"Mischievous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... represented the same class elsewhere. It was as well that there should be some extreme Radicals to speak for the poorest. But he thinks that any uniform suffrage would be bad, and that universal suffrage would be the most mischievous of all systems.[143] That would mean the swamping of one class by all—a tyranny more oppressive, perhaps, than any other tyranny. If one class alone were to be represented, it should be the favourite middle class, which has the 'largest share of ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... at 160,000 years ago—what an amusing idea that will seem!—But the truth is we must wage war against this mischievous foreshortening of history. I have no doubt there have been empires going, from time to time, in Egypt, since before Atlantis fell; people have the empire-building instinct, and it is an eminently convenient place for empire-building. I have no doubt there have been dozens of different Meneses—that ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... of booksellers, and the stinginess of hard-hearted patrons, had driven him into a cursed company of door-keeping herds, to meet the irrational brutality of those uneducated mischievous animals called footmen, house-porters, poetasters, mumpers, apothecaries, attorneys, and such like beasts of prey," who were, like himself, sometimes barred up for hours in the menagerie of a great man's antechamber. In his addresses to ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... in discussion, for no one will deny that such delicate distinctions are both inconvenient and dangerous, and should only be adopted if forced upon us. I shall assume that common sense and universal experience exonerate me from wasting words on the proof that homophones are mischievous, and I will give my one example in a note[8]; but it is a fit ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... suddenly to the front. Really, of course, he is as much pulled by Jesuit wires as any Sanfedist in the country. This mission was suggested by some of the Jesuit fathers. He is one of the most brilliant preachers in the Church, and as mischievous in his way as Lambruschini himself. His business is to keep the popular enthusiasm over the Pope from subsiding, and to occupy the public attention until the Grand Duke has signed a project which the agents of the Jesuits are preparing to ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... descriptive of the manners and amusements of the people at large; but all of them are true representations of Spanish life. They are marked by an attractive simplicity of thought and expression, united to a sort of mischievous shrewdness. No such popular poetry exists in any other language, and no other exhibits in so great a degree that nationality which is the truest element of such poetry everywhere. The English and Scotch ballads, with which they may most naturally be compared, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... sensible; Pr'ythee, give heed To counsel a victim advances; Your eyes, I acknowledge, will make our hearts bleed, Pierced through by love's magical lances. But better that fate Than in darkness to wait; Unsought by your mischievous glances. ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... they were, were of a purely negative character. They may be summed up in a single phrase. I abstained from mischievous activity, and I acted as a check on the interference of others. I had full confidence in the abilities of the commander, whom I had practically myself chosen, and, except when he asked for my assistance, I left him entirely alone. I encouraged ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... country; had the hair and nails clipped every twelve month, and kept himself the keys that opened the shrine. Many miracles were worked by King Olaf's holy remains. It was not long before there was a breach in the good understanding between the two kings, as many were so mischievous as to promote discord ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... happy conviction; "and really I believe that it is chiefly owing to you, Alan." He met my smile by another; but I think that there must have been something in his look which recalled other thoughts, for as I started up the stairs I threw a mischievous glance back at him and whispered, "Now for the horrors of ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... upon the brightness at Rome came from her father. Not that he went into any great excesses; or if he did, they were hidden from Dolly; but he indulged himself, she knew, in one at least of his mischievous pleasures. She had no reason to suppose that he gambled; as I said, there was always money to discharge the weekly bills; but he found wine somewhere and drank it; that was certain; and when did ever evil habits stand still? If he kept within bounds now, who should warrant ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... came on the scene, performed their songs, and were led about Puck-fashion by the fairies, and put to sleep by the lament over Ferdinand. The buccaneers in like manner were deluded by more mischievous songs and antics, till bogged and crying out ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... without any assignable cause; and his enmities, once fixed, were immovable.' Dr. Parr said of him that 'he was one of the wisest, most learned, but most spiteful of men.' Dr. Johnson, however, thought 'he was mischievous, but ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... instances of sharpness and ingenuity, in action and repartee, which his annals afforded, and charitably bottomed thereupon a hypothesis that David Gellatley was no farther fool than was necessary to avoid hard labour. This opinion was not better founded than that of the Negroes, who, from the acute and mischievous pranks of the monkeys, suppose that they have the gift of speech, and only suppress their powers of elocution to escape being set to work. But the hypothesis was entirely imaginary; David Gellatley was in good earnest the half-crazed simpleton ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... affair between some of us young hopefuls for the time being. Step in here, and I will go for Moodie; I long to tell him what I think of this confounded country. But you will find it out all in good time;" and, rubbing his hands together with a most lively and mischievous expression, he shouldered his way through trunks, and boxes, and anxious faces, to communicate to my husband the arrangement he had ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... disappeared because the game is no longer considered worth the candle. To puncture the tire of pretence is amusing enough; but it is useless to stick tacks under the steam road-roller: the road-roller advances remorselessly and smooths down your mischievous little tacks and you too, indifferently. The huge interests of politics, trade, progress, override your passionate protest. "Shall gravitation cease when you go by?" I do not compare Colonel Roosevelt with gravitation, but have all the ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... biddeth him sinneth mortal sin and disobeyeth his Lord, preferring his mundane to his supra-mundane weal. He hath no trace in this world and in the next no portion, for Allah spareth not the unjust and the mischievous, nor cloth He neglect any of His servants. These our Wazirs have set forth how, by reason of our just dealing with them and our wise governance of affairs, Allah hath vouchsafed us and them His grace, for which it behoveth us to thank Him, because of the great abundance of His ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... to everything in a world of mixed good and evil." (The Scotsman here thought of repeating "Hear! hear!" but refrained.) "One pamphleteer denounced them as the 'greatest evil that had happened of late years in these kingdoms,—mischievous to the public, prejudicial to trade, and destructive to lands. Those who travel in these coaches contract an idle habit of body, become weary and listless when they had rode a few miles, and were unable to travel on horseback, and ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... all are mad, I cannot say. 'T were wrong in their affliction to revile 'em, But truly, you'll confess 'tis very sad We wear the ugly things they make. Begad, They'd be less mischievous in an asylum!) ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... of Government. "In him," says Macaulay, in a somewhat highly-coloured character-sketch, "the political immortality of his age was personified in the most lively manner. Nature had given him a keen understanding, a restless and mischievous temper, a cold heart, and an abject spirit. His mind had undergone a training by which all his vices had been nursed up ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... his wife to the window, pointed out the retreating form of Yates, gave utterance to his suspicions, and placed her upon her guard. Then he went to his office, as well satisfied that there was a mischievous scheme on foot as if he had overheard the conversation between Mr. Belcher and the man who had consented to ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... to the walls to see the people at work upon them. They received with great contentment the military salutes of the officers of their acquaintance, which they acknowledged with the courtesy of well-trained internes, slightly exaggerated by provoking smiles and mischievous glances which had formed no part of the lessons in politeness ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... structure built on a husband's lie to his wife, could not conceive that his words should produce such an effect; he supposed that the Countess was in such delicate health that the slightest contradiction was mischievous. ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... voyaging, and caused their supply of food to fail. Then, again, the storm suddenly abated, and now they were scorched by the most fervent and burning heat; nor was this plague any easier to bear than the great and violent cold had been. Thus the mischievous excess in both directions affected their bodies alternately, and injured them by an immoderate increase first of cold and then of heat. Moreover, dysentery killed most of them. So the mass of the Danes, being pent ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... stood at hand: the brass had started in several places, and occasionally made great havoc in the children's fingers and in Mrs. Leslie's gown; in fact it was the liveliest piece of furniture in the house, thanks to the petulant brasswork, and could not have been more mischievous if it had been a monkey. Upon the work-table lay a housewife and thimble, and scissors, and skeins of worsted and thread, and little scraps of linen and cloth for patches. But Mrs. Leslie was not actually working,—she was preparing to work; she had been preparing to work for the last ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not question your good intentions, Halil, but it strikes me as very comical that you should wish us, on the strength of the prophecy of a Turkish recluse, to declare war against one of our neighbours who is actually living at peace with us, is doing us no harm, and harbours no mischievous designs against us. You speak as if Europe was absolutely uninhabited by any but ourselves, as if there was no such thing as powerful nations on every side of us, jealous neighbours all of them who would incontinently ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... Deity, with certain state-grants of worship, but no influence over political affairs. In these matters his aims were generous, if his methods were perniciously mistaken. In his theory of Free Love alone, borrowed like the rest from the Revolution, his aim was as mischievous as his method. At the same time he was at least logical. His theory was repulsive, but comprehensible. Whereas from our present via media—facilitation of divorce—can only result the era when the young lady in reduced circumstances will no longer turn governess but will ...
— Shelley - An Essay • Francis Thompson
... to, consists of irresponsible and impressionable students and the ignorant populace; and the agitator, who is thoroughly cognizant of this fact, uses it for his purposes. He appeals to their feelings, and succeeds in making them believe in the soundness of his fallacies and mischievous preachings. The authorities have therefore to see that this class of people is protected from the insidious appeals of mischievous pseudo-patriots. After over a century of beneficent British rule in India, it is scarcely necessary to attempt ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... tuned their instruments, and the rest of the company settled down to listen. Lanse, his eyes mischievous, passed a whispered word among the musicians, and presently, at the signal, the well-known notes of "Hail to the Chief" were sounding through the woods, played with great spirit and zest. And as they played, the five Birches marched ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... swear the jury in this case, but let it be struck out of the paper. I will not try it. The administration of justice is insulted by the proposal that I should try it. To my astonishment I find that the action is brought on a wager as to the mode of playing an illegal, disreputable, and mischievous game called 'Hazard;' whether, allowing seven to be the main, and eleven to be a nick to seven, there are more ways than six of nicking seven on the dice? Courts of justice are constituted to try rights and redress injuries, not ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private. This is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine which corrupts the youth, I am a mischievous person. But if any one says that this is not my teaching, he is speaking an untruth. Wherefore, O men of Athens, I say to you, do as Anytus bids or not as Anytus bids, and either acquit me or not; but whichever you do, understand ...
— Apology - Also known as "The Death of Socrates" • Plato
... is mischievous. It works injustice to both parties, but more particularly to the woman, since it sets an arbitrary limit to healthy competition, while putting a premium on mediocrity. Is there any sexual reason why a ...
— Journalism for Women - A Practical Guide • E.A. Bennett
... grow quite red and cheerful during a burst over the Downs after a hare, and laugh, and swear, and huzzah at a cockfight, of which sport he was very fond. And now, when the mob began to hoot his lady, he laughed with something of a mischievous look, as though he expected sport, and thought that she and they ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... vapours. Her infernal "Twice!" would cease now to apply to Laetitia; it would be an echo of Lady Busshe. Nay, were all in the secret, Thrice jilted! might become the universal roar. And this, he reflected bitterly, of a man whom nothing but duty to his line had arrested from being the most mischievous of his class with women! Such is ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... more than a century after the passing of the Licensing Act, certain of its more mischievous restrictions were in effect repealed. A measure of free trade in theatres was established. The Lord Chamberlain was still to be "the lawful monarch of the stage," but in the future his rule was to be more constitutional, less absolute than it had been. The ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... she is not well and is confined to her room; you will introduce me, won't you?" she added eagerly. "Of course, when we heard that there was an Atherly here we inquired about you; and I told them you were a relation of ours," she went on with a half-mischievous shyness,—"you remember the de Bracys,—and they seemed surprised and rather curious. I suppose one does not talk so much about these things over here, and I dare say you have so much to occupy your mind you don't talk of us in England." ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... Framlingham, using every argument which ought, as he considered, to prevail. He reminded her of the long and unavailing struggle of the emperor to bring back Germany out of heresy, where the obstinacy of the Romanists had been as mischievous to him as the fanaticism of the Lutherans. "Her duty to God was of course the first thing to be considered; but at such a time prudence was a part of that duty. The Protestant heresies had taken a hold deep and powerful upon her subjects. In London alone there were fifteen thousand French, Flemish, ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... mischievous smile lurking about his mouth, and he received the concession as graciously as if he did not know perfectly the motive which impelled it. As she had commenced being amiable she seemed determined to continue it, and offered herself to ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... the good, he nevertheless keeps them in a group around him, if he himself sees that they are the occasion of hurt and do mischief, he still pays no attention to it, nor does he separate any of them from association with himself; in order, therefore, to prevent the continuance of such a mischievous company, they are of necessity committed forthwith to hell; and there the father, before the children, is shut up in confinement, and the children are separated, and each is removed to ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... Jessie, glowering belligerently at the two mischievous faces. "Girls, if you only had an idea how hungry I am, you wouldn't ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... so kind," he answered, and departed with a bow. There was a mischievous mirth in her eye as she took her place in the window. Below in the ball-room sat Miss Trevor surrounded by men, and I saw her face ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... True Whale" (Greenland or Right Whale) "in possessing a formidable weapon at either extremity of its body, but also more frequently displays a disposition to employ these weapons offensively and in manner at once so artful, bold, and mischievous, as to lead to its being regarded as the most dangerous to attack of all the known species of the whale tribe." —FREDERICK DEBELL BENNETT'S WHALING VOYAGE ROUND ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... mischievous and libidinous, you never tire of illuminating men's wickedness, and you deny a ray of your light to him ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... before a howling House, which had listened quietly to me, but was determined to have no more, with remarkable pluck, equal to that with which he had faced bullets in the Danish lines; but it was partly useless and partly mischievous.' ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... Freycinet. As will be seen from what follows, both of them used the latitude allowed to them while receiving King's generous hospitality, to spy, to collect information for the purpose of enabling an attack to be made upon Port Jackson, and to supply it with mischievous intent to the military authorities ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... idle people chose to use my name in their gossip in no sense disturbed my peace of mind. Neither had I any particular occasion to regret it, for Mrs. Oldcastle's sake, since I fancy that independent and high-spirited little lady took a mischievous pleasure in spurring the rather sluggish imaginations of those about her. I found a hint of this in her demeanour occasionally, and could imagine her saying, as she mentally addressed ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... casualties, their distinctions are as nice as their cases are numerous. What beasts are innocent and what convict. By the one they mean creatures not naturally used to do mischief in any particular way; and by the other, those that naturally, or by a vicious habit, are mischievous that way. The tooth of a beast is convict, when it is proved to eat its usual food, the property of another man, and full restitution must be made; but if a beast that is used to eat fruits and herbs gnaws clothes or damages tools, which are not its usual food, the owner of the beast ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... seems to be a chaos of confusion; without acuteness, without dignity, and without good sense. He can neither read nor write; is guided by the last speaker; and his advisers, as might be expected, are of the lower order, and mischievous from their ignorance and their greediness. He is always talking, and generally joking; and the most serious subjects never meet with five minutes' consecutive attention. The favorable side of his character is, that he is good-tempered and good-natured; by no means cruel; and, ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... she saw a less all-conquering, a more plodding nature, slower to comprehend, less ardent and with less power to influence. But if the eyes were not so sparkling they were more thoughtful, and if the red lips were set in a less bewitchingly mischievous curve there was something about their lines that told more of patience and perseverance. All this Nyoda, who was an expert judge of character, read in the faces of the two girls as she watched them with interested and ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... sat thus tete-a-tete. The day of the move she had ridden up from the old Union Square offices with him, a stack of files in her lap. Once, too, on a Saturday, the day of Zoe's invariable luncheon downtown and subsequent opera matinee, he had strolled by what seemed mischievous chance into the tea room where they were dining, but the occasion had hardly been a success. There had been a great deal of badinage between him and Zoe, but Lilly had finished her meal almost in silence. The day following, a toy piano of complete ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... employed to any useful purpose. The debt was admitted to be an evil, but it was an evil from which, if wisely modified, some benefit might be extracted, and which, in its present state, could have only a mischievous operation. ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... exertions to keep him at her side, thus confirming Durward in the belief that she really was what her aunt and Carrie had represented her to be. "Poor, proud, and ambitious," rang in his ears, and as he mistook the mischievous look which 'Lena frequently sent toward Anna and Malcolm, for a desire to see how the latter was affected by her conduct, he thought "Fickle as fair," at the same time congratulating himself that he had obtained an ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... creatures for mere sport. Some people say that boys cannot help it; that it is nature, and only a proof that we are all originally descended from beasts of prey. But whether it is nature or not, little boys can help it, and must help it. For if they have naughty, low, mischievous tricks in their nature, as monkeys have, that is no reason why they should give way to those tricks like monkeys, who know no better. And therefore they must not torment dumb creatures; for if they do, a certain old lady who is coming will surely ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... and muscle," hence the breathing power must be fully developed. Weak breathing and failure to properly focus the voice are the most frequent causes of singing off the key. They are much more common and mischievous than lack of "ear." ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... very frequently make to themselves gods of objects that are contemptible even among brutes. In Hindoo, the monkey is a celebrated god. A few years since, the rajah of Nudeeya expended $50,000 in celebrating the marriage of a pair of those mischievous creatures, with all the parade and solemnity of a ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... Baron, perhaps. But we must take all that as we find it. Of course Mary will have to amuse herself. She will never live such a life as your sisters live at Manor Cross. The word that best describes her disposition is—gay. But she is not mischievous." ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... or gorillah that had been caught while its mother was killed; she sits eighteen inches high, has fine long black hair all over, which was pretty so long as it was kept in order by her dam. She is the least mischievous of all the monkey tribe I have seen, and seems to know that in me she has a friend, and sits quietly on the mat beside me. In walking, the first thing observed is that she does not tread on the palms of her hands, but on the backs of the second line ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... silly," criticised Dolores, with a mischievous glance toward the stove. "You ought to 've known she loved you, all the time. Of course you won't believe it till she herself ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... in all ordinary cases; but here we find her, for the purpose of maintaining the general principle, lending her assistance in the application and use of the knowledge received, even when the knowledge itself is erroneous, and the application mischievous. ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... advantage each of them might expect in lessening his own tax by augmenting that of the proprietaries was too trifling to induce them to perjure themselves. This is the purport of what I remember as urged by both sides, except that we insisted strongly on the mischievous consequences that must attend a repeal, for that the money, L100,000, being printed and given to the king's use, expended in his service, and now spread among the people, the repeal would strike it dead in their hands to the ruin of ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... an awful animal; and when a mischievous cousin of ours told us he wanted a black cat, without a single white hair on it, to win a wager with, we at once ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... they are going to do with 'em," said George Walsh, coming up to her with a mischievous face, and adding in a loud whisper, shielding his mouth with his hand; "they're ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... although almost amounting to weakness, were yet insufficient to prevent her from feeling that his conduct, even after making due allowance for the provocation he had received, could not be wholly excused as mere boyish impetuosity and love of mischievous fun. She knew that his father would feel it his duty, not only to reprimand him, but to inflict some chastisement; and this thought was the more painful to her from the consciousness, that but for her own weak compliance with Mrs. Thomas's request, her boy would not have been placed ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... birthday his life at Corfu came to an end, and Charles was brought home by his mother and sent to school at Taunton, where he stayed for five years. He is sure to have been liked by his schoolfellows, for he was a very lively, mischievous boy, constantly inventing some fresh prank, but never shirking the punishment it frequently brought. At Woolwich, which he entered as a cadet at fifteen, it was just the same. He was continually defying, in a good-humoured way, those who were set over him, and more ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... But there must be some reason for this feeling;—and I think it is that these departures from the earliest instilled ideas of our childhood, and from the line of conduct chosen by us when we first enter into public life, have been seen to have more mischievous results for society, and to prove more weakness of mind than other ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... There are other mischievous delusions in regard to the character of God which we find among all races in the early childhood of their history. They think of their gods not only as greedy but as having arbitrary whims and as often falling into fits ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... Manor House M. Louis Racine sat in the great Seigneurial chair, returned from the gates of death. As he had come home from the futile public meeting, galloping through the streets and out upon the Seigneury road in the dusk, his horse had shied upon a bridge, where mischievous lads waylaid travellers with ghostly heads made of lighted candles in hollowed pumpkins, and horse and man had been plunged into the stream beneath. His faithful servant Havel had seen the accident and dragged his insensible ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... changes, and finally sunk off to sleep by the warm stove. Being in the way, and also in danger of tumbling upon the floor, some of us removed him to an old settee, where he slept soundly, entertaining us with rather an unmusical serenade. There were two or three mischievous fellows about the place, and one of them suggested it would be capital fun to black W—'s face, and "make a darkey of him." No sooner said than done. Some lamp-black and oil were mixed together in an old tin cup, and a coat of this paint laid over the face of W—, ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... "Then it appears that the sham Karl died none too soon," he said lightly. "And yet"—he bent his eyes with mischievous reproach upon ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... strengthened. The "primitive German sense of law," which finds expression in the present form of the law of succession, and is summed up in the notion that the family is nearer to the individual than the State, has so far borne the most mischievous results. It is the root from which the disruption of Germany, the particularism and the defective patriotism of our nation, have grown up. It is well that in the coming generation some check on this movement should be found, and that the significance of the State for the individual, ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... lily so stately and still? Why doesn't she dance like the gay daffodil? Why doesn't she blush like the rose or the pink, Or, like mischievous pansy, indulge in a wink? Do you think it's because she is holier than they, Or did God just decide he ...
— Songs for Parents • John Farrar
... for what mischievous purposes the use of the Liturgy (though enjoined by the Laws of the Land, and those Laws never yet repealed) came, during the late unhappy confusions, to be discontinued, is too well known to the world, and ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... Straight to the devil; growls and snaps his teeth, Laughs, weeps, howls, dances; talks about his love, His madness, suffering, and the Lord knows what, Bullying the lady like a thief. But she, All this hot time, looked cool and mischievous; Gave him his halter to the very end; And when he calmed a little, up she steps And takes him by the hand. You should have seen How tame the furious fellow was at once! How he came down, snivelled, and ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... begun with almost the very moment of the felling of the old pine, and, somehow, it seemed to her as if that wicked, mischievous monument of bygone ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... and rarely petted by his eccentric master, oftener at Paris than in his country home, had gained a very bad reputation. I recollect seeing him once in the presence of certain ladies show almost as much insolence as if he had been a man. His master was obliged to kill him, so mischievous did he ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... handspring or two for emphasis.... Mexique once cuffed him for doing something peculiarly mischievous, and he set up a great crying—instantly The Wanderer was standing over Mexique, his hands clenched, his eyes sparkling—it took a good deal of persuasion to convince the parent that his son was in error, meanwhile Mexique placidly awaited ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... now a senior in the gymnasium and had begun to play mischievous pranks. He also declared that he was no longer minded to tolerate the tyranny of the school, and that he had not the slightest desire to enter the university. He was a wilful, obstinate boy with a marked tendency to sociability. He paid a great deal of attention to his clothes, and ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... into notice in 1671, on the representation of his first play, "Cambyses, King of Persia," which was played six nights successively. This run of public favour gave Rochester some pretence to bring Settle to the notice of the king; and, through the efforts of this mischievous wit, joined to the natural disposition of the people to be carried by show, rant, and tumult, Settle's second play, "The Empress of Morocco," was acted with unanimous and overpowering applause for a month together. To add to Dryden's mortification, ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... cold moonbeams instead of hot hoecake. Besides, I have to see everybody safely tucked in before I can leave. Aren't they all a precious houseful of early-to-bed chickens? The old Sweeties have forgotten there is such a thing as the moon and Stonie hasn't—found it out—yet." And with a mischievous backward glance, Rose Mary led the way up the lilac path to the Briars on top of the hill just as the old bell sounded two wobbly notes, their uncertainty caused by the rivalry of the General and Tobe over the pulling of ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... justly be termed stirrers-up of strife. They have for a long time, to use a significant vulgarism, set the people by the ears, and live by the spoil they caught up in the scramble. There is some reason to hope that this regulation will diminish their number, and restrain their mischievous activity. But till trials by jury are established, little justice can be expected in Norway. Judges who cannot be bribed are often timid, and afraid of offending bold knaves, lest they should raise ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... one of us spoke of the frequently false and mischievous statements purporting to come from spirits—predictions which did not come to pass, descriptions which were wholly wrong, and sending credulous believers on wild-goose chases after hidden treasure, etc., the occasion being an untrue statement made to us in regard to the death of a friend ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... pulpit, or the "scaffold," as John Cotton called it. The bare rafters were often profusely hung with dusty spiders' webs, and were the home also of countless swallows, that flew in and out of the open bell-turret. Sometimes, too, mischievous squirrels, attracted by the corn in the meeting-house loft, made their homes in the sanctuary; and they were so prolific and so omnivorous that the Bible and the pulpit cushions were not safe from their nibbling attacks. On every Sunday afternoon ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... stroking the knight's cheek with her tender hand. Huldbrand tried to dismiss the fearful thoughts that still lurked in the background of his mind, persuading him that he was married to a fairy or to some malicious and mischievous being of the spirit world, only the single question half unawares escaped his lips: "My little Undine, tell me this one thing, what was it you said of spirits of the earth and of Kuhleborn, when the priest knocked at ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... "one with falling rain and with the growing corn." By doubt they are established, and open inquiry is their bosom friend. Such men have no fear of traditions however venerable, and no respect for them when they become mischievous and obstructive; but they have better than mere antiquarian business in hand, and if dogmas, which ought to be fossil but are not, are not forced upon their notice, they are too happy to treat them ...
— The Origin of Species - From 'The Westminster Review', April 1860 • Thomas H. Huxley
... continued the General, who took a mischievous delight in making trouble for the worthy Desvanneaux. "Every one knows quite well that you have by no means renounced Satan, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Italy so much as the mercenary troops, which, after the Condottiere system had been developed, became a permanent drain upon the resources of the country. The raids of Tunisian and Algerian Corsairs were more seriously mischievous; since the whole sea-board from Nice to Reggio lay open to the ravages of such incarnate fiends as Barbarossa and Dragut, while the Adriatic was infested by Uscocchi, and the natives of the Regno not unfrequently turned pirates in emulation of ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... to the first of these great aspirations, it will be brought about by the abandonment by European peoples of their commercial monopolies, their treacherous practices, their mischievous and extravagant proselytising, and their sanguinary contempt for those of another colour or another creed. Vast countries, now a prey to barbarism and violence, will present in one region numerous populations only ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... soon it disappeared. He couldn't find it anywhere, so he called me and asked me what I had done with it. I said I hadn't touched it, hadn't seen it, didn't even know he had bought one; and that was the truth. But he wouldn't believe me; he said I must have taken it, for I was the only mischievous person about the place, and if I didn't own up and show him where it was, he'd horsewhip me ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... A mischievous and bitter smile expressed the feelings, half philosophical and half satirical, which such a man was certain to experience—a man well situated to know the truth of things in spite of the lies behind which most families in Paris ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac
... thinking. He knew Sir William liked him: and that Lady Franks didn't. One day he might have to seek help from Sir William. So he had better placate milady. Wrinkling the fine, half mischievous smile on his face, and trading on his charm, ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... which she sometimes shared with him, were often more moved by her sweet hymnody than by his exhortations. On one occasion the good man, accompanied by his wife, put up at Bridgend Tavern in Llangefin, Anglesea, and a mischievous crowd, wishing to plague the "Methodists," planned to make night hideous in the house with a boisterous merry-making. The fiddler, followed by a gang of roughs, pushed his way to the parlor, and mockingly asked the two guests if they ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... this by instinct, as children always do. He looked at her intently, a queer, mischievous, yet penetrating look; then broke into a broad, genial laugh, quite Bacchic and succumbed. Christian, the solitary governess, first the worse than orphan, and then the real orphan, without a friend or relative in the world, felt ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... of Satan? What mischief have you been at now? Opening the trap-door, you mischievous monkey! I wish from the bottom of my soul you had fallen into it, and I should have got rid of one trial! Losing your key, you careless baggage! I've a great mind to leave ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... just as well over here. There have been other days when you have not seen me." A mischievous ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... be rude to the old boy some time,' he said, with the glee of a mischievous child. 'But, ye gods, how his feathers drooped! He looked like a plucked cockatoo as ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... with bright eyes. The boy's whole face was alive with a gay and mischievous happiness, as he turned the handle at the back of his clock slowly, slowly, till at last it would turn no more. Then there tinkled forth to join the "Pastorale" the clear, trilling melody of ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... feelings toward the deer, he thought the cotters and squatters, the churls and the serfs, on the borders of the wood, or in little clearings in the midst, mischievous interlopers, and at one swoop he expelled them all, and kept the Giant's Wood solely for himself and his deer, by the still remaining name ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the village Raphael discovered a nook where nature seemed to have taken a pleasure in hiding away all her treasures like some glad and mischievous child. At the first sight of this unspoiled and picturesque retreat, he determined to take up his abode in it. There, life must needs be peaceful, natural, and fruitful, like the life of ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... helpful to order, method, discipline, and it may be an indulgence of spleen, whims, and unwholesome criticism and conceit. The habit of saying right out what you think of everybody is not a good one, and the record of such opinions and impressions, while it is not so mischievous to the public as talking may be, is harmful to the recorder. And when we come to the historical value of the diary, we confess to a growing suspicion of it. It is such a deadly weapon when it comes to light after the passage of years. It has an authority which ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... with bridge. The difficulty in dealing with the situation is that the thing itself is not only not wrong, but really beneficial; it is better to be occupied than to be idle, and it is hard to preach against a thing which is excellent in moderation and only mischievous in excess. ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... youth took to song himself; and there they were like two mischievous birds. Only the bird on the ground was cross with a sense of failure. "El ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... resumed: "but I suppose I must not take offence at your look of incredulity, seeing that I was a consenting party to that awful piece of deception which Tomkins played off upon you. Ha, ha, ha! excuse me, but I really wish you could have seen yourself when that mischievous friend of mine accused you of—of—what was it? Oh, yes, of playing fast and loose with the affections of the fictitious Lady Sara, or whatever the fellow called her. And then again, when he remarked upon your extraordinary ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... give me great pleasure to accept your kind invitation for next Saturday and Sunday, and my wife would very much like to come too, and will if possible. Unfortunately, there is a new servant coming that very day, and there is a baby at the mischievous age of a year and a quarter to be left in somebody's care; but I daresay it will be ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... cause for that uneasy, listless state of feeling which is so prevalent in crowded school-rooms. It explains why children that are amiable at home are mischievous in school, and why those that are troublesome at home are frequently well-nigh uncontrollable in school. It discloses the true cause why so many teachers who are justly considered both pleasant and amiable in ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... herself to the habits of any country of the many she had visited and replied, with an eagerness that was half-mischievous and for ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... this long speech as he still attentively regarded the lining of his hat; but, happening to look up, he caught Phillis's eyes, which were contemplating him. The mischievous look of fun in them was not to be resisted. Sir Harry first got redder, if possible; then his own eyes began to twinkle, and finally they both laughed. And after that the ice was broken, and they got ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... grant regular interviews to the leading reporters of the country and speak to them with comparative frankness with regard to national policies without fear that what he said would be garbled and turned to mischievous ends." ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... clerk, and that you are under no more obligation to me for your attainments than a slave is to his master for the strength which enforced labor has given to his muscles. Lest I should leave you suffering from so mischievous and oppressive an influence as a sense of injustice, I now justify myself ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... Charente, in order to be afterwards filed and detained in such part of that department as should be pointed out by the Minister of General Police. I was fortunate enough to keep my friend M. Moreau de Worms, deputy from the Youne, out of the fiat of exiles. This produced a mischievous effect. It bore a character of wanton severity quite inconsistent with the assurances of mildness and moderation given at St. Cloud on the 19th Brumaire. Cambaceres afterwards made a report, in which ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... sitting down, she explained these to Linda. Then she left them lying on a table, waiting to be returned to her case before she replaced her clothes in the morning. Both girls were fast asleep when a mischievous wind slipped down the valley, and lightly lifting the top sheet, carried it through the window, across the garden, and dropped it at the ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... capital from fear of an attack. What success the Sultan might have had in his endeavours to consolidate his rule in Bosnia, we are unable to judge; since he found an antagonist to every species of reform in Mustapha Pacha of Scutari, commonly known as Scodra Pacha, the most mischievous, as well as the most powerful, of all the provincial magnates since the fall of Ali Pacha. Young, warlike, and of good descent, he constituted himself the champion of hereditary privileges, and as such virtually threw down the gauntlet to his imperial master. Open rebellion, ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... silent. Manisty glanced at Eleanor; she caught the mischievous laugh in his eyes, and lightly returned it. It was his old comrade's look, come back. A warmer, more vital life stirred suddenly through all her veins; the slight and languid figure drew itself erect; her senses told her, hurriedly, for the first ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... China to very small bounds. Some persons occasionally violate them, and attempt a longer walk. Once round the city walls has frequently been effected, but always at the risk of a scuffle, an assault and battery, from the idle and mischievous among the native population. On former occasions, some of the foreign tourists have returned to the factories relieved of the burden of their watches and clothes. An English baronet was once, on his passage round, robbed of his watch, and stripped ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... girl in attendance upon her who is near her size and figure—a mischievous wench, or I ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Love in '76 - An Incident of the Revolution • Oliver Bell Bunce
... deceptive beast, and to have seen it drooping its head and walking calmly and peacefully by its hirer's side, no one would have imagined that it possessed so much mischievous sagacity as it very soon displayed when anyone ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... delirious. The natives could do nothing for me, but said that the pain would moderate before morning, especially if the fish was dead. Had its fins struck into my foot instead of my hand I should have died, they asserted; and then they told the mate and myself that one day a mischievous boy who had speared one of these abominable fish threw it at a young woman who was standing some distance away. It struck her on the foot, the spines penetrating a vein, and the poor girl died in terrible agony on the following day. By midnight the pain ...
— John Corwell, Sailor And Miner; and, Poisonous Fish - 1901 • Louis Becke
... extent and power, as well as no small part of the reproach so liberally bestowed upon her in the pages of history. There are many "arms" in her service: a man must be impracticable indeed, when she can find no place in which to make him useful, or to prevent his being mischievous. She never drives one from the pale of the church who can benefit it as a communicant, or injure it as a dissenter. If he became troublesome at home, she has, in all ages, had enterprises on foot in which ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... "A mischievous dame, and she's lived through a checkered life," reflected Lichonin. And suddenly, unexpectedly to himself, he had a feeling for, and irresistibly desired, this woman, altogether unknown to him, homely and not young; in all probability ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... Lieutenant Fireworker smelt so confoundedly of powder that the little doctor, though he never flinched when occasion demanded, did not care to give him an open. Those who had heard the same story from the mischievous merry little doctor before, were I dare say, amused at the grand and complimentary turn he ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... plundering whomsoever they are pleased to denominate tories, and converting what they get to their own private profit and emolument. This is an abuse that cannot be tolerated; and as I find the license allowed them, has been made a sanction for such mischievous practices, I am under the necessity of recalling it altogether. You will therefore immediately make it known to your whole corps, that they are not under any pretence whatever to meddle with the horses or other ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... a merry look of mischievous meaning stealing in and out of those bright eyes as they were for a moment uplifted to the face of the stranger, and then again were shadowed by the drooping lid. Whether it was that said "intruder" detected a something in the tone or the demure glance of the fair girl which ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... charities established to carry out some silly fad or to gratify some silly vanity; sectarian charities intended to further ends which, in the eyes of all but the members of one sect, are not only useless but mischievous; charities that encourage thriftless marriages, or make it easy for men to neglect obvious duties, or keep a semi-pauper population stationary in employments and on a soil where they can never prosper, or in other ways handicap, impede or divert the natural and healthy course of industry. Illustrations ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... do you remember what happened to you the other day, when you tried to overtake your mischievous brother in running, and he, taking advantage of his school-boy legs, led you mercilessly through all the garden walks, without having the grace even to let you catch him at the end? You were quite out of breath; ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... once embellished it,—three islets or, which his father the financier had bought for good money down. He opened the book at the passage where the poet philosopher, who is for curing men of the futile and mischievous passion of love, surprises a woman in the arms of her serving-women in a state bound to offend all a lover's susceptibilities. The citoyen Brotteaux read the lines, though not without casting a surreptitious glance at the ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... Mischievous bumblebees, thrusting their long tongues between the sepals and petals of these unopened flowers, steal nectar without conferring any favor in return. Later, when they behave properly and put their heads inside to feast at the disk on which ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... coming, will perfectly supplant what may be termed, without levity, the "Cock and Bull" system of juvenile entertainment. Worldly people may consider this stuff graceful and touching, sweet and loveable; but it is nevertheless clearly mischievous, else pious and proper persons wouldn't have said ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... 288: Who were the inferior agents in this ungracious and mischievous proceeding we have not discovered. Perhaps, however, the Author would not be justified in suppressing a suspicion which has forced itself on his mind, that, among those who entertained no kind feeling towards the Prince, was Richard Kyngeston, then late Archdeacon of Hereford, for a long time employed ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... pursuing the same smooth course of flattery as before—but with what a different result! Emily's face reddened with anger the moment they were spoken. Having already irritated Alban Morris, unlucky Francine, by a second mischievous interposition of accident, had succeeded in making Emily smart next. "Who has told you," she burst out; ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... the line of the street, the shop itself being on the projecting wing—I say that we made but a poor "General Wolfe" of it. It has been several times—the house being only one storey high—pulled down by mischievous persons and broken, and as often repaired by the several owners of the house; and, much to their credit be it spoken, it still keeps its ground, and I hope it will do so until the ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... inspirations are spoilt by the interruption of incongruous commonplace. He had none of the guardian delicacy of taste, or the thirst after completeness, which mark the consummate artist. He is more nearly a dwarf Shakespeare than a giant Popo. This defect was most mischievous where he was weakest, in his dramas and his lyrics, least so where he was strongest, in his mature satires. It is almost transmuted into an excellence in the greatest of these, which is by design and in detail a temple ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... is, however, a very difficult one indeed—one of the most embarrassing circumstances attending the present state of Ireland being, that in that office, above all others, the effect of change, even from worse to better, is frequently, if not always, more mischievous than the continuance of the evil. A violent and precipitate removal just now would, I think, totally unhinge the Government, and it would, above all, throw the whole absolutists at the feet of those who perhaps (I think, certainly) need not have been made enemies, but who being such, ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... acknowledgment of attendant miracles, wrought in physical nature by an intervention of God. Such a contention, however, is as futile and desperate as was John Wesley's declaration, "The giving up of witchcraft is in effect the giving up of the Bible." Such mischievous fallacies succeed only in blinding many a mind to the real issue which the moral and spiritual Revelation of Jesus makes with men of the twentieth century. It is these fallacies, and not their critics, that ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton
... With a mischievous twinkle in his eye, Charley drew aside one of the Seminole lads, whom he had found could speak English, and whispered ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the heretical Christians too easily became Mahometans, and they obtained possession of Egypt, and the great library at Alexandria, where they burnt all the collection of books, because they said, "If they taught the same as the Koran, they were useless, if otherwise, they were mischievous." Then from Egypt they spread all along the north coast of Africa, where the Roman dominion had once been, and were only grieved that the waves of the Atlantic Ocean kept them from going ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... carriage drove away Catherine saw his beautiful, and yet rather dreadful, eyes gleaming with mischievous excitement. Suddenly she felt heavy-hearted. Those last words of his cleared away any mist of doubt that lingered about her own terror. She recognised fully for the first time the essential difference between Mark and Berrand. Mark was really possessed by the spirit ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... and your ladies might visit the Duchess de Duras, you should have advanced the clock by half an hour, and sent your husband to bed at half-past ten, when of course he found no one in his apartments to wait upon him. [Footnote: Campan. 129.] All Paris has laughed at this mischievous prank of the queen. Can you deny this, my ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... power of the United States defies and sets at naught the grave drawbacks of a mischievous protective tariff, and has already obliterated, almost wholly, the traces of the greatest of modern civil wars. What is especially remarkable in the present development of American energy and success is its wide and equable distribution. North and south, east and west, on the ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... lugubrious, rueful, mournful, dismal, funereal, gloomy, melancholy, disconsolate, dejected, touching; calamitous, deplorable, grievous, dire, afflictive, wretched, saturnine, grave, sober; dull, sombre, subdued; (Colloq.) bad, naughty, troublesome, mischievous, vexatious. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... racket in his house, that you would think (God bless us!) all the devils in hell had broke loose upon him. It was no longer ago than last year about this time, that he was tormented the livelong night by the mischievous spirits that got into his chamber, and played a thousand pranks about his hammock, for there is not one bed within his walls. Well, sir, he rang his bell, called up all his servants, got lights, and made a thorough search; ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... whispers, breeding hidden fears, Break gentle sleep with misconceived doubt. Let no deluding dreams, nor dreadful sights, Make sudden sad affrights; Nor let house-fires, nor lightning's helpless harms, Nor let the Puck, nor other evil sprites, Nor let mischievous witches with their charms, Nor let hobgoblins, names whose sense we see not, Fray us with things that be not: Let not the screech-owl nor the stork be heard, Nor the night raven, that still deadly yells; Nor damned ghosts, called up with ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... Minnehaha with a mischievous look in her eyes; "for this morning brother and papa had to have a 'settlement,' and it might do Sagastao good to hear about other bad boys and what was done ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... squeak and a chatter suddenly met my ears; and before I could turn my head to see whence it proceeded, a heavy, living creature jumped on to my shoulders from behind, and its tail encircled my throat. I felt it was Jack, the cook's monkey; the mischievous, malicious, mocking, but inimitable Jack, whose pranks had often made me laugh against my will, as I watched him from a distance, but with whom I had never made the least acquaintance. Whether from fear or presence ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... pestilent "abstractionists." Negro Slavery was considered simply as a fact; and general irritation among most politicians of all sections was sure to follow any attempt to explore the principles on which the fact reposed. That these principles had the mischievous vitality which events have proved them to possess, few of our wisest statesmen then dreamed, and we have drifted by degrees into the present war without any clear perception ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... grocers, with their aprons of coffee bags, and with the jolly, mischievous faces the rogues always have. Each one clasped to his heart a sugar loaf nearly as large as himself, whose summit, without its paper cap, looked like new-fallen snow upon a pyramid. Mother Mitchel, with her crutch for a baton, saw them all placed in her storerooms ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... short bark. The faintest whisper of 'rats' seriously affected his nerves. He could have told his master many a harrowing story of those mischievous creatures swimming to and fro in the peaceful flood, tearing with their sharp teeth at the lily roots, and making a horrible havoc of all the most perfect buds of promise. The river Rest itself was so clear and bright that it was difficult to associate rats with its silver flowing,—yet ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli |
