"Villainy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to turn Lolita's head and hurry off from the spot. Then a reflection stays her. The man is evidently alone, and the expression on his countenance is neither that of villainy nor anger. The colour of his skin, with the moustache, bespeak him a white man, and not an Indian. Besides, there is pallor upon his cheeks—a wan, wasted look, that ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... Julia was almost as much overcome by the overwhelming emotions which now possessed her, as she was at the miserable position in which malignity had so lately placed her. Whilst Victor was being conveyed to the jail, where he was to suffer the punishment due to his villainy, Julia was conducted home to her now rejoicing parent, amidst the congratulations, caresses, and praises, of troops of friends. The day after her acquittal, the throne was again set up in the Grande Allee, and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various
... And I take this liberty to declare, that, whether under a fee or not (for in such a cause as this I despise a fee), I will to my dying day oppose, with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery on the one hand, and villainy on the other, as this Writ of ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... letter to Laurens do we get a glimpse of his feelings. He wrote: "I am mistaken if at this time Arnold is undergoing the torment of a mental hell. He wants feeling. From some traits of his character which have lately come to my knowledge, he seems to have been so hackneyed in villainy, and so lost to all sense of honor and shame, that, while his faculties will enable him to continue his sordid pursuits, there will be no time for remorse." With this single expression of measureless ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... practise their villainy on father, and, instead of beseeching them, weeping, or anything of the sort, father got angry and began to reprove ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... was one cause, among others, why the children of Israel (though the greater number, and having the better cause too) did twice fall before Benjamin, because, while they made so great a business for the villainy committed upon the Levites' concubine, they had taken no course with the graven image of the children of Dan (Jud. xviii. 30, 31), a thing which did more immediately ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... conscious of a strange tightening of his heartstrings as the man on whom he relied, remained impassive and made no movement to come to his help. "Will you tell them, I pray you, sir, that you know me to be a man of honor, incapable of such villainy as they suggest? ... You know that I did not even wish ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... two cars until a year ago, when I made him give them up and live more simply. You don't know what these years have meant, Mr. Tarling, since I discovered how deeply mother would be dragged down by the exposure of his villainy." ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... have a great head. I do admire you, upon my word! If I had one-half of your ability for villainy, I would have been ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... is to clear my character which you have slandered, and to fix the disgrace you intended for me on your own son. I bring you the proofs of his, not my villainy." ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... Boston, where James Otis, advocate-general, coming out boldly on the side of the people, exclaimed, "To my dying day I will oppose, with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery on the one hand and villainy on the other." "Then and there," said John Adams, who was present, "the trumpet of the ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... a little: Monckton was tried, and made no defense. He dared not call Hope as his witness, for it was clear Hope must have seen him commit the theft and attempt the other villainy. But the false accusation leaked out as well as the theft. A previous conviction was proved, and the indignant judge gave ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... injured—so do your best, while I have Connor, I'm not afraid of yees. Thanks be to God that sent him!" he exclaimed, dropping suddenly on his knees—"oh, thanks be to God that sent him to comfort an' protect his father from the schames and villainy of them that 'ud bring him to starvation ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... fires visit us. Will nothing wring you then do you think? sit hard here, And like a Snail curl round about your Conscience, Biting and stinging: will you not roar too late then? Then when you shake in horrour of this Villainy, Then will I rise a Star in ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (2 of 10) - The Humourous Lieutenant • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... heart can desire, manly, brave, and natural; his villains make villainy interesting; so it may be forgiven him that scarcely one of his feminine characters lives ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... me, had always lived forward among the seamen; yet neither they, nor the messmates of Christian, Stewart, Heywood, and Young, had ever observed any circumstance that made them in the least suspect what was going on. To such a close-planned act of villainy, my mind being entirely free from any suspicion, it is not wonderful that I fell a sacrifice. Perhaps, if there had been marines on board, a sentinel at my cabin-door might have prevented it; for I slept with the door always open, that the officer of the watch might ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... suggested very sensibly to Mackenzie, that the interest of most works of fiction depended on the designing villainy of one or more characters, and that in actual life calamities were more often brought about by the innocent errors of the sufferers. To place this view before his readers, Mackenzie wrote "Julia de Roubigne," in which a wife brings death upon herself and her husband by indiscreetly, ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... circumstances of her death, for they are well-known to everybody and will never be forgotten. Destiny left nothing undone for the purest glory to emerge from the deepest shadow. In the depths of that shadow it concentrated all imaginable hatred, horror, villainy, cowardice and infamy, so that all pity, all innocent courage and mercy, all well-doing and all sweet charity might shine forth above it, as though to show us how low men may sink and how high a woman can ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... I lived in one of the fairest cities of Europe with my faithful d'Altenstein, and for those years the Duke Waldemar left me in peace, being, I suppose, occupied in some other villainy. ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... ore, the land maps on the wall, the corner ledger and high stool, the cupboard whose opened door disclosed bottles and glasses, and the blush roses just without the two small windows. "I like the law," she remarked. "There's a deal of villainy in it, no doubt, but that's a complaint to which all ways of making a living are liable. Even a shoemaker may be a villain. How does it feel to be a great ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... that Theodor Krisstyan visits this island only for these reasons; it must have other secrets unknown to me. He is a paid spy, and has a bad heart besides; he is rotten to the core, and ripe for any villainy. He knows that I and my daughter have only usurped the island, and that by law I have no claim to it, and by the possession of this secret he lays us under contribution, vexes and ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... strength and prowess, related to his brothers everything about the villainy of Duryodhana, and the lucky and unlucky incidents that had befallen him in the world of the Serpents. Thereupon Yudhishthira said, 'Do thou observe silence on this. Do not speak of this to any one. From this day, protect ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... hopes. They have grown intimate with vice and blood; they gloat over the wildest illustrations of their soul-damning and earth-polluting business, and are moral pests. Yes; they are a legitimate fruit of slavery; and it is a puzzle to make out a case of greater villainy for them, than for the slaveholders, who make such a class possible. They are mere hucksters of the surplus slave produce of Maryland and Virginia coarse, cruel, and swaggering bullies, whose very breathing is of ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... went on to say that these "swindles" were apt to occur in any country, but that England alone lacked the will to punish them: "it is the lack of even a minimum standard of honour urging even honest men to protest against such villainy that has brought us ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... that his blood was not red like that of other men, but black like his skin and his soul. They had good cause to curse his memory, for his villainy had reduced more than half Memphis to ashes that day, and brought the city ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... amazed by the fellow's villainy and impudence. He reflected, however, that nothing was to be gained by kicking him out of the house, while his offer of reparation was not to be despised. He replied, "You have been faithless to your salt; but I will pardon you on one condition ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... the age. His pen combines the master strokes of the artist and a broad knowledge of politics and public affairs. He gives Evening Journal readers the "high lights" of the news of the day and portrays unerringly the virtue or villainy of public characters. Powers' outstanding talent has helped to make the Journal the most ...
— What's in the New York Evening Journal - America's Greatest Evening Newspaper • New York Evening Journal
... liasons, of the cloak and the dagger, are some of the old streets, balconies, and portals of Mexico. Here the Spanish cavalier, with sword and muffling cape, stalked through the gloom to some intrigue of love or villainy, and here passed cassocked priest and barefooted friars, long years ago. Here sparkling eyes looked forth from some twilight lattice what time from the street below arose the soft notes of a serenading guitar. As to the sparkling ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... after the Saracens into Spain. They took and fired Saragossa, and Marsilius was hung to the carob-tree under which he had planned his villainy with Gan; and Gan was hung and drawn and quartered in Roncesvalles, amidst the ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... notion, That too might have been let alone—assuredly. For knew I not the patriarch then to be A knave? And might I not have talked with you? And ought I to have exposed the poor girl—ha! To part with such a father? Now what happens? The patriarch's villainy consistent ever Restored me to myself—O, hear me out - Suppose he was to ferret out your name, What then? What then? He cannot seize the maid, Unless she still belong to none but you. 'Tis from your house alone that he could ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... degradation, always feel toward those moving on a higher plane, in an atmosphere untainted by the putrescence which is their natural element. Maverick knew that, to a man like Houston, his own baseness and villainy were written in his face, and even in his slouching, cringing gait, as plainly as though branded in letters of fire, and this was sufficient to kindle his anger against him, and Haight, by his talk, added fuel to the slowly smoldering fire. At home, but more particularly among the ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... "the spotted snake! A fit tool for the Intendant's lies and villainy! I am convinced he went not on his own errand to Tilly. Bigot is at the bottom of this foul conspiracy to ruin the noblest ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... time to get the fire under," I said. "Better, perhaps, if they let the whole thing burn itself out. It would burn up a lot of villainy." ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... plucked and crushed, like that which you wear so proudly upon your breast. The wolf has slept in the lair of the forest deer: the yellow fawn will be his victim! Su-wa-nee joys at it: ha, ha, ha! Hers will not be the only heart wrung by the villainy of the false pale-face. Ha, ha, ha! Go, brave slayer of red panthers! Ah! you may go, but only to grieve: you will be too ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... they were in security, since the curse had moved on to other peoples, then they turned sharply about and reverted once more to their baseness of heart, and now, more than before, they make a display of the inconsistency of their conduct, altogether surpassing themselves in villainy and in lawlessness of every sort. For one could insist emphatically without falsehood that this disease, whether by chance or by some providence, chose out with exactitude the worst men and let ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... They have no character to lose. They may be dressed in the height of fashion, may be cologned, and pomatumed, and padded, and diamond-ringed, and flamboyant-cravatted, until they bewitch the eye and intoxicate the olfactories; but they are double-distilled extracts of villainy, moral dirt and blasphemy. Beware of them. "Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. But he knoweth not that the ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... a close association of one month with Cigole. Yet he made up his mind not to lose sight of this man. To him he appeared only an agent in villainy, and therefore unworthy of vengeance; yet he might be made use of as an aid in that vengeance. He therefore wished to have a clew by which ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... soul, that even desperation cannot animate him to look upon an enemy. You should not thus have soared, Sir, unless, like others of your black profession, you had a sword to keep the fools in awe, your villainy ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... combining some of the features of three distinct classes of folk-tales. One of these is the anti-Jewish series, of which Grimm's story of the Jew in the Bramble-Bush is one of the most typical examples. According to these tales, any villainy is justifiable, if perpetrated on a Jew. We find traces of this feeling even in Shakespeare, and to this day Shylock (notwithstanding the grievous wrongs which he had suffered at the hands of Christians) ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... of hatred was wanting to their conflicts, for they changed sides without scruple, and the comrade of yesterday was the foeman of to-day, and again the comrade of the morrow. The only moral salt which kept the carcass of their villainy from rotting was a military code of honour, embodying the freemasonry of the soldier's trade and having as one of its articles the duel with all the forms—an improvement at any rate upon assassination. A stronger ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... reason to think him gone to Paris. I followed him thither, and found he was making up to Mrs. Finch. I let him know that I was aware of this villainy, and of a good deal more of the same kind, and threatened that, unless he came in to my terms, I would expose the whole to his cousin, and let her know that he is at this moment engaged to Miss Brandon. She is ready to swallow a good deal, but that would have been too much, and he knew ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... discouragements arise! The fever of revolt passes by, and the victim wavers. He still breathes bitter vengeance, but he does not act. He despairs, and asks himself what would be the good of it? And in this way the success of villainy is ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... suspicion of their being concerned in the affair in question. "When Napoleon saw the matter in its true light," said Savary, "when I proved to him the palpable existence of the odious machination, he could not find terms to express his indignation. 'What baseness, what horrible villainy!' he exclaimed; and gave me orders to arrest and bring to Paris the infamous writer of the letter; and you may rely upon it his ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... well what you've done, you young rascal!" puffed the merchant. "Oh, but I'll make you pay dearly for your villainy." ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer
... on hearing of the bargain between them." Dr. Furnivall heard the story from some one who well remembered the sensation it had made in London years ago. In his management of the story, Browning has intensified the villainy of the Lord at the same time that he has shown a possible streak of goodness in him. The young man, on the other hand, he has made to be of very good stuff, indeed, notwithstanding his year of tutelage from the older man. He makes one radical change in the story as well as several minor ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... companion of convicted felons and himself in a felon's cell. This cell, a few days later, a thief shared: and these two held converse as fellow thieves, relating their adventures to one another, and young Muller, that he might not be outdone, invented lying tales of villainy to make himself out the more ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... as if I could hate a "dispassionate view of things." Things are made to arouse our passion, so long as meanness and villainy prevail; and if old men, knowing the balance of the world, can contemplate them all "dispassionately," more clearly than any thing else, to my mind, that proves the beauty of being young. I am sure that I never was hot or violent—qualities which I especially ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... wretched thing. My father says little, and he has not spoken harshly; for which I gave thanksgiving this morning in the chapel of the Ursulines. Yet you are in a dungeon, covered with wounds of my brother's making, both of you victims of others' villainy, and you are yet to bear worse things, for they are to try you for your life. But never shall I believe that they will find you guilty of dishonour. I have watched you these three years; I do not, nor ever will, doubt you, dear friend of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... manuscript, Murdoch, and I think it is high time you should mention that the M'Raes of Strathtoul were in no degree connected with or voluntarily mixed up in the villainy that banished your poor ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... dear to be allowed to touch even the hem of the sacerdotal garments. Thus heresy, sacrilege, &c. were considered crimes of a much deeper dye, that fixed an indelible stain on the perpetrator, alarmed the mind of the priestly order, much more seriously than the most inveterate villainy, the most determined delinquency, which more immediately involved the true interests of society. Thence the ideas of the people were completely overturned, imaginary crimes terrified them, while real crimes had no effect ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... seen a greater mixture of piety and villainy than among these Crusaders. They could rape, rob, and murder with a good conscience, yet must be numbered among the most heroic of men. They endured uncomplainingly long marches in heat and cold, in hunger, thirst, and ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell
... of that infernal court, the Inquisition; which, though not so considerable at Rome as in Spain and Portugal, will, however, be a good sample to you of what the villainy of some men can contrive, the folly of others receive, and both together establish, in spite of the first natural principles of reason, justice, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... the ox-eye,[FN36] and asked, "In the name of Allah, where is my debtor and where is my property?" Then he wept and cried out and said to the Wali, "Where is that ill-omened fellow, who aboundeth in robbery and villainy?" Thereupon the Chief turned to me and said, "Why dost thou not answer the Kazi?" and I replied, "O Emir, the two heads[FN37] are not equal, and I, I have no helper;[FN38] but, an the right be on my side 'twill appear." At this the Judge grew hotter of ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... in his possession which vitally affects the young woman I love. Also he is concerned, perhaps deeply, in the murder on the Dollar Sign road. Yet he has fortified himself so well in his villainy ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... little guess the magnitude of the harm you have been doing; the frightful fate you have been preparing for an innocent and trusting girl; the depth of the villainy you are aiding and abetting. You have been acting, as I say, in ignorance, without realising the awful consequences of your folly and duplicity. But that you should have chosen this sacred place for such illicit and reprehensible ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... he cuts me off, wavin' his hands. "One of the camera men, another infernal idiot, kept turning the crank while this disgraceful brawl was at its height and I have proof of your villainy on film! I'll use it as a basis to sever my ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... own one again. They laid up on the worn benches of the Silver Dollar or the Same Old Luck like beached vessels, and their talk ran on endlessly of "strike" and "contact" and "mother lode," and worked around to fights and hold-ups, villainy, haunts, and the hoodoo of the ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... themselves flying as criminals from the officers of justice; and he wound up with a warm appeal to the press to cast its shield over the victim of bad laws and foul practices. "In England," said he, "Justice is the daughter of Publicity. Throughout the world deeds of villainy are done every day in kid gloves: but, with us, at all events, they have to be done on the sly! Here lies our true moral eminence as a nation. Utter then your 'fiat lux,' cast the full light of publicity on this dark villainy; ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... eldest, he would annex the hero in the very frontispiece; and for the rest of the story his career, if chequered at intervals, was sure of heroic episodes and a glorious close. But his juniors, who had to put up with characters of a clay more mixed—nay, sometimes with undiluted villainy—were hard put to it on occasion to defend their other selves (as it was strict etiquette to do) from ignominy perhaps only too justly merited. Edward was indeed a hopeless grabber. In the "Buffalo-book," for instance (so named from the subject of ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... thou, accursed traitor?" cried Nicholas. "I could scarcely believe in thy villainy, but now ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... a thundering voice. "Our comrade of the illustrious navy of the United States of America has only one explanation for everything: his Japanese logarithms, by means of which he figures out everything. Now we shall hear that this seaquake can be traced to Japanese villainy, probably brought about by Japanese divers, or even submarine boats." And the colonel began ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... bookseller living in Little Britain, Wood was forced to walk thither, and much ado there was to find him.' The library was afterwards moved to Essex Street, and then to Ashburnham House in Little Dean's Yard, where the great fire took place in 1731, which some attributed to 'Dr. Bentley's villainy.' Dean Stanley has told us how the Headmaster of Westminster, coming to the rescue, saw a figure issue from the burning house, 'in his dressing-gown, with a flowing wig on his head, and a huge volume under his arm.' This was Dr. Bentley the ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... battle? Are we become their captives by the chance of war? No! We have been bought and sold, like monkeys or cattle, to a set of cowards and rogues who have been driven out of their own country by reason of their villainy! Shall we let vile creatures such as these flog us and bruise us as ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... he, who, in foreign lands, had been its stoutest and most pronounced defender. Nor, in the controversies that followed his return from Europe, did one side conduct itself with perfect righteousness, and the other with deliberate villainy. Had the parties but seen fit to act in this manner, the duties of a biographer would have been sensibly lightened. A fair and dispassionate account of the circumstances that led to the unpopularity which clouded, though it could hardly be said to darken, Cooper's later life, ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... caught sight of her, standing, in habit and terai, on the open space where her tent had been, supervising the departure of her last load of luggage, and listening patiently to tales of coolie villainy and extortion poured forth by her Kashmiri ayah, on a high note ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... or a Smith as he is to be a Rutherford or a Pendleton, but the chances are that, when given to a great banker, either of the last two names would make a greater impression on "popular" spectators. Again, certain names instantly make us think of villainy, while others as plainly tell us that the owner of the name is an honest man. The authors of the "good old" melodramas used exaggerated names that today would probably be laughed at. "Jack Manly" and "Desmond Dangerfield" would hardly "get by" in modern drama ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... strange to tell besides the natives, they encountered a couple of Cholos, or half-breed Spaniards, from the Main; one half Spanish, the other half quartered between the wild Indian and the devil; a race, that from Baldivia to Panama are notorious for their unscrupulous villainy. ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... the wood-mouse. "Cousin House-Mouse and I were just sitting and talking about it, cousin. But what's to be done, cousin? I am hard pressed by the field-mouse and get the blame for all his villainy. Some time ago, the house-mouse had to put up with harm for your sake, because you bit the odd man in the nose or else ate and drank things. Now one has come who is stronger than you; and so it's your turn. Besides, it seems to me that ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... inquired Nick, smiling softly. "Well, sir, if I were to tell you the history of these rascals, you would be more than amazed—you would be astounded. No crime is too desperate, no knavery too hazardous, no villainy too despicable, for them to attempt, and too often successfully execute. They have perpetrated their crimes over two continents, and are known to the police the ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... On others' Heads, no matter whose, if you Are but secure, and have the Cain in Hand: For they're indiff'rent where they take Revenge, Whether on him that cheated, or his Friend, Or on a Stranger whom they never saw, Perhaps an honest Peasant, who ne'er dreamt Of Fraud or Villainy in all his life; Such let them murder, if they will a Score, The Guilt is theirs, while we secure the Gain, Nor shall we feel the ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers
... monthly from our Southern Mary, and Clara often said she had hope of seeing her again. Mrs. Chadwick had kept track of Mrs. Benton, and that strange compound of villainy and taste—her husband—had really been touched by Mary's plea and was living with his family. I could hardly believe it, and when Hal stepped in one evening with "love's fawn" at his side, and a letter from that veritable Benton, we had a grand surprise. I will not try to tell ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... had instantly made up his mind, that, if this should prove to be more than a fancy of delirium—the miraged portrayal of a villainy which had actually occurred—he would track the assassin as he had tracked Spurling, till the last ounce of his strength failed him, that Spurling might be avenged. Perhaps, in the avenging he hoped to clear himself in his own sight of his imagined share ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... having waited for him according to promise, had now left England, and presumed that the differences between them were to be settled by their respective lawyers—infamous behaviour on a par with the rest of Lord Highgate's villainy, the Baronet said. "When the scoundrel knew I could lift my pistol arm," Barnes said, "Lord Highgate fled the country;"—thus hinting that death, and not damages, were what he intended ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Fur Company in the Indian villages. They were all of Canadian extraction; their hard, weather-beaten faces and bushy mustaches looked out from beneath the hoods of their white capotes with a bad and brutish expression, as if their owner might be the willing agent of any villainy. And such in fact is the character of many ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... you come to is sure to have some bad word or other chalked upon it by the young rascals: a woman can hardly pass for shame some times. If they'd never been taught how to write they wouldn't have been able to scribble such villainy. Their fathers couldn't do it, and the country was ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... that was before my Danny come back to me to be reconciled to His God. It was while he was still wanderin' I didn't know where, an' goin' from one piece of villainy ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... that in disappearing he might throw all pursuit off his track, and at the same time have an ample and crushing revenge upon his old sweetheart, if he could give the impression that he had been murdered by her only child. It was a masterpiece of villainy, and he carried it out like a master. The idea of the will, which would give an obvious motive for the crime, the secret visit unknown to his own parents, the retention of the stick, the blood, and the animal remains and buttons ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... he said icily, "we have done shady business together for years, both in Port Said and in London, and have remained the best of friends; two blackguards linked by our common villainy. But if this pleasant commercial acquaintance is to continue let there be no misunderstanding between us, M. Agapoulos. I may know I'm a dragoman; but in future, old friend"—he turned lazy eyes upon the Greek—"for your guidance, don't remind ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... told. She dwelt at picturesque length upon her shining place upon the Viennese stage; she recounted her triumphs, she prophesied the joy of the playgoers at her return to them. Darkly she expatiated upon the villainy of the Turkish Captain, who had lured her to such incarceration. Gleefully she displayed the diamonds upon her small person which she was ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... in full, middle name and all—as though villainy might lurk in an initial—my hotel, my length of stay in London, my residence in America, my occupation, the titles of the books I sought. When he had done, I offered him my age and my weakness for French pastry, in order that material for a monograph ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... accusers are keen and quick, and the faster runner, who is unrighteousness, has overtaken them. And now I depart hence condemned by you to suffer the penalty of death,—they too go their ways condemned by the truth to suffer the penalty of villainy and wrong; and I must abide by my award—let them abide by theirs. I suppose that these things may be regarded as fated,—and I think that ...
— Apology - Also known as "The Death of Socrates" • Plato
... of September; good, peaceful men, known to me personally, going with untroubled tranquillity to perpetrate the most beastly, senseless, and vile of crimes. Had not they some means of stifling their conscience, not one of them would be capable of committing a hundredth part of such a villainy. ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... property of which the other had been robbed? That this was done I have living witnesses in his highness Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick and the Berlin ministry, from whose mouths I learned this artifice of villainy. It is the more necessary to establish this truth, because no one can comprehend why the Great Frederic should have proceeded against me in a manner so cruel that, when it comes to be related, must raise the indignation of the just, and move ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... hearing the shouting, came presently towards us. They were truly surprised and concerned to find Ahmed and myself, whom they had known formerly as respectable and well-to-do merchants, lying bound, dirty, and ragged upon the ground. They freed us, and we told them of the villainy of the African merchant, and related to them all that had befallen us, from the time he sold us the seeds, until the assault he had made upon us and the robbery he had committed that afternoon. They advised us to lay our case before Lootzee, the king of that ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... it is held forth for a cause of the Wrath which yet burneth more and more; So hath it been acknowledged before GOD in our publick Humiliations, to be a maine cause of GODS Controversie with the Land, and an accession to the guiltinesse of the cruelty, villainy, and other mischiefs committed by them and their followers: And to lye still under the guilt after solemne Confession, were an high provocation of GOD, and an heavy aggravation of our sinne; And on the one part, ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... characteristic and naive manner in which you expressed your detestation of Varney's character—so much so, indeed, that I could not forbear laughing aloud when I perused that part of your letter. He is certainly the personification of consummate villainy; and in the delineation of his dark and profoundly artful mind, Scott exhibits a wonderful knowledge of human nature as well as surprising skill in embodying his perceptions so as to enable others to become participators in that knowledge. Excuse the want of news in this ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... United States, and who prey upon and plunder the government of the United States and the city and county governments thereof, and also upon private citizens, and who now are carrying into practice gigantic schemes of plunder through fraud, usurpation, and other villainy, in order to enrich themselves, bankrupt the nation, and destroy our government, and that their power is so great that they can and do obstruct the administration of public justice, corrupt its fountains, and paralyze to some extent the sovereign powers of the government of the United ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... of plain speech, he resented anything in the nature of double- dealing. Royson's remarkable proficiency in most matters bearing on the navigation of a ship had amazed him in the first instance, and this juggling with names led him to suspect some deep-laid villainy with which the midnight attack on von ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... Judith, if thy hot spirit beareth still Indignant suffering of villainy, Think, that thou hast no wrong from it. Such things Are in themselves dead, and have only life From what lives round them. And around thee glory Lives and will force its splendour on the harm Thy purity endured, making it shine Like diamond in sunlight, ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... turning like a worm. No Fear, and Chance it! Her bosom heaved under the soiled two-and-elevenpenny peek-a-boo "blowse" as she registered her vow. That there Keyse—the conduct of the faithless Mr. Green appeared almost blonde in complexion beside the sable villainy of the other—That There ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... choked him—for it was safe now to be as angry as he could lash himself—came stalking up to where Morgan held Craddock and the unwounded raider off from the tempting heap of weapons thrown down by the mob. The sheriff began to abuse Craddock, laying to him all the villainy of ancestry and life that his well-schooled tongue could shape. Morgan cut him off with ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... mother," Rex said, in conclusion; "you must comfort me, for Heaven knows I need all of your sympathy. You will forgive me, mother," he said. "You would have loved Daisy, too, if you had seen her; I shall always believe, through some enormous villainy, Stanwick must have tempted her. I shall follow him to the ends of the earth. I shall wring the truth from his lips. I must go away," he cried—"anywhere, everywhere, trying to forget my great sorrow. How am I to bear it? Has Heaven no pity, that ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... time the island had been called Van Diemen's Land. But the name was now so intimately associated with ideas of crime and villainy, that it was gladly abandoned by the colonists, who adopted, from the name of its discoverer, the present title of ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... gone to his father to make enquiry, had confessed that it was he who had stolen the money out of Scott's pocket; and when we returned he was surrounded by all the boys, who were upbraiding and taunting him with his villainy; but they were all more enraged with him for his baseness in accusing me of the theft, than they were with the theft itself. I was the only one who expressed any pity for him, and had the weakness to solicit for that mercy ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... refined pleasure of swindling under a master's very eye. At the trial the judge, who had, so ran report, been himself rather badly bitten by the Ham Sandwich Company, put the case briefly and neatly in the words, 'You appear to revel in villainy for villainy's sake,' and I am almost certain that I saw the beginnings of a gratified smile on Frederick's expressive face as he heard the remark. The rest of our study—the juniors at St Austin's pigged in quartettes—were in a state of considerable mental activity on account ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... shall our ears with pleasure listen To widow's wail and orphan's cry; And shall we gird, as joyful witness, The death-watch of your villainy. ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... hopeful, and referred to the generosity of her future husband in such a manner that one not in the possession of such proof of Hubert Tracy's villainy would have gladly welcomed him with a "God bless you, my son. Take my child and keep her happy until death ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... my design. How has he gained his influence over the girl? Why does he keep her in such strict seclusion? Who is this old half-frantic, unceremonious man-monster calling himself Ulpius; refusing all reward for his villainy; raving about a return to the old religion of the gods; and exulting in the promise he has extorted from me, as a good pagan, to support the first restoration of the ancient worship that may be attempted in ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... weak days of the Confederation our commerce was plundered with impunity, and American citizens were seized and sold into slavery in the markets of Algiers and Tripoli. One reason for the long survival of this villainy was the low state of humanity among European nations. An Englishman's sympathy was but feebly aroused by the plunder of Frenchmen, and the bigoted Spaniard looked on with approval so long as it was Protestants that were kidnapped and ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... necessity for money) devise some fresh plan, which might succeed in its object, were Oaklands still ignorant of the real character of the person he had to deal with? And in such case should not I be answerable for any mischief which might ensue? Nay, for aught I knew, some fresh villainy might be afloat even now; what plan could Spicer have been urging, which Cumberland seemed unwilling to adopt, if not something of this nature, and which might be prevented were Oaklands made ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... monkey actually has a lover of her own, and that their mutual affection (for mutual I take it to be) has a great deal of complicated and romantic interest. She was once, you must know, a great heiress, but was ruined by the prodigality of her father and the villainy of a horrid man in whom he confided. And one of the handsomest young gentlemen in the country is attached to her; but, as he is heir to a great estate, she discourages his addresses on account of the disproportion ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... sister as she concluded the letter, "we must certainly see her before she goes. What a wretch that persecutor of hers must be! how persevering in his villainy!" ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... was actually nothing to be done: a deplorable absence of motive villainy; apparently an absence of the beneficent Power directing events to their proper termination. Lady Wathin heard of her cousin's having been removed to Cowes in May, for light Solent and Channel voyages on board Lord Esquart's yacht. She heard also ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... is Paddy," said the voice from Houndsditch. He pointed a thumb that was a certificate of villainy in the direction ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... some of his misdemeanors; which, however, as it broke no bones, he made very light of, and scrupled not to repeat the offence whenever another opportunity presented. Sometimes, in consequence of some flagrant villainy, he would abscond from the garrison, and be absent for a month at a time; skulking about the woods and swamps, with a long fowling-piece on his shoulder, lying in ambush for game, or squatting himself ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... there is no one that is ignorant of the fact that it was all the doing of your opponents that no division took place: and if they, under the pretext of a regard for the people, but really from the most unprincipled villainy, attempt to carry anything, I have taken very good care that they shall not be able to do so without violating the auspices or the laws, or, in fact, without absolute violence. I don't think I need write ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... Heaven you and your Ministry and Abraham Levi were all three on the Blocksberg! I tell you what, unless you lower the price of corn, and take away the monopoly from that infernal Jew, I'll go this moment and reveal your villainy to the King, and get you and Abraham Levi banished from the country. See to it—I'll keep my word." Philip turned away in a rage, and proceeded into the dancing- room, leaving the Minister ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... him, dread him; he sets the law at defiance, laughs when he is told he is the cunningest rogue in the county. He owns to the fearful; says it has served him through many a hard squeeze; but now that he finds law so necessary to carry out villainy, he's taken to studying it himself. His dress is of yellow cotton, of which he has a short roundabout and loose pantaloons. His shirt bosom is open, the collar secured at the neck with a short black ribbon; he is much ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... start. The great point about it was that all the performers forgot that they were acting, and were so perfectly natural. There was not a hitch. Killick, as a withered old Shylock, gave a really masterly representation of ancient villainy. Evans was admirably suited with the role of a dashing young man-about-town. The way he took his gloves off was worth a fortune in itself. We felt that there must be many degrees of blue blood in his veins. His back-chat repartee was far better than that of Mr. ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... advanced age, nor high social standing, had been able to protect her from the ferocity of a black savage. Her sex, which should have been her shield and buckler, had made her an easy mark for the villainy of a black brute. To take the time to try him would be a criminal waste of public money. To hang him would be too slight a punishment for so dastardly a crime. An example ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... desire. One day he appeared at break of dawn at the house of Dathan, roused him from his sleep, and ordered him to hurry his detachment of men to their work. The husband scarcely out of sight, he executed the villainy he had planned, and dishonored the woman, and the fruit of this illicit relation was the blasphemer of the Name whom Moses ordered to execution on the march through ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... themselves, or for any one to conduct an industry like making a secret scent to attract wolves, the person who said so would be mistaken. There was never in the world a better place for secret dwelling and villainy and all ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... course, that the trick which had laid suspicion upon him would greatly delay the discovery of the truth, but little did he guess to what vast proportions had the results of the villainy of Astok of ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... tyrannical treatment. We were whipped, kicked about, and kept in a half-starved condition. Twice when we were in bed, and, as he supposed, asleep, Alexander Filmore came to us and attempted to assassinate us, but my watchfulness was a match for his villainy, and we ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... O mighty ruler, thee do I beseech who art lord over Pseudolus. Thee do I seek that thou mayst obtain thrice three times triple delights in three various ways, joys earned by three tricks and three tricksters, cunningly won by treachery, fraud and villainy, which in this little sealed missive have I but erstwhile brought ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... [Pauses] A most ingenious thought!—but to pursue it—[Pauses again.] Shall I at such dark villainy connive!— Are there no means to 'scape the tongue of calumny, But by imbibing her infectious breath, And blasting innocence with sland'rous falsehood? Chang'd howsoe'er I be, yet my soul shudders Ev'n at the thought of an unjust revenge— I ne'er ...
— The Female Gamester • Gorges Edmond Howard
... Prince of Faithful Men! with best of grace thy vow * I will accomplish as 'twas vowed and with the gladdest gree. I sinned not adulterous sin when loved her I, then how * Canst charge me with advowtrous deed or any villainy? Soon comes to thee that splendid sun which hath no living peer * On earth, nor aught in mortal men of Jinns ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... the supercargo was planning some especial piece of villainy that he addressed his confrere by his Christian name. Secretly he despised him as a "damned Dutchman," to his face he flattered him; for he was a useful and willing tool, and during the three or four years they had sailed together had materially assisted the "good-natured, jovial" ...
— Tessa - 1901 • Louis Becke
... up to some villainy, blow them to shivers! Oh, these women are vile creatures! One can't say much for men either; but women!... They are like wild ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... far commanded the assent of her reason, that she acknowledged that 'twas possible they might be verified by the event. Wherefore she made answer:-"Ricciardo, I know not how God will grant me patience to bear the villainy and knavery which thou hast practised upon me; and though in this place, to which simplicity and excess of jealousy guided my steps, I raise no cry, rest assured that I shall never be happy, until in one way or another I know ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... right-living and thinking Will keep the grim wolf from the door; But how many Saints are there sinking Whose crime is to live and be poor! Let the knave promulgate the deception, And dress the world's wounds with such salve; It is false—while rank Villainy prospers, And Virtue 's ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... was the wretch who was endeavoring to ruin him. And he felt certain, also, that Jacko was true to him. He knew, too, that he had plainly declared his suspicion to the man himself. But he had resolved upon doing this. He could in no way assist himself in circumventing the man's villainy by keeping his suspense to himself. The man might be frightened, and in spite of all that had passed between him and Medlicot, he still thought it possible that he might induce the sugar grower to co-operate with him in driving Nokes from the neighborhood. He had spent the ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... mother, required of his parliament. Tyrannical power is rarely satisfied with the mere acquiescence of servile judges; it demands, and ordinarily obtains from them, a positive indorsement of its schemes of successful villainy. It was necessary—especially, as we shall see later, after the cry of horror was heard that rose toward heaven from all parts of Europe on receipt of the tidings of the massacre in Paris and elsewhere—to ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... to philanthropy, charity, "the white man's burden" or any other pious hypocrisy or fraud that the villainy of man has invented. It is more important than, and it must precede both morals and good government. After you have been just to a people you may begin to preach to them. Good government as well as agricultural, commercial and industrial prosperity, have been rendered impossible in ...
— The American Revolution and the Boer War, An Open Letter to Mr. Charles Francis Adams on His Pamphlet "The Confederacy and the Transvaal" • Sydney G. Fisher
... strange and terrible adventures. To me there was no wild exultation in the thought of being in Cologne with our conquering army. The thought of all the losses on the way, and of all the futility of this strife, smote at one's heart. What fools the Germans had been, what tragic fools! What a mad villainy there had been among rival dynasties and powers and politicians and peoples to lead to this massacre! What had any one gained out of it all? Nothing except ruin. Nothing except great death and ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... who was waiting for him had long been his accomplice; together they had concocted the criminal plan to which Simon fell a victim, and as a reward for his villainy, Cyprien had been ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... feelings of Edward should in such a moment have so completely gained the ascendency. Perhaps he was not proof against the contrast before him, presented in the persons of Buchan and Gloucester; the base villainy of the one, the exalted nobility of the other, alike shone forth the clearer from their unusually close contact. In general, Edward was wont to deem these softening emotions foolish weaknesses, which he would banish by shunning the society of all those who could call them forth. Their candid acknowledgment ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... We do not know whether these debtors were tenants, paying rent in kind, or traders to whom goods had been advanced, or what they were. We do not know whether the steward was agent of the estate, or house steward, or what he was. But this we do know—that to mend one act of villainy by committing a fresh one, is not wisdom, but foolishness; and we may be sure that our Lord would never have held up the unjust steward as an example to us, or quoted his master's opinion of him, if all he did was to commit fraud on fraud, and make bad worse, thereby ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... during which the Jew was plunged in deep thought, with his face wrinkled into an expression of villainy perfectly demoniacal. Sikes eyed him furtively from time to time. Nancy, apparently fearful of irritating the housebreaker, sat with her eyes fixed upon the fire, as if she had been deaf to all ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... really happened to another ship, of great beauty of form and of blameless character, which certainly deserved a better fate. I have unscrupulously adapted it to the needs of my story thinking that I had there something in the nature of poetical justice. I hope that little villainy will not cast a shadow upon the general honesty of my proceedings as a ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... donkey, and every person avoids him. At last the gipsies offer thirty reals for him; and after much chaffering I am glad to get rid of him at two dollars. It is all a trick, however; he returns to his master, and the brotherhood share the spoil amongst them: all which villainy would be prevented, in my opinion, were the Calo language not spoken; for what but the word of Calo could have induced the donkey to behave ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... disturbed about it," she said slowly, "I can reassure you. You say that you do not know Dr. Callandar. But I do know him. The whole situation rests upon that. He is a man incapable of the caddish villainy you impute. Why he could not repair the car, I cannot say. I think," with a smile, "that he does not know quite as much about cars as he thinks he does. But he did his best, I know that! When we found his efforts useless we took the only course possible and made at once for the canoe. ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... to the city on three different sides. In the mandate which he scattered broadcast on this occasion he called himself "a vicegerent of the archangel Michael who had come to visit upon all who, in this controversy, should take the part of the Squire, punishment by fire and sword for the villainy into which the whole world was plunged." At the same time, having surprised the castle at Luetzen and fortified himself in it, he summoned the people to join him and help establish a better order of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... half visible in front of him, and the face was turned towards the direction whence the song was coming. The head disappeared; Morgan ducked also. He could give no guess as to the identity of the man who lay before him. But his mind was made up as to the spy's intentions. Villainy was plainly foreshadowed. He drew his knife from his belt. The footfalls of the traveller were now audible. He came abreast of the lurking foe; he passed him. There was a sudden leap; then another. A steel blade flashed in the sunlight. The song ceased and the singer turned. Another second ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... with a fixed, astounded horror; he could not believe his senses; he could not realize what he saw. His dearest friend stood mute beneath the charge of lowest villainy—stood powerless before the falsehoods of ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee] |
