"Villainy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... philanthropy, charity, "the white man's burden" or any other pious hypocrisy or fraud that the villainy of man has invented. It is more important than, and it must precede both morals and good government. After you have been just to a people you may begin to preach to them. Good government as well ...
— The American Revolution and the Boer War, An Open Letter to Mr. Charles Francis Adams on His Pamphlet "The Confederacy and the Transvaal" • Sydney G. Fisher
... them?" Will not the "voice of that blood" cry out from their family against them? If, as a consequence of their negligence and of the unholy influence they exerted upon them, they become desperadoes in crime and villainy, and at last drench their hands in a brother's blood; and expiate their guilt upon the gibbet, and from there go down to the grave of infamy and to the hell of the murderer, will not their blood, "cry unto them," and will not the woes and ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... outnumbered and without arms, submitted after a brief struggle. The mate gave them fair words—no doubt with a view of inducing those below to yield, for they had no difficulty in hearing all that was said on deck. The result proved his sagacity, no less than his diabolical villainy. All in the forecastle presently signified their intention of submitting, and, ascending one by one, were pinioned and then thrown on their backs, together with the first six—there being in all, of the crew who were not concerned in the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... in his hand—now ranting, now conversing—and in his converse the instruction I received was invaluable. He has confirmed me in the doctrine of the innate goodness of human nature. Since the period to which I am alluding, I have seen much of villainy. I have been the victim, as well as the witness of treachery. I have been oftentimes forced to associate with vice in every shape; and yet when in misery, when oppressed, when writhing under tyranny, I have been sometimes tempted to curse my race, the thought of the kind, the good old man, has ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... way, two miles of brick and mortar piled on either side. At last they came to a third-rate house, when a rough, common-looking woman opened the door and shutter. As soon as she saw the man, she let loose her tongue upon him for all the villainy in the world, but something which passed from his hand to hers hushed her in an instant; and observing the merchant, she courtesied ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... criminals, though," said Jack, "I see that he has the same hankering after the place where most of his villainy is practiced." ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"
... tone, as if he acknowledged his master in treachery and villainy, and Girty received it as his due. He was certainly first in this group of six, and the older ones, Blackstaffe, McKee, Eliot, and Quarles, recognized the fact as ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... could be, this one wouldn't. 'Tis a wrong denomination to apply to a woman, Charles, and affects me, as your best man, like cold water. 'Tis like recommending a stage play by saying there's neither murder, villainy, nor harm of any sort in it, when that's what you've ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... a younger brother, who was equally skillful as a necromancer, and even surpassed him in villainy and pernicious designs. As they did not live together, or in the same city, but oftentimes when one was in the East, the other was in the West, they failed not every year to inform themselves, by their ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... shameful and dastardly piece of villainy that I ever heard of," exclaimed Gerald ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... ship, captain—fired the ship!" says he, with just anger. "Aye, Heaven do to them as they've done to those poor creatures! Did man ever hear of such a villainy—to fire a good ship in her misfortune? It would be a sin against an honest rope to hang ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... this time the island had been called Van Diemen's Land. But the name was now so intimately associated with ideas of crime and villainy, that it was gladly abandoned by the colonists, who adopted, from the name of its discoverer, the present title of ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... it." The metallic hardness was gone from the voice. Endicott noticed that a tuft of hair stuck through a hole in the crown of the man's hat, and that upon close inspection the bearded face had lost its look of villainy. ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... two he was sure to get a sound rib-roasting for some of his misdemeanors; which, however, as it broke no bones, he made very light of, and scrupled not to repeat the offence whenever another opportunity presented. Sometimes, in consequence of some flagrant villainy, he would abscond from the garrison, and be absent for a month at a time; skulking about the woods and swamps, with a long fowling-piece on his shoulder, lying in ambush for game, or squatting himself down on the edge of a pond catching fish for hours together, and bearing ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... "That old scamp's villainy," said he, jerking his thumb toward the Piazza and the statue of the Liberator. "He's very 'cute, but he's made ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... Wilde and certain other unscrupulous persons among his followers have it in their minds to fill up the ship with sandalwood, man her with a dozen or so of the forecastle hands in whom they can place absolute trust, and dispatch her to Canton under your command. But—and here comes in the villainy of the scheme—as soon as a landfall is made, you are to be quietly knocked on the head and hove over the side to prevent all further trouble. The ship is to be taken into port; she and her cargo are to ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... "Your despicable villainy is known!" said Barnabas. "Ha!—smile if you will, but while you knelt, pistol in hand, in the barn there, had you troubled to look in the loft above your head you might have murdered me, and none the wiser. ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... believe this of Jim Hosley, that great lumbering hulk of humanity. How had he been able to assume that childish air and play the part with me, a shrewd, calculating observer of men, whose advice he always sought? Such villainy seemed to me to be beyond the art of any actor, and it certainly seemed to be a superlative degree of crime and deception impossible in real life. I remembered that he had shown some uneasiness that night when I started for the Fifth Avenue ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... newsman had cabled over something which did not please one of our admirals then in London. Meeting that same admiral, I put in a word for my trip to the naval base, thinking that he might warm up and hurry things along for me. He warmed up, but on the side away from me. He recounted the enormous villainy of that newsman, and in conclusion said: "Perhaps, after all, the best way to do is not to allow you newspaper men to ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... what you threatened! If you wish to live so that I may tell God in my prayers that I would have been your wife if I could, and that I hope to meet you in heaven—then, for my sake, be a man, and not a weakling willing to stoop to the most contemptible villainy to cheat a woman. Your brother was nearly killed in doing his duty here and you have taken his place. Make it your true calling, as I have made it mine to nurse the sick. At any moment, either of us may be called to face danger, till ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... was advancing against him with an army consisting of four hundred crowned heads, each leading a host of four hundred men.[238] "It is true, thou art his brother, and thou treatest him as a brother should," they said to Jacob, "but he is an Esau, thou must be made aware of his villainy."[239] ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... was not all this enough to make her cry? And then, was it the truth that Mr Maguire ought to marry some one else? If so, she was the last woman in Littlebath to interfere between him and that other one. But how was she to know that this was not some villainy on the part of Mrs Stumfold? She felt sure, after what she had now seen and heard, that nothing in that way would be too bad for Mrs Stumfold to say or do. She never would go to Mrs Stumfold's house again; that was a matter of course; but what should she do about ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... less of manhood in Europe than there was in the days of chivalry, that the civilized world is sitting calmly by and permitting this unspeakable crime to go on at the sweet will of the bloody-handed Turk. And do you not think that God will hold the nations of Europe to a strict account for this villainy that marks the closing decade of the nineteenth century as the blackest page in human history? God will surely avenge Armenia, and woe to Europe when He treads the ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... escaped detection at Thurles, there would not be the least danger, until he reached Cahermoyle, as the rest of the journey would be entirely by night. His sagacity may be questioned, perhaps, but it is extreme villainy to question his purpose. He took that course only and solely because he thought it the safest; and he had no more intention of surrendering than I had when I crossed by ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... consent, to find an unmolested enjoyment of the blessings of this fruitful soil. The first dealings which they had with those calling themselves Christians, exhibited to them the worst features of corrupt and sordid hearts; and convinced them that no cruelty is too great, no villainy, and no robbery too abhorrent for even enlightened men to perform, when influenced by avarice, and lust. Neither did they come flying upon the wings of Liberty, to a land of freedom. But, they came with broken ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet
... before she fell, and carried her to a sofa. It was the first time he had held her in his arms since he had had a lover's right to do so, and all the man-soul in him rose in a desperate revolt of love and pity against the coldly calculating villainy of the man who had used the vilest of means to rob ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... the damsel would have Fair-hands spare his life. Albeit she spake unto him many contemptuous words, whereof the Red Knight had great marvel, and all that night made three-score men to watch Fair-hands that he should have no shame or villainy. The Red Knight yielded himself to Fair-hands with fifty knights, and they all proffered him homage and fealty at all times ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler
... disregarding the laws both of God and man? Am I false when I say that I gave her no cause? Am I false when I offer to take her back, let her faults be what they may have been? Am I false when I say that her father acts illegally in detaining her? False! False in your teeth! Falsehood is villainy, and it is not I ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... white nightdress and mantle of scarlet and camus[26] on one side of the bars, Lancelot outside, exchanging sweet salutes, "for much was he fain of her and she of him," are excellent. The next couplet, or quatrain, almost approaches the best poetry. "Of villainy or annoy make they no parley or complaint; but draw near each other so much at least that they hold each other hand by hand." But what follows? That they cannot come together vexes them so immeasurably that—what? They blame the iron ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... Amherst inflicted on the French army a deep humiliation to punish the outrages committed by their Indian allies. In the early days of the war Loudoun, the Commander-in-Chief in America, had vowed that the British would make the French "sick of such inhuman villainy" and teach them to respect "the laws of nature and humanity." Washington speaks of his "deadly sorrow" at the dreadful outrages which he saw, the ravishing of women, the scalping alive even of children. Philadelphians had seen the grim spectacle of a wagon-load of corpses brought by ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... never seen a greater mixture of piety and villainy than among these Crusaders. They could rape, rob, and murder with a good conscience, yet must be numbered among the most heroic of men. They endured uncomplainingly long marches in heat and cold, in hunger, thirst, and pestilence. They fought ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell
... back, and hear me ere thou offerest to commit a sin so deadly! My strength thou mayst indeed overpower for God made women weak, and trusted their defence to man's generosity. But I will proclaim thy villainy, Templar, from one end of Europe to the other. I will owe to the superstition of thy brethren what their compassion might refuse me, Each Preceptory—each Chapter of thy Order, shall learn, that, like a heretic, thou hast sinned with ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... feet, conscious of possessing no weapon, yet fully aware that all hope of thwarting this villainy lay in immediate action. But I must await the right moment. Even with the advantage of surprise, there would inevitably be the noise of struggle. I had in the past despised Sanchez, but I had never yet tested ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... independent life, a thing I was indeed very ill prepared to manage, for I was perfectly loose and dissolute in my behaviour, bold and wicked while I was under government, and now perfectly unfit to be trusted with liberty, for I was as ripe for any villainy as a young fellow that had no solid thought ever placed in his mind could be supposed to be. Education, as you have heard, I had none; and all the little scenes of life I had passed through had been full of dangers and desperate circumstances; ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... is villainy in it," cried Tom, with wild eyes, "the blackest villainy that ever was done upon earth. I'll go—I'll see him to-night. By heavens, I shall know the truth!" He rushed furiously downstairs and through the bar. There was a cab near the door. "Drive ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... He must have known, suspected the truth before our departure, yet had no thought such villainy was the work of M. Cassion. ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... name! It suggests a convict of the worst type. It is a name bad enough, young gentlemen, to condemn any ruffian. Huggins! Why, it literally smells of villainy. But as I was going to say, this Huggins has placed himself completely in our hands by firing upon his Majesty's forces, and we are now going to give him ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... its base, presently extracted something. Then they saw him stoop over the heavy bag placed on the floor, lift the flap, and commence to insert the object. It was just then that Henri realized the villainy intended by this ruffian. Perhaps you will say that "all is fair in love and war", and that Henri himself had but a little while before given the Germans an exhibition of bomb-throwing. But that was in order to save his ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... overcome by the overwhelming emotions which now possessed her, as she was at the miserable position in which malignity had so lately placed her. Whilst Victor was being conveyed to the jail, where he was to suffer the punishment due to his villainy, Julia was conducted home to her now rejoicing parent, amidst the congratulations, caresses, and praises, of troops of friends. The day after her acquittal, the throne was again set up in the Grande Allee, and the ovation to her industry and virtues was completed in ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various
... quaesiveris extra;" and he observes, "The chief interest of ambition, avarice, corruption, and every sly insinuating vice, is to prevent this interview and familiarity of discourse, which is consequent upon close retirement and inward recess. 'Tis the grand artifice of villainy and lewdness, as well as of superstition and bigotry, to put us upon terms of greater distance and formality with ourselves, and evade our proving method of soliloquy.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} A passionate lover, whatever solitude ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... He had, therefore, retired to his native jungle, and during the hour in which Henry was buried in repose, and in which he might have accomplished his end without danger or uncertainty, he was seated in a dark, cave, moodily resolving in his mind future plans of villainy, and, indulging the hope that on the youth's returning homeward be would be more successful in finding a favorable ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... the dog that bit me. Now desist: It is not easy; yet it must come out. A letter that I wrote to this same King, Or to his secretary, George Germain,— Imploring favors for my villainy— If I appear unmanned, it's physical, And needs no moment's thought—The letter's here, [Takes a letter from his pocket.] And through its hell of shame as through a gate I see Elysian fields, peopled ...
— The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold - A Play for a Greek Theatre • John Jay Chapman
... unfortunate creatures like themselves, and all were compelled to go out in pearling vessels just as the exigencies of the industry required. Jacky Jacky himself was kept at this work for upwards of three years; and he told me many terrible stories of the white man's indescribable cruelty and villainy. He and his companions were invariably chained up during the night and driven about like cattle in the daytime. Many of his mates at the pearling settlement had been kidnapped from their homes in a cruel and contemptible manner, and herded off like sheep by ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... eat at dinner a pound of bacon which had not a hair's-breadth of lean in it. Previously to my arrival in Kenilworth an intimate friend of mine had been ruined—reduced at once from affluence to utter penury by the villainy of his partner, to whom he had entrusted the whole of his business, and who had committed two forgeries for which he was sentenced to transportation for life. In consequence of this event, my friend, who was a little ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... with Mrs. Surratt, Herold and Atzerodt. Considerable silly sentiment was manufactured in Mrs. Surratt's case; it was entirely wasted. If you will carefully examine her record you will say that her sex should not excuse such cold-blooded villainy. General Wallace was second in rank on the commission that tried ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... he could not do it. Exert himself as he would, the color would not return to his pallid lips, and he had a shameful consciousness that the old serene and complacent look, when he tried it, was sadly crossed by rigid lines of hard anxiety and shame. The mask was indeed broken—the nakedness and villainy could no more be hidden! And even the voice, faithful and obedient hitherto, always holding the same rhythmical pace, had suddenly broken rein, galloping up and down the ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... shorten a long story, that night he did actually kidnap the child, leaving a note to my friend in which he suggested a compromise. But there was no compromise with villainy in her make-up. The old King was much affected. Yet there were things in the air at that time, delicate situations of state, which demanded consideration. The kidnaping, if made public, would have produced a most disquieting effect in certain quarters. Our treaty with a powerful state had just been ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... recorded, regarded with great abhorrence the cold-blooded villainy of a man who, as counsel for the opposite party, presumed to tell Mr. Serjeant Snubbin, who was counsel for him, that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various
... men [to write the letters]; for he brought in an account of his expenses, amounting to two hundred talents, his main pretense for which was file law-suit he had been in with Sylleus. So while all his rogueries, even those of a lesser sort also, were covered by his greater villainy, while all the examinations by torture proclaimed his attempt to murder his father, and the letters proclaimed his second attempt to murder his brethren; yet did no one of those that came to Rome inform him of his misfortunes in Judea, although ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... conquest of Peru furnishes one of the most remarkable chapters in the history of audacious villainy. It was the work of successful buccaneers as unscrupulous as any crew of pirates that ever robbed and murdered on the ocean. After their settlements began on the islands and the Atlantic coast, rumors came to them of a wonderful country ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... would hang him anywhere," said Terry O'Gara. "I wonder what amount of villainy lies between a gamekeeper's place at Ashbridge and the brute ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... mission. The fruits of twelve years of gardening and horticulture were destroyed in a day by ravaging parties. The fact that their lives were spared and their persons not attacked, except in a rare instance of an individual piece of villainy, is proof of the mild dispositions of the infidels. The Tahitians worshiped their gods with a superstitious awe not exceeded anywhere, and the outlandish white men proclaimed openly that these gods ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... for whom my wife, in spite of her occasional fits of reserve and temper, entertained no little liking, enjoyed many opportunities of prying; and would have continued still to serve him had not this last piece of villainy, with the stir which it caused in the house and the rigorous punishment to be expected in the event of discovery, proved too much for her nerves. Hence this burst of confession; which once allowed to flow, ran on almost against her will. Nor did I let her pause to consider ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... orders more peremptorily than any Dogberry. These epicenes are as curious and exceptional in character as in external conformation. Disconnected, after a fashion, with humanity, they are brave, fierce and capable of any villainy or barbarity (as Agha Mohammed Khan in Persia 1795-98). The frame is unnaturally long and lean, especially the arms and legs; with high, flat, thin shoulders, big protruding joints and a face by contrast extraordinarily large, a veritable mask; the Castrato is expert in ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... a proper person. That's what I'm driving at. He's one of the wickedest and most unscrupulous persons in the world. Barbara ought not to speak to him, let alone give him the run of her studio and hobnob with him same as with one of her friends. He's a man too busy with villainy to sit as a model for the fun of sitting. The pay doesn't interest him. And if he shows up every morning at nine and stays all morning, it's only because he's got an axe to grind. He talks. He lays down the law. He appeals to Barbara's mind and imagination; and it's ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... Townshend, between Congreve and Wycherley, between Essex and Villiers, between the fall of the Carlovingians and the fall of the Moguls. He follows up a general statement with swarms of instances. Have historians been given to exaggerating the villainy of Machiavelli? Macaulay can name you half a dozen who did so. Did the writers of Charles's faction delight in making their opponents appear contemptible? "They have told us that Pym broke down in a speech, that Ireton had his nose pulled ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... have been cruel to show them to him, for he would have seen that they were blurred with tears. You perceive that she had come to be tender of the feelings of this earnest and scoundrelly lover, believing in his sincerity and not in his villainy. ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... and put into a two-acre paddock near the house. We put her there because of her wisdom. She was a chestnut, full of villainy, an absolutely incorrigible old rogue. If at any time she was wanted when in the grass paddock, it required the lot of us from Dad down to yard her, as well as the dogs, and every other dog in the neighbourhood. Not that she had any brumby element in her—she ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... Villainy and greed were written on every countenance; it was a crew of human demons, and an extensive one. These wretches, most of whom had already drunk too freely and were drinking more, stood with their backs to them, looking ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... whore, Are what ten thousand envy and adore; All, all look up with reverential awe, At crimes that 'scape or triumph o'er the law; While truth, worth, wisdom, daily they decry: Nothing is sacred now but villainy. Yet may this verse (if such a verse remain) Show there was one who ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... dying man a secret which up till then he had jealously preserved. When Kitson returned he found his friend, as he thought, in extremis, and van Heerden also thought that John Millinborn would not speak again. To his surprise Millinborn did speak and van Heerden, fearful of having his villainy exposed, stabbed him to the heart under the pretext of assisting him ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... goes, "to take a halter and hang themselves." Besides though these things may be subject to censure, it concerns not my fools in the least, inasmuch as they take no notice of it; or if they do, they easily neglect it. If a stone fall upon a man's head, that's evil indeed; but dishonesty, infamy, villainy, ill reports carry no more hurt in them than a man is sensible of; and if a man have no sense of them, they are no longer evils. What are you the worse if the people hiss at you, so you applaud yourself? And that a man be able to do so, he ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... to the last it is redolent of the health of an "incense-breathing morn." There are no dark scenes here, leaving on the reader a feeling of degradation that such things can be—no impossible villain weaving a web of intricate or purposeless villainy—but all is fresh and genuine, and we close the volume with a sense of gratitude that such ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... nothing to be done: a deplorable absence of motive villainy; apparently an absence of the beneficent Power directing events to their proper termination. Lady Wathin heard of her cousin's having been removed to Cowes in May, for light Solent and Channel voyages ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... population) are every where to be seen, thronging the side-walks, indulging in boisterous laughter; loafers of every description are lounging about, whose tattered garments indicate the languishing condition of their wardrobes; great, ruffianly fellows stare at you with eyes expressive of the villainy that prompts to robbery and murder;—miserable men, ghastly women, and dirty children obstruct the pathway, and annoy you with their oaths and ribald jests. Let us descend this steep flight of steps, and enter this cellar. Be not too fastidious ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... "the spotted snake! A fit tool for the Intendant's lies and villainy! I am convinced he went not on his own errand to Tilly. Bigot is at the bottom of this foul conspiracy to ruin the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... highly immoral lady, and is under some suspicion of a most detestable murder; and Captain Singleton is a pirate of the genuine buccaneering school. Yet we should really doubt, but for their own confessions, whether they have villainy enough amongst them to furnish an average pickpocket. Roxana occasionally talks about a hell within, and even has unpleasant dreams concerning 'apparitions of devils and monsters, of falling into gulphs, and from off high and steep precipices.' She has, moreover, ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... take any means to get out o' the trap that he's in now. It's comin' home to him, an' he wants to sneak out at any cost! An' so he's incitin' you against the lass. No, August, ... truly, August ... not on that bridge ... you mustn't start for to cross that bridge!... Anybody can see through his villainy! ... He's laid traps enough for the lass. An' if one way don't succeed, he'll try another!... Now he's hit on this here plan.—Maybe he'll separate you two! It's happened in this world, more than once or twice that some devil with ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... novels now with even greater appreciation than before. She has been herself in the world outside Webblehinton, the world where the great dramas of sin and villainy are played unceasingly. She had come unscathed through it, but what might have happened if she had gone unsuspectingly to visit Sir John Chobham and warn him of his danger? What indeed! She had been saved by the fearless outspokenness ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... still half-stunned and two of them were bleeding, and it must have seemed to then? that they were being tossed out of the frying-pan into the fire, and that we were going to carry on the villainy that our ruffianly countrymen had commenced. In fact had we not taken care, and even used force, they would have jumped overboard when we had them ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... out something, all at once. The masther fetched a terrible oath and fell back upon his seat. 'You assisted in this villainy!' he shouted. They clinched, and I saw something shine dimly in Mr. William Zane's hand. The report told me what it was. I lifted one oar in a feeling of horror, and the boat swung round abruptly on the blade of the other, and Mr. Rainey, released from the masther's grip, fell overboard ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... this contest. They were not sufficiently good liars, and lacked the higher flights of villainy necessary to sustain the encounter. The essential English way in Tudor days, and much later, for administering a deadly blow to an Irish patriot was "assassination." Poison frequently took the place of the knife, and was often administered wrapped in a leaf of the British ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... the Bee as a laggard, kept away from the workyard by an accident, or else carried to a distance by a gust of wind. On returning after an absence of some duration, she finds her place taken, her cell used by another. The victim of an usurper's villainy, like the prisoners in my paper screws, she behaves as they do and indemnifies herself for her loss by breaking into ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... Don Alfonso troubled at this villainy, and he sent for the Cid, who was in those parts; and the Cid came to him with a great company. And the King told him the great treason which had been committed, and took the Cid into his favour, and said unto him that he might return with him into Castille. My Cid thanked him for his bounty, ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... The matchless villainy of making men suffer for crimes of which they may eventually be acquitted is consistent with our entire system of laws—a system so complicated and contradictory that a judge simply does as he pleases, subject only to the ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... he cried at last, waving his hand towards the rain-lashed window which faced the moor. "There's foul play somewhere, and there's black villainy brewing, to that I'll swear! Very glad I should be, sir, to see Sir Henry on his way back ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... reform. Look across the Atlantic. A Sympathiser would seem to imply a certain degree of benevolent feeling. Nothing of the kind. It signifies a ready-made accomplice in any species of political villainy. A Know-Nothing would seem to imply a liberal self-diffidence—on the scriptural principle that the beginning of knowledge is to know that thou art ignorant. No such thing. It implies furious political dogmatism, enforced by bludgeons and revolvers. A Locofoco is the ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... hear their thunder? start and tremble, Death sitting on your bloud, when their fires visit us. Will nothing wring you then do you think? sit hard here, And like a Snail curl round about your Conscience, Biting and stinging: will you not roar too late then? Then when you shake in horrour of this Villainy, Then will I rise a Star in Heaven, and ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (2 of 10) - The Humourous Lieutenant • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... unwisely thrown over him a touch of guignon—of shadowing and resistless fate—which creates a certain sympathy; and she neglects the good old rule that your villain should always be allowed a certain run for his money—a temporary exercise of his villainy. Alvimar, though he does not feel the marquis's rapier till nearly the end of the first half, as it were, of the book, is "marked down" from the start, and never kills anything within those limits except a poor little tame wolf-cub which is ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... Hugo had slowly made his way back to his shack. If his arm hurt he had now little consciousness of it. The thing that disturbed him most was that girl's unshakable belief in his villainy. Was she really insane? He had had no opportunity to communicate that thought to Mrs. Papineau. But then, after her arrival, she had seemed so absolutely rational in all that she had said and done that the idea had, for the time being, passed away ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... the manners of the lower rank of the inhabitants of London is to draw a most disagreeable caricature, since the blackest vices and the most perpetual scenes of villainy and wickedness are constantly to be met with there. The most thorough contempt for all order, morality, and decency is almost universal among the poorer sort of people, whose manners I cannot but regard as the worst in the whole world. ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... Cicero on the other side being sent Treasurer into Sicily, and Pro-consul into Cilicia and Cappadocia,[94] in such a time as covetousness reigned most: (insomuch that the captains and governors whom they sent to govern their provinces, thinking it villainy and dastardliness to rob, did violently take things by force, at what time also to take bribes was reckoned no shame, but to handle it discreetly, he was the better thought of, and beloved for it) he shewed plainly that ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... though, as it chanced, I never saw him, and arranged his flight. Since then, I have had de Garcia through my hands some four or five times, now under this name and now under that. Once even he came to me as a client, but the villainy that he would have worked was too black for me to touch. This man is the wickedest whom I have known in Seville, and that is saying much, also he is the cleverest and the most revengeful. He lives by vice for vice, and there are many ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... arise! The fever of revolt passes by, and the victim wavers. He still breathes bitter vengeance, but he does not act. He despairs, and asks himself what would be the good of it? And in this way the success of villainy ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... was soon given to understand, was the captain of this dangerous troop. He was one who carried villainy to the highest pitch of refinement, incapable of fear, quick and crafty, and troubled with less conscience than a French financier. The booty and price of blood, which his associates brought in daily, were always delivered up to him: he gave each man his share, and retained ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... did that deed are capable of doing any low, sneaking, cowardly villainy that could be invented in perdition. They are the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... extraction; their hard, weather-beaten faces and bushy mustaches looked out from beneath the hoods of their white capotes with a bad and brutish expression, as if their owner might be the willing agent of any villainy. And such in fact is the character of ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... I last left his open-air restaurant knowing that I owed him twopence. I carried it away under his nose, despite the fact that the nose was a decidedly Jewish one. I have never paid him, and it is highly improbable that I ever shall. How did this villainy come to occur in a life which has been, generally speaking, deficient in the dexterity necessary for fraud? The story is as follows—and it has a moral, though there may ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... son.] He stands not upon any Villainy to establish himself, or strike terror into his People. This made him cut off his only Son, a young man of about Fifteen years. After the Rebellion the Kingdom being setled in the King's hands again, and knowing that the hearts of the People disaffecting ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... doubt, had this been the extent. But, Deerham had to learn that the villainy had had a ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... betray me after that fashion! A rascal who for so many reasons should be the first to keep secret what I trust him with! To go and tell everything to my father! Ah! I swear by all that is dear to me not to let such villainy go unpunished. ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere (Poquelin)
... he refused—in the most insolent manner. He is a proud and scheming man, I tell you. I am sure he is plotting some villainy against you. ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... do not think that Theodor Krisstyan visits this island only for these reasons; it must have other secrets unknown to me. He is a paid spy, and has a bad heart besides; he is rotten to the core, and ripe for any villainy. He knows that I and my daughter have only usurped the island, and that by law I have no claim to it, and by the possession of this secret he lays us under contribution, ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... eternal night you have chosen as your future portion. As you have willfully, voluntarily, and most wickedly called it down upon your own head, may the 'curse of God rest upon you in this world and the world to come!' May evils betide you in this life, every cherished hope be blasted; every plot of villainy thwarted, and you become a reproach among men, an outcast and a vagabond on the face of the earth! And when, at last, your sinful race is run, and your guilty soul has been ushered into that dreaded eternity you have plucked upon it, may your polluted carcass become the ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... anything in the nature of double- dealing. Royson's remarkable proficiency in most matters bearing on the navigation of a ship had amazed him in the first instance, and this juggling with names led him to suspect some deep-laid villainy with which the midnight attack on von ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... promise not to breathe a word, not to interfere until Henri has a chance to square himself. I—think I've earned the right to demand that much. I told you the whole thing was counterfeit—was the work of Joe McCaskey. I couldn't believe Henri was up to such villainy. He's dissolute, weak, vain—anything you choose—but he's not voluntarily criminal. Well, I went to work on him. I pretended to- -" the Countess again shivered with disgust. "Oh, you saw what I was doing. I hated myself, but there ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... of the villainy of Spikeman there was mixed up some comfort for the soldier in reflecting on the affection of Prudence and the friendship of the knight; but for the jailer there was no such solace. He dwelt resentfully on the ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... to avoid the witness of those resolutions. Hence Bud, after that distressful Tuesday evening on which Miss Martha had given him "the sack," wished to see Ralph less than any one else. And yet when he came to suspect Small's villainy, his whole nature revolted at it. But having broken with Ralph, he thought it best to maintain an attitude of apparent hostility, that he might act as a detective, and, perhaps, save his friend from the mischief that ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... Judith, if thy hot spirit beareth still Indignant suffering of villainy, Think, that thou hast no wrong from it. Such things Are in themselves dead, and have only life From what lives round them. And around thee glory Lives and will force its splendour on the harm Thy ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... watched these scenes I raged against the villainy of a civilization which still permits these people to be sent like sheep to the slaughter. Great God! These poor wretches of the working quarters in Paris, these young peasants from the fields, these underpaid ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... the sobriquet of John Dawkins, a young thief, up to every sort of dodge, and a most marvellous adept in villainy.—Dickens, Oliver Twist (1837). ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... the possibilities of the criminal, and society would discover that its best interests were served by reforming its offenders and making them moral and industrious servants of the State, instead of by committing them to institutions where they were brought into contact with consecrated villainy and where the unwholesome influence is calculated to confirm them in criminal habits and make them a constant menace and expense to the community. That our criminal population is on the increase, and that the proportion of recidivists grows larger every year, is scarcely to be wondered at ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... name of all the devils, no, I shall not leave it to you. But did anyone ever meet with such villainy! He wishes to keep what he has ...
— The Miser (L'Avare) • Moliere
... I suspect that Accident was the parent of many; and well meant critical assiduity of more. Zeal for the Truth is accountable for not a few depravations: and the Church's Liturgical and Lectionary practice must insensibly have produced others. Systematic villainy I am persuaded has had no part or lot in the matter. The decrees of such an one as Origen, if there ever was another like him, will account for a strange number of aberrations from the Truth: and if the Diatessaron of Tatian could be recovered[184], ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... word they spoke to one another, the training he got from native servants was one of undiluted evil and a series of object-lessons in deceit, petty villainy, chicanery, oppression, lying, dishonesty, and all immorality. And yet—thanks to his equal understanding of the words and deeds of Nurse Beaton, Major Decies, Lieutenant Ochterlonie, his father, the Officers of the Regiment, and the ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... grew merry and joyful, hoping that the unbridled and boastful tongue would get the mastery of that divinely instructed and philosophic soul. "And what is the plan?" he asked. Then began Theudas to weave his web. He made his villainy sharp as any razor and did cunningly prepare his drugs. Now behold this malicious device and suggestion of the evil one. "Remove, O king," said he, "all thy son's waiting men and servants far from him, and order that comely damsels, ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... Anquetil was in their library; but the series of "do-nothing kings" amused them very little. The villainy of the mayors of the Palace did not excite their indignation, and they gave Anquetil up, repelled by the ineptitude ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... not lend itself to imposture? A systematic abuse of words, as of other things, is never without some inner harmony or propriety that makes it prosper; only the man who looks beyond and sees the practical results awakes to the villainy of it. In the end, however, those who play with words lose their labour, and pregnant as they feel themselves to be with new and wonderful universes, they cannot humanise the one in which they live and ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... all I know," said Obed. "There is villainy at the bottom of this, as you will see. Your draft came back about ten days ago. I said nothing to you about it, but took it upon myself to write for explanations. Last evening I received this"—and he drew a letter ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... her flowers. He loved to take Paul through his collection and point out the beauties and claim his admiration. He had converted a conservatory running along one side of the house into a picture gallery, and this was filled with his masterpieces of pictorial villainy. Here Paul was at first astonished at recognizing replicas of pictures which hung in other rooms. ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... Durtal went on, "the priest tolerates the villainy of jolly songs which are served up to him; but at least he does not, like the one at St. Severin, allow strolling women players to lighten up the Office by the shouts of such voices as remain to them. Nor has he accepted ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... went to Ischia, but I had already been to that island and tired myself to death "resting" a couple of days and studying human villainy, with the landlord of the Grande Sentinelle for a model. So we went to Procida, and from thence to Pozzuoli, where St. Paul landed after he sailed from Samos. I landed at precisely the same spot where St. Paul ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... which might succeed in its object, were Oaklands still ignorant of the real character of the person he had to deal with? And in such case should not I be answerable for any mischief which might ensue? Nay, for aught I knew, some fresh villainy might be afloat even now; what plan could Spicer have been urging, which Cumberland seemed unwilling to adopt, if not something of this nature, and which might be prevented were Oaklands made aware of all ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... Sergeant forcibly recapitulated the evidence, and declared that in the whole course of his professional duties he had never heard such a disclosure of profligacy and villainy, combined with every species of wickedness. In a strain of pointed animadversion he declared it to be an imperative duty,—however much his private feelings might be wounded in seeing a reputable tradesman of the town convicted of such nefarious pursuits,—to order warrants ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... could spend money like dirt to get the result, and besides, she took an interest in me enough to make me wonder why, and she was always keeping her eyes open like a pilot to see that I didn't meet any man who might be after me. To tell the truth, she talked so much of the villainy of males and the horrors of marriage that finally I believed what she said and turned my young face away from all men, just as if good, timid, and bad were run out of ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... testimonials of sufferings relieved by Dr. Charlatan's universal panacea. In many instances persons are hired to give testimonials, and answer letters of inquiry in such a way as to encourage business. The shameless dishonesty and ingenious villainy exhibited ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... loved him. Therefore, the memory of his villainy does not haunt me, as otherwise it might. Not loving him, I ought never to have married him. If I had not, I should have ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... amused at the characteristic and naive manner in which you expressed your detestation of Varney's character—so much so, indeed, that I could not forbear laughing aloud when I perused that part of your letter. He is certainly the personification of consummate villainy; and in the delineation of his dark and profoundly artful mind, Scott exhibits a wonderful knowledge of human nature as well as surprising skill in embodying his perceptions so as to enable others to become participators in that knowledge. Excuse the want of news in ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... enemies of the theatre, became more virulent and envenomed. What a difference between the sunny satire of Sir Andrew Aguecheek and the dark animosity of The Atheists' Tragedy with its Languebeau Snuffe ready to carry out any villainy proposed to him! "I speak sir," says a lady in the same play to a courtier who played with her in an attempt to carry on a quick witted, "conceited" love passage in the vein of Much Ado, "I speak, sir, as the fashion now: is, in earnest." ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... that the scoundrel who calls himself Arnoldi," asked Captain Molineux? "I have heard," and he glanced at Henry Grantham as he spoke, "a long story of his villainy from his captor ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... Mr. Ellis, "you have a great head. I do admire you, upon my word! If I had one-half of your ability for villainy, I would have been ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... made of him a dignified person. But, on his own confession, he must have been all his life long an unmitigated rascal—a predatory beast of the most dangerous kind. From his youth upward he had lived as a professional thief, and his pilferings were various and extensive. The glimpses of sordid villainy which he frankly gives are so poignantly effective that they put into the shade the most dreadful phases in the life of Villon. He was a mean sneaking wretch who supported a miserable existence on the fruits of other people's ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... well-being and even for the existence of society, that crime should be suppressed. Hence, in addition to moralists and ministers who seek to educate and convert, there must be police and soldiers—in short, the full organized force of the community—ready to stamp out incorrigible villainy, if need be with blood and iron. Similarly, it is essential for the well-being and even for the existence of the polity of peoples—the growing society of nations—that aggression should be prevented, that ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw
... exercising it they are able to show their power over the authorities of the country—a fact which impresses the masses. That is why in the neighbourhood of many mosques one sees a great number of ruffianly faces, unmistakable cut-throats, men and boys whose villainy is plainly stamped on their countenances. As long as they remain inside the sacred precincts—which they can do if they like till they die of old age—they can laugh at the law and at the world at large. But let them come out, and they ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... gods; it was necessary for them to view him as excelling in all the characteristics of the secondary gods. And having attributed to the gods all they knew of human passions and corruptions, they clothed Jupiter himself with more villainy and corruption than belonged to any other god. In this was the great blasphemous sacrilege of ancient idolatry. They thus demonstrated their own apostacy; and the fact that their system of gods was a counterfeit, a mythical ...
— The Christian Foundation, April, 1880
... receive a clergyman in her bedroom, should put on a clean nightcap,—but to suspicious eyes small causes suffice to create alarm. And if there were any such hideous wickedness in the wind, had Arabella any colleague in her villainy? Could it be that the mother was plotting against her daughter's happiness and respectability? Camilla was well aware that her mamma would at first have preferred to give Arabella to Mr. Gibson, had the choice in the matter been left to her. But now, ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... Arabs, who are bound eastward for Ujiji. It is a motley group, composed of Mohamad and his friends, a gang of Unyamwezi hangers-on, and strings of wretched slaves yoked together in their heavy slave-sticks. Some carry ivory, others copper, or food for the march, while hope and fear, misery and villainy, may be read off on the various faces that pass in line out of this country, like a serpent dragging its accursed folds away from the victim it has ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... one day, while urging his suit, he opens his blanket and shows the scalp of Scammon, to prove that he has avenged her. She looks in horror, but when he flings the bloody trophy at her feet she baptizes it with a forgiving tear. What villainy may this lead to? Ah, none for him, for Bonython now steps in and plies him with flattery and drink, gaining from the chief, at last, his signature—the bow totem—to a transfer of the land for which he is willing to sell his daughter. Ruth, maddened at ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... Saxon and Celt and of earlier people still; the legends that they fostered are repeated to us, the footsteps of old saints may be traced, together with secular records of pirate and smuggler. There are memories of glorious and gracious personages, as well as of those whose villainy at least was picturesque; there are sad memorials of shipwreck, death, and heartbreak. There are stretches of undulating upland, with fragrant turf, gorse, bracken; valleys almost too low for sunlight to enter, the wild and tortuous mouths ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... Colonel Hathaway, Josie O'Gorman, Mrs. Charleworth, the Chief of Police and the two secret service agents. At this conference it was deemed inadvisable to acquaint the public with the truth about John Dyer's villainy. The government would be fully informed, of course, but it seemed best not to tell the people of Dorfield that a supposedly respectable citizen had been in the pay of the Kaiser's agents. It would be likely to make them suspicious of one another and ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... Spain with a predisposition to every species of crime and villainy, they were not likely to be improved or reclaimed by the example of the people with whom they were about to mix; nor was it probable that they would entertain much respect for laws which, from time immemorial, have principally served, not to protect the honest and useful members ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... times of scarcity (and since 1780 scarcity had become almost permanent), had been invaded by numbers of starving vagabonds—the dregs that always rise to the surface in periods of political convulsion, ready for any villainy. When news came of the capture of Verdun, of the indecent joy of the courtiers, and that the road to Paris was open to the avenging army of Prussians, the horrors of the Armagnac massacres were renewed during four ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... see a Newbury I feel that a mere fraction divides me from the criminal class. And I tell you, I've heard a story about that estate"—the odd figure paused beside the tea-table and rapped it vigorously for emphasis—"that's worse than any other villainy I've yet come across. You know what I mean. ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the detestable villainy of Ferrand. "Then," said he to Louise, "you did not dare to complain to your father of the odious ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... run risks, I believe," replied Gascoyne, in a sad low voice. "It matters not. My being on the island is the result of Manton's villainy—my being here is for poor Henry's sake and your own, as well as for the sake of Alice the missionary's child. You have been upright, Mary, and kind, and true as steel ever since I knew you. But for that I should ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... to the show, and that without a blood-and-thunder plot human life would not run, drying up of its own dullness? "All the world's a stage," and we are all cast for stock roles. Some of us have the luck to be heroes, the complacent centre of eternal plaudits, some are born for villainy and the brickbat. And while others have had to play goodness knows what—mediaeval Italian princesses, Cockney cabmen, old Greek hetairae, German cuirassiers, American presidents, burglars, South ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... even in the most corrupt societies, in which the ideas of virtue, although completely effaced from their conduct, remain the same in their mind. Let us suppose a matt, who had decidedly determined for villainy, who should say to himself—"It is folly to be virtuous in a society that is depraved, in a community that is debauched." Let us suppose also, that he has sufficient address, the unlooked-for good fortune to escape censure or punishment, during a long series of years; ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... temples. What a revelation was here, from lips so innocent and evidently so truthful! And how the whole story tallied with what she had heard in her ambush and conjectured from other circumstances! She was on the right scent, beyond a question—but here came her difficulty,—how to cut this knot of villainy, even now that it lay plainly before her! This was the question that labored through the young girl's brain and bent down her head on her hand. And yet it must be done, whatever the difficulty. Courage, Joseph Harris!—there never was a difficult ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... wretch who was endeavoring to ruin him. And he felt certain, also, that Jacko was true to him. He knew, too, that he had plainly declared his suspicion to the man himself. But he had resolved upon doing this. He could in no way assist himself in circumventing the man's villainy by keeping his suspense to himself. The man might be frightened, and in spite of all that had passed between him and Medlicot, he still thought it possible that he might induce the sugar grower to co-operate with him in driving Nokes ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... wondering why the person in question had been enticed into the spider's parlor. No doubt the highly respectable house-party had been invited to form a suitable setting for some secret villainy. ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... her perched in the corner of the sofa, with her legs tucked up under her, and the light playing a game of magic amid the reds and golds and browns of her hair, while she cheerily discoursed to us of Hamdi's villainy, I never noticed the dull decorum of this room. I was struck with the decorative value of ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... Ubbe woke, aroused by a bright light in Havelok's room, which was only separated from his own by a slight wooden partition. He was vexed suspecting his guest of midnight wassailing, and went to inquire what villainy might be hatching. To his surprise, both husband and wife were sound asleep, but the light shone from Havelok's mouth, and made a glory round his head. Utterly amazed at the marvel, Ubbe went away silently, and returned with ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... corollary of {Finagle's Law}, similar to Occam's Razor, that reads "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." The derivation of the Hanlon eponym is not definitely known, but a very similar remark ("You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.") appears in "Logic of Empire", a 1941 story by Robert A. Heinlein, who calls it the 'devil theory' of sociology. Heinlein's popularity in the hacker culture makes plausible ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... smother the self-reproaches which assailed me when I first conceived the fatal project of imposing upon the world by the supposed death of my wife, and of seeking your hand in marriage. How often did the better feelings of my nature recoil from such an act of villainy—how often was my project abandoned, how often resumed at the alternate bidding of passion and of virtue! I will not repeat the idle sophistry which served to complete my wilful blindness; nor dare I degrade myself ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore
... ordered all the bishops to return each to his church, and so no conclusion was reached. The Greeks called the second assembly at Ephesus a gang of felons, but the first, it is said, excelled it in all the arts of villainy. The contest was finally ended, not by the church, but by the state. The Emperor reinstated Cyril and banished Nestorius, and the western diocese was in the end reduced to submission and the church to unity, not by ecclesiastical authority, but by imperial power. (See Evagrius 1, ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, - Volume I, No. 10. October, 1880 • Various
... you saying, father?" cried the widow, suddenly infuriated. "Why, they dragged me into the fire with a rope round me when the Verhishins' house was burnt, and they locked up a dead cat in my chest. They are ready to do any villainy...." ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Greek class, I might have made a better figure, for Professor Dalzell maintained a great deal of authority, and was not only himself an admirable scholar, but was always deeply interested in the progress of his students. But here lay the villainy. Almost {p.034} all my companions who had left the High School at the same time with myself had acquired a smattering of Greek before they came to College. I, alas, had none; and finding myself far inferior to all my fellow-students, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... Jack," he answered. "Don't trouble yourself about the matter. They might very probably like to do that, or any other piece of villainy, but they dare not. They are cowards at heart, let ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... mad, and that the "long spindle-shanks" must have administered some insidious drug to her. When she learned the Cayenne story, her anger was terrible. She called Florent a convict and murderer, and said it was no wonder that his villainy had kept him lank and flat. Her versions of Florent's biography were the most horrible of all that were circulated in the neighbourhood. At home she kept a moderately quiet tongue in her head, and restricted herself to muttered indignation, and a show of locking ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... villain, you," cried the commodore in a rage—"to think that I had such confidence in you, sir; defended you upon all occasions, sir; refused to believe in your villainy, sir; refused to close my doors against you, sir. Yes, sir; and should have continued to do so, but for ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... gold-fever to its height during our very voyage. With me, however, as with many a young fellow who had turned his back on better things, the malady was short-lived. We expected to make our fortunes out of hand, and we had reckoned without the vermin and the villainy which rendered us more than ever impatient of delay. In my fly-blown blankets I dreamt of London until I hankered after my chambers and my club more than after much fine gold. Never shall I forget my first hot bath on getting back to Melbourne; ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... Beatrice went on. "I know that you were in my bedroom planning some villainy with my husband; I know that you took wax impressions of the seals of my father's room; I know the part you both played afterwards. Then you disappeared, leaving no signs behind. But you have been so kind as to confess your own identity. You will be well ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... fled on. Lancelot, as guest of honour, sat in front, and wagged his hand like a semaphore at all times and in all faces; he felt part policeman and part malefactor, which was just right. Then they thrilled at the smooth and accomplished villainy of Mr. Du Maurier, lost not one line of his faultless clothes, nor one syllable of his easy utterance, "like treacle off a spoon," said Urquhart; and then they tore back through the starry night to Onslow Square, leaving in their wake the wrecks and salvage ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... you," said Orloff, with a smile. "You are both excellent actors. This new little countess was pleased and touched by your discourse, Joseph, my very worthy priest. Where did you learn this new villainy?" ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... relatives to America and poor Barry to enter the British army, under a pressure of poverty too dreadful to relate. As already intimated, the prospects of both had been blighted through oppression and villainy, brought to bear upon them by distant relatives, who were the infamous agents of a still more infamous government. The case of Nick, although sore enough in its way, was not so heartrending as that ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... can be accomplished amongst villains," returned Nisida, "and the necessary preliminaries to the carrying out of our object rest with you, signor. To-morrow morning must you seek Antonio. He knows not that you suspect his villainy and, as you will say nothing relative to the failure in the arrival of your dispatches at Constantinople, he will rest secure in the belief that you have not yet discovered that deed of treachery. You must represent yourself as the mortal enemy of the Count of Riverola, and so speak as to lead ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... timely arrival of cavalry; that the action of the United States government in rescuing him from the civil authorities was a most high-handed interference with State rights; that he received his reward from a grateful railroad by being promoted; that a lovely woman as recompense for his villainy—but bother! it's my business to tell what really occurred, and not what the world chooses to invent. And if any man thinks he would have done otherwise in my position, I can only say that he is a better or a worse ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... circumstances of the origin of this 'poetomachia' are far from clear, and those who have written on the topic, except of late, have not helped to make them clearer. The origin of the "war" has been referred to satirical references, apparently to Jonson, contained in "The Scourge of Villainy," a satire in regular form after the manner of the ancients by John Marston, a fellow playwright, subsequent friend and collaborator of Jonson's. On the other hand, epigrams of Jonson have been discovered (49, 68, and 100) variously charging ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... Sir William Heath's lawful wife, and He will vindicate me. My child is his daughter, and the heiress of Heathdale, and Margaret Stanhope has been shamefully betrayed. I shall never allow such a crime to prevail. I shall sail for Liverpool on the very next steamer, to expose this villainy and to assert my legal rights and my daughter's claim to her position as a Heath of Heathdale. She, at least, shall not suffer dishonor, if the lives of two women have been ruined by the villainy of one man. Did he suppose, because England is three thousand miles from America, that he could ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... was a fool, my lady," replied her husband—"a fool of the very highest calibre. You have, no doubt, discovered that in this world folly is punished far more severely than villainy. Deceive others, and you prosper well enough; allow yourself to be deceived, and you're pitched into as if you were the greatest rogue unhung. It's not a subject for you and me to talk about, my lady. I only mentioned it ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... king speak. Whereupon Pheroras, who was caught in the very act of his villainy, said that "it was Salome who was the framer of this plot, and that the words came from her." But as soon as she heard that, for she was at hand, she cried out, like one that would be believed, that no such thing ever came out of her mouth; that they all earnestly endeavored to ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... cell. This cell, a few days later, a thief shared: and these two held converse as fellow thieves, relating their adventures to one another, and young Muller, that he might not be outdone, invented lying tales of villainy to make himself out the more famous fellow ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... indolently adopting the worn-out falsities of our weakest writers on Taste. Does he—can he for an instant suppose that the ruffian Caravaggio, distinguished only by his preference of candlelight and black shadows for the illustration and re-enforcement of villainy, painted nature—mere nature—exclusive nature, more painfully or heartily than John Bellini or Raphael? Does he not see that whatever men imitate must be nature of some kind, material nature or spiritual, ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... sir! All, sir! Everything, sir! It is really a case of atrocious villainy, sir! And I may say, a case of extreme difficulty as well! A case in which I need counsel myself, sir," said the landlord, with every appearance of being as willing to give information as to ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... judged profitable for himself and others. "A good sermon of Mr. Gifford's at our church, upon 'Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven.' A very excellent and persuasive, good and moral sermon. He showed, like a wise man, that righteousness is a surer moral way of being rich than sin and villainy." It is thus that respectable people desire to have their Greathearts address them, telling, in mild accents, how you may make the best of both worlds, and be a moral hero without courage, kindness, or troublesome reflection; and thus the Gospel, cleared of ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... at this exhibition of cold-blooded villainy on the part of a representative member of the community, although he had never had much use for the pompous, domineering old tyrant, who now led the way through the silent Streets of Pleasantville as meek as ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman |
