"Hobgoblin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that the people of this happy country ought to do any thing rather than submit to have its streets stained with the blood of their monarch. I was in the habit of hearing all the ridiculous stories of invasion, rapine, and murder, and of listening to all the hobgoblin accounts of what we were to expect from our fellow creatures on the other side of the channel, and my young mind was worked up to such a pitch, that I longed to become one of the number of those who were going to resist and to punish ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... to recognise that, whatever be their personal convictions, there may be some "soul of goodness" in views diametrically opposed to their own, and, moreover, they must not be scared by what Emerson called that "hobgoblin of little minds"—the charge ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... that; but you are aware of the blessed interest people about here take in your name. By way of example it might possibly happen that a hobgoblin or a fairy steps in through the keyhole and leads you into temptation. Keep a tight rein on your five senses, that's all. You see what I mean, don't you? Poor servants we ...
— Turandot, Princess of China - A Chinoiserie in Three Acts • Karl Gustav Vollmoeller
... hide. Robin Goodfellow says, "I'll go put on my devilish robes—I mean my Christmas calf's-skin suit—and then walk to the woods." "I'll put me on my great carnation nose, and wrap me in a rousing calf-skin suit, and come like some hobgoblin." And a character of the 18th century "clears the ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... vile slip of the pen was that! How absurd in me to talk about burying the bones of Byron, who, I have just seen alive, and incased in a big, round bulk of flesh! But, to say the truth, a prodigiously fat man always impresses me as a kind of hobgoblin; in the very extravagance of his mortal system I find something akin to the immateriality of a ghost. And then that ridiculous old story darted into my mind, how that Byron died of fever at Missolonghi, above twenty years ago. More and more I recognize that we dwell in a world of shadows; and, ...
— P.'s Correspondence (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... understand that plenty lay beyond the dark waters, and quickly swinging herself to his back she started to ride him up and down along the edge of the lagoon, petting and whispering to him of good things beyond. Slowly her eyes grew wide; she seemed to be riding out of dreamland on some hobgoblin beast. ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... there are several stories well adapted to one class of children, but entirely unfit for another. In the story called the Hobgoblin, Antonia, a little girl "who has been told a hundred foolish stories by her maid, particularly one about a black-faced goblin," is represented as making a lamentable outcry at the sight of a chimney-sweeper; first she runs for refuge to the kitchen, the last place to which she ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... door for the little cat should supplement the big door of all space, which one would at first take to be a hero's best environment. Not thus unnecessary appeared the Coliseum; haunted by wild beasts, especially lions, leaping (I imagined) in hobgoblin array from the cavernous entrances which were pointed out to me as connected in the days of triumphant tyranny with their donjons. Many tender thoughts filled my reflections as I saw pilgrims visiting, and kneeling before, the black cross in the centre, ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... Socrates, why will you scare your friends with these hobgoblin terrors, (43) bidding us all beware of handsome faces, whilst you yourself—yes, by Apollo, I will swear I saw you at the schoolmaster's (44) that time when both of you were poring over one book, in which you searched for something, you and Critobulus, head to head, shoulder ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... half frightened out of their wits, at the idea of living in such a dismal, pagan-looking place; especially when they got together in the servants' hall in the evening, and compared notes on all the hobgoblin stories they had picked up in the course of the day. They were afraid to venture alone about the forlorn black-looking chambers. My ladies' maid, who was troubled with nerves, declared she could never sleep alone in such a "gashly, rummaging old building;" and the footman, ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... yourself! Help this rascal to set up the coach," said the hobgoblin to me; then, with a terrific screech at three countrymen at a distance, "Here, you fellows, ain't you ashamed to stand off when a poor woman is ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... be Frog-eye-Fearsome," suggested Betty. "Then he wouldn't have anything to do but drag the prince and princess across the stage to the ogre's tower, and the costume could be so hideous that no one could tell whether a human or a hobgoblin was inside ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Hobgoblin nor foul fiend Can daunt his spirit; He knows he at the end Shall life inherit. Then fancies fly away, He'll fear not what men say; He'll labour night and day To be ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... circumstances, and the question will be asked whether his allegiance is due to the church or to the woman who returns his love, overlooking what may perhaps be the fact that it is not so much a question of loyalty to the church as of loyalty to conscience; a foolish consistency, possibly "a hobgoblin to little minds," but, nevertheless, one to be weighed in the consideration ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... slung a pilgrim's wallet from which protrude promissory notes and dishonoured bills. Aloft over his shoulder he bears a long boatpole from the hook of which the sodden huddled mass of his only son, saved from Liffey waters, hangs from the slack of its breeches. A hobgoblin in the image of Punch Costello, hipshot, crookbacked, hydrocephalic, prognathic with receding forehead and Ally Sloper nose, tumbles in ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... it's very certain a ghost could not have carried you in his arms to your room—it makes me laugh, the very idea! You are not very heavy, but rather too substantial for a ghost, I should think! And he must have been a very smart hobgoblin to know so well which was your room—that seems to me as if he must be an acquaintance of our very earthly-looking castellan. And just as if a ghost could make such a mark upon your wrist! Bah! what a clumsy contrivance! I've read of these amiable spirits burning ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins |
