"Hobgoblin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... account with most men. He should have fared well had he wist his own mind a bit better—but that's in the blood. Old King Harry, his father's grandfather, I have heard say, was a weary set-out for that. Go thy ways, Avena, and stand not staring at me. I'm neither a lovesome young damsel nor a hobgoblin, that thou shouldst set eyes on me thus. Three ells of red samitelle, and two ounces of violet silk this hue—and a bit of gold twist shall harm no man. Amphillis, my maid, thou art not glued to the chamber floor like thy mistress; go thou and take ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... noise of mobs the American keeps his temper, and insists on justice without vindictiveness: wars and revolutions take nothing from his tranquillity, and he sets Hafiz and Shakespeare against Luther and Knox. Careless of formal consistency—"the hobgoblin of little minds"—he balances his aristocratic reserve with a belief in democracy, in progression by antagonism, and in collective wisdom as a limit to collective folly. Leaving his intellectual throne as the spokesman of a practical liberty, Emerson's wisdom was justified by ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... shoot you ... Frank! ... Answer me! Say something. ..." Even yet the dread of that hobgoblin presence lay like ice upon the elder brother; he feared to move lest he encounter it, lest he touch it and it enfold him; but when Frank's twitching body became still he fell to his knees and went groping forward on all-fours in search of it. Death was here now. He had ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... devotee of Gothic art, he reproduced the mediaeval monstrosities adorning cornice and pinnacle in human types. Equally devoted to nature out of doors, the same taste predominated. What he loved and sought was ever the savage, the legend-haunted, the ghoulish, seats and ambuscades of kelpie, hobgoblin, brownie and their kind. ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... recognise that, whatever be their personal convictions, there may be some "soul of goodness" in views diametrically opposed to their own, and, moreover, they must not be scared by what Emerson called that "hobgoblin of ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... is a moonlit revel of elves caught by a musical reporter, a surreptitious "chiel amang 'em takin' notes." A single hobgoblin bassoon croaks ludicrously away, the pixies darkle and flirt and dance ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... of nails avail the box, for the fall split it in three pieces; and I hid them under rubbish, for mortar and stones are plentiful down there. You should have seen my shade stretch under the moon like a tall hobgoblin. The nearest sentinel on the wall challenges me. 'Who is there?' 'Le Rossignol.' 'What are you doing?' 'Looking: for my swan's yoke.' Then he laughs—little knowing how I meant to serve his officer. The Hollandais mummy hath been of more use to me than trinkets. ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... time the subterranean diapason of a demoniac bass viol was heard; it rose to a wail, and rose and rose again till it screamed like a small siren. It was Gipsy's war-cry, and, at the sound of it, Duke became a frothing maniac. He made a convulsive frontal attack upon the hobgoblin—and the massacre began. ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... "I saw the hobgoblin without the aid of green tea," she rejoined. "There was really some one upon the porch, but why the apparition should scare Clara out of her wits, I cannot divine. The negro is an incurable Paul Pry, and, next to dancing a Christmas jig himself, is the pleasure ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... "be under no apprehension, let him come in, I fear him not, whether he be alguazil or hobgoblin. Stand, however, at the doorway, that you may be a witness of what takes place, as it is more than probable that he comes at this unreasonable hour to create a disturbance, that he may have an opportunity of making an unfavourable report to his principals, like the ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... or five interviews I had with Mr. Jaffrey. It will be sufficient to state that Andy glided from extreme infancy to early youth with astonishing celerity—at the rate of one year per night, if I remember correctly; and—must I confess it?—before the week came to an end, this invisible hobgoblin of a boy was only little less of a reality to ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... flashing of that name into his brain was like an electric shock. He cursed his inactivity. Great God! had he become a child again, to tremble before imagined evil, a mere hobgoblin of the mind? He had already wasted time enough; now he must wring from the lips of that misshapen savage the last vestige ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... frights the maidens of the villagery; Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern, And bootless make the breathless housewife churn; And sometime make the drink to bear no barm; Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm? Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck, You do their work, and they shall have good luck: Are ...
— A Midsummer Night's Dream • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... know if you really were so sick at heart that you hanged yourself there, or if it is only a hobgoblin that's before me!' said the man. 'Ah, well! you may hang there for me, whether you are a hobgoblin or not,' and on he went ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various |
