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Miscreant   /mˈɪskriənt/   Listen
Miscreant

noun
1.
A person without moral scruples.  Synonym: reprobate.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Miscreant" Quotes from Famous Books



... ban, "we declare him traitor and miscreant, enemy of ourselves and of the country. As such we banish him perpetually from all our realms, forbidding all our subjects, of whatever quality, to communicate with him openly or privately—to administer to him victuals, drink, fire, or other necessaries. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... He groaned in misery, and in anguish wailed: "Ah me! why do the Gods abhor me so? They have wrecked my mind, have with fell madness filled, Making me slaughter all these innocent sheep! Would God that on Odysseus' pestilent heart Mine hands had so avenged me! Miscreant, he Brought on me a fell curse! O may his soul Suffer all torments that the Avenging Fiends Devise for villains! On all other Greeks May they bring murderous battle, woeful griefs, And chiefly on Agamemnon, Atreus' son! Not ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus

... Losely, in his midmost rage, stood awed and spellbound. His breast heaved, his eye fell, his frame collapsed, even his very tongue seemed to cleave to the parched roof of his mouth. Whether the effect so suddenly produced might have continued, or whether the startled miscreant might not have lashed himself into renewed wrath and inexpiable crime, passes out of conjecture. At that instant simultaneously were heard hurried footsteps in the corridor without, violent blows on the door, and voices exclaiming, "Open, open!—Darrell, Darrell!"—while ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... 1 Jan., set all tongues wagging. His Lordship was walking in the shrubbery, near his own house at Kilbeggan, in the county of Meath, talking to his steward, and pointing out to him some trees he wished to have cut down, when some miscreant, behind a hedge, fired a blunder-buss loaded with swan shot at him, and he fell, mortally wounded. He lived for 43 hours afterwards—but his assassin ran away and escaped; nor, in spite of large rewards offered, ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton

... like a miscreant who had received an unexpected pardon," he said lightly, and yet with a touch of gravity in his voice, "and, like the miscreant, I at once proceed to take advantage of the lenity ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... exaggerated importance which the American Government affected to attach to this trivial matter had, however, some influence in confirming the spirit of hostility towards Great Britain which at that time pervaded America, and shortly after broke out in open war. This self-sufficient miscreant having, as he fancied, taken ample vengeance upon the Government of his native country, could not, with any degree of decency, remain in the States, from whence he sailed for France in an American sloop-of-war, ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... the half-dozen corruptible agents, under the roar of their voices, there were many others speaking for truth and purity. The obscure mass meant to be just and honest. They were good fathers and brothers, and yet they were forced to bear the odium that fell on the whole legislature whenever the miscreant minority rolled in the mire and ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland

... widowhood be ended and thou have drawn up thy contract of marriage with her." But he answered, "I know neither days of widowhood nor other period; so multiply not words on me." The Shaykh al-Islam was silent,[FN94] fearing his mischief, and said to the troops, "Verily, this man is a Kafir, a Miscreant, and hath neither creed nor religious conduct." As soon as it was evenfall, he went in to her and found her robed in her richest raiment and decked with her goodliest adornments. When she saw him, she ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... helpless victim. Or perhaps he would detain him with stirring tales of forest life, till he found himself too late prudently to go further that night; and, on his guard against every person but the right, ordering a bed of his treacherous host, would fall into that slumber from which the miscreant took safe means to prevent his ever awaking. When, after many years of impunity in the commission of these fearful crimes, the officers of justice were at last set upon him, and his house was searched, in the cellar were ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle

... was based upon your vow never to go poaching again, and to turn over a new leaf and become a steady, industrious worker. You fired that shot just now, and here you are, on the Comte de Labranchoir's estate! Eh! you miscreant? Suppose his keeper had happened to hear you? It is a lucky thing for you that I shall take no formal cognizance of this offence; if I did, you would come up as an old offender, and of course you have no gun license! I let you keep that gun of yours out of tenderness for your ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... Mexican mule, And who have not fair Cuba subdued, After three bloody years of your miscreant rule, It is ...
— Soldier Songs and Love Songs • A.H. Laidlaw

... Let me, Mr. Gray, introduce you to The Lifter.' Roland bowed with the same air of haughtiness and disgust. But now that he was among the unholy crew he felt that he must make the best of the situation, conformably, of course, with his sense of honour. The description given of this miscreant by the robber chief indicates his appearance. He was somewhat below the medium height, and though not stoutly built, revealed strongly knit shoulders, and muscles enduring as twisted steel. He had a fawning air, a dark, rolling eye, and most ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins

... The miscreant reeled, and lost his balance. Then Curtis closed with him, caught his right wrist, and threw him heavily, but, such was the man's frenzied resolve not to be arrested, that he fired twice again before the deadly weapon fell from his grasp. He did no damage, but the uproar brought a ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... well that the young man was an infamous profligate, was not at all disposed to incur the displeasure of Peter by apparently espousing the cause of the son against the father. He consequently gave the miscreant such a cold reception that he found the imperial palace any thing but a pleasant place of residence, and again he set out on his vagabond travels. The next tidings his father heard of him were that he was in Naples, ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... have been the fate of Norah and the old captains. He guessed at once that they had come out in search of the Ouzel Galley, which, if she had been captured by the pirates, could not have returned home; and now they themselves had fallen into the power of the miscreant who had taken her. Mr Foley at length persuaded Gerald to return with him on deck, where they found the man whom Gerald had at first taken for O'Harrall, standing with his arms bound behind his back, while Mr Tarwig was questioning ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston

... citizen passed on his way, doubtless adding the outrage, in his mind, to the long list of unsolved London crimes. But retribution awaited the youthful miscreant. The phlegmatic policeman who was regulating the traffic on the single-line system happened to notice the deed. He walked majestically across from the far side of the ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay

... said to them, 'What shall we do with this multitude of thieves who go about destroying our people? If I send against them my valiant baronage I lose my noble barons, and then I shall never more have any joy of my life. If any could lead these folk into Spain against the miscreant and tyrant Pedro, who put our sister to death, I would like it well, whatever ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... face the armed enemies of our liberty in the field, and, by the favour of God, have been kept unhurt, I trust your country will never harbour in her bosom the miscreant who would ruin her best supporter. I wish not to flatter; but when arts unworthy honest men are used to defame and traduce you, I think it not amiss, but a duty, to assure you of that estimation in which the public hold you. Not that I think any ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall

... miscreant! I understood him now—oh, my God, for strength to tear his cowardly heart from his truculent body! But no; let there be no further unavailing anger. In God's good time all should recoil on his own head. For the present, I must bear, and make myself insensible; if possible; and yet, ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield

... reels, as the clutch of the miscreant loosens from her arm, but recovers herself and turns a bruised face toward the timely intruder. It ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... hostility; "you have imagined that you had to deal with some silly child. But this shall do none of you any good. You may kill me among you, but I am not afraid to die. Death itself will be welcome rather than submission to that foul miscreant, that vulgar coward, who takes advantage of a contemptible trick, and pretends that there was a marriage. I say this to you—that I defy him and all of you, and will defy you all—yes, to the bitter end; and you may go and tell ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille

... misfortunes, and was not far from fifty—was to be introduced to—whom? The Emperor of Austria! The sole remaining wish of the heart of one who ought to have been thinking of the grave and judgment, was to be introduced to the miscreant who had caused the blood of noble Hungarian females to be whipped out of their shoulders, for no other crime than devotion to their country, and its tall and heroic sons. The middle classes—of course there are some ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... stood silent, bathed in the moonlight; there was no sign of anyone about, other than the miscreant who stood now in the shadow, surveying the place. Presently he put down his pack, went to a window and, quick and silent as an expert burglar, jimmied the sash. There was only one sudden, sharp ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron

... and SINE PROLE," said Mumblazen, with more animation than he usually expressed, "than part, PER PALE, the noble coat of Robsart with that of such a miscreant!" ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... friends. Even if, for a paltry trifle of seven pounds fifteen and six, I am condemned by your master (whom you will excuse my terming a miscreant) to eke out the dregs of my worthless existence in this infernal yard—no, my loved Arabella, you will pardon me, but as a practical man I insist on facing the worst—even so I have found a congenial spirit, ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... there; and if they would let him know who it was, he should be exemplarily punished. They returned haughtily, That all the country reverenced the great Cham-Chi-Thaungu, who dwelt in the son, and no mortal would have dared to offer violence to his image, but some Christian miscreant; so they called them, it seems; and they therefore denounced war against him, and all the Russians, who, they said, were ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... to Zagori, a district noted for its doctors, for a quack who undertook to poison Sepher Bey on condition of receiving forty purses. When all was settled, the miscreant set out for Berat, and was immediately accused by Ali of evasion, and his wife and children were arrested as accomplices and detained, apparently as hostages for the good behaviour of their husband and father, but really as pledges for his silence ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... of miscreant eyes glinting stern under wrinkled brows. A basilisk. E quando vede l'uomo l'attosca. Messer Brunetto, I thank thee ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... "But, as I said just now, I like not this Mother Demdike, nor her rival in iniquity, old Mother Chattox. The devil only knows which of the two is worst. But if the former hag did not bewitch your husband to death, as I shrewdly suspect, it is certain that the latter mumbling old miscreant killed my elder brother, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... morality required his denial, if he had heard it in confession only. Poor Bates was the most innocent of the conspirators, and the most truly penitent: he was rather a tool and a victim than a miscreant. He lost his life through neglect of a much-forgotten precept—"If sinners entice thee, consent ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt

... that, at the best, the execution of the man she so vehemently hated could not take place for two months after the doing of the deed, even if then, she became almost frantic in her anger. Surely they would not let him escape! What more proof could be needed? Had not the miscreant quarrelled with her husband, and behaved abominably to him but a few minutes before the murder? Had he not been on the spot with the murderous instrument in his pocket? Had he not been seen by Lord Fawn hastening ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... matter,—ever occurred to her. She had not brought him there that she might frighten him with that danger, or that she might avenge herself by the power which it gave her. But now the idea flashed across her maddened mind. "Miscreant," she said. And she bore him back to the very ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope

... for he is as despicable a miscreant as ever lived; but, still, not likely to have married such a woman. And it may be possible that there was no California marriage at all. Therefore I feel very anxious to get ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... seeming to shake as if in throes to eject some foul possession; or, rather, as if he were himself a fierce, incarnate, and unfriendly spirit; and, at length, addressing his son, who was now leaning against a tree, both for support and concealment, he burst forth: "Miscreant!"—and the word was echoed from the side of a huge, dilapidated barn, —"Wretches," he hollowed; and the guilty crowd, fearing both individual recognition and personal contact, again ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege

... and day! If to the bath you take her down, Without a moment's haggling, pray, With your own hands the miscreant drown. ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)

... Musard gravely informed them. "She died while you have been searching for the miscreant who fired the shot we heard at the dinner table. Gentlemen, he must be found. It seems hardly possible that he has succeeded in getting clear away in ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... HIM. Meanwhile King Padella was scampering off as hard as his horse could lay legs to ground. Fast as he scampered, I promise you somebody else galloped faster; and that individual, as no doubt you are aware, was the Royal Giglio, who kept bawling out, 'Stay, traitor! Turn, miscreant, and defend thyself! Stand, tyrant, coward, ruffian, royal wretch, till I cut thy ugly head from thy usurping shoulders!' And, with his fairy sword, which elongated itself at will, His Majesty kept poking and prodding Padella in the back, ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray

... of my prince, And free from other misbegotten hate, Come I appellant to this princely presence. Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee, And mark my greeting well; for what I speak My body shall make good upon this earth, Or my divine soul answer it in heaven. Thou art a traitor and a miscreant; Too good to be so and too bad to live, Since the more fair and crystal is the sky, The uglier seem the clouds that in it fly. Once more, the more to aggravate the note, With a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat; And wish, so ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]

... journey. When he informed them that he was in search of a salt sea far to the north of them, which had been actually seen two years before by one of his companions, he learned to his disappointment and mortification that the whole story of Vignan was a sheer fabrication. The miscreant had indeed passed a winter on the very spot where they then were, but had never been a league further north. The Indians themselves had no knowledge of the north sea, and were highly enraged at the baseness of Vignan's falsehood, and craved the opportunity of despatching him at once. They jeered ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain

... am not. Dynamite must have been used. Hazelton and I heard the noise of the blast, but of course we got out there too late to catch any miscreant at the job." ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock

... After, on my spirit press Tempting and awful, with high promise fraught, And guardian terrors, whose out-flashing swords Beleaguer Paradise and the holy Tree Sciential. Step by step the way is fought That leads from Darkness, through her miscreant hordes, Back to the heavens of wise, and true, and free: Minerva's Gorgon, Ammon's cyclic Asp, And the fierce flame-sword of the Cherubim, That flashed like hate across the pallid gasp Of exiled Eve and Adam, flare, and glare, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various

... child, glides to the tapestried wall, and vanishes through it, into the Chamber of the Crown Prince, a babe of fourteen days. She returns carrying another unconscious infant form, she places it in the hands of the ruffian Sauerbeck, she disappears. The miscreant speeds with the child through a postern into the park, you hear the trample of four horses, and the roll of the carriage on the road. Next day there is silence in the palace, broken but by the shrieks of ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang

... are on the alert, my old comrade. You have not forgotten your former habits when in command here. But Sir Eustace intrusts the care of changing the guard to none but me; so I will not trouble you to disturb yourself another night." And the baffled miscreant retreated. ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge

... writing-table. "In this drawer—in the pocket-book you see in this drawer—in this now empty pocket-book, did I leave it. It was there yesterday. It was there last night. Now it is gone. Miscreants from without have visited us. Or perhaps, viler still, miscreants from within. A miscreant, I ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim

... except now and then a clank from the broken shoe. But I did not mean to tell you that I had ever seen him. I am not a bit afraid of him. He cannot do more than he may. His power is limited; else ill enough would he work, the miscreant." ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald

... a kitten; torment a boy smaller than himself; snatch an apple from the stall of the old woman at the corner and, with a justice whose speed was incredible, Hal Harding descended upon the miscreant and pommeled into him a lesson in squareness that he did not soon ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett

... long time, a restless, defenceless victim to recurrent visions of his shame. Implacably they returned to torture him. Reel after reel of the ignoble stuff, spawned by the miscreant, Baird, flashed before him; a world of base painted shadows in which he had been the ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson

... been a conversation in which his own name had figured. Having been abusing Clive extravagantly as he did whenever he mentioned his cousin's name, Barnes must needs hang his head when the young fellow came in. His hand was yet on the chamber-door, and Barnes was calling his miscreant and scoundrel within; so no wonder Barnes had a hangdog look. But as for Lady Kew, that veteran diplomatist allowed no signs of discomfiture, or any other emotion, to display themselves on her ancient countenance. Her bushy eyebrows were groves of mystery, her unfathomable ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... who loved mercy, and did justly, and walked humbly with his God, but he who observed the traditions of the elders. So that, as Professor Bruce says,[39] it was possible for a man to comply with all the requirements of the Rabbis and yet remain in heart and life an utter miscreant. "Outwardly," said Christ, "ye appear righteous unto men, but inwardly ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity." Is it any wonder that He should call down fire from heaven to consume a system which had yielded such bitter, ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson

... this; that as Mrs. Blondelle was known to have possessed jewels of great value, some miscreant came here with the intention to rob ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... that a servant, discharged by a sporting country gentleman, broke into his stables by night, and cut off the ears and tail of a favourite hunter. As soon as it was discovered, a blood-hound was brought into the stable, who at once detected the scent of the miscreant, and traced it more than twenty miles. He then stopped at a door, whence no power could move him. Being at length admitted, he ran to the top of the house, and, bursting open the door of a garret, found the object that he sought in bed, and would have torn him to ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... Don Rebiera of your arrival, signor," said the miscreant, springing up the rocks, and mixing with the rest, who now commenced hooting ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat

... he spoke gravely enough now—"that he is spreading murder and havoc all along the banks of the Missouri, and may be soon here upon us with the miscreant gang he leads. I heard terrible tales of him in the steamer I came down the river in. The captain of the little craft told me that the Indians had burnt every outlying settlement in Southern Dakota, massacring all the white inhabitants, and were making their way northwards, ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson

... but with so unmistakable an air of cunning and triumph that Eric was both astonished and dismayed. Could the miscreant have any further plot against him? At first he fancied that Billy might attempt to extort money by a threat of telling Dr Rowlands; but this supposition he banished as unlikely, since it might expose Billy himself to ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar

... Icelander risk his life amidst perpetual snows. Its charms are experienced alike, by the savage who roams the wilds of an American forest, and the courtier who rolls in luxury and prescribes rules of refinement to the civilized world; by the miscreant who wrings from the cold hand of charity the pittance that sustains his life, and the monarch who sways his sceptre over half the globe; by him who is bent with woes and years, and him whose cheek is covered yet ...
— A Dissertation on the Medical Properties and Injurious Effects of the Habitual Use of Tobacco • A. McAllister

... court-critics and vamp a Review. And by a poor figure, and therefore a true, For it suits with thy nature, both shoe-like and slaughterly Be its hue leathern, and title the Quarterly, Much misconduct, and see that the others Misdeem, and misconstrue, like miscreant brothers; Misquote, and misplace, and mislead, and misstate, Misapply, misinterpret, misreckon, misdate, Misinform, misconjecture, misargue; in short, Miss all that is good, that ye miss ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse

... town have vilified me in private and in the public press—over an assumed name, however. It wouldn't be healthy for any man to do it openly. The man is a liar—but I don't care about myself. It is a little difference of opinion among men, but some miscreant has reflected upon the good name of my wife. Now let me say that the man that says my wife is not a lady and a woman of the highest character, insults the mother of my children and will answer to me ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland

... grocer adieu, he left the house, with as firm a resolution as was ever made by any man, conscious of having done both a weak and a wicked action, of never again putting himself in familial contact with so truckling a miscreant. ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... stealing upon him with drawn knife. The two Generals could not have failed to see him, but neither interposed. A few seconds more and the weapon would have been driven into the back of Starland. Captain Ortega, however, sent his bullet straight and true, the miscreant falling ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... gratified to hear you say so," replied the Prince; "but my mind is not at rest. These servants are well-trained spies, and already has not this miscreant succeeded three times in eluding their observation and spending several hours on each in private, and most likely dangerous, affairs? An amateur might have lost him by accident, but if Rudolph and Jerome were thrown off the scent, it must have been done on purpose, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... were full to overflowing; small crowds were at street corners, filthy men and women ripe for any outrage. The names of unpopular deputies were freely and loudly cursed; the most unlikely revolutionists were openly accused of having sympathy with aristocrats. Some ragged miscreant, whose only popularity rested on some recent brutality, was declared capable of governing better than most of the present deputies, and the mob was more out of hand than it had been for weeks. At the call of some ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner

... father had turned him out and would never forgive him. He must go away by stealth, like a malefactor. "Well," he murmured, thinking of the act which he was on the point of accomplishing, "it's better so. In any case and in spite of everything, I was bound, now that war has been declared, to appear a miscreant and a renegade in my father's eyes. Have I the right to rob him of ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc

... soul! I understood his object in making this false representation. It was to show me that I gained nothing by seeking the protection of my mistress; that the power was still all in his own hands. I pitied Mrs. Flint. She was a second wife, many years the junior of her husband; and the hoary-headed miscreant was enough to try the patience of a wiser and better woman. She was completely foiled, and knew not how to proceed. She would gladly have had me flogged for my supposed false oath; but, as I have already stated, the doctor never allowed ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)

... once so high, that noble name Sunk in the mire of everlasting shame! He lives,—who once was lovely in thy sight— As monster foul—his every breath a blight; The foe of Heaven, of Jove, of all our race, His kisses poison, and his love—disgrace! Wretch, coward, miscreant, steeped in infamy, O worse than every ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille

... jury in capital cases to give a verdict against the person accused. After all, this is one of those problematic events which elude the force of all evidence, and serve to confound the pride of Iranian reason.—A miscreant, whose name was Haines, having espoused the daughter of a farmer in the neighbourhood of Gloucester, who possessed a small estate, which he intended to divide among seven children, was so abandoned ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... Stoics' account was in the forenoon (for example) the worst man in the world is in the afternoon the best of men; and he that falls asleep a very sot, dunce, miscreant, and brute, nay, by Jove, a slave and a beggar to boot, rises up the same day a prince, a rich and a happy man, and (which is yet more) a continent, just, determined, and unprepossessed person;—not ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... and her need of talking. As befitted a person of her distinction, Madame Alexandrine was royalist and clerical, and she used to parade her feelings with a zeal that was all the more indiscreet as she took a malicious delight in teasing the old miscreant in whose house she had taken up her abode. She had set herself up as mistress of the house, and regarded herself as responsible for the conscience of the whole household: if she was unable to convert her uncle—(she had vowed to capture him in ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... indeed had the miscreant acted, that his victim had hardly realised the assault before he found himself securely gagged and bound to a chair in his own ante-room, whilst that dare-devil stood before him, perfectly at his ease, his hands buried in the capacious pockets of his huge caped coat, ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... formed a sort of flying wedge on the outskirts of the crowd and forced a passage for the gipsy band. At that moment Florestein came along, taking part in the day as all the rest of Presburg were doing, and the first man his eye lighted upon was that miscreant, Devilshoof. There stood the man who had stolen his medallion! There were several gentlemen with Florestein, and he called their attention to the gipsy group. Meantime Arline, like any gipsy, had been going about selling flowers and telling fortunes, and while those things were taking place the ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon

... bloodthirsty little miscreant that lives by reversing the natural order of higher forms of life preying upon lower ones, an anomaly in that the vegetable actually eats the animal. The dogbane, as we shall see, simply catches the flies that dare trespass upon the butterflies' preserves, for excellent ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... He appealed to my heart; and you know, my dear fellow, that was irresistible, so I let him off. Who could have thought he would have turned out so?" And the baronet proceeded to eulogize his own good-nature, by which it is just necessary to remark that one miscreant had been saved for a few years from transportation, in order to rob and murder ad libitum, and, having fulfilled the office of a common pest, to suffer on the gallows at last. What a fine thing it is to have a good heart! Both our gentlemen now sank into a revery, from which ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Jew, 'from the mouth of the miscreant Curio, who has told me of fierce disputes, overheard by him, between Varus and ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... death and the former adventures of that wretched accomplice, the notorious Gawtrey. And,—telling you that Mr. Beaufort had long since written to inform me that his own son and Lord Lilburne had seen your brother in company with the miscreant just before his fate—nay, was, in all probability, the very youth described in the account as found in his chamber and escaping the pursuit—I asked you if you would now venture to leave that disguise—that shelter under which you would for ever be safe from the opprobrium of the ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... property by the terrible scourge, Rughber Sing, during his reign of two years, and could not hope to recover from their present state of poverty for many more; that their lands were scantily tilled, and the crops had so failed for many years, since this miscreant's rule, that the district which used to supply Lucknow with grain was obliged to draw grain from it, and even from Cawnpore. This is true, and grain has in consequence been increasing in price ever since we left ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... Evariste Gamelin returned, agitated by the confession he had heard and determined to know who was Elodie's betrayer, to avenge at one and the same time the Republic's wrong and his own on the miscreant. ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... care there, you Macedonian miscreant, dead two thousand years, you are turning this ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard

... suggest. They spurted their foul spittle into His face;[1266] and then, having blindfolded Him, amused themselves by smiting Him again and again, saying the while: "Prophesy unto us, thou Christ, Who is he that smote thee?" The miscreant crowd mocked Him, and railed upon Him with jeers and taunts, and branded themselves ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... who had care of the shop. She tried to check him, by saying that he would be seen by the gentleman in the next room. In a moment he seized a knife from the counter, and plunged it into the breast of Mac Firbis. There was no "justice for Ireland" then, and, of course, the miscreant escaped the punishment he ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... have been in this neighbourhood some six or eight months. People have certainly spoken to you about me; they have told you who I am; a miscreant, a man without religion, who regards neither law or Gospel: that is to say, only worth hanging. In spite of that, you came to see me. Very good. You know that I do not pick and choose my words, that ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France

... but instead of falling, sat down suddenly on the wet ground with his back against the masonry. The ruffian was gone and Pica had dashed after him in a fruitless pursuit, for the breaking of the lantern in his hand had checked the orderly as he was about to spring at the miscreant, who thus gained a sufficient start to ensure ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford

... the next year was out the poor boy was dead—murdered by some miscreant for the handful of gold in his possession, down in the lonely ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt

... to devise with me on other matters, and got from me the story of my great peril at the hands of Brother Thomas. He laughed at the manner of my outwitting that miscreant, who had never been taken, but was fled none knew whither, and my master promised to tell the tale to the Maid, and warn her against this enemy. And so bidding me be of good cheer, he departed; but for my part, I went into my ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... hermit to his life's end, but the French book maketh mention that Sir Bors and three of the knights that were with him at the hermitage went into the Holy Land, and there did many battles upon the miscreant Turks, and there they died upon a Good Friday, ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler

... upon the knowledge they must have wrung from one of the native tribes they have oppressed. Well, gentlemen, we have two of the miscreant spies. What next?" ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn

... Earth to sky; Love, the sole permitted, sings Sovereignly of ME and I. Bowers he has of sacred shade, Spaces of superb parade, Voiceful . . . But bring you a note Wrangling, howsoe'er remote, Discords out of discord spin Round and round derisive din: Sudden will a pallor pant Chill at screeches miscreant; Owls or spectres, thick they flee; Nightmare upon horror broods; Hooded laughter, monkish glee, Gaps the vital air. Enter these enchanted woods You ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... sight could never bring me joy; Nor this fair city with its battlements, Its temples and the statues of its gods, Sights from which I, now wretchedst of all, Once ranked the foremost Theban in all Thebes, By my own sentence am cut off, condemned By my own proclamation 'gainst the wretch, The miscreant by heaven itself declared Unclean—and of the race of Laius. Thus branded as a felon by myself, How had I dared to look you in the face? Nay, had I known a way to choke the springs Of hearing, I had never shrunk to make A dungeon of this miserable frame, Cut ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles

... reward will be paid by me to any person or persons—and they will be exempted from detention—who will deliver to me the body of the above-named miscreant, that he may be brought to ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... moment, panting and glaring at the miscreant whom he had brought low. Then without speaking or seeking to recover his tomahawk, he turned and walked toward the Sauk, knowing it was too late to ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... had been chastised, an act of savagery fit to rank with the cold-blooded murder of an envoy. Yet the day will doubtless come when ignorant English people will vie with each other to do honour to the man who struck the miscreant blow. They will be persons ignorant of the feeling which permeated the army in South Africa. As the news spread round the camp, by common consent it was agreed that De Wet should never be handed up alive if it fell to the lot of the ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer

... his blood, upwards towards the moon and stars, as one who had looked his last look on earth; the large tears were flowing down his cheeks, and mingling with the crimson streaks, and a flood of silver light fell on the fine features of the poor boy, as he said firmly, "Never." The miscreant fired, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... recommend it for your purpose, sir, because it really is extra super. But you shall see some others. Give me Number Four, you!" (To the boy, and with a dreadfully severe stare; foreseeing the danger of that miscreant's brushing me with it, or making some other sign ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... had sent for the constable and came at once, though even then inclined to doubt whether Brand had not imputed accident to malice. But Perrault's flight had settled that question. During the confusion, while Hester was being carried upstairs, the miscreant had the opportunity ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge

... miscreant," cried Bois-Rose, using in indignation an image fit for the Indians, "he takes jaguars far jackals. Ah! if Fabian were not here, a bullet ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... Edwards: is it a crime to drive a prying miscreant from his door? Crime! Oh, no, sir; if there be a criminal involved in this affair, ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... execute the law. One afternoon, in front of the Palace Hotel, a crowd of workers in the ruins discovered a miscreant in the act of robbing a corpse of its jewels. Without delay he was seized, a rope was procured, and he was immediately strung up to a beam which was left standing in the ruined ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum

... after setting it on fire, they make their escape. This is sufficient often to produce the most terrible ravages in a town where the houses, built with wood and painted with oil of spike, afford the easiest opportunity to the miscreant who is disposed to reduce them to ashes. The method employed by the incendiaries, and which often escapes the vigilance of the masters of the houses, added to the common causes of fires, gave for some time very frequent causes of alarm."—Translation ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... it not another carriage at a gallop? There! what's that?' Miscreant with a Pig's head, stand still!' to another horse, who bit another, who frightened the other two, who plunged and backed. 'There is ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... the beard has gathered on his chin, Has Justice e'er vouchsafed a word to him. Nor now, when on his native soil he treads In enmity, is Justice at his side. Nor could the deity deserve her name If she could be a miscreant's paramour. Herein I put my trust, and will myself Accept this combat; better right has none; Chieftains alike we meet, brethren we are And ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith

... but one of a gang of such criminals, brought to heel and made victims. Their minds and souls, such as they were, had passed into the miscreant's keeping, and terror reinforced the power of hypnotism. They committed crimes, and when they failed they took the punishment; when they succeeded Mayes took the gains, or at any rate the greater part of them. He went, also, among people who were not yet criminals, and by degrees ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison

... others, merely because they reject some clause of it, incur a forfeiture; no one must enjoy the advantages of a pact of which some of the conditions are repudiated.—Even better, as this pact is based on natural right and is obligatory, he who rejects it or withdraws from it, becomes by that act a miscreant, a public wrong-doer and an enemy of the people. There were once crimes of royal lese-majesty; now there are crimes of popular lese-majesty. Such crimes are committed when by deed, word, or thought, any portion whatever of the more than royal authority belonging to the people is denied ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... Legislature, and afterwards, this same McCarty was in my presence the most abject and humble wretch I knew in Marysville. He almost piteously begged recognition by me, and was ready to go down on his knees for it. He was a blustering miscreant, full of courage where no force was required, and ready to run at the first appearance of a fight. He was one of a class, all of whom are alike, in whom bluster, toadyism, and pusillanimity go in concert, and are about equally developed ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham

... Sir Trevisan's warning, the fair-sounding words found an echo in the heart of the Red Cross Knight, as they had done in the hearts of many men before him. The miscreant saw that his courage was wavering, and forthwith he brought forth a store of swords, ropes, poisons, and a brazier of fire, and bade him choose what manner of death he would prefer. The knight gazed at them all, like one who ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various

... gown and a pink ribbon in her cap, looked to the full as lovely as Ophelia. Bingley was great in William. Goll, as the Admiral, looked like the figure-head of a seventy-four; and Garbetts, as Captain Boldweather, a miscreant who forms a plan for carrying off Black-eyed Susan, and waving an immense cocked hat says, "Come what may, he will be the ruin of her"—all these performed their parts with their accustomed talent; and it was with a sincere ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... correspondence he vented his rage in terms similar to those used of the Danish commodore after Copenhagen. "You will have seen Monsieur La Touche's letter of how he chased me and how I ran. I keep it; and, by G—d, if I take him, he shall eat it." He is a "poltroon," a "liar," and a "miscreant." It may be added that no admiral, whether a Nelson or not, could have abandoned ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... send thither with Sir Oliver and his family two of my trustiest sons, Brother Fabian and Brother Nathaniel, to keep strict watch within doors, that there be no cause for any enemy to say that any there have aided an unlawful escape, or have striven to hide a miscreant from ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green

... smooth-faced, placid miscreant! Dabbling its sleek young hands in Erin's gore, And thus for wider carnage taught to pant, Transferr'd to gorge upon a sister shore, The vulgarest tool that Tyranny could want, With just enough of talent, and no more, To lengthen fetters by another fix'd. And offer ...
— English Satires • Various

... my struggles by the iron poker, which the intruder seized from the fireplace. He hit me on the forehead, and I didn't know anything more until just a moment ago, when I woke up with a headache, and only one cuff-button left. If Mr. Holmes can lay hands on the unholy miscreant who is guilty of this and the previous outrages, he will have earned my everlasting gratitude, also a reward of twenty thousand pounds,—double what I had Thorneycroft offer ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry

... What miscreant hero had dared perform this sacrilegious exploit? "Perish Hector!" had been an immemorial war-cry at Plummer's; but Hector had never yet perished. No one had been found daring enough to bell the cat—that is, to shoot the dog. To what scoundrel was Dangerfield ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed

... be that Walter Hornby was in reality the miscreant X? The thing seemed incredible, for, hitherto, no shadow of suspicion had appeared to fall on him. And yet there was no denying that his description tallied in a very remarkable manner with that of the hypothetical X. He was a man of some means and social position; he ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman

... as he was, he at once dropped on to the lower deck, rushing to where Moody was standing, but the other men got in between and hustled him away; so, seeing that he could do nothing towards arresting the miscreant for the present, he bent over the poor captain and lifted him on his knee to see whether life was quite extinct. Happily he still lived! moaning faintly as Mr Meldrum raised him in his arms; consequently, as it was too dark—for ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson

... had learned something of the peculiar relations in which Mary stood to the family at Durnmelling, he began to think there might have been something more in the pursuit than a chance ruffianly assault, and the greater were his regrets that he had not secured the miscreant. ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... he seems to be, Sees glorious Adam there made Lord of all, Fancyes the Apple, dangle on the Tree, That turn'd his Sovereign to a naked thral, Who like a miscreant's driven from that place, To get his bread with pain and sweat of face A penalty impos'd on his ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... notice her surroundings. The antennae are pointed forwards, enquiringly; the hind-legs are drawn up with a little quiver of greed in the tarsi; the head turns to right and left and follows the evolutions of the Bees against the glass. The miscreant's posture now becomes a striking piece of acting: you can read in it the fierce longings of the creature lying in ambush, the crafty waiting for the moment to commit the crime. The choice is made: the ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre

... Cornish, "we must keep boosting. Fortunately society here is now thoroughly organized on the principle of whooping it up for Lattimore. I could get up a successful lynching-party any time to attend to the case of any miscreant who should suggest that property is too high, or rents unreasonable, or anything but a steady up-grade before us. But I think we ought to stop buying—except among ourselves, and keep the transfers from falling off—and begin ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick

... This daring miscreant detailed, with all the embellishments and flourishes suggested by his base mind and his ruffianly imagination, the attempts which he pretended Cornelius de Witt had made to corrupt him; the sums of money ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... indeed!" said I, memory of the vows to that miscreant adventurer fading. "That good angel was a lazy baggage! She should ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... letter purported to be from Pompilia, offering her love. Caponsacchi saw through the trick at once: the letter was written by Guido. He answered it in such a way that it would save her from all anger, and at the same time infuriate the "jealous miscreant" who had written it: ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne

... refer to the last, which ended my connection with that service. Having been sent in charge of a boat up a river, to recover a quantity of property belonging to British and American merchants, which had been seized by the miscreant Benevades, we set off and pulled up unmolested, but finding nothing of consequence, turned to pull back again, when volleys of musketry were poured into us from both banks. We saw no one, and could do nothing but pull down as fast as possible, ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne

... These are the hands; but here—here, sir, is the head," cried Somerset. "Enough; it is decreed. We shall hunt down this miscreant in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... repeated the king. "I am resolved, even if it should cost the life of this maiden, whose charms have moved me so, to break the infernal machinery woven around me. And now as I think it not unlikely the miscreant Herne may attempt the prisoner's deliverance, let the strictest watch be kept over the tower. Station an arquebusier throughout the night at the door of the dungeon, and another at the entrance to the chamber on the ground floor. Your own post ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth

... longing for life in her heart, and for love that spoke through the handsome adventurer, a young miscreant who haunted churches in search of a prize, an heiress to marry, or ready money. The Bishop bestowed his benison on the waves, and bade them be calm; it was all that he could do. He thought of his concubine, and of the delicate feast with which she would welcome him; perhaps ...
— Christ in Flanders • Honore de Balzac

... money to pay the very cab that's waiting for me at the door; and the porteress, that Mrs. Bolton, lent me three shillin's, and I don't like to ask her for any more: and I asked that d—d old Costigan, the confounded old penniless Irish miscreant, and he hadn't got a shillin', the beggar; and Campion's out of town, or else he'd do a little bill for ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... limbs, to administer poison, or to sell them to enemies for slaves? Let me intreat you to consider, will the mother be pleased, when you represent her as deaf to the cries of her children? When you compare her to the infamous miscreant, who lately stood on the gallows for starving her child? When you resemble her to Lady Macbeth in Shakespear, (I cannot ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams

... had been removed to the roof of Mr. Fielden. By accident he heard the name, and, his curiosity leading to further inquiries, learned that Helen was made an heiress by the will of her grandfather. With this knowledge came a thought of the most treacherous, the most miscreant, and the vilest crime that even he yet had perpetrated; so black was it that for a while he absolutely struggled against it. But in guilt there seems ever a Necessity that urges on, step after step, to the last consummation. Varney received a letter to inform him that ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... rage afforded. As it stood fixed in the cushion,[2] then, at length, Perseus leapt off from the couch, and in his rage would have pierced the breast of his enemy with the weapon, thrown back, had not Phineus gone behind an altar, and {thus} (how unworthily!) an altar[3] protected a miscreant. However, the spear, not thrown in vain, stuck in the forehead of Rhoetus; who, after he fell, and the steel was wrenched from the skull, he {still} struggled, and besprinkled the laid tables with his blood. But then does the multitude ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... stammered, then laughed as one who tardily appreciates a joke. "It is well we are arrived in time, madame," he added—"though it would seem you have not had great trouble with this miscreant. Where ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... Anne came in. She had been prepared by Martha for her visitor, and she came forward to him now with the dignity and kindly patronage of some lady abbess receiving the miscreant and boorish yokel of a neighbouring village. And yet how fine she was! As Maggie watched her, she thought of what she would give to have some of that self-command and dignity and decision. Was it her religion that gave her that? Or only her own self-satisfaction? ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... Thence, after a short time, Asker Ali continuing his horrible trade of official murder, consulting his book of fate and atoms of sand, and hanging up the good subjects of the Porte "without judge or jury," got again recalled; and I have not heard more of this miscreant Pasha. Asker Ali is a bright ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... hear me, I pray thee, Hotep. This most rapacious miscreant would hold his favor with the king. He knew I loved Masanath, and he held her out of my reach till I should consent to countenance his advisership to my father. I consented—and should I lapse, ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... other part, a pagan Esturganz; Estramariz also, was his comrade; Felons were these, and traitors miscreant. Then said Marsile: "My Lords, before me stand! Into the pass ye'll go to Rencesvals, Give me your aid, and thither lead my band." They answer him: "Sire, even as you command. We will assault Olivier ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous

... them, to the great church, for the hallowing and the crowning; and they were led by one squire alone, and he unarmed; for such was the custom of Stark-wall when a new king should be hallowed: so came they to the great church (for that folk was not miscreant, so to say), and they entered it, they two alone, and went into the choir: and when they had stood there a little while wondering at their lot, they heard how the bells fell a-ringing tunefully over ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris

... never spoken to Marie about it, but many little signs had convinced the maid that her mistress lived in a state of continual nervous apprehension. So far she had got in her narrative, when suddenly she sprang from her chair and her face was convulsed with surprise and fear. "See!" she cried. "The miscreant follows still! There is the very man of ...
— The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax • Arthur Conan Doyle

... not only by those whose business it is to investigate such terrible happenings, but also by the vast world of men and women who take an intelligent interest in such sinister mysteries, that the same miscreant had committed all three crimes; and before that extraordinary fact had had time to soak well into the public mind there took place yet another murder, and again the murderer had been to special pains to make it clear that some obscure and terrible ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... whom he applied was a miscreant in Taos, who, for some reason, refused to go with him. However, he kept the secret until sure the entire party were so far out on the plains that nothing could prevent the perpetration of the crime. He then told it to several associates, ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis

... asked for particulars: was he a Ladroner, a Malay, a Bornese? In what latitude was he to be looked for? The admiral on this examined his memoranda: by these it appeared little was known as yet about the miscreant, except that he never cruised long on one ground; the crew was a mixed one: the captain was believed to be a Portuguese, and to have a consort commanded by his brother: but this was doubtful; at all events, the pair had never been seen ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... necessity of his task. If lies and deceit are in his mind, then the form which he gives to these things cannot be deceit or lies, precisely because it is aesthetic. The artist, if he be a charlatan, a liar, or a miscreant, purifies his other self by reflecting it in art. Or by sincerity is meant, fulness and truth of expression, and it is clear that this second sense has nothing to do with the ethical concept. The law, ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce

... for it, by infidelity, she will have managed ill, if she have not her defenders. Nor did I ever know a cause or a person so bad, as to want advocates, either from ill-will to the one, or pity to the other: and you will then be thought a hard-hearted miscreant: and even were she to go off without credit to herself, she will leave you as little; especially with all those whose good opinion a ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... said Lady Gorgon, cursing Mr. Scully in her heart, and beginning to play a rapid tattoo with her feet, "that miscreant, that traitor, that—that attorney has ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... to this story with horror. "If this miscreant makes way with Lieutenant Pennington and Nevels, I will hunt him to his death, if it takes ten years," he declared. Then turning to Evans, he asked: "Did any of the gang side with ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn

... be politically a republican and socially a just man because he holds up an atrocious despot like Caesar Borgia as a mirror for rulers. What Machiavelli beheld round him in Italy was a civic disorder in which there was oppression without statecraft, and revolt without patriotism. When a miscreant like Borgia appeared upon the scene and reduced both tyrants and rebels to an apparent quiescence, he might very well seem to such a dreamer the savior of society whom a certain sort of dreamers are always looking for. Machiavelli was no less honest when he honored the diabolical force ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... one and two o'clock on Sunday morning, July 8th, when Mr. Smith was attacked by the cowardly miscreant who has thus made himself notorious. We say "cowardly," because when a large, strong man who carries arms and is a professional fighter, as he appears to have been, attacks a man who is weaponless and not more than two-thirds his size by giving him a stunning blow ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith

... active Part we had both taken in the affair. At this period of their Quarrel I entered the Library and was as you may imagine equally offended as Sophia at the ill-grounded accusations of the malevolent and contemptible Macdonald. "Base Miscreant! (cried I) how canst thou thus undauntedly endeavour to sully the spotless reputation of such bright Excellence? Why dost thou not suspect MY innocence as soon?" "Be satisfied Madam (replied he) I DO suspect it, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... on the support of officials, prisons, churches, armies, on things that are harmful, and on my own enslavement? Why should I punish myself? Why should I go wasting my time and hoodwinking myself, giving to miscreant evildoers a semblance of legality, by taking part in elections, and pretending that I am taking part in the government, when I know very well that the real control of the government is in the hands of those who have got hold of the army? Why should I go to the law courts to take part in ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... I look upon you as the greatest miscreant that ever I met," said Peregrine, who was of course bound to support ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... age and misfortunes than at the period of his most splendid successes; whilst his opponent was but a semi-barbarous tyrant, with a pillaging, murderous horde of Croats and Pandours, composing a half of his army, filling our camp with their strange figures, bearded like the miscreant Turks their neighbors, and carrying into Christian warfare their native heathen habits of rapine, lust, and murder. Why should the best blood in England and France be shed in order that the Holy Roman and Apostolic master of these ruffians should have his revenge over the Christian ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... commander. 'In ten minutes from this moment let him be a spectacle between the heavens and the earth.' The wife and daughter clung to his knees in supplication, but an irrevocable oath had passed his lips that never should treason receive his forgiveness after that of the miscreant Arnold. 'For my own life,' he said, while tears rolled down his noble countenance at the agony of the wife and daughter: 'For my own life I heed not; but the liberty of my native land—the welfare of millions demand this sacrifice. For the sake of humanity, ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson

... me," he murmured, "if that frock yonder does not cover the body of that little miscreant whom I wished them to give me for a traveling companion, and who handles his ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas

... eight months in Alexandria when the Governor of Egypt received a message from his royal master. "Nothing that I could hear of would give me greater pleasure," he wrote, "than the news that you have driven that miscreant out ...
— Saint Athanasius - The Father of Orthodoxy • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes

... sleepy, do tell us some of thy pleasant tales," whereupon Shahrazad replied, "With love and good will."—It hath reached me, O King of the Age, that when Alaeddin's mother heard his words and what had befallen him from the Maghrabi, the Magician, she said, "Yea, verily, O my son, he is a miscreant, a hypocrite who murthereth the folk by his magic; but 'twas the grace of Allah Almighty, O my child, that saved thee from the tricks and the treachery of this accursed Sorcerer whom I deemed to be truly thine uncle."[FN108] Then, as the lad ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... was the strongest and greatest. What the Scriptures tell about him is but a small fraction of what might have been told. The Scriptures refrain intentionally from expatiating upon the prowess of the miscreant. Nor do they tell how Goliath, impious as he was, dared challenge the God of Israel to combat with him, and how he tried by every means in his power to hinder the Israelites in their Divine worship. Morning and evening he would appear in the camp at the very time when the Israelites were preparing ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... hurried on with increasing speed, and likewise with augmented hope to be enabled to save not only your lordship's aunt and sister from the officers of the inquisition, but also the young Count of Riverola from the power of his miscreant enemies. Alas! my anticipations were not to be fulfilled! I lost my way amongst a maze of gardens connected with the villas bordering on the Arno; and much valuable time at such a crisis was wasted in ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... that alone have a right to protect her! I will give thee thy life on one condition, craven! Surrender up to me the maiden, and thou art free to depart! But enter not a foot again into the Christian camp. An army renowned as being the mirror of French chivalry cannot honorably harbor a miscreant like thee!' ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray

... frightened, or what not; it was now a known fact, that she was being dragged senseless in the man's arms, when Macdermot attacked him. And was a brother to stand by and look on at such a sight as that, and not protect his sister, and punish the miscreant who was endeavouring to dishonour her? Was Mr. Macdermot to turn his back upon the affair, and leave his sister to her fate because, forsooth, the man who did it was a Revenue officer? Let us bring the matter home to ourselves, Sir Michael," ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... to Ukridge's amazing idiocy, a barrier had been thrust between us. Lord knows, the business of fishing for a girl's heart is sufficiently difficult and delicate without the addition of needless obstacles. To cut out the naval miscreant under equal conditions would have been a task ample enough for my modest needs. It was terrible to have to re-establish myself in the good graces of the professor before I could so much as begin to dream of Phyllis. Ukridge gave me ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse

... of yonder blessed city of Cologne, who will not endure that a Jew or infidel should even enter within the walls of their town, could be oblivious enough to permit their worshippers, coming to their shrine as true pilgrims, to be plundered and misused by such a miscreant dog as this Boar of Ardennes, who is worse than a whole desert of Saracen heathens, and all the ten ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... inspired, if we did not personally control, as to their line of conduct. My man I will call Roberts, whose adventures I now give, and in whose name I shall write. There are people who insist that I was Captain Roberts; all that such people have to do is to prove I was that 'miscreant,' whoever he may have been. The ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha

... really let me go, and not be sorry?-Can you see me suffer torments inexpressible, and yet retain all your favour for that miscreant who flies you?-Ungrateful ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney



Words linked to "Miscreant" :   wretch, deviant, pervert, degenerate, reprobate, deviate, scapegrace, wrongdoer, black sheep, offender



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