"Sinister" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mediterranean. Dark of complexion, short and broad, some of them wore earrings, and, without exception, they carried dirks and now and then both pistols and dirks in their belts. He sought among them for the face of one who might be a friend, but found none. They were all hardened and sinister, and he believed that at the best they were smugglers, ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... another class of peripatetic philosophers—half pedler, half mendicant—who were in the habit of visiting us. One we recollect, a lame, unshaven, sinister-eyed, unwholesome fellow, with his basket of old newspapers and pamphlets, and his tattered blue umbrella, serving rather as a walking staff than as a protection from the rain. He told us on one occasion, in answer to our inquiring into the cause of his ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... on another ground, and deny that he gives us any solution at all. Thus, for instance, Mr. Darwin builds a most ingenious argument on the tendency of the young of the horse, ass, zebra, and quagga, to bear on their shoulders and on their legs certain barred stripes. Up these bars (bars sinister, as we think, as to any true descent of existing animals from their fancied prototype) he mounts through his "thousands and thousands of generations," to the existence of his "common parent, otherwise perhaps very differently ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... temper, Mulcahy was usually disliked by those with whom he came in contact. But he attracted me very strongly. Aged, I should say, about forty five yellow-bearded, exceedingly handsome, strong, and tall there was, nevertheless, a suggestion of something sinister about him. To me he unbent ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... generally, and the name of Pius IX was branded with censure, not by laymen only, but by some bishops and high ecclesiastics. Monsignor Viale, nuncio at Vienna, and Monsignor Sacconi, nuncio at Munich, were assiduous and eager in detailing the sinister reports touching Rome and the Pope, and colored them in such a way as to create an apprehension of schism, the most serious one that could rise for a pope—and that pope, too, Pius IX. He had before this ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... the candor of real remorse, was by no means yet aware how very bad it was. For six months coming, partly as existing facts better disclosed themselves, as France, Saxony and others showed what spirit they were of; partly as new sinister events and facts arrived one after the other,—his outlook continued to darken and darken, till it had become very dark indeed. There is perennially the great comfort, immense if you can manage it, of making front against misfortune; of looking it frankly in the face, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... wisdom, lieutenant," he answered, smiling at her enthusiasm. "We don't know how long this siege is going to last. If it should set in to snow, we may be here several days before the relief-party reaches us." But, though he spoke cheerfully, he was aware of sinister possibilities in the situation. "Several weeks" would have been nearer his ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... barked Gourlay, in lordly and pursuing scorn, and the fellow leapt where he walked as the cry went through him. To break a man's spirit so, take that from him which he will never recover while he lives, send him slinking away animo castrato—for that is what it comes to—is a sinister outrage of the world. It is as bad as the rape of a woman, and ranks with the sin against the Holy Ghost—derives from it, indeed. Yet it was this outrage that Gourlay meant to work upon his son. He would work him down and down, this son of his, till he was less than a man, a frightened, ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... that our poor little craft must go to the bottom; it seemed like a chip on the ocean contending against the powers of the Almighty. It seemed as if, agreeably to Indian fable, Ishkwondameka himself was raising a tempest mountain high for some sinister purposes of his own. But, owing to the skill of the old lake mariner, we eventually triumphed. He never faltered in the darkest exigency. For a day and night he struggled against the elements, and finally entered the straits at Fort Gratiot, ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... disorganized in a great measure by the length and 20 severity of the march, made it probable that, with a little time for negotiation, a more conciliatory tone would have been assumed. But, unhappily for all parties, sinister events occurred in the meantime such as effectually put an end to every hope of ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... glance, and perceived behind the projecting carved lattice-work of one of the windows a dark, wrinkled face and two gleaming eyes which, even at that distance, had, or appeared to have, a somewhat sinister expression. ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... half-sinister, ironical way, for between him and Captain Halby's Riders of the Plains there was no good feeling. More than once he had come into conflict with them, more than once had they laid their hands on him—and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... master remained unmoved. The sinister look in the eyes, the doggedness of the face did not change. He stared at them; then he shouted in frenzy: 'You lie! You want my money! Everybody wants it! Everybody loves it! There isn't an honest man in the world! All are thieves! ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... the same colour as the hair, carefully trimmed, added to the grand and masculine beauty of the countenance, in which the only blemish was the peculiarity of one eyebrow being somewhat higher than the other [226], which gave something more sinister to his frown, something more arch to his smile. For, quick of impulse, the Poet-Titan smiled ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to take no interest in him, which was perhaps worse. As for the Empress, there was little concealment in respect to her extreme unpopularity. Rasputin I never heard mentioned by a Russian in Russia; but one knew all about that sinister figure ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... To look into them was like coming suddenly through dusky woods to a lonely mountain tarn, lying fathomless and icy beneath a moonlit sky. Gregory was aware, as if newly and more strongly than before, of how ambiguous was her beauty, how sinister ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... the reforms which it witnessed were destined to make it, no reign ever commenced with more sinister omens than that at which we have now arrived. The new King had not been on the throne a month, when a conspiracy was discovered, surpassing in its treasonable atrocity any that had been heard of in the kingdom since the days of the Gunpowder ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... I should give up in despair. Remember us in your prayers, that we grow not weary in well-doing. It is hard to work for years with pure motives, and all the time be looked on by most of those to whom our lives are devoted, as having some sinister object in view. Disinterested labor—benevolence—is so out of their line of thought, that many look upon us as having some ulterior object in view. But He who died for us, and whom we ought to copy, did more for us than we can do for any one else. He endured the contradiction of sinners. May ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... 1521] Wolsey himself, biassed perhaps by his ambition for the tiara, labored to suppress the heresy. Most important of all, Sir Thomas More was promptly and decisively alienated. {283} It was More, according to Henry VIII, who "by subtle, sinister slights unnaturally procured and provoked him" to write against the heretic. His Defence of the Seven Sacraments, in reply to the Babylonian Captivity, though an extremely poor work, was greeted, on its appearance, ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... to make up, and it was touching that in a dinnerless state her moral passion should have burned so clear. She partook largely as a refuge from depression, and yet the opportunity to partake was just a mark of the sinister symptoms that depressed her. The affair was in short a combat, in which the baser element triumphed, between her refusal to be bought off and her consent to be clothed and fed. It was not at any rate to be gainsaid that there was comfort for her in the developments of France; comfort ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... treasure went about with her head on her shoulders, as if it had been temporarily placed in her keeping, and were something she was not at all used to taking care of. More than once Mrs. Elmore had to warn her against sinister accidents. "Remember, Lily," she said, "that if anything did happen, NOTHING could be done to save you!" In spite of himself Elmore shared these anxieties, and in the depths of his wonted studies he found himself pursued and harassed by vague apprehensions, ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... although he strained his ears to hear something further. To him that canoe speeding through the night, and the words he had overheard, had a sinister meaning. That it was Seth Lupin to whom reference had been made, there could be no doubt. So the villain was still lurking around. What were the plans he was looking after? Had they anything to do with Jean? He believed they had, and the thought caused him to give the canoe a ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... pains to prove it purely an act of religious persecution having no concern with politics. Those who adopt the latter point of view insist that the affair was long premeditated, that it had its source in something concerted some seven years earlier between Catherine of Medicis and the sinister Duke of Alva. And they would seem to suggest that Henry of Navarre, the nominal head of the Protestant party, was brought to Paris to wed Marguerite de Valois merely so that by this means the Protestant nobles of the kingdom, coming to the capital for the wedding, ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... the new Caliph, after morning prayers, had assumed his seat on the Imperial divan, he commanded Giafer to be brought before him. Then, with a sinister smile, he demanded of the prisoner, "Where is the most illustrious Caliph Haroun Alraschid? Say, Giafer, what hast thou done ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... speech a sinister smile overspreads his pale features, and a quick light, as evil as it is piercing, comes into his eyes. But Sir Adrian sees nothing of this. He is looking at his home, as it stands grand and majestic in the red light of the dying sun. He is looking, too, at the old tower, and at the upper portion ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... was blamed. Ugly names were flung at him before he was old enough to know their dark and sinister meaning. He was forbidden to go to the big house of his father before he knew why he was not allowed to go. He was excluded from the games of those more fortunately born than he, when he could no more understand why he was excluded than he could keep back the bitter tears of childish disappointment. ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... cloisters, echoing shadows leered at them. The wall of the V. A green rose dark and sinister. At last breathless among the tombstones by the Abbey they slipped on their boots, turned up coat collars and drew their caps over ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... at the neck of the point and a moment later a body of men came into view. As they clambered over the barricade, Charley counted them. They were twelve in number, one of them an Indian, his face disfigured by a long scar that gave to it a sinister, malignant expression. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... round the sunlit fields and up at the clear sky. But their thoughts are not of the beauties of the peaceful landscape. The words of the General are the key to all their thoughts. For them the promise of spring is a grim and a sinister thing; to them the springy green turf carpet on the fields means ground fit to bear the weight of teams and guns, dry enough to give firm foothold to the ranks of infantry charging across the death-trap of the neutral ground, where clogging, wet, ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... day was showery, with occasional drenching plumps. We were soaked to the skin, then partially dried in the sun, then soaked once more. But there were some calm intervals, and one notably, when we were skirting the forest of Mormal, a sinister name to the ear, but a place most gratifying to sight and smell. It looked solemn along the river-side, drooping its boughs into the water, and piling them up aloft into a wall of leaves. What is a forest but a city of nature's own, full of hardy and innocuous living ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... side of his face, from temple to chin, was drawn and fastened a black cloth; the unharmed cheek was bloodless and shrunken, the lip twisted. Only the eyes, dark, sinister, and splendid, were as they had been. "I dig not my graves deep enough," he said. "Is she behind you there in ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... had in the laws of their country, and how they came by it, so as to enable them to decide the properties of their fellow-subjects in the last resort? Whether they were always so free from avarice, partialities, or want, that a bribe or some other sinister view could have no place among them? Whether those holy lords I spoke of were always promoted to that rank upon account of their knowledge in religious matters and the sanctity of their lives; had never been ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... silence. He was completely cut off. Even the lights of the house were hidden from him. He had turned about so many times that he did not even know in which direction it lay. Coupled with the effect of what had happened in the house, the influence of this tortuous garden was sinister and unnerving. In the lightning flashes, now more vivid and frequent, he tried in vain to determine his position. He wandered about, trying path after path, doubling back on his own tracks—only to find himself more ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... of relief, lowered his weapon and looked questioningly at his brother. The shadow of the log cabin was upon him, making more sinister his uncouth attire, and his lean vindictive face under the huge Mexican hat. Gledware, not daring to move, kept his eyes fixed on that deep gloom out of which at any moment might spurt forth the red flash of death. From within the cabin came loud ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... sinister-looking old pair of cut-throats in the parish," returned Austin. "I should be sorry to meet them on a lonely road on a dark night, I know that. But really, auntie, I do wish you'd think better of all this. We're quite happy alone; what ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... appearance, combined with a sort of human expression in his countenance, undoubtedly caused him to be selected by the ancients as the emblem of wisdom. The moderns have practically renounced this idea, which had no foundation in the real character of the bird, who possesses only the sly and sinister traits that mark the feline race. A very different train of associations and a new series of picturesque images are now suggested by the figure of the Owl, who has been portrayed more correctly by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... trenches this limitless porridge of mud. Cr-r-r-ump! go the crumps searching out a battery. But oh the woods—the poor scarecrow woods. I was in a famous wood that looked positively devilish in its sinister nakedness. And it's September, too, when woods are so often at their loveliest. Not a leaf—not one single leaf; and, instead of undergrowth, just tossed earth, fuses, a boot, a coat, some wire, and above-ground ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... on the rostrum, a heroic figure pitted, as it were, against all the sinister forces that bore from within, ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... very exquisitely fashioned to imitate reality. Its prevailing darkness had prevented the truth from appearing, and yet, perfect though it was in lustre and pigment, the false thing had given to Pendean's expression a quality that never failed to disturb Peter. It was not sinister, yet he remembered no such cast of countenance within ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... It was the sinister iteration by which he was stricken, rather than the news itself. The latter only stunned. His hand in his father's, he went up the walk and into the house. There were women inside, women who moved with an effect of bustling stillness, the same ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... Republic. Excitement was carried to such a point that in many places the people complained that they were not permitted to arm against the French. The Austrian generals industriously circulated the most sinister reports respecting the armies of the Sombre-et-Meuse and the Rhine, and the position of the French troops in the Tyrol. These impostures, printed in bulletins, were well calculated to instigate the Italians, and especially the Venetians, to rise in mass to exterminate ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... In all its great shadow there was no sign of light save from a single window, and no sound came from it. To me there was something awful in its size and its silence, which corresponded so well with its sinister name. My companion pressed on eagerly, and I followed him along the ill-kept path which led to ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the Austrian calculations respecting a separate peace. But Austria could not possibly hope to deceive free Russia or the Allies and lure them into concluding a premature peace if the reign of terrorism and absolutism still prevailed in the Dual Monarchy. For this reason Tisza, with his sinister reputation, was forced to go, and the Reichsrat was convened. Austria based her plans on the ignorance of some Allied politicians who really believed in the "new orientation" of the Vienna Government because of the Bohemian names (not sympathies) of Clam-Martinic ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... sinister design in the attempt to demonstrate my inconsistency upon a question of constitutional law. I do not assume the existence of personal hostility. An end would be answered if you and others could be induced to believe that in ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... has never satisfied me, and there is more ferocity than sadness in the countenance, which would serve quite as well for one of the Erinney hunting Orestes, even in the adytum at Delphi. The face is more sinister than sorrowful." ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... terrible than these. And the padding footsteps that followed, hurrying when she hurried and slackening when she went more slowly, and stopping dead when she paused and looked round, conveyed to her a haunting sense of something sinister, and at the same time greedy and guileful, that ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... What do ye think o' that, ey?" said the sportsman—levelling his gun, throwing back his head, closing his sinister ocular, and stretching out his legs after the manner of the Colossus of Rhodes—"Don't ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... musical possibilities. He saw, in orchestral terms, the sodden revelry in that staid house—with its endless cellars of Burgundy. He saw the tight-drawn terror in the girl's room where she lay in bed. He saw the room lighted fitfully by the play of searchlights over the city; the sinister entrance from a little balcony through the French widow, of the officer in uniform, his shadow flung ahead of him by the beam of the searchlight. He saw the man, blood—as well as wine—drunk, garrulous and fanatic ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... the man. "I never seen a dog yet that was worth that money, did you?" And dog and persecutor disappeared together within a sinister-looking basement door. ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... An awful and sinister smile gleamed on the countenances of her unearthly audience, and seemed to glide visibly from underneath ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... of that sunrise! It was terrific; it was sickening; my senses swam. Sunlit billows smooth and sinister, without a crest, without a sound; miles and miles of them as I rose; an oily grave among them as I fell. Hill after hill of horror, valley after valley of despair! The face of the waters in petty but eternal unrest; and now the sun must shine to set it smiling, to show me its ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... in his eye and a something sinister in the tone as he said it; but the words were hearty, and Colonel John made no demur. And Darby, entering at that moment with a pair of lights in tall candlesticks—which were silver, but might have been copper—caused a welcome interruption. ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... desire this hideous war or wish that we should be drawn into it; and we are vaguely conscious that we are fighting their cause, as they will some day see it, as well as our own. They are themselves in the grip of the same sinister power that has now at last stretched its ugly talons out and drawn blood from us. The whole world is at war because the whole world is in the grip of that power and is trying out the great battle which shall determine whether ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... most of the day in a chak dive, juggling plans. Toys, innocent and sinister. Spies, messengers. Toys which killed horribly. Toys which could be controlled, perhaps, by the pliant mind of a child, and every child hates its ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... Acquasparta nor Casale, whence Of those, who come to meddle with the text, One stretches and another cramps its rule. Bonaventura's life in me behold, From Bagnororegio, one, who in discharge Of my great offices still laid aside All sinister aim. Illuminato here, And Agostino join me: two they were, Among the first of those barefooted meek ones, Who sought God's friendship in the cord: with them Hugues of Saint Victor, Pietro Mangiadore, And he of Spain ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... issued. When you look at it, however long it may be since you were afraid of phantoms, you feel a confused reawakening dread. Such were the subjects of all his pictures—the tortures of the accursed, spectres, fiery chasms, dragons, uncanny birds, loathsome monsters, diabolical kitchens, sinister landscapes. One of these frightful pictures was found in the cell where Philip II. died; others are scattered throughout Spain and Italy. Who was this chimerical painter? How did he live? What strange mania tormented him? No one knows; he ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... curious and frightened at once, six beautiful animals came towards him. He was one of their kind, so they came close; the scent of the wilderness was already on him, and they shrank away. Surely some sinister genius had directed Alcatraz to the one most valuable point of attack on all the ranch, for these were the six brood mares for whose purchase Marianne Jordan had cleaned out her bank account. The stallion ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... as he looked at her. What sinister change came over her when her will was crossed? She seemed to grow inaccessible, implacable—her eyes were like the eyes of ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... never once speaks of the prisoners. Hamilton, it is true, does say "The prisoners were ordered to be let out of irons," but another account, ascribed to Lieutenant Corner, second lieutenant of the Pandora, throws a sinister light on this part of the narrative. "Three of the Bounty's people, Coleman, Norman, and M'Intosh, were now let out of irons, and sent to work at the pumps. The others offered their assistance, and begged to be allowed a chance of saving their lives; ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... wrong, and true and false, at will Could turn and change, employ'd his fruitless pain To reconcile the fierce, contending train: But, ever as he toil'd, the raging pest Of pride, as knowledge grew, with equal speed increased. Then Epicurus, of sinister fame, Rebellious to the lord of nature, came; Who studied to deprive the soaring soul Of her bright world of hope beyond the pole; A mole-ey'd race their hapless guide pursued, And blindly still the vain assault renew'd. Dark Metrodorus next sustain'd the cause, With ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... with a black cross. Very disconcerting, that black cross! It is different not only in colour, but in shape, from the other crosses. Sinister! You need not to be told that the body of a German lies beneath it. The whole devilishness of the Prussian ideal is expressed in that black cross. Then, as the road curves, you see more black crosses, many black crosses, very many. No flags, ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... happy or miserable. All these important ideas were at once evoked in the mind of Maulear by the last sentence Signora Rovero had uttered. It was this hidden and sombre apparition which arose between Maulear and her he loved, the sinister aspect of which was reflected in a manner by the expression ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... which would shake, she called out to the dog; and then there was a sudden silence which was almost more sinister. She had laid her hand on the Airedale's collar at the sound of his first bark; but feeling really nervous now, she was just about to let him go when there was a half-apologetic cough from the bushes behind her, and a voice she ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... "Yeah?" Tim's tone was sinister. "Say, Cap, gimme the room next that guy. And if ye hear anybody yowlin' before mornin' don't git worried. ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... environments. Wilson was the one man amongst us who profited most from our sojourn here. In spite of bad light and almost frozen fingers he managed to make an astonishing collection of sketches, portraying the autumn scenes near this corner of Ross Isle. How sinister and relentless the western mountains looked, how cold and unforgiving the foothills, and how ashy gray the sullen icefoots that girt ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... in the plaza. Occasionally the taciturn Indian unbent when sitting by the great bonfire in the open at night, and told wild tales of savage life before the padres came. Roldan admired his splendid supple body and fearless manhood, but the Indian was too sinister to inspire affection. Adan was loudly bored. Roldan's ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... the supposed gambols of the two men with keen, but impersonal, interest. But here at last was something he could understand. Instinct teaches practically every dog the sinister nature of a thrown object. The man on the ground had hurled something at the man whom the collie had begun to love. That meant warfare. To the canine mind it ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... N. sinistrality[obs3]; left, left hand, a gauche; sinister, nearside[obs3], larboard, port. Adj. left-handed; sinister; sinistral, sinistrorsal[obs3], sinistrorse[obs3], sinistrous[obs3]; Pref. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... and they moved on, the girl still clinging to him and sobbing at intervals. Before a dark three-story and basement building, with a decidedly sinister aspect, she stopped and indicated ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... contemplated any war of aggression against any of our neighbors, and therefore we never raised an army adequate to such sinister purposes. During the last thirty years the two great political parties in the State have been responsible for the policy of this country at home and abroad. For about the same period we have each been governing this country. For about fifteen years neither ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... activity about Morris's. In the summer it impressed you with its look of cheapness. In the winter, squatted by the cold water amidst its huddle of unpainted outhouses, at the end of a stretch of desolate beach, the fancy gave Morris's a touch of the sinister. ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... The sinister aspect of things never appealed to Frank, and he was vastly amused at the idea of the pauper Mercury, and had begun to turn the subject over, seeing how he could use it for a queer story for the Pilgrim. But time soon grew horribly long, and to kill it he volunteered to act as ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... of the volunteer dealers, and after haunting the Chevaliers' stables for several weeks, my friend found that not money alone was needed to buy a horse. The affair began to wear a sinister aspect. He had an uneasy fear that in several cases he had refused the very horse he wanted with the aplomb he had acquired in dismissing undesirable beasts. The fact was he knew less about horses than when he began to buy, while he had indefinitely enlarged his idle knowledge of men, of ...
— Buying a Horse • William Dean Howells
... Fleur-de-Marie to Paris; he returned home, to send an express to the farm at Bouqueval. The moment he entered the Rue de Plumet, he saw a postchaise stop before the door of the hotel; it was Murphy, who had just returned from Normandy. The squire had gone there, as we have stated, to unmask the sinister projects of the step-mother of Madame d'Harville, and ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... 1833. He had no authority, and was not backed by any force. He was aptly nicknamed "a man-of-war without guns." He presented the local chiefs with a national flag. Stars and stripes appeared in the design which the chiefs selected, thanks, says tradition, to the sinister suggestion of a Yankee whaling-skipper. H.M.S. Alligator signalised the hoisting of the ensign with a salute of twenty-one guns. After this impressive solemnity, Mr. Busby lived at the bay for six years. ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... cunning, than either, despises and dupes them all. At a moment when the Convention had fallen into increased contempt, and when the public affairs could no longer be conducted by fabricators of reports and framers of decrees, the talents of this sinister politician became necessary; yet he enjoys neither the confidence of his colleagues nor that of the people—the vanity and duplicity of his conduct disgust and alarm the first, while his reputation of partizan of the ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... Administration an inestimable opportunity for the noblest exhibition of unwavering firmness, justice, and self-denial. Should there be presented an example of perfect singleness of purpose, with no room for suspicion of sinister objects, or personal ambitions and enmities; should the Administration in all its departments, devote itself exclusively to the sacred work of preserving the nation, regardless of all consequences to individuals or parties, then would the approbation of a grateful people be ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... me further. A few weeks ago the prince summoned me, and I saw on his sinister face and in his flashing eyes that he must have received some unwelcome tidings. He did not make me wait long for the confirmation of my conjectures. With a sharp, cutting voice he asked me what kind of a nephew of mine that was whom I was educating at my palace in Vendee. ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... said what was upon my Spirit for your sake, when, for the satisfaction of such as (through its effect upon your soule) this Addresse of mine may possibly come to, I have religiously declared, that the Person who writ it, had no unworthy or sinister design of his owne to gratifie, much lesse any other party whatever; as being neither Courtier, Souldier, or Church-man, but a plain Country Gentleman, engag'd on neither side, who, has had leisure, (through ...
— An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661) • John Evelyn
... sculls in the water, one of which was six inches longer than the other, made a desperate effort, and got his craft fairly afloat. Now, Michael O'Hearn was not left-handed, and, as usually happens with such men, the inequality between the two limbs was quite marked. By a sinister accident, too, it happened that the longest oar got into the strongest hand, and there it would have staid to the end of time; before Mike would think of changing it, on that account. Joel, alone, sat with his face towards the head of the lake, and he alone could see the ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... the Rabbi, theretofore open and friendly, became lowering and sinister, and he cleared his throat with a growl instead of ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... in this form it ultimately became the supreme central power. It was not until after the revolt of Lyons that the Committee, exchanging Danton's influence for that of Robespierre, adopted the principle of Terror which has made the memory of their rule one of the most sinister in history. Their authority steadily increased. The members divided among themselves the great branches of government. One directed the army, another the navy, another foreign affairs; the signature of three members practically gave to any measure the force ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... in my madness, to seek out the source Of the redolent river—directed By some supernatural, sinister force To a forest, dark, ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... forget the "pride, pomp, and circumstance" of greatness, and to be that only which he is himself. He desires at length to be sure, that he receives no adulation, that he is accosted with no insincerity, and that the individual to whose society he has thought proper to withdraw, has no by-ends, no sinister purposes in all his thoughts. What he seeks for, is a true friend, a being who sincerely loves, one who is attached to him, not for the accidents that attend him, but for what most strictly belongs to him, and of which he cannot be divested. ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... think she found any sinister interpretation in his words, but I did, and if ever I wanted to protest it was then, but my voice seemed to ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... had refused all offerings of money, and her whole visit had evidently been made under an overflow of the most grateful feelings for the attentions shown to her child. We acquitted her, therefore, of sinister intentions; and with our feelings of jealousy, feelings in which we had been educated, towards everything that tended to superstition, we soon agreed to think her some gentle maniac or sad enthusiast, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... the genial ship captain. But today he was silent and abstracted. Those who knew him could see that he hearkened close to every syllable, and seemed to ponder and try it in balances. It would have been hard to say what look there was, cold, attentive, and sinister, as of a man maturing plans, which still brooded over the unconscious guest; it was here, it was there, it was nowhere; it was now so little that Herrick chid himself for an idle fancy; and anon it was so gross and palpable that you could say every hair on ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... there is also that same sinister canal which leads from the Marne to the Rhine, the Rhine to the Marne. The name has a wicked sound in these days—Rhine-Marne; and at Vitry-le-Francois of all places. The men from over the Rhine destroyed as much as they ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... cases, like the one now before the court, there is felt an assurance of the impotence of such a pretension; still, the fullest conviction of that result can impart to it no claim to forbearance, nor dispense with the duty of antipathy and disgust at its sinister aspect, whenever it may be seen to scowl upon the justice, the order, the tranquillity, and fraternal feeling, which are the surest, nay, the only means, of promoting or preserving the happiness and prosperity of the ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard
... divinity? If the word is at best a confusion and at worst a war-whoop, should we not try to dispense with it, to avoid it, to find a substitute which should more accurately, if less truculently, express our idea? Is it wise or kind to seek to impose on the future an endless struggle with its sinister ambiguities? ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... virtually ignored by the other two, yet linked with them in a sort of casual camaraderie that was somehow established when she accepted the cocktail. Out of all that followed, no incident remained for her so sinister and at the same time so paradoxically trivial and absurd as this chance gathering ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... at the drive gates of a good-sized house standing well back from the road. It looked black and sinister in the dusk, and I couldn't help feeling, you know, like one of those Johnnies you read about in stories who are lured to lonely houses for rummy purposes and hear a shriek just as they get there. Elizabeth knew me well enough to know that a specially good golf course was a safe ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... if they had attempted to force an entrance would have been excommunicated, for until the suppression no woman's foot was allowed across this threshold. The tower was built as a protection against bandits, and the grated windows which give it a sinister look to-day lighted the cells of refractory brothers, placed here to catch the eye of novices as they entered the outer portal and serve as a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... she now saw, was hatless, leered up at her, and something in his sinister eyes made the girl quail. She had been so quiet that he apparently was not prepared for any sudden movement. Her right hand, hanging down at her side, had grasped the short riding whip, and, with a swiftness ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... came in the first crowd was Mr Monckton, who, had he been equally unconscious of sinister views, would in following his own inclination, have been as early in his attendance as Mr Morrice; but who, to obviate all suspicious remarks, conformed to the fashionable tardiness of ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... went on at intervals, low and sullenly, and their suspicions became a certainty. The sinister gentleman in cinder gray roused himself. "Is there a constable here?" he asked, in thick tones. "If so, ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... gaping multitude. Party was to be totally done away, with all its evil works. Corruption was to be cast down from Court, as Ate was from heaven. Power was thenceforward to be the chosen residence of public spirit; and no one was to be supposed under any sinister influence, except those who had the misfortune to be in disgrace at Court, which was to stand in lieu of all vices and all corruptions. A scheme of perfection to be realised in a Monarchy, far beyond the visionary Republic of Plato. The whole ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... "until Francis is shipped off to America or landed safely in a madhouse. One seems to me about as likely as another. I wonder whether he was drunk to-night, or insane? Drunk, I think: insanity"—with a sinister smile—"would be too great a stroke of ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... could be done. Blizzard and snow, snow and blizzard, sudden lulls and fierce returns. During the lulls we could see on the far horizon to the north-east bergs of all shapes and sizes driving along before the gale, and the sinister appearance of the swift-moving masses made us thankful indeed that, instead of battling with the storm amid the ice, we were required only to face the drift from the glaciers and the inland heights. The gusts might throw us off our feet, but at least ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... our history, the last of whom, Edmund, Earl of Suffolk, lost his head for treason when I was young, and the castle passed to the De la Poles with her. But some offshoots of the old Wingfield stock lingered in the neighbourhood, perchance there was a bar sinister on their coat of arms, I know not and do not care to know; at the least my fathers and I are of this blood. My grandfather was a shrewd man, more of a yeoman than a squire, though his birth was gentle. He it was who bought this place with the lands round it, and gathered ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... But its sinister, defiant, menacing quality was lost on Ranny. He said to himself: "She's rattled, poor girl; and she's worried. That's why ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... towards Guise's gentlemen. De Noyard, grave and reserved, stood a little apart from the others. For an instant, a look of profound displeasure, a deeply sinister look, interrupted ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... waiting for them, wrapped to his chin in a crimson poncho, and smoking a cigarette. He was a dark-faced, somewhat sinister-looking fellow, and he gave ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... old man you are!" cried Betty, involuntarily, shrinking from the sinister face that grinned malevolently into hers. "You have no right to ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... through the crowd, breaking in many places into ostentatious guffaws. To those who knew the underside of those meetings, the mild request appeared so ineffectual as to be merely ridiculous. The honorable chairman, on the stage, hid a sinister smile behind ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... under discussion, examples for which could easily be provided from the domestic animals, were put side by side with later passages in the book, such, for instance, as statements of fact as to the behaviour of severed nerves under irritation. A sinister inference was drawn from this combination, and published as fact without further verification. Of this he remarks emphatically in his address on "Elementary Instruction in Physiology," 1877 ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... reckless, the most prodigal, the most criminal, were readily drawn into the circle of Catiline's associates; in such a circle those who were not already utterly depraved very soon became so under the sinister and seductive influence of their leader. This man, who in the pursuit of his own vices had done his own son to death, did not hesitate to encourage his pupils in every species of crime; and with such allies, and the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... the arm. "Well, come along, my pretty lady! This'll make a stir, this will! The White Moll!" He led her to the electric-light switch, turned off the light, and, with his grasp tight upon her, made for the front door. He chuckled in a sinister manner. "Say, you're a prize, you are! And pretty clever, too, aren't you? I wasn't looking for a woman to pull this. The White Moll! ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... well, and went on until he reached the Champs des Alouettes. Then, with a sigh of satisfaction, he halted before a large, three-storied house, standing on a piece of ground surrounded by a mouldering wooden fence. The aspect of the house had something sinister and gloomy about it, and for a moment Tantaine paused as if he could not make up his mind to enter it; but at last he did so. The interior was as dingy and dilapidated as the outside. There were two rooms on the ground floor, ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... the traitors in our midst—the sinister cabal of pinko liberals and moderate conservatives ...
— Telempathy • Vance Simonds
... remembered seeing present at the great table on the dais, besides the usual red-faced generals and whiskered admirals, simpering statesmen, and his dearly loved friend, Michael Rossiter—representing Science,—a more sinister face. This was the well-known philanthropist and race-horse breeder, Sir George Crofts, Bart., M.P. for a Norfolk borough. Their eyes met, curiously interlocked for a moment. Sir George wondered to himself where the dooce he had seen that, type of face before, those grey eyes with the ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... was sure to hand them over to the tender mercies of his brother, who had all his faults, and some, in addition, of his own, without any of his merits. There was but one hope, and that turned out a mere aurora borealis, connected with the Duke of Monmouth, who, through his extraction by a bend sinister from Charles, as well as through his popular manners, Protestant principles, and gracious exterior, had become such a favourite with the people, that strong efforts were made to exclude the Duke of York, and to exalt him to the succession. These, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... black moustache and snapping black eyes. He carried a cane. I always associated canes with villains. Whereupon I arose, groped for the matches, lighted the gas, and gazing at myself in the mirror was a little reassured to find nothing sinister in my countenance.... ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... not so much to the satisfaction of his defenders as of his accusers. However, he has become reconciled to myself and Milo. Drusus has had notice of prosecution by Lucretius. The 3rd of July is the day fixed for challenging his jurors. About Procilius[603] there are sinister rumours—but you know what the courts are. Hirrus is on good terms with Domitius.[604] The senatorial decree which the present consuls have carried about the provinces—"whoever henceforth, etc."—does not seem to me likely ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... he thus meditated, from out the dazzle as of mirage, a single figure grew into force and distinctness of outline, a figure which from his childhood had appealed to him with an attraction at once sinister and heroic—that, namely, of a certain soldier and ex-Indian official, his kinsman, to pay a politic tribute of respect to whom was the object of his ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... arrived and took their seats around us. We shook hands, and for some minutes there was a dead silence. Then the Rajah asked what we wanted; to which Mr. Ross replied by endeavouring to make them understand who we were, and why we had come, and that we had no sinister intentions whatever; and that we had not brought a letter from the "Anak Agong," merely because we had thought it quite unnecessary. A long conversation in the Bali language then took place, and questions ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... when Don Felipe Belvidero laid his father's body upon the table. He kissed the sinister brow and the gray hair; then ...
— The Elixir of Life • Honore de Balzac
... met old Marguerite on her way to Lucille's apartments. He signed to her to follow him, and entered a chamber there. She perceived the unmistakable traces of angry excitement in his face—always sinister in an old man, but in one so powerful, and about whom she had heard so many dark rumors, full of vague terrors. As soon as he had closed the door, he ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... variable humour changed again. With a low groan of misery, she threw herself back in the cab. Lost in her own dark thoughts, as careless of the woman whom she had bent to her iron will as if no such person sat by her side, she preserved a sinister silence, until they reached the house where Miss Lockwood lodged. In an instant, she roused herself to action. She opened the door of the cab, and closed it again on Mrs. Ferrari, before the driver could ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... think we all three feared Franz Polter. There was always something sinister about him, that had nothing to do ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings
... be used, the bands, instead of being straight, will cross the spectrum diagonally, the direction of the diagonal (dexter or sinister) being determined by the position of the thicker end of the wedge. If two similar wedges be used with their thickest ends together, they will act as a wedge whose angle and whose thickness is double of the first. If they be placed in the reverse position they will act as a flat plate, ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... for ornamentation: a suit of armour, a gloomy candlestick of prodigious stature, and a thin Italian cabinet surmounted by an urn whose unexposed contents might readily have suggested something more sinister than the dust of antiquity. The door to the library was open. Fitful red shadows flashed dully from the fireplace across the room, creeping out into the hall and then darting back again as if afraid to venture. The waning sunlight struggled through a curtained window at the top of the stairs. ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... enough for two, and never that to walk upon, so far as anybody had ever noticed. Such an old fellow would outline himself against the yellow loneliness, like a lump of pessimistic philosopher impaled on the end of his own hobbling crutch. Tarpons and sharks and sword-fish, monstrous, sinister, moved slothfully in the viscid waters. From scrubby growth on the banks a hundred or a hundred thousand crows had much ado with rebuking the invaders ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... of Lincoln's Cabinet for the purpose of embodying certain forces that were antagonistic to the President. This was a dramatic necessity, and I chose rather to invent a character for the purpose than to invest any single known personage with sinister qualities about which ...
— Abraham Lincoln • John Drinkwater
... of Pisidia, (Acroas. i. 112—125, p. 5,) who states the opinions, acquits the pusillanimous counsellors of any sinister views. Would he have excused the proud ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... allowed him such abundant time; I thought he might have had an apoplectic fit. I looked through the key-hole; but the door opening into an odd corner of the room, the key-hole prospect was but a crooked and sinister one. I could only see part of the foot-board of the bed and a line of the wall, but nothing more. I was surprised to behold resting against the wall the wooden shaft of Queequeg's harpoon, which the landlady the evening previous had taken from him, before ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... attended all of Nimrod's undertakings produced a sinister effect. Men no longer trusted in God, but rather in their own prowess and ability,[84] an attitude to which Nimrod tried to convert the whole world.[85] Therefore people said, "Since the creation of the world there has been none like Nimrod, a mighty hunter of men and beasts, ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... the sinister remark of Helm had completely unmanned him before his men fell. Now it rushed upon him that if he would escape the wrath of the maddened creoles and the vengeance of Alice's lover, he must quickly throw himself upon the mercy of Clark. It was his only hope. He chafed ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... silence when he had said that, a silence that seemed to Randall's strained mind to have become suddenly tense, sinister. The great triple-bodied creature before them considered them again, its eyes moving over them, and when it again spoke the hissing ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... saw sinister things afoot in the Pentagon. Senator Herman E. Talmadge of Georgia thought he recognized a return to the military districting of Reconstruction days, and Congressman F. Edward Hebert of Louisiana warned that "everybody should be prepared for ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... likeness of a science, and allies itself with the state. Heresy becomes a crime. The ruler helps the priests to raise a tax for their own comfort, while they repay him by suppressing all seditious opinions. Thus is formed an unholy alliance between the authorities of 'natural religion' and the 'sinister interests of the earth.' The alliance is so complete that it is even more efficient than if it had been openly proclaimed. 'Prostration and plunder of the community is indeed the common end of both' (priests and rulers). ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... be repaired. Bombs have torn holes in the fort roofs, and all that winter the rain leaks in as through a sieve. The soldier volunteers grumble and mope and sicken. And these are not the least of Paul Mascarene's troubles. French priests minister to the Acadian farmers outside the fort, to the sinister Indians ever lying in ambush, to the French bushrovers under young St. Castin across Fundy Bay on St. John River. Not for love or money can Mascarene buy provisions from the Acadians. Not by threats can he compel them to help mend the breaches in the palisades. ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut |
