Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




More "Mischievous" Quotes from Famous Books



... and inanimate, and very frequently make to themselves gods of objects that are contemptible even among brutes. In Hindoo, the monkey is a celebrated god. A few years since, the rajah of Nudeeya expended $50,000 in celebrating the marriage of a pair of those mischievous creatures, with all the parade and ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... Petits—Dalles, Veulettes, Saint-Valery, Veules, Quiberville. Lupin kept on jesting and Isidore never wearied of watching and listening to him, amazed as he was at the man's spirits, at his gaiety, his mischievous ways, his careless chaff, his ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc

... Oulibicheff pretends to see the burning of Moscow in a discord in the first Heroic, what would he find here? What scenes of burning towns, what battlefields! Besides that there is cutting scorn and a mischievous laughter in Heldenleben that is never heard in Beethoven. There is, in fact, little kindness in Strauss's work; it is the work of ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland

... not as boys. Though the clapper of the college bell was sometimes thrown into the well or the president's wagon was transferred to the chapel roof, these things were often done from a sort of sense of duty: college students were expected to be mischievous. Yet the whole tone of college life was serious. There were no organized college athletics, no musical or dramatic clubs, no other outside activities such as those to which the student of today devotes so much of his attention, except, of course, ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson

... was only to bid me a mischievous goodbye, ere he ran down the spiral stair, leaving me to listen till I lost his feathery foot-falls in the base of the tower, and then to mount guard over my tethered, handcuffed, somnolent, and yet always formidable ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung

... mischievous if we do not give them a sharp lesson. The general's proclamation gave notice that every one of them taken would be shot, and our colonel is just the man to carry ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty

... them were hung portraits of the proprietor of the Imperium and a series of drawings for the famous Imperium posters, which had through many years brightened the gloomy streets of London and its ever expanding outskirts. Sir Henry's mischievous eyes flitted from drawing to drawing, and his tongue passed over his thick lips as he tasted again the savour of his success—more than twenty unbroken years of it. He thought of the crowded houses, the brilliant audiences he had gathered together, ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan

... on which they were willing to proceed in investigating, we did not seek to examine into the particulars of the conduct of the Democratic visitors in Louisiana. To let the testimony show the original resolutions of inquiry to be both useless and mischievous, serving no purpose but the spread of unjust scandal, seemed to us, in view of all former inquiries in the same direction, the proper ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... you!" he cried. "That Wolverene is a terror—I know him well. He would question and cross-question you about the Beavers until you were nearly addled, and then he would persuade them that you had been telling tales. Mischievous creatures such as he are best left alone, even if you are sure they cannot harm you. He is as much hated by Sable and Marten hunters as he is by all of us, for he has such a wonderful sense of smell that he scents out the stores of provisions they hide in case of need, and wastes ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... have six Synagogues, and in the country places there are at least twenty more. Most of the lower classes of those distinguished by name of German or Dutch Jews, live principally by their wits, and establish a system of mischievous intercourse all over the country, the better to enable them to carry on then-fraudulent designs in every way. The pliability of ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... two large caves hollowed in the rock; the smoke-blackened ceilings prove that these are used as camping grounds by travelling Shokas and Hunyas (Tibetans). Large black-faced, white-bearded monkeys swarmed everywhere, frankly and gladly mischievous. They throw or roll stones down upon the passers-by, often causing accidents, the track being rather narrow and sheer above ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... of all our hopes and expectations, and almost against our belief, it also sounded right astern, and further away than any of the others. I was ready to cry with vexation. It seemed like the work of magic, and as if a set of mischievous imps or spirits, like those on Prospero's island, were employed in trying our tempers and patience. There seemed no use in going on thus, to be constantly baulked; so I ordered the men to lay on their oars, ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston

... both thought they were poisoned by the bites of the creatures, and that they would surely die. The whole thing had been a practical joke, in which Frank had played a prominent part. And now Barney, the mischievous, the loyal, the reckless, ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish

... there they came to be courted by both of the great parties, especially by the Whigs, who had become the weaker party of the two. Fanaticism, to which is usually accorded sincerity as an extenuation of its mischievous tenets, affords the best excuse to be offered for the original abolitionists, but that can not be conceded to the political associates who joined them for the purpose of acquiring power; with them it was but hypocritical cant, intended ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... 1914. That was a time of great mental and moral disturbance. There was premonition in the air of those days. It was like the uneasiness sensitive people experience before a thunderstorm. The moral atmosphere was sullen and close. The whole world seemed irritable and mischievous. The suffragettes became extraordinarily malignant; the democratic movement went rotten with sabotage and with a cant of being "rebels"; the reactionary Tories and a crew of noisy old peeresses set themselves to create incurable confusion again in the healing wounds of ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells

... somehow, I was not quite satisfied, and so finally abandoned it. The truth is, I labored under the disadvantage of having no monkey—and American streets are so muddy, and a Democratic rabble is so obstrusive, and so full of demnition mischievous ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... but said that the pain would moderate before morning, especially if the fish was dead. Had its fins struck into my foot instead of my hand I should have died, they asserted; and then they told the mate and myself that one day a mischievous boy who had speared one of these abominable fish threw it at a young woman who was standing some distance away. It struck her on the foot, the spines penetrating a vein, and the poor girl died in terrible agony on the following day. ...
— John Corwell, Sailor And Miner; and, Poisonous Fish - 1901 • Louis Becke

... have the powers and rights reserved to them in and by the National Constitution; but among these surely are not included all conceivable powers, however mischievous or destructive, but at most such only as were known in the world at the time as governmental powers; and certainly a power to destroy the Government itself had never been known as a governmental—as a merely administrative power. This relative ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... allegiances (of which that of the State comes nearest home to a man's feelings, and includes the altar and the hearth, while the General Government claims his devotion only to an airy mode of law, and has no symbol but a flag) is exceedingly mischievous in this point of view; for it has converted crowds of honest people into traitors, who seem to themselves not merely innocent, but patriotic, and who die for a bad cause with as quiet a conscience as if it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... into which the coins of the charitably inclined were supposed to be dropped. At once my brother noticed him, for he had an eye for this sort of thing, the pathos of poverty as opposed to so gay a scene, the street with its hurrying theater crowds. At the same time, so inherently mischievous was his nature that although his sympathy for the suffering or the ill-used of fate was overwhelming, he could not resist combining his intended charity with a ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... no little alarmed by the violence which he threw into his words. At the same time, she was indignant. And yet a mischievous sprite within her led her on to tell him ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... remarked Mabel, with a mischievous glance at Joe, and that young man's instinctive dislike of the ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick

... this, the oomiak was paddled towards the land. Nunaga observed that the sisters Kabelaw and Sigokow were each eager to spring ashore before the other and snatch the prize. Having a spice of mischievous fun in her she resolved to be beforehand, and, being active as a kitten, while the sisters were only what we may style lumberingly vigorous, ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne

... those who were the undertakers for providing the army with bread.[3] This the Duke excused, in a letter to the commissioners, from the like practice of other generals: but that excuse appeared to be of little weight, and the mischievous consequences of such a corruption were visible enough; since the money given by these undertakers were but bribes for connivance at their indirect dealings with the army. And as frauds, that begin at the top, are apt to spread through all the subordinate ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... in the same dilemma? I suppose, of course, you mean Dr Edward," cried Nettie, with a little flash of mischievous curiosity. "Why? He has nobody but himself. I should like to know why he can't marry—that is, if anybody would have him—when he pleases. Tell me; you know he ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... of the consequences of adopting false and artificial notions on political economy, that these drive the most conscientious and virtuous men to the most mischievous and violent extremities. Where things should be left to themselves they believe interference to be right, and so believing, they think it necessary to carry out their views at whatever cost. A remarkable instance of this was shewn by ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers

... host could not but allow that there was no cause for his further detention. During this time Rupert had talked much with the Burgomaster, who spoke French fluently, and had told him frequently and earnestly of the grievous harm that was done to the prospects of the war by the mischievous interference with the general's plans by the Dutch deputies, who, knowing nothing whatever of war, yet took upon themselves continually to thwart the plans of the greatest general of the age. Van Duyk listened with great attention, and promised that when he went ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty

... in some ways a welcome change from the sordid drabness of her own relatives, for he was colorful, versatile, and nearly always good-humored. He kept Lorelei entertained, at least, and if at times he provoked her it was only as a mischievous boy tries the patience of a parent. He was weirdly prankish; serious happenings reacted strangely upon him. Misfortune aroused in him a wild hilarity; cares excited mirth. He bore his responsibilities lightly and ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... Gibbons' spring business was distended to unrecognizable proportions. Rose fitted on hats in the show-room during business hours and took a mischievous delight in the assumption of the intangible manner of a perfect shop-assistant; in saying "Yes, madam," and "No, madam," and "Will you try this, madam?" with a perfection of politeness that baffled the most determined curiosity. Miss Gibbons got as ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... prevent possible loss from some prank of mischievous boys or thieving negroes, Maurice had secured a long and stout chain, with a padlock, and at night this was so attached to the dinky that no one could sneak the stumpy little craft away without ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne

... to see that his black face was full of animation, and eyes and lips bright with mischievous glee, all of which annoyed me the more, for what business had he to be happy when I was so disappointed, out ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn

... the nations Spread the name and fame of Kwasind; No man dared to strive with Kwasind, No man could compete with Kwasind. But the mischievous Puk-Wudjies, 5 They the envious Little People, They the fairies and the pygmies, Plotted and conspired against him. "If this hateful Kwasind," said they, "If this great, outrageous fellow 10 Goes on thus ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... than a satirist and a snarler." His polished jibes were more mischievous than brutal. "This reticent, sensitive, attractive, yet dangerous youth ... slew his victims mostly by the midnight oil, not by any blaze of gaiety, or in the accumulative fervour of social sarcasm. From him came most of those sharp things which the victims could not forget.... Lockhart ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... unique in all the world? Why trouble us with that dahlia-root, which M. Caussade's neighbour has thrown over the garden wall? Was it necessary to inflict on us all that talk about the fox that plays havoc in the garden? What have we to do with that mischievous beast? And that Tolozan, with his endless digressions! What do we care about his ideas on love, on metempsychosis, on friendship, etc.? All this stuff only ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer

... you be so absurd!" cried Dale impatiently. "You don't mean to say you believe any mischievous imp could ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn

... whose interrogatory activities it is sought to curb are, for the most part, like the objects in a museum, more curious than exhilarating; but there are some, I am afraid, whose questions are intentionally mischievous, and by their mere appearance on the notice-paper give comfort and even information to our foes. Mr. BONAR LAW'S announcement that the Government would, during the Christmas holidays, consider how to mitigate ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 26, 1917 • Various

... a cant name for Whitefriars, which, possessing certain privileges of sanctuary, became for that reason a nest of those mischievous characters who were generally obnoxious to the law. These privileges were derived from its having been an establishment of the Carmelites, or White Friars, founded says Stow, in his Survey of London, by Sir Patrick Grey, in 1241. ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... things, of which I need only mention the principal. In the first place, the man's sickness falling on him like a thunder-clap; next, his haste in catching back his hand when you tried to feel his pulse; and then his smile, at once happy and mischievous, when you offered him the peons and he found his stratagem succeeding ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various

... Cal," he answered, with mischievous banter, "if your little heaven and your little hell in which you seem to take so much comfort are true, so much the worse. I can see you ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon

... 1,250 to 1,300 ft.) through forest until we got to the Ponte Alto (High Bridge) River, so called because..., there is no bridge whatever there! The Brazilians are really too delightful in their reasoning; and, mind you, it is not done with a mischievous sense of the ludicrous—indeed no; it is done seriously. The Ponte Alto stream was, like most of the other watercourses of ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... of deception and danger lie in the exact reproduction of ancient or early books, not always with any mischievous or fraudulent intention. Such a piece of supercherie as the History of Prince Radamanthus, professedly re-printed from a unique copy by Wynkyn de Worde, or the Life and Death of Mother Shipton, dated 1687, and actually issued in the latter half of the last century, ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt

... sometimes happens that a child who is mischievous and inattentive in school, and whose school work is rather poor, tests high in intelligence, the trouble with him being that the work set him is below his mental level and therefore unstimulating. Such children do better when given more advanced work. The intelligence tests ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... you tell them he beats his wife or plays cards too well. The campaigners are shrewd fellows, and they know this, so they start the 'Plan of Campaign' on the Portumna properties, and get a lot of English windbags to come there and hobnob with some of the most mischievous and pestilent parish priests in all Ireland—and then you have the dreadful story of the 'evictions,' and all the rest of it. Lord Clanricarde, or his agent, or both of them, getting out of temper, ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... talents of the mind, however they may be named, or courage, resolution, perseverance, as qualities of temperament, are undoubtedly good and desirable in many respects; but these gifts of nature may also become extremely bad and mischievous if the will which is to make use of them, and which, therefore, constitutes what is called character, is not good. It is the same with the gifts of fortune. Power, riches, honour, even health, and the general well-being and contentment with ...
— Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals • Immanuel Kant

... of truth, are related of him at this time, which indicate that he was of a frolicsome and mischievous turn: among these is a statement that he was arraigned for deer-poaching in the park of Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote. A satirical reference to Sir Thomas in one of his plays,[30] leads us to think that there is some truth in the story, ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... actual import. We only know that so extensive a change, affecting the position of many of the largest States, indicates a serious dissatisfaction of some kind; though it is by no means probable that the people have intended to sanction the extreme and mischievous views of some of the candidates, who, here and there, have secured their election. Factious divisions in the loyal States, at this critical period, would be ruinous to the cause of the Union. They would distract the public mind and weaken the arm of the Government, so as to endanger its ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... one of her "bad streaks," as Nora called her particularly mischievous times, and perhaps this was because Ruby had been left to herself more than she had ever been ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull

... down: I was wrong. Studying intensified for me. The folklore of the British Isles intrigued me. I delved into the Black Welsh tales, the mischievous fancies of the Irish, the English legends of the prowling werewolf. For me it was a relief from political science, which suddenly palled and which smacked of treason in the light of current events. My extracurricular research consumed the better part of my evenings. My ...
— Each Man Kills • Victoria Glad

... pen from service of the players to attack on them, in a piece which he called "The School of Abuse, containing a Pleasant Invective against Poets, Pipers, Players, Jesters, and such like Caterpillars of a Commonwealth; setting up the Flag of Defiance to their mischievous exercise, and overthrowing their Bulwarks, by Profane Writers, Natural Reason, and Common Experience: a Discourse as pleasant for Gentlemen that favour Learning as profitable for all that will follow Virtue." This Discourse Gosson dedicated ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney

... of the talents is too often the man who, untalented, tries to palm off Brummagem counterfeits. FitzGerald's fear was not that he would write worse than half his compeers, but that he might write as ill. "This visionary inactivity," he tells John Allen, "is better than the mischievous activity of so many I see about me." He applied Malthus's teaching to literature; he was content so long as he pleased the Tennysons, some half-dozen other friends, and himself, than whom no critic ever was more ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome

... Roche-Aymon and her daughter, of the other persons whom she had left at the palace, and of the Duchesse de Luynes, who was to have passed the night at the Tuileries. Respecting her she said, "Hers was one of the first heads turned by the rage for that mischievous philosophy; but her heart brought her back, and I again ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... "Ah, thou mischievous imp! I'll pinch thee well if thou forgest me not the thing I commanded thee," Alberich shouted, at the same time pinching and poking the ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon

... Mr. Lamotte turned toward the bearer of the mischievous note, who had withdrawn a few paces from the group near the carriage, and beckoned ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... advantage of my fall. . . . What envoy will ever dare to speak with vigor if he is not sustained by the government at home? . . . My enemies have misrepresented my actions, and my language as passionate, exaggerated, mischievous, but I have no passion except for the ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... started off home Danny Meadow Mouse still sat on his doorstep. But no longer was he lonely. He watched Old Mother West Wind trying to gather her Merry Little Breezes into her big bag to take to their home behind the Purple Hills, and he laughed right out when he saw her catch the last mischievous Little Breeze and tumble him, heels over ...
— Mother West Wind's Children • Thornton W. Burgess

... useful ornaments, if haply some more prudent magistrate do at any time introduce them. Thus in the reign of Henry the Fourth, (during the superintendency of Monsieur de Sulli) there was a resolution of adorning all the highways of France with elms, &c. but the rude and mischievous peasants did so hack, steal and destroy what they had begun, that they were forced to desist from the thorough prosecution of the design; so as there is nothing more expos'd, wild, and less pleasant ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... her heel, and went off, followed by all the mischievous imps of the village, some crying, "Madge, canst thou tell thy name yet?" some pulling the skirts of her dress, and all, to the best of their strength and ingenuity, exercising some new device or other to exasperate ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... upon them. They received with great contentment the military salutes of the officers of their acquaintance, which they acknowledged with the courtesy of well-trained internes, slightly exaggerated by provoking smiles and mischievous glances which had formed no part of the lessons in politeness ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... his sleep,' he said. 'Why could they not dance in the day-time?—not when all respectable leaves and flowers were sleeping! making such a noise, especially that mischievous Puck!' ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer

... Miss Brown," said Eleanor, kindly. One look at poor Miss Brown explained the conduct of the girls in her care. She was one of those timid, nervous women who can never be expected to control anyone, much less a group of healthy, mischievous girls in need ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Mountains - or Bessie King's Strange Adventure • Jane L. Stewart

... By reason of his reading and his excellent memory, he soon became the best story-teller among his companions; and even the slight training gained from his studies greatly broadened and strengthened the strong reasoning faculty with which he had been gifted by nature. His wit might be mischievous, but it was never malicious, and his nonsense was never intended to wound or to hurt the feelings. It is told of him that he added to his fund of jokes and stories humorous imitations of the sermons of ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay

... to date, if there has been any grand passion in my life, it is my love for her. D.C., when I got to know her—by talking to her in the street—was a girl of about 20. She was short and plump; dark hair; dark, mischievous eyes; a fair complexion; small features; quiet manners, and a sensual ensemble. I do not know what her father was. He was dead, her mother kept a university lodging house. She spoke and behaved like a lady. She dressed quietly; was absolutely unmercenary; her intelligence—i.e., ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... roof and lofty walls; with loud crashes the floors fell in; showers of bright sparks flew on every side, and nothing but a mass of burning ruins—a huge bonfire—remained before us. The men shouted when they saw the destruction they had caused, like mischievous schoolboys. They little thought or cared to whom the property belonged, or who were the sufferers. They would just as readily have burnt it had it belonged to royalists. They enjoyed the sight of the conflagration—the effects of their own handiwork. Many of the officers, ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... sale of the station. (6) I was lucky, also, as I have stated, in the purchase and resale of lands, at Uncle Jack's recommendation. And, lastly, I left in time, and escaped a very disastrous crisis in colonial affairs, which I take the liberty of attributing entirely to the mischievous crotchets of theorists at home who want to set all clocks by Greenwich time, forgetting that it is morning in one part of the world at the time they are tolling the ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... quivered with portent and intent. Vain ado! Superfluous preparation! The very letter which gave them explicit and formal permission to begin to get ready to commence to put away the Hebrew, fell—by the mischievous Hathors!—fell into the hands ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... speech deserted him. Suddenly he was realizing that Pen was no longer a little girl and that she admired Saradokis ardently. When the young Greek strolled away to dress, Jim looked at Pen intently. She was so lovely, so rosy, so mischievous, so light and sweet ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow

... Curly never would have developed into such a mischievous and wayward youth had it not been ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson

... with soap, gives a red colour to the meat that is boiled in it, and, when drank by strangers, never fails to occasion pains in the stomach and bowels; nay, sometimes produces dysenteries. In all appearance it is impregnated with nitre, if not with something more mischievous: we know that mundic, or pyrites, very often contains a proportion of arsenic, mixed with sulphur, vitriol, and mercury. Perhaps it partakes of the acid of some coal mine; for there are coal works in this district. There is a well of purging water within a quarter of a ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... constitutionally applied, it is obvious that the exercise of the power can never be satisfactory. Besides the danger to which it exposes Congress of making hasty appropriations to works of the character of which they may be frequently ignorant, it promotes a mischievous and corrupting influence upon elections by holding out to the people the fallacious hope that the success of a certain candidate will make navigable their neighboring creek or river, bring commerce to their doors, and increase the value of their property. It thus favors combinations ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... realize how much harm this hysterical philanthropy—this purely sentimental faddism, does; how it retards the natural advance of civilization, throws dust in people's eyes, salves the easy conscience of the rich man, who bargains for immortality with a few strokes of the pen, and finds mischievous occupation for a good many weak minds and parasitical females. Believe me, that all personal charity is a mistake. It is a good deal worse than ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... slipped into the herd before it left the ranch and had kept quiet and respectable and out of sight in the middle of the mass for the first few days and nights. But keeping quiet and respectable had been an awful strain, and his mischievous deviltry grew constantly harder to hold in check. Finally he could stand the repression no longer, and when he gave way to his accumulated energy it had the snap and ginger of a tightly stretched rubber band recoiling on itself. On the fourth night out he had ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford

... colonists. His government proved a that he unsatisfied with failure: and, mutually them and they with him, dissatisfied, (45) governed and he retransported himself governor parted. Vane returned into England; (30) (43) (44) to England, but not till he had having sowed such seed of accomplished his mischievous task, dissension there, as grew up too not till he had sown the seeds of prosperously, and miserably those miserable dissensions which divided the poor colony into afterwards grew only too several factions, and divisions prosperously, till they split the and persecutions of each (15 a) ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott

... was wrong. His bullet, which he had fired in the night, had taken terrible effect. The brute had made one bound after being struck, and crashed through the fence, to lie afterwards completely paralysed in the hind-quarters, so that a carefully-directed shot now quite ended her mischievous career, for she uttered one furious snarl, clawing a little with her forepaws, and then rolled over dead, close to the unfortunate cow she had dragged down and torn ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn

... at the end of this strange note, I should certainly have considered it as a mere trap set to make a fool of me by some mischievous friend. As it was, I rather doubted the propriety of taking any serious notice of Professor Tizzi's offer; and I might probably have ended by putting the letter in the fire without further thought about it, but for the arrival by the next post of a ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins

... came into the hall that moment, "muster the wasps so thick here? It is time to stifle such a mischievous brood." Then taking Front-de-Boeuf ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... who live in the Green Forest and on the Green Meadows, none is more mischievous than Sammy Jay. It seems sometimes as if there was more mischief under that pert little cap Sammy Jay wears than in the heads of all the other little meadow and forest people put together. When he isn't actually in mischief, Sammy Jay is planning mischief. You see it has grown ...
— The Adventures of Johnny Chuck • Thornton W. Burgess

... that reason we pity men, assuredly, my Sandra, but not kings. Luckless kings are not generous men, and ungenerous men are mischievous kings." ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... who fished beside Junkie, on feeling a tug worthy of a whale; and, "Hee! hee!" burst from Junkie, whose mischievous hand had caused the tug when ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne

... large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year. "But though the scheme of disciplining the whole nation must be abandoned as mischievous or impracticable; yet it is a matter of the utmost importance that a well-digested plan should, as soon as possible, be adopted for the proper establishment of the militia. The attention of the government ought particularly to be directed ...
— The Federalist Papers

... replied,—I will talk to you about this. But mind, now, these are the things that some foolish people call DANGEROUS subjects,— as if these vices which burrow into people's souls, as the Guinea- worm burrows into the naked feet of West-Indian slaves, would be more mischievous when seen than out of sight. Now the true way to deal with those obstinate animals, which are a dozen feet long, some of them, and no bigger than a horse hair, is to get a piece of silk round their HEADS, and pull them out very cautiously. If you ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... continued from some previous, more excited discussion, in which one of the contestants—a red-bearded miner—had subsided into an occasional growl of surly dissent. It struck Clarence that the Missourian had been an amused auditor and even, judging from a twinkle in his eye, a mischievous instigator of the controversy. He was not surprised, therefore, when the man turned to him with a certain ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte

... whole existence, reappearing at its every crisis, and by some strange fate even when it was far from me, throwing its spell over my mind and fortunes till, because of it, I turned my skill and knowledge to the propagation of a lie, so mischievous in its results that had the world known me as I was it would have done wisely to deal by me as it deals with a ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard

... gospel according to Adam Smith—laissez faire, and so forth—has been specially denounced in recent times. Without asking at present how far such attacks are justifiable, I must be content to assume that the old restrictive system was in its actual form mischievous, guided by entirely false theories, and the great barrier to the development of industry. The same spirit appeared in purely political questions. 'Liberty,' as is often remarked, may be interpreted in two ways; not necessarily consistent with each other. It ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... corn-cob doll to her wrappings, she knelt down and began to gather up the old toys which the children had scattered over the hearth-rug. Ann and Rudolf helped her, and Peter who, though a very mischievous little boy, was always honest, confessed that he had been the one to open the old cupboard and take out the box. He seemed to feel rather uncomfortable about it, and after the things had been put away, he climbed upon Aunt Jane's lap and hid his head upon her ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels

... Cremieux that it was impossible for him to consent to such an arrangement. He never would allow that any Jew committed the murder of Father Tommaso and his servant, either from vengeance or any other motive; were he base enough to admit such a thing, its effect would be most mischievous, for in every part of the world it would be said that the Jews were guilty, and the same awful charges would be brought against ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore

... elevated situation, its beauty has faded, its glory been lost in the sacrilegious hands of its barbarian possessor. Abject slavery or base flattery have existed where woman has been displaced from her proper and original character, and the most mischievous consequences have ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... heart swell, and tears gathered under his eyelids. But all at once the Countess held up a bit of sugar for him to see; she had discovered it by searching diligently for it while he spoke. What he had mistaken for a human thought was a degree of reason required for a monkey's mischievous trick! ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac

... The influence was mischievous also from a social and domestic point of view; from the sanctity and superiority attached to those who ignored natural ties and duties, thus lowering the social and domestic standard, and setting the nun's habit above the woman, the wife and the mother. Yet ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various

... she afraid of him as she had been in the old days on the farm, when he had bullied her and made her the scapegoat for all the offences he could possibly load on her slim shoulders. One night in the woods, when Bessie, wrapped in a sheet and playing ghost, had frightened Jake and his mischievous friends away before they could terrify the Camp Fire Girls as they lay asleep, had taught Bessie ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the Farm - Or, Bessie King's New Chum • Jane L. Stewart

... uneventful weeks slipped by, each day disguising itself in exact semblance of its fellow, like a file of mischievous maskers. Hawthorne sat in his little room under the eaves reading, studying, voicelessly communing with himself through his own journal, or— mastered by some wild suggestion or mysterious speculation—feeling ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... this remark, the youth took to song himself; and there they were like two mischievous birds. Only the bird on the ground was cross with a sense of failure. "El telele ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister

... a shining light. No one listened more eagerly to the teacher's words, or more readily answered his questions at review. No one was wider-mouthed or whiter-eyed. His admonitions to his family now took on a different complexion, and he could be heard calling across a lot to a mischievous sister, "Bettah tek keer daih, Lucy Jane, Gawd's a-watchin' you; bettah ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... trickle of light from the lamp in the street stuck up through the fanlight as, with a smile that could be described neither as mischievous, saturnine, nor vindictive, and was yet faintly suggestive of all three, Lawford quietly opened the drawing-room door and put down the candlestick on ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare

... impulse. When they got to the top of the stairs, they were scattered, and their chant died away. Nothing could any longer be heard but the tramp of all the shoes intermingled with the chopping sound of many voices. The crowd not being in a mischievous mood, contented themselves with looking about them. But, from time to time, an elbow, by pressing too hard, broke through a pane of glass, or else a vase or a statue rolled from a bracket down on the floor. The wainscotings cracked under the pressure of people ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert

... their pilfering and stealing is a perfect nuisance. How far it is owing to the oppression of laws aimed solely at the religion of these people, how far to the conduct of the gentlemen and farmers, and how far to the mischievous disposition of the people themselves, it is impossible for a passing traveller to ascertain. I am apt to believe that a better system of law and management would have good effects. They are much worse treated than the poor in England, are talked ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young

... They're all terrible easy-managed beasts but him, and he's full o' ill tricks. He can't bear woman-folks," added the boy, with a slight mischievous twinkle in his eye; for he felt more at his ease now, having assured himself that Blackie was much too intent on some sweet blades of grass to give any trouble at ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae

... puir gypsy, your honour," said the girl, becoming mischievous now that she had gained her point; "only a wandering hallen-shaker, and will I tell you your fortune, my ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie

... theology? I will tell you, then. It is Spiritualism. While some are crying out against it as a delusion of the Devil, and some are laughing at it as an hysteric folly, and some are getting angry with it as a mere trick of interested or mischievous persons, Spiritualism is quietly undermining the traditional ideas of the future state which have been and are still accepted,—not merely in those who believe in it, but in the general sentiment of the community, to a larger extent than most good people seem to be aware ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... the prosperous development of these benevolent projects, the mischievous Bishop of Burgos and his brother, who, since the latter part of Cardinal Ximenez's regency, had been excluded from active participation in Indian affairs, began once more to exercise an influence, partly, perhaps because long experience had equipped them with a practical knowledge ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... mad, I cannot say. 'T were wrong in their affliction to revile 'em, But truly, you'll confess 'tis very sad We wear the ugly things they make. Begad, They'd be less mischievous in ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... the mortification of those boys who will not be "young gentlemen"—the many who won't, can't, and shan't dance! but, being bent upon mischief, dispose explosive spiders and chair-crackers about the carpet;—one little mischievous fellow wishing he had brought some pepper to strew on the floor, and make 'em sneeze; however, they get up a little excitement another way with the sofa-pillows, a sham fight, in which a parian Amazon falls beside Marian Bell, who "didn't go to do it;" so dancing is relinquished for games to suit ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner

... this mingling of the name of Julie and Edouard, though it did not for a moment fill his mind with any suspicion as to Lady Ongar. It made him feel, however, that this woman was dangerous, and that her tongue might be very mischievous if she talked to others as she did to him. As he looked at her—and being now in her own room she was not dressed with scrupulous care—and as he listened to her, he could not conceive what Lady Ongar had seen in her ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope

... danger to which my incautious knight-errantry has exposed me; I begin, indeed, to take you for a very mischievous sort of person, and I fear the poor devil from whom I rescued you will be amply revenged for his disgrace, by finding that the first use you make of your freedom is to ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney

... an excuse for him on this occasion, for it is not every day that an irritated man has an opportunity of railing at his wife's incapacity and the inconvenient intelligence of his daughter both in one breath. "But how has Evadne obtained all this mischievous information? I cannot think how she could have obtained it!" he ejaculated, knitting his brows at his wife in a suspicious way, as he always did when this importunate thought recurred to him. In such ordinary everyday matters as the ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... grew too giddy and got frightened. Every time she was coming back she uttered a piercing scream which made all the little urchins come round, and, down below, beneath the garden hedge, she vaguely saw a row of mischievous heads, who made various grimaces as ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... Squire; then he added with a complacent smile: "The mischievous little lad used my overshoe for a fish-pond ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter

... in five minutes. Joanne had slipped on a long gray coat, and with a veil that trailed a yard down her back she had covered her head. Not a curl or a tress of her hair had she left out of its filmy prison, and there was a mischievous gleam of triumph in her eyes when she looked ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood

... this explanation, and would probably have continued the conversation much longer had he not been interrupted by the voice of his mischievous satellite, Davie Summers, who touched his forelock and said: "Please, Mr Mivins, shall I lay the table-cloth, or would it be better to slump dinner with tea ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... seems to have been a comedy of errors," said Ulyth. "Some mischievous Puck threw dust in our eyes and ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil

... is wasting, too, the opportunity of profiting by the information of his distinguished professors." It cannot be denied that Espronceda's conduct left much to be desired. According to Escosura he was "bright and mischievous, the terror of the whole neighborhood, and the perpetual fever of his mother." He soon gained the nickname buscarruidos, and attracted the notice of police and night watchmen. "In person he was agreeable, ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup

... can make of it, you appear to have been engaged in a 'leg-pulling' contest," commented Lady Fermanagh, darting a quick glance from one to the other, and deciding that Myra was probably evolving some mischievous joke. "You don't mean to tell me seriously, Don Carlos, that you have any faith in the predictions of ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage

... mustn't blame him for being in the political camp of those who are diametrically opposed to us. At all events, don't run away with the idea that he is a mischievous person. ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux

... commercial improvements with which his name is associated, and to which he owes all his glory and most of his unpopularity. It is equally true that all the ablest men in the country coincide with him, and that the mass of the community are persuaded that his plans are mischievous to the last degree. The man whom he consulted through the whole course of his labours and enquiries was Hume,[8] who is now in the Board of Trade, and whose vast experience and knowledge were of incalculable service to him. ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... member of the group; and this was a short and sturdy boy who had the same mischievous twinkle in his eye ...
— The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross - Or Amateur Theatricals for a Worthy Cause • Gertrude W. Morrison

... treated with Artaxerxes as to the terms on which he would consent to be reconciled. Thus was set an example, if not of successful insurrection, yet at any rate of the possibility of rebelling with impunity—an example which could not fail to have a mischievous effect on the future relations of the monarch with his satraps. It would have been better for the Empire had Megabyzus suffered the fate of Oroetes, instead of living to a good old age in high favor with the monarch whose power he had weakened ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson

... guid huntin'?' he inquired, 'Hae ye killed the fox? They're mischievous beasts at the best, but worst o' a' at this season—aye seekin' for the ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease

... Sherwood's, and while I'm not going to give you a lecture on the subject, I am going to ask you to behave pretty fairly well while you're at her house. You know she's not as young as she once was, and a lot of mischievous children may make her a great deal of trouble if they wish to,—or they can refrain from doing so. Need I ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells

... with straw, to which they conveyed those wretches who were overwhelmed with intoxication. In these dismal caverns they lay until they recovered some use of their faculties, and then they had recourse to the same mischievous potion; thus consuming their health, and ruining their families, in hideous receptacles of the most filthy vice, resounding with riot, execration, and blasphemy. Such beastly practices too plainly denoted a total want of all policy and civil regulations, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... gentlemen were Messrs. Waddington and Hanbury, who, after staying a short time in our camp, returned to Egypt. Mr. Waddington, on his return to England, published an account of his travels on the upper Nile, in which, having been misled by the tongue of some mischievous enemy of mine, he gave an account of me not a little fabulous. On my arrival in London, I wrote to Mr. Waddington what he was pleased to call a "manly and temperate letter," informing him of his error, representing ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English

... among the nations Spread the name and fame of Kwasind; No man dared to strive with Kwasind, No man could compete with Kwasind. But the mischievous Puk-Wudjies, They the envious Little People, They the fairies and the pygmies, Plotted and conspired against him. "If this hateful Kwasind," said they, "If this great, outrageous fellow Goes on thus a little longer, Tearing everything he touches, Rending everything ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... look of self-defence to one more deprecating yet half mischievous; not the look of a scolded girl to an accusing floorwalker, but that of ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson

... face of ocean. The earth, which till now had been cultivated in common, began to be divided off into possessions. Men were not satisfied with what the surface produced, but must dig into its bowels, and draw forth from thence the ores of metals. Mischievous IRON, and more mischievous GOLD, were produced. War sprang up, using both as weapons; the guest was not safe in his friend's house; and sons-in-law and fathers-in- law, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, could not trust one another. Sons wished their fathers dead, ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... to themselves the happiness of men for their end, and who must work with the passions of men for their means. The blind reverence for things ancient is indeed so foolish that it might make a wise man laugh, if it were not also sometimes so mischievous that it would rather make a good man weep. Yet, since it may not be wholly cured it must be discreetly indulged; and therefore those who would amend evil laws should consider rather how much it may be safe to spare, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... as well as another: nay, the stranger holds a privilege beyond him; for the proprietor, by often seeing, sees away the beauties, while he who looks but seldom, sees with full effect. Besides, one is liable to be fretted by the mischievous hand of injury, which the stranger seldom sees; he looks for excellence, the owner for defect, and they ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton

... all along of the new Act for Uniformity which was printed and set forth this last May. You were too full at that time of your apprehensions for these young ladies to be curious to read that mischievous Act; but, since it touches my father nearly, he mastered its meaning with great pains, and has thought of little else for many days; and the upshot of all this is, that next Bartholomew-tide he will go ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling

... hopeless to romancers like Scott, there never was such another explorer as Jane Austen. Her demure observation is marvelously keen; sometimes it is mischievous, or even a bit malicious, but always sparkling with wit or running over with good humor. Almost alone in that romantic age she had no story to tell, and needed none. She had never met any heroes or heroines. Plots, adventures, villains, persecuted innocence, ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... the broad moonlight, Two forms were mirrored: and I turned my face To catch the teasing and mischievous glance Of Helen's eyes, as, heated by the dance, Leaning on Vivian's arm, she ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... man gave a glance at the two women, swift, yet long enough to take in every detail of their appearance and stamp it upon his memory. The shorter one with the golden hair was evidently Mac's mother, not only because she was the older, but became the child's mischievous face was like a comic mask made in the semblance of her own gentle features. Her companion was more striking. Taller and more richly dressed, she carried the impression of distinctiveness, of achievement, ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray

... further assistance either in money or in money's worth, directly or indirectly, whatsoever: Also providing that the said Francis Ormistown, otherwise Hogarth, shall not marry either of his cousins; the marriage of such near relations being mischievous ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence

... and as he rode a few yards in advance to carefully scan the country in front, a great deal of whispering and gesticulation went on between the gardener and Norman, while the other boys looked on full of mischievous glee, and egged ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn

... disposal at the beginning of hostilities, and until the destruction of Cervera's squadron, upon Cuba, and in a very minor degree upon Puerto Rico. Indeed, the ships placed before San Juan were not for blockade, properly so called, but to check any mischievous display of energy ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan

... gray, stone house yonder, whose turrets you can just see beyond those trees?" asked Eve, suddenly, a mischievous light dancing ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey

... them appear in a street of Pompeii. The doctor was lost behind a screen of glass, talking with the coachman who had come to meet them. Freya, before disappearing, turned to give him a faint smile and then raised her gloved hand with a stiff forefinger, threatening him just as though he were a mischievous and bold child. ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... it is not much use when these mischievous birds come in, bringing their stuff to build with. Just look there. I threw away a nest from that very spot three days ago, and there is another. And there is ...
— The Story of a Robin • Agnes S. Underwood

... Watts-Dunton always called Mr. Hake, adopting a family name given to him when a boy on account of his likeness to his cousin, General, then Colonel, Gordon. Nothing amused Watts-Dunton more than for some caller to start discussing army matters with the supposed ex-officer. He would watch with a mischievous glee Mr. Hake’s endeavours to carry on a conversation in which he had no special interest. Watts-Dunton never informed callers of their mistake, and to this day there is one friend of twenty-five years’ standing, a man keenly interested in National Defence, who regards Mr. ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... life. That diathesis which is most serious and usually least regarded, the nervous excitable one, is by far the most important and the most difficult to deal with. Every effort should be made to avoid the conditions in which the hereditary predisposition would be aroused into mischievous action, and to encourage development on simple unexciting lines. The child should be confined to the schoolroom but little and receive most of his training in wood and field. Other diatheses—the tuberculous, rheumatic, &c.—-must be dealt with in ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... happens that there is some question as to the earth or the sky, or the other elements of this world, respecting which one who is not a Christian has knowledge derived from most certain reasoning or observation, and it is very disgraceful and mischievous and of all things to be carefully avoided, that a Christian, speaking of such matters as being according to the Christian Scriptures, should be heard by an unbeliever talking such nonsense that the unbeliever, perceiving him to be as wide from the mark as east from west, can hardly restrain ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown

... practicable and so specious, that I deeply regretted the time and the efforts which had already been so fruitlessly expended. If my project, however, had been mischievous, to review it with regret was only to prolong and to multiply its mischiefs. I trusted that time and strength would not be wanting to the execution of this ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... sharp, and successful, and polite, and gentlemanly, and jolly, and all that sort of thing, he'll like you very much, and be exceedingly kind to you; but if you are lazy, or mischievous, or stupid, or at all a pickle, he'll ignore you, snub you, won't speak to you. I wish you'd been in ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... worst treated in Mysteries are always kings; they are mostly represented as being grotesque and mischievous. The playwrights might have given as their excuse that their kings are miscreants, and that black is not dark enough to paint such faces. But to this commendable motive was added a sly pleasure felt in caricaturing those great men, not only because they were heathens, but also because they ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... whole belief in genius seems to me rather a mischievous superstition, and if not mischievous, always, still always, a superstition. From the account of those who talk about it, genius appears to be the attribute of a very potent and admirable prodigy which God has created out of the common for the astonishment and confusion of the rest of us poor human ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair

... With a mischievous and rather wicked look in his dark eyes, he said, "You must leave that fellow to me. I'm not ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... the cup of coffee without sugar. She then helped De la Haye and me, not forgetting to put plenty of sugar in our cups, and she poured out one for herself exactly like the one she handed to Dubois. It was much ado for me not to laugh, for my mischievous French-woman, who liked her coffee in the Parisian fashion, that is to say very sweet, was sipping the bitter beverage with an air of delight which compelled the director of the Mint to smile under the infliction. But the cunning hunchback ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... gently opened the pan and scattered the powder, and then laid it down again; for Edward said to himself, "That man has come out after me, that I am certain; and as there are no witnesses, he may be inclined to be mischievous, for a more wretched-looking person I never saw. Had he been deer-hunting, he would have brought his dog; but he is man-hunting, that is evident. Now I will leave him, and should he fall in with anything, he will not kill at first shot, that's certain; and if he follows me, ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat

... this resolution: "While we recognize the disabilities which legal marriage imposes upon woman as wife and mother, and while we pledge ourselves to seek their removal by putting her on equal terms with man, we abhorrently repudiate 'free loveism' as horrible and mischievous to society, and disown any sympathy with it." It was the first time the subject had been brought before a woman's rights convention and its introduction was indignantly resented by the "old guard." Lucy Stone exclaimed: "I feel it is a mortal shame to give any foundation for ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... of Irish Romanists who have emigrated to the States, and whose feelings are too often disaffected and anti-American, evade the naturalisation laws, and, by surreptitiously obtaining votes, exercise a most mischievous influence upon the elections. Education has not yet so permeated the heterogeneous mass of the people as to tell effectually upon their choice of representatives. The electors are caught by claptrap, noisy declamation, and specious promises, coupled ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird

... fished beside Junkie, on feeling a tug worthy of a whale; and, "Hee! hee!" burst from Junkie, whose mischievous hand had caused the tug when ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne

... curly-haired, mischievous little sprite, the agony of the teacher and the love and admiration of the boys! Who climbed trees, rattled to school in the butcher wagon, never knew a lesson, but was always leading lady in the school colloquies, and was surely ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field

... petted by his eccentric master, oftener at Paris than in his country home, had gained a very bad reputation. I recollect seeing him once in the presence of certain ladies show almost as much insolence as if he had been a man. His master was obliged to kill him, so mischievous ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... valueless in separation from each other; and are then likely to be injurious in proportion to the degree of culture. Knowledge without wisdom is insane and mischievous; and both without virtue serve but to give greater energy and efficiency to those naturally destructive elements which are common both to individuals and society. Virtue alone, if it could be supposed to exist without knowledge and wisdom, would ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... he referred, and half laughing at his excited manner, she replied, as she stole a mischievous glance towards Mr. Hastings, "I received a letter from Eugenia not long since, and she seemed very anxious to know in what part of Europe Mr. Hastings was now traveling, and if he were ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes

... with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. "Wouldst have me cover my breast like a married woman! Look to thine own attire. ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... really felt for one of them a deeper sentiment than a man advanced in years ever likes to own even to his nearest friend—hazarded a proposal, and met with a rebuff? If so, Alban conjectured the female culprit by whom the sentiment had been inspired, and the rebuff administered. "That mischievous kitten, Flora Vyvyan," growled the Colonel. "I always felt that she had the claws of a tigress under her patte de velours!" Roused by this suspicion, he sallied forth to call on the Vyvyans. Mr. Vyvyan, a widower, one of those quiet gentleman-like men who sit much in the drawing-room ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... and often become very affectionate. A young squirrel may be allowed to run about the room, and it will often be found curled up fast asleep in mamma's work-basket, or papa's pocket, or some other funny hiding-place. As it grows older it becomes more mischievous, and must be kept in a cage, or books, furniture, and everything in the room will bear the marks of its sharp little teeth. It belongs to the order Rodentia, or gnawing animals, and if kept in confinement, ...
— Harper's Young People, January 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... drainage to its primitive narrow channels; and in drying deadly morasses by opening the natural sluices which have been choked up, and cutting new canals for drawing off their stagnant waters. He must thus, on the one hand, create new reservoirs, and, on the other, remove mischievous accumulations of moisture, thereby equalizing and regulating the sources of atmospheric humidity and of flowing water, both which are so essential to all vegetable growth, and, of course, to human and lower ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... endeavoring to make that question, I have purposely forborne any public expression upon it. As appears to me, that question has not been, nor yet is, a practically material one, and that any discussion of it, while it thus remains practically immaterial, could have no effect other than the mischievous one of dividing our friends. As yet, whatever it may hereafter become, that question is bad as the basis of a controversy, and good for nothing at ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln

... a' nature there's a mair curiouser cratur than a monkey. I mak this observe frae being witness to an extraordinar' event that took place in Hamilton. Folk may talk as they like about monkeys, and cry them down for being stupid and mischievous, I for ane will no gang that length. Whatever they may be on the score of mischief, there can be nae doubt, that, sae far as gumption is concerned, they are just uncommon; and for wit and fun they would beat ony man black and blue. In fact, I dinna think that monkeys are ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various

... good-looking as you are as a lad, there would be none more welcome than yourself up at the big house. Pretty gals, bless ye, need no introduction yonder; and yet one would have thought that Squire would know better than to meddle with the mischievous hussies—he took his lesson early enough, at all events. Why, he married before he was your age, and not half so much of a man to look at, neither. You have heard talk of that, I dare say, ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... who had been elected to the Legislature, and had also been judge of the County Court. His elevation, however, had made him somewhat pompous, and he became very fond of using big words. On his farm he had a very large and mischievous ox, called "Big Brindle," which very frequently broke down his neighbors' fences, and committed other depredations, much ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure

... her children, even when her mind fails at the last: and old Maisie's memory was still green over the loss of these two. But the third—how about the one who survived his childhood? When she spoke of him, his image was that of an innocent mischievous youngster, full of mad pranks, his father's favourite, not a trace in him of the vices that had made his manhood a curse to himself and his mother. In some still feebler stage of her failing powers the happier phase of his career ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... clouds, with a bitter, wet, west wind rasping the bleak highlands. There were spiteful showers with intervals of mocking sunshine; it was a mischievous and prankish bit of weather, no day for riding. But the Lady was indomitable, so we left the Patriarch in his tent, wrapped ourselves in garments of mackintosh and took the ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke

... love could devise to reform him. But all was useless. He seemed to have no idea of truth or honor, of affection or duty to me. When, at times, I thought he was showing signs of improvement, I always found, afterward, that he was only concealing his mischievous acts more carefully. I call them mischievous, though the word 'malicious' would perhaps describe them better; for they were all undertaken in a spirit of evil, and not of fun." The old gentleman here rested, and refreshed himself with a sip of ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... these people! Their animation was almost like the animation of a nightmare. Some were ugly, some looked wicked; others mischievous, sympathetic, coarse, artful, seductive, boldly defiant or boisterously excited. But however much they differed, in one quality they were nearly all alike. They nearly all looked vivid. If they lacked anything, at least it was not life. Even their ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... palpitations of the heart, and pains all over me, by which I had been bed-ridden for nearly six months. Unhappily, among my neighbour's and landlord's books were a large parcel of medical reviews and magazines. I had always a fondness (a common case, but most mischievous turn with reading men who are at all dyspeptic) for dabbling in medical writings; and in one of these reviews I met a case, which I fancied very like my own, in which a cure had been effected by the Kendal Black Drop. In an evil hour I procured it:—it ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman

... own one; it was thus a kind of monster which, if encouraged, would override all popular rights. From this economic criticism the enemies of the railroad passed to details of construction: the rails would be washed out by rains; they could be destroyed by mischievous people; they would snap under the cold of winter or be buried under the snow for a considerable period, thus stopping all communication. The champions of artificial waterways would point in contrast to the beautiful packet boats on the Erie Canal, with ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody

... the maid was dressing me, I unluckily inquired if she had seen the Hindoo—and, hearing that she had, I still more unfortunately asked her to tell me what he was like. She described him as being very tall and lean, with a dark brown complexion and glittering black eyes. My mischievous fancy instantly set to work on this horrid combination of darknesses. Try as I might to resist it, my mind drew a dreadful picture of the Hindoo, as a kind of monster in human form. I would have given worlds to have ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins

... orators interlarding their speeches with frequent classical quotations, reminds us of a piece of mischievous waggery perpetrated by one of the greatest men of his time. Sheridan once electrified the country gentlemen in the House of Commons, by concluding an animated appeal to their patriotism, with a quotation ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various

... he answered. "Well, it won't be for long, at any rate. And as to not seeing Esther, you must remember that I come from outside this little domain, and I see nothing more in Mr. Fentolin than a bad-tempered, mischievous, tyrannical old invalid, who is fortunately prevented by his infirmities from doing as much mischief as he might. I am not afraid of your brother-in-law, or of the bully he takes about with him, and I am going to see your daughter somehow or other, and ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... unreserve. How could these circumstances have transpired to the people but from those nearest the person of Her Majesty, who, knowing the public feeling better than their royal mistress could be supposed to know it, did their own feeling little credit by the mischievous exposure? The people were exasperated beyond all conception. The Abbe Vermond placed before Her Majesty the consequences of her communicativeness, and from this time forward she never repeated the error. After the lesson she had received, none of her female attendants, not even the Duchesse ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... to understand the word in this sense, then we are entirely changing its meaning and connotation. And we cannot do this, in regard to words like penitent and penitence, without producing confusion of thought. It is time, surely, that this misleading and mischievous fallacy of the penitence of Christ should be finally abandoned ...
— Gloria Crucis - addresses delivered in Lichfield Cathedral Holy Week and Good Friday, 1907 • J. H. Beibitz

... tubes and their brilliant, flaring red—an irresistibly attractive color to the ruby-throat—it would appear that this is a bird flower. Certainly its adaptation is quite as perfect as the salvia's. Mischievous bees and wasps steal nectar they cannot reach legitimately through bungholes of their own making in the bottom of the ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... unpleasant way, and then, after she had carefully restored the corn-cob doll to her wrappings, she knelt down and began to gather up the old toys which the children had scattered over the hearth-rug. Ann and Rudolf helped her, and Peter who, though a very mischievous little boy, was always honest, confessed that he had been the one to open the old cupboard and take out the box. He seemed to feel rather uncomfortable about it, and after the things had been put away, he climbed upon Aunt Jane's lap and hid his head upon her shoulder. ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels

... these men will always be sycophants. If you give power to Marylebone, they will fawn on the householders of Marylebone. If you leave power to Gatton, they will fawn on the proprietor of Gatton. I can see no reason for believing that their baseness will be more mischievous in the former case ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... supposed to be performed: in this horrid part Virgil places two sorts of souls; first, of such as have shown their impiety and rebellion toward the gods; and secondly, of such as have been vile and mischievous among men: those, as he himself says of the latter more particularly, who hated their brethren, used their parents ill, or cheated their dependants, who made no use of their riches, who committed incest, or disturbed the marriage union of others, ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway

... throw a stone through the lower part of the window. Then I shall hide. They will rush out, and when they can find no one, they will conclude that the stone was thrown by some mischievous boy going along the road. When all is quiet again I will creep up to the window, and it will be hard if I don't manage to learn something of what ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty

... which tales of this kind acquire by often being repeated, that the then Ordinary of Newgate thought it became him to mention it to the prisoner. Mrs. Griffin appeared to be much affected at her character being thus stained by the fictions of idle suspicions of silly mischievous persons. She declared her innocence in the most solemn manner, averred she had never lived near the place, nor had heard so much as the common reports as ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... Unbelief.]—This sin may be called the white devil, for it oftentimes, in its mischievous doings in the soul, shows as if it was an angel of light: yea, it acteth like a counsellor of heaven. Therefore a little to discourse of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... those who still believe, is getting restive. Through the roof of what we call Fatherland social currents begin to filter. There remains only one ideal in presence of which the most hardened sceptic raises his hat,—the People. But on the base of this statue mischievous spirits are beginning already to scribble more or less ribald jokes, and, what is still more strange, the mist of unbelief is rising from the heads of those who, in the nature of things, ought to ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... out and cross, and it was a relief to know that the squadron would go to sea the next morning. During the rapid run through Holland, Wilton and Perth had found abundant opportunities to discuss their mischievous scheme of running away with the Josephine. They had so contrived it that eight of the Knights of the Golden Fleece had occupied a compartment by themselves in the railway carriages. As the squadron would arrive at Havre on Friday or Saturday, no time was to be lost in arranging the details ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic

... you find yourself, my love?" said Zenobia, lifting a corner of the gauze, and peeping beneath it with a mischievous smile. "Ah, the dear little soul! Why, she is really going to faint! Mr. Coverdale, Mr. Coverdale, pray bring a glass ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... refuge in a convenient affectation of unreason, or whether he had in fact paid for his dishonor by the loss of his wits. In the latter case, just now, he felt little more tenderly to the foolish old man than in the former. Responsible or not, he was equally an accomplice of his detestably mischievous daughter. Newman was going to leave him abruptly, when a ray of entreaty appeared to disengage itself from the old man's misty gaze. "Are you ...
— The American • Henry James

... righteousness spoken by myself also, those heroes will never disobey, for the Pandavas are all of righteous soul." Piteously lamenting, O Suta, I spoke these and many such words unto my son. Foolish as he is, he listened not to me! I think all this to be the mischievous influence of Time! There where Vrikodara and Arjuna are, and the Vrishni hero, Satyaki, and Uttamaujas of the Panchalas, and the invincible Yudhamanyu, and the irrepressible Dhrishtadyumna, and the unvanquished ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... enjoyed their curiosity; she was in a teasing and mischievous mood, to which she had been ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... change, so loudly talked of by some, so inconsiderately by others." "A number of characters, of the greatest eminence in this country, object to this government for its consolidating tendency. This is not imaginary. It is a formidable reality. If consolidation proves to be as mischievous to this country as it has been to other countries, what will the poor inhabitants of this country do? This government will operate like an ambuscade. It will destroy the state governments, and swallow ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler

... German folk-lore a water-sprite of a mischievous disposition, believed to have been suggested to the imagination by the reflection of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... of the conspirators should be confiscated, and themselves kept in custody in the municipal towns; fearing, it seems, that, if they remain at Rome, they may be rescued either by their accomplices in the conspiracy, or by a hired mob; as if, forsooth, the mischievous and profligate were to be found only in the city, and not through the whole of Italy, or as if desperate attempts would not be more likely to succeed where there is less power to resist them. His proposal, therefore, if he fears ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust

... sleep by the warm stove. Being in the way, and also in danger of tumbling upon the floor, some of us removed him to an old settee, where he slept soundly, entertaining us with rather an unmusical serenade. There were two or three mischievous fellows about the place, and one of them suggested it would be capital fun to black W—'s face, and "make a darkey of him." No sooner said than done. Some lamp-black and oil were mixed together in an old tin cup, and a coat of this paint laid over the face of W—, who, all unconscious of ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... ruins of an old mill, the moss-covered water-wheel forever silent, the roof sagging and falling in, the windows broken out by mischievous boys, the whole presenting a most melancholy and ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish

... occasional hissing gibe of hereticos! But there was no attempt at violence except when some half-dozen boys began to throw stones. But the stringing of the Englishmen's bows, and the fitting of a few arrows to the strings, sent the mischievous young urchins to the right-about in double-quick time, and within a minute the landing had been accomplished and ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... of a species of palm is called by-yu, and it is a curious fact, that, although in its natural state this is a rank poison, the natives have, nevertheless, a method of depriving it of its mischievous qualities, and it becomes an agreeable and nourishing article of food. Europeans, ignorant of the mode of preparing this nut, are sure to pay for their rashness, if they venture to eat it in its unprepared state. The women collect these nuts from the palms in the month ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... girl came to the door at his summons, listened to his polite request, and stood for a moment blushing and confused. Then, running into the garden, she plucked a flower, handed it with a mischievous air to the warrior, and disappeared within the house. Ota, angrily flinging down the flower, turned away, after an impulse to force his way into the house and help himself to the coat. He returned to the castle wet and fuming at the slight to ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... drew back a step. As he kept his eyes fixed on the object, a maiden of astonishing beauty appeared before him, such as he had never before seen. Her face was veiled, and his turban was on her head: smilingly she removed it, and extended it to him, saying, with a mischievous look, ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... bear any delay, in her anxiety to join her mother, we set out at once—the only thing to mar my full enjoyment at the moment being the sight of the identical vestments I had so lately figured in, bobbing up and down before my eyes for the whole length of the stage, and leading to innumerable mischievous allusions from my friend Mr. O'Leary, which were far too much relished by ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... you, I suppose. Your fame has spread." Heywood spoke with a slow, mischievous drawl; but he crossed ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout

... all difficulties the teacher had to deal with, Polly Vaughn was the greatest. She was nearly perfect in all her studies, but a little mischievous and very dear to him. "Pretty;" that is one thing all said of her there in Faraway, and they said also with a bitter twang that she loved to lie abed and read novels. To Sidney Trove the word "pretty" was inadequate. As to lying abed and reading novels, ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller

... says the chief evil in this solicitation business is the so-called "runner." Here is his description of this mischievous genus homo. "It is he who goes around in eastern and southern Europe from city to city and village to village telling fairy tales about the prosperity of many immigrants in America and the opportunities offered ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose

... auntie was half distraught At his tricks as the days went by; "The most mischievous child in the world!" She said, with a shrug ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools

... partly to myself again; and by the time a third and fourth had bounced into the battery, I began to take things pretty coolly—my heart beating rather quicker than usual, I acknowledge; but, nevertheless, I began to find an indescribable sort of pleasure, a mischievous joy, if I may so call it, in the peril and excitement ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... having been killed in Sark more than once. It usually occurs in the autumn, and, as a rule, has a very short lease of life after its arrival in the Islands, which is not to be wondered at, as it is considered, and no doubt is, mischievous both to sheep and poultry; and in so thickly populated a country, where every one carries a gun, a large bird like the White-tailed Eagle can hardly escape notice and consequent destruction for any length of time. ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith

... days would have shuddered at her neck and arms, bare, not only in the evening, but by day! When she was a little younger she could so shrink up from her clothes that Griff, or little Martyn, in a mischievous mood, would put things down her back, to reappear below her petticoats. Once it was a dead wasp, which descended harmlessly the length of her spine! She was a good-humoured, affectionate, dear sister, my valued ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge

... bunch of the wild roses that hung around and above her, and dashed them petulantly into the stream. She watched them as their course was interrupted by the large masses of rock, and they were tossed here and there by the angry mischievous water. At last they hung trembling on a huge stone, stranded, as it were, on their impetuous course. Again, for a moment, a serious comparison arose in her mind, and she wondered whether her life might be like that of the flowers she ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... been earnestly dissuaded from making public the contents of this volume on account of apprehended mischievous consequences. He thought, however, that the age of pious frauds ought to be past, and their principle discarded, at least in Protestant countries. Deception and error are always, sooner or later, discovered; ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English

... and new wounds inflicted on its trunk with knives, hatchets, and other implements. Here not a mark, not a scratch had been made on any one of its four trunks or on the ivy stem by any thoughtless or mischievous person, nor had any branch been cut or broken off. Why had they one and ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson

... when he had ceased speaking, they both waited in silence. At last Amy looked up with a mischievous smile, seeking to throw off the serious mood into which Austin's speech had put them. She was always afraid ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale

... raking a living for himself out of the dust-heap of human woe? Imagine, if you can, a perfect world—a world where men and women never said foolish things and never did unwise ones; where small boys were never mischievous and children never made awkward remarks; where dogs never fought and cats never screeched; where wives never henpecked their husbands and mothers-in-law never nagged; where men never went to bed in their boots and sea-captains never swore; where plumbers understood their work and old ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome

... despotism. There have not, I am aware, been found wanting individuals to deny both the existence and the obligations of such a necessity. There are men, actuated in some instances, by a blind and mistaken enthusiasm, and in others, by a spirit of mischievous intent, loudly calling on us, in the names of justice and humanity, for the immediate and unqualified emancipation of our slaves. To men of this description, it is in vain to point out the inevitable effects of such a course, as well on the objects of their real or pretended ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison

... of moving into the new house (1844) that the Tom Sawyer days—that is to say, the boyhood of Samuel Clemens—may be said to have begun. Up to that time he was just Little Sam, a child—wild, and mischievous, often exasperating, but still a child—a delicate little lad to be worried over, mothered, or spanked and put to bed. Now, at nine, he had acquired health, with a sturdy ability to look out for himself, as boys will, in a community like that, especially where the family is rather ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... out of poor Green, or rather a final allusion to a long-standing one. When the battalion got its route for the Soudan, the lad was as keen to see active service as any one of them, and it was a severe shock to him when one of the most mischievous of his brother officers pretended to discover that one of his legs was crooked, which would incapacitate him, he feared, from ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... the sake of a sort of startled sensation; and it is a taste that becomes unwholesome when it absolutely delights in dwelling on horrors and cruelties for their own sake; or upon shifty, cunning, dishonest stratagems and devices. To learn to take interest in what is evil is always mischievous. ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge

... stupid, mischievous, evil and cunning in Saxo's eyes. Oldest of beings, with chaotic force and exuberance, monstrous in ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... be needful, and each assistant was required, prior to making his return, to "cause a correct copy of the schedule, signed by himself, to be set up at two of the most public places within his division, there to remain for the inspection of all concerned." It is from this crude law that the mischievous custom is borrowed of having a copy of the census returns deposited with the county court clerk. As originally conducted, the system was harmless, since only the names of heads of families were given and only the number of persons constituting the family reported. The compensation was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... next. Some mischievous person drew a caricature of Byelikov walking along in his goloshes with his trousers tucked up, under his umbrella, with Varinka on his arm; below, the inscription 'Anthropos in love.' The expression was caught to a marvel, you know. The artist must have worked for more ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... which the power of so distinguishing is of practical value. Bluntly enough, I have pronounced it to be false. With equal bluntness, I now add that, even if it were true, it would, all the same, be practically mischievous, and directly opposed to the very utility from which it takes its name. The argument in support of this charge shall ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton

... wife of sir John. She is subjected to divers indignities, and insulted morn, noon, and night by her surly, drunken husband. Lady Brute intrigues with Constant, a former lover; but her intrigues are more mischievous than vicious.—Vanbrugh, The Provoked ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... are our servants and profit-makers, or mortgage lifters. Always treat them kindly. Never permit anyone to strike, or stone them. Even the pig of your neighbor, when he becomes a mischievous intruder in your field, if you give him a friendly chase, will conduct you to a hole in the fence ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger

... forth she was sacred to me. I have carried her image in my heart for sixty-three years—all lonely thee, yes, solitary, for it never has had company—and I am grown so old, so old; but it, oh, it is as fresh and young and merry and mischievous and lovely and sweet and pure and witching and divine as it was when it crept in there, bringing benediction and peace to its habitation so long ago, so long ago—for it ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain

... of America, almost the very first word that met her ear had been from him, the brother whom she had killed, about the 'Pussy' of times long past; how the gallant young man had hung upon her words, as in her native Basque she described her own mischievous little self, of twelve years back; how his color went and came, whilst his loving memory of the little sister was revived by her own descriptive traits, giving back, as in a mirror, the fawn-like ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... and overcoming with good the evil he has wrought by his wilful mismanagement. But then it is a bitter trial to behold him, on his return, doing his utmost to subvert my labours and transform my innocent, affectionate, tractable darling into a selfish, disobedient, and mischievous boy; thereby preparing the soil for those vices he has so successfully cultivated ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... of Christians who are so hard to discover," Laura said, with decision, and Mrs. Simpson, rebuked, thought of the mischievous nature of class prejudices. Laura herself—had she not been drawn from what one might call distinctly the other end of the ship; and who, among those who vaunted themselves ladies and gentlemen, could compare with Laura? The idea that she had shown a want of sympathy ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... once too often. Even though his crimes were never more serious than putting guinea-pigs into the master's desk, yet that sort of conduct time after time is not to be tolerated in any school. The example set by a mischievous boy to his fellows is not good; and if his scrapes are winked at always, the time will come when others will be encouraged to follow in his steps, and behave badly too. Sam, no doubt, deserved the punishment he got; and because one bad boy who is punished is no worse ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... tends to be filled up with bridge. The difficulty in dealing with the situation is that the thing itself is not only not wrong, but really beneficial; it is better to be occupied than to be idle, and it is hard to preach against a thing which is excellent in moderation and only mischievous in excess. ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson

... effusions of love, others are satirical, pastoral, and burlesque, and many descriptive of the manners and amusements of the people at large; but all of them are true representations of Spanish life. They are marked by an attractive simplicity of thought and expression, united to a sort of mischievous shrewdness. No such popular poetry exists in any other language, and no other exhibits in so great a degree that nationality which is the truest element of such poetry everywhere. The English and Scotch ballads, with which ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... Captain Kirle to wait upon him. His name was John Hilliard, and he was precisely what any of these good-humored, mischievous fellows outside would have been, hired on a brigantine two centuries ago; disposed to shirk his work in order to stand gaping at Black Ben fishing, or to rub up secretly his old cutlass for the behoof of Kidd, or the French when they should come, while the Indian Venus stood by looking ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various

... all sophistical and nonsensical; and she knew it, for there was a mischievous little gleam in her eye as she spoke. But none the less, shutting her ears to the unsympathetic Stephanie, did she continue to show herself alone in public with the beautiful youth. She had thrown her crown over the windmills for a few happy days; for a few happy days she was feeding her ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... startled by the sudden plunge of the alligators into the water, close to the boats, and of whose propinquity we were not aware until they made the plunge. All these rivers are infested with alligators, and I believe they are very often mischievous; at all events, one of our youngsters was continually in a small canoe, paddling about, and the natives cautioned us that if he was not careful he certainly would be taken by one of ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat

... his gratitude for the present, and Rose unconsciously curtsied, much as she must have thirteen years before. Her lips and eyes smiled her shy thanks, but it appeared to Donald that mischievous amusement struggled ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson

... 15, to the postulate of an original universal stage of savagery, whence civilised races inherit their incredibly repulsive myths, why, in pp. 197, 198, does he denounce that very postulate as not proven, not capable of being proved, very mischievous, and one of the evils resulting from our method of comparing savage and civilised rites and beliefs? I must be permitted to complain that I do not know which is Mr. Max Muller's real opinion—that given with such hearty conviction in p. 15, ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang

... of knowledge all we gained from those soldier friends. They taught us the alphabet, how to spell easy words, and then to form letters with pencil. They explained the meaning of fife and drum calls which we heard during the day, and in mischievous earnestness, declared that they, the best fighters of Colonel Stephenson's famous regiment of New York Volunteers, had pledged their arms and legs to our defence, and had only come to see if we were worth the price they might have to, pay. Yet they made grim faces when, all too soon, the retreat ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

... depend upon God's truth, and his holy word, and receive with humble faith the mysteries which are too high for comprehension. Above all, Swift points out, with his usual forcible precision, the mischievous tendency of those investigations which, while they assail one fundamental doctrine of the Christian religion, shake and endanger the whole fabric, destroy the settled faith of thousands, pervert and mislead the genius of the learned and acute, destroy ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift

... telegraph-office of the White House, laughing. He had picked up a child's book in his son "Tad's" room and looked at it. It was a story of a motherly hen, struggling to raise her brood to lead honest and useful lives; but in her efforts she was greatly annoyed by a mischievous fox. She had given him many lectures on his wicked ways, and—said the President: "I thought I would turn over to the finis, and see how they came out. This is what ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams

... was that nothing was done by anybody to put a stop to all this mischievous talk, and to put out of the world a matter which was of the greatest injury to the regiment and to the whole corps of officers,—a matter, too, in which the civilian population was perfectly justified in pointing the finger of ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg

... Is he not himself in some measure accountable? In those days when they raced through the Catechism together, did he never provoke her mocking smiles by his sneers at the ponderous language? Did he not tempt her to some mischievous sally of mirth, on many a day when they were kneeling in couple about ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various

... the masses, and even competent authorities. The natural cowardice of men often makes them shut their eyes to avoid nuisances, and causes them to take no action against the most dangerous monsters, and especially against those who are most mischievous by their pens. This is why the martyrdom of unfortunate women and children illtreated by chronic alcoholics, sadists and other neuropaths or psychopaths, never comes to an end, owing to the stupid outcry against so-called violation of ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... at 160,000 years ago—what an amusing idea that will seem!—But the truth is we must wage war against this mischievous foreshortening of history. I have no doubt there have been empires going, from time to time, in Egypt, since before Atlantis fell; people have the empire-building instinct, and it is an eminently convenient place for empire-building. I have no doubt there have been dozens of ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... amusement and might have passed unnoticed by the conceited little auditor if it had not been followed by another, less humorous, but more personal and satirical, signed in the same way, but the second communication was written by two mischievous (if not malicious) girls—Mary Todd and her friend, Julia Jayne. This stinging attack made Shields wild with rage, and he demanded the name of the writer of it. Lincoln told the editor to give Shields his name as if he had written both contributions and thus protect the two young ladies. ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple

... same lively, restless group who filled those desks in the days of long-ago. Again I saw the bright smile which was often hidden from the searching eye of our teacher, behind the covers of the well-worn spelling-book, again I saw the mischievous glances, and heard the smothered laughter when the attention of the teacher was required in some other part of the room. But these happy, careless days of childhood are gone never to return. Were I inclined, I could trace the after-history ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell

... party that has fallen a sacrifice to its own rectitude will arise another phenix of political virtue, with fresh vigour and immortal hope. It is sometimes contended, that a man must go with his party, though it be against his conscience. Mischievous and infamous language. What! a man put himself into chains, that he may plead captivity as an excuse for sin? Shall the partisan with his own hand efface the prerogatives of his humanity, and dare to trample on the laws of God, though he has not, and because he has not, the ...
— The Religion of Politics • Ezra S. Gannett

... say, without incurring the charge of vanity, that he has here indicated the natural division of those symptoms. They are necessarily of two kinds: the unicorns and the bicorns. The unicorn Minotaur is the least mischievous. The two culprits confine themselves to a platonic love, in which their passion, at least, leaves no visible traces among posterity; while the bicorn Minotaur is unhappiness ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... a mischievous Pug[103] Contrived of the claret to empty each jug, But not unperceived by young Miss Exclamation,[104] Who by her loud cries caused immense consternation. Meanwhile came the Sweep,[105] with the Chimney Sweep's ...
— The Emperor's Rout • Unknown

... not got wrong with the minutes when the rattle began again, the puppet emerged, and the four quarters were struck fitfully as before. One could almost be positive that there was a malicious leer upon the hideous creature's face, and a mischievous delight in its twitchings. Then followed the dull and remote resonance of the twelve heavy strokes in the tower above. The women were impressed, and there was ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... was last of all—he did not go on with the rest, but stayed, as if in wonder, looking at her. A tall, slender lad. His jacket was unbuttoned, his cap a trifle on one side, and a mischievous expression ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski

... mouthfuls. I have never appreciated the name of "sloth bear" given to Ursus labiatus, as it is a creature that works hard for its food throughout the year, and being an inhabitant of the tropics, it never hybernates. This species is very active, and although it refuses flesh, it is one of the most mischievous of its kind, as it will frequently attack man without the slightest reason, but from sheer pugnacity. A full-grown male weighs from 280 to 300 lbs. The skin is exceedingly thick and heavy. The hair is long and coarse, with a bunch upon its back of at least 7 inches in length, but there is ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... beautiful voice, exquisitely modulated, never raised in talk, was thoroughly Devonian. So too were his imperfect sense of the effect produced by what he said upon ordinary minds, and his love, which might almost be called mischievous, of giving small electric shocks. In the case of Carlyle, however, the out-cry was wholly unexpected, and for a time he was distressed, though never mastered, by it. What he could not understand, what it took him a long time to live down, was that friends who really knew him should ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... the theatre he had a mischievous impulse to test what Le Chapelier had told him of the state of public feeling in the city. They were playing "The Terrible Captain," in the last act of which the empty cowardice of the bullying braggart Rhodomont is ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... vacancy of thought,—dreaming perhaps of other scenes, or inwardly repining at the eternal monotony and tedium of a teacher's life. His boys took no interest in their work, and of course made no progress. They were sometimes unnecessarily idle, and sometimes mischievous, but never usefully or pleasantly employed; for the whole hour was past before the pens could all be brought down. Wasted time, blotted books, and fretted tempers, were all the ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... canvas cover was removed from the particular boat in which the small submarine was hidden, and the mischievous little toy was carefully hoisted out, lowered into the water, submerged until only the top of her diminutive conning tower showed above water, and then effectually concealed by being moored to the boat boom, between the gig and the steam pinnace. Then advantage was taken ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... and boys throw the pillow aside. This is the other extreme, and wrong. It is unhealthy to lie constantly on the back. You must frequently change to the side. But when you turn upon the side, if you have no pillow, you must either twist the shoulders into a mischievous attitude, or let the head fall down to the level of the shoulder, as seen in Fig. 4. This disturbs the circulation ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various

... not intend to flinch, and if the mischievous smile lurking at the corners of her mouth died away, she still regarded him with a calmness equal to his own, and with the impishness quite emphatically still in her eyes. Then suddenly she felt as if there had been some invisible sword-play between them. Her instinct ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... for the contemplation of nature has in no small degree contributed to the mischievous skepticism promulgated by our poet. In early times, when a rural theogony was the standard of belief, when each star had its deity, each deity its undisputed, unquestioned prerogative and worship, there was ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides

... State comes nearest home to a man's feelings, and includes the altar and the hearth, while the General Government claims his devotion only to an airy mode of law, and has no symbol but a flag,) is exceedingly mischievous in this point of view; for it has converted crowds of honest people into traitors, who seem to themselves not merely innocent but patriotic, and who die for a bad cause with a quiet conscience as if it were the best. In the vast extent of our ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.

... and, from the appearance of the ground behind the hillock, believed it might be as the boy said, and accordingly determined to strike up a peace with so light-footed and ready-witted an enemy. "Come down," he said, "thou mischievous brat! Leave thy mopping and mowing, and, come hither. I will do thee no harm, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... Napoleon has placed her among the elect," remarked the Countess Helene, with a mischievous glance towards the Marquise, each understanding that the mention of the Second Empire was like a call ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan

... perfectly contented. He would have been had it not been for his terrible wife, the hair-dresser's daughter, who had a dismal, mischievous, sullen nature, a venomous tongue, and a savage temper. She kept Haydn in hot water continually, till at last he broke loose from this plague by separating from her. Scandal says that Haydn, who had a very affectionate and sympathetic nature, found ample ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris

... 'people came out, and cattle, and dogs.' In Australia, a god is swallowed. As in the myth preserved by Aristophanes in the 'Birds,' the Australians believe that birds were the original gods, and the eagle, especially, is a great creative power. The Moon was a mischievous being, who walked about the world, doing what evil he could. One day he swallowed the eagle-god. The wives of the eagle came up, and the Moon asked them where he might find a well. They pointed out a well, and, as he drank, they hit the Moon with a stone tomahawk, and out flew the eagle. ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang

... indited the reply. It thankfully acknowledges "the success which the merciful God has given to the sedulous and assiduous endeavors of our honorable rulers to defeat the abominable witch crafts which have been committed in the country, humbly praying that the discovery of those mysterious and mischievous wickednesses may be perfected. It is pleasant to note, after all, the ministers' advice to the civil rulers not to rely too much on "the devil's authority"—on the evidence, that is, of those possessed. The court heeded this injunction all too little, but ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... worn by the women and could not overcome them. The crystal glasses sparkled in the light of the wax candles, the jewels, and the bright eyes round the table. The servants poured out the noble Rhine wine, the celebrated Burgundy, the elegant Bordeaux, and the mischievous Champagne, whose colored embodiment was reflected on the white hands of the guests, and carried their imaginations away in its flight from gray reality to the immortal land of ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... half-trained servants to watch it, she gave the precious oil in charge to this youth, who was one of her favorites, bidding him, after a stated time, remove it from the chimney to a cooling-place; now not finishing her directions, the lad indulged his mischievous propensities by attempting to place the kettle of boiling lard to cool in the square-room fire-place; but finding it heavier than his strength could carry, its contents were suddenly deposited on the carpet, save such sprinklings ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... your case, and get Clip," said Cora with a mischievous smile, "and I will attend to ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose

... [148] mingling with them certain abuses which contaminated these masses with practices that were superstitious, and contrary to the holy rites of the church. These were tolerated under the cloak of devotion, and, although to some they appeared mischievous, they did not dare to rebuke these rites in public lest they excite against themselves the pious feelings of the common people, and as this matter was one of those which belong to the zeal and foresight of the ecclesiastical superiors. Finally the holy Congregation of Rites, in ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various

... terrified that he climbed to the interior of a wagon to comply with the demand of the savages. When I saw this, I drew my rifle from its place under my bedding and placed it in readiness. Plainly I saw Don Juan come out of the wagon with the mischievous stone jug, as this happened in the bright light of our camp fire. That will never do, thought I, and quickly drawing my revolver, I persuaded the Don to drop the jug, incidentally smashing it with a 44 caliber bullet, taking care not to hurt anybody; and this was easily done, as the jug was a large ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann

... Miss Knowles, in defiance of the knowledge, born of many afternoons, that he preferred cream. She took a keen and mischievous pleasure in annoying this hot-tempered young man, and she generally succeeded. But to-day he was not to be diverted from the purpose which, at the very moment of his ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly

... still on fire; and the light embers were carried to an amazing distance by the wind, falling like a black-shower around us. As we knew that the natives never made such extensive conflagration, unless they had some mischievous object in view, our apprehension for the safety of Riley, with ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt

... the cards were besmeared with mud and one or two in such a freakish way as to give a curious turn to their meaning. On one card a mischievous little rivulet of mud or wetted ink had ingeniously changed a T into a crude R and the travelers read ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... profession, who overlap the workhouse population, and are estimated to number 20,000 to 30,000 in England and Wales, when the genuine unemployed are eliminated, are everywhere found to be a very degenerate class, among whom the most mischievous kinds of feeble-mindedness and mental perversion prevail. Inebriates, the people who are chronically and helplessly given to drink, largely belong to the same great family, and do not so much become feeble-minded because they drink, but possess the tendency to drink because they ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... enters its second phase. Krishna is no longer a mischievous baby, indulging in tantrums yet wringing the heart with his childish antics. He is now five years old and of an age to make himself useful. He asks to be allowed to graze the calves. At first Yasoda is unwilling. 'We have ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer

... blue-jay alighted on the bank and made a prospecting peck at the tobacco pouch. It yielded in favor of a gopher, who endeavored to draw it toward his hole, but in turn gave way to a red squirrel, whose attention was divided, however, between the pouch and the revolver, which he regarded with mischievous fascination. Then there was a splash, a grunt, a sudden dispersion of animated nature, and the head of Mr. Lance Harriott appeared above the bank. It was a startling transformation. Not only that he had, by this wholesale ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... cried Swinton, laughing; "he has fallen into an ant-eater's hole, depend upon it; that mischievous little urchin ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat

... when one amuses himself with imagining the impossible, it is not worth while to be scrupulous about details. I am not the Grand Bashaw; and when I pronounced them fit for his harem, I merely meant a compliment to their superlative beauty. That Floracita is a mischievous little sprite. Did you ever see anything more roguish than her expression while she was singing ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child

... quiet fun Steve and his friend Red Wolf had already enjoyed in a very similar occupation. The squaws had insisted upon making all the boys and girls who were big enough swim instead of going over on pony-back, and the youngsters in their turn had revenged themselves by doing all the mischievous pranks ...
— The Talking Leaves - An Indian Story • William O. Stoddard

... are honest, and believe that your cause is the right one. I recognise, too, though this is a very difficult thing to do, that you have every right to form and hold your own political opinions. It seems to me that they are very wrong and very mischievous, but it is quite possible that I am mistaken and prejudiced. In any case, I am not called upon to refuse you my affection or to separate you from my daughter because we differ ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham

... provide him with a warrant. It seemed simple enough, at first, to draw a warrant for old Zack's arrest, but legal difficulties arose. He could not well be taken for assault, for it was the lawyer that had attacked him; or for wanton mischief, for his intent in going to school was not mischievous; or yet for trespass, for he had offered to ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens

... have, by prejudice and rage, he will do some things he would not think of doing if he were in his right mind. Look at Rodney," said Dixon; and Marcy wondered if he knew or suspected that Rodney had written that mischievous letter. "It's in the mouth of every rebel in town whom we talk with that the committee burned those houses, and what everybody says must have some ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon

... political organization, to the resisting of the exploitation of the mother country by inflowing masses of foreigners, are declared to be bad patriots, dead to the sentiment of the flag, dead to the call of the bugle, are silenced in fact by a fustian as senseless and mischievous as that which in some marvelous way the politician, hypnotized by the old formulae, has managed to make pass ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... has taken up his quarters for the winter hunting not far from us, with six or seven of the young warriors, who look up to him, and he is mischievous. If the Injun nation won't make war, he will do something on his own account, if he possibly can. He's not badly ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat

... single sentiment that can by possibility alienate old friends, or can ever be quoted as evidence that the editor had dared to assert his manhood. Is this loyalty to the Constitution and the Union? Is this the allegiance which a citizen owes to his country? Away with the mischievous sophistry, that the Government is not the country, and does not represent the people! Can any sane man doubt that an Administration legally chosen, and rightfully in power, and receiving the emphatic indorsement of decisive majorities in Congress, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various

... abundantly. Neither do they now stay with such of these fruits as are wholesome in their kinds, but adventure further upon such as are very dangerous and hurtful, as the verangenes, mushrooms, etc., as if nature had ordained all for the belly, or that all things were to be eaten for whose mischievous operation the Lord in some measure hath ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed

... afterwards agitated before the council of Constance; and it was with difficulty that a feeble decision in favor of the contrary opinion, was procured from these fathers of the church, the ministers of peace and of religion. But the mischievous effects of that tenet, had they been before anywise doubtful, appeared sufficiently from the present incidents. The commission of this crime, which destroyed all trust and security, rendered the war implacable between the French parties, and cut ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... moods that varied from feminine pettishness to the teasingly mischievous. But he had never seen her in quite the same pitch of spirits that caught his attention as soon as ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... fun, and soon a rollicking game of underwater tag was in full swing. The dolphins seemed as playful and mischievous as small children. ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton

... from knowing of the great affection that I bear you. Although it is honourable enough to be everywhere proclaimed, yet those who know nothing of lovers' hearts often judge contrary to the truth, and thence come reports as mischievous as though they were true. I have been prompted to say this, and led to declare my love to you, because Paulina, feeling in her heart that I cannot love her, holds me in suspicion and does nought but watch my face wherever I may be. Hence, when you come and speak ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... Virtue, Reason, and Truth, be forever our only divinities." What has made virtue so difficult and so rare? Religion, which divides men instead of uniting them. What has so long delayed the illumination of the reason, and the discovery of truth? Religion with its mischievous errors, God, spirit, freedom, immortality. Immortality exists only in the memory of later generations; man is the creature of a day; nothing is permanent but the great whole of nature and the eternal law of universal change. Can a clock broken into a thousand ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... barque, and shot into the deep water in the middle of the stream, evidently with the intention of speaking us. As, however, she was just half-way across, floating helplessly, unable to reach the bottom with the spear she had used as a puntpole in the shallower water, a mischievous black imp canted her over, and souse she went into the river. It was amazing to see how boldly and well the old woman struck out for the shore, keeping her white head well out of the water; and, having reached dry land once more, sat down on her haunches, and began ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... grandparents of a given pony have all been perfect in every point. Good! You naturally expect that a pony with such exceptionable ancestry will itself be without a flaw. But is it? No, often it is not. Too frequently you get bitter water from sweet, and thistles instead of grapes. Just look at that tricky, mischievous, ill-tempered, wall-eyed little rascal. Where did he get his evil cantrips and his wall-eye? I have known his ancestors for four generations back and they were all without a blemish." The minister made ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... raillery not being held in check by any personal esteem for his character. Nevertheless, as it is still the sincerity of nature which, even in the simplicity caused by surprise, pierces suddenly through the veil of dissimulation, a satisfaction of a superior order is mixed with the mischievous joy we feel in having caught any one in the act. This is because nature, opposed to affectation, and truth, opposed to deception, must in every case inspire us with esteem. Thus we experience, even in the presence ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... Of course she is; the mischievous old thing! Trying to take the girl from a comfortable ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen

... at him in mischievous challenge of his subterfuge, and he added frankly, with a voice that shook ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)

... perjured King,' well as we guard him? (Ibid. 409.) Unhappy perjured King!—And so there shall be Baker's Queues, by and by, more sharp-tempered than ever: on every Baker's door-rabbet an iron ring, and coil of rope; whereon, with firm grip, on this side and that, we form our Queue: but mischievous deceitful persons cut the rope, and our Queue becomes a ravelment; wherefore the coil must be made of iron chain. (Mercier, Nouveau Paris.) Also there shall be Prices of Grain well fixed; but then no grain purchasable by them: bread not to be had except by ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... sixteenth-century peasant (of the modern imagination) and the nineteenth-century villager of actual fact. His own small army from the stable and the garden were powerless to cope with the disorderly mob they had been encouraged to invite in this interesting celebration. And those most mischievous and conspicuous roughs whom the coachman had driven off with the whip on the way up, revenged themselves for this drastic treatment by coming in through the front gate of the park, breaking down the fence between park and garden, and every ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden

... have been the boy who stopped as he ran before them, and smacked the stomach of a large pumpkin lying at the feet of an old market-woman, and then dashed away before she could frame a protest against the indignity. From this incident they philosophized that the boys of Dusseldorf are as mischievous at the end of the century as they were at the beginning; and they felt the fascination that such a bounteous, unkempt old marketplace must have for the boys of any period. There were magnificent vegetables of all sorts in it, and if the fruits ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... amiable domestics would be clattering up and down the back yards all the evening, and the news would surprise nobody when she came to tell it next day. She was too true a woman to want to part with such a pleasure. Then she had—ah! must it be confessed?—a little mischievous desire of her own to see how Mrs. Turner would take it, for those who knew Mrs. Turner best were given to the belief that she would far rather have the attention of the masculine element of the garrison ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... that there is no art to read the mind's complexion in the face. These fellows pretend that your villain is often smooth-faced as well as smooth-tongued, and pleases the eye to the benefit of his mischievous ends. Whereas, on the other hand, many an honest fellow is damned for a scoundrel because with the nature of an angel he has the mask of a fiend. In which two fancies I have no belief. A rogue is a rogue all the world over, and flies his flag in his face for those who can read the bunting. ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... a long time, however, before the "peachy one" appeared. Then suddenly one day a great jagged shadow enveloped them in its purple coolness. The men looked up, startled. She must have come upon them slowly and quietly, for she was close. Her mischievous face smiled alluringly down at them from the wide triangle ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore

... of either Eben or Noodles. Why, after they passed the crossroads where the ruins of the old blacksmith shop lay, in which they had held their first meetings, but which had been mysteriously burned down, some thought by mischievous and envious town boys—after they had gone by this well-known spot, and sighted the Scroggins farm beyond, every fellow had actually forgotten such a thing as fatigue. They held themselves up straight, and walked with a springy step that would go far toward ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher

... led her to a small chair directly under the mischievous-looking lady in the frame; and she felt a kind of satisfaction in being placed out of her sight. But it seemed, even then, as she cast a furtive glance upward, that those roguish eyes were trying to peer over the picture frame, and get a look ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic

... the special laws against it, the mischievous consequences of it, the sore punishments appointed to it), we may consider, that to common sense vain swearing is a very unreasonable and ill-favoured practice, greatly misbecoming any sober, worthy, or honest person; but especially most absurd ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... Sometimes a mischievous child risked his skin and bones for the ineffable pleasure of driving a pin into Quasimodo's hump. Again, a young girl, more bold and saucy than was fitting, brushed the priest's black robe, singing in his face the sardonic ditty, "niche, niche, the devil is caught." Sometimes a group of squalid ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... gift of nature, or effect of art, however beneficial to mankind, which, either by casual deviations, or foolish perversions, is not sometimes mischievous. Whatever may be the cause of happiness, may be made, likewise, the cause of misery. The medicine, which, rightly applied, has power to cure, has, when rashness or ignorance prescribes it, the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... Mandy slipped the words in slyly, for she knew that they were against the pastor's wishes, but she was unable to restrain her mischievous impulse to sow the seeds of curiosity that would soon bear fruit in the inquisitive mind of the ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo

... truth, that these disasters were often the product of pure malicious frolic. For instance, in recommending a certain kind of quickset fence, he insists upon it, as one of its advantages, that it will not readily ignite under the torch of the mischievous wayfarer: "Naturale sepimentum," says he, "quod obseri solet virgultis aut spinis, praetereuntis lascivi non metuet facem." It is not easy to see the origin or advantage of this practice of nocturnal travelling (which must have considerably increased the hazards ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... also do its cock-and-bull stories. Its laugh is the mouth of a volcano which spatters the whole earth. Its jests are sparks. It imposes its caricatures as well as its ideal on people; the highest monuments of human civilization accept its ironies and lend their eternity to its mischievous pranks. It is superb; it has a prodigious 14th of July, which delivers the globe; it forces all nations to take the oath of tennis; its night of the 4th of August dissolves in three hours a thousand years of feudalism; it makes of its logic the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... pink and lilac; and undergarments edged with yellowing lace. A sweet scent rose from them, as of some gentle presence that strove to reach the light and air once more. A pair of little white kid slippers looked as though they longed to twinkle in and out beneath a soft silk skirt. Angel's mischievous brown hands dived among the light folds, discovering opera glasses,—(treasures to be secured if possible, against some future South Sea expedition), an inlaid box of old-fashioned trinkets, a coral necklace, gold-tasselled earrings, and a brooch ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche

... mountain vales, the white-crowned sparrows, one of whose nests I was so fortunate as to come upon. It was placed in a small pine bush, and was just in process of construction. One of the birds flew fiercely at a mischievous chipmunk, and drove him away, as if he knew him for an ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser









Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org




Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |