"Imp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... imp of Satan!" I called furiously, but I could hear him speeding down the corridor, and the slam of the outer office door by which he always announced his presence. And so I stood there in that ridiculous cupboard, hot with the heat of a steaming September day, musty with the smell ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... are you?" "Just look on the ground, and observe from where my voice comes," he replied. There the thieves at length found him, and lifted him up. "You little imp, how will you help us?" they said. "A great deal," said he; "I will creep into the pastor's room through the iron bars, and will reach out to you whatever you want to have." "Come, then," they said, "and we will see what you can do." When they got to the pastor's house, Thumbling crept into ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... dangerous. I am not one of those who start up three at a time, and fall upon and strike at him with so much eagerness, that our daggers hack one another in his sides. My honourable friend has not brought down a spirited imp of chivalry, to win the first achievement and blazon of arms on his milk-white shield in a field listed against him, nor brought out the generous offspring of lions, and said to them, "Not against that side of the forest, beware of that—here ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... appearing here and there. The points of interest here are the machinery, the negroes, and the work. Entering the sugar-house, we find the maquinista (engineer) superintending some repairs in the machinery, aided by another white man, a Cooly, and an imp of a black boy, who begged of all the party, and revenged himself with clever impertinence on those who refused him. The maquinista was a fine-looking man, from the Pyrenees, very kind and obliging. He told us that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... Adige's flowery bank him bore, Sophia the fair, spouse to Bertoldo great, Fit mother for that pearl, and before The tender imp was weaned from the teat, The Princess Maud him took, in Virtue's lore She brought him up fit for each worthy feat, Till of these wares the golden trump he hears, That soundeth glory, ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... peeps from the sky With one eye open, one shut. Hark, ring of the drill 'neath the plain! Wakea asks you to explain, 40 What imp is a-drilling below? It is I, mutters Pele: I drilled till flame shot forth on Lanai, A pit ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... She could hear him getting ready to laugh. "The moment I caught sight of the little imp, I forgot I was tired. Whatever she's been up to, it's something interesting. May I wait and ...
— Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... imp, Paddy, rushed out at the hall door, barking at the motor, and I was so busy wondering what he would look like squashed quite flat that I forgot all about toot, toot. But run and ask Nannie to put on your coat, for I am going to take you out ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... Small imp of blackness, off at once, Expend thy mirth as likes thee best: Thy toil is over for the nonce; Yes, "opus operatum est." When dreary authors vex thee sore, Thy Mentor's old, and would remind thee That if thy griefs are all before, Thy pleasures are ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... me imp or elf, . I warn you look well to yourself; If ye call me fairy, Ye 'll find me quite contrary; If good neighbour you call me, Then good neighbour I will be; But if you call me kindly sprite, I 'll be your ...
— The Gold Of Fairnilee • Andrew Lang
... as Donacha Dhu said, the Whistler was a born imp of Satan, and therefore he should never leave him. Accordingly, from his eleventh year forward, he was one of the band, and often engaged in acts of violence. The last of these was more immediately occasioned by the researches which the Whistler's real father made after ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... had landed just before them. Immediately after Archie and Eddie were swept in amid the foam, and Junkie himself—who, like his brothers, could swim like a cork—came careering in on the top of a wave, like a very water-imp! With all the energy of his nature he turned, the moment his feet touched ground, to lend a hand to his friend Tonal', who ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... shall get to Concord one day. Your wife must love me. If the little Boy be a well-behaved fellow, he shall ride on my back yet: if not, tell him I will have nothing to do with him, the riotous little imp that he is. And so God bless you always, my ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... simplicity, the enthusiasm of youth—but also darkened, alas! with its full share of youth's precipitance and extravagance, fierce passions and blind self-will—its virtues and its vices colossal, and, for that very reason, always haunted by the twin-imp of the ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... "Miss McEvoy lands into the hall, an' 'O Letitia,' says she, 'those must be the gentleman's fishing rods!' and then 'Julia!' says she, 'could ye give us a bit o' lunch?' That one's the imp!" ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... improved breeds of the pig, and in the larger breeds of the ox, than in other breeds of these two animals. And now we know, on the excellent authority of Hermann von Nathusius (3/90. A translation of his paper is given in 'Bull. Soc. Imp. d'Acclimat.' tome 9 1862 page 723.), that Merino and Southdown sheep, when both have long been kept under exactly the same conditions, differ in their average period of gestation, as is seen in ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... impotent to divine the secret which the gods defend, The Why of birth and life and death, that Isis-veil ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... through the principle of antithesis, certain expressive gestures; for it is Dot probable that these animals, confined in cages, should have learnt them by imitating dogs. [4] Many particulars are given by Gueldenstadt in his account of the jackal in Nov. Comm. Acad. Sc. Imp. Petrop. 1775, tom. xx. p. 449. See also another excellent account of the manners of this animal and of its play, in 'Land and Water,' October, 1869. Lieut. Annesley, R. A., has also communicated to me some particulars with respect to the jackal. I have made many inquiries ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... risk thy body in his presence? Tell me, O my soul, what imp possessed thee?" pleaded Asad in his most seductive tone. His curiosity was real, and very great. "All demand to know. That old ghoul vows he caught thee begging money of thy former patron—the Emir, we used to call ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... with busy doctors and impatient nurses, and long apprehensive hours in what had been home. In "Little Venice," in the best powder-blue jar and the rest, he found no solace, on the contrary, the occasion of revolting suggestions. There was an imp that whispered that she must die and that he should resume collecting. With horror he fled the evil place, and spent an endless night on tolerance ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... boyishly. "Good for me! You'd jolly soon floor me if you didn't. Look at that parroquet, I say! He flashes like an emerald, and see that imp of a monkey! He's actually daring to rebuke us for trespassing. I call this road a disgrace to the State, don't you? If I were the Rajah—by the way, the Rajah isn't coming, ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... With antic toys so funnily bestuck, Light as the singing bird that wings the air,— (The door! the door! he'll tumble down the stair!) Thou darling of thy sire! (Why, Jane, he'll set his pinafore afire!) Thou imp of mirth and joy! In Love's dear chain so strong and bright a link, Thou idol of thy parents,—(Drat the boy! There goes ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... too busy thinking, but Ben went on telling about other cruises with 'friends.' Oh, a steam-yacht can be a first-class imitation of hell if the right imp owns her. Henry got speaking of one time down ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... community and civil society, so that it appears to be said with the fullest truth: "The state of the commonwealth depends on the religion with which God is worshipped, and between the one and the other there is a close relation and connection." (Sacr. Imp. ad Cyrillum Alexandr, et Episcopus metrop. ef Labbeum Collect Conc., T. iii.) Admirably, as he is accustomed, did Augustine in many places dilate on the power of those good things, but especially when he addresses the Catholic Church in these words: "Thou treatest boys as boys, youths with strength, ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... a better boy than you think, John. He loves his parent, and when that imp of a Rover got Mr. Baxter into trouble Daniel was very much exercised ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield
... still staring at me. Sitting on the edge of the bed I stared at her, filled with baudy curiosity and the appreciation of novelty. "Why won't you have the other gal?" said she. "I don't want her, nor want two,—and she is a dirty little imp." "No she ain't dirty, she washes herself like me,—let her come up." "No,—come you here." "She is quite clean,—I wash her myself sometimes." "No, come here I ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... volume of irresistible, rib-tickling fun, the Bad Boy, an incarnate but lovable imp of mischief, records his daily exploits, experiences, pranks and adventures, through all of which you follow him with an absorbing interest that never flags, stopping only when convulsions of laughter and aching sides force the mirth-swept body to take an involuntary respite ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... the dwarf; on which Amelia's eyes were rubbed with some ointment, and when she took a last peep, she could see that the stock was nothing but a hairy imp, with a face like the oldest and most ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... silence. I too walked on without speaking. Much as I love the night, it always makes me rather melancholy; and I dare say we should have got to Lowndes Street without exchanging a syllable, had not some imp of mischief prompted me to cross-examine my cousin a little upon his sejour in Wales, and to quiz him half spitefully on his supposed penchant for pretty Fanny Lloyd. John rose ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... fares with age, When pleasure, wealth, or power the bosom warm; This baffled hope might tame thy manhood's rage, And disappointment of her sting disarm. But why should foresight thy fond heart alarm? Perish the lore that deadens young desire! Pursue, poor imp, the imaginary charm, Indulge gay hope, and fancy's pleasing fire: Fancy and hope too soon shall of ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... various in the shape of their leaf, pointed rounder, longer, &c. (a devoted tree of old, and therefore incaedua) thrives manifestly with us; witness His Majesty's privy-garden at White-hall, where once flourish'd a goodly tree, of more than fourscore years growth, and there was lately a sickly imp of it remaining: And now very many rais'd by me, have thriv'd wonderfully, braving the most severe Winters, planted either in standards or hedges, which they most beautifully become. The only difficulty is in their being dextrously ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... charmed his grandfather's heart was the prototype of Sandy in Mrs. Humphry Ward's "David Grieve". When the book came out my father wrote to the author: "We are very proud of Julian's apotheosis. He is a most delightful imp, and the way in which he used to defy me on occasion, when he was here, was quite refreshing. The strength of his conviction that people who interfere with his freedom are certainly foolish, probably wicked, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... another librarian also furnishes much food for thought. She writes: "I could almost say I am glad that others have trouble with that imp of darkness, the small boy. Much as I love him, there are times when extermination seems the only solution of the difficulty. However, our children's room is a paradise to what it was a year ago, and so I hope. The only thing is to know each boy as well as possible, something ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... of elbow-grease on your boots, Miss 'Allundale, though cook does heave saucepan-lids at my 'ed and call me a lazy wiper," this incorrigible imp protested to Charlotte one morning, when she had surprised him in tears and had consoled his woes ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... been narrated in the History. The "single book" treating of the Caesars, which Vopiscus says Tacitus wrote, must have been the "History," ten copies of which the Emperor Tacitus ordered to be placed every year in the public libraries among the national archives. (Tac. Imp. x.) Orosius, the Spanish ecclesiastic, who flourished at the commencement of the fifth century, has several references to Tacitus in his famous work, Hormesta. This great proficient in knowledge of the Scriptures and disciple of St. Augustin quotes the ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... with your Badgers' Feet, And Badger-like bite till your Teeth do meet; Help ye, Tart Satyrists, to imp my Rage, With all the Scorpions that should whip this Age. But that there's Charm in Verse, I would not quote The Name of Scot without an Antidote, Unless my Head were red, that I might brew Invention there that might be Poison too. ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... of his rest with imp, dragon and devil; But the Saint never lifted his eyes from the Book Till the tempter appeared in the guise of a woman; And her voice was so sweet that he ventured one look, And the devil rejoiced that the ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... work" shouted an old fellow whose face was redder than his half-bleached hair, and who having only two teeth like tusks left looked just like an oni (imp.) As for his wife, her teeth had long ago fallen out and the skin of her face seemed to have added a pucker for every year since a half century had ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... No Goblin he; no imp of sin: No crimes had ever known. They took the shaggy stranger in, And rear'd him as ...
— Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs • Robert Bloomfield
... thieves wouldn't knock," whispered Siller, tearing her back hair. "Hear 'em rattle that door! That was what it meant when I saw that black cat, just before sundown, worritting the doctor's dog. I thought then it was an imp." ...
— Little Grandmother • Sophie May
... which a tiny imp of memory whispered into West's ear that Miss Weyland herself had commented on the Rev. Mr. Dayne's ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... which he contrives to keep contorted, and assuming a supercilious expression and a languid manner, struts leisurely towards us, with his hands in his pockets, thereby giving what I am forced to admit is an imitation of myself perfect in its burlesque. Ben Flint roars with laughter. I clutch the imp and throw him across knee and pretend to spank him. We struggle lustily ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... worry, His manner was free from the national hurry. Repose marked his movements. Yet gaze in his eye, And you saw that this calm outer man was a lie; And you knew that deep down in the depths of his breast There dwelt the unmerciful imp of unrest. ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... The young imp, in the next day's practice, worked up the grandmamma to a state of great excitement, urging her to take a cool and determined aim at the looking-glass. "Cover him well, ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... A little imp with a nasty sneering voice that jabbed like a hot needle perched itself on his shoulder and kept dinning into ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... was one small boy—a half-breed, with piercing black eyes and curly hair, whose powers of mischief were so great that he was almost equal to the lost Tony. He did his mischief quietly, and, as it were, with restrained enthusiasm. For instance, this imp chanced to be passing a group of Canadian buffalo-hunters seated round one of the camp-fires enjoying a can of tea. One of them raised a pannikin to his lips. The imp was at his elbow like a flash ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... But imp, O Muse, a stronger wing Mount, leaving self below, and sing What thoughts these Cuban ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... the gang were busied here and there, bulking grotesquely as they moved about the fire, seeming disheveled demons of the pit. Like some master imp torturing a pigmy over the flames, old Ben York was kneeling close beside the blaze, holding to the coals a hickory stick, which served as spit for the roasting of a squirrel. The brilliance shone full on the frowsy gray whiskers, ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... and younger son, had not one of his brother's characteristics; he had no gentle courtesies, no quiet ways. Except when asleep, he was never known to be still for a moment. One glance at his fiery head, at his comical face, would show plainly that he was a very imp of mischief. He was kind-hearted—he would not willingly injure the smallest living thing—but his wild, ungovernable spirit, his sense of the ludicrous in all and every circumstance, made him sometimes do unintentional harm, and his mother had some difficulty in getting him out ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... in Japan, there once lived curious creatures called Onis. Every Japanese boy and girl has heard of them, though one has not often been caught. In one museum, visitors could see the hairy leg of a specimen. Falling out of the air in a storm, the imp had lost his limb. It had been torn off by being caught in the timber side of a well curb. The story-teller was earnestly assured by one Japanese lad that his grandfather had seen it ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... suddenly, that black curtain was rent by jagged spurts of red and yellow flame. Dazed for an instant, her heart throbbing wildly to the sharp reports of the rifles, she shrank cowering back, her fascinated gaze fixed on those imp-like figures leaping forward from rock to rock. Almost with the flash and sound Hampton sprang hastily back and ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... never into your study a little imp of darkness,—of intellectual darkness, we mean,—whose efforts to imitate the gentle interference of fatigue are as grotesque as they are vexatious, and who does not succeed in deceiving, however readily one may sometimes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... in a more erect position, he only managed to say: "Jess, don't tell me that uniform is gone. Don't! Go dig your grave, nigger, for if you black imp of Satan has gone to sleep and let some scoundrel steal my clothes, ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... collar and cuffs, and the number of the old "dirty Half-hundred" in tarnished metal on the shoulder-scales. "Sir Garnet," cried Charlie the witty, whilst Jack affected to prostrate himself before the grinning imp, exclaiming, "O great inkosi!" ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... had landed, the witch-queen's power over the Laidly Worm had gone, and she went back to her bower all alone, not an imp, nor a man-at-arms to help her, for she knew her hour was come. So when Childe Wynd came rushing up to the Laidly Worm it made no attempt to stop him or hurt him, but just as he was going to raise his sword ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... imp o' death, how durst ye dwell Within this pure and hallow'd cell, Thy purposes I ken fu' well Are to destroy, And wi' a mortal breathing spell, To blast ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 388 - Vol. 14, No. 388, Saturday, September 5, 1829. • Various
... a face, already lined with the practice of mimicry; and there was in it a very attractive blending of tenderness and humour. Mike was also one of those whom life at the beginning had impressed with the delight of one kind of work and no other. When a mere imp of a boy, the heartless tormentor of a large and sententious stepmother, the despair of schoolmasters, the most ingenious of truants, a humorous ragamuffin invulnerable to punishment, it was already revealed to him that his mission in life was to be the observation ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... herself, "why should I work through the channel of that little imp, Florence Aylmer? Why should she have the fame and glory, and I stay here as a poor companion? Why should I not throw up the thing and start myself as a writer and get praise and money and all the good things which fame and success bring in ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... read. She knows as much As average sixth-form boys; But not the greatest sage could touch The high, aggressive joys That imp her wing, like bird of prey, When in my dates ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... The young imp did not need to be told twice. In the twinkling of an eye he threw his arms around the tree, and reached the fork. When there, he ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... familiar! Kill the devil's imp!" came in various voices, the angry tones being not without ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... suspected of sorcery were put— a mode particularly favoured by that arch-scamp, Matthew Hopkins, 'Witch-Finder General'— was to tie down the accused in some painful or at least uneasy posture for twenty-four hours, during which time relays of watchers sat round. It was supposed that an imp would come and suck the witch's blood; so any fly, moth, wasp or insect seen in the room was a familiar in that shape, and the poor wretch was accordingly convicted of the charge. Numerous confessions are recorded to have been extracted in this manner ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... rules, Stopt, when the evening came, for want of light. The devils, who below from morn till night, Well pleased, had seen his work, exclaimed with sorrow, "Something he will forget before to-morrow!" One zealous imp flew upward from the place, And stood before him, with an angel face. "I come," said he, "sent from God's Realm of Peace, To light you, lest your holy labors cease." Well pleased, the saint wrote on with careful pen. The candle was consumed; the devil then Lighted his thumb; ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... perplexity there suddenly darted the sportive idea of getting Ann in the army! The audacious little imp of an idea peeped around corners in Katie's consciousness and tried to coquet with her. Banished, it came scampering back to whisper that Ann would not bring the army its first "past"—either masculine or feminine. Only ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... Did'st thou notice how that young imp of a page flouted thee, when thou did'st civilly inquire the hour of the day? Thou wert welcome as a wet Sunday to his new feather. I doubt whether I myself ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... know that, do you, you mischievous Imp? Then, for once in a way, you just know wrong!" exclaimed Mrs. Peckover, ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... crackled, and a hot repast speedily rejoiced the jaded frames of the two priests and the imp Samdad. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... the legend of Sakhr al-Jinn), a famous fiend cast by Solomon David son into Lake Tiberias whose storms make it a suitable place. Hence the "Bottle imp," a world-wide fiction of folk-lore: we shall find it in the "Book of Sindibad," and I need hardly remind the reader of Le Sage's "Diable Boiteux," borrowed from "El Diablo Cojuelo," the Spanish novel by Luiz ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... my blessed infant,' she retorted, tapping her nose again, screwing up her face, and twinkling her eyes like an imp of supernatural intelligence. 'Never YOU mind! You'd like to know whether I stop her hair from falling off, or dye it, or touch up her complexion, or improve her eyebrows, wouldn't you? And so you shall, my darling—when I ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... silence; but the twang of the guitar, with its suggestion of a festa, the singing voices, the youthful laughter, and the final exclamation ringing out in the dawn, overcame the angry and suspicious spirit that had hitherto dominated him. The boy's imp of fun was up and dancing within him. He could not drive it out ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... who have just returned from the lake there were six others in the camp at Sunrise Hill, their guardian, Miss McMurtry and one small imp or angel, according to one's way of looking at things. For Margaret Everett had joined the summer campers and, in order to accomplish it, had brought her small brother, Horace Virgil Everett, along with her. ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... victory obtained over a new object. Roughness makes you hold your breath. You do not stop disputing, but neither do you cease to conquer and to be conquered. In vain does reason sigh. You can not comprehend how such an imp manages to subjugate you so tyrannically. Everything tells you that the idol of your heart is a collection of caprices and follies, but she is a spoiled child, whom you can not help but love. The efforts which reflection causes you to make to loosen them, serve only to forge still tighter your ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... throwing occasional glances at the human sprig out of a corner of its eye, and snatching at tufts of leaves or grass here and there on the way, the unruffled beast leisurely moves on a few paces, and that imp of a boy seems to feel that his duty as herdsman ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... "Now the imp of mischief was in old Mr. Crow, just as it is in Blacky to-day, and he was smart too. There wasn't anybody smarter than old Mr. Crow. It's from him that Blacky gets his smartness. It didn't take him long to discover that no one ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... first man of any society in which fate might happen to cast him—and fate had been pleased to cast him into a great many. He was a short, compactly-made, symmetrically-formed man, with a countenance deeply indented with the small-pox, and in every hole there was visibly ensconced a little imp of audaciousness. His eyes were such intrepid and quenchless lights of impudence, that they could look even Irish sang froid out of countenance. And then that inimitable wooden leg! It was a perfect grace. As he managed it, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... Chaplain's lustrous teeth glistened in his bronzed face. The young imp was pleased at this innocent duplicity, and he took advantage of it by speaking to ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the hills we found a water-hole, but the cattle had been there first, and the sheep wouldn't look at it. At the camp last night there was another hole, but some imp had deviled the herd an' they lay alongside the water, dyin' of thirst, but they wouldn't drink. We pushed 'em in an' they swam around; we half-drowned some of 'em, ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... The imp of resistance took instant possession of Polly, and she said: "Tom, there's where you belong—with men who want to talk about work and money. You are too old to enjoy youthful follies as ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... walks, for all the world as if the show belonged to him, with a young imp of a girl on his arm, and down they sits ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... Chiefs we gave a medal with the Imp. of the President of the U S. To the 2d Chiefs a medal of weaveing & Domestic animals. To the 3rd Chiefs a medal with the impression ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... who lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was past sixty and had a Michael Angelo's Moses beard curling down from the head of a satyr along the body of an imp. Behrman was a failure in art. Forty years he had wielded the brush without getting near enough to touch the hem of his Mistress's robe. He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it. For several years he had painted nothing except ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... ignis fatuus course, dragging the weak and the vain and the selffish [Transcriber's note: sic], through mud and mire, after her, and acting all parts, from the modest rushlight to the gracious star, just as it suits her. Clever little imp that she is! What exquisite tact she shows!—what unflagging good humour!—what ready self-possession! Becky never disappoints us; she never even makes us tremble. We know that her answer will come exactly suiting her one particular object, and frequently three or four ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... that being pressed to go and visit the rector, he absolutely refused, saying he was a wicked old Pharisee, inside whose doors he would never set his foot. The doctor wrote me a letter, warning me against the deplorable errors of this young imp of perdition, as he called him; and I could see that there was no love lost between them. But it appeared that, if not agreeable to the gentry of the country, young Bullingdon had a huge popularity among the common ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... spirits somewhat composed when her brother arrived from Natchez to take her home. This morning he, Annie, and Reeney, the black handmaiden, posted off. Out of seven of us only H., myself, and Aunt Judy are left. The absence of Reeney will not be the one least noted. She was as precious an imp as any Topsy ever was. Her tricks were endless and her innocence of them amazing. When sent out to bring in eggs she would take them from nests where hens were hatching, and embryo chickens would be served up at breakfast, while Reeney stood ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... subject with the girl, and well he knew it. Wee Anne, that golden-haired imp of mischief, was forever evading her sister-mother's eye and attempting to immolate herself. More than once she had only been saved from serious hurt by the watchful devotion of Owd Bob, who always found time, despite his many labors, to ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... something of one talk under the overhanging bushes of the shrubbery—I on the park side of the stone wall, and the lady of my worship a little inelegantly astride thereon. Inelegantly do I say? you should have seen the sweet imp as I remember her. Just her poise on the wall comes suddenly clear before me, and behind her the light various branches of the bushes of the shrubbery that my feet might not profane, and far away ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... a queer little black cat I wanted to show you, but he's gone off somewhere. I'd take him with me—only it's bad luck to move cats. He's awful wild—won't let anybody pet him but me. Mamma says he's an imp of Satan—but I love him. He runs up a tree when anybody else tries to get him. But he climbs right up on my shoulder. I never loved any cat quite as well as this silly, half-wild one. You don't ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... Gregorio: El progreso de Filipinas. Estudios economicos, administrativos y politicos. Parte economica. Madrid, Imp. de la Vda. de J M. Perez, ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal
... said, "it is black sorcery against one who is a god, and will bring my soul to hell. Find some other instrument, or place the waxen imp in the bed of ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... that withered imp, Wi' a' his noise and caperin'; And take a share with those that bear The budget and ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... listened to my stories, but he sat cocking on his seat like an imp of mischief. I rattled on, insouciant and careless to all appearances, but in reality my heart like lead. Behind my smiling lips I cursed him up hill and down dale. Lard, his malicious grin was a thing to rile the gods! More than once I wake up in the ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... circumstances as to the disposal of my daughter.—My daughter! that word sends the blood to and from my heart in cold and then in hot gushing streams! But, Robin, you must not tarry; close watch shall be set for this dangerous imp, to prevent farther mischief; and if Springall's conjecture should be right—yet it is most wild, and most improbable!—What disguise will you adopt in this pursuit ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... near me, yet remoter Than a star—a blue-eyed, bashful imp: On her lap she held a happy bloater, 'Twixt her lips a yet ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... blessyd maye, Quene of hevyn, Imp{er}es of helle, Sende me grace both ny[gh]t and daye!" Whate eu{er} thow sey, A-vyse ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... his 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
... Terry Street office that petrified them into old men before their due time. The three clerks who sat in the outer rooms were also elderly, and the sole youthful creature about the place was the office boy, a red-haired imp who answered to the name of Alexander. His surname was Benker, but was not thought sufficiently dignified for use in so sedate a ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... kept bringing out one unexpected and wholly unexpectable thing after another, as if he were a magician, and had only to fling a private signal into the air, and some attendant imp would hand forth any strange relic we might choose to ask for. He was especially rich in drawings by the Old Masters, producing two or three, of exquisite delicacy, by Raphael, one by Salvator, a head by Rembrandt, ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... advocate, and Veitel understood him, and looked with a mixture of respect and aversion at the ugly little imp gesticulating before him. At last Hippus took out the brandy bottle, and cried, "An extra glass to-day. What I have just told you, you young gallows-bird, is worth more than ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... left now," continued the Imp; and thrusting a hand into the pocket of his knickerbockers he drew forth six inches or so of slimy worm and held it out to me upon his small, ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... spoke, there came a blush, as innocent as virgin ever knew, to my mother's smooth cheek; and she looked so fair, so good, and still so young all the while that you would have said that either Dusius, the Teuton fiend, or Nock, the Scandinavian sea-imp, from whom the learned assure us we derive our modern Daimones, "The Deuce," and Old Nick, had possessed my father, if he had not learned to love such ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... period of his life Joe was saved from being a John Brown by his sense of humor. This was the imp in him that always poked a little doubt into his heart and laughed at his ignorance and innocence. By next morning Joe was smiling at himself. Nevertheless, he ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... all I know. I have done what I was bidden to do, up to a certain point. I am now here to recruit, and restore my wasted energies, and possibly to heal (observe, I say possibly) my wounded affections in the intimacy of my family circle. That reminds me that that little ungrateful imp Molly has not yet made the slightest demonstration of joy at my arrival. Where is she?" and without waiting for an answer, which he was well aware would not be forthcoming, Charles rose and strolled towards the house with ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... imp on his nose kicked and danced and stamped about in great delight at finding himself perched up so high. We all know how painful it is to have one's nose knocked, even ever so little, so you may imagine that the old miser did not enjoy himself at all. ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... certainly unlike the ungrown girl whom Lord Chetwynde had seen years before. Still more unlike was the face. Pale, with delicate, transparent skin, it was not so dark as that face which had dwelt in his memory. Her eyes did not seem so wild and staring as those of the imp whom he had married; but deep, dark, and strong in their gaze, as they looked back steadily into his. The hair was now no longer disordered, but enfolded in its dark, voluminous masses, so as to set off to ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... old gentleman again, moving off, 'you will please amuse yourself until I return'; but seeing me look wild, said, 'You have seen too much of me to feel alarmed for your own safety. Take this imp for your guide, and if he is impertinent, put him through; and for fear the exhibitions may overcome your nerves, imbibe of this cordial,' which I did, and everything danced before my eyes, and ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... with them, and slap his knees For very mirth, and say 'twas some mistake. Judas carried the bag, sirs, for Christ's sake, And was a thief; and such a thief was he; His master got but sorry share, pardie. To give due laud unto this Satan's imp, He was a thief, a Sumner, ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... won promotion, with leave to order his elder about, you may guess there were heart-burnings. Add to this that it kept these good citizens chafing to note how often (and indeed regularly) advancement passed them over to light on some young gentleman of family or 'imp,' as they growled, 'from the Inns ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... soul, so it's you, 'Joannes Frollo de Molendino!'" cried one of them, to a sort of little, light-haired imp, with a well-favored and malign countenance, clinging to the acanthus leaves of a capital; "you are well named John of the Mill, for your two arms and your two legs have the air of four wings fluttering on the breeze. How ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... and familiar guest, Whose life and manners well could paint Alike the student and the saint; Alas! whose speech too oft I broke With gambol rude and timeless joke; For I was wayward, bold, and wild, A self-will'd imp, a grandame's child; But, half a plague and half a jest, ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... of early words of Greek origin; some of which are likewise in familiar use. I may instance alms, angel, bishop, butter, capon, chest, church, clerk, copper, devil, dish, hemp, imp, martyr, paper (ultimately of Egyptian origin), plaster, plum, priest, rose, sack, school, silk, treacle, trout. Of course the poor old woman who says she is "a martyr to tooth-ache" is quite unconscious that she is talking Greek. Probably she is not ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat
... who, in 1600, at his office, "the sign of the White Hart," printed that exquisite fairy poem, Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream." How one envies the "reader" of that office, the compositors—nay, even the sable imp who pulled the proof, and snatched a passage or two about Mustard and Pease Blossom in a surreptitious glance! Another great Fleet Street printer was Richard Grafton, the printer, as Mr. Noble says, of the first correct folio English translation of the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... cart-horse offended her nurse's ideas of propriety, and met with no sympathy from her mother or grandmother. But she was apt to get her own way; and from time to time she appeared suddenly, like a fairy-imp, in the stable, where she majestically directed the groom to hold her up whilst she plied a currycomb on the old horse's back. This over, she would ask with dignity, "Do you take care of him, Miles?" And Miles, touching his cap, ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... agree in all that you said in your last letter. 'The imp of secession can't reenter its mother's womb.' It is merely childish to talk of the Union 'as it was.' You might as well bring back the Saxon Heptarchy. But the great Republic is destined to live and flourish, I can't doubt. ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... delightful home you have," Pliny said, eagerly, as the two young men lingered together in the hall; and then his face darkened as he added: "It is the first table I have sat down to in many a day without being tempted on every side by my faithful imp, starting up in some shape or other, to coax me to ruin. I tell you, Mallery, you know ...
— Three People • Pansy
... to hers as it rested on the taffrail. The act—an instinctive one—was a dumb protest against the movement she had made to withdraw. And as such Lilith read it; more potent in its impulsiveness than any words could have been. "Listen!" he went on. "I suppose there is a sort of imp of scepticism sitting ever upon one shoulder, and that is what you saw. Something in my thoughts suggested a droll contrast, that was all. So far from boring me, you have afforded me an ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... Wine—which is absurd. And if, in spite of its absurdity, you stick to this also, why, then you are only demonstrating that Mr. Lloyd Osbourne is one of the greatest living writers of fiction: and your conception of him as a mere imp of mischief jogging the master's elbow is wider ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Miss Elspeth. "He always means to be good, but he is inhabited by an imp of mischief that prompts him to do the most improbable things. He certainly doesn't make for peace in the school, but he keeps 'a body frae languor.' I like a naughty boy myself much better than a good one. He's the 'more natural beast of ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... stared at them, wondering what imp in the oven had worked a diabolical transformation. But investigation proved that there was no imp involved. It was merely that Sylvane or Merrifield, before departing, had casually dumped ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... round to the north side, I obtained a fine view of the modern improvements which have been constructed upon this Indian mound. I rode up a paved carriage-way into the church-yard that now occupies the top, and giving my horse to a squalid Indian imp who came out of the vestry, I went in and took a survey of the tawdry images through which God is now worshiped by the baptized descendants of the builders of this mound. My curiosity was soon gratified, and I returned to my place in ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... them, though to me, who long for stream and cataract, it seemed absolutely to stand still. I meditated returning to Shepherd's Bush, and began to think, with some hankering, after little Benjie and the rod. The imp has ventured hither, and hovers about to catch a peep of me now and then; I suppose the little sharper is angling for a few more sixpences. But this would have been, in Joshua's eyes, a return of the washed sow to wallowing in the ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... rolled a pair of speaking eyes to heaven. "The things that child thinks of! She is one little imp." ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... hesitates, as if there is something more he would like to have. "Graspum!" he says, "What for trade? can we strike for that imp o' yours at Mrs. Tuttlewill's?" Without waiting for Graspum's reply, he adds-"That chap 's goin to make a tall bit of property one of ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... a sigh of content from across the table. "Now I have my bearings. My imp is Mac Holden and Mrs. Farrington is Aunt Teddy, of course. I met her in New York, last winter, at a dinner or two; but she evidently had forgotten ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... scenes, based on his jealousies of her, which some imp in her would lead her to provoke, notwithstanding that even as she spoke she regretted, and reached back for ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... now discovered certain facts about Mr. Cazalette. He was an octogenarian. He was uncannily active. He had an almost imp-like desire to live—and to dance when he ought to have been wrapped in blankets and saying his last prayers. And a few minutes later, when we were seated round our host's table, I discovered another fact—Mr. Cazalette was one ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... tell me you'd not have done the same! Perhaps, though, you wouldn't. You're a lady, born and bred," owns Lessie grudgingly, "and I was a jobbing tailor's kid, that worked to keep myself and other folks as a baby imp in Pantomime, while you were being coddled up and ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... she continued, and his look grew guarded again. After all, they were all the same—except in that particular matter of the eyes. At the thought, he risked another look, hung on the sharp edge of betrayal, and was snatched back, not by the manly instinct of self-preservation, but by some imp of mockery lurking in the depths that ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... poets without stint, and shows himself a generous as well as a judicious critic. How Hartmann von Aue hits the meaning of a story! how loud and clear rings the crystal of his words! Did not Heinrich von Veldeke "imp the first shoot on Teutish tongues" (graft French on German poetry)? With what a lofty voice does the nightingale of the Bird-Meadow (Walther) warble across the heath! Nor is it unpleasant to come shortly afterwards to our old friends Apollo and the ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... like that infernal Bottle-Imp running us," he said hastily, and would hear of no concerted action for the end he had in view. "I'd rather not have ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... Medb and he lifted up his loud voice [6]of a warrior[6]: "That famous Cuchulain that ye so talk of ran and fled in defeat [7]before me when he came to me[7] in the morning." "We knew," spake Medb, "it would be even so when able warriors and goodly youths met him, that this beardless imp would not hold out; for when a mighty warrior, [8]Nathcrantail to wit,[8] came upon him, he withstood him not but before him he ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... the Valley to the Grapevine Range, and the hateful imp of evil which had dogged him through the Panamints would have to come down and leave a trail. And once he found his tracks Wunpost would know who he was fighting, and he could govern himself accordingly. If it was an Indian, well and good; if it was Lynch, still well ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... daughter of Alexius Comnenus, was also buried in this church rests upon the misunderstanding of a passage in the work of M. Crusius, where, speaking of that princess, the author says: 'Quae (Anna) anno Domini 1117 vixit; filia Alexii Comneni Imp. cujus sepulchrum adhuc exstat in templo patriarchatus Constantinopli a D. ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... pouring in upon her. Miss Welsh, LL.A., thus describes the household: "Jean, the ever-cheerful and willing helper; Annie the drawer of water and hewer of wood, kind willing worker; Mary the smart, handsome favourite; Alice the stolid dependable little body, and Maggie the fusionless, Dannie the imp, and Asoquoe who looked with his big innocent eyes a wee angel, and who yet was in constant trouble, chiefly for insisting on sharing the cat's meals. Then there were the babies—a lovely wee twin-girl, whom their mother was nursing, a poor ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... Carlos wander into the conservatory, and the imp of mischief that possessed her was prompting her to find new ways of teasing and testing him. The conservatory was in semi-darkness, but as Myra entered with Tony she located Don Carlos, for he happened to strike a match at that moment to light a cigarette, before ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... oft discouragement, the imp, Would whisper in our breast, "'Tis folly to continue on; Go, leave ...
— Silver Links • Various
... and general madness, they had come to the opinion that the strange young female whom the skipper had saved from the fore-top and carried to his house was such an imp of darkness as had never before blighted the life and luck of Chance Along. She had bewitched the skipper. Her evil eyes had cast a curse on the wreck and that curse had been the death of their three comrades. She had put a curse on the ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... in broken Arabic and lingua Franca, and presently he came in, shaking with suppressed laughter. 'If ever we get home,' said he, 'we'll make a pilgrimage to Tarascon! Blessings on good St. Martha that put that sweet little imp in my way! The rogues think he is the very genie that the fisherman let out of the bottle in Mademoiselle's book of the Thousand and One Nights, and thought to see him towering over the whole place. And a fine figure he would be with his hook nose and long beard. They sent me to beg you fairly ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Germain, dismounting; "just see the little imp lying there asleep, so far from home, and in a ditch, where a snake might ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... were spilt and wasted; he shut up a fighting bantam cock and the stable cat into a barn, and left them fighting furiously; he locked one of the farm-labourers in a hayloft, and pulled away the ladder, so that he was not released for hours, and he proved such an imp of mischief in the house that even his mother meditated handing him over to ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... had received in his fall. Then giving no more thought to Madame de Belle-Ile, who sat awaiting him eagerly, he returned gloomily to his hotel, reflecting on the carelessness which had delivered him into the hands of an indefatigable imp of mischief. The upshot of his reflection was a resolve to press his wooing to an immediate conclusion. The next day and the day after, therefore, he redoubled his lamentations that the smallness of his means prevented him from going, as his natural honesty dictated, straight ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... light. And merely in respect to his prime gift, Not in reward of meritorious deed, Hath each his several degree assign'd. In early times with their own innocence More was not wanting, than the parents' faith, To save them: those first ages past, behoov'd That circumcision in the males should imp The flight of innocent wings: but since the day Of grace hath come, without baptismal rites In Christ accomplish'd, innocence herself Must linger yet below. Now raise thy view Unto the visage most resembling Christ: For, in her splendour only, shalt thou win The ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... hear, ye young divil's imp! bring me another half noggin of speerits," and he gave her the halfpence; "and here, bring a ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... little wretch!" returned Barbara, whose flushed face looked lovely childlike in its indignation beside the furious phiz of the tormenting imp. ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... beholden to any lad in the school who will do your sums, and write your exercises for you, and then you take upon yourself to ridicule us if we cannot pronounce our well learnt lessons to your fancy! You saucy imp, who don't know what labour and good conduct are, and who have nothing to boast of, but the powers which a monkey possesses to a greater extent than yourself!" Fancy Joachim's rage! He, the admired wit! the popular boy! nothing better ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty
... on the fourth day he went to see how things were going on. Taking a long cord, he let it down into the pit, and out from thence he pulled a little demon. Frightened out of his wits, he was going to throw the imp back again into the pit, but it shrieked aloud, and earnestly entreated ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... Immobility senmoveco. Immoderate malmodera. Immodest nemodesta. Immolate oferbucxi. Immoral malbonmora. Immorality malbonmoreco. Immortal senmorta. Immortality senmorteco. Immovable senmova, nemovebla. Immutable nesxangxebla. Imp diableto. Impair difekti. Impart komuniki, sciigi. Impartial senpartia. Impartiality senpartieco. Impatience malpacienco. Impatient malpacienca. Impassive kvietega, stoika. Impeach kulpigi, denunci. Impediment baro. Impel ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... Europe rings, And fills all mouths with envy or with praise, And all her jealous monarchs with amaze, And rumours loud that daunt remotest kings, Thy firm unshaken virtue ever brings Victory home, though new rebellions raise Their Hydra-heads, and the false North displays Her broken League to imp their serpent wings: O yet a nobler task awaits thy hand, For what can War but endless war still breed, Till Truth and Right from Violence be freed, And public Faith cleared from the shameful brand Of public Fraud! ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... house by his custodian; and, while the guard was looking the other way, perhaps he had suddenly popped up the chimney, leaving the rebel soldier in charge of him to believe that he was in league with the powers of darkness, and had been spirited away by some diabolical imp. ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... Why, Cora, you are but a child, and Christ said: 'Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven.' Now, instead of following the holy precept of the Master, whom he feigns to serve, he declares you an imp of darkness. His zeal hath made him mad. Where is ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... imp of sin, No crimes he'd ever known. They took the shaggy stranger in, And rear'd him ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... Party," Master Byrne responded. The great man laughed and suffered him to escape, which I am told he did very willingly. Mr Bram Stoker afterwards took the child apart and told him that one of these days he would be very proud of having been taken on that old gentleman's knee. "Oh! I know," the imp responded, "it's old Gladstone; I don't want to be bothered with him. I have promised another boy to go and spin tops with ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... the bank Andra danced madly like an imp. He would not have dared to speak to Ralph on any other occasion, but guddling, like curling, loosens the tongue. He who fails or causes the failures of others is certain to hear very plainly of it from ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... years Booverman responded in a manner to delight imp and devil. When standing thirty-four for the first six holes, he sliced into the jungle, and, after twenty minutes of frantic beating of the bush, was forced to acknowledge a lost ball and no score, ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson |
