"Knave" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... 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
... 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
... 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 ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... 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
... 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 fandangos. In truth, there does not seem to be much worth seeing but prospects; and ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... 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
... knave!" whispered the scout, when they had gained a little distance from the place, and letting his rifle fall into the hollow of his arm again; "I soon saw that he was one of them uneasy Frenchers; and well for him it was that his speech was friendly and his wishes kind, ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... knave, a creation of Moliere's, who makes a cloak of religion to cover his knaveries, and the name of the play in which the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... 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
... knave, and ask him," said Helgi; and suiting the action to the word, he drove one foot sufficiently hard into the sleeper's side to rouse him with ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... 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 |
