"Villany" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... skilled in the art of detraction than the author of the above stupid scandal, has made free with my character. For I can not suppose, that malice so absurd, so barefaced, so diametrically opposite to truth, to common policy, and, in short, to everything but villany, as the above is, could impress you with so ill an opinion ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... these rogues would certainly have murdered me without scruple had they succeeded in finding the bulk of my money. Baffled in this, while still persuaded that I had other resources, they had stopped short of that villany—or this memoir had never been written. They had kindly permitted me to live until a more favourable opportunity of enriching themselves at my expense should put them in possession of my ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... composition the motive principle; at best, you say, a singular mixture of good and bad; anything but the feminine ideal of man. Feature to some excess, you think, distinguishes her. Yet she furnishes not any of the sweet sensual excitement pertaining to her spotless rival pursued by villany. She knocks at the doors of the mind, and the mind must open to be interested in her. Mind and heart must be wide open to excuse her sheer descent from the pure ideal ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... I'm not disappointed in Snake, I never suspected the fellow to have virtue enough to be faithful even to his own Villany. ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... me, who never did any thing I was ashamed to own, and who have more ingenuousness than ever man had; who can call a villany by its own right name, though practised by myself, and (by my own readiness to reproach myself) anticipate all reproach from others; who am not such a hypocrite, as to wish the world to think me other or better than I am— it is my part, to look a servant into his duty, if I can; nor will I keep ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... wickedness of many, and the weakness of more, in those ages of ignorance and superstition, concurred to form those flagitious conspiracies against the lives and properties of unoffending people. The Pope sanctified the villany, and annexed the pardon of sins to the perpetration of it. This gave rise to the Crusaders, and carried such swarms of people from Europe to the conquests of the Holy Land. Peter the Hermit, an active and ambitious priest, by his indefatigable pains, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... room for the other of the chief encloser, called the Lord of the Manor, or some other wretch as cruel as he.... Now all this slavery of the one and tyranny of the other was at first by murder and cruelty one against the other. And that they might strengthen themselves in their villany against God's Ordinances and their Brother's Freedom and Rights, they had always a Commander-in-Chief, ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... and lamentations being raised in the palace, Servius, supported by a strong guard, took possession of the kingdom by the consent of the senate, being the first who did so without the orders of the people. The children of Ancus, the instruments of their villany having been already seized, as soon as it was announced that the king still lived, and that the power of Servius was so great, had already gone into ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... to Brayder. You know how I hate him. I made love to the man to get it out of him. Richard! my word of honour, they have planned to carry her off, if Mount finds he cannot seduce her. Talk of devils! He's one; but he is not so bad as Brayder. I cannot forgive a mean dog his villany. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... time when he was borrowing 40,000l. from Mr. Sulivan in one morning, and raising by other under-jobs 27,000l. more. In the distress [in?] which his own extravagance and prodigality had involved him, 200,000l. would have been a weighty benefit, although derived from his villany; but this relief he positively refused, because, says he, "the offer came too late." From these words, my Lords, we may infer that there was a time when the offer would not have been "too late,"—a period at which it would have been readily ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... visible in the tapering scorpion-like tips of their shoes. Under the mask of animals they represented the lowest side of brute nature. The famous child stealer, Retz, here took his first flight in villany. The great feudal ladies, unbridled Jezebels, with less sense of shame in them than the men, scorned all disguise whatever; displayed themselves with face uncovered. In their sensual rages, in their mad parade of debauchery, ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... last received the letter which this rider had been so abashed to deliver, slow but lasting wrath began to gather in his gray-lashed eyes. It was the inborn anger of an honest man at villany mixed with lofty scorn and traversed by a dear anxiety. Withal he found himself so helpless that he scarce knew what to do. He had been to Frida both a father and a mother, as she often used to tell him when she wanted something; but now he felt that no man could ...
— Frida, or, The Lover's Leap, A Legend Of The West Country - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... government detectives have traced a gang of counterfeiters to our beloved city, though they have not succeeded in spotting the rascals' whereabouts. It's rather humiliating to find St. Etienne picked out as a good hiding-place for any villany there ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... vice, and even they were pedantic, impracticable, and prejudiced. No history, narrative, or memoir can be so disgusting as those of Spain and its court under the dominion of the House of Bourbon. The imagination of no novelist has ever attained that acme of duplicity, cruelty, villany, and cowardice, which made up the character of Ferdinand. The general opinion of PRINCE METTERNICH, since he has become familiar to London circles, has been rather to diminish former opinion of his superior wisdom. Lord Holland's early opinion of ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... that the conception is not carried out so well as it deserves to be. Doctor Harrison descends to some low business, quite unworthy of him, such as tampering with the mails. This is not only mortifying, but entirely unnecessary; inasmuch as Doctor Harrison has a subordinate villain to do all the low villany, in the person of Squire Deacon, who shoots at Mr. Linden from behind a hedge (!), and is never called to account therefor,—a strange remissness on the part of everybody, which seems to have no recommendation except that it leaves him free to do this very work of ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... whom nature, and temper, and provocation have qualified for taking the conceit out of you. This she very soon did, laying open a head or two with a sharp stone, and letting out rather too little than too much of bad Valladolid blood. But mark the constant villany of this world. Certain Alguazils—very like some other Alguazils that I know nearer home—having stood by quietly to see the friendless stranger insulted and assaulted, now felt it their duty to apprehend the poor nun for murderous violence: and had there been such ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... in one of his riotous assaults against honest stock-exchange dealing—money notoriously not his own. He may desire to imitate that course of behavior which had Samuel Bowles abducted and unlawfully imprisoned because he published in his paper the truth about Wall Street trickery and villany, or which sandbagged Dorman B. Eaton in the streets of New York for having fought with legal weapons of honest denunciation that malodorous craft of a compact between incarnate kleptomania in finance and the unspeakable "boss" burglar of ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... shortly after the Boy confessed that he was taught and suborned to devise, and feign those things against them, and had persevered in that wickedness by the counsel of his Father, and some others, whom envy, revenge and hope of gain had prompted on to that devillish design and villany; and he also confessed, that upon that day when he said that they met at the aforesaid house or barn, he was that very day a mile off, getting Plums in his Neighbours Orchard. And that this is a most certain truth, there are many persons yet living, of sufficient reputation ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... treated of. They are called lusts, because according to the quantity and quality of the lust for those things, such and so great is their appropriation. In reference specifically to the lust of defloration, its infamous villany shall be made manifest from the following considerations: I. The state of a maiden or undeflowered woman before and after marriage. II. Virginity is the crown of chastity, and the certificate of conjugial love. III. Defloration, without a view to marriage ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... his tools when he has done his work; but his tone of feeling and his principle he would not surrender, though the maintenance of them should crush him with their weight. The woman had been very vile, desperately false, wicked beyond belief, with premeditated villany, for years and years;—and this was the woman whom he had wished to make the bosom companion of ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... with less expense, and no chicanery, by the Dey of Algiers. If this country were erected at once into a downright, honest, open despotism, the people would be gainers. If a judge or despot then proved a rogue, he would at once appear in his true character; but now villany can be artfully concealed under the verdict of a packed jury. I am satisfied that the present system of corruption is more detrimental to ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... and since then the thought haunts me. If I knew that Louison were dead I would thank God on my knees, but it is terrible to think that she is in the power of that scoundrel. The fact that Robeckal has a hand in the affair stamps it at once as a piece of villany." ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... the monk, "however bold he hath made himself in villany, dares not deny that I heard him with my own ears treat for the surrender ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... that you think no ill, and do not threaten me that I am to be taken into the country for protection. And when you tell me of the bold-faced villany of that young woman, speak of her with the disgust that she deserves; and say that your sister Susanna is suspicious and given to evil thoughts; and declare your brother to be a wicked slanderer if he has said a word against the honour of your wife. Then I shall ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... who saw too,—a sudden flash of light, as it were, revealing to Penn all the heartless, scheming villany of the friendly-seeming Augustus. He grasped the Stackridge pistol; his eyes, glaring in the dark, were fixed in righteous fury ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... also my own wish. Now, if it please God, I will go along with you.' I mentioned the circumstance of my brothers' afflictions to my wife, and also my own intentions. That sensible woman replied, 'You may think so; but they again design to perpetrate some villany [towards you]; they are the enemies of your life; you have fostered [a brace of] serpents in your sleeve, and you still place reliance on their regard. Act as you please, but beware of those who are noxious.' At all events, ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... seene under the sunne-shine of the Gospell: but by how much, zeale is more glorious then common profession, by so much is dissembled fervency more detestable then usuall hypocrisie; yea, no better then divellish villany & double iniquity: such painted walles and whited sepulchers, the Lord will breake downe. Let all Timothies & Nathanaels learne to descry them, and discard them: The cure of this was deepely forelayd by Christ; I ...
— A Coal From The Altar, To Kindle The Holy Fire of Zeale - In a Sermon Preached at a Generall Visitation at Ipswich • Samuel Ward
... it for his benefits to them They hid his corse, and honoured him so highly, Who came to set on fire their pillared shrines, With all the riches of their offerings, And to make nothing of their land and laws? Or, hast thou seen them honouring villany? That cannot be. Long time the cause of this Hath come to me in secret murmurings From malcontents of Thebes, who under yoke Turned restive, and would not accept my sway. Well know I, these have bribed the watchmen here To do this for some fee. For ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... sudden, universal, and lasting, was the effect of this plot in closing the eyes of all to the claims of the Irish, that when its chief promoter, Shaftesbury, was dragged to the Tower and there imprisoned as a miscreant, and Oates himself suffered a punishment too mild for his villany, nevertheless no one thought of again taking up the cause ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... which his wife hath, to put in one vntill he come to three and then no more: for they say the women doe desire them. They were inuented because they should not abuse the male sexe. For in times past all those countries were so giuen to that villany, that they were very scarce of people. It was also ordained that the women should not haue past three cubits of cloth in their nether clothes, which they binde about them; which are so strait, that when they go in the ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... looking with mute astonishment at these evidences of Jaggers's villany, there came a low knocking at the door, and two men entered, one of them a broad, brown-bearded man in a half seafaring dress, ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... said, "Oh gentle Cavalier! Now by thy God say me no villany; The favour of your name I fain would hear, And if a Christian, speak for courtesy." Replied Orlando, "So much to your ear I by my faith disclose contentedly; Christ I adore, who is the genuine Lord, And, if you please, by you may ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... the reader that an immense number of persons, both infidels and Protestants, especially in sober-minded England and Scotland, treat every professed Catholic miracle as a portion of the vast gigantic system of deliberate fraud and villany which they conceive to be the very life of Catholicism. From the Pope to the humblest priest who says Mass and hears confessions in an ugly little chapel in the shabbiest street of a country town, all are regarded as leagued in one wide-spreading ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... followed with his eloquent handkerchief to his eyes; but, while he had been talking to himself, our old friend the Highwayman had been on the alert, and had picked Fanny up, fainting in the street. And what did he do with her after that? He handed her over to his "comrades in villany." And who were his comrades in villany? They were the trombone and ophicleide players from the orchestra, and the "Miss Grace," of act first, disguised as a bad character, in a cloak, with a red ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... ruffian, that vanity in years? Wherein is he good, but to taste sack and drink it? wherein neat and cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat it? wherein cunning, but in craft? wherein crafty, but in villany? wherein villainous, but in all things? wherein worthy, but in ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... and 'unholy glee,' de Courcelles! Not at all! It's very well, and my pleasure is justified. I fear that villany is not always punished as it should be, and seldom in the dramatic manner that leaps to the eye and that has the powerful force of example. Ah, a foul blow before the seconds gave the word! Boucher has ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... County, the Government at Washington must send on an investigating committee to whom it would be asserted that the voting lists had been doctored by the Democrats. To prove it the boxes would be opened, the ballots counted, and lo! the villany of the Democrats would be, ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... battled and solitary man, who now slowly approached him,—the man whose proud career he had served to thwart, whose heart his schemes had prematurely soured, whose best years had been consumed in exile,—a sacrifice to the grave which a selfish and dishonourable villany had prepared! Cesarini, the inmate of a mad-house, Florence in her shroud,—such were the visions the sight of Maltravers conjured up. And to the soul which the unwonted and momentary remorse awakened, ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book III • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... which would have kept them from so rudely endeavoring to satisfy their curiosity, there was exhibited, in the short time she was in their company, so much shrewdness, common sense, and, added to this, such an inherent hatred of shams, of vice and villany, and such a love for the true, the pure, and the good, that she formed an opinion in regard to them a narrower person, under the circumstances, would be incapable ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... the men book-buyers. One Mr. Gouge, who was also "a Secret Friend to the Fair Sex," bought to give away two hundred copies of a book written by Parson Gouge, his father. Another "young beau who boasts more Villany than he ever committed bought a many of books;" hence Dunton tolerated the "Young Spark's" demoralizing acquaintance. Mr. Thorncomb, another book-dealer from London, also bought of him, and, with the ever prevailing luck was ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... dilatories into court, nor false witnesses, nor move or offer any false corruptive deceits, leasings, or false lies, nor consent to any such, but truly maintain his client's cause, so that it fail not by any negligence or default in him, nor by any threatening, hurt, or villany, disturb the judge, plaintiff, serjeant, or any other in court, whereby he hinder the right or the hearing of the cause." Chap. 2, s. 5. This is indeed in the very words of the serjeant's oath, and Lord Coke remarks that it consists ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... in the Wickersham matter was understood by his acquaintances. Wickersham had as good as absconded, some said; and there were many to tell how long they had prophesied this very thing, and how well they had known his villany. Mrs. Nailor was particularly vindictive. She had recently put some money in his mining scheme, and she could have hanged him. She did the next thing: she damned him. She even extended her rage to old Mrs. Wickersham, who, poor ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... master, solemn soul, he walked the halls As if in search of something which was lost; The groom, I liked not him, nor ever did, Spoke such perpetual sweetness, till I thought He wore some sugared villany within:— But then he is my master's ancient friend, And always known the favorite of the duke, And, as I know, our lady's treacherous lord! Oh, Holy Mother, that to villain hawks Our dove should fall a prey! poor gentle dear! Now if I had their throats ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... of obstinacy, For money excuse them, though they use villany, Thus shall you perform your office aright, For favour or money to ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... shall first be taken," she said, as, preparing to leave the house, her burning thoughts began to press for utterance. "Ay, if it will not avail me, in bringing aid to escape from this den of iniquity, or protection to remain, it shall, at least, serve as a proclamation of villany, which shall yet be heard in every house and hamlet ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... she call'd Me, in my Revenge on her; and if Nurse fails me Not, I'le have my Lady, and Pedro; finely firkt. When this is done, my Lord rewards my care, Let him the danger I'le the profit share. And since things Excellent commended be, 'Tshall be my Aym t'excell in Villany. ...
— The Fatal Jealousie (1673) • Henry Nevil Payne
... that I can trust you, and will continue my story. I was taken to prison, and confined in a dungeon, as a forger. I asked the amount of money which I stood charged with obtaining, and the turnkey laughed in my face, and told me that I ought to know better than he the sum of my villany. ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... ever hearty in it, sir,' the penitent anatomist went on, 'or that I ever viewed myself with anything but reproach for having turned out of the paths of science into the paths of—' he was going to say 'villany,' but, unwilling to press too hard upon himself, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... Cape. Since that time, every Malay or other slave, having business in the street after a certain hour in the evening, is obliged to carry a lighted lantern, on pain of being stopped by the sentinel and kept in custody until morning. Murder and villany are strongly depicted on the features of the slaves of that nation; and such of them as dared to speak of this dreadful catastrophe clearly appeared to approve ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... weakness towards their cause and treachery towards one another; and, lastly, that these men, having, amidst all their ignorance, originality enough to invent the most pure and sublime system of morality which the world has ever listened to, had, amidst all their conscious villany, the effrontery to preach it, and, which is more extraordinary, the inconsistency ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... jilt her! She felt sure that he had not heart enough to do a deed of such audacity. And her sister, too, was weak and a coward, and would lack the power to stand on her legs and declare herself to be the perpetrator of such villany. Her mother, as she knew well, would always have preferred that her elder daughter should be the bride; but her mother was not the woman to have the hardihood, now, in the eleventh hour, to favour such an intrigue. Let her wish be ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... should have been guilty of a villany seems to us highly improbable. That Addison should have been guilty of a villany seems to us highly improbable. But that these two men should have conspired together to commit a villany seems to us improbable in a tenfold degree. All that is ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... if you leave, I shall believe that you are a party to the villany that has been carried on in the counting-room. I thought you were on very intimate terms with Mr. Whippleton, your employer, sailing with him, and spending your Sundays on the ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... plunder the canoes of traders who had not a pass from him. The adverse faction now retorted by adding the permission of murder to the permission of pillage. Margry thinks that La Chesnaye was the prompter of this villany.] ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... the ten, to surrender; and thereby secure whatever small chance of pardon such conduct might merit. But when Steelkilt made known his determination still to lead them to the last, they in some way, by some subtle chemistry of villany, mixed their before secret treacheries together; and when their leader fell into a doze, verbally opened their souls to each other in three sentences; and bound the sleeper with cords, and gagged him with cords; and shrieked out for the Captain at midnight. Thinking murder at hand, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... could believe that it was his first offence. The same thing happened at Christmas. He has become hardened in successful villany. The crime is not against me alone; it is against the Church, and must be punished accordingly. Don't raise your hands in that deprecating manner, Ralph, or attempt to plead for him," and he stamped his foot impatiently; "I must and will be obeyed. Why do you loiter, old man? ...
— George Leatrim • Susanna Moodie
... of the reign of Tatius, some of his friends and kinsmen, meeting ambassadors coming from Laurentum to Rome, attempted on the road to take away their money by force, and, upon their resistance, killed them. So great a villany having been committed, Romulus thought the malefactors ought at once to be punished, but Tatius shuffled off and deferred the execution of it; and this one thing was the beginning of an open quarrel betwixt them; in all other respects they were very careful of their conduct, ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... London, there returned from Canterbury the king's mother, princess of Wales, coming from her pilgrimage. She was in great jeopardy to have been lost, for these people came to her chare and dealt rudely with her, whereof the good lady was in great doubt lest they would have done some villany to her or to her damosels. Howbeit, God kept her, and she came in one day from Canterbury to London, for she never durst tarry by the way. The same time king Richard her son was at the Tower of London: there his mother found him, and with him ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... Punic faith; mala fides [Lat.], Punica fides [Lat.]; infidelity; faithlessness &c adj.; Judas kiss, betrayal. breach of promise, breach of trust, breach of faith; prodition^, disloyalty, treason, high treason; apostasy &c (tergiversation) 607; nonobservance &c 773. shabbiness &c adj.; villainy, villany^; baseness &c adj.; abjection, debasement, turpitude, moral turpitude, laxity, trimming, shuffling. perfidy; perfidiousness &c adj.; treachery, double dealing; unfairness &c adj.; knavery, roguery, rascality, foul play; jobbing, jobbery; graft, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... cheaile,' she said, shaking her uplifted finger with a hideous archness at me, 'you could not hide what you 'av done from poor Madame. You cannot look so innocent but I can see your pretty little villany quite ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... to force their way, and having obtained, as is believed, a promise of life, he opened the door, and reminding them that he was a priest, he conjured them to spare him. Two of the assassins rushed upon him with drawn swords; but a third, James Melvil, more calm and more considerate in villany, stopped their career, and bade them reflect, that this sacrifice was the work and judgment of God, and ought to be executed with becoming deliberation and gravity. Then turning the point of his sword towards Beatoun, he called to him, "Repent thee, thou ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... all cursedness! O trait'rous homicide! O wickedness! O glutt'ny, luxury, and hazardry! Thou blasphemer of Christ with villany,* *outrage, impiety And oathes great, of usage and of pride! Alas! mankinde, how may it betide, That to thy Creator, which that thee wrought, And with his precious hearte-blood thee bought, Thou art so false ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... that it was not; but said it was rather hard that the sins o' a' the Willie Smiths in the country should be visited on my shouthers. "There's no a piece o' villany done by, nor a misfortune happens to a Willie Smith," said I, "but it's fastened on me. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... historical portraits which were true to life. The more recent researches of George Borrow and others have shown that, judged by the gypsy of the present day, Hayraddin is extremely well drawn in certain particulars, but improbable in other respects. He has, amid all his villany, a certain firmness or greatness which is peculiar to men who can sustain positions of rank—a marked Oriental 'leadership,' which Scott might be presumed to have guessed at. Yet all of this corresponds closely to the historical account of the first of these ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the Commons of England, I charge all this villany upon Warren Hastings, in this last moment ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... this same justice were both drunk together but the night before." The magistrates and constables were as much in need of reform as the laws. "The greatest criminals in this town," said Walpole,[147] "are the officers of justice; there is no tyranny they do not exercise, no villany of which they do not partake." Many of the magistrates were never impartial, except, as Fielding said: "when they could get nothing on either side." One class of constables was described by Fielding in "Amelia."[148] The watchmen intended "to guard ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... so perpetually ill, that she implored her husband to let her enjoy the company of her sister and friends. When he could have no relief from her importunity (being assured that in seeing her relations, she must discover his barbarous deceit) he thought it was best to be himself the relator of his villany; he fell upon his knees before her, with so much seeming confusion, distress and anguish, that she was at a loss to know what could mould his stubborn heart to such contrition. At last, with a thousand well counterfeited tears, and sighs, he stabb'd ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... said Rowland, as Blackbeard finished speaking, 'that I was training you up to outvie myself in villany. Are you sure ...
— Blackbeard - Or, The Pirate of Roanoke. • B. Barker
... villany," Roger muttered, "but of what nature I have no means of discovering, even were it any affair of mine. I am satisfied of one thing, however—that man's a scoundrel; seemingly he has the girl in his power, and it looks as if she had been stealing goods and he is compounding ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... remained in secrecy through the summer, hoping for better times,—an unwilling witness of the subjugation of his land,—till finally he was driven from his refuge by an act of Christiern so revolting in its villany that it made ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... the homoeopathic system, by administering to them oatmeal porridge in infinitessimal doses; but some of the paupers have such proud stomachs that they object to the diet, and actually die through spite and villany. Oh! 'tis a dreadful world for ingratitude! But never mind—Send ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 17, 1841 • Various
... whoever it was, he professed only to dress up and record what he had actually heard from a veritable Uncle Remus. Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and Old Man Bar, are not the creatures of AEsop's Fables; they are the characters in Reynart the Fox. The tricks, the cunning, the villany of Reynart, unredeemed by aught except his affection for his wife and family, are thoroughly amusing, and his ultimate success, and increased prosperity; present a truer picture of actual life than novels in which vice ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... Ernstorff, Essper learnt on the day of the fete that Mr. St. George was to dine with the Chevalier at the Baron's apartments on the morrow, and that there was a chance that I should join them. He suspected that villany was in the wind, and when I retired to my room at a late hour on the night of the fete, I there met him, and it was then that he revealed to me everything which I have told you. Am I not right, then, in ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... there were reasons for it. The people with whom the apostles were now to deal, as they were murderers of our Lord, and to be charged in the general with his blood, so they had their various and particular acts of villany in the guilt thereof, now lying upon their consciences. And the guilt of these, their various and particular acts of wickedness, could not, perhaps, be reached to a removal thereof but by this particular application. Repent, every one of you; be baptized, every one of you, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... hospitals, the workhouses. I was out half the night in New York with two of their most famous constables; started at midnight, and went into every brothel, thieves' house, murdering hovel, sailors' dancing-place, and abode of villany, both black and white, in the town. I went incog. behind the scenes to the little theatre where Mitchell is making a fortune. He has been rearing a little dog for me, and has called him "Boz."[1] I am going to bring him home. In a word I go everywhere, and a hard life it is. ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... his perfidy to them, and that he had them checkmated. Any protest from them would be a confession of their theft. Yet it seemed an unsafe piece of villany in Jenks. ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... game a sixth time, and won. The same day that saw my uncle rise with thousands, saw him seek his pillow at night, a frantic beggar! He was too proud a man, too honourable, I will add, not to throw down his last guinea, in satisfaction of such demands. He never suspected villany in the business. He paid his losses, therefore; and in less than a week afterwards, an inquest sat upon his body, which was found at the bottom ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, No. - 361, Supplementary Issue (1829) • Various
... had originally stipulated, he might prosecute his plan touching the property of Martin Heathcote, rendering his daughter's hand free by the removal of young O'Mara. This appears to me too complicated a plan of villany to have entered the mind even of such a man as Dwyer. I must, therefore, suppose his motives to have originated out of circumstances connected with this story which may not have come to my ear, and perhaps ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... unwary Heart becomes an easy Prey to those deceitful Monsters, who no sooner perceive it, but immediately they grow cool, and shun her whom they before seemed so much to admire, and proceed to act the same common-place Villany towards another. A Coxcomb flushed with many of these infamous Victories shall say he is sorry for the poor Fools, protest and vow he never thought of Matrimony, and wonder talking civilly can be so strangely misinterpreted. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... his mind in a vile state through the devilish illusions produced by his magic, and weaving all kinds of images, and being ever ready of his own villany to show his barbaric and demoniacal tricks by means of his charms, he came forward publicly and under the cloak of the name of Christ; and pretending that he was mixing hellebore[43] with honey, he added a poison for those whom he hunted into his ...
— Simon Magus • George Robert Stow Mead
... he has a head and hand for any villany. My uncle was very angry about it; for though the riot was made to have an opportunity of carrying you off in the confusion, as well as to put the fishermen at variance with the public law, it would have been his last thought to have ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... thou wretch, thou coward, Thou little valiant, great in villany! Thou ever strong upon the stronger side! Thou fortune's champion, that dost never fight But when her humorous ladyship is by ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... that, with Montreal's hot genius and John di Vico's frigid villany, your Holiness may live to envy, if not the quiet, at least the ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... powerful villany first set it up, For its own ease and safety. Honest men Are the soft easy cushions on which knaves Repose and fatten. Were all mankind villains, They'd starve each other; lawyers would want practice, Cut-throats rewards: each man would kill his brother Himself; none ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy • Thomas Otway
... man well armed and provided, but sets boldly on good natures, as the most vanquishable. One that seriously admires those worst princes, as Sforza, Borgia, and Richard the third; and calls matters of deep villany things of difficulty. To whom murders are but resolute acts, and treason a business of great consequence. One whom two or three countries make up to this compleatness, and he has travelled for the purpose. ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... from the secretary of Mr. Acres, was found upon his person, and fully identified. The man proved to be quite young, seeming to have passed but recently beyond the limit of minority. But even young as he was, there was a look of cruel and hardened villany about him, and an expression of settled defiance of all consequences. He gave his name as Frederick Hildich. A brief examination resulted in his committal to await the result of a trial for burglary at ...
— Who Are Happiest? and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... the words of Cicero, Necessitatis crimen est, non voluntatis. When we consider that from the earliest age they are accustomed to witness among the Turks the most disgusting scenes of profligacy and villany, that, like wandering pilgrims, they have no fixed abode, and are continually subject to all the miseries attendant on war and poverty, can it be wondered if in their character we find something ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various
... be assumed, with tolerable safety, that no first villany is ever entirely deliberate. There is something in events to give it direction—something to egg it on—to point out time, place, and opportunity. Of course, it is to be understood that the actor is one, in the first place, ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... a Dun,[142] Each a resolved, and pious son, Wait her high bidding; each prepared, As she around her orders shared, Proof 'gainst remorse, to run, to fly, And bid the destined victim die, 80 Posting on Villany's black wing, Whether he patriot is, or king. Oppression,—willing to appear An object of our love, not fear, Or, at the most, a reverend awe To breed, usurp'd the garb of Law. A book she held, on which her eyes Were deeply fix'd, whence seem'd ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... cause I hoped to find thee (Gellius!) faithful In this saddest our love, love that is lost and forlore, Or fro' my wotting thee well or ever believing thee constant, Or that thy mind could reject villany ever so vile, But that because was she to thyself nor mother nor sister, 5 This same damsel whose Love me in its greatness devoured. Yet though I had been joined wi' thee by amplest of usance, Still could I never believe this was sufficient of cause. Thou diddest deem it suffice: so great ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... thou wert, there would be no lack of them i' the next generation. Thou might'st be the father of the race, being now the bodily type of it. The phases of thy villany are so numerous that, were they embodied they would break down the fatal tree which is thine inheritance, and cause a lack of cords for ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... a legitimate sphere for the broker and operator, there are transactions every day undertaken in our cities that can only be characterized as superb outrage and villany; and there are members of Christian churches who have been guilty of speculations that, in the last day, will blanch their cheek, and thunder them down to everlasting companionship with the lowest gamblers that ever pitched pennies for ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... serene summer darkness and the dewy garden, getting a little fresh air upon his heated face. Last of all he came back, peremptory and decided. "I shall not betray him," said the Perpetual Curate; "but I will have no further schemes concocted nor villany carried on in my house. If I consent to shield him, and, if possible, save him from the law, it is neither for his sake—nor yours," said the indignant young man. "I suppose it is no use saying anything about ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... Lanier (who is appointed by my brother to sollicit this business) with all the particulars and publique speeche that he may the better know how to imploy this paynes for the discovering of the knot of this villany. I desire you to say well what is fitt to be done in the divorce of my brother and to notify me your opinions thereon and (if you thinke it fitt to be pursued in this) what is the speediest work that may be taken therein. And you discover the ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... favour was to be won by proficiency in vice, and audacity in follies, to truckle to his tastes, to win his smiles by the invention of a new pleasure and his approbation by the plotting of a new villany, what an office for the author of 'The School for Scandal,' and the orator renowned for denouncing the wickednesses of Warren Hastings! What a life for the young poet who had wooed and won the Maid of Bath—for the man of strong domestic affections, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... superior learning. In the second portion, where he defends his marriage with Pudentilla and justifies his dealings with his step-sons, he clears himself in good earnest, nay does more than clear himself. For he unveils in the most merciless fashion the villany of his accusers—the base ingratitude of Pudens, and ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... had been used to the parlour; and being absent about an hour, came reeling home in the agonies of death; and in about a quarter of an hour after, died in the seemingly most excruciating tortures. Suspecting some villany, I ordered him to be opened, but found everything perfect and entire; I then directed him to be skinned, and coming to the loins, found the traces of a table-fork, which was stuck into the kidneys, and which was the occasion of his speedy and dreadful death. A few days after this, my best ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... villany baffled—and long unclouded be the peace which succeeds to that attempted injury. I cannot express how much I am obliged that you took the kind trouble of retracing the road of peril, which had so nearly engulfed ...
— The "Ladies of Llangollen" • John Hicklin
... revenge, conspired with three profligates named Melitus, Lycon, and Anytus, orators and rhetoricians, to destroy that godlike being. Defended by the reverence in which the people held him, Socrates was perpetually secured from the feeble villany of these three associates, till Aristophanes joining them, broke down by wit the barrier that protected him. In the comedy of the Clouds he threw the venerable old man into such forcible ridicule as overset all the respect of the mob for his character, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... betrayal. breach of promise, breach of trust, breach of faith; prodition|, disloyalty, treason, high treason; apostasy &c. (tergiversation) 607; nonobservance &c. 773. shabbiness &c. adj.; villainy, villany[obs3]; baseness &c. adj.; abjection, debasement, turpitude, moral turpitude, laxity, trimming, shuffling. perfidy; perfidiousness &c. adj.; treachery, double dealing; unfairness &c. adj.; knavery, roguery, rascality, foul ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... other hand, this new deputy proves really an orator, we can deal with him in the tribune and in the newspapers without the help of such underground measures. General rule: in a land of unbridled publicity like ours, wherever the hand of the police appears, if even to lay bare the most shameful villany, there's always a hue and cry against the government. Public opinion behaves like the man to whom another man sang an air of Mozart to prove that Mozart was a great musician. Was he vanquished by evidence? 'Mozart,' he replied to the singer, 'may have been a great ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... Claude; "you suspect that my father was badly treated, and had to leave France, and that this man was at the bottom of it. Well, I dare say he was, and that he is quite capable of any piece of villany; but as to his hunting us in America, I can acquit him of that charge, as far as my experience goes, for I never saw him, and never heard of any one ever being on our track. But can't you tell me something more definite about it? Can't you tell ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... my understanding, without a joint depravity of my will. Those have not only depraved under- standings, but diseased affections, which cannot enjoy a singularity without a heresy, or be the author of an opinion without they be of a sect also. This was the villany of the first schism of Lucifer; who was not content to err alone, but drew into his faction many legions; and upon this experience he tempted only Eve, well understanding the communicable nature of sin, and that to deceive but one was ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... at our church, upon "Seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven and its righteousness, and all things shall be added to you." A very excellent and persuasive, good and moral sermon. He showed, like a wise man, that righteousness is a surer moral way of being rich, than sin and villany. After dinner to the office, Mr. Gibson and I, to examine my letter to the Duke of York; which, to my great joy, I did very well by my paper tube, without pain to my eyes. And I do mightily like what I have therein done; and did according to the Duke of York's ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... religious phrases, but was extremely rationalistic in her interpretation; 'for if iver Old Harry appeared in a human form, it's that Dempster. It was all through him as we got cheated out o' Pye's Croft, making out as the title wasn't good. Such lawyer's villany! As if paying good money wasn't title enough to anything. If your father as is dead and gone had been worthy to know it! But he'll have a fall some day, Dempster will. ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... contrasted with Richard II. Pride of intellect is the characteristic of Richard, carried to the extent of even boasting to his own mind of his villany, whilst others are present to feed his pride of superiority; as in his first speech, act II. sc. 1. Shakspeare here, as in all his great parts, developes in a tone of sublime morality the dreadful consequences of placing the moral, in subordination to the mere intellectual, being. In Richard ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... dozen, can be selected whose lives are not of a vicious description, who do not indulge in dishonest practices of one sort or another, and who have not risen to wealth by fostering and practising some species of villany. These men procure convicts to be assigned to them, who become members of the families, and assist them in carrying on their various frauds. In Sydney the grog shops are very numerous, and grog shops are receiving houses. A constant trade in stolen ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 547, May 19, 1832 • Various
... there was an old woman that he thought there was a good deal of work in, yet. She had belonged to one of the first families in the State, and had come down to poverty late in life, through the death of some of her relations, and the villany of others. So he thought she had more strength in her than if she had always been worked. He thought, if she didn't fetch too big a price, he should buy her instead of a young one. They was so balky, he said, young ones was, and would need more to eat, bein' growin'. ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... that time with one of the great powers, was a necessity. It was necessary for the stability of his throne. It was necessary to prevent the thoughts of France from dwelling upon the assassination of the republic and her own infamy in submitting to that enormous villany. If it had not been Russia, it would have been England that the imperial usurper would have denounced as disturbing the waters for ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... 'hear me! I love, and am in despair—yes—in despair. How can I gaze upon you, and know, that it is, perhaps, for the last time, without suffering all the phrensy of despair? But it shall not be so; you shall be mine, in spite of Montoni and all his villany.' ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... confirm our opinions on this subject, we beg leave to ask, what is that play in which there is such a mass of virtue and simplicity, and such a number of amiable personages, opposed to such a mass of villany, subtlety, fraudful avarice, and sensual vice, as in Pizarro? Not one. The lofty moral sentiments of Rolla, his exquisite feelings and exalted notions as the patriot, the friend, the lover, are unequalled. He exists out of himself, and lives but for others: for ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... prove now A crafty and dissembling kind of Husband, One read in knavery, and brought up in the art Of villany conceal'd. ...
— Rule a Wife, and Have a Wife - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... enthusiastically fond of their perilous and exciting mode of life. The sea became to me quite a 'passion'—my mind had found a new channel for its energies; and when, a short time afterwards, I lost my little fortune through the mismanagement or villany of my agent, I took staff in hand, and, hastening to Liverpool, boldly launched into life again as a common seaman, on board a merchant vessel bound ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... that truly trust you, 'tis a clumsy villany! Any knave may slay the child who climbs and slumbers on ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... wholesome iambic, {49} who rubs the galled mind, making shame the trumpet of villany, with bold and ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... as you arrive in Berlin, go to the castle, call the page of the princess, and box him soundly for his villany. Go!" ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... and nautical drama. On those stages the language struts and aspirates, and the effects are borrowed from Vauxhall and Cremorne for plays which are constructed to hold the greatest possible amount of cockneyism and grotesqueness, with the principal object of showing how villany and murder are uniformly overcome by virtue, whose kettle sings upon the hob above a pile of buttered muffins at last; and the pit, which came in for a shilling, pays the extra tribute of a tear. These shop-keepers of the Surrey side sit on Sunday beneath ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... John, after pausing in vain for his reply, "I have long wished to get rid of you, sir. Silence! I know you, and have been finding out your rascally proceedings these ten days past. I have learnt much, more than you may fancy: and now this crowning villany [what if he had known of the ulterior designs?] gives me fair occasion to say ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... these were his—yet not all these could claim Exemptions from the lot of penal shame, Or snatch from glory's plant one servile wreath, To deck the waste of crimes, that frown'd beneath. Harden'd in villany, with fate unfeign'd He mock'd at warning, scorn'd reproach, nor deign'd To answer either, and remorse's dart Recoil'd from his impenetrable heart: Save in those hours when darkness or when pain Recals its force, ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... you are! how dare you kill another man's daughter without provocation? Such unspeakable villany is unworthy a Samurai's son. Know, that the duty of every Samurai is to keep watch over the country, and to protect the people; and such is his daily task. For sword and dirk are given to men that they may ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... his understanding biassed, or his pleasantness forced; never did he laugh in the wrong place, or prostitute his sense to serve his luxury; never did he stab into the wounds of fallen virtue, with a base and a cowardly insult, or smooth the face of prosperous villany, with the paint and washes of a mercenary wit; never did he spare a sop for being rich, or flatter a knave for being great. He had a wit that was accompanied with an unaffected greatness of mind, and a natural love to ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... life at this moment in jeopardy; for a cursory glance at the tall figure of the marauder, as he had entered, had sufficed to show that the object of his search was before him—and too well he knew the unscrupulous villany of the man to doubt for a moment what his conduct would be if he found his pursuer in his power. If he could slip from the bed unobserved, and master the weapon on the table, he might effect his escape, and even secure the murderer; for he made light of the resistance that could be offered by ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... thoughts had suggested; and, instead of resorting, when her time of travail approached, to the protection of her own family, was induced to confide herself to the charge of some vile agent of this nefarious seducer, and by her conducted to one of those solitary and secret purlieus of villany, which, to the shame of our police, still are suffered to exist in the suburbs of this city, where, with the assistance, and under the charge, of a person of her own sex, she bore a male child, under circumstances ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Quintero, perhaps the least hardened of the three, was struck with the conviction that, in the extraordinary combination of circumstances which had led to the arrest of himself and his companions in villany, the finger of God was too distinctly visible to permit a doubt of ultimate discovery to rest upon his mind, for he confessed at once, and declaring that he saw all denial was useless, gave a circumstantial account of the whole. He begged for nine days' grace to prepare himself for death, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... "is this the guerdon of good turnes, bestowed vpon thee, and of the honour thou hast receiued in my company? Do not thinke to escape scot free thus without the rigorous iustice of a father, deserued by disobedience, and of a Prince, against whom his subiect hath committed villany. If God geue me lyfe, I wyll take such order, as the posteritie shall take example by that iuste vengeaunce whiche I hope to take of thee (arrant theefe, and despoyler of my honor and consolation.) And thou vnkynde doughter shalte smartely feele the wrong done to thy kynde, and welbeloued father, ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... feminine virtue, and by giving way to it, the mind, if not enervated, is at any rate not strengthened; and with regard to terror, a man under its influence is incapable of any reflection whatever. When we witness, for instance, the tragedy of Macbeth, the mind, after such a scene of human villany is rather inclined to become morbid than to feel either dignified ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various
... sink through the floor when this met my eyes, and I was appalled when I read on and realized how many thousands of people would believe the plausible tale of villany The Gad had managed to construct out of a few innocent facts. Noah's plan was in brief stated to be a scheme for the impoverishment of innocent investors, by selling them shares of stock, both common and preferred, in his International Marine ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... I am rich;" Zech. xi. 5. I remember that Luther used to say, "In the name of God begins all mischief." All must be fathered upon God: the Pharisee's conversion must be fathered upon God; the right, or rather the villany of the outrageous persecution against God's people, must be fathered upon God. "God, I thank thee," and, "Blessed be God," must be the burden of the heretic's song. So again, the free-willer, he will ascribe all ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... occasioned by the impudent robbery of the contessa Maraviglia's jewels had not by any means subsided, so the confusion prevailing in consequence was highly favourable to Hunston's new villany for trapping little Emily. ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... the vice of idolatry, Though I should suffer all other villany. When Joshua was dead, that sort from me did fall To the worshipping of Ashteroth and Baal, Full ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... prayers, and coerce the sordid corn- dealers, who had, no doubt, numerous pits yet unopened. The alarm became still greater in the cantonments, where the commanding officer attributed all the evil to the inefficiency of the commissariat and the villany of the corn-dealers; and Major Gregory was in dread of being torn to pieces by the soldiery. Only one day's supply was left in the cantonment bazaars—the troops had become clamorous almost to a state of mutiny—the people of the town began to ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... the fair Ximena came forth to plight her hand, Rodrigo, gazing on her, his face could not command: He stood, and blushed before her: thus at the last said he, 'I slew thy sire, Ximena, but not in villany: In no disguise I slew him; man against man I stood; There was some wrong between us, and I did shed his blood: I slew a man; I owe a man; fair lady, by God's grace, An honored husband shalt thou have ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... shame. I looked at these hideous houses, and hideous men and women too, and at their still more repulsive progeny, with sallow faces, dwarfed forms, and countenances precocious in the intelligence of villany; and contrasted them with the blue-eyed, rosy- cheeked infants of my English home, who chase butterflies and weave May garlands, and gather cowslips and buttercups; or the sallow children of a Highland shantie, who devour instruction in mud-floored huts, ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... one denies—any more than that there are exquisitely amusing plays among the comedies; but as the staple interest of the comedies is dirt, so the staple interest of the tragedies is crime. Revenge, hatred, villany, incest, and murder upon murder are their constant themes, and (with the exception of Shakspeare, Ben Jonson in his earlier plays, and perhaps Massinger) they handle these horrors with little or no moral purpose, save that of exciting and amusing the audience, and of ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... fruits. He lived poor, and died poor. The public know that; and it will be difficult to persuade them, with a due knowledge of these facts, that he deliberately perpetrated such unprofitable villany. Besides, sir, you do not seem to remember that, if the claim of Banks, Tressell, & Sons, is good, it relieves my father's memory of the only imputation that now lies against ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... of human character to read correctly the meaning of Jaspar's crafty smile. The attorney had long known that he was cold and unfeeling, a bear in his deportment, and sadly lacking in common integrity; but that he was capable of bold and daring villany he had had no occasion to suspect. As he turned to the document again, the base character of the uncle came up for consideration in connection with his suit to the niece. Might not this circumstance open the way to the attainment ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... But what was his villany? It was little enough that I had overheard at the window, and still less that poor Eva had told me in her hurried lines. All I saw clearly was that the Lady Jermyn and some hundred souls had perished by the foulest of foul play; that, besides Eva and myself, only ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... account of the forest upon it, but the king, Charles II., good-naturedly insisted on the prefix Penn. The great man left his flourishing colony for the last time in 1701, and after a troublous time in pecuniary matters, owing to the villany of an agent in America, Penn died at Ruscombe ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... came up, and I made sure on the instant that my worthy instructor was responsible for the trouble. I remembered that I had quarrelled with him the morning before I had gone to Bentley Manor, and threatened to confess his villany and my deceit to Mr. Carvel. He had answered me with a sneer and a dare. I knew than Patty put honour and honesty before all else in the world, and that she would not have suffered my friendship for a day had she believed ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... pimp—more like the hired husband of a cast-off Creole than the resplendent rogue who fascinated even history for a time by the clamor and glitter of his triumphs. But the fellow is unmistakably an emperor in the egg—so dauntless and frontless in the very abjection of his villany that we feel him to have been defrauded by mischance of the only two destinations appropriate for the close of his ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the penitent. It was not indignation, it was not horror; but agony of spirit that a religion which he loved better than himself, whose purity and honor he would have so jealously guarded, that he would have sacrificed life itself for its service, should have been made the cover for such unutterable villany. Few imagined the deeds of painful mortification and bodily penance which, in his solitude, the Sub-Prior afterwards inflicted on himself; as if his individual sufferings should atone for the guilt of his brethren, and turn from them the wrath of ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... seclusion we desired. Here you have passed from infancy to childhood, from childhood to adolescence, unconscious that a cloud deeper than poverty and obscurity rests upon your youth. I could not bear that my innocent child should blush for a father's villany. I could not bear that her holy confidence in human goodness and truth should be shattered and destroyed. But the day of revelation must come. From the grave, whither I am hastening, my voice shall speak; for the time may come, when a knowledge ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... hums and ha's, thy whine and stammering. 55 Pish—fool! thou blunder'st through the devil's book, Spelling thy villany! ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... at the cause, looked the fellow steadily in the eye. He recognized Goodridge, and understood at once that Goodridge had just before recognized him. Not a word passed between the felon and the intrepid advocate who had stripped his villany of all its plausible disguises; but what immense meaning must there have been in the swift interchange of feeling as their eyes met! Mr. Webster entered his carriage and proceeded on his journey; but Goodridge,—who has since ever heard ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... absorption in the expected outcome made him negligent of details, however, and slowly, but surely, Mr. Underwood gathered the proofs of his guilt with which he intended to confront him when the opportune moment arrived. But even yet he did not dream the extent of his partner's frauds or the villany of which he was capable; he therefore took no one into his confidence and ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... termes what we meane, that great abusar of this commoun wealth, that pultron and vyle knave Davie, was justlie punished, the nynt of Merch, in the year of God[601] J^m. V^c. threscore fyve, for abusing of the commoun wealth, and for his other villany,[602] which we list nott to express, by the counsall and handis of James Dowglas, Erle of Morton, Patrik Lord Lyndesay, and the Lord Ruthven, with otheris assistaris in thare cumpany, who all, for thare just act, and most worthy of all praise, ar now unworthely ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox |
