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Dastardly   Listen
adjective
Dastardly  adj.  Meanly timid; cowardly; base; as, a dastardly outrage.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Dastardly" Quotes from Famous Books



... the Count's coat, his hat, his pocket-book (which was known to have been full of bank-notes, but which was now empty) were found on the parapet of a bridge near his chateau. It was given out—it was believed that a dastardly crime had been committed. And then, by a mere accident, it was brought to my notice—for there was nothing in the Count's dossier which could have led me to suspect such a thing—that a charming governess who had been in the employment of his Countess for some four or five years had suddenly ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... you both to carry on your private dealings with dastardly clerks. Back to your room, and leave this heap of bloody flesh and rags for the ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa

... up a knife—"a little ornamental Norwegian dagger," the report said, "which happened to lie close by on the cabinet in the drawing-room," and plunged it into his wife's heart. "The unhappy lady died instantaneously, by all appearances, and the dastardly crime was not discovered by the servants till eight o'clock this morning. Mr. ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... into this mess. Good lack, to think he has fallen among thieves for the second time! The young jackanapes seems to have a natural affinity for sharpers and swindlers. That infernal cad Jacobi!" and here Malcolm boiled with impotent wrath as he thought of that dastardly conspiracy to entrap a young and innocent girl. "I should like to horsewhip him," he went on; "how is one to keep one's hands off such a fellow! He may be a dark horse, as Rossiter says, but he will have to reckon with me." And Malcolm ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... project," retorted Merriwell. "I am not a poor man, but did I not possess a dollar in the world, and you were to show me beyond question that I could make five millions as my own share by entering into such a dastardly operation, I would refuse to have anything ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish

... dastardly fellow: also a non-conformist. This appellation is said to have originated from the following story:—After the restoration, the laws against the non-conformists were extremely severe. They sometimes met in very obscure places: and there is a tradition ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... because you would have sealed her misery for the remainder of her days, and it would not have caused you to escape the suspicion of being an accomplice, while at the same time it would have attached to you the odium of dastardly treachery. Notwithstanding all I have just said, you can easily imagine that, in spite of my utter contempt for all gossiping fools, I cannot openly defy them. I therefore feel myself compelled to ask you not only to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... to no purpose. His offence was too dastardly and contemptible. The doctor, doubly enraged because he had so nearly condemned an innocent lad, justified the reputation for sternness that ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport

... acts, all his changes, are the sole consequence of his own exclusive, unprejudiced will, as well as unlimited authority; that both his greatness and his littleness, his successes and his crimes, originate entirely with himself; that the fortunate hero who marched triumphant over the Alps, and the dastardly murderer that disgraced human nature at Jaffa, because the same person, owed victory to himself alone, and by himself alone commanded massacre; that the same genius, unbiased and unsupported, crushed factions, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... it possible that they would go to such extreme limits as that. I had thought that he would be in danger of some assault in the dark, or something of that kind, but to trap him in the mines! I never dreamed of anything so cowardly, so dastardly! He will be in constant danger in the performance of his daily round ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... hour of Horatio's dastardly murder we wait for Nemesis to fall upon the murderers. We see Lorenzo fortifying himself against detection; we watch, while 'time steals on, and steals, and steals'; Isabella, tired of waiting, kills herself; Hieronimo himself threatens to fail us, so ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... said the colonel, quietly; "the doctor is only quizzing you. I cannot believe that you would be guilty of such a dastardly act. But do you think anything of the kind ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn

... to Helen, there were general allusions to his mistresses, for Cleo, having begun by converting singular into plural, now retained both singular and plural. Lastly, quieting down somewhat amid a flood of tears, she claimed that Ingram would not have acted in so dastardly a fashion—he, at least, had always valued her at her true worth. It was his misfortune, not his fault, that his money affairs had not turned out well and that he had been unable to build for her ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill

... thing, after having passed one's life in the disbelief of the existence of a soul, to wake up after death a soul, and to find one's self a lost soul. Yes, methought I would come to the conclusion that one has a soul. Choosing the safe side, however, appeared to me to be playing a rather dastardly part. I had never been an admirer of people who chose the safe side in everything; indeed I had always entertained a thorough contempt for them. Surely it would be showing more manhood to adopt the dangerous side, that of disbelief; I almost resolved to do so—but ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... long series of insults to avenge," said Nicholas, flushed with passion; "and my indignation is aggravated by the dastardly cruelties practised on helpless infancy in this foul den. Have a care; for if you do rouse the devil within me, the consequences shall fall heavily upon your ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... to their meanest interest, or wildest caprice. Who that saw the situation in its true light would wait till their oppressors thought fit to decree their destruction, and not take arms in their defence while it was yet in their power? Which was most meritorious, the unresisting and dastardly submission of a slave, or the enterprise and gallantry of the man who dared to assert his claims? Since, by the partial administration of our laws, innocence, when power was armed against it, had nothing better to hope for than guilt, what man of true courage ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... must be her position? They would even have a case upon which to drag her from these walls of Pagliano. She would be a victim of the civil courts; she might, at Pier Luigi's instigation, be proceeded against as my accomplice in what would be accounted a dastardly murder ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini

... justified. Details were given of the curious type of ear-mark, which was stated to be Mr. Wyckliffe's device. The Sydney correspondent telegraphed the surprise felt in the highest circles, and the indignation expressed at the dastardly act, as Mr. Wyckliffe was well-known there. The Brisbane correspondent sent all that could be gleaned from their Dalby and Toowoomba agents, and the romance and the excitement grew in equal proportions. Later editions reported that the eminent Q.C., Mr. Qurves, ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang

... did that you have ruined everything! A dastardly act for which I hope you will pay the full penalty ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... like one risen from the dead, and Marian was prostrated by the sight of me. I denounced Foster, called him a false friend and a dastardly traitor. I was insane at the moment, and it is remarkable that I did not kill him. However, I swore to have his life if we ever met again. Then I ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish

... a sound thrashing. Some short time afterwards a carthorse was found in the fields stabbed in several places, though, fortunately, not severely. Having already the bad name that hangs the dog, he was strongly suspected of this dastardly act in revenge for the thrashing from the carter, and threat of dismissal from the employer. No evidence, however, could be procured, and though he was sent about his business he escaped punishment. ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies

... Church of England; frightening with the loudness of its voice the weak, the timid and the ailing; perpetrating, whenever it had an opportunity, that species of crime to which it has ever been most partial—deathbed robbery; for as it is cruel, so is it dastardly. Yes, it went on enlisting, plundering and uttering its terrible threats till—till it became, as it always does when left to itself, a fool, a very fool. Its plunderings might have been overlooked, and so might ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... pilgrims and freighters alike. On both trails many a silent monument of stone was all that remained of their cruel depredations. Such was not the uncommon work of the fiends, known to readers of fiction as the noble red men of the plains. More dastardly cowards never existed. Their struggles against destiny have long since been broken, and the offspring of those cruel warriors are being ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young

... named Hamilton, from Limerick, who had come over from Ireland five years before, and worked as a bricklayer's labourer and a navvy both in England and France. Latterly he had been earning a scanty livelihood by doing chance jobs. There was this to distinguish him from the other dastardly assailants of the Queen: he was not a half-crazed, morbidly conceited boy, though he also had no conceivable motive for what he did. He appears to have taken his measures, in providing himself with pistol and powder, from a mere impulse of stolid brutality. ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler

... herself for the sacrifice. Others have done so in sadder seriousness. Doubtless, Curtius rode at his last leap without a speck on his burnished mail: purple, and gold, and gems flamed all round Sardanapalus when he fired the holocaust in Nineveh: even that miserable, dastardly Nero was solicitous about the marble fragments that were to line his felon's grave. So it befell that, on this particular evening, Cecil went through a very careful toilet, though it was as simple as usual; for the ultra-gorgeous style ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... finding that he reserved his blood for more heroic purposes than dastardly phlebotomy, knew not what to do with him. His perpetual exclamation was, as we have already stated, "I'm blue-mowlded for want of a batin'!" They did everything in their power to cheer him with the hope of a drubbing; told him he ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... they then knew they were playing as against an American "pig." At their frontier all human relations—obligations, honor, amicability, trust, good faith, religion—were exchangeable for brutality and dastardly brutality. ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry

... him no more than justice to say that he mourned Bommaney senior infinitely more than the money. He liked to trust people, and had all his life long been eager to find excuses for defaulters. He could find no excuse here. The theft was barefaced, insolent, dastardly. He puzzled over it, and grew more cynical and bitter in his thoughts of the world at large than he could have imagined himself. But then, when Bommaney junior came home, and insisted on the restoration of the missing eight thousand from his ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray

... swimmers spoke to each other occasionally, none now referred to the dastardly conduct of the enemy in setting them thus ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock

... turned to the two brothers, and addressing herself first to one and then to the other with equal vehemence, she cried "Who is right now? Of all the villains who have brought shame upon the throne and name of mighty Caesar, this is the most dastardly. He has written plainly enough upon Apollinaris's face how much he values a brave soldier, the son of a noble house. And you, Nemesianus—are you not also an Aurelius? You say so; and yet, had he not chanced to let you care for your brother, you would at this moment be wandering ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... care to resume its place in those who have degenerated through cowardice. If the hind, disentangled from the thickset toils, ever fights, then indeed shall he be valorous, who has intrusted himself to faithless foes; and he shall trample upon the Carthaginians in a second war, who dastardly has felt the thongs with his arms tied behind him, and has been afraid of death. He, knowing no other way to preserve his life, has confounded peace with war. O scandal! O mighty Carthage, elevated to a higher pitch ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... Rome then have been taken, if those men who were at our gates had not wanted courage for the attempt!—Rome taken while I was consul—Of honours I had sufficient,—of life enough—more than enough.—I should have died in my third consulate. But who are they that our dastardly enemies thus despise? The consuls, or you Romans? If we are in the fault, depose us, or punish us yet more severely. If you are to blame, may neither God nor man punish your faults! only may you repent. No, Romans, the confidence of our enemies ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... be difficult to describe the state of loyal excitement into which the Metropolis has been thrown by this event," says the Annual Register. "It seems as if only the dastardly deed had been wanted to bring out the full love and devotion of the people to their young Queen," the happy wife and expectant mother, whose precious life might have been cut short by the unlooked-for ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... about it—thought till late at night of the insulted flag, of the fierce fights and glorious victories, of the dead and the dying lying out in the pitiless storm, of the dastardly outrages of rebel fiends—thought of all this, with his great warm heart overflowing with love for the dear old 'Banger,' and resolved to go. The next morning, he notified his 'boss' of his intention to quit his service ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... other, "This night's work seems almost like a dream. I can hardly realize that Wild Bill would lead such a disgraceful crowd of ruffians, and do such a dastardly act as to burn a woman out of house ...
— Wild Bill's Last Trail • Ned Buntline

... about in deed what is to be done. For we possess this point of superiority over others, that we execute a bold promptitude in what we undertake, and yet a cautious prudence in taking forethought; whereas with others it is ignorance alone that makes them daring, while reflection makes them dastardly. ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... from banks and bankers, wished to get still more. The banks, they seem to have thought, could extend their credits to whatever sum might be wanted, without incurring any other expense besides that of a few reams of paper. They complained of the contracted views and dastardly spirit of the directors of those banks, which did not, they said, extend their credits in proportion to the extension of the trade of the country; meaning, no doubt, by the extension of that trade, the extension ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... helpless, who are driven by such prejudices to keep themselves in existence by following the example of those above them? who, thus, have double sin to answer for; their own, and that which their dastardly conduct creates. Still, why should the unhappy labourer who feels that the tone of his voice keeps bread from his mouth, not ...
— Facts for the Kind-Hearted of England! - As to the Wretchedness of the Irish Peasantry, and the Means for their Regeneration • Jasper W. Rogers

... him that the critique was clearly by that brute ST. CLAIR; they knew his hand, they said; a confounded, conceited pendant, and a stuck-up puppy. The review was calculated to damage the sale of any book; it was a dastardly attack on BROWZER'S reputation as a man of wit and humour, a linguist, and a grammarian. They thought (as BROWZER wished to know) that an action would lie against the reviewer, or the review. BROWZER went to a Solicitor, who espoused his cause, but without enthusiasm. The name ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 31, 1892 • Various

... eccentricities, he would have been the last to urge an armed attack in defiance of the terms in the letter. He had not the slightest doubt that the Captain, half-insane as he was, would be capable of even more dastardly crimes than the one he now threatened. Gradually an idea took form in the ex-pirate's brain. It was a bold one and needed to be executed boldly if at all. When the grief-stricken gentleman raised his head, Job turned and faced him. "Mr. ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader

... voice of one of the speakers—he had spoken once only, but that was enough—she had snatched up the naked sword that since the previous morning had leant in the chimney corner. As Colonel John crossed the threshold—oh, dastardly audacity, oh, insolence incredible, that in the hour of his triumph he should soil that threshold!—she lunged with all the force of her strong young arm at ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman

... voice like a low cry of pain. But she did not bend towards him; she held herself erect, and paused at two yards' distance from him. There was an unconquerable repulsion for her in that monkish aspect; it seemed to her the brand of the dastardly undutifulness which had left her father desolate—of the grovelling superstition which could give such undutifulness the name of piety. Her father, whose proud sincerity and simplicity of life had made him one of the few frank pagans of his time, had brought her up with a silent ignoring of ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... proportions—at that time living in the town. He was, in truth, a mere lad, nineteen years of age, and fully twelve years younger than the stalwart bully. This, however, as the reader will see, secured for him no exemption from the dastardly provocations of the ill-conditioned pugilist. Long Ned, in an evil hour, had thrown eyes of affection upon a certain buxom damsel, who, notwithstanding Bully Larkin's amorous rivalry, inclined ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... down at what he called the "disgraceful and dastardly" conduct of some of his troops that day. He knew that an attack on Harlem Heights must come, and come soon. But what would be the result? Would his men run away, or would they fight? "Experience, to my extreme affliction," he wrote sadly, "has convinced ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... So failed this dastardly plot to get Nehemiah to sin, in order that his God might desert him. The sentinel stood unmoved at his post, Nehemiah goes on steadily with his work. Should such a man as I flee? And in fifty-two days after its commencement, ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton

... sacred and inviolable institutions. The dying man roused himself to make a stand against the abominable bill. In a speech which he made at Jedburgh, he was hissed and hooted by the crowd, and he left the town with the dastardly cry of "Burk Sir Walter!" ringing ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... who had held me so long beneath her spell. Was it possible that one so open-faced and pure could be the author of so dastardly and cowardly a crime? Her face was white and anxious, but the countenance had now reassumed its normal innocence of expression, and in her eyes I saw the genuine love-look of old. She had arranged her hair and dress, and no longer wore ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux

... doubt makes me uneasy, sometimes. In another year I would like to go to Venice, and retire from professional life. I am a Venetian, you observe; no dastardly brigand of a Sicilian. And in another year I shall have sufficient means to retire and end my days in peace. Here I save every centessimo I make, for ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne

... that was going on in the court-room, in the order it transpired. She had known of Fluella's arrival,—her perilous passage over the river,—of the report she then made to the hunter of her discoveries,—of her bringing back the wounded Claud in safety,—of the dastardly attempt of the prisoner to take that heroic girl's life,—of his sentence, and, finally, of his departure for prison, amidst the execrations of a justly indignant people. She had known all this, and felt it, to the inmost core of her rent heart, with the twofold ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson

... had passed in the council of war was whispered about the streets, the spirit of the soldiers and citizens swelled up high and fierce against the dastardly and perfidious chief who had betrayed them. Many of his own officers declared that they no longer thought themselves bound to obey him. Voices were heard threatening, some that his brains should ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... made no reply, his thoughts were in wild confusion, and it was with difficulty that he hid the fierce anxiety of his heart or his rage against the perpetrators of this dastardly act which tore ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... have lived with you five years now, and I am tired and ill, but I have always loved you and have never left you for a moment. You have been my idol, and what have you done? All this time you have been deceiving me in the most dastardly way—— ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov

... There'd just come a sharp snowfall from the north, and the moonlight shot over the flying edge of the rear-cloud; and I saw Sedgett with a stick in his hand; but the gentleman had no stick. I'll give Mr. Edward Blancove credit for not meaning to be active in a dastardly assault. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Killing is a favorite topic with you!" exclaimed General Davenant, furiously; "well, kill me, now!—Strike your dastardly sword, or your knife if you have one, straight into my breast! Murder me, I say, as you murdered George Conway!—I have a purse in my pocket, and you can rob me when I am dead. Strike! strike!—but not with the sword! That is the weapon of a gentleman. Draw your knife, and stab me in ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke

... and Miss Eliot would consent to shield the organization when we find them? Why, Penny, you're mad! We must call up the chief of police! We must scour the country! I propose to go right to the newspapers! The more people who know of this dastardly thing the sooner we shall ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.

... glanced fearfully and covertly at his fiancee. She must not know the truth at any cost. Possibly he lost his head! At all events, that is the kindest construction to put on his subsequent action, for, dastardly as his behaviour had been to Jean in the past, one can hardly imagine him capable of deliberately murdering her, and in so horrible a fashion. There was not a second to lose; an instant more, and the secret, that he had so assiduously hidden ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell

... the triumphs and gratifications of self. Where now was such a being to me? My earliest friend, for whom my esteem was the greater for his sorrows, my interest the keener for his mystery, Reginald Glanville, was a murderer! a dastardly, a barbarous felon, whom the chance of an instant might convict!—and she—she, the only woman in the world I had ever really loved—who had ever pierced the thousand folds of my ambitious and scheming heart—she was ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... plan simply was, since men, however well disciplined, had proved powerless against Maroons, to try a Spanish fashion against them, and use dogs. The proposition was met, in some quarters, with the strongest hostility. England, it was said, had always denounced the Spaniards as brutal and dastardly for hunting down the natives of that very soil with hounds; and should England now follow the humiliating example? On the other side, there were plenty who eagerly quoted all known instances of zooelogical warfare: all Oriental nations, for instance, used elephants ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... Marian had settled the question. John Saltram, the friend whom he had loved, was the traitor. John Saltram had stolen his promised wife, had come between him and his fair happy future, and had kept the secret of his guilt in a dastardly spirit that made the act fifty times blacker than it ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... interesting details to our authorities. Enid became your friend and the friend of your friends. She risked everything—her honour, her happiness, her future—by associating with you for the one and sole purpose of assisting me to learn all the dastardly plot in progress." ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux

... after having deserted those to whom he had been in honor bound to cleave, he pleaded the excuse of bad weather and the lateness of the season for abandoning them once more; and, re-embarking on his ship, he went back with all his company to England. It was the dastardly ending of the first effort, nobly conceived, and supported through five years, to engraft the English race in ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... to anger, taking the defence of the dead Gloria, as almost any woman would have done. At the moment Paul Griggs repelled her even more than Lord Redin. It seemed to her that there was something dastardly in his indifference. ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford

... wish unnecessarily to speak against my own countrymen," he added, "I but plainly speak for your good. The soldiers you meet prowling on the roads, are not fair specimens of the army. They are a set of mean, dastardly banditti, who, to obtain their fee, would betray their best friends. Once more, I warn you against them. But enough; follow me now to the house, and as you tell me you have exchanged clothes before now, you ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... down their clubs, drew their knives, and cast themselves upon him. Instantly a thought flashed across Ingmar's mind. There was an old saying about the folk of his family, to the effect that every one of them was destined at some time or other during his lifetime to commit a dastardly and wrong deed. Was it his turn now, ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof

... Leslie Gage entered the room. Gage had been Merriwell's bitter enemy at one time during the summer encampment, having made two dastardly attacks on Frank, who had been generous enough to rescue him from death after that, and had saved him from expulsion by refusing to ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish

... and Bornou troops see the defeat of the Arabs than they, one and all, took to flight in the most dastardly manner and the greatest confusion. The sultan led the way, having been prepared to take advantage of whatever plunder the success of the Arabs might throw into his hands; but no less determined to leave the field the moment the fortune of the day ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... either draw our sword or stand forever dishonored and humiliated before the world. The action demanded of us was such a compound of cowardice and treachery that we ask ourselves in dismay what can we ever have done that could make others for one instant imagine us to be capable of so dastardly a course. Yet that it was really supposed that we could do it, and that it was not merely put forward as an excuse for drawing us into war, is shown by the anger and consternation of the Kaiser and his Chancellor when we drew back from what the ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... vision slowly blurred and dimmed, as the under nature was given the upper hand. The Master's clear insight recognized the demon spirit that Judas had allowed to come in, though Judas did not.[101] Then came the dastardly act of betrayal. And Judas has been held up to ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon

... that she should be well cared for until she could be sent to join him. And what should he say now when the negro wrote to claim her? Then, too, he felt a personal injury that the woman should be carried off when under his mother's protection, and he was full of indignation and fury at the dastardly revenge taken by Jackson. Upon hearing the news he had at once mentally determined to devote himself for some time to a search for Dinah; but the news that a great battle was expected at the front interfered with his plan. ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty

... existence of a soul, to wake up after death a soul, and to find one's self a lost soul. Yes, methought I would come to the conclusion that one has a soul. Choosing the safe side, however, appeared to me playing rather a dastardly part. I had never been an admirer of people who chose the safe side in everything; indeed I had always entertained a thorough contempt for them. Surely it would be showing more manhood to adopt the dangerous side, that of disbelief; I almost resolved to ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... art not mellowed to thy prime, and thy comrades are far away. The shears of the Fatal deities hover over the thread not of my life but of thine.' I was struck, Gongylus, by this address, for it was neither desperate nor dastardly, as I had anticipated; nevertheless, it beseemed not a Spartan to fly from a Helot, and I drew the sword which my mother had girded on. The Helot watched my movements, and seized a rude and knotted club that lay on the ground ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton

... people of Athens heard of his dastardly deed, they were filled with grief and rage—grief for young Perdix, whom all had learned to love; rage towards the wicked uncle, who loved only himself. At first they were for punishing Daedalus with the death which he so richly deserved, but when they remembered what he had done to make ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin

... butchered, of near relations compelled by torture to be the murderers of each other, of corpses outraged and mutilated, were told and heard with full belief and intense interest. Then it was added that the dastardly savages who had by surprise committed all these cruelties on an unsuspecting and defenceless colony had, as soon as Oliver came among them on his great mission of vengeance, flung down their arms in panic terror, and had sunk, without trying the chances ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the highway can not be suppressed. A wave of indignation sweeps over the country. Newspapers, clergymen, statesmen, ordinary citizens are of one opinion, that the sheriff and his deputies should be made to suffer for their dastardly acts. The result of the agitation is a call for trial for a case of murder. The Grand Jury of Luzerne County find an indictment against Sheriff Marlin and Captain Grout. These men ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... startled out of a sound sleep, the first by Colonel Jablonski, the second by Colonel Lopez. Having completed their preparations beyond the possibility of failure, the traitors now wished, if practicable, to conceal from their victims their contemptible share in the dastardly affair. ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson

... inadvertently admitted into our paper of last week, most unjustly assailing the character of a gentleman of high birth and talents, the son of the exemplary E-rl of Cr-bs. We repel, with scorn and indignation, the dastardly falsehoods of the malignant slanderer who vilified Mr. De—ce-ce, and beg to offer that gentleman the only reparation in our power for having thus tampered with his unsullied name. We disbelieve the RUFFIAN and HIS STORY, and ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... take refuge in Holland, bemoaning to the end of his days a moment's weakness. "I was quite exhausted by torture, and I let fall this unhappy expression: 'Very well, then, I will be reconciled.' This sin has brought me down as it were into hell itself, and I have looked upon myself as a dastardly soldier who turned his back on the day of battle, and as an unfaithful servant who betrayed ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... three so eminent colleagues. As he remarked, this would not do. Some evil forces were at work, assaulting the very life of the League, for it must now be apparent that these disappearances were not coincidences, but links in a connected chain of crime. What and whose was the unseen hand behind these dastardly deeds? What secret enemies of the League were so cunningly and assiduously at work? Was murder their object, or merely abduction? Whose turn would it be next? (At this last inquiry a shudder rippled over the already agitated assembly.) But MM. les Dlgus might rest assured that what ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay

... look for protection against such violence, unable to defend them. Under purely patriotic impulses we had rushed to the rescue of an invaded sister state to do the little we could toward destroying the great enemy of our country; and now to be assailed by this dastardly fire in the rear made us turn with even a sharper vengeance against the insurgents at home than we felt towards the armed hosts which confronted us. Nor had home-sickness anything to do with this feeling. It is true, the idea which was involved, of going home, modified secondarily ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood

... would have taken him prisoner and handed him over to the Germans. The Magistrate's father was one of the staunchest pillars of the church, and if he were alive to-day he would be heart and soul with me in this movement, and condemn the dastardly act of robbery which the Government are going ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... L'Orient, of 120 guns, blown up. The action was continued all night with the enemy's rear by the Alexander and Majestic; and this evening the whole, except three, have fallen into our hands, and a frigate, which they dastardly set fire to, and escaped ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross

... by the sudden and terrible blow, Brian had seized on the only course left him. If he could make shift to hold the castle at all, he would do so; if not, he must make terms and get off to Gorumna that he might take vengeance for this dastardly stroke ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones

... me to my grave. Things like that are never forgotten among fellows so intimate as soldiers. There was a chap in our regiment who jilted a nice girl at the Cape—sailed for home secretly only a week before the wedding." He paused to let her take in the dastardly nature of the flight. "Well, he rejoined at the depot. He stayed—but he didn't stay long. The Rangers got too hot for him—or too cold. The last I ever heard of him he was giving ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King

... secure his low pleasures, at any price—ready to give up the honour of his country, and submit to the conqueror—that he had been secretly intriguing with the enemy, had been suspected, and this suspicion was confirmed by his dastardly capitulation when the means of defence were in his power and the spirit of his ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... Oswald, the kindly! Oswald, the lover of men and the adorer of women! Oswald, with the words of the dastardly confession he had partly overheard searing hot within his brain! Oswald, raised in a moment from the desponding invalid to a ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green

... but, the father dying, the son no sooner ascended the ducal throne than, with the capriciousness peculiar to Italian princes, he turned his back upon the poet whom he had formerly befriended. The incident I have mentioned would have prepared us for this dastardly conduct; the evil side of his nature, which was kept in abeyance during his political pupilage, assuming the predominance on his accession to power. Tasso's proud spirit could not endure the neglect of his once ardent friend, and he set out again into the cold inhospitable world, imploring ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... into the comment, "I know not what interest Milton could have had in making Satan so august a creature, and so ready to share the dangers and sorrows of the angels he had seduced. I know not, on the other hand, what could have urged him to make the better ones so dastardly that even at the voice of their Creator not one among them offered his service to rescue from eternal perdition the last and ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh

... two of the most noted criminals in the penitentiary, rendered so because of the dastardly crime committed by them, and the high social relations of the latter. They came from Wichita, and have been in prison almost fifteen years. McNutt is a fine artist and painter. He had his paint shop in Wichita, and was doing a very ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds

... like soldiers; for I believe out of three companies that were on the ground that day scarce thirty were left alive. Capt. Peyroney and all his officers, down to a corporal, were killed; Capt. Polson had almost as hard a fate, for only one of his escaped. In short, the dastardly behaviour of the Regular troops (so-called) exposed those who were inclined to do their duty to almost certain death; and, at length, in despite of every effort to the contrary, broke and ran as sheep before hounds, leaving the artillery, ammunition, provisions, baggage, and, in short, everything ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer

... and the parting with Fred, which I dreaded far the most of the two. Would he not think it treacherous to cast him off after the sacrifices he had made for me? Implicitly we were as good as pledged to stand by each other to the last gasp. Was it not mean and dastardly to run away from the battle because it was dangerous to fight it out? Had friendship no claims superior to personal safety? Was not my decision prompted by sheer selfishness? Could anything ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... she retorted. 'See to the victuals, forsooth! That is all you think of—to lie warm and eat your fill! A set of dastardly, drinking, droning guzzlers you are! You are!' she retorted, her voice rising to a shriek. ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... protector; the lofty spirit that used to make me tremble, and to which I never could look up without awe, except in those animating cases, where his guilty attempts, and the concern I had to preserve my innocence, gave a courage more than natural to my otherwise dastardly heart: when this impetuous spirit could stoop to request one whom he had sunk beneath even her usual low character of his servant, who was his prisoner, under sentence of a ruin worse than death, as he had intended it, and had seized ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... satisfactory. The methods employed for enforcing discipline have been unnecessarily severe and have given dissatisfaction. As recently as the year 1903 the children of this inoffensive and harmless people were forcibly taken from their homes and put into the schools. The time selected for doing the dastardly deed was during the night in midwinter when the weather was cold and the ground covered with snow. Under the orders of the superintendent the reservation police made the raid without warning or warrant of any kind. While the people slept, the police entered their houses, dragged ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk

... not speak in answer to this. Her heart throbbed painfully in her throat. To so accuse Tom Cameron of heartless and dastardly treachery! ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson

... who had not yet been provided with places. There were men who did this, and several times I felt inclined to knock one of the poltroons overboard. The deck was well lighted, the steamer was settling slowly, and there was no excuse for the dastardly proceedings which were ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton

... Stripes on Sumter's walls a mass meeting of citizens, irrespective of party, was called to meet at the hall of the house of representatives for the purpose of expressing the indignation of the community at the dastardly attempt of the Cotton States to disrupt the government. Long before the time for the commencement of the meeting the hall was packed and it was found necessary to adjourn to the front steps of ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore

... regretting the wasted moment or the lost opportunity? Gwen's fault was indeed being visited heavily upon her shoulders. She had sown the wind and reaped the whirlwind. She felt keen resentment against Netta. It was a dastardly trick to have played upon her. Netta might at least have warned her that the bill was to be sent on to Miss Roscoe—then she could have been prepared for the worst. It was surely mere spite on the part of her friend, who, having quarrelled with her, ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil

... patronising sentiment for you. I wrote a little cursed sonnet in the train how old affection outlasts youthful passion, like violets blooming in autumn. How loathsome! How incredibly base! And then, when my temper is aroused by your opposition, I am dastardly enough, heartless enough to try to humiliate you by shewing you those letters, to try to revenge myself on you. On you, Magdalen! ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley

... him not—do not sully your maidenhood with thing so vile. Let him crawl hence as best he may. Begone, beastly villain!" he commanded, with imperious gesture of the smoking pistol, "and be sufficiently thankful that my bullet sought your dastardly arm and not your pitiless black heart! Go, and instantly, lest I be tempted to change my mind and rid the world ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... simply mean that his own and Hagthorpe's crews would join in the saturnalia and increase the hideousness of events now inevitable. Unable to reach a decision, his own men and Hagthorpe's took the matter off his hands, eager to give chase to Rivarol. Not only was a dastardly cheat to be punished but an enormous treasure to be won by treating as an enemy this French commander who, himself, had so villainously ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini

... her honorable history is yet to begin. From her colonial times, when, patching up a dastardly truce, she helped the French and Indians down from the Berkshire hills against the shield which brave Massachusetts held over the New England settlements, through the time of her traitors of the Revolutionary age, down to the time of her Butlers and her ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... right," he went on agitatedly. "I deserve to be forgotten, though if you knew of the dastardly plot to crush me I believe even you ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce

... Ned, as he stepped coldly forward to the rescue. "What do you mean, sir, by such dastardly conduct? Do you call this keeping ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood

... Filmore, coldly—"here to shoot you, you dastardly dog," and quickly raising a pistol, he took rapid and deadly aim, ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler

... The only thing certain is, that they did not return with him. I have heard wild tales, with I know not how much truth in them, that he put his niece and her companion ashore at Cape Breton or Newfoundland, and that De Pontbriand, who could not prevent his dastardly act, threw himself into the sea, and tried to swim to the shore, but sank ere he ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis

... own disposition, he seldom gave credence to the possibility of such conduct. He had been told of dastardly spirits, but never having seen them, and possessing no archetype within his own breast of what he heard, the repeated relation passed over his mind without leaving an impression. He had entered the world filled with animating hopes of virtue and renown. He was virtuous; he ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... profits. When the British connection took a liberal colour, when the governor-general acted constitutionally towards the undoubtedly progressive tone of popular opinion, some of the tories became annexationists. Many of them, as will be shown later, encouraged a dastardly assault on the person of their official head; and all of them, supported by gentlemen of Her Majesty's army, treated the representative of the Crown with the most obvious discourtesy.[18] Nevertheless, when opinion changed, and when a coalition attacked and unseated the Progressive ministry ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison

... now determined that a virtuous woman Should rather face and overcome temptation, That flight was base and dastardly, and no man Should ever give her heart the least sensation, That is to say, a thought beyond the common Preference, that we must feel, upon occasion, For people who are pleasanter than others, But then they only seem so ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... understanding. You have been His unconscious instrument. Think of what you were and how you came to me, and what your life has been since then! Have you endured all for naught? Are God's plans to be frustrated by a man, a dastardly craven like Don Felipe? No, my child, I see things clearer now than I ever have seen them before. You and Captain Forest have not been brought together from the ends of the earth only to be mocked by the world of evil. ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown

... Randell, as commonly called, who had greatly annoyed the British. When one of their officers had consented to procure her husband's release, if she would persuade her brother to quit the American ranks, she indignantly replied: 'If I could act so dastardly a part, think you that General Washington has but one Captain Randolph in ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various

... and possessing no aristocracy and hardly even a middle class. Her curse has been the rivalry of two, or rather three native dynasties, the Karageorgevitch, the Obrenovitch and the Petrovitch; and this rivalry has borne fruit in three dastardly political crimes—the murder of the heroic Black George in 1817, by order of his rival Milosh Obrenovitch; of Prince Michael, Serbia's wisest ruler, by the adherents of George's son; and finally of King Alexander and his wife in June 1903. ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,

... "Call you his dastardly and selfish treason, aiming, as it does, to aggrandize a few, at the expense of millions, a parallel case to the generous ardor that impels a man to fight in the defence of sacred liberty? I might tell you that I am armed in the common cause of my fellow-subjects and countrymen; ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... pride and passion!" said the unfortunate youth; "but when saw you them supported by the resolution that should have backed them? The sparks you speak of fell on my dastardly heart as on a piece of ice which could catch fire from nothing: if my offended pride urged me to strike, my weakness of mind prompted me the next moment ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... feeble buckler he received the thrust of the lance. It penetrated the mantle, but missed his body. Then, rising upon his stirrups, Sir Huon struck Charlot so terrible a blow with his sword that the helmet was cleft asunder, and his head too. The dastardly prince fell dead upon ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... were entitled to some excuse in the matter." Then Lambi asked what he would be asked to do. Thorgils said the same choice would be put to him as to Thorstein, "to join with the brothers in this journey." Lambi said, "This I think an evil price of peace and a dastardly one, and I have no mind for this journey." Then said Thorstein, "It is not the only thing open to view, Lambi, to cut so quickly away from this journey; for in this matter great men are concerned, ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous

... old scoundrel! the villain! the Tory! the dastardly Englishman! Hang him in the web of his own devilish spider,—'t is long enough! Tar and feather him! tar and ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... good deal of bravery, and were nearly all killed. The dastardly behavior of those they called regulars exposed all others that were ordered to do their duty to almost certain death. At last, in despite of all the efforts of the officers to the contrary, they ran, as sheep pursued by dogs, and it ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... had cut his timber a year or two before, clear to the river. The fire would not burn far over his line. Whoever had done this dastardly act, Dickerson's property would not ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd

... being transgressed! Was my son Duhshasana, O Suta, slain, while flying away from the field, humbled (to the dust), of cheerless soul, and destitute of all manliness? O son, O Sanjaya, I hope he did no dastardly act on that occasion? Did not that hero meet with his death like the other Kshatriyas that have fallen? The foolish Duryodhana did not accept Yudhishthira's constant advice, wholesome as medicine, against the propriety of battle. Possessed of great renown, Partha, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... poor deluded mortals were ever in need of sympathy and guidance. Anybody could pardon. To pardon was not enough for a man of Mr. Heard's ruthless integrity. He must understand. How understand, how interpret, a dastardly deed like this? What could her motives have been? Of what act of proposal could the man have been guilty to merit, even in her eyes, a fate such as this? For evidently, one does not murder a man because ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... you, Mr. Burroughs," he said. "Mr. Monroe tells me you are a clever and experienced detective, and I trust you can help us to avenge this dastardly crime. I am busy with some important matters just now, but later I shall be glad to confer with you, and be of any help I can in ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells

... Yoshida! Who would have thought it? Ah! The wicked are not to escape punishment. Three feet nearer Heaven—on a stake; and one's belly full of wind holes—from the spears. Go Shukke Sama, the crime was a dastardly one. Five thousand ryo[u]! Surely it means crucifixion on the embankment. We will furnish poles for plover—to roost upon."[25] Dentatsu made a sign of frightened repulsion. He could not speak. Jimbei ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... been a negro soldier who committed the dastardly deed of Saturday night the War Department would have been deluged with complaints and requests for removal, but not a word has been said against the 34th. Prejudice and hatred blacker than the wings of night has so envenomed the breasts of the people that fairness is out of the question. ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward

... know that I have knowledge of your evil doings at Montreal—how you and others tried to loot the stores and private dwellings, and how both the French and the English soldiers turned on you and your dastardly companions and shot you down. How you escaped from justice I do not know, but perhaps, even yet, the authorities will listen to ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer

... is plenty of firewood," the lieutenant said, as he ordered his men to clear out one of the rooms. "There has been dastardly work here," he went on, as the man who had brought the key ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty

... situation editorially, He took the righteous and indignant attitude, expressing extreme journalistic horror that such a hold-up should be possible in a modern, civilized community, hurling editorial contempt on the dastardly robbers who were thus intending to shake down the innocent purchasers, etc. In fact, he laid it on thick, But he managed to insinuate a doubt. Between the lines the least astute reader could read Rowlee's belief that perhaps ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... utterest what comes upmost, so that to me it be most annoying, thou dastardly varlet! I ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson

... Gardiner, hoarsely. "Remove these shackles, and meet me as man to man. Only a dastardly coward bullies a man ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey



Words linked to "Dastardly" :   fearful, dastard



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