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More "Knave" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... much! This Eastern knave hath slipped His prison, whom I held but now, hard gripped In bondage.—Ha! 'Tis he!—What, sirrah, how Show'st thou before my portals? ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... would succeed in Martinianic land, Must quit the useful, to propose the grand; Hazard those deeds, that to the gallows pave, Thy fortune's made! Here's honor for the knave. ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... have the false knave, she was afraid o' my stern lad and would have the carpet-knight—the poor wee lass; but she minded her cousin—she minded my boy at the end o' a' when she hated the Englishman. I ken fine how her pride suffered before she sent me word, but the word cam' at the hinder end. Belle," said he, ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... gifts from his tenant nor misdo with the poor. "Though he be thine underling here, well may hap in heaven that he be worthier set and with more bliss than thou.... For in charnel at church churles be evil to know, or a knight from a knave there." The gospel of equality is backed by the gospel of labour. The aim of the Ploughman is to work, and to make the world work with him. He warns the labourer as he warns the knight. Hunger is God's instrument in ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... men or boys, invariably despise the "fighting character," be he young or old. Nine times out of ten he is both a knave and a fool, a ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... is little known or appreciated. Exactly contrary to the prevalent idea in America, the Australian merchant is most averse to casting bread on the waters with a view to its return after many days. He distrusts courtesy and liberality as cloaks for the knave, or as the appurtenances of the fool. Loyalty is a phrase little understood, and the merchant leaves as little to his clerks' honesty or honour as he can possibly help. In business he holds that 'Every man's hand is against his neighbour, ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... to have taught him that of all the gods that rule the destinies of mankind there is none more ironic and malicious than that same Dan Cupid in whose honour, as it were, he was now burning the incense of that pipe of his. The ancients knew that innocent-seeming boy for a cruel, impish knave, and they mistrusted him. Sir Oliver either did not know or did not heed that sound piece of ancient wisdom. It was to be borne in upon him by grim experience, and even as his light pensive eyes smiled upon the sunshine that flooded the terrace beyond ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... interceded for him, as a fault that might now and then happen, and therefore beg'd his pardon; but if he ever did the like, there was no one would speak for him; tho' for my part, I think he deserved what he got: And so turning to Agamemnon's ear, "This fellow," said I, "must be a naughty knave; could any one forget to bowel a hog? I would not (so help me Hercules) have forgiven him if he had served me so with a single fish." But Trimalchio it seems, had somewhat else in his head; for falling a laughing, "You," said he, "that have so short a memory, let's ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... constant watching, and that contained scarce a trace of virility—only a keen selfishness and a crafty faithlessness. And of a verity, if ever a human visage revealed truly the soul within, this one did; for a more scheming sycophant, vacillating knave and despicable traitor than Thomas, Lord Stanley, England had not seen since the villain ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... feature is the love of 'smart' dealing: which gilds over many a swindle and gross breach of trust; many a defalcation, public and private; and enables many a knave to hold his head up with the best, who well deserves a halter: though it has not been without its retributive operation, for this smartness has done more in a few years to impair the public credit, and to cripple the public resources, than dull honesty, however rash, could have effected ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... nothing new to tell you, You know what I always said - But you've built their bones into churches And stolen their wine and bread; You with My Name on your foreheads, Liar, and traitor, and knave, You have lived by the death of your brothers, These whom I ...
— Many Voices • E. Nesbit
... of art in their possession: A secretary of state cannot desire leave to resign, but the Pretender is at bottom: the Queen cannot dissolve a Parliament, but it is a plot to dethrone herself, and bring in the Pretender. Half a score stock-jobbers are playing the knave in Exchange-Alley, and there goes the Pretender with a sponge. One would be apt to think they bawl out the Pretender so often, to take off the terror; or tell so many lies about him, to slacken our caution, that when he is really coming, by their connivance, we may not believe them; as ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... pert knave to tell me of my duty," said the courtier in office; "but I will find a time to show you you are out of yours; meanwhile, wait there till you are wanted." So saying, he shut the ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... his broidered vest, And there, like slumbering serpent's crest, The jeweled haft of poniard bright Glittered a moment on the sight. "Ha! start ye back? Fool! coward! knave! Think ye my noble father's glaive Would drink the life-blood of a slave? The pearls that on the handle flame Would blush to rubies in their shame; The blade would quiver in thy breast Ashamed of such ignoble rest. No! thus I rend the tyrant's chain, And ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... "Seize yonder knave," shouted Sakon, and search was made but without avail. Afterwards, however, Aziel remembered that once, when they were weather-bound on their journey from the coast, Metem had amused them by making his voice sound from various quarters of the ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... arrears. One fellow, more insolent than the rest, levelled a pike at his breast with the most angry and menacing looks. Gonsalvo, however, retaining his self-possession, gently put it aside, saying, with a good- natured smile, "Higher, you careless knave, lift your lance higher, or you will run me through in your jesting." As he was reiterating his assurances of the want of funds, and his confident expectation of speedily obtaining them, a Biscayan captain called out, "Send your daughter to the brothel, and that will ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... miserable Way of passing an evening with Madame Schwellenberg Was at the card-table, and consented, with patient sadness, to give hours which might have called forth the laughter and tears of many generations to the king of clubs and the knave of spades. Between eleven and twelve, the bell rang again. Miss Burney had to pass twenty minutes or half an hour in undressing the queen, and was then at liberty to retire and to dream that she was chatting ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... and her chilling frown, Plunging through wilderness, cavern, and cave, Building the citadel, fortress, and town, Fearing nor desert, the sea, nor the grave: Courage finds her a niche in the knave, Fame is not niggard with laurel or pain; Pathways with blood and bones do they pave: These are the hazards ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... impudent knave, sir, to stand and tell me this to my face. Look ye here, Bolle'—he swung round upon the colonel, who had put forth a hand as though to arrest this unseemly abuse. 'How do I know that this dog has not ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... question home to Lottie in a way that she did not expect. Her heedless, wilful, impulsive brother, the dear torment of her life, was just the one an artful knave could mislead. For a moment or two she sat silent and thoughtful. All awaited her answer save Mr. Dimmerly, who, without his whist, had dropped off into a doze, as was his wont. Then her decided character asserted itself, and she spoke sincerely for ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... which he could set his foot. There was nowhere any truth—there were only contending powers who used the phrases of truth for their own purposes! And now he saw himself as the world saw him,—a party to a piece of trickery,—a knave like all the rest. He felt that he had been tripped up at the first step ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... Peter and Robert and Paul— God, in His wisdom, created them all. John was a statesman and Peter a slave, Robert a preacher and Paul was a knave. Evil or good, as the case might be, White or colored, or bond or free, John and Peter and Robert and Paul— God, in His ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... a yawn-mouthed cave, Like a red-hot eye from a grave. No man stood there of whom to crave Rest for wayfarer plodding by: Though the tenant were churl or knave The Prince might try. ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... play casino better than I," Deacon acknowledged. "I can name only three of yours, a knave, an ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... 'Buenas noches tenga usted,' replied Vitoriano. 'For what purpose did you send for the soga this afternoon?' demanded the functionary. 'I sent for no soga,' said the prisoner, 'I sent for my alforjas to serve as a pillow, and it was sent in them by chance.' 'Thou art a false malicious knave,' retorted the Alcalde, 'you intend to hang yourself, and by so doing ruin us all, as your death would be laid to our door. Give me the soga.' No greater insult can be offered to a Spaniard, than to tax him with an intention of committing suicide. Poor Vitoriano flew ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... not loved at school; We thought him rather knave than fool. Migrating thence to Oxford, he Failed to secure a pass degree. Years sped—some twenty—ere again Jim Startin swam into my ken. I met him strolling down the Strand Well-dressed, well-nourished, sleek and bland, A high-class journalistic swell— The Headline Expert of The Yell. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 28, 1917 • Various
... cutlets a la Nevers. I flung the damned dish out of the window. On the doorstep I met my boot-maker, who offered to sell me a pair of boots a la Nevers. I cuffed the rascal and flung him ten louis as a salve. But the knave only said to me: 'Monsieur de Nevers beat me once, but he gave me ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... he would not work yesterday.' Then he went to his master and told him that the ox was ill and would not touch his fodder. Now the farmer knew what this meant, for that he had overheard the talk between the ox and the ass as before mentioned. So he said, 'Take that knave of an ass and bind the yoke on his neck and harness him to the plough and try and make him do the ox's work.' So the ploughman took the ass and made him work all day beyond his strength to accomplish the ox's task; and he beat him till ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... he was scarcely well down when Winterton, with an hostler that was half asleep, came with a lantern to the door, banning the poor knave as if he had been cursing him with bell, book and candle, the other rubbing his eyes and declaring it was still far from morning, and saying he was sure the other traveller was not gone. To the which there was speedy evidence, for on going towards Winterton's horse ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... Hearts She made some tarts, All on a summer's day; The Knave of Hearts, He stole the tarts, And took them ...
— Aunt Kitty's Stories • Various
... Leaves he gathered, and took plentie, And in her mouth put two or three. Within a while the medicine wrought: The man could tarry no longer time, But wakened her, to the end he mought The vertue knowe of the medicine; The first woord she spake to him She said: 'thou whoresonne knave and theef, How durst thou waken me, with a mischeef!' From that day forward she never ceased. Her boistrous bable greeved him sore: The devil he met, and him entreated To make her tungles, as she was before; 'Not so,' said the devil, 'I will meddle no ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... the nuns of Louviers. Thenceforth, happen what might, Madeline could never more be brought in evidence against those who had thus bound her fast. It was a triumph indeed for the clergy, and the victory was sung by a knave of an exorciser, the Capuchin Esprit de Bosroger, in his Piety Afflicted, a farcical monument of stupidity, in which he accuses, unawares, the very ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... Victorian poets Morris was a pipe-smoker, and so was Rossetti. Browning also smoked, but not, I think, a pipe. Swinburne, on the other hand, detested tobacco, and expressed himself on the subject with characteristic extravagance and vehemence—"James I was a knave, a tyrant, a fool, a liar, a coward. But I love him, I worship him, because he slit the throat of that blackguard Raleigh who invented this filthy smoking!" Professor Blackie, in a letter to his wife, remarked: "The first ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... the two, but, forced to choose, takes that. I pine among my million imbeciles (You think) aware some dozen men of sense Eye me and know me, whether I believe In the last winking Virgin, as I vow, And am a fool, or disbelieve in her And am a knave—approve in neither case, Withhold their voices though I look their way: 380 Like Verdi when, at his worst opera's end (The thing they gave at Florence—what's its name?) While the mad houseful's plaudits near ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... doubt," said the envoy, "that she is a chief mark to shoot at; and seeing that there were men cunning enough to inchant a man and to encourage him to kill the Prince of Orange, in the midst of Holland, and that there was a knave found desperate enough to do it, we must think hereafter that anything may be done. Therefore God ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Willy, "wes callit the King; the second best, the Queen; the third, the Knave. Them as wouldna' ficht we callit 'fougie.' Eh, what a ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... they originally came out—some of them, strange to say, not wholly complimentary. As a rule, I am too busy a man to answer letters: and I take this opportunity of apologising to correspondents who write to tell me I am a knave or a fool, for not having acknowledged direct their courteous communications. But this friendly criticism seems to call for a reply, because it involves a question of principle which I have often noted in all discussions ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... loves a glass at any time, is handy with the spade, and uses his mother-wit in rounding off a capital story. Jonathan is all these, and something more. He astonishes his trans-atlantic comrades by the incomprehensible manner in which the knave will turn up when he deals the "pictures;" and the neat manner in which he mends the rent in his coat sleeve; is one short of funds, he will generously lend him a safe amount until "next pay day," provided, at that time, fifty per cent. be added thereto; and, if ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... over Bud's face. "The jealous knave," said he. "Ever since we bought this farm he has had a dislike for me and I have been expecting trouble ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... doom. Outside his door, however, he tumbled over Augustus the cat, and made capture of him; and at once his mourning was changed into a song of triumph, as he conveyed his prize into port. For Augustus, who detested above all things going to bed with little boys, was ever more knave than fool, and the trapper who was wily enough to ensnare him had achieved something notable. Augustus, when he realized that his fate was sealed, and his night's lodging settled, wisely made the best of things, and listened, with a languorous air of complete comprehension, ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... Swinburne(349)—at least with the Alhambra, of the inner parts of which there are two beautiful prints. The Moors were the most polished, and had the most taste of any people in the Gothic ages; and I hate the knave Ferdinand and his bigoted Queen for destroying them. These new travels are simple, and do tell you a little more than late voyagers, by whose accounts one would think there was nothing in Spain but muleteers and ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... silent, staring gloomily at the plan of Worsted Skeynes, still unrolled, like an emblem of all there was at stake. "If George has really," he burst out, "he's a greater fool than I took him for! A fool? He's a knave!" ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... principal thing, but too much of it is worse than none at all. The world abounds with knaves and villains; but, of all knaves, the religious knave is the worst, and villainies acted under the cloak of religion the most execrable. Moral honesty, though it will not itself carry a man to heaven, yet I am sure there is ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... admits of none but men properly qualified into the Government, or removes them if they prove to be otherwise. Whereas, in the hereditary system, a nation may be encumbered with a knave or an ideot for a whole life-time, and not be benefited by ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... readers can entertain the fixed hope that they have at length done with him; that, in these our premises, we shall never see him again;—nay shall see him, on extraneous dim fields, far enough away, smarting and suffering, till even we are almost sorry for the old knave!— ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... his desire to get rid of Van Buren. In his letters to Henry Post, the Kinderhook statesman is termed "an arch scoundrel," "the prince of villains," and "a confirmed knave;"[196] yet Clinton put off the moment of his removal from week to week, very much as Tompkins hesitated to remove Clinton from the mayoralty; that is, not so much to save the feelings of Van Buren as to avert the hostility of ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... ace. Dunston laid the queen and knave on the table. Spencer scored the winning trick before ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... from Lucifer to go through the world bringing similar persons together, like to like. Accordingly he acts as arbiter between Ralph Roister and Tom Tosspot in a dispute as to which of the two is the greater knave, and, deciding that both are equal, promises them equal shares in certain property he has at disposal. Next, meeting Cuthbert Cutpurse and Pierce Pickpurse, he gives them news of a piece of land which has fallen to them by unexpected succession. ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... allowed them? and who could have thought the commons had been such dolts? Now let us see the names of these wise, good, and faithful councillors. 'R. Rich, W. Saint John, W. Northampton, J. Warwick,'" [Note 5] and he paused a minute. "Isoult," said he again, "methinks that Earl of Warwick is a knave." ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... Europe is but a continued comment upon the folly of the law of the hereditary descent of power, a law which is more likely to place the crown upon the brow of a knave, a fool or a madman, than upon that of one qualified to govern. Russia soon awoke to the consciousness that the destinies of thirty millions of people were in the hands of a maniac, whose conduct seemed to prove that his only ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... This is an uncandid sarcasm. There is nothing to connect Stephen with the religion of Domitilla. He was a knave detected in the malversation of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... some writers assert, by poison. His body and his books were burned by the executioner, and the ashes thrown into the Tiber. Dr. Fitzgerald, Rector of the English College at Rome, thus describes him: "He was a malcontent knave when he fled from us, a railing knave when he lived with you, and a motley particoloured knave now he is come again." He had undoubtedly great learning and skill in controversy, [Footnote: His opinion with regard to the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan over suffragan bishops ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... the conscience of the —, here lies our sovereign lord, the —himself has followed her Kingdom, my mind to me a Kings it makes gods Kiss, one kind, before we part —, my whole soul through a —snatched hasty Kisses after death remembered Kitten, and cry mew Knave, how absolute the, is Knaves, untaught, unmannerly Knee, crook the hinges of the Knell that summons thee —, the shroud, etc. —rung by fairy hands Knew, carry all he Knife, war to the Knight, a prince can mak' a belted Knock ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... the books I read. What is Alfred about, and where is he? Present my homage to him. Don't you rather rejoice in the pickle the King of the French finds himself in? I don't know why, but I have a sneaking dislike of the old knave. How he must pine to summon up Talleyrand's Ghost, and what a Ghost it must ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... occurred also that until my body comprehended its body in a physical material sense, neither would my mind be able to comprehend its mind with any thoroughness. For unity of mind can only be consummated by unity of body; everything, therefore, must be in some respects both knave and fool to all that which has not eaten it, or by which it has not been eaten. As long as the turtle was in the window and I in the street outside, there was no chance of our comprehending ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... perfectly serious, being one of those uncomfortable persons in whose society, as Charles Lamb said, you must always speak on oath. Mr. Watkinson's readers might almost exclaim with Hamlet, "How absolute the knave is! We must speak by the card, ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... was told of it by Bishop Law of Orkney, who had come to Court to report the proceedings to the King: '"In nomine Domini incipit omne malum! This is pretendit bot the dint will lycht on the Kirk ..."—"They sall call me a false knave," replied the Bishop, "and never to be believit again, if the Papists be not sa handleit as they wer never in Scotland."—"That may weill be,"' was ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison
... world and thoughtful men to note are the principles and deeds on which the American pulpit and American public men plume themselves. We always allow our opponents to paint their own pictures. Our humble duty is to stand by and assure the spectators that what they would take for a knave or a hypocrite is really, in American estimation, a Doctor of Divinity ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... come tyrant, come knave, If you rule o'er our land, ye shall rule o'er our grave! Our vow is recorded—our banner unfurl'd, In the name of Vermont, we ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... evermore the fruit, and then, evermore as long as the fruit is fastened to the tree,[203] it hath in party a green smell of the tree; but when it hath been a certain time departed from the tree and is full ripe, then it hath lost all the taste of the tree, and is king's meat [that was before but knave's meat].[204] In this time it is that this reverent affection is so meedful as I said. And, therefore, shape thee for to depart this fruit from the tree, and for to offer it up by itself to the high King of heaven; and then ...
— The Cell of Self-Knowledge - Seven Early English Mystical Treaties • Various
... their weaknesses. He never knowingly calls black white, or panders to an ungenerous sentiment. He is combative to a fault, but his combativeness is allied to a genuine love of fair-play. When he hates a man, he calls him knave or fool with unflinching frankness, but he never uses a base weapon. The wounds which he inflicts may hurt, but they do not fester. His patriotism may be narrow, but it implies faith in the really good qualities, the manliness, the spirit ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... career of one man are so intimately connected with the great scheme of the years 1719 and 1720, that a history of the Mississippi madness can have no fitter introduction than a sketch of the life of its great author John Law. Historians are divided in opinion as to whether they should designate him a knave or a madman. Both epithets were unsparingly applied to him in his lifetime, and while the unhappy consequences of his projects were still deeply felt. Posterity, however, has found reason to doubt the justice of the accusation, and to confess that John Law was neither ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... neighbours, but he is deeply read in the tribes and castes of the Hindoos and Calmue Tartars. He can hardly find his way into the next street, though he is acquainted with the exact dimensions of Constantinople and Pekin. He does not know whether his oldest acquaintance is a knave or a fool, but he can pronounce a pompous lecture on all the principal characters in history. He cannot tell whether an object is black or white, round or square, and yet he is a professed master of the laws of optics and the rules of perspective. He knows ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... so deeply and broadly tinted into the whole picture of the Robber Moor, nay, into the whole piece, that every part of the delineation would require to be re-painted, before those tints could be removed. So likewise is it with the character of Franz, that speculative, metaphysico-refining knave. ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... Eagle The Knave of Diamonds The Rocks of Valpre The Swindler The Keeper of the Door Bars of Iron Rosa Mundi The Hundredth Chance The Safety Curtain Greatheart The Lamp in the Desert The Tidal Wave The Top of the ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... knave, look at the ass-face that is yours! I'll teach you to lie, you blackguard! Water, ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... Thurstan, it liketh me right well to see thee back without the peltry wherefor I sent thee! Where hast loitered, thou knave?" ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... free now," D'Aubusson said, "and will accompany you to St. Nicholas. I have been detained by the coming of this man Georges. He is a clever knave, and, I doubt not, has come as a spy. However, I have taken measures that he shall learn nothing that can harm us. No lives have been lost at ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... him.—Yesterday, To serve me so, and knowing that he owes The best of all he has to me and mine. But 'tis all over now.—That good old Lady Has left a power of riches; and I say it, If there's a lawyer in the land, the knave Shall give ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... in which they are produced, that authors have since divided it into several classes." But I beg, at first, that the reader will reflect seriously, if it is credible, that as soon as some miserable woman or unlucky knave have a fancy for it, God, whose wisdom and goodness are infinite, will ever permit the demon to appear to them, instruct them, obey them, and that they should make a compact with him. Is it credible that to please a scoundrel he would grant the demon power to raise ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... cunning a knave to ken, And a man but heare him speake; And it were not for bursting of my bowe, John, I wold thy ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... looking at the Cardinal, perceived that he was not ill-pleased at it; only the Friar himself was vexed, as may be easily imagined, and fell into such a passion that he could not forbear railing at the Fool, and calling him knave, slanderer, backbiter, and son of perdition, and then cited some dreadful threatenings out of the Scriptures against him. Now the Jester thought he was in his element, and laid about him freely. 'Good Friar,' said ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... And the old knave, as he turns away, calculates that the Nabob's twenty thousand, added to the ten thousand the duke has promised him if he gets rid of his picture, will make a very pretty ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... industrious, honest creatures, seeking their food in the soil, and digesting it with the help of leaves filled with good green matter (chlorophyll) on which virtuous vegetable life depends; but some ancestral knave elected to live by piracy, to drain the already digested food of its neighbors; so the Indian Pipe gradually lost the use of parts for which it has need no longer, until we find it to-day without color and its leaves degenerated into mere scaly bracts. Nature had manifold ways of illustrating ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... mean?" thought our mendicant. "Is yon eavesdropper one of death's unlicensed ministers? Has he received the retaining fee of some impatient heir, who pants to possess the wealth of the unlucky knave who comes strolling along yonder, so careless and unconscious? Be not so confident, honest friend! I'm ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... who could control a thousand votes for five years, who was not a better man, all in all, than the voters whom he influenced. More one cannot expect. The people are not quick, but they find out a knave or a demagogue ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... that Stucley might double his vigilance. Rawleigh now perceived that he had two rogues to bribe instead of one, and that they were playing into one another's hands. Proposals are now made to Stucley through Manoury, who is as compliant as his brother-knave. Rawleigh presented Stucley with a "jewel made in the fashion of hail powdered with diamonds, with a ruby in the midst." But Stucley observing to his kinsman and friend, that he must lose his office of vice-admiral, which had cost him six hundred pounds, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... "A knave is usually ready with a good story when he has been taken by surprise. Honesty isn't as handy with the tongue. I can only say that something—I don't say somebody—has put these books into a devil of a mess, and I'm doing ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... Developing photographs or a rubber of Bridge, it's just the same, the hands of the clock spin round. And I've won six shillings, and it would have been more if it had not been for Lady Fortescue's last declaration. Four hearts, my dearest, and the knave as her highest card. They doubled us, and of course we went down. I had only two small ones. I had shown her my own weakness by not supporting her declaration. Of course at my first lead I led her a heart, and it was won by the queen on my left. A heart was returned, and Lady Fortescue played ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... had heard how the fool Diogenes had parodied the King's manner and earned the King's anger. She knew no more than this, and it seemed strange that the King's rage should have frightened the knave into madness. But he seemed, indeed, insane as he raged up and down ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... example, and his action is not guided by his understanding, but he sees other men do thus, and he follows them. He is a negative, for we cannot call him a wise man, but not a fool; nor an honest man, but not a knave; nor a protestant, but not a papist. The chief burden of his brain is the carriage of his body and the setting of his face in a good frame; which he performs the better, because he is not disjointed with other ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... "What a knave!" he exclaimed after vainly waiting for the magistrate or the detective to express an opinion, ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... of this knave has done for me you will guess. I am leaving the detective service and have found other occupation. One can only seek to live down my awful experience. Next year my work will bring me to America and, when that happens, I shall ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... yet any of us all shall do well as long as we forsake our head of the Church, the Pope.' 'By the mass!' quoth Croxton, 'I would thy Pope Roger were in thy belly, or thou in his, for thou art a false perjured knave to thy prince.' Whereunto the said Lawrence answered, saying, 'By the mass, thou liest! I was never sworn to forsake the Pope to be our head, and never will be.' 'Then,' quoth Croxton, 'thou shalt be sworn spite of thine heart one day, or ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... a trice, with his box and his dice, Mac' pipin my son, but younger, Brings MUMMING in; and the knave will win For ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... do things out of pure goodness. The man who seems to is either a sentimentalist or a knave. If he's a sentimentalist, he does it for effect; if he's a knave, because it helps roguery. There's always some ax ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... made to statistics for the profoundly foolish purpose of showing that education is of no good—that it diminishes neither misery, nor crime, among the masses of mankind? I reply, why should the thing which has been called education do either the one or the other? If I am a knave or a fool, teaching me to read and write won't make me less of either one or the other—unless somebody shows me how to put my reading and writing to ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... I saw the pretended former wife: a splendid woman, and as much Eleanor Wickham of Dorsetshire as I am. They mean, however, to show fight, I think; for, as I left the place, I observed that delightful knave Richards enter the house. I took the liberty of placing seals upon the desks and cabinets, and directed the butler and other servants to see that nothing was disturbed or removed till Mrs. ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... will be a knave, be not in a trifle, but in something of value. A Presbyterian minister had a son who was made Archdeacon of Ossery; when this was told to his father, he said, 'If my son will be a knave, I am glad that he will be an ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... therefore, in spite of the perpetual activity of his intellectual forces, in spite of the perpetual watchfulness his personality of ten faces required, nothing fatigued him as much as the part he had to play with his two accomplices. Dutocq was a great knave, and Cerizet had once been a comic actor; they were both experts in humbug. A motionless face like Talleyrand's would have made then break at once with the Provencal, who was now in their clutches; it was necessary, therefore, that he should make a show of ease and confidence and ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... characterised Lincoln; and while to a large body of his fellow-citizens he commended himself for sturdiness, courage, and devotion to the interests of the state, he was never able for himself to overcome the feeling that a man who failed to agree with a Jackson policy must be either a knave or a fool. He could not place himself in the position from which the other fellow was thinking or acting. He believed that it was his duty to maintain what he held to be the popular cause against the "schemes of the aristocrats," ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... man who has learned the people by heart," observed Montreal to Adrian. "He knows he must speak to the eye, in order to win the mind: a knave,—a wise knave!" ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the Brahmin indignant, "who Shamelessly utterest things untrue, And dost without a scruple endure To handle creatures the most impure, How darest thou call that cur a sheep? Do you think, foul knave, that I'm asleep?" ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... Rupert from Warsaw, then appears, in a dress most correctly copied from the costume of the knave of clubs. Being a Pole, he stirs up the Cardinal vigorously enough to provoke some exceedingly intemperate language, chiefly by bringing to his memory a case of child-stealing, to which Martinuzzi ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 5, 1841 • Various
... degeneration of those that used them, or of those about whom they were used, deteriorated and degenerated too. How many, harmless once, have assumed a harmful as their secondary meaning; how many worthy have acquired an unworthy. Thus 'knave' meant once no more than lad (nor does 'knabe' now in German mean more); 'villain' than peasant; a 'boor' was a farmer, a 'varlet' a serving-man, which meaning still survives in 'valet,' the other form of this word; [Footnote: Yet this itself was an ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... keeper of a livery stable on Kearny street, and a fierce denouncer of the Committee. There was nothing else to his discredit, so far as I could learn at the time. Reub. Maloney was a compound character—a good deal of a knave, something of the man in his fidelity to his friends, reckless of everything except his own safety in any transaction calculated to damage the cause to which he was opposed; indifferent to what might happen to ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... peeping out of their side-pocket-holes, like a bold, brave banditti, as they are. The Parisians (and I am much of their mind) think that a thief with a crape on his visage is much worse than a barefaced knave, and that such robbers richly deserve all the penalties of all the black acts. In this their thin disguise, their comrades of the late abdicated sovereign canaille hooted and hissed them, and from that day have no other name for them than what is not quite ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... against it this time," were the words with which Dr. Price led the detective down the gallery. "What sort of an opinion can a man form of a fellow like that? Is he fool or knave?" ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... struck him as a fitting instrument. He had procured this man's pardon for a homicide, and it appears that the fellow retained a certain sense of gratitude. Lorenzino began by telling the man there was a courtier who put insults upon him, and Scoronconcolo professed his readiness to kill the knave. 'Sia chi si voglia; io l'ammazzero, se fosse Cristo.' Up to the last minute the name of Alessandro was not mentioned. Having thus secured his assistant, Lorenzino chose a night when he knew that Alessandro Vitelli, captain of the Duke's guard, would be from home. Then, after supper, he whispered ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... at last!" she muttered, cutting the cards, and glancing at the under one. It was only a knave, not the queen! ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... appreciated not only his character, but his capabilities. Their acquaintance was not of a day, though it had ever been marked by that singular combination of caution and reliance that is apt to characterize the intercourse between the knave and the honest man, when circumstances compel not only communication, but, to a certain extent, confidence. They now paced the deck of the schooner, side by side, for fully an hour, during which time the price of the vessel, the means, and the mode of ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... been a characteristic of Levin's to put the most favorable interpretation on people, Sviazhsky's character would have presented no doubt or difficulty to him: he would have said to himself, "a fool or a knave," and everything would have seemed clear. But he could not say "a fool," because Sviazhsky was unmistakably clever, and moreover, a highly cultivated man, who was exceptionally modest over his culture. ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... round the castle's steep, I let my glances wander; But cannot from the dizzy keep, Descry it, there or yonder. Oh, he who'd bring it to my sight, Or were he knave or were he knight, Should be my ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... warning song? Then doubt the sun gives light, Doubt truth to teach thee wrong, Think wrong alone is right; And live as lives the knave, Intrigue's deceiving guest; Be tyrant, or be slave, As suits thy ends ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... a saucy knave!" said the other, quickly; but instantly checking himself, he added, "and how fares it with your lady, in the absence ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... goaded on to acts of violence and retaliation by necessity; to Richard, blood is a pastime.—There are other decisive differences inherent in the two characters. Richard may be regarded as a man of the world, a plotting, hardened knave, wholly regardless of everything but his own ends, and the means to secure them.—Not so Macbeth. The superstitions of the age, the rude state of society, the local scenery and customs, all give a wildness and imaginary grandeur to his character. ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... "How absolute the knave is!" said his lordship good humouredly. "— Well, but," he resumed, "—about these fishermen: I'm only afraid Mr ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... time in Canada before Vaudreuil arrived as governor in 1755. He had already cheated a good deal. But it was only when he found out what sort of man Vaudreuil was that he set to work to do his worst. Bigot was a knave, Vaudreuil a fool. Vaudreuil was a French Canadian born and very jealous of any one from France, unless the Frenchman flattered him as Bigot did. He loved all sorts of pomp and show, and thought himself the greatest man in America. Bigot played on this ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood
... in short. This man is a clumsy-fisted, double jointed, burly-headed personage, about six feet in height, with a countenance commingling in expression the utmost ferocity and cunning. Hibbard is not a fool—but a knave. He is essentially a low bred man, and vulgar ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen
... canst see, with tranquil breast, The knave or fool in purple dressed, Whilst thou must ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... with the living rays of an Irish at least, if not a British Coronet: Instead of which, tho' enforcing laughter from every disposition, he appears, now, as such a character which every wise man will pity and avoid, every knave will censure, and every fool will fear: And accordingly Shakespeare, ever true to nature, has made Harry desert, and Lancaster censure him:—He dies where he lived, in a Tavern, broken-hearted, without a friend; and his final exit is given up to the derision of fools. ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... that had led her—a modest virgin—to seek a gentleman in this personal fashion. Modesty in a young girl has a comfortable satisfying charm, recognized easily by all humanity; but he must be a sorry knave or a worse prig who is not deliciously thrilled when Modesty puts her charming little foot just ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... the fool a sage, the knave an honest man, And canker'd gray locks young again, if he has gear and lan'; To age maun beauty ope her arms, though wi' a tearfu' e'e; O poverty! O poverty! that love ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... goldsmiths?" said Schwartz to Hans, as they entered the large city. "It is a good knave's trade; we can put a great deal of copper into the gold, without any one's ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... for the evidence is against you. Probably this man makes a slight mistake in believing himself to be an excellent cook, but the chief mistake is in the agreement, which ought to have stipulated that he should cook a trial dinner. The person who drew up the agreement is either a great knave or a great fool." ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... effeminate feet, every hair taught its curve and direction, the lunette perched upon no nose to speak of, and the wavering, vacillating eye, which has no higher regard than his own miniature figure. Above rises the vagabond, straight, athletic and courageous, though a knave. ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... or against such public opinion or popular conventions as can be overset. The hold of an absurd bit of gossip upon stupid people is firm enough in "Spreading the News"; but fortunately it must yield to facts at last. The Queen and the Knave of Hearts are sufficiently clever, with the aid of the superb cookery of the Knave's wife, to do away with an ancient and solemnly reverenced law of Pompdebile's court. So, too, the force of ancient loyalty and enthusiasm almost works a miracle in the invalid veteran of "Gettysburg." ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... a lying knave," replied the prince, "and in the plot to vex and provoke me." He then gave him a box on the ear, which knocked him down; and after having stamped upon him for some time, he tied the well-rope under his arms, and plunged him several times into the water, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... the knave threw out to Squoire Nicholas just now," rejoined Jem. "He said he'd another case o' witchcraft nearer whoam. Whot could ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... mistresse, and I wil play the man so properly, that (trust me) in what company so ever I come I will not be discovered: I wil buy me a suite, and have my Rapier very handsomely at my side, and if any knave offer wrong, your Page wil shew him ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... A soldier, says he, is "no livery for a knave," and Ireland is "not the country of dishonor." The major pays court to old Lady Rusport, but when he detects her dishonest purposes in bribing her lawyer to make away with Sir Oliver's will, and cheating Charles Dudley of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... when he's fou, Sir Knave is a fool in a session; He's there but a 'prentice I trow, But I ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... man dared even throw a firebrand into the darkness. For if he did he was jeered to death by the others, who cried "Fool, anti-social knave, why would you disturb us with bogeys? There is no darkness. We move and live and have our being within the light, and unto us is given the eternal light of knowledge, we comprise and comprehend the innermost core and issue ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... than I thought you, Bunny, and by Jove it's the knave! Well—I suppose I'm fairly drawn; I give you best, as they say out there. As a matter of fact I've been thinking of the thing myself; last night's racket reminds me of it in one or two respects. I tell you ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... wise air. "There was always something about Jane that attracted men. And she is more knave than fool. But she is ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... not an easy matter to dispose of so cunning a knave, Clameran felt no hesitation in undertaking to accomplish his purpose. He was incited by one of those passions which age ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... your heart was broken, when your Dream Knight had actually sat by your side and ridden with you and you had treated him as though he were a kitchen knave. The only crumb of comfort Christina had was that which her pride provided. At least Wallace would never dream that she had been silly enough to set him up on a pedestal, dream about him at night, and watch for ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... She made some tarts, All on a summer's day; The Knave of Hearts He stole those tarts, And with ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... and, so apparently, unaccountable, an influence over Sir Robert Cecil as Sir Willmott Burrell: he knew, as we have elsewhere stated, many of his secrets, and shrewdly guessed at others of more weighty import; while, with the ready sagacity of an accomplished knave, he contrived to appear well acquainted with matters of which he was altogether ignorant, but the existence of which he had abundant reasons for suspecting. The enfeebled health and growing infirmities of the baronet rendered him an easy prey to his wily acquaintance, who, driven to his last ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... distress me. I thought you familiar with certain events. You are forgetting, then, the passage where Pliny the Elder speaks of the library of Carthage and the treasures which were accumulated there? In 146, when that city fell under the blows of the knave, Scipio, the incredible collection of illiterates who bore the name of the Roman Senate had only the profoundest contempt for these riches. They presented them to the native kings. This is how Mantabal received this priceless heritage; ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... you like a ready knave, here is one of most approved convenience: he will cheat you moreover to your heart's content. If you believe me ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... three-cornered hat, blue coat with red facings, yellow breeches and black gaiters of the Volunteer, seated on a big drum, his feet on a pile of cannon-balls and his musket between his knees. It was the citizen of hearts replacing the ci-devant knave of hearts. For six months and more Gamelin had been drawing soldiers with never-failing gusto. He had sold some of these while the fit of martial enthusiasm lasted, while others hung on the walls of the room, and five or six, water-colours, ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... lips changed into the semblance of a smile. Slowly, deliberately, never once glancing down at the face of his cards, he turned them up one by one with his white fingers, his challenging eyes on the Judge; but the others saw what was revealed—-a ten spot, a knave, a queen, a king, ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... ship at Scarborough going south, wherefore I set out for mine own country on foot. And to-day, which is my first on this journey, I came to this inn for a pint of good ale, and paid my money for it too, whereupon yonder scurvy knave gives me small beer, thin as water. And I, being somewhat hot and choleric of temper, threw the measure at him, and rewarded him for his insolence. So now I will go on my way, for 'tis a brave step from here to Marazion, and I love not ye ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... wait a spell," answered Samson. "And though I've no love for him, and wouldn't trust him across this plaza, without watchin', I can't help pitying poor 'top-lofty,' and thinking he was more fool than knave. The idee! Them plans and performances of his savor more of the 'middle ages,' that I've heard about, than of these days. But it just takes my breath away to think of what Sobrante will be, some time, if that 'find' in the canyon ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... supporters were not altogether without success, for the liveryman, Jerry Paddock, became his foreman, and Jake Maunders, evidently seeing in the noble Frenchman one of those gifts from the patron saint of crooked men which come to a knave only once in a lifetime, attached himself to him and became his closest adviser. Maunders, as one who had known him well remarked long afterwards, "was too crooked to sleep in a roundhouse." Whether he set about ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... without admiration. "I often wonder," said she, "at the many risks I run to shelter you, for you're a bloody-minded knave, and that's the truth. It was a near touch but I might have lost ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... all the people quail. 'Vain are your gods of wood and stone!' his voice was stern and high— 'Vain every rite, prayer, sacrifice' so ran his blasphemy. 'Your Jupiter is parricide, adulterer, demon, knave, 'He cannot listen to your cry, not his to bless or save. 'One God—Jehovah—rules alone, supreme o'er earth and heaven, 'And ye are His—yes, only His—to Him your prayers be given! 'He is our source, our life, our end,—no other god ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille
... Valparaiso and hurry in with a prior claim. I am sorry to say it, Foe: but altogether you did not create good impression on board the I'll Away. To the crew you were an object of dark suspicion. To the skipper you were either a close knave, meaning to trick him, or an incredible idiot. After a while, and almost against hope, he determined to try you for an idiot. He ordered his helm up, and watched you. You did not protest. He put his helm farther and farther up, ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... are clapper-clawing one another; I'll go look on. That dissembling abominable varlet, Diomed, has got that same scurvy, doting, foolish young knave in his helm. ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... for a moment just to listen to his last words on the Marprelate controversy. Marprelate now appears "with a wit worn into the socket, twingling and pinking like the snuff of a candle; quantum mutatus ab illo! how unlike the knave he was before, not for malice but for sharpness. The hogshead was even come to the hauncing, and nothing could be drawne from him but the dregs." Will says it is very good; and Nash smiles to himself as he puts the papers in his pockets and thinks vaguely that he ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... much perverse misrepresentation, so much insolent lying, may be found scattered through modern literature, respecting the great Genevan, that Dr. Henry deserves well the thanks of the christian world for exhibiting the chief facts of his history, so plainly that every partisan knave who would repeat the old slanders, shall be silent hereafter for very shame. John Calvin was unquestionably subject to the infirmities of our human nature; so was John Milton; but the inherent and indefectable greatness of these two men was such, that they dwell apart like stars, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... what she did was only to please that knave Raleigh, for whose sake I saw she would both grieve me and my love, and disgrace me in the eye of the world. From thence she came to speak of Raleigh; and it seemed she could not well endure anything to be spoken against him; and taking hold of my ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... I was not satisfied with Sir Humphrey Hyde, and wished that his wits were quicker, and wondered if years might improve them, and if perchance a man as honest might be found who had the keenness of ability to be the worst knave in the country. But the boy was brave, and I loved his love for Mary Cavendish, and I could think of no one to whom I would so readily trust her, and it seemed to me that perchance I might, by some praising of him, and swerving her thoughts to his track, ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... with my single hand, Take from thee, Knave, the whole of thy land: I will, I will, with my single toe, Lay thee and each of thy castles low." Look ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... night the rush of a horse's feet was heard, and the sound of a rider leaping from its back, and a heavy knock came to the door, accompanied by a voice, saying, 'The cummer drink's hot, and the knave bairn is expected at Laird Laurie's to-night; sae ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... "The knave doubtless saw us ride in this morning, and recognized me again. There is naught of magic in it, but the fellow must be shrewd, or he would not have so quickly drawn his conclusions. I will go in and speak to him presently, for though I believe not his prophecies ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... work him evil. Wit is not worldly wisdom. A man gazing on the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles on the road. A man may be able to disentangle intricate problems, be able to recall the past, and yet be cozened by an ordinary knave. The finest expression will not liquidate a butcher's account. If Apollo puts his name to a bill, he must meet it when it becomes due, or go into the gazette. Armies are not always cheering on the heights which they have won; there are forced marches, occasional shortness of provisions, ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... replied he of the keys, "the garb of laziness and filthy debauchery, which has been expelled from out these walls. Know you not, idle knave, of the suppression of this nest of superstition, and that the abbey lands and possessions were granted in August last to Master Robert Collan, by our Lady Elizabeth, sovereign queen of England, and paragon of all beauty, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various
... worked to death by Father Prout, there are few things better than the "Musae O'Connorianae" which celebrates the great fight of Mac Nevis and Mac Twolter. But there is here still the distinct following of a model the taint of the school-exercise. Very much more original is "The Knight and the Knave:" indeed I should call this the first original thing, though it be a parody, that Praed did. To say that it reminds one in more than subject of Rebecca and Rowena, and that it was written some twenty ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... proprietor of the "Boston News Bureau," feels it his duty to inform his readers, the banks and bankers and brokers and representative investors of New England, that that faking ass of State Street, that knave of knaves, Tom Lawson, is braying again, and such braying!—"Butte is to sell at 50, and going to be worth 50." It would be such a joke that this conservative paper would be only too happy to circulate ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... name of the other, but would not acknowledge his own. "You shall be called," said the Impeacher, "master Litigious Pettifogger, alias the Courts Comprised." "Bear witness, I pray you all," said the Pettifogger, "as to what the knave called me." "Ho, ho!" said Death, "not by the baptismal font, but by his sins, is every one called in this country; and, with your permission, master Pettifogger, the names of your sins are those which ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... declare to you, Richie, it was no platform speech. I know your term—"the chaincable sentence." Nothing of the kind, I assure you. Plain sense, as from gentlemen to gentlemen. We require, I said, a protection that the polite world of Great Britain does not now afford us against the aggressions of the knave, the fool, and the brute. We establish a Court. We do hereby—no, no, not the "hereby"; quite simply, Richie—pledge ourselves—I said some other word not "pledge" to use our utmost authority and influence to exclude ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... at Ipswich,' but its real place of printing was London, and perhaps the name of Robert Raworth, which occurs in the indictment, may stand for Richard Raworth, the printer whom Sir John Lambe declared to be 'an arrant knave.' Or the printer may have been William Jones,[12] who about this time was fined L1000 ...
— A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 • Henry R. Plomer
... without flinching, and lighted me to the stair with our established ceremony. I voted him an interesting knave and really admired the cool way in which he carried off difficult situations. I had no intention of being killed, and now that I had due warning of danger, I resolved to protect myself from foes without and within. Both Bates and Morgan, the caretaker, were liars of high attainment. Morgan ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... nearest to our vice allied: Reason the bias turns to good from ill And Nero reigns a Titus, if he will. The fiery soul abhorred in Catiline, In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine: The same ambition can destroy or save, And makes a patriot as it makes a knave. This light and darkness in our chaos joined, What shall divide? The God within the mind. Extremes in nature equal ends produce, In man they join to some mysterious use; Though each by turns the other's bound invade, As, in some well-wrought picture, light ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... not the appearance of the knave at this juncture," said the abbot; "yet I wish to confront him, and charge him with ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... sinner. Doubtless its ancestors were industrious, honest creatures, seeking their food in the soil, and digesting it with the help of leaves filled with good green matter (chlorophyll) on which virtuous vegetable life depends; but some ancestral knave elected to live by piracy, to drain the already digested food of its neighbors; so the Indian Pipe gradually lost the use of parts for which it has need no longer, until we find it to-day without color and its leaves degenerated into mere ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... CHORUS:—Oh, sleep for a knave, With his sins in the sod! And death for the brave, With his glory up to God! And joy for the girl, And ease for the churl! But the great game of war ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... seemes to be a bold audatious knave; I doe not like intruding companie, That seeke to undermine ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... Lance, as Felix with a voice of ineffable disgust read the final sentence, 'if that is not being a knave, it is very ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... comrades, bring them one by one, these devils who could sit to watch a blind man walk to his doom to make their sport. Ah! whom have we here? Why, by Thor! 'tis the lawyer knave, he who was president of the court that tried you, and was angry because you did not salute him. Well, lawyer, the wheel has gone round. We Northmen are in possession of the palace and the Armenian legions are gathered at its gates and do but wait for Constantine ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... trading town of South America. The alleged Don Benito was in early manhood, about twenty-nine or thirty. To assume a sort of roving cadetship in the maritime affairs of such a house, what more likely scheme for a young knave of talent and spirit? But the Spaniard was a pale invalid. Never mind. For even to the degree of simulating mortal disease, the craft of some tricksters had been known to attain. To think that, under the aspect of infantile weakness, the most savage energies ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... cannot follow this inflated fool any longer; for he was quite as much of fool as of knave, though partaking largely of the latter character. It was plain that he carried many of his notions much farther than a good portion of his audience carried theirs; though, whenever he touched upon anti-rentism, ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... uncle Oliver! Gad, then you'll never be friends, Charles. That, now, to me, is as stern a looking rogue as ever I saw; an unforgiving eye, and a damned disinheriting countenance! an inveterate knave, depend on't. Don't ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... gentleman's word. If, as Lady Mary told her, and as she could so well believe, the present Earl of Scroope had given to this girl a promise that he would marry her, if he had bound himself by his pledged word, as a nobleman and a gentleman, how could she bid him become a perjured knave? Sans reproche! Was he thus to begin to live and to deserve the motto of his house by the ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... But canting knave of pen and sword, nor sanctimonious fool, Shall never win this Southern land, to cripple, bind, and rule; We'll muster on each bloody plain, thick as the stars of night, And, through the help of God, the Wrong ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... till death the country were well rid o' baith, for I know not whether I hate mair bitterly a Covenanter or a Campbell. But it would set us better, Balcarres, to keep our breath to cool oor ain porridge. What is this I hear, that Athole is playing the knave, and that Gordon cannot be trusted to keep the castle? Has the day come upon us that the best names in Scotland are to be dragged in the mire? I sairly doot that for the time the throne is lost to ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... But you have forgotten something, Bes. When that knave escapes, he will tell the whole story and the King will send after us and kill us who have ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... stood apart, the center of a group of officers, and Falconnet was with him. Hovering on the edges of the group, as if afraid to show themselves too boldly in such a coil, were Gilbert Stair and that smooth parchment-visaged knave, his factor. The while they thrust me forth to take my place at Margery's side, the good old priest came and would have joined us; but they ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... his colossal equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza broken to pieces; his sculpture lost; his Palazzo Vecchio battle cartoon perished; this picture only a sketch. Even after long years the evil fate still persists, for in 1911 his "Gioconda" was stolen from the Louvre by madman or knave. ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... built on a grand scale, there's always people to feel the greatness, and though, when you hap to be a knave, their respect is a bit one-sided, still there it is: ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... de Trailles departed than Franchessini opened a pack of cards and took out the knave of spades. This he cut up in a curious manner, leaving the figure untouched. Placing this species of hieroglyphic between two sheets of paper, he consigned it to an envelope. On this envelope and disguising his hand the colonel wrote ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... reproachful and even as disgraceful epithets. To call a man by the name which he had chosen as the representative of his political or religious opinions was considered equivalent to calling him a knave or a fool; and if it happened that he was in the minority, his name alone was regarded as the stamp of social degradation. Now, thanks to the influence of the popular lecture mainly, men have made, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... it had stood only at the head and foot of Kate's little account. But unhappily for Kate's debut on this vast American stage, the case was otherwise. Mr. Urquiza had the misfortune (equally common in the old world and the new) of being a knave; and also a showy specious knave. Kate, who had prospered under sea allowances of biscuit and hardship, was now expanding in proportions. With very little vanity or consciousness on that head, she now displayed a really fine person; and, when drest anew in the way that became a young officer in the ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... himself an inspirer and, as some say, a writer of ballads. As is pointed out in the Border Minstrelsy, the ballad, in its account of the interview between the king and his troublesome subject, follows pretty closely the narrative of Pitscottie. 'What wants that knave that a king should have?' was the offended remark of James, when he saw the band approaching him in the bravery of their war-gear. And Johnie, when all his appeals and bribes proved to be vain, could also speak a ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... slight. The essential truth of his statement remains: he had found a book of a different class from that of the ordinary manuscript—indeed diversis a nostris characteribus. Instead of thinking him arrant knave or fool enough to bring down "antiquity" to the thirteenth century, we might charitably push back his definition of "nostri characteres" to include anything in minuscules; script "not our own" would be the majuscule hands in vogue before the Middle Ages. That is a position palaeographically ...
— A Sixth-Century Fragment of the Letters of Pliny the Younger • Elias Avery Lowe and Edward Kennard Rand
... method of accounting for that prodigious superiority of penetration which we must observe in some men over the rest of the human species, and one which will serve not only in the case of lovers, but of all others. From whence is it that the knave is generally so quick-sighted to those symptoms and operations of knavery, which often dupe an honest man of a much better understanding? There surely is no general sympathy among knaves; nor have they, like ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... "Has not the treacherous knave kept faith?" exclaimed the Skimmer, half recoiling in surprise. "He has my gold, and in return I hold fifty of his worthless promises—ha!—the laggard is in yon skiff; ware the brig round, and meet him, for moments are as precious now as water in ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... happened. In his chamber in the Rue St. Honore, at Paris, sat a man ALONE—a man who has been maligned, a man who has been called a knave and charlatan, a man who has been persecuted even to the death, it is said, in Roman Inquisitions, forsooth, and elsewhere. Ha! ha! A man who has ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... their colour would, or would not, form harmonious contrasts in the coming spring muslins and prints. He went to debating societies, and threw himself with all his heart and soul into politics; esteeming, it must be owned, every man a fool or a knave who differed from him, and overthrowing his opponents rather by the loud strength of his language than the calm strength of his logic. There was something of the Yankee in all this. Indeed, his theory ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... liquor had subsided in it in consequence of the minute doses with which the apothecary had made free. "Fool, had you taken your glass like a man, you might have been young again. Now, creep on, the few months you have left, poor, torpid knave, and ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to stories of supernatural events, even from sources that seem to be trustworthy, I hope my young friends will consider duly how liable to error are an unhealthy mind and an excited imagination. Every man is not a knave or a cheat who claims to have witnessed unnatural phenomena, but the judgment of very excellent persons is liable to be infected by illusions ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... of his voice had drawn a crowd of idlers and brother shopkeepers, who seemed vastly to enjoy the knave's discomfiture. Amongst them I recognized my old acquaintance, Weld, now a rival ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Saumaise, her ascendancy over her husband, his narrow pedantry, his ignorance of everything but grammar and words. He exhausts the Latin vocabulary of abuse to pile up every epithet of contumely and execration on the head of his adversary. It but amounts to calling Salmasius fool and knave through a couple of hundred pages, till the exaggeration of the style defeats the orator's purpose, and we end by regarding the whole, not as a serious pleading, but as an epideictic display. Hobbes said truly that the two books were "like two declamations, for and against, made ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... pardon for a homicide, and it appears that the fellow retained a certain sense of gratitude. Lorenzino began by telling the man there was a courtier who put insults upon him, and Scoronconcolo professed his readiness to kill the knave. 'Sia chi si voglia; io l'ammazzero, se fosse Cristo.' Up to the last minute the name of Alessandro was not mentioned. Having thus secured his assistant, Lorenzino chose a night when he knew that Alessandro Vitelli, captain of the Duke's guard, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... lrenaeus and. Tertullian Mr. Everett remarks, that "Tertullian was a very shrewd writer, [yes indeed, and of his fraudulent shrewdness Middleton gives some notable instances in his true inquiry] and Irenaeus less fool than knave," p. 471. of Mr. Everett's work. I would observe to Mr. Everett, that this Irenaeus is the first writer who mentions the four Gospels, and that the Fathers of the Church who came after him in affirming the genuineness of the four Gospels appeal to this Irenaeus this ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... between the ecstatic and the sententious. If it were not for the prospect of immortality, he considers, it would be wise and agreeable to be indecent or to murder one's father; and, heaven apart, it would be extremely irrational in any man not to be a knave. Man, he thinks, is a compound of the angel and the brute; the brute is to be humbled by being reminded of its "relation to the stalls," and frightened into moderation by the contemplation of death-beds and skulls; the angel is to be developed by ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... my residence in Panama, I had retired early to rest. My trusty knave, Peter Mangrove, and trustier still, my dog Sneezer, had both fallen asleep on the floor, at the foot of my bed, if the piece of machinery on which I lay deserved that name, when in the dead of night I was awakened by a slight noise at the door. I shook myself and listened. Presently ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... very woman poor Starkey bade me have a care of; but when I came here last she was gone, no one knew where. I'll go and see her tomorrow. But mind you, sirrah, if any harm comes to her, or any more talk of her being a witch—I've a pack of hounds at home, who can follow the scent of a lying knave as well as ever they followed a dog-fox; so take care how you talk about ducking a faithful old servant ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... according to thy merits; The like of thee have never moved My hate. Of all the bold, denying Spirits, The waggish knave least trouble doth create. Man's active nature, flagging, seeks too soon the level; Unqualified repose he learns to crave; Whence, willingly, the comrade him I gave, Who works, excites, and must create, as Devil. But ye, God's sons in love and duty, Enjoy the rich, the ever-living Beauty! ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... the pretended former wife: a splendid woman, and as much Eleanor Wickham of Dorsetshire as I am. They mean, however, to show fight, I think; for, as I left the place, I observed that delightful knave Richards enter the house. I took the liberty of placing seals upon the desks and cabinets, and directed the butler and other servants to see that nothing was disturbed or removed till Mrs. ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... Hircan, "if you knew what a difference there is between a gentleman who has worn armour and been at the wars all his life, and a well-fed knave that has never stirred from home, you would excuse the ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... words which originally described persons of poor condition and have now come to mean a wicked or deceitful person. A knave, as we now understand the word, means a person who cheats in a particularly mean way, but formerly the word meant merely "boy." It then came to mean "servant," just as the word garcon ("boy") is used for all waiters in French restaurants. Another word which ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... execration. Nothing ever equalled the brutal cruelty of the judge. His fury seemed to be directed with peculiar violence upon the Dissenters. "Show me," said he, "a Presbyterian, and I will show thee a lying knave. Presbyterianism has all manner of villany in it. There is not one of those lying, snivelling, canting Presbyterians, but, one way or another, has had a hand in the rebellion." He sentenced nearly all who were ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... mine, and he believed he wouldn't. And I told him the receipt of this came from the Queen's own kitchen. And he said, he didn't know that the Queen of England was any better than the Queen of Hearts. Then I said, I supposed he remembered how the latter lady was served by the Knave of Hearts in 'Mother Goose'? And he replied, that he wasn't going to be Jack-at-a-pinch for anybody. And so on, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... carried might last, and so they encamped between two rocks and among some cork trees; but fatal destiny, which, according to the opinion of those who have not the light of the true faith, directs, arranges, and settles everything in its own way, so ordered it that Gines de Pasamonte, the famous knave and thief who by the virtue and madness of Don Quixote had been released from the chain, driven by fear of the Holy Brotherhood, which he had good reason to dread, resolved to take hiding in the mountains; and his fate and fear led him to the ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... He was silent, staring gloomily at the plan of Worsted Skeynes, still unrolled, like an emblem of all there was at stake. "If George has really," he burst out, "he's a greater fool than I took him for! A fool? He's a knave!" ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... said his honour; "and so are all the folks in the house, I hope. But if there be a knave among us, it must be he that tells the story he cannot prove." He paused, and then added, mair sternly: "If I understand your trick, sir, you want to take advantage of some malicious reports concerning ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... I, Stephen,' said his honour; 'and so are all the folks in the house, I hope. But if there be a knave amongst us, it must be he that tells the story he cannot prove.' He paused, and then added, mair sternly, 'If I understand your trick, sir, you want to take advantage of some malicious reports concerning things in this family, and particularly respecting my father's ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... while the wretch to whom he owes money is starving; and that, to balance the matter, a creditor, if cruel, may detain a debtor in prison for a lifetime, and make, as the established phrase goes, dice of his bones—would this admirable reciprocity of privilege, indulged alternately to knave and tyrant, please Saunders better than his own humane action of Cessio, and his ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... once or twice in a quarter bear out a knave against an honest man, I have but very little credit with your ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... listened to his warnings prospered, whilst he who turned a deaf ear to them repented afterwards. (4) Yet, it will be readily conceded, he would hardly desire to present himself to his everyday companions in the character of either knave or fool. Whereas he would have appeared to be both, supposing (5) the God-given revelations had but revealed his own proneness to deception. It is plain he would not have ventured on forecast at all, but for his belief that the words he spoke would in fact be verified. Then on whom, or what, ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... men might aske, why she was not slain? Eke at the feast who might her body save? And I answere that demand again: Who saved Daniel in th' horrible cave, When every wight save him, master or knave, The lion ate—before he could depart? No wight but God, whom he ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... humblest hireling knave in Rome - A waterman that plies his craft all night - Craves ...
— The Duke of Gandia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... card-game ("the little Calabrian game") for three players. All the tens, nines and eights are removed from an ordinary pack; the order of the cards is three, two, ace, king, queen, &c. In scoring the ace counts 3; the three 2; king, queen and knave 1 each. The last trick counts 3. Each separate hand is a whole game. One player plays against the other two, paying to each or receiving from each the difference between the number of points that he and they hold. Each player receives ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... Lord that time should play the treacherous knave thus! Why, he was the only friend I had in Spain, sir, I knew your Mother too, a handsome Gentlewoman, She was married very young: I married 'em: I do remember now the Maskes and Sports then, The Fire-works, and the fine delights; good faith, sir, Now I look in your face, whose eyes are those, ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... for the most part, instinctively, morally and intellectually, knew that this system was wrong, a horror and a nightmare. But even the capitalist victims of the competitive struggle, which awarded supremacy to the knave and the trickster, went to their doom praising it as the only civilized, rational system and as unchangeable and ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... upon a time a sprightly lady who added a thousand lively interests. This was Louise de Cabris, sister of the great Mirabeau, "who, when a mere girl, had been married to the Marquis de Cabris. Part knave, part fool, the vices of de Cabris sometimes ended in attacks of insanity. His marriage with one who united the violence of the Mirabeaus to the license of the Vassans was unfortunate; ... and after Louise began to reign ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... the sincere, flowing and lyric character, like that of Dick Swiveller or Mr. Micawber. He tells Mr. Boffin that he will drop into poetry in a friendly way. He does drop into it in a friendly way; in much too really a friendly way to make him convincing as a mere calculating knave. He and Mr. Venus are such natural and genuine companions that one does not see why if Venus repents Wegg should not repent too. In short, Wegg is a convenience for a plot and not a very good plot at that. But if he is one of the blots on the business, he is not the principal one. If the real ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... pain that I felt sure took his attention from me! They had been written for Jim several years before in one of his most severe cases. That villain, Hosley, had certainly fooled me. I could see that I had been his dupe all through. I, his chum from boyhood, blinded at every turn by this clever knave! But at last I was getting wise to the trickery of the world; from this time forth I would be wary of every suggestion and live and die alone to insure the preservation of my innocence. What a harvest of whirlwind these letters would have brought me had they ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... enough, as I told Jonas, and then he took us round and pointed out all the beautiful carvin's and things on the choir, the transits, and the nave, but when Jonas stopped before the carved figger of the devil chawin' up a sinner, and asked if that was the transit of a knave, the old feller didn't know what he meant. An' then we wandered alone through them ruined cloisters and subterraneal halls, an' old tombstones of the past, till I felt I don't know how. There was a girl in New Jersey who used to put on airs because her family ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... and 1720, that a history of the Mississippi madness can have no fitter introduction than a sketch of the life of its great author, John Law. Historians are divided in opinion as to whether they should designate him a knave or a madman. Both epithets were unsparingly applied to him in his lifetime, and while the unhappy consequences of his projects were still deeply felt. Posterity, however, has found reason to doubt the justice of the accusation, and to confess that John Law was ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... like a dog, and by the man whom he had treated as his son, and who pretended, the false knave! ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... betray'd, beguiled; Swept on by faction's fiery blast. In its blood-stain'd track, a fool, a child! His doom is fix'd—his lot is cast. Yet scowls by his bier earth's blackest knave. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... that he had to deal with a knave, pretended to agree, but stipulated that he must first taste the wine; whereupon the merchant gave him to taste some true Rhone wine which he carried in a leather bottle at his belt. 'If the cask answer to the sample,' said the King, 'Ambialet is well ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... telling the naked truth. If I were a liar and a knave I could make up a very plausible tale, no doubt. But I am not. The naked truth is that I preserved the paper for what ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... believe, has been defined as a legal knave, a lawyer who practises in an unprofessional or tricky manner. Kahn was all that—and still more. If he had been less successful, he would have been the black sheep of the overcrowded legal flock. Ideals ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... "Perpetuana—lining? Thou reckless knave! Three-and-fourpence the yard at the least—well, we'll say ten shillings—five pounds four and six: and the lace, at four shillings by the ounce, and there'll be two ounces there, good: five pounds twelve shillings and sixpence, as I'm a living ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... horror, and plunges from precipice to precipice into the lowest depths of despair. Great and majestic in misfortune, by misfortune reclaimed, and led back to the paths of virtue. Such a man shall you pity and hate, abhor yet love, in the Robber Moor. You will likewise see a juggling, fiendish knave unmasked and blown to atoms in his own mines; a fond, weak, and over-indulgent father; the sorrows of too enthusiastic love, and the tortures of ungoverned passion. Here, too, you will witness, not without a shudder, the interior economy of vice; ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... sermon on the slave trade, addressed to this affectionate father, was quite appalling. I was offered his only son in exchange for a spade! and this young nigger knave of spades was warranted to remain ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... justify a fall. He reflected on this situation and reached these conclusions: "James Fanning-Smith purposes to pass the autumn dividend, which will cause the stock to drop. Then he will take his profits from the shares he has sold short and will buy back control at the low price. He is a fool and a knave. Only an imbecile would thus trifle with an established property. A chance for some one to make a fortune and win a railroad by smashing the Fanning-Smiths." Having recorded in his indelible memory these facts and conclusions as to James Fanning-Smith's plunge from business into gambling, Dumont ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... advice, and go on to Lyons, as he has heard the South of France is much cheaper, and there he may see what he can do, by leaving Paris, and an application to his friends in England. But at Lyons too, some artful knave, of one nation or the other, accosts him, who has had notice of his Paris misfortunes;—he pities him;—and, rather than see a countryman, or a gentleman of fashion and character in distress, he would lend him fifty or a hundred pounds. When this is done, every art is used to debauch ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... 'The corn has all been cut, but it has not yet been put into barns; let the knave collect all the grain in the kingdom into one big heap before to-morrow night, and if as much as a stalk of corn is left let him ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... it is the unconscious and spontaneous effect of his participation in their weaknesses. He never knowingly calls black white, or panders to an ungenerous sentiment. He is combative to a fault, but his combativeness is allied to a genuine love of fair-play. When he hates a man, he calls him knave or fool with unflinching frankness, but he never uses a base weapon. The wounds which he inflicts may hurt, but they do not fester. His patriotism may be narrow, but it implies faith in the really good qualities, the ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... would oblige the world very much; for you must know, that next to new-invented characters, we are fond of new lights upon ancient characters; I mean such lights as show a reputed honest man to have been a concealed knave, an illustrious hero a pitiful coward, &c. Nay, we are so fond of these kinds of information as to be pleased sometimes to see a character cleared from a vice or crime it has been charged with, provided the person concerned be actually dead. But in this case the evidence must be authentic, and ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... Beshrew thee for a knave!" replied Sir Wulfric. But the appeal seemed to have gone home. "Yet thou sayest sooth," he added thoughtfully. "Go where thou wilt," he added nobly, "thou art free. Wulfric de Talbot warreth not with babes, and Jakin here shall bear ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... heiress of an English farmstead, beloved by two honest men and one knave. She marries the knave in haste, and repents it at leisure for years thereafter. Released by his death, she marries Gabriel Oak.—Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... except, perhaps, his son. He himself even, it was said, could not tell, though he spent his days and nights poring over books and papers, trying to find out, till he became almost as crazy as his wife. No one went to consult him on law business, except, perhaps, some smuggler or other knave who could get no decent lawyer to undertake his case, and then old Goul was sure to lose it, so that even the rogues at last would not ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... that the man was a knave, and this profession of love at once confirmed her in that belief. She therefore immediately turned ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... I considering this Took up my cross in patience and passed forth: Nevertheless one ran between my feet And made me totter, using speech and signs I smart with shame to think of: then my blood Kindled, and I was moved to smite the knave, And the knave howled; whereat the lewd whole herd Brake forth upon me and cast mire and stones So that I ran sore risk of bruise or gash If they had touched; likewise I heard men say, (Their foul speech missed not mine ear) they cried, "This devil's ...
— Chastelard, a Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... a cheery and timely visitor. Dismal indeed, and not infrequent, is that time, and the vista therefrom is a long, dull yawn stretching to the horizon and the grave. If at any time we do revalue the values, let us write it down that the person who makes us yawn is a criminal knave, and then we will abolish matrimony ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... one, made without witnesses; so I must be content with what I get; but I do not wish you to flatter yourself with the notion that you have hoodwinked a lawyer's clerk. You are not clever enough to do that, Mr. Goodge, though you are knave enough to cheat every attorney ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... personal disputes with great satisfaction, unless, indeed, you suppose me to be annoyed by the complaints of a fellow like Paconius—who is not even a Greek, but in reality a Mysian or Phrygian—or by the words of Tuscenius, a madman and a knave, from whose abominable jaws you snatched the fruits of a most infamous piece of extortion ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... life long, Yea, all thy sweet life long, Fair Ladye. Where's he that craftily hath said The day of chivalry is dead? I'll prove that lie upon his head, Or I will die instead, Fair Ladye. Is Honor gone into his grave? Hath Faith become a caitiff knave, And Selfhood turned into a slave To work in Mammon's cave, Fair Ladye? Will Truth's long blade ne'er gleam again? Hath Giant Trade in dungeons slain All great contempts of mean-got gain And hates of inward stain, Fair Ladye? ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... Vitoriano. 'For what purpose did you send for the soga this afternoon?' demanded the functionary. 'I sent for no soga,' said the prisoner, 'I sent for my alforjas to serve as a pillow, and it was sent in them by chance.' 'Thou art a false malicious knave,' retorted the Alcalde, 'you intend to hang yourself, and by so doing ruin us all, as your death would be laid to our door. Give me the soga.' No greater insult can be offered to a Spaniard, than to tax him with an intention of committing ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... in the morning, Vasia, Golushkin's clerk. "He hasn't much to say," Golushkin declared, "but is devoted heart and soul to our cause." To this Vasia bowed, blushed, blinked his eyes, and grinned in such a manner that it was impossible to say whether he was merely a vulgar fool or an out-and-out knave ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... transfer him to heaven that he might be the right man in the right place. Such persons may succeed in making themselves agreeable to the man with whom they desire to ingratiate themselves, provided that man be a fool or a knave; but they assuredly render themselves disagreeable, not to say revolting, to all human beings whose good opinion is worth the possessing. And though any one who is not a fool will generally make himself agreeable to people ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... the Devonshire corner to a place in the state, so commanding, that even the jester, who was the 'Mr. Punch' of that day, conceived it to be within the limits of his prerogative to call attention to it, and that too in 'the presence' itself [See 'the knave' commands 'the queen.'—Tarleton]—a place of command so acknowledged, that even the poet could call him in the ear of England 'her most dear delight'—such a one was not going to give up so easily the game he had been playing here so long. He was not to be foiled with this great flaw ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... that they have at length done with him; that, in these our premises, we shall never see him again;—nay shall see him, on extraneous dim fields, far enough away, smarting and suffering, till even we are almost sorry for the old knave!— ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... strong-minded aunt, who, though cleverer than her brother, was too wise in her own conceit to perceive at the first glance the noble, simple conception of his own duties and position, which was implied in the honest gentleman's words. "Your second son might be either a fool or a knave, or even, although neither, might be quite unfit to be intrusted with the eternal interests of his fellow-creatures. In my opinion, the duty of choosing a clergyman is one not to be exercised without the gravest deliberation. A conscientious man would ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... had proved a bloody knave; my visionary lands and riches all had vanished; instead of silk attire and sword, I wore a rifle-shirt and skinning-knife; and out of the dawn-born glory of the hills had stepped no silken damsel of romance to pause and worship me—only ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... is an uncandid sarcasm. There is nothing to connect Stephen with the religion of Domitilla. He was a knave detected in the malversation of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... What should my knave advance, To draw this company? he hung out no banners Of a strange calf with five legs to be seen, Or a huge lobster with ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... liketh me right well to see thee back without the peltry wherefor I sent thee! Where hast loitered, thou knave?" ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... him; it was to d'Ache alone that the prisoners owed all their misfortunes. And Licquet found a painful echo of his insinuations in all Mme. Acquet's letters to her lover; but he found nothing more. "You know that Delorriere d'Ache is a knave, a scoundrel; that he is the cause of all your trouble; that he alone made you act; you did not think of it yourself, and he advised you badly. He alone deserves the hatred of the government. He is abhorred and execrated as he deserves to be, and there is no one who would ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... Hal's child, Sir Robert!" exclaimed a serving-brother in black, coming eagerly forward; "the villeins on the green told me the poor knave was distraught at having lost his child ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... lips and hoped he might not wake for hours, although I hungered. The actual revenge is very, very sweet, Sahib, but does it exceed the joy of watching the enemy as he lies wholly at your mercy, lies in the hollow of your hand and is your poor foolish plaything,—knave made fool at last? Like statues we sat, moving not our eyes from his face, and we ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... is a precious knave, stay, stay, good Tristram, And let me ask thy mightiness a question, Did ye ...
— The Little French Lawyer - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont
... that we should be careful not to stamp them with the mark of greatness at the outset of the journey. Horatio was a happy stroke for Nelson, but how few Horatios win immortality, or deserve it! And how disastrous if Horatio turns out a knave and a coward! If young Spinks has any Miltonic fire within him, it will shine through plain John more naturally and lustrously than through any borrowed patronymic. You may be as humble as you like, and John will fit you: as illustrious as you like, and ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... perhaps, but not to me. The man is shamming. He has come here for some purpose, which will be pretty sure to transpire presently. The knave never dreams that we are watching him, and he hugs himself with the delusion that we take his story for gospel. Fancy a man in the state that he pretends to be in sending his card to you! Let him stay where we can keep an eye upon the chap. So long as he is under our observation he ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... the daytime, its members fresh and ready for the day's work, instead of giving all day to professional work and then with exhausted brains undertaking the work of governing the country after dinner. Cavendish, the authority on whist, being asked if a man could possibly finesse a knave, second round, third player, replied, after reflecting, "Yes, he might ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... be chief of the Rocky Mountains! If I choose to come an' spend the winter in this region, you have no right to prevent me. And if I offer to bring you furs and venison, besides pretty good company, will ye be such a surly knave as to refuse me ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... manner. John Dee left to posterity a diary in which he has inserted a regular account of his conjurations, prophetic intimations, and magical resources. Notwithstanding his mathematical acumen, he was the dupe of his cunning subordinate—more of a knave, probably, than his master. In 1583 a Polish prince, Albert Laski, visiting the English court, frequented the society of the renowned astrologer, by whom he was initiated in the secrets of the art; and predicted to be the ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... that he was known in South Africa as the King of Diamonds. We learned later on, from independent sources, that though he had kept the suit he had changed the card. From Kim-berley to Table Bay the fame of the Knave of Diamonds had travelled, and if only one-half we heard of the man was true he had earned his title. For something like an hour and a half this gentleman and myself stood side by side at the roulette-table, and noticed unfailingly that whenever black was most heavily ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
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