a ghastly summing-up against themselves; can it be this—or that—or the other old, buried, distant villainy, that comes back to take me by ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... "O Villainy!" Racah was thoroughly aroused; "I swear by the beard of your silly prophet that I will not play Chopin, nor ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... in the history of villainy a parallel for the gigantic crime against property conspired by the Tammany Ring. It was engineered on the complete subversion of free government in the very heart of Republicanism. An American city, having a population of over a million, was disfranchised by an open vote ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... moving. The scraps of conversation which I had heard, and which I have set down here, gave me enough food for reflection for a long time. I was not yet quite clear as to the purport of it all, but I was clear that villainy was on foot, and that not only was Paul Edgecumbe's life in danger, but my own as well, and if the truth must be told, I feared Springfield's threat more than I feared the danger which I had to meet every day as a soldier at the front in ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... thus far with more than patience, in fact with something akin to approval, to the captive who was still his master with the tongue. With all his villainy, the bushranger was man enough to appreciate another man when he met him; but Carmichael's last word flicked ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... credit. Hereafter, when you see a chance to play the scoundrel, before you embrace it, please measure the probable pillage and let me know. I will then give you the amount. In that way you will have the profits of every act of villainy you might commit, while missing the mud and mire of its accomplishment. Remember, Mr. Gwynn; I will not tolerate ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... but spring from different motives. Prince, we implore, we entreat you to return; no longer give us over to the caprice, the villainy, the tyranny and avarice of Count von Schwarzenberg. He is the evil demon of your father, of your country. Come home ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... pear. In the kingdom of morals, there are people who seem to be of virtue, truth and goodness all compact. Contrariwise, every day you will meet men upon our streets who are solid bestiality and villainy done up in flesh and skin. Each feature is as eloquent of rascality as an ape's of idiocy. Experts skilled in physiognomy need no confession from impish lips, but read the life-history from page to page written on features "dimmed by sensuality, convulsed by passion, branded ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... room and shut the door. A fierce repulsion sickened him. He had heretofore held himself with a certain degree of inward loftiness; he had so condemned the follies and sins of other men, and here he found himself involved in a low and common villainy, in the deceits which belonged to his crime, and which preyed upon simplicity and ...
— Lodusky • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... moment James Smith was appalled; he had never thought of this. As in all his past villainy he was too cowardly to contemplate murder, he was frightened at the mere accusation of it. "But," he stammered, forgetful of all save this new terror, "he KNEW I wouldn't be such a fool, for the man himself told ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... indefinite period; Kate to accompany her only relatives to America and poor Barry to enter the British army, under a pressure of poverty too dreadful to relate. As already intimated, the prospects of both had been blighted through oppression and villainy, brought to bear upon them by distant relatives, who were the infamous agents of a still more infamous government. The case of Nick, although sore enough in its way, was not so heartrending as that of Kate. He was of a sex fitted to wrestle with the ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... Russia Before and After the War, translated by E.F. Taylor (London, 1880), chap. xvi.: "We have been cheated by blockheads, robbed by people whose incapacity was even greater than their villainy."] ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... if, as well may be, the necessity should arise for you to do battle on equal terms in open field, even so, my son, there will still be power in those arts which you have studied so long and which teach you to out-villain villainy. And among them I include all that has served to train the bodies and fire the courage of your men, all that has made them adepts in every craft of war. One thing you must ever bear in mind: if you wish your men to follow you, remember that they expect ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... on edge] Don't it make your flesh creep ever so little? that wicked old devil, up to every villainy under the sun, ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... whatsoever which one might wish to exact from them? It seems to me, that he must be an audacious wretch who when no others are the jurors except those very ones who have suffered ill, has come to make his defense, before the very witnesses of his villainy; so much has he either despised you or trusted others. 85. Both of these things it is worth while to consider, reflecting that they would not be able to do these things without the co-operation of others, neither would they have attempted to come now, unless they thought they would ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias
... and spent the most of that first week after the funeral in the steamer chair on the Ranch House piazza. Were the topaz gates of the sunset still ajar to a new infinite life; or did satyr faces haunt the shadows of the trail, satyr faces of the Greed that had plotted the bloody villainy of the Rim Rocks? She had thought she knew joy before, joy that rapt her from life in a race reverie. Now, she knew joy, tense as pain; and the consciousness never left her. It was there; beside, inside, above, all round, an enveloping atmosphere to everything she thought and said ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... but you will never capture us alive." He said this so calmly, with such politeness of manner, and yet so firmly, that the Meer was evidently taken aback: at length he replied, "But no such piece of villainy has ever entered my head." He then adroitly changed the subject, and shortly ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... strong necessity for money) devise some fresh plan, which might succeed in its object, were Oaklands still ignorant of the real character of the person he had to deal with? And in such case should not I be answerable for any mischief which might ensue? Nay, for aught I knew, some fresh villainy might be afloat even now; what plan could Spicer have been urging, which Cumberland seemed unwilling to adopt, if not something of this nature, and which might be prevented were Oaklands made aware ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... lies the dog that bit me. Now desist: It is not easy; yet it must come out. A letter that I wrote to this same King, Or to his secretary, George Germain,— Imploring favors for my villainy— If I appear unmanned, it's physical, And needs no moment's thought—The letter's here, [Takes a letter from his pocket.] And through its hell of shame as through a gate I see Elysian fields, ...
— The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold - A Play for a Greek Theatre • John Jay Chapman
... was resumed on November 1, 1810, and of course a great fleet of merchants went off to French ports. But they were no sooner there than the villainy of Napoleon was revealed, for on December 25, by general order, every American ship in the French ports was seized, and $10,000,000 worth of American property was confiscated. He had not recalled his Decrees, but pretended to do so in order to get the ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... first, I pray you of your courtesy, That ye ne arrettee it nought my villainy, Though that I plainly speak in this mattere, To tellen you her words, and eke her chere: Ne though I speak her words properly, For this ye knowen as well as I, Who shall tellen a tale after a man, He mote rehearse as nye as ever he can: Everich word of it been in his charge, All speke he, never ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... satisfied with you," said Orloff, with a smile. "You are both excellent actors. This new little countess was pleased and touched by your discourse, Joseph, my very worthy priest. Where did you learn this new villainy?" ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... manuscript, Murdoch, and I think it is high time you should mention that the M'Raes of Strathtoul were in no degree connected with or voluntarily mixed up in the villainy that banished your poor father ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... Punic faith; mala fides[Lat], Punica fides[Lat]; infidelity; faithlessness &c. adj.; Judas kiss, betrayal. breach of promise, breach of trust, breach of faith; prodition|, disloyalty, treason, high treason; apostasy &c. (tergiversation) 607; nonobservance &c. 773. shabbiness &c. adj.; villainy, villany[obs3]; baseness &c. adj.; abjection, debasement, turpitude, moral turpitude, laxity, trimming, shuffling. perfidy; perfidiousness &c. adj.; treachery, double dealing; unfairness &c. adj.; knavery, roguery, rascality, foul play; jobbing, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... of them that they treat them with great respect: they are not beaten or kicked, are spoken to in soothing tones, and, on the whole, live better than their masters. Perhaps this is the secret of their villainy—"Jeshurun waxed fat ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... the stream, in which direction Steve had already shambled. Stafford returned, through wood and swamp, to the road by the bridge. Above and around the deep inner jungle his intellect worked. He knew that he had done a villainy; knew it and did not repent. A nature, fine enough in many ways, lay bound hand and foot, deep in miasmas and primal heat, captive to a master and consuming passion. To create a solitude where he alone might reach one woman's figure, he would ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... Holly, and set him down on his knee, 'I pray thee, gentle Ivy, Say me no villainy, In landes where ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... said Andras, "of the delights of its villainy, and grovel in all that is low and base. Life is not worth living unless the air one breathes is pure and free! Man is not the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... that serve? It was you who spoke of conspiring, though I grant you seem to have dropped that item of the indictment. But Mr. Steingall, as representing the law, should hear the full tale of villainy. If your lordship will produce de Courtois's letters, cablegrams, and wireless messages to yourself and your confederate, Count Ladislas Vassilan, he will begin to appreciate the true bearing of a ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... not such "thundering fools" as to pick one with England, or to be influenced by shibboleths bearing on the relative thicknesses of blood and water. When, however, we learned how very much mistaken folks may be, the "villainy" of President Steyn was—rather overstated, and the continued independence of his ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... extorted. In the communes of Beauvoisin and Generac similar excesses were committed by a handful of licentious men, under the eye of the catholic mayor and to the cries of "Vive le Roi." St. Gilles was the scene of the must unblushing villainy. The protestants, the most wealthy of the inhabitants, were disarmed, whilst their houses were pillaged. The mayor was appealed to:—the mayor laughed and walked away. This officer had, at his disposal, a national ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... are obvious on a first reading, and were very justly condemned on a first acting. The intrigue is wearisome: its involutions are ineffectively puzzling. Maskwell's villainy and Mellefont's folly are both unconvincing. The tragedy of Lady Touchwood, less tragic than that of Lady Wishfort in The Way of the World, is more obviously than that out of the picture. The play is, in fact, not pure comedy of manners: it is that plus tragedy, ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... Balfour was their aversion. During his reign it could no longer be said that the safest place in Ireland, the one spot where no harm could befall you, was the criminal dock. Balfour stamped out midnight villainy, and helped the industrious poor. Wherefore he is honoured by honest Irishmen and hated by all rascalry. Ireland needs him again with his suaviter in modo, fortiter in re; his fairness and firmness, his hatred of tyranny, his determination to do right though the heavens should fall. ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... on. Every day or two he was sure to get a sound rib-roasting for some of his misdemeanors; which, however, as it broke no bones, he made very light of, and scrupled not to repeat the offence whenever another opportunity presented. Sometimes, in consequence of some flagrant villainy, he would abscond from the garrison, and be absent for a month at a time; skulking about the woods and swamps, with a long fowling-piece on his shoulder, lying in ambush for game, or squatting himself down on the edge of a pond catching fish for hours together, and bearing no little resemblance ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... way, two miles of brick and mortar piled on either side. At last they came to a third-rate house, when a rough, common-looking woman opened the door and shutter. As soon as she saw the man, she let loose her tongue upon him for all the villainy in the world, but something which passed from his hand to hers hushed her in an instant; and observing the merchant, she courtesied to ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... overtaken all the perpetrators of this villainy. Three important traitors were yet at large, and they were all Jesuit priests. Greenway, who had fled from Holbeach with Robert Winter, had not continued in his company. For ten days he hid in barns and cottages in Worcestershire; but when the proclamation was made for his ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... "He is Garin de Biterres, a miscreant of Guienne. My brother balked him in some villainy years ago. He took me for Walter when he saw me, and let it out. Aquitaine being too hot to hold him, and the Normans in Ireland refusing to enlist him, he came through the Breach of Roland and took service under the Crescent. He was once a slave among the Moors of Andalusia, and ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... not go with the expectation of finding a land flowing with milk and honey, the sight of all this ruin long saddened his thoughts. All was confusion, disorder, debts, mortgages, sales, pillage, villainy, waste, folly, and madness. The nettles and brambles in the park were up to his shoulders; horses had been turned into the garden, and ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... of a whore, Are what ten thousand envy and adore; All, all look up with reverential awe, At crimes that 'scape or triumph o'er the law; While truth, worth, wisdom, daily they decry: Nothing is sacred now but villainy. Yet may this verse (if such a verse remain) Show there was one ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... phrase of the New Yorker, they will "get it in the neck". To this class Stanning and Attell belonged. It was plain to all that the former was the leading member of the firm. A glance at the latter was enough to show that, whatever ambitions he may have had in the direction of villainy, he had not the brains necessary for really satisfactory evildoing. As for Stanning, he pursued an even course of life, always rigidly obeying the eleventh commandment, "thou shalt not be found out". This kept him from collisions with the authorities; ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... but it seemed to be thought expedient to defer the lesson till the distant future; at least, if one might judge from the literature especially designed for growing minds, wherein clever villainy was exalted, and deeds of ferocious cruelty and revenge occurred as a daily commonplace among heroes. The same policy was indicated by the practice of allowing children to become familiar with the sight of ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... which would be penal servitude,—all jumbled and mixed up together in one strange phantasmagoria. Was he, Paul, to be a mere tool in such hands? Toward what a precipice was he being impelled! Mascarin and Van Klopen were not friends, as he had at first supposed, but confederates in villainy. Too late did he begin to see collusion between Mascarin and Tantaine, which had resulted in his being accused of theft during his absence. But the web had been woven too securely, and should he struggle to break through it, he might ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... and the Arabs afterwards told him, that he was a perfect savage, and sometimes put a merchant to death for the sake of his goods, but this account, if true, is less to be wondered at, from the notorious villainy of some of them. ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... villain, you," cried the commodore in a rage—"to think that I had such confidence in you, sir; defended you upon all occasions, sir; refused to believe in your villainy, sir; refused to close my doors against you, sir. Yes, sir; and should have continued to do so, but ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... my character which you have slandered, and to fix the disgrace you intended for me on your own son. I bring you the proofs of his, not my villainy." ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... faithful, as they leave earth, take possession of heaven: that those apparitions and ghosts of departed persons are not the wandering souls of men, but the unquiet walks of devils, prompting and suggesting us into mischief, blood, and villainy; instilling and stealing into our hearts that the blessed spirits are not at rest in their graves, but wander solicitous of the affairs of the world: but that those phantasms appear often, and do frequent cemeteries, charnel-houses, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... or three occasions at Geneva she had wrested his unworded thought from him with the same effortless sorcery. Lynde evaded her look, and studied a spire-like peak on his left. "I shall have an air of detected villainy now, when I ask her," he mused. "That's the first shade of coquetry I ever saw in her. If she accepts my invitation without the aunt, she means either to flirt with me or give me the chance to speak to her seriously. Which is it to be, Miss Ruth? I wonder if ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... All, sir! Everything, sir! It is really a case of atrocious villainy, sir! And I may say, a case of extreme difficulty as well! A case in which I need counsel myself, sir," said the landlord, with every appearance of being as willing to give information ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... I am stale, a garment out of fashion, And for I am richer than to hang by th' walls, I must be ript; to pieces with me. Oh, Men's vows are women's traitors. All good seeming By thy revolt, oh husband, shall be thought Put on for villainy: not born where't grows, But ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... him with a fixed, astounded horror; he could not believe his senses; he could not realize what he saw. His dearest friend stood mute beneath the charge of lowest villainy—stood powerless before the falsehoods of ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... the other side of the bars, as though he were actually a prisoner within the grounds of this centre of revolutionary plots, of this house of folly, of blindness, of villainy and crime. Silently he indulged his wounded spirit in a feeling of immense moral and mental remoteness. He did not even smile when he heard her ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... Pendleton, but the chances are that, when given to a great banker, either of the last two names would make a greater impression on "popular" spectators. Again, certain names instantly make us think of villainy, while others as plainly tell us that the owner of the name is an honest man. The authors of the "good old" melodramas used exaggerated names that today would probably be laughed at. "Jack Manly" and "Desmond Dangerfield" would hardly "get by" in modern drama or in present-day picture plays; ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... beginning in widely different ways. I suspect that Accident was the parent of many; and well meant critical assiduity of more. Zeal for the Truth is accountable for not a few depravations: and the Church's Liturgical and Lectionary practice must insensibly have produced others. Systematic villainy I am persuaded has had no part or lot in the matter. The decrees of such an one as Origen, if there ever was another like him, will account for a strange number of aberrations from the Truth: and if the Diatessaron of Tatian could be recovered[184], ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... fruits of twelve years of gardening and horticulture were destroyed in a day by ravaging parties. The fact that their lives were spared and their persons not attacked, except in a rare instance of an individual piece of villainy, is proof of the mild dispositions of the infidels. The Tahitians worshiped their gods with a superstitious awe not exceeded anywhere, and the outlandish white men proclaimed openly that these gods were dirty lumps of wood and stone ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... her, a bit anxiously. "Their reasons for causing my arrest now are simply that that man Swinnerton, not knowing when he is beaten, wants me out of the way for a few days. He is ready to spring another bit of his villainy, I suppose. But I do not think that Wallace is going to serve his warrant in ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... in contact, because kindness cost nothing and might upon occasion be exceedingly profitable. Riles, on the other hand, was coarse and unkind simply because his nature rose to no higher plane. Gardiner was clever enough to conceive almost any depth of villainy, and Riles was brutal enough to carry out the muscular part of the plot. Travers had not known Harris to be in the district, but he had suspected for some days that Gardiner and Riles were hatching mischief in their long absences together. ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... on it! Since I left office I know no more what villainy's afoot, Or virtue either, than an anchoret Who mortifies the flesh ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy |
