"Dare-devil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ask my pockets,—pockets, which are the symbols of man; Dare-devil, if you ask my heart. [Surveying me from head to foot.] The world seems to have smiled on you, Mr. Caxton! Are you not ashamed to speak to a wretch lying on the stones? but, to be sure, no ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the high-spirited, dare-devil sort. This lad was made for a scholar—-for the priesthood, in fact, and the army will be more uncongenial than these marble works! Foolish fellow, he will soon have had enough of it, with his refinement, ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... but how could we know that that dare-devil was a friend of Dewey's? If we'd let well enough alone, we shouldn't have lost our horses and been compelled to tramp on foot over ...
— Ben's Nugget - A Boy's Search For Fortune • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... message suggested, and trusting to Diana's resourcefulness let himself go with the tide. It was as though after sixteen years some spirit of the past suddenly re-entered him; some of that old reckless, dare-devil spirit that had distinguished him ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... John Mark in his quiet way. "Why should this dare-devil be destined to hunt me? I can gain nothing by his death but your hate. And, if he succeeds in breaking through Lefty, as he has broken through Kruger, even then he shall win nothing. I ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... it was for the taking up of able-bodied adults, the main idea in the formation of the gang was strength and efficiency. It was accordingly composed of the stoutest men procurable, dare-devil fellows capable of giving a good account of themselves in fight, or of carrying off their unwilling prey against long odds. Brute strength combined with animal courage being thus the first requisite of the ganger, it followed—not perhaps ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... of the Big Stampede and the trail of Ninety-eight, When the eyes of the world were turned to the North, and the hearts of men elate; Hearts of the old dare-devil breed thrilled at the wondrous strike, And to every man who could hold a pan came the message, "Up and hike". Well, I was there with the best of them, and I knew I would not fail. You wouldn't believe it to see me now; but wait till ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... itself by the sweet, heavenly term of holiness, but the vigorous, courageous, self-sacrificing, tender, Pentecostal experience of perfect love —we shall both save ourselves and enlighten the world, our converts will be strong, our Candidates for the work will multiply, and will be able, dare-devil men and women, and our people will come to be like the brethren of Gideon, of whom it was said, "Each one resembled the children of ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... his room, the guard outside the door heard him marching back and forth through all the weary night. The one thing he least expected, because he least understood it, had come to pass. He had been a good and true friend to the villain who had fled, for Arnold's reckless bravery and dare-devil fighting had appealed to the strongest passion of his nature, and he had stood by him always. He had grieved over the refusal of Congress to promote him in due order and had interceded with ultimate success in his behalf. ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... young man, whether son of the gentilhomme, or of the humble habitant, was carried away by his love for forest life, and no enactments, however severe—not even the penalty of {174} death—had the effect of restraining his restlessness. That the majority of the coureurs de bois were a reckless, dare-devil set of fellows, it is needless to say. On their return from their forest haunts, after months of savage liberty, they too often threw off all restraint, and indulged in the most furious orgies. Montreal was their favourite ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... ounces to the dish, was Tony Taylor; still less did they expect that he would leave his selection home, to say nothing of the charms of Birralong and Marmot's verandah, for a wild-cat yarn of travelling fossickers. He was one of the brightest lights in the district, handsome, dare-devil Tony. There was not a horse he could not ride, and his rivals had brought some pretty tough buckjumpers to test him at different times—"fair holy terrors," they called them—but Tony sat them, even when girth and crupper had carried away. He was the only individual who had ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... is the leader," whispered Smith, "you had better let me have a clip at him first, as he is a man of great strength, and a regular dare-devil!" ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... fright; they were utterly stupefied. One bold spirit did begin to sing, but he sat down at once on the ground and hid himself behind the others.... And what is so surprising is this: we have had landowners like that, dare-devil gentlemen, regular rakes, of course: they dressed pretty much like coachmen, and danced themselves and played on the guitar, and sang and drank with their house-serfs and feasted with the peasants; but this Vassily Nikolaitch is like a girl; he is always reading books or writing, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... "That young dare-devil will kill himself one of these days," said the blacksmith. "That colt of Captain Bowen's is likely to take it into her head to bring up short at any minute. Better call ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... dare-devil riders were as gentle as women; they urged the tiny youngsters onward with harmless switches or with painless blows from loose-coiled riatas; they picked them up in their arms ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... sweeping to the floor in a bow when he saw me. He stopped and looked at me in surprise, his lips framing themselves for a whistle. I could see the starch run through and take a grip of him. For just a gliff he stood puzzled and angry. Then he came in wearing his ready dare-devil smile and sat down easily ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... and brushed away the tears that blurred her vision, while a lump rose in her throat too big to swallow. "Gentle Annie" of The Colonial veranda, erstwhile authority on Battenburg and sweaters, had accomplished the most reckless of the dare-devil feats of the cow-country—he had "bull-dogged" a steer ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... domestic memories of his young Cape wife and child, tend to bend him still more from the original ruggedness of his nature, and open him still further to those latent influences which, in some honest-hearted men, restrain the gush of dare-devil daring, so often evinced by others in the more perilous vicissitudes of the fishery. I will have no man in my boat, said starbuck, who is not afraid of a whale. by this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... flaxen head, with his shirt opened on his chest and no hat on, Dymov looked handsome and exceptionally strong; in every movement he made one could see the reckless dare-devil and athlete, knowing his value. He shrugged his shoulders, put his arms akimbo, talked and laughed louder than any of the rest, and looked as though he were going to lift up something very heavy with one hand and astonish the whole world by doing so. His mischievous mocking ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... because we can't get no port wine anywhere else, and they can't get nobody else to buy it of them; so the Portuguese gave up their arsenal at Lisbon, for the use of the English, and there we kept all our stores, under the charge of that old dare-devil, Sir Isaac Coffin. Now it so happened, that one of the clerks in old Sir Isaac's office, a Portuguese chap, had been some time before that in the office of the Spanish ambassador; he was a very smart sort of a chap, and ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... could be tender as well as steely. Perhaps he had sisters at the old home, and perhaps, too, I was the first woman he had seen in months to remind him of them. I shall always believe that he is from good people some place East, that his "dare-devil" nature got him into some kind of trouble there, and that he came to this wild country to hide from Justice. The very morning after we got here, not long after our breakfast, he appeared at our tent with a fine young deer ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... a great deal of my pilot. He was about twenty-seven years old, and was cool and certain. He was a dare-devil, and had only been over in England a short time after spending months on the ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... softened her, but, pained and indignant at his desertion, she hardly heeded them; how was she to know that Camillo Borghese was, under his cold exterior, very honestly in love with his wife and just now cruelly tortured with jealousy of her brother-in-law, the dare-devil Murat? For the latter was as unscrupulous as he was handsome, as Napoleon was to find to his cost, though in recognition of his services as a dashing leader of cavalry he had rewarded him with the hand of his sister Caroline ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... excellent test to apply to a would-be champion, although there have been complaints that this course also is short. Yet it is longer than it used to be, and it is merely the rubber-filled ball that makes it seem short. The third hole at Prestwick is one that stirs the soul of the dare-devil golfer, for, after he has despatched the ball safely and well from the tee, he finds a big, gaping bunker, the famous "Cardinal," ahead of him for his second—an ugly brute that gives a sickening feeling ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... swelling round them, were very literally carrying out their orders to ride "swift as the messengers of Azrael." He had known them both on his previous visits, though he had not recognised them in the dark hours of the dawn when they joined the troop, and remembered them as two of the most dare-devil and intrepid of Mukair Ibn Zarrarah's followers. A moment since they had grinned at him in cheery greeting, exhibiting almost childlike pleasure when he had called them by name, and had set off with an obeisance as deep to him as to ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... proceeding so spectacular, but he was as he was made, and he could not keep his dare-devil spirit quite in abeyance. He twitched his hat farther back on his head, stuck his hands deep into his pockets, and walked deliberately out into the open, his neck as stiff as a newly elected politician on parade. He did not stop, as Jack had done, ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... feeling, of his low voice, of his fits of musing, that the aggregate impression is that of affectation and self-consciousness, rather than of a simple, passionate, and heroic nature. Mr. Gray does not seem to us at all like the rash, fiery, and dare-devil Scotchman of history. His conduct and conversation, as recounted in the fifth chapter of the novel, are unnatural and improbable; and we cannot wonder that the first lieutenant did not know what to make of so melodramatic and sententious a gentleman, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... did not answer her, and Patricia, now thoroughly alarmed, sought vainly for a means of bringing this impetuous and dare-devil young ranchman to his senses. She thought once, as they ascended a short hill, of leaping from the car to the ground, but the speed was too great for her to take such a risk. It even occurred to her to seize the steering-wheel, and to give it a sharp turn, thus wrecking the machine; ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... cashmere, some sea-shells, a necklace of uncut turquoises, the colour changed to green, a prayer-book, a little hymnal, and a bundle of letters, tied with a faded blue ribbon, which she did not touch. There was but one picture—an ambrotype, in an ornate case, of a handsome young man, with that dashing, dare-devil look in his eyes which has ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... sun shone he buttoned his greasy, threadbare overcoat across his breast, and crawled to the public garden of the Luxembourg, where he might be seen shuffling slipshod along the sunniest walk, an object of contempt and aversion in the eyes of nursery-maids and grisettes—a butt for the dare-devil students of the quarter. ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... head; but he struggled resolutely to keep his face front the set of the sea, and the buoy supported him bravely. His thoughts ran on things past; he had spoken unkindly of Sally, behind her back; he had been tipsy—Ah! how often! Then he thought, "Shall I pray and repent?" All the dare-devil in the deluded lad's soul arose at this question, and he snarled "No. Blowed if I snivel just yet, only because I'm in a bad way." Oh, Jack, Jack! And the deep grave weltering below you, and only a ring of cork and oilskin to keep you out of that cold home. Was there never a shudder as ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... Burns grinned over his shoulder at his character-woman. "Wait till we start back; I'll know the road then, and we'll do some traveling!" he promised darkly, and laid his toe lightly on the brake. It pleased him to be considered a dare-devil driver; that is why he always drove whatever machine carried him. They went lurching down the curving grade into the hollow, and struck the patch of sand that had worn out the vocabularies of more eloquent men than ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... last almost reluctantly, and Jim shuddered. The knife-thrower! What wouldn't the little dare-devil be willing to ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... words between us, externals spoke with greater force. He had the Greek line of head and throat, and he sat his horse with a dare-devil repose. The eloquence of his mute attitudes, his physical mastery of the conditions, his strength repressed, tied to my silly freaks and subject to my commands, while his thoughts roamed free! That was the beginning. It lasted through a week ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... be preferred to the "laters." Every good thing that has blest mankind since Adam had his celebrated adventure with green goods in the Garden of Eden, has been discovered, invented, dug out or dug up, by a "sooner." He has always been a dare-devil whose courage was so prominent as to attract the envy and malice of every "later" that whittled dry-goods boxes into splinters and used his time to cuss "the government." God bless the whole "sooner" tribe, say I, from Adam ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... met at the rail by a man who had been through scores of adventures, Captain Wilson. The son of the captain of a Newcastle collier, Wilson had grown up a dare-devil sailor boy. He enlisted as a soldier in the American war, became captain of a vessel trading with India, and was then captured and imprisoned by the French in India. He escaped from prison by climbing a great wall, and ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... carrying a pack. And when this was deposited on the ground all the rustlers sat down around it. They had brought food and drink. Jean had to utter a grim laugh at their coolness; and he was reminded of many dare-devil deeds known to have been perpetrated by the Hash Knife Gang. Jean was glad of a reprieve. The longer the rustlers put off an attack the more time the allies of the Isbels would have to get here. Rather hazardous, however, would it be now for anyone to attempt to get to ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... had come out of a cloud bank just in time to upset the well laid plans of the German ace, and that worthy, never expecting such a dare-devil, self-sacrificing move as made by Larkin, had for once been taken by surprise. He had been damaged enough to force immediate retirement. The celerity with which his group abandoned the project and followed in his ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... they were in Quebec with wild tales of Pere, held prisoner in the dungeons of Albany. France and England were at peace; but the Chevalier de Troyes, a French army officer, and the brothers Le Moyne, dare-devil young adventurers of New France, asked permission of the governor of Quebec to lead a band of wood-runners overland to rescue Pere on the Bay, fire the English forts, and massacre the English. Rumours of these ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... an easy victim. Then came a shock that changed the whole aspect of his life, and later one stood beside him who taught him how to fight. But until those events took place, the town of Links knew him for what he was, a reckless, dare-devil youth, without viciousness or malice, but ripe for any extravagance or adventure. His pranks were always begun in fun though it was inevitable that they should lead to serious consequences. It was admitted by his severest critics that ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Scribe, tells how "Robert, Duke of Normandy, the son of the Duchess Bertha by a fiend who donned the shape of man to prosecute his amour, arrives in Sicily to compete for the hand of the Princess Isabella, which is to be awarded as the prize at a magnificent tournament. Robert's dare-devil gallantry and extravagance soon earn him the sobriquet of 'Le Diable,' and he puts the coping-stone to his folly by gambling away all his possessions at a single sitting, even to his horse and the armour on his back. Robert ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... Old Dare-Devil Dick, the Hero of 1000 Flirtations, was sitting out one of the Dances recently condemned by Press ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... your worship; when you're at the head of a body of polis or military, every one knows what you are; isn't dare-devil Driscol, your worship, the best name ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... the convent, because she was well born and well connected, she became a person of much influence and received many callers. Adjoining the convent was the residence of young Gianpaolo Osio, a reckless, amorous dare-devil, who was beau comme le jour, as the French fairy tales say. So much of the story having been told, it is not difficult to guess what is to come. It was a case of love at first sight, and Osio was aided in ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... he had been on the plains for five years. The West was people by young men. It's need for daring spirits found less response in men of maturer life. But the West had most need for humane men. The bully, the dare-devil, the brutal, and the selfish were refuse before the force that swept the frontier onward; but they were never elements in real state building. Before such men as Carey ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... too, that valiant adventurer—"but no, more valiant than wise, and worth his weight in gold," according to the appreciative Leicester—was shot through the arm. For the dare-devil Welshman, much to the Earl's regret, persisted in running up and down the trenches "with a great plume of feathers in his gilt morion," and in otherwise making a very conspicuous mark of himself ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... what that dare-devil is up to," thought Edestone. Nevertheless he believed that Lawrence would ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... nearly opposite the big stone pile of the harbor office till it was time to start again on the old round of 1600 miles and thirty days. Not a very enterprising life, this, for Captain Whalley, Henry Whalley, otherwise Dare-devil Harry—Whalley of the Condor, a famous clipper in her day. No. Not a very enterprising life for a man who had served famous firms, who had sailed famous ships (more than one or two of them his own); who had made ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... Kitty was suffering from an intense revulsion of spirits. Laurie was in trouble. He was the best brother in all the world; he was Kitty's idol. There never was anybody more reckless, more passionate, more dare-devil than Laurie Malone; and Kitty had always been with him heart and soul, always from the time that they had been little tots together. And now Laurie was in danger. The best broth of a boy might be condemned to go to a school in England; he might be condemned to the misery, ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... invited me to share his porch ..." and the other Varney, not the one who sat so stiff and mute, desperate eyes glued on the far horizon, but the easy, negligent Varney, gay dare-devil that he was, actually achieved a pleasant laugh. "I must show you his note. It's been a long time since I have had anything ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... him," returned the merchant. "If he is visiting the hermit of Rakata, as you tell me, he'll be safe enough. Although something of a dare-devil, the hermit knows how to take care of himself. I'm afraid, however, that you'll not find it so easy to 'look up' your son as you seem to think. Just glance round at these almost impenetrable forests. You don't know what part of the island he may be in just now; and you might as well look ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... high-flown sentiments of honor of the time, and the fact seems all the more remarkable. The truth is that Jones was as cautious as he was brave. He acted sometimes impulsively, but reflection quickly came, and he never manifested a dare-devil desire to put his life unnecessarily in danger. When there was anything to be gained by exposing his person, he did it with the utmost coolness, but he consistently refused to put himself at a disadvantage. When, on at least one occasion, he was challenged to fight with swords, ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood
... things, some large corporation like the Pennsylvania Railroad Company was behind me and the responsible party. My supply of Scotch caution never has been small; but I was apparently something of a dare-devil now and then to the manufacturing fathers of Pittsburgh. They were old and I was young, which made all ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... pet! what dost here? and what for? In these woods, thy small Labrador, At this pinch, wee San Salvador! What fire burns in that little chest So frolic, stout and self-possest? Henceforth I wear no stripe but thine; Ashes and jet all hues outshine. Why are not diamonds black and gray, To ape thy dare-devil array? And I affirm, the spacious North Exists to draw thy virtue forth. I think no virtue goes with size; The reason of all cowardice Is, that men are overgrown, And, to be valiant, must come down ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... fantastic frock, an awkward boy of about twelve, holding a cricket bat as though he loathed it, a rather good-looking youth of eighteen with very smooth, evenly parted hair, and, finally, a young man with a somewhat surly dare-devil expression. At this last portrait Stoner looked with particular interest; the likeness ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... really very worth-while ancestors, not as solid and substantial perhaps as those whose portraits hung in the Meredith house on Main Street in Nantucket, but none the less aristocratic, with a bit of dare-devil about the men, and a hint of frivolity about the women—with a pink coat here and a black patch there, with the sheen of satin and the sparkle of jewels—a Cavalier crowd, with the greatest ancestor of all in his curly wig and ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... or Simon Kenton was a dare-devil pure and simple: a youth of roguish but extremely obstinate spirit. He had started upon the adventure trail at sixteen, and here at twenty-three he already had many hair-breadth escapes in his memory and many notches ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... that, the dust lay so thickly on all things that colour in any uniform was a debatable quality. He didn't believe anybody was noticing. The extreme height to which his courage ever attained, was at once his. He felt almost dare-devil. ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... than a feeling of conscious virtue at being thus exonerated from a fault which he had committed; and it was with mingled glee and a certain dare-devil desperation that he resolved upon his own course ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... he had only looked at it. It was as far as he could go. Now that to go farther had become what he called a duty the perversity of his nerves was such that they refused. It was like him. He could always do the forbidden, the dare-devil, the crazily mad; but when it came to the reasonable and straightforward something in him balked. Here he was at what should have been the beginning of the end, and the demon which at another time would have driven him on was holding him back. Temptation had worked itself round the other ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... to Congress from Alabama a roistering blade by the name of McConnell. He was something of a wit. During his brief sojourn in the national capital he made a noisy record for himself as an all-round, all-night man about town, a dare-devil and a spendthrift. His first encounter with Col. John W. Dade, of Virginia, used to be one of the standard local jokes. Colonel Dade was seated in the barroom of Brown's Hotel early one morning, waiting for someone to come in and invite ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... novel, The Golden Arrow. My difficulty—and I hope it will not be yours—was to believe in the power of Hazel Woodus to make very dissimilar men lose their hearts and heads. That Jack Reddin, a dare-devil farmer with love for any sort of a chase in his blood, should pursue her to the bitter end is intelligible enough, but why Edward Marston, a rather anaemic minister, married her and then forgave her escapades with Reddin ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 5, 1917 • Various
... encouraged him. The creature's recklessness fascinated me. A dare-devil like that is ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... much in demand as an expressman, remembers Field as a somewhat reckless fellow and "dare-devil," and is authority for the story of Field's discomfiture in the boxing bout with ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... dashes into the Plaza, surrounded with his dare-devil retainers, reporting that the vessel is off ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... reporter, they'd eat out of my hand. The tall man calls himself Lighthouse Harry. He once kept a light-house on the Florida coast, and that's as near to the sea as he ever got. The other one is a dare-devil calling himself Colonel Beamish. He says he's an English officer, and a soldier of fortune, and that he's been in eighteen battles. Jimmy says he's never been near enough to a battle to see the red-cross flags ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... loss how to deal with a female of so obviously and totally different a kind from any he had met before; but, with it all, he was very conscious of being glad to be there. Underneath everything, too, he felt a bit of a dare-devil, which was a delightful experience for a London curate; and still deeper, much more mysteriously and almost a little terrifyingly, something stranger still, that he had known this girl for ages, although he had not seen her for a long time. "I'm highly privileged, I'm sure," he said, and could ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... persevered with all the zeal of a lover and all the tact of a fortune-hunter. Several times, through the connivance of my kinsman, he contrived to surprise me into an interview, and upon each occasion he urged his suit; but of course, in vain. Captain Dugald was what is called a 'dare-devil,' and I think he rather gloried in that name. He acted upon the maxim that 'all stratagems are fair in love as in war.' And he resorted to a stratagem to get me into his power, and reduce me to the alternative of marrying him or losing ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... dirty floor, bunks filled with horrible straw and worse blankets jumbled here and there, old and dirty clothes drying fetidly. He saw an unkempt row of hard-faced men along the deacon-seat, reckless in bearing, with the light of the dare-devil ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... and dare-devil fighting man, was one of the far-famed gunmen of the Plains. These were a race of men bred by the perils and hard conditions of Western life. They became man-killers first from stern necessity. In that day the man who was not quick on the ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... other three of his famous Six—the three Ruritanian gentlemen—Lauengram, Krafstein, and Rupert Hentzau. A fine, strapping trio they were, splendidly horsed and admirably equipped. Young Rupert, who looked a dare-devil, and could not have been more than twenty-two or twenty-three, took the lead, and made us the neatest speech, wherein my devoted subject and loving brother Michael of Strelsau, prayed me to pardon him for not paying his ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... into an abyss of vain glory, hoping at life's sunset to reap a harvest contrary to the seed that were sown, let me suggest that you pause first to read the story of "The Woman With a Stone Heart," Marie Sampalit, dare-devil ...
— The Woman with a Stone Heart - A Romance of the Philippine War • Oscar William Coursey
... call this an act of despair. We would say with Luther: Despair makes monks. But the despair which we mean, and which Luther meant, is genuine spiritual despair. What Catholics call Luther's despair is really desperation, a reckless, dare-devil plunging of a criminal into a splendid Catholic sanctuary. That Luther's act decidedly was not. By Rome's own teaching Luther belonged in the cloister. That mode of life was originally designed to meet the needs of just such minds as his. His ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... a furious dare-devil immediately, and quick, and savage, and peremptory. His spirit entered into his men. They went over the side with pikes and axes, and, scrambling for any foothold, set to work on the ice like maniacs. In the lust of cupidity they did not even think how they ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... room. At the bedside a man knelt on one knee, and his appearance aroused, in a degree, Katherine's dormant powers of observation. He had a short, crisp, black beard and crisp, black hair. He was alert and energetic of face and figure, a man of dare-devil, humorous, yet kindly eyes. He wore a blue serge suit with brass buttons to it. He was in his stocking-feet. The wristbands and turn-down collar of his white shirt were immaculate. Katherine, lost, trembling, the support ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... can be no difficulty there," said Chandos. "Pardieu! a roistering, swaggering dare-devil archer is worth his price on the French border. There are two hundred such who march behind my own person, and I would ask nothing better than to see ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... called it luck that Miles, her darling, should be sent to the other side of the world, to a wild, dare-devil country, the very name of which conjured up a dozen thrilling tales of adventure. "A five years' appointment!" The words rang like ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... of their joint secret. The American felt sure, however, that this man knew more of the night's work than he had told. He conveyed this belief to Dangloss, and a close watch was set upon the fellow. More than once during the long afternoon John Tullis found himself wishing that he had that dare-devil, thoroughbred young countryman of his, Truxton King, beside him; something told him that the young man would prove a ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... such circumstances. Murad Ault stood to Phil for the satanic element in his peaceful world. He was not only big and strong of limb and broad of chest, but he was very swarthy, and had closely curled black hair. He feared nothing, not even the teacher, and was always doing some dare-devil thing to frighten the children. And because he was dark, morose, and made no friends, and wished none, but went solitary his own dark way, Phil fancied that he must have Spanish blood in his veins, and would no doubt grow up to be a pirate. No other boy in the winter could ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the marsh grew as wild as Africa! Take all the Faubourg Ste. Marie, and half the ancient city, you would not find one graceless dare-devil reckless enough to pass within a hundred yards of the house ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... boy is a dare-devil, bold and fearless lad; nothing can daunt him. He is, in fact, what his hated father was when first I knew him, years ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... accustomed. With at least a dozen men in shaggy overcoats and slouched hats she shook hands with a tolerably good grace, but when there appeared a tall, lank, bearded young giant of a fellow, with a dare-devil expression in his black eyes and a stain of tobacco about his mouth, she drew back, and to his hearty "How are ye, Miss Markham? Considerable tuckered out, I reckon?" she merely responded with a cool bow and ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... said at length, and a dare-devil look came into his eyes, a look which showed at once his strength and his weakness. "I like your fearlessness as well as your honesty. I can mate your frankness by my own. I have long desired to know what is said of me, and have a mind to ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... to one of his servants, and glanced at me with that sort of mocking, dare-devil look in his eyes which I loathed, which everybody loathed who ever met the man. Of course I had no idea what all this portended, but I ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... chiefly common sailors. Now there were many aristocratic young men, hot-blooded and feather-headed hidalgos whom the surrender of Granada had left without an occupation. Most distinguished among these was Alonso de Ojeda, a dare-devil of unrivalled muscular strength, full of energy and fanfaronade, and not without generous qualities, but with very little soundness of judgment or character. Other notable personages in this expedition were Columbus's ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... a dirty, unkempt, unshaven, hard-looking lot, with bloodshot eyes, a flicker of the dare-devil in expression, beyond the first youth, hardened into an enduring toughness of fibre—bad men from the Saginaw, in truth, and, unless Orde was mistaken, men just off a drunk, and therefore especially dangerous; ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... not, until they got in a tight place, and that most men honestly believed they were cowards, but they didn't want others to know it, and they took pains to conceal the fact. He said he had rather be considered a coward than a dare-devil of bravery, for if he flunked when a chance come to show his metal, it wouldn't be thought much of, and if he pulled through, and made a decent record for bravery, he would get a heap of credit. He said he believed ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... another relation in which it is to be considered. Without being much of a moralist, one may clearly perceive that its tone is unhealthy and its sentiment vicious. What it aims at we would not assume to decide; what it accomplishes is, to secure a sympathy for a reckless and dare-devil spirit which drives the hero through a tolerably long career of more than moderate iniquity, and leaves him impenitent at the end. It will hardly do to say that the object of the book is only to amuse. Dealing with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... taken it into your head, for instance, to send your son to school. All fathers are hypocrites and are never willing to confess that their own flesh and blood is very troublesome when it walks about on two legs, lays its dare-devil hands on everything, and is everywhere at once like a frisky pollywog. Your son barks, mews, and sings; he breaks, smashes and soils the furniture, and furniture is dear; he makes toys of everything, he scatters your papers, and he cuts ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... writer in Hollywood and synthetic clown with the Sells Floto Circus. Having lived an active, daring life, and possessing a gift for good story telling, he is well qualified to write these adventures of a red-blooded dare-devil young American who became one of the ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope
... that there is a fellow after her whose very name means ruin to women—a Spanish-American adventurer—reckless, handsome, a gambler, seducer, duellest, dare-devil. The man she is to marry seems to have neither nous nor spunk to defend her. Everybody at Goodwood saw the game that was being played, everybody at Cowes is watching the cards, betting on the result. Yes, great God, the men at the Squadron Club are staking their money upon my sister's character—even ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... journey, and secretly stowed beyond the reach (if there be such a thing) of pickpockets, and the Mishaumok Journal, Evening Edition, damp from the press, unfolded in his fingers, to the care-for-naught, dare-devil little newsboy who had sold it to him, and who now saunters off, varying his monotonous ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... it won't work. Not that Barney Mulloy will hesitate to help me out of the scrape, for he was the most dare-devil chap in Fardale Academy, next to yourself, Frank. You were the leader in all kinds of daring adventures, but Barney made a good second. But he can't pass muster ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... which attracts the rain Tom calls "mil-gar," and the suspended bottle (a saucer-shaped piece of bark is generally used) serves to catch PAL-BI (hailstones), which, being, uncommon, are considered weird and are eaten in a dare-devil sort of spirit. In this case PAL-BI had but the remotest chance of getting into the bottle, and for that reason (according: to Tom) none tried. "Subpose I bin put bark all asame plate—look ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... he caught his breath. A tremor passed all through him, and I felt it in the hand I was holding. Life was sweet to him, then, after all—sweet to this wild dare-devil who had just faced death with such calmness! Dr. Rowell, though showing no sign of jealousy, could not conceal a ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... never loved before, much as I had enjoyed men's company. Yet, although I gave my heart away, I had some undefinable dread of this dark, daring stranger, with the remorseless though beautiful eye, and that dare-devil step and bearing. Many times, again, we met; frequently in the meadows when the gloaming came; and ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... Church (for which he was designed) as could be. At the time of this story, though not above sixteen years old, Master Harry Mostyn was as big and well-grown as many a man of twenty, and of such a reckless and dare-devil spirit that no adventure was too dangerous or too mischievous for ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... stakes he made; but he didn't gamble much, knowing himself not lucky. Instead, he watched the fluctuating fortunes of a vivacious and beautiful youth near him, who flung on his stakes with a lavish gesture of dare-devil extravagance, that implied that he was putting his fortune to the touch to win or lose it all. It was a relief to notice that his stakes were seldom more than threepence. When he lost, he swore softly to himself: "Dio mio, mio Dio, ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... a boat steerer on an American whaleship, from which he had deserted, and had been living on Pleasant Island for some years. He had four wives, whom he described as "the three Graces, with another chucked in," and though a rough, dare-devil fellow, he was, with the exception of old Harry Terry, the only one of the lot that was not a hopeless drunkard and ruffian. By one of his wives, a native of Sikaiana or Stewart's Island, he had two children, both girls. ...
— Concerning "Bully" Hayes - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... 31, 1915, the science of aviation lost one of its most daring and brilliant exponents by the death of Alphonse Pegoud. No man before him ever took such liberties with the law of gravitation or performed such dare-devil pranks at dizzy altitudes up in the sky. He was the first to demonstrate the possibility of "looping the loop" thousands of feet from the earth; many have done the trick since, but for the pioneer it was a pure gamble with almost certain death. Even into the serious business ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... and other public or semi-public tables. However, my neighborhood to Mrs. ——— was good for me, inasmuch as by laughing over the matter with her came to regard it in a light and ludicrous way; and so, when the time actually came, I stood up with a careless dare-devil feeling. The chairman toasted the president immediately after the Queen, and did me the honor to speak of myself in a most flattering manner, something like this: "Great by his position under the Republic,—greater still, I am bold to say, in the Republic of letters!" I made no reply at all to ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the sailing master, the best fellow in the ward-room mess, and a great favorite with the youngsters, was officer of the deck from six to eight o'clock; and my messmate, Perry Buckner, of Scott county, Kentucky, the most dare-devil midshipman of us all, was master's mate of the forecastle; Hammond, Marshall, Smith and I were the gentlemen of the Watch; Rodney Barlow was quartermaster at the 'con;' the lookouts had just been stationed; the men were singing, dancing, spinning yarns and otherwise amusing themselves about the ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... gentle facility may have caused keener pangs than others give by cruelty and tyranny. The other, bright-eyed, healthy, strong, and keen-tempered—the best fighter and runner and leaper in the school—the dare-devil who was the leader in every row—took to Greek much about the time when his companion took to drinking, got a presentation, wrote some wonderful things about the functions of the chorus, and is now on the ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... We shall have you a swaggering dare-devil yet, old boy. And now it's boot and saddle again. Good-bye, and come up ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... aquiline face like the boy's, and wore a great sweeping mustache which hid his mouth. The boy followed, looking wonderfully like him, as he sprang into his own saddle with the same dare-devil vault. ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... his gun. "What, in the name of all the fiends, do you here?" he said, wiping away with the back of his hand the cold sweat that had sprung to his forehead. He was a tall man with a sinewy frame and a dare-devil face, tanned to well-nigh ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... order the goods unladen at once, Captain Tabor," she repeated. Then the captain coloured, for he was quick-witted to scent a rebuff, though he laughed again in his dare-devil fashion as he turned to the sailors and shouted out the order, and straightway the sailors so swarmed hither and thither upon the deck that they seemed five times as many as before, and then we heard the hatches flung back ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... out over the sea. Long before the circuit of Fernando Noronha was completed he would be itching to rush at top speed along the straight line to Pernambuco. It was a bold thing, too, to land on the island and stock their vessel for a voyage, the end of which no man could foresee. The dare-devil notion fascinated them. In that instant, the Andromeda's crew returned to their allegiance, which was as well, since it was fated to be stiffly tested many times ere they were reported inside 1 degree ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... a red scarf, Henri;" said the little Chevalier. "There are just two hundred of us, and we mean to be the most dare-devil set in the whole army; won't we make the cowardly blues afraid of the ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... using every physical device and disregarding every danger. More than once Tom almost shuddered at the chances which his young companion took upon some perilously slender limb. Once, the impulse seized him to call a warning, but he refrained from a kind of inspired confidence in that young dare-devil who by now seemed a mere speck of brown moving in and out of the darkened green above him. Once he was on the point of shouting advice to Hervey about what to do in the unlikely event of his reaching the nest before the eagle, ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... at the age when the forces of character still lie dormant, and an accident may determine the direction of their future development. It is the age when it is possible for fortune to make a dare-devil of a philosopher, a sceptic of a worshipper, ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... his timidity and reverence in art. That contradiction is itself merely superficial. Bob Acres was timid, but he was also vain. His swagger was not an empty assumption to cloak his fears; he really did regard himself as a masterful and dare-devil fellow, except when he was actually fighting. Similarly, except when he was at his work, Whistler, doubtless, really did think of himself as a brilliant effortless butterfly. The pose was, doubtless a quite sincere one, a necessary ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... Audrey, in the far corner, looked pale but composed. Her behaviour was perfect. There was nothing for her to do, and she was doing it with a quiet self-control which won my admiration. Her manner seemed to me exactly suited to the exigencies of the situation. With a super-competent dare-devil like myself in charge of affairs, all she had to do was to wait and not get ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... but back of it the two seamen read strength, decision, integrity. The gay, bantering, whilom attitude of this unusual young man was not assumed. It was not a pose. He was not a dare-devil, nor was he a care-free, unstable youth who had matured abruptly in the exercise of power. On the contrary, he was,—and Captain Trigger knew it,—the personification of confidence, an optimist to whom victory and defeat are equally unavoidable ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... vixen! is that you: Do you dare! Are you frantic, then? Oh, you outrageous little dare-devil! Won't I send you to a mad-house, and have you put in a strait-jacket, till you know how to behave yourself! You infernal ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... newcomer. He was a stout fellow; not over tall, nor over big; swarthy, with prominent features. The plume of his bonnet was broken, but he wore it in a rakish fashion; and altogether he swaggered with so dare-devil an air, clinking his spurs and swinging out his long sword recklessly, that it was no wonder three or four of the nearest ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... incident was provided by a man in the 4th Dragoon Guards producing a fine bay horse which he wagered 30 to 1 against any officer riding. It was a real American buck-jumper. This challenge was enough for the dare-devil subalterns of the —— Hussars, and one of them, Beach-Hay, a splendid horseman, promptly closed with the offer. For twenty minutes or so he tried to mount, without succeeding; finally he muffled the horse's head in a cloak and got on his back. Then he dug his spurs ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... into a room, yet he is so unconscious and modest, and has the most graceful, fascinatingly quiet manners and wonderful brown eyes that seem to talk for him. He does everything well, and everything hard, is a dare-devil on horseback, a reckless sailor, and a lot besides. If you could see the way those eyes look at me, and the smile that breaks over his face as if the sun had come out suddenly! But alas! the sun has gone under now, for he went this morning, and it's not clear if he's coming back or not. ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... lips of the failing widow because of Almira's tacit acceptance of the devotions of young Mr. Powlett, son of the resident physician of the sanitarium that was now bringing so many patients to Urbana. A handsome, dare-devil sort of boy was Powlett, who speedily cut out all the local beaux at the parties and picnics which filled the summer of '75. A beautiful dancer was he, and taught Almira to waltz and "glide" in a style never before seen in Urbana, and that other couples first derided, then envied, then vainly strove ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... designing, with some of the craft of his prelate brother he united something of the high soul of his brother soldier. But that age had not the virtue of later times, and cannot be judged by its standard. He heard this bold dare-devil menace his country with civil war upon grounds not plainly stated nor clearly understood,—he aided not, but he connived: "Twenty thousand men in arms," he muttered to himself,—"say half-well, ten thousand—not against Edward, but the Woodvilles! ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... laughed a little laugh, sharp and eldrich, at the strange cowardice of the stalwart dare-devil. But Jasper ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Stetsons slipped from the crowd, and there was a galloping of hoofs the other way. Another horseman appeared from the Lewallen end, riding hastily. The new-comer's errand was to call Jasper back. But the young dare-devil was close to the crowd, and was swinging a bottle ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... knew very little of—only sufficient to make it possible to lead them. No two men were dressed alike, and some were not even armed alike, although stolen Turkish government rifles far predominated. But they wore unanimously that dare-devil air, not swaggering because there is no need, that has been the key to most of the sublime surprises of all war. The commander, whose men sit that way in the saddle and toss those jokes shoulder over shoulder down the line, dare tackle forlorn hopes that would seem sheer leap-year ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... man."' And she fell asleep, wondering how she ought to begin her letter to him when she wrote, but, more perplexing still, how she ought to—end it! That little backward brain sought the solution of the problem all night long in dreams. She felt a criminal, a dare-devil caught in the act, awaiting execution. Light had been flashed cruelly upon her dark, careful secret—the greatest and finest secret in the world. The child lay under sentence indeed, only it was a sentence of life, and ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... an answer, however, would have involved too great a loss of time. Luckily I found three dare-devil fellows, but recently come into the valley for a living, who were willing to go with me. These, together with the man already mentioned and one Cora Indian, enabled me to make a start. Thus I parted from pretty San Francisco, and the nice Indians ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz |
