"Devilish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... arms and ammunition was a fatal mistake; Indian diplomacy had overreached Sully's experience, and even while the delivery was in progress a party of warriors had already begun a raid of murder and rapine, which for acts of devilish cruelty perhaps has no parallel in savage warfare. The party consisted of about two hundred Cheyennes and a few Arapahoes, with twenty Sioux who had been visiting their friends, the Cheyennes. As near ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... disposed himself in the Chair of State, in 1801, he appointed Albert Gallatin—the ablest financier, after Hamilton, the country has produced—Secretary of the Treasury, and begged him to sweep the department clean of the corruption amidst which Hamilton had sat and spun his devilish schemes. Gallatin, after a thorough and conscientious search for political microbes, informed his Chief that in no respect could the department be improved, that there was not a trace of crime, past or present. Jefferson ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... yet, of course, if it's slight or serious. But begad be must have had a nasty tumble. Devilish lucky to get off with his life,—that's a fact. What's the nearest bungalow we can get him into? 'Tis a good eight miles to the hospital; and the sooner he's out of this d—d watering-can business the ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... hatred which they bear her, the crimes which they attribute to her. Her house would have been attacked last night had it not been for Cyril.... And I knew Peter's tone. He spoke too gently and softly not to mean something devilish. I watched all the morning for an opportunity of escape, and here I am! Will you take my message, ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... thumbs, the clicking sound of moving wheels smote my ear, and the elephant head began slowly to raise itself and revolve backward on some concealed pivot, forming a gaping opening right across the body of the Ganapati. And, as the opening gradually widened, by some devilish contrivance the hammer of a gong concealed within the idol was set in motion, and there resulted a loud continuous clanging din that could have been heard at a far distance. Instinctively I thrust ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... latter receiving much encomium. An old Turk, who had been summoned to take part in the morrow's excursion, eyed one of those for some time, and at length delivered himself of the following sentiment: 'They say there is a devil: how can this be so, when men are so much more devilish?' I am afraid the salvation of Sir William Armstrong, Mr. Whitworth, &c. &c., would be uncertain were they to be judged on the same grounds. While waiting for our dinner of fowls made into soup and baked potatoes, the sons brought a book, which the priest, with ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... it to be impossible to express with words, for the wickedness of the act overcomes all power and force of speech, however eloquent. For this reason, without enlarging further on this subject, I will only say that in such men there dwells a spirit not merely inhuman and savage but wholly cruel and devilish, and so far removed from any sort of virtue that they are no longer men or even animals, and do not deserve to live. For even as emulation and rivalry, when men seek by honest endeavour to vanquish and surpass those greater than themselves in order to acquire glory and honour, are ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari
... calculated that one more chance was against him. Augustus Barnard drew in his turn. Saved, too, he! And now Arthur Pym reckoned up the exact chances Parker and himself. At that moment all the ferocity the tiger entered into his soul. He conceived an intense and devilish hatred of his poor ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... which I watched from our battery positions. In spite of the difficulties of getting up supplies through the "crumped" trenches, the men held on and consolidated their positions. One of the most astounding feats was done by the sappers, who put up barbed wire beyond the line under a devilish cannonade. ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... is, fashionable life has been exalted above its just and proper level, and depressed below it, by the slaverers and the vituperaters, solely because they cannot get at it; the former are idolatrous from hope, the latter devilish in despair; and the result we are familiar with, in caricatures portraying this sort of life alternately as a Heaven and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... could hurt you last night because, you see, it wasn't permitted. When the time comes for me to die, I shall go, but you will have nothing to do with that. To tell the truth, I am very sorry for you, as with all your greatness, your soul is of the earth, earthy, also sensual and devilish, as the Apostle said, and, I am afraid, very malignant, and you will have a great deal to answer for shortly. Yours won't be a happy deathbed, Oro, because, you see, you glory in your sins and ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... "Devilish rogues, the newspapers," said Claparon. "Monsieur, the newspapers do all the mischief. They are useful sometimes, but they keep me awake many a night. I wish they didn't. I have put my eyes ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... lips and livid features as a host of black disk-like things covered the squirming body, spinning madly as if driven by atomic energy and emitting a myriad high-pitched tones like the angry buzzing of a swarm of bees. Antazzo's body shriveled as the things hummed on in their devilish work. Soon there was but a tiny heap of clothing with the angry black disks whirling and singing their song of hate. And then, in a puff of thick yellow vapor they were gone, their gruesome work completed. The odor of putrefaction lay heavy ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... quote from the Special Correspondent of the Vossiches Zeitung. He said: "I devote a special chapter to this plague of our Somme warriors. It is not only when systematic gas attacks are made that they have to struggle with this devilish and intangible foe." He refers to the use of gas shell, and says: "This invisible and perilous spectre of the air threatens and lies in wait on all roads ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden
... compassion, and indeed sympathy, than by curiosity. He was a terrible brute, a big grizzly bear, ugly to repulsiveness. The snarling scorn, the sneering, lip-writhing hate of the demoniacal grin with which he received the boy, was hideous; the rattling, pebble-jarring growl that came from his devilish throat was loathing embodied. What if spirits worse than their own get into some of the creatures by virtue of the likeness between them! One day will be written, perhaps, a history of animals very different ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... my gosling," said the cotton-broker. "You're green, young man! You're green! I swear, I'd give a good deal to get sight of Duncan's wench. She must be devilish handsome, or he wouldn't keep her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... be scorned by this unbreeched heathen?" cried Dudley. "Away with him! He was taken in the very act, and can render no excuse for this devilish malignity." ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... important gods of the era of the Rig Veda we now have reviewed. But before passing on to the next period it should be noticed that no small number of beings remains who are of the air, devilish, or of the earth, earthy. Like the demons that injure man by restraining the rain in the clouds, so there are bh[u]ts, ghosts, spooks, and other lower powers, some malevolent, some good-natured, who inhabit earth; whence ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... had eaten them all, and he told the man we would be in again to lunch after awhile. Dad is the bravest man I ever saw, and don't you forget it. He would have come out all right, I suppose, and lived, if it hadn't been for his devilish morbid appetite for travel and adventure. Quick as we got out of the oyster place dad wanted to take a steamboat ride down the river to the Eades Jetties at the mouth of the river, and we went on board, and had a nice ride down to the mouth. After we had looked over the jetties where Eades ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck
... with—particularly, Captain Barlow. He is jackal to the bloodless Resident. I really thought a couple of days ago that he would have to be sent home on sick leave. One of my officers rode him off the ball in a fierce drive for goal, and by some devilish mistake the post hadn't been sawed half-through, so when Barlow crashed into it it stood up. As he lay perfectly still after his cropper it looked as though Resident Hodson had lost his jackal. But Barlow is one of ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... Then, with studied carelessness and devilish abandon: "I say, old man, toss me a cigar, will you? I ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... mean time, if I might obtain leave to present an humble petition to Satan, it should be, that he would according to modern usage oblige us all, with writing the history of his own times; 'twould, as well as one that is gone before it, be a Devilish good one; for as to the sincerity of the performance, the authority of the particulars, the justice of the characters, &c. if they were no better vouch'd, no more consistent with themselves, with charity, with truth, and with the honour of an historian, than the last of that ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... of a tall man's waist, and was long and gaunt and sinuous, with a tawny coat striped with black, and with white throat and belly. In conformation it was similar to a cat—a huge cat, exaggerated colossal cat, with fiendish eyes and the most devilish cast of countenance, as it wrinkled its bristling snout and bared ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... another devilish trick of that minx Feng!" Chia Chen smiled. "How ever could they have reached such straits? She's certain to have seen that expenses were great, and that heavy deficits had to be squared, so wishing again to curtail some item or other, who knows which, she devised this plan as a preparatory ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... here yesterday, and as learned to the full as my fellow-traveller. What a pity that he will spoil a wit and a devilish pleasant fellow (as he is) by wisdom! He talked on Music; and by having read Hawkins and Burney recently I was enabled to talk of names, and show more knowledge than he had suspected I possessed; and in the end he begged me to shape my thoughts upon paper, which ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... my brother. 'He knows how innocent and healing are these waters and yet he refuses them. He saw me use them on my own eyes—and surely the medicine is unchanged?' And he balanced the bottle sideways above the face of his enemy and allowed the devilish acid to well up and impend upon the very edge of the neck of the bottle, as he murmured: 'But a single drop for each eye! More I cannot spare—to-day. Perchance a drop for each ear to-morrow, and one for his tongue on the next day—if ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... of the little wind and storm beaten cabin which represented Law at the top end of the earth Private Pelliter lifted a head wearily from his sick bed and said: "I'm bloomin' glad of it, Mac. Now mebbe you'll give me a drink of water and shoot that devilish huskie that keeps howling every now and then out there as though ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... a right conception of either. But instead of sitting down meekly under what godly folks call "mysterious dispensations" of the Divinity, I think, if I took their view of such unaccountable inflictions, I should call them devilish rather than Divine, and certainly go mad, or very bad. Bearing the righteous result of our own actions, while we suffer, we can adore the mercy that warns us from evil by its unavoidable penalties, at the same time remembering that even our sins, duly acknowledged, and rightly used, may be our ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... portion? So, too, as the method of idealism in the world of the good tends to erect man above himself, the same generalizing method in the world of the evil tends to degrade human nature below itself; the extremes of the process are the divine and the devilish; both transcend life, but are developed out of it. The difference between these two poles of ideality is that the order of one is an order of life, that of the other an order of death. Between these two is the special province of the human will. What literature, ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... soul sickened Hal. That his father, whom he had so loved and honored, should make of the loyalty which had, at the cost of principle, protected the name of Surtaine against open disgrace, a tool wherewith to tear down his professional standards—it was like some incredible and malign jocosity of a devilish logic. Of what was going on in the quack's mind he had no inkling. He could not know that his father saw in the suppression of the suicide news, only a natural and successful effort on the part of Hal to conceal his own guilt in Milly's death. No more ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... it? a parson!—devilish good indeed! How it will tell at Murkey's! What a metamorphose! if it don't stagger 'em, nothing will! It's the best thing I've done yet! I shall have to do it over a hundred times, and must get up a sermon or two beforehand, and swear ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... breath, and his eyes glittered with a devilish ardour. His voice was hoarse with ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... convoy was sent on, not a scout with it. Meantime, during the night several hundred Boer marksmen had been sent round into the sluit, and were now lying right across poor Broadwood's retreat. The Boers, acting with their devilish coolness as usual, took possession of the waggons without giving the alarm. Our two batteries and Roberts' Horse came along, and were allowed to get to point-blank distance, and then the volley came; magazine rifles at pistol-shot range. For the moment the result, ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... as I put my foot down, I felt an indescribable drawing, sucking motion of the sand below. Another moment and my leg was swallowed up nearly to the knee. In the moonlight the whole surface of the sand seemed to be shaken with devilish delight at my disappointment. I struggled clear, sweating with terror and exertion, back to the tussocks behind me and fell on ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... snow-covered ice of the lake to the thin spiral of smoke that he saw rising above the thick balsams on the island. Five times in that distance he fell upon his face; he crawled like a man about to die. He performed an arduous task, a devilish task, and when at last he reached the balsams he cursed his luck until he was red in the face. No one had seen him. That quarter-mile of labor was lost, its finesse a failure. But he kept up the play, and staggered weakly through the sheltering balsams to the cabin. His artifice had ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... suddenly declared itself, leaping out of the darkness into light. It was a terrible object, a monstrosity of indeterminate sex and nature, but surmounted by a woman's head and face of extraordinary, if devilish loveliness, sunk back between high but grotesquely small shoulders, like to those of a lizard, so that it glared upwards. The workmanship of the thing was rude yet strangely powerful. Whatever there is cruel, whatever there is devilish, whatever there is inhuman ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... at him along her narrow, pallid cheeks. Her eyes were strange and drugged, heavy under their heavy, drooping lids. Her thin bosom shrugged convulsively. He stared back at her, devilish and unchanging. With another strange, sick convulsion, she turned away, as if she were sick, could feel dissolution setting-in in her body. For with her mind she was unable to attend to his words, he caught her, ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... books, and yet, when she was vexed by a devil, after her paroxysms uttered Greek and Latin prophecies of the war that should be there. In Italy, too, I am told there was a woman, also quite unlearned, who during one of her devilish torments was asked what is the best line of Virgil, and replied, "Learn justice and to reverence the gods "'.[32] In this second case it would seem that the Devil scarcely knew ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... man who had tried to lead her astray. He had been considerably more than twice her age, a hardened sinner without any compunction, with a devilish cunning at breaking down defences without any seeming over-persuasion, and at whitewashing his actions into passionate devotion to youngn inexperienced years. She remembered how she had struggled to resist him. It was good to remember now that she ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... carcasses. Peter, you're not fond of flatfish, are you, my boy? We may thank Heaven and the captain, I can tell you that, my lads; but now, where's the chart, Robinson? Hand me down the parallel rules and compasses, Peter; they are in the corner of the shelf. Here we are now, a devilish sight too near this infernal point. Who ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... as a nightmare. It is curious how long a beast kin look at one without winkin'. At last, it got on to my nerves so I jest couldn't stand it; an' snatching a bunch of weeds (I'd already flung away all the loose dirt, flingin' it at the rattler), I whipped 'em across them devilish leetle eyes as hard as I could. It was a kind of a child's trick, or a woman's, but it worked all right, fer it made the eyes blink. That proved they were real eyes, an' I felt easier. After all, it was only a bear; an' he couldn't git any closer ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... no quarrel whatever, who on the whole rather respect and honour each other, should with explosive bombs deliberately blow one another to bits so that even their own mothers could not recognize them; That human beings should use every devilish invention of science with the one purpose of maiming, blinding, destroying those against whom they have no personal grudge or grievance; All this ...
— NEVER AGAIN • Edward Carpenter
... "Parry kept it. Those devilish Scotchmen are always thirsty. And you, Grimaud," he said to his companion, who had just come in after his round with D'Artagnan, "are ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... adherence to truth; but there can be no falsehood in their gaunt, famished faces, no fabrication in their own rags and the nakedness of their children. I doubt me Mr. Ruskin would designate the condition of Mount Misery, otherwise Lettermore Hill, as "altogether devilish." ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... only looking on, stunned and remorseful at what he sees. His mother's spirit appears to him, but he is already under the influence of the charm, he cannot move. The proceeding goes forward amid hellish noise. A hurricane arises, flames and devilish forms flicker about, wild and horrible creatures rush by and others follow in hot pursuit. The noise grows worse, the earth seems to quake, until at length after Caspar's reiterated invocations Samiel shows himself at the ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... "This weather is devilish," said Baufre, with a curse. "It is not as it used to be. The world goes to the devil. There were seven hundred people in Atuona when I came here. They are all dead but two hundred, and there is nobody to help me in my plantation. If I pay three francs ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... fellows resisted bravely; but Don Juan turning to Alexander Farnese, said: "What a superb animal! but alas, alas, he has a devilish temper, so we have called him Satan. He will bear neither saddle nor rider. How dare I venture . . . there he rears again. . . . It is quite impossible to offer him to His Majesty. Just look at those eyes, those crimson nostrils. A ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... you not been at work to-day, that you look so devilish blue?" (working, by the bye, is the honest word used by those honest people for begging, they having as correct an idea of what is meant by respectable terms as their more respectable ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... the beginning. And then, as I thought of Tobias, my body shook so that I could hardly keep on walking, and, next minute, my hatred of him so nerved me up again that I ran on through the brush, like a madman, my clothes clutched at by the devilish vines and torn ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... The devilish ray of Axelson had not merely destroyed them, it had obliterated all traces of them, and the crew of the liner were breathing the remnants of the atmosphere that still lay at the bottom ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... closely: the words had a hidden meaning, and it was clear he was not intended to miss the implied threat. But what was Ku Sui's thought? Back in his mind an anxiety grew, indefinite, vague and devilish. ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... of worldly-minded Christians does far more harm than that of the openly wicked. Whenever the supposed interests of self, or family, or country, or even of church or mission come first, we may be quite sure of the true source of that counsel; it is at least earthly or sensual, if not devilish. ...
— A Ribband of Blue - And Other Bible Studies • J. Hudson Taylor
... did not lack courage. He would fight if he had to do so. Indeed, she knew that he would go through fire to save her. But bravery was not enough. She could almost have wished that her foster-brother was as full of devilish treachery as the huge ape-man slouching at her heels. Then the chances of the battle would be ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... perhaps estimating his own powers of persuasion against his brother's powers of resistance, and coming to the conclusion that it was not worth his while to contend with him any longer, "I have come to say this. I am hard up—devilish hard up. But that's not all. It is not enough to offer me a five-pound note or a ten-pound note and tell me to spend it as I please. I want something definite. You seem to have plenty of money: I have none. I want an allowance, ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... may rest assured that that speech was the finest that ever was made in Parliament.' Lord Holland said, 'It is very well of you to say so, but I think your speech last night was a pretty good one.' Fox said, 'And that was a devilish fine speech too.' ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... sets up his kingdom, the gentiles are in power and that these lie in the wicked one, Satan, who is the god or invisible ruler of this world. (2 Corinthians 4:3,4) Jesus speaks of him as the prince of this world. (John 12:31) Satan's rule has been unrighteous, wicked, and devilish; and when he comes whose right it is, he will establish a righteous kingdom in the place or stead of the unrighteous order of Satan. By these words, then, addressed to Pilate we would understand the Master to mean that ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford
... one another for less than this since the world began. There was once a certain Judas who carried out a plan of betrayal for a far smaller figure. But tell me. Have you never associated Gualtier and Hilda in your thoughts as partners in this devilish plot?" ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... chucked it all away to marry poor Paw. Now she had made her bed, she must lie in it. Must sit and say "Thank you!" for Aunt Mollie's leavings, precious scraps she dared not refuse—Maw, who had a pride as fierce and keen as any! It was devilish! Oh, it was kind of Aunt Mollie to give; it was the taking that came so bitter hard. And then they weren't genteel about their giving. There was always that air of superiority, that conscious patronage, as now, when Uncle Clem, breaking off ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... mine," he decided. "It's there these hellions mean to start their devilish work of enslaving the whole world. It's there I want to be, and must be, to follow the infernal job from the beginning and to nail it, when the right time comes. I'll put in a day or two with my old friend, Sam Underwood, up in the Bronx, and maybe tell him what's doing ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... men. They think as unfavorably of the influence of this power on the slaveholder, as your own Jefferson did. They think that it tends to make him impatient of contradiction, self-willed, supercilious, cruel, murderous, devilish; and they think that they can establish this opinion, not by the soundest philosophy only, but by the pages of many of your own writers, and by those daily scenes of horrid brutality which make the Southern States, in the sight both of God ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... colonization of Hood's Isle with a choice variety of animated nature, the extraordinary and devilish aspect of Oberlus made him to be regarded in Payta as a highly suspicious character. So that being found concealed one night, with matches in his pocket, under the hull of a small vessel just ready to be launched, he was ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... terrible, they acted like demons. The children hid under the beds and held on to the garments of their parents. The terrified little ones trembled like leaves in an autumn breeze. Spirits let loose from the regions of the damned could hardly present a more devilish appearance than did the savages. They were armed with muskets. Old Mag, who was crouching in a corner of the kitchen, shook with fear, her teeth were chattering, and she appeared like a person badly affected ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... were recorded and believed. Trial by ordeal, following careful religious formulae, was common before 1200, though prohibited shortly afterward by papal decrees (1215, 1222). The insistence of the Church on "the willful, devilish character of heresy," and the extension of heresy to cover almost any form of honest doubt or independent inquiry, caused an intellectual stagnation along lines of scientific investigation which was not relieved for more than a thousand years. The many notable advances in physics, chemistry, astronomy, ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... so sure of that by a long shot. I—I was fed up with the most devilish kind of promises there are. The kind you was too smart to put in words or—or in writing. ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... it bloom'd for of yore? Yet be that as it may be; I cannot perchance Judge this matter. I am but a woman, and France Has for me simpler duties. Large hope, though, Eugene De Luvois, should be yours. There is purpose in pain, Otherwise it were devilish. I trust in my soul That the great master hand which sweeps over the whole Of this deep harp of life, if at moments it stretch To shrill tension some one wailing nerve, means to fetch Its response the truest, most stringent, and smart, Its ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... sweetest meat, He calls for something bitter, something sour, And the rich feast concludes extremely poor: Cheap eggs, and herbs, and olives still we see; Thus much is left of old simplicity! The robin-redbreast till of late had rest, And children sacred held a martin's nest, Till becca-ficos sold so devilish dear To one that was, or would have been a peer. Let me extol a cat, on oysters fed, I'll have a party at the Bedford-head; Or even to crack live crawfish recommend; I'd never doubt at Court to make a friend. 'Tis yet in vain, ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... decided, "it would be awkward for him as a friend to take money from me, and it will be very suitable for me to present him with this. I will take him the devilish thing! Luckily he is ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... split handle of bamboo, and holding a pith wick and a little oil. The flame wavered against her eyes as she held it up and peered into the baby's face—and her eyes were like as I had seen them once before, and devilish like the eyes I had seen in ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... for feeling, deep, intense, And for my frenzy finding no fit name, Sweep round the ample world with every sense, Grasp at the loftiest words to speak my flame, And call the glow, wherewith I burn, Quenchless, eternal, yea, eterne— Is that of sophistry a devilish play? ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... for other matters—poesy, for instance. Leigh Hunt's poem is a devilish good one—quaint, here and there, but with the substratum of originality, and with poetry about it, that will stand the test. I do not say this because he has inscribed it to me, which I am sorry for, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... stiff-necked, and so impudent, that at once he cast off all shame, and make no account at all of those censures, but scorn and contemn the same, or peradventure shall insolently or proudly obtrude himself upon the sacrament, or being also filled with devilish malice do more and more contradict and blaspheme, the ecclesiastical ministry in such cases hath nothing more to do by way of jurisdiction: but the magistrate hath in readiness a compelling jurisdiction and external force, whereby such ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... cotton-spinner. The emotional and the spiritual in mankind had no outlet. In the unconscious of man there is a God and a Devil, and intellectual activities afford no means of expression to either. And when any godlike or devilish libido can find no outlet it regresses to infantile primitive forms; thus, while the brain of man was concerned with mathematics and logic, the heart of man was seeking primitive things—cruelty, ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... among you, I would not stay Behind the walls to weep this insolence; I'ld take a sword in my hand and God in my mind, And seek under the friendship of the night That tent where Holofernes' crimes and hate Sleep in his devilish brain. ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... equally plain that she would never have kept her secret as she did if she had not seen her way to trading on it for her own advantage at some future time. A clever woman, as I've told you already! A devilish clever woman, who hasn't been knocked about in the world, and seen the ups and downs of life abroad ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... house; "what scurvy hospitality is this? What are you fastening doors and ringing alarm-bells for, as if there were more thieves than honest men in the land? We come to pay you a friendly visit, and, instead of welcome and the wine-skin, you shut the door in our faces. Devilish unfriendly, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... well 'worthy of a grace.' All forenoon you may return and taste; it only sparkles, and sharpens, and grows to be a new drink, not less delicious; but with the progress of the day the fermentation quickens and grows acid; in twelve hours it will be yeast for bread, in two days more a devilish intoxicant, the ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... most devilish kind of Spanish burgundy, warranted free from added alcohol: a Temperance burgundy in fact. Its richness in natural alcohol ...
— Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... cried. "Is it not horrible? Even on such a beautiful day as this death wakes as early as life! Devouring death is ushered in by the dawn, hand in hand with generous life! Awful, devilish Nature! that makes all creatures full of beauty and delight, and then condemns them to live upon each other! Nature is the sphinx: she appears soft and gentle and more lovely than heart can bear, but if you look closer, you see she is a creature with ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... skin felt as though it had been sand-papered, when he would have sold his soul for a bath and actually began to get his things together in readiness for the next wagon out, it was Pat, who, with the devilish ingenuity of an Irish imp, mocked and jeered at him for a quitter, "fit to act only as lady's maid or to serve soft dhrinks in a corner drug-sthore," until his fainting heart took fire and, cursing his tormentor with all the oaths he could muster, he offered to ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... paper that will set truth above Party considerations, revealing, incidentally, the devilish character of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 24, 1914 • Various
... rhetoric school, whereat I joyed proudly, and I swelled with arrogancy, though (Lord, Thou knowest) far quieter and altogether removed from the subvertings of those "Subverters" (for this ill-omened and devilish name was the very badge of gallantry) among whom I lived, with a shameless shame that I was not even as they. With them I lived, and was sometimes delighted with their friendship, whose doings I ever did abhor -i.e., their "subvertings," wherewith they wantonly persecuted the ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... crowds of tempters of both sexes, men and women who take a devilish pleasure in polluting innocent minds, ... the companions whose jeers are worse to face than a battery, ... the inconsistencies of so-called Christians, the anti-Christian literature which is peculiarly fascinating to the young, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... were with one accord hopeful of speedy recovery, not that they might "save their own skin" and get back home alive, but that they might get back into the fight and help to put forever out of commission that devilish military machine that had threatened the democratic freedom ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West
... catties of Fuh-kien hemp. The owner, this merchant, went to the elders of Au-yoeng's neighborhood, who found and restored the hemp, nearly all. Merchant lets the matter drop. But the neighbors kept after this cormorant fellow, worked one beastly squeeze or another, ingenious baiting, devilish—Rot! you know their neighborhoods better than I! Well, they pushed him down-hill—poor devil, showing that's always possible, no bottom! He brooded, and all that, till he thought the merchant and the Jesus religion were the cause of all. So bang he goes down the pole,—gloriously ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... and walked over to a window that overlooked the yards. The second section of the White Mail was coming in. As the engine rolled past, Yank looked up; and there was a devilish grin on his black face. The fireman was sitting on the fireman's seat, the gun across his lap. A young fellow, wearing a long black coat, a bell-rope, and a scared look, was sweeping ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... the secrets of Satan, such as are suggestions to question the being of God, the truth of his word, and to be annoyed with devilish blasphemies; none more acquainted with these than the biggest sinners at their conversion; wherefore thus also they are prepared to be helps in the church to ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan
... out. "It was all a fake about how you got the habit. You wanted to get it, so you could get and hold him. And neither one of you would stop at anything, not even the murder of your sister, to prevent the ruin of the devilish business you have built up in manufacturing ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... out in front of the altar, and eyes glittered, dusky throats went constricted and dry with terror when she stirred up the brazier and was hidden for a moment in the rising volume of blue smoke in which flashes of devilish light played incessantly. Milo stepped up behind and above the altar, and as the smoke reeked about him vanished seemingly into the face of the cliff. There, in an unsuspected outlet to the great chamber, was the key to much of the magic with which Dolores kept her turbulent ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... Game Chicken, and Mrs. Pipchin, and Miss Tox; and Cousin Feenix with wilful legs so little under control, and yet to the core of him a gentleman; and the apoplectic Major Bagstock, the Joey B. who claimed to be "rough and tough and devilish sly;" and Susan Nipper, as swift of tongue as a rapier, and as sharp? Reader, don't you know all these people? For myself, I have jostled against them constantly any time the last twenty years. They are as much part of my life as the people I ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... at one time. One is apt to feel rather weary of wives when they are so devilish civil under all aspects, as she used to be. But anything for a change—Abigail is lost, but Michal is recovered. You would hardly believe it, but she seems in fancy to be quite another bride—in fact, almost as if ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... with the good dog Tray? No, the house may be in blazes or ransacked by burglars for all she cares. She is out on the tiles and in back gardens pursuing her unholy ritual—that strange ritual that seems so Oriental, so sinister, so full of devilish purpose. I can understand the old association of witchcraft with cats. The sight of cats almost makes me believe in witchcraft, in spite of myself. I can believe anything about a cat. She is heartless and mercenary. Her name has become the synonym of everything ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... is planning a devilish revenge. He threatens to separate me from my Secretary and confidante, little Baranello, whom I brought with me from Salzburg. She is an Italian, and, unlike most of them, as faithful as a dog. ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... am like Swift, and shall go first at top,' he said to himself; 'this quiet life is killing; and yet if I was to go back I should be worse. The nights in Elm Court, when I went home alone after a glorious evening, were devilish. ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... there is something more of a difficult and painful nature on the piano; and nearly always, too, there is a large lady wearing a low-vamp gown on a high-arch form, who in flute-like notes renders one of those French ballads that's full of la-las and is supposed to be devilish and naughty because nobody can understand it. For the finish, some person addicted to elocution usually recites a poem to piano accompaniment. The poem Robert of Sicily is much used for these purposes, and whenever I hear it Robert invariably has my ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... why I write all this, but how impossible life is. I think it really is a most devilish arrangement. No peace except in utter renounciation. And must one struggle through a peppery sequence of years just to ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff
... cynically. "But to acknowledge him as a son is no easy question to settle!" and with these words, he walked in; whereupon Pao-yue smilingly said: "To-morrow when you have nothing to do, just come and look me up; but don't go and play any devilish pranks with them! I've just now no leisure, so come to-morrow, into the library, where I'll have a chat with you for a whole day, and take you into the garden ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... of going out only to speculate, and, as might have been expected, we have at last the unfailing resort of the lying coward—a dirty hint as to breaking the seventh commandment—all according to the devilish old Jesuit precept of, 'Calumniare fortiter aliquis koerebit'—'Slander boldly, something will be sure to stick.' And to such a depth of degradation—to the hinting away the characters of young ladies because they try to teach the poor ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... hypocrite! Oh! the impostor to come to my house in this nefarious manner, and steal the affections of my daughter—the devilish villain! a bastard! a contemptible black-hearted nigger. Oh, my child—my child! it will break your heart when you know what deep disgrace has come upon you. I'll go to him," added he, his face flushed, and his white hair almost erect with rage; "I'll murder him—there's not a man in the city will ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... going to "give him up" when they reached Denver and that when we got into Denver, they were going to "give him up" and collect the $1,000 reward for him. Johnnie Lynch said that he did not want to see Service put in irons, and that he thought Service did no more than was right. "Wan more of those devilish Mexicans out uv th' way don't hurt nohow," was his comment. "Now, Johnnie," says I, "you go to my assistant, Mark Shearer, and tell him to tell the wagon driver that if he undertakes to hand Service over to the authorities at Denver, that he will kill him." When we got to within five ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... the major. "Thank you; and allow me to say you're a devilish queer fellow for suggesting it. Is it part of your religion to forgive ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... of pearl beads. Her cheeks were crimson, her whole body from head to foot instinct and alive with a beauty that to Cyrus and Deborah, as they stood mute with horror in the open doorway, seemed akin to some devilish enchantment. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... sha'n't waste time trying to prove you sold arms. What we can prove, and will prove, and by your own man, too, and hang you high as Haman for it, is that Pete Gamble, deputy sheriff, caught you at your devilish work, and you shot him ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... an old man, sir," he said, "and I've walked a mile in the heat of this devilish sun, and all for a patient who is determined to kill himself, and such a fool that it doesn't matter much whether ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... Always a fascinating thing for me was to watch the water for new and different fish, strange marine creatures, life of some kind. And the watching was always rewarded. I have been close to schools of devilish blackfish, and I have watched great whales play all around me. What a spectacle to see a whale roll and dip his enormous body and bend and sound, lifting the huge, glistening flukes of his tail, wide as a house! I hate sharks and have caught many, both ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... his friends, and no living thing is allowed to touch it. Tornaeus was told many details of his journey by a Lapp, 'which, although it was true, Tornaeus dissembled to him, lest he might glory too much in his devilish practices'. Olaus Magnus gives a similar account. The whole performance, except that the seer is not bound, resembles the Eskimo 'sleep of the shadow,' more than ordinary Highland second sight. The soul of the seer ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... his philosophy, in my very first conversation with him; in the course of which he observed, with great solemnity and emphasis, that "man is a compound of wisdom and folly;" upon which Master Simon, who had hold of my arm, pressed very hard upon it, and whispered in my ear "That's a devilish ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... Tyndale refers to "my translation in which they affirm unto the lay people (as I have heard say) to be I wot not how many thousand heresies," and continues, "For they which in times past were wont to look on no more scripture than they found in their duns or such like devilish doctrine, have yet now so narrowly looked on my translation that there is not so much as one I therein if it lack a tittle over his head, but they have noted it, and number it unto the ignorant people for an heresy."[155] Tunstall's famous reference ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... is a temple saint, wise in the wisdom of his creed; earthly, sensual, devilish. Look at him till you feel as if you had seen him. Let the photo do its work. It is ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... say, 'Ain't you goin' whip this nigger?' She was mean as the devil. Oh, God, yes. She so mean she didn't know what to do. But old master kep her down. You know some of these redheaded women, they just as devilish as they can be. We had some neighbors, Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Daniels and old miss would be out there on the lawn quarrelin' till it was just like a fog. Us niggers would be out ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... called bow-knots;—there is so little address, or skill, or patience required in the unloosing them, that they are below my giving any opinion at all about them.—But by the knots I am speaking of, may it please your reverences to believe, that I mean good, honest, devilish tight, hard knots, made bona fide, as Obadiah made his;—in which there is no quibbling provision made by the duplication and return of the two ends of the strings thro' the annulus or noose made by the second implication of them—to get them slipp'd and undone ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... the Ripper; and the shadow of that association has hung over it for ever, blighting it in every possible way. To-day it is but a very narrow, dirty, ill-lit street of common lodging-houses within the meaning of the Act, and, though it is by no means so gay and devilish as it is supposed to have been of old, they do say that the police still descend first on Duval Street in cases of local murder where the culprit has, as the newspapers say, made good his escape. I do not recommend it as a pleasure-jaunt ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... involuntarily expressed itself in this question. Apollonius was already at the door. He turned back to his brother, and answered with a gladness that seemed fiendish to the latter because he did not look into the other's honest face. If he had, Apollonius would have caught something of the devilish fear that disfigured his brother's countenance. And still, perhaps he would not. He might have thought his brother ill, so entirely was he without the slightest suspicion of anything in his proposal that could inspire his brother with fear. In fact he thought that what pleased him must please ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... treason, and the Abbot of Wilton excommunicated him for blasphemy. Aluric was no sportsman. Then the Abbot's brother married ... I've forgotten her name, but she was a charmin' little woman. The Lady Philippa was her daughter. That was after the barony was conferred. She rode devilish straight to hounds. They were a bit throatier than we breed now, but a good pack: one of the best. The Abbot kept 'em in splendid shape. Now, who was the woman the Abbot kept? Book—Book! I shall ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... nothing else of God not to be an enemy of God, whose will alone must be blamed for the fact that not all of us are saved? Contrast this opinion with the one that is formed when a man first learns to know the Lord Christ, and it will be found to be nothing but devilish blasphemy. Hence the sense of this passage, 'Many are called,' etc., is far different. For the preaching of the Gospel is general and public, so that whoever will may hear and accept it. Furthermore, God has it preached so generally ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... that is an important errand, indeed. But listen, Master Antonius, you must not take it amiss if I warn you of just one thing: if you want your suit to prosper, you must tune up your language and make a graceful speech, for he has become devilish ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... cited to Ayr against us were persons who had been released from the Greyfriars church-yard, as I have said, and who, being honest men, could not, when put to their oaths, but bear witness to the truth of the matters charged against us. And nothing surely could better show the devilish spirit with which those in authority were at that time actuated, nor the unchristian nature of the prelacy, than that the prisoners should thus have been set free to be made the accusers of their neighbours; and that the curates, ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... Colonel Faversham. "A shortish man with a red beard and an invalid wife: wrote twaddling novels. I tried to read one of them—couldn't get through it. He played a devilish good game all ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... with a fright-compelling something in it which stimulated his rage. The horrible notion of killing her, there where she sat, spread over the chaos of his mind with an effect of unearthly light—red and abnormally evil. It was like that first devilish radiance ushering in Creation, of which the first-fruit was Cain. Why should he not kill her? In all ages, women had been slain for less. Yes—and men had been hanged. Something rose and stuck in his dry throat; and as he ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... is engaged to his cousin, all the world knows it: not a bad coup of Lady Rosherville's, that. I should say, that the young man at his father's death, and old Mr. Foker's life's devilish bad: you know he had a fit, at Arthur's, last year: I should say, that young Foker won't have less than fourteen thousand a year from the brewery, besides Logwood and the Norfolk property. I've no pride ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Slipslop, the swinish avarice of Parson Trulliber, the calculating cruelty of Mrs Tow-wouse, to name but some of the vices here exposed, blazon forth that 'enthusiasm for righteousness' which constantly moved Fielding to exhibit the devilish in human nature in all its 'native Deformity,' it is still Adams who remains the central figure of the great comic epic. Concerning the good parson, appreciation has stumbled for adequate words, from the tribute of ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... faith! 'twas on only foolhardiness caused me to grant that devilish prosecutor another sight of my scarlet device. I knew what you maniacs would be after, so I came across in the Daydream,just to see if I couldn't get ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... observes the worthy Fray Antonio Agapida, "remained shut up in a tower of the Gibralfaro devising devilish means to work mischief and discomfiture upon the Christians. He was daily consulted by Hamet, who had great faith in those black and magic arts which he had brought with him from the bosom of ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... punishments. In this matter it reached with perfection its prototype, the times of the cruel Roman Emperors.... Never has 'justice' been more barbarous; not even in the darkest Middle Ages has torture been more refined, more devilish, than in the days of Humanism.... Truly it is no accident that immediately after, indeed, even before, the end of the Renaissance, everywhere in Western Europe the fires began to glow wherein thousands of unhappy wretches expired in torments for the sake of their faith; men's minds were only too ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... self-asserting, it becomes (as power working for its own sake, unwilling to acknowledge love for its superior, must) the devil. That is the legend of Lucifer, the star that would not own its centre. Yet, while it is unconscious, it is not devilish, only daemoniac. In nature, we trace it in all volcanic workings, in a boding position of lights, in whispers of the wind, which has no pedigree; in deceitful invitations of the water, in the sullen rock, which never shall find a voice, and in the shapes of ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... and suggesting improvements; I, of course, expressed myself highly grateful for his condescension. Going out, I met Strangeways. 'So you're going to read out to-day, Ruskin. Do go it at a good rate, my good fellow. Why do you write such devilish good ones?' Went a little farther and met March. 'Mind you stand on the top of the desk, Ruskin; gentlemen-commoners never stand on the steps.' I asked him whether it would look more dignified to stand head or heels uppermost. He advised heels. ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... hang't; I was not afraid neither—though I confess he did in a manner snap me up—yet I can't say that it was altogether out of fear, but partly to prevent mischief—for he was a devilish choleric fellow. And if my choler had been up too, agad, there would have been mischief done, that's flat. And yet I believe if you had been by, I would as soon have let him a' had a hundred of my teeth. Adsheart, if he ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... worldly and consider themselves as something holy and far worthier than we, I will give you yet a further instance of it, that you may see by the errors into which those fall who trust them too much that not only are they human like others, but that there is something devilish in their nature, passing the ordinary wickedness of men. This you will learn from the ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. IV. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... hard-pinched laborer. If you will examine a copy of "The Banker and Tradesman," published in this city, and look down the column of chattel-mortgages, for any week, you will see a very innocent-appearing column, to the unadvised, but one that is full of devilish wickedness to a man who has been behind the scenes. If there be anything in Boston that can rival the cruelty of the tenement-house sweat-shop, you will find it in the dens of some chattel-mortgage sharks, whose business methods I have investigated. Here is a woman who made her living ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks |
