"Knave" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this man on his road to his own worldly aggrandizement. Winding his way through a grove of powerful rogues, by flattery, professions of devoted attachment, and by actual and zealous as well as able services, and at length becoming in fact nearly as great a knave as the knaves (Duke of Buckingham for example) whose favor and support he had been conciliating,—till at last in some dilemma, some strait between conscience and fear, and increased confidence in his own political ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... it flashed from a yawn-mouthed cave, Like a red-hot eye from a grave. No man stood there of whom to crave Rest for wayfarer plodding by: Though the tenant were churl or knave The Prince ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... to them. It is evident, for instance, that an idiot could neither understand the hidden doctrines that might be communicated to him, nor could he so secure such portions as he might remember, in the "depositary of his heart," as to prevent the designing knave from worming them out of him; for, as the wise Solomon has said, "a fool's mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... at last convinced that I represent the most perfect combination of knave and fool that ever threw heaven away and ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... vigilance. Rawleigh now perceived that he had two rogues to bribe instead of one, and that they were playing into one another's hands. Proposals are now made to Stucley through Manoury, who is as compliant as his brother-knave. Rawleigh presented Stucley with a "jewel made in the fashion of hail powdered with diamonds, with a ruby in the midst." But Stucley observing to his kinsman and friend, that he must lose his office of vice-admiral, which had cost him six hundred pounds, in ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... midnight chime Ring out the yawning peal of time, When shrouded Paul, unlucky knave! Rose, like a spectre from the grave, And cried—"Fair maiden, come with me, For I ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... think of his riding right a-top of the poor brute, and then saying that the dog got under his horse's feet! Why, he's a fool as well as a knave. Was he ever ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... you die a maid or wife, Your husband lord or knave? And how did you like this jolly life? And how ...
— When hearts are trumps • Thomas Winthrop Hall
... love. There are three things, George, you may set down as facts that will be of service to you through life, and they are these: when a man eternally rings in your ears the immoralities of the age, watch him closely; when a man makes what he has done for others a boast, set him down a knave; and when a woman dwells upon the excellent qualities of her many admirers, set her down as wanting. But, get money, and when you have got it, charm back this ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... interest in the brat—possibly an injudicious one; but, since he is my prize, you know, by law, come—what will you give for him? Ah! happy thought, we will play for him! There, deal away, compadre. Sota and cavallo! I take the knave again, and you ten doubloons against the ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... have made eat fire than forsake an opinion they had conceived in anger. They are all the more exasperated by blows and constraint. And he that made the story of the woman who, in defiance of all correction, threats, and bastinadoes, ceased not to call her husband lousy knave, and who being plunged over head and ears in water, yet lifted her hands above her head and made a sign of cracking lice, feigned a tale of which, in truth, we every day see a manifest image in the obstinacy of women. And obstinacy is ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... will I show myself to have more of the serpent than the dove; that is, more knave ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... Everybody is taken in by it. People speak of 'honest Jenkins,' 'excellent, worthy Jenkins.' But I know you, my man, and for all your fine motto, so insolently displayed on your envelopes, on your seal, your cuff-buttons, your hat-buckles and the panels of your carriages, I always see the knave that you are, showing everywhere around the edges of ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... replied, 'The corn has all been cut, but it has not yet been put into barns; let the knave collect all the grain in the kingdom into one big heap before to-morrow night, and if as much as a stalk of corn is left let him be put ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... to explain to a sober Englishman the life that is led on, and the numerous tricks that are played in Mississippi steam-boat. One I will mention, which will serve as a sample. An itinerant preacher, well known as a knave upon both banks, and the whole length of the river, used (before he was sent to the Penitentiary for picking pockets) to live comfortably in the steam-boats without ever paying a farthing. From St. Louis he would book for New Orleans, and the passage-money never ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... recognize the person of the emperor. "What art thou?" was again asked, and answered as before. "Poor mad wretch," said the duke, "a short time since, I returned from the palace, where I left the very emperor thou assumest to be. But ignorant whether thou art more fool or knave, we will administer such remedy as may suit both. Carry him to prison, and feed him with bread and water." The command was no sooner delivered, than obeyed; and the following day his naked body was submitted to the lash, and again cast ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... Hearts She made some tarts, All on a summer's day; The Knave of Hearts, He stole the tarts, And ...
— Aunt Kitty's Stories • Various
... gentleman is not a knave; and no one knows the difference better than your Excellenz.' The term 'Schurken' (knaves) had stirred my fire; and though I made a deferential bow, I looked as indignant ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... in the school is but lowly, yet are thy hose cross-gartered, and thy doublet is of silk. Thou swankest, and that is not seemly, therefore shall I trounce thee right lustily to teach thee what a sorry young knave thou art." "Nay, good Master Brown, hearken to me. This morn too late I kept my bed, and finding not my buff jerkin, did don in haste my Sunday doublet of changeable taffeta, for thou wottest the ills that do befall those late for school. Neither by my ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... as she gazed anxiously upon them,—"very much loved! Here is rejoicing, and a letter from a dark man! See, here he is,—the knave of clubs. Always the same," she continued; "I cannot ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... penetrate that man's mystery? What earthly good can he get from you or me? You don't know what is working under that leering tranquil mask. You have only the dim instinctive repulsion that warns you, you are in the presence of a knave—beyond which fact all Fawney's soul is ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... too much," said Castell; "a knave like that is not worth ten. Indeed, he was the assailant, and nothing should ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... fruit, and then, evermore as long as the fruit is fastened to the tree,[203] it hath in party a green smell of the tree; but when it hath been a certain time departed from the tree and is full ripe, then it hath lost all the taste of the tree, and is king's meat [that was before but knave's meat].[204] In this time it is that this reverent affection is so meedful as I said. And, therefore, shape thee for to depart this fruit from the tree, and for to offer it up by itself to the high King of heaven; and then shalt thou ...
— The Cell of Self-Knowledge - Seven Early English Mystical Treaties • Various
... his duty to his royal master. When sent for into England, to account for his conduct, he "satisfied the King that all was not true that he was charged withal; and for further contentment yielded this reason, that in policy he thought it expedient to wink at one knave cutting off another, and that would save the King's coffers, and purchase peace to the land. Whereat the King smiled, and bid him return to Ireland." The saving was questionable; for to prevent an insurrection by timely concessions, is incomparably less expensive than to suppress it ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... attitude, just as I stand now—then turned she—thus—to me, and stretching her arm out—so—and pointing with her finger, she said, in that firm, calm tone which she was used to use in directing the conduct of a battle, 'Pluck me this false knave from the throne!' I, striding forward as I do now, took him by the collar and lifted him out and held him aloft—thus—as if he had been but a child." (The house rose, shouting, stamping, and banging with their flagons, and went fairly mad over this magnificent exhibition ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... can, and do not cross the suit, unless very strong, especially when a bower is turned down; for example, the dealer has turned down the king of spades, with ace, king, and seven of hearts, knave of spades, and ten of clubs: make it next, and lead ...
— The Laws of Euchre - As adopted by the Somerset Club of Boston, March 1, 1888 • H. C. Leeds
... nothing about his authority as a magistrate, or his assumption as a man of large landed property, and he was nothing but a poor weak-minded tool in his hands. So far our description is correct; but when such a knave as Sir Robert Whitecraft came in his way—a knave at once calculating, deceitful, plausible, and cunning—why, our worthy old squire, who thought himself a second Solomon, might be taken by the nose and led round the ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... over her husband, his narrow pedantry, his ignorance of everything but grammar and words. He exhausts the Latin vocabulary of abuse to pile up every epithet of contumely and execration on the head of his adversary. It but amounts to calling Salmasius fool and knave through a couple of hundred pages, till the exaggeration of the style defeats the orator's purpose, and we end by regarding the whole, not as a serious pleading, but as an epideictic display. Hobbes said truly that the two books were "like ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... able to lyve in England like a right good gentleman." Fletcher, the chaplain, who secretly advocated the dead man's cause, was tied to a mast pole in bilboes, with the inscription hung to his neck—"Falsest knave that liveth." ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... Regents. How minute was the inquiry into character can be seen in the case of a certain Robert Smith (of Magdalen) in 1582, who was refused his B.A., because he had brought scandalous charges against the fellows of his College, had called an M.A. 'to his face "arrant knave", had been at a disputation in the Divinity School' in the open assembly of Doctors and Masters 'with his hat on his head', and had 'taken the wall of M.A.s without any ...
— The Oxford Degree Ceremony • Joseph Wells
... wickeder and wickeder," said Ben when Black Paul had hurried away; "the de'il himsel' couldna hae taught ye a craftier trick than that. Weel ye kenned that that black fellow would fain serve under a free-handed fool than a stingy knave. Ay, sir, your ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... responsibility should be joined the right of choice. The parental influence, then, must be indirect and advisory. Indirect, through the whole bringing up of their daughter; for if they have trained her aright, she will be incapable of enduring a fool, still more a knave. ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... "Seize yonder knave," shouted Sakon, and search was made but without avail. Afterwards, however, Aziel remembered that once, when they were weather-bound on their journey from the coast, Metem had amused them by making his voice sound from various quarters of the ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... waste my labor on the shrewd and evil thing which has no more need of me than I of it! And now let me go hence, sire, unmolested, for the sake of chivalry. Could I have come to the brave man I had dreamed of, I would have come cheerily through the murkiest lane of hell; as the more artful knave, as the more judicious trickster"—and here she thrust him from her—"I spit upon you. Now ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... "'Tis true sir,"—the knave! every word is a lie— "That rather than live so, 'twere better to die. 'Twere better to finish the thing, as you say, Than to live till you're old, ...
— The Diving Bell - Or, Pearls to be Sought for • Francis C. Woodworth
... where none may see In the great world's corners dim? And the just man mark the knave go free, While the ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... well, yet he is scarce able to talk sense with a man; and how he will say that "Who should a man trust, if he may not trust to a brother and an uncle;" and "how much those men have to answer before God Almighty, for their playing the knave with him as they did." He told me also, that there was 100,000l. offered, and would have been taken for his restitution, had not the Parliament come in as they did again; and that he do believe that the Protector will live to give a testimony of his valour and revenge yet ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... is very long; but I'll cut it short. When he had play'd upon Balbinus long enough with these Inventions, and wheedled him out of a considerable Sum of Money, a certain Gentleman happen'd to come there, that had known the Knave from a Child: He easily imagining that he was acting the same Part with Balbinus, that he had been acting every where, admonishes Balbinus privately, and acquainted him what Sort of a Fellow he harbour'd, advising him to get rid ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... reason hast thou (tell me) for desiring to read? For if thou aim at nothing beyond the mere delight of it, or gaining some scrap of knowledge, thou art but a poor, spiritless knave. But if thou desirest to study to its proper end, what else is this than a life that flows on tranquil and serene? And if thy reading secures thee not serenity, what profits it?—"Nay, but it doth secure it," quoth he, "and that is why I repine at being deprived ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... Europe is but a continued comment upon the folly of the law of the hereditary descent of power, a law which is more likely to place the crown upon the brow of a knave, a fool or a madman, than upon that of one qualified to govern. Russia soon awoke to the consciousness that the destinies of thirty millions of people were in the hands of a maniac, whose conduct seemed ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... decidedly the advantage of me, sir, but allow me to say that the person under discussion has not only, with unheard of effrontery, publicly and unblushingly proclaimed himself as a blackmailer and knave, capable of descending to any perfidy or treachery for the purpose of favoring his own base schemes, but he has also, in his inordinate greed and ambition, unwittingly proved himself by his own statements and conduct to be a villain of the deepest dye; and I will say, furthermore, that ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... agreed," exclaimed Catherine, on whom Birago's reply made a powerful impression, "that you, Gondi, are to be the king's governor. My son must consent to do for one of my friends a favor equal to the one I have just permitted for his knave of a bishop. That fool has lost the hat; for never, as long as I live, will I consent that the Pope shall give it to him! How strong we might have been with Cardinal de Tournon! What a trio with Tournon for grand-almoner, and l'Hopital, and de Thou! As for the burghers of Paris, I intend to ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... qualities of a most original type. His spirits are inexhaustible, he laughs heartily and often without malice at the follies of the mass of men; Cleon and Euripides were anathema to him, but the rest he treats as Fluellen did Pistol: "You beggarly knave, God bless you". His lyrics must be classed with the best in Greek poetry. Like Rabelais this rollicking jolly spirit disguises his wisdom under the mask of folly, turning aside with some whimsical twist just when he is beginning ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... had heard how the fool Diogenes had parodied the King's manner and earned the King's anger. She knew no more than this, and it seemed strange that the King's rage should have frightened the knave into madness. But he seemed, indeed, insane as he raged up ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... soul, and I would rather, in these my ripe years, eat with a highwayman who takes his life in his hands than with the civilian who robs his king and the king's poor, and has no better trick than false accounts, nor better friend than the pettifogging knave. Doltaire had no burning love for France, and little faith in anything; for he was of those Versailles water-flies who recked not if the world blackened to cinders when their lights went out. As will ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... sanctity of a gentleman's word. If, as Lady Mary told her, and as she could so well believe, the present Earl of Scroope had given to this girl a promise that he would marry her, if he had bound himself by his pledged word, as a nobleman and a gentleman, how could she bid him become a perjured knave? Sans reproche! Was he thus to begin to live and to deserve the motto of his house by the conduct ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... might shroud the fiendlike deed. As they were talking Pizarro's chaplain, Friar Vincent, came in to prepare the victim for the sacrifice. He was dressed in his ecclesiastical robes, and bore in his hand a large crucifix. Was he an unmitigated knave, or was he a fanatic? Who but ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... this is not. This is still new, this is surely torn. Here's a five florin, here a ten florin note. This is the Knave of Hearts." ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... he raised a lance longer than a mast, and would have run me through, but for the expertness with which I seized and wrested it from him, and then broke it over his head. 'Twas the same scowling knave whose camels choked the street the first day we entered the city, and who sent his curse after us. Hassan is his name. His eye left a mark on me that's not out yet. A hyena's is ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... it was no platform speech. I know your term—"the chaincable sentence." Nothing of the kind, I assure you. Plain sense, as from gentlemen to gentlemen. We require, I said, a protection that the polite world of Great Britain does not now afford us against the aggressions of the knave, the fool, and the brute. We establish a Court. We do hereby—no, no, not the "hereby"; quite simply, Richie—pledge ourselves—I said some other word not "pledge" to use our utmost authority and influence to exclude from our circles persons refusing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... time—exposed the real character of the Assembly's business when he was told of it by Bishop Law of Orkney, who had come to Court to report the proceedings to the King: '"In nomine Domini incipit omne malum! This is pretendit bot the dint will lycht on the Kirk ..."—"They sall call me a false knave," replied the Bishop, "and never to be believit again, if the Papists be not sa handleit as they wer never in Scotland."—"That may weill be,"' was ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison
... travel at his own expense from city to city, from town to town, toiling unceasingly to bear to the world the solemn warning of the judgment near, was sneeringly denounced as a fanatic, a liar, a speculating knave. ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... it liketh me right well to see thee back without the peltry wherefor I sent thee! Where hast loitered, thou knave?" ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... made to be ruined, to cheat small tradesmen, to be the victim of astuter sharpers: to be niggardly and reckless, and as destitute of honesty as the people who cheated him, and a dupe, chiefly because he was too mean to be a successful knave. He had told more lies in his time, and undergone more baseness of stratagem in order to stave off a small debt, or to swindle a poor creditor, than would have suffered to make a fortune for a braver rogue. He was abject and a shuffler in the very height ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... moment when, having caught her up in the passage, he thrust the money into her bib and ran away. "Oh, that money!" he thought with the same horror and disgust he had then felt. "Oh, dear! oh, dear! how disgusting," he cried aloud as he had done then. "Only a scoundrel, a knave, could do such a thing. And I am that knave, that scoundrel!" He went on aloud: "But is it possible?"—he stopped and stood still—"is it possible that I am really a scoundrel? . . . Well, who but I?" he answered himself. "And then, is this the ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... constant watching, and that contained scarce a trace of virility—only a keen selfishness and a crafty faithlessness. And of a verity, if ever a human visage revealed truly the soul within, this one did; for a more scheming sycophant, vacillating knave and despicable traitor than Thomas, Lord Stanley, England had not seen since the ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... ready knave, here is one of most approved convenience: he will cheat you moreover to your heart's content. If you believe me ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... mortality. Should we go now a-wand'ring, we should meet With catchpoles, whores and carts in ev'ry street: Now when each narrow lane, each nook and cave, Sign-posts and shop-doors, pimp for ev'ry knave, When riotous sinful plush, and tell-tale spurs Walk Fleet Street and the Strand, when the soft stirs Of bawdy, ruffled silks, turn night to day; And the loud whip and coach scolds all the way; When lust of all sorts, and each itchy blood From the Tower-wharf ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... must be inborn; it must proceed from a genius, and particular way of thinking, which is not to be taught, and therefore not to be imitated by him who has it not from nature. How easy it is to call rogue and villain, and that wittily! but how hard to make a man appear a fool, a blockhead, or a knave, without using any of those opprobrious terms! To spare the grossness of the names, and to do the thing yet more severely, is to draw a full face and to make the nose and cheeks stand out, and yet not to employ any depth of shadowing. ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... bitterness of owing nearly four millions, with assets not more than twenty-five per cent in value to pay them. The wines in my warehouses suffer from the fall in prices caused by the abundance and quality of your vintage. In three days Paris will cry out: "Monsieur Grandet was a knave!" and I, an honest man, shall be lying in my winding-sheet of infamy. I deprive my son of a good name, which I have stained, and the fortune of his mother, which I have lost. He knows nothing of all this,—my unfortunate child ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... him—naked to the waist—to the pump that stood by the horse-trough at the far end of the yard. His body was now hidden from her sight, but his head appeared surmounting the pillar of the pump, his chin seeming to rest upon its summit, and his face was towards her. At his side stood a powerful knave armed ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... endurable, were there any thing gay in this nonsense; but it is most stupidly dull and monotonous. There is in Italy no more comedy than tragedy; and here again we stand foremost. The only species of comedy peculiar to Italy is harlequinade. A valet, at once a knave, a glutton, and a coward; an old griping, amorous dupe of a guardian, compose the whole strength of these pieces. I hope you will allow that Tartuffe, and the Misanthrope, require a little more genius ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... is not directed to an end that is desirable principally, indeed it seems rather to result from a lack of reason. Hence the Philosopher says (Ethic. iv, 1) that "a prodigal man is a fool rather than a knave." ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... a corner, a nine... winning it back's impossible... Oh, how pleasant it was at home!... The knave, double or quits... it can't be!... And why is he doing this to me?" Rostov pondered. Sometimes he staked a large sum, but Dolokhov refused to accept it and fixed the stake himself. Nicholas submitted to ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... distress you must pay me by lending this sum to him, enjoining him to discharge the debt by a like operation when he shall be able, and shall meet with such another opportunity. I hope it may thus go through many hands before it meets with a knave to stop its progress. This is a trick of mine for doing a deal of good with a little money. I am not rich enough to afford much in good works, and so am obliged to be cunning and make the most ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... Gibbon's Decline and Fall, and so forth—nothing better, I declare to you: and to call that a collection!" Whereas, had it contained The Pardoner and the Frere, Sir Clyomon and Clamydes, A Knacke to knowe a Knave, Banke's Bay Horse in a Trance, or the works of those eminent dramatists, Nabbes, May, Glapthorne, or Chettle, then would the collection have been worthy of distinguished notice. On another occasion, the conversation turning on a name of some repute, the remark ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... this faithful orthodoxy, was one of the things for which the rector liked her so well. He had a profound contempt for science and skepticism together; and an unbeliever, even if learned in the stars and old bones, ranked with him as a knave or a fool, and sometimes both. His pet joke, which was not original, was that there was only one letter of difference between septic and skeptic, and of the two the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... impudent knave, sir, to stand and tell me this to my face. Look ye here, Bolle'—he swung round upon the colonel, who had put forth a hand as though to arrest this unseemly abuse. 'How do I know that this dog has not tampered with the wine? By God!' he broke out as a servant entered with a stoup ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... cheated once, he had too much sense to be twice made a dupe. The next time he met Piedro in the market, he happened to be in company with several English gentlemen's servants, and he pointed Piedro out to them all as an arrant knave. They heard his cry of "Fresh fish! fresh fish! fine fresh fish!" with incredulous smiles, and let him pass, but not without some expressions of contempt, though uttered in English, he tolerably well understood; for the tone of contempt is sufficiently expressive ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... industrious, honest creatures, seeking their food in the soil, and digesting it with the help of leaves filled with good green matter (chlorophyll) on which virtuous vegetable life depends; but some ancestral knave elected to live by piracy, to drain the already digested food of its neighbors; so the Indian Pipe gradually lost the use of parts for which it has need no longer, until we find it to-day without color and its leaves degenerated into mere ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... off, and for mere sport's sake, Grasshopper pursued him. Sometimes he was before the wicked old spirit, sometimes he was flying over his head, and then he would keep along at a steady trot just at his heels, till he had blown all the breath out of the old knave's body. ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... doubt my warning song? Then doubt the sun gives light, Doubt truth to teach thee wrong, Think wrong alone is right; And live as lives the knave, Intrigue's deceiving guest; Be tyrant, or be slave, As suits thy ends ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... right boot, while the left one, already removed, lay on the floor, all ready against the rascal's retreat Had it not been for the lesson learned on the Pont Neuf, Israel would instantly have inferred that his secret mission was known, and the operator some designed diplomatic knave or other, hired by the British Cabinet, thus to lie in wait for him, fume him into slumber with tobacco, and then rifle him of his momentous dispatches. But as it was, he recalled Doctor Franklin's prudent admonitions against the indulgence ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... so well lead the contingent of the monastery—a thought occurred to me. I like not your going altogether alone, for the times are lawless, and you might meet trouble on the road; and yet I did not see whom I could send with you. Now it seems to me that this stout knave would make ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... not gently by any means, and their lips angrily muttered in his ear, "Little knave, peace! be quiet! hold your ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... strong. These boys always kneel down in single file, one behind the other, with a tall grim master in a black gown, bringing up the rear: like a pack of cards arranged to be tumbled down at a touch, with a disproportionately large Knave of clubs at the end. When they have had a minute or so at the chief altar, they scramble up, and filing off to the chapel of the Madonna, or the sacrament, flop down again in the same order; so that if anybody did stumble ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... you might have been crossing a stile, in quest, with Chance before you, as you did the soldier, "whose dog's that?" you would have stammered a little—and almost, in your affection, have gone down upon your knees to have begged him as a gift; and it is fearful to think what a sum any knave as cunning as yourself had been, would have got out of you. Now, my dear Eusebius, I entreat you, when you shall read or hear read—"Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing," that you think of Chance, and not of his doing, but yours. I dare to say, you have never quite looked at the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... they grow as suspicious of the accusation as of the offense; it becomes well-nigh hopeless to stir them either to wrath against wrong-doing or to enthusiasm for what is right; and such a mental attitude in the public gives hope to every knave, and is the despair ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... gallant—though having swarthy, ugly features, turned-up nose, and short, bandy legs—yet his expressive eyes carried off every fault, sparkling as they were with intelligence, audacity, and libertinage. Few withstood this subtle knave, for he was wont to waive all ceremonial and spare everybody prefatory speeches. The ladies of gallantry—especially those whose lover he was—were his most indefatigable political agents. The Queen, at length, suspecting that the worthy ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... "you are a knave, whose ears I would slit, if it had not already been done too often. You insult me by saying that I have an understanding ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... discredit, through the Bankruptcy Court. He has been a Director of countless Companies, for the stock of fools seems to be inexhaustible. There can only be one end for such a man as SHEEF. The cool, callous, and calculating knave may get clear through to the end; but SHEEF always was stupidly good-natured, and good-nature hangs like a millstone round the neck of rascality. I cannot myself detest him as I ought to do. He was so ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 6, 1892 • Various
... himself, as he turned back, and stood on his solitary hearth. "But they on whose heads I once poured a blessing, where are they,—where? And that man's tale, reviving the audacious fable which the other, and I verily believe the less guilty knave of the two, sought to palm on me years ago! Stop; let me weigh well what he said. If it were ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... may look as angry as you like; it matters but little to me. What can it matter indeed to an old man, who has served the same family faithfully and honestly for sixty years, if they call him at last a rogue, a knave, a traitor, nay even a murderer, if ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... "but impractical as well; we'll begin to board on credit. And you know what accurate payers we are. A practical man, a knave, is needed for such an undertaking; and if a woman, then one with a pike's teeth; and even then a man must absolutely stick right at her back. Really, it's not for Lichonin to stand at the counter and to watch that somebody shouldn't suddenly ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... that have no valid excuse for existing; still it works no injury to any European government not bent on international buccaneering. Uncle Sam's promulgation of the Monroe Doctrine proves him a fool; Europe's frantic objection to it demonstrates that she is a knave. ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... me he denies his soul immortal, What'er his boast, has told me he's a knave. His duty 'tis to love himself alone, Nor care though mankind perish, ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... you have caused us no small trouble and concern. We have had ridings to and fro concerning you, and furious messages from your fiery king. When in the morning a tall, stalwart knave dressed in green was found, slashed about in various places, lying on the pavement, the townsmen, not knowing who he was, but finding that he still breathed, carried him to the English camp, and he was claimed ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... the servant). Then the Provost commanded his men to lay hold on him and hang him on the next tree. At this the fellow cried out that he was not the miller, but the miller's man. 'Nay, sir' (said the Provost), 'I will take you at your word, and if thou beest the miller, thou art a busie knave; if thou beest not, thou art a false lying knave; and howsoever, thou canst never do thy master better service than to hang for him'; and so, without ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... my mind about you, Brandt,' he announced. 'You may be a fool or a knave or a good man. If you are a knave, ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... essence of what Dante had told to him, and showed me the poem, not only allowing me to read it, but granting me permission, if it so pleased me, to take a copy. This, indeed, I should have done, but being, as I always have been, a lazy knave, I neglected to do, thinking that any time would serve as well as the present, and being, as I fear, entangled in some pleasant pastime with a light o' love or two that interfered with such serious ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... and English adventurers, ready to offer you their services, from whom you will find it very difficult to disengage yourself, after you have found more agreeable company.—Frenchmen of real fashion, are very circumspect, and will not fall in love with you at first sight; but a designing knave will exercise every species of flattery, in order to fix himself upon you for his dinner, or what else he can get, and will be with you before you are up, and ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... a verie Rascall indeede, and he used mee like a knave: if ere I meete him, I shall hardly put it up; I have it in blacke and blue to ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... but when I came here last she was gone, no one knew where. I'll go and see her tomorrow. But mind you, sirrah, if any harm comes to her, or any more talk of her being a witch—I've a pack of hounds at home, who can follow the scent of a lying knave as well as ever they followed a dog-fox; so take care how you talk about ducking a faithful old servant of your ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... threatened with desolation. My father was ruined by that court, which, with a mockery of justice, robs men of their name, their fame, their lands, and goods; which perverts the course of law, and saps the principles of equity; which favours the knave, and oppresses the honest man; which promotes and supports extortion and plunder; which reverses righteous judgments, and asserts its own unrighteous supremacy, which, by means of its commissioners, spreads its hundred arms over the whole realm, to pillage and destroy—so that no one, however ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... what was of more interest and importance to him than books—'men, their manners and their ways.' 'I seem to be one sent into the world,' he remarks in a letter to Mr. Murdoch, 'to see and observe; and I very easily compound with the knave who tricks me of my money, if there be anything original about him, which shows me human nature in a different light from anything I have seen before.' Partly it was this passion to see and observe, partly it was another passion that made him the assisting confidant of ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... heirs which can't right themselves. And yet there is a chance. The Queen has always been religious, and when a woman hath religion she may play the devil with your reason any minute. But here is what's more likely. You know when an old fellow hath played the knave with some wardship or some matter of trust, often he holds fast to it all his life and then seeks to commend himself to the day of judgment by bequeathing his spoils to those from whom he stole them. Well, ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... thy sweet life long, Fair Ladye. Where's he that craftily hath said The day of chivalry is dead? I'll prove that lie upon his head, Or I will die instead, Fair Ladye. Is Honor gone into his grave? Hath Faith become a caitiff knave, And Selfhood turned into a slave To work in Mammon's cave, Fair Ladye? Will Truth's long blade ne'er gleam again? Hath Giant Trade in dungeons slain All great contempts of mean-got gain And hates of inward stain, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... tumbled like a pack of cards. It was the fault of one man: Pownall has gibbeted the rascal; Epsom fell through the "knavery of Mr. John Livingstone, an apothecary." Mr. Livingstone may have been a knave, but he was also evidently a fool. He began admirably, as a doctor with a speculative eye should do, by building a large house with an assembly room for dancing and music, "and other rooms for raffling, diceing, fairchance (what a perversion of terms!) and all ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... principal characters in the "Pantagruel" of Rabelais, an exceedingly crafty knave, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Would like the two, but, forced to choose, takes that. I pine among my million imbeciles (You think) aware some dozen men of sense Eye me and know me, whether I believe In the last winking Virgin, as I vow, And am a fool, or disbelieve in her And am a knave—approve in neither case, Withhold their voices though I look their way: 380 Like Verdi when, at his worst opera's end (The thing they gave at Florence—what's its name?) While the mad houseful's plaudits near outbang His orchestra of salt-box, tongs and bones, He looks through ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... imposition, that the king overheard his altercation with the landlord, and demanded the cause of it. His lordship immediately told him; when his majesty good humouredly replied, "My lord, the fellow is a great knave, but pay him. Kings seldom ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... intelligence and virtue. The workers, for the most part, instinctively, morally and intellectually, knew that this system was wrong, a horror and a nightmare. But even the capitalist victims of the competitive struggle, which awarded supremacy to the knave and the trickster, went to their doom praising it as the only civilized, rational system and as unchangeable and ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... said Santos; "not kind, but clever! Clever, spicious, and queeck-weeted beyond belif! Senhor Rattray, we have all been in the dark; we thought we had fool to die with, but what admirable knave the young man would make! Such readiness, such resource, with his tongue or with his peestol; how useful would it be to us! I am glad you have decided to live him to me, friend Rattray, for I am quite come round to your way of thinking. It ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... little Calabrian game") for three players. All the tens, nines and eights are removed from an ordinary pack; the order of the cards is three, two, ace, king, queen, &c. In scoring the ace counts 3; the three 2; king, queen and knave 1 each. The last trick counts 3. Each separate hand is a whole game. One player plays against the other two, paying to each or receiving from each the difference between the number of points that he and they hold. Each player receives twelve cards, dealt two at a time. The remainder form the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... you, do not be offended if I am sad and uneasy to-day, that to please you I rise above honour, remorse, and dangers. Do not take in bad part what I tell you, and do not listen to the malicious explanations of your wife's brother; he is a knave whom you ought not to hear to the prejudice of the most tender and most faithful mistress that ever was. Above all, do not allow yourself to be moved by that woman: her sham tears are nothing in comparison with the real tears ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... King's money. By and by to Mr. Wilson's, and there drank, but did not see his wife, nor any woman in the yard, and so to dinner at the Hill-House; and after dinner, till eight at night, close, Middleton and I, examining the business of Mr. Pett, about selling a boat, and we find him a very knave; and some other quarrels of his, wherein, to justify himself, he hath made complaints of others. This being done, we to supper, and so to talk, Commissioner Middleton being mighty good company upon a journey, and so to bed, thinking how merry ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the church and nation, through her marrying the Dauphine of France, when he left her bubbling and greeting, and came to an outer court, where her Lady Maries were fyking and dancing, he said, 'O brave ladies, a brave world, if it would last, and heaven at the hinder end! But fye upon the knave Death, that will seize upon those bodies of yours; and where will all your fiddling and flinging be then?' Dancing being such a common evil, especially amongst young professors, that all the lovers of the Lord should ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... very nice,' said Cleopatra, looking at her cards. 'So much heart in it—undeveloped recollections of a previous state of existence'—and all that—which is so truly charming. Do you know,' simpered Cleopatra, reversing the knave of clubs, who had come into her game with his heels uppermost, 'that if anything could tempt me to put a period to my life, it would be curiosity to find out what it's all about, and what it means; there are so many provoking mysteries, really, that are hidden from us. Major, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... and Eumaios had started for the city. When they reached the spring where the citizens of the city went for water, they encountered Melanthios, a goatherd, driving goats into town. Two servants followed, helping him. As soon as he saw Eumaios and his guest, he said: "Look! There is one knave leading another. Verily, the gods bring like and like together. Thou miserable swineherd, whither dost thou take that worthless beggar, this vagabond who rubs his shoulders on every door-post, asking for crusts, eating gluttonously, ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... done— With a fight as in fun, While mock pugilistical rounds were begun, A knave who could box, And give right and left knocks, Caught hold of the Prize ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... Is your happy kingdom lost To the rebel knave, Jack Frost? Have you felt the snow-flakes sting? Houseless, homeless in October, Whither now? Your plight is sober, ...
— Songs Out of Doors • Henry Van Dyke
... and. Tertullian Mr. Everett remarks, that "Tertullian was a very shrewd writer, [yes indeed, and of his fraudulent shrewdness Middleton gives some notable instances in his true inquiry] and Irenaeus less fool than knave," p. 471. of Mr. Everett's work. I would observe to Mr. Everett, that this Irenaeus is the first writer who mentions the four Gospels, and that the Fathers of the Church who came after him in affirming the genuineness of the four Gospels ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... is thought a knave, or fool, Or bigot, plotting crime, Who, for the advancement of his kind, Is wiser than his time. For him the hemlock shall distil; For him the axe be bared; For him the gibbet shall be built; For him the stake prepared. Him shall the scorn and ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... see the sorrow-bound father bowing down his gray locks with humility before the footstool of his God, and forbearing even to murmur under a dispensation so fearfully calamitous to him and his. Religion, however, at which the fool and knave may sneer in the moments of convivial riot, is after all the only stay on which the human heart can rest in those severe trials of life which almost every one sooner or later is destined to undergo. The ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... journey, she deferred her flight for about fifteen months; in which time she was brought to bed, and weaned the infant, which was a boy, whom I named Richard, after my good master at the academy. The little knave thrived amain, and was left to my farther nursing during its mammy's absence; who, still firm to her resolution, after she had equipped herself and companions with whatever was necessary to their travelling, and locked up all the apparel she had made till her return, because she would have it ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... Aldersgate for two years past, but I had heard that an hostelry had been built for the accommodation of travellers who had arrived too late to pass the gates, or others who preferred to sojourn outside the walls. I knew not its position, and asking my knave where it was he said that ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... caballo (representing a mounted cavalryman, and corresponding in value to our queen), and la sota (a standing infantryman, sometimes called also el infante, and corresponding in value to our knave). These figures are unreversible. The First Gambler is dealer and banker, as is shown by the fact that he covers the bets (line 466). He is losing in spite of the fact that the banker had an advantage. The caballo is clearly the card ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... La Teuse took with a knave. Then he threw himself back in his chair and again burst into one of his loud laughs. He did not seem to be able to work himself up into a genuine ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... rich cardinal And from the great and new-made Duke of Suffolk, Yet I do find it so; for, to be plain, They, knowing Dame Eleanor's aspiring humour, Have hired me to undermine the duchess And buzz these conjurations in her brain. They say ' A crafty knave does need no broker;' Yet am I Suffolk and the cardinal's broker. Hume, if you take not heed, you shall go near To call them both a pair of crafty knaves. Well, so its stands; and thus, I fear, at last Hume's knavery will be the duchess' wrack, And her attainture will be Humphrey's fall. Sort how ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... hands in gelid—none of your tepid water. There is no harm done if you should shave—then keep walking up and down the parlour rather impatiently, for such conduct is natural, and in all things act agreeably to nature—stir up the waiter with some original jest by way of stimulant, and to give the knave's face a well-pleased stare—and never doubting "that the energy which has been dispersed to the extremities" has had ample time to return to the stomach, in God's name fall to! and take care that ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... But you have forgotten something, Bes. When that knave escapes, he will tell the whole story and the King will send after us and kill us who ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... fool enough, sir," says the Doctor, looking very stern, "to let this boy impose on you as a lord; and knave enough to charge him double the value of the article you sold him. Take back the boots, sir! I won't pay a penny of your bill; nor can you get a penny. As for you, sir, you miserable swindler and cheat, I shall not flog you as I did before, but I shall ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... for a careless knave!" cried the Baron. "I had forgotten that; it is so long since I have been to mass and such like ceremonies myself. Your request is surely most reasonable, and I like you the better that you keep up the farce of your ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... said the masculine voice, "I think it's damned hard lines on Miss Hethencourt, that's all; and a man wants a damned good hiding for being a knave as well as ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... are divorced. The place that the small and shallow, the knave or the trickster, is deemed competent and fit to fill, ceases to be worthy the ambition of the great and capable; or if not, these shrink from a contest, the weapons to be used wherein are unfit for a gentleman ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... No; put back your whistle. I do not propose to fling you out, at least not just yet; nor will I try to escape. To tell you the truth, you suggest the need of a little fresh air. And now, Monsieur, you assure me you hold the knave in your hand. Well then, play him. Before I tear your foolish paper up, let me have a look at your confederate." I stepped to the door and called down the stairs, "Madame Jupille, be so good as to ask ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... preferment by this kind of compromise. It is addressed to a semi-freethinker, who is supposed to have declared that a man who could thus identify himself with Romish superstitions must be despised as either knave or fool; and Bishop Blougram has undertaken to prove that he is not to be thus despised; and least of all by the ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... shamefully spent our life in accordance with the will of the Gentiles, which is the same with lusts of men. Therefore as long as life continues we should see to it that we do that which is well-pleasing to God; for we have our enemy in our flesh, the one that is the real knave—not gross matter merely, but more particularly blindness of mind, which Paul calls carnal wisdom,—that is, the policy of the flesh. If we have subdued this depravity, that other is carefully to be constrained, which ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... pretence of pointing out the gate whereby the troops might enter Zamora, this lying wretch stabbed the unsuspecting Sancho through and through with his own royal golden spear, given by the king to the knave to carry. Bellido then fled fast to the city. On the way he was seen by the Cid, who called to the flying horseman to stop, though knowing nothing of his crime. The villain only rode the faster, hotly pursued by Rodrigo, who now suspected something wrong. Just as the Cid was about to overtake ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... his next-door neighbours, but he is deeply read in the tribes and castes of the Hindoos and Calmue Tartars. He can hardly find his way into the next street, though he is acquainted with the exact dimensions of Constantinople and Pekin. He does not know whether his oldest acquaintance is a knave or a fool, but he can pronounce a pompous lecture on all the principal characters in history. He cannot tell whether an object is black or white, round or square, and yet he is a professed master of the laws of optics ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... to make learned remarks about "American leads," "the fourth best," and the difficulties of playing a knave; lead him at once, I think, on Dogberry's principle: and "thank heaven you are rid of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 19, 1892 • Various
... my lips and hoped he might not wake for hours, although I hungered. The actual revenge is very, very sweet, Sahib, but does it exceed the joy of watching the enemy as he lies wholly at your mercy, lies in the hollow of your hand and is your poor foolish plaything,—knave made fool at last? Like statues we sat, moving not our eyes from his face, ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... longer degrade the honourable House of Commons, by forcing on its attention matters and details which ought to fall beneath the province of a lower tribunal: do not leave it in the power of any fool or knave—and there are many such actively employed at this time—who can persuade half a dozen of the same class with himself into gross delusion of the public, to occupy the time, and monopolize the nobler functions of the legislature, in the consideration of some miserable scheme, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... Wenceslaus was all out for popularity among his people, especially among his Pragers. He would go about the city looking into minor matters of his people's welfare, so he would measure the mercer's cloth-yard and if it were not up to standard would crack the saucy knave's head therewith. He went among his people performing acts of charity; in fact, he generally disported himself right royally, if with an occasional lapse from discretion. Now this Wenceslaus drew the relations between England and Bohemia closer together. ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... puts them in our power. You were quite right—we don't want to produce this yet. But I think I can use it to scare our friend Niles. If I'm right, and he's only a fool, and not a knave, I'll be able to do the trick. Here he is now! Watch me give him the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Mountains - or Bessie King's Strange Adventure • Jane L. Stewart
... gives up, not exactly his father or his uncle or his brother, but his dearest and most respectable convictions, together with the historical, logical, and sentimental supports of them. The king himself—though certainly no fool, and though hardly to be called an unmitigated knave—was one of those unfortunate persons whose merits do not in the least interest and whose defects do very strongly disgust. Domestically, the reign was a reign, in the other sense, of silly minor revolutions, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... proclamations myself and I'll lay a fiver the jury didn't either. The Colonel said he didn't. I couldn't keep my mind on what Russell was explaining about, and I got to thinking how much old Justice Hawkins looked like the counsel in 'Alice in Wonderland' when they tried the knave of spades for stealing the tarts. He has just the same sort of a beak and the same sort of a wig, and I wondered why he had his wig powdered and the others didn't. Pollock's wig had a hole in the top; you could see it when he bent over to take notes. He was always taking ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... is only seen in profile in all these accounts. He had at the bottom of such vice, to which his position, and the fashion of the day introduced him, a far better heart than any of his contemporaries, and in some respects a kind of simplicity which was endearing. He was neither knave nor fool. He was not a voluptuary, like his friend the duke; nor a continued drunkard, like many other 'fine gentlemen' with whom he mixed; nor a cheat, though a gambler; nor a sceptic, like his friend Walpole; nor a blasphemer, like the Medmenham set, though he had once parodied ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... his pardon; but if he ever did the like, there was no one would speak for him; tho' for my part, I think he deserved what he got: And so turning to Agamemnon's ear, "This fellow," said I, "must be a naughty knave; could any one forget to bowel a hog? I would not (so help me Hercules) have forgiven him if he had served me so with a single fish." But Trimalchio it seems, had somewhat else in his head; for falling a laughing, "You," said he, "that have so short a memory, ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... Harrington. "Poor John," from being so long "Jack among his familiars," has been most scurvily treated, being employed to form sundry very derogatory compounds, such as, Jackass, Jackpudding, Jack-a-dandy, Jackanapes, Jack-a-lent, Jack o' oaks (knave of clubs), Jack-o' th' Lantern, &c. &c. Might not "Jack" have been derived from John, somewhat after the ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 19, Saturday, March 9, 1850 • Various
... How the knave Appelmann seizes his Serene Eminence Duke Johann by the throat, and how his Grace and the whole castle are saved by Marcus Bork and his young bride Clara; also, how Sidonia ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... however, gave out during our first mile. Hawthorne attempted to explain our inability further to supply their demands, having, as he said to them, nothing less than a sovereign in his pocket, when a voice from the crowd shouted, "Bedad, your honor, I can change that for ye"; and the knave actually did it ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... score of her husband; but these are family matters with which I do not meddle, and besides it is not a bad thing to have a fault to repair. It is an inducement to make great efforts in order to force the public to esteem and admiration, and certainly her knave of a husband would never have done any one of the great things my Catherine does every day." The portrait of the empress, worked in embroidery by herself, hung in Voltaire's bedroom. In vain had he but lately ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... pretty knave, hence, I beseech you! For if you hit me, knave, in faith I'll breech you." ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... give half my kingdom to the man who will bring her to me,' cried the king, eagerly. 'Speak on, knave; has a bird of the air revealed to you ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... yo', an' ha' said things as carried weight agen yo' wi' them as valleyed my opinion o' things i' general. An' sin' th' blow-up, I ha' made up my moind as I would na moind tellin' yo' as I wur agoin' to w'draw my oppysition, sin' it seemit as if I'd made a bit o' a mistake. Yo're neyther knave nor foo', if yo' are a parson. Theer now! Good-mornin' ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... seven sons; "For comforted will I never be: "I ween 'twas neither knave nor lown "Was in the bower ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... come a letter from Lamb to P.G. Patmore, dated April 10, 1831, in which Lamb says of the publisher of the New Monthly Magazine: "Nature never wrote Knave upon a face more legible than upon that fellow's—'Coal-burn him in Beelzebub's deepest pit.' I can promise little help if you mean literary, when I reflect that for 5 years I have been feeling the necessity of scribbling but have never found the power.... Moxon is my go between, call ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb |
