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More "Imp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tell how quickly the baby prince got rid of his ailments, and grew fat, and rosy, and strong, and how he had two rows of ivory teeth in less time than any other little fellow, before or since. Instead of the palest, and wretchedest, and puniest imp in the world (as his own mother confessed him to be when Ceres first took him in charge), he was now a strapping baby, crowing, laughing, kicking up his heels, and rolling from one end of the room to the other. All the good women of the neighbourhood crowded to the palace, and held up their ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... went the hollow-sounding drums. Round and round danced the wildly-gesticulating imp-like crowds. They yelped and howled like dogs. They brandished tomahawks and spears, all the time working themselves into a frenzy. It more resembled an orgie of ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... in India, and likes the life there, and Larry is at Cambridge. Peter and Cyril are still at St. Bede's, and getting on well. Their letters are full of nothing but football though. Nora's baby girl is a darling, and Michael is still very sweet though he's growing rather an imp. You know we always describe ourselves as an old-fashioned rambling family. Well, one of us is rambling in your direction! Marjorie is making a tour in Italy with some friends of hers—the Prestons. Isn't she lucky? The last post-card she sent me was from Rome, and she said they were going on ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... Kid—a wild-eyed, elf-locked, olive-skinned little imp, nameless, but nicknamed Sal's Kid, who lived in a gutter called Rat Alley, down by the water-side in New York. I used to be fond of the child when I was cook's galley-boy, and our ship was in port there. I haven't seen her for ten years, yet I've never forgotten her. And I would ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... in the dusky gloom of Westminster Abbey, along with the saddle of that 'imp of fame,' and the dinted shield with its torn blue velvet lining and its tarnished lilies of gold; but the use of military tabards in Henry the Sixth is a bit of pure archaeology, as they were not ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... imp yclept Fun—known by his broad grin, by his loud tone, and by his rude banter. Head foremost forcing himself in, came he, and brought with him a heap of coarse caricatures, and they ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... Dhu said, the Whistler was a born imp of Satan, and therefore he should never leave him. Accordingly, from his eleventh year forward, he was one of the band, and often engaged in acts of violence. The last of these was more immediately occasioned by the researches which the Whistler's real father made after him whom he ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... been soldiers, in all occasions of natural and unofficial war, as in the French Revolution. That has the great fighting value of being an unexpected argument; it takes the other pugilist's breath away for one important instant. To take the other case, Mr. Shaw has found himself, led by the same mad imp of modernity, on the side of the people who want to have phonetic spelling. The people who want phonetic spelling generally depress the world with tireless and tasteless explanations of how much easier it would be for children or foreign bagmen if "height" were ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... cry again at the threat of being abandoned. "Be quiet, be quiet, you wicked little imp!" cried the old maid shaking her. "There, there, now, I won't go away. I'll buy you a stick of barley-sugar; yes, a stick of barley-sugar! So you don't love your ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... warrant," said Jucundus; "a pert, forward imp. 'Twas Gete against Briton. Much good comes of schooling! He's a wicked one already. Ah, the new generation! I don't ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... floated in and out wearing tantalizing garments of oblivion. They seemed about to dance, then vanished. They reappeared half a dozen times, but never unveiled their faces. The imp Curiosity pulled Memory by the sleeve and said, "Why do they run away? 'Tis strange knavery!" Out ran Memory to capture them. After a great deal of racing and puffing and collision it apprehended some of the fugitives and brought them ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... talk under the overhanging bushes of the shrubbery—I on the park side of the stone wall, and the lady of my worship a little inelegantly astride thereon. Inelegantly do I say? you should have seen the sweet imp as I remember her. Just her poise on the wall comes suddenly clear before me, and behind her the light various branches of the bushes of the shrubbery that my feet might not profane, and far away and high behind her, dim and stately, the cornice of the great facade of Bladesover ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... Pomp wuz out ahoein' A leetle patch o' corn he hed, or else there aint no knowin' He wouldn't ha' took a pop at me; but I hed gut the start, An' wen he looked, I vow he groaned ez though he'd broke his heart; He done it like a wite man, tu, ez nat'ral ez a pictur, The imp'dunt, pis'nous hypocrite! wus 'an a boy constrictur. 'You can't gum me, I tell ye now, an' so you needn't try, I 'xpect my eye-teeth every mail, so jest shet up,' sez I. 'Don't go to actin' ugly now, or else I'll let her strip, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... "Dandie," and her mother the daughter of a Skye, and a light-hearted Cocker. The Duchess is about the size and weight of a rabbit; but has a soul as big, as fierce, and as faithful as had Meg Merrilies, with a nose as black as Topsy's; and is herself every bit as game and queer as that delicious imp of darkness and of Mrs. Stowe. Her legs set her long slim body about two inches and a half from the ground, making her very like a huge caterpillar or hairy oobit—her two eyes, dark and full, and her shining nose, being all of her that seems anything ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... does this imply of the hunt, what of the predatory dark? The kitten grows alert at the same hour, and hunts for moths and crickets in the grass. It comes like an imp, leaping on all fours. The children lie in ambush and fall upon one another ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... And then some imp of recklessness in him prompted him not to run away, but to see the thing through. It was, after all, a chance either way. These men beside the car were doubtless armed—one at least, nearest him, was certainly one of Karl's own secret agents. And, as Nikky paused, he was not ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... thy nest, spread out thy fateful wings, With sullen hungry love bemoan thy brood, For boys have wrung their necks, those imp-like things, Whose beaks dripped crimson daily at ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... me, alas! and, what can I Save my irrational desire lament? Which makes me soar a pitch so passing high, I reach a region, where my plumes are brent; Then, unsustained, fall headlong from the sky; Nor ends my woe; on other flight intent, Again I imp my wings, again I soar; To flame and fall, ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... to bring himself to Hector McKaye's notice when his alert intelligence informed him that The Laird had failed to recognize him in his going-away habiliments. Further, he could see with half an eye that The Laird was waiting for somebody, and when that somebody appeared on the scene, the imp of suspicion in Dirty Dan's character whispered: "Begorra, is the father up to some shenanigans like the son? Who's this girrl? I dunno. A young widder, belike, seem' she has ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... the other, "the 'orrors—they've got me and no mistake. As I'm a livin' man, as I was a shovin' of that there truck, I saw a imp—a gashly imp, Bill, stick its hugly 'ed over the side and say, 'Tommy,' it ses, jest like that—it ses, 'Tommy, I wants you!' I dursn't go near it, Bill. I'll get leave, and go 'ome and lay up—it glared at me so 'orrid, Bill, and grinned—ugh! ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... through the human corral with a bellow near a point where Reddy kept guard. The puncher wheeled and gave chase, Before the other men could close the opening a couple of two-year-olds seized the opportunity and followed its lead. A second rider gave chase, and at once, as if some imp of mischief had stirred them, fifty tails went up in wild flight. Another minute and the ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... "You imp of Satan!" she cried, springing after him with a singular agility for one of her age, and catching him by the arm with a vice-like grip that bruised the tender flesh and left it marked for weeks, drew him back from the door and ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... it appears to be said with the fullest truth: "The state of the commonwealth depends on the religion with which God is worshipped, and between the one and the other there is a close relation and connection." (Sacr. Imp. ad Cyrillum Alexandr, et Episcopus metrop. ef Labbeum Collect Conc., T. iii.) Admirably, as he is accustomed, did Augustine in many places dilate on the power of those good things, but especially when he addresses the Catholic Church in these words: "Thou ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... that is good! So, so, my run-a-ways! I shall nab you, shall I?" exclaimed Purley in triumph, as he beckoned the negro imp ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... Well, imp, what's up now? (He comes to the fireplace, and takes a pipe from the rack.) Rags again! I shall have to lock them up, I see. (Takes up the embroidery, and throws it over a chair.) Get to your work at once! Sit up straight. ...
— The Black Cat - A Play in Three Acts • John Todhunter
... with an air of rueful surprise. "No honor among thieves, Jack. I thought him loyal to Blackbeard. I have considered attempting something of my own when the weather permits but this news quickens me. This young imp o' Satan that ye call Joe,—he will side ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... croking Make us to wish theyr choking. 350 Let none of these theyr drery accents sing; Ne let the woods them answer, nor theyr eccho ring. [Ver. 341.—The Pouke (Puck is a generic term, signifying fiend, or mischievous imp) is Robin ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... nimble from their infancy. However, I once caught a young male of three years old, and endeavoured, by all marks of tenderness, to make it quiet; but the little imp fell a squalling, and scratching, and biting with such violence, that I was forced to let it go; and it was high time, for a whole troop of old ones came about us at the noise, but finding the cub was safe (for away it ran), and my sorrel nag being by, they durst not venture ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... colours, sprinkled their shimmering light over the fashionable assemblage and lent a false radiance to the faces of the men, while in the hair and the jewels of the women each ray seemed to dance like an imp with ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... sur l'autel de leurs divinits tutlaires;—je ne fais qu'imiter leur exemple. Vous tes pour tous les Polonois cette divinit, qui la premire ait leve sa voix, du fond de l'impriale, Albion, en ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... ONE:" it began. "Why have you not answered the fond letter of your small Imp? But perhaps you have answered, and I have not received. Ma mere and I have had the great annoyance since we came to this most stupid studio, because much of our mail ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... Slyboots; he was distressed that the fairy had told a falsehood; but, as to the mischief, it was so like the capers his own brothers and sisters were always cutting, that he felt very certain the comical little imp had not one grain of malice in his heart, so he softly touched the Queen's knee, and as she kindly bent down to him, whispered—"Oh, beautiful lady! he has a good heart, and he is very sorry; please ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... out one unexpected and wholly unexpectable thing after another, as if he were a magician, and had only to fling a private signal into the air, and some attendant imp would hand forth any strange relic we might choose to ask for. He was especially rich in drawings by the Old Masters, producing two or three, of exquisite delicacy, by Raphael, one by Salvator, a head by Rembrandt, and others, in chalk or pen-and-ink, by Giordano, ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Bright brass vessels, shining copper pans, are things he is quite bewitcht with; pewter plates too he likes very well. Many a time has he brought me a groschen, bright and new, as if it had come from the mint.'—'But where does the imp live?' I cried.—'Where does the child live?' she said: 'people choose to call it goblin, or manikin; he himself signs himself Silly; that is his christen-name. But he is a kind good-natured sprite; and so thou ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... (ditto). Solanum Congo (ditto). Schwenckia Americana, L. Ditto. Scoparia dulcis, L. Congo (not laid in). Spathodea laevis (?) Dahome. Sesamum Indicum, var. Ditto. Plumbago Zeylanica, L. Congo (ditto.) Clerodendron multiflorum (?), Don. Ditto, imp., Ditto. Clerodendron sp. Congo. Lippia sp. Ditto. Lippia an L. Adoensis? Ditto. Stachytarphita Jamaicensis, V. Dahome. Celosia trigyna (?), L. Congo. Erua lanata Ditto (ditto). Pupalia lappacea, Moq. Annabom. Achyranthes involucrata, Moq. Dahome. Achyranthes ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... just hot, though!" she said, half aloud, as she flung off her sacque. "And what a changeling imp of a creature Dot is, after all! An imp of genius.—well, she's every right to that, as one knows when one looks at James Colthurst's pictures. He'd genius. He didn't shirk living. My stars! there was a man capable of adding to the number of one's emotions! And she's inherited his gifts on her own ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... contretemps!" said Maud, the good-natured. "There seems to be a special imp of mischief abroad at these times, for something is bound to go wrong. You can't guard against it, for it is always the last thing you could expect, and it happens at the worst moment, and in some extraordinary ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... you little imp! Don't you know you are in my power!" stormed Baxter, in a rage. "I can do as I please out here, and these three men ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield
... wearing the manner of one whose kindly patience is beyond limit abused. "Kems in hyar, he do, a'totin' a fiddle. An' I says, 'Lee-yander Yerby, don't ye know that thar thing's the devil's snare?' 'N'aw, ma'am, cap'n,' he says, grinnin' like a imp; 'it's my snare, fur I hev bought it from Peter Teazely fur two rabbits what I cotch in my trap, an' my big red rooster, an' a bag o' seed pop-corn, an' the only hat I hev got in the worl'. An' with that the consarn gin sech a yawp, it plumb went through my haid, An' then the ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... scarcely believe their ears, so much was I, a four-year-old child, their superior in learning. Some of them were not certain that I was not an imp of Satan, so utterly did my performance exceed credibility. My beauty too at this age was uncommon; my limbs were straight and strong, my cheeks of the purest red and white, and my full flaxen hair ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... Iambicks, with your Badgers' Feet, And Badger-like bite till your Teeth do meet; Help ye, Tart Satyrists, to imp my Rage, With all the Scorpions that should whip this Age. But that there's Charm in Verse, I would not quote The Name of Scot without an Antidote, Unless my Head were red, that I might brew Invention ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... heart, too, some day. But she was awful then. When I wouldn't listen to her complaints she would say: 'All right, sister, I would just as soon go clothed in rain and wind.' And such a bag of bones, too, like the picture of a devil's imp. Ah, my dear young Monsieur, you don't know how wicked her heart is. You aren't bad enough for that yourself. I don't believe you are evil at all in your innocent little heart. I never heard you jeer at holy things. You are only thoughtless. For instance, ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... intermission, are revived. Victims, likewise, are everywhere (passim) bought up; whereas, for some time, there were few to purchase them. Whence it is easy to imagine that numbers of men might be reclaimed if pardon were granted to those that shall repent." (C. Plin. Trajano Imp. lib. x. ep. xcvii.) ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... My lad, and lost in Jack, Smiled, blushed, and bit his lip; Or drove, with a diver's dip, 20 Clutched hands down through clasped knees— Truth's tokens tricks like these, Old telltales, with what stress He hung on the imp's success. Now the other was brass-bold: 25 He had no work to hold His heart up at the strain; Nay, roguish ran the vein. Two tedious acts were past; Jack's call and cue at last; 30 When Henry, heart-forsook, Dropped eyes and dared ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... have told you all I know. I have done what I was bidden to do, up to a certain point. I am now here to recruit, and restore my wasted energies, and possibly to heal (observe, I say possibly) my wounded affections in the intimacy of my family circle. That reminds me that that little ungrateful imp Molly has not yet made the slightest demonstration of joy at my arrival. Where is she?" and without waiting for an answer, which he was well aware would not be forthcoming, Charles rose and strolled towards the house with his hands ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... do I," shouted Budge, hastening to occupy one knee, and IN TRANSITU wiping his shoes on my trousers and the skirts of my coat. Each imp put an arm about me to steady himself, as I produced my three-hundred-dollar time-keeper ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... quite agree in all that you said in your last letter. 'The imp of secession can't reenter its mother's womb.' It is merely childish to talk of the Union 'as it was.' You might as well bring back the Saxon Heptarchy. But the great Republic is destined to live and flourish, I can't doubt. . . . Do ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... again soberly. I assured him that I was none other than poor Lappo Lappi, and I pinched a silver coin from my pocket and gave it to him, and he handed me the missive and grinned again, and whistled and slipped away from me along the street, a diminished imp of twinkling gilt. And I opened the letter then and there, and read in it that Monna Vittoria very gracefully gave me her duty, and in all humility thanked me for my verses—Lord, as if that ample baggage could ever be humble!—and would be flattered ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... fetters, and for my tenanting this cell of the condemned. Had I not been thus prolix, you might either have misunderstood me altogether, or, with the rabble, have fancied me mad. As it is, you will easily perceive that I am one of the many uncounted victims of the Imp of the Perverse. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... hardly sit in my chair towards the last. And when the young imp came pawing me and climbing over me, I could hardly help tossing him off of ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... How Thought is imp'otent to divine the secret which the gods defend, The Why of birth and life and death, that Isis-veil no ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... Childe Wynd had landed, the witch-queen's power over the Laidly Worm had gone, and she went back to her bower all alone, not an imp, nor a man-at-arms to help her, for she knew her hour was come. So when Childe Wynd came rushing up to the Laidly Worm it made no attempt to stop him or hurt him, but just as he was going to raise his sword to slay it, the voice of his own sister Margaret came from its ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... for all the world as if the show belonged to him, with a young imp of a girl on his arm, and down they sits at one of ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... change the dreaming heart of the little woman—for herself or even for her big Danny; they were for her fine lad, a man now, and Beryl, working so earnestly for her ambition, and little Robin, who would always be little Robin, and the imp of a Susy, ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... filz n'en pouvoit faire la vengence en l'estat que son royaulme estoit lors; mais a present qu'il est tout uni, il aura assez de moien et de forces pour sen ressentir quant l'occasion s'en presentera (Catherine to Du Ferrier, Oct. 1, 1572; Bib. Imp. F. Fr. 15,555). The despatches of Fourquevaulx from Madrid, published by the Marquis Du Prat in the Histoire d' Elisabeth de Valois, do ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... said I have come to save you. It will be fun, after working for the Government so long, to work against it. There's a certain red-headed imp in this neighborhood who is the daughter of our assistant chief, John O'Gorman. Her name is Josie O'Gorman and she's in training for the same profession of which I'm an ornament. I won't sneer at her, for she's clever, ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... it," she said, "it is black sorcery against one who is a god, and will bring my soul to hell. Find some other instrument, or place the waxen imp in the bed of ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... derision, and sprang to another stump. With eyes dancing and eager little hands outstretched, the Kid followed—again and again, and yet again—till he was led to the very edge of the wood. Then the mocking imp in red fur whisked up an ancient hemlock, and hid himself, in silence, in a high crotch, ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... moments, and just as Betty was beginning to fancy that the long, dark eyelashes worn curling downward in sleepy comfort the dark blue eyes opened, and a dancing imp of mischief gleamed from their depths ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... disagreeables, for scrapes. During these weeks poor Miss Nelson's hair became more gray, and her face more wrinkled and anxious; but she dreaded the holidays, not because Basil was at home, but on account of Eric, who was a perfect imp of mischief, and because all the home children were more or less demoralized ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... wander into the conservatory, and the imp of mischief that possessed her was prompting her to find new ways of teasing and testing him. The conservatory was in semi-darkness, but as Myra entered with Tony she located Don Carlos, for he happened to strike a ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... while the daughters of the Rhein were darting gaily about their water home, a little dark imp came from Nibelheim—the underground land of the Nibelungs—and hid himself in the dark cleft of a rock to watch the mermaids play. In all the universe there was probably not so malevolent a creature as that one. His name was Alberich. Hidden in his dark nook, he blinked ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... and putting it in his mouth, chewed it and threw it away. 'Out on thee!' exclaimed the Sultan (and indeed he was angry); 'what made thee do that?' 'By thy life, O our lord the Sultan,' replied Muin, 'this fellow hath never seen the Khalif nor his Vizier: but he is a gallows-bird, a crafty imp who, happening upon a blank[FN115] sheet in the Khalif's handwriting, hath written his own desire in it. The Khalif would surely not have sent him to take the Sultanate from thee, without a royal mandate and a patent appended thereto, nor would he have omitted to send with him a chamberlain ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... he looked around, he saw standing above him on one of the rocks a little ugly dwarf, with a sugarloaf cap and a scarlet cloak; and the dwarf called to him and said, 'Prince, whither so fast?' 'What is that to thee, you ugly imp?' said the prince haughtily, and ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... tablecloths, in every direction, to screen the two children, so that they really did look rather like flapping wings.) "I have prayed to the Big Idol," he continued, addressing the woman, "ever since this imp of wickedness here set fire to my beautiful pig-tail and burned it off, to send one of his strong dragons to carry off my tormentor. And now my prayers are answered, and the Red Dragon, strongest of all, is here! Hokkaloo! hokkaloo!" and he ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... south sea bridal The Ban The Missionary Devil-work Night in the bush The Bottle Imp The Isle ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... man. Whitney, for his part, seemed almost fascinated by her gaze. He rose as she bowed, and, for a moment, I thought that he was going over to speak to her, as if drawn by that intangible attraction which Poe has so cleverly expressed in his "Imp of the Perverse." For, clearly, one who talked as Whitney had just been talking would have to be on his guard with that woman. Instead, however, he returned her nod and stood still, while Kennedy bowed at a distance and ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... wanted it all. He was a very dirty and a very fierce baby, and the other two children were no match for him. The shoemaker grunted fretfully at his last, "Ach, he is all de time hungry!" At the sight of the policeman, the young imp set up such a howl that we beat a hasty retreat. The cellar "flat" was undoubtedly in violation of law, but it was allowed to pass. In the main hall, on the ground floor, we counted seventeen children. The facts of life here suspend ordinary landlord prejudices to a certain extent. ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... Imp: Wheras ther was a partnership for diverce years agreed upon betweene James Sherley, John Beacham, and Richard Andrews, of London, marchants, and William Bradford, Edward Winslow, Thomas Prence, Myles Standish, William Brewster, John Aldon, & John Howland, w^th Isaack ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... tame fireside, glad to get away,— Too old to let my watery grief appear,— And what so bitter as a swallowed tear! One figure still my vagrant thoughts pursue; First boy to greet me, Ariel, where are you? Imp of all mischief, heaven alone knows how You learned it all,—are you an angel now, Or tottering gently down the slope of years, Your face grown sober in the vale of tears? Forgive my freedom ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... blue blossom appearing here and there. The points of interest here are the machinery, the negroes, and the work. Entering the sugar-house, we find the maquinista (engineer) superintending some repairs in the machinery, aided by another white man, a Cooly, and an imp of a black boy, who begged of all the party, and revenged himself with clever impertinence on those who refused him. The maquinista was a fine-looking man, from the Pyrenees, very kind and obliging. He told ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... volume of irresistible, rib-tickling fun, the Bad Boy, an incarnate but lovable imp of mischief, records his daily exploits, experiences, pranks and adventures, through all of which you follow him with an absorbing interest that never flags, stopping only when convulsions of laughter and aching sides force the mirth-swept body to take an involuntary ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... Rome. Less happy than his old companions in arms, he had no interval of repose between these terrible and repeated shocks, all beating upon his heart at the same time. One could have feared that the blow might prove mortal, and poor Fougas die in the first hour of his recovered life. But the imp of a fellow yielded and recovered himself in quick succession like a spring. He cried out with admiration on hearing of the five battles of the campaign in France; he reddened with grief at the farewells of Fontainebleau. ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... in a still more agitated and frightened tone. Mark and his companions made the welkin ring with their shouts at the old man's answer. Uncle Tony hearing them, and finding that he had been imposed upon, opened his door, came out with stick in hand, and said, "Is dat you, Mr. Mark? you imp, if I can get to you I'll larn you how to come here wid ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... from the sky With one eye open, one shut. Hark, ring of the drill 'neath the plain! Wakea asks you to explain, 40 What imp is a-drilling below? It is I, mutters Pele: I drilled till flame shot forth on Lanai, A ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... England at its sharpest, brightest, wittiest, most fantastic, most wilful, most devout, saint and imp sported in one, toying with the tricks of the Deity, taking them now with extreme profundity, then tossing them about like irresistible toys with an incomparable triviality. She has traced upon the page and with celestial indelibility that fine line from her soul which is like a fine prismatic ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... front door open (Winnebago rarely locked its doors). She was surprised to feel her heart beating rapidly. He was trying to be quiet, and was making a great deal of noise about it. His shoes and the squeaky fifth stair alone would have convicted him. The imp of perversity in Molly Brandeis made her smile, angry as she was, at the thought of how furious he ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... was some evil imp laughing in the room—There was nothing to be said or done. I could not curse aloud—so I simply took the letter, put it with Daisy Ryven's—and indicated that I was waiting for the next one to be ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... out and punishing sins ascribed to poetic temperament. Byron was banished; Shelley was judged unfit to rear his own children; Keats was advertised as an example of "extreme moral depravity"; [Footnote: By Blackwoods.] Oscar Wilde was imprisoned; Swinburne was castigated as "an unclean fiery imp from the pit." [Footnote: By The Saturday Review.] These are some of the most conspicuous examples of a refusal by the British public to countenance what it considers a code of morals peculiar to poets. It is hardly to be wondered at that verse-writers of the nineteenth and twentieth ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... would have kept up the farce till the ship got into port. I ask, my men, do you think it possible that God, who made this mighty universe, and governs it by just and wise laws, would allow a mischievous imp, who could do no harm while alive, to return to earth, merely for the sake of wreaking his own petty malice, or for troubling and frightening a number of grown men such as you are. To believe such a ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... com. ever allow that five-year-old imp to travel with men?" grunted Joyce disgustedly, as he sat down again and now realized that the nickel was under him next ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... He ought to be," Leighton replied. His cool glance measured Allesandro Trujillo, standing hard by. "I'll have that dusky imp for an exercise boy," he announced. "He's built like an ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... Extra Early Premium Gem, McLean's Little Gem, Surprise or Eclipse, Tom Thumb, Abundance, Advancers McLeans, Dwarf Daisy, Dwarf Champion, Everbearing, Heroine, Horsford's Market Garden, Pride of the Market, Stratagem Imp, Shropshire Hero, Yorkshire Hero, Duke of Albany, Telephone, Telegraph, Champion of England, Forty Fold, Long Island Mammoth, Large White Marrowfat, Black-Eyed Marrowfat, Canada Field, Mammoth Podded Sugar, Melting Sugar, Dwarf Gray-Seeded Sugar, Tall Gray-Seeded Sugar, Laxton's ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... and Moses, too! Do you think the inspiration of even an evil spirit, or of forty thousand devils, would lead a fortune-teller to name any horse Moses? Jack might do, perhaps; but Moses would never enter the head of even an imp! Remember, lad, Moses was the great law-giver of the Jews; and such a creature would be as apt to suppose a horse was named Confucius, as to suppose he ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... bank above them a goat was skirmishing. He was a ridiculous fellow; sometimes cropping with saucy jerks, then kicking up his heels, as if an invisible imp had pinched him, then wagging his rump and ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... he; no imp of sin; No crimes had ever known; They took the shaggy stranger in, And reared him as ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... Gregorio: El progreso de Filipinas. Estudios economicos, administrativos y politicos. Parte economica. Madrid, Imp. de la Vda. de J M. ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal
... a sore subject with the girl, and well he knew it. Wee Anne, that golden-haired imp of mischief, was forever evading her sister-mother's eye and attempting to immolate herself. More than once she had only been saved from serious hurt by the watchful devotion of Owd Bob, who always found time, despite his many labors, to keep a guardian eye on his well-loved lassie. ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... from the loveliest form of Nature's mould, to the disgusting squaw, whose flaccid mammae hung like inverted bottles to her girdle, or are extended over her shoulder to give nourishment to the little imp perched on her back; and here the urchin sits the live long day, while the mother performs all the drudgery of the field, the ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... and be hanged to you! How the imp knocks! You can devour a loaf of bread three feet wide: as for knocking at a door, you don't know how. (pounds vigorously himself, and shouts) Anyone at home? Hi! Anyone here? Anyone minding ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... Bigelow. Well, of all things!" And they'd clap their hands, and be so proud of you. And they'd wonder how it was that they could have been so blind to your many merits when they had you with them. They'd feel sorry that they ever said you were a "regular little imp," if ever there was one, and that you had the Old Boy in you as big as a horse. They'd feel ashamed of themselves, so they would. And they'd come and apologize to you for the way they had acted, and you'd say: "Oh, that's all right. Forgive and ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... and long strings of copper "cash" to be used in the purchase of eggs and chickens, and the mats of rice that would form the principal article of "chow-chow" for the crew. Everybody in China has a boy, and Charley had his; a regular young imp of a fellow of about his own age. Aling was his name; Charley used to call him Ting-a-ling, and would jabber horrible Chinese to him by the hour. Aling jumped down the steps, two at a time, with Charley's ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... childish voices, and have distinguished and unravelled her own darling's tones, amid all the entangled outcry of a group of sportive children. But this could never be. Pearl was a born outcast of the infantile world. An imp of evil, emblem and product of sin, she had no right among christened infants. Nothing was more remarkable than the instinct, as it seemed, with which the child comprehended her loneliness: the destiny that had drawn an inviolable ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... bawcock,[3] and a heart of gold, A lad of life, an imp of fame;[4] Of parents good, of fist most valiant: I kiss his dirty shoe, and from my heart-strings I love the lovely ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... Providence, Rhode Island, an American gentleman of a particularly inquisitive nature, but who, professing some knowledge of medical craft, was really of some use in this instance, as there was no regular ship surgeon on board; and, secondly, young Master Negus, a "born imp of mischief," whose acquaintance will be further improved as the voyage proceeds; while, Llewellyn, the steward, summoned courage at last to descend the companion, in company with his wife the stewardess, who had been forward to the cook's galley in ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... you had tired of them, or send them away like children when they had prattled enough, Angela cuddled down among her cushions and rugs, glad to be let alone for the first time in her life. But there was a young mother with a small imp of a curly-haired girl, who fascinated her, and made her think. Once, when the imp fell on the deck, to be caught up and kissed until a wail ended in a laugh, Angela said to herself, "If my mother had been like that, everything would have ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... knocking me to the other side of the room with a slap, and finish it by calling me her darling boy and promising me all manner of toys and things. I soon gave up trying to please her, or like her, and became as disagreeable a young imp as you'd ask to see. My only thought was to get all I could out of her when she was in a good-humor, and to be sullen and stubborn when she was in a tantrum. One day a boy in the street threw some mud ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... A little imp with a nasty sneering voice that jabbed like a hot needle perched itself on his shoulder and kept dinning into ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... "You pretty imp; what is to pay now? Here Beulah has been sitting, nobody knows how long, in that frigid zone you call your music room. What are you rigged out in ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... of the girl at whom he had been looking that very day with more than ordinary attention. Once already, when Jacqueline was hardly out of baby-clothes, the great painter had made an admirable sketch of her tousled head, a sketch in which she looked like a little imp of darkness, and this sketch Madame de Nailles took pains should always be seen, but it bore no resemblance to the slender young girl who was on the eve of becoming, whatever might be done to arrest her development, a beautiful young woman. Jacqueline disliked to look at ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... de l'Academie des Inscriptions et | Belles-Lettres, Professeur de Langue Arabe | au College Royal, | Continues | Par M. Caussin de Perceval, | Professeur de Langue Arabe au College Imperial. | Tome huitieme. | a Paris, | chez Le Normant, Imp.-Libraire, | Rue des Pretres ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... for examination and the finger shown without a cut or scar. The *Fire Eater*, the great sensational trick of the day; any person can apparently breathe fire and blow thousands of brilliant sparks from the mouth. We send material enough for several exhibitions. *Magic Bottle Imp*, a very amusing trick; it is a curiosity and a brain puzzler; will stand as straight as a flag-staff and no one can make it lie down, but when you take it down it goes like a sleepy kitten; it causes heaps of fun. *Wonderful Paper Trick*; this trick ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... There were but five ministers in Virginia, and there were a many more sick to visit and dead to bury. Master Bucke, still feeble in body, tarried up river discussing with Thorpe the latter's darling project of converting every imp of an Indian this side the South Sea, and Jeremy slipped into his old place. There had been some talk of a public censure, ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... Turcarum Imp. Mohammedis IV olim Interpretis primarii, De Turcarum Liturgia, peregrinatione Meccana, Circumcisione, ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... murderous blood was damp And was brilliantly lit with a brimstone lamp; An imp, for fuel, was shoveling bones, While the furnace ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... Eustacie, and, with a sudden, unexpected struggle, started into a sitting posture; but a derisive voice, that well he knew, cried, 'Ha, the deadly sin of pride! Monsieur thinks his painted face pleases the ladies. To the depths with him—' and therewith one imp pulled him backwards again, while others danced a war-dance round him, pointing their forks at him; and the prime tormentor, whom he perfectly recognized, not only leapt over him, but spurned at his face with a cloven foot, giving a blow, not of gay French malice, ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... him forget all else. This damnable indecision goaded him to self-contempt; he despised himself for his weakness; his social instincts and training, his sense of duty, and the amenities of life that proud men hold dear tugged steadily, untiringly at his reason, while the little imp of impulse sat grinning wickedly, ready to pop out and upset all his high resolutions. It raised such a tumult in his ears that he could not hear the other voices; it stirred his blood till it leaped and pounded, and then ran off ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... Aviators were by this time quite well known. The Buzzard, too, as her inkhued shape loomed up, came in for a buzz of admiration. Malvoise, in a leathern jacket of black, with black leggings, gauntlets and goggles, instantly set to work on a final inspection, looking like some species of sable imp as he dodged in and out ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... mumbled Jed, as he mentally tried to reach the very highest figure he would dare to charge, with any hope of getting it. "I knowed you would do the right thing. I'm only sorry that you should have so much trouble with that there young imp," and he shook his head sorrowfully and heaved a sigh, as though he already saw ahead of Teddy nothing but the ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... praetorship—in reality he was aedile in 675, probably praetor in 677, consul in 680. That the case of Pompeius was a totally different one is obvious; but even as to Pompeius, it is on several occasions expressly stated (Cicero, de Imp. Pomp, ax, 62; Appian, iii. 88) that the senate released him from the laws as to age. That this should have been done with Pompeius, who had solicited the consulship as a commander-in-chief crowned with victory and a triumphator, at the head of an army and after his ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... by Mortimer, who had been as frolicsome as any imp in the Gardens, in the character of the Devil, but who had lost sight of the Dandy Officer and the Nun, whom he had so ingeniously hooked together. The wine was good, and after enjoying their repast, Tom and Mortimer enshrined themselves in dominos for the remainder ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... have no doubt but what passes at Brooks's makes part of the despatch. He reads all our papers in English, so I asked Lord Malden if he said anything of my jokes, and was mortified to find that they had escaped his Imp[erial] Majesty's observations. But he has read some of them, sans doute, so I may have the same vanity as poor Dick Edgcumbe had, of thinking that the Emperor of Constantinople had from the windows of his seraglio heard him ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... him first, not far from the house, stopping on his way, in the pouring rain, to speak to a little ragged imp of a boy, the pest of the neighborhood. The boy's customary impudence had broken out even more unrestrainedly than usual at the sight of the gentleman's knapsack. And what had the gentleman done in return? He had stopped and looked ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... came old Sru and the imp Toka, who at once set to work and found us some small crayfish for bait. Our rods were slender bamboos, about twelve feet long, with lines of the same length made of twisted banana fibre as fine as silk, and equally as strong. My hook was an ...
— "Martin Of Nitendi"; and The River Of Dreams - 1901 • Louis Becke
... I was a child in France with papa, and I have never been able to draw them till the last few weeks. They are such dears—such darlings; every one will know them when he sees them! There is the Chinese imp, the low smirking creature, you know, that sits on the edge of your cup of tea; there is the flipperty-flopperty creature that flies out at you when you open a drawer; there is the twisty-twirly person that sits jeering on the edge of ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... My melons wont grow; there's somethin' the matter with them. Faith, I believe some imp has cast a spell over 'em. I do, mother," quoth he, thumping the table with his fist ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... obtained over a new object. Roughness makes you hold your breath. You do not stop disputing, but neither do you cease to conquer and to be conquered. In vain does reason sigh. You can not comprehend how such an imp manages to subjugate you so tyrannically. Everything tells you that the idol of your heart is a collection of caprices and follies, but she is a spoiled child, whom you can not help but love. The efforts which reflection causes you to make to loosen ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... servant bounded in, radiant and giggling, gave Nancy a triumphant glance, and popped out again, holding the door open, through which in slouched a seafaring man, drawn by Penfold's advertisement, and decoyed into Nancy's presence by the imp of a girl, who thought ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... neighbours sought, Content with equity unbought; To him the venerable priest, Our frequent and familiar guest, Whose life and manners well could paint Alike the student and the saint; Alas! whose speech too oft I broke With gambol rude and timeless joke; For I was wayward, bold, and wild, A self-will'd imp, a grandame's child; But, half a plague and half a jest, Was ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... "Thou imp," she cried, "it is one of thy tricks," and she made a dive for the scullion, who ducked around the skirts of one of the other women and so escaped for the time; but Long Jacob wrinkled up his nose and sniffed. ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... received in his fall. Then giving no more thought to Madame de Belle-Ile, who sat awaiting him eagerly, he returned gloomily to his hotel, reflecting on the carelessness which had delivered him into the hands of an indefatigable imp of mischief. The upshot of his reflection was a resolve to press his wooing to an immediate conclusion. The next day and the day after, therefore, he redoubled his lamentations that the smallness of his means prevented him from going, as his natural honesty dictated, ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... rounder, longer, &c. (a devoted tree of old, and therefore incaedua) thrives manifestly with us; witness His Majesty's privy-garden at White-hall, where once flourish'd a goodly tree, of more than fourscore years growth, and there was lately a sickly imp of it remaining: And now very many rais'd by me, have thriv'd wonderfully, braving the most severe Winters, planted either in standards or hedges, which they most beautifully become. The only difficulty is in their being dextrously removed ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... which a tiny imp of memory whispered into West's ear that Miss Weyland herself had commented on the Rev. Mr. Dayne's marvelous gifts as ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... quick they flew away for Jacob's ladder, (Peter was still asleep), And placed it safely, where from Heaven to Imp-land The way ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... innumerable inn doors when the weather was bad, I was obliged to be put into my vehicle before the Bottle could be got in, and was obliged to have the Bottle lifted out before human aid could come near me. The Imp of the same name, except that his associations were all evil and these associations were all good, would have been a less troublesome travelling companion. I might have served Mr. Cruikshank as a subject for a new illustration of the miseries of the Bottle. ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... did that Mark Carter get his own car down to Economy when he went up with the Chief? He had it down here this morning, I know, for I saw him riding round. And that little imp of a Billy! I wonder why he always tags him round! Miss Saxon ought to be warned about that! I'll have to do it! But how in the world did Mark ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... Froberval, the dockyard clerk who had given hospitality to M. Beautrelet, senior, was waiting for him, accompanied by his daughter Charlotte, an imp ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... of the patient beasts with a cudgel, whereupon, throwing occasional glances at the human sprig out of a corner of its eye, and snatching at tufts of leaves or grass here and there on the way, the unruffled beast leisurely moves on a few paces, and that imp of a boy seems to feel that his duty as herdsman has ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... July. Friday the 9th do., he being some distance from us, About 1/2 an hour after 10 came up with us. Then it grew calme. Wee could discerne a fellow on the Quarter Deck wearing a sword. As he drew near, this Hellish Imp cried, Strike you doggs, which [wee] perceived was not by a general consent for he was called away. Our Boatswaine in a fury run upon the poop, unknown to the Captain, and answered that wee would strike to noe such doggs as he, telling him the rogue Every and his accomplices ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... the scourge of Europe, Mr. Gladstone was the most malevolent imp of mischief that ever ruined any one country, and I am heartily grieved that that country should have ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... the familiar! Kill the devil's imp!" came in various voices, the angry tones being not without an ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... "I preferred walking," he relapsed into a somewhat constrained silence. I too walked on without speaking. Much as I love the night, it always makes me rather melancholy; and I dare say we should have got to Lowndes Street without exchanging a syllable, had not some imp of mischief prompted me to cross-examine my cousin a little upon his sejour in Wales, and to quiz him half spitefully on his supposed penchant for pretty Fanny Lloyd. John rose freely in ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... sore subject with the girl, and well he knew it. Wee Anne, that golden-haired imp of mischief, was forever evading her sister-mother's eye and attempting to immolate herself. More than once she had only been saved from serious hurt by the watchful devotion of Owd Bob, who always found time, despite his many labors, to keep a guardian eye on his well-loved ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... experiment, we began to seek for the opportunity of making others, and offered a reward for any person who would show us a specimen of imp or spirit. One man was produced, who was stated to be of considerable fame. He said he would show me a spirit; but I must go out with him three nights running to a cross road at midnight, and perform divers ceremonies and lustrations which he proceeded to describe. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. • Various
... Falesá A south sea bridal The Ban The Missionary Devil-work Night in the bush The Bottle Imp The Isle of voices ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... were spilt and wasted; he shut up a fighting bantam cock and the stable cat into a barn, and left them fighting furiously; he locked one of the farm-labourers in a hayloft, and pulled away the ladder, so that he was not released for hours, and he proved such an imp of mischief in the house that even his mother meditated handing him over to his uncle ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... would have conquered if some imp had not whispered, "What about that purple envelope, addressed in a woman's handwriting? Maybe it was from her, hinting to see him again, and that is what has put this plan into his head. Perhaps he brought up the subject of the Countess on purpose ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... denominations have you in that quarter, commodore? So I told him, general, that we had Baptists, and Quakers, and Universalists, and Episcopalians, and Presbyterians, old-lights, new- lights, and blue-lights; and Methodists——. 'Stop,' said the Devil, 'that's enough; you imp, be nimble with that horse.—Let me see, commodore, what, part of the country did you say you came from?' I told him the name more ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... the alphabetical test to ascertain who it could be that knocked so furiously, for the blows were often repeated. So then, by the slow method of letter by letter, he made out the name "Jamblic," and then gave it up in despair, as he said it was a mischievous imp that was sporting with us; but the knocks still continued, and some one suggested that perhaps this strange name was foreign, and that his own language would please the incensed spirit better than English. Accordingly, he was addressed by the assembled circle severally ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... came to the bronco. The animal, without turning its head, knew that someone was coming up behind. Many a time a cowboy had tried to fool the savage horse that way, and leap into the saddle without being seen. But Imp, as the bronco was ...
— The Curlytops at Uncle Frank's Ranch • Howard R. Garis
... have known many men in my so long life, and disciples not a few. But to none among men, if so be thou art woman-born, has my heart gone out as it has to thee—thoughtful, wise, and courteous; but something of a small imp.' ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... fuliginous pipe holds the first place in my affections. The little rascal! And why don't you make that precocious imp write to me? Do I not stand to him in loco parentis? But, joking aside, he does not know and you can scarcely guess the full companionship of my pipe these days. As the grey smoke curls up about me in my abandonment, (for I never even read during this sacramental ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... you grinning little imp," he shouted, "or I'll thrash you so you can't sit down for a week. What call have you got to be giggling over the death of one ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... carefully-built life. It was his first meeting with the little demon that rebels in a man after he thinks his character and his reactions thoroughly established, and he shuddered as he realized how close the strange imp had pulled him to the precipice. Yesterday, that precipice had seemed a new paradise; now it was a yawning chasm—and he ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... charming theme which the good Cardinal Albani has thrown into the urn for me. I found it directly by the small pin which, according to his promise, he inserted in the paper. This cardinal is an agreeable imp, and I must give him a kiss for his complaisance. Besides, the Tasso rhyme will here ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... crackled, and a hot repast speedily rejoiced the jaded frames of the two priests and the imp Samdad. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... to thicken, and Elizabeth was questioned till she broke down sobbing once more, after declaring that Bob was the mischievousest young imp as ever lived, but she was very fond of him; and if it hadn't been for his wicked old tipsy mother, who was no better than a thief, there weren't a dearer, more lovable boy in ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... you little termagant you? Oh, you're a honey-cooler. What have you been doing now, Imp?" cried the old man, turning fiercely to Jacquelina. "Answer me, you little vixen!—what does all ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... "Married!" I laughed, some imp of willfulness seizing me, "I'm not married. What mockery to say that I am married simply because I must write madam before my name! I am not married, and I shall talk to whom ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... may be believed, no broom. All this I tell for what it may be worth to the credulity of them who hear; the facts be such as I have said. But whether believing it myself or not, yet knowing that that white cat, though it had been Margery Key in such guise, or her familiar imp on his way to join her at some revel whither she had ridden her broom, had done me good service, and, seeing the piteous smallness of the pile of sticks on the hearth, and reflecting upon the distressful bend of the old soul's ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... The flowers that fringed its side, where, by the fragrant breezes lull'd, As in a cradle-bed I lay, and all my woes were still'd. But changes will come over us, and now a stranger I Among the glades of Cluaran[38] must imp my wings and fly; Yet gratitude forbid complaint, although in foreign grove, Since welcome to my haunt I come, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... had taken in everything, down to the neat rag-carpet on the floor, the girl bethought her of her trunk. She might as well unpack it. Her head could not ache worse, whatever she did; and now that that little imp Curiosity was once awake, he prompted her to wonder what the trunk contained. None of the dresses she had been wearing, she was sure of that; for they were all hanging safely in her wardrobe at home. What surprise had mamma been planning? Well, she would ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... engaging work of foreign setting and motive. "The Island Nights' Entertainments" is as good in its way as the earlier "New Arabian Nights"—far superior to it, indeed, for finesse and the deft command of exotic material. Judged as art, "The Bottle Imp" and "The Beach of Falesa" are among the triumphs of ethnic interpretation, let alone their more external charms of story. And another masterpiece of foreign setting, "A Lodging for The Night," is further proof of Stevenson's ability to use other than Scotch ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... 252. As to the grotesques in mediaeval churches, the writer of this article, in visiting the town church of Wittenberg, noticed, just opposite the pulpit where Luther so often preached, a very spirited figure of an imp peering out upon the congregation. One can but suspect that this mediaeval survival frequently suggested Luther's favourite topic during his sermons. For Beza, see his Notes on the ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... "Oh! The imp? Nothin' that I can see. She's got it into her stubborn little head that she's had enough of us, and ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... Wynd had landed, the witch-queen's power over the Laidly Worm had gone, and she went back to her bower all alone, not an imp, nor a man-at-arms to help her, for she knew her hour was come. So when Childe Wynd came rushing up to the Laidly Worm it made no attempt to stop him or hurt him, but just as he was going to raise his sword to slay it, the voice of his own sister Margaret ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... to cut thee; a Lady traytor? Perish by a proud Puppet? I did you too much honour, To tender you my love, too much respected you To think you worthy of my worst embraces. Go take your Groom, and let him dally with you, Your greasie Groom; I scorn to imp your lame stock, You are not fair, nor handsome, I lyed loudly, This tongue abus'd you when it spoke ...
— The Little French Lawyer - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont
... Man pound (IMP), also known as the Manx pound note: the British pound is also legal tender, but change ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... gets in such a rage. I have to laugh. She teases him about it—the little imp. She offered to teach him to dance to-night. If he didn't love her so he'd ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... Greek god's, and that tongue with its roots in oil! And there was his deformity—that had drawn her pity. Playing with her, and she deliberately walked into the trap because he was amusing! Why shouldn't he be, knowing that he held their lives in the hollow of his hand? What imp of Satan wouldn't ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... something of one talk under the overhanging bushes of the shrubbery—I on the park side of the stone wall, and the lady of my worship a little inelegantly astride thereon. Inelegantly do I say? you should have seen the sweet imp as I remember her. Just her poise on the wall comes suddenly clear before me, and behind her the light various branches of the bushes of the shrubbery that my feet might not profane, and far away and high behind her, dim and stately, the cornice of the great facade of Bladesover ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... An imp touched Nana Sahib, and he said: "I'd swear there was Rajput blood in that girl. If I knew of some princess having been stolen I'd say she stood yonder. The eyes are simply ripping; baby eyes, that, when roused, assist in driving a knife under a man's fifth rib. I've seen a sambhur doe ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... "Isn't he an imp?" said Katharine, as she folded the letter. "He made up all that about Miss Bean, I know, for she didn't take any soup that day. I remember her ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... morning, after an early breakfast, I set off to explore the virgin forests of Aru, anxious to set my mind at rest as to the treasures they were likely to yield, and the probable success of my long-meditated expedition. A little native imp was our guide, seduced by the gift of a German knife, value three-halfpence, and my Macassar boy Baderoon brought his chopper to clear ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... Ridley, "to use a commonplace expression, which is, 'talk about the devil and his imp will appear,' we had just been wondering who the rider could be. One said that he was a preacher; another that he was a book agent. Old Aunt Barbara, the plantation nurse, said that he was a doctor coming to sell some of Godfrey's Cordial for the children. And I see I first discovered ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... That parboiled imp, with the hardest jaw you will see On virtue's path, and a voice that would rasp the dead, Came roaring and raging the minute she looked at me, And threw me out of the house on the ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... of talon or fang this imp of the alleys is worse: His speech is a poisonous slang—his phrases are coloured ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... see some silken beast long dally with a golden lizard ere she devour. More terrible, to see how feline Fate will sometimes dally with a human soul, and by a nameless magic make it repulse a sane despair with a hope which is but mad. Unwittingly I imp this cat-like thing, sporting with the heart of him who reads; for if he feel not he reads ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... simply a little nasty, scrofulous imp, with a cold in his head, one of the unsuccessful ones. But you have something you don't dare to say ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Instead of fracturing her skull with the pony, as Morgan had prophesied, she sat the sturdy, sure-footed, mischievous little brute as if she were part and parcel of himself. With an old water-proof cloak of mine on her shoulders, with a broad-flapped Spanish hat of Owen's on her head, with a wild imp of a Welsh boy following her as guide and groom on a bare-backed pony, and with one of the largest and ugliest cur-dogs in England (which she had picked up, lost and starved by the wayside) barking at her heels, she scoured the country in all directions, and came ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... scrivener shall copy Boethius and Troilus "trewe" and not write it "newe."[1] In copying, however, especially when it is mechanically done, it is almost as difficult to write "trewe" as it is to write "newe": the imp of the perverse makes his home at the elbow of the scribe, ever ready to profit by drowsiness or trifling inattention. But, as a rule, monkish scribes were exceedingly careful, and their work was invariably corrected by another hand. More than this: they endeavoured ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... where mony was hid, the places were generally hanted with terrible spirits, and strange Ghosts, that walked there, coming in frightfull apparitions: but since they have been driven out of our Country and Houses; there's another sort of Imp come in, ten times wickeder then any of the other; which regards nor cares neither for Crosses, Holy-water, Exorcisms, or any sort of Divel-drivers; but dares boldly shew himself at noon-day, namely a Plague-Divel, which sets Man an Wife together by the ears, to try who of ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... and Veitel understood him, and looked with a mixture of respect and aversion at the ugly little imp gesticulating before him. At last Hippus took out the brandy bottle, and cried, "An extra glass to-day. What I have just told you, you young gallows-bird, is worth more than ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... finished. That little wizard—his name is Impulse, you know—which led you to drop the quilt that you might begin the slippers, and the slippers that you might begin the chair-cushion, will soon tempt you to drop the handkerchief for something else. I wish I could catch the jolly little imp. I'd cane him smartly, and then I would lead him to Parson Resolution's church, and marry him to that sweet little fairy, Miss Perseverance, who is breaking her heart for the love of him. Were he once thus married, I think his bride would teach him to help you finish all the little gifts you have ...
— Jessie Carlton - The Story of a Girl who Fought with Little Impulse, the - Wizard, and Conquered Him • Francis Forrester
... oppressive and impressive effort of his genius. The character of De Flores in this play has in it a strangeness of iniquity, such as we think is hardly paralleled in the whole range of the Elizabethan drama. The passions of this brute imp are not human. They are such as might be conceived of as springing from the union of animal with fiendish impulses, in a nature which knew no law outside of its own lust, and was as incapable of a scruple ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... interval caused to be struck. The coin represented on the obverse a boy on a hobby-horse with whip in hand, and the year 1560 was inscribed in the centre, while the reverse represented the double eagle and armorial bearings of Austria, with the inscription, "Vivat Ferdinandus III., Rom. Imp. vivat!" ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... failings, instead of attending to your own. You are beholden to any lad in the school who will do your sums, and write your exercises for you, and then you take upon yourself to ridicule us if we cannot pronounce our well learnt lessons to your fancy! You saucy imp, who don't know what labour and good conduct are, and who have nothing to boast of, but the powers which a monkey possesses to a greater extent than yourself!" Fancy Joachim's rage! He, the admired wit! the popular boy! nothing better than a monkey! He sprang up and struck ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty
... I went directly to the pen, and gazed benevolently at the calf. The little imp was blacker, if possible, than its mother. There was that same peculiar look also in its eyes. 'You're all hers!' I joyfully cried, 'you are your mother's own child!' I seized hold of the neck-rope. I ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... avoided testing it. I want all my forces for a decisive battle. I never heard of such a masterful imp,' she continued, with much more exultation than anxiety, 'his sisters have no chance with him, he rules them like a young Turk. There's the pony! Sophy will let him have it as a right, and it is the work of my life to see that she is ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... son, had not one of his brother's characteristics; he had no gentle courtesies, no quiet ways. Except when asleep, he was never known to be still for a moment. One glance at his fiery head, at his comical face, would show plainly that he was a very imp of mischief. He was kind-hearted—he would not willingly injure the smallest living thing—but his wild, ungovernable spirit, his sense of the ludicrous in all and every circumstance, made him sometimes do unintentional harm, and ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... my good man," said Brush, turning imploringly to Dunning, "do relieve me from the clutches of this insatiate imp of hell. Let him shoot me, if he will; but don't leave me to be worried, and trod into the mud and splosh, like a dog, by the revengeful young savage. It is more than flesh ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... gentleman of a particularly inquisitive nature, but who, professing some knowledge of medical craft, was really of some use in this instance, as there was no regular ship surgeon on board; and, secondly, young Master Negus, a "born imp of mischief," whose acquaintance will be further improved as the voyage proceeds; while, Llewellyn, the steward, summoned courage at last to descend the companion, in company with his wife the stewardess, who had been forward to the cook's galley in search ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... at it vaguely. So delicate are the oscillations of the imaginative imp, that it is hard to say just where he swings his slaves into determined self-delusion. If you had shaken Caroline severely and demanded of her in the character of an impatient adult the name of her castle, she would undoubtedly have informed you that it was Graystone ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... afresh; and all the calamities, real and imaginary, that had afflicted "Solitude" from a period so remote that "the memory of man runneth not to the contrary," were laid upon the galled shoulders of some red-liveried, sulphur-scented Imp of Abaddon, whose peculiar mission was to haunt the "piratical nest;" and, in lieu of human victims, to addle the eggs, blast the grape crop, and make night hideous with spectral ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... for a tail! Look at me, look at me!"—and he capers about in his best style. Again, he would seem to tease you and provoke your attention; then suddenly assumes a tone of good-natured, childlike defiance and derision. That pretty little imp, the chipmunk, will sit on the stone above his den and defy you, as plainly as if he said so, to catch him before he can get into his hole if you can. You hurl a stone at him, and "No you didn't!" comes up from ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... me, they yelled an' run, but Pomp wuz out ahoein' A leetle patch o' corn he hed, or else there aint no knowin' He wouldn't ha' took a pop at me; but I hed gut the start, An' wen he looked, I vow he groaned ez though he'd broke his heart; He done it like a wite man, tu, ez nat'ral ez a pictur, The imp'dunt, pis'nous hypocrite! wus 'an a boy constrictur. 'You can't gum me, I tell ye now, an' so you needn't try, I 'xpect my eye-teeth every mail, so jest shet up,' sez I. 'Don't go to actin' ugly ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... lour ley de saint eglise: et semblablement ils sont obliges de conustre nostre ley. Et, Sir, si poit apperer or a nous que Pevesque ad fait come un ordinary fera en tiel cas, adong nous devons ceo adju-ger bon,ou auterment nemy,' &c. See S. C. Fitzh.Abr. Qu. imp. 89. Bro. Abr. Qu. imp. 12. Finch in his first book, c. 3. is the first afterwards who quotes this case, and mistakes it thus. 'To such laws of the church as have warrant in holy scripture, our law giveth credence.' And cites Prisot; mistranslating 'ancien scripture' into 'holy scripture.' ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... speechless. Raising himself in a more erect position, he only managed to say: "Jess, don't tell me that uniform is gone. Don't! Go dig your grave, nigger, for if you black imp of Satan has gone to sleep and let some scoundrel steal my clothes, ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... had earned a sou by carrying a bit of a letter, and telling one or two little lies. As the steps came nearer, a kind of moaning and sobbing was heard, and the old woman, muttering to herself—"It is the voice of Marie. What has the devil's imp been doing to her?"—hobbled as fast as she could to the turning that led to the sea, and just as the flying figure appeared, put out her skinny hand to arrest it. There was a sudden scream, a fall, and Marie lay in the road, like ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... Academy of Arts; late Lecturer on Anatomy at the Government School of Design, South Kensington; Professor of Surgery in University College. Illustrated by 220 Original Drawings on Wood by J. S. Cuthbert, engraved by George Nicholls & Co. Second Edition. Imp. 8vo. 31s. 6d. ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... mouth, you imp of Satan!" cried the exasperated man. "Not a word, you scamp. You've done for yourself now, and everybody knew you'd come to it, sooner ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... the Devil straight appeared All black and ugly, and he had the form Of one accursed. The Prince of death began, 1170 The limping imp of hell, with wicked heart To accuse the holy man; this word he spake:— "A certain prince is come into your town, A stranger journeying from a distant land; Andrew I heard him called. He worked you scath But lately, when he led a company Great beyond measure from your prison strong; And now these ...
— Andreas: The Legend of St. Andrew • Unknown
... shouted Monsieur Joseph, very angry. "Go to bed this instant, little imp, or I shall come upstairs with a birch rod. You will gain nothing by your dishonourable listening. I shall send you to Mademoiselle Moineau to-morrow, to ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... straight through people—he had my secret at his tongue's end; and he warned me to be very cautious and not to tell any one the truth concerning the diamonds. In spite of this, one evening, when some imp possessed me, I told Sybil Lamotte; I shall never forget her strange manner, nor her wild words. Clifford, that awful mistake of mine almost made ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... Another family was afflicted in a different manner, two of its number pining away and losing strength daily, as if a prey to some consuming disease. In a third, another child was sick, and vomited pins, nails, and other extraordinary substances. A fourth household was tormented by an imp in the form of a monkey, who came at night and pinched them all black and blue, spilt the milk, broke the dishes and platters, got under the bed, and, raising it to the roof, let it fall with a terrible crash; putting them all in mental terror. In the next cottage there ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... saw the dirty imp, who had been so wildly entertained by the encounter on the ice, still huddled on his drift-wood observatory, presenting as little surface to the cold as possible, but grinning still with rapture at the spirited last act of the winter-long ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... verle se ha fijado en l creyendo descubrir, bajo el tizne, un rostro conocido.) Aguarde un momento, buen amigo. (Len se detiene, rgido, parado 950 en firme. Cesreo le contempla fijamente. Len, impvido, afronta su mirada.) ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... take care of that; give yourself no uneasiness. All I want is just a look at her, to see what the imp is like that has been able to make all this noise, then you and the halter may have her. How ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... El progreso de Filipinas. Estudios economicos, administrativos y politicos. Parte economica. Madrid, Imp. de la Vda. de J ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal
... the women of the neighbourhood, seeing that the proper midwife was dead, as mentioned above; and before long something shot to the ground from under her; and when the women stooped down to pick it up, the devil's imp, which had wings like a bat, flew up off the ground, whizzed and buzzed about the room, and then shot out of the window with a great noise, so that the glass clattered down into the street. When they looked ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... Maude, looking up in surprise, "would you say the Lady Custance is troth-plight unto this imp?" ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... end, a shrewd conjecture went abroad that he was none other than some malicious imp of darkness let loose upon their frolics, to disquiet and perplex their commemoration of the Blessed Nativity. Yet was it an unusual occurrence upon Yule night, when these disturbers were supposed to be prevented from walking the earth, being confined for a space ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... quarters at the Rheinischer Hof, a right comfortable hotel on the St. Johann side of the Saar, where most of the Hohenzollern officers frequented the table d'hote and where quaint little Max, the drollest imp of a waiter imaginable, and pretty Frauelein Sophie the landlord's niece, did all that in them lay to contribute to the pleasantness and comfort of the house. Not a few pleasant evenings did I spend at the table of the ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... meritorious deed, Hath each his several degree assign'd. In early times with their own innocence More was not wanting, than the parents' faith, To save them: those first ages past, behoov'd That circumcision in the males should imp The flight of innocent wings: but since the day Of grace hath come, without baptismal rites In Christ accomplish'd, innocence herself Must linger yet below. Now raise thy view Unto the visage most resembling Christ: For, in her splendour only, shalt thou win ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... gushed through the narrow crevices roaring seaward. But the Devil had one sorrow. All his children born before the catastrophe were crabbed, unregenerate, stiff-tailed fiends. After that event every new-born imp wore a flaccid, invertebrate, despondent tail—the very last insignium of ignobility. So runs the legend of The Dalles—a shining ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... enjoyed again our tea-supper, and skylarked afterwards till it was time to 'turn in,' which we managed to do now more comfortably as well as expeditiously than on the night before; while, I may add, my dreams happily were not disturbed by any storms and thunder-claps of that imp Larrikins' contrivance. ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... wheels." admitted Nick modestly. "But you needn't throw it in my teeth. I suppose you are going to make your fortune soon and retire—you and Daisy and the imp—to a respectable suburb. You're a ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... superstitious; I am sure it was an imp," Miss Sherwood said. "An imp or a very large chameleon; she was exactly the color ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... should be up to your mischievous tricks in this room? But whether you like it or not, I'll drag you out from this, and give you to some mean fellow, and we'll see whether you will still behave like a very imp, and cajole ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... The mink is a midnight assassin, who loves slaughter for the joy of murder. The wolverine, the marten, mink and weasel are all courageous, savage and merciless. To the wolverine Western trappers accord the evil distinction of being a veritable imp of darkness on four legs. To them he is the arch-fiend, beyond which animal cunning and depravity cannot go. Excepting the profane history of the pickings and stealings of this "mountain devil" as recorded by suffering trappers, I know little of it; but if its ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... with horny eyes was there— With horny eyes just like the dead, While fish-bones grew instead of hair Upon his bald and skinless head. Last came an imp—how unlike the rest,— A lovely-looking female form, And while with a whisper his cheek she press'd, Her lips felt downy, soft, and warm; As over his shoulder she bent, the light Of her brilliant eyes upon his page Soon ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... boyishly. "Good for me! You'd jolly soon floor me if you didn't. Look at that parroquet, I say! He flashes like an emerald, and see that imp of a monkey! He's actually daring to rebuke us for trespassing. I call this road a disgrace to the State, don't you? If I were the Rajah—by the way, the ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... meadow below the mountain clearings. A walnut tree shaded it, Thunder Run leaped by in cascades, on either side the footpath Allan had planted larkspur and marigolds. Here, on a May morning, he rang the bell, then waited patiently until the last free-born imp elected to leave the delights of a minnow-filled pool, a newly discovered redbird's nest, and a blockhouse in process of construction against imaginary Indians. At last all were seated upon the rude benches in the dusky room,—small tow-headed Jacks ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... said Martin, cheerfully. "I hope you're right. It would be worth something to have that young imp locked up. He wouldn't put on so many ...
— Rufus and Rose - The Fortunes of Rough and Ready • Horatio Alger, Jr
... outside when she turned back to say that Augustine was at the end of the street, sliding on the ice with some urchins. The squint-eyed imp rushed in all red-faced and out of breath with snow all in her hair. She didn't mind the scolding she received, merely saying that she hadn't been able to walk fast because of the ice and then some ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... running about that I hate to destroy. The other day when I was going over to Nice to try my luck with the Flying Fish for the first time, I'm ashamed to say I chucked that little red-eyed, grinning imp five francs ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... in he walks, for all the world as if the show belonged to him, with a young imp of a girl on his arm, and down they sits at one of ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... farmers could scarcely believe their ears, so much was I, a four-year-old child, their superior in learning. Some of them were not certain that I was not an imp of Satan, so utterly did my performance exceed credibility. My beauty too at this age was uncommon; my limbs were straight and strong, my cheeks of the purest red and white, and my full flaxen hair hung in short ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... visit to rue. I hope you've not listened to enemies' strictures, They've warned you, perhaps, against letting me pass, I shan't soil your ceiling, I shan't spoil your pictures, Or make nasty smells like that dirty imp, Gas! You're prejudiced clearly, and that is a pity, Why, bless you, I'm spreading all over the place! My spark is pervading the whole of the City; The dingy old Gas-flame must soon hide its face. I'm brilliant, and clean, and delightfully larky; ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 29, 1891 • Various
... considers or follows the ideas of his copy makes a poor compositor. He would set up deliberately long diatribes against himself, composed by his fellow-printers, and hung on his hook as copy, and even such short sentences as "Wan Lee is the devil's own imp," "Wan Lee is a Mongolian rascal," and bring the proof to me with happiness beaming from every tooth, and satisfaction shining in his ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... he, nor imp of sin, No crimes he'd ever known. They took the shaggy stranger in, And rear'd ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... in the unseen universe an evil spirit, an imp of malice and mischief, not Milton's Satan, but ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... opened the coin of the realm bore for its legend,—or might have borne if the more devout hero-worshippers could have had their way,—Andreas Jackson, Populi Gratia, Imp. Caesar. Aug. Div., Max., etc., etc. I never happened to see any gold or silver with that legend, but the truth is I was not very familiarly acquainted with the precious metals at that period of my career, and, there might have been a good deal of such ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... a beautiful opening for Hapley. He turned to fiction—and found it had no grip on him. He read the "Island Nights' Entertainments" until his "sense of causation" was shocked beyond endurance by the Bottle Imp. Then he went to Kipling, and found he "proved nothing," besides being irreverent and vulgar. These scientific people have their limitations. Then unhappily, he tried Besant's "Inner House," and the opening ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... Ditto (ditto). Solanum Annabom (ditto). Solanum Congo (ditto). Schwenckia Americana, L. Ditto. Scoparia dulcis, L. Congo (not laid in). Spathodea laevis (?) Dahome. Sesamum Indicum, var. Ditto. Plumbago Zeylanica, L. Congo (ditto.) Clerodendron multiflorum (?), Don. Ditto, imp., Ditto. Clerodendron sp. Congo. Lippia sp. Ditto. Lippia an L. Adoensis? Ditto. Stachytarphita Jamaicensis, V. Dahome. Celosia trigyna (?), L. Congo. Erua lanata Ditto (ditto). Pupalia lappacea, Moq. Annabom. Achyranthes involucrata, Moq. Dahome. Achyranthes argentea (?), Lam. ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... are!" shouted Bob. "Get out of here, you imp!" And he struck something with a stick that was handy. There was a wild chattering and off into the darkness ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... hollow-sounding drums. Round and round danced the wildly-gesticulating imp-like crowds. They yelped and howled like dogs. They brandished tomahawks and spears, all the time working themselves into a frenzy. It more resembled an orgie of fiends than of ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... said!" sturdily persisted Rob. "'Tis well known that the King never looked at him the first time he was shown the little imp, and next time, when he was not so distraught, he lifted up his hands and said he wotted nought of the matter. Hap what hap, King Harry may roam from Church to shrine, from Abbey to chantry, so long as he lists, but none of ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... masquerading as men and women ... and Boltt, who took himself very seriously indeed, had written a letter of complaint to the editor of the paper. Henry wondered what Boltt would say if he knew that the review had been written by him, and an imp in him made him interrupt the long recital ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... failure; he stood for nothing in the world of achievement; for all the difference that his going made, he might never have been born. Then a thought as startling as the tangible appearance of some ironic, grinning imp flashed to his mind. Who was he, Bruce Burt, to criticise his partner, Slim? What more had he accomplished? How much more difference would his own death make in anybody's life? His mother's labored words came back with painful distinctness: "I've had such hopes for you, my ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... so it's you, 'Joannes Frollo de Molendino!'" cried one of them, to a sort of little, light-haired imp, with a well-favored and malign countenance, clinging to the acanthus leaves of a capital; "you are well named John of the Mill, for your two arms and your two legs have the air of four wings fluttering on the breeze. How long have ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... The business of brewing storms may do For a Witch, my GRANDOLPH, but scarce for you, And the Petrel-part, played early and late, Must spoil a man for a Pilot of State. The knowing Nautilus sets her sails In a way to weather the roughest gales; But an egg for bark, with an imp for crew, To navigate Politics' boundless blue, Looks crank and queer; Drifting comes dear— It may pay for a day, but scarce for a year. A Puck-like sprite it may please to see "All things befall preposterously." But pure perversity ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 12, 1890 • Various
... Did'st thou notice how that young imp of a page flouted thee, when thou did'st civilly inquire the hour of the day? Thou wert welcome as a wet Sunday to his new feather. I doubt whether I myself will ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... I'll pay un!—I'll pay all as my son owes un! Marcy me! where's my pooss?" And so on raged the Babel, till we got the two poor fellows safe out of the house. We had to break open the door to do it, thanks to that imp of Israel. ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... breeds of the pig, and in the larger breeds of the ox, than in other breeds of these two animals. And now we know, on the excellent authority of Hermann von Nathusius (3/90. A translation of his paper is given in 'Bull. Soc. Imp. d'Acclimat.' tome 9 1862 page 723.), that Merino and Southdown sheep, when both have long been kept under exactly the same conditions, differ in their average period of gestation, as is ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... murder! Madness and misconception! Any one of the subjects—not the whole. Oh, blessed star of early morning, what do you think I am made of, that I should, on the part of any man, prefer such a pig-headed, calf-eyed, donkey-eared, imp-hoofed request! ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... who have just returned from the lake there were six others in the camp at Sunrise Hill, their guardian, Miss McMurtry and one small imp or angel, according to one's way of looking at things. For Margaret Everett had joined the summer campers and, in order to accomplish it, had brought her small brother, Horace Virgil Everett, along ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook
... north side, I obtained a fine view of the modern improvements which have been constructed upon this Indian mound. I rode up a paved carriage-way into the church-yard that now occupies the top, and giving my horse to a squalid Indian imp who came out of the vestry, I went in and took a survey of the tawdry images through which God is now worshiped by the baptized descendants of the builders of this mound. My curiosity was soon gratified, and I returned to my place ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... authenticity of which is not so universally allowed. The second Apology of Justin contains some curious particulars relative to the accusations of Christians. * Note: Professor Hegelmayer has proved the authenticity of the edict of Antoninus, in his Comm. Hist. Theol. in Edict. Imp. Antonini. Tubing. 1777, in 4to.—G. ——Neander doubts its authenticity, (vol. i. p. 152.) In my opinion, the internal ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... woe is me, alas! and, what can I Save my irrational desire lament? Which makes me soar a pitch so passing high, I reach a region, where my plumes are brent; Then, unsustained, fall headlong from the sky; Nor ends my woe; on other flight intent, Again I imp my wings, again I soar; To flame and fall, ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... severe shakes. "Let me catch you sleeping in your watch again, and I'll send you to the cross-trees for four hours on a stretch. I knew I had got a hard bargain when your uncle shoved you upon me, you sneaking, sanctimonious-looking imp of Satan! But mind how you carry your helm, or you will have cause to curse the day when you shipped on board ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... With antic toys so funnily bestuck, Light as the singing bird that wings the air— (The door! the door! he'll tumble down the stair!) Thou darling of thy sire! (Why Jane, he'll set his pinafore on fire) Thou imp of mirth and joy, In Love's dear chain so strong and bright a link, Thou idol of thy parents—(drat the boy! There ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... her to destruction at last. I tell you, sir, we are a pack of cowards hunting down an angel. You and I and that pretty imp of satan. I came to tell you this: bad as I am, her goodness has touched me with human feelings. If she is here and alive, justice shall be done her, and for once the truth shall be spoken under this roof. That woman has bribed me to shield another through ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... he said, under his breath. "Now for the heiress and the million of money. By Jove! it's better to be born lucky than rich. I shall need an accomplice in this affair, and that imp of Satan, Halloran, is just the one to help me out with my scheme. It's lucky I have an appointment with him to-night. I shall be sure to catch him. I think it was a stroke of fate that I wasn't in the cast for the rest of the week, though ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... wrote our exile. "They've got my funny little monkey mug in the movies. Five per and steady work. The director likes me and says he will give me a real chance one of these days. But, as the Dominie would say, this is a hell of a place. [Graceless imp!] I would not say it myself, because I am a perfect lady. You have to be, out here. That reminds me: I have cut out the Mayme. Every fresh little frizzle in the colony with a false front and a pneumatic figure calls herself Mayme or Daisye or ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... just been appointed Curator of Autographs at the Bibliothque Impriale at Paris, with VRAIN LUCAS as his ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... of the soul, Edgar Allan Poe, found among the springs of human nature the quality of perverseness, the disposition to do wrong because it is wrong; in reality, however, Poe's Imp of the Perverse is active far beyond the boundaries of the human soul; his disturbances pervade the whole world, and nowhere are they more noticeable than in the printing office. This is so because elsewhere, when things fall ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... Alexandria, were scarcely more pleased than was Sigismondo with the acquisition of this Father of the Neopagan faith. Upon the tomb we still may read this legend: 'Jemisthii Bizantii philosopher sua temp principis reliquum Sig. Pan. Mal. Pan. F. belli Pelop adversus Turcor regem Imp ob ingentem eruditorum quo flagrat amorem huc afferendum introque mittendum curavit MCCCCLXVI.' Of the Latinity of the inscription much cannot be said; but it means that 'Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... the sky With one eye open, one shut. Hark, ring of the drill 'neath the plain! Wakea asks you to explain, 40 What imp is a-drilling below? It is I, mutters Pele: I drilled till flame shot forth on Lanai, A pit ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... say, or it'll be the worse for you," growled Mr. Harris savagely. "I'm goin' to fin' them kids an' that rascally imp o' a dwarf wherever they are, an' you're goin' to help me. They come this way, right enough—there's no mistake about that—an' where else would they be but here? There's not another spot they could shelter for ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... pistols terminating the scenes with which the elf had disturbed the good cure, made him believe that this tormenting imp was no other than a certain bad parishioner, whom the cure had been obliged to send away from his parish, and who to revenge himself had done all that we have related. If that be the case, he had rendered himself ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... a word in reply, Master Freddy changed suddenly from a darling boy to a detestable imp. "I say, Mr. Sax!" he called out, "Miss Morris doesn't mind you a bit—she only ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... the idea of truth even when he mistook falsehood for it. In the Terror he said there was no God, because he believed there was none, but he never said that France was God so that he might encourage her to conquer the world. Voltaire was an imp of destruction perhaps, but with what a divine lightning of laughter would he have struck the Teutonic Antichrist, and how the everlasting soul of France would have risen in him if he could have seen ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... that the two girls looked at me very sharply, but I stood at the back of an arm-chair so that no one could see my feet. But that little imp Tizzy walked round deliberately, looked at my heels, and then walked back again. It was clear that she was in ...
— The O'Conors of Castle Conor from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... Don't beat him too often, even if you can. You'll need to stand in with him, I tell you, Master, for he's got a son that may brew trouble for you when he starts in to go to school. Seth Tracy's a young imp, and he'd far sooner be in mischief than eat. He tries to run on every new teacher and he's run two clean out of the school. But he met his match in Mr. West. William Tracy's boys now—you won't have a scrap of bother with THEM. They're always good because their mother tells them every Sunday that ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... furtive mischief bent. The while the master's downward look Was fastened on a copy-book; When suddenly, behind his back, Rose sharp and clear a rousing smack! As 'twere a battery of bliss Let off in one tremendous kiss! "What's that?" the startled master cries; "That, thir," a little imp replies, "Wath William Willith, if you pleathe—— I thaw him kith Thuthanna Peathe!" With frown to make a statue thrill, The master thundered, "Hither, Will!" Like wretch o'ertaken in his track, With stolen chattels on his back, Will hung his head in fear and shame, ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... art could reproduce, no stage manager prodigal of expense. If on earth there ever was a hell, that tiny frontier room with the smoke-blackened ceiling and the single kerosene lamp sputtering on the wall, was the place. Not an imp thereof, but Satan himself, stood in the misshapen boots of Cowman Pete; doubly vicious in the aftermath of a debauch, Pete with the lust of blood in his veins. And against him, scant hope to those who watched, was a man; tall, but not heavy, ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... Presently another imp seized Scraps and began to throw her about, in the same way. They found her a little heavier than the Scarecrow but still light enough to be tossed like a sofa-cushion, and they were enjoying the sport immensely when Dorothy, ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... however, Ferdinand sufficiently rallied to recover his reputation with the keeper, who, from his first observation, began to wink his eye to his son, an attendant bush-beater, and occasionally even thrust his tongue inside his cheek, a significant gesture perfectly understood by the imp. 'For the life of me, Sam,' he afterwards profoundly observed, 'I couldn't make out this here Captain by no manner of means whatsomever. At first I thought as how he was going to put the muzzle to his shoulder. Hang me if ever I see ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... But the imp was silenced by the appearance of Macleod himself. He looked tall as he came through the small drawing-room. When he came out onto the balcony the languid air of the place seemed to acquire a fresh and brisk vitality: he had a bright smile and a ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... and pretended to glare at him. "You young rascal, what do you mean by bothering me like that? Act like that, you young imp, and you'll never grow up to be ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... improved by the blue-bag, and his expression was that of a hunted animal. The butler, in high dudgeon, had retired to his own apartment, where he had locked and barred the door in order to prevent any pranks of that imp, as he privately styled Irene. The other servants were tremblingly attending to their duties; but all smelled mischief in ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... be washed, Jack," she shouted. "Come back, you young imp; for if your father comes home and finds you like that, he'll let us hear ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Why, the first great Secessionist would doubtless have preferred to divide Heaven peaceably, would have been willing to send Commissioners, must have thought Michael's proceedings injudicious, and could probably even now demonstrate the illegality of hell-fire to any five-year-old imp of average education and intelligence. What a fine world we should have, if we could only come quietly together in convention, and declare by unanimous resolution, or even by a two-thirds' vote, that edge-tools should hereafter cut everybody's fingers but his that ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... of an imp are you anyway, that you can only come in through the window?" said Frau von Eschenhagen indignantly. ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... conustre nostre ley. Et, Sir, si poit apperer or a nous que Pevesque ad fait come un ordinary fera en tiel cas, adong nous devons ceo adju-ger bon,ou auterment nemy,' &c. See S. C. Fitzh.Abr. Qu. imp. 89. Bro. Abr. Qu. imp. 12. Finch in his first book, c. 3. is the first afterwards who quotes this case, and mistakes it thus. 'To such laws of the church as have warrant in holy scripture, our law giveth credence.' ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... not alone; a swarthy two-year-old bantling clasps her neck with one arm, its naked body half extant from the coarse blanket which, drawn round her shoulders, is secured at her bosom by a skewer. Though tender of age, it looks wicked and sly, like a veritable imp of Roma. Huge rings of false gold dangle from wide slits in the lobes of her ears; her nether garments are rags, and her feet are cased in hempen sandals. Such is the wandering Gitana, such is the witch- wife of Multan, who has come to spae ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... to wonder, as I contemplated in my mind's eye this little wicked Cupid sitting on my bed, whether he went and sat in like manner on Dolores', and if he did, what the little imp of ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... commodore? So I told him, general, that we had Baptists, and Quakers, and Universalists, and Episcopalians, and Presbyterians, old-lights, new- lights, and blue-lights; and Methodists——. 'Stop,' said the Devil, 'that's enough; you imp, be nimble with that horse.—Let me see, commodore, what, part of the country did you say you came from?' I told him the ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... yet remoter Than a star—a blue-eyed, bashful imp: On her lap she held a happy bloater, 'Twixt her lips ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... assassin, who loves slaughter for the joy of murder. The wolverine, the marten, mink and weasel are all courageous, savage and merciless. To the wolverine Western trappers accord the evil distinction of being a veritable imp of darkness on four legs. To them he is the arch-fiend, beyond which animal cunning and depravity cannot go. Excepting the profane history of the pickings and stealings of this "mountain devil" as recorded by suffering trappers, I know little of it; but if its instincts are not supremely ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... A gangrel imp that Satan flayed, Shrieks deeds of sin that man-wrecks wrought Ere gyving Death each culprit smote; Where straggling moonbeams cleft a dome, A Prince in splendor stands arrayed And rants his spleen unto a ghaut, Where mongrel whelps ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... here and there. The points of interest here are the machinery, the negroes, and the work. Entering the sugar-house, we find the maquinista (engineer) superintending some repairs in the machinery, aided by another white man, a Cooly, and an imp of a black boy, who begged of all the party, and revenged himself with clever impertinence on those who refused him. The maquinista was a fine-looking man, from the Pyrenees, very kind and obliging. He told us that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... to turn him suddenly from a clever, scatterbrained imp of mischief into a serious student. It happened that the whole school met on an equality in one subject—Scripture History. The head of that class, therefore, enjoyed a peculiar prestige among his fellows, ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... water,—all the sustenance drawn from the teeming bosom of Nature,—all the progress of countless civilisations in ever recurring and repeated processional order,— all the sciences old and new,—are solely to nourish, support, instruct, entertain and furnish food and employment for the tiny two-legged imp of Chance, spawned (as he himself asserts) ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... eyes. Into this house many comely Abigails had come and gone; but Babet Blais remained in spite of him, having, as she deemed, acquired a wife's settlement and privileges, by virtue of the presence of a dwarfish, swarthy creature, half oaf, half imp, their mutual offspring. This strange being, as if in mockery, for he was ugly from the womb, was named Narcisse, and flitted about the house rather than made it his home; rarely entering it, except in his father's absence, and then chiefly to obtain largess from his ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... too, some day. But she was awful then. When I wouldn't listen to her complaints she would say: 'All right, sister, I would just as soon go clothed in rain and wind.' And such a bag of bones, too, like the picture of a devil's imp. Ah, my dear young Monsieur, you don't know how wicked her heart is. You aren't bad enough for that yourself. I don't believe you are evil at all in your innocent little heart. I never heard you jeer at holy things. You are only thoughtless. For instance, I have never ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... amusing and audacious, though we cannot say that we entirely approve of the names he gives to his stories. Bootle's Baby was a masterpiece, but Houp-la was a terrible title, and That Imp is not much better. The book, however, is undoubtedly clever, and the Imp in question is not a Nyctalops nor a specimen for a travelling museum, but a very pretty girl who, because an officer has ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... here, came clumsily down from heaven to talk sophistry with the cardinal Virtues, the nine Muses, and the seven deadly sins, all present in human shape, and not unlike one another. To enliven which weary stuff in rattled the Prince of the power of the air, and an imp that kept molesting him and buffeting him with a bladder, at each thwack of which the crowd were in ecstasies. When the Vices had uttered good store of obscenity and the Virtues twaddle, the celestials, including the nine Muses went gingerly back to heaven one by ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... proceeded far, when on a sudden there alighted on the head of his steed, right between the ears, one of the most extraordinary creatures he had ever seen. It was a little imp, about three feet high, exactly resembling one of those scarecrows we sometimes see in corn-fields, except that it was a great deal more outre in its form and dimensions. It wore an immense hat, of the shape of a cullender, and with almost ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... pleasure, wealth, or power the bosom warm; This baffled hope might tame thy manhood's rage, And disappointment of her sting disarm. But why should foresight thy fond heart alarm? Perish the lore that deadens young desire! Pursue, poor imp, the imaginary charm, Indulge gay hope, and fancy's pleasing fire: Fancy and hope too soon shall of ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... same, you young imp, if you'd had the chance," answered the pie-vender, with more truth than gratitude. "Clear out, the whole on ye. I've had trouble ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... the skipper, rubbing his nose with an air of rueful surprise. "No honor among thieves, Jack. I thought him loyal to Blackbeard. I have considered attempting something of my own when the weather permits but this news quickens me. This young imp o' Satan that ye call Joe,—he will side with us in ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... thy body in his presence? Tell me, O my soul, what imp possessed thee?" pleaded Asad in his most seductive tone. His curiosity was real, and very great. "All demand to know. That old ghoul vows he caught thee begging money of thy former patron—the Emir, we used to call him, who is no more an ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... small way, played a part in the Probationer's life, such as occasionally scrubbing porches or borrowing a half dollar or being suspected of stealing the eggs from the henhouse. But that Johnny Fraser had been a wicked, smiling imp, much given to ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... in the shape of Mr. Purt,[3] (By this time all the parish know it,) Had told that thereabouts there lurked A wicked imp they call a poet: Who prowled the country far and near, Bewitched the children of the peasants, Dried up the cows and lamed the deer, And sucked the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... if I were to tell how quickly the baby prince got rid of his ailments, and grew fat, and rosy, and strong, and how he had two rows of ivory teeth in less time than any other little fellow, before or since. Instead of the palest, and wretchedest, and puniest imp in the world (as his own mother confessed him to be when Ceres first took him in charge), he was now a strapping baby, crowing, laughing, kicking up his heels, and rolling from one end of the room to the other. All the good women of the neighbourhood crowded to the palace, and held ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... look stunning, Hal," was her jovial uncle's warm greeting. "Who'd ever have thought, to see the ugly little imp of a small child you were, that you would grow up into a fashionable, striking woman? I congratulate you. When's the happy man ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... uttered scream after scream, for the head continued coolly to stare at her, as if fixed alive over the gateway by the craft of some cave-dwelling imp of the ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... heading across the Valley to the Grapevine Range, and the hateful imp of evil which had dogged him through the Panamints would have to come down and leave a trail. And once he found his tracks Wunpost would know who he was fighting, and he could govern himself accordingly. If it was an Indian, well and good; if it ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... Inquisition's" rules, Stopt, when the evening came, for want of light. The devils, who below from morn till night, Well pleased, had seen his work, exclaimed with sorrow, "Something he will forget before to-morrow!" One zealous imp flew upward from the place, And stood before him, with an angel face. "I come," said he, "sent from God's Realm of Peace, To light you, lest your holy labors cease." Well pleased, the saint wrote on with careful pen. The candle was consumed; the devil then Lighted his thumb; the saint, ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... been atrocious scenes, based on his jealousies of her, which some imp in her would lead her to provoke, notwithstanding that even as she spoke she regretted, and reached back ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... scouts of Temple Camp showed that their wonted disregard of Skinny was only because they did not understand him, queer little imp that he was. For cheer after cheer arose as he stood there in a kind of ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Small imp of blackness, off at once, Expend thy mirth as likes thee best: Thy toil is over for the nonce; Yes, "opus operatum est." When dreary authors vex thee sore, Thy Mentor's old, and would remind thee That if thy griefs are all before, ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... Brother Rabbit. "Turn me loose, imp of Satan! If you do not, I will rap you on the eye with my ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... himself, in the effect his words now had. For a moment he feared all the men were going to rise up against him as Jude had done. A silence fell upon the group. Filmer gave one keen glance at the imp on the doorstep, and then refilled his pipe and leaned back in his ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... infant,' she retorted, tapping her nose again, screwing up her face, and twinkling her eyes like an imp of supernatural intelligence. 'Never YOU mind! You'd like to know whether I stop her hair from falling off, or dye it, or touch up her complexion, or improve her eyebrows, wouldn't you? And so you shall, my darling—when I tell you! Do you know what ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... ones first, and bigger and bigger girls behind—an ascending scale of size, so that he had the illusion of seeing a girl grow up under his eyes, change in a minute instead of in years from the small sexless imp that is like an amusing toy, to the full-breasted creature that is so nearly a woman as to be dangerous to ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... yarn. It was too bad that there was no painter at hand to transfer to canvas so lovely a picture as this girl in her white frock made, sitting by the firelight in this mellow old room, playing with a white imp of a kitten. It would have made an ideal study ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... Momay hot springs, (vol. ii., chap. xxii).—When the bottle was uncorked, a strong smell of sulphuretted hydrogen was perceived. The water contains about twenty-five grains per imp. gallon, of chloride of sodium, sulphate and carbonate of soda; the reaction being strongly alkaline when the ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... 'Turn a Handle—Ten Housemaids who Never Flirt.' You must have seen the advertisements. Well, whatever these machines are, they are making pots of money; and they are making it all for that little imp whom I knew down in Ludbury. I can't help feeling pleased the poor little chap has fallen on his feet; but the plain fact is, I'm in terror of his turning up any minute and telling me he's carved his way in the world—as he ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... Mrs. Maggot; Mrs. Peace and Sue Thompson are the slaves of Peace. Sheppard loves to stroll openly about the London streets in his fine suit of black, his ruffled shirt and his silver-hilted sword. Peace lies concealed at Peckham beneath the homely disguise of old Mr. Thompson. Sheppard is an imp, Peace a goblin. But both have that gift of personality which, in their own peculiar line, lifts them out from the ruck, and makes them Jack and Charley to those who like to know famous ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... eyes smarted in his head like coals of fire and his skin felt as though it had been sand-papered, when he would have sold his soul for a bath and actually began to get his things together in readiness for the next wagon out, it was Pat, who, with the devilish ingenuity of an Irish imp, mocked and jeered at him for a quitter, "fit to act only as lady's maid or to serve soft dhrinks in a corner drug-sthore," until his fainting heart took fire and, cursing his tormentor with all the oaths he could muster, he offered to whip, single-handed, ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... all about you— How I bringed you up—poor Joe! (Lackin' women folks to do it) Sich a imp you was, you know— Till you got that awful tumble, Jist as I had broke yer in (Hard work, too), to earn your livin' ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... feci. Advena fuisti ex transalpinis partibus, principem constitui. Quod meum jure fuit, tibi dedi.' See Ottonis Episcopi Frisingensis Chronicon, De Rebus Gestis Frid. i. Imp. Lib. ii. cap. 21. Basileae, 1569. The Legates appointed by the Senate met the Emperor at Sutri, and delivered the oration of which the sentence just quoted was part. It began: 'Urbis legati nos, rex optime, ad tuam a Senatu, populoque Romano destinati sumus excellentiam,' ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... three men went home in the dusk they talked of the day. Lewis had been in a bad humour, but the company of his friends exorcised the imp of irritation, and he felt only the mellow gloom of the evening and the sweet scents of the moor. In such weather he had a trick of walking with his head high and his nostrils wide, sniffing the air like the wild ass of the desert with which the metaphorical ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... a cynic, in South America an overworked slave, in Africa a citizen, but in India an imp,—I mean to the eye of the Western stranger, for in the estimation of the native he is mythologically a demigod, and socially a guest. At Ahmedabad, the capital of Guzerat, there are certainly two—Mr. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... expressed scorn for it and its stuffed dummies, masquerading as men and women ... and Boltt, who took himself very seriously indeed, had written a letter of complaint to the editor of the paper. Henry wondered what Boltt would say if he knew that the review had been written by him, and an imp in him made him interrupt the long recital of the glories ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... Joseph, very angry. "Go to bed this instant, little imp, or I shall come upstairs with a birch rod. You will gain nothing by your dishonourable listening. I shall send you to Mademoiselle Moineau to-morrow, to learn lessons ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... abruptly shut down the lid of the inkstand with an air of as great satisfaction as if he had been the fisherman in the Arabian story corking up the wicked afrite. With his finger still pressing the leaden cover, as though he were afraid the imp of toil would get out again, he was suddenly impressed by the fact that he had seen very little ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... he was an imp. He turned the keep doors out of dortoirs while we had him. He sang foul songs, learned in the Barons' camps—poor fool; he set the hounds fighting in hall; he lit the rushes to drive out, as he said, the fleas; he drew his dagger on ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... often scrub at 'em with all his might. Bright brass vessels, shining copper pans, are things he is quite bewitcht with; pewter plates too he likes very well. Many a time has he brought me a groschen, bright and new, as if it had come from the mint.'—'But where does the imp live?' I cried.—'Where does the child live?' she said: 'people choose to call it goblin, or manikin; he himself signs himself Silly; that is his christen-name. But he is a kind good-natured sprite; and ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... between acquaintances meeting in the street, and good women gossiping at their open windows. It was the first item of news that the tavern-keeper told to his guests. The children babbled of it on their way to school. One imitative little imp covered his face with an old black handkerchief, thereby so affrighting his playmates that the panic seized himself, and he well-nigh lost his wits ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... the bugs, the flies, all the choice little tidbits that her soul loves, she divides for her chicks, reserving not a morsel for herself. All their gambols and pranks and wild ways she bears with untiring patience. They hop up by twos and threes on her back. They peck at her bill. One saucy little imp actually jumped up and caught hold of the little red lappet above her beak, and, hanging to it, swung back and forth half a dozen times; and she was evidently only amused, and reckoned it a mark ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... 1st Chiefs we gave a medal with the Imp. of the President of the U S. To the 2d Chiefs a medal of weaveing & Domestic animals. To the 3rd Chiefs a medal with the impression of a man ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... the Earl's thane fairly grazed the heels of the King's words: "The imp can do no otherwise than harm, my sovereign. Should he bring his tongue to Danish ears, he could cause the utmost evil. For the safety of the Earl of Mercia,—ay, for your own need,—I entreat you to deliver the boy ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... door. Singing.] "Come on down, O Madonna Teresa!" [He calls:] Alice! [Still in the door.] Come on! Help me put up my iron bar with a double lock before the door, Alice! [He comes forward.] Any one else who dares to interrupt our Sunday quiet—anathema sit! Here! You imp! Where are you, Alice? [He observes the bottle and lifts it against the light.] What? Half empty! The little scamp! [From behind the door of the library a pleasant woman's voice is heard singing coloratura passages.] Ha, ha, ha, ha! Heavens ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... me, you young imp, but take the horse. I'll not forget you when I come out. What's the matter with you, you fool; d'ye think I'd tell you a lie ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... I just hot, though!" she said, half aloud, as she flung off her sacque. "And what a changeling imp of a creature Dot is, after all! An imp of genius.—well, she's every right to that, as one knows when one looks at James Colthurst's pictures. He'd genius. He didn't shirk living. My stars! there was a man capable of adding to the number of one's emotions! ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... roam'd With narrow search; and with inspection deep Consider'd every Creature, which of all Most opportune might serve his Wiles, and found The Serpent suttlest Beast of all the Field. Him after long debate, irresolute Of thoughts revolv'd, his final sentence chose Fit Vessel, fittest Imp of fraud, in whom To enter, and his dark suggestions hide 90 From sharpest sight: for in the wilie Snake, Whatever sleights none would suspicious mark, As from his wit and native suttletie Proceeding, which in other Beasts observ'd Doubt might ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... a tormenting little imp. She could not help reminding him every now and then that all her maneuvers and all his love were to end in disappointment. These discouraging comments had dashed poor David's spirits more than once; but ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... peace with ourselves, we must surely let every little evil imp of selfishness show himself, and not have any skulking around corners. Recognize him for his full worthless-ness, call him by his right name, and move off. Having called him by his right name, our severity with ourselves ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call
... Grandun, American Wonder, Nott's Excelsior, Extra Early Premium Gem, McLean's Little Gem, Surprise or Eclipse, Tom Thumb, Abundance, Advancers McLeans, Dwarf Daisy, Dwarf Champion, Everbearing, Heroine, Horsford's Market Garden, Pride of the Market, Stratagem Imp, Shropshire Hero, Yorkshire Hero, Duke of Albany, Telephone, Telegraph, Champion of England, Forty Fold, Long Island Mammoth, Large White Marrowfat, Black-Eyed Marrowfat, Canada Field, Mammoth Podded Sugar, Melting Sugar, Dwarf ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... suspected of sorcery were put— a mode particularly favoured by that arch-scamp, Matthew Hopkins, 'Witch-Finder General'— was to tie down the accused in some painful or at least uneasy posture for twenty-four hours, during which time relays of watchers sat round. It was supposed that an imp would come and suck the witch's blood; so any fly, moth, wasp or insect seen in the room was a familiar in that shape, and the poor wretch was accordingly convicted of the charge. Numerous confessions are recorded to have been extracted in this manner from ailing and doting ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... of one talk under the overhanging bushes of the shrubbery—I on the park side of the stone wall, and the lady of my worship a little inelegantly astride thereon. Inelegantly do I say? you should have seen the sweet imp as I remember her. Just her poise on the wall comes suddenly clear before me, and behind her the light various branches of the bushes of the shrubbery that my feet might not profane, and far away and high behind her, ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... below the mountain clearings. A walnut tree shaded it, Thunder Run leaped by in cascades, on either side the footpath Allan had planted larkspur and marigolds. Here, on a May morning, he rang the bell, then waited patiently until the last free-born imp elected to leave the delights of a minnow-filled pool, a newly discovered redbird's nest, and a blockhouse in process of construction against imaginary Indians. At last all were seated upon the rude benches in the dusky room,—small tow-headed Jacks ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... or was a bastard, Whom the old man—the grandsire (as old age 400 Is ever doting) took to warm his bosom, As it went chilly downward to the grave: But the imp stands not in my path—he has fled, No one knows whither; and if he had not, His claims alone were too contemptible To ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... pers. and acc. of the thing), to take care, to defend one's self from: inf. him be-beorgan ne con wom, cannot keep himself from stain (fault), 1747; imp. bebeorh e one ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.
... first institution, At so light motions. To one that thus hath swerved, What a lord art thou, to give such retribution! I, damnable wretch, deserved execution Of terrible death, without all remedy, And to be put out of all good memory. I am enforced to rejoice here inwardly, An imp though I be of hell, death and damnation, Through my own working: for I consider thy mercy And pitiful mind for my whole generation. It is thou, sweet Lord, that workest my salvation, And my recovery. Therefore of a congruence From ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... the tame fireside, glad to get away,— Too old to let my watery grief appear,— And what so bitter as a swallowed tear! One figure still my vagrant thoughts pursue; First boy to greet me, Ariel, where are you? Imp of all mischief, heaven alone knows how You learned it all,—are you an angel now, Or tottering gently down the slope of years, Your face grown sober in the vale of tears? Forgive my freedom if you are ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... been with me, Leonora, instead of that little imp of a berry girl. It was just that sense of not being at home that made that mountain life, at last, so unbearable to me. Yet home without that seemed so flat and lifeless, down on a dead level, with not a street or garden but could be counted and measured. ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... spirit of resistance to coercion, that had made pioneers and martyrs of Mary Rhein's ancestors, was let loose too soon: it made an imp of her. She darted silently like an insect from under Calista's hand, seized the inkstand, and threw it with all her might at the beautiful white gown. The ink poured out, dripping from fold to fold, and the stand thudded on the sheet and scattered the last drops. Mary gave ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... the rascal weaver, That had the mantle wrought; And doubly cursed the froward imp Who ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... one—was a dumb protest against the movement she had made to withdraw. And as such Lilith read it; more potent in its impulsiveness than any words could have been. "Listen!" he went on. "I suppose there is a sort of imp of scepticism sitting ever upon one shoulder, and that is what you saw. Something in my thoughts suggested a droll contrast, that was all. So far from boring me, you have afforded me ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... flyin' up, I'm a-flyin' down, en w'en I fly up, I'm a-gwine ter fly 'way wid you. You bin a-playin' de imp 'roun' in dis settlement long 'nuff, en now ef you got any will ter make, you better make it quick, 'kaze you aint got ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... he rubbed his hands slowly round, and round, and round again—with something fantastic even in his manner of performing this slight action—and, dropping his shaggy brows and cocking his chin in the air, glanced upward with a stealthy look of exultation that an imp might have copied and appropriated ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... associated with water either in sea or lake, river or waterfall, his picture being changed to that of a horrid-looking creature, half-child and half-horse, the horse's feet being shown the wrong way about. Sometimes, again, he was shown as an old black man like an imp, sitting on a rock and wringing the dripping water from his long ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... are the Arch-imp and the Tenant of the Pool of Hell! We would remain so, even if every stone in Louvain and in Malines were replaced by its equivalent in gold. That rage can be overcome only after the race, praised by Schiller's fiery breath, ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... his lean finger was outstretched at Veda. It seemed as if some imp of the perverse were compelling her unwilling tongue to ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... that his mind was now clear, and that the incident of Paddy's lashings he regarded as closed. As for that flame-headed imp of crime, if I could have got my hands upon him he would have taken a short road to his fathers. Him and his lashings! As I stood there with a black glare at him, the impudent scoundrel repeatedly winked at me with the readable information that if I only would be patient and bide a moment ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... what a poor show for a tail! Look at me, look at me!"—and he capers about in his best style. Again, he would seem to tease you and provoke your attention; then suddenly assumes a tone of good-natured, childlike defiance and derision. That pretty little imp, the chipmunk, will sit on the stone above his den and defy you, as plainly as if he said so, to catch him before he can get into ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... skedaddle as though in haste But this thirty-two pounder howitzer imp It makes them halt and it makes them limp, This railroad gun on a ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... some moments, and just as Betty was beginning to fancy that the long, dark eyelashes worn curling downward in sleepy comfort the dark blue eyes opened, and a dancing imp of mischief gleamed from their depths in ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... child and held him at arm's length while she applied a sounding box. "Go 'way f'om yer, honey," she said. "Rindy ain' mah'ed. He's des' an accident. Shet yo' mouth, you imp er darkness, fo' ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... was within three feet of him, he gave a wild "K-r-r-r-r!" of derision, and sprang to another stump. With eyes dancing and eager little hands outstretched, the Kid followed—again and again, and yet again—till he was led to the very edge of the wood. Then the mocking imp in red fur whisked up an ancient hemlock, and hid himself, in silence, in a high ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... scourge of Europe, Mr. Gladstone was the most malevolent imp of mischief that ever ruined any one country, and I am heartily grieved that that country should ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... assumed, the name of his half-brothers; and to detail his Asian wanderings would be tedious and unprofitable. But at the end of each four months would come to him a certain messenger from Glyndwyr, supposed by Richard to be the imp Orvendile, who notoriously ran every day around the world upon the Welshman's business. It was in the Isle of Taprobane, where the pismires are as great as hounds, and mine and store the gold of which the inhabitants afterward ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... light-hearted Cocker. The Duchess is about the size and weight of a rabbit; but has a soul as big, as fierce, and as faithful as had Meg Merrilies, with a nose as black as Topsy's; and is herself every bit as game and queer as that delicious imp of darkness and of Mrs. Stowe. Her legs set her long slim body about two inches and a half from the ground, making her very like a huge caterpillar or hairy oobit—her two eyes, dark and full, and her shining nose, being all of her that seems anything but hair. ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... blacksmith had put his iron in the fire, and again stood blowing the bellows, when his attention was caught by the gestures of the little red-eyed imp, Tommy, who was making rapid signs to him, touching his forehead with one finger, nodding mysteriously, and pointing at Clare with the thumb of his other hand, held close to his side. He sought to indicate thus that his companion was an innocent, whom nobody must ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... alternative, is one of such black enormity, that if nothing else were added to debase you in my estimation, I would spurn your offer as I would the proffered hand of Satan himself or of the vilest imp in the loathsome pit of night where he reigns! You have your answer. As well try to pluck the sun from his place in the heavens or wrench the sparkling stars from the firmament ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... say, "I will spend my declining years in peace," but as the sun goes down the bats come out and flap the black skinny wings of the sins of other days in your affrighted face. If you are a student you may drop your books like Dr. Faust and hurry to the country, but the imp of restlessness will dog your steps and snare your pathway and you will carry home with you a Mephisto who will ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... the room above the seat of the judges was a rude picture in bright colours of the condemnation of Christ by Pilate. Pilate, I remember, was represented with a black face, to signify his wickedness I suppose, and in the air above him hung a red-eyed imp shaped like a bat who gripped his robe with one claw and ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... the sole object of the owner being to keep them alive and prevent their running away till sold at the coast. They generally looked sullen and full of despair; but occasionally, at night, they danced and became even riotous, till a word from the earless imp restored them ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... dropsied: "Ay, now speak'st thou true. But there thou gav'st not such true testimony, When thou wast question'd of the truth, at Troy." "If I spake false, thou falsely stamp'dst the coin," Said Sinon; "I am here but for one fault, And thou for more than any imp beside." "Remember," he replied, "O perjur'd one, The horse remember, that did teem with death, And all the world be witness to thy guilt." "To thine," return'd the Greek, "witness the thirst Whence thy tongue cracks, witness ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... of that boy—a merry, mischievous young imp—to Mr. Craven; but she never did so. Perhaps because the clerks always gave her rapt attention; and an interested audience was very ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... believe, if I live long, I shall get to Concord one day. Your wife must love me. If the little Boy be a well-behaved fellow, he shall ride on my back yet: if not, tell him I will have nothing to do with him, the riotous little imp that he is. And so God bless you always, ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the imperious voice of spring, singing in concord with it, had overridden the decision of his stubborn will, demanding surrender, clamorous for recognition, and now having allowed the claim he was again forced back on the unsolved question of his own history. It was as if some imp of mischief had coupled his love to the Past, and had left him without knowledge to loose the secret knot. The silence became intolerable for fear of the next words that might break it from his ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... Holidays Retold from St. Nicholas; Black Andie's Tale of Tod Lapraik, in Stevenson, David Balfour; History of Hallowe'en, in Stevenson, Days and Deeds (prose); Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and Rip Van Winkle Irving; Macbeth, Shakespeare; The Bottle Imp, in Stevenson, Island Nights' Entertainments; The Devil and Tom Walker, Irving; The Fire-King, Scott (poem); The Speaking Rat, in Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... of that; give yourself no uneasiness. All I want is just a look at her, to see what the imp is like that has been able to make all this noise, then you and the halter may have her. How many men ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... ain't no climate whar de rice-birds flies inter yo' pockets en gits out de money an' makes de change derse'f; an' de isters don't shuck off der shells en run over you on de street, an' no mo' duz de s'imp hull derse'f an' drap in yo' mouf. But dey er yer, dough. De scads 'll ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... different manner, two of its number pining away and losing strength daily, as if a prey to some consuming disease. In a third, another child was sick, and vomited pins, nails, and other extraordinary substances. A fourth household was tormented by an imp in the form of a monkey, who came at night and pinched them all black and blue, spilt the milk, broke the dishes and platters, got under the bed, and, raising it to the roof, let it fall with a terrible crash; putting them ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... ever-cheerful and willing helper; Annie the drawer of water and hewer of wood, kind willing worker; Mary the smart, handsome favourite; Alice the stolid dependable little body, and Maggie the fusionless, Dannie the imp, and Asoquoe who looked with his big innocent eyes a wee angel, and who yet was in constant trouble, chiefly for insisting on sharing the cat's meals. Then there were the babies—a lovely wee twin-girl, whom their mother was nursing, a poor wee boy almost ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... dying," said the slave captain roughly, "but he soon will be if you don't have him. As for this shaver, he's about as near being an imp as we can find. Keep away, my lad, or he may ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... child on board who is certainly possessed, not by a witty malicious demon, a diable boiteux, but by a teasing, stupid, wicked imp, which inspires him with the desire of tormenting everything human that comes within his reach. Should he escape being thrown overboard, it will show a wonderful degree of forbearance on the part of ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... green world, this that we dwell in and that philosophers miscall. I have no taste for that philosophy; give me large sums paid on the receipt of the MS. and copyright reserved, and what do I care about the non-beent? Only I know it can't last. The devil always has an imp or two in every house, and my imps are getting lively. The good lady, the dear, kind lady, the sweet, excellent lady, Nemesis, whom alone I adore, has fixed her wooden eye upon me. I fall prone; spare me, ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... remnants of many organizations, with the help of hospital-corps men, were trying to extricate the wounded from among the dead. They heard a woman's voice and saw a woman's face. They did not wonder at her presence, for there was nothing left in the world for them to wonder at. Had an imp from hell or an angel from heaven appeared, or a shower of diamonds fallen from the sky, they would not have been surprised. Their duty was clear; there was work of their kind to do, endless work. Units of the broken machine, in the instinct ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... dem ain't some oh de old missis' spoons; dat good-fo'-nothin' brack imp must a' snuck one ebbery time I takes him to visit de lady. Oh! he kotch it fo' dis, ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... laughing, when they saw it lift up its ears, as if the sport had liked them. One of them would call it her little dille, her staff of love, her quillety, her faucetin, her dandilolly. Another, her peen, her jolly kyle, her bableret, her membretoon, her quickset imp: another again, her branch of coral, her female adamant, her placket-racket, her Cyprian sceptre, her jewel for ladies. And some of the other women would give it these names,—my bunguetee, my stopple too, my bush-rusher, my gallant wimble, my pretty borer, my coney-burrow-ferret, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... nearer he came to the bronco. The animal, without turning its head, knew that someone was coming up behind. Many a time a cowboy had tried to fool the savage horse that way, and leap into the saddle without being seen. But Imp, as the bronco was named, knew all ...
— The Curlytops at Uncle Frank's Ranch • Howard R. Garis
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