"Devilish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... why I write all this, but how impossible life is. I think it really is a most devilish arrangement. No peace except in utter renounciation. And must one struggle through a peppery sequence of years just to ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff
... with a fighting top from which stones and jars of Greek fire could be hurled down on the galleys. She also had "two hundred most deadly serpents, prepared for killing Christians." Altogether, she seems to have been about as devilish a craft as even Germans could invent. As she showed no colours Richard hailed her, when she said she was a French ship bound for Acre. But as no one on board could speak French he sent a galley to test her. As soon as the Englishmen went near ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... carrying fire and slaughter into both the British settlements. In all this scheme there was nothing so grateful to the ruthless heart of Coubitant as the idea of Rodolph's death; and that too, as he trusted, by his own hand. O, how he panted for the devilish joy of tearing off his scalp, and carrying it back to throw it triumphantly at Henrich's feet! We shall see whether such ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... brandy-and-water and a cloud-compelling pipe; and his study, like the doctor's chamber in "Septimius," is tapestried with spider-webs; a particularly virulent spider which dangles over his head, as he sits at his writing-desk, being made to assume the aspect of a devilish familiar. On the other hand, his is a far richer and less debased nature than that of Portsoaken. Hawthorne appears subsequently to have divided him, straining off from the rank sediments which settle into the character of Dr. Portsoaken the clear sweetness of good Grandsir Dolliver. ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... young girls, even children of tender years, outraged by their brutal ravishers, till death ended their shame and suffering; women held in captivity to undergo the horrors of a living death; whole families burned alive; and as if their devilish fury could not glut itself with outrages on the living, its last efforts exhausted in mutilating the bodies of the dead; such are the spectacles, and a thousand nameless horrors besides, which their first experience of Indian war ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of learning had by this time alarmed the religious orders. Literature and education, beyond the code of the theological text-books, appeared simply devilish to them. When Erasmus returned to Louvaine, the battle was raging ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... a clear conscience; but I hope that things are not so bad yet, for I am devilish hungry," continued Newton, looking at the dinner-table, which offered to his view nothing but a table-cloth, with the salt-cellar and the snuff-box. "Why, mother, is it dead low water, or have you stowed all away in the locker?" and ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... to hear the old nurse address her young lady in that familiar way. It was so thoroughly un-English. Down with the devilish system of separation between the classes in this country—that ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... every moment we expected to see it fall to pieces; one of the horses lashed out violently, narrowly missing the face of the driver, if only touched with the whip, every time hitching itself over a trace and threatening to kick the decrepit structure behind it to bits; the devilish anger of the man, his lurid and comprehensive cursing in that soft voice, the danger of dashing over a precipice, constituted a journey which we fervently pray may never ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... great note, yet for a wicked life and practice was a tool fit enough for the dreary drudgery of persecution: in which he got a party of soldiers to assist him as often as he would. In this devilish employment, amongst other instances, he got a party of Blackaras' troop, 1683, and came upon John Archer, while his children were sick, and himself ill of the gravel; yet he must needs have the mother of the children too, though she could not leave them in that condition. While he insisted, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... wildly, and when McGuffey jeered him, he cast his hat upon the deck and started to leap upon it. The devilish Gibney was right. It appeared that owing to a glut of freight on the landing, Captain Scraggs had decided, in view of the fine weather prevailing, to take an unusually large cargo that trip. With this idea in mind, he had piled ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... anything. Why, sir, for aught I know, he might take out some of the best things in my tragedy, and put them into his own comedy. Sneer. That might be done, I dare be sworn. Sir Fret. And then, if such a person gives you the least hint or assistance, he is devilish apt to take the merit of the whole— Dang. If it succeeds. Sir Fret. Ay, but with regard to this piece, I think I can hit that gentleman, for I can safely swear he never read it. Sneer. I'll tell you how you may hurt him more. Sir Fret. How? Sneer. Swear he wrote it. Sir Fret. ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan
... have often heard it described how insinuatingly he carried himself on these appearances, artfully combining the extreme of deference with a blunt and seamanlike demeanour. My father and uncles, with the devilish penetration of the boy, were far from being deceived; and my father, indeed, was favoured with an object-lesson not to be mistaken. He had crept one rainy night into an apple-barrel on deck, and from this place of ambush overheard Soutar and a comrade conversing in their oilskins. ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... more than ten of them in breadth. There seem to have been but very few windows, all of which, if I rightly remember, are now blocked up with mason-work of stone. One mullioned window, tall and narrow, in the eastern gable, might have been seen by Tam O'Shanter, blazing with devilish light, as he approached along the road from Ayr; and there is a small and square one, on the side nearest the road, into which he might have peered, as he sat on horseback. Indeed, I could easily have ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... execution is made to last several hours. It usually begins with a slit on the forehead and the pulling down of the skin toward the chin. After the lapse of a certain time the nose is severed from the face. An interval follows, then an ear is lopped off, and so the devilish work goes on with long pauses. The skill of the executioner is displayed in the length of time during ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... out a few verbal alterations and suggesting improvements; I, of course, expressed myself highly grateful for his condescension. Going out, I met Strangeways. 'So you're going to read out to-day, Ruskin. Do go it at a good rate, my good fellow. Why do you write such devilish good ones?' Went a little farther and met March. 'Mind you stand on the top of the desk, Ruskin; gentlemen-commoners never stand on the steps.' I asked him whether it would look more dignified to stand head or heels uppermost. He advised heels. Then met Desart. 'We must have a grand supper after ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... as in many pictures; in these the eyes were not thrown on the spectator. One portrait was that of a man of at least fifty: an intellectual head; eyes, I know not what they were,—fierce, defiant, hardly human, but earthly, devilish; a mouth repulsive to behold, in its eager, absorbing, selfish expression. Another,—the same person evidently: the same clear breadth and development of brain, but a subdued and almost heavenly expression of the eyes, while the mouth was quite ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... right on Jimmy's side,' He walked round the little circle discontentedly, thinking this matter over with deepening displeasure. When he came to the orchestra again the handsome Greek was there, with an expression so devilish on his face that Barndale regarded him with amazement. Demetri Agryopoulo, salaried hanger-on to the Persian embassy, was glaring like a roused wild beast at these two shadowy figures in the shadow of the orchestra. The band was crashing away at the overture to ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... self-hood, force, insolence, feasting, wrath, These My blasphemers, in the forms they wear And in the forms they breed, my foemen are, Hateful and hating; cruel, evil, vile, Lowest and least of men, whom I cast down Again, and yet again, at end of lives, Into some devilish womb, whence—birth by birth— The devilish wombs re-spawn them, all beguiled; And, till they find and worship Me, sweet Prince! Tread they ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... "Devilish handsome of you, Thorndyke—unsociable beggar like you, too," rejoined Mr. Brodribb, a fan of wrinkles spreading out genially from the corners of his eyes; "but the fact is I have come, in a sense, on business—always ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... and a sort of castle was allotted provisionally to us. About forty pupils from the canton at once entered the school, and now we seemed at last to have found what we had so long been seeking. But the priests rose up furiously against us with a really devilish force. We even went in fear of our lives, and were often warned by kind-hearted people to turn back, when we were walking towards secluded spots, or had struck along the outlying paths amongst the mountains. To what abominable means this spirit of bigotry resorted, ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... compact the poem, how perfect the drama. It is Paradise, perfect in beauty and holiness; attacked with devilish art; in danger; ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... she hates me as she'd hate a hump on her back. She'd do me any devilish turn she could. There isn't a feeling of loathing that she doesn't have for me! She'd like to stamp on me and hear me crack, like a black beetle, and she never opens her mouth but she insults me.' Lionel Berrington delivered himself of these assertions without violence, ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... herself, because no groom dare approach; and then she would ride it forth, and in Hyde Park force it to obey her; the wondrous strength of her will, her wrist of steel, and the fierce, pitiless punishment she inflicted, actually daunting the devilish creature's courage. She would ride from the encounter, through two lines of people who had been watching her—and some of them found themselves following after her, even to the Park gate—almost awed as they looked at her, sitting erect and splendid on the ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... hatred which they bear her, the crimes which they attribute to her. Her house would have been attacked last night had it not been for Cyril.... And I knew Peter's tone. He spoke too gently and softly not to mean something devilish. I watched all the morning for an opportunity of escape, and here I am! Will you take my message, ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... rare a virtue), and some passages really eloquent. How excellently you have described the upper valleys, and how detestable their climate; I felt quite anxious on the slopes of Kinchin that dreadful snowy night. Nothing has astonished me more than your physical strength; and all those devilish bridges! Well, thank goodness! It is not VERY likely that I shall ever go to the Himalaya. Much in a scientific point of view has interested me, especially all about those wonderful moraines. I certainly think I quite realise the valleys, more vividly ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... evil thing; yes, to be sure, and a devilish," said Seth, musing. "Men killing one another—and the widows left, an' the orphans, on both sides. War's the plainest evil in all the world; and if I join in it, 'tis to help evil with my eyes open. All my life, sir, I've held by ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... o' beast— A touzie tyke, black, grim, and large! [shaggy dog] To gie them music was his charge: He screw'd the pipes and gart them skirl. [squeal] Till roof and rafters a' did dirl. [ring] Coffins stood round like open presses, That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses; And by some devilish cantraip sleight [magic trick] Each in its cauld hand held a light, By which heroic Tam was able To note upon the haly table [holy] A murderer's banes in gibbet-airns; [-irons] Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen'd ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... tramp of the dancers and vacant laughs and discordant music, the door flung wide and the entrance of the cowboy. She did not recall how he had looked or what he had done. And the next instant she saw him cool, smiling, devilish—saw him in violence; the next his bigness, his apparel, his physical being were vague as outlines in a dream. The white face of the padre flashed along in the train of thought, and it brought the same dull, half-blind, indefinable ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... he said—and though Nan was determined he should make his decision alone, she loved him for the coupling of their intent—"we seem to repudiate her. And that's perfectly devilish, ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... fashioned by man, but whether or not this is so, there it stands, and sullenly stares from age to age out across the changing sea—there it stood two thousand years and more ago, when Amenartas, the Egyptian princess, and the wife of Leo's remote ancestor Kallikrates, gazed upon its devilish face—and there I have no doubt it will still stand when as many centuries as are numbered between her day and our own are added to the year that ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... development of individuality and self-reliance small, she was one who could be easily persuaded but never driven. Jackson was not slow to learn this, and with honeyed words and protestations of love, he won Pearl Bryan's heart. This won, the accomplishment of his devilish designs, her ruin, was easy. She fell a victim to his lustful desire, and in a short time discovered that she would soon become a mother. Almost crazed at this discovery she knew not what to do or which way to turn. It was the first blot that had ever come on the ...
— The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan - or: the Headless Horror. • Unknown
... hearts are not so hard, whose spirits are not so brutal, as those of others who come into our houses, who sit at our tables, with smiles on their lips and poison in their tongues, whose language is refined, and whose thoughts are devilish. ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... the Diplomatic Heads all wagging upon it. [Adelung, iii. B, 84, 90, "January-March, 1743."] With great hope, at one time; till rumor of it got abroad into the Orthodox imagination, into the Gazetteer world; and raised such a clamor, in those months, as seldom was. "Secularize, Hah! One sees the devilish heathen spirit of you; and what kind of Kaiser, on the religious side, we now have the happiness of having!" So that Kaiser Karl had to deny utterly, "Never heard of such a thing!" Carteret himself had, in politeness, to deny; much more, and for dire cause, had Haslang himself, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... himself, "I will be a Dante," but all the world knows that in a few hours he will be gourmandizing as swinishly as before. And men look at the beautiful Jesus held up in Unitarian pulpits and resolve to act like Him, and go right on being selfish, and proud, and deceitful, and devilish. There must be a moral miracle, there must be a spiritual upsetting and overturning, before a carnal heart can begin to imitate the pure and spotless Son ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... and Chinese thieves are on the alert. Wattai, or some such queer piratical Celestial with devilish propensities, went for the spoil, settling the salvage by arithmetic of his own. The wreck was removed from the skylight, and under the water, in that dense chamber, stagnant with mephitic air, the bruised, stupefied ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... "It is such men as you who put back the progress of the world and make it possible for the upholders of authority to describe our efforts as devilish machinations for the destruction of all order, human and divine. Besides that, you speak as one who has not only a perverted political sentiment, but a personal quarrel ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... scene appeared to me to be exceedingly funny and, in a spirit of utter reckless bravado, I doffed my fur cap, with exaggerated politeness made a low bow, and, addressing the largest and most devilish-looking wolf in the ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... these are few, and in the end they make Some devilish escapade or stir, which shows That even the purest people may mistake Their way through virtue's primrose paths of snows; And then men stare, as if a new ass spake To Balaam, and from tongue to ear o'erflows Quicksilver small ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... country gentleman, a good judge of a horse and in his "pink" a straight rider to hounds. None who met him would have ever dreamed that he was the shrewd, crafty cosmopolitan whose evil machinations and devilish ingenuity made themselves felt in all the capitals of Europe, and whose word was law to certain dangerous characters who would not hesitate to take human life if it were really necessary to ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... fortunate, then, I held my tongue. If you will have it so, I won't deny that your little improvisation sounded very ugly. I'm devilish glad I didn't make it, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... in their theology either on the one side or on the other, he was regarded as a model bishop. By the very high and the very low,—by those rather who regarded ritualism as being either heavenly or devilish,—he was looked upon as a timeserver, because he would not put to sea in either of those boats. He was an unselfish man, who loved his neighbour as himself, and forgave all trespasses, and thanked God for ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... existence, and survival of the fittest, though the most popular phase of evolutionism at present, is nothing less than the basest and most horrible of superstitions. It makes man not merely carnal but devilish. It takes his lowest appetites and propensities, and makes them his God and Creator. His higher sentiments and aspirations, his self-denying philanthropy, his enthusiasm for the good and true, all the struggles and ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... would not give us such victories and dominions, they say, if he did not favor us and approve our religion. This same reasoning blinds also the papist. Occupying an exalted position, they maintain they are the Church and hence they have no fear of divine punishment. Devilish, therefore, is that argument whereby men take the name of God ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... the Jew noticed that his face had changed, and in place of the sardonic good-humor which had before possessed it, was now distorted by a devilish malice. His eyes gleamed coldly, and he snapped them ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... much a thing of to-day. The old folk can recall the time when the farm, the dairy, and the field were ever in peril of the spell, the enchantment, the noxious beam of the evil eye, and tales of many a "devilish cantrip sleight," as Burns happily characterized the activity of the witch and the wizard, were told in hushed voices at the Breton fireside when the winter wind blew cold from the cruel sea and the heaped faggots sent the red glow of fire-warmth ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... throwing himself rudely into a chair, with his back towards the stranger, in an attitude completely to exclude the latter from his view; "while a husband, or father, might die a hundred deaths, and not draw a look of pity from your beautiful eyes, or a kind word from your devilish tongues." ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... last made up his mind to ask, carried away by professional curiosity, "and so it was a laboratory explosion which put you in this nice condition? What devilish powder ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... correct that d—d habit of yours; perhaps I may make a lady of you after all. What if I were to let you take a trip with me to France, old girl, eh? and let you set off that handsome face, for you are devilish handsome, and that's the truth of it, with some of the French gewgaws you women love. What if. I were? would you be ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... refused. The plot ripened suddenly on the occasion of the marriage of Astorre with Lavinia Colonna, at Midsummer, 1500. The festival began and lasted several days amid gloomy forebodings, whose deepening effect is admirably described by Matarazzo. Varano himself encouraged them with devilish ingenuity: he worked upon Grifone by the prospect of undivided authority, and by stories of an imaginary intrigue of his wife Zenobia with Gianpaolo. Finally each conspirator was provided with a victim. (The Baglioni lived all of them in separate houses, ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... half-buried men lying amongst the rocks surrounding the laager: here a leg, there an arm, further on a ghastly human head protruding from amidst the scattered boulders, until I had only to close my eyes to fancy I was in a charnel-house, where Goths and Huns were holding devilish revelry. The B.R. paused, and dropped his voice two octaves lower, and the crowd on the balcony craned their heads further forward, so that they might not miss a single word. He told of the women in the laagers, the wild, unholy mirth ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... suspended breath watching the horses thundering toward him. Blanco Diablo was speeding low, fleet as an antelope, fierce and terrible in his devilish action, a horse for war and blood and death. He seemed unbeatable. Yet to see the magnificently running Blanco Sol was but to court a doubt. Gale stood spellbound. He might have shot the raider; but he never thought ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... and although he was but an officer over a poor sixtieth part of a legion, yet in some limited measure the same power lay in him, and his word could secure unhesitating submission. One good thing about the devilish trade of war is that it teaches the might of authority and the virtue of absolute obedience. And even his profession, with all its roughness and wickedness, had taught the centurion this precious lesson, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... him, the infernal hypocrite! Oh! the impostor to come to my house in this nefarious manner, and steal the affections of my daughter—the devilish villain! a bastard! a contemptible black-hearted nigger. Oh, my child—my child! it will break your heart when you know what deep disgrace has come upon you. I'll go to him," added he, his face flushed, and his white hair almost ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... one," he said to himself. "He means to pocket the contessa's bracelet. What a swindle! I thought there was something more devilish about him ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... ideas of fighting and blood-shedding," answered Mead. "Yet I see not that thou needst starve. There is no lack of honest employments, if a man will but seek them. 'Thou canst not serve two masters.' Our God is a God of peace. The devil is the god of war; and devilish work is fighting, as I can answer from experience, and so canst thou, ...
— A True Hero - A Story of the Days of William Penn • W.H.G. Kingston
... opinions. He comes with a lantern to convey you home to his own habitation. There is an old legend about a saint who was to choose one of the seven mortal sins, and he chose, as he thought, the least—drunkenness; but in that state he perpetrated all the other six sins. The human nature and the devilish nature mingle. This is the sixth glass; and after that all the germs of evil thrive in us, every one of them spreading with a rapidity and vigour that cause them to be like the mustard-seed in the Bible, 'which, indeed, is the least ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... "Whew!" he whistled, sitting down gingerly in the armchair. "Well, that's a mercy. I ain't so young as I used to be and I couldn't stand many such shocks. Whew! Don't talk to ME! When that devilish jig tune started up underneath me I'll bet I hopped up three foot straight. I may be kind of slow sittin' down, but you'll bear me out that I can GET UP sudden when it's necessary. And I thought the dum thing ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... but devilish cold. A little thrust and parry'll warm you. Here we are, and there's your man and his ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... destroyer;—again Jobson levelled his gun at the spot whence the sound issued, when on a sudden, his infernal majesty presented himself in the shape of a huge negro, bloated with fat, and who now lay on the ground, his devilish spirit quelled, and apparently in such an agony of fear, as to be unable to sue for the mercy of the avenging Englishman, who stood laughing over him, at the idea of having so easily ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... yes. For example:—no very long while ago, a singular circumstance occurred in this very house. The 'soothing system,' you know, was then in operation, and the patients were at large. They behaved remarkably well-especially so, any one of sense might have known that some devilish scheme was brewing from that particular fact, that the fellows behaved so remarkably well. And, sure enough, one fine morning the keepers found themselves pinioned hand and foot, and thrown into the cells, where they were attended, as if they ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... a rather stormy scene at the Vivetiere, when he threatened the Marquis de Montauran with swearing allegiance to the First Consul if he did not immediately obtain noteworthy advantages in payment of seven years of devoted service to "the good cause." "My men and I have a devilish importunate creditor," said he, slapping his stomach. One of the brothers of Jean Cottereau, was nick-named the "Chouan," a title used by all the Western rebels ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... screeching, cawing, whistling, billing, cooing, cuckooing. "What a place to live in!" I thought, fresh as I was from town, "where, if there are noises, one knows something of their meaning—maledictory, yea, devilish as it often is, expressive of the passions of men which will never sleep. But these! what could one make of such a tintamarre? Nothing but the reflection—that is, if you happen to be a philosopher, which, thank God, I am not—that not one note ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... whose devices were such, That death must have lent them his sting— So daring they were, so reckless of fear, As heaven had wanted a king? Did the tongue of the lie, while it couch'd like a spy In the haunt of thy venomous jaws, Its slander display, as poisons its prey The devilish snake in the grass? That member unchain'd, by strong bands is restrain'd, The inflexible shackles of death; And, its emblem, the trail of the worm, shall prevail Where its slaver once harbour'd beneath. And oh! if thy ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... frame Fit utterance for feeling, deep, intense, And for my frenzy finding no fit name, Sweep round the ample world with every sense, Grasp at the loftiest words to speak my flame, And call the glow, wherewith I burn, Quenchless, eternal, yea, eterne— Is that of sophistry a devilish play? ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... they again took up their position on the high crest. They did not have long to wait now, for in less than an hour they beheld something upon the trail below them which gladdened their devilish hearts. At once they vanished from the summit, and like panthers stole cautiously through the forest, and cautiously began to ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... agency at Head-quarters, but I didn't dare mention Kore's name for fear the parcel might be opened. So I purposely spelt 'Achilles' with one 'l' to draw attention to the code word, so that they should know where news of me was to be found. It was devilish smart of you to ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... trade increased, the Comanches, Pawnees, and Arapahoes continued to commit their depredations, and it was firmly believed by many of the freighters that these Indians were incited to their devilish acts by the Mexicans, who were always ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... hill now, down into a valley—the road like a piece of white tape stretching ahead—past school-houses, barns, market gardens; into dense woods, out on to level plains bare of a tree—one mad, devilish, brutal rush, with every man's eyes glued to the turn of the road ahead, which every half minute swerved, straightened, swerved again; now blocked by trees, now opening out, only to close, twist, and squirm anew. Great fun this, gambling with death, knowing that from behind any ...
— The Man In The High-Water Boots - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... respecting the king. He protested, however, that he had himself never entertained a treasonable thought. He told Cromwell that "he had done a very meritorious deed in bringing forth to light such detestable hypocrisy, whereby every other wretch might take warning, and be feared to set forth their devilish dissembled falsehoods under the manner and colour of the wonderful work of God."[690] More's offence had not been great. His acknowledgments were open and unreserved; and Cromwell laid his letter before the king, adding his own intercession that the ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... trick; whereas, if anyone in the States not in constant communication with the real Flick heard of his being in London it would seem all right enough—they would assume that he had taken London first, and not last. I must say, Hamilton, it was a very pretty plot, and it was devilish near being ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... the heartless and coarse talk of woman which it was the habit of most men of the day to indulge in, he realised that it had never so boiled as when he listened to the brutal and significant swagger of Sir John Oxon. His youth and beauty and cruel, confident air had made it seem devilish in its suggestion of what his past almost boyish years might have held of pitiless pleasures and pitiless indifference to the consequences, which, while they were added triumphs to him, were ruin ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... ye know about yerself. I don't go for to say that you're a born angel, wantin' nothin' but a pair o' wings to carry ye off to the better land—by no means, but I do know that as regards jinin' Buck Tom's boys, or takin' a willin' part in their devilish work, ye are innocent an' that's ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... there was an inhuman, devilish deftness in the rhymes. The mighty mechanism of English verse had been employed to proclaim my remoteness ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... be done at once," cried the general. "Colonel, give Major Graham as many men as he needs; and, Graham, send word we'll hang every mother's son of 'em and burn their ranches if they indulge in any more of their devilish outrages. Bring the farmer into camp, and I will send him to Washington as ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... more men thrust in to take the place of those slain; the advantages of position were too great, and they were obliged at length to desist. But Genghis was not to be balked of his victims, and his devilish cunning suggested the expedient of lighting straw at the mouth of the cave to suffocate those inside, but the size of the place prevented his plan from taking effect; so he at last commanded a large fragment of rock to be rolled to the mouth of the cavern, adding another as a support, ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... seem to show a spite Rather devilish, They move on as with a might Stronger than your wish. Still, however strong they be, They bide man's authority: Xerxes, when he flogged the sea, May've ...
— The Man Against the Sky • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... Miss Fanny. Old miss come in and say, 'Ain't you goin' whip this nigger?' She was mean as the devil. Oh, God, yes. She so mean she didn't know what to do. But old master kep her down. You know some of these redheaded women, they just as devilish as they can be. We had some neighbors, Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Daniels and old miss would be out there on the lawn quarrelin' till it was just like a fog. Us niggers would ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... sought to emulate and exceed when he denounced the common taking of tobacco "by most men, which take it as tinkers do ale"—as "a plague, a mischief, a violent purger of goods, lands, health, hellish, devilish, and damned tobacco, the ruin and overthrow of body and soul." No anti-tobacconist could wish for a ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... peace below. Indeed, the spirit seemed completely taken out of all of them, and by some devilish ingenuity the afterguard had been able to sow distrust between them all, while treating them like dogs, so that the miseries of their life were never openly discussed. My position among them gave me at times some uneasiness. Though I tried to be helpful to all, and was full of sympathy ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... but mother she dident laff back and father grabed me by the neck and sed did you do this devilish thing and he shook me till i cood hardly say yes, when mother made him put me down. then she sed what did you do sutch a dredful thing for and when i heard her voice i woodent have did it for a $1000, and i sed becaus the minister was all the time preeching not to kill flise and mother and ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute
... remark applies to those who study the sciences; for, by discussing difficulties among themselves when they arise, they remove them, rendering the path so clear and easy, that the greatest glory may be won thereby. But, on the other hand, there are some who, with devilish arts, and led by envy and malice, make profession of friendship under the guise of truth and affection, give the most pernicious advice, so that the arts do not attain to excellence so soon as they do where the ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... very picturesque object in the landscape, which is one of great loveliness. Kirk Alloway is not far away,—the smallest church that ever filled so large a place in the imagination of the world. The one-mullioned window in the eastern gable might have been seen by Tam O'Shanter blazing with devilish light as he approached it along the road from Ayr, and there is a small square one on the side next the road; there is also an odd kind of belfry, almost the smallest ever made, with a little bell in it,—and this is all. But no grand and storied cathedral ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... bellowing in wild and ferocious excitement. Sudden, awful death waited on the other side of the fence; slow death by burning on this side. Yet Friday still hoped, still had faith in his master, for he did not put a quick end to his living death by rushing the devilish circle or clambering over into the thick ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore
... woman," she answered, with a devilish leer. "You hate me, and you are afraid of me without any reason. If not, tell me, good sir, why you were so frightened the first time ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... degraded by the long period of lawlessness and rapine through which they had passed. They characterised them in a way that was appalling: many seemed indeed to have difficulty in selecting words expressive enough for their purpose. "Bloody," "savage," "crafty," "cruel," "treacherous," "sensual," "devilish," "thievish," "cannibals," "fetish-worshippers," "murderers," were a few of the epithets applied to them by men accustomed to observe closely and to ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... impertinence to set to music several of those mystic canticles which are still sung in Protestant communities. And he had avoided preserving the choral character. Far from it: he had a horror of it; he had given them a free and vivacious character. Old Gerhardt would have shuddered at the devilish pride which was breathed forth now in certain lines of his Song of the Christian Traveler, or the pagan delight which made this peaceful stream of his Song of Summer bubble over like ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... the people of old painting devils with black faces, for I don't know anything more devilish-looking than a black's phiz when it is drawn with rage, and the eyes are rolling about, now all black flash, now all white, while the grinning ivories below seem to be grinding and ready to tear ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... scandalous thoughts about God and the neighbor, and is withheld from making them known only by external consideration, which are fear of the loss of reputation, honor, gain and fear of the law and of loss of life (n. 5990). Of the devilish spirits who chiefly obsess the interiors of man (n. 4793). Of the devilish spirits who long to obsess the exteriors of man; that such are shut up in ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... the hard brilliance of which the thing upon the pedestal suddenly declared itself, leaping out of the darkness into light. It was a terrible object, a monstrosity of indeterminate sex and nature, but surmounted by a woman's head and face of extraordinary, if devilish loveliness, sunk back between high but grotesquely small shoulders, like to those of a lizard, so that it glared upwards. The workmanship of the thing was rude yet strangely powerful. Whatever there ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... the boldest and most bloodthirsty of our small mammals; indeed, none of our larger beasts are more so. There is something devilish and uncanny about it. It persists like fate; it eludes, but cannot be eluded. The terror it inspires in the smaller creatures—rats, rabbits, chipmunks—is pitiful to behold. A rat pursued by a weasel has been known to rush into a room, uttering dismal cries, and seek the protection ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... back in Venice, he could do anything he pleased. The first step, the essential step, was to get back. Perhaps it would not be necessary to kill anyone. There were other kinds of revenge, grimmer, more devilish, than a commonplace murder. If he were to feign acceptance of the Council's proposal, it would be the easiest thing in the world to compass the destruction of those whom he wished to destroy, instead of bringing about the ruin of those whom the authorities had in mind, and ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... no sooner gone, than the devilish dispositions of her sister began to shew themselves in their true colours. Even before the expiration of the first month which Lear was to spend by agreement with his eldest daughter Gonerill, ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... strong conviction that I am going to swear before I get through this letter, for this pen is what I would call, to use unmissionary language, devilish. My! how familiar and wicked that word looks! I've heard so many hymns and so much brotherly and sisterly talk that it seems like meeting an old friend to see ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... the youngest of us could perceive Boddy was bursting with devilish glee. Heriot got a letter posted to Julia. It was laid on his desk, with her name scratched completely out, and his put in its place. He grew pale and sad, but did his work, playing his games, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... stay. He had visited England before, when he was much younger and handsomer. Baron Stockmar met him at Claremont, in the time of the Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold, and quotes a compliment paid him by a Court lady, in the refined language of the Regency: "What an amiable creature! He is devilish handsome! He will be the handsomest man in Europe." And so he might have been, had he possessed a heart and soul. But his expression was always, if not actually bad, severe and repellant. The look his large, keen eyes, ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... devilish trick of Nature's that she makes them stop coming at the very time that you want them most. Forty-five is not much more than half a ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... past Nick with the words, goaded past endurance, desperately aware that he could not trust himself within arm's length of that gibing, devilish countenance. ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... soveraign remedy to all diseases—A good vomit, I confess, a vertuous herb, if it be well qualified, opportunely taken, and medicinally used; but as it is commonly abused by most men, which take it as tinkers do ale, 'tis a plague, a mischief, a violent purger of goods, lands, and health; hellish, devilish, and damned tobacco; the ruine and overthrow of body and soul."[18] So in his valedictory to tobacco, Mr. Lamb is not less extravagant and contradictory. The health of the poet it appears had suffered seriously from the immoderate use of tobacco, which had been ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... down the corridor illuminated between leaf and blossom walls. A grotesque lump of crystal leered at him from the heart of a tharsala lilly bed. The intricate carving of a devilish nonhuman set of features was a work of alien art. Tendrils of smoke curled from the thing's flat nostrils, and Hume sniffed the scent of a narcotic he recognized. He smiled. Such measures might soften up the usual civ Wass interviewed here. But a star pilot turned out-hunter was immunized against ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... chemists, as Gerbert, Roger Bacon, and Cornelius Agrippa, were abhorred as magicians. Pope Gerbert, as Bishop Otho gravely relates, obtained the pontificate by having given himself up entirely to the devil: others suspected him, too, of holding an intercourse with demons; but this was indeed a devilish age! ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Rotgier, famous for his courage and cruelties, said: "How is this? not only the girl but also that devilish dog is going to be liberated, that he may ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... this devilish abdomen!" said Mr. Boggs, slapping that portion of his frame as if he had a special grudge against it and would be glad if he could hit it hard enough to bring it to a realizing sense of its turpitude. ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... subtle devilish something or other about autobiographical composition that defeats all the writer's attempts to paint his ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... this country, I find them entirely savage and wild, strangers to all decency, yea, uncivil and stupid as garden poles, proficient in all wickedness and godlessness; devilish men, who serve nobody but the Devil, that is, the spirit which in their language they call Menetto; under which title they comprehend everything that is subtle and crafty and beyond human skill and power. They have so much witchcraft, divination, sorcery and wicked arts, that they can ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... things that are good, and of the falsehood in things that are true, and of the ridiculous in things that are important. He began with the Roman Catholic Church,—"the holy Roman Catholic Church," as he once styled it,—adding in a parenthesis, "all of us Catholics are devilish holy." Another French indication is, that his early tastes were romantic literature and political economy,—a conjunction very common in France from the days of the "philosophers" to the present time. During our times ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... him out of business on the first convenient opportunity that presented itself. That opportunity came on the night he was fighting with Moran in the hotel. I thought I could kill two birds with one stone. I'll admit it was a devilish idea, but I was desperate. Of course things didn't shape out as I'd planned—Moran's alibi for ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... blindness. And now I was chief in the rhetoric school, whereat I joyed proudly, and I swelled with arrogancy, though (Lord, Thou knowest) far quieter and altogether removed from the subvertings of those "Subverters" (for this ill-omened and devilish name was the very badge of gallantry) among whom I lived, with a shameless shame that I was not even as they. With them I lived, and was sometimes delighted with their friendship, whose doings I ever did abhor -i.e., their "subvertings," ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... see, but was not in a condition to talk with me about it, poor man. So I with them to Westminster by coach; the Cofferer telling us odd stories how he was dealt with by the men of the Church at Westminster in taking a lease of them at the King's coming in, and particularly the devilish covetousness of Dr. Busby. Sir Stephen Fox, in discourse, told him how he is selling some land he hath, which yields him not above three per cent., if so much, and turning it into money, which he can put out at ten per cent.; and, as times go, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... precious thing in the world. At his age he could not marry a volcano, a revolution, a new radio-active element exhibiting properties which were an enigma to social science. Concepcion would turn his existence into an endless drama of which she alone, with her deep-rooted, devilish talent for the sensational, would always choose the setting, as she had chosen the window and the weir. No; he must not mistake affectionate sympathy for tenderness, nor tolerate the sexual exploitation ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... devilish thing lives along the perpetual snow line; and, for incredible stunts in jumping and climbing, it can give points to any Rocky Mountain goat. You try to get above it, spend the night there, and stalk it when it returns from nocturnal ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... factor in the man, if we may say so, instead of being in alliance with our higher nature, the spirit, takes sides with the lower, the flesh, so that instead of being spiritual we become "earthly, sensual, devilish" (James 3: 15). The whole man must be presented blameless at the coming of the Lord before we can enter upon a state of blessed perfection. Our spirit must not only rule our soul and our body, but both these must be subject to the Holy Spirit of God. ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... "Well, that's odd—devilish odd! I was on that train, and I rambled it from one end to the other—which is a bad habit I have when I'm trying to kill travel-time. Gridley isn't a man to be easily overlooked. Reckon he was riding on the ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... of them. "Admirable advice," says another. "Yes, yes," says the third (which was the gunner), "the English dog has given excellent advice; but it is just the way to bring us all to the gallows. The rogue has given us devilish advice, indeed, to go a-thieving, till from a little vessel we came to a great ship, and so we shall turn downright pirates, the end of which ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... went to the Santa Maria del Popolo, a church built on a spot where Nero is said to have been buried, and which was afterwards made horrible by devilish phantoms. It now being past twelve, and all the churches closing from twelve till two, we had not time to pay much attention to the frescos, oil-pictures, and statues, by Raphael and other famous men, which ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Kid asked if he might not go ashore and drive a stake in the bank. For what purpose? Why, to ascertain whether we were going up or down stream! While we drifted in the now blistering sun, we talked about meat. With a devilish persistence we quite exhausted the subject. We discussed the best methods for making a beefsteak delicious. It made us very hungry for meat. The Kid announced that he could feel his backbone sawing at the front of his shirt. But perhaps that was only the ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... releases herself; the young man is full of anxiety lest she be hurt, and curses the devilish tree "planted a Friday!" But she, with a trembling she cannot control, tells of an inner torment that takes away hearing and sight, and keeps her heart beating. Vincen wonders if it may not be fear of a scolding from her mother, or a sunstroke. Then Mireio, in a sudden outburst, ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... had seen the blood of the English he had so barbarously murdered revenged upon Surajah Dowlah's head. How this was to be brought about I did not then know, yet I had a confidence that it would be so, which sustained me. For I felt that I had witnessed, and been partly victim of, a most heinous and devilish crime, scarcely to be matched in the annals of mankind, and such as scarce any punishment within the power of man to inflict could wholly purge. It was as if there had been revealed to me, in the light of those ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... to burst forth by devilish arts," rejoined the sheriff. "I owe thee little for the service. If for naught else, thou deservest death for thy ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... from out the inner cirque of Hell By kind permission of the Evil One, Behold her devilish presentment, done By Master Aubrey's weird unearthly spell! This is that Lady known as Jezebel, Or Lilith, Eden's woman-scorpion, Libifera, that is, that takes the bun, ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... Regina. It's altogether different 'outside,' patrol work, a free life on the open prairie. Here they keep one choring round barracks most of the time. I've been for six months now on the town station. I'm not sorry, though. It's all devilish interesting. Wouldn't have missed it for a farm. When I write the people at home about it they think I'm yarning—stringing them, as they say here. The governor's a clergyman. Sent me to Harrow, and wanted to make a Bishop out of me. But I'm restless; never could study; ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... my road and leave you to yours. Oh, the blank hopelessness of it, the useless misery of it. We're made for each other, and we have to grin and say good-by, go along our separate ways, trying to smile. What a devilish state of affairs! But I love you, dear, and ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... knees every Sunday before the Lord with the whole congregation, praying that He would not allow the evil one to take from us that which His mercy had once more bestowed upon us after such extreme want; item, that he would bring to light the auctor of such devilish works, so that he might receive ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... if Greek literature were not only neglected but destroyed, as some of the Classical authors had been guilty of prospective plagiarism on a large scale. He knew this as a fact, as he had been recently reading LUCIAN in a crib and found him devilish amusing. (Uproar ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 16, 1919 • Various
... awful in the radiant unquenchable laughter that lurked in Lysia's lovely eyes, . . something positively devilish in the grace of her manner, as with a negligent movement, she reseated herself in her crystal throne, and taking a knot of magnolia-flowers that lay beside her, idly toyed with their creamy buds, all the while keeping her basilisk gaze fixed immovably and relentlessly on her sentenced ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... about an optimist—especially the kind of optimism that is based upon a simple everyday rudimentary joy in the structure of the world. There is such a thing, I suppose, with some of us, as having a kind of devilish pride in faith, as one would say to ordinary mortals and creepers and considerers and arguers "Oh now just see me believe!" We are like boys taking turns jumping in the Great Vacant Lot, seeing which can believe the furthest. We need to be reminded that a man cannot simply ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... do, now and then, run away with a knocker, paint a sign, beat the watch, or huff a magistrate, they pay for their pastime, and that's sufficient. What more could any reasonable man—especially a watchman—desire? Besides, the Marquis, is a devilish fine fellow, and a particular friend of mine. There's not his peer among ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... none of this cock-a-doodling arrogance that sometimes makes nations in their heyday a laughing-stock for the Gods. Instead we should see one single race, Humanity; poured now into one national mold, now into another; but always with the same duality: half divine, half devilish-idiotic; —and while making the utmost best of each mold as they came to inhabit it, the strong would find it their supreme business to help the weak, and not exploit or contemn them. But it will need the sound sense ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... enjoying his discomfiture. To add a trifle more uneasiness, she had thrown in the matter of Mrs. Clephane. Probably it was false; yet he could not be sure and it troubled him. All of which, he was aware, Mrs. Spencer intended—and took a devilish joy ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... are all through!" yelled Jim, almost calm in his complete resignation. "But we'll try to reach that devilish thing before ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... to say, that you read history to a devilish purpose, if you read it to search after brutal precedents. At Goliad our men surrendered. They were promised safe-conduct out of Texas. The massacre at ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... he said to himself, at last, "that they could have had that for. The captain says that those ancient fellows put their gold there keep it from the Spaniards, and they must have rigged up this devilish contrivance to work if they found the Spaniards had got on the track of their treasure. Even if the Spaniards had let off the water and gone to work to get the gold out, one of the Incas' men in the corner of that other cave, which most likely was all shut up and not discoverable, ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton |
