"Imp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rapid driving brought the carriage to the hall-door of the chateau, and its wealthy, but, perhaps, after all, not very much to be envied, master conducted his familiar imp, Blassemare, into a saloon, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... sharp thou lov'st to dart, (Thou skating imp! Thou rolling joker!) And hit in some projecting part The lawyer staid, or solemn broker. Does pity never mar thy glee, When upright men with torture double? Oh, let our one petition be That thou may'st ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various
... noticing his hands, the quality of his linen, his astonishingly "good" appearance on the only occasion that she had seen him in evening dress; she almost groaned aloud when she recalled the manner of her son's departure from Bristol, and some imp in her heart raked the burnt ashes of the fire that had devoured her when she heard why Captain Devar was requested to resign his commission. Of course, this proud young aristocrat recognized him at ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... "Beware of that imp of Tolobon!" Joe Johnson muttered. "How I wish you could kill him, Van Dorn. He's got to be a senator; some day he'll be chief-justice of Delaware: then, what'll niggers be ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... would have conquered if some imp had not whispered, "What about that purple envelope, addressed in a woman's handwriting? Maybe it was from her, hinting to see him again, and that is what has put this plan into his head. Perhaps he brought up the subject of the Countess on purpose ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... the shape of Mr P—t, (By this time all the parish know it), Had told that thereabouts there lurk'd A wicked imp they call a Poet, ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... returned Barbara, whose flushed face looked lovely childlike in its indignation beside the furious phiz of the tormenting imp. ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... close inspection, no less so appeared the child's equipment; the lilac silk pelisse, the small swansdown boa, the white bonnet—the whole holiday toilette, in short, was the gala garb of a cherub but too well known, of that tadpole, Desiree Beck—and Desiree Beck it was—she, or an imp ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... I could not abide these antics, I thanked him abruptly, pulled my still-trembling horse another way, and thought I would seek some other adventure, or perhaps go home; for during my wild gallop the sun had passed his meridian, and was now declining westward. But the little imp sprang round like lightning, and stood in front ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... exact image of the Americans," explained the peasant vendor, offering a pale blue imp, with a long, red tongue and a ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... "Imp! you are corrupt." With which my lady tapped farewell on his shoulder. Leaning from the carriage window, she said: "I suppose I shall see you at Richford? Merthyr Powys is coming this week. And that reminds me: he would be the man to appreciate your 'born artist.' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... perhaps somewhere in his make-up there lay a spot, call it instinct or what you please, that vibrated in response to the distress of the human creature he carried. Perhaps the fact that she was in trouble drew his sympathy, wicked little willful imp though he usually was. Certain it is that he began to slacken his pace decidedly, until at last he was walking, and finally stopped short and turned his head about with a troubled neigh as if to ask ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... existing government. One subject after another was dismissed—politics, law, love, and religion—they abused every thing, and agreed marvellously. It was getting very near midnight, the hour at which, it is said, devils are let loose upon earth for mischief—when a rascally little imp crawled up to Planner's ear, and put it into his head to talk about the amusements of the poor, and their effects ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... Man pound (IMP), also known as the Manx pound note: the British pound is also legal tender, but change is ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... idea of truth even when he mistook falsehood for it. In the Terror he said there was no God, because he believed there was none, but he never said that France was God so that he might encourage her to conquer the world. Voltaire was an imp of destruction perhaps, but with what a divine lightning of laughter would he have struck the Teutonic Antichrist, and how the everlasting soul of France would have risen in him if he could have seen her most sacred church, ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... felt as though it had been sand-papered, when he would have sold his soul for a bath and actually began to get his things together in readiness for the next wagon out, it was Pat, who, with the devilish ingenuity of an Irish imp, mocked and jeered at him for a quitter, "fit to act only as lady's maid or to serve soft dhrinks in a corner drug-sthore," until his fainting heart took fire and, cursing his tormentor with all the oaths he could muster, he offered to whip, single-handed, the ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... Gyp, the imp, the one who apparently had no feeling, stooped, and peeping into the lovely little face, spoke ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... horses; and with an occasional crown from me, and what he earns otherwise, it cannot be said that he costs his brother anything in money; but in other respects he is always getting him into trouble, for he is a very imp of mischief. Two or three times his brother has obtained places for him, but he always comes back at the end of a week, and sometimes sooner, with bitter complaints from his master that he has set the household in a turmoil with his ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... at its sharpest, brightest, wittiest, most fantastic, most wilful, most devout, saint and imp sported in one, toying with the tricks of the Deity, taking them now with extreme profundity, then tossing them about like irresistible toys with an incomparable triviality. She has traced upon the page and with celestial indelibility that fine line ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... fighting bantam cock and the stable cat into a barn, and left them fighting furiously; he locked one of the farm-labourers in a hayloft, and pulled away the ladder, so that he was not released for hours, and he proved such an imp of mischief in the house that even his mother meditated handing him over to ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... Myths, in Our Holidays Retold from St. Nicholas; Black Andie's Tale of Tod Lapraik, in Stevenson, David Balfour; History of Hallowe'en, in Stevenson, Days and Deeds (prose); Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and Rip Van Winkle Irving; Macbeth, Shakespeare; The Bottle Imp, in Stevenson, Island Nights' Entertainments; The Devil and Tom Walker, Irving; The Fire-King, Scott (poem); The Speaking Rat, in Dickens, ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... been atrocious scenes, based on his jealousies of her, which some imp in her would lead her to provoke, notwithstanding that even as she spoke she regretted, and ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... ombrage de platanes, et spare des ateliers par un vaste jardin. C'est l que je suis venu au monde et que j'ai pass les premires, les seules bonnes annes de ma vie. Aussi ma mmoire reconnaissante a-t-elle gard du jardin, de la fabrique et des platanes un imprissable souvenir, et lorsqu' la ruine de mes parents il m'a fallu me sparer de ces choses, je les ai positivement ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... strive to wound his breast, That bears that talisman; and when he meets The eloquent eye of TENDERNESS, and hears The bosom-thrilling music of her voice; The joy he feels shall purify his Soul, And imp ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... minaca. Immobility senmoveco. Immoderate malmodera. Immodest nemodesta. Immolate oferbucxi. Immoral malbonmora. Immorality malbonmoreco. Immortal senmorta. Immortality senmorteco. Immovable senmova, nemovebla. Immutable nesxangxebla. Imp diableto. Impair difekti. Impart komuniki, sciigi. Impartial senpartia. Impartiality senpartieco. Impatience malpacienco. Impatient malpacienca. Impassive kvietega, stoika. Impeach kulpigi, denunci. Impediment baro. Impel antauxen pusxi. Impend minaci. Impenetrable ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... at the window of the squire's study, took out his things,—his desk and chair, his footstool, the screen he always kept between him and the fire, and dear knows what all,—and loaded them up on the wagon. They worked twice as hard at that imp's doing as they would at honest work, you may be bound. Then they drove down to the parsonage with the load, and tried round till they found a window unfastened, and in they carried every single thing, into the elder's study, and then loaded up with his rattletraps, and back to the Homestead. ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... the charitable interpretation. Harry strongly suspected that the imp had been a concealed spectator all the time, and had particularly relished the mischief of the discomfiture, which, after all, was much greater on the part of the Vicar than any one else, as he was a rather stiff, old-fashioned gentleman. ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... be sure, as they called the house of that imp of Satan, the Baroness. I was the wash-lady there, for it's not Mrs Conner the landlady as is above spakin' of the days when she wasn't as high in the world as she is now; and many is the cheerin' cup of coffee or tay from your own ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... reflecting, Triboulet, like an imp, began to dance before them, slapping his crooked knees with his ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... the same, you young imp, if you'd had the chance," answered the pie-vender, with more truth than gratitude. "Clear out, the whole on ye. I've had ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... In Scandinavia he was always associated with water either in sea or lake, river or waterfall, his picture being changed to that of a horrid-looking creature, half-child and half-horse, the horse's feet being shown the wrong way about. Sometimes, again, he was shown as an old black man like an imp, sitting on a rock and wringing the dripping water ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... peer into the gloom. Then, suddenly, that black curtain was rent by jagged spurts of red and yellow flame. Dazed for an instant, her heart throbbing wildly to the sharp reports of the rifles, she shrank cowering back, her fascinated gaze fixed on those imp-like figures leaping forward from rock to rock. Almost with the flash and sound Hampton sprang hastily back and ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... know now. You said awhile ago that I was to blame for your mother being—as she is. You're liable to say that again." A horror greater than sudden passion was in the deliberate explanation and in the slow way he rose to his feet. "I'm going to fix you so you can't say it again, you old-man imp!" ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... the very imp of mischief seemed to get into old Mr. Possum's head. Yes, Sir, it certainly did seem that way. And when you see Mischief trotting along the Lone Little Path, if you look sharp enough, you'll see Trouble following at ...
— Mother West Wind 'Why' Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... threatened to complain of that boy—a merry, mischievous young imp—to Mr. Craven; but she never did so. Perhaps because the clerks always gave her rapt attention; and an interested audience was very pleasant to ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... think he's all right; it seems he galloped something under forty miles with Porter before he came a cropper. But I understand they had an imp of a boy, ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... young Rhine-sprite, thou water-imp, run to the wood for another bundle of fagots! Away, haste thee, or I 'll give thee back to thy elfin kinsfolk, who are ever ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... end, a shrewd conjecture went abroad that he was none other than some malicious imp of darkness let loose upon their frolics, to disquiet and perplex their commemoration of the Blessed Nativity. Yet was it an unusual occurrence upon Yule night, when these disturbers were supposed to be prevented from ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... yesterday, and did not I miss it? Does not every child of ten years old know, that this is a world in which things have a wonderful knack of falling out just in the way least wished for? If I were an infidel, I should believe that some spiteful imp of the perverse had the guidance of the affairs of humanity. I know better than that: but for my knowledge I have to thank Revelation. But is it philosophical, is it common sense, in a man who rejects Revelation, and who must be guided in his opinions of a future life by ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... an early breakfast, I set off to explore the virgin forests of Aru, anxious to set my mind at rest as to the treasures they were likely to yield, and the probable success of my long-meditated expedition. A little native imp was our guide, seduced by the gift of a German knife, value three-halfpence, and my Macassar boy Baderoon brought his chopper to ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... tricksy Puck! With antic toys so funnily bestuck, Light as the singing bird that wings the air— (The door! the door! he'll tumble down the stair!) Thou darling of thy sire! (Why, Jane, he'll set his pinafore a-fire!) Thou imp of mirth and joy! In Love's dear chain so strong and bright a link, Thou idol of thy parents—(Drat the boy! ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... the lid of the inkstand with an air of as great satisfaction as if he had been the fisherman in the Arabian story corking up the wicked afrite. With his finger still pressing the leaden cover, as though he were afraid the imp of toil would get out again, he was suddenly impressed by the fact that he had seen very little ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... you imp of the world?" cried the dame. "Get in with you, and say no more on the matter; be a bob-cull,—drop the bullies, and you shall ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... mouths with envy or with praise, And all her jealous monarchs with amaze, And rumours loud that daunt remotest kings, Thy firm unshaken virtue ever brings Victory home, though new rebellions raise Their Hydra-heads, and the false North displays Her broken League to imp their serpent wings: O yet a nobler task awaits thy hand, For what can War but endless war still breed, Till Truth and Right from Violence be freed, And public Faith cleared from the shameful brand ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... prelate, suit admirably with his disposition. They mark him out as a lower kind of Saint Dominic, differing from the fierce and gloomy enthusiast who founded the Inquisition, as we might imagine the familiar imp of a spiteful witch to differ from an archangel of darkness. When we read His Grace's judgments, when we read the report which he drew up, setting forth that he had sent some separatists to prison, and imploring the royal aid against others, we feel a movement of indignation. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... calculating full-blooded man. Whitney, for his part, seemed almost fascinated by her gaze. He rose as she bowed, and, for a moment, I thought that he was going over to speak to her, as if drawn by that intangible attraction which Poe has so cleverly expressed in his "Imp of the Perverse." For, clearly, one who talked as Whitney had just been talking would have to be on his guard with that woman. Instead, however, he returned her nod and stood still, while Kennedy bowed at a distance ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... and tragedy worked hard together to silver her hair and line her face, so did a veritable imp of mischief, bred of her desolation, seem to possess the old darling. She cared not a brass farthing for the opinion of her neighbours, so that after the death of the great Queen, who had been her staunchest friend, she had ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... landed just before them. Immediately after Archie and Eddie were swept in amid the foam, and Junkie himself—who, like his brothers, could swim like a cork—came careering in on the top of a wave, like a very water-imp! With all the energy of his nature he turned, the moment his feet touched ground, to lend a hand to his friend Tonal', who was not ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... 1st Chiefs we gave a medal with the Imp. of the President of the U S. To the 2d Chiefs a medal of weaveing & Domestic animals. To the 3rd Chiefs a medal with the impression of a ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... state that Jack Ruddy and Pepper Ditmore were close chums, living, when at home, in the western part of New York State. Jack was slightly the older of the two and was of rather a serious turn of mind. Pepper was full of fun, and on that account was frequently called "The Imp." ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... talked, the blacksmith had put his iron in the fire, and again stood blowing the bellows, when his attention was caught by the gestures of the little red-eyed imp, Tommy, who was making rapid signs to him, touching his forehead with one finger, nodding mysteriously, and pointing at Clare with the thumb of his other hand, held close to his side. He sought to indicate thus ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... father had shown so marked a preference. It consists of the arms granted to Paulus in 1571 by the Emperor Maximilian II. (in which the Aldine anchor occupies a subordinate place) surrounded by a border of heavy ornament with the addition: Ex privilegio Maximiliani II. Imp. Caes. Aug. When his father's death had made him the head of the press he continued for some years to employ the same device. For the Livy of 1592, much inferior to the present edition, and of interest only as showing the decline into which the Aldine press, and the Italian ...
— Catalogue of the William Loring Andrews Collection of Early Books in the Library of Yale University • Anonymous
... carried away a part of it, making his way through the crowd, and down below with the speed of an arrow. The infuriated boatswain, finding he had passed so rapidly from the sublime to the ridiculous, through the instrumentality of this imp of a youngster, could vent his rage in no way but by making his glazed hat spin full force after his tantalizer, with a "G—d d——n your young eyes and limbs." The hat, however, fell far short of young Bruce, and the noise and half burst of laughter the trick occasioned ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... neck with one arm, its naked body half extant from the coarse blanket which, drawn round her shoulders, is secured at her bosom by a skewer. Though tender of age, it looks wicked and sly, like a veritable imp of Roma. Huge rings of false gold dangle from wide slits in the lobes of her ears; her nether garments are rags, and her feet are cased in hempen sandals. Such is the wandering Gitana, such is the witch- wife of Multan, who has come to spae the ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... seeing Val, "do you smell the death-damp yet, that you're here? Is the putrefaction of my filthy old carcase on the wind yet? Here Lanty, you imp," he said turning his eyes on the ripe youth as he brought in a large jug of the "Boyne"—in other words of St. Patrick's Well water—"I say you—you clip, do you smell the putrefaction of my ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... the child begins to cry; the doctor's appearance had no doubt frightened the poor little imp. ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the stern mandates of his mother, with everything out of doors calling him, Willie could not sleep and then when darkness fell hunger gnawed at his vitals and sleep refused to put an end to his misery. He counted to a thousand then half drifted into the land of dreams. A wicked little green imp whispered in his ear. "Conclusive Evidence," whispered it so loudly Willie awoke, then he thought, or tried to think of some plan of revenge on his heartless mother. He could think of none that would not return to himself fourfold, then he reasoned that ...
— Cape Cod and All the Pilgrim Land, June 1922, Volume 6, Number 4 • Various
... me, yet remoter Than a star—a blue-eyed, bashful imp: On her lap she held a happy bloater, 'Twixt her lips ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... perfunctory work at the office, unsatisfactory talks with busy doctors and impatient nurses, and long apprehensive hours in what had been home. In "Little Venice," in the best powder-blue jar and the rest, he found no solace, on the contrary, the occasion of revolting suggestions. There was an imp that whispered that she must die and that he should resume collecting. With horror he fled the evil place, and spent an endless night on tolerance within hearing of ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... imp of a Jew!" shouted Taras, beside himself. "You lie, dog! I will kill you, Satan! Get away from here! if not, death awaits you!" So saying, ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... Moquin-Tandon gives a list of plants which, when growing near the sea-shore, have their leaves in some degree fleshy, though not so elsewhere. In his work on "Animals and Plants under Domestication,"[68] Mr. Darwin refers to M. Costa as having (in Bull. de la Soc. Imp. d'Acclimat. tome viii. p. 351) stated "that young shells taken from the shores of England and placed in the Mediterranean at once altered their manner of growth, and formed prominent diverging rays like those on the shells of the ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... this visit to Damelioc to lay his demon of restlessness; had supposed this monthly account of his stewardship, punctually rendered, to be the business weighing on his mind. But no: as he passed out through the park gates, the imp perched itself again behind his crupper, urging him forward, tormenting him with the same vague sense ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... stunning, Hal," was her jovial uncle's warm greeting. "Who'd ever have thought, to see the ugly little imp of a small child you were, that you would grow up into a fashionable, striking woman? I congratulate you. When's ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... than the canvas of the master. His nymph, accurately drawn, from the undressed proportions of the model, down to the waist, terminated in the scales of a fish. The forked branches of the trees stretched weird and imp-like as the hands of skeletons. Polyphemus, peering over the rocks, had the leer of a demon; and in his gross features there was a certain distorted, hideous likeness of the grave and symmetrical lineaments of ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... two or three minutes longer, if he had not come in just in time to prevent Elsie's making the explanatory and soothing answer that was on her tongue, events would probably have been entirely different, and a good deal of trouble might have been saved. But in he came, as if some perverse imp had been waiting to give him the signal, and the interview between Captain Jerry and the young lady whom he had unwittingly offended broke off ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... the poor, young runaway's heart, and out came a passionate burst of tender home-sick feeling, though he did it as well as he could, smothering it up in his coonskin cap. But soon again, bethinking him how he had been mocked and fooled by the imp in the moccasins, he summoned back the pride of his young heart and the strength of his young will, and checked his tears, lest his weakness of feeling, like his vanity, should be made the provocation of derision. In this condition ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... calls:] Alice! [Still in the door.] Come on! Help me put up my iron bar with a double lock before the door, Alice! [He comes forward.] Any one else who dares to interrupt our Sunday quiet—anathema sit! Here! You imp! Where are you, Alice? [He observes the bottle and lifts it against the light.] What? Half empty! The little scamp! [From behind the door of the library a pleasant woman's voice is heard singing ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... old companions in arms, he had no interval of repose between these terrible and repeated shocks, all beating upon his heart at the same time. One could have feared that the blow might prove mortal, and poor Fougas die in the first hour of his recovered life. But the imp of a fellow yielded and recovered himself in quick succession like a spring. He cried out with admiration on hearing of the five battles of the campaign in France; he reddened with grief at the farewells of Fontainebleau. The return from the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... her cream, stalked off for a pail and cloth, and set herself to wash the floor, muttering curses as she did so. Never a glance did she cast at the corner by the fire where little Jan still lay by the hearth-stone, motionless and strangely quiet; he, the restless imp, who was usually so full of life. Never a glance, until, the centre of the floor being at last clean again, Moll, on her knees, came with her pail of soap-suds to the white river that surrounded the corner ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... succeeded; and had the story not come to my ears, I conclude he would have kept up the farce till the ship got into port. I ask, my men, do you think it possible that God, who made this mighty universe, and governs it by just and wise laws, would allow a mischievous imp, who could do no harm while alive, to return to earth, merely for the sake of wreaking his own petty malice, or for troubling and frightening a number of grown men such as you are. To believe such ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... at all," thought Sammy Jay in disappointment, for he had hoped to see a fight between Reddy Fox and Johnny Chuck. Just then Sammy looked over to Farmer Brown's house, and there was Farmer Brown's boy getting ready to saw wood. The imp of mischief under Sammy's pert cap gave him an idea. He flew over to the old apple-tree, just over Reddy's head, and began to scream at ...
— The Adventures of Johnny Chuck • Thornton W. Burgess
... much, being too busy thinking, but Ben went on telling about other cruises with 'friends.' Oh, a steam-yacht can be a first-class imitation of hell if the right imp owns her. Henry got speaking of one time down along the ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... bottle imp!" yelled the bereaved one, "don't I know ye?" and seizing a tin pannikin, in his wrath, he threw it at the small monkey's head with a force that would, had it been well directed, have smashed that ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... driven her to destruction at last. I tell you, sir, we are a pack of cowards hunting down an angel. You and I and that pretty imp of satan. I came to tell you this: bad as I am, her goodness has touched me with human feelings. If she is here and alive, justice shall be done her, and for once the truth shall be spoken under this roof. That woman has bribed me to shield another ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... commodore? So I told him, general, that we had Baptists, and Quakers, and Universalists, and Episcopalians, and Presbyterians, old-lights, new- lights, and blue-lights; and Methodists——. 'Stop,' said the Devil, 'that's enough; you imp, be nimble with that horse.—Let me see, commodore, what, part of the country did you say you came from?' I told him the name more distinctly ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... the head of his enemy, who, after placing him and his three sons in the upper chamber of a strong tower near Florence, threw the key of it into the moat and left them to perish with hunger. Grinning in mockery of these ice-bound sufferers, A BLACK IMP [biggest extra black capitals] is seated on a rock, dandling a young monster. On the edge of the opposite side of the frozen lake stands a spirit, who is just about to endure the frozen torment; and his attitude and countenance express the agony of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... laughing, when they saw it lift up its ears, as if the sport had liked them. One of them would call it her little dille, her staff of love, her quillety, her faucetin, her dandilolly. Another, her peen, her jolly kyle, her bableret, her membretoon, her quickset imp: another again, her branch of coral, her female adamant, her placket-racket, her Cyprian sceptre, her jewel for ladies. And some of the other women would give it these names,—my bunguetee, my ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... and were almost afraid to enter ourselves, so stately and beautiful it was! There are two of these creatures,—a girl about our age, some sort of dreadful cripple, who goes about in a bath-chair, and a freckled imp of a boy. The girl is at —— Hospital for treatment, but spends every Sunday at the Grahams', and Hilda devotes most of her spare time to her. The boy is at school,—one of the best schools in the city. 'But who are these people?' ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... that wither'd imp, Wi' a' his noise an' caperin'; An' tak a share wi' those that bear The budget and the apron; [tool-bag] And, by that stoup, my faith an' houp! [hope] And by that dear Kilbaigie, [a kind of whisky] If e'er ye want, or meet wi' scant, [dearth] May I ne'er ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... does not remember the prototypes of any other "cathedraly" characters—Crisparkle and the rest—but he quite agrees with the general opinion previously referred to as to the origin of Mr. Sapsea. He considers "Deputy" (the imp-like satellite of Durdles and the "Kinfreederel") to be decidedly a street Arab, the type of which is more common in London than in Rochester. He thinks that the fact of the rooms over the gatehouse having once been ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... imp ventured upon that question on his own account. The clever beast was torn back and strangled instantaneously by his experienced elders, but not before Evan's pride had answered him. Exalted by Love, he could dread to abase himself and strip off his glittering garments; lowered ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... now in sudden rush of memory—the drizzling rain in the little cemetery, the few neighbors standing about, a narrow fringe of slaves back of them, the lowering of the coffin, and the hollow sound of earth falling on the box; and Neb, his Aunt Caton's house servant, a black imp of good humor, who begged so hard to be taken back with him to the war. Why, the boy had held his stirrup the next morning when he rode away. The sudden rush of recollection seemed to bridge the years, and that black face became ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... interruptions are worse than futile. As an ex-student of his, I know. So I permitted my thoughts to drift to certain personal problems of my own, particularly Tips Alva, who was the most pressing problem of the moment. Yes, I mean Tips Alva the 'vision dancer, the little blonde imp who entertains on the Yerba Mate hour for that Brazilian company. Chorus girls, dancers, and television stars are a weakness of mine; maybe it indicates that there's a latent artistic ...
— The Ideal • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... The young imp, in the next day's practice, worked up the grandmamma to a state of great excitement, urging her to take a cool and determined aim at the looking-glass. "Cover him well, gran," ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... pleased than was Sigismondo with the acquisition of this Father of the Neopagan faith. Upon the tomb we still may read this legend: 'Jemisthii Bizantii philosopher sua temp principis reliquum Sig. Pan. Mal. Pan. F. belli Pelop adversus Turcor regem Imp ob ingentem eruditorum quo flagrat amorem huc afferendum introque mittendum curavit MCCCCLXVI.' Of the Latinity of the inscription much cannot be said; but it means that 'Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, having served as general against the Turks in the Morea, induced by the great love ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... Betty's dress and said "Come on," urgingly; but the man was already letting down two slip-rails a little way from the crazy gate, and his eyes rested on the second barefooted imp. ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... Saxon. You've got some wild notion out of a boot-legger's bottle. Straighten up now. It's an infamous thing in a college town like Lagonda Ledge, where neither a saloon nor a joint would be allowed, that some imp of Satan should forever be bringing you whisky. Who does ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... Jessie's, and found an imp of mischief dancing there. She was enjoying the predicament in which he found himself. Out of the tail of that same eye he discovered that two more flat-footed squaws were ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... best, In hell are us'd the ruggedest; Before so meriting a person 375 Cou'd get a grant, but in reversion, He serv'd two prenticeships, and longer, I' th' myst'ry of a lady-monger. For (as some write) a witch's ghost, As soon as from the body loos'd, 380 Becomes a puney-imp itself And is another witch's elf. He, after searching far and near, At length found one in LANCASHIRE With whom he bargain'd before-hand, 385 And, after hanging, entertained; Since which h' has play'd a thousand feats, And practis'd all mechanick cheats, Transform'd himself to th' ugly shapes ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... girls looked at me very sharply, but I stood at the back of an arm-chair so that no one could see my feet. But that little imp Tizzy walked round deliberately, looked at my heels, and then walked back again. It was clear that she was in ...
— The O'Conors of Castle Conor from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... her mark on a slip of parchment with her own blood. Sometimes on this occasion also the witch uses the ceremony of putting one hand to the sole of her foot and the other to the crown of her head. On departing he delivers to her an imp or familiar. The familiar, in shape of a cat, a mole, miller-fly, or some other insect or animal, at stated times of the day sucks her blood through teats in different parts of her body.[47] If, however, the proper vulgar witch is an old woman, the younger and fairer of the sex were not by ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... who sticks to her lord and master in mud and powder-smoke until there is precious little time to spare, when she makes straight for a strange land, in a fishing-smack, with no other protector than a peasant; and now, with an imp of a black-eyed infant to her breast (Sally Mearson's got the other; you remember Sally, your own nurse's daughter?), looks like a chit of seventeen. That's what you'll see, sir. And when she sails downstairs for dinner, dressed up, powdered and high-heeled, ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... without first making our readers know Panurge by, at least, a few traits of his character and conduct. Panurge was a shifty but unscrupulous adventurer, whom Pantagruel, pious prince as he was, coming upon him by chance, took and kept under his patronage. Panurge was an arch-imp of mischief,—mischief indulged in the form of obscene and malicious practical jokes. Rabelais describes his accomplishments in a long strain of discourse, from which we purge our selection to follow,—thereby transforming Panurge into a ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... Eblis, shaitan^, succubus, succuba; Frankenstein's monster; Titan, Shedim, Mephistopheles, Asmodeus^, Moloch, Belial, Ahriman^; fury, harpy; Friar Rush. vampire, ghoul; afreet^, barghest^, Loki; ogre, ogress; gnome, gin, jinn, imp, deev^, lamia^; bogie, bogeyman, bogle^; nis^, kobold^, flibbertigibbet, fairy, brownie, pixy, elf, dwarf, urchin; Puck, Robin Goodfellow; leprechaun, Cluricaune^, troll, dwerger^, sprite, ouphe^, bad fairy, nix, nixie, pigwidgeon^, will-o'-the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... her chin and was silent, with a warm blush on her cheek and a lurking imp of laughter in her eye. The schoolmaster frowned ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... wisely compensated them for the bruises they had received in his fall. Then giving no more thought to Madame de Belle-Ile, who sat awaiting him eagerly, he returned gloomily to his hotel, reflecting on the carelessness which had delivered him into the hands of an indefatigable imp of mischief. The upshot of his reflection was a resolve to press his wooing to an immediate conclusion. The next day and the day after, therefore, he redoubled his lamentations that the smallness of his means prevented him from going, as his natural honesty dictated, straight ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... Geppetto was being taken to prison for no fault of his, that imp Pinocchio, finding himself free from the clutches of the soldier, ran off as fast as his legs could carry him. That he might reach home the quicker he rushed across the fields, and in his mad hurry he jumped high banks, thorn hedges and ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi
... could hear. "I learned that long ago about niggers. They'd say to me, 'For God's sake, don't talk to our niggers like that. Some night you'll have your house set afire.' But I said, 'Pet a nigger, and you've got a spoiled nigger.' I'd say, 'Nigger, don't you give me any of your imp, or I'll kick the breeches off you.' And they knew I was a gentleman, and they ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... so it's you, 'Joannes Frollo de Molendino!'" cried one of them, to a sort of little, light-haired imp, with a well-favored and malign countenance, clinging to the acanthus leaves of a capital; "you are well named John of the Mill, for your two arms and your two legs have the air of four wings fluttering on the breeze. How long have you ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... as Donacha Dhu said, the Whistler was a born imp of Satan, and therefore he should never leave him. Accordingly, from his eleventh year forward, he was one of the band, and often engaged in acts of violence. The last of these was more immediately occasioned ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Longchamp, as elsewhere, we remark for one thing, that dame and cavalier are waited on each by a kind of human familiar, named jokei. Little elf, or imp; though young, already withered; with its withered air of premature vice, of knowingness, of completed elf-hood: useful in various emergencies. The name jokei (jockey) comes from the English; as the thing ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Playmate uttered scream after scream, for the head continued coolly to stare at her, as if fixed alive over the gateway by the craft of some cave-dwelling imp of ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... labours of to-day, I should have thought you would have been glad to go to bed," I said. "You imp!" And I laughed. There is something very disarming about ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... it, I'll warrant," said Jucundus; "a pert, forward imp. 'Twas Gete against Briton. Much good comes of schooling! He's a wicked one already. Ah, the new generation! I don't know where the ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... catch him," sighed Neddy, watching the little imp whisk about in the garden among the currant-bushes, chasing hens and tossing green apples round in ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott |
