"Villainous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... better off than was Benjamin Franklin when he entered Philadelphia—for he had two or three dollars in pocket-change, and a ten-dollar bank-bill concealed in the lining of his coat. For a time he sweltered in a villainous mechanics' boarding-house in Duane Street, and worked at starvation wages in the printing-office of Gray & Green. Being recognized one day by a man from Hannibal, he fled to Philadelphia where he worked for some months as a "sub" ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... but beautiful light glowing and then wavering in shadows across the high arched ceiling. A few feet back from the wide high fireplace with its roaring flame were four men playing cards. They sat around a table, and three in appearance were villainous cutthroats, probably Mexicans by their dark visages, swaggeringly armed with knives and revolvers, with gaudy handkerchiefs knotted at ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... and when the tongkong in which they were passengers reached this spot a signal was to be given, and the prahu was to run alongside the tongkong; and after plundering her and gagging the crew, the pirates intended sinking the tongkong and making off in the prahu. They carried their villainous scheme into execution, but meeting with stouter resistance from the crew of the tongkong than they had anticipated, they killed, as they thought, every man on board, and were preparing to scuttle the tong-kong, when a boat containing Indian convicts, and employed in carrying coral ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... spoken of His Majesty as a subject ought to speak of an excellent sovereign, who had been deceived by evil counsellors, and who would be grateful to those who should bring the truth to his knowledge. He vehemently denied that he had called the grant to Lady Orkney villainous. It was a word that he never used, a word that never came out of the mouth of a gentleman. These assertions will be estimated at the proper value by those who are acquainted with Trenchard's pamphlets, pamphlets in which the shocking word villainous will without difficulty ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... thoughts of the gravest. He had for some time perceived the danger of this second revolution from within the first, which might destroy everything that had been done, and give the reins of power to a villainous faction that would plunge the country into anarchy. The thing he had feared was more than ever on the point of taking place. He would go on at once, that very night, and see for himself what ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... heinous crime. And we suspect, we know, and for the welfare of the community we hope to be able soon to point out openly, who and where this vile one is. Yes, only an atheist and anarchist is capable of such villainous mendacity, such unutterable wickedness and treachery. Now, we would especially call upon our readers in Baalbek to be watchful and vigilant, for among them is one, recently come back from America, who ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... was not literally thus, but such was its obvious and only signification. Whether the 'trial' is to take place in New York or Indiana, however, there is but one system commonly adopted in offering proof of the truth of the complaint upon which a divorce is demanded. Plaintiff's villainous attorney, after waiting a due length of time for some response from the defendant in the case(!), asks of the Court, as privately as possible, the ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... a black rage, for he saw that the other was probably right. 'A singer! A catgut-pincher! A villainous low lute-strummer! No, sir, no! A thousand times no! The niece of Michele Pignaver is incapable of demeaning herself with a mountebank, sir! I must ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... meditative puff; "as a matter of fact, I was thinking less of myself than of that poor devil of a Jack Rutter. There's a fellow who does things by halves; he's only half gone to the bad; and look at the difference between him and us! He's under the thumb of a villainous money-lender; we are solvent citizens. He's taken to drink; we're as sober as we are solvent. His pals are beginning to cut him; our difficulty is to keep the pal from the door. Enfin, he begs or borrows, which is stealing by halves; and we steal ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... lines, and in some mysterious way are so disposed of that their masters never hear of them again. It is possible the two saw-bones, who officiate at the hospital, dissect, or desiccate, or boil them in the interest of science, or in the manufacture of the villainous compounds with which they dose us when ill. At any rate, we know that many of these sable creatures, who joined us at Bowling Green and on the road to Nashville, can not now be found. Their masters, following the regiment, made complaint to General Buell, ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... friends. It is becoming every day more necessary to check the excesses of our own people. We cannot send out a party into the country around, but on their return they are dogged at the heels by complaints and accusations. When we march hence, we shall leave a villainous ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... knew to mean—silence. The voices stopped at once, all but Dr. Livesey's; he went on as before, speaking clear and kind, and drawing briskly at his pipe between every word or two. The captain glared at him for a while, flapped his hand again, glared still harder, and at last broke out with a villainous, low oath: "Silence, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Spedella's fencing rooms were fairly thronged with devotees of the ancient art of puncturing. The master of the place was a tall Italian, lank and lean, all bone and muscle, with a Don Quixote visage, barring a certain villainous expression of the eyes, irreconcilable with the chivalrous knight-errant of distressed Dulcineas. But every man with a bad eye is not necessarily a rascallion, and Spedella, perhaps, was better than he looked. With a most melancholy ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... a sensible man who would not allow that there was something in Phrenology. A broad, high forehead, it is commonly agreed, promises intellect; one that is "villainous low," and has a huge hind-head back of it, is wont to mark an animal nature. I have as rarely met an unbiased and sensible man who really believed in the bumps. It is observed, however, that persons with what the phrenologists call "good heads" ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... come from? And where are you are going? And how did you come to be out of grub?" asked Connie, when 'Merican Joe had lighted a villainous looking black pipe. ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... Emperor!" exclaimed Elbegast fervently, raising his helmet. "My life is at his service." Charlemagne greeted the knight affectionately and asked what he had to tell concerning the conspiracy, whereupon Sir Elbegast fearlessly denounced the villainous Eggerich, and said he, "I am ready to prove my assertions upon his body." The challenge was accepted, and at daybreak the following morning a fierce combat took place. The issue, however, was never in doubt: Sir Elbegast ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... a short, heavily-built fellow, clad in rags, and had as villainous a face as any they ...
— The Bradys Beyond Their Depth - The Great Swamp Mystery • Anonymous
... of his glass as he took a big pull at its contents, and there was something so villainous in the look of him that it did me good in the way of steeling my nerves again. For I now saw that here was an uncommonly bad man to deal with, and that I had best ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... face, with its delight and smiles, beyond her control. She crept, until she saw his watch-fob dangling against the counter, and then her heart made a call. He turned. He was not her husband! Another man was in her husband's clothes, a man with a villainous countenance! With a scream she gave the alarm. The stranger turned, dropped his drink, bounded to the door and out, leaped to the back of Beetle, gave rein and spur, and the black horse made good his reputation. ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... laughing. Such was his passion for study that he even grudged himself natural repose; and when he grew drowsy over his books he would, if it was summer, put mosquitoes up his sleeve; and, if it was winter, take off his shoes and run barefoot on the snow. His handwriting was exceptionally villainous; poet though he was, he had no taste for what was elegant; and in a country where to write beautifully was not the mark of a scrivener but an admired accomplishment for gentlemen, he suffered his letters to be jolted out of him by the press of matter and the ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and, in the 16th century, Henri Estienne, patriot, printer, and philologist, lamented that future historians would believe, from the vocabulary employed, that France had learnt the art of war from Italy. As a matter of fact she did. The earliest writers on the new tactics necessitated by villainous saltpetre were Italians trained in condottiere warfare. They were followed by the great French theorists and engineers of the 16th and 17th centuries, who naturally adopted a large number of Italian terms which thus passed later ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... Desert is the name it wears upon the maps, but the Indian's is the better word. Desert is a loose term to indicate land that supports no man; whether the land can be bitted and broken to that purpose is not proven. Void of life it never is, however dry the air and villainous the soil. ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... sea life, and, at the same time, provide themselves with the means of unlimited indulgence in more or less vicious enjoyment for the remainder of their lives?—and I noticed, with impotent anger, that, having at length arrived, as they supposed, at the goal of their villainous schemes, with the wealth which was to be the reward of their treachery all but within their grasp, as they believed, the restraint which they had hitherto so rigorously imposed upon themselves was in a measure laid aside, and they began ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... the shed (treading quite noiselessly in his gum-boots) and, pulling out his electric torch, flashed it, not on some cringing Picard peasant, as he had expected, but on three unshorn, unwashed, villainous, whopping big Bosch infantrymen! It would be difficult to say who was the most staggered for the moment, the Huns blinking in the sudden glare of the torch or the Babe well aware that he was up ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various
... five villainous individuals, wearing dirty-looking plumed hats, black jerkins and breeches, and tall jack boots. The ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... Porta del Popolo swarmed with life. The merry-makers, who had spent the feast-day outside the walls, were now thronging in; a party of horsemen were entering beneath the arch; a travelling carriage had been drawn up just within the verge, and was passing through the villainous ordeal of the papal custom-house. In the broad piazza, too, ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... And to all this the King accorded, and said to my Cid that he should go back into Castille with him: but my Cid said he would not go into Castille till he had won that castle of Rueda, and delivered the villainous Moors thereof into his hands, that he might do justice upon them. So the King thanked him greatly, and returned into Castille, and my Cid remained before the Castle of Rueda. And he lay before it so long, and beset it so close, that ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... everything in the cupboard. After that, he opened the front door and sat down on the brick seat that ran along the front of the house. He would have liked to smoke a pipe, but Captain Ugo was very particular about that, so he took out half of a villainous-looking 'napoletano' cigar, bit off three-quarters of an inch of it, and returned the small remainder to his pocket; and after a few minutes he concluded, as usual, that a chew was far cheaper than a smoke and ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... resentment. His heart was going like a trip-hammer. Could it be possible that his uncle would lend himself to such a villainous scheme? He could scarcely refrain from jumping through the window and denouncing the plotters ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... often than not, even the beds are unsatisfactory—either pretentiously huge and choked with drapery, or hard and thinly accoutred. Furnishing is uniformly hideous, and there is either no attempt at ornament (the safest thing) or a villainous taste thrusts itself upon one at every turn. The meals, in general, are coarse and poor in quality, and ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... France in 1561. Brantome was one of her suite, and describes her grief when the shores of France faded away, and her arrival in Scotland, where on the first night she was serenaded by Psalm-tunes with a most villainous accompaniment of Scotch music. "He! quelle musique!" he exclaims, "et quel repos ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... anything but dulness in a writer; to value vitality above accuracy, colour above truth. One is tempted to feel that the researches of erudite historians end only in proving that white is not so white, and black not so black as one had thought. That generous persons had a seamy side; that dark and villainous characters had much to be urged in excuse for their misdeeds. This is evidently a wrong frame of mind, and one is disposed to say that one must pursue truth before everything. But then comes in the difficulty that truth is so often not to be ascertained; ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... entered. It contains 300,000 people. We walked some distance through its filthy, narrow alleys, and saw the poor wretches in their dens working at all kinds of trades, from the forging of iron to the production of Joss-money, but the villainous smells soon overpowered me, and I had to get Vandy to escort me out. He can go through anything of this kind without flinching, and means to return; but I have seen enough of it, and am sorry that human ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... suppose that Cain, the first man ever born into the world, would always be well known without carrying about a brand like a special wine or a patent edible. And what was the mark? Kalisch thinks it was only a villainous expression. Others think it was the Mongolian type impressed upon the features of Cain, who became the founder of that great division of the human race. A negro preacher started a different theory. When the Lord called out in a loud voice "Cain, where is thy brother Abel," ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... as she shut the door; 'before that you will be back here again, my poor little Lady, trembling, weeping, in dire need of being comforted. But I will make up a good fire, and shake out the bed. I'll let her have no more of that villainous palliasse. No, no, let her try her own way, and repent of it; then, when this matter is over, she will turn her mind to Chevalier Narcisse, and there will be no more ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the Smernovaya (or some such name) Hotel, a truly villainous place, though no doubt the best in the town. The feeding was very good, and everything else very bad. It was some consolation to find that as we sat at dinner we furnished a subject of the liveliest interest to six or seven waiters, all dressed in white tunics, belted ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... but all her prayers and tears were ineffectual; victim of force and rage.—-The cruel leader of these fiends had just effected his diabolical intentions, when a sudden noise of the trampling of horses and the distant voices of men, forced them to fly. Fear, the companion of villainous actions, made them abandon their prey, and make off with incredible swiftness, so that the wretched Princess soon lost sight of them; but her irremediable misfortune, too present to her mind, to vanish with the authors of it, disordered ...
— The Princess of Ponthieu - (in) The New-York Weekly Magazine or Miscellaneous Repository • Unknown
... cafe below, one needed only to lift one's eyes to see, afar, perched high upon a smiling slope of green, with the highway to Millau at its foot and a beetling cliff behind, the Chateau de Montalais. Seated on that terrasse, late in the afternoon of his second day in Nant, discussing a Picon and a villainous caporal cigarette of the Regie (to whose products a rugged constitution was growing slowly reconciled anew) Duchemin let his vision dwell upon the distant chateau almost as constantly ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... fled swiftly aft and disappeared down another companion-way near the wheel. A moment later he emerged, a heavy-set young fellow of eighteen or nineteen, with a glowering, villainous ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... he said, unwinding his wrappings, "and I could not stay at home after this wonderful letter—three pages about chemical analysis, which he does me the honour to think I can understand, two of commissions for villainous compounds, and one of protestations that 'I will be ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... methodically washing out the bottle that contained the deadly culture. Another hour, perhaps less, and no power could save Roger from a torturing death, not even the certainty of what had caused it. Once an invisible touch of the villainous stuff penetrated the raw tissues of the wound, it would work its way straight into the blood-stream. Soon, very soon afterwards the jaw muscles would begin to stiffen.... Oh, if there were any sort ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... behest of Money, the State sent human bloodhounds on the trail of the man who in any way was suspected in participating in the trade-union movement. The most villainous and brutal methods were employed to counteract the growth and success of labor organizations. The powers that be recognized the great force that is contained in organized labor as the means of the regeneration of society much quicker than the workingmen themselves. They ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... the girl flamed up in his face. "Oh, villainous monster of vanity! For you! Ha! I could laugh! For you! I put mon Rafe—dead in his grave—to shame before all the world, called him murderer, ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... not cared much about tramps since the adventure of the villainous sailor-man and the Tower of Mystery, but we had the dogs on the wall with us (Lady was awfully difficult to get up, on account of her long deer-hound legs), and the position was a strong one, and easy to defend. Besides the tramp did not look like that bad sailor, ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... practices, in endeavouring to procure himself to be elected a burgess, but likewise being one of the instruments in promoting and presenting the scandalous, insolent, and seditious petition, commonly called the Kentish petition, to the last house of commons, was guilty of promoting a scandalous, villainous, and groundless reflection upon that house, by aspersing the members with receiving French money, or being in the interest of France; for which offence he was ordered to be committed to Newgate, and to be prosecuted by his majesty's attorney-general. They also resolved, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... ere now condescended to wealth; earls had married women rich by tallow-importing papas; and no doubt, had these same earls been consulted in Gatty's case, they would have decided that Christie Johnstone, with her real and funded property, was not a villainous match for a green grocer's son, without a rapp;* but Mrs. Gatty did not reason so, did not reason at all, luckily, her heart ran away with her judgment, and, her judgment ceasing to act, ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them: for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too; though, in the mean time, some necessary question of the play be then to be considered: that's villainous; and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready. Horatio! (Exit 1st ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... possessed with devils used to go and howl, and rend themselves, in the old days of Jerusalem. We had to traverse thirty miles of this Campagna; and for two-and-twenty we went on and on, seeing nothing but now and then a lonely house, or a villainous-looking shepherd: with matted hair all over his face, and himself wrapped to the chin in a frowsy brown mantle, tending his sheep. At the end of that distance, we stopped to refresh the horses, and to get some lunch, in a common malaria-shaken, ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... mess dinners, and prayed only for the speedy coming of the enemy. Even Howard's heart failed him now. English sailors would do what could be done by man, but they could not fight with famine. 'Awake, Madam,' he wrote to the Queen, 'awake, for the love of Christ, and see the villainous treasons round about you.' He goaded her into ordering supplies for one more month, but this was to be positively the last. The victuallers inquired if they should make further preparations. She answered peremptorily, 'No'; and again the weeks ran on. The contractors, ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... the freebooter sat still, his dissipated face and heavy angry lips looking like a debauched and villainous caricature of his ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of the King's happy landing, and brought a numerous train with him to Fetteresso, out of a view, I believe, to put it out of his Majesty's power to go back, having already published his being there; and to confirm him of the certainty of his affairs succeeding, by the approbation of those villainous, weak, miserable, deluded dependers of his Lordship, who he ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... manufactured. This "junk" is bought at the junk shops along the wharves; outlandish looking dens, generally subterranean, full of old iron, old shrouds, spars, rusty blocks, and superannuated tackles; and kept by villainous looking old men, in tarred trowsers, and with yellow beards like oakum. They look like wreckers; and the scattered goods they expose for sale, involuntarily remind one of the sea-beach, covered with keels and cordage, ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... by tradition, to the bigoted Sikander. (A.D. 1396.) He was reigning at the period of Timur's invasion of India, with whom he exchanged friendly presents, and from whom, I suppose, he may have received a present of the VILLAINOUS SALTPETRE. ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... Sedgwick Division Hospital, where were five hundred severely wounded men, and among the number, Major-General Sedgwick. Here she commenced preparing food for the wounded, but was greatly annoyed by a gang of villainous camp followers, who hung around her fires and stole everything from them if she was engaged for a moment. At last she entered the hospital, and inquired if there was any officer there who had the authority to order her a guard. General ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... rather live on buds and bark and apple seeds and fir cones, and what he can steal from others in the winter, than bother himself with laying up supplies of his own. When the spring comes he goes a-hunting, and is for a season the most villainous of nest-robbers. Every bird in the woods then hates him, takes a jab at him, and cries thief, thief! ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... in some instances where a man had an exceptionally villainous cast of countenance, or was exceptionally deformed, as much as twenty francs were ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... answered Father Loriot, returning abruptly to his shop. And he added to himself, with a chuckle at the anticipation: "I hope Father Dagobert's big prowler will be in a bad humor, and give that villainous pug a shaking by the skin ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... like a corked volcano! You can see that he takes Austrian money; his skin has got to be the exact colour of Munz. He has the greenish-yellow eyes of those elective, thrice-abhorred vampyres who feed on patriot-blood. He is condemned without trial by his villainous countenance, like an ungrammatical preface to a book. His tongue refuses to confess, but nature is stronger:—observe his knees. Now this is guilt. It is execrable guilt. He is a nasty object. Nature has in her wisdom ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... carry out the prayer of the petition. The Chancellor of the Exchequer seconded and strongly advocated the motion. It was opposed with great vigor by Mr. Methuen, the Controller of the Household, and formerly British Minister in Portugal. Methuen denounced Bolingbroke's "scandalous and villainous conduct" during his administration of affairs in Queen Anne's reign; his clandestine negotiation for peace; his insolent behavior towards the allies of England; his sacrificing the interests of the whole Confederacy and the honor of his country—more especially in the abandonment ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... and deep green pools below them, almost too deep to let you see the gleam of sand among the darker weed: there are deep caves too. In one of these lives a tribe of gipsies. The men are always drunk, simply and truthfully always. From morning to evening the great villainous-looking fellows are either sleeping off the last debauch, or hulking about the cove "in the horrors." The cave is deep, high, and airy, and might be made comfortable enough. But they just live among heaped boulders, damp with continual droppings from above, with no more ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was impossible my lady should have such a shocking complaint as she thought she had. There's no such thing at all in the case, my lord! I said so always, till I was persuaded out of my senses by that villainous quack, who contradicted me for this own 'molument. And Doctor X—— says, if my lady will leave off the terrible quantities of laudanum she takes, he'll engage ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... neighbor. The carelessness went out of his bearing as his eyes fastened themselves in a stare on the man's neck-kerchief. Hopalong was hardened to awful sights and at his best was not an artistic soul, but the villainous riot of fiery crimson, gaudy yellow, and pugnacious and domineering green which flaunted defiance and insolence from the stranger's neck caused his breath to hang over one count and then come double strong at the next exhalation. ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... this time that I had been a fool—a poor, coarse fool; there had been treachery somewhere, and that all together we were a villainous lot. I was only hesitating about how to get out of the scrape decently, when Darling spoke in a voice that ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... He had himself no wish to meet an assault in force, whether in the persons of such good-natured fellows as the man who had grinned at him on the morning of the wreck, or in those of a more villainous cast. He hoped it was to be a game of wits; and now ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... me," cried Meadows, "because I won't have him for a tenant against my will. Who is he? A villainous ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... that his design was to burn the whole Greek fleet as they lay on the beach. But Aristeides came forward and told the people that no proposal could be more advantageous or more villainous; so that the Athenians forbade Themistokles to proceed with it. On another occasion the Lacedaemonians proposed, in a meeting of the Amphiktyonic council, that all States that had taken no part in the Persian war should be excluded from that council; Themistokles, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... Irving, or Maude Adams, or Julia Marlowe in their best plays, is to have received a deeper insight into human nature, and a stronger purpose to become sympathetic and true, but who can afford to sanction all that is base and villainous is the institution of the modern theater for the sake of learning sympathy and truth and human nature from a few worthy actors, when he may find all of this as truthfully, if not as artistically, set forth by the orator, by the musician, by the painter, and by the author? It is not ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... his attention to the evidence that he arrayed to prove that such a fatal blow was being struck, and to the facts which he brought forward in support of that charge,—being identical with the one which he thinks so villainous in me. He pointed it, not at a newspaper editor merely, but at the President and his Cabinet and the members of Congress advocating the Lecompton Constitution and those framing that instrument. I must again ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... Oriental commits suicide before he has completed his grisly task; but it was obviously impossible for anyone in the book to live happily ever after so long as he remained alive. Just how Mr. HARRIS BURLAND and the villainous figment of his lively imagination perform these deeds of dastard-do is not for me to reveal. The publishers modestly claim that in the school of WILKIE COLLINS this author has few rivals. As regards complexity of plot the claim is scarcely substantiated by the volume before me; but if bloodshed be ...
— Punch, Volume 153, July 11, 1917 - Or the London Charivari. • Various
... while most of them would be paragons in the eyes of such persons as old Mrs. Wetmore and her grand-daughter. Thus it was, that the Greenwich Street Museum gave infinite satisfaction to these two unsophisticated visitors. Kitty was most struck with certain villainous wax-figures, works of art that were much on a level with certain similar objects that were lately, if they are not now, exhibited for the benefit of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey, above the tombs ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... and thanked the chief, and directed that all the loads should be placed inside the huts. I must admit my good friend was a villainous-looking savage, but he behaved most hospitably and kindly. From what I had heard of the Fan, I deemed it advisable not to make any present to him at once, but to base my claim on him on the right of an amicable stranger ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... while on the ranch were also concerned with Del Pinzo, a villainous half-breed, who nearly succeeded in bringing the career of all to a sudden close. After successfully overcoming all their difficulties, Nort and Dick decided to form a partnership with their cousin ...
— The Boy Ranchers on Roaring River - or Diamond X and the Chinese Smugglers • Willard F. Baker
... disagreeable noises, which we do not hear after a time. I know no situation more pitiable than that of a blind fiddler who has but one sense left (if we except the sense of snuff-taking(1)) and who has that stunned or deafened by his own villainous ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... that's why, Professor," explained our hero. "Don't you remember, he is one of the villainous fellows who robbed Mr. Wadsworth's jewelry works a year ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... seen. On the afternoon of the fifth day he was walking down towards the boat-landing to go on board, when his eye came in contact with the interpreter and the whole gang that were concerned in the tobacco enterprise. There was a look of murder on their villainous faces, which the captain said would haunt him to his dying day. He spontaneously and without thought said to his ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... dozen; and Eric, rather against his will, found himself ensconced at the end of the table, with Brigson and Bull on either hand. The villainous-low-foreheaded man, whom they called Billy, soon brought in a tough goose at one end of the table, and some fowls at the other; and they fell to, doing ample justice to the [Greek: daiz heisae] while Billy waited on ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... from a fit of sudden fury or deep malice long entertained against his unsuspecting friend, stabbed Lord Kilpont to the heart, and escaped from the camp of Montrose, having killed a sentinel who attempted to detain him. Bishop Guthrie gives us a reason for this villainous action, that Lord Kilpont had rejected with abhorrence a proposal of Ardvoirlich to assassinate Montrose. But it does not appear that there is any authority for this charge, which rests on mere suspicion. Ardvoirlich, the assassin, ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... for Peter. His red beard twitched and his white coat, stained from the laboratory table, looked quite villainous. He held out ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... suggestion. Was it possible that Jackson could have done him this bad turn after his having aided him to make his escape! It would be a villainous trick; but then he had always thought him capable of villainous tricks, and it was only the fact that they were thrown together in prison that had induced him to make up his quarrel with him; but though Jackson had accepted his advances, ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... when Charles II. was on his way to be crowned, a certain English Ravenel—Foulke by name—had the good-luck to fall in with that impulsive monarch, and for no further service than the making of a rhyme, vile in meter and villainous as to truth-telling, to receive from him an earldom and a grant of ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... very delightful small house, redolent of strange and exciting odours, some of which I connect with the subsequent gift of a slab of stuff that I ate with gusto as cake. My mature view is that it was cold bread-pudding of a peculiarly villainous clamminess. It is interesting to note that my delight in this fearsome dainty was based upon its most malevolent quality: the chill consistency of the stuff, which made it resemble the kind of leathery jelly that I have seen ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... Goodness" in directing that the prisoner should be prosecuted at "His Majesty's Expence," stating that no endeavour would be wanting on their part to render that prosecution successful, and praying that, in order to bring to justice "the Wicked Contriver and Instigator of this Villainous Scheme," His Majesty might be pleased to offer by proclamation a reward for Cranstoun's apprehension. The signatories included the Mayor and Rector of Henley, divers county magnates, and also the local magistrates, Lords Macclesfield and Cadogan, ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... the swallows vanished before the villainous occupation of the air. The infantry in the loosely built trenches held on, breathless, broken, like a battered boat in a hurricane, stout against the ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... crossroads?" questioned Sir Neil, "Sir Manstor lives there with his three brothers. Right skillful knights are these but woe the lone stranger who passes by. For these are villainous four." ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... put his empty glass between his knees and proceeded to fill a cherrywood pipe of villainous aspect from ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... bravely in the first years of the war, with an Oriental disregard of death. Under generals in German pay, betrayed by a widespread net of anarchy and corruption so villainous that arms and armaments sent out from England had to be bribed on their way from one official to another, and never reached the front, so foul in callousness of human life that soldiers were put into the fighting-line without rifle or ammunition, these Russian peasants flung themselves not once, ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... her curiously with a long, hard gaze before which she would grow uncomfortable. "Think you'll know me next time you see me?" But there was an uneasy feeling beneath her flip exterior. Not that there was anything of the beautiful, persecuted factory girl and villainous foreman about the situation. Tessie worked at watchmaking because it was light, pleasant, and well paid. She could have found another job for the asking. Her money went for shoes and blouses and lingerie and silk stockings. She was forever buying ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... himself unworthy of her. And, in that hoodwinked humour, lives more like a suitor than a husband; standing in as true dread of her displeasure, as when he first made love to her. He doth sacrifice twopence in juniper to her every morning before she rises, and wakes her with villainous out-of-tune music, which she out of her contempt (though not out of her judgment) ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... snorts between the mouthfuls, the old Hilda awoke in full force. She could not endure this; mamma never could have intended it! The Hartleys were different, of course. She was willing to acknowledge that she had been in the wrong about them; but this lout, this oaf, this villainous-looking churl,—to expect a lady to sit at the same table with him: it was too much! She would ask if she might not dine in her own room after this, as apparently it was only at dinner that this "creature" made ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... two ruffians halted irresolute for an instant, and I drew my revolver. In the faint light of the passage I could scarcely see their villainous faces. The countenance of the coolie is not expressive at best, but I could feel, rather than see, the stolid rascality of their appearance. Their wish seemed to be to take me alive if possible. After a moment of hesitation there was ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... the most villainous-appearing ruffians I have ever set eyes upon sat about the dugout as I entered. Two of them I recognized at once as teamsters who had been employed by Simpson a few months before. Both had been charged with murdering a ranchman and stealing his horses. Simpson ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... seemed familiar to Joe. He carried a rifle at a low trail, and passed slowly ahead with evident distrust. The lad believed he recognized that head, with its tangled black hair, and when he saw the swarthy, villainous countenance turned full toward ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... Rocky Mountains. The man behind the bar said that he knew The Babe well, that he was a perfect gentleman, and a personal friend of his. The fellow's glassy eyes and his grey-green skin told their own story. A more villainous or crafty-looking scoundrel it has been my ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... Douglass, Dr. Furness, and Rev. Samuel R. Ward, whom Wendell Phillips described as so black that "when he shut his eyes you could not see him." But it was otherwise on the second day when public opinion was "regulated," and free discussion overthrown by Captain Rynders and his villainous gang, who were resolved, with the authors of the compromise, that the Union as it was should ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... that villainous kind of courtesy which the agents of the coup d'etat willingly blended with their crime, "you must be uncomfortable with those three men in the fiacre. You are cramped; ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... us try gentler means. We can dispense with fulminating grains While we have eyes with which to flash our rage! We can dispense with villainous saltpetre While we have tongues with which to blow them up! We can dispense, in short, with all the arts That ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... to society should have maturity of mind; they should have refinement of taste, which is a quality of age. As long as college beaux and boarding-school misses take the lead, it must be an insipid society, in whatever community it may exist. Is it not villainous in your Quakerships of Philadelphia, to lay us, before we have lived half our time out, upon the shelf! Some of the native tribes, more merciful, eat the old folks out ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... deserve. I often think of the good Gerson who doubts whether anything good should be [written and] published. If it is not done, many souls are neglected who could be delivered: but if it is done, the devil is there with malignant, villainous tongues without number which envenom and pervert everything, so that nevertheless the fruit [the usefulness of the writings] is prevented. Yet what they gain thereby is manifest. For while they have lied so shamefully against us and by means of lies ...
— The Smalcald Articles • Martin Luther
... that the man was in earnest. Her eyes flashed over the swarthy, villainous faces of the scowmen, and the seriousness of the situation dawned upon her. She knew, now, that the separating of the scows was the first move in a deep-laid scheme. Her brain worked rapidly. It was evident that the men on the other scows were not ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... crushed beneath the massive weight of a "deadfall," the mother moose lay slowly sobbing her life out on the sweet spring air. The villainous log, weighted cunningly with rocks, had caught her just above the withers, bearing her forward so that her forelegs were doubled under her, and her neck outstretched so that she could not lift her muzzle from the wet moss. ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... cried Julian. "I would not have missed it for worlds. That villainous hunchback! So he was a damnable heretic after all! I grieve we ever stood his friend. May he perish like the vile creature he is! I will ask Brother Emmanuel to set me a penance for having touched him that day when we thought ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... a villainous looking fellow, yet the landlord of the Hotel Columbo told us he was well acquainted with the mountain bypaths and open roads, and could, in the event of meeting robbers, be of ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... awoke by the child's loud screams and cries of "Hombro—landro;" and sure enough, by the light of the dying fire, I saw a fellow stealing away with my dress, in the pocket of which was my purse. I was about to rush forward, when the fire gleamed on a villainous-looking knife in his hand; so I stood still, and screamed loudly, hoping to arouse my brother over the way. For a moment the thief seemed inclined to silence me, and had taken a few steps forward, when I took up an old rusty horse-pistol which my brother had given me that I might look determined, ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... sing, regardless of the crimes for which they were sent to prison. I recollect at one time we had two horse-thieves, two rapists—one with a sentence of forty years—three murderers, two hog-thieves, and several others of equally villainous records, and, last of all, the author! But this choir will compare favorably with some of the high-toned church choirs outside! To return, think of such a ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... sword on high, and shouted at the top of my voice: "You are all dead folk!" My blow descended on the shoulder of Luigi; but the satyrs who doted on him, had steeled his person round with coasts of mail and such-like villainous defences; still the stroke fell with crushing force. Swerving aside, the sword hit Pantasilea full in nose and mouth. Both she and Luigi grovelled on the ground, while Bachiacca, with his breeches down ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... jest, which he pretended to believe, but advised them not to try it again, as it was too good a joke to be repeated. Seor ——- pointed out to us the other day a well-known robber captain, who was riding on the high road with a friend. He had the worst-looking, most vulgar, and most villainous face I ever saw; a low-lived and most unpoetic-looking ruffian; fat ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... thirst; but, although the natural springs of excellent water are seen gushing spontaneous on every side, from the hills that surround us, the inhabitants, in general, make use of well-water, so impregnated with nitre, or alum, or some other villainous mineral, that it is equally ungrateful to the taste, and mischievous to the constitution. It must be owned, indeed, that here, in Milsham-street, we have a precarious and scanty supply from the hill; which is collected in an open bason in the ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... and acquaintance, if there was a couple whom I could have selected as the farthest removed from being the objects of such a villainous attack it would have been yourselves! But I too well know, that neither perfect innocence nor consummate prudence are sufficient shields against conspiracy and folly, and that bankrupt fortune and bankrupt character prepare men ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... subject sticks with me, notwithstanding I find I have no the honour of the lady's good opinion. And the more, when I reflect upon her father's brutal curse, and the villainous hard- heartedness of all her family. But, nevertheless, I should be desirous to know (if thou wilt proceed) by what gradations, arts, and contrivances thou effectest thy ingrateful purpose. And, O Lovelace, I conjure thee, if thou art a man, let not the specious ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... Empire had been making in the older city. As he thought of the Emperor and the government his gorge rose within him. Barbier's talk had insensibly determined all his ideas of the imperial regime. How much longer would France suffer the villainous gang who ruled her? He began an inward declamation in the manner of Hugo, exciting himself as he walked—while all the time it was the spring of 1870 which was swelling and expanding in the veins and branches of the plane trees above him—May was ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... his closet; but on the loth of August M. de la Chapelle was thrown into the prisons of the Abbaye, and the committee of public safety established themselves in his offices, whence they issued all their decrees of death. There it was that a villainous servant belonging to M. de Laporte went to declare that in the minister's apartments, under a board in the floor, a number of papers would be found. They were brought forth, and M. de Laporte was sent to the scaffold, where he suffered for having betrayed the State ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... three or four really villainous looking men came in, and instantly there seemed to be a stir of some sort; and Nelson and the Senator stood very close to me, and while apparently doing nothing got us near the door, and we all strolled out, and then they spoke rather low to one another while they never let go of my ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... Charles's well-known method even with the most villainous, appeared to distract her ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... which has been treated in the same way by a whole nation, and not, as lady among us, by the uncultivated only. It perhaps grew into use in the half-democratic republics of Italy in the same way and for the same reasons as with us. But I admit that our abuse of the word is villainous. I know of an orator who once said in a public meeting where bonnets preponderated, that 'the ladies were last at the cross and first at the tomb'! But similar sins were committed before our day and in the mother country. In the 'Harleian Miscellany' (vol. v. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... pulling the wires and exhibiting the puppets, appeared upon the stage as soon as the first act of the performance was at an end. His son had said nothing to him, but Abraham had many eyes and ears, and saw and heard enough to make him mad with villainous delight. The second year of widowhood had commenced. Margaret had doffed her weeds. She openly received the man on whom she had bestowed her heart. They were betrothed. The public voice proclaimed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... not well appreciated by the writers and speakers who treat it with ridicule. Those engaged in the movement are able, sincere and earnest women, and they will not be silenced by such ridicule, nor even by the villainous caricatures of Nast. On the contrary, they justly place all those things to the account of the wrongs which they think their sex has suffered. They believe, with an intensity of feeling which men who have not associated with them have not yet learned, that their sex ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous
... assistance. Had I remained with him in France it would not have cured his complaint. I could not have saved his music, and should only have doubled his expense: in this point of view I then saw my conduct; I see it otherwise now. It frequently happens that a villainous action does not torment us at the instant we commit it, but on recollection, and sometimes even after a number of years have elapsed, for the remembrance of crimes is not ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... how thou art accompanied: for though the camomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears. That thou art my son, I have partly thy mother's word, partly my own opinion; but chiefly, a villainous trick of thine eye, and a foolish hanging of thy nether lip, that doth warrant me. If then thou be son to me, here lies the point;— Why, being son to me, art thou so pointed at? Shaft the blessed sun of heaven prove a ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... the arrest of the knight, but he could not be found; unavailing search was made in every direction, and as nothing could be heard of him it was concluded that he had left the kingdom. He was proclaimed publicly a false and villainous knight, his estates were confiscated to the crown, and he himself was outlawed. Then Walter and his wife returned home and did their best to assist their tenants in struggling through the ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... that he may have interpreted some of his early hallucinations as mysterious messages from heaven. At various times in his life he doubtless displayed noble sentiments and performed generous acts. But when we find him dictating divine communications with deliberate purpose for the most villainous objects, when we find the messages of Gabriel timed and graded to suit the exigencies of his growing ambition, or the demands of his worst passions, we are forced to a preponderating condemnation. The Mohammed of the later years is a remorseless tyrant when occasion ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... "It's a villainous plot. Unluckily, one is helpless. That scoundrel Cousinho—Andreas, you know—has been coveting the brig for years. Naturally, I would never sell. She is not only my livelihood; she's my life. So he has hatched this pretty little plot with the chief of the customs. The ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... neighboring or to a more distant tribe. The latter is generally well-clothed, healthy, and vigorous; the former, half-naked, filthy, and enfeebled by intoxication, and many of them are without arms excepting a knife, which they carry for the most villainous purposes." ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... nobles and destroyed the integrity of the people. Then it was, as Cyrano says: "The world saw billows of scum vomited upon the royal purple and upon that of the church." Vile rhyming poets, without merit or virtue, sold their villainous productions to the enemies of the state to be used in goading the people to riot. Obscene and filthy vaudevilles, defamatory libels and infamous slanders were as common as bread, and were hurled back and forth as evidence ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... behalf. For they themselves are given much to lying, theft, and drunkenness, vain babbling, and profane dancing and singing; and are still, as S. Gildas reports of them, 'more careful to shroud their villainous faces in bushy hair, than decently to cover their bodies; while their land (by reason of the tyranny of their chieftains, and the continual wars and plunderings among their tribes, which leave them weak and divided, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... such words as these, that at times could scarcely be heard because of the sobbing of the people, and of my wives who wept loudly, except Otomie alone, this villainous priest made a sign and once more the music sounded. Then he and his band placed themselves about me, my wives the goddesses going before and after, and led me down the hall and on to the gateways of the palace, which were thrown wide for us to pass. Looking round me with a stony wonder, for in this ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... mother was now as pale as death, and silent, for she saw that the priest was awfully enraged; for, although he feigned to smile, his smile was similar to that of the hyena when digging his prey out of the grave. The priest's dark and villainous visage had the effect of confirming in my mother's mind all the truth regarding the plot to enslave me for life, and secure all my father's estate to the pockets of the priests. The confessor was now terribly mad, for two obvious reasons: one was because ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... it had been brought complete from St. Louis, where he had seen it in a saloon. It seemed a huge, glittering, magnificent monstrosity in that coarse, bare setting. Wide mirrors, glistening bottles, paintings of nude women, row after row of polished glasses, a brawny, villainous barkeeper, with three attendants, all working fast, a line of rough, hoarse men five deep before the counter—all these things constituted a scene that had the aspects of a city and yet was redolent with an atmosphere no city ever knew. The drinkers were ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... I thought so, that you might have all the talk to yourself. You had better let me speak; for if my thoughts fly to any pitch, I shall make villainous signs. ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... On my sacred word of honor, nothing but a human beast! The next time it happens to You, look at yourself in the glass; and you will find your soul gone out of you at your face, and nothing left but an animal—and a bad, a villainous ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... she entered was indeed a villainous one. Scarron rather gloried in his early delinquencies, and, to add to this, his two sisters had characters far from estimable. One of them had been maid of honour to the Princesse de Conti, but had given up her appointment to become the mistress of the Duc ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... on deck accompanied by one of the most villainous-looking seamen that ever stepped ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... a villainous, lean, crop-haired fellow, with a hang-dog look, and sanctimonious air, upon hearing himself charged with delinquencies, which were notorious to the whole Court, raised to heaven his eyes, which, until now, he had kept fastened on the floor, ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... aroused by hearing the Gypsy's pipe drop upon the ground. I looked at him, and scarcely recognised his face. It was no longer dull, black, and heavy, but was lighted up with an expression so extremely villainous that I felt uneasy. His eyes were scanning the recent comers, especially the beast of burden, which was a beautiful female donkey. He was almost instantly at their side, assisting to remove its housings, ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... amazingly to the unhappy chances of our lot; and, before the first bottle was emptied, I had tacitly forgiven every one of the Provisional Committee of the Slopperton Railway Company, with the exception of the villainous Glanders, who, for any thing I knew, might, at that moment, be transatlantically regaling himself at my particular expense. His guilt was of course inexpiable. Mandeville, having eat like an ogre, began to drink like a dromedary. Both the dark and the opalescent eye sparkled ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... saw that villainous creature and thought how you had really caught him, and when I saw the men had your rope, I was just stricken with remorse for the way we girls fooled you. I said, 'I'm just going to run after them and take their ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... open-mouthed, and even the villainous Samory rose from his divan to more closely watch the effect of the fearful ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... no cause to complain of the company here (it was the house midway betwixt Maidenhead and Henley, as you come to Bisham), for I had the place to myself. Nor did I wonder at that when I saw the pig-sty of an inn which it was. The landlord, a villainous-looking rogue, demanded to finger my money before he would admit me; and as for my horse, I had to see to him myself, for there was no one about the place to do it for me. However, a night's lodging was all I wanted, ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... the mill we saw the water that was not wanted for the wheel, tumbling in fury down a steep, narrow channel, in which were set various poles and cross-beams. And it was down this villainous diversoir that the old rascal would have sent us, knowing that we should have come to grief there. The boat would almost certainly have struck some obstacle and ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... soldiers, poets, and all sorts of people, is held for a man of virtuous disposition, honest conversation, and well governed carriage: which is almost miraculous among good wits in these declining and corrupt times; when there is nothing but roguery in villainous man, and when cheating and craftiness are counted the cleanest wit and ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... to be white egrets. Now at home I am strongly against the killing of these creatures, and have so expressed myself on many occasions. But, looking from the beautiful white plumage of these villainous mauraders, to the wrinkled countenance of the grateful weary old savage, I could not fan a spark of regret. And from the straight line of their retreating flight I like to think that the rest of the flock never came back, but ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... just after they had gone away, and seeing the sad disaster, she began to act as if she were beside herself, crying, "Ay, let him stretch out his arm and go about boasting how he has broken this pot! The villainous rascal who has sown my beans out of season. If he had no compassion for my misery, he should have had some regard for his own interest; for I pray Heaven, on my bare knees and from the bottom of my soul, that he may fall in love with the daughter of some ogress, who may plague and ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... in this horrible place. Bert had knocked at several doors without getting any response, for the people were apt to lie in bed late on Sunday morning, and then his attention was aroused by sounds of crying mingled with oaths, that came from the garret of a villainous-looking tenement. He could hear the voices of a woman and of a child raised in entreaty and terror, and without pausing to consider the consequences, sprang up the broken stairs to the room ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... plainly he had none, which made him laugh and swear and vow I was treating him most shabbily. And it was no use; he would have his pin-money, and I must sell or pledge or borrow, at an interest most villainous, from the ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... all assurances, he showed himself desirous only to see the last of my gun and me. I dare say "villainous saltpetre," as the great playwright calls it, was never so cheap before nor since. For my shilling Master Pooke afforded me two great packages over-large to go into my pockets, as well as a mighty chunk of lead, which I bound upon Peggy's withers. And as if all this ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... received in the order in which they presented themselves for approval. Two of them bore the ineffaceable mark of the public-house so plainly written on their villainous faces, that even I could see it. My uncle ironically asked us to favor him with our opinions. Lady Claudia answered with her sweetest smile: "Pardon me, General—we are here to learn." The words were nothing; but the manner in ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... first saw him he was leaning against the wall of the White Lion, gazing at the passers-by with a moody smile upon his villainous-looking countenance. ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... So villainous were these swerves that Dick had several narrow escapes from being unhorsed. A man of less skill would have been. At first the other members of the squad looked on only with amused interest. When, however, they caught the grave look ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... not more confounded at my first seeing him at Meudon than he was at seeing Amy. He started and turned pale as death. Amy believed if he had seen her at first, in any convenient place for so villainous a purpose, ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... Rivoli broke up the grey light pleasantly too. I remembered a little shop—a little Greek affair with a windowful of pinch-beck—where I had been given a false five-franc piece years and years ago. The same villainous old Levantine stood in the doorway, perhaps the fez that he wore was the same fez. The little old woman that we strolled to was bent nearly double. Her nose touched her wares as often as not, her mittened hands sought quiveringly the papers that the correspondent ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... put her clothes in a tub in the laundry and proceeded to dress them like a vegetable. She threw in a handful of salt, some kerosene oil and a little ammonia. The result was villainous, but after she tasted it—or snuffed it—she said it needed a bar of soap cut up to give it strength—or flavor—and I went into the store room ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... sweat pouring from neck, shoulders, and flanks, she still lifted her mud-brown barrel to her mighty stride, with all the vim and lightness of the start. He felt that, jade that she was, she ran because she loved it; ran with a delight that acted as a safety-valve for her villainous temper. She would run herself into amiability and then stop, but not before. And he knew her temper so well that he saw many miles lying ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... or the Butcher, scoundrel by nature and spy and thief by trade, one of the evil spawn of an age of violence and cruelty, boasted a face and form that became his reputation well. His countenance was villainous, very fat and flabby, with small, pig-like eyes, and framed, as it were, in a fringe of sandy-coloured whiskers, running from the throat to the temple, where they faded away into a great expanse of utterly bald head. The figure beneath was heavy, pot-haunched, ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... made in the Board be conciliatory and compromising, but any scheme to oppress the smaller stockholders for the benefit of the larger resist to the death. I prefer to sacrifice all my stock rather than have such a stigma on my character as such mean, and I will add villainous, conduct would be sure to bring upon all who engaged ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... brought back my memory to the days of old, when we used to sit in the garden on a summer evening at Barnes, and slip down the lawn to the boat-house, that we might launch the dear old pater's wherry, and have a moonlight trip, with soft singing of part songs, to which I know I growled a villainous bass. Dear pater, had he lived I might have stayed in the old country, and tried to keep up the old place; but I fear I should have disappointed him, and so—well, all ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer |
