"Devil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and when he gets old he turns a miser, and laughs at the pleasures that he used to get from the flesh, and thinks himself ever so much wiser. Is he any better? He has changed, so to speak, the kind of sin. That is all. The devil has put a new viceroy in authority, but it is the old government, though with fresh officials. The house which is cleared of the seven devils without getting into it the all-filling and sanctifying grace of God and love of Jesus Christ will stand empty. Nature abhors a vacuum, and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... as it is for me," returned Nicholas with a laugh. "If you win one or two small cases, there's obliged to be undue influence of the devil." ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... was a kind good creature, and said that he was not the man to take advantage of a poor devil in distress, and that I should have the full value of it. He put the watch in his fob and counted out fifteen pounds on the counter. I wanted to return part: but he walked out of the shop, ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... plays Renowned alike; whose genius ne'er confines Her flight to garnish Greenwood's gay designs, Nor sleeps with 'Sleeping Beauties,' but anon In five facetious Acts comes thundering on, While poor John Bull, bewildered with the scene, Stares, wondering what the devil ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... Indians, wrote him a letter with his benediction. He reestablished his power in Florida, rebuilt Fort San Mateo, and taught the Indians that death or flight was the only refuge from Spanish tyranny. They murdered his missionaries and spurned their doctrine. "The Devil is the best thing in the world," they cried; "we adore him; he makes men brave." Even the Jesuits despaired, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... to a livid white, and ominous marks have come to light about his nose, as if the finger of the very devil himself had, within the last few moments, touched it here and there. But he has repressive power, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... to Cologne, where it was marvellous to find the Cathedral completed, in spite of the ancient legend which asserts that though the devil had furnished its design he had laid a curse upon it, declaring that it should never be finished. Thence up the Rhine by castles grey and smiling towns, recalling my old foot-journey along its banks; and so on to Heidelberg, where I stayed a month at the Black ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... can be seen sticking from under the cloak's edge at the very start. Satan hates the truth. He is afraid of it. Yet he sneaks around the sheltering corner of what he fears and hates. The sugar coating of his gall pills he steals from God. The devil bare-faced, standing only on his own feet, would be instantly booted out at first approach. And right well ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... sorry to find, however, that his right honourable friend had learned to draw such a bill of indictment, and moreover to crowd it with all the technical epithets which disgraced our statute-book: such as false, malicious, wicked, by the instigation of the devil, and the like. He added, that having been taught by his right honourable friend that no revolt of a nation was caused without provocation, he could not help rejoicing at the success of a revolution resting upon the same ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Montargis road calls for the mythical third horse, always paid for but never seen. A man of Minoret's build, and Minoret's wealth, at the head of such an establishment might well be called, without contradiction, the master of Nemours. Though he never thought of God or devil, being a practical materialist, just as he was a practical agriculturist, a practical egoist, and a practical miser, Minoret had enjoyed up to this time a life of unmixed happiness,—if we can call pure materialism happiness. A physiologist, observing the rolls of flesh which covered ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... still gripped tight in his hand, stood leaning over his victim, looking down upon his body. His shirt and hand, and even his naked arm, were stained and blotched with blood. The moon lit up his face and it was the face of a devil from hell. ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... heard the preacher say That good may come of evil; Still every hour, with all our might, We must resist the devil. ...
— The Story of the Two Bulls • John R. Bolles
... 458. In Humphry Clinker, in the Letter of June 11, the turnkey of Clerkenwell Prison thus speaks of a Methodist:—'I don't care if the devil had him; here has been nothing but canting and praying since the fellow entered the place. Rabbit him! the tap will be ruined—we han't sold a cask of beer nor a dozen of wine, since he paid his garnish—the gentlemen get drunk with nothing but your ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... the pillar that I cannot tell to a certainty which one you mean,' whispered my would-be informant. Stooping and glancing along my arm with the precision of a Kentucky rifleman, I brought my finger to bear directly upon the head of the unknown, who, as the devil would have it, at this critical juncture turned her head and encountered the deadly aim which we were taking ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... (that was the fellow's name,) "we cannot agree to whom the pater-noster should be said." He suddenly replied, "To whom, sir, should it be said, but unto God?" Then said the sub-prior, "What shall we do with the saints?" He answered, "Give them aves and creeds enow, in the devil's name; for that may suffice them." The answer going abroad, many said, "that he had given a wiser decision than all the doctors had ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... out of the pit with care, as the queen had bidden them. And they resolutely 715 took their way to that place upon the hill where the Lord was crucified on the cross, the Son of God and Prince of the heavenly realm. Weakened by hunger, he knew not yet clearly where through 720 the wiles of the devil the holy rood lay hid beneath the earth, nor where it rested in its tomb, safe in a secret place, ...
— The Elene of Cynewulf • Cynewulf
... look here? This is worse than before. DO you understand? Here's yesterday's sherry, one and eightpence, and here we are again two shillings. And what the devil does ninepence mean?' ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... world, and particularly that part of it which is constituted by human society, has been given over, since the Fall, to the influence of wicked and malignant spiritual beings, governed and directed by a supreme devil—the moral antithesis and enemy of the supreme God—their theory of salvation by the Messiah falls to pieces. "To this end was the Son of God manifested, that he might destroy the ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... suitable to an environment which is no longer there. Few people go through life without knowing what it is to feel a sudden, even murderous, impulse to destroy the obstacle in their path; or seize, at all costs, that which they desire. Our ancestors called these uprushes the solicitations of the devil, seeking to destroy the Christian soul; and regarded them with justice as an opportunity of testing our spiritual strength. It is true that every man has within him such a tempting spirit; but its characters can better ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... devil's own time trying to lay aboard to-night, wouldn't they? And yet if 'twas cloudy 'twould be the submarines! Did you see them to-day? Weren't they cute—like little whale pups setting on the water—yes. They say they've got them where they turn ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... at a footpace! d'ye mind me? And if you've got holsters to that saddle o' yourn, don't let me see your hand go nigh 'em. For I'm a devil at a quick mistake, and when I make one it takes the form of Lead. So now let's look ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... times, or so many times, that you have kissed the sin-remitting black stone, that you have drunk from the well of Zemzem and seven times made the circuit of the mountain of Arafat and flung stones at the Devil in the valley of Dsemre—what will it profit you, I say, if you cannot answer that question? Woe to you, woe to everyone of us who see, who hear, and yet go on dreaming! For when we tread the Bridge of Alshirat, across whose razor-sharp edge every true believer must pass ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... If I were not my father's son, I wouldn't mind changing places with you. It must make the neck uncommonly stiff, methinks, to have a knightly escutcheon on door and breast, and yet be able to fling florins and zecchins broadcast without offending the devil by an empty purse. If you don't happen to know how such a thing looks, I ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... still the tortured soul toiled sturdily on through the anguish of its self-created hells, the mind crazed and shattered, the heart hungry for peace, the will resolute that it should have no peace until it found peace in truth. Yet, our of this prodigious mental and moral anarchy, with its devil's dance of dogmas and delusions, the young Luther organized, before he was thirty, the broadest, raciest, and strongest character that ever put on the armor and hurled the bolts of the Church Militant. Casting doubt and fear under his feet, and growing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... century the Druids kept their skill in fortune-telling. King Dathi got a Druid to foretell what would happen to him from one Hallowe'en to the next, and the prophecy came true. Their religion was now declared evil, and all evil or at any rate suspicious beings were assigned to them or to the devil as followers. ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... devil, sir! Amos and I don't believe the Department intends sending us the stuff! No, sir, they've doubtless settled ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... hear. He thinks the murderer was a tramp. Now there, my dear sir, is one of the peculiarities to which we examining magistrates are subject. We always find it the very devil to abandon the first idea that pops into our minds. Personally I do my best to avoid what is really a professional failing. I am just going to examine Etchepare, and I am waiting for the results of a police ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... smelt sulphur." (The "puff, puff" was the exhaust of our engine and those fumes were what they thought was sulphur.) "Just then the thing rose up out of the water, then the smokestack appeared, and then the devil came right out ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... conceited Jests of George Peele, Gent. 1607, 4to. Robin the Devil, his two penni-worth of Wit in half a penni-worth of paper, &c., ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... the property, and better, too, as things have turned out roughly, governor: the match is off, and you may well congratulate me. Such an escape—I just discovered it, and was barely in time: you hadn't been gone two hours when I found it all out, through a clever devil of a lawyer, who was hired by my father's son to look into incumbrances, and keep a sharp look-out for a mutual settlement; that old harridan of a ladyship is over head and ears in debt; and, it seems, I was to have paid all straight, or i. e. you, governor, ey? As to the Yorkshire acres, the ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... next moment, fearing that the sound would bring the bloodthirsty wretches back, hot and eager to hack to pieces the foreign devil who had escaped from their clutches the day before; but the sound of their voices grew more and more faint, till the last murmur died away, and I raised my head slowly, an inch at a time, till I could gaze ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... would make men fools by teaching them to overrate their abilities. Those who walk in the vale of humility amid the modest flowers of virtue and favoured with the presence of the Holy One, he would lift into the Utopian heights of vanity and pride, that they might fall into the condemnation of the Devil. He gathers all good opinions and approving sentiments that he might carry them to his prey, losing nothing in weight and number during their transit. He is one of Fame's best friends, helping to furnish her with some of her ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... present comprises our equipment, is built largely upon land which Miss Culver has put at the service of the Settlement which bears Mr. Hull's name. In those days the house stood between an undertaking establishment and a saloon. "Knight, Death and the Devil," the three were called by a Chicago wit, and yet any mock heroics which might be implied by comparing the Settlement to a knight quickly dropped away under the genuine kindness and hearty welcome extended to us by the families living up ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... anaemic, these old "sea voyagers" of the Pacific, daring death or devil, with the red blood of courage in their veins, and the red blood of a lawless manhood, too. They were not men of milk and water type, with little good and less bad. Neither their virtues nor their vices were lukewarm; but they did things, these men; ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... deceased? Was even envy silent? It seemed to have been agreed, that if an author's works survived, the history of the man was to give no moral lesson to after-ages. If tradition told us that Ben Jonson went to the Devil tavern; that Shakespeare stole deer, and held the stirrup at play-house doors; that Dryden frequented Button's coffee-house; curiosity was lulled asleep, and biography forgot the best part of her function, which is, to instruct mankind by examples taken from the school of life. This task ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... monkey mistaken for the devil. A woman of Cambalu died, and Moroug, wishing to personate her, slipped into her bed, and dressed himself in her night-clothes, while the body was carried to the cemetery. When the funeral party returned, and began the usual lamentations for the ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... happy home to the place of "devil" in the printing office was one which tried the lad's fortitude to the utmost. His position was but little better than that of a menial, and not only was all the drudgery and disagreeable work put upon him, but he was made the sport of the workmen, some of whom used him even roughly. He bore it all ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... of ghostly kind; they have influence of many kinds over the dwellers in this world, some for good, others very much for evil. Madness is caused by various evil spirits throwing themselves into mortals, ghosts with red eyes which flash like lightning. The "amok" devil which comes from the swamp, differs from those which drive people to commit suicide — these again being quite distinct from those which ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... squire, getting a little angry in his turn. 'If I'm not to be father in this matter, thou shan't be son. Go against me in what I've set my heart on, and you'll find there's the devil to pay, that's all. But don't let us get angry, it's Sunday afternoon for one thing, and it's a sin; and besides that, I've not ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... that it was inspired by the Holy Spirit, and quoted such Scriptural texts as these to justify the enthusiasm: "A child shall lead them;" "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast ordained praise." Others, however, were quite as confident that the whole thing was the work of the Devil. ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... "The devil she is. I have heard no end of stories about that filly. You must positively introduce me, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... to the devil!" cried Dimitri, stamping his foot. "Vasika, Vasika, Vasika!" he went on, the instant that the boy had left the room, with a gradual raising of his voice at each repetition. "Vasika, lay me out a bed ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... Richard was released, the French king sent word to John, "The devil is loose again." And a very disappointed man was John when all England rang with ...
— Famous Men of the Middle Ages • John H. Haaren
... little pity was felt for him by two or three members of the court, as he was well known in Rome, and one of them condescended to argue with him and to ask him how he could become ensnared by a brutal superstition which affirmed, so it was said, the existence of devil-possessed pigs, and offered ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... a fruitless search that day, seeking old Mark Thorn among the hills which rose brokenly a few miles back from the river and climbed to the knees of the mountains in ever-mounting surge. A devil's darning-needle in a cornfield would have been traced and cornered as quickly as that slippery thin old killer ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... and he would take a puff or two with satisfaction. Then the peace of it would bring drowsiness, and while I supported him there would come a few moments, perhaps, of precious sleep. Only a few moments, for the devil of suffocation was always lying in wait to bring him back for fresh tortures. Over and over again this was repeated, varied by him being steadied on his feet or sitting on the couch opposite the berth. In spite of his suffering, two dominant characteristics remained—the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the prince and Claudio; but the devil my master knew she was Margaret; and partly by his oaths, which first possessed them, partly by the dark night, which did deceive them, but chiefly by my villany, which did confirm any slander that don John had made, away went Claudio enraged; ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... main body feigned the disorder of retreat. The result was, that Vincent's squadron was handsomely entrapped, and in the savage contest that ensued the intrepid major was hustled from his horse with a dislocated shoulder and broken wrist. He was brought, with a half-dozen more of his dare-devil comrades, into the Union lines, and in the course of time found himself in the hideous shambles allotted rebel prisoners at Point Lookout, Maryland. Too weak at first, or too confused, to bethink himself ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... more. He did not wish to ruffle his friend's temper, to be sent to the devil and told that his advice was not wanted. A little tact was necessary. But Corley's brow was soon smooth again. His thoughts were ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... is!" said he. "Such weather makes every thing and every body disgusting. Dullness is as much produced within doors as without, by rain. It makes one detest all one's acquaintance. What the devil does Sir John mean by not having a billiard room in his house? How few people know what comfort is! Sir John is as ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... passing, that it is a sufficient answer to the German criticism which has since been started against the character of Satan (viz. that it is not one of disgusting deformity, or pure, defecated malice) to say that Milton has there drawn, not the abstract principle of evil, not a devil incarnate, but a fallen angel. This is the Scriptural account, and the poet has followed it. We may safely retain such ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... said, "it is always mixed up in my mind with the flesh and the devil," and as Owen did not say anything for a minute I asked him ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... thinner, and at the same time, flabbier than ever, and almost began to lose her trust in God, when, suddenly, she had an inspiration. Was it not, perhaps, the work of devil? ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... the Camaldules, the Carthusians, the Humilies, the Olivateurs, the Silvestrins, and lastly, Citeaux; for Citeaux itself, a trunk for other orders, is only an offshoot of Saint-Benoit. Citeaux dates from Saint Robert, Abbe de Molesme, in the diocese of Langres, in 1098. Now it was in 529 that the devil, having retired to the desert of Subiaco—he was old—had he turned hermit?—was chased from the ancient temple of Apollo, where he dwelt, by Saint-Benoit, then ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... the nineteenth, four days ago. They were between the devil and the deep sea. They tried to escape on the York River, but a storm set in and they were driven back. And there was the French squadron to swallow them up, and the French and American troops posted about in a big half circle! 'Twas a splendid sight as one would wish to see! And there ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Mile Gallagher sat on his box like a man refreshed. Then the devil of sleep postponed beset him again. Once more the fireman was asleep on the coal, and to the little Irishman's bombardment of wrenches and other missiles he returned only sodden groans. Gallagher nerved himself to fight it through alone. Mile after mile of the time-killing track swung ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... 'the greatest of all human responsibilities', arising from this new intercourse of races, met? Knowledge, alas, is as much the devil's heritage as the angels': it may be used for ill, as easily as for good. The first explorers, and the traders who followed them, were not idealists but rough adventurers. Breaking in, with the full tide of western knowledge and adaptability, to the quiet backwaters of primitive conservatism, ...
— Progress and History • Various
... yet appeared to any (as I heare of) but an Oxford Friar by a Magique voyage. He reports of a Black Rock just under the pole, and an Isle of Pygmies; other strange miracles, to which, for my part, I shall give little credit till I have better proof for it than the Devil's word." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 70, March 1, 1851 • Various
... told him, he had learnt more than he had any idea of. And what would Mrs Easy have said, had she known all this—and Sarah, too? And Mr Easy, with his rights of man? At the very time that Johnny was having the devil driven out of him, they were consoling themselves with the idea, that, at all events, there was no birch used at Mr Bonnycastle's, quite losing sight of the fact, that as there are more ways of killing a dog besides hanging him, so are there more ways of teaching ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... subjects were often ugly and repulsive rather than beautiful, and his imagination was full of weird, strange fancies that can scarcely be understood. Indeed, some of them never have been explained, and one of his most famous engravings, called "The Knight, Death, and the Devil," has never yet been satisfactorily interpreted, and many different theories have been ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... majority grew out of nothing. Johnians howled; Trinity men and Hall men cheered with delight; Non-Colls hissed and made interruptions; and as the ragged-gowned crowd trooped out, a universal cry went up of, "Who the devil is he?" ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... God! What a brood of demons had that madman, Frontenac, begot to turn loose upon this Western World! For there appeared to be a Montour in every bit of devil's work we ever heard of—and it seemed as though there was no end to their number. One, praise God, had been slain before Wyoming—which some said enraged the Witch, his mother, to the fearsome deeds she did there—and ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... hitherto that there is some one devil who is over the hells, and that he was created an angel of light; but that after he turned rebel, he was cast down with his crew into hell. Men have had this belief because the Devil is named in the Word, and Satan, and also Lucifer, and in these passages ...
— The Gist of Swedenborg • Emanuel Swedenborg
... "Poor devil," said Mackintosh. "Not that I believe a word of this story. It couldn't have happened. But you may as well go on and tell us what you did. Sang ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... cheese does not come upon a man suddenly, like the desire to take a drink, or stand off a creditor, and he is not taken possession of by the demon of appetite and pulled to the nearest saloon by a forty horse power devil, as is the man ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... "The Devil of Cape Higgin" (Vol. 3, p. 321) was related to me by my old nurse, and is a well known tradition, though not otherwise in ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... a father, like many of you here, with the love of wife and children strong in my breast. Alas! it has been stronger than my love for God. I have succumbed to the lusts of the flesh, and have listened to the voice of the devil. I come not to cry aloud unto you, 'A woman tempted me and I fell!' I blame no one but myself. The voice of the tempter spoke to me in devious ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... those glorious ornaments of holiness, and puts on the vile rags of sin and wretchedness, and is cast from the throne of eminency above the creatures, and from fellowship with God, to be a slave and servant to the dust of his feet, and to have communion with the devil and his angels. And now, ye have man holden out in Scripture as the only wretched piece of the creation, as the very plague of the world the whole creation groaning under him, (Rom. viii.) and in pain to be delivered of such a burden, of such an execration and curse and astonishment. ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... with us to-day, Bessie sits on the box, Kitty is with our Don Juan; we know there is gold in our pockets, we see our courtesans by us, our gallant bays are bearing us away to pleasure. Tootle, Jim, my boy, tootle; the great Muchross is shouting derision at the poor perspiring coster. "Pull up, you devil, pull up," he cries, and shouts to the ragged urchins and scatters halfpence that they may tumble once more in the dirt. See the great Muchross, the clean-shaven face of the libertine priest, the small sardonic eyes. Hurrah for the great Muchross! Long may he live, the singer ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... for his spectacles] Oh, bother your pamphlets. Whats the practice of it? [Looking at the pamphlet] Opsonin? What the devil is opsonin? ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw
... characters of various depths of shade, according to their company, nicknamed "Bower o' Bliss" and "Freckles"; some horsey men "in the know" of betting circles; a travelling actor from the theatre, and two devil-may-care young men who proved to be gownless undergraduates; they had slipped in by stealth to meet a man about bull-pups, and stayed to drink and smoke short pipes with the racing gents aforesaid, looking at their watches ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... mother. Damnation! I can write no more about it. I know you don't care to hear from me, but I'll just say that I'm going out to New Zealand. I don't know what I shall do there, but a fellow has asked me to go with him, and it's better than rotting here. It may help me to escape the devil yet; if so, you ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... have made a will and denounced you. I made a will, but did not denounce you. I am no breaker of oaths. More than this, I learned a new trick. I, who hated all subtlety, and looked upon craft as the favourite weapon of the devil, learned to smile with my lips while my heart was burning with hatred. Perhaps this was why you all began to smile, too, and joke me about certain losses I had sustained, by which you meant the gains which had come to me. That these ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... to-night," quoth VAN DYCK, pleasantly. "Nonsense!" cries Sir DRURIOLANUS, cheerily, "a 'Van' can never be a little hoarse." Much merriment. "DYCK, my boy," continues Sir D., "you've come in the very nick of time—quite a Devil's Dyke, you are,"—the accomplished vocalist was in ecstasies at his Manager's joke,—"and you shall distinguish yourself to-night as Lohengrin!" Oh, what a surprise! No sooner said than done. Armour for one ordered immediately. ISAAC of York Street goes to work, and—presto!—VAN ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various
... happiness has never been questioned since it was proclaimed as a new gospel for the New World. The American people accepted it with enthusiasm, as if it had been the discovery of a gold-prospector, and started out in the pursuit as if the devil were after them. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... ill-reasoned, calculated to deceive, and yet not cunning enough to do it cleverly." The external evidence disposed him to believe the poems counterfeit; but the impression which they made was such that he was "resolved to believe them genuine, spite of the Devil and the Kirk. It is impossible to convince me that they were invented by the same man that writes me these letters. On the other hand, it is almost as hard to suppose, if they are original, that he should be able ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... is a poor, hunted devil of a poacher like me!" cried the Lizard, angrily. "He must live; there's enough land in Finistere ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... up came Johnson too, Who had "retreated," as the phrase is when Men run away much rather than go through Destruction's jaws into the Devil's den; But Johnson was a clever fellow, who Knew when and how "to cut and come again," And never ran away, except when running Was nothing but a valorous kind ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... there came within range of Tarzan's vision, just behind the prostrate form of his companion, the crouching, devil-faced figure of the striped saber-tooth hybrid, eyeing ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Van Sweller, looking about him with interest, "this is a jolly little closet you live in! Where the devil do you sleep?—Oh, that pulls down! And I say—what is this under the corner of the carpet?—Oh, a frying pan! I see—clever idea! Fancy cooking over the gas! What larks ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... purifying fagots of the church by dying opportunely on the eve of his execution for heresy. But if his spirit had cheated the fanatics, his body could not, and his bones were burned for his heresy. He had dared to deny the existence of a devil, and had suggested that the case of a patient who lay in a trance for three days might help to explain some miracles, like ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... Drinking is the devil—the father, that is to say, of all vices. Griskinissa's face and her mind grew ugly together; her good humor changed to bilious, bitter discontent; her pretty, fond epithets, to foul abuse and swearing; her tender blue eyes ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... winter. Thank God, many of them have heard and have accepted gladly the great salvation thus brought to them. With its reception into their hearts and lives, marvellous have been the transformations. Where the devil-dance, and ghost-dance, and other abominations, performed to the accompaniment of the conjurer's rattle or the monotonous drumming of the medicine man, once prevailed and held the people in a degrading superstition, the house ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... though gently, Mr. West pleaded the cause of his parishioners, asking the Captain to be considerate to them for humanity's sake, the greater grew the other's obstinacy in holding to his own will. To be thus opposed roused all the devil within him—it was his own expression; and he grew to hate Mr. West with an ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... warfare. This combat which the Iranian saw around him he assumed to be the law of the universe. Thus a religion of great purity was developed, which urged man to work and to virtue; but at the same time issued a belief in the devil and in demons which was to propagate itself in the west and torment ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... language and literature. Individuals among them have made sacrifices by becoming the followers of Christ, of which the only adequate explanation is that they have come under the power of an all-controlling faith, of the faith which gives the victory over self, the world, and the devil. Persons more established in the faith of Christ than some of these are, more thoroughly assured that He is the Son of God and the Saviour of the world, I have never met. In these churches there are degrees ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... good-hearted man when he was sober, but a perfect fiend when he was drunk, or rather when he was half drunk, for he seldom really went the whole way. The devil seemed to be in him at such times, and he was capable of anything. From what I hear, in spite of all his wealth and his title, he very nearly came our way once or twice. There was a scandal about his drenching a dog with petroleum ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... waiting upon the Lord, I might not be influenced by what might be said to me on the subject. This evening has been particularly set apart for prayer, beseeching the Lord once more, not to allow me to be mistaken in this thing, and much less to be deluded by the Devil. I have also sought to let all the reasons against building another Orphan-House, and all the reasons for doing so, pass before my mind; and now, for the sake of clearness and definiteness, ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... he found himself wanting to make this trip with the demoniac Antazzo. It was the effects of the pink gas. Even with the misshapen guard down there in the engine room the power of his will was effective. The devil must be an Ionian, he thought. But how in the name of the sky-lane imps had he reached Earth? How had he wormed his way into the confidence of the k-metal people? He must have been there several years, working ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... have prayed to the devil for vengeance on the men who have taken you, for help against the God who has abandoned you. I have the means, and I am here to proffer it. Have you the courage ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... with his face to the wall and one arm thrown up over his head; the jumper is twisted back, and leaves his skin bare from hip to arm-pit. His lower face is brutal, his eyes small and shifty, and ugly straight lines run across his low forehead. He says very little, but scowls most of the time—poor devil. He might be, or at least seem, a totally different man under more favourable conditions. He is probably a ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... little dare-devil that she was, pulled the chair from under him, and he saved himself from falling only by wildly clutching the desk before him. As it was, he fell almost into her lap and everybody shrieked with uncontrollable laughter. In the midst ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... sympathizers were very radical on other questions besides that concerning the sin of slavery. They declared the Constitution "a league with death and a covenant with hell" because it recognized slavery. They would neither vote nor hold office under it. They upbraided the churches as full of the devil's allies. They also advocated community of property, women's rights, and some of them free love. Others, as Birney, Whittier, and Gerrit Smith, refused to believe so ill of the Constitution or of the churches, and wished to rush the slavery question right into ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... fittest were the last word of philosophy, where was the need to struggle on behalf of the weak and oppressed? In that case, it might be better to leave them to the following clutch of the new scientific devil; while those who had charged through to the head of the rout enjoyed themselves with utmost abandon. Such was, and is, the deduction from the new gospel (crude enough, doubtless, in many respects), which has finally petrified in the lordly egotism of Nietzche and in the unlovely ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... the conversational, commonplace, unavoidable intercourse with the other kind of students. "They must be wondering at the change in me," he reflected anxiously. He had an uneasy recollection of having savagely told one or two innocent, nice enough fellows to go to the devil. Once a married professor he used to call upon formerly addressed him in passing: "How is it we never see you at our Wednesdays now, Kirylo Sidorovitch?" Razumov was conscious of meeting this advance with odious, muttering boorishness. The professor was obviously too astonished to be offended. ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... from here. About dusk I walked over to their camp. They were gathered around their fires preparing supper. Many of them say they were deceived, and entered the service because they were led to believe that the Northern army would confiscate their property, liberate their slaves, and play the devil generally. As they thought this was true, there was nothing left for them to do but to take ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... heard it said, by older sea-faring men than any in this ship," he continued, "that the devil has been known to send one of his mates aboard a lawful trader, to lead her astray among shoals and quicksands, in order that he might make a wreck, and get his share of the salvage, among the souls of the people. What man ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... evening, she sat brooding upon her cousin George's failure until a beautiful picture was hatched. He had gone to his room directly after dinner; during the meal had not spoken. She imagined him seated on his bed, hands deep in pockets, chin sunk, brow knitted, wrestling with that old devil despair. She knew that latterly he had worked tremendously hard. He had told her before the examination how confident of success he was, had revealed how much in the immediate prospect of freedom he gloried. She recalled his gay laugh as he had bade her good-bye ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... In regard to some particular points, too, he felt himself at liberty to let his genius have free untrammelled scope, as, for instance, in the celebrated battle between Christian and Apollyon. Arguing with himself that it was not possible for any man to overdo a fight with the devil, Adams made up his mind to "go well in" for that incident, and spent a whole evening over it, keeping his audience glaring and on the rack of expectation the whole time. Taking, perhaps, an unfair advantage ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... you, an' half-a-dozen o' them rotten!"—like "The devil go with you an' sixpence!" is another of those pleasantries which mostly occur in the good-humored badinage between the sexes. It ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... becoming acquainted with the rottenness of society: and occasionally he expresses, in language of the most profane, not to say blasphemous character, a momentary regret for having done so much harm,—such as the Devil might sentimentally have expressed, when he had succeeded in misleading our first parents. Of course, he never pays tradesmen for the things with which they supply him. He can drink an enormous quantity of wine without his head becoming affected. He ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... women, who will utilize the acquaintanceship with all their might for their own personal ends. And exceedingly few members of any Government whatsoever would have the courage to tell a well-dressed and arrogant woman to go to the devil, even when that answer happened to be the sole correct answer to an impertinence. Wellington merely damned the portly darlings, but then Wellington, though preposterous as a politician, ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett |
