"Nefarious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... drunk with ginger beer, every countess in Mayfair would be reading him, not knowing, the idiot, whether she ought to smile or shed tears, and sending him cards with 'at home' upon them as large as life. Oh! it is disgusting! absolutely disgusting. It is a nefarious world, sir. You will find it out some day. I am as much robbed by that fellow Gushy as men are on the highway. He is appropriating my income, and the income of thousands of honest fellows. And then he pretends he is writing for the people! The people! What does he ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... during the last few years, reduced in France, and to that general laxity of moral conduct which even now distinguishes that country, was Fraudulent Bankruptcy. The merchant, no longer possessing the means of making his fortune by fair speculation, has recourse to this nefarious mode of bettering his condition. He settles with his creditors for a small per centage; disposes of his property by fictitious sales, ventes simulees, and thus enriches himself upon the ruin of his creditors. At a small town in the south of France, where ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... House of Lords. Earl Coningsby complained that a man, who had renounced both his country and his religion, should have been treated with such honour, and expressed his belief that his presence in England, at a time when the people were so bewildered by the nefarious practices of the South Sea directors, would be attended with no little danger. He gave notice of a motion on the subject; but it was allowed to drop, no other member of the House having the slightest participation in his lordship's fears. Law remained for about four years in England, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... attempt, and the name of his employer. On promise of pardon the miscreant offered to make a full discovery. His conditions were accepted; and he then named Eustace Evellin as the person who was to receive the advantage of the nefarious action. He asserted, that being overcome with despair at the thought of having forfeited his uncle's favour by his bad conduct, Eustace determined to possess his cousin at any hazard, and that Major Monthault had ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... chosen, the members of which shall hang about the various haunts of vice in back slums, and learn as much as possible of the nefarious projects of the desperate characters who frequent such dens. Each member should report daily, and if he is not familiar with the 'flash' dialect in which thieves converse (which is very improbable, if chosen as suggested), ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II. No. 38, Saturday, December 17, 1870. • Various
... restricting production through trick or device, by plot or conspiracy against competitors, or by oppression of wage-workers, and then extorting high prices for the commodity it had made artificially scarce, it would be prevented from organizing if its nefarious purpose could be discovered in time, or pursued and suppressed by all the power of Government whenever found in actual operation. Such a commission, with the power I advocate, would put a stop to abuses of ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... to do if his friends take advantage of his absence, and go giving him gold medals behind his back? That you have been an accomplice in this nefarious plot—mine own familiar friend whom I trusted and trust—is not to be denied. Well, it is very pleasant to have toil that is now all ancient history remembered, and I shall go to the meeting and the dinner and make my speech in spite of as many possible ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... points; by robbing the arsenals in the Northern States of arms and munitions of war, so as to abundantly supply the Southern States at the critical moment; by bankrupting the Treasury and shattering the public credit of the Nation; and by other means no less nefarious. Thus swindled, betrayed, and ruined, by its degenerate and perfidious sons, the imbecile Administration stood with dejected mien and folded hands helplessly ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... of Charles I., 1822. Laud is represented as mainly instrumental in the conduct of the whole of this nefarious proceeding, especially in procuring the sentence ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... for a common swindler? You came and asked if there was not some mode by which you could cheat your creditors out of six or seven thousand dollars; and I, as in duty bound, professionally, told you how the law might be evaded. And now you affirm that I joined you as a party in this nefarious transaction! This is going ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... sea-shore: the tenants whom he found living near the coast were an idle, profligate, desperate set of people; who, during the time of the late middle landlord, had been in the habit of making their rents by nefarious practices. The best of the set were merely idle fishermen, whose habits of trusting to their luck incapacitated them from industry: the others were illicit distillers— smugglers—and miscreants who lived by waifs and strays; in fact, by the ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... country was the lurking place of the rustlers who had preyed so long upon the Malpais district. Nor did he need evidence to connect the sinister figure behind him with the gang of outlaws who rode in and out of these silent places on their nefarious night errands while ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... betake themselves to their homes. As to the parties of insurgent guerillas which he was informed were beginning to show themselves at various points of the vicinity, he considered them as mere bandits, availing themselves of the stir and excitement in the country to exercise their nefarious profession; and, should any such parties attempt to molest him, he was fully determined to resist their attacks. In this resolution he now persevered, although he rightly conjectured that the horsemen approaching ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... his case came on for hearing before the Deputy Magistrate. Ghaneshyam Babu secured the services of a fighting member of the Calcutta bar and was indefatigable in his efforts to unearth the nefarious plot against his brother. Proceedings lasted for four days in a court packed with spectators. The Sub-Inspector and his accomplices told their story speciously enough. A burglary had really been committed and the jewellery found in Kumodini ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... she plunged, and the three—the lady and her daughter and the stable-boy—were so busily and excitedly plowtering in the burn, engaged in this most nefarious and illegal capture of fish, that they failed to hear or to see that hounds and a full field had swept over the hill in front, and had checked, in full view of them, at a small strip of wood in their ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... this rash act were permitted and claimed to have information that European holders of bonds were awaiting this chance to swamp the market. The Committee were not much alarmed by this gentleman's warnings and were proceeding with their nefarious scheme when a further warning was addressed to them. There was a certain member of a Stock Exchange firm who was on friendly terms with some of the Washington authorities, and who seems to have felt it his duty to see that the Exchange did nothing to give offense ...
— The New York Stock Exchange in the Crisis of 1914 • Henry George Stebbins Noble
... evil-disposed spy, whose person Clara knew, and whose intentions she had reason to dread were unfriendly. Had she dared—for she was daring—to attempt this nefarious plot against the fair fame and happiness of an honorable gentleman, her family would not have become her accomplices. They could not have blinded themselves to the perils of the enterprise, the extreme probabilities of detection, the consequences of Winston's anger. Herbert, at least, would have ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... hailed with a burst of ribald laughter; after which they set about preparing the mascaras, and other disguises, to be used in their nefarious enterprise. ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... one of the warm, bright days of late October, and the children had insisted on opening the window behind them, not so much for the sake of the clear, soft air as for the furtherance of their nefarious schemes. In the lap of each child lay a tiny china doll, a long string, and a box of what, at first sight, appeared to be parti-colored rags. A closer inspection, however, showed that the rags were all round and pierced with three holes, one in the middle, the others ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... the same condition with himself, wallowing in licentiousness, and possessed of wealth, amassed generally by dishonest means, which they continue, in many instances, still to augment, by keeping grog-shops and gambling-houses, by receiving stolen goods, and by other nefarious practices. This is the general conduct of the class of emancipated convicts who acquire property, as well as of some unprincipled adventurers in the class of free emigrants. There are, however, among the emancipated convicts of property exceptions ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... infernal cellar, preparing the train of that stupendous Gunpowder Plot by which he hopes, on the day of judgment, to blow up the world parliament of unbelievers with a general petard of damnation. Will the King connive at this nefarious prowler and permit him ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... the brandy through "Billy." One of Brigson's most cursed legacies to the school was the introduction of this man to a nefarious intercourse with the boys. His character was so well known that it had long been forbidden, under the strictest penalty, for any boy ever to speak to him; yet, strange to say, they seemed to take a pleasure in doing so, and just now ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... they get into your davenport, as you call it, and how long had they been there? What hands secreted them? what hands had, so incredibly, clung to them and preserved them? Who are the persons mentioned in them? who are the correspondents, the parties to the nefarious transactions? You say the transactions appear to be of two distinct kinds—some of them connected with public business and others involving ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... instead of waiting for us at the gate, as we had directed, he mounted his horses with all speed, and pushed on in a gallop along the road on the other side of the hedge, evidently to circumvent our nefarious plan (as he conceived) of bilking his master both of our dinners and the chaise-hire. When the cessation of our uncontrollable mirth had allowed us to gather specimens of our plant, perceiving through the hedge whereabouts ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... Soudan, but the eager wishes of his follower pointed to a different object. They called upon him to lead them into the mountains of Mandara, in the south, to attack a village of the Kerdies or unbelievers, and carry off the people as slaves to Fezzan. He long stood out against this nefarious proposal, but the sheik who also had his own views, took part against him; even his own brother joined the malcontents, and at length there appeared no other mode in which he could return with equal credit and profit. Influenced by these inducements, he suffered his better ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... been uttered while this terrific scene was in the course of occurrence; not a word was uttered for some time afterward. Gleams of grim satisfaction had been seen on the countenances of the boatswain and his associates, when the success of their nefarious project was first assured; but they soon disappeared in looks of horror, as they witnessed the struggles of the drowning men. Nevertheless, human selfishness was strong within them all, and none there was so ignorant as not to perceive how much better were the chances of the yawl now ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... Stammerer at Alexandria. He denied that the Pope was the supreme maintainer of discipline, by making the two great sees of the East and South subordinate to himself. As the Pope expressed it in his sentence, he had done "nefarious things against the whole Nicene constitution," of which the Pope was special guardian. In fact, his conduct was an imitation of that pursued in the preceding century by Eusebius of Nicomedia, by Eudoxius, and all their party. It was even carried out to its full completion. ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... is always good to dream that you have successfully resisted any temptation. To yield, is bad. If a man chooses low ideals, vampirish influences will swarm around him ready to help him in his nefarious designs. Such dreams may only be the result of depraved elementary influences. If a man chooses high ideals, he will be illuminated by the deific principle within him, and will be exempt from lascivious dreams. The man who denies the existence and power of evil spirits has no arcana ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... I have every reason to believe he was deeply involved in the British Conspiracy of '88, the object of which was to separate the States. The design which Vigo abetted was nefarious, yes, sir, nefarious! yes, damnable! The same disloyal and turbulent spirit caused the Whiskey Rebellion here in Pennsylvania, which General Dave Morgan, General Neville, and I crushed out. The diabolic sentiment of disunion survives yet; Pittsburg tolerates a set of seditious ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... the music you make! Let us then pray for the day when the "drop too much" with the bottle will be as nefarious as a cut too much with the razor or a blaze too ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... rights of humanity this nefarious business was allowed to flourish triumphant. The bitter wail of widows and orphans was silenced by the clamour for gold until all nature revolted against it. The earth and the waters under the earth seemed to call ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... it all, in order to help him. She did not love him, nor had she any hopes that he would of his own free will do more than give her a bare pittance for her needs once he had secured Lady Sue's fortune; but she was shrewd enough to reckon that the more completely she was mixed up in his nefarious projects, the more absolutely forced would he be to accede to her demands later on. The word blackmail had not been invented in those days, but the deed itself existed and what Editha had in her mind when she risked ostracism for Sir Marmaduke's sake ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... remembered that in certain cities in Australia magistrates released well known criminals from custody on their undertaking to enlist. The majority of these men had no intention of fighting, and when they eventually joined their units were the cause of endless trouble. In their nefarious operations they were not easily detected, but evidence of their handiwork was forthcoming from the police, who received complaints of serious assaults and robberies from the villages around Tel-el-Kebir and on the route to Cairo. In cases where arrests were made it was sometimes ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... had convinced them of my death, leaving them nothing to fear, no opposition to guard against. Doubtless the Beaucaire property was already legally in Kirby's possession, and any possible chance I might have once had to foil him in his nefarious purpose ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... of time. But nevertheless it was not my purpose to betray that pity, then. I had still to draw her out, more and more; there was still much to learn of this complex woman, so beautiful and so noble, who yet could find a sufficient excuse to engage in such nefarious practices. ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... of a man who acknowledges that for years he has been dogging the steps of Hugh Mainwaring and acting the part of a spy, not only in his private offices, but even in his own home, stooping to any means, no matter how contemptible, to further his nefarious designs? Would such a man, when his schemes were finally matured, have any scruples about taking the life of the one who stood in the way of ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... to that devil's brew of rascals, jailbirds, murderers and cutthroats who libel all honest working men by calling themselves the Industrial Workers of the World; but in the light of their nefarious plots, I call them the Industrious ...
— The Hairy Ape • Eugene O'Neill
... up silently. The fact that the room was still in darkness made it obvious that something nefarious was afoot. Plainly there was dirty work in preparation at the cross-roads. He stared into the blackness, and, as his eyes grew accustomed to it, was presently able to see an indistinct form bending over something on the floor. The sound of ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... illusions. He knew that a department is at the mercy of its subordinate officers, who have their own conceptions of loyalty. His career had begun in a tropical colony. He had liked his work there. It was police work. He had been very successful in tracking and breaking up certain nefarious secret societies amongst the natives. Then he took his long leave, and got married rather impulsively. It was a good match from a worldly point of view, but his wife formed an unfavourable opinion of the colonial climate on hearsay evidence. On the other hand, ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... Saturday following, however, he happened to go into Tralee, and the exponents of the popular will made up their minds that he had not given up his employment as he was "noticed" to do, that he was still persevering in the nefarious career of a caretaker, and that he had actually dared to go in the light of day to Tralee to receive the wage of his iniquity. If not actually guilty of this enormity, he had at least a guilty look, and it was determined to ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... somewhat ostentatious, of a desperate-looking character. Undoubtedly a German spy! What can he be up to! The boys approached him and he fled, leaving behind him the damning evidence—a tin suggestive of sardines and labeled "Poison!" That the gentleman should have chosen broad daylight for his nefarious design, should have been careful to label his tin, seemed to the good townsfolk under present scare conditions proof that they had at last discovered the real German spy, full of his devilish cunning. The tin was taken possession of by the police. And then the Sergeant's ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... began. It was not merely that the sinister motive, thus engendered in the minds of too lax and facile men, induced them to betray their legislative trust, and barter their own uprightness and the interests of the State. The acquisition of one of these nefarious bribes meant much more than a sinister vote. It called into existence a champion of every inveterate abuse that weighed on the resources of the country. There is a well-known passage in the speech on Economical Reform, in which the speaker ...
— Burke • John Morley
... this and related controversies was a debate on the merits of slavery. Gouverneur Morris delivered his mind and heart on that subject, denouncing slavery as a nefarious institution and the curse of heaven on the states in which it prevailed. Mason of Virginia, a slaveholder himself, was hardly less outspoken, saying: "Slavery discourages arts and manufactures. The poor despise labor when performed by slaves. They prevent ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... Lord Stanhope, who, since the attack on Kaspar in 1829, had been curious about him, came to Nuremberg, and 'took up' the hero, with fantastic fondness. Though he recognised Kaspar's mythopoeic tendencies, he believed him to be the victim of some nefarious criminals, and offered a reward of 500 florins, anonymously, for ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... the recital of the nefarious acts practised by the white traders upon the Indians. Yet not half of them are known or dreamed of by the American people. We refer again, to Mr. Tanner's Narrative, which every man who has a vote on this subject ought ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... the elections for the Second Duma were held under a reign of terror. The bureaucracy was determined to have a "safe and sane" body this time, and resorted to every possible nefarious device to attain that end. Whole masses of electors whose right to vote had been established at the previous election were arbitrarily disfranchised. While every facility was given to candidates openly ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... Sam Patch, who several times sought asylum in any cellar, and being a most profound diplomat, managed on each occasion and with little delay to negotiate a peaceful settlement and go forth in safety to resume the practice of his nefarious profession. I often hoped he would be caught before reaching the post, but he seemed to know intuitively when the time had come to take leg-bail, for his advent at the garrison generally preceded by but a few hours the death of ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... warn-hearted father, be aware of? Had that last known, how should he escape being bowed down with grief: then in those years when all his powers and energies were needed? Octavian had gone through storm and silence long since: in the days of the Triumvirate, and his enforced partnership in its nefarious deeds;—now his personal mind and his hands were needed to guide the Empire: and needed clear and untrammeled with grief... Until Tiberius should be ready; at least until Tiberius.... So I imagine it possible that the soul ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... you to begin a life of crime, or in what way you found out what houses in this country were worth robbing, but I fear you must have led a wicked life for a long time' (she was very severe now). 'You are young yet; why should you carry on your nefarious schemes in a new country, where, if you would, you could easily reform?' (Again a little gasp for breath.) 'I have promised to let you go without giving you into the hands of the law. I am afraid I did a selfish and weak thing, because others may suffer from your crimes, ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... the room where these parties met had no share whatever in the nefarious transactions carried on there. Through the treachery of the janitor, Ragem was permitted at certain hours to make use of the apartment for the purpose of keeping appointments with his victims. A confederate stationed on the ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... the magistrate who presided at the martyrdom of St. Romanus calls them in Prudentius "a rebel people"; that Galerius speaks of them as "a nefarious conspiracy"; the heathen in Minucius, as "men of a desperate faction"; that others make them guilty of sacrilege and treason, and call them by those other titles which, more closely resembling the language of Tacitus, have been noticed above. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... was knowing to this nefarious scheme!" cried Friend Henry in a temper. "And I always thought Primrose a most ungodly name. It was his wish she ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... transfer of his monopoly by the Governor of Bressa to Genoese merchants, instead of increasing the exportation of negroes to America, resulted in almost stopping the nefarious trade, hence no considerable amount of mischief is traceable to the adoption of Las Casas's suggestion, which was only one of many enumerated in his scheme. Had the project as he framed it been accepted in its entirety and loyally carried out, no increased injustice would have been done to ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... races."[293] When we see how during the constitutional convention of 1787 selfish economic interests led Massachusetts to enter into the unholy alliance with the pro-slavery States of the far South to fix upon another section of the country the nefarious slave-trade for twenty years longer, we may perhaps conclude that it was after all fortunate for the integrity of the Puritan conscience that slavery was unprofitable as a domestic institution. The slave-trade ended in 1808 and during the years 1806, 1807 six hundred New ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... the hillside opposite there was doubtless a similar fence and these two would constitute the fatal funnel down which the cattle were to be stampeded over the cut-bank to their destruction. This was the nefarious scheme planned by Raven ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... into disfavor, and in the Theodosian code sentence of death was passed upon mathematicians. Long into the Middle Ages, the same unholy alliance with astrology and divination caused mathematics to be regarded with suspicion, and even Abelard calls it a nefarious study. ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... believe it, because it was incredible, as Tertullian cheerily remarked of ecclesiastical dogma. But short of the Archbishop of Canterbury eloping with the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbour nothing could seem less possible. If Bakkus had nurtured nefarious designs, Good Heavens! he could have executed them years before. Well, perhaps not. When one hasn't a penny in one's pocket even the most cynical pauses ere he proposes romantic flight with a lady equally penniless. But since ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... votes required because men will not legislate away evils that they do not heartily wish away? Is government corrupted because men desire shield and opportunity for dishonest speculation; authority and countenance for nefarious combinations? The more need to go to work at the beginning rather than to plunge into the pitch and be defiled; more need to make haste and educate a better generation of men, if it be so we can not, except vi et armis, influence the generation ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... has some historic basis. The man called "Vight" is not altogether an imaginary character, for a desperate and successful counterfeiter dwelt for a time among the mountains on the Hudson, plying his nefarious trade. It is said that he took life more than ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... however, enabled to punish the French severely for their audacious project of invading our "tight little island," and for their still more nefarious plan, which had been hatched under the sanction of their king, for assassinating the constitutional and Protestant monarch whom her people had chosen, and imposing on them in his stead a Papist ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... refreshed, revitalized. She had never looked better, happier. I met her again for the first time at one of the Thursday dances at Government House. In the glance she gave me I was glad to detect no suspicion of collusion. She plainly could not dream that Edward Harris in his nefarious exercise of parental authority had acted upon any hint from me. It was ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... not noticed it in the proof. Then he read on. It seemed that this man, Kenyon, had secured the mine at something like ten thousand pounds, and was trying to palm it off on the unfortunate British public at the enormous increase of two hundred thousand pounds; but this nefarious attempt would doubtless be frustrated so long as there were papers of the integrity of the Financial Field, to take the risk and expense of making such an exposure ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... dead-sea fruit. But how is anyone to believe this depressing sort of doctrine when the woman in question is such an engaging divinity as his Caroline Ashley, interpreted by Miss IRENE VANBRUGH at the very top of her form? The doctrine, indeed, may be hanged for the nefarious half-truth it is; but this would still leave you free to appreciate one of the most brilliant and finished pieces of work which Mr. MAUGHAM has yet done for the stage. True, it is merely an airy trifle; but it is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 16, 1916 • Various
... of midnight passed, and yet he could not summon courage to lead his men to their nefarious attack. Twice they urged him, before he arose from his affected sleep—for sleep he could not; guilt had "murdered sleep!" and he lay awake, restless, and longing for the dawn; and yet, ere that dawn, the deed must be accomplished! A cock crew from ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... me a cheap Leipsic edition of Augustine's "De Civitate Dei," as I wish to polish up my patristic Latin, in spite of the trash written in it, that still defiles our theological teaching. I have been visiting Matilda Nagle, and even that old reprobate, Newcome, who got a terrible shaking in his last nefarious adventure. Matilda is doing remarkably well, and her boy is quite bright and intelligent. Half a dozen cases of sickness in my two charges have kept me from writing, especially as one was a case of infection. Haste ye back to all your ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... astonished and embarrassed by the circumstances in which he found himself, possessed, as he now appeared to be, of property to a much greater amount than his own, but which had been obtained in all probability by the same nefarious means through which he had himself been plundered. His first thought was to inquire after the nearest justice of peace, and to place in his hands the treasure of which he had thus unexpectedly become the depositary, telling ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... elucidated these mysteries, and become highly edified thereby, the learned Councillor returned to the King, and gave full information as to the result of his researches, whereupon forty Mystics were at once arrested and flung into prison for life, and their nefarious practices were made publicly known to all the inhabitants of the city. Since then, no so-called "spiritual" demonstrations had taken place till now, when on this very night Zephoranim's Presence-Chamber had been suddenly enveloped in the thunderous ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... continues its desolating inroads, almost unchecked, laughing as it were to scorn, at all the so-called "moth-proof" hives, and turning many of the ingenious fixtures designed to entrap or exclude it, into actual aids and comforts in its nefarious designs. ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... a young detective saves the boys from the clutches of Chinese smugglers, of whose nefarious trade they know too much. How the Professor's invention relieves a critical situation is also an ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden
... began to perform their vow; but while disembarking, they found themselves surrounded by a crowd of armed peasants who, taking them for Turkish pirates, ran to the spot with the intention of frustrating their supposed nefarious designs. Mutual explanations averted bloodshed, and the peasants then began to dissuade the sailors from performing their vow in so literal a manner, pointing out that they would be abandoning their precious charge to the risk, ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... down rapidly. He noticed there was only a quarter moon and realized that the darkness had been a part of "Red Mike's" nefarious plotting. He turned to Brennan, whose tensely set face was lighted for a fraction of a second by the accelerated burning of his cigarette as he took ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... a confession from the master, Captain Jenkins, his captors hung him up to the yard arms of his ship until he was nearly dead, and then let him down, thinking he would confess. But on his stoutly denying that he had been engaged in any nefarious dealings, and since no proof could be found against him, the captain of the Spanish ship cut off one of the English captain's ears, and insolently told him to show it to his countrymen as a warning of what Englishmen might expect who were caught trading with ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... constituted, it would almost certainly have spawned the curse in all of them, including Oregon, which had long been exposed to peril and massacre by the reckless opposition of our slave-masters to a government there without the recognition of slavery. The defeat of this nefarious proposition, which was happily followed by the passage of a bill giving Oregon a territorial government, is largely due to Alexander H. Stephens, whose motion to lay it on the table in the House prevailed by a small majority. In this action he had the courage to separate ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... woodcock. "The worst enemy of wild life is the pot-hunter and game hog. These wholesale slaughterers of game resort to any device and practice, it matters not how murderous, to accomplish the pernicious ends of their nefarious campaign of relentless extermination of fur and feather. They cannot be controlled by local laws, for these after having been tried for several generations have proven consummate failures, for the reason that local authorities will not enforce the provisions ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... why hesitate? So Harrington ponders a moment and decides; yes, even to that level of iniquity had Abdul Hamid II sunk. The atomiser was one of the instruments of torture he made use of. And when the bad Sultan is finally checked in his nefarious career, and dragged off to prison, where he gets nothing but hard bread to eat and filthy water to drink, Bob retains the impression that all this came about because the Young Turks grew tired of having their ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... son of the spreading palm; but this is not a desert, nor a gaudy caravan. This is a feast of all angels. This is the day when Nahoum the Nefarious is to be buckled up like a belt, and ridden in a ring. Where ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... devotion to his "ole boss" was equalled only by his hate of those who robbed while they derided him, and he set himself to the task of thwarting their nefarious schemes. For this Perault had incurred the savage wrath of Carroll, and more than once had sufered ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... advantage. He was a pungent and racy writer, and for a number of years contributed many able articles to the "Quincy Whig." He never spared slavery. In the pulpit, in the public prints, and in private, he fought manfully against the nefarious ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... found by the papers to be the real conspirators. The mild forgiving Cranmer would have interceded for all remission of punishment, had not Henry, pleased with the subsidy voted by parliament, let them be discharged; these nefarious men, however, again renewing their plots against Cranmer, fell victims to Henry's resentment, and Gardiner forever lost his confidence. Sir G. Gostwick soon after laid charges against the archbishop, which Henry quashed, and the ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... circumstances the case would have been carried overwhelmingly against the "domestic institution," and thus have rebuked, with all the emphasis that an outraged community could give to the expression of its will, the nefarious conduct which "the party" has pursued from the beginning,—and this was a consummation not to be wished. He therefore wriggles and shuffles, with an absurd and transparent inconsistency, to defeat the popular will, and yet mouth it bravely about "the great ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... crime he commits, an' a' the property he steals, an' a' the unfortunate people he maroons, will hae to be answered for by ye, Dickory, when the time comes for ye to stand up an' say what ye hae got to say about your ain sins. If ye had stood by me an' helped to cut him short in his nefarious career, he might now be beginnin' a new life in some small coastin' ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... calculated upon fleecing him of five or six thousand pounds in the course of an hour. According to his own account, the witness told the gentleman of this trick; and the following morning the latter went with him, to know if this nefarious dealing ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... House was on the whole highly favourable to these proposals. Fox accused Ministers of raising an invasion scare in order to compass their own nefarious designs; but Pitt's first proposals passed without a division; that on the cavalry by 140 votes to 30. Nevertheless, Pitt did nothing towards securing cohesion in these diverse forces, except by a provision which obliged Volunteers ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... Cuthbert. It is that nefarious Siebald the Refectorarius. That fellow is always playing the scout, Creeping and peeping and prowling about; And then he regales The Abbot ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... shameful acts, but I call upon him either publicly to deny and confute the scandalous statements made against him by a man now dead, and who died in his house—the statement that he was for many years engaged in nefarious practices, and that he won his fortune by dishonest procedures—or else to withdraw from positions which could only have been allowed him ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... been attributed to the determination of the eunuchs and others that the Emperor should not outlive his aunt, for some time past seen to be "drawing near the wood," lest his reforming spirit should again jeopardize their nefarious interests. ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles
... noisy against the gouls of Surgeons' Hall, because they live upon the dead carcasses of their fellow-creatures; while, strange to say, it takes but little account of the hordes of wretches who openly, and in the face of day, hunt down living men in their nefarious dealings as porter brewers, quack doctors, informers, attorneys, manufacturers of bean flour, alum, and Portland stone; and torture their subjects like so many barbacued pigs, in the complicated processes of their ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various
... a bulky paper, or rather set of papers, which detailed the inventions and their history, exposing some of the nefarious operations ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... you that Robert Lennox is not dead, that he survived a most nefarious plot against him, that he was, in truth, kidnapped and carried far away to sea, but was rescued in a most remarkable manner and has come ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... from her nerveless hands. Constance felt an arm grasp her tightly. For a moment a chill ran over her at being caught in the nefarious work of breaking and entering a dwelling-house at night. The hand was Anita's, but the voice ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... the primary use of these nefarious weapons the recognized hand grenade, which is actually hand-shrapnel, plied by men at close quarters. Thousands of these have been thrown by the armies in their charges on the trenches. And then, to offset the use of these devices in the offensive, there came into being also the smoke ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... soaking in saltpetre and pepper, and hung out in the sun. When perfectly dry, it was used as a candlestick for a candle made of white wax, sesame seed, and fat from the corpse of the criminal. Prepared thus, the Hand of Glory was deemed to have the power of aiding and protecting the robbers in their nefarious work by sending to sleep their intended victims. Hence no robber ever visited a house without having such a talisman ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... was gradually rising to it, was the object of his hatred or envy. The former he detested, not more because they had no need of his protection, than from fear they should promulgate to the world his nefarious proceedings; the latter because they were absorbing some portion of that wealth, which he wished should flow wholly into the coffers, the contents of which at the division of the spoil he was to have so large a share of. It does not follow, ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... theatre. A wicked villain took a light, and was deliberately setting fire to the scenes, which might have caused the death of a portion of the misguided agents in this disgraceful outrage. Moody fortunately perceived him, resolutely interposed, and prevented the perpetration of his nefarious design. The next night that he appeared, he was instantly called upon to beg pardon, for an act which merited the highest gratitude. Moody addressed the audience—"Gentlemen, if by hindering the house from being ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... oleander, the mountains shimmering in the hazy light like so many breasts of doves, the constant presence of the melodious Italian voice. Where indeed but at the Opera when the manager has been more than usually regardless of expense? Here in the foreground was the palace of the nefarious barytone, with its banqueting-hall opening as freely on the stage as a railway buffet on the platform; beyond, the delightful back scene, with its operatic gamut of colouring; in the middle the scarlet-sashed barcaiuoli, grouped like a chorus, hat in hand, awaiting the ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... itself overrun with a race and a perpetuity of Corporal's cats! Perhaps, too, their teacher growing more expert by practice, the descendants might attain to even greater accomplishment than their nefarious progenitor. No longer did the faint hope of being delivered from their tormentor by an untimely or even natural death, occur to the harassed Grassdalians. Death was an incident natural to one cat, however vivacious, ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... there is any necessity to make public a name which many years since was not better known than honoured. I say the—a—prisoner known as Starlight has, from the evidence, taken the principal part in this nefarious transaction. It is not the first offence, as I observe from a paper I hold in my hand. The younger prisoner, Marston, has very properly been found guilty of criminal complicity with the same offence. It may be that he has been concerned in other offences against the law, but ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... more particularly informed by Col. Hawker, is reduced to a perfect system in London, and carried on by a set of fellows who, by their cunning and peculiar knack, are enabled to avoid all detection in their nefarious traffic, and thus, by extortion of rewards or sales of stolen dogs, reap a rich harvest for the whole fraternity from the well-stored pockets of the numerous dog-fanciers of ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... the subject dropped, but the imp of mischief still flickered defiantly in the golden-brown eyes, and when, after dinner was over, Maria brought in the coffee, Ann threw out a tentative remark which instantly achieved its nefarious purpose of loosening the ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... broken limbs, the clanking chains, the stinted food of the ergastula or slave-prisons, excited all Seneca's compassion, and in all probability presented a picture of misery which the world has rarely seen surpassed, unless it were in that nefarious trade which England to her shame once practised, and, to her eternal ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... for a lack of delicacy of speech, and shortly afterward we went to bed. Owing to the root under the tent, and puddles here and there, we could not go to sleep for a time, and we discussed the "nefarious deed," as Tish aptly termed it, that was ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... view to destroy the confidence which the army and community might have had in my political principles,—and which have lately been republished with greater avidity and perseverance than ever, by Mr. Bache to answer the same nefarious purpose with the latter," and Washington added that "immense pains has been taken by this said Mr. Bache, who is no more than the agent or tool of those who are endeavoring to destroy the confidence of the people, in the ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... discredit starving men on strike, to defeat socialists in an election, to promote a political intrigue, to throw the entire legislature into the hands of the reaction, to conceal corruption, or to take the public mind from too intently watching the nefarious schemes of a political-financial conspiracy—for all these and a multitude of other purposes thousands of secret police agents are at work. The sordid facts of this infamous commerce are no longer in doubt, and one wonders how the anarchists can delude themselves into the ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... obliged to admit that he had been a protege of "that dreadful man Liszt," as the potentate of Weimar was characterised by Lady Macfarren, an all-powerful factor in the control of the institution; and that proving finally his abandonment to a nefarious modernity, he was ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... delightful. For the glowing description of, and the sneaking apology for, cat-worrying which the "Sporting Jacket" contains, nothing can be said. Wilson deliberately overlooks the fact that the whole fun of that nefarious amusement consists in the pitting of a plucky but weak animal against something much more strongly built and armed than itself. One may regret the P.R., and indulge in a not wholly sneaking affection for cock-fighting, dog-fighting, and anything in which there is a fair match, without having the ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... was a poacher. This does not mean that every night in every month he went forth with nefarious tricks and tools, to steal the flesh and fur that legally were not his. Far from it. Josh never poached but once. But that's enough; he had crossed the line, and this is ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... house. Inside the monumental hearth, at an arm's length up the wide chimney, a receptacle had been contrived in the brickwork, with a small iron door which opened and closed with a secret spring. Chauvelin, whom his nefarious calling had rendered proficient in such matters, had soon mastered the workings of that spring. He could now open and close the iron door ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... the station wid the gurl's kit at the end av the first piece. 'Twas the kit that flusthered me, for I knew for a Capt'n to go trapesing about the impire wid the Lord knew what av a truso on his arrum was nefarious, an' wud be worse than easin' the flag, so far ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... showman, who, for the payment of L50. per annum, obtained the liberty of exhibiting him for three years in England. Not contented with his bargain, the chapman attempted to underlet to another speculator, the liberty of showing him, and poor Cotter resisting this nefarious transaction, was saddled with a fictitious debt, and thrown into a spunging house in Bristol. In this situation he was, happily for him, visited in prison by a gentleman of the city, who, in compassion ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 20, No. 567, Saturday, September 22, 1832. • Various
... designed to mislead the wariest of coastguards and patrols. Its sole convoy was an old gentleman—evidently selected for the part, for by his air of simple benevolence you would have judged him the last man in the world to be suspected of nefarious practices. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 24, 1914 • Various
... guarantee of their success. I believe that, instead of driving them to irregular efforts like those which they recently have made in many of the States to overthrow liquor selling, it will give them an opportunity through the ballot-box to protect their families, to break up the nefarious traffic and purify society. As it is now, their energies in this direction are repressed, and sometimes in order to have force are compelled to be exercised even in opposition to law. I would give them an opportunity to exercise them under the forms ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... into morality, making it a matter of duty, at once private and universal, rather than what paganism had left it, a mass of local allegiances and legal practices. The Jewish system has, in consequence, a tendency to propaganda and intolerance; a tendency which would not have proved nefarious had this religion always remained true to its moral principle; for morality is coercive and no man, being autonomous, has a right to do wrong. Conscience, thus reinforced by religious passion, has been able to focus a general abhorrence on certain great scandals—slavery ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... been taken by a state warrant for stealing, and the stolen property found in the house of William W. Phelps; in which nefarious transaction John Whitmer had also participated. Oliver Cowdery stole the property, conveyed it to John Whitmer, and John Whitmer to William W. Phelps; and then the officers of law found it. While in the hands of an officer, and under ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... there was in Transylvania a wide-spreading society of coiners which, it is now notorious, had carried on its nefarious business undetected for more than half a century. The science was an inheritance descending from father to son, people married and were born into it. Careful parents trained their children to follow it, and a very ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... blessing. And once on a moonless midnight, when the venerable Dona Acosta had passed away, the watchman in the Jews' cemetery, stealing from his turret at a suspicious noise, turned his lantern upon—no body-snatcher, but—O more nefarious spectacle!—the sobbing figure of Uriel Acosta across a new-dug grave, polluting the holy soil of ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... runnin' as if owld Nick was at their heels, and they shoutin' a thousand murdhers, and cryin' "The dhraggin, the dhraggin!" and he couldn't stop the horse nor make him turn back, but away he pelted right forninst the terrible baste that was comin' up to him, and there was the most nefarious smell o' sulphur, savin' your presence, enough to knock you down; and, faith, the Waiver seen he had no time to lose, and so he threw himself off the horse, and made to a three that was growin' nigh hand, and away he clambered up into it as ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... not resist the spoils of war, and, to their eternal disgrace, trainloads of loot were sent away to decorate German homes—as burglars' wives might wear the jewellery acquired by their adventurous menfolk in the course of their nefarious operations. ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... of the first-class quarantine station. In the words of Lieutenant Long "they fully looked the part," being of distinctly merciless cut of jib. They were roughly dressed and without collars, convincing proof of some nefarious design, for when the Latin-American entitled to wear them leaves off his white collar and his cane ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... part engaged in the nefarious traffic of the White Nile are Syrians, Copts, Turks, Circassians, and some few EUROPEANS. So closely connected with the difficulties of my expedition is that accursed slave trade, that the so-called ivory trade of the White Nile requires ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... protest of the French Chamber of Deputies against the extinction of the nationality of Poland, not only ended in barren results, and excited public ridicule, but actually terminated in the triumph of the nefarious scheme against which it was made. Never was a country so humiliated as France in this case!—Its Chief, the Sovereign of its choice, consenting at the time, to the damning act of the extinction of Polish nationality, for the sake of accomplishing a low and scandalous ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... on our nefarious robberies as individuals, but I don't intend to form a partnership in the business. I don't approve of doing ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... criminal and natural wickedness may well rank him with Charles Peace in the hierarchy of scoundrels. Like Peace, Butler was, in the jargon of crime, a "hatter," a "lone hand," a solitary who conceived and executed his nefarious designs alone; like Peace, he supplemented an insignificant physique by a liberal employment of the revolver; like Peace, he was something of a musician, the day before his execution he played hymns for half an hour on the prison organ; like Peace, ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving |
