"Knave" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Sapphire he might have gained mercy," said the Rajah, with more anger, Bertram thought, than he had ever seen him display. "Take away the knave out of my sight, and despatch a horseman at once to the Palace with command that four hundred men forthwith search all this plain, with every tree on it and every stream that crosses it, until they ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... melt the stoniest hearts, And bare the cruel knave's design; How through thy fascinating arts We discount Hope, O gracious wine! And passing rich the poor man feels As through his ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... his riding right a-top of the poor brute, and then saying that the dog got under his horse's feet! Why, he's a fool as well as a knave. Was he ever ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... the tree,[203] it hath in party a green smell of the tree; but when it hath been a certain time departed from the tree and is full ripe, then it hath lost all the taste of the tree, and is king's meat [that was before but knave's meat].[204] In this time it is that this reverent affection is so meedful as I said. And, therefore, shape thee for to depart this fruit from the tree, and for to offer it up by itself to the high King of heaven; and then shalt thou be cleped God's own child, loving Him ...
— The Cell of Self-Knowledge - Seven Early English Mystical Treaties • Various
... confess the Chevalier is a proper gallant for any woman. Ay, and so is the Chevalier's man. I warrant me, that knave, L'Eclair, when he returns, will follow me about, wheedling and whining, to recollect certain promises. Well, well, let but the soldiers return with whole hearts from the war, and your ladyship and myself know how to reward fidelity. In sooth, the chateau ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... "Then," quoth Lawrence, "neither thou nor yet any of us all shall do well as long as we forsake our head of the Church, the Pope." "By the mass!" quoth Croxton, "I would thy Pope Roger were in thy belly, or thou in his, for thou art a false perjured knave to thy Prince." Whereunto the said Lawrence answered, saying, "By the mass, thou liest! I was never sworn to forsake the Pope to be our head, and never will be." "Then," quoth Croxton, "thou shall be sworn spite of thine heart one day, or I ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... loved at school; We thought him rather knave than fool. Migrating thence to Oxford, he Failed to secure a pass degree. Years sped—some twenty—ere again Jim Startin swam into my ken. I met him strolling down the Strand Well-dressed, well-nourished, sleek and bland, A high-class journalistic swell— The Headline Expert of The Yell. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 28, 1917 • Various
... ("the little Calabrian game") for three players. All the tens, nines and eights are removed from an ordinary pack; the order of the cards is three, two, ace, king, queen, &c. In scoring the ace counts 3; the three 2; king, queen and knave 1 each. The last trick counts 3. Each separate hand is a whole game. One player plays against the other two, paying to each or receiving from each the difference between the number of points that he and they hold. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... it makes the fool a sage, the knave an honest man, And canker'd gray locks young again, if he has gear and lan'; To age maun beauty ope her arms, though wi' a tearfu' e'e; O poverty! O poverty! that love should bow ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... respectable Methodist strengthened by non- Conformist support, in starting this ignoble surprise on the public was much debated. His partisans asserted that he had been honestly deceived by some designing knave as if such child-like credulity were any excuse for a veteran journalist! His foes opined that under the cloak of a virtue, which Cato never knew, he sought to quicken his subscription list ever dwindling ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... alle hir thingis; and no-thing profitide." Sir John Mandeville's English keeps many old inflexions and spellings; but is, in other respects, modern enough. Speaking of Mahomet, he says: "And [gh]ee schulle understonds that Machamete was born in Arabye, that was first a pore knave that kept cameles, that wenten with marchantes for marchandise." Knave for boy, and wenten for went are the two chief differences— the one in the use of words, the other in grammar— that distinguish this piece of Mandeville's English from ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... flee to England, then?" the vicomte scoffed, bitterly. "Has King Edward not sworn to hang you these eight years past? Was it not you, then, cousin, who took Almerigo di Pavia, that Lombard knave whom he made governor of Calais,—was it not you, then, who delivered Edward's loved Almerigo to Geoffrey de Chargny, who had him broken on the wheel? Eh, holy Maclou! but you will get hearty welcome and a chaplain and a ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... with life, each hoary knave Grows, here, immortal, and eludes the grave, Thy virtues immaturely met their fate, Cramp'd in the limit of too ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... other, he laid down his cards—ace of hearts, king of hearts, queen of hearts, knave of hearts, ten of hearts. One single exclamation of surprise came from the lips of the bystanders. None of them had ever seen the coincidence ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... be safe to dreame of a knave shortly. Are you so good at a gun? if you use this too often your birding piece will scarce carry a ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... been made to statistics for the profoundly foolish purpose of showing that education is of no good—that it diminishes neither misery, nor crime, among the masses of mankind? I reply, why should the thing which has been called education do either the one or the other? If I am a knave or a fool, teaching me to read and write won't make me less of either one or the other—unless somebody shows me how to put my reading and writing to wise and ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... king among writers. His Christian is no fool. He is cunning of fence, suspicious, sagacious, witty, satirical, abounding in invective, and broad, bold, delicious insolence. Bye-Ends is a subtle, evasive knave drawn with ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... opinions. Party and sectarian names have been freely used as reproachful and even as disgraceful epithets. To call a man by the name which he had chosen as the representative of his political or religious opinions was considered equivalent to calling him a knave or a fool; and if it happened that he was in the minority, his name alone was regarded as the stamp of social degradation. Now, thanks to the influence of the popular lecture mainly, men have made, and are rapidly making, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... "You knave! How dare you thus annoy my sister?" cried Robert, still kicking the rascal. At last he led him to the door and flung him down the front steps, where he fell in a heap on the ground with such force, that one might have thought his neck was broken. ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... find him where he has a right to be, in the White Lion; and if you be the apprentice that he spoke of, harkee, the less you are seen about here the better for you; for they say you are as great a knave as your master." ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... (Thinking again it might be tried): "'Twas but a lapsus linguae," cried. My lord, who long had quiet sat, Now clearly saw what he was at. In wrath this warning now he gave— "When next thou triest, unlettered knave, To give, as thine, another's wit, Mind well thou knowest what's meant by it; Nor let a lapsus linguae slip From out thy pert assuming lip, Till well thou knowest thy stolen song, Nor think a leg of lamb a tongue," He said—and ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... that my mother was a legal wife—I have only scorn and contempt for the man who wronged her," Mona replied, intense aversion vibrating in her tones. "I regard him, as my uncle did, as a knave—a brute." ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... it down! If you don't put down a brick you can't pick up a castle! I'll bet no one here can pick the knave of hearts out of these three cards. I'll bet half-a-sovereign no one ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... How long shall mortals bend to gain? How long shall virtue hide her face, And leave her votaries in disgrace? ——Let indignation fire my strains, Another villain yet remains— Let purse-proud C——n next approach, With what an air he mounts his coach! A cart would best become the knave, A dirty parasite and slave; His heart in poison deeply dipt, His tongue with oily accents tipt, A smile still ready at command, The pliant bow, ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... hearts. Next came the guests, mostly Kings and Queens, and among them Alice recognised the White Rabbit: it was talking in a hurried, nervous manner, smiling at everything that was said, and went by without noticing her. Then followed the Knave of Hearts, carrying the King's crown on a crimson velvet cushion; and last of all this grand procession, came THE ...
— Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. With a Proem by Austin Dobson • Lewis Carroll
... realism did but enable me to achieve a subtler beauty. For surely here at last was the true tragedy of the people of Christ—to have persisted sublimely, and to be as sordidly perverted; to be king and knave in one; to survive for two thousand years the loss of a fatherland and the pressure of persecution, only to wear on its soul the yellow badge which ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... was singing. His song was one of old Sire Raimbaut's famous canzons in honor of Belhs Cavaliers. The knave ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... who—more audacious, far, than King CANUTE of old—would control even the ocean. This man starts a Pacific Mail with a capital of ten millions, increases the amount to twenty millions, and swears it is worth thirty. Then he "puts his foot in it" and shows the knave in his deal, (dealings—jocular,) by ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 1, Saturday, April 2, 1870 • Various
... cellar?" Here's the barmaid thus addressed by the rogue in question (showing the queen), and she replied:—"Oh yes, sir, prime old wine." "Let's have a bottle." (Off went the barmaid. Put the queen in your pocket.) "Now for it, my lads," said the knave in question; "'mizzle' is the word. Let's be off in opposite directions, and meet to-night; you know where." Hereupon they decamped, taking opposite directions, which I will indicate by placing one on the ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... said Castell; "a knave like that is not worth ten. Indeed, he was the assailant, and nothing ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... led to suppose It was by some shavings this fire first arose. "But yet," says the 'hero,' "I greatly suspect This fire was caused by the grossest neglect. But I'm glad it's put out, let it be as it will," Says the "heroic" watchman of Calversyke Hill. So, many brave thanks to this "heroic" knave, For thousands of lives no doubt he did save; And but for this "hero" the disaster had spread And smothered the nation while sleeping in bed; But to save all His people it was the Lord's will, Through the "heroic" watchman of ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... without flinching, and lighted me to the stair with our established ceremony. I voted him an interesting knave and really admired the cool way in which he carried off difficult situations. I had no intention of being killed, and now that I had due warning of danger, I resolved to protect myself from foes without and within. Both Bates ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... abruptly, looking at him with a fiery glance, "you are either a knave or a fool—a fool, doubtless, since you seem too stupid to be a knave—and you very nearly made me ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... "Thou art a saucy knave!" said the other, quickly; but instantly checking himself, he added, "and how fares it with your lady, in the absence ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... Sinclair sat thinking. Was it true, all this man had told her? She remembered vividly the beautiful tribute he had paid her father and the emotion that had gripped him as he finished. Surely his words rang true. They were true, or else the man was a consummate actor as well as an unscrupulous knave. She recalled the boyish smile, the story of Lord Clendenning's terrible journey, and the impatience with which he had silenced the Englishman's self-criticism. What would be more natural than that two men thrown together in the middle of the hill country, ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... Swiveller or Mr. Micawber. He tells Mr. Boffin that he will drop into poetry in a friendly way. He does drop into it in a friendly way; in much too really a friendly way to make him convincing as a mere calculating knave. He and Mr. Venus are such natural and genuine companions that one does not see why if Venus repents Wegg should not repent too. In short, Wegg is a convenience for a plot and not a very good plot at that. But if he is one ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... The knave did his business so well that Grabot, being just such a man as the stroller had described to us, the altercation on the threshold was of itself the most amusing thing in the world. "Who?" we heard a loud, coarse voice exclaim. "Who ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... his head, "shall I tell you what you ought to do? Well then, you'd draw your two-edged sword, an' dress your shield,—like Gareth, the Kitchen Knave did,—he was always dressing his shield, an' so was Lancelot,—an' you'd fight all those dragons, an' kill them, an' cut their ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... porch. Then she opened the door for her husband, and said: 'Thank heaven, you are back again! There is such a storm, it looks as if the world were coming to an end.' The miller saw the peasant lying on the straw, and asked, 'What is that fellow doing there?' 'Ah,' said the wife, 'the poor knave came in the storm and rain, and begged for shelter, so I gave him a bit of bread and cheese, and showed him where the straw was.' The man said: 'I have no objection, but be quick and get me something to eat.' ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... should count me no gentleman, if he find me not one," answered his father; "but one thing will I never do, and that is, give cause to any man to reckon me a knave." ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... "Madame Querouaille, knave, Duchess of Portsmouth," irritably exclaimed a handsome gallant, himself stumbling somewhat over the French name, though making a bold play for it, as he passed toward his box, pushing the fellow aside. He added a moment later, but so ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... rebukes, and knows no medium between the ecstatic and the sententious. If it were not for the prospect of immortality, he considers it would be wise and agreeable to be indecent or to murder one's father; and, heaven apart, it would be extremely irrational in any man not to be a knave. Man, he thinks, is a compound of the angel and the brute; the brute is to be humbled by being reminded of its "relation to the stalls," and frightened into moderation by the contemplation of death-beds ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... satiric rage, When ancient comedy amus'd the age, Or Eupolis's or Cratinus' wit, And others that all-licens'd poem writ; None, worthy to be shown, escap'd the scene, No public knave, or thief of lofty mien; The loose adult'rer was drawn forth to sight; The secret murd'rer trembling lurk'd the night; Vice play'd itself, and each ambitious spark; All boldly ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... a fool when he's fou, Sir Knave is a fool in a session; He's there but a 'prentice I trow, But I am a fool ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... readers can entertain the fixed hope that they have at length done with him; that, in these our premises, we shall never see him again;—nay shall see him, on extraneous dim fields, far enough away, smarting and suffering, till even we are almost sorry for the old knave!— ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... where none may see In the great world's corners dim? And the just man mark the knave go free, While the penalty falls ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... heathen; but if he be a virtuous man, if he loves liberty and truth, if he wish the happiness and peace of human kind. If a man be ever so much a believer and love not these things, he is a heartless hypocrite, a rascal and a knave." "It is not a merit to tolerate, but it is a crime to be intolerant." "Anything short of unlimited toleration and complete charity with all men, on which you will recollect that Jesus Christ principally insisted, is wrong." "Be calm, mild, deliberate, patient.... Think and talk ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... not know what hinders me, knave and coward as you are, from running my sword through your body. You are well known for a poltroon, and if you had one grain of courage, you would never have chosen your ground in the midst of your guards, to insult a gentleman ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... to every man of liberal education. Such are the two pictures: the one of the philosopher and gentleman, who may be excused for not having learned how to make a bed, or cook up flatteries; the other, a serviceable knave, who hardly knows how to wear his cloak,—still less can he awaken harmonious thoughts or hymn ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... light of heaven!" said Prince John to Hubert, "and thou suffer that runagate knave to overcome thee, thou art worthy of ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... replied Clef-des-Coeurs, "haven't you guessed, you knave of tricks, that this is the home of the beauty our jovial Merle has been whistling round? He'll marry her to a certainty—that's as clear as a well-rubbed bayonet. A woman like that will do ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... half as big again as the tall preacher over on the main, with hair of the colour of the sun in a fog, and eyes that no man would like to look upon a second time. He saw him as plainly as I see you; for the knave stood in the rigging of his ship, beckoning, with a hand as big as a coat-flap, for the honest trader to keep off, in order that the two vessels might not do one another damage by ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... neither well known, nor a sworn servant of the Queen; at which repulse, the gentleman (bearing high on my lord's favour) told him that he might, perchance, procure him a discharge. Leicester coming to the contestation, said publicly, which was none of his wonted speeches, that he was a knave, and should not long continue in his office; and so turning about to go to the Queen, Bowyer, who was a bold gentleman and well-beloved, stepped before him, and fell at Her Majesty's feet, relates the story, and humbly craves ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... thou (tell me) for desiring to read? For if thou aim at nothing beyond the mere delight of it, or gaining some scrap of knowledge, thou art but a poor, spiritless knave. But if thou desirest to study to its proper end, what else is this than a life that flows on tranquil and serene? And if thy reading secures thee not serenity, what profits it?—"Nay, but it doth secure ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... score of her husband; but these are family matters with which I do not meddle, and besides it is not a bad thing to have a fault to repair. It is an inducement to make great efforts in order to force the public to esteem and admiration, and certainly her knave of a husband would never have done any one of the great things my Catherine does every day." The portrait of the empress, worked in embroidery by herself, hung in Voltaire's bedroom. In vain had he but lately said to Pastor Bertrand, "My dear philosopher, I have, thank God, cut all connection ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... honor are divorced. The place that the small and shallow, the knave or the trickster, is deemed competent and fit to fill, ceases to be worthy the ambition of the great and capable; or if not, these shrink from a contest, the weapons to be used wherein are unfit for a gentleman to handle. Then the habits of unprincipled advocates in law courts are naturalized ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... foot-tracks—outrageous ones: they can belong only to one man—THAT GRANDEST OF CHRISTIAN PARADOXES—THE LITTLE GIANT PAUL—whose head was as big as his body, and his heart greater than both. Once he thought and treated every Christian as a combination of knave and fool. Then he became one himself. He was called "fool" because his acts were so far beyond the dictates of human reason, and "mad" because of his irresponsible fiery zeal for Christ and men. A first-class scholar, but one who knew how to use scholarship properly; for he put ...
— The Chocolate Soldier - Heroism—The Lost Chord of Christianity • C. T. Studd
... stands a branded sinner. Doubtless its ancestors were industrious, honest creatures, seeking their food in the soil, and digesting it with the help of leaves filled with good green matter (chlorophyll) on which virtuous vegetable life depends; but some ancestral knave elected to live by piracy, to drain the already digested food of its neighbors; so the Indian Pipe gradually lost the use of parts for which it has need no longer, until we find it to-day without color and its leaves degenerated into ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... place of parade, many of the gentlemen in uniform approached her, and as this was her first appearance in public, Smith performed the introductions. Among them was the Rev. General John Bennet, a man who had "knave" written on his countenance, but who appeared to have duped Smith, for, as Lieutenant-General of the forces, he was actually in command. Her old friend the Danite also came, older than when she had seen him last by the hardships of an arduous missionary journey. He passed now ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... not only made himself subject to men, but also to sin, death and the devil, and bore it all for us. He accepted the most ignominious death, the death on the cross, dying not as a man but as a worm (Ps 22, 6); yes, as an arch-knave, a knave above all knaves, in that he lost even what favor, recognition and honor were due to the assumed servant form in which he had ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... (saving your majesty's manhood) what an arrant, rascally, beggarly, lowsy knave it is: I hope, your majesty is pear me testimony, and witness, and avouchments, that this is the glove of Alencon, that your majesty is give ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... in his cave, Helped by the diving Ulysses, old and wise, Spilling the wine in rivers down his beard, Shaggy and grim,—his shoulder overleered By swart Silenus, sly and cunning knave, Who steals a puffy ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... who must deal, Delivers cards about, But the first knave does seldom fail To find the ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... fate And man's cruelty, long ago went out of date. In the mansion of Life there were some things askew, Which the strong hand of Progress has righted. The new, Better plan puts old notions of sex on the shelf. Who is true to a knave, is untrue to herself. Oh, be true to yourself, and have pity on one Who has long dwelt in shadow and pines for the sun. Love, starving on memories, begs for one taste Of sweet hope, ere the remnant of youth goes ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... four evangelists—Matthew, Luke, Mark and John; the five spot of the five wise and the five foolish virgins; the six spot of the six days of creation; the seven of the Sabbath; the eight of Noah and his family; the nine of the nine ungrateful lepers; the ten of the Ten Commandments; the knave of Judas; the queen was to him the Queen of Sheba and the king was the one great King of Heaven and ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... beyond even the representation of the plays. We should infer also from some of the early stage plays, that the "players" used the weed even when acting their parts. Rowlands gives the following poem on tobacco in his "Knave of ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... A soldier, says he, is "no livery for a knave," and Ireland is "not the country of dishonor." The major pays court to old Lady Rusport, but when he detects her dishonest purposes in bribing her lawyer to make away with Sir Oliver's will, and cheating Charles Dudley ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... be built on a grand scale, there's always people to feel the greatness, and though, when you hap to be a knave, their respect is a bit one-sided, still there it ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... stranger had died in a house in St. Dunstan's belonging to a certain John Fleming, and an apparitor had been sent "to seal his chamber and his goods" that the church might not lose her dues. John Fleming drove him out, saying loudly unto him, "Thou shalt seale no door here; go thy way, thou stynkyng knave, ye are but knaves and brybours everych one of you."[209] Thomas Banister, of St. Mary Wolechurch, when a process was served upon him, "did threaten to slay the apparitor." "Thou horson knave," he said to him, "without thou tell me who set ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... absolute amity until what is virtually universal suffrage was introduced and the ignoramus became the tool of every political knave. ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... example, in Brunetto Latini, in the Image du Monde, in the Mirabilia of Jordanus,[6] and in the verses of Tzetzes. The latter represents Monoceros as attracted not by the maiden's charms but by her perfumery. So he is inveigled and blindfolded by a stout young knave, disguised as a maiden and drenched ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... sold for no more than twenty-five hundred pounds, and the third for no more than five thousand pounds. The person who superintended the workmen, and had the whole practical management of one amongst these four houses, was a common builder, without capital or education, and the greatest knave that personally I have known. It may illustrate the way in which lady architects, without professional aid, are and ever will be defrauded, that, after all was finished, and the entire wood-work was to be measured and valued, each party, of course, needing to be represented by a professional ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... work, The Saints' Everlasting Rest; and he wrote with great fervor A Call to the Unconverted. He was a very voluminous writer; the brutal Judge Jeffries, before whom he appeared for trial, called him "an old knave, who had written books enough to load a cart." He wrote a paraphrase of the New Testament, and numerous discourses. Dr. Johnson advised Boswell, when speaking of Baxter's works: "Read any of them; they are all good." He continued preaching ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... the window an inch or two. No; put back your whistle. I do not propose to fling you out, at least not just yet; nor will I try to escape. To tell you the truth, you suggest the need of a little fresh air. And now, Monsieur, you assure me you hold the knave in your hand. Well then, play him. Before I tear your foolish paper up, let me have a look at your confederate." I stepped to the door and called down the stairs, "Madame Jupille, be so good as to ask my other visitor ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... corporation lawyer. That is, for him human beings had ceased to exist, and of course human rights, also; the world as viewed from the standpoint of law contained only corporations, only interests. Thus, a man like Victor Dorn was in his view the modern form of the devil—was a combination of knave and lunatic who had no right to live except in the restraint of ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... place, I say that you have spoken like a knave and that the tongue ought to be cut out ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... have caused us no small trouble and concern. We have had ridings to and fro concerning you, and furious messages from your fiery king. When in the morning a tall, stalwart knave dressed in green was found, slashed about in various places, lying on the pavement, the townsmen, not knowing who he was, but finding that he still breathed, carried him to the English camp, and he was claimed as a follower of the Earl of Evesham. There was great wrath ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... a servitor, a swarthy knave, Who showed an almost irreligious taste For wearing nothing but a turban, save A ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... Never relishing the knave, though allowing for the menial, Nor overmuch the king, Jack, nor prodigally genial. Ashore on liberty he flashed in escapade, Vaulting over life in its levelness of grade, Like the dolphin off Africa in rainbow a-sweeping— Arch ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... SURREY. The more knave Barde, that, using Sherwin's goods, Doth ask him interest for the occupation. I like not that, my lord of Shrewsbury: He's ill bested that lends a well paced horse Unto a man that will not find him meet. CHOLMLEY. My lord of Surrey ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... Hibbard. I will do it in short. This man is a clumsy-fisted, double jointed, burly-headed personage, about six feet in height, with a countenance commingling in expression the utmost ferocity and cunning. Hibbard is not a fool—but a knave. He is essentially a low bred man, and vulgar to the ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen
... things out of pure goodness. The man who seems to is either a sentimentalist or a knave. If he's a sentimentalist, he does it for effect; if he's a knave, because it helps roguery. There's always some ax ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... explain his rapid return to Whiggery—in which there is no romance at all—the moment he took his seat in the Irish House of Lords. There is only one way to explain the zeal with which he now advocated the Orange cause: he must have been either a very designing knave, or a very unprincipled fool. As he gained nothing by the change but a dukedom for which he did not care, and as he cared for little else that the government could give him, we may acquit him of any very deep motives. On the other hand, his life and some of his letters show that, with a vast ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... of Europe is but a continued comment upon the folly of the law of the hereditary descent of power, a law which is more likely to place the crown upon the brow of a knave, a fool or a madman, than upon that of one qualified to govern. Russia soon awoke to the consciousness that the destinies of thirty millions of people were in the hands of a maniac, whose conduct seemed to prove that his only proper place was in one of the ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... fool who wishes to become a knave, and trusting to one, gets killed by one. Such is the ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... had heard how the fool Diogenes had parodied the King's manner and earned the King's anger. She knew no more than this, and it seemed strange that the King's rage should have frightened the knave into madness. But he seemed, indeed, insane as he raged up and down ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... condescended to take off his hat, usually riveted upon his head, and, with the smile of a knave caught in the act, ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... "'Tis true sir,"—the knave! every word is a lie— "That rather than live so, 'twere better to die. 'Twere better to finish the thing, as you say, Than to live till you're old, and die ...
— The Diving Bell - Or, Pearls to be Sought for • Francis C. Woodworth
... down and down, With idler, knave, and tyrant! Why for sluggards cark and moil? He that will not live by toil Has no right on English soil! God's word's ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... spake, his soul untamed By pain; for a brave man's part is to endure To the uttermost. And of the Trojans some Believed him, others for a wily knave Held him, of whose mind was Laocoon. Wisely he spake: "A deadly fraud is this," He said, "devised by the Achaean chiefs!" And cried to all straightway to burn the Horse, And know if ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... master. When sent for into England, to account for his conduct, he "satisfied the King that all was not true that he was charged withal; and for further contentment yielded this reason, that in policy he thought it expedient to wink at one knave cutting off another, and that would save the King's coffers, and purchase peace to the land. Whereat the King smiled, and bid him return to Ireland." The saving was questionable; for to prevent an insurrection by timely ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... Secretary was near apoplexy. He could only sputter and cough. He was to be sent as an errand boy to the people of Charles Town, at the brutal behest of this unspeakable knave, but refusal meant death and there were his fellow captives to consider. He thought of his nephew and was about to plead that Jack be sent along with him when ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... the most horrible things. The Broglii are of Italian extraction, but have been long settled in France. There were three brothers, the elder of whom died in the army; the second was an Abbe, but he cast aside his gown, and he is the knave of whom I have been speaking. The third is still serving in the army, and, according to common report, is one of the best gentlemen in the world. My son does not like him so well as his good-for-nothing brother, because he is too serious, and would not become his buffoon. ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... in high glee, choking him again. 'He's the Knave of Wilfers! Dear Pa, the lovely woman means to look forward to this fortune that has been told for her, so delightfully, and to cause it to make her a much better lovely woman than she ever has been yet. What the little fair man is expected to do, sir, is to ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... Water-of-Duglas family, had guided the main body of the invaders through the mountains of the Urchy and into our territory. They came on in three bands, Alasdair Mac-Donald and the Captain of Clanranald (as they called John MacDonald, the beast—a scurvy knave!), separating at Accurach at the forking of the two glens, and entering both, Montrose himself coming on the rear as a support As if to favour the people of the Glens, a thaw came that day with rain and mist that cloaked them largely from view as they ran for the hills ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... a precious knave, stay, stay, good Tristram, And let me ask thy mightiness a question, Did ye never abuse ...
— The Little French Lawyer - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont
... arrested as an impostor, to become a stenographer in the law courts—in time, a member of the bar? But I found that what, for the moment, distressed me most was that the lovely lady would consider me a knave or a fool. The thought made me exclaim with exasperation. Had it been possible to abandon Kinney, I would have dropped overboard and made for shore. The night was warm and foggy, and the short journey to land, to one who had been brought up like a duck, meant nothing more than ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... as some maintain, "was the great patron of ribaldry, and the protector of the low jester and the filthy." But, sadly enough, that is no serious charge against one in his times. It is said that Henry used to say, when a knave was dealt to him in a game of cards, "Ah, I have a Cromwell!" Francis Aidan Gasquet, a Benedictine monk, in his valuable work on "Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries," says of Cromwell: "No single minister ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... of Nottingham swore that he himself would bring this knave Robin Hood to justice, and for two reasons: first, because he wanted the two hundred pounds, and next, because the forester that Robin Hood had killed ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... on its own merits, their singular habit of allowing their disapprobation of a man's private character to depreciate his work, that an acknowledged critic like Macaulay could waste time in carefully considering whether Boswell was more fool or more knave, and triumphantly announce that he produced a good book by accident. Probably Boswell did not realise how matchless a biographer he was, though he was not disposed to belittle his own performances. But his unbridled interest in the smallest details, ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... what happened. In his chamber in the Rue St. Honore, at Paris, sat a man ALONE—a man who has been maligned, a man who has been called a knave and charlatan, a man who has been persecuted even to the death, it is said, in Roman Inquisitions, forsooth, and elsewhere. Ha! ha! A man who ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... head cleft open by the Graf himself. He died like a true soldier, lady, and we have lost the best head among us in him. Well, the knave that should have watched the horses was as drunken as the rest of them, and I made a shift to put the bridle on the white ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... said he, and I thought he gave me a sly look out of the corner of his eye, as much as to say, "how good we are, ain't we," as sin said when the devil was rebukin' of him. The fact is, the fellow was a thunderin' knave, but he was no fool, further than being silly ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... office. I knew of no one who would, as I thought, suit you; and in such a business it seemed to me better that you should wait, and choose for yourself, for in the matter of servants everyone has his fancies. Some like a silent knave, while others prefer a merry one. Some like a tall proper fellow, who can fight if needs be; others a staid man, who will do his duty and hold his tongue, who can cook a good dinner and groom a horse well. It is certain you will never find all virtues combined. One man may ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... that he was neither well known, nor a sworn servant to the queen: at which repulse, the gentleman, bearing high on my lord's favor, told him, he might perchance procure him a discharge. Leicester coming into the contestation, said publicly (which was none of his wont) that he was a knave, and should not continue long in his office; and so turning about to go in to the queen, Bowyer, who was a bold gentleman and well beloved, stepped before him and fell at her majesty's feet, related the story, and humbly craves her grace's pleasure; and whether my lord of Leicester ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... station, readily gave up their project of informing the whole of Riseholme of their discovery, and went to bed as soon as they had rooked their brother of eleven shillings at cut-throat bridge. They continued to say, "I'll play the Guru," whenever they had to play a knave, but Georgie found it quite easy to laugh at that, so long as the humour of it did not spread. He even himself said, "I'll Guru you, then," when he took a trick with ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... said the baron, "I would gladly know who has dared to array the poor knave thus; and I trust he should dearly aby his outrecuidance, were he the best, save ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... is altered, though he would seem to bear out his trouble very well, yet he is scarce able to talk sense with a man; and how he will say that "Who should a man trust, if he may not trust to a brother and an uncle;" and "how much those men have to answer before God Almighty, for their playing the knave with him as they did." He told me also, that there was 100,000l. offered, and would have been taken for his restitution, had not the Parliament come in as they did again; and that he do believe that the Protector will live to ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... that. I pine among my million imbeciles (You think) aware some dozen men of sense Eye me and know me, whether I believe In the last winking Virgin, as I vow, And am a fool, or disbelieve in her And am a knave—approve in neither case, Withhold their voices though I look their way: 380 Like Verdi when, at his worst opera's end (The thing they gave at Florence—what's its name?) While the mad houseful's plaudits near outbang His orchestra of salt-box, tongs and bones, He ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... millions that Charles Garvice had, for the millions who understood him might find Chesterton difficult. Really Chesterton is read by a select number of people who would claim to be intellectual; very up-to-date clergymen rave about his catholicity, high-brow ladies of smart clubs delight in his knave whimsicalities, but the girl in the suburban train to Wimbledon passes by ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... may become his own interpreter. All others are, generally speaking, those animated by purely personal motives, self-aggrandizement, or personal gain. Moreover, he who would claim to have all truth and the only truth, is a bigot, a fool, or a knave. ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... is right. That stricken lady, in the habit of a grey nun of Fontevrault, came by night to Paris, and found her brother with John of Mortain. They had been upon the very business. Philip, not all knave, had been moved by the news of Richard's immobility. He had had ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... pupil of Lavater. He used to insist that as much was to be inferred from the handwriting as from the face. I showed him a letter from a man of great fame, and he saw genius in every stroke. I then produced a letter from an arrant blockhead and great knave, but so like the other as not to be distinguished, at least by my unphysiognomical discernment. He acknowledged that there was resemblance to an ignorant eye; but, said he, triumphantly, this (latter) could never have made that scratch, which ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... The knave who'd crush the toilers doun, And him, his true-born brither, Who'd set the mob aboon the Crown, Should be kicked out together. Go, JOHN! Learn temperance, banish spleen! Scots cherish throne and steeple, But while we sing "God save the ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various
... be relied upon to direct their own reading, but the average child is unable to do this. An important thought which is not always kept in mind by educators is stated thus by Huxley:—"If I am a knave or a fool, teaching me to read and write won't make me less of either one of the other—unless somebody shows me how to put my reading and writing to wise and good purposes." It is not easy to interest in real literature a child whose father reads nothing but newspapers and whose mother derives ...
— Children and Their Books • James Hosmer Penniman
... and hoped he might not wake for hours, although I hungered. The actual revenge is very, very sweet, Sahib, but does it exceed the joy of watching the enemy as he lies wholly at your mercy, lies in the hollow of your hand and is your poor foolish plaything,—knave made fool at last? Like statues we sat, moving not our eyes from his face, and ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... through some conjuration, it always came uppermost at last. He had a graphic way of relating things; and, as he did not spare epithets in his designation of the opposing party, Mr. Buxton took it upon trust that the defendant or the prosecutor (as it might happen) was a "pettifogging knave," or a "miserly curmudgeon," and rejoiced accordingly in the triumph over him gained by the ready wit of "our governor," Mr. Bish. At last he became so deeply impressed with Edward's knowledge of law, as to consult him about some ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... may be found scattered through modern literature, respecting the great Genevan, that Dr. Henry deserves well the thanks of the christian world for exhibiting the chief facts of his history, so plainly that every partisan knave who would repeat the old slanders, shall be silent hereafter for very shame. John Calvin was unquestionably subject to the infirmities of our human nature; so was John Milton; but the inherent ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... for a little while longer, the old knave, staring at me as if I had been a ghost, muttering names, as if to recall mine. Then with a glad shout of, "It is, it is my Francis of old!" he threw up his arms to ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... fame, what throngs pour in, Unpeople court, and leave the senate thin! My glowing subject seems but just begun, And, chariot-like, I kindle as I run. Aid me, great Homer! with thy epic rules, To take a catalogue of British fools. Satire! had I thy Dorset's force divine, A knave or fool should perish in each line; Tho' for the first all Westminster should plead, And for the last, all Gresham intercede. Begin. Who first the catalogue shall grace? To quality belongs the highest ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... happen, I must look in a certain place; and there was Cadwal, the Welsh thane, halfway down one of the long tables, glaring first at me, and then at Havelok, as he went. It came into my mind that he would be wroth with Ragnar for bringing a kitchen knave as his second, as it were, in derision of Griffin. I thought that I would find a chance presently to tell him why my fellow second chose to be serving thus, and so make things right with him, for this seemed to be due to Ragnar, if ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... the claim to superior intelligence and virtue. The workers, for the most part, instinctively, morally and intellectually, knew that this system was wrong, a horror and a nightmare. But even the capitalist victims of the competitive struggle, which awarded supremacy to the knave and the trickster, went to their doom praising it as the only civilized, rational system and as unchangeable and ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... man of right spirit can refuse to feel the pathos of their situation. It is to this point that Jesus leads us. He makes us conscious of "the still sad music of humanity." No further incentive is needed to make us love humanity than the pathos of the human lot. A man may be a knave, a fool, a rogue; yet could we unravel all the secrecies of his disaster we should find so much to move our pity, so much in his life which resembles crises in our own, that in the end the one vision that remains with us is of a wounded brother man. When once we see that vision all our pride ...
— The Empire of Love • W. J. Dawson
... of the knave," said Drusus, smiling. "So this is the trouble? I wonder that your mother should have anything to do with such a fellow. I hear in letters that he goes with a disreputable gang. He is a boon companion with Marcus Laeca, the old Catilinian,[20] who is a smooth-headed ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... was he! He has deluded us most handsomely. He was in Louis' pay, and Louis has a use for him! I'll slit the knave's throat if ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... entertained by the whole company, who looking at the Cardinal, perceived that he was not ill pleased at it; only the friar himself was vexed, as may be easily imagined, and fell into such a passion, that he could not forbear railing at the fool, and calling him knave, slanderer, back-biter, and son of perdition, and then cited some dreadful threatenings out of the Scriptures against him. Now the jester thought he was in his element, and laid about him freely. 'Good friar,' said he, 'be not angry, for it is written, "In patience possess your soul."'—The ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... oak, some rustic's blade Hewed out my shape; grotesquely made I guard this spot by night and day, Scare every vagrant knave away, And save from theft and rapine's hand My humble master's ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... knew he was terribly poor, I never mentioned a syllable about repayment until I knew he had got together a rich property. Then I applied to him for settlement of his debt Would you believe it, Chevalier? the dishonourable knave, who owed all he had to me, tried to deny the debt, and on being compelled by the court to pay me, reproached me with being a villainous miser? I could tell you more such like cases; and these things have made me ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... last!" she muttered, cutting the cards, and glancing at the under one. It was only a knave, not the queen! ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... needy gallants in the scriveners' hands, Court the rich knave that gripes their mortgaged lands, The first fat buck of all the season's sent, And keeper takes no fee in compliment: The dotage of some Englishmen is such To fawn on those who ruin them—the Dutch. They shall have all, rather than make a war With those who of the same religion are. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... who had been cast away in the boat—should lead him about, and, above all, that he should sit beside him when he played cards and count the number of the pips, for unaided he could not tell the king from the knave. ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Emperor, by whom both had thus been caught like mice in a cage, and compelled to abdicate. At this news a feeling of indignation ran through the vice-kingdom, while all Europe laughed at the strange combination of knave and fool exhibited in the characters of the two Spanish kings. The people of New Spain saw in them only the guardians of the Church in the power of the infidels, and at once forgot the unnatural crimes ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... instrument. He had procured this man's pardon for a homicide, and it appears that the fellow retained a certain sense of gratitude. Lorenzino began by telling the man there was a courtier who put insults upon him, and Scoronconcolo professed his readiness to kill the knave. 'Sia chi si voglia; io l'ammazzero, se fosse Cristo.' Up to the last minute the name of Alessandro was not mentioned. Having thus secured his assistant, Lorenzino chose a night when he knew that Alessandro Vitelli, captain of the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... cried at her, "Go back and say, 'My master is not at home.'" So she returned to Nur al-Din, and said to him, "O my lord, my master is out." Thereupon he turned away and said to himself, "If this one be a whoreson knave and deny himself, another may not prove himself such knave and whoreson." Then he went up to the next door and sent in a like message to the house-master, who denied himself as the first had done, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... out, Friar, and let him pack his goods and go, Whither he will. I trust the knave to thee And thy good quarter-staff, for some five minutes Before he ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... Cressi called him an impious knave. Then he asked him if he had plenty of arrows, because if not he would find four dozen of the best that could be made in Norwich done up in a cloak on the grey horse he was to ride, and a ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... D'Aubusson said, "and will accompany you to St. Nicholas. I have been detained by the coming of this man Georges. He is a clever knave, and, I doubt not, has come as a spy. However, I have taken measures that he shall learn nothing that can harm us. No lives have been lost at the ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... to speak of a very prominent character, the Pardoner, the Age's Knave, who always commands and domineers over the high and low vulgar. This man is sent in every age for a rod and scourge, and for a blight, for a trial of men, to divide the classes of men; he is in the most holy sanctuary, and he is suffered by Providence ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... on his pins, and let us look at him," quoth a burly guardsman. "I trust he is no one of any account. I want not to see another such job done on a poor scheming knave like that last, when the Duke Casimir settled ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... stepped over the huddled body of that poor victim of a knave's ambition, crossed the hall, and passed out, closing the door. An excellent day's work, thought he, most excellently accomplished. The servants, returning from Abingdon Fair on that Sunday evening, would find her there. They would publish the fact that in their absence her ladyship had fallen ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... He had at the bottom of such vice, to which his position, and the fashion of the day introduced him, a far better heart than any of his contemporaries, and in some respects a kind of simplicity which was endearing. He was neither knave nor fool. He was not a voluptuary, like his friend the duke; nor a continued drunkard, like many other 'fine gentlemen' with whom he mixed; nor a cheat, though a gambler; nor a sceptic, like his friend ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... must proceed from a genius, and particular way of thinking, which is not to be taught, and therefore not to be imitated by him who has it not from nature. How easy it is to call rogue and villain, and that wittily! but how hard to make a man appear a fool, a blockhead, or a knave, without using any of those opprobrious terms! To spare the grossness of the names, and to do the thing yet more severely, is to draw a full face and to make the nose and cheeks stand out, and yet not to employ any depth of shadowing. This is ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... beggar of the desert like him. Whereupon he raised a lance longer than a mast, and would have run me through, but for the expertness with which I seized and wrested it from him, and then broke it over his head. 'Twas the same scowling knave whose camels choked the street the first day we entered the city, and who sent his curse after us. Hassan is his name. His eye left a mark on me that's not out yet. A hyena's is ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... a knave to ken, An[9] a man but hear him speak; An it were not for bursting of my bow, John, ...
— The Book of Brave Old Ballads • Unknown
... knave, sir, to stand and tell me this to my face. Look ye here, Bolle'—he swung round upon the colonel, who had put forth a hand as though to arrest this unseemly abuse. 'How do I know that this dog has not tampered with the wine? By God!' he broke out as a servant entered ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Shelton?" laughed Leroy as he took the notes from an open drawer. "Had they played the knave we should have won. Time for ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... "it's not fair to judge, Colonel, on what must have been rather an extraordinary moment in the school's history. I take it that you don't put on a representation of 'The Knave ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick |
