"Knavish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... joyfully go to my death, were it for the benefit of my country," said he. "But to fall a sacrifice to a cabal, to the jealousy of an insidious, knavish favorite, is what makes the death-hour fearful. Ah, I die for naught, I die that Munnich, Ostermann, and Biron may remain securely in power. It is horrible ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... infamy doubly apparent; and that a person in seedy raiment and tattered hat, possessed of courage, kindness, and virtue, is entitled to more respect from those to whom his virtues are manifested than any cruel profligate emperor, selfish aristocrat, or knavish millionaire in ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... wind. disgrace oneself, dishonor oneself, demean oneself; derogate, stoop, grovel, sneak, lose caste; sell oneself, go over to the enemy; seal one's infamy. Adj. dishonest, dishonorable; unconscientious, unscrupulous; fraudulent &c 545; knavish; disgraceful &c (disreputable) 974; wicked &c 945. false-hearted, disingenuous; unfair, one-sided; double, double- hearted, double-tongued, double-faced; timeserving^, crooked, tortuous, insidious, Machiavelian, dark, slippery; fishy; perfidious, treacherous, perjured. infamous, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... of this loss to Seward. "The clamour against Sewardism lost us many votes," it declared the morning after the election. Two or three days later, as the reduced majority became more apparent, it explained that "A knavish clamour was raised on the eve of election by a Swiss press against Governor Seward's late speech at Rochester as revolutionary and disunionist. Our loss from this source is considerable." The returns, however, showed plainly that one-half of the Americans, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... horror of magic and witchcraft increased on every hand, and in 1317 Pope John XXII issued his bull Spondent pariter, levelled at the alchemists, but really dealing a terrible blow at the beginnings of chemical science. That many alchemists were knavish is no doubt true, but no infallibility in separating the evil from the good was shown by the papacy in this matter. In this and in sundry other bulls and briefs we find Pope John, by virtue of his infallibility as the world's instructor in all that pertains to faith and morals, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... in his journey to Edinburgh. They travelled in the Colonel's post-chariot, who, knowing his companion's habits of abstraction, did not choose to lose him out of his own sight, far less to trust him on horseback, where, in all probability, a knavish stable-boy might with little address have contrived to mount him with his face to the tail. Accordingly, with the aid of his valet, who attended on horseback, he contrived to bring Mr. Sampson safe to an inn in Edinburgh,—for ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... instance, the natives were perfectly in the right. At that time, the law against the traffic in ardent spirits (every now and then suspended and revived) happened to be in force; and finding a large quantity on the premises of Victor, a low, knavish adventurer from Marseilles, the Tahitians ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... this land, provoked by the iniquitous practices of organized capital. The people have had enough of the extortions of the Trusts. One day they will rise in their wrath and seize by the throat this knavish plutocracy which, confident in the power of its wealth to procure legal immunity and reckless of its danger, persists in robbing the public daily. But retribution is at hand. The growing discontent of the proletariat, the ever-increasing strikes and labour disputes of ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... Moerocles of Mantinea. He's a knavish fellow; his backers are recalling their bets. But he hopes to win on a trick; beware, lest he trip you in ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... that in New England his Dream was the daily subject of the conversation of thousands, and was thought worthy to appear in the most superb binding. He had numerous admirers in Holland and among the Huguenots of France. With the pleasure, however, he experienced some of the pains of eminence. Knavish booksellers put forth volumes of trash under his name, and envious scribblers maintained it to be impossible that the poor ignorant tinker should really be the author of the book ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... that the world has ever seen. The English marvelled alike at both classes. There were indeed many stouthearted nonconformists in the South; but scarcely any who in obstinacy, pugnacity, and hardihood could bear a comparison with the men of the school of Cameron. There were many knavish politicians in the South; but few so utterly destitute of morality, and still fewer so utterly destitute of shame, as the men of the school of Lauderdale. Perhaps it is natural that the most callous and impudent vice should be found in the near neighbourhood of unreasonable ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... lean, high house of the gnoles, but to quit this sinister wood in the nick of time and retire from business at once and buy a place in the country. Then he descended softly and beckoned to Nuth. But the gnoles had watched him though knavish holes that they bore in trunks of the trees, and the unearthly silence gave way, as it were with a grace, to the rapid screams of Tonker as they picked him up from behind—screams that came faster and faster until they were incoherent. And where ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... Furnival's inn; but all his elder brothers dying, he got himself called to the bar for the honour of his family, and soon after this preferment, succeeded to his father's estate which was very considerable. He carried home with him all the knavish chicanery of the lowest pettifogger, together with a wife whom he had purchased of a drayman for twenty pounds; and he soon found means to obtain a dedimus as an acting justice of peace. He is not only a sordid miser in his disposition, but his avarice ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... Dolphus and Sir Launcelot went by themselves to the chamber of the former to make merry. And there, Sir Dolphus who counted the other's sympathy as beyond doubt, told more of his knavish plots. Until the listener sick with listening turned to him in the quiet and secrecy of the great chamber and said in ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... confidence and good opinion of the multitude, by pretending to perform miracles in the public streets. This trade descends from father to son; and is so lucrative, that the most fertile parts of the country swarm with these knavish hypocrites. When they die, the neighbouring tribes erect a sort of mausoleum to their memory, consisting of a square tower, surmounted by a cupola of the most fantastical architecture. To these tombs, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... had any real feeling of the importance, the sacredness, of his subject?—any real trust in, or respect for, the characters with whom he dealt? Has not the belief of each and all of them been the same—that on the whole, the many always have been fools and knaves; foolish and knavish enough, at least, to become the puppets of a few fools and knaves who held the reins of power? Have they not held that, on the whole, the problems of human nature and human history have been sufficiently solved by Gibbon and Voltaire, Gil Blas and Figaro; that our forefathers were silly barbarians; ...
— Froude's History of England • Charles Kingsley
... you knavish Jack, Cannot the good Queen turn her back, But you must be so nimble hasty To come and steal away her pastry You think you're safe, there's one fees all, And understands, ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Scatter his enemies, And make them fall! Confound their politics, Frustrate their knavish tricks; On Thee our hopes we fix God ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... expert in all the niceties of his art, who knows how to shift and ward dexterously, to put the change upon his adversary with art and subtlety, and to improve the least advantages, must not be confounded here with the cowardly and knavish cunning of one who, without regard to the laws prescribed, employs the most unfair means to vanquish his competitor. Those who disputed the prize in the several kinds of combats, drew lots for their precedency ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... vulgar words to point his meaning, and casting dirt on his pretended decency. While racking the resources of allusive diction to veil and to suggest an immodest movement of his hero (Adonis being goaded beyond the bounds of boyish delicacy by lascivious sights), he suddenly subsides with a knavish ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... is perfectly illiterate,' said the man in black; 'they are possessed, it is true, of a knavish acuteness, and are particularly noted for giving subtle and evasive answers—and in your answers, I confess, you remind me of them; but that one of the race should acquire a learned language like the Armenian, and have a general knowledge of ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... my horse, in order that his brother might profit by the job of replacing it; and then I proceeded to reprove the smith for the ingratitude which had led him to return my bounty by the conception of so knavish a trick. ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... my female friends. By Jove! if she were to come over here, I'd drive you out of the settlement with a shot-gun, 'deed if I wouldn't. Now you will probably change your mind about unselfishly surrendering Rita to Williams. I tell you, Dic, a fool conscience is more to be dreaded than a knavish heart." ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... denounced them as forgeries; they had the misfortune to corroborate other Italian finds against which M. de Mortillet had a grudge. But Dr. Munro thinks that the two plaques of Volosova may have been made for sale by knavish boys. In that case the boys fortuitously coincided, in their fake, with similar plaques, of undoubted antiquity, and, in some prehistoric Egyptian stones, occasionally inscribed ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang
... I maintain to be a flattery which takes the form of medicine; and tiring, in like manner, is a flattery which takes the form of gymnastic, and is knavish, false, ignoble, illiberal, working deceitfully by the help of lines, and colours, and enamels, and garments, and making men affect a spurious beauty to the neglect of the true beauty which ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... a rogue the less in the world, although he was a brave one in his own knavish fashion," answered Godwin. "Moreover, my brother," he added, placing his arm about Wulf's neck, "I am glad it fell to you to fight him, for at the last grip your might overcame, where I, who am not so strong, should have failed. Further, ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... at such an adventure turning out so seriously, first of all flew into a terrible rage, rushed off to the lawyer's office and threatened to cut off his knavish ears for him. But when his access of fury was over, and he thought of it, he shrugged his shoulders ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... of his plans came quickly to Philip's knavish ears, and he wrote in haste to his confederate, "the devil is loose; take care of yourself," an admonition which John was quite likely to obey. His hope of seizing the crown vanished. There remained to meet his placable brother with a ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... dumb-waiter machines, and the Lord-only-knows-what machines; all of which announce the era when that refractory animal, the working or serving man, shall be a buried by-gone, a superseded fossil. Shortly prior to which glorious time, I doubt not that a price will be put upon their peltries as upon the knavish 'possums,' especially the boys. Yes, sir (ringing his rifle down on the deck), I rejoice to think that the day is at hand, when, prompted to it by law, I shall shoulder this gun and go ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... is developed from the modern fashion of composition. The lover remains in the country and the heroine in her chamber during the whole action, leaving their fate to be decided by a foolish father, a cunning mother, and two knavish servants. Machiavelli has executed his task with judgment and taste. He has accommodated the plot to a different state of society, and has very dexterously connected it with the history of his own times. The relation of the trick put ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... fear them not. For this I overlook your prying—nay, more, I will in confidence explain the secret of this chamber; but, mark you! keep it, or I shall soil my rapier with thy knavish blood. This private entrance hath much served ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... all ages. Jesus, the son of Sirach, for instance, declares that He that telleth a tale to a fool speaketh to one in slumber: when he hath told his tale, he will say, What is the matter?[1] And Hamlet says, A knavish speech sleeps in a fool's ear.[2] And Goethe is of the same opinion, that a dull ear mocks at the ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... their bones, Ill-favour'dly become the morning field: Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose,[16] And our air shakes them passing scornfully: Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggar'd host, And their executors, the knavish crows, Fly o'er them, all impatient for their hour. Description cannot suit itself in words To demonstrate the life of such a battle In life so lifeless ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... These, I take it, were the vital considerations, not the situation of the "unredeemed" Italians in Trent and Trieste. But Austria, in that grudging maximum of concession which she finally offered to Italy's minimum of demand, insisted upon taking the sentimental or knavish view of the Italian attitude: she would yield the more Italianated parts of the territory in dispute, not the vitally strategic places. Nor would she deliver her concessions until after the conclusion of the war—if ever!—after she had got what use ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... popularity; another consults his ease, and sticks to the confinement of a chimney-corner; many others are tugging hard at law for a trifle, and drive on an endless suit, only to enrich a deferring judge, or a knavish advocate; one is for new-modelling a settled government; another is for some notable heroical attempt; and a third by all means must travel a pilgrim to Rome, Jerusalem, or some shrine of a saint elsewhere, though he have no other business than the paying of a formal impertinent visit, ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... no more than a beggar's bag, bottle and staff, suitable to their present condition, but so little satisfying, that Newfangle receives a terrible drubbing for his trick. Judge Severity arrives on the scene conveniently to lecture him severely and witness his second knavish device, which is no other than to hand over to the Judge the two fugitives from justice, Cutpurse and Pickpurse, for the piece of land of which he spoke is the gallows. Hankin Hangman takes possession of his victims, and the Devil, entering ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... Brass (Sampson), a knavish, servile attorney, affecting great sympathy with his clients, but in reality fleecing ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... so many additional weapons for his own cause, can never be too often studied. It is instructive to observe the wiles of the Macchiavelian school employed by a master of the craft, to frustrate, not to advance, a knavish purpose. This character, in a great measure, marked his whole policy. He was profoundly skilled in the subtleties of Italian statesmanship, which he had learned as a youth at the Imperial court, and which he employed in his manhood in the service, not of tyranny, but of liberty. He fought ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... regarding the traveller with hard eyes. "You called him a thrush, Nick, but I have a notion he is more of a knavish jackdaw. I have seen this gentleman before. You ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... won't," roared the Colonel; "I know the law. My comments on your character are not written and signed like your knavish lease; it's a privileged communication—VILLAIN! there are no witnesses—SHARPER! ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... observe here, that this lay Pharisee, Ananias, is we have seen he was, sect. 39, took upon him to appoint a fast at Tiberias, and was obeyed; though indeed it was not out of religion, but knavish policy.] ...
— The Life of Flavius Josephus • Flavius Josephus
... at cards, called also blind hookey, apparently affording equal chances, but easily managed to his own advantage by a knavish adept. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... way! with your knavish schemes! You trembling and trading pack! Crouch away in the dark, like a sneaking hound That ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... the factor-lawyer who broke the silence, saying, with his predetermined smirk, that the parchment was ready for my signature. Thinking it well beneath me to measure words with this knavish pettifogger, I looked beyond him and spoke ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... daemon in his "Phaedo"—that wonderful story to which I have just alluded, and which lives so vividly in my memory. Sometimes I think that Mr. Gladstone has the same superstition. He has moments—especially if there be the stress of the sheer brutality of obstructive and knavish hostility—when he seems to retire into himself—to transfer himself on the wings of imagination to regions infinitely beyond the reach, as well as the ken, of the land in which the Lowthers, the Chamberlains, and the Bartleys dwell. At such moments he gives one the impression of communing ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... and becomes Low blacklegs more than servants of the Crown. Those swindlers show the force of venal power, The attribute to trick and roguery, Whereby 'tis managed that a bad horse wins: But bribery is below their knavish "lay." It is the vilest of dishonest things; It was the attribute to Gatton's self; And other boroughs most like Gatton show When bribery smothers conscience. Therefore, you, Whose conscience takes the fee, consider this— That in the cause of just reform, you all Should lose your franchise: ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... a bit of a Bogey, but then 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, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 3, 1892 • Various
... in golden wealth, and the wretch promised to make you and your uncle beggars if the surprise succeeded. He did this, though he knew that it was you who took him up from the road and saved his life; for nothing good and noble dwells in his knavish soul. He yearned for me, and still more ardently for the Alexandrians' gold. Worse than the wolf that licked the hand of the man who bandaged its wounds, he would have shown his teeth to the preserver of his life. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... was a prophecy rather than a criticism. But although we may fail to distinguish in Chopin's composition the flirting of the grandee Don Juan with the peasant-girl Zerlina, the curses of the duped lover Masetto, and the jeers and laughter of the knavish attendant Leporello, which Schumann thought he recognised, we all obey most readily and reverently his injunction, "Hats off, gentlemen: a genius!" In these words lies, indeed, the merit of Schumann's ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... welfare always at heart. He thought ahead for me, weighed my plans, and took a greater interest in them than I did myself. At first, when I was unaware of this interest of his in my affairs, he had to divine my intentions, as, for instance, at Papeete, when I contemplated going partners with a knavish fellow-countryman on a guano venture. I did not know he was a knave. Nor did any white man in Papeete. Neither did Otoo know, but he saw how thick we were getting, and found out for me, and without my asking him. Native sailors from the ends of the ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... A KNAVISH attorney asking a very worthy gentleman what was honesty, "What is that to you?" said he; "meddle with those ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... souls. With such great show as they exhibit in their knavish life, as going through with mass, begging, singing, &c., do they allure and draw light-minded and unstable souls, who are without faith, to imagine that everything is spiritual; and all is shaped to this end, that men may think that in that estate every one shall have enough, and good times ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... depict the Gitanos such as they are, and to illustrate their character; and, on that account, we have endeavoured, as much as possible, to bring them before the reader, and to make them speak for themselves. They are a half-civilised, unlettered people, proverbial for a species of knavish acuteness, which serves them in lieu of wisdom. To place in the mouth of such beings the high-flown sentiments of modern poetry would not answer our purpose, though several authors have not ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... and pitiful. His tone was too confident, he was too sure of his ground to leave me a doubt as to what would befall if I made appeal to his knavish followers. My arms fell to my sides, and I looked at Gervasio. His face was haggard, and his eyes were very full of sorrow as ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... art and gathering gear They spend the one half of the year; In gathering gear and knavish art They ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... once, in the city of Baghdad, a man, [by name El Merouzi,][FN30] who was a sharper and plagued[FN31] the folk with his knavish tricks, and he was renowned in all quarters [for roguery]. [He went out one day], carrying a load of sheep's dung, and took an oath that he would not return to his lodging till he had sold it at the price of raisins. Now there was in ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... a thousand miles, through what was then a sparsely settled country, much of it a wilderness. They made some converts in Ohio and Kentucky, and were, fortunately for themselves, violently opposed and in some cases attacked by bigoted or knavish persons; and with this impetus they were able to found at first five societies, two in Ohio, two in Kentucky, and one in Indiana. The Indiana society later removed to Ohio; and two more societies were afterward formed in Ohio, and ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... at the corn-mill of Admetus; and watching him at his bondage there stood the slender, slight, wing-footed Hermes, with a slow, mocking smile upon his knavish lips, and a jeering scorn in his keen eyes, even as though ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... afterwards into the whole world. They tied up their horses and went together into the cave. Grimur, seeing strangers, at once challenged them to fight; but looking round anxiously for Nagelring, he missed it, whereupon he cursed the knavish Alpris, who had assuredly stolen it from him. However, he snatched from the hearth the blazing trunk of a tree and therewith attacked Theodoric. Meanwhile Hildebrand, taken at unawares, was caught hold of by Hildur, who clung so tightly ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... knoweth himself, that yesternight The said young gentleman came to me, And then desired that he might This morning betimes married be; But now I doubt it will be high noon, Ere that his business be quite ended, Unless the knavish fool come very soon, That this same thing may be despatched; And therefore, since that this naughty pack Hath at this present me thus served, He is like henceforward my good-will to lack, Or else ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... softly with sandal'd feet— Ah! why are the stolen waters sweet?— And one crept stealthily after; I would I had taken him there and wrung His knavish neck when the dark door swung, Or torn by the roots his treacherous tongue, And stifled his ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... who was nonplussed at such an adventure, which was turning out so seriously, first of all, flew into a terrible rage, and nearly rushed off to the lawyer's office, and threatened to cut off his knavish ears for him, but when his access of fury was over, and thinking better of it, he shrugged ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... which was on both the obverse and reverse of the coin. Beaumont and Fletcher, in the 'Scornful Lady,' show the difference between the penny and three-farthing piece, and inform us of a knavish trick then practised, to impose upon ignorant people the lesser as the greater coin. Lovelass, speaking of Morecraft, the usurer, says: 'He had a bastard, his own toward issue, whipt and thin cropt, for washing out the rose in three ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... a new 'boy' (all coloured servants are 'boys,'—a remnant of slavery), and he is the type of the nigger slave. A thief, a liar, a glutton, a drunkard—but you can't resent it; he has a naif, half-foolish, half-knavish buffoonery, a total want of self-respect, which disarms you. I sent him to the post to inquire for letters, and the postmaster had been tipsy over-night and was not awake. Jack came back spluttering threats against 'dat domned Dutchman. Me no WANT (like) him; me go and kick up dom'd ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... that the drawbridge was raised, and that he could not hope for stealthy entrance there, he crept silently to the rear of the great building and there, among the bushes, his men searched for the ladder that Norman of Torn had seen the knavish servant of My Lady Claudia unearth, that the outlaw might visit ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... more, their Children, And seem'd like Fathers anxious for our Welfare. Whom see we now? their haughty Conquerors Possess'd of every Fort, and Lake, and Pass, Big with their Victories so often gain'd; On us they look with deep Contempt and Scorn, Are false, deceitful, knavish, insolent; Nay, think us conquered, and our Country theirs, Without a Purchase, or ev'n asking for it. With Pleasure I wou'd call their King my Friend, Yea, honour and obey him as my Father; I'd be content, would he keep his own Sea, And leave these distant Lakes and Streams to ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers
... though the dream would be realised. The gross, squarely-built man with the bushy whiskers and the light strange eyes, found success attend his every enterprise from that hour in which he had spilt life upon the pavement of the Convent chapel. The tarantula-pounce never missed a prey. Every knavish venture brought in money or money's worth, every base plot was carried through triumphantly. Bough, alias Van Busch, was not ordinarily a superstitious man, but his run of luck made ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... servant, that he did as much as possible by his sharp remonstrances to confirm the good people in their opinions. He gave me a most amusing account of his proceedings; and as he saw it animated me, he thought to add to my enjoyment by a display of his own knavish tricks. Shall I confess it? I was not a little flattered by even the illusion of being mistaken for the ...
— Peter Schlemihl • Adelbert von Chamisso
... or relation of any act of injustice (whatever may be the object, or wheresoever it may be perpetrated) as if I was the immediate sufferer. When I read the history of a merciless tyrant, or the dark and the subtle machination of a knavish designing priest, I could on the instant set off to stab the miscreants, though I was certain to ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... the culmination of the knavish trickery of these conscienceless pirates who had attacked the port. A torpedo had been exploded in the harbour, an unfinished fort had been mined and blown up, and all this had been done to frighten him—a British soldier—in ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton
... it was a hoary-haired scoundrel of a bus; a very reprobate of a bus; an envious, evil-thinking, ill-conditioned, flagrantly thieving, knavish blackguard of a bus. Under no circumstances am I proud of the acquaintance. But then, in extenuation, be it said that it was never anything but an acquaintance of Shadow-Land, conjured up, perhaps, by a material repast that ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... life, How are ye still by envious malice dogged! This place of power, which now I hold, by me Unsought, was by the city's will bestowed. Yet the thrice-loyal Creon, my fast friend, Seeks now to oust me by foul practices, Using for tool this knavish soothsayer, This lying mountebank, whose greedy palm Has eyes, while in his science he is blind. Show me the proofs of thy prophetic gift. Why, when the riddling Sphinx was here, didst thou Fail by thy skill to save the commonwealth? The ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... Thomas,—'twas passing strange that I did once more stand twixt him and glory; and, last of all, a stoup of good old wine in the company of a most noble throng. Indeed, good Guido," he continued, as musing to himself he walked along, "thou wert made, I marry, for better things than cracking the knavish pates of yellow Dons; but guard thy touchy temper well, for even to-night thou couldst but sadly brook a small delay, and wouldst have answered my Lord Catesby's haughty look with scant courtesy. I fear thy warlike nature would poorly thrive upon a diet of quiet ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... Confound such knavish tricks! Yet know I five or six Smokers who freely mix Still with their neighbours; Jones—who, I'm glad to say, Asked leave of Mrs. J.) - Daily absorbs a clay After ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... difficult. The proper and only thing to do was to keep him in custody as long as possible. When he should be brought back to a region of law and justice, it might be that the Pole could be prevented, for a time, at least, from using the results of his knavish observations. ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... have never known us to go to sleep. It has been summer when the sun never sets here where we live. But now, what you call winter, is coming on. You will soon see us lie down, and we shall not rise again till the spring. Take my advice. Do not leave the lodge. I have sure knowledge that that knavish Island Spirit is on the prowl, and as he has command of a particular kind of storm, which comes from the south-west, he only waits his opportunity to catch you abroad and do you a mischief. Try and amuse yourself. That cupboard," pointing ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... an affectionate farewell, with a plaintive reminder that a girl not likely to be proposed to every day might do worse than Tony Dalziel. I, in turn, reminded her that any knavish juggling with Captain March's faith would be dealt with severely by me; and so we parted, she to go her way to California en automobile, I to go mine to Texas ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... not see the three fine MSS. again, the Doctor his brother having locked them up. He openly bid for his own books, merely to enhance their price, and the auction proves to be, what I thought it would become, very knavish'; and on the 11th of February he adds: 'Yesterday at five I met Mr. Noel and tarried long with him; we settled then the whole affair touching his bidding for my Lord [Oxford] at the roguish auction of Mr. ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... confined to the preservation of Leucippe from the bucoli by Menelaus, and a great deal of useless declamation in behalf of Clitophon before the assembly of Ephesus from Clinias. Satyrus, also, from whose knavish ingenuity in the early part of the tale something better was to be expected, soon subsides into a well-behaved domestic, and hands his master the letter in which poor Leucippe makes herself known to him at Ephesus, when she imagines him married to Melissa, with all the nonchalance ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... 1792 violently interrupted the orderly and natural making of France, just as the sudden suppression of the National Executive in 1649 after the occupation of Edinburgh by Argyll and the surrender of Colchester to Fairfax had put England at the mercy of Cromwell's 'honest' troopers, and of knavish fanatics like Hugh Peters, violently interrupted the making of Britain. It took England a century to recover her equilibrium. Between Naseby Field in 1645 and Culloden Moor in 1746 England had, except during the reign of Charles II., no ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... minutes' rest till the next man goes in! The tired arms lie with every sinew slack On the mown grass. Unbent the supple back, And elbows apt to make the leather spin Up the slow bat and round the unwary shin,— In knavish hands a most unkindly knack; But no guile shelters under the boy's black Crisp hair, frank eyes, and honest English skin. Two minutes only! Conscious of a name, The new man plants his weapon with profound Long-practised skill that no mere trick may ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... out of all happiness in this life! (He runs up and down in a rage.) A murderer, a robber, all through a knavish trick! He was not even angry! Not a thought of cursing ever entered his heart. Oh, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... marriage-portion that went with Eleanor of Aquitaine; but he paved the way for them by petty victories and petty acquisitions, and by making more and more certain his superiority over his rival. When, after Richard's death, he had to do with John Lackland, cowardly and insolent, knavish and addle-pated, choleric, debauched, and indolent, an intriguing subordinate on the throne on which he made pretence to be the most despotic of kings, Philip had over him, even more than over ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... remark that no Nation will throw-by its work, and deliberately go out to make a scene, without meaning something thereby. For indeed no scenic individual, with knavish hypocritical views, will take the trouble to soliloquise a scene: and now consider, is not a scenic Nation placed precisely in that predicament of soliloquising; for its own behoof alone; to solace its own sensibilities, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... antiquated and desperate line of politics, and he claims, from some pretended tie of guardianship or relationship, which he does not deign to explain but which he seems to have been able to pass current on a silly country Justice and his knavish clerk, a right to direct and to control my motions. The danger which awaited me in England, and which I might have escaped had I remained in Scotland, was doubtless occasioned by the authority of ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... how? Tropically.[82] This play is the image of a murder[83] done in Vienna: Gonzago is the Duke's name; his wife, Baptista: you shall see anon;—'tis a knavish piece of work: but what of that? your majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not: Let the galled jade wince,[84] ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... piastres, and there was no other alternative but to accept it. But we must advance the 150 piastres, and so, in mid-journey, we have already paid them to the end, with the risk of their horses breaking down, or they, horses and all, absconding from us. But the knavish varlets are hardly bold enough for such a climax ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... merchantmen. As for the position into which Sweden has been lured by allowing her diplomatic agents to assist Germany's secret service, Mr. Punch would hardly go the length of saying that it justifies the revision of the National Anthem so as to read, "Confound their Scandi-knavish tricks." But he finds it hard to accept Sweden's professions of official rectitude, and ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... side-narrative, that of Dousterswivel, is the weak point of the whole; but this Scott justifies by "very late instances of the force of superstitious credulity, to a much greater extent." Some occurrence of the hour may have suggested the knavish adept with his divining-rod. But facts are never a real excuse for the morally incredible, or all but incredible, in fiction. On the wealth and vraisemblance and variety of character it were superfluous to dilate. As in Shakspeare, there is not ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... devilish meshes are wrought! There is no exaggeration in stating that the financial history of the past three decades in America has been one of peerless turpitude. Rome under the dying glories of the empire scarcely parallels its knavish gluttonies of illegal seizure. And Wall Street has been the boiling point of all this infectious train of outrages against a patient people—one that presumes to rate itself really democratic, and to sneer ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... renown, for I will be a poet, an author, and shall claim a place in the republic of genius. I shall not need a crown to preserve my name in history. The first step is taken. My 'Anti-Machiavel' is in press. I will tread under foot this monster of knavish and diabolic statecraft, and all Europe shall see that a German prince is the first to break a lance against this Machiavel, who is making the people the slaves of princes. By his vile principles, he is moulding princes into such monsters that ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... was sometimes called, Robin Goodfellow) was a shrewd and knavish sprite, that used to play comical pranks in the neighbouring villages; sometimes getting into the dairies and skimming the milk, sometimes plunging his light and airy form into the butter-churn, and ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... thing,' said Prieme impatiently; 'then it was only one Swede, and it didn't much matter whether he lived or died. But, boy, if many thousand innocent people are about to perish through one man's knavish trick, ought we not to bring the traitor to justice, ay, though he be father, brother, or son? Look at that dear, good woman, your blind mother! Do you want the Swedes to get in and slaughter her? Are you going to let sixty ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... a bull-fight; omnibuses and street cars, packed with people, rolled along Alcala Street beside open hacks occupied by harlots in Manila mantles and men of knavish mien. ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... Taaffe declared before the bench, that the pretended plot was no other than a contrivance between himself and Lunt in order to procure money from the government. The prisoners were immediately acquitted, and the ministry incurred a heavy load of popular odium, as the authors or abettors of knavish contrivances to insnare the innocent. The government, with a view to evince their abhorrence of such practices, ordered the witnesses to be prosecuted for a conspiracy against the lives and estates of the gentlemen who had been accused; and at last the affair was brought into the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... doubtless worried Dr. Jose somewhat, and all the others who joined with him in the work of carnage. But the blood stains are on their hands still, and the groans and wails of innocents must ever ring in their ears. "It was a knavish piece of work." "Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph."—II ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... same trick again, and trying who can keep silence longest? Remember that all tricks are either knavish or childish; and that it is as foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend, as upon ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... she keeps concealed. Prior has translated several of Fontaine's Tales from the French; and they have lost nothing in the translation, either of their wit or malice. I need not name them: but the one I like the most, is that of Cupid in search of Venus's doves. No one could insinuate a knavish plot, a tender point, a loose moral, with such unconscious archness, and careless raillery, as if he gained new self-possession and adroitness from the perplexity and confusion into which he throws scrupulous imaginations, and knew how to seize on all the ticklish parts of his ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... talents than those which he possessed, that, in aspiring to emulate it, he was wasting, in a hopeless attempt, powers which might render him pre-eminent in a different career, was a lesson which he did not learn till late. As those knavish enthusiasts, the French prophets, courted inspiration by mimicking the writhings, swoonings, and gaspings which they considered as its symptoms, he attempted, by affected fits of poetical fury, to bring on a real paroxysm; and, like them, he got nothing but his distortions ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 257. The "coqui" were in the habit of standing in the market-place for hire by those who required their services. See the Pseudolus, the Aulularia, and the Mercator of Plautus, and the Notes to Bohn's Translation. See also a remark on the knavish character of the sausage-makers in the Truculentus of ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... to him a knavish lawyer named Vholes, who made him believe the great chancery suit must soon end in his favor, and who (when Richard had put the case in his hands) proceeded to rob him of all he had. He poisoned his mind, too, against Mr. Jarndyce, so that Richard began to think ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... shall you spend your time in the gymnastic schools, sleek and blooming; not chattering in the market-place rude jests, like the youths of the present day; nor dragged into court for a petty suit, greedy, pettifogging, knavish; but you shall descend to the Academy and run races beneath the sacred olives along with some modest compeer, crowned with white reeds, redolent of yew, and careless ease, of leaf-shedding white poplar, rejoicing in the season of spring, when the plane-tree whispers to the elm. If you do these ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... I saw the knavish justice of this remark; and in my predominating zeal to serve Glanville, I looked upon the inconvenience of discovering myself to a pickpocket and sharper, as a consideration not worth attending to. In order, therefore, to remove his doubts, and, ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... have had visions of keeping this useful queen of spades up his sleeve, that he might be ready to trump one of our knavish tricks with her, at any moment; but the gods fought against him for once. Just before theatre-time, arrived a long cablegram from James Richard, alias Richard James. He thanked Somerled enthusiastically (Mrs. James showed the message to me, and to every one of us), accepted ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... he, with the familiar air of a privileged servant, "did you see that knavish-looking Gabinius following Madame Fabia all the way back ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... the sombre silence of the dungeon, and the next year were brought forth for trial. Vaudreuil, for lack of evidence, was acquitted properly acquitted, so far as can be known, his chief fault having been a fatal ill-judgment; but a just fate overtook Bigot, Cadet, and their knavish parasites. The Intendant was banished from France for life, and all his property confiscated; Cadet was banished for nine years and fined six million livres; the others received sentences in keeping with the measure of ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... others they become occasions of merrymaking; a peculiar feature of these gatherings among the Maidu and other tribes is the presence of a clown who mimics the acts and words of the dancers and performs knavish tricks; the origin of this feature of the dances is not clear. In all such ceremonies the tendency to regulate the details of religious performances is apparent, and such regulation is found in so ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... he not within a year Hang'd threescore of them in one shire? Some only for not being drown'd, And some for sitting above ground Whole days and nights upon their breeches, And feeling pain, were hang'd for witches. And some for putting knavish tricks Upon green geese or turkey chicks; Or pigs that suddenly deceased Of griefs unnatural, as he guess'd, Who proved himself at length a witch, And made a rod for his own ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... "I promise you this knavish quip touched the Duke closely—I saw him change colour and bite his lip. And now, our news are told, noble Crevecoeur, and what think ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... of this extraordinary accident. From a country so near and so readily accessible they can get plants home, pot them up, and sell them, before the withering process sets in. May this revelation confound such knavish tricks! The moral is old—buy your orchids from one of the great dealers, if you do not care to "establish" ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... deceives them, although I may not deny, but that oftentimes the devil deludes them, takes his opportunity to suggest, and represent vain objects to melancholy men, and such as are ill affected. To these you may add the knavish impostures of jugglers, exorcists, mass-priests, and mountebanks, of whom Roger Bacon speaks, &c. de miraculis naturae et artis. cap. 1. [2705]they can counterfeit the voices of all birds and brute beasts almost, all tones and ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... 1602. When certain circumstances led his yet undetermined thoughts to the study of astrology as his principal pursuit, he put himself in the year 1632 under the tuition of one Evans, whom he describes as poor, ignorant, drunken, presumptuous and knavish, but who had a character, as the phrase was, for erecting a figure, predicting future events, discovering secrets, restoring stolen goods, and even for raising a spirit when he pleased. Sir Kenelm Digby was one of the most promising characters of these times, extremely handsome and ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... enjoyment a Cecilia, a Marinetta, and even a more lovely beauty in perspective, they would soon entertain a very different opinion of life! I hold them to be a race of pessimists, recruited amongst beggarly philosophers and knavish, atrabilious theologians. If pleasure does exist, and if life is necessary to enjoy pleasure, then life is happiness. There are misfortunes, as I know by experience; but the very existence of such misfortunes proves that the sum-total of happiness is greater. Because a few thorns are to be ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... not the very image of the State? He has had no education, or he would never have allowed the blind god of riches to lead the dance within him. And being uneducated he will have many slavish desires, some beggarly, some knavish, breeding in his soul. If he is the trustee of an orphan, and has the power to defraud, he will soon prove that he is not without the will, and that his passions are only restrained by fear and not by ...
— The Republic • Plato
... be a scoundrel among us," Liputin grinned suddenly, his knavish little eyes seeming to peer ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... prosperous business, should devise a plan for throwing discredit on his own notes with the view of having them bought up at a discount, ruinous to the holders and immensely profitable to his own knavish pocket. This comparison may faintly illustrate the wrongfulness of the policy, but not its consummate folly—for in the case of the Government, unlike the merchant, the stern necessity would recur of making good in the end, by the payment of hard coin, all the ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... stood silent, but every feature eloquently expressed first amazement, and then slyness and cunning; his knavish, malicious eye, measured Otto from ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... season was now setting in, and the situation of the embassy became more comfortless from day to day. Notes were written, and answers received from the monarch, but the royal interview was still postponed, partly by the artifice of the knavish governors, who kept a longing eye on the presents, and partly by the barbarian etiquette of showing the natives the scorn with which their king was entitled to treat all the nations of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... touch; whilst others, not less free upon the wire, were carefully packed up, and sent home safe. By seizing and boxing up in the Tower mere bystanders, wholly unconcerned in the sport, he made his 'little tin soldiers' fancy that he did not see their antics. The only hitch in his 'knavish piece of work' arose when, too assured, he placed upon the boards a real live judge, who refused to take the bench in the manager's sham Court of Justice. In every other respect the mystery play was a complete success; everybody ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... was, ingenuous, blunt and kind, And dared what few dare do, to speak his mind. Philosophy and history well he knew, Was versed in Physic and in surgery too, The best old Stingo he both brewed and sold, Nor did one knavish act to get his gold. He played through life a varied comic part, And knew ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... of Friar John, even the knavish tricks of Panurge, cannot spoil our tenderness for these dear bully-boys, these mellow and magnanimous rogues! Certain paragraphs in Rabelais recur to one's mind daily. That laudation of Socrates at the ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... to be a new ground of triumph for his enemies, and that it was a foothold for a new attack. By the threat of prosecution they strove to drive him to fly, and when he refused to yield to their threats, they contrived to make the King the agent in their knavish schemes, and procured from him the peremptory message which made Clarendon quit the field. No sooner was he gone, than the very flight which they had contrived was made the ground of new accusations, and he was sentenced to perpetual banishment for avoiding a trial for ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... known. It may illustrate the way in which lady architects, without professional aid, are and ever will be defrauded, that, after all was finished, and the entire wood-work was to be measured and valued, each party, of course, needing to be represented by a professional agent, naturally the knavish builder was ready at earliest dawn with his agent; but, as regarded my mother's interest, the task of engaging such an agent had been confided to a neighboring clergyman,—"evangelical," of course, and a humble sycophant ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... the guests. The Devil, to whom the mayor confided the plan, highly approved of it; but Faustus murmured in the ear of Leviathan, "I command thee to play this rascal, who has prostituted his wife for ambition's sake, a thorough knavish trick; and to revenge me, at the same time, on all these sheep-headed magistrates, who so long forced me to pay my ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... style every card of the pack exposed some knavish scheme, and ridiculed the persons who were its dupes. It was computed that the total amount of the sums proposed for carrying on these projects was upwards of three hundred millions sterling, a sum so immense that it ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... your shape and making quite, Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite Called GRANDOLPH GOODFELLOW. Are you not he That did your best to spill Lord S-L-SB-RY? Gave the Old Tory party quite a turn, And office with snug perquisites did spurn? And now you'd make Strong Drink ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 1890.05.10 • Various
... biter is going to be bit, eh? It generally is so in this world's government. You, who brought in your estimable nephew to aid and abet in your own dishonest ways, are, it seems, going to be robbed of all your knavish gains by him. This is taking the wise in their own craftiness, I reckon: and richly you deserve to lose all your ill-got hoard. At the same time, Mrs. Quarles—I will be just—there are worse people in the world than you are: in comparison with your nephew, I consider ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... literary work and the family troubles which so soon fell upon him, Cardan's hands were certainly full; but, all allowance being made, it is difficult to find a valid excuse for this neglect on his part. William grew up to be a young man, and was finally apprenticed to a tailor at Pavia, but his knavish master set him to work as a vinedresser, suspecting that Cardan cared little what happened so long as the young man was kept out of his sight. William seems to have been a merry, good-tempered fellow; but his life was a short one, for he took fever, ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... self-indulgence? What are we to say when we see asceticism preached to the poor by fat and comfortable retainers of the rich? What are we to say when we see idealism become hypocrisy, and the moral and spiritual heritage of mankind twisted to the knavish purposes of class-cruelty and greed? What I ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... pricked forward; he had once, in his palmy, coltish time, been a battle charger, and, perhaps, some memory of those martial days, the waving of plumes and the clashing of arms, reawoke his combative spirit of old. Or, possibly his brute intelligence penetrated the dwarf's knavish pusillanimity, and, changing his tactics that he might still range on the side of perversity, resolved himself from immobility into a rampant agency of motion. Furiously he dashed into the thick of the conflict, and Triboulet, paralyzed with fear and dropping his lance, was borne helplessly ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... to trace sources for Sterne in English letters, that is, for the strange combination of whimsicality, genuine sentiment and knavish smiles, which is the real Sterne. He is individual, exotic, not demonstrable from preceding literary conditions, and his meteoric, or rather rocket-like career in Britain is in its decline a proof of the insensibility of the English ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... alike. When the aims and the experiences of the old fighting and sporting days had passed away, and nothing was left but ceaseless toil, these essentially combative people, to whom violent and continuous excitement was the very breath of life, became, for a while at least, knavish and immoral, sunk almost to one dead social level, and totally uninteresting because, in their new life of peaceful tillage—a life far more suited to their English law-givers than to themselves—they were apparently incapable of maintaining that complete, vigilant ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... disquiet and trouble. At noon dined with Sir W. Batten and the Auditors of the Exchequer at the Dolphin by Mr. Wayth's desire, and after dinner fell to business relating to Sir G. Carteret's account, and so home to the office, where Sir W. Batten begins, too fast, to shew his knavish tricks in giving what price he pleases for commodities. So abroad, intending to have spoke with my Lord Chancellor about the old business of his wood at Clarendon, but could not, and so home again, and late at my office, and then home to supper and bed. My little girle Susan is fallen sicke ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... London—six years ago. But I kept it to myself. I had to do my work under frightful disadvantages. Oliver, my professor, was a scientific bounder, a journalist by instinct, a thief of ideas—he was always prying! And you know the knavish system of the scientific world. I simply would not publish, and let him share my credit. I went on working; I got nearer and nearer making my formula into an experiment, a reality. I told no living soul, because I meant to flash my work upon the world with crushing ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... set on dishes and tasted them, Shaft-mon, handbreadth, Shaw, thicket, Sheef, thrust, Sheer-Thursday, Thursday in Holy Week, Shend, harm, Shenship, disgrace, Shent, undone, blamed, Shour, attack, Shrew, rascal, Shrewd, knavish, Sib, akin to, Sideling, sideways, Siege, seat, Signified, likened, Siker, sure, Sikerness, assurance, Sith, since, Sithen, afterwards, since, Skift, changed, Slade, valley, Slake, glen, Soil (to go to), hunting term for taking the water, ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... name of neither criminal was once mentioned; and Nick was compelled to infer that Venner might indeed be entirely ignorant of their true identity and knavish character. ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... did not, unhappily, delay the progress of my uncle to that destruction to which his silly wife and knavish lawyer had destined him. His business was brought before the court by the claimants, Messrs. Banks & Tressell; and a brief period only was left him for putting in his answer. When I thought of Julia, I resolved, in spite of all previous difficulties—the ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... Stick him like a pig! You three can do it, if he is so big!" Unwilling, yet the knights went out to try, And light-of-love GAWAIN came riding by. "What ho!" he cried, "I'm in, if that fight's free; So here I come-ye knavish cowards three!" "For me," PELLEAS cried, "the fight she means," And charging, knocked them into smithereens. Now called she other knights, and cried out, "Once Again go bind and bring me here that dunce!" And when he heard, he let himself ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various
... that it seemed as though she was routing Robin from his first sleep. Then she sang a French song in a childish voice (she thought it was a backfisch song); but I think it was anything but that, for I noticed some Scandi-knavish glances between the Danish and Swedish Ministers, which made ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... They were met by one Melanthius a goatherd, who covered them with insults. "In truth one churl is leading another, for the god ever bringeth like to like. Whither art thou taking this glutton, this evil pauper, a kill-joy of the feast? He hath learned many a knavish trick and is like to refuse to labour; creeping among the people he would rather ask alms to fill his insatiate maw." Leaping on Odysseus, he kicked at him, yet failed to stir him from the pathway. Swallowing the insult Odysseus walked towards his house. A superb stroke of art has created the next ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb |
