"Devilry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... whether it was pure devilry on the part of this woman, or whether she thought that she could turn me against my wife by encouraging her to misbehave. Anyway, she took a house just two streets off and let lodgings to sailors. Fairbairn ...
— The Adventure of the Cardboard Box • Arthur Conan Doyle
... praised, which is often, when they want to be mastered, which is sometimes; and when they want no nonsense, which is seldom. Just now the first feeling was in the ascendant with Bathsheba, with a dash of the second. Moreover, by chance or by devilry, the ministrant was antecedently made interesting by being a handsome stranger who had evidently ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... on us stonds afore yo. This woman is Nance Redferne, grandowter of the owd hag, Mother Chattox. Ey charge her wi' makin' wax images, an' stickin' pins in 'em, wi' intent to kill folk. Hoo wad ha' kilt me mysel', wi' her devilry, if ey hadna bin too strong for her—an' that's why hoo bears me malice, an' has betrayed me to Squoire Nicholas Assheton. Seize her, an' ca' me as a witness ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the least sign of devilry, or out-facingness, or insolence in that lean shadowy steady head; and yet he himself was compelled to sidle his glance away, so much the face shook him. He closed his eyes, too, as a cat does after exchanging too direct a scrutiny ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... courted observation by passing through them. This morning at the police office, I heard particulars of at least half a dozen cases of unoffending people being ruthlessly ridden down, and Heaven only knows how many more there may be of which the details are not yet to hand. The sheer devilry of his progress is simply amazing. What it comes to is this, Sutgrove. If I can't get hold of him within the next week I may as well resign the force at once. If I don't resign I shall be dismissed, ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... so over-proud as not to confess when they are in fault; and from what happened, I am free to admit, that James, harmless as a sucking dove, was no match in such a matter for the like of Cursecowl, who was a perfect incarnation, for devilry and cunning, of the old ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... human eye. And all the time the poor things are not to blame. They only walk in the way that is shown them. Many of them are to be much pitied, for they honestly wish to withdraw from the world, only to find themselves in ten times worse worlds of sensuality and all other devilry. O my God! if I might I would fain speak of some of the occasions of sin from which Thou didst deliver me, and how I threw myself into them again. And of the risks I ran of utterly shipwrecking my character and good name and from which Thou didst rescue me. O Lord of my soul! ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte
... become the light of hell. There was no air but horror. Across Benham's skies these fly-blown trophies of devilry dangled mockingly in the place of God. He had no thought but to ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... copy Dyerism and O'Dwyerism even whilst we are condemning it? Let not our rock be violence and devilry. Our rock must be non-violence and godliness. Let us, workers, be clear as to what we are about. Swaraj depends upon our ability to control all the forces of violence on our side. Therefore there is no Swaraj within ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... the middle of the summer of 1838, that I set to work on this composition, and by so doing roused myself to a state of enthusiasm which, considering my position, was nothing less than desperate dare- devilry. All to whom I confided my plan perceived at once, on the mere mention of my subject, that I was preparing to break away from my present position, in which there could be no possibility of producing my work, and I was looked upon as light-headed and ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... the great house with sound as the glitter of spangles filled it with a shimmering light. Faust was surrounded by fluttering women moving in complicated evolutions with a trained air of reckless devilry. And Julian gave himself to the illusion created by the skill of Katti Lanner, ignoring entirely the real care of the dancers, and choosing to consider them as merely driven by wild impulse, vagrant desires of furious motion, ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... can win and wear her," replied Springall. "Come, come, Master Bob, you're mazed by some devilry or other; the wind's in your teeth; you've been sailing against a norwester, or have met with a witch on a broomstick the other side of this old oak: Serves an oak right to wither up—why wasn't it made into a ship? But here's to ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... policemen: but (the Lord be praised) I was too much for him. There are legal formalities to fulfil yet; and I won't budge an inch, Lois, not one inch, my dear, till he's fulfilled every one of them. Mark my words, child, that boy's up to some devilry.' ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... guessed the secret of his inner struggle—the secret of the sad spirit that travailed against itself. Oddly enough his progress was rapid. He soon outpointed in brilliancy and deftness the most talented of the group of Liszt's young people, and once, after playing the Mephisto Walzer with abounding devilry, Liszt cried, "Bravo, child," and then muttered, "And how ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... again like a flock of glib-tongued and playful monkeys. I could not comprehend a word they said; but the bevy squealed with quite as much pleasure as if I did, and peered into my eyes for answers, with impish devilry at my wondering ignorance. ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... hastily, evidently in search of one of the servants. Partly because it was a man and not a woman, partly from a feeling of bravado—and partly from a strange sense, excited by the picture, that he had some claim to be there, he turned and faced the pale priest with a slight dash of impatient devilry that would have done credit to the portrait. But he was sorry for ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... before, we could hardly believe them the same. The dark complexion—the long and bushy beard were there—but instead of the sleepy and solemn character of the oriental, with heavy eye and closed lip, there was a droll, half-devilry in the look, and partly open mouth, that made a most laughable contrast with the head-dress. He looked stealthily around him for an instant, as if to see that all was right, and then, with an accent and expression I shall ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... sought to parry or break the force of the projected blow by a defensive-offensive against Ypres. The attack was not their real offensive for 1915, but they developed the habit of distracting attention from their main objectives by decking out their subsidiary operations with some new devilry of ingenuity; and just as in 1918 they bombarded Paris with guns having a range of 75 miles when their real objective was the British front, so in 1915, when their main effort was against the Russians, ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... yet learned even the existence. Or, if it is only the creature's vagaries of which you disapprove, why speak of them as the exercise of the imagination? As well speak of religion as the mother of cruelty because religion has given more occasion of cruelty, as of all dishonesty and devilry, than any other object of human interest. Are we not to worship, because our forefathers burned and stabbed for religion? It is more religion we want. It is more imagination we need. Be assured that these are ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... round, and, springing into the saddle, went off at a gallop, leaving me staring after him, wondering what devilry lay behind his words. I watched him till he rounded the elbow of the wood that lay without the gates, and then, sheathing my sword, went slowly ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... took him up in a moment, and added of her own devilry a trumpet and banner. She set out from Charing Cross bravely enough, and a trumpeter being an unwonted spectacle, the eyes of all the town were clapped upon her. Yet none knew her until she reached Bishopsgate, where an orange-wench set up the cry, 'Moll Cutpurse on ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... scene, Mephistopheles again appears, Faust is in a very different state of mind, and Mephistopheles is also in a different shape. He is decked out with silken mantle and with cock-feathers in his hat, ready for any devilry. Faust is in the depths of morbid despair and bitterness ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... the town was rumbling with the news. Under Ballard's devilry, all the latent hatred of the ranger and all the concealed opposition to the Forest Service came to the surface like the scum on a pot of broth. The saloons and eating-houses boiled with indignant protest. "What ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... reserved, and he held a mediocre position in a firm of envelope-makers in the City. But he had a romantic soul, and whenever the public craving for envelopes fell off—and that is seldom—he used to allay his secret passion for danger, devilry and excitement by writing sensational novels. One of these was recently published, and John Antony is now dead. The ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various
... Imperialism. It is the grim expression of a faith that is everlasting, of a love that shall endure the shocks of years, and all the cunning devilry of such as the Barbarous Huns. Hence this little book. It is an inspiration of the Dardanelles, where I met many of our Australasian friends. It is not an official history. I have, in my own way, ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... the East seems to have obliterated any (all?) sentiments of chivalry, for he is never weary of recording disparaging estimates of women, and apparently delights in discovering evidence of 'feminine devilry"' (p. 184). This argumentum ad feminam is sharpish practice, much after the manner of the Christian "Fathers of the Church" who, themselves vehemently doubting the existence of souls non- masculine, falsely and foolishly ascribed the theory and its consequences to Mohammed ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... rejoined Ralph, 'what I told you this minute. Stay. Let me look at you. There's a liquorish devilry in your face. ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... tragic history of the eldest and most beautiful, the noblest and most venerable, the freest and most gifted of Europe's daughters, delivered over to the devilry that issued from the most incompetent and arrogantly stupid of the European sisterhood, and to the cruelty, inspired by panic, of an impious theocracy. When we use these terms to designate the Papacy of the Counter-Reformation, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... old man, without taking offence, "you mistake, kind sir, I meant familiar in witchcraft, in devilry—not (as it ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... had been venturesome enough to trample through my woodland. I might have guessed that only a couple of idle boys like yourselves, knowing no better, would have pushed their way to a spot that all worthy dwellers in Bosekop, and all true followers of the Lutheran devilry, avoid as though the plague ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... when you did. But they're a cunning lot. They must have worked it somehow. Then Clive. I feel to blame for Clive's death—as if I ought to have managed better and saved him. Now there's this other devilry they are planning. I tell you, Walter, I feel the whole world will be a sweeter place after ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... explanation, and neither knew that Margaret had artfully prepared the way for it. It fitted in too well with their view of feminine nature. In the smoking-room, after dinner, the Colonel put forward the view that Miss Schlegel had jumped it out of devilry. Well he remembered as a young man, in the harbour of Gibraltar once, how a girl—a handsome girl, too—had jumped overboard for a bet. He could see her now, and all the lads overboard after her. But Charles and Mr. Wilcox agreed it was much ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... stalwarth chiels exhibited their superiority only in acting a higher mask, and singing a loftier strain. The gossips did not hesitate to suspend the honeyed topic, to give sage counsel on the subject of the masking "bulziements;" and anon they turned a side look at the minor actors, the imps of devilry, who passed along with their smoking horns often made of the stem or "runt" of a winter cabbage, wherewith that night they would inevitably smoke out of "house and hauld" every devil's lamb of every gossip that did not open her hand and "deal her bread" to the guysers. Both parties, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... had caused him to be selected as a judge, all this not withstanding. As soon as the depositions were completed, and the poor wench heard, it remained clear that although this merry doxy had broken her religious vows, she was innocent of all devilry, and that her great wealth was coveted by her enemies, and other persons, whom I must not name to thee for reasons of prudence. At this time every one believed her to be so well furnished with silver and gold that she could have bought the whole county of Touraine, if so it had ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... should think so! He ought to be hanged, a fellow like that. I told you last night he nearly drove over me. Living just as he likes, setting an example of devilry to the whole neighbourhood! If I hadn't kept my head he'd have bowled me over like a ninepin, and Bee ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... conduct of individual opponents simply and solely the dominating influence of that spirit, from which certain pernicious tendencies, according to his own convictions, proceeded and had to be combated. Thus it was in this instance. It was all visionary nonsense, nay, sheer devilry, and be attacked it in language of proportionate violence. From Zwingli a different attitude was to be expected, from the amicable titles of his treatises and the personal correspondence with Luther which he himself invited. He adopted ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... themselves in shame, and staggered out into the dark. It is an experience that makes a man feel that the very earth is rocking beneath him; it makes him wonder if it is possible for a good man to be somehow caught in a hot gust of devilry and swept clean off his feet. But the thing that has impressed me as I have counted such names sadly on my fingers is that, without an exception, they were all in the forties, most of them in the early forties. Youth, of course, often sins, and sins grievously; ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... magistrate. But that's the merchant who carried it out. Largely at my expense, I admit. But that's a matter for him and me to settle. I tell you, Sir Anthony, you must thank him—and the—er—hell-hound. A more masterly display of devilry I never witnessed." He sank into a chair. ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... eaten enough now," said Tom; "but, I say, Mark," he whispered, "you keep an eye on him whenever you can, so that none of the fellows play him any tricks. They'd do so, though they knew he was dying, out of devilry." ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... and the French by the Taepings to show that they were not altogether contemptible adversaries. Gordon himself thought that his force could fight very well, and that his officers, if somewhat lacking in polish, were not to be surpassed in dash and devilry. For the Taepings, especially behind walls, and when it was impossible to out-manoeuvre them, he had also the highest opinion, and his first object on every occasion was to discover a weak point in their position, and his patience ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... Bart, it was like this. I stood looking on at their devilry till I felt as if I couldn't bear it no longer, and then all at once I recollected the powder, and I thought that if I could put a bullet through the keg it would blow ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... know what to make of it. Perhaps some new devilry of the gods was about to be perpetrated on him. He walked slowly and cautiously, prepared to be assailed at any moment. He did not know what to do, it was all so unprecedented. He took the precaution to sheer off from the two watching gods, and walked ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... I took to my hammock and was carried through rain, and a very devilry of weather, into the Abonsa village. The whole path was shockingly bad and muddy. Once more I became a lodger of Mr. Crocker's; his house, being as usual far the best, gave us good shelter for ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... of Belial, unforeseen, Survives and amplifies itself in you? What manner of devilry has ever been That your obliquity ...
— The Man Against the Sky • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... popping its head into the flue, and shrieking and blaspheming at every corner of the walls. As in the old story, the assailant was a spectre which could be felt but not seen. She had never before been so struck with the devilry of a gusty night in a wood, because she had never been so entirely alone in spirit as she was now. She seemed almost to be apart from herself—a vacuous duplicate only. The recent self of physical animation and ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... still, and kept my ears open. The gardens were comparatively quiet now, and only an occasional grunt or squeal came up to me. I did not like this silence; it made me wonder on what devilry the creatures were bent. Twice, I left the tower, and took a walk through the house; but everything ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... make an end of the villain then and there; for I smelt falsehood and devilry in every word he spoke. But I waited to let him say his say out first. There was little fear in the dark night, and the unsteady flare of the torches, of his guessing to ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... Devilry, devil's work:—traces of such you might fancy were to be found in a certain manuscript volume taken from an old monastic library in France at the Revolution. It presented a strange example of a cold and very reasonable spirit disturbed suddenly, thrown ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... of the buccaneer to foresee what was to be his punishment. He was a man of the highest courage, the stoutest heart, yet in that hour he was astonied. His knees smote together; he clenched his teeth in a vain effort to prevent their chattering. All his devilry, his assurance, his fortitude, his strength, seemed to leave him. He stood before them suddenly an old, a broken man, facing a doom portentous and terrible, without a spark of strength or resolution left to meet it, whatever it might be. And for the first time in his life he ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... suffer so cruelly from its ironic "diablerie." A universe entirely composed of the bodies and souls of beings whose primordial emotion is so largely made up of malice is naturally a malicious universe. The age-old tradition of the witchery and devilry of malignant Nature is a proof as to how deep this impression of the system of things has sunk. Certain great masters of fiction draw the "motive" of their art ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... boy of ten, named Toka, the terror of the village for his illimitable impudence and unsurpassed devilry. But as he was a particular friend of the white man (and could not be prevented) he was allowed to come. He ...
— "Martin Of Nitendi"; and The River Of Dreams - 1901 • Louis Becke
... down again as abruptly as he had risen; but he sat quite still, and when he spoke again it was in a lower voice. "You do it at your own peril," he said; "but wouldn't you be an atheist to keep sane in all this devilry?" ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... two pills, the powder of which was tasted by the Wakungu to prove that there was no devilry in "the doctor," and gave orders for them to be eaten at night, restricting her pombe and food until I saw her again. My game was now advancing, for I found through her I should get the key to an influence that might bear on the king, and was much ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... have about as much chance of catching Boers on the veldt as a Lord Mayor's procession would have of catching a highwayman on Hounslow Heath. The enemy are watching us now from a rise a few miles away, waiting for our next move, and probably discussing some devilry or other they are up to. The line of our march is blotted out already. Where we camp one day they camp the next. They are all round and about us like water round a ship, parting before our bows and reuniting round ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... the Gandharvavivaha form of marriage, see note to page 28 of Captain R. F. Burton's "Vickram and the Vampire; or Tales of Hindu Devilry." Longman, Green & Co., London, 1870. This form of matrimony was recognised by the ancient Hindus, and is frequent in books. It is a kind of Scotch Wedding—ultra-Caledonian—taking place by mutual ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... too well knew would be the case, I was obliged to look at last, and, as I anticipated, I underwent a most violent shock. In lieu of a face I saw a raw and shining polyp, a mass of waving, tossing, pulpy radicles from whose centre shone two long, obliquely set, pale eyes, ablaze with devilry and malice. The thing, after the nature of all terrifying phantasms, was endowed with hypnotic properties, and directly its eyes rested on me I became numb; my muscles slept while my faculties ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... "Some devilry of his own. Don't you know, Uncle Joseph, these fellows gain credit, and money too, by hunting out cases of disloyalty to the Empire. It is dirty work; officials like the Prefect do not always care to soil their hands with it. I have heard my father ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... reaching up to their twelfth year, for her to remember them by; but she sobered in a moment, wondering if he suspected anything; then she said she believed she didn't want them. Wilson said to himself, "The drop of black blood in her is superstitious; she thinks there's some devilry, some witch business about my glass mystery somewhere; she used to come here with an old horseshoe in her hand; it could have been an accident, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a word with Donal, and expressed her surprise that he should be able to do everybody's work about the place, warning him it would be said he did it at the expense of his own. But what could he mean, she said, by wasting the good corn to put devilry into the horses? Donal stared in utter bewilderment. He knew perfectly that to the men suspicion of him was as impossible as of one of themselves. Did he not sleep in the same chamber with them? Could it be allusion to the way he spent his time when out with the cattle that Mistress ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... into his head to ride at a different hour, if he rides alone," he began. "I will therefore have my mule saddled now, and will station my man—a countryman from Subiaco and good for any devilry—in some place where he can watch the entrance to the house, or the castle, or whatever you call this place. So soon as he sees the count come out he will call me. As a man can ride in only one of two directions in this valley, I shall have no trouble whatever in meeting the old gentleman, ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... over her intractability. She had never before found her difficult to manage. But Netta's perversity and Netta's devilry were uppermost in her that day, and when at last Monck curtly ordered her not to worry herself but to leave the child alone, she gave up her efforts in despair. Tessa was riding ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... a man from Cairo, an Egyptian of the Egyptians, who'—and all the crowd knows that a bit of real metropolitan devilry ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... with one foot on the parapet, and watched her, and in the vague starlight his eyes burned with the old mocking devilry behind which he had ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... said quickly, 'you and I were different. I don't blame myself for that, but with Henrietta it was just devilry, sickness, misery. Don't,' he commanded, 'dare to compare ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... sword-hilt—not out of want of valour, you understand, but because they are genial, open souls, who would rather be on good terms with all men. I did not know then that beneath that homely surface there lurks a devilry as fierce as, and far more persistent than, that of the ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... out, and a number of them paid the penalty upon the gallows, and the rest scampered off to Meissen, Leipsic, and Herse. At these places they were not long in letting the inhabitants know, by their depredations, witchcraft, devilry, and other abominations, the class of people they had in their midst, and the result was their speedy banishment from Germany; and in 1418, after wandering about for a few months only, they turned their steps towards Switzerland, reaching Zurich on August 1st, and encamped ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... printed as a leading article, had been headed as a little story,—"The Lion and the Lamb,"—so that it might more readily attract attention. It read very nicely in print. It had all that religious unction which is so necessary for Christian Examiners, and with it that spice of devilry, so delicious to humanity that without it even Christian Examiners cannot be made to sell themselves. He was very busy with his two dozen damp copies before him,—two dozen which had been sent to him, by agreement, as the price of his workmanship. ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... for I guessed that the scoundrel would do with me as he had in some other cases; namely, take me and carry me back to the house, and there either threaten to shoot me, or hang me up over a fire, or some such devilry, to make those inside give in. I was determined this shouldn't be, and that if I could not shoot him I would be shot myself; for otherwise he would have got my father and mother, and it would have been three lives ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... their life in hunting and used often to be away from home for one or two months at a time. Now all their six wives were witches and directly their husbands left home the six women used to climb a peepul tree and ride away on it, to eat men or do some other devilry. The youngest brother saw them disappear every day and made up his mind to find out what they did. So one morning he hid in a hollow in the trunk of the peepul tree and waited till his sisters-in-law came and climbed up into the branches: then the ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas |
