"Villainy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... boldly answered, "You may outnumber us by thousands, but you will never capture us alive." He said this so calmly, with such politeness of manner, and yet so firmly, that the Meer was evidently taken aback: at length he replied, "But no such piece of villainy has ever entered my head." He then adroitly changed the subject, and shortly ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... his SMART son, though scarcely sixteen years of age, was a match for him in villainy. He promised him that he should have half of whatever the Jew would give for the diamonds, and Piedro insisted upon being ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... striped poncho over his shoulders, and a gaudy silken kerchief tied turban-like around his temples. But no gaucho he, nor individual of any honest calling: instead, a criminal of deepest dye, experienced in every sort of villainy. For this man is Rufino Valdez, well-known in Assuncion as one of Francia's familiars, and more than suspected of being one ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... his fall, at which the knight and the lady escaped. Then had Jack time to talk with him, and, setting his foot upon his neck, said, "You savage and barbarous wretch, I am come to execute upon you the just reward of your villainy." And with that running him through and through, the monster sent forth a hideous groan, and yielded up his life, while the noble knight and virtuous lady were joyful spectators of his sudden ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... Emperor had Nestorius and Cyril arrested, and 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, 5; Liberatus c. ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, - Volume I, No. 10. October, 1880 • Various
... was before my Danny come back to me to be reconciled to His God. It was while he was still wanderin' I didn't know where, an' goin' from one piece of villainy ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... care while father and mother went on to Far West. You have seen the portrait of her that mother has. You know how delicately flower-like her beauty was, how like a lily, with a purity and an innocence to disarm any villainy. Thirty families had halted at the mill the day before, the mob checking their advance at that point. All was quiet until about four in the afternoon. We were camped on either side of Shoal Creek. Children were playing freely about while their ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... Sally is; secondary, because if some 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 paid ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... abstract him from this," pursued Lionel, and at the same time cursed the foul fiend that prompted him such specious words to cloak his villainy. "I would abstract him from it, and yet 'tis against my conscience that he should go unpunished for I swear to you, Master Leigh, that I abhor the deed—a ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... lies 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, ...
— The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold - A Play for a Greek Theatre • John Jay Chapman
... laugh. Either he had been drinking, or the success of his villainy had served for wine. "You are a man in a thousand, Nicolo!" he said. "How far above or below the ship is this ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... about an intended performance of "Cellini" at Dresden. This is as yet a secret, which I, for my part, should like to see made public very soon. The opera is Berlioz's freshest and roundest work, and its failure in Paris and London must be attributed to low villainy and misapprehension. It would be a fine thing if Dresden were to offer him a brilliant ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... systematic villainy I believe I am listening to the limit!" quivered Lieutenant Dick Prescott ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... a personage, A being more than ordinary clay, And much superior to the vulgar herd! Some faces passed which knew no kindly look, And felt no friendly pressure of the hand; And if the face depict the character, Some passed so steeped in crime and villainy That Judas' vile, ill-favored countenance Would seem in contrast quite respectable; Some features glowed with unfeigned honesty, Some grimaced in dissimulating craft, Some smiled benignantly and passed along; Some faces meek, some ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... wheelbarrows, and carts; Warrants, bailiffs, bills unpaid, Lords of laundresses afraid; Rogues, that nightly rob and shoot men, Hangmen, aldermen, and footmen; Lawyers, poets, priests, physicians, Noble, simple, all conditions; Worth beneath a thread-bare cover, Villainy bedaubed all over; Women, black, red, fair, and grey, Prudes, and such as never pray; Handsome, ugly, noisy still, Some that will not, some that will; Many a beau without a shilling, Many a widow not ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... for the deliberate wickedness with which, in pursuance of the same system, they imposed the most blasphemous and atrocious legends upon the credulous, and persecuted with fire and sword those who opposed their deceitful villainy. One reason wherefore so few travels were written in the age of which we are speaking is, that no Englishman, unless he were a Papist, could venture into Italy, or any other country where the Romish religion ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... 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
... is cheerful courage for you—more particularly in the case of a man who proclaims from the housetop that there is no limit to the villainy of his adversaries. ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... the cross, and God will give it to us. We are passing through the baptism of fire—and verily we needed it, both South and North. The South had become mad with vanity and aristocracy; the North was, is still, corrupt and rotten beyond all healthy life, with such villainy in 'politics,' and such indifference to all that was noble and honorable through the greed of gold, that honest and able men were cast aside, or at best, used as mere tools by the 'intelligent.' ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... loved scheming for its own sake, but never had either pitted his wits against the other with less intention of hiding his real mind. Each was in earnest, utterly sincere, therefore not ignoble; and the bargain was struck between the two with no deliberate villainy on either side. The marabout promised his wife's sister to Maieddine with as little hesitation as a patriarch of Israel, three thousand years ago, would have promised a lamb for the sacrificial altar. He stipulated only that before the marriage Maieddine should prove, ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... you, Dwyer,' said O'Mara; 'I have taken my resolution—I have, I think, firmness to act up to it. To marry Ellen Heathcote, situated as I am, were madness; to propose anything else were worse, were villainy not to be named. I will leave the country to-morrow, cost what pain it may, for England. I will at once break off the proposed alliance with Lady Emily, and will wait until I am my own master, to open my heart to ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... to place a Mussulman at the head of the administration of Bengal. On the other hand, he could not bring himself to confer immense power on a man to whom every sort of villainy had repeatedly been brought home. Therefore, though the Nabob, over whom Nuncomar had by intrigue acquired great influence, begged that the artful Hindoo might be entrusted with the government, Clive, after ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... went after the Saracens into Spain. They took and fired Saragossa, and Marsilius was hung to the carob-tree under which he had planned his villainy with Gan; and Gan was hung and drawn and quartered in Roncesvalles, amidst the execrations of ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... buy, and it is thus that they prefer to express themselves and their ambitions. What, then, is tolerable in Chicago? Lincoln Park, which the smoke and fog of the city have not obscured, and the grandiose lake, whose fresh splendour no villainy of man can ever deface. And at one moment of the day, when a dark cloud hung over the lake, and the sun set in a red glory behind the sky-scrapers, each black, and blacker for its encircling smoke, Chicago rose superior to herself ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... the thing can be accomplished, for I was a guest of the raider's before I knew the nature of the man, and those at the camp are not aware that I turned against him when I discovered his villainy. ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... 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
... born in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, of a Scots father (David, 1772-1847) himself a noted contributor to the metallurgy of iron and steel, is, like the American William Kelly, considered by many to have been a victim of Bessemer's astuteness—or villainy. Because of Robert Mushet's preference for the quiet of Coleford, many important facts about his career are lacking; but even if his physical life was that of a recluse, his frequent and verbose contributions to the correspondence columns of the technical press made him well-known ...
— The Beginnings of Cheap Steel • Philip W. Bishop
... purposes. Mr. G. assured me that he places no confidence in these declarations, nor in the stability of the Sacs and Foxes. He deems the latter treacherous, as usual, and related to me several acts of their former villainy—all in accordance with their late attack and murder of the Menomonies at Prairie du Chien. This murder was committed by a part of Black Hawk's band, who had been driven from their villages on the Mississippi ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... and among other methods of injuring their fellow subjects, circulated incendiary letters, demanding sums of money of certain individuals, on pain of reducing their houses to ashes; this species of villainy had never been known before in England. In the course of the summer seven Indian Chiefs were brought over to England. In 1731 a duel was fought in the Green Park, between Sir William Pulteney and Lord Hervey, on account of ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... to be no doubt about the enemy within the gates. How can the soldiers give their lives so patiently and bravely for a Government whose villainy and corruption take no account of the significance of their sacrifices. The German influence is still strong. They say German money bribes the Ministers at home and the ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... blood and sorrow. "If it were not for your presence in the country," says the President to the colored men, "we should have no war!" If it were not for silverware and jewelry, no burglaries would be committed! Don't let us get rid of the villains, but of the victims; thereby villainy will cease! ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... stimulate her in the struggle going on in her own soul. And she very soon understood how the sharp, sparkling, audacious Fanny Newt had become the inert, indifferent woman before her. A clever villain might have developed her, through admiration and sympathy, into villainy; but a dull, heavy brute merely crushed her. There is a spur in the prick of a rapier; only stupidity follows ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... fiendishness!" he exclaimed, quite slowly, as though unable to imagine it in human bounds. "At a time of disaster and of death, such as has smitten the colony—what hellish villainy!" ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... compensation. Had he not run the man to earth? And was not the avenging of the girl he loved yet to come? Yes, this had been so, and he dwelt on the courage and patience which governed the simple women who listened to the details of man's merciless villainy. ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... Whose mother was her painting, hath betray'd him: Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion, And for I am richer than to hang by th' walls, I must be ript; to pieces with me. Oh, Men's vows are women's traitors. All good seeming By thy revolt, oh husband, shall be thought Put on for villainy: not born where't grows, But worn ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... same. We had a long uncomfortable passage. About the ninth day, before sunset, we saw Dover, and reminded the Dutchman of his agreement to land us there. He said he would, but instead of that in the morning we were off the coast of France. We complained loudly of this piece of villainy, and insisted upon his returning to land us, when an English man of war appeared to windward, and presently bore down, to us. She sent her boat on board with an officer, who informed us that the ship he came from was the Squirrel, commanded by Captain Masterton. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... 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 the solo on the English ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... protecting his "frail personality." The Irish moonlight patriots are gratified. Balfour was their aversion. During his reign it could no longer be said that the safest place in Ireland, the one spot where no harm could befall you, was the criminal dock. Balfour stamped out midnight villainy, and helped the industrious poor. Wherefore he is honoured by honest Irishmen and hated by all rascalry. Ireland needs him again with his suaviter in modo, fortiter in re; his fairness and firmness, his hatred ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... "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 must owe ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... heroic in me from time to time. I trust you have been disillusioned tonight. The fight on the stairs, the open boat—you see them all as they should be, do you not, the necessary parts of a piece of villainy? Pray ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... and continue your journey on the morrow." Pleased by the apparently friendly offer, and never dreaming of the fate in store for her, the girl willingly accepted the invitation. That night the people around Schloss Rosebach heard piercing screams and wondered what new villainy was on foot. But the massive stone walls kept their secret, and the luckless maiden never again ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... goings-on, sir," 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 ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... to the grandest themes, and all his service to the highest objects. As a lawyer, my life has been spent in a prolonged quarrel about money, land, houses; cattle, thieving, slandering, murdering, and other villainy. The little episodes of politics that have given variety to my career have only shown me the baseness of human nature, and the pettiness of human ambition. There are men who will fill these places and do this work, and who want and will choose nothing better. Let them ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... villains!" sighed Sylvie, still looking up at the brilliant heavens, "And sometimes if a villain really loves anybody he half redeems his villainy. But the Marquis loves himself best of anyone in the world . . . and I—I do not intend to be second in anyone's affections! So . . ." she paused, "Do you see that star, Katrine? It is as bright as if it were shining on a frosty night in America. And do you not notice the resemblance ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... For reputations false and true! This 'Gundagai' turned out to be, For strife and all-round villainy, The very worst ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... any sort always sounds like a call to judgment, and who, in any such ambiguous case, fill up the moments of suspense with wild conjecture, and a ghastly summing-up against themselves; can it be this—or that—or the other old, buried, distant villainy, that comes back to ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... in time to get the fire under," I said. "Better, perhaps, if they let the whole thing burn itself out. It would burn up a lot of villainy." ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... had more or less familiar dealings with Manbos almost invariably make the statement that Manbo justice is the oppression of the weak by the strong; that there is no customary law that governs in social dealings except that one which is founded on the caprice and villainy of the warrior chiefs and of those who have most influence and following. Now I utterly repudiate such statements and rumors as being due either to lack of familiarity; to a too ready tendency to believe malicious reports; ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... it for great glory to suffer for Christ's faith the thing that we worldly wretched fools think to be villainy and shame. For they, when they were scourged, with despite and shame, and thereupon commanded to speak no more of the name of Christ, "went their way from the council joyful and glad that God had vouchsafed to do them the worship to suffer shameful despite for the name of Jesus." ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... wasting away. Her eye dim, and her strength gone—Sir, make one such family happy—for all this has been in my father's house! Give us back our light spirits, our pleasant days, and our cheerful hearts again! We lost them through the villainy of your agent. Give them back to us, for you can do it; but you can never pay us for what we suffered. Give us, sir, our farm, our green fields, our house, and every spot and nook that we had before. We love the place, sir, for its own sake;—it ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... pretty nearly the same as that of the two Chinese missionaries. Every petty officer of the government knows he can practise impositions on our trade with impunity, because we have not the means of bringing his villainy to the knowledge of his superiors. For, how great soever may be the propensity of the Chinese people to fraud and extortion, I have little doubt of the justice and moderation of the Chinese government, when the case is properly represented. A recent circumstance may ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... gloves or their handkerchiefs: which makes much against my manhood, if I should take from another's pocket to put into mine; for it is plain pocketing up of wrongs. I must leave them, and seek some better service: their villainy goes against my weak stomach, and therefore I ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... some of my own kin, and when you came it was like a message from home. I'd give much never to have had it now. All of us saw something good in you; we didn't expect much, so there wasn't much for you to live up to. But what have you done? Dragged us into a heap of filth and villainy and wickedness. We've done with you here—make no mistake about that. You can take the one horse and cart and whatever else you can call your own, and off you go! There's no money to be got; you've wasted more than ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... in time," said George. "I do suppose I am safe against villainy here." And his eye swept lightly over both the men. "Anyway, it shan't be a mistake or a misunderstanding; it shall be villainy if 'tis done. Speak, Susanna Merton, and speak your real ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... moon was on the wane: each night there was a longer interval of darkness. And I now understood to some slight degree at least the reason of the fear of the little Upper-world people for the dark. I wondered vaguely what foul villainy it might be that the Morlocks did under the new moon. I felt pretty sure now that my second hypothesis was all wrong. The Upper-world people might once have been the favoured aristocracy, and the Morlocks ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... the corner when he comes. I sat and laughed at this trick, rubbed my hands with glee, and swore with rollicking recklessness. What a disappointment he will get, the dog! Wouldn't this piece of villainy make him inclined to sink into hell's hottest pool of torment! I was drunk with starvation; my ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... Leicester, he grew violently jealous of this favored courtier. He at first challenged him to mortal combat, but as this could not conveniently be carried out, he secretly bade his agent in London to hire an assassin to deal with the earl, promising protection and a rich reward to the murderer. This villainy the agent refused to perform, and Erik now, hoping to frighten Elizabeth to give him a favorable answer, spread a report in England that he was courting the Scottish queen. The effect was different from what he anticipated, for Elizabeth at ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... us, I know to be bad men," continued the speaker; "I expect nothing but wickedness from them. But you, I am aware, have been better brought up. Your responsibility therefore becomes the greater in assisting them in their villainy." ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... before, I look upon 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 ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... quarrel which he had provoked, are events too tragical to interrupt this happy conclusion by more than merely touching upon. It is sufficient that all were made happy who were deserving; and even the treacherous Iachimo, in consideration of his villainy having missed its final aim, was ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... like a leaf. This phase of his villainy had not occurred to her. She was like a bird trying to avoid the charmed eye ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... was I who refused to see Brunow's hand, as he, only a few hours ago, had declined to see mine. If I had laid bare his villainy there and then, I have no shadow of doubt that there would have been murder done. If I had even hinted at suspicion, his life would have been barely worth a minute's purchase. If my associates had a fault with which both ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... 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 ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... 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 ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... Spartacus,[27] originated as follows:—One Lentulus Batiates kept gladiators in Capua, of whom the majority, who were Gauls and Thracians, had been closely confined, not for any misbehaviour on their part, but through the villainy of their purchaser, for the purpose of fighting in the games. Two hundred of these resolved to make their escape; but their design being betrayed, those who had notice of the discovery, and succeeded in getting away, to the number of seventy-eight, took knives and spits out of a cook's ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... deesposition in writin' classes to omit the necessary bits of scenery that throw up the odious villainy of the factor, or the lonely vairtue of the Mill Girl. A forest maiden wi'oot the forest or a hard-workin' factory lass wi'oot a chimney-stalk, is no more convincin' than a seegair band wi'oot the seegair, ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... practice of plundering as so rife that 'no man is secure in his effects, and scarcely in his person.' People were 'frightened out of their houses under pretence of those houses being ordered to be burnt, with a view of seizing the goods;' and to conceal the villainy more effectually, some houses were actually burned down. On February 28th, 1777, 'the scandalous loss, waste, and private appropriation of public arms during the last campaign' had been 'beyond all conception.' Officers ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... to cover all the oppression and villainy that the sun has witnessed in his circuit, since God said, "Let there be light." It assumes that to be practicable, which is impossible, namely, that there can be freedom with slavery, union with injustice, and safety with bloodguiltiness. A union of virtue with pollution is the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... well-known at the time though it really happened to another ship, of great beauty of form and of blameless character, which certainly deserved a better fate. I have unscrupulously adapted it to the needs of my story thinking that I had there something in the nature of poetical justice. I hope that little villainy will not cast a shadow upon the general honesty of my proceedings as a ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... printed in an unrecognisable hand, set Heathcote's heart beating and his colour coming and going in a manner quite new to him. Who was this "Junius," and what was this conspiracy to terrify him? "Suspect everything he does." A pretty piece of advice, certainly, to anybody. For instance, what villainy could be concealed in his bowling for an hour at the wickets, or rescuing young Aspinall from his tormentors? "He will try to make a blackguard of you." Supposing Junius was right, would it not be warning enough to fight shy of him ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... 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 ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... that way, Treadwell," he said, thinking that some obvious villainy of Crothers' had opened Lans's eyes to facts; "I may be able to get you out of ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... design. How has he gained his influence over the girl? Why does he keep her in such strict seclusion? Who is this old half-frantic, unceremonious man-monster calling himself Ulpius; refusing all reward for his villainy; raving about a return to the old religion of the gods; and exulting in the promise he has extorted from me, as a good pagan, to support the first restoration of the ancient worship that may be attempted in ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... 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 in regard to the odor of the place, for eau de cologne ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... laughed loudly and long until Master Mather said indignantly, "I am sorry, Sir William, that you can treat so lightly this infamous confession of falsehood and villainy. This impudent young man deserves to be set for three days in the pillory, and then whipped at the cart's tail ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... Bristol Bob's to the Sanctuary. Yes, why not? If the Pippin was up to any dirty work, or even if the two of them, Melinoff and the Pippin, were in it together, and the word "squeal" implied that Melinoff was to be held strictly up to his full share of some mutual villainy should he show any inclination to waver, it might not be an altogether unfitting exit from the stage if the Gray Seal should make his final bow to the underworld by playing a role in the Pippin's little drama, whatever that drama might prove ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... innocent. Blake, to be sure, was at Yuma, but what could he establish save that the stage had been attacked, Loring left alone, and when the cavalry returned there lay the Engineer apparently unconscious, the empty saddle-bag beside him. Blake had seen no robbers. Blake suspected Sancho of every villainy, but could convict him of none. Traynor, the purser, whether he believed or disbelieved his own story that he had passed that packet down to Loring, could truthfully declare that Loring had displayed most mysterious and unaccountable interest in it. One talk with Pancha, it seems, had banished ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... lady you suppose. No, sirrah," she added, as her anger made her for the moment forget her danger, "I am Mademoiselle de Valricour; so now you will see that if you dare to attempt to carry out your villainy you will have to pay dearly for it the moment that I can send either ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... side; he was speaking low in her ear: I did not doubt he was making disclosures of my villainy; and I watched her eye with painful anxiety, expecting every moment to see its dark orb turn on me a glance of repugnance and contempt. I listened too; and as I happened to be seated quite at the top of the room, I caught most ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... a great noise outside my window, and on rising found a poor boatman moaning piteously, and in a strange jumble of many languages begging me to help him. At first I was afraid to open the door, on account of the noisy mob which soon joined him, for villainy was very shrewd at Cruces; but at last I admitted him, and found that the poor wretch's ears had been cruelly split by some hasty citizen of the United States. I stitched them up as well as I could, and silenced his cries. And at any time, if you happened to be near the river when a crowd ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... conscious of a strange tightening of his heartstrings as the man on whom he relied, remained impassive and made no movement to come to his help. "Will you tell them, I pray you, sir, that you know me to be a man of honor, incapable of such villainy as they suggest? ... You know that I did not even wish ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... right-living and thinking Will keep the grim wolf from the door; But how many Saints are there sinking Whose crime is to live and be poor! Let the knave promulgate the deception, And dress the world's wounds with such salve; It is false—while rank Villainy prospers, And ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... finds out that she has been so criminally deceived—when she knows that you are not her husband? No! She will prosecute you to the utmost extent of the law. And, even if it were possible to suppose that she could forgive your black villainy, forget her own deep wrongs, and forego vengeance, do you suppose it possible that Abel Force would ever be brought to recognize your claim to his daughter? Never, you may depend on it! He will repudiate your claim as the most shameful insult to ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... deviating into virtue." If the author's introduction be borne in mind, and if the book be read steadily in the light there supplied, no one can refrain from admiring the extraordinary skill and concentration with which the plan is pursued, and the adroitness with which, at every turn, the villainy of Wild is approximated to that of those securer and more illustrious criminals with whom he is so seldom confused. And Fielding has never carried one of his chief and characteristic excellences to so great perfection: the book is a model ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... fellows of Central Brazil were a remarkable mixture of villainy and charm—in chemical language one might describe them as sublimates ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... all traces of Professor Kell's villainy. Although he is no more, still someone might notice that his body actively remains. And no one ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... understand why they had left us all there, alive, but bound hand and foot as we were. I suspected some villainy, however, and my first idea was that they had set the barque on fire. But I could not detect any smell of burning, and then the thought came to me that perhaps they had scuttled her, intending us to go down with the ship. The idea ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... prisoner under my own roof. But Fate, which has been waiting for you a long time, intervened, and I became a free man again just at the very moment when Mr. Evors also regained his liberty. Since then we have met more than once, and the whole tale of your villainy is now plain before me. You might have been content with the murder of my father and the blood money you extracted from the Four Finger Mine, but that was not enough for you—nothing less than the extermination of our race sufficed. It was no ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... twenty, no, not so much as a single Louis d'or from me. I should be mad to make you even the smallest advance, so as to help you begin your shameful trade over again. Fate has stamped you in the dust like a poisonous reptile, and it would simply be villainy for me to aid you in recovering yourself. Go and perish ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... under a master's very eye. At the trial the judge, who had, so ran report, been himself rather badly bitten by the Ham Sandwich Company, put the case briefly and neatly in the words, 'You appear to revel in villainy for villainy's sake,' and I am almost certain that I saw the beginnings of a gratified smile on Frederick's expressive face as he heard the remark. The rest of our study—the juniors at St Austin's pigged ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... island; nay, I fancied I talked with them, and looked at them steadily, though I was broad awake, as at persons just before me; and this I did till I often frightened myself with the images my fancy represented to me. One time, in my sleep, I had the villainy of the three pirate sailors so lively related to me by the first Spaniard, and Friday's father, that it was surprising: they told me how they barbarously attempted to murder all the Spaniards, and that they set fire to the provisions they had laid up, on purpose to distress and starve them; things ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... hate to sin from the love of virtue; you will commit no crime merely for the fear of punishment. Let there be a prospect of escaping, you will confound sacred and profane things together. For, when from a thousand bushels of beans you filch one, the loss in that case to me is less, but not your villainy. The honest man, whom every forum and every court of justice looks upon with reverence, whenever he makes an atonement to the gods with a wine or an ox; after he has pronounced in a clear distinguishable voice, "O father Janus, O Apollo;" moves his lips as ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... villainy," said he, jerking his thumb toward the Piazza and the statue of the Liberator. "He's very 'cute, but he's ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... in the shield of every man a weak spot. There was one in the shield of Maclin's brutal villainy. For a moment he felt positively virtuous; perhaps the sensation proved the embryo virtue ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... still more illustrative of the knotted, trebly intertwisted villainy, accumulating at a sort of compound interest in a man-of-war. The cockswain of the Commodore's barge takes his crew apart, one by one, and cautiously sounds them as to their fidelity—not to the United ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... Moros, who trace their origin from the Mohammedan invaders, and who dominate the other inhabitants." "Physically the Sulu natives are superior to the ordinary Malay type, and, according to Streeter, are a strange mixture of villainy and nobility." (U. S. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... expert friend Martin Dubois at work, and, with the artificial stones I gave him, he made an imitation necklace so closely resembling the original that you apparently do not know it is the unreal you have in your possession. I did not fear the villainy of the crooks as much as the blundering of the police, who would have protected me with brass-band vehemence if I could not elude them. I knew that the detectives would overlook the obvious, but would at once follow a clue if I provided one for them. Consequently, ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... the detection of villainy, a proclamation, offering a reward of sixty pounds of flour, more tempting than the ore of Peru or Potosi, was promised to any one who should apprehend, and bring to justice, a robber ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... his eyes, vanquished and perplexed. The picture of the future outlined by Marguerite terrified him. To live with her as a nurse taking advantage of her patient's blindness would be to offer him fresh insult every day. . . . Ah, no! That would be villainy, indeed! He was now ashamed to recall the malignity with which, a little while before, he had regarded this innocent unfortunate. He realized that he was powerless to contend with him. Weak and helpless as he was sitting there on the garden bench, he was stronger and more deserving ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... began at last, "that it would depend wholly on the size of the stakes. He's a coward when it comes to a show-down, but money and place and power are his gods. If it was a tremendous piece of villainy with a big incentive he mightn't have the courage to see it through himself, but he is quite capable of aiding and abetting it, or hiring others to do ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... I am 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 ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... the very frontispiece; and for the rest of the story his career, if chequered at intervals, was sure of heroic episodes and a glorious close. But his juniors, who had to put up with characters of a clay more mixed—nay, sometimes with undiluted villainy—were hard put to it on occasion to defend their other selves (as it was strict etiquette to do) from ignominy perhaps only too justly merited. Edward was indeed a hopeless grabber. In the "Buffalo-book," for instance (so named from the subject ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... Magic Mead through cruelty and villainy. They made it out of the blood of a man. The man was Kvasir the Poet. He had wisdom, and he had such beautiful words with it, that what he said was loved and remembered by all. The Dwarfs brought Kvasir ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum
... said he, to himself. "Because Pierre is ugly, like all the rest of his race, and because he always carries a knife in his belt, and hates Marmion, I have been willing to believe him capable of any villainy. I don't suppose he has thought of that gold since he saw me ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... the Lord; yea, the word and testament are given to them for this purpose (Psa 78:5-7). These are prisoners of hope all the time they are in the state of nature, even as the whole creation is subjected under hope, all the time of its bondage, by the sin and villainy of man; and unto them it shall be said, in the dispensation of the fullness of time, 'Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope' (Zech 9:12); as certainly as that which is called the creature itself shall be delivered from the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the crimes in the calendar, (loud laughter) who, if he has done what you have said, ought to be taken out on the square and hung, and well hung too. (Laughter and cheers.) Having admitted that I am converted to the fact of Wood's villainy, (laughter) and you having admitted that he is not a democrat, but a republican, (laughter) I think it is time the honest democratic and republican voters should rise up in their might and wipe off all those corrupt republican leaders ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... 'We will soon see whether there will be a scandal or not. Attract the attention of those on deck! That is exactly what I am going to do, until I show up the villainy of this man you are talking to. He was the concocter of it, and he knows it. She never had brains enough to think of it. He was too much of a coward to carry it through himself, and so he set her to do his dastardly piece ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... was it possible to believe that those unblinking gray eyes, with the capability of a latent sadness of despair in them, expressed a soul entirely without nobility. He had a certain gallant ease, a certain attractive candor, that did not consist with villainy unadulterated. ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... left Williamsburg, apparently because you had gambled with Jewett and afterward fought him, I was not misled. You made the game of cards a pretense; you sought it simply as an opportunity to wreak your vengeance on him for his villainy toward me. Well, it's all over now. Though you cruelly beat and left him disfigured for life, he will live, and you are saved from murder, thank God! When I learned of your departure I yearned to follow. Then I met a preacher who spoke of having ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... came promptly and confidently, knowing nothing of the reason, but conceiving naturally that fresh honours were to be conferred upon him by a master who loved stout-hearted servants. And that Rhynsault was stout-hearted he showed most of all when the Duke taxed him without warning with the villainy he had wrought. ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... opinion was of my master, I had never believed him to be capable of such villainy as this, and I could not believe it when the lawyer ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... according to promise, had now left England, and presumed that the differences between them were to be settled by their respective lawyers—infamous behaviour on a par with the rest of Lord Highgate's villainy, the Baronet said. "When the scoundrel knew I could lift my pistol arm," Barnes said, "Lord Highgate fled the country;"—thus hinting that death, and not damages, were what he intended to seek ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sincerity; but suddenly alarmed at the magnitude of the disclosure he was going to make, and considering that, not his friend Horatio only, but another person was present, he breaks off suddenly:—"There's ne'er a villain in all Denmark that can match (perhaps he would have said) my uncle in villainy; but recollecting the danger of such a declaration, he pauses for a moment, and then abruptly concludes:—"but he's ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... accounts rendered by the Vicomte's various estates. So far as a cursory examination could prove it, I judged that we had to deal with but clumsy scoundrels, and in France in those days scoundrels were of fine fleur, I can tell you, while every sort of villainy ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... the other side of the bars, as though he were actually a prisoner within the grounds of this centre of revolutionary plots, of this house of folly, of blindness, of villainy and crime. Silently he indulged his wounded spirit in a feeling of immense moral and mental remoteness. He did not even smile when he ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... 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 ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler |
