"Imp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Paul's Epistles to the first three, while he declares the Gospel of St. John above the rest to be beautiful, true, and worthy of mention in the first place,—thereby enrolling even the Apostles, so far as in him lay, as having a hand in his quarrels. Who taught him to do that? The Spirit. Nay this imp of a friar has not hesitated in petulant style to assail Luke's Gospel because therein good and virtuous works are frequently commended to us. Whom did he consult? The Spirit. Theodore Beza has dared to carp at, as a corruption and perversion of the original, that mystical word ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... "You lie, imp of a Jew!" shouted Taras, beside himself. "You lie, dog! I will kill you, Satan! Get away from here! if not, death awaits you!" So saying, Taras ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... say yes, like a shot, if he's a normal boy. And if the uncle's away, it will be nobody's business even if they see the marabout's son having a ride behind me on my horse, as he might with his own father. Trust me to lure the imp on with us afterward, step by step, in a dream of happiness. I was always a born lurer—except when I wanted a thing or ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... promotion, with leave to order his elder about, you may guess there were heart-burnings. Add to this that it kept these good citizens chafing to note how often (and indeed regularly) advancement passed them over to light on some young gentleman of family or 'imp,' as they growled, 'from the ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Lake (poem); All-Hallow-Eve Myths, in Our Holidays Retold from St. Nicholas; Black Andie's Tale of Tod Lapraik, in Stevenson, David Balfour; History of Hallowe'en, in Stevenson, Days and Deeds (prose); Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and Rip Van Winkle Irving; Macbeth, Shakespeare; The Bottle Imp, in Stevenson, Island Nights' Entertainments; The Devil and Tom Walker, Irving; The Fire-King, Scott (poem); The Speaking Rat, in Dickens, ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... tricksy Puck! With antic toys so funnily bestuck, Light as the singing bird that wings the air— (The door! the door! he'll tumble down the stair!) Thou darling of thy sire! (Why Jane, he'll set his pinafore on fire) Thou imp of mirth and joy, In Love's dear chain so strong and bright a link, Thou idol of thy parents—(drat the ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... voyages were described for the first time, after the accounts of Zivolka, by the academician K.E. v. Baer in Bulletin scientifique publ. par l'Acad. Imp. des Sciences de St. Petersburg, t. ii. No. 9, 10, 11 (1837). Before this there does not appear to have been in St. Petersburg any knowledge of Pachtussov's voyages, the most remarkable which the history of Russian Polar Sea exploration has to ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... lov'st to dart, (Thou skating imp! Thou rolling joker!) And hit in some projecting part The lawyer staid, or solemn broker. Does pity never mar thy glee, When upright men with torture double? Oh, let our one petition be That thou may'st come to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various
... said Sikes clapping his hand upon his pocket. 'Burn my body, if he isn't more trouble than a whole family of Dodgers. Drink it, you perwerse imp; drink it!' ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... of good Cousin Peter since I was an imp of a boy!" he smiled. "Cousin Peter was my chart whereby to steer through the shoals of boyish mischief into the haven of our Uncle George's good graces. Oh, I have heard over much of you, cousin, ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... a tormenting little imp. She could not help reminding him every now and then that all her maneuvers and all his love were to end in disappointment. These discouraging comments had dashed poor David's spirits more than once; but he was beginning to ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... made in the exact image of the Americans," explained the peasant vendor, offering a pale blue imp, with a long, red tongue and a phenomenal tail, ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... run, but Pomp wuz out ahoein' A leetle patch o' corn he hed, or else there aint no knowin' He would n't ha' took a pop at me; but I hed gut the start, An' wen he looked, I vow he groaned ez though he'd broke his heart; He done it like a wite man, tu, ez nat'ral ez a pictur, The imp'dunt, pis'nous hypocrite! wus 'an a boy constrictur. "You can 't gum me, I tell ye now, an' so you need n't try, I 'xpect my eye-teeth every mail, so jest shet up," sez I. "Don't go to actin' ugly now, or ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... such was the charitable interpretation. Harry strongly suspected that the imp had been a concealed spectator all the time, and had particularly relished the mischief of the discomfiture, which, after all, was much greater on the part of the Vicar than any one else, as he was a rather stiff, ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... time" to join his men. As he neared the trenches he raised his head to look for his company. Not a soldier was in sight. As he stood in wonderment it seemed that the gates of the infernal regions were standing ajar and the inmates escaping toward him. Two hundred black devils, every imp of them screaming and yelling at each leap forward, were coming for him, armed with bolos and other death-dealing weapons, to mince him in a thousand pieces. He knew his men had been massacred to a man. He alone remained to face this ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... who have just returned from the lake there were six others in the camp at Sunrise Hill, their guardian, Miss McMurtry and one small imp or angel, according to one's way of looking at things. For Margaret Everett had joined the summer campers and, in order to accomplish it, had brought her small brother, Horace Virgil Everett, along with her. You see, the girls felt they simply ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... all that was happening to him was true. In a sort of haze that floated before him as he walked along hung Lucy's face. He wished to go on forever thus. He found no fault in her—he refused to. Some imp whispered to him that his fifteen dollars and fifty cents would last forever. He did not actually believe this, but he refused to worry over the matter. Fate was kind. He was living a dream—and who needs ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... Such an imp! with long pointed ears, flat nose, and enormous restless eyes and mouth. It instantly began to yell and talk in some unknown language, at the noise of which the father looked into the room, and told the sage femme that she should not ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... first three years Booverman responded in a manner to delight imp and devil. When standing thirty-four for the first six holes, he sliced into the jungle, and, after twenty minutes of frantic beating of the bush, was forced to acknowledge a lost ball and no score, he promptly sat down, tore ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was past sixty and had a Michael Angelo's Moses beard curling down from the head of a satyr along the body of an imp. Behrman was a failure in art. Forty years he had wielded the brush without getting near enough to touch the hem of his Mistress's robe. He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it. ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... lands sake, if dem ain't some oh de old missis' spoons; dat good-fo'-nothin' brack imp must a' snuck one ebbery time I takes him to visit de lady. Oh! he kotch it fo' dis, ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... is good! So, so, my run-a-ways! I shall nab you, shall I?" exclaimed Purley in triumph, as he beckoned the negro imp to ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... was not inquisitive. I was only vastly hipped for want of knowing what to do with myself. And I ran to bid her ladyship good morning, for it was close upon one o'clock; but she frowned at me, and pushed me aside with a 'Go to your bed, troublesome imp! What business have you up at this hour?' 'As much business as you have riding about in your coach,' I had a mind to say, mais je me tenais coy; and made her ladyship la belle Jennings' curtsy instead. She sinks lower and rises straighter than any of the other ladies. ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... all that you said in your last letter. 'The imp of secession can't reenter its mother's womb.' It is merely childish to talk of the Union 'as it was.' You might as well bring back the Saxon Heptarchy. But the great Republic is destined to live and flourish, I can't doubt. . . . Do you remember that wonderful scene in Faust ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... "Imp of Satan," exclaimed Boivin, grinding his teeth, "I have never enjoyed ease or quietness since the first ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... certain point. I am now here to recruit, and restore my wasted energies, and possibly to heal (observe, I say possibly) my wounded affections in the intimacy of my family circle. That reminds me that that little ungrateful imp Molly has not yet made the slightest demonstration of joy at my arrival. Where is she?" and without waiting for an answer, which he was well aware would not be forthcoming, Charles rose and strolled towards the house with his ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... to obey, and presently returned accompanied by a dwarfed creature, black as the blackest soot and clad in raiment as dusky as himself. It was the Chief Imp, a trusted messenger ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... too busy thinking, but Ben went on telling about other cruises with 'friends.' Oh, a steam-yacht can be a first-class imitation of hell if the right imp owns her. Henry got speaking of one time down along the ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... reproduce, no stage manager prodigal of expense. If on earth there ever was a hell, that tiny frontier room with the smoke-blackened ceiling and the single kerosene lamp sputtering on the wall, was the place. Not an imp thereof, but Satan himself, stood in the misshapen boots of Cowman Pete; doubly vicious in the aftermath of a debauch, Pete with the lust of blood in his veins. And against him, scant hope to those who watched, was a man; tall, but not ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... Notre Dame devil," Miss Reid said, following my glance; "the other is the Lincoln Cathedral devil." She nodded at a wide-mouthed imp, clawing at a door-top. ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... old gentleman again, moving off, ‘you will please amuse yourself until I return’; but seeing me look wild, said, ‘You have seen too much of me to feel alarmed for your own safety. Take this imp for your guide, and if he is impertinent, put him through; and for fear the exhibitions may overcome your nerves, imbibe of this cordial,’ which I did, and everything danced before my eyes, and I ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... be a perpetual snowball for him to pelt his big brother with, and yet (like a critic) be scarcely fair object for a hiding. In season out of season, upstairs down-stairs, even in the breakfast and the dinner chambers, this young imp poked clumsy splinters—worse than thorns, because so dull—into the tender poetic side; and people, who laugh at the less wit the better, laughed very kindly, to please the boy, without asking whether they vexed the man. And the worst of it was that ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... ought I not rather to say my imp of evil?—you have, without meaning it, grieved me sorely. I would say wounded were we not one soul. And yet it is possible ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... atrocious scenes, based on his jealousies of her, which some imp in her would lead her to provoke, notwithstanding that even as she spoke she regretted, and reached back for ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... vaguely. So delicate are the oscillations of the imaginative imp, that it is hard to say just where he swings his slaves into determined self-delusion. If you had shaken Caroline severely and demanded of her in the character of an impatient adult the name of ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... said, "it is black sorcery against one who is a god, and will bring my soul to hell. Find some other instrument, or place the waxen imp in the bed of Pharaoh ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... to something better than you, you poor-spirited imp!" said Tom, lighting up immediately at Philip's fire. "You know I won't hit you, because you're no better than a girl. But I'm an honest man's son, and your father's ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... were on me as he spoke, bright with imp-like malice. He looked so like a mischievous schoolboy that it was hard to take him seriously. Yet everything warned me to do so, and his allusion to the Paris newspapers explained much. For the second time a reporter had caught Father Beckett, and ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... however, as soon as the leaves have fallen, the world is restored to cheerfulness. The withering tree seems a sufferer. The fallen leaf is an imp, an adventurer. As the wind sweeps round a bend in the road, leaf after leaf is up and performing cart-wheels down the road as if Christmas Day had come. Thousands of them, borne along in a dance of this kind, advance with the beflustered, orderly air of a procession of starlings. The world ceases ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... more of them perish, you shall go to the infernal regions to keep company with the imp that ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... in broken Arabic and lingua Franca, and presently he came in, shaking with suppressed laughter. 'If ever we get home,' said he, 'we'll make a pilgrimage to Tarascon! Blessings on good St. Martha that put that sweet little imp in my way! The rogues think he is the very genie that the fisherman let out of the bottle in Mademoiselle's book of the Thousand and One Nights, and thought to see him towering over the whole place. And a fine figure he ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... were her dreams—for nothing could change the dreaming heart of the little woman—for herself or even for her big Danny; they were for her fine lad, a man now, and Beryl, working so earnestly for her ambition, and little Robin, who would always be little Robin, and the imp of a Susy, ruddy ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... to be asleep. He stood up and looked down at her. The colour had faded from the one cheek visible. For a while he listened to her quiet breathing, then, the imp of perversity seizing him, and intensely diverted by the situation, he bent over her, touched her cheek with his lips, put on his hat, took box and suitcase, and went out to spend the remaining hour or two in the smoking room, leaving ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... flew away for Jacob's ladder, (Peter was still asleep), And placed it safely, where from Heaven to Imp-land The way ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... had not responded to the imperious summons, the other self had been suffering the terrors of a siege, and the garrison had grown starved and weakly. What would be the end of it? And the little cynical imp that peeped among her thoughts, as a monkey among forest boughs, gibbered his customary "What matters it? One woman's destiny is but a small affair. If I were you I would make less fuss about it." The Professor would understand that she did not wish to make a fuss. He would not ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... mind, Pepperbottom," said the boy, giving the imp the name he had richly earned by repeated flagellations. "Never you mind. I am not ashamed to show my naked hide, you know. But it is against orders in these seas to go overboard, unless with a sail underfoot; so I sha'n't run the risk of being tatooed by the boatswain's mate, like ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various
... Zachariah Lathrope, of Providence, Rhode Island, an American gentleman of a particularly inquisitive nature, but who, professing some knowledge of medical craft, was really of some use in this instance, as there was no regular ship surgeon on board; and, secondly, young Master Negus, a "born imp of mischief," whose acquaintance will be further improved as the voyage proceeds; while, Llewellyn, the steward, summoned courage at last to descend the companion, in company with his wife the stewardess, who had been forward to the cook's galley in search of some early tea for ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... Badgers' Feet, And Badger-like bite till your Teeth do meet; Help ye, Tart Satyrists, to imp my Rage, With all the Scorpions that should whip this Age. But that there's Charm in Verse, I would not quote The Name of Scot without an Antidote, Unless my Head were red, that I might brew Invention there that might be Poison too. Were I a drowzy Judge, whose dismal Note ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... clays Some years ago were hobblin' An elderly ghost of easy ways, And an influential goblin. The ghost was a sombre spectral shape, A fine old five-act fogy, The goblin imp, a lithe young ape, A fine ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... instinctive one—was a dumb protest against the movement she had made to withdraw. And as such Lilith read it; more potent in its impulsiveness than any words could have been. "Listen!" he went on. "I suppose there is a sort of imp of scepticism sitting ever upon one shoulder, and that is what you saw. Something in my thoughts suggested a droll contrast, that was all. So far from boring me, you have afforded me ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... you went past," said Billie mischievously. Then as they paused at the foot of the steps she looked up at him with an imp of laughter showing all the dimples about her mouth. "What were you thinking so hard about, Teddy?" ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... happened that a cunning clown Was by an imp observed, without the town, To turn the earth, which seemed to be accurst, Since ev'ry trench was painful as the first. This youthful devil was a titled lord; In manners simple:—naught to be abhorred; ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... in the effect his words now had. For a moment he feared all the men were going to rise up against him as Jude had done. A silence fell upon the group. Filmer gave one keen glance at the imp on the doorstep, and then refilled his pipe and leaned ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... they had received in his fall. Then giving no more thought to Madame de Belle-Ile, who sat awaiting him eagerly, he returned gloomily to his hotel, reflecting on the carelessness which had delivered him into the hands of an indefatigable imp of mischief. The upshot of his reflection was a resolve to press his wooing to an immediate conclusion. The next day and the day after, therefore, he redoubled his lamentations that the smallness of his means prevented him from going, as his natural honesty dictated, straight to Claire's ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... was being taken to prison for no fault of his, that imp Pinocchio, finding himself free from the clutches of the soldier, ran off as fast as his legs could carry him. That he might reach home the quicker he rushed across the fields, and in his mad hurry he jumped high banks, thorn hedges and ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi
... as Donacha Dhu said, the Whistler was a born imp of Satan, and therefore he should never leave him. Accordingly, from his eleventh year forward, he was one of the band, and often engaged in acts of violence. The last of these was more immediately occasioned by the researches which the Whistler's real father made after him ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... a rage. I have to laugh. She teases him about it—the little imp. She offered to teach him to dance to-night. If he didn't love her so ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... conjecture went abroad that he was none other than some malicious imp of darkness let loose upon their frolics, to disquiet and perplex their commemoration of the Blessed Nativity. Yet was it an unusual occurrence upon Yule night, when these disturbers were supposed ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Who let him in only his visit to rue. I hope you've not listened to enemies' strictures, They've warned you, perhaps, against letting me pass, I shan't soil your ceiling, I shan't spoil your pictures, Or make nasty smells like that dirty imp, Gas! You're prejudiced clearly, and that is a pity, Why, bless you, I'm spreading all over the place! My spark is pervading the whole of the City; The dingy old Gas-flame must soon hide its face. I'm brilliant, and clean, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 29, 1891 • Various
... a pause. The Chevalier, nothing if not quick to take in a situation, began to yawn like a sleep-ridden mortal. Gracefully he made his excuses and went, with as little mind to sleep as to go and drown himself. The imp Curiosity kept the Chevalier wide awake, and with airy fingers plucked away the cotton wool ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... no imp of sin: No crimes had ever known. They took the shaggy stranger in, And rear'd him as ...
— Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs • Robert Bloomfield
... left now," continued the Imp; and thrusting a hand into the pocket of his knickerbockers he drew forth six inches or so of slimy worm and held it out to me upon ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... daughter-in-law," said Madame de Villefort to Monte Cristo, leaning back on her sofa and motioning towards Valentine with her hand. "And M. de Monte Cristo, King of China, Emperor of Cochin-China," said the young imp, looking slyly ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... skipper, rubbing his nose with an air of rueful surprise. "No honor among thieves, Jack. I thought him loyal to Blackbeard. I have considered attempting something of my own when the weather permits but this news quickens me. This young imp o' Satan that ye call Joe,—he will side ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... permissible to cover human beings up like canaries when you had tired of them, or send them away like children when they had prattled enough, Angela cuddled down among her cushions and rugs, glad to be let alone for the first time in her life. But there was a young mother with a small imp of a curly-haired girl, who fascinated her, and made her think. Once, when the imp fell on the deck, to be caught up and kissed until a wail ended in a laugh, Angela said to herself, "If my mother had been ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... like that infernal Bottle-Imp running us," he said hastily, and would hear of no concerted action for the end he had in view. "I'd rather not ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... and visit the rector, he absolutely refused, saying he was a wicked old Pharisee, inside whose doors he would never set his foot. The doctor wrote me a letter, warning me against the deplorable errors of this young imp of perdition, as he called him; and I could see that there was no love lost between them. But it appeared that, if not agreeable to the gentry of the country, young Bullingdon had a huge popularity among the common ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... it in front of him, and to charge afresh through the storm of musket-balls, and ride on thus burdened, was the work of ten seconds with "Bel-a-faire-peur." And he brought the boy safe over a stretch of six leagues in a flight for life, though the imp no more deserved the compassion than a scorpion that has spent all its noxious day stinging at every point of uncovered flesh would merit tenderness from ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... had witnessed his struggles with a smile of gratified vengeance; "I had forgotten the accursed imp in this confusion. Take it," he cried, lifting the babe from the bottom of the boat, and flinging it ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... A little imp with a nasty sneering voice that jabbed like a hot needle perched itself on his shoulder and kept dinning into ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... let us add Richard Bancks, who, in 1600, at his office, "the sign of the White Hart," printed that exquisite fairy poem, Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream." How one envies the "reader" of that office, the compositors—nay, even the sable imp who pulled the proof, and snatched a passage or two about Mustard and Pease Blossom in a surreptitious glance! Another great Fleet Street printer was Richard Grafton, the printer, as Mr. Noble says, of the first correct folio English translation ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... pelisse, the small swansdown boa, the white bonnet—the whole holiday toilette, in short, was the gala garb of a cherub but too well known, of that tadpole, Desiree Beck—and Desiree Beck it was—she, or an imp ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... he sprawled backward, and I stood up, ready for battle, my fingers tingling, my heart pounding. The imp was up again, in half a breath, pushed forward by his friends to take revenge, and I could hear Sir Samuel or her ladyship wrestling vainly with the window behind me. What would have happened next I can't tell, except that I was in a mood to fight ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... suggested Uncle Remus. "Well, dey er yer," he continued, "but dis ain't no climate whar de rice-birds flies inter yo' pockets en gits out de money an' makes de change derse'f; an' de isters don't shuck off der shells en run over you on de street, an' no mo' duz de s'imp hull derse'f an' drap in yo' mouf. But dey er yer, dough. De ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... oaths—"You infernal villain, if you do not lay on harder the next time I command you, I'll have you put in irons." The boy limped away, writhing in every joint, and crying piteously, when the commander called at him, "Silence there, you imp—or I'll give you a second edition." One of the first things the commander did after we left Barbadoes, was to have a man flogged, and the last order we heard him give as we left the steamer at Kingston, was to put two of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... there, I was conducted to a long, deserted, barn-like building, where I waited half an hour before the proper officer came. When the latter had taken his private toll of my contraband cigars, the brown imp conducted me to Blanco's English Hotel, a neat and comfortable ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... setting and motive. "The Island Nights' Entertainments" is as good in its way as the earlier "New Arabian Nights"—far superior to it, indeed, for finesse and the deft command of exotic material. Judged as art, "The Bottle Imp" and "The Beach of Falesa" are among the triumphs of ethnic interpretation, let alone their more external charms of story. And another masterpiece of foreign setting, "A Lodging for The Night," is further proof ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... once affeard: Ne let th'unpleasant quyre of frogs still croking Make us to wish theyr choking. 350 Let none of these theyr drery accents sing; Ne let the woods them answer, nor theyr eccho ring. [Ver. 341.—The Pouke (Puck is a generic term, signifying fiend, or mischievous imp) is Robin Goodfellow. C.] ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... just before them. Immediately after Archie and Eddie were swept in amid the foam, and Junkie himself—who, like his brothers, could swim like a cork—came careering in on the top of a wave, like a very water-imp! With all the energy of his nature he turned, the moment his feet touched ground, to lend a hand to his friend Tonal', who was not ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... her healthy soul. As they sped up the long drive they were joined by a galloping horseman, who shouted to Bertie to put on speed and flogged his animal furiously when the car drew ahead. He looked like a demon to Dot in the half-light—a black imp mounted on a black mare riding to perdition. She was glad to leave ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... d'Arc, d'apres les documents nouvellement publies (avec des cartes d'itineraire).' Paris, Firmin-Didot (imp. a Mesnil), ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... him believe that," laughed Miss Warren, who evidently believed in tonic treatment and counter-irritants. "He would much prefer sultry New York and an imp ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... 'No one has seen the children. The mandarin of this district is my friend, and I can make it all right. You don't suppose I want to adopt the children? You (turning to An Ching) would like to keep that pale-faced little foreign imp, I suppose, ...
— The Little Girl Lost - A Tale for Little Girls • Eleanor Raper
... shouted Monsieur Joseph, very angry. "Go to bed this instant, little imp, or I shall come upstairs with a birch rod. You will gain nothing by your dishonourable listening. I shall send you to Mademoiselle Moineau to-morrow, to ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... her to destruction at last. I tell you, sir, we are a pack of cowards hunting down an angel. You and I and that pretty imp of satan. I came to tell you this: bad as I am, her goodness has touched me with human feelings. If she is here and alive, justice shall be done her, and for once the truth shall be spoken under this roof. That woman has ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... Reginald fiercely, "if we are to hear what my father says at second hand through an imp like you—" ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... talk idly," said the third. "I am quick as the thought of a woman." The worthy prelate chose the third. The hour being late, he bargained that he should be carried to Rome and back before cockcrow, the price for the service to be his saintly soul. The imp flew well, and returned to the valley of the Rhone long ere dawn. Joyous at his gain, he was about to bound over the wall of the episcopal city of Sion, when St. Theodule roared lustily, "Coq, chante! Que tu chantes! Ou que jamais plus tu ne chantes!" Every cock in Sion awoke at his ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... him, Janet," was my response, "for he is neither more nor less than an imp of the devil, come to torment me for COPY, for so the printers call a supply of manuscript for ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... of Mr. Purt,[3] (By this time all the parish know it,) Had told that thereabouts there lurked A wicked imp they call a poet: Who prowled the country far and near, Bewitched the children of the peasants, Dried up the cows and lamed the deer, And sucked the eggs ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... this cell of the condemned. Had I not been thus prolix, you might either have misunderstood me altogether, or, with the rabble, have fancied me mad. As it is, you will easily perceive that I am one of the many uncounted victims of the Imp ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... told about the way in which Snarleyyow first made his appearance in the vessel, added to the peculiarly diabolical temper of the animal, had often been the theme of midnight conversation, and many of them were convinced that it was an imp of Satan lent to Vanslyperken, and that, to injure or to attempt to destroy it would infallibly be followed up with terrible consequences to the party, if not to the vessel and all the crew. Even Short, Coble, and Jansen, who were the boldest and leading men, although when their ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... or two soldiers were habitually kept in the hall with us, during the day. The turnkey, who was the presiding imp in that wing—the ghoul of our part of the catacombs—was rarely absent, but passed back and forth, prying and suspicious. Scott (familiarly Scotty) was the name of the interesting creature who officiated as our immediate keeper, for the first four months of our confinement in this place. ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... walked the sober earth again soberly. I assured him that I was none other than poor Lappo Lappi, and I pinched a silver coin from my pocket and gave it to him, and he handed me the missive and grinned again, and whistled and slipped away from me along the street, a diminished imp of twinkling gilt. And I opened the letter then and there, and read in it that Monna Vittoria very gracefully gave me her duty, and in all humility thanked me for my verses—Lord, as if that ample baggage ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the doctor had to allow. "But I took my stick to them next morning. Besides, they were Thrums folk, while you had never set eyes on that imp of mischief before." ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... memoriae Conradini de Stovffen, vltimi ex sva progenie Sveviae dveis, Conradi Rom. Regis F. et Friderici II, imp. nepotis, qui cvm Siciliae et Apvliae regna exercitv valido, vti hereditaria vindicare proposvisset, a Carolo Andegavio I. hvivs nominis rege Franco caeperani in agro Palento victvs et debellatvs extitit, deniqve captvs cvm Frederico de Asbvrgh vltimo ex linea Avstriae dvce, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... the French Revolution. That has the great fighting value of being an unexpected argument; it takes the other pugilist's breath away for one important instant. To take the other case, Mr. Shaw has found himself, led by the same mad imp of modernity, on the side of the people who want to have phonetic spelling. The people who want phonetic spelling generally depress the world with tireless and tasteless explanations of how much easier it would be for children or foreign bagmen if "height" ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... near me, yet remoter Than a star—a blue-eyed, bashful imp: On her lap she held a happy bloater, 'Twixt her lips a yet ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... Ye imp o' death, how durst ye dwell Within this pure and hallow'd cell, Thy purposes I ken fu' well Are to destroy, And wi' a mortal breathing spell, To blast ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 388 - Vol. 14, No. 388, Saturday, September 5, 1829. • Various
... he may prove just a big Benefactor, And if he should work on the cheap, kill Corruption, and kick out the knavish Contractor, Without piling Pelion on Ossa (of rates) on my back, till my legs with the "tottle" limp, I shall "learn to love him" as Giant Beneficent, not a big, blundering Bottle-Imp! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 3, 1892 • Various
... small tablecloths, in every direction, to screen the two children, so that they really did look rather like flapping wings.) "I have prayed to the Big Idol," he continued, addressing the woman, "ever since this imp of wickedness here set fire to my beautiful pig-tail and burned it off, to send one of his strong dragons to carry off my tormentor. And now my prayers are answered, and the Red Dragon, strongest of all, is here! Hokkaloo! hokkaloo!" and he danced ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... Dad. I said I have come to save you. It will be fun, after working for the Government so long, to work against it. There's a certain red-headed imp in this neighborhood who is the daughter of our assistant chief, John O'Gorman. Her name is Josie O'Gorman and she's in training for the same profession of which I'm an ornament. I won't sneer at her, for she's clever, in a way, but I'd like to show O'Gorman that Nan Shelley—that's ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... served to turn him suddenly from a clever, scatterbrained imp of mischief into a serious student. It happened that the whole school met on an equality in one subject—Scripture History. The head of that class, therefore, enjoyed a peculiar prestige among his fellows, ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... years in peace," but as the sun goes down the bats come out and flap the black skinny wings of the sins of other days in your affrighted face. If you are a student you may drop your books like Dr. Faust and hurry to the country, but the imp of restlessness will dog your steps and snare your pathway and you will carry home with you a Mephisto ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... "The Changeling," at once the most oppressive and impressive effort of his genius. The character of De Flores in this play has in it a strangeness of iniquity, such as we think is hardly paralleled in the whole range of the Elizabethan drama. The passions of this brute imp are not human. They are such as might be conceived of as springing from the union of animal with fiendish impulses, in a nature which knew no law outside of its own lust, and was as incapable of a scruple as of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... this MS. except its readings of names given in the Table appended to the Geographic Text. It then belonged to the Comte d'Artois. Lazari has it entered as belonging to the Bibl. Imp., I know not if correctly. [I have been unable to find it ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... brooding. Kedzie wanted to say something nice about Charity and was afraid to. The poor child always distrusted her generous impulses. She thought it cleverer to withhold trust from everybody, lest she misplace it in somebody. At length an imp of perversity taught her how to get rid of the credit she owed to Charity. She spoke after a ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... voice mingling with the uproar of other childish voices, and have distinguished and unravelled her own darling's tones, amid all the entangled outcry of a group of sportive children. But this could never be. Pearl was a born outcast of the infantile world. An imp of evil, emblem and product of sin, she had no right among christened infants. Nothing was more remarkable than the instinct, as it seemed, with which the child comprehended her loneliness: the destiny that had drawn an inviolable circle round about her: the whole peculiarity, in short, of ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... scarcely believe their ears, so much was I, a four-year-old child, their superior in learning. Some of them were not certain that I was not an imp of Satan, so utterly did my performance exceed credibility. My beauty too at this age was uncommon; my limbs were straight and strong, my cheeks of the purest red and white, and my full flaxen hair hung in short ringlets down my neck. The mistress and bar-maid kissed me, the men gave me ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... too," answered Archer, with a laugh; "I will, too, if you go wish it, though you are not a spaniel, nor any thing else half so good. And why, pray, should I not scourge this wild little imp? he ran slap into the best pack of ruffed grouse I have seen this two years—fifteen or sixteen birds. I wonder they're not scattered—it's full late ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... see that he had to make the ch'ice atween doing nothing at all or tackling the younker? The Sioux is such an imp and is so crazy for revenge that he made up his mind to chance it the least he could, and he went for the tenderfoot that ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... 3, 4, William IV, c. 73 (Imp.). One result of this Act is exceedingly curious and to the philosophical lawyer exceedingly interesting. Slaves which had been real estate, as soon as the act was passed ceased to be such, and the benefit to be obtained from their labor until fully enfranchised and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... moments, and just as Betty was beginning to fancy that the long, dark eyelashes worn curling downward in sleepy comfort the dark blue eyes opened, and a dancing imp of mischief gleamed from their depths in ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... beware of that little green imp we read of," laughed Mrs. Douglas. "You have been too thoroughly 'monarch of all' thus far. Can you not share your realm with ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... of that boy—a merry, mischievous young imp—to Mr. Craven; but she never did so. Perhaps because the clerks always gave her rapt attention; and an interested audience was very pleasant to ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... though!" she said, half aloud, as she flung off her sacque. "And what a changeling imp of a creature Dot is, after all! An imp of genius.—well, she's every right to that, as one knows when one looks at James Colthurst's pictures. He'd genius. He didn't shirk living. My stars! there was a man capable of adding to the number ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... she deserved the gallows, and her child was born three months after she came here. Looks innocent as a wax doll doesn't she? Eve Werneth she calls herself; and she is well named after the original mother of all sin. She is Satan's own imp, and we chain her every night, for she boasts that when things grow tiresome to her she always burns her way out. I think she is the worst case we have, except the young mulatto—I don't see her here just now—who was sent up for life, for poisoning ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... sate him down, in London town, 10 Before earth's morning ray; With a favourite imp he began to chat, On religion, and scandal, this and that, Until the dawn ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... "single book" treating of the Caesars, which Vopiscus says Tacitus wrote, must have been the "History," ten copies of which the Emperor Tacitus ordered to be placed every year in the public libraries among the national archives. (Tac. Imp. x.) Orosius, the Spanish ecclesiastic, who flourished at the commencement of the fifth century, has several references to Tacitus in his famous work, Hormesta. This great proficient in knowledge of the ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... He won't keep still. No, Sir, he won't keep still unless he is made to. Once let him get started there is no knowing where he will stop. Peter Rabbit had just seen Jimmy Skunk disappear inside an old barrel, lying on its side at the top of the hill, and at once the Imp of Mischief began to whisper to Peter. Of course Peter shouldn't have listened. Certainly not. But he did. You know Peter dearly loves a joke when it is on some one else. He sat right where he was ...
— The Adventures of Jimmy Skunk • Thornton W. Burgess
... jumps, Bill," gasped the other, "the 'orrors—they've got me and no mistake. As I'm a livin' man, as I was a shovin' of that there truck, I saw a imp—a gashly imp, Bill, stick its hugly 'ed over the side and say, 'Tommy,' it ses, jest like that—it ses, 'Tommy, I wants you!' I dursn't go near it, Bill. I'll get leave, and go 'ome and lay up—it glared at me so 'orrid, Bill, and grinned—ugh! ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... engine with murderous blood was damp And was brilliantly lit with a brimstone lamp; An imp, for fuel, was shoveling bones, While the furnace rang with ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... Hazlitt's translation, pp. 251, 252. As to the grotesques in mediaeval churches, the writer of this article, in visiting the town church of Wittenberg, noticed, just opposite the pulpit where Luther so often preached, a very spirited figure of an imp peering out upon the congregation. One can but suspect that this mediaeval survival frequently suggested Luther's favourite topic during his sermons. For Beza, see his Notes on the New Testament, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... coals of fire and his skin felt as though it had been sand-papered, when he would have sold his soul for a bath and actually began to get his things together in readiness for the next wagon out, it was Pat, who, with the devilish ingenuity of an Irish imp, mocked and jeered at him for a quitter, "fit to act only as lady's maid or to serve soft dhrinks in a corner drug-sthore," until his fainting heart took fire and, cursing his tormentor with all the oaths he could muster, he offered to whip, ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... not laugh, but he grew rosy, like a girl. Even his little ears turned pink, under his absurd mop of chestnut curls. "You have no right to insist upon mine," retorted he, in the honey-sweet contralto which tried in vain to make of a pert imp, an angel. ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... same good people who were now so much concerned about his welfare had many times in the past referred to him as "that long-legged imp who ought to be taught better manners at home;" for Colon as a younger boy had been ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... nor imp of sin, No crimes he'd ever known. They took the shaggy stranger in, And rear'd him as ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... other small girls with us; the Imp—but her name is a libel, she reformed some months ago—and Tangles, who ties herself into knots whenever she makes a remark. These three have many an argument (for Indian children delight in discussion), and sometimes the things that are brought to me would shock the orthodox. This is the last, ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... the end of the village street, smiling insanely at a white gate-post. With a happy sigh he turned homeward, his hands in his pockets, his head thrown back, and his lips pursed for a tune that forgot to come. A few steps brought him opposite the Doctor's house and the imp of mischief whispered in his ear. Wade laughed aloud. Then he crossed the street under the dark canopy of the elms and-pulled the office bell till it jangled wildly. A head came out ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... and shook his head. Tormenting whispers of "'Fraid cat! 'Fraid cat!" carried to where he stood, and some imp of mischief began that ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... drizzling rain in the little cemetery, the few neighbors standing about, a narrow fringe of slaves back of them, the lowering of the coffin, and the hollow sound of earth falling on the box; and Neb, his Aunt Caton's house servant, a black imp of good humor, who begged so hard to be taken back with him to the war. Why, the boy had held his stirrup the next morning when he rode away. The sudden rush of recollection seemed to bridge the years, and that black face became familiar, a memory ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... wrapped in mulberry leaves; but all these treasures could not avail to comfort him for loss of the sweet companionship he had enjoyed—for the apples he had crunched in the big dog's kennel when hiding with another little imp from the nurse—for the common possession they had enjoyed of some young rats dug out of the bank of the stream, and more than all, for the tender confidences there had been between them as to the endless pranks they spent their lives in, and all the mischief they had done ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... went for nothing, even in the moment in which they were made. She had suffered for meddling; that was bad: it was worse to the Imp not to meddle; inactivity was the one ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... wouldn't knock," whispered Siller, tearing her back hair. "Hear 'em rattle that door! That was what it meant when I saw that black cat, just before sundown, worritting the doctor's dog. I thought then it was an imp." ...
— Little Grandmother • Sophie May
... "Get up, now, Duke, you imp!" And the leader, balking suspiciously at the explosive machine, felt a smart touch of the whip. He plunged, sidled against the bluff and broke by. There was barely room to make that turn; the tailboard of the wagon, grating, left a long blemish on the bright body of the car, ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... "A man?" Little imp! She relished impaling him upon the shafts of her ridicule. Her sport was interrupted by the arrival of Spawn. He had left me at the mine and come directly back home. Jetta heard his heavy tread on the garden path, then ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... again mentioning Quinones, referred to Grijalva, and added as an additional source for his information Tomas de Herrera. Sicardo [35] added nothing new. Herrera, not cited directly by Beristain, may however have been the source from which the "Imp." of his entry came. ...
— Doctrina Christiana • Anonymous
... devil living in all of us. It makes the child break his own toys; it makes the husband strike the helpless wife; it makes the man beat the cringing, whining dog. The greatest of American writers has called it the Imp of the Perverse. And that devil came in Jerry Strann and made his heart small and cold. If he had been by nature the bully and the ruffian there would have been no point in all that followed, but the heart ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... water, Momay hot springs, (vol. ii., chap. xxii).—When the bottle was uncorked, a strong smell of sulphuretted hydrogen was perceived. The water contains about twenty-five grains per imp. gallon, of chloride of sodium, sulphate and carbonate of soda; the reaction being strongly alkaline when ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... imply of the hunt, what of the predatory dark? The kitten grows alert at the same hour, and hunts for moths and crickets in the grass. It comes like an imp, leaping on all fours. The children lie in ambush and fall upon one another ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... eyes were the cause of no little alarm, I can assure you, when darkness swooped down upon Roberta and Polly and Dilsy, playing Lady-come-to-see in the old parlor in childlike unconsciousness of the passage of time. Polly, the imp, would always insist upon singing "Lady Jane Grey," as they tiptoed backward out of the room. They did not dare to look away, for fear those terrible men would fly at them when they were not looking and throttle ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... arrival in Apia, Stevenson's tale of "The Bottle Imp" had been translated into Samoan by the missionaries. When the natives discovered he was its author they immediately named him Tusitala, The Teller-of-Tales. He still owned the bottle, they said; it was that gave him the wealth to cruise about in a great boat and build ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... of the coast, do you think he will be able to beach the ship?" went on Gray, some humorous imp prompting him, even in that tense moment, to draw the expected answer from his new friend ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... seen Don Carlos wander into the conservatory, and the imp of mischief that possessed her was prompting her to find new ways of teasing and testing him. The conservatory was in semi-darkness, but as Myra entered with Tony she located Don Carlos, for he happened to strike a match at that moment to light a cigarette, before seating ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... in his small way, played a part in the Probationer's life, such as occasionally scrubbing porches or borrowing a half dollar or being suspected of stealing the eggs from the henhouse. But that Johnny Fraser had been a wicked, smiling imp, much given to sitting ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... that vulgar imp yclept Fun—known by his broad grin, by his loud tone, and by his rude banter. Head foremost forcing himself in, came he, and brought with him a heap of coarse caricatures, and ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... him; the princess loves him; and then there is this Duchess of Richmond, who will by all means be his wife! This much, however, is certain, he is a traitor who deceives both, because to both he has made the same confession of love. And there again is that imp, chance, which compels me to be the confidant of both these women. But I will be well on my guard against executing both my commissions to this sorcerer. Let him at any rate become the husband of the princess; perhaps this would be ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach |
