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Devious   Listen
adjective
Devious  adj.  
1.
Out of a straight line; winding; varying from directness; as, a devious path or way.
2.
Going out of the right or common course; going astray; erring; wandering; as, a devious step.
Synonyms: Wandering; roving; rambling; vagrant.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Devious" Quotes from Famous Books



... the vagaries of the human imagination which may be comprehended under the denomination of humour, is no easy task, and as it is multiform we may stray into devious paths in pursuing it. But vast and various as the subject seems to be, there cannot be much doubt that there are some laws which govern it, and that it can be brought approximately under certain heads. It seems to be as generally admitted ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... cotton is pressed for sale, he must know which district has grown the qualities mostly preferred, in short, he has to keep himself extremely well posted. The consumer has to work with the same tension, to find the devious ways which lead to a profitable result in his business. Hardly ever do big profits stare one in the face, and should a particular good opportunity arise, it never lasts long, as everybody wishes to participate in it, which, of course, spoils the best chance. For the common welfare, ...
— Bremen Cotton Exchange - 1872/1922 • Andreas Wilhelm Cramer

... streets sweeping away, in curving lines, round the base, upward to a piece of level land, into which the north side of the hill gently declined. At the most northern part of this level, the two streets united, at a distance of a mile from the wharves, into one which thence winded a devious course two or three miles further along the Yaupaae. Above the highest roofs and steeples, towered the green summit of the hill, whose thick-growing evergreens presented, at all seasons, a coronal of verdure. One who ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... party called a halt, to push about in search of a practicable seven-foot passage amongst crags and chasms, and to contend with the various insistence touching devious ways preferred by the honorary attendants, who often seemed to forget that they themselves were not in the exercise of a delegated jury duty. Tangles impeded, doubts beset them, although the axe by which the desired route had been ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... way that leads to life is the way of peace, just because it is a way of restrictions. Better to walk on the narrowest path that leads to the City than to be chartered libertines, wandering anywhere at our own bitter wills, and finding 'no end, in devious mazes lost.' Freedom consists in obeying from the heart the restriction of love; and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... mutely gazing after his lovely visitor till her small and graceful figure, floating on in its devious course through the diversified grounds in almost fairy lightness, receded from his enraptured sight; when he turned away with a sigh to commune with himself, try to analyze his feelings, weigh consequences, give Reason ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... evening, as some little boys from the village were returning from a ramble through the dark and devious glen of Cappercullen, with their pockets laden with nuts and "frahans," to their amazement and even terror they saw a light streaming redly from the narrow window of one of the towers overhanging the precipice among the ivy and the lofty branches, across the ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... with respect, for in this instance their intelligence is completely under the control of his learning. It is the judge who sums up the various arguments with which their memory has been wearied out, and who guides them through the devious course of the proceedings; he points their attention to the exact question of fact which they are called upon to solve, and he puts the answer to the question of law into their mouths. His influence upon their ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... frank and bold, but something in his look, as he blinked at his partner, might have given Flint cause for uneasiness, had the Billionaire noticed that oblique and dangerous glance. One might have read therein some shifty and devious plan of Waldron's to dominate even Flint himself, to rule the master or to wreck him, and to seize in his own hands the reins of universal power. But Flint, bending over his note-book and making careful memoranda, saw ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England

... Gray was incapably drunk. Macfarlane, sobered by his fury, chewed the cud of the money he had been forced to squander and the slights he had been obliged to swallow. Fettes, with various liquors singing in his head, returned home with devious footsteps and a mind entirely in abeyance. Next day Macfarlane was absent from the class, and Fettes smiled to himself as he imagined him still squiring the intolerable Gray from tavern to tavern. As soon as the hour ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson

... aside by the cars opposite a wide door, and the machine guided by Rupert rolled through, winding a devious course toward where its owner waited. Without a word, Corrie turned and went into ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram

... language a word—"pressed"—which tallied almost exactly in pronunciation with the old French word prest, so long employed, as we have seen, to differentiate from his fellows the man who, by the devious means we have here described, was made "ready" for the sea service. "Press" means to constrain, to urge with force—definitions precisely connoting the development and manner of violent enlistment. Hence, as the change from covert to overt violence grew in strength, "pressing," ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson

... By devious turnings and breath-taking climbs, the trail finally reached the top at the only point for miles, where it was possible for a horseman ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower

... unpromised joy Expands my heart to meet thee in Savoy! Doom'd o'er the world through devious paths to roam, Each clime my country, and each house my home, My soul is sooth'd, my cares have found an end: I greet my long-lost, ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... Daudet, like most other writers of fiction, had human life in general constantly before him—are Jansoulet and Mora, precisely the most effective personages in the book, and scarcely surpassed in the whole range of Daudet's fiction. The Nabob was Francois Bravay, who rose from poverty to wealth by devious transactions in the Orient, and came to grief in Paris, much as Jansoulet did. He survived the Empire, and his relatives are said to have been incensed at the treatment given him in the novel, an attitude on their part ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... upon the passing coach, and then resumes her sewing. There are red houses, with their corners and barge-boards dressed off with white, and on the door-step of one a green tub that flames with a great pink hydrangea. Scattered along the way are huge ashes, sycamores, elms, in somewhat devious line; and from a pendent bough of one of these last a trio of school-boys are seeking to beat down the swaying nest of an oriole with a convergent fire ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... conscious that in a few hours at most the rising tide would fill the subterranean passage and cut off his retreat, he pushed desperately onwards. He had descended some ninety feet, and had lost, in the devious windings of his downward path, all but the reflection of the light from the gallery, when he was rewarded by a glimpse of sunshine striking upwards. He parted two enormous masses of seaweed, whose bubble-headed fronds hung curtainwise across his path, and found himself in the very middle ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... Knot by throwing the King's lieutenants out of a window on the Hrad[vs]any. They happened to fall soft, on a midden, and got away unhurt. As a diplomatic action, this measure taken by the Estates lacked finesse, but it had one advantage over the usual diplomatic transactions in their devious course, that it was direct and final in its effect, namely, to precipitate a great devastating war, and to leave Bohemia hopelessly enchained for close on ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker

... beyond the National camps and escaped. The accounts of the escape by boat with Floyd, on horse with Forrest, and by parties slipping out by day and by night through the forest and undergrowth and the devious ravines, fairly show that 5,000 must have escaped. There was scarcely a regiment or battery, if, indeed, there was a single regiment or battery, from which some did not escape. Eleven hundred and thirty-four wounded were sent up the ...
— From Fort Henry to Corinth • Manning Ferguson Force

... heavy-laden clover and laughing veronica, hiding the green finches, baffling the bee; from rose-lined hedge, woodbine, and cornflower, azure blue, where yellowing wheat stalks crowd up under the shadow of green firs. All the devious brooklets' sweetness where the iris stays the sunlight; all the wild woods hold of beauty; all the broad hills of thyme and freedom thrice ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser

... journeyed, fancy-bound, along the heights, to gloat over a dead man's bones, had its clue to carry it on in a straight line. Its trail was on the ground; it glided snake-like from cross to cross, in quest of dust; and, without its finger-posts to guide it, would have wandered devious. It is surely a better devotion that, instead of thus creeping over the earth to a mouldy sepulchre, can at once launch into the sky, secure of finding Him who once arose from one. In less than an hour we were descending on the Bay of Laig, a semi-circular indentation ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... such an approach betraying the family to some strong enemy on watch. She circles around a little, scrutinizes the landscape, studies the tracks and the wind, then comes to the door by more or less devious hidden ways. The sound of a foot outside is enough to make the little ones cower in absolute silence, but mother reassures them with a whining call much like that of a dog mother. They rush out, tumbling over ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton

... on board. But forty pounds—two hundred dollars—had looked magnificent in her hand bag that morning. Paper money spread itself in such a lordly manner and seemed able to buy so many separate things. But by the time the merciless taxi had bumped her through devious ways up to Fifty-Fourth Street, three of the beautiful green dollar bills were as good ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson

... now Herzl would have been pleased to let the East African project disappear from the agenda; it was clear that the English government was not greatly interested and was seeking a way out; but the devious route of political action, once started, could not so easily be halted; Herzl found himself chained ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl

... Shoop's many and devious methods of estimating character had their humorous angles. The rancher appreciated a joke quite as much as did any of his employees, but usually as a spectator and not a participant. Bud Shoop had served him well and faithfully, tiding over many a threatened quarrel among the men by a humorous ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs

... more than half an hour, through devious ways and hard labor, to make his way to the desired spot. The ancient stair-way, leading down, ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... the town her wayward way took the pretty brunette Friend of the Flag as many devious meandering as a bird takes in a summer's day flight, when it stops here for a berry, there for a grass seed, here to dip its beak into cherries, there to dart after a dragon-fly, here to shake its wings in a brook, there to poise on ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... woodland path which the Templetons always called "the lady's mile." His face was set towards Rotherwood, and in spite of his loitering pace there was an intent and watchful look in his eyes; but what his purpose or design might be was best known to himself; for wonderful and devious are the ways of man, and who can fathom them? Presently a tempting tangle of honeysuckle attracted him, and he clambered up the bank in search of it. The bank was dry and slippery, and the honeysuckle was difficult ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... not, Fancy, if I now restrain Thy wandering footsteps, now thy wings confine; Tis the decree of Fate,—it is not mine! For I would let thee free and widely stray— Would follow gladly, tend thee on thy way, And never of the devious track complain, Never thy wild and sportive flights disdain! Though reasonless those graceful moods may be, They still, alas! were passing ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham

... the gorge, nearer and bleaker rose the mountains, steeper and more palpable became the ascent, keener and crisper grew the air, as the evening fell upon us pursuing our devious way. The valleys were not only insignificant but widely separated by tracts through which the road had with difficulty and at much expense been cut out of the mountain side without infringing on the impetuous torrent ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... her up to capturing Bruce, and after she had acquired an influence over him they worked it so that she made him make love to Mrs. Parker. It's a long story, but that isn't all of it. The point was, you see, that by this devious route they hoped to worm out of Mrs. Parker some inside information about Parker's rubber schemes, which he hadn't divulged even to his partners in business. It was a deep and carefully planned ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve

... Betimes, I set myself to the task of investigating the motley world to which our progress in humanity—has attained, caring little what misrepresentation I incurred, what hostility I provoked, in searching through a devious labyrinth ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... 81, was born a slave of Charley Bryant, near Liberty, Texas. She lives in Beaumont, and her little homestead is reached by a devious path through a cemetery and across a ravine on a plank foot-bridge. Liza sat in a backless chair, smoking a pipe, and her elderly son lay on a blanket nearby. Both were resting after a hot day's work in the field. Within the ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... and huge the body may confine, And iron gates obstruct the prisoner's gaze, And massive bolts may baffle his design, And vigilant keepers watch his devious ways; But scorns the immortal mind such base control: No chains can bind it and no cell enclose. Swifter than light it flies from pole to pole, And in a flash from earth to heaven it goes. It leaps from mount to mount; from vale to vale It wanders, plucking honeyed ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various

... them in, and upon inquiring for the office was directed to the second floor, where he followed devious ways until he reached the door of a large room filled with desks in rows, at each of which ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... the light, but hard to feel in the black darkness," he remarked; and then they pursued their devious way on and on through this strange passage, which wound up and down and in and out, and landed them at last at the foot of a spiral staircase, so narrow and squeezed in by masonry as to be barely serviceable for the purpose for which it was contrived. It led them to a small ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green

... All this devious inside work, misusing the hospitality of friendly, trustful nations, this buying up of weak individuals, this laying the traps on neutral ground—all this treachery in peace times—deserves a second Bryce report. The atrocities ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason

... is from the north to the south, and in that direction, with very little of devious winding, it carries the shining waters of Galilee straight down into the solitudes of the Dead Sea. Speaking roughly, the river in that meridian is a boundary between the people living under roofs and the tented tribes that wander on the farther side. And so, as I went down in ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... valleys branching off in all directions, the fort could hold communication with every part of the coast, and there can be little doubt that it would have held out much longer than it did, but for the treachery of one of the garrison, who led the invaders, under cover of the night, and by devious paths, to the top of a hill commanding the position. Now the ramparts and earthworks are overrun and almost hidden by roses. Originally planted, I suppose, by the new-comers, they have spread rapidly in all directions, ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... Morton to the brook. A hoarse and sullen roar had in part prepared him for the scene which presented itself, yet it was not to be viewed without surprise and even terror. When he emerged from the devious path which conducted him through the thicket, he found himself placed on a ledge of flat rock projecting over one side of a chasm not less than a hundred feet deep, where the dark mountain-stream made a decided and ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... follow the kidnappers, and so started in pursuit. Some peculiarity about the track made by their wagon, enabled him to trace them with ease, and he followed them by a devious course, from Darby, to a place near the Navy Yard, in Philadelphia, and then by inquiries, etc., tracked them to Kensington, where he found them, and, we believe, secured ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... mile, the proprietor of a certain gambling den, whom he wished to apprehend. But at the boundary line, which the Chinese had reached before him, his prey had escaped. He was off somewhere, safe in the devious lanes and burrows of the native city. Therefore he stood baffled, and finally made his way back into the Settlement, along the quais, and finally reached his rooms. He pondered somewhat over the situation. That which ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte

... has always offered to lend a helping hand; but the remonstrants have pursued devious paths and excited some of the commonalty, and by that means obtained a clandestine and secret subscription, as is to be seen by their remonstrance, designed for no other object than to render the Company—their patrons—and the officers in New Netherland odious before Their High Mightinesses, ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various

... comprehend the devious thing called a woman; he was more like Achilles among the daughters of Lycomedes than Tannhauser in the enchanted castle. And that is why he wandered sadly along the walls of the mighty palace searching for an outlet through which to escape; but he only saw the splendid and silent ...
— Honey-Bee - 1911 • Anatole France

... compass Argus' death. Instant around his heels his wings he binds; His rod somniferous grasps; nor leaves his cap. Accoutred thus, from native heights he springs, And lights on earth; removes his cap; his wings Unlooses; and his wand alone retains: Through devious paths with this, a shepherd now, A flock he drives of goats, and tunes his pipe Of reeds constructed. Argus hears the sound, Junonian guard, and captivated cries,— "Come, stranger, sit with me upon this mount: "Nor for thy flock more ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... minstrel sweetly sung. Across his path, in either grove to hide, The timid rabbit scouted by his side; Or bold cock-pheasant stalk'd along the road, Whose gold and purple tints alternate glow'd. But groves no farther fenc'd the devious way; A wide-extended heath before him lay, Where on the grass the stagnant shower had run, And shone a mirror to the rising sun, (Thus doubly seen) lighting a distant wood, Giving new life to each expanding bud; Effacing quick the dewy foot-marks found, Where ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield

... Mountains. The region they were now to pass through had been penetrated by scarcely any but hunters, fur traders, soldiers, and missionaries. It was to the peaceful settler who was seeking a home, a terra incognita, an unknown land. Those mountain peaks were veiled in clouds, those devious labyrinthine valleys were the abode of darkness. The awful majesty of nature's works, the Titanic wonder-shapes which God hath wrought, are calculated to burden the imagination and subdue the aspiring soul of man by their vastness. Those mountain heights, seen from which the files of travelers passing ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... who was not laboring under a pressure of bricks in his hat. On one occasion I must have seen in the course of a single afternoon several hundred reeling home in the highest possible condition of ecstasy—either that, or the streets were so badly paved, and the roads so devious and undulating, that they made people stagger to keep straight. It was on the occasion of a fair, and may perhaps have been an exception to the general rule. One thing is certain—it looked very natural, and made me cotton wonderfully to these good people. There was something ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... the countless migrating shuffling bear; the slender woodland alleys along which buck and doe and fawn had sought the springs or crept tenderly from their breeding coverts or fled like shadows in the race for life; the devious wolf-runs of the maddened packs as they had sprung to the kill; the threadlike passages of the stealthy fox; the tiny trickle of the squirrel, crossing, recrossing, without number; and ever close beside all these, unseen, the grass-path ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen

... had incomes never approached at any other period in the history of medicine. The chapter gives a good picture of the stage on which Galen (practically a contemporary of Pliny) was to play so important a role. Pliny seems himself to have been rather disgusted with the devious paths of the doctors of his day, and there is no one who has touched with stronger language upon the weak points of the art of physic. In one place he says that it alone has this peculiar art and privilege, "That whosoever ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler

... poetry, while seeking to embody them in the sublime but restricted language of music; you admired him when delirious rapture carried him up and away from you, for you liked to believe that all this devious energy would at last come down and alight as love. But you knew not the tyrannous and jealous despotism of the ideal over the minds that fall in love with it. Gambara, before meeting you, had given himself over to the haughty and overbearing mistress, with ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac

... crouching against the veranda rail where he had managed to overhear the last of the conversation, was that short, swarthy figure which had followed so indefatigably on his trail for three days—which had clung to him, closely but unseen, through all his devious journey of that ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander

... to her much as this boy—Marse Pendleton. But trouble had come; everything had broken like a card-house under an ocean wave. "De fambly" was lost, and she and her young husband, old Uncle Jeems of today, had drifted by devious ways to this Northern city. "Ef you ain't got de money handy dis week, young marse, you kin pay me nex' week thes as ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... demanded one day. "Really, Will, I'm beginning to think she's a myth. Long years ago, from the first of April till June we did have two frolicsome sprites here that announced themselves as 'Billy' and 'Spunk,' I'll own. And a year later, by ways devious and secret, we three managed to see the one called 'Billy' off on a great steamship. Since then, what? A word—a message—a scrap of paper. Billy's a myth, ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter

... retire to rest, and their sleep is sweet and long. By strange and devious ways they continue their journey on the morrow, starting at dawn. Again they pass the night at the house of one of Enan's friends, Rabbi Judah, a ripe old sage and hospitable, who welcomes them cordially, feeds ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams

... no reply, but started at a good pace. He led the tinker through the forest by many devious ways until they had arrived at a little inn on Watling Street. It was styled the "Falcon," and mine host came willingly to ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick

... Louis, the Kaskaskia joins it, after a devious course of 400 miles. In 37 deg. north latitude, the Ohio pours in its tribute, called by the early French explorers, "La Belle Riviere," the beautiful river. A little below 34 deg., the White river enters after a course of more than ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck

... at last, by the one who has made his way through the devious passages, there is so little to be seen that sometimes even the man himself laughs the woman to scorn and despoils her of ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed

... recognised him. The beard would not hide him from her eyes. No, no! And he smelled at the little tan glove, that had a slight, clean, delicate perfume about it, and thrust it into his breeches-pocket, and crossed the river again, making his way back to the native town by devious native paths that snaked and twined and twisted through the tangled bush, as he himself made his ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... object!" continued Glenn; "such must be the abode of angels and departed spirits, who are not permitted longer to behold the strifes of earth and its contaminations, but rove continually with noiseless tread, or on self-poised wing, through devious and delightful paths, surrounded by sedges of silver embroidery, and shielded above by mazy fretwork spangled with diamonds, or gliding without effort through the pure and buoyant air, from ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones

... in a bare and rugged Way, Through devious lonely Wilds I stray, Thy Bounty shall my Pains beguile; The barren Wilderness shall smile, With sudden Greens and Herbage crown'd, And Streams shall murmur ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... beneath all the windows, making loud supplication, or even establishing themselves on the marble steps of the grand entrance. They ate and drank, and filled their bags, and pocketed the little money that was given them, and went forth on their devious ways, showering blessings innumerable on the mansion and its lord, and on the souls of his deceased forefathers, who had always been just such simpletons as to be compassionate to beggary. But, in spite of their favorable prayers, by which Italian philanthropists set great store, a cloud seemed to ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... death of Roland in the pass of Roncesvalles. Later Romance is known everywhere by its derivative, secondary, consciously literary character. Yet it draws sometimes from the original source of inspiration, and attains, by devious ways, to poetic glories not inferior to ...
— Romance - Two Lectures • Walter Raleigh

... gained sparkle from his Irish wit. When he had finished Prince Charles sent for me and congratulated me warmly on the boldness and the aplomb (so he was kind enough to phrase it) which had carried me through devious dangers. ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... where a fishing-village has of late years bloomed into a fashionable watering-place. The houses are built on a strip of sand and the precipitous hillside beyond, and the cottages are perched wherever they can conveniently hold on to the crags, the devious pathways and flights of steps leading up to them presenting a quaint aspect. The bends of the Mawddach, as it goes inland among the hills, present miles of unique scenery, the great walls of Cader Idris closing the background. Several hilltops in the neighborhood contain fortifications, ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... to be—like that with which it grew—the life of a great nation, growing slowly to manhood, as all great nations grow, through ignorance and waywardness, often through sin and sorrow; hewing onward a devious track through unknown wildernesses; and struggling, victorious, though with bleeding feet, athwart the tangled woods and thorny brakes ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley

... to Paris, it no longer exhibited the same appearance as in 1789 and 1790. It was no longer the new-born Revolution, but a people intoxicated, rushing on to fulfil its destiny across abysses and by devious ways. The appearance of the people was no longer curious ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... through in anything that could be called a line. Whatever primeval torrent had honeycombed the ledge had left it so before ever its waters had formed a straight passage through. How Eddie knew the way he could only conjecture, remembering how he himself had ridden devious trails down on the Tomahawk range when he was a boy. It rather hurt his pride to realize that never had he seen anything ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower

... years of soul-struggle with doubt and fear, of passionate longing for the light of truth in the gloom of superstition and man-made creeds, for guidance among the devious paths of human conjecture which lead nowhither—or to madness—seemed to fade into the darkness which wrapped him in that holy calm. After all, what had he won in his lifelong warfare with human beliefs? What had he gained ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... aright to guide Parents would endeavour, Must the father often chide, Or they'd prosper never. If I'm then a child of grace, Should I shun God ever, When He from sin's devious ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt

... roar."{9} And thy loved consort on the dangerous tide Of life long since has anchored by thy side. But me, scarce hoping to attain that rest, Always from port withheld, always distressed— Me howling blasts drive devious, tempest tost, Sails ripped, seams opening wide, and compass lost, And day by day some current's thwarting force, Sets me more distant from a prosperous course. Yet, oh, the thought that thou art safe, and he! That thought is joy, arrive what may to me. My boast is not, that ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... externals. The daily bath, pure food, fresh air, and sanitary conditions are essential but not sufficient in themselves. Clean thinking, right motives, and a high respect for the rights and interests of the future must enter into the scheme of life. There must be no devious ways, no back alleys, in the scheme, but only the broad highway of life, open always to the sunlight and to the gaze of all mankind. All this must become thoroughly enmeshed in the social consciousness and in the daily practice of every ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson

... than was wish'd,— Brunel to Gravesend meant to go Under the water, wags say so, And under that same water put His hopes to find a shorter cut; But when we leave the light of day. Water hath many a devious way, Which, like a naughty woman, leads The best of men to strange misdeeds: Had nearly, 'twas a toss-up whether, Gone to his grave and end together. How the performance went amiss The classical ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent

... the strenae which ought to come only to Amal kings and their nobles. This man, who was destined to cross the path of our Theodoric through many weary years, was named like him Theodoric, and was surnamed Strabo (the squinter) from his devious vision, and son of Triarius, from his parentage. He was brother-in-law, or nephew, of a certain Aspar, a successful barbarian, who had mounted high in the Imperial service and had placed two Emperors on the throne. ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin

... young fellow, scout and soldier, who would not bother to prove his truthfulness to his old companion and friend, was gone. He had hit his own trail in his own way, as he usually did; a long devious, difficult, lonesome trail. The clearly defined trail of the sidewalk leading to the troop room, where a few words of explanation might have straightened everything out, was not the trail for Tom Slade, scout. He would straighten things ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... still sitting beside Dunham, but the boy was doing all the talking, while John was sailing. Not even when they reached the ledges did Benny remember his proud privilege as pilot, but allowed his companion to conduct the boat's devious course while he expatiated on some races that had taken place earlier in the season. Had they not gone swimming together before luncheon, and had not Dunham's athletic feats and man-to-man treatment of the island boy completely ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham

... by the barren, gravelly hills. We had been informed that there was a settlement called Ouray, some distance down the river, and we were anxious to reach it before night. But the river was sluggish, with devious and twisting channels, and it was dark when we finally landed at ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb

... they approached very near, driven away by the ministering spirits of the Great Master of ail. Within the wall were all the things which give pleasure to the red man; the river filled with fishes disporting in their loved element, the lakes thronged with glad fowls, wheeling in their devious paths, and the woods with beautiful birds, singing their soft songs of love and joy from the flowery boughs of the tulip-tree and the Osage apple. They saw in the open space a panther, fangless and powerless, and heard in the thicket the growl of a fat bear, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... critic ought probably to avoid. Scott had a constitutional dislike for a labored style, and at the same time a fondness for the direct and straightforward way of looking at things. So, though he was open to the emotional appeal of a poem like Christabel, he took no pleasure in the devious processes by which the cold intellect has sometimes tried to give fresh interest to familiar words and ideas. They quite prevented him from seeing the passion in the work of Donne, for example, and he considered all metaphysical ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball

... serious reflection, Jack: it will be put down! What force] have evil habits upon the human mind! When we enter upon a devious course, we think we shall have it in our power when we will return to the right path. But it is not so, I plainly see: For, who can acknowledge with more justice this dear creature's merits, and his own errors, than I? Whose regret, at times, can be deeper ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... summer, his old college friend and steadfast admirer, Charles Washburn, remarked: "I would not like to be in McKinley's shoes. He has a man of destiny behind him." Destiny is the one artificer who can use all tools and who finds a short cut to his goal through ways mysterious and most devious. As I have before remarked, nothing commonplace could happen to Theodore Roosevelt. He emerged triumphant from the receiving-vault of the Vice-Presidency, where his enemies supposed they had laid him away for good. In ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... river flows between bluffs, the terraces of Champlain times, from ten to fifty miles apart. Between the bluffs are the bottom lands, often coincident with the flood plain, along which the river channel wanders in a devious course of 1,100 miles. The soil of the bottom lands is, of course, alluvial, and was deposited by the river during past ages; that beyond the bluffs is a part of the great intermontane plain, and is sedentary—that ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various

... through the grove, No vivid colours paint the plain; No more with devious steps I rove Through verdant paths, now sought ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... as if Bjarne had deliberately thrown her off; that she herself had been the one who took the first step had hardly occurred to her. Alas, her grief was as irrational as her love. By what strange devious process of reasoning these convictions became settled in her mind, it is difficult to tell. It is sufficient to know that she was a woman and that she loved. She even knew herself that she was irrational, and this very sense drew her more hopelessly into the maze of the labyrinth from ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... the business hardened his heart to any distress his mercilessness might entail. He took his profits as a Bourbon took his taxes, as if by right of birth. Somewhere, in a long-forgotten history of his brief school days, he had come across a phrase that he remembered now, by some devious and distant process of association, and when he heard of the calamities that his campaign had wrought, of the shipwrecked fortunes and careers that were sucked down by the Pit, he found it possible to say, with a short laugh, and ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris

... Later events, and particularly my design of escaping to the city at once, had driven these thoughts out of my mind. For all that, I still remembered the way by which the Bambarra had guided me, and could follow it with hurried steps—though there was neither road nor path, save the devious tracks made by cattle or the wild ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... most interesting and striking manner when they began to come into the hotels. A dozen or more officer delegates brought with them as orderlies an equal number of delegates from the ranks. Thus enlisted personnel, by devious means, were ordered to Paris under one guise or another. One sergeant came under orders which stated that he was the bearer of important documents. He carried a despatch case wadded with waste paper. ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat

... of the neighbouring squire, whose house, known as the Red Farm, lay In the little valley on the other side of the Woods at the head of Beaver Pond. From the time he had been able to thread his way across the woodland by its devious paths—Tom had been at the Inn almost every day to play with Dan Frost, the landlord's son. They had played in the stables, then stocked with a score of horses, where now there were only two or three; in the great haymows of the ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold

... moment my mind had room for no other thought. I cared not to conjecture by what devious ways God had brought her to my side. I cared not what mire her feet had trodden. She had carried her face pure as a lily through all the foul and sooty air. There was a pure heart in her voice. Sin is of the soul, and this soul ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne

... chance of wreck, or of being consigned, unshrouded, to the dark wave, by the treacherous leak, or overwhelming fury of the storm. 'Tis not the "thought-executing fire." Every and all of these they are prepared and are resigned to meet, as ills to which their devious track is heir. But when disease, in its most loathsome form and implacable nature, makes its appearance—when we contemplate, in perspective, our own fate in the unfortunate who is selected, like the struggling sheep, dragged from the hurdled ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... His rank within the social frame, Sees a grand system round him roll, Himself its centre, sun, and soul! Far from the shocks of Europe—far From every wild, elliptic star That, shooting with a devious fire, Kindled by heaven's avenging ire, So oft hath into chaos hurled The systems of the ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... word to you.' The young analyst of human nature answered, unabashed, 'I know that; but who'll believe you if I say you did?' Captain Thorne, dressed in full police uniform, stepped from the closet with, 'I will for one, Mary.' The girl, young as she was, had experience enough in devious ways to see that her game had escaped, and readily, although sullenly, promised to cease exacting tribute in that particular quarter. The gentleman would go no further, and to the earnest entreaties of Captain Thorne to prosecute the girl, both ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... condition of affairs trickled to the outside world through the devious routes of ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens

... terminates, and the average depth of the entire stream dwindles to about six fathoms for the next fourteen miles, the channel at the same time narrowing down to a width varying from about two miles to less than half-a-mile in some parts, notably at the spot where it begins to thread its devious way among the islands that cumber the stream for a length of fully thirty miles, at a distance of about twenty-eight miles from ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... artist, not by inclination, but by force. He is as a galley slave chained to the oar," says Degas. Different too are their methods of work. Manet paints his whole picture from nature, trusting his instinct to lead him aright through the devious labyrinth of selection. Nor does his instinct ever fail him, there is a vision in his eyes which he calls nature, and which he paints unconsciously as he digests his food, thinking and declaring vehemently that the artist should not seek a synthesis, but should paint merely ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... resumed their devious wanderings. At last, they descended to the berth-deck. It being now breakfast-time, the master-at-arms, a good-humored man, very kindly' introduced our hero to his mess, and presented him with breakfast, during which he in vain endeavored, by all sorts ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... At length, by many devious paths, they reached a house on a sunny elevation, at the western extremity of the garden. It was a house such as one sees only in Rome,—a wide expanse of stuccoed wall with six or seven windows of different sizes scattered at random over its surface. Long tufts of ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... search. He found the family fairly tranquil under the circumstances. He had sent a messenger galloping out from town, to assure his wife of his safety, when Tuesday's dawn showed the storm sufficiently abated. A devious course the rider took, for the road was blocked in a dozen places, and every ravine and hollow was packed to the brim with snow. But he bore glad tidings and banished all anxiety on account of the husband and father. Their anxieties now were ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King

... time had been spared; there on the other, from all the portents, was the beauty with which his age might still be crowned. He was happier, doubtless, than he deserved; but THAT, when one was happy at all, it was easy to be. He had wrought by devious ways, but he had reached the place, and what would ever have been straighter, in any man's life, than his way, now, of occupying it? It hadn't merely, his plan, all the sanctions of civilization; it was positively ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... Not so, however. The individual who had addressed him in the cathedral was, apparently, in waiting, and knowing the uselessness as well as the danger of remonstrance, where the state was concerned, the Carmelite permitted himself to be conducted whither his guide pleased. They took a devious route, but it led them to the public prisons. Here the priest was shown into the keeper's apartment, where he was desired to wait a ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... equipped for his task. Some men are born philologians, loving words for their own sake,—men to whom the devious paths of language are open highways; who, as Lord Bacon says, "have come forth from the second general curse, which was the confusion of tongues, by the art of grammar." Sir William Jones was one of these, perhaps the greatest of ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... Laudonniere's lieutenant, Ottigny, ranging the neighboring forest with a party of soldiers, met a troop of Indians who invited him to their dwellings. Mounted on the back of a stout savage, who plunged with him through the deep marshes, and guided him by devious pathways through the tangled thickets, he arrived at length, and beheld a wondrous spectacle. In the lodge sat a venerable chief, who assured him that he was the father of five successive generations, and that he had lived two hundred and fifty years. Opposite, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... that same hour De Guardiola heard in silence the Admiral's message of defiance, then when he and Mexia were again alone frowned thoughtfully over a slip of paper which by devious ways had shortly before reached his hand. With all their vigilance not every hole and crevice could the English stop; Spanish was the town and Spanish the overhanging fortress, and the former was the place of many women and priests. ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... this incessant play of artillery was kept up upon the mass of the enemy. The round shot exploded tumbrils, or dashed heaps of sand into the air; the hollow shells cast their fatal contents fully before them, and devious rockets sprang aloft with fury, to fall hissing among a flood of men: but all was in vain, the Sikhs stood unappalled, and flash for flash returned, and fire ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... good-will, was the opportunity extremely golden. It cannot be said that Friedrich, who spells in the way we saw, "ASTEURE" for "A CETTE HEURE," has made shining acquisitions on the literary side. However, in the long-run it becomes clear, his intellect, roving on devious courses, or plodding along the prescribed tram-roads, had been wide awake; and busy all the while, bringing in abundant pabulum ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle

... Galleries, let us walk home and think a little of what we have seen.' For the essence of beauty there is nothing of Mr. Holman Hunt's to compare with Rossetti's 'Beloved' or the 'Blue Bower;' and you could name twenty of the poet's water-colours which, for design, invention, devious symbolism, and religious impulse, surpass the finest of Mr. Hunt's most elaborate works. Even in the painter's own special field—the symbolised illustration of Holy Writ—he is overwhelmed by Millais with the superb 'Carpenter's ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross

... abbeys or sees, whose abbots or bishops are contumaciously disobedient to the Holy See, or to their lawful monarch, he being in the communion of the Church and at peace with the said Holy See. If, therefore,—to come to that point at which my incapacity, through the devious windings of my own simplicity, has been tending, but with halting steps, from the moment that your Majesty ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley

... of generalities. Then an idea occurring to her, she conducted the conversation by devious paths to ties and asked Alwyn if he had heard of the fad of collecting ties. He had not, and she ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... unreasonable to expect a union of all these qualifications in a single man, but we think that Mr. White combines them in larger proportion than any editor with whose labors we are acquainted. He has an acuteness in tracing the finer fibres of thought worthy of the keenest lawyer on the scent of a devious trail of circumstantial evidence; he has a sincere desire to illustrate his author rather than himself; he is a man of the world, as well as a scholar; he comprehends the mastery of imagination, and that it is the essential element as well of poetry as of profound thinking; a critic of music, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... nothing short of death seemed able to deprive her of ability to flit like a black bat through the shadows, and the distance to Howrah's palace was accomplished, by her usual bat's entry route, in less time than a pony would have taken by the devious street. Before Alwa had thundered on Jaimihr's gate Joanna had mingled in the crowd outside the palace ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... of such a possibility before perhaps, had not his very youngest years been hedged about by a beautiful fancy that sprang from the brain of an old Irish woman in the slums, whose heart was wide as her ways were devious, and who said one day when little Mikky had run her an errand, "Shure, an' then Mikky, yer an angel sthraight frum hiven an' no misthake. Yer no jest humans like the rist av us; ye must av dhropped doon frum the skoy." And from that it ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill

... first, to be sure of his track, Over devious ways that have led to this, In the stream's consecutive line, Let memory lead thee back To where waves Morning her fleur-de-lys, Unflushed at the front of the roseate door Unopened yet: never shadow there Of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... so much difficulty along the rocky mountain-side. The course of this sunken path, I soon perceived, was partly natural and partly artificial. It went on through clefts such as the one that I had fallen into, and through devious ways where the fragments of fallen rock, some of them great masses weighing many tons, had been piled upon each other in most natural confusion, so as to leave a narrow passage in their depths. And all this had been done in a long-past time, for the rocks were thickly coated ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier

... and consequent victimization, is of course greatly increased. And just here it is worthy of remark that there appears to be some mysterious fatality by which strangers, greenhorns and "innocents," generally, contrive to wander by unerring though devious ways, straight into ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe

... relief agents and a load of trade goods to the Gilberts. He peeped in at Ontong-Java Atoll, inspected his plantations on Ysabel, and purchased lands from the salt-water chiefs of northwestern Malaita. And all along this devious way he made a man ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London

... granaries, to buy corn needlessly, and to sell it again at a stated price. Long and difficult journeys had also been imposed upon them; for the several districts, instead of being allowed to supply the nearest winter quarters, were forced to carry their corn to remote and devious places; by which means, what was easy to be procured by all, was converted into an article of gain ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus

... daunt thee nor affright, Share thou my labour, and divide the fight. Yonder AEneas, so the news hath flown, So spies report, hath sent his horsemen light To scour the fields, while o'er the mountains' crown Himself through devious ways is ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... necessities to be taken; Arcadias of beauty to be visited and their treasures garnered by the imagination; an intricate course to be followed amid all future nations and governments, and their winding histories, as if threading the devious channels of endless archipelagoes; the spoils of all ages to be gathered, and treaties of commerce with all generations to be made, before the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various

... not clever; she was simple and childish, with no complexity of passions or devious ways of intellect. It was her elemental jealousy which suggested the cunning plan for the unmasking of Juliette. She would make the girl cringe and fear, threaten her with discovery, and through her very terror shame ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... had yet to acquire this finesse. As we are now privileged to observe him, he is as easy to understand as the multiplication table, as little devious and, alas! as lacking in suavity. Yet, let us be fair to George. Mere innocence of guile, of verbal trickery, had not alone sufficed for his passionate bluntness in the present crisis. At a later stage ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.

... eighth meeting they held a long and serious consultation. Affairs were in such train that little remained to be done, but to set the day for the rising, and to send notice by many devious and underground ways to the Oliverian captains scattered throughout the Colony. Landless counseled immediate action, the firing of the fuse at once by starting the secret intelligence which would spread like ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... right or to the left, and pursue an irregular undulating flight in the horizontal plane, which renders it well nigh impossible for a gunner to pick it up. The machine moves at a higher relative speed than that at which the gun can be trained. It is the rapid and devious variation which so baffles the gunner, who unless he be highly skilled and patient, is apt to commence to fire wildly after striving for a few moments, and in vain, to pick up the range; he trusts to luck or depends upon blind-shooting, which invariably results ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot

... time were hopelessly swallowed up in a many-colored sea of ignorance, from which, with the march of the centuries, they have been making slow efforts to rise. So the lady sat in the great hall in the castle, clad in some gorgeous gown of silk which had been brought by the patient caravans, through devious ways, from the far and mysterious East; surrounded by her privileged maidens, she spun demurely and in peace and quiet, while out in the fields the back of the peasant woman was bent in ceaseless toil. Or again, the lady of the manor would ride forth ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... knights engaged once more in mortal combat, and the lady felt uncertain whether she should attempt her escape through the devious paths of the wood, or abide the issue of this obstinate fight. It was rather her desire to see the fate of Sir John de Walton, than any other consideration, which induced her to remain, as if fascinated, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... of this document had just been found in a carriage belonging to his aide-de-camp. The First Consul thought that such evident proofs would flatten and confound Bernadotte; but he was dealing with a true Gascon, as devious as they come! ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... women are in matters of the heart! How quickly they take the scent of any path, virgin though it be, if that path hath been touched by the very feet of love, tracing its devious course with passionate inerrancy. ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles

... openly wicked man that if he persists in his evil courses, the just judgments of God will inevitably overtake him; he must unmask the hypocrite; he must utter no uncertain protest against the crooked and devious ways of the self-seeker and the time-server. But if he enters into the Spirit of his Master, no part of his public work will be more congenial or delightful than the proclamation of the full, free, and sovereign grace of God, manifested ...
— Sovereign Grace - Its Source, Its Nature and Its Effects • Dwight Moody

... could mope in joyless plight, While youth and spring bedeck the scene, And scorn the profer'd gay delight, With thankless heart and frowning mien? See Joy with becks and smiles appear, While roses strew the devious way; The feast of life she bids us share, Where'er our ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis

... of moral reflections, none of them very original, flock to one's mind in considering by what devious ways our Italian allies came to range themselves on the side of that freedom which they have always loved as well and bravely as any of the rest of us. For instance—a very stale reflection—one sees Germany overdoing her own cleverness and under-rating that of her neighbours—this ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 15, 1917 • Various

... your dear face Your life's tale told with perfect grace; The river of your life, I trace Up the sun-chequered, devious bed To ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson

... blind; and yet through it all was order, purpose, control. We permeated the entire organization of the Iron Heel with our agents, while our own organization was permeated with the agents of the Iron Heel. It was warfare dark and devious, replete with intrigue and conspiracy, plot and counterplot. And behind all, ever menacing, was death, violent and terrible. Men and women disappeared, our nearest and dearest comrades. We saw them to-day. To-morrow they were gone; we never ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London

... agitated pool. Horses and carriages, carts, vans, omnibuses, cabs, every kind of conveyance cross each other's course in every possible direction. Twisting in and out by the wheels and under the horses' heads, working a devious way, men and women of all conditions wind a path over. They fill the interstices between the carriages and blacken the surface, till the vans almost float on human beings. Now the streams slacken, and now they rush ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies

... on an elevation varying from 1000 to 1200 feet above the sea, of undulating table-land, divided by valleys, or "combes," through which the River Exe—which rises in one of its valleys—with its tributary, the Barle, forces a devious way, in the form of pleasant trout-streams, rattling over and among huge stones, and creeping through deep pools—a very angler's paradise. Like many similar districts in the Scotch Highlands, the resort of the red deer, it is called a forest, although trees—with the exception of ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey

... query—which revealed his own attitude—whether the moment had not arrived when the United States might safely depart from its traditional policy and meet the proposal of the British Government. If there was one principle which ran consistently through the devious foreign policy of Jefferson and Madison, it was that of political isolation from Europe. "Our first and fundamental maxim," Jefferson wrote in reply, harking back to the old formulas, "should be never to entangle ourselves in the broils ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... then, beside a greenwood shade Which clothed a lawn's aspiring head, I urged my devious way, With loitering steps regardless where, So soft, so genial was the air, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... morning I pondered over the devious lane of my life, which had led up to so fair a garden. And one thing above all kept turning and turning in my head, until I thought I should die of waiting for its fulfilment. Now was I free to ask Dorothy to marry me, to promise her the ease and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... streams, for the island generally is well-watered. The only river of real importance is the Cauto, in Oriente Province. This is the longest and the largest river in the island. It rises in the hills north of Santiago, and winds a devious way westward for about a hundred and fifty miles, emptying at last into the Gulf of Buena Esperanza, north of the city of Manzanillo. It is navigable for small boats, according to the stage of the water, from seventy-five to a hundred miles from its mouth. Numerous smaller streams flow to the ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson

... a princess might. I brought her the long and devious journey swiftly, with as little fatigue as possible: but it was late at night when we mounted the steps of the Garrison town residence; the house ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... the calves who will stray to the bog over yonder. Indeed, they are wilful, whatever, for the grass down here is much sweeter. There they go again—see!" and Gethin helped her with whoop and halloo, and many devious races of circumvention to recover them. "Oh, anwl, they are like naughty children," she said, sitting down, exhausted with laughter and running, Gethin flinging himself beside her, and picking idly at the gorse blossoms which filled the ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine

... like not the style of it. It seemeth to me that nothing is ever done in a straightforward manner any more. Is life full of naught but crookedness and devious windings and turnings? Let me go to the queen openly, I ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison

... a rambling old place, full of quaint corners, arches and odd little steps up and down leading to cupboards, mysterious recesses and devious winding ways which turned into dark narrow passages, branching right and left through the whole breadth of the house. It was along one of these that Innocent ran swiftly on leaving the kitchen, till she reached ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli

... oft in days When youthful passion fired my breast, And drove me into devious ways, Didst thou my wandering steps arrest, And, whispering gently in mine ear Thine angel-message, fraught with love, Check for the time my mad career, And melt the heart naught ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 460 - Volume 18, New Series, October 23, 1852 • Various

... they descended the stairs and traversed devious passages till the butler's room was gained. By that time the housemaid was convinced that Mr. Furneaux was "a very nice man." When she "did" Hilton Fenley's rooms she missed the glass, but gave no heed to its absence. Who would bother about a glass ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy



Words linked to "Devious" :   shifty, circuitous, oblique, roundabout, deviousness, indirect, untrustworthy, untrusty



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