"Imp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... example or two. If any were to speak now of royal children as "royal imps", it would sound, and with our present use of the word would be, impertinent and unbecoming enough; and yet 'imp' was once a name of dignity and honour, and not of slight or of undue familiarity. Thus Spenser addresses the Muses ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... ain't it spelled so? Imperial begins with an i and so does imp, and, accordin' to what I learned when I went to school, empire begins ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... dey er yer," he continued, "but dis ain't no climate whar de rice-birds flies inter yo' pockets en gits out de money an' makes de change derse'f; an' de isters don't shuck off der shells en run over you on de street, an' no mo' duz de s'imp hull derse'f an' drap in yo' mouf. But dey er yer, dough. De scads 'll ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... that band the Devil straight appeared All black and ugly, and he had the form Of one accursed. The Prince of death began, 1170 The limping imp of hell, with wicked heart To accuse the holy man; this word he spake:— "A certain prince is come into your town, A stranger journeying from a distant land; Andrew I heard him called. He worked you scath But lately, when he led a company Great beyond measure from your prison strong; ...
— Andreas: The Legend of St. Andrew • Unknown
... the Table Talk, Hazlitt's translation, pp. 251, 252. As to the grotesques in mediaeval churches, the writer of this article, in visiting the town church of Wittenberg, noticed, just opposite the pulpit where Luther so often preached, a very spirited figure of an imp peering out upon the congregation. One can but suspect that this mediaeval survival frequently suggested Luther's favourite topic during his sermons. For Beza, see his Notes on the New Testament, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... tell how quickly the baby prince got rid of his ailments, and grew fat, and rosy, and strong, and how he had two rows of ivory teeth in less time than any other little fellow, before or since. Instead of the palest, and wretchedest, and puniest imp in the world (as his own mother confessed him to be when Ceres first took him in charge), he was now a strapping baby, crowing, laughing, kicking up his heels, and rolling from one end of the room to the other. All the good women of the neighbourhood crowded to the palace, and held up their ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... went the hollow-sounding drums. Round and round danced the wildly-gesticulating imp-like crowds. They yelped and howled like dogs. They brandished tomahawks and spears, all the time working themselves into a frenzy. It more resembled an orgie of ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... in India, and likes the life there, and Larry is at Cambridge. Peter and Cyril are still at St. Bede's, and getting on well. Their letters are full of nothing but football though. Nora's baby girl is a darling, and Michael is still very sweet though he's growing rather an imp. You know we always describe ourselves as an old-fashioned rambling family. Well, one of us is rambling in your direction! Marjorie is making a tour in Italy with some friends of hers—the Prestons. Isn't she lucky? The last post-card she sent me was from Rome, and she said they were going on ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... Kid—a wild-eyed, elf-locked, olive-skinned little imp, nameless, but nicknamed Sal's Kid, who lived in a gutter called Rat Alley, down by the water-side in New York. I used to be fond of the child when I was cook's galley-boy, and our ship was in port there. I haven't seen her for ten years, yet I've never forgotten her. And I would ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... in the dusky gloom of Westminster Abbey, along with the saddle of that 'imp of fame,' and the dinted shield with its torn blue velvet lining and its tarnished lilies of gold; but the use of military tabards in Henry the Sixth is a bit of pure archaeology, as they were not ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... imp yclept Fun—known by his broad grin, by his loud tone, and by his rude banter. Head foremost forcing himself in, came he, and brought with him a heap of coarse caricatures, and they ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... Dhu said, the Whistler was a born imp of Satan, and therefore he should never leave him. Accordingly, from his eleventh year forward, he was one of the band, and often engaged in acts of violence. The last of these was more immediately occasioned by the researches which the Whistler's real father made after him whom he ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... been soldiers, in all occasions of natural and unofficial war, as in the French Revolution. That has the great fighting value of being an unexpected argument; it takes the other pugilist's breath away for one important instant. To take the other case, Mr. Shaw has found himself, led by the same mad imp of modernity, on the side of the people who want to have phonetic spelling. The people who want phonetic spelling generally depress the world with tireless and tasteless explanations of how much easier it would be for children or foreign bagmen if "height" were ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... cry again at the threat of being abandoned. "Be quiet, be quiet, you wicked little imp!" cried the old maid shaking her. "There, there, now, I won't go away. I'll buy you a stick of barley-sugar; yes, a stick of barley-sugar! So you don't love your ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... warrant," said Jucundus; "a pert, forward imp. 'Twas Gete against Briton. Much good comes of schooling! He's a wicked one already. Ah, the new generation! I don't ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... floated in and out wearing tantalizing garments of oblivion. They seemed about to dance, then vanished. They reappeared half a dozen times, but never unveiled their faces. The imp Curiosity pulled Memory by the sleeve and said, "Why do they run away? 'Tis strange knavery!" Out ran Memory to capture them. After a great deal of racing and puffing and collision it apprehended some of the fugitives and brought them ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... talk under the overhanging bushes of the shrubbery—I on the park side of the stone wall, and the lady of my worship a little inelegantly astride thereon. Inelegantly do I say? you should have seen the sweet imp as I remember her. Just her poise on the wall comes suddenly clear before me, and behind her the light various branches of the bushes of the shrubbery that my feet might not profane, and far away and high behind her, dim and stately, the cornice of the great facade of Bladesover ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... Pomp wuz out ahoein' A leetle patch o' corn he hed, or else there aint no knowin' He wouldn't ha' took a pop at me; but I hed gut the start, An' wen he looked, I vow he groaned ez though he'd broke his heart; He done it like a wite man, tu, ez nat'ral ez a pictur, The imp'dunt, pis'nous hypocrite! wus 'an a boy constrictur. 'You can't gum me, I tell ye now, an' so you needn't try, I 'xpect my eye-teeth every mail, so jest shet up,' sez I. 'Don't go to actin' ugly now, or else I'll let her strip, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... "Dandie," and her mother the daughter of a Skye, and a light-hearted Cocker. The Duchess is about the size and weight of a rabbit; but has a soul as big, as fierce, and as faithful as had Meg Merrilies, with a nose as black as Topsy's; and is herself every bit as game and queer as that delicious imp of darkness and of Mrs. Stowe. Her legs set her long slim body about two inches and a half from the ground, making her very like a huge caterpillar or hairy oobit—her two eyes, dark and full, and her shining nose, being all of her that seems anything ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... does this imply of the hunt, what of the predatory dark? The kitten grows alert at the same hour, and hunts for moths and crickets in the grass. It comes like an imp, leaping on all fours. The children lie in ambush and fall upon one another ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... And then some imp of recklessness in him prompted him not to run away, but to see the thing through. It was, after all, a chance either way. These men beside the car were doubtless armed—one at least, nearest him, was certainly one of Karl's own secret agents. And, as Nikky paused, he was not ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... thy nest, spread out thy fateful wings, With sullen hungry love bemoan thy brood, For boys have wrung their necks, those imp-like things, Whose beaks dripped crimson daily at ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... me, alas! and, what can I Save my irrational desire lament? Which makes me soar a pitch so passing high, I reach a region, where my plumes are brent; Then, unsustained, fall headlong from the sky; Nor ends my woe; on other flight intent, Again I imp my wings, again I soar; To flame and fall, ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... to bring himself to Hector McKaye's notice when his alert intelligence informed him that The Laird had failed to recognize him in his going-away habiliments. Further, he could see with half an eye that The Laird was waiting for somebody, and when that somebody appeared on the scene, the imp of suspicion in Dirty Dan's character whispered: "Begorra, is the father up to some shenanigans like the son? Who's this girrl? I dunno. A young widder, belike, seem' she has ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... the other, "the 'orrors—they've got me and no mistake. As I'm a livin' man, as I was a shovin' of that there truck, I saw a imp—a gashly imp, Bill, stick its hugly 'ed over the side and say, 'Tommy,' it ses, jest like that—it ses, 'Tommy, I wants you!' I dursn't go near it, Bill. I'll get leave, and go 'ome and lay up—it glared at me so 'orrid, Bill, and grinned—ugh! ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... imp, I thought it was an earthquake," cried Charley as he hurled a shoe at the little ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... through the human corral with a bellow near a point where Reddy kept guard. The puncher wheeled and gave chase, Before the other men could close the opening a couple of two-year-olds seized the opportunity and followed its lead. A second rider gave chase, and at once, as if some imp of mischief had stirred them, fifty tails went up in wild flight. Another minute and the ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... "You imp of Satan!" she cried, springing after him with a singular agility for one of her age, and catching him by the arm with a vice-like grip that bruised the tender flesh and left it marked for weeks, drew him back from the door and ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... it appears to be said with the fullest truth: "The state of the commonwealth depends on the religion with which God is worshipped, and between the one and the other there is a close relation and connection." (Sacr. Imp. ad Cyrillum Alexandr, et Episcopus metrop. ef Labbeum Collect Conc., T. iii.) Admirably, as he is accustomed, did Augustine in many places dilate on the power of those good things, but especially when he addresses the Catholic Church in these words: "Thou ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... that is good! So, so, my run-a-ways! I shall nab you, shall I?" exclaimed Purley in triumph, as he beckoned the negro imp ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... Well, imp, what's up now? (He comes to the fireplace, and takes a pipe from the rack.) Rags again! I shall have to lock them up, I see. (Takes up the embroidery, and throws it over a chair.) Get to your work at once! Sit up straight. ...
— The Black Cat - A Play in Three Acts • John Todhunter
... with an air of rueful surprise. "No honor among thieves, Jack. I thought him loyal to Blackbeard. I have considered attempting something of my own when the weather permits but this news quickens me. This young imp o' Satan that ye call Joe,—he will side ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... croking Make us to wish theyr choking. 350 Let none of these theyr drery accents sing; Ne let the woods them answer, nor theyr eccho ring. [Ver. 341.—The Pouke (Puck is a generic term, signifying fiend, or mischievous imp) is Robin ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... nimble from their infancy. However, I once caught a young male of three years old, and endeavoured, by all marks of tenderness, to make it quiet; but the little imp fell a squalling, and scratching, and biting with such violence, that I was forced to let it go; and it was high time, for a whole troop of old ones came about us at the noise, but finding the cub was safe (for away it ran), and my sorrel nag being by, they durst not venture ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... colours, sprinkled their shimmering light over the fashionable assemblage and lent a false radiance to the faces of the men, while in the hair and the jewels of the women each ray seemed to dance like an imp with ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... sur l'autel de leurs divinits tutlaires;—je ne fais qu'imiter leur exemple. Vous tes pour tous les Polonois cette divinit, qui la premire ait leve sa voix, du fond de l'impriale, Albion, en ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... ONE:" it began. "Why have you not answered the fond letter of your small Imp? But perhaps you have answered, and I have not received. Ma mere and I have had the great annoyance since we came to this most stupid studio, because much of our mail ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... Slyboots; he was distressed that the fairy had told a falsehood; but, as to the mischief, it was so like the capers his own brothers and sisters were always cutting, that he felt very certain the comical little imp had not one grain of malice in his heart, so he softly touched the Queen's knee, and as she kindly bent down to him, whispered—"Oh, beautiful lady! he has a good heart, and he is very sorry; please ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... out one unexpected and wholly unexpectable thing after another, as if he were a magician, and had only to fling a private signal into the air, and some attendant imp would hand forth any strange relic we might choose to ask for. He was especially rich in drawings by the Old Masters, producing two or three, of exquisite delicacy, by Raphael, one by Salvator, a head by Rembrandt, and others, in chalk or pen-and-ink, by Giordano, ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Bright brass vessels, shining copper pans, are things he is quite bewitcht with; pewter plates too he likes very well. Many a time has he brought me a groschen, bright and new, as if it had come from the mint.'—'But where does the imp live?' I cried.—'Where does the child live?' she said: 'people choose to call it goblin, or manikin; he himself signs himself Silly; that is his christen-name. But he is a kind good-natured sprite; and so thou ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... (ditto). Solanum Congo (ditto). Schwenckia Americana, L. Ditto. Scoparia dulcis, L. Congo (not laid in). Spathodea laevis (?) Dahome. Sesamum Indicum, var. Ditto. Plumbago Zeylanica, L. Congo (ditto.) Clerodendron multiflorum (?), Don. Ditto, imp., Ditto. Clerodendron sp. Congo. Lippia sp. Ditto. Lippia an L. Adoensis? Ditto. Stachytarphita Jamaicensis, V. Dahome. Celosia trigyna (?), L. Congo. Erua lanata Ditto (ditto). Pupalia lappacea, Moq. Annabom. Achyranthes involucrata, Moq. Dahome. Achyranthes ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... just hot, though!" she said, half aloud, as she flung off her sacque. "And what a changeling imp of a creature Dot is, after all! An imp of genius.—well, she's every right to that, as one knows when one looks at James Colthurst's pictures. He'd genius. He didn't shirk living. My stars! there was a man capable of adding to the number of one's emotions! And she's inherited his gifts on her own ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... contretemps!" said Maud, the good-natured. "There seems to be a special imp of mischief abroad at these times, for something is bound to go wrong. You can't guard against it, for it is always the last thing you could expect, and it happens at the worst moment, and in some extraordinary ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... you little imp! Don't you know you are in my power!" stormed Baxter, in a rage. "I can do as I please out here, and these three men ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield
... wearing the manner of one whose kindly patience is beyond limit abused. "Kems in hyar, he do, a'totin' a fiddle. An' I says, 'Lee-yander Yerby, don't ye know that thar thing's the devil's snare?' 'N'aw, ma'am, cap'n,' he says, grinnin' like a imp; 'it's my snare, fur I hev bought it from Peter Teazely fur two rabbits what I cotch in my trap, an' my big red rooster, an' a bag o' seed pop-corn, an' the only hat I hev got in the worl'. An' with that the consarn gin sech a yawp, it plumb went through my haid, An' then the ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... scarcely believe their ears, so much was I, a four-year-old child, their superior in learning. Some of them were not certain that I was not an imp of Satan, so utterly did my performance exceed credibility. My beauty too at this age was uncommon; my limbs were straight and strong, my cheeks of the purest red and white, and my full flaxen hair ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... Iambicks, with your Badgers' Feet, And Badger-like bite till your Teeth do meet; Help ye, Tart Satyrists, to imp my Rage, With all the Scorpions that should whip this Age. But that there's Charm in Verse, I would not quote The Name of Scot without an Antidote, Unless my Head were red, that I might brew Invention ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... heart, too, some day. But she was awful then. When I wouldn't listen to her complaints she would say: 'All right, sister, I would just as soon go clothed in rain and wind.' And such a bag of bones, too, like the picture of a devil's imp. Ah, my dear young Monsieur, you don't know how wicked her heart is. You aren't bad enough for that yourself. I don't believe you are evil at all in your innocent little heart. I never heard you jeer at holy things. You are only thoughtless. For instance, ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... intermission, are revived. Victims, likewise, are everywhere (passim) bought up; whereas, for some time, there were few to purchase them. Whence it is easy to imagine that numbers of men might be reclaimed if pardon were granted to those that shall repent." (C. Plin. Trajano Imp. lib. x. ep. xcvii.) ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... My lad, and lost in Jack, Smiled, blushed, and bit his lip; Or drove, with a diver's dip, 20 Clutched hands down through clasped knees— Truth's tokens tricks like these, Old telltales, with what stress He hung on the imp's success. Now the other was brass-bold: 25 He had no work to hold His heart up at the strain; Nay, roguish ran the vein. Two tedious acts were past; Jack's call and cue at last; 30 When Henry, heart-forsook, Dropped eyes and dared ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... have told you all I know. I have done what I was bidden to do, up to a certain point. I am now here to recruit, and restore my wasted energies, and possibly to heal (observe, I say possibly) my wounded affections in the intimacy of my family circle. That reminds me that that little ungrateful imp Molly has not yet made the slightest demonstration of joy at my arrival. Where is she?" and without waiting for an answer, which he was well aware would not be forthcoming, Charles rose and strolled towards the house with his hands ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... do I," shouted Budge, hastening to occupy one knee, and IN TRANSITU wiping his shoes on my trousers and the skirts of my coat. Each imp put an arm about me to steady himself, as I produced my three-hundred-dollar time-keeper ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... quite agree in all that you said in your last letter. 'The imp of secession can't reenter its mother's womb.' It is merely childish to talk of the Union 'as it was.' You might as well bring back the Saxon Heptarchy. But the great Republic is destined to live and flourish, I can't doubt. . . . Do ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... again soberly. I assured him that I was none other than poor Lappo Lappi, and I pinched a silver coin from my pocket and gave it to him, and he handed me the missive and grinned again, and whistled and slipped away from me along the street, a diminished imp of twinkling gilt. And I opened the letter then and there, and read in it that Monna Vittoria very gracefully gave me her duty, and in all humility thanked me for my verses—Lord, as if that ample baggage could ever be humble!—and would be flattered ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... fetters, and for my tenanting this cell of the condemned. Had I not been thus prolix, you might either have misunderstood me altogether, or, with the rabble, have fancied me mad. As it is, you will easily perceive that I am one of the many uncounted victims of the Imp of the Perverse. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... imp; so full of mischief that he corrupts the other boys. Can't say a word in his favour; ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... hardly sit in my chair towards the last. And when the young imp came pawing me and climbing over me, I could hardly help tossing him off of ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... How Thought is imp'otent to divine the secret which the gods defend, The Why of birth and life and death, that Isis-veil no ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... Childe Wynd had landed, the witch-queen's power over the Laidly Worm had gone, and she went back to her bower all alone, not an imp, nor a man-at-arms to help her, for she knew her hour was come. So when Childe Wynd came rushing up to the Laidly Worm it made no attempt to stop him or hurt him, but just as he was going to raise his sword to slay it, the voice of his own sister Margaret came from its ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... for all the world as if the show belonged to him, with a young imp of a girl on his arm, and down they sits at one of ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... change the dreaming heart of the little woman—for herself or even for her big Danny; they were for her fine lad, a man now, and Beryl, working so earnestly for her ambition, and little Robin, who would always be little Robin, and the imp of a Susy, ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... filz n'en pouvoit faire la vengence en l'estat que son royaulme estoit lors; mais a present qu'il est tout uni, il aura assez de moien et de forces pour sen ressentir quant l'occasion s'en presentera (Catherine to Du Ferrier, Oct. 1, 1572; Bib. Imp. F. Fr. 15,555). The despatches of Fourquevaulx from Madrid, published by the Marquis Du Prat in the Histoire d' Elisabeth de Valois, do ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... said I have come to save you. It will be fun, after working for the Government so long, to work against it. There's a certain red-headed imp in this neighborhood who is the daughter of our assistant chief, John O'Gorman. Her name is Josie O'Gorman and she's in training for the same profession of which I'm an ornament. I won't sneer at her, for she's clever, ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... it," she said, "it is black sorcery against one who is a god, and will bring my soul to hell. Find some other instrument, or place the waxen imp in the bed of ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... derision, and sprang to another stump. With eyes dancing and eager little hands outstretched, the Kid followed—again and again, and yet again—till he was led to the very edge of the wood. Then the mocking imp in red fur whisked up an ancient hemlock, and hid himself, in silence, in a high crotch, ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... moments, and just as Betty was beginning to fancy that the long, dark eyelashes worn curling downward in sleepy comfort the dark blue eyes opened, and a dancing imp of mischief gleamed from their depths ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... disagreeables, for scrapes. During these weeks poor Miss Nelson's hair became more gray, and her face more wrinkled and anxious; but she dreaded the holidays, not because Basil was at home, but on account of Eric, who was a perfect imp of mischief, and because all the home children were more or less demoralized ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... wander into the conservatory, and the imp of mischief that possessed her was prompting her to find new ways of teasing and testing him. The conservatory was in semi-darkness, but as Myra entered with Tony she located Don Carlos, for he happened to strike a ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... while the daughters of the Rhein were darting gaily about their water home, a little dark imp came from Nibelheim—the underground land of the Nibelungs—and hid himself in the dark cleft of a rock to watch the mermaids play. In all the universe there was probably not so malevolent a creature as that one. His name was Alberich. Hidden in his dark nook, he blinked ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... and putting it in his mouth, chewed it and threw it away. 'Out on thee!' exclaimed the Sultan (and indeed he was angry); 'what made thee do that?' 'By thy life, O our lord the Sultan,' replied Muin, 'this fellow hath never seen the Khalif nor his Vizier: but he is a gallows-bird, a crafty imp who, happening upon a blank[FN115] sheet in the Khalif's handwriting, hath written his own desire in it. The Khalif would surely not have sent him to take the Sultanate from thee, without a royal mandate and a patent appended thereto, nor would he have omitted to send with him a chamberlain ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... he looked around, he saw standing above him on one of the rocks a little ugly dwarf, with a sugarloaf cap and a scarlet cloak; and the dwarf called to him and said, 'Prince, whither so fast?' 'What is that to thee, you ugly imp?' said the prince haughtily, and ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... tablecloths, in every direction, to screen the two children, so that they really did look rather like flapping wings.) "I have prayed to the Big Idol," he continued, addressing the woman, "ever since this imp of wickedness here set fire to my beautiful pig-tail and burned it off, to send one of his strong dragons to carry off my tormentor. And now my prayers are answered, and the Red Dragon, strongest of all, is here! Hokkaloo! hokkaloo!" and he ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... imp or elf, . I warn you look well to yourself; If ye call me fairy, Ye 'll find me quite contrary; If good neighbour you call me, Then good neighbour I will be; But if you call me kindly sprite, I 'll be your ...
— The Gold Of Fairnilee • Andrew Lang
... south sea bridal The Ban The Missionary Devil-work Night in the bush The Bottle Imp The Isle ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... man. Whitney, for his part, seemed almost fascinated by her gaze. He rose as she bowed, and, for a moment, I thought that he was going over to speak to her, as if drawn by that intangible attraction which Poe has so cleverly expressed in his "Imp of the Perverse." For, clearly, one who talked as Whitney had just been talking would have to be on his guard with that woman. Instead, however, he returned her nod and stood still, while Kennedy bowed at a distance and ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... wanted it all. He was a very dirty and a very fierce baby, and the other two children were no match for him. The shoemaker grunted fretfully at his last, "Ach, he is all de time hungry!" At the sight of the policeman, the young imp set up such a howl that we beat a hasty retreat. The cellar "flat" was undoubtedly in violation of law, but it was allowed to pass. In the main hall, on the ground floor, we counted seventeen children. The facts of life here suspend ordinary landlord prejudices to a certain extent. ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... Imp: Wheras ther was a partnership for diverce years agreed upon betweene James Sherley, John Beacham, and Richard Andrews, of London, marchants, and William Bradford, Edward Winslow, Thomas Prence, Myles Standish, William Brewster, John Aldon, & John Howland, w^th Isaack ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... tame fireside, glad to get away,— Too old to let my watery grief appear,— And what so bitter as a swallowed tear! One figure still my vagrant thoughts pursue; First boy to greet me, Ariel, where are you? Imp of all mischief, heaven alone knows how You learned it all,—are you an angel now, Or tottering gently down the slope of years, Your face grown sober in the vale of tears? Forgive my freedom ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... blue blossom appearing here and there. The points of interest here are the machinery, the negroes, and the work. Entering the sugar-house, we find the maquinista (engineer) superintending some repairs in the machinery, aided by another white man, a Cooly, and an imp of a black boy, who begged of all the party, and revenged himself with clever impertinence on those who refused him. The maquinista was a fine-looking man, from the Pyrenees, very kind and obliging. He told ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... volume of irresistible, rib-tickling fun, the Bad Boy, an incarnate but lovable imp of mischief, records his daily exploits, experiences, pranks and adventures, through all of which you follow him with an absorbing interest that never flags, stopping only when convulsions of laughter and aching sides force the mirth-swept body to take an involuntary ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... Rome. Less happy than his old companions in arms, he had no interval of repose between these terrible and repeated shocks, all beating upon his heart at the same time. One could have feared that the blow might prove mortal, and poor Fougas die in the first hour of his recovered life. But the imp of a fellow yielded and recovered himself in quick succession like a spring. He cried out with admiration on hearing of the five battles of the campaign in France; he reddened with grief at the farewells of Fontainebleau. ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... in a still more agitated and frightened tone. Mark and his companions made the welkin ring with their shouts at the old man's answer. Uncle Tony hearing them, and finding that he had been imposed upon, opened his door, came out with stick in hand, and said, "Is dat you, Mr. Mark? you imp, if I can get to you I'll larn you how to come here wid ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... from the sky With one eye open, one shut. Hark, ring of the drill 'neath the plain! Wakea asks you to explain, 40 What imp is a-drilling below? It is I, mutters Pele: I drilled till flame shot forth on Lanai, A ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... England at its sharpest, brightest, wittiest, most fantastic, most wilful, most devout, saint and imp sported in one, toying with the tricks of the Deity, taking them now with extreme profundity, then tossing them about like irresistible toys with an incomparable triviality. She has traced upon the page and with celestial indelibility that fine line from her soul which is like a fine prismatic ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... front door open (Winnebago rarely locked its doors). She was surprised to feel her heart beating rapidly. He was trying to be quiet, and was making a great deal of noise about it. His shoes and the squeaky fifth stair alone would have convicted him. The imp of perversity in Molly Brandeis made her smile, angry as she was, at the thought of how furious he ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... was some evil imp laughing in the room—There was nothing to be said or done. I could not curse aloud—so I simply took the letter, put it with Daisy Ryven's—and indicated that I was waiting for the next one to be ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... out and punishing sins ascribed to poetic temperament. Byron was banished; Shelley was judged unfit to rear his own children; Keats was advertised as an example of "extreme moral depravity"; [Footnote: By Blackwoods.] Oscar Wilde was imprisoned; Swinburne was castigated as "an unclean fiery imp from the pit." [Footnote: By The Saturday Review.] These are some of the most conspicuous examples of a refusal by the British public to countenance what it considers a code of morals peculiar to poets. It is hardly to be wondered at that verse-writers of the nineteenth and twentieth ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... would have kept up the farce till the ship got into port. I ask, my men, do you think it possible that God, who made this mighty universe, and governs it by just and wise laws, would allow a mischievous imp, who could do no harm while alive, to return to earth, merely for the sake of wreaking his own petty malice, or for troubling and frightening a number of grown men such as you are. To believe such a ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... com. ever allow that five-year-old imp to travel with men?" grunted Joyce disgustedly, as he sat down again and now realized that the nickel was under him next ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... He ought to be," Leighton replied. His cool glance measured Allesandro Trujillo, standing hard by. "I'll have that dusky imp for an exercise boy," he announced. "He's built like an ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... Extra Early Premium Gem, McLean's Little Gem, Surprise or Eclipse, Tom Thumb, Abundance, Advancers McLeans, Dwarf Daisy, Dwarf Champion, Everbearing, Heroine, Horsford's Market Garden, Pride of the Market, Stratagem Imp, Shropshire Hero, Yorkshire Hero, Duke of Albany, Telephone, Telegraph, Champion of England, Forty Fold, Long Island Mammoth, Large White Marrowfat, Black-Eyed Marrowfat, Canada Field, Mammoth Podded Sugar, Melting Sugar, Dwarf Gray-Seeded Sugar, Tall Gray-Seeded Sugar, Laxton's ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... and Moses, too! Do you think the inspiration of even an evil spirit, or of forty thousand devils, would lead a fortune-teller to name any horse Moses? Jack might do, perhaps; but Moses would never enter the head of even an imp! Remember, lad, Moses was the great law-giver of the Jews; and such a creature would be as apt to suppose a horse was named Confucius, as to suppose he ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... bank above them a goat was skirmishing. He was a ridiculous fellow; sometimes cropping with saucy jerks, then kicking up his heels, as if an invisible imp had pinched him, then wagging his rump and ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... he; no imp of sin; No crimes had ever known; They took the shaggy stranger in, And reared him as ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... Gregorio: El progreso de Filipinas. Estudios economicos, administrativos y politicos. Parte economica. Madrid, Imp. de la Vda. de J M. ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal
... a sore subject with the girl, and well he knew it. Wee Anne, that golden-haired imp of mischief, was forever evading her sister-mother's eye and attempting to immolate herself. More than once she had only been saved from serious hurt by the watchful devotion of Owd Bob, who always found time, despite his many labors, to keep a guardian eye on his well-loved lassie. ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... from the loveliest form of Nature's mould, to the disgusting squaw, whose flaccid mammae hung like inverted bottles to her girdle, or are extended over her shoulder to give nourishment to the little imp perched on her back; and here the urchin sits the live long day, while the mother performs all the drudgery of the field, the ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... and be hanged to you! How the imp knocks! You can devour a loaf of bread three feet wide: as for knocking at a door, you don't know how. (pounds vigorously himself, and shouts) Anyone at home? Hi! Anyone here? Anyone minding ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... Bigelow. Well, of all things!" And they'd clap their hands, and be so proud of you. And they'd wonder how it was that they could have been so blind to your many merits when they had you with them. They'd feel sorry that they ever said you were a "regular little imp," if ever there was one, and that you had the Old Boy in you as big as a horse. They'd feel ashamed of themselves, so they would. And they'd come and apologize to you for the way they had acted, and you'd say: "Oh, that's all right. Forgive and ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... and long strings of copper "cash" to be used in the purchase of eggs and chickens, and the mats of rice that would form the principal article of "chow-chow" for the crew. Everybody in China has a boy, and Charley had his; a regular young imp of a fellow of about his own age. Aling was his name; Charley used to call him Ting-a-ling, and would jabber horrible Chinese to him by the hour. Aling jumped down the steps, two at a time, with Charley's ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... childish voices, and have distinguished and unravelled her own darling's tones, amid all the entangled outcry of a group of sportive children. But this could never be. Pearl was a born outcast of the infantile world. An imp of evil, emblem and product of sin, she had no right among christened infants. Nothing was more remarkable than the instinct, as it seemed, with which the child comprehended her loneliness: the destiny that had drawn an inviolable ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... bawcock,[3] and a heart of gold, A lad of life, an imp of fame;[4] Of parents good, of fist most valiant: I kiss his dirty shoe, and from my heart-strings I love the lovely ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... Providence, Rhode Island, an American gentleman of a particularly inquisitive nature, but who, professing some knowledge of medical craft, was really of some use in this instance, as there was no regular ship surgeon on board; and, secondly, young Master Negus, a "born imp of mischief," whose acquaintance will be further improved as the voyage proceeds; while, Llewellyn, the steward, summoned courage at last to descend the companion, in company with his wife the stewardess, who had been forward to the cook's galley in ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... you had tired of them, or send them away like children when they had prattled enough, Angela cuddled down among her cushions and rugs, glad to be let alone for the first time in her life. But there was a young mother with a small imp of a curly-haired girl, who fascinated her, and made her think. Once, when the imp fell on the deck, to be caught up and kissed until a wail ended in a laugh, Angela said to herself, "If my mother had been like that, everything would have ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson |
