"Devil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... referred to, the dragon has ten horns; and its characteristics indicate that it also symbolizes the Roman empire,—"the fourth kingdom upon earth," Dan. 7:23. The dragon is a monster serpent. "That old serpent" who seduced Eve (Gen. 3:5), "called the devil" (Matt. 4:1-12), and "Satan" (2 Cor. 2:11), "who deceiveth the whole world," is an appropriate representative ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... put her into a lampoon, and compliment her with the imputation of an affair with a young fellow, which I carried so far, that I told her the malicious town took notice that she was grown fat of a sudden; and when she lay in of a dropsy, persuaded her she was reported to be in labour. The devil's in't, if an old woman is to be flattered further, unless a man should endeavour downright personally to debauch her: and that my virtue forbade me. But for the discovery of this amour, I am indebted to your friend, or your wife's ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... with interest for the way we sold them the day before. You know they have been crazy after our dailies ever since the strict general order preventing the exchange of the daily papers between pickets. Well, that dare-devil of a law student, Tom, determined to have some fun with them. So when they again, as they often had before, came to the river with hands full of Richmond papers, proposing exchange, Tom flourished a paper also. ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... reached the steps a hansom deposited the bulky figure of Brome Porter, Mrs. Hitchcock's brother-in-law. The older man scowled interrogatively at the young doctor, as if to say: 'You here? What the devil of a crowd has Alec raked together?' But the two men exchanged essential courtesies ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... bitterly regret that they were but dreams. And now, when young Halhed went to Oxford, and young Sheridan to join his family at Bath, they continued these ambitious projects for a time, and laid out their fancy at full usury over many a work destined never to see the fingers of the printer's devil. Among these was a farce, or rather burlesque, which shows immense promise, and which, oddly enough, resembles in its cast the famous 'Critic,' which followed it later. It was called 'Jupiter,' and turned chiefly on ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... my dear; and what do you know about money?" cries my lord. "And what the devil is there that I don't give you ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... he stated, "of the only time that I ever, to my knowledge, talked face to face with the devil. It is rather odd how obstinately life clings to the most hackneyed trick of ballad-makers; and still naively pretends to enrich her productions by the stale device of introducing a refrain—so that the idlest remarks of as much as three years ago keep cropping up ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... for us to gain. But we can gain it only at the end of the bayonet. If we would win, we must fight. There is no victory without battle. One brother, after gaining a decisive victory, said, "The devil is dead." He was so victorious and free that he thought the devil must be dead. In a short time, however, the brother learned his mistake. The prince of the power of the air still lives, and we still have our humanity. If we are not prayerful ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr
... devil his due (the French), it should be observed that it has been said without contradiction, and the people made to believe, that their refusal to receive our Envoys was contrary to the law of nations, and a sufficient cause of war: whereas every one who ever read a book on the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... and finally raise him to great power and authority. It is no unfrequent illusion of homicidal maniacs to suppose they are under the influence of the Evil One, or possessed by a Demon. Murderers have assigned as the only reason they themselves could give for their crime, that "the Devil got into them," and urged the deed. But the insane have, perhaps, no attribute more in common than that of superweening self-esteem. The maniac who has been removed from a garret sticks straws in his hair ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... rich in their extravagance, and that all must come together on the same floor, in the same room and pass in review before the merciless critics always to be found in the ball room, and find that the weakest and most vulnerable points in human nature are here attacked by three of the devil's most powerful armies, under command of three of his most stratagetic and experienced generals—ENVY, JEALOUSY and WOUNDED PRIDE—we may at once proceed to examine the fruit of dancing. Nearly all of our young people are in love with some one, and not unfrequently two or three or more are ...
— There is No Harm in Dancing • W. E. Penn
... after, so that it may be stopped; no; the products of the conditions are punished. The more gigantic the evils grow, and the numbers of evil-doers multiply in proportion, proportionately severe penalties and persecutions are deemed necessary. It is sought to drive out the devil with Beelzebub. Prof. Haeckel also considers it proper to proceed against criminals with the severest punishments possible, and that capital punishment, in particular, be stringently applied.[162] By this stand the Professor places himself in sweet accord with the re-actionists of ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... Monitor fought. In grim amaze The Merrimacs upon it gaze, Cowering 'neath the iron hail, Crashing into their coat of mail, They swore, "this craft, The devil's shaft, Looked like a cheese ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... My dead and gone father and Pussy's dead and gone father must needs marry us together by anticipation. Why the—Devil, I was going to say, if it had been respectful to their ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... perchance he guessed the name of that victim who hung with covered face between the columns, bearing in bold letters on his breast, by way of warning, the nature of the crime for which he paid such awful penalty—some crime against the State. "To-day," said Piero to himself, "it is this poor devil who cried to me to shield him when I was forced to denounce him to the Signoria; to-morrow, for some caprice of their Excellencies—it may be ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... not ignorant of her devices. She is of a papistical breed; and the recusant priests, if I mistake not, are at the working of some diabolical plot; it may be against the life and government of our gracious Queen! They would employ the devil himself, if need were, to compass their intent. She hath travelled much, and doubtless hath learned marvellous secrets from the Moors and Arabian doctors. It is, however, little to the purpose at present that we continue this ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... train of revellers, partially because it was most unwise to cut in ahead of Jerry and partially because there was not a piece of horseflesh in the Three B's which could outfoot his chestnut. It was a gelding out of the loins of the north wind and sired by the devil himself, and its spirit was one with the spirit of Jerry Strann; perhaps because they both served one master. The cavalcade came with a crash of racing hoofs in a cloud of dust. But in the middle of the street Jerry ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... replied Aunt Judy, "and a very remarkable point too. As soon as he got into the state of fancying there was nothing to do, worth doing, in God's world, the evil spirit came to him, and found him something to do in what I may, I am sure, call the devil's world—I mean, wickedness." ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... repeat his "Poor, poor fellow!" He was of a patriotic disposition; and he liked to praise his own tribe and country, in which he truly said there were "plenty of trees," and he abused all the other tribes: he stoutly declared that there was no Devil in his land. Jemmy was short, thick, and fat, but vain of his personal appearance; he used always to wear gloves, his hair was neatly cut, and he was distressed if his well-polished shoes were dirtied. He was fond ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... linked to unbridled lust for blood and an apparently overmastering desire to take life, possesses a character so bizarre, so totally opposed to Hindu ideals, that he would almost of necessity be accounted as something superhuman, monstrous, a saint with the heart of a devil, or a fiend with the soul of a saint. Hence Muhammad in the course of years gathered round his memory, centuries after his death, all the quaint tales and curious legends which an Oriental imagination could devise; and whenever his name is ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... same time strong, direct, deliciously brutal, like her Frank. He had, too, what Cowperwood could not have, a certain social air or swagger which came with idleness, much loafing, a sense of social superiority and security—a devil-may-care insouciance which recks little of other people's will ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... long after their real origin and significance had been forgotten. Now, it would be very easy for these orgies to become associated—particularly in the then superstitious condition of the popular mind—with the actual bodily presence of the Devil as one of the participants; while it is also not improbable that, in some cases at least, heartless and evil-minded persons worked upon the prevailing credulity to further their own nefarious purposes. Our esteemed Bailiff has offered a suggestion or two of considerable value on this point ...
— Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands • John Linwood Pitts
... with men who have intercourse with the devil," Picard said, shaking his head gravely; "nothing good comes of it. My mother knew a man who bought a powder that was to cure his wife of jealousy; and indeed it did, for it straightway killed her, and he was hung. I think that I can stand ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... reaction in Germany, headed by Kant, which has yielded positive results; he found in life no connecting principle, no purpose, and had come to regard it as a restless aimless, heaving up and down, swaying to and fro on a waste ocean of blind sensations, without rational plot or counterplot, God or devil, and had arrived at an absolutely non-possumus stage, which, however, as hinted, was followed by a speedy and steady rebound, in speculation at all events; Hume's history has been characterised by Stopford Brooke ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... whistle, and splicing the wires of the engine room telegraph. Like the wise men they were, however, they declined to sound the Maggie's siren until the tugs were quite close. Even then, Mr. Gibney shuddered, but needs must when the devil drives, so he pulled the whistle cord and was rewarded with a weird, mournful grunt, dying away into ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... said savagely. "I understand too well; that's the devil of it. But I suppose that's a woman's way,—to feed her soul with illusions, and let the realities ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... gone too far. He cursed himself inwardly for a fool. Why the devil didn't that villain, Bududreen, come! He should have been along to act his part half an ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... devil! All except his mother. They were the clumsiest of biological devices, and as they handed on life they spoiled it. They stood at the edge of the primeval swamps and called the men down from the ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... Massachusetts Bay Colony. It seemed inconsistent that a man so often honored by the people should meanwhile pledge himself to destroy their liberties; and so on the morning of the 14th of August, Mr. Oliver's effigy, together with a horned devil's head peeping out of an old boot, was to be seen hanging from the Liberty Tree at the south end of Boston, near the distillery of Thomas Chase, brewer and warm Son of Liberty. During the day people ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... Wife William Palmer and Wife Reuben Palmer and Wife Nehemiah Reynolds and Wife Peter Palmer and Wife Aaron Vail and Wife Joseph Haight and Wife John Lapham and Wife Jonathan Holmes and Wife Jonathan Hoag and Wife Israel Devil and his Wife John Kees and Wife Nathaniel Brown and Wife Anthony Arnold and Wife Caleb Norton and Wife Micah Griffin and Wife Jacob Haight and Wife John Haight and Wife Stephen Haight and Wife Micah Palmer and Wife Andrew White and Wife Stephen Hicks ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... saw the stars abruptly by accident he would think them as festive and as artificial as a firework. We talk of the folly of painting the lily; but if we saw the lily without warning we should think that it was painted. We talk of the devil not being so black as he is painted; but that very phrase is a testimony to the kinship between what is called vivid and what is called artificial. If the modern sage had only one glimpse of grass and sky, he would say that grass was not as green ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... me, in the intervals of their occupations, and are excellent company. They cannot talk, but that suits me very well. Then, there is always the chance of some one coming by—as to-day, when the Blessed Virgin sends the senorita and the Senor Don Carlos. Also at any moment the devil may send me a Gringo; their scouts are as plenty as scorpions. No, senorita, I am not lonely. It is a fine life! In a prison, you see, it would ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... mastery of the mere material part he may possess, fingering, dramatic effects, etc.: these are but means to him, not an end, as with most artists. One could fancy that Tom was never traitor to the intent or soul of the theme. What God or the Devil meant to say by this or that harmony, what the soul of one man cried aloud to another in it, this boy knows, and is to that a faithful witness. His deaf, uninstructed soul has never been tampered with by art-critics who know the body well enough of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... neither," says a voice behind me, and, turning, there was Measles tying a handkerchief round his head, muttering the while about some black devil. "I ain't gone, nor I ain't much hurt," he growled; "and if I don't take it out of some on 'em for this chop o' the head, it's a rum un; and that's all I've got ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... worth knowin'. Ellen, the maid, ought to 'a' been my best card—her sittin' every night at the door catchin' what comes out of the parlors. She couldn't tell a thing. All she knew was that she heard a lot of talk in low tones, and it was something about spirits and the devil, and then she crossed herself. As help goes, they like Mrs. Markham, which is a ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... Moses!'" And here is an extract from another paper which explains the aforegoing reference to "horse Races": "1763—Spring Meeting... Mr. Wilkes's horse, LIBERTY, rode by himself, took the lead at starting; but being pushed hard by Mr. Bishop's black gelding, PRIVILEGE, fell down at the Devil's Ditch, and was no where." The "Ship News" is on the same pattern. "August 25 [1765] We hear that his Majesty's Ship Newcastle will soon have a new figure-head, the old one being almost ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... write to dear Mr. Kenyon I really do feel overcome by the sense of what I owe to him, and so, as it is beyond words to say, why generally I say as little as possible of anything, keeping myself to matters of business.' An alternative very objectionable, I told him; for to have 'a dumb devil' from ever such grateful and sentimental reasons, when the Alps stand betwixt friend, is damnatory in the extreme. Then, as you are not 'too grateful' to us, why don't you write? Pray do, my dear friend. Let us all write as we used to do. ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... the accident. My restlessness became so great that, at last I was able to awake before the catastrophe. When I was not in time to prevent it, I would jump out of bed, with naked feet on to the polished floor, and with crossed arms pray to the Saviour to preserve me from the wiles of the devil. I would then impose some penance on myself, and I have carried out to the letter what the prophet King probably only transmitted to us as a figure of Oriental speech, mixing ashes with my bread and watering ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... most boasted of is that which Rubens has filled with no less than three enormous representations of the last day, where an innumerable host of sinners are exhibited as striving in vain to avoid the tangles of the devil's tail. The woes of several fat luxurious souls are rendered in the highest gusto. Satan's dispute with some brawny concubines, whom he is lugging off in spite of all their resistance, cannot be too much admired by those ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... cried the editor, "brings your big battering ram of a fist in contact with my door? Nature provides earthquakes in these parts without your assistance, you noisy devil!" ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... at the suave-spoken detective. What the devil did the man mean? "Certainly," said he, "certainly you can count on my discretion, Monsieur Baroff, and—and my sympathy. I hope I am not unreasonable in hoping that at last the police have obtained some kind of due ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... Holt upon this evening, she sat brooding upon her cousin George's failure until a beautiful picture was hatched. He had gone to his room directly after dinner; during the meal had not spoken. She imagined him seated on his bed, hands deep in pockets, chin sunk, brow knitted, wrestling with that old devil despair. She knew that latterly he had worked tremendously hard. He had told her before the examination how confident of success he was, had revealed how much in the immediate prospect of freedom he gloried. She recalled ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... wakened from a sound sleep and found himself sitting up in bed, the possessor of a plan so flawless that, in sheer amazement, he announced aloud that he would be—jiggered. Some cunning little emissary of the devil must have crept in through his ear while he slept and planted the brilliant ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... transformations can be wrought by the laws of Nature on the commixture of common elements, shall we despair that transformations yet more glorious may be wrought in human souls now thwarted and blackened by the malice of the devil, when they are subjected to the far diviner and far more stupendous alchemy of the ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... of fun I was thinking of. I mean fun with the lasses, John—gay, jolly, harmless fun. They could be impudent fashionable beauties now, stretching themselves to attract you, like that hiccoughing little devil, and running away from you, and crooking their fingers to you to ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie
... that there was undoubtedly some force at work behind all of the appalling superstitions and ignorance shown by the people of those times. What they attributed to the influence of people 'in league with the devil' really arose from the use of Black Magic, or an unworthy use of Mental Influence, the two things being ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... frightened that some of them went ashore, some jumped into the river to get away, and some fell on their knees in fear, believing that their last day had come. It is said that one old Dutchman exclaimed to his wife: "I have seen the devil coming up ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... one. He at once took it in his mouth, and hurried to a fine white fur rug in front of the hearth, where he indulged in some unaccountable convulsions, rolling himself about and growling in an ecstasy of delight. My host, an irascible man, looked round, and then said: "Who the devil has given that dog a grape?" He added to my father, by way of explanation, "The fact is that if he can get hold of a grape, he rolls it on that rug, and it is no end of a nuisance to get the stain ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... with His Father before the foundation of the world; He ascended into heaven whence we know that He was never absent, because He is Son of God, in order that as Son of God He might raise together with Him to the heavenly habitation man whose flesh He had assumed, whom the devil had hindered from ascending to the places on high. Therefore He bestowed on His disciples the form of baptizing, the saving truth of the teaching, and the mighty power of miracles, and bade them ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... and its employment as a means of worldly power, distinction, and advantage satisfy the inner hunger which longs for the truth, the light, the harmony of highest heavens? In short, would so much of the flesh as I could gratify, so much of the world as I could conquer, so much devil's service as I could cover up with any patched robe of decency, drawn tight, stretched to its utmost reach, satisfy me? Truly not. Not here then is Beulah, and I ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Reg to himself. "Now, what the devil has he to do with Joe?" and he called a cab and had himself driven ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... owl sits on the house-top, the occupants dare scarcely lie down to sleep, for they know that the devil is walking the rooms and marking someone for death. Lady Macbeth, when about the murder of Duncan, ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... much coaching Anita had given Carlucci, but he knew enough to call her "mother." And I knew enough to watch Fred Plaice the instant Tony said: "Oh, mother! Why the devil couldn't you ...
— Tinker's Dam • Joseph Tinker
... the Devil's own luck!" he murmured. "While they were burying I missed you from among the officers; and then it struck me that you might have got away before the disaster. We counted the men, and found thirty-four short, so we came on here. By God! what a chap Mistley was! We ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... coats and skeletons of plays Renowned alike; whose genius ne'er confines Her flight to garnish Greenwood's gay designs, Nor sleeps with 'sleeping beauties' but anon In five facetious acts comes thundering on, While poor John Bull, bewildered with the scene, Stares, wondering what the devil it can mean; But as some hands applaud—a venal few— Rather than sleep, ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... too near the palisades of heaven. I must say I like Arab angels. My heaven would coruscate like a catherine wheel, with white-hot star-stones. Away, you dog, you prowling cur.—Got him under the left ear-hole, Gabriel—! See him, see him, Michael? That hopeful blue devil! Land him one! Biff ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... of utilizing pre-existing fragments explains some of the incoherence of this incomprehensible piece. It also explains the creation of Bertram, half man, half devil, who was invented as a substitute for Mephistopheles. The fruit of the Tree of Human Knowledge became the Rameau Veneree in the third act, and the beautiful religious scene in the fifth ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... reflected idly, as Nolan's voice sang on. "Don't know what they want, but want it like the devil. One-woman ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Great Spirit, a future life, and in the transmigration of souls. Their God, (Sha-nung-et-lag-e-das), possesses chiefly the attributes of power, and is invoked to help them attain their desires. Their Devil, (Het-gwa-lan-a), corresponds with the devil of common belief, a demon who in various forms brings ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden
... extreme gravity, he read - with Heaven knows how many embellishments of his own - a dismal account of a gentleman down in Northamptonshire under the influence of witchcraft and taken forcible possession of by the Devil, who was playing his very self with him. John Podgers, in a high sugar-loaf hat and short cloak, filled the opposite seat, and surveyed the auditory with a look of mingled pride and horror very edifying to see; while the hearers, ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... the devil for aught I care, you little fool," he answered her, very pleasantly. "Do you think Duplay will be mad enough to lay hands upon a Deputy of the Convention in the discharge of the ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... beyond me to say, but that possessed beast of yours is evidently at the bottom of it," said Susan. "Do not go near him, at least. I will open the door and peep in. There goes some more of the crockery. I have always said that the devil was in him and that I will ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... pig of a Morin. Well, there he is, the darling!" And she planted herself in front of the bed, with her hands on her hips. I told him how matters stood, and he begged me to go and see her uncle and aunt. It was a delicate mission, but I undertook it, and the poor devil never ceased repeating: "I assure you I did not even kiss her, no, not even that. I will take ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... shrewd plans of deception is no reason why we may hoist the flag of most pious morality. Not as weak-willed blunderers have we undertaken the fearful risk of this war. We wanted it. Because we had to wish it and could wish it. May the Teuton devil throttle those whiners whose pleas for excuses make us ludicrous in these hours of lofty experience. We do not stand, and shall not place ourselves, before the court of Europe. Our power shall create new law in ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... that frightened her, Barbara," the divine interposed. "You're a clever woman, but you've got a devil of a temper; and you're a ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... my spite on him, keepin' on with my grudge, bein' nasty, cussed, everything that's mean. If I do do it, if I let Leander off, all hands'll say that I did it because I was afraid of Phineas and the rest would say the other thing. It puts me in a devil of a position. It's all right to say, 'Do your duty,' 'Stand up in your shoes,' 'Do what you think's right, never mind whose boy 'tis,' and all that, but I wouldn't have that old skunk goin' around sayin' I took advantage of my position to rob him of his ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... erasing the masterpieces of classical literature to make way for their own litanies and lurries, or selling pieces of the parchment for charms; a laity devoted by superstition to saints and by sorcery to the devil; a clergy sunk in sensual sloth or fevered with demoniac zeal—these still ruled the intellectual destinies of Europe. Therefore the first anticipations of the Renaissance were fragmentary ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... two immense ravens, far larger than ordinary. When the men arrived, they flew away to some rocks that were near by, and the soldiers seeing how large they were, raised their arquebuses and killed them both. Then did the Indians begin to weep and make great lamentation. I understand that the devil was accustomed to speak to them, through these birds, for which ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... and years people had tried in vain to make a bridge at this point, but all their efforts had been fruitless, for whatever was built by day the devil swept away at night. At last a holy abbot built this one with a single arch and made a compact with the evil one that it should be allowed to stand, on the condition that the first living thing which crossed it should be surrendered ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... "Devil!" said Hurd between his teeth, with a quick lift of all his great misshapen chest. He took his pipe out of his mouth, rammed it down fiercely with his thumb, and ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... waxwork, prepared for a procession on the 17th November, Queen Elizabeth's birthday, had been seized under a Secretary of State's warrant. Swift says, in his Journal to Stella, that the devil which was to have waited on the Pope was saved from burning because it was thought to resemble ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... to; or, secondly, on the innocence and innocent ignorance over which it triumphs; or thirdly, on a certain oscillation in the individual's own mind between the remaining good and the encroaching evil of his nature—a sort of dallying with the devil—a fluxionary art of combining courage and cowardice, as when a man snuffs a candle with his fingers for the first time, or better still, perhaps, like that trembling daring with which a child touches ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the old woman, with a bitter smile. "She is not dead, but sleepeth. You see the devil can quote Scripture. It was my first intention to have poisoned her; but my second thoughts were better. So, instead of the medicine you sought, I gave you a powerful narcotic, which has thrown her into a deep ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... you will probably recognize as the Cuttle-fish. Some persons call it the Devil-fish, but the name is misapplied. The Devil-fish is a different kind of a sea monster. But the Cuttle-fish is bad enough to have the very worst name that could be bestowed upon him. Those great arms, which sometimes ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... proof that at least the Jew Would wrest Christ's name from the Devil's crew. Thy face took never so deep a shade But we fought them in it, God our aid! A trophy to bear, as we march, Thy band, South, East, and on to the ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... devil in here," Nathan said, taking his coat off. "Here let me have a turn at that churn. You ought t' be in bed. That's where Sue'd put you if she ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... ruled her own spirit, even better. She had won the victory over the World and the Flesh; there remained but the Devil. ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... as in individuals. Petronius shows us a state of morals at which a commonplace devil would blush, in the midst of a society more intellectually cultivated than certainly was that which produced Regulus or the Horatii. And the most learned eras in modern Italy were precisely those which brought the vices ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... and Ridiculous. [Footnote: Collier, p. 74] The first, for only making Jeremy, in Love for Love, call the Natural inclinations to eating and drinking, Whorson Appetites, he tells, That the Manicheans, who made Creation the Work of the Devil, scarcely spoke any thing so course. And then very modestly proceeding onwards says, The Poet was Jeremy's Tutor. The t'other Gentleman he dignifies by a new Coin'd name of his own, viz. The Relapser, ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... Arnald had he not cheated the purifying fagots of the church by dying opportunely on the eve of his execution for heresy. But if his spirit had cheated the fanatics, his body could not, and his bones were burned for his heresy. He had dared to deny the existence of a devil, and had suggested that the case of a patient who lay in a trance for three days might help to explain some miracles, like the raising ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... is a beast. It grips you when it starts to rise; it is the Fabled Yeast. You should not offer ale or beer from hops that are freshly picked, Nor even Benedictine to tempt a benedict. For wine has a spell like the lure of hell, and the devil has mixed the brew; And the friends of ale are a sort of pale and weary, witless crew— And the taste of beer is a sort of a queer and undecided brown— But, comrades, I give you coffee—drink it up, drink it down. With a ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... as he resumed his walk, he saw how perfectly it would have to suit him and how he probably for a long time wouldn't be suited otherwise. Between them and that time, however, what mightn't, for him, poor devil, on his new basis, have happened? She wasn't at any rate within any calculable period going to care so much for anything as for the so quaintly droll terms in which her rearrangement with her husband—thanks to that gentleman's ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... those same overseers are with their whips— they'll hit a fly twenty feet off. And when they'd see my eyes begin to sparkle, they'd just let out with the infernal whip, fetching me a regular 'stinger' across the shoulders, and gallop off, laughing. I can tell you, they made a regular devil of me before ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... and to it cling many legends. Long after Christianity had penetrated to these regions, the Brocken remained a place of heathen worship. Annually, on Walpurgis night (1st of May), curious rites were here enacted, which, condemned by the priests of the Christian church, led to the belief that the devil and witches here held their orgies. Even to this day, this superstition possesses the minds of many country people around, who believe the mountain to be haunted on this night. In literature [v.04 p.0624] it is represented by the famous "Brocken ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... out boldly against dives and brothels that were defiling the girls and boys of the city of Denver, because they dared not endanger the interests of their machine. Vox populi was right. They were presumably afraid to take up the cross, which real fighting the devil involves as much today as it did in Judea centuries ago. Many, outside all churches, support hospitals, orphanages, soup kitchens, relief funds, and so forth. Big corporations and even heathen armies on the war path support Y. M. C. A. work, because that ...
— What the Church Means to Me - A Frank Confession and a Friendly Estimate by an Insider • Wilfred T. Grenfell
... coat; and he saluted them and asked them why they were seated in that place. So they told him the story from first to last: and of no avail, O my master, is a twice told tale! There he sat down with them, and lo! a dust cloud advanced and a mighty send devil appeared amidmost of the waste. Presently the cloud opened and behold, within it was that Jinni hending in hand a drawn sword, while his eyes were shooting fire sparks of rage. He came up to them and, haling away the merchant from among them, cried to him, "Arise that I may slay thee, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... witchcraft, I. his book, I. at the execution of George Burroughs, I. on "Devil's authority," ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... the very devil. It seems that she'd be miserable if she did not think me happy; yet her tenderness is my eternal torment; her affection puts me in a fidget, and her fondness in ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... to find in the new world, or what we were fleeing from in the old; and, above all, we condoled together over the food and the vileness of the steerage. One or two had been so near famine, that you may say they had run into the ship with the devil at their heels; and to these all seemed for the best in the best of possible steamers. But the majority were hugely discontented. Coming as they did from a country in so low a state as Great Britain, many of them from Glasgow, which commercially speaking was as good ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... power and dominion of Satan, he breaketh that, by "leading captivity captive," Eph. iv. 8; Psal. lxviii. 18; "and spoiling the strongman's house; for he is come to destroy the works of the devil," 1 John iii. 8; "and he spoileth principalities and powers," Col. ii. 15. Thus, as a captain of salvation, he leadeth them out as a conqueror; having paid the price, he delivereth also by power and authority from the hand ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... says (De Civ. Dei xiv, 3) that the devil "is not a fornicator nor a drunkard, nor anything of the like sort; yet he is proud ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... a Tub. p. 109] Z—-nds where's the wonder of that? By G—- I saw a large House of Lime and Stone travel over Sea and Land. By G—- Gentlemen, I tell you nothing but Truth, and the Devil broil them eternally that will not believe me. If there is any Thing like this in our Language from the lewdest of our Stage-Writers, I give them over to Mr. Collier and the Reformers to do with them what they please. Yet I am inform'd these Florid Strokes came from the Pen of a Reverend ...
— Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley (1712) and The British Academy (1712) • John Oldmixon
... complete line in front of us. General Carr, being desirous of striking their village, ordered the troops to charge, break through their line, and keep straight on. This movement would, no doubt, have been successfully accomplished had it not been for the rattle-brained and dare-devil French Lieutenant Schinosky, commanding Company B, who, misunderstanding General Carr's orders, charged upon some Indians at the left, while the rest of the command dashed through the enemy's line, and was keeping straight ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... force, when a single gun fired into his enemy must have sunk her. In the impatience of his feelings, the excited young soldier could not refrain from adding his own censure of the imprudence, exclaiming as he played hit foot nervously upon the ground: "Why the devil did he not fire and sink her, instead of ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... you now dining in state With a lord and the devil knows who, You were flashing your dover, six short months ago, In a lambing camp on ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson
... reciting the Verses of Safety; after which he rose with energy, and called out with his loudest voice, O Emeer, no harm shall befall you; for God (to whom be ascribed might and glory!) hath averted from me the effect of the artifice and fraudulence of the Devil, through the blessing resulting from the utterance of the words, In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.—So the Emeer said to him, What hast thou seen, O sheykh? He answered, When I reached the top of the wall, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... over and done with. There's nothing to be got out of this endless accusing and regret over something that couldn't be helped—helped, at least, after it was once started.... I'll always wear my hurt of it; that I know. It hurts like the devil to think I didn't—couldn't—give her the love she ought to have had. If there were any way—any possible way of reparation, ... but I suppose there isn't. Nothing except to live decently and honorably—if that's reparation. Thank God, 'tisn't as if there were any other ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... down to the hotel desk to change his rooms and, instead, got into his touring-car and beat the speed limit to Canada. Whom did he meet in the hotel corridor? A woman with a perfectly good marriage certificate, or a detective with a perfectly good warrant? Or did Harry find out that his bride had a devil of a temper of her own, and that for him marriage was a failure? The widow is certainly a very charming young woman, but there may ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... office of Harrison Blake, Katherine entered the Express Building. From the first floor sounded a deep and continuous thunder; that afternoon's issue was coming from the press. She lifted her skirts and gingerly mounted the stairway, over which the Express's "devil" was occasionally seen to make incantations with the ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... fixed his canvas around, so we should be sheltered. I felt so much better and thought so much better of him that I could laugh and chat gayly. "Now, tell me," he asked, as he fastened the canvas to a wheel, "didn't you think I was an old devil at first?" "Yes, I did," I answered. "Well," he said, "I am; so you guessed right." After I put the children to bed, we sat by the fire and talked awhile. I told him how I happened to be gadding about in "such onconsequential" ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... come quickly," he said. "You alone can quell a tumult which has broken out, I don't know why, among the leaders. They talk of abandoning the king's cause. I think that devil of a Rifoel is at the bottom of it. Such quarrels are always caused by some mere nonsense. Madame du Gua reproached him, so I hear, for ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... unendurable and when, to use [the author's gardener and factotum] Favier's expression, an extra log is flung on the bonfire of the sun, I take the field, prepared to come back with my head aching from the glare, provided that I bring home the solution of my puzzle. A man must have the devil in him to leave the shade at this time of the year. And what for, pray? To write the story of a fly! The greater the heat, the better my chance of success. What causes me to suffer torture fills the insect with delight; what prostrates me ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... hard. What a corker her Edward must be! See, Tom, poor old Mrs. Dowager up in the Square having the same devil's luck with her man as Molly Elliott down in the Alley has with hers. I wonder if you're all alike. No, for there's the Bishop. He had taken her hand sympathizingly, forgivingly, but his silence made me curious. I knew he wouldn't let the old lady believe for a moment I was luny, if once ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... his ruin. But who pities a poor barber who can't get his money for powdering the footmen's heads; or a poor carpenter who has ruined himself by fixing up ornaments and pavilions for my lady's dejeuner; or the poor devil of a tailor whom the steward patronizes, and who has pledged all he is worth, and more, to get the liveries ready, which my lord has done him the honour to bespeak? When the great house tumbles down, these miserable wretches fall under it unnoticed: as they say in the old ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... parallel in a Danish ballad; and another, popular all over Germany, is a variation of the same theme, but in place of the mother's final doom being merely mentioned, in the German ballad she is actually carried away by the devil. ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... ken stand this much longer," I heard Hiram whisper hoarsely, as if uttering his thoughts aloud, for he addressed no one in particular. "Guess I'll jump overboard an' drown myself, fur the devil's in the shep, an' thaar's ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... for having waited so long. 'What the devil, Betsy!' cried he, 'kept you so late? The lads and I have been starving for the last hour. When girls get sweethearts they can think ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... "The poor devil was in trouble," said Clayton, bowed over his cigar-end and with the very faintest note ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... without a prayer poured forth, concluding with: "God bress de good massr;" while the poor whipped bondsmen of his neighbour, their backs oft smarting from the lash, nightly lay down, not always to sleep, but nearly always with curses on their lips—the name of the Devil coupled with that ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... was indulging in some platitudes to the effect that the "way of the transgressor is hard"—"I would rather black your boots than listen to such talk. What I want is work—a chance to live honestly. What's the use of telling a fellow not to go to the devil, and then practically send him to ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... man!" said Van Sweller, looking about him with interest, "this is a jolly little closet you live in! Where the devil do you sleep?—Oh, that pulls down! And I say—what is this under the corner of the carpet?—Oh, a frying pan! I see—clever idea! Fancy cooking over the gas! What larks ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... dare-devil like himself, "welcome to the Spanish bullet that knocks for entrance here"—tapping his heart. Basil struck the cup from his hand, and Blackford swore, laughed, and put his ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... elsewhere. The worthy Father spent some time chivying his flock about the forest, but in vain, and he returned home disgusted, deciding that the Creator, for some wise purpose, had dedicated the Bubis to the Devil. ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... a god, but a devil. "The least erected spirit that fell from heaven." My poor Ida! And so you have found out that there are dust and ashes inside golden apples! Never mind; you will learn to enjoy the privileges and comforts of wealth better ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... now said "It is generally believed that my dear old friend Lady Cork has been overlooked," and he said this in such a manner that no one could for a moment doubt that he meant that his dear old friend had been overlooked by the devil. How he managed to express ...
— The Autobiography of Charles Darwin - From The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin • Charles Darwin
... morning I intended to start, of course on horseback, for the Dead Sea, the banks of Jordan, Jericho, and those mountains of the wilderness through which it is supposed that Our Saviour wandered for the forty days when the devil tempted him. I would then return to the Holy City, and remaining only long enough to refresh my horse and wipe the dust from my hands and feet, I would start again for Jaffa, and there catch a certain Austrian steamer which ...
— A Ride Across Palestine • Anthony Trollope
... sent into print, "Little Stories for Little People," and his novel "Madelon," and delivered among various masterly addresses, "Virginia—Her Past, Present and Future," and "The Press and the Printer's Devil." ...
— A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves • James Barron Hope
... to have been as trusting over the work of the printers, as they were careless of his, and the result is sometimes pitiable. The blunders are appalling. Both in it and in the Folio the marginal note again and again suggests itself: 'Here the compositor was drunk, the press-reader asleep, the devil only aware.' But though the blunders elbow one another in tumultuous fashion, not therefore all words and phrases supposed to be such are blunders. The old superstition of plenary inspiration may, by its ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... sending Leo to the devil, he introduces his heir, (Opera, Damascen. tom. i. p. 625.) If the authenticity of this piece be suspicious, we are sure that in other works, no longer extant, Damascenus bestowed on Constantine the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... pounds. I press me none but good householders, yeoman's sons; inquire me out contracted bachelors, such as have been asked twice on the banns; such a commodity of warm slaves, as had as life hear the devil as a drum; such as fear the report of a culverin worse than a struck deer or a hurt wild duck. I pressed me none but such toasts in butter, with hearts in their breasts no bigger than pins' heads; and they bought out ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... blacker manikins bearing burdens. First, negroes with bill-hooks to clear the way; then the van-guard; then the main body, interspersed with negroes bearing boxes of ball-cartridges; then the rear-guard, with many more negroes, bearing camp-equipage, provisions, and new rum, surnamed "kill-devil," and appropriately followed by a sort of palanquin for the disabled. Thus arrayed, they marched valorously forth into the woods, to some given point; then they turned, marched back to the boats, then rowed back to camp, and straightaway went into the hospital. Immediately upon this, the coast ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... The geography of the rivers in Paradise is inexplicable, though it assumes the tone of explanation. The curse on the serpent, who is to go on his belly—(how else did he go before?)—and eat dust, is a capricious punishment on a race of brutes, one of whom the Devil chose to use as his instrument. That the painfulness of childbirth is caused, not by Eve's sin, but by artificial habits and a weakened nervous system, seems to be proved by the twofold fact, that savage women ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... a good old pebble. I've got to be professional, you understand. No end of a devil of a lot of unpleasantness if these ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... although he was perfectly conscious of what he said; his words were, "I come; it is right; wait a moment." Those who know the secret say that in the conclave following the death of Innocent he made a compact with the devil, and purchased the papacy from him at the price of his soul. Among the other provisions of the agreement was one which said that he should be allowed to occupy the Holy See twelve years, and this he did with the addition ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... her friends and with every new fad and movement there, although she made fun of most of them. Twice she had taken her girls abroad. But Edith was quite different. In a suburb she would draw into her house and never grow another inch. And Bruce, poor devil, would commute and take work home from the office. But Roger couldn't ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... quietly—no blood, no fuss, no nasty mess of any sort. And when I'm done,—do you see these flasks?—I can reduce your damned carcase to a pound of ashes with chemicals in half-an-hour! You've found out too much. But you've mistaken your man! Courtenay Ivor, say your prayers and commend your soul to the devil! You've driven me to bay, and ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... all the men spoke to one another something after this fashion, 'The drum-horse hasn't hung over the mantelpiece since '67.' 'How does he know?' 'Mildred, go and speak to him again.' 'Colonel, what are you going to do?' 'Oh, dry up, and give the poor devil a chance to pull himself together.' 'It isn't possible anyhow. ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... "Poor devil," moaned Jack. "What's the use of telling him what to do. He is doomed in any case. The other ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... never made murder the fashion;" and—striking an attitude—"Caesar had his Brutus! Charles had his Cromwell! and George III. had—what the devil did George have? He was stupid enough to have been a mathematician, though I never heard ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... Governing individuals, higher and lower, is a fatal business always; and that especially, as highest instance of it, which includes all the lower ones, this of solemnly calling Chief Captain, and King by the Grace of God, a gentleman who is NOT so (and SEEMS to be so mainly by Malice of the Devil, and by the very great and nearly unforgivable indifference of Mankind to resist the Devil in that particular province, for the present), is the deepest fountain of human wretchedness, and the head mendacity ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... since thou'st got us, Thou little military hot-house! I'll not offend with words uncivil, And wish thee rudely at the Devil, But only stare from out my casement, And ask, "for what is such a place meant?" 50 Then, in my solitary nook, Return to scribbling, or a book, Or take my physic while I'm able (Two spoonfuls hourly, by this label), Prefer my nightcap to my ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... "The Devil of Cape Higgin" (Vol. 3, p. 321) was related to me by my old nurse, and is a well known tradition, though not otherwise in print than through ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... I answered, "unless I were convinced that Miss Delora herself was implicated in these things. Then you could all go to the devil for anything ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the White Horse—too far for the slain of Ashdown to be buried there. Who shall say what heroes are waiting there? But we must get down into the Vale again, and so away by the Great Western Railway to town, for time and the printer's devil press, and it is a terrible long and slippery descent, and a shocking bad road. At the bottom, however, there is a pleasant public; whereat we must really take a modest quencher, for the down air is provocative of thirst. So we pull up under an old oak ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes |
