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More "Imp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 not look. Eh, how all rung! ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... ears, as if the sport had liked them. One of them would call it her little dille, her staff of love, her quillety, her faucetin, her dandilolly. Another, her peen, her jolly kyle, her bableret, her membretoon, her quickset imp: another again, her branch of coral, her female adamant, her placket-racket, her Cyprian sceptre, her jewel for ladies. And some of the other women would give it these names,—my bunguetee, my stopple too, my bush-rusher, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... the surname he assumed, the name of his half-brothers; and to detail his Asian wanderings would be tedious and unprofitable. But at the end of each four months would come to him a certain messenger from Glyndwyr, supposed by Richard to be the imp Orvendile, who notoriously ran every day around the world upon the Welshman's business. It was in the Isle of Taprobane, where the pismires are as great as hounds, and mine and store the gold of which the inhabitants afterward rob them through a very cunning device, that ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... was the charitable interpretation. Harry strongly suspected that the imp had been a concealed spectator all the time, and had particularly relished the mischief of the discomfiture, which, after all, was much greater on the part of the Vicar than any one else, as he was a rather stiff, old-fashioned gentleman. Lady Merrifield only laughed, said she had been beguiled ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Bernard, "I'd change it. When we get civilised, I believe children will go by number until they get old enough to choose their own names. Fancy a squirming little imp with a terrible temper being saddled with the name of 'William,' by authority of Church and State. Except to his doting parents, he'll ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... not without a ray of pride and triumph, that, come what might to the others, she is still unchanged. Around him the fairies are shedding their glory as trees in autumn shed their leaves. Here a sweet laughing face surmounts the hideous body of an imp, there the bright scales of an unearthly armour shrivel to rottenness and dust. The dazzling robes are turning blank and colourless, the emerald rays waning to a pale, sad light, the flashing diadem is dulled and dim. Yet on the fairy queen there lowers no shadow ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... sharp thou lov'st to dart, (Thou skating imp! Thou rolling joker!) And hit in some projecting part The lawyer staid, or solemn broker. Does pity never mar thy glee, When upright men with torture double? Oh, let our one petition be That thou ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various
... her child was born three months after she came here. Looks innocent as a wax doll doesn't she? Eve Werneth she calls herself; and she is well named after the original mother of all sin. She is Satan's own imp, and we chain her every night, for she boasts that when things grow tiresome to her she always burns her way out. I think she is the worst case we have, except the young mulatto—I don't see her here just now—who was sent up for life, for poisoning a baby she was hired to ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... the old gentleman, and yet, so great is the love of frolic inherent in some reprobate minds, that when the idea of carrying off his carriage was first broached at one of their little private suppers, by that wicked imp Will Forsythe, it was met with shouts of applause. It was resolved to convey it away, in the dead of the night, to a little piece of woods belonging to the Doctor, at a distance of about three miles from ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... Dierich, "I doubt he speaks sooth. I told the burgomaster how 'twould be. He met the dwarf galloping Peter Buyskens's mule from Sevenbergen. 'They have sent that imp to Gerard,' says he, 'so, then, Gerard is at Sevenbergen.' 'Ah, master!' says I, ''tis too late now. We should have thought of Sevenbergen before, instead of wasting our time hunting all the odd corners of Tergou for those cursed parchments ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... vaguely. So delicate are the oscillations of the imaginative imp, that it is hard to say just where he swings his slaves into determined self-delusion. If you had shaken Caroline severely and demanded of her in the character of an impatient adult the name of her castle, she would undoubtedly have informed you that ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... the arrow out, and rushed forward. Fairly pushing Mr. and Mrs. Illingway up on deck before him, Tom followed. Tomba was capering about his master and mistress, and he swung his big club savagely. He had not been idle, and many a red imp had gone down under ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... the Earl's thane fairly grazed the heels of the King's words: "The imp can do no otherwise than harm, my sovereign. Should he bring his tongue to Danish ears, he could cause the utmost evil. For the safety of the Earl of Mercia,—ay, for your own need,—I entreat you to deliver the boy up ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... me, look at me!"—and he capers about in his best style. Again, he would seem to tease you and provoke your attention; then suddenly assumes a tone of good-natured, childlike defiance and derision. That pretty little imp, the chipmunk, will sit on the stone above his den and defy you, as plainly as if he said so, to catch him before he can get into his hole if you can. You hurl a stone at him, and "No you didn't!" comes up from ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... modest but commodious house in the Quartier Latin. His domestic affairs were administered by a respectable-looking elderly man, who performed the part of cook, to his own honor and the entire satisfaction of his master; while a smart but mischievous imp of a boy ran of errands, tended the fires, swept the rooms, and kept old Dominique in a continual fret, by his tricks and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... one of his brother's characteristics; he had no gentle courtesies, no quiet ways. Except when asleep, he was never known to be still for a moment. One glance at his fiery head, at his comical face, would show plainly that he was a very imp of mischief. He was kind-hearted—he would not willingly injure the smallest living thing—but his wild, ungovernable spirit, his sense of the ludicrous in all and every circumstance, made him sometimes do unintentional harm, and his mother ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... swarthy two-year-old bantling clasps her neck with one arm, its naked body half extant from the coarse blanket which, drawn round her shoulders, is secured at her bosom by a skewer. Though tender of age, it looks wicked and sly, like a veritable imp of Roma. Huge rings of false gold dangle from wide slits in the lobes of her ears; her nether garments are rags, and her feet are cased in hempen sandals. Such is the wandering Gitana, such is the witch- wife of Multan, who has come to spae the ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... 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, ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... imp of a Jew!" shouted Taras, beside himself. "You lie, dog! I will kill you, Satan! Get away from here! if not, death awaits you!" So saying, Taras ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... no, please don't...." Some irresponsible imp in her intelligence made her want to tell him that it wasn't Jonah who looked ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... see that he had to make the ch'ice atween doing nothing at all or tackling the younker? The Sioux is such an imp and is so crazy for revenge that he made up his mind to chance it the least he could, and he went for the tenderfoot that ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... oft discouragement, the imp, Would whisper in our breast, "'Tis folly to continue on; Go, ...
— Silver Links • Various
... the progress of countless civilisations in ever recurring and repeated processional order,— all the sciences old and new,—are solely to nourish, support, instruct, entertain and furnish food and employment for the tiny two-legged imp of Chance, spawned (as he himself asserts) out of gas ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... in his make-up there lay a spot, call it instinct or what you please, that vibrated in response to the distress of the human creature he carried. Perhaps the fact that she was in trouble drew his sympathy, wicked little willful imp though he usually was. Certain it is that he began to slacken his pace decidedly, until at last he was walking, and finally stopped short and turned his head about with a troubled neigh as if to ask her what was ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... vultures, make us once affeard: Ne let th'unpleasant quyre of frogs still 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) ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... 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 ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... failure; he stood for nothing in the world of achievement; for all the difference that his going made, he might never have been born. Then a thought as startling as the tangible appearance of some ironic, grinning imp flashed to his mind. Who was he, Bruce Burt, to criticise his partner, Slim? What more had he accomplished? How much more difference would his own death make in anybody's life? His mother's labored words came back with painful ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... so? Imperial begins with an i and so does imp, and, accordin' to what I learned when I went to school, empire begins with ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... as Donacha 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 ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... execrations in Cree as were possible to that innocent tongue. The hands of the woman at the cabin door were a miracle of grime and scrofula. Her sluttish locks, together with two children, hung around her; one of the latter chewing a muddy carrot up into the leaves, an ungainly little imp; the other was a girl of singularly beautiful features and of perfect form, her large luminous eyes of richest brown reflecting the sunlight from their depths like mirrors—a little angel clad in dirt. Why other wild things should be delicately ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... been atrocious scenes, based on his jealousies of her, which some imp in her would lead her to provoke, notwithstanding that even as she spoke she regretted, and reached ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... An imp touched Nana Sahib, and he said: "I'd swear there was Rajput blood in that girl. If I knew of some princess having been stolen I'd say she stood yonder. The eyes are simply ripping; baby eyes, that, when roused, ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... staring at me. Sitting on the edge of the bed I stared at her, filled with baudy curiosity and the appreciation of novelty. "Why won't you have the other gal?" said she. "I don't want her, nor want two,—and she is a dirty little imp." "No she ain't dirty, she washes herself like me,—let her come up." "No,—come you here." "She is quite clean,—I wash her myself sometimes." "No, ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... 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 there that might be Poison too. Were I a drowzy Judge, whose ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... have driven her to destruction at last. I tell you, sir, we are a pack of cowards hunting down an angel. You and I and that pretty imp of satan. I came to tell you this: bad as I am, her goodness has touched me with human feelings. If she is here and alive, justice shall be done her, and for once the truth shall be spoken under this ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... hid, the places were generally hanted with terrible spirits, and strange Ghosts, that walked there, coming in frightfull apparitions: but since they have been driven out of our Country and Houses; there's another sort of Imp come in, ten times wickeder then any of the other; which regards nor cares neither for Crosses, Holy-water, Exorcisms, or any sort of Divel-drivers; but dares boldly shew himself at noon-day, namely a Plague-Divel, which sets Man an Wife together by the ears, to try who of ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... sped, and am I a master on earth?' said the infernal king (Pluto). 'Even as I promised,' said the Fury. 'Love hath forsaken the earth. Under the form of religion I aroused the fears and commanded the submission of mortals; and our imp now reigns on earth in the place of Love, under the form of Hymen.' Pluto smiled grimly, and smote his thigh in triumph. 'Well conceited, well executed, daughter of Night. Our empire shall not lack recruits, now that innocence is exchanged ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... slip out of mine entire heart, So deep reposed in my breast is she for her desart! For many blessed gifts, O happy, happy land! Where Mars and Pallas strive to make their glory most to stand! Yet, land, more is thy bliss that, in this cruel age, A Venus' imp thou hast brought forth, so steadfast and so sage. Among the Muses Nine a tenth if Jove would make, And to the Graces Three a fourth, her would Apollo take. Let some for honour hunt, and hoard the massy gold: With her so I may live and die, my ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... the skipper, rubbing his nose 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 with ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... of pepper-grass for the Imp," Tracy suggested, as the girls went from place to place up and ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs
... to look at a great soprano or tenor, hoping that he might indulge me with a brief song as a sample of what he could do, but he was always royally indifferent and reserved. I am going to the Adirondacks on purpose to hear him some day. There's the winter wren, too-saucy, inquisitive little imp!—he was here all winter, and has left us without vouchsafing a note. But, then, great singers are a law unto themselves ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... A gangrel imp that Satan flayed, Shrieks deeds of sin that man-wrecks wrought Ere gyving Death each culprit smote; Where straggling moonbeams cleft a dome, A Prince in splendor stands arrayed And rants his spleen unto a ghaut, Where mongrel whelps ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... with them, though to me, who long for stream and cataract, it seemed absolutely to stand still. I meditated returning to Shepherd's Bush, and began to think, with some hankering, after little Benjie and the rod. The imp has ventured hither, and hovers about to catch a peep of me now and then; I suppose the little sharper is angling for a few more sixpences. But this would have been, in Joshua's eyes, a return of the washed sow to wallowing in the mire, and I resolved, while I remained his ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... justly pass the buck to my begettors," he said. "I came into the world handicapped—a crooked back, and a camel's desire and capacity for liquids—alcoholic liquids. I am a periodical drunkard. Every six months, or so, I am constrained by the imp within me to saturate myself with spirits and wallow in the gutter, like ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... Little Playmate uttered scream after scream, for the head continued coolly to stare at her, as if fixed alive over the gateway by the craft of some cave-dwelling imp ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... all right; it seems he galloped something under forty miles with Porter before he came a cropper. But I understand they had an imp of a boy, ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... 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, ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... could just discern that he had run over and partially demolished a little negro boy carrying a pitcher, the pitcher and the boy seeming to have suffered about equally. Neither of them had any nose left, to speak of; and the little imp did not make any effort to rise from the floor, but lay there and yelled merrily. The victor in the collision did not have much time for inspection, for the moment after a door at the back end of the passage ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... should go; and that being pressed to go and visit the rector, he absolutely refused, saying he was a wicked old Pharisee, inside whose doors he would never set his foot. The doctor wrote me a letter, warning me against the deplorable errors of this young imp of perdition, as he called him; and I could see that there was no love lost between them. But it appeared that, if not agreeable to the gentry of the country, young Bullingdon had a huge popularity among the common people. ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... (orat the least yf we reuerence lernynge or regarde the honor of oure Countrye, sholde beare) to suche a singuler ornamente of oure tonge, as the woorkes of Chaucer are: Yet since there is nothinge so fullye perfected, by anye one, whereine some imp{er}fect{i}one maye not bee founde, (for as the prouerbe is Bernardus, or as others have Alanus, non videt omnia,) you must be contented to gyve me leave in discharge of the duetye and love whiche I beare ...
— Animaduersions uppon the annotacions and corrections of some imperfections of impressiones of Chaucer's workes - 1865 edition • Francis Thynne
... an f. LX un autre traite de Morale et an f. lxxxij celui de Melibee et de Prudence. Il y a a la bibl. imp. un exempl. de cette ed. tire sur velin et orne ...
— Game and Playe of the Chesse - A Verbatim Reprint Of The First Edition, 1474 • Caxton
... to talk sophistry with the cardinal Virtues, the nine Muses, and the seven deadly sins, all present in human shape, and not unlike one another. To enliven which weary stuff in rattled the Prince of the power of the air, and an imp that kept molesting him and buffeting him with a bladder, at each thwack of which the crowd were in ecstasies. When the Vices had uttered good store of obscenity and the Virtues twaddle, the celestials, including the nine Muses went gingerly back ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... was ten I must have been the most objectionable little imp on the face of creation," said Rona slowly. "I ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... frivolous sperit of meddlin' thet brings me hyar askin' ye questions thet seems imp'dent an' nosy. Hit's a dire need of safeguardin' ther peace of our folks—aye, an' thar lives, too, ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... reward of meritorious deed, Hath each his several degree assign'd. In early times with their own innocence More was not wanting, than the parents' faith, To save them: those first ages past, behoov'd That circumcision in the males should imp The flight of innocent wings: but since the day Of grace hath come, without baptismal rites In Christ accomplish'd, innocence herself Must linger yet below. Now raise thy view Unto the visage most resembling Christ: ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... every one could hear. "I learned that long ago about niggers. They'd say to me, 'For God's sake, don't talk to our niggers like that. Some night you'll have your house set afire.' But I said, 'Pet a nigger, and you've got a spoiled nigger.' I'd say, 'Nigger, don't you give me any of your imp, or I'll kick the breeches off you.' And they knew I was a ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... be in the unseen universe an evil spirit, an imp of malice and mischief, not Milton's Satan, but the Deil ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... patched-up old ——. She was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, and on her forehead was written "MYSTERY." I shrieked, for I knew her to be the dry-nurse of that detested Imp, DESPOTISM. ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... her dreams—for nothing could 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, ruddy ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... and causes her to write her name and make her mark on a slip of parchment with her own blood. Sometimes on this occasion also the witch uses the ceremony of putting one hand to the sole of her foot and the other to the crown of her head. On departing he delivers to her an imp or familiar. The familiar, in shape of a cat, a mole, miller-fly, or some other insect or animal, at stated times of the day sucks her blood through teats in different parts of her body.[47] If, however, the ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... always desert his primer to follow the hangman's lumbering cart up Tyburn Hill, and, still a mere imp of mischief, he would run the weary way from Kensington to Shoe Lane on the distant chance of a cock-fight. He was present, so he would relate in after years, when Sir Thomas Jermin's man put his famous trick upon the pit. With a hundred pounds in his pocket and under his arm a dunghill ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... speech—every sentence a beautiful opening for Hapley. He turned to fiction—and found it had no grip on him. He read the "Island Nights' Entertainments" until his "sense of causation" was shocked beyond endurance by the Bottle Imp. Then he went to Kipling, and found he "proved nothing," besides being irreverent and vulgar. These scientific people have their limitations. Then unhappily, he tried Besant's "Inner House," and the opening chapter set his mind upon learned ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... I vos close. I vent closer don you. I oxpect, sir,' said the Dutchman, 'she's an imp. Strange dot I did not see him till ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... again without my seeing Grim, although I called on him repeatedly at the "Junior Staff Officers' Mess" below the Zionist Hospital. Suliman, the eight-year-old imp of Arab mischief, who did duty as page-boy met me on each occasion at the door and took grinning ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... leaping flames set fantastic shadows of them moving. One of these, rooted where Miller sat, was like a bloated spider watching its victim. The other, dwarfed and prehensile, might in its uncanny silhouette have been an imp of darkness from the ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... and drawing sword. "Now, be thou imp of Satan, fiend accursed, or goblin fell, come forth, and I with steel ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... the Seigneur," said Muroc. "Look to your son-in-law, Lajeunesse. He's kicking up a dust that'll choke Pontiac yet. It's as if there was an imp in him ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to the legend of Sakhr al-Jinn), a famous fiend cast by Solomon David son into Lake Tiberias whose storms make it a suitable place. Hence the "Bottle imp," a world-wide fiction of folk-lore: we shall find it in the "Book of Sindibad," and I need hardly remind the reader of Le Sage's "Diable Boiteux," borrowed from "El Diablo Cojuelo," the Spanish novel by Luiz ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... patrol meeting. Tim attended, but an imp of perverseness seemed to rule him. It was the first time he had seen the patrol as a group since Friday night. At first he looked hot and uncomfortable. After a while he began to scrape his feet and drum on the table. ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... gasped 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! I'll take ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... the Editor with an air of conviction. "I don't suppose there's another imp like you in all Trinidad County. Well, next time don't scratch outside there like a gopher, but ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... himself, in the effect his words now had. For a moment he feared all the men were going to rise up against him as Jude had done. A silence fell upon the group. Filmer gave one keen glance at the imp on the doorstep, and then refilled his pipe and leaned back in ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... 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 traveling bag; but Aho, ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... day has endin', and the wildest storm has fallin'— There's a young gossoon in yander, and he sits upon my knee; There's a churchful for the christenin'—do you hear the imp a-callin'? He's the pride of Mary Callaghan ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... "I an imp of the devil!—I, who had an aunt who died in odour of sanctity, in the convent of Santa Clara—I, who am second cousin to Fray Domingo, one of the most religious as well as most celebrated ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... daughter of Alexius Comnenus, was also buried in this church rests upon the misunderstanding of a passage in the work of M. Crusius, where, speaking of that princess, the author says: 'Quae (Anna) anno Domini 1117 vixit; filia Alexii Comneni Imp. cujus sepulchrum adhuc exstat in templo patriarchatus Constantinopli a D. Steph. ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... went into the cave, and they had proceeded but a short distance when they met a very little creature, whom it was easy to recognize as a Very Imp. He was about two feet high, and resembled in color a freshly polished pair of boots. He was extremely lively and active, and came bounding ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... antic toys so funnily bestuck, Light as the singing bird that wings the air,— (The door! the door! he'll tumble down the stair!) Thou darling of thy sire! (Why, Jane, he'll set his pinafore afire!) Thou imp of mirth and joy! In Love's dear chain so strong and bright a link, Thou idol of thy parents,—(Drat the boy! There ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... "Thou imp," she cried, "it is one of thy tricks," and she made a dive for the scullion, who ducked around the skirts of one of the other women and so escaped for the time; but Long Jacob wrinkled up his nose and sniffed. ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... on native soil. He did some brilliant and engaging work of foreign setting and motive. "The Island Nights' Entertainments" is as good in its way as the earlier "New Arabian Nights"—far superior to it, indeed, for finesse and the deft command of exotic material. Judged as art, "The Bottle Imp" and "The Beach of Falesa" are among the triumphs of ethnic interpretation, let alone their more external charms of story. And another masterpiece of foreign setting, "A Lodging for The Night," is further proof of Stevenson's ability to use other than Scotch motives ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... a younger daughter's license. She was a statuesque young woman with a pose, ripe lips, flashing white teeth, laughing eyes with an imp of mischief in them, and an exquisitely turned-up nose that was neither the Brentwood, which was severely classic, nor the Grimkie, ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... Like the black imp he is, Blacky flew over the tree-tops, his sharp eyes watching for something interesting below. Presently he saw ahead of him the old nest of Red-tail. He knew all about that nest. He had visited it before when Red-tail was ...
— Blacky the Crow • Thornton W. Burgess
... "Married!" I laughed, some imp of willfulness seizing me, "I'm not married. What mockery to say that I am married simply because I must write madam before my name! I am not married, and I shall talk ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... answered Archer, with a laugh; "I will, too, if you go wish it, though you are not a spaniel, nor any thing else half so good. And why, pray, should I not scourge this wild little imp? he ran slap into the best pack of ruffed grouse I have seen this two years—fifteen or sixteen birds. I wonder they're not scattered—it's full late to ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... thousands of the people of France remained in the city and the province to be ruled henceforth by the intrepid race, with which it had competed in a death-struggle for dominion through so many adventurous and uncertain years. Victory, like a wayward imp of Fate, had settled first upon one and then upon the other, and once before 1759 England had held the keys of the great fortress only to yield them up again in a weak bargain; but the die was thrown for the last time ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... that the youngster won promotion, with leave to order his elder about, you may guess there were heart-burnings. Add to this that it kept these good citizens chafing to note how often (and indeed regularly) advancement passed them over to light on some young gentleman of family or 'imp,' as they growled, 'from ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... buy her occasional presents, to tap, when conversing, the pleasantly sentimental vein. But now these things were not enough. Her heart was troubled. Her thoughts frightened her. The little black imp at the back of her mind kept whispering and whispering, till at last she was forced to listen. 'He's tired of you. He doesn't love you any more. ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... old gentleman again, moving off, 'you will please amuse yourself until I return'; but seeing me look wild, said, 'You have seen too much of me to feel alarmed for your own safety. Take this imp for your guide, and if he is impertinent, put him through; and for fear the exhibitions may overcome your nerves, imbibe of this cordial,' which I did, and everything danced before my eyes, and I wasn't ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... if he's a normal boy. And if the uncle's away, it will be nobody's business even if they see the marabout's son having a ride behind me on my horse, as he might with his own father. Trust me to lure the imp on with us afterward, step by step, in a dream of happiness. I was always a born lurer—except when I wanted a thing or person ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... shrimp, that wither'd imp, With a' his noise an' cap'rin; An' take a share with those that bear The budget and the apron! And by that stowp! my faith an' houp, And by that dear Kilbaigie,^1 If e'er ye want, or meet wi' scant, May I ne'er weet my craigie. And by ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... setting her gaunt arms akimbo, and 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, ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... who signs himself familiarly "Ed." But, at the other side of the Atlantic, the term bears a much wider application, extending to all "connected with the press"— from the "head cook and bottle-washer," down, nearly, to that bottle imp, the printer's "devil." ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... "or I'm a rat-tailed imp myself! That means a heavier air-pressure inside. And now I know 'tis men folks I'm goin' ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... Content with equity unbought; To him the venerable priest, Our frequent and familiar guest, Whose life and manners well could paint Alike the student and the saint; Alas! whose speech too oft I broke With gambol rude and timeless joke; For I was wayward, bold, and wild, A self-will'd imp, a grandame's child; But, half a plague and half a jest, ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... protest against the movement she had made to withdraw. And as such Lilith read it; more potent in its impulsiveness than any words could have been. "Listen!" he went on. "I suppose there is a sort of imp of scepticism sitting ever upon one shoulder, and that is what you saw. Something in my thoughts suggested a droll contrast, that was all. So far from boring me, you have afforded me an ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... help being a little imp. And so long as he is a naughty fairy, he cannot find a single friend. No one helps him when he is in trouble. No one really loves him. Those who come to admire his handsome beaded jacket and long fringed leggins ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... with envy or with praise, And all her jealous monarchs with amaze, And rumours loud that daunt remotest kings, Thy firm unshaken virtue ever brings Victory home, though new rebellions raise Their Hydra-heads, and the false North displays Her broken League to imp their serpent wings: O yet a nobler task awaits thy hand, For what can War but endless war still breed, Till Truth and Right from Violence be freed, And public Faith cleared from the shameful brand Of public Fraud! In vain doth Valour bleed, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... "the pictur' changes; seems as if I could see the pond. The ice is like a black lookin'-glass, and Hiram Peabody slips up the first thing, an' down he comes lickety-split, an' we all laugh,—except Sister Mary, an' she says it is very imp'lite to laugh at other folks' misfortunes. Ough! how cold it is, and how my fingers ache with the frost when I take off my mittens to strap on Laura's skates! But, oh, how my cheeks burn! And how careful I am not to hurt Laura, an' how I ask her if that's 'tight enough,' ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... salaamed and passed out; and, closing the door behind him, ran like a hare down the narrow stairs. At the door Dollops rose up like the imp in a pantomime ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... jobs—running messages, and so on, helps his brother to clean the horses; and with an occasional crown from me, and what he earns otherwise, it cannot be said that he costs his brother anything in money; but in other respects he is always getting him into trouble, for he is a very imp of mischief. Two or three times his brother has obtained places for him, but he always comes back at the end of a week, and sometimes sooner, with bitter complaints from his master that he has set the household in a turmoil with his tricks and ill conduct. Many a thrashing has he had, but they do ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... is vicious. Kit-Ki took a nap on a new dinner-gown of mine, and I slapped her. And the other day Drina hid in a clothes-press while Nina was discussing my private affairs, and when the little imp emerged I could have shaken her. Oh, I am certainly becoming infirm; so if you are, too, comfort yourself with the knowledge that I am keeping pace with you through ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... had put his iron in the fire, and again stood blowing the bellows, when his attention was caught by the gestures of the little red-eyed imp, Tommy, who was making rapid signs to him, touching his forehead with one finger, nodding mysteriously, and pointing at Clare with the thumb of his other hand, held close to his side. He sought to indicate thus that his companion was ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... dexterity and showing off my discontent. You can form no idea of the extent to which this petty insolence vexed and disquieted me. Even in my sleep, the clumsy and grinning features of this tormenting imp haunted me like a spectre: my visions were nothing but chins and cricket-bats; walking-sticks, sustaining themselves upon human excrescences, and pokers dancing a hornpipe upon the tip of a nose. I assure you ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... little to trouble me; and if you will remain with us, I thank God I may leave the feud in good hands. Would that I were young again only for a day that I might call that scoundrel Rutland and his imp of a son to account in the only manner whereby an honest man may have justice of a thief. There are but two of them, Malcolm,—father and son,—and if they were dead, the ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... the Rheinischer Hof, a right comfortable hotel on the St. Johann side of the Saar, where most of the Hohenzollern officers frequented the table d'hote and where quaint little Max, the drollest imp of a waiter imaginable, and pretty Frauelein Sophie the landlord's niece, did all that in them lay to contribute to the pleasantness and comfort of the house. Not a few pleasant evenings did I spend at the table of the long dining-room, with the close-cropped ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... neared the trenches he raised his head to look for his company. Not a soldier was in sight. As he stood in wonderment it seemed that the gates of the infernal regions were standing ajar and the inmates escaping toward him. Two hundred black devils, every imp of them screaming and yelling at each leap forward, were coming for him, armed with bolos and other death-dealing weapons, to mince him in a thousand pieces. He knew his men had been massacred to a man. He alone remained to face this mass of uncivilized warriors ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... with exquisite 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 ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... 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, I have never seen you make the sign ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... leetle patch o' corn he hed, or else there aint no knowin' He would n'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 need n'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 ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... be meditating upon irremediable fate, thought Corilla: "This is a charming theme which the good Cardinal Albani has thrown into the urn for me. I found it directly by the small pin which, according to his promise, he inserted in the paper. This cardinal is an agreeable imp, and I must give him a kiss for his complaisance. Besides, the Tasso rhyme will here be ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... exclaimed Brother Rabbit. "Turn me loose, imp of Satan! If you do not, I will rap you on the ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... at their beck; but his visits to most of them appear to have been "few and far between." The convention (remarks John Gaule, an old writer) for such a solemn initiation being proclaimed (by some herald imp) to some others of the confederation, on some great holy or Lord's day, they meet in some church, either before the consecrated bell hath tolled, or else very late, after all the services are past and over. "The party, in some vesture ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... eyes held mine in burning intensity. So as to hide a smile I lit a cigarette. I know not what little imp in motley possessed me that evening. He seemed to hit me over the head with his bladder, and counsel me to play the fool like himself, for once in my life before I died. I could almost hear ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... somethin' I dunno, you gomeral, not but what I'm nigh as big a one meself as can be, to go thrust her wid that little imp of mischief. Bad scran to it, I must give me stiff leg a rest, and she 'll be up here blatherin' after me before you can look round, you may ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... that unconquerable imp of mischief dancing in her eyes, "have you any adequate excuse to offer for the spoiling of an ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope
... road-agents to watch the coach. Just my luck to have him light out as I was beginning to get some talk out of him." He paused, looked at his watch, and straightened himself in his stirrups. "Four o'clock. I reckon I might as well try the woods and what that imp calls the 'bresh;' I may strike a shanty or a ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... melons wont grow; there's somethin' the matter with them. Faith, I believe some imp has cast a spell over 'em. I do, mother," quoth he, thumping the table with his ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... and pokes one of the patient beasts with a cudgel, whereupon, throwing occasional glances at the human sprig out of a corner of its eye, and snatching at tufts of leaves or grass here and there on the way, the unruffled beast leisurely moves on a few paces, and that imp of a boy seems to feel that his duty as herdsman ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... thou went'st, to Imp thy miserie, Did I not give thee means? but hark ungratefull, Was it not thus? to hide thy face and fly me? To keep thy name for ever from my memory? Thy cursed blood and kindred? did I not swear then, If ever, (in this wretched ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (1 of 10) - The Custom of the Country • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... Small imp of blackness, off at once, Expend thy mirth as likes thee best: Thy toil is over for the nonce; Yes, "opus operatum est." When dreary authors vex thee sore, Thy Mentor's old, and would remind thee That if thy griefs are all before, Thy pleasures ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... one 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 ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... 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 ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... your train," she wrote. "Veronica did not get back till half-past six. She informed me that you and she had found a good deal to talk about, and that 'one thing had led to another.' She is a quaint young imp, but I think your lecture must have done her good. Her present attitude is that of gentle forbearance to all around her—not without its dignity. She has not snorted once, and at times is really helpful. I have given her an empty scribbling ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... such amusing 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
... and that philosophers miscall. I have no taste for that philosophy; give me large sums paid on the receipt of the MS. and copyright reserved, and what do I care about the non-beent? Only I know it can't last. The devil always has an imp or two in every house, and my imps are getting lively. The good lady, the dear, kind lady, the sweet, excellent lady, Nemesis, whom alone I adore, has fixed her wooden eye upon me. I fall prone; spare me, Mother Nemesis! But ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... got some wild notion out of a boot-legger's bottle. Straighten up now. It's an infamous thing in a college town like Lagonda Ledge, where neither a saloon nor a joint would be allowed, that some imp of Satan should forever be bringing you ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... black imp of panic that lived under the garish rug of this unfamiliar room and crawled out at dawn to nudge him awake and stare from the blank space to his left where Tillie's gray head ...
— Waste Not, Want • Dave Dryfoos
... you imp of Satan!" I called furiously, but I could hear him speeding down the corridor, and the slam of the outer office door by which he always announced his presence. And so I stood there in that ridiculous cupboard, hot with the heat of a steaming September day, musty with the smell ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... asylum, you imp!" exclaimed the old man; then, turning to Herbert, he continued: "Yes, lad; I will do as I say; and as for ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... out of the hills we found a water-hole, but the cattle had been there first, and the sheep wouldn't look at it. At the camp last night there was another hole, but some imp had deviled the herd an' they lay alongside the water, dyin' of thirst, but they wouldn't drink. We pushed 'em in an' they swam around; we half-drowned some of 'em, but still they ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... 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 beyond praise ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... take care of that; give yourself no uneasiness. All I want is just a look at her, to see what the imp is like that has been able to make all this noise, then you and the halter may have her. How many men ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... pleased than was Sigismondo with the acquisition of this Father of the Neopagan faith. Upon the tomb we still may read this legend: 'Jemisthii Bizantii philosopher sua temp principis reliquum Sig. Pan. Mal. Pan. F. belli Pelop adversus Turcor regem Imp ob ingentem eruditorum quo flagrat amorem huc afferendum introque mittendum curavit MCCCCLXVI.' Of the Latinity of the inscription much cannot be said; but it means that 'Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, having served as general against the Turks ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... been with me, Leonora, instead of that little imp of a berry girl. It was just that sense of not being at home that made that mountain life, at last, so unbearable to me. Yet home without that seemed so flat and lifeless, down on a dead level, with not a street or garden but could be counted and measured. I thought if I could only have a hut ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... and audacious, though we cannot say that we entirely approve of the names he gives to his stories. Bootle's Baby was a masterpiece, but Houp-la was a terrible title, and That Imp is not much better. The book, however, is undoubtedly clever, and the Imp in question is not a Nyctalops nor a specimen for a travelling museum, but a very pretty girl who, because an officer has kissed her without any serious matrimonial intentions, exerts all her fascinations to bring ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... A little imp with a nasty sneering voice that jabbed like a hot needle perched itself on his shoulder and kept ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... ha! the Imp of Darkness!" screeched the timbrel-girls, tossing up their instruments, and catching them again on the points of their fingers. "She has enchanted him with her glamour. Foul is fair! Foul fair thee, young springal, if thou go to the nets. Shadow and goblin to goblin and shadow! Flesh and ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... pleasures of others more favoured, though Guys did not waste the fruits of his observation. At sixty-five he began to go down-hill. His habits had never been those of a prudent citizen, and as his earning powers grew less some imp of the perverse entered his all too solitary life. With this change of habits came a change of theme. Henceforth he drew filles, the outcasts, the scamps and convicts and the poor wretches of the night. He is now a forerunner of Toulouse-Lautrec ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... to the jolly landlady dispensing her drinks from her bar. Not one of the Gandishites but was after a while well inclined to the young fellow; from Mr. Chivers, the senior pupil, down to the little imp Harry Hooker, who knew as much mischief at twelve years old, and could draw as cleverly as many a student of five-and-twenty; and Bob Trotter, the diminutive fag of the studio, who ran on all the young men's errands, and fetched ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... spirit or familiar of Sir John Faustus or [Dr.] John Faust (Shakespeare, Merry Wives of Windsor, 1596). Subsequently it became a term of reproach, about equal to "imp of the devil." ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... with the right of jurisdiction and sovereignty. Accompanying his veto (May 4, 1822), he submitted "Views on the Subject of Internal Improvements." [Footnote: Richardson, Messages and Papers, II., 142-183; Monroe, Writings, VI., 216; Mason, Veto Power, 85; Nelson presidential Influence on Int. Imp. (Iowa Journal of Hist, and Politics), IV., 29, 30.] In this elaborate disquisition, he rehearsed the constitutional history of internal improvements, and expounded his conception of the construction of the Constitution, ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... for a rather atrocious murder committed in the dead of night, in a house at Caramanchel, in which his only accomplice was his son, a child under seven years of age. "The apple," as the Danes say, "had not fallen far from the tree"; the imp was in every respect the counterpart of the father, though in miniature. He, too, wore the robber shirt sleeves, the robber waistcoat with the silver buttons, the robber kerchief round his brow, and, ridiculous enough, a long Manchegan knife in the ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... Mary quietly told herself, and in her mind she again saw Helen demonstrating how to quell the wildest car on earth. Mary ought to have stopped there, but a wicked imp seemed to have taken ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... boyishly. "Good for me! You'd jolly soon floor me if you didn't. Look at that parroquet, I say! He flashes like an emerald, and see that imp of a monkey! He's actually daring to rebuke us for trespassing. I call this road a disgrace to the State, don't you? If I were the Rajah—by the way, the Rajah ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... to tell you," said Uncle Jepson decisively. "I've been puttin' it off, hopin' that you'd get shet of that imp of Satan, an' I wouldn't have to ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Walter) Novels and Romances, with all his Introductions and Notes, 5 vols. imp. 8vo., half bound, morocco, extra, illustrated with nearly 200 engravings on steel by eminent artists, and a series of plates by George ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 44, Saturday, August 31, 1850 • Various
... speak'st thou true. But there thou gav'st not such true testimony, When thou wast question'd of the truth, at Troy." "If I spake false, thou falsely stamp'dst the coin," Said Sinon; "I am here but for one fault, And thou for more than any imp beside." "Remember," he replied, "O perjur'd one, The horse remember, that did teem with death, And all the world be witness to thy guilt." "To thine," return'd the Greek, "witness the thirst Whence thy tongue cracks, ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... if your aunt has not complied with your request, see if I don't flay you alive, you little imp of abomination." ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... have conquered if some imp had not whispered, "What about that purple envelope, addressed in a woman's handwriting? Maybe it was from her, hinting to see him again, and that is what has put this plan into his head. Perhaps he brought up the subject of the Countess on purpose ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... 'Vie de Jeanne d'Arc, d'apres les documents nouvellement publies (avec des cartes d'itineraire).' Paris, Firmin-Didot (imp. a Mesnil), ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was past sixty and had a Michael Angelo's Moses beard curling down from the head of a satyr along the body of an imp. Behrman was a failure in art. Forty years he had wielded the brush without getting near enough to touch the hem of his Mistress's robe. He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it. For several years he had painted nothing except now and ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... 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 Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... he sprawled backward, and I stood up, ready for battle, my fingers tingling, my heart pounding. The imp was up again, in half a breath, pushed forward by his friends to take revenge, and I could hear Sir Samuel or her ladyship wrestling vainly with the window behind me. What would have happened next I can't tell, except that I was in a mood to ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... in he walks, 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 ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... private as possible; and, as they never tried to describe it even to themselves, this being had a vague mysterious charm very agreeable to Demi, who delighted in elves and goblins. A most whimsical and tyrannical imp was the Naughty Kitty-mouse, and Daisy found a fearful pleasure in its service, blindly obeying its most absurd demands, which were usually proclaimed from the lips of Demi, whose powers of invention were great. Rob and ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... with a younger daughter's license. She was a statuesque young woman with a pose, ripe lips, flashing white teeth, laughing eyes with an imp of mischief in them, and an exquisitely turned-up nose that was neither the Brentwood, which was severely classic, nor the Grimkie, which was ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... books. In the place where they were settled, trustworthy boy society was unattainable, and they had felt their little son, in danger of being spoilt and made forward from his very goodness and brightness—wrote Meta, 'If you find him a forward imp, recollect it is my fault for having depended so ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... half wishing he had not said this, feeling a little giddy, a little less strong; but, as I ran along, something hit me on the shoulder. I looked behind me, and there he stood, like an imp of mischief, pelting me with pine-cones, which it seems he had collected in his pocket for that purpose. So I had to ...
— The Wings of Icarus - Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher • Laurence Alma Tadema
... no cat, I give you a parting warning. We will not meet again in this church, and if I ever catch you sneaking around me I'll take a whip and thrash you as I would a cur, you little ferret-eyed imp ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... "You brazen imp, you," screamed the woman, and rushed at Grace, who stood perfectly still, looking the angry woman in the face with such open scorn in her gray eyes that Miss Brant drew back and stood scowling at her, ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... mind was now clear, and that the incident of Paddy's lashings he regarded as closed. As for that flame-headed imp of crime, if I could have got my hands upon him he would have taken a short road to his fathers. Him and his lashings! As I stood there with a black glare at him, the impudent scoundrel repeatedly winked at me with the readable information that if I only would be ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... and generally conducted himself like a white ball of animated yarn. It was too bad that there was no painter at hand to transfer to canvas so lovely a picture as this girl in her white frock made, sitting by the firelight in this mellow old room, playing with a white imp of a kitten. It would have made an ideal study ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... that vulgar 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, ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... only two or three minutes longer, if he had not come in just in time to prevent Elsie's making the explanatory and soothing answer that was on her tongue, events would probably have been entirely different, and a good deal of trouble might have been saved. But in he came, as if some perverse imp had been waiting to give him the signal, and the interview between Captain Jerry and the young lady whom he had unwittingly offended ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... to suffer, shall we be Weak to contend, and break The sinews of the Oppressor's knee That grinds upon the neck? O, the garments rolled in blood Scorch in cities wrapped in flame, And the African—the imp! He ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... will spend my declining years in peace," but as the sun goes down the bats come out and flap the black skinny wings of the sins of other days in your affrighted face. If you are a student you may drop your books like Dr. Faust and hurry to the country, but the imp of restlessness will dog your steps and snare your pathway and you will carry home with you a Mephisto ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... not come alone. A big boy of twelve, with a shock head of blue-black hair, two wild, glittering black eyes, and a diabolically handsome face, came with her. It was her only brother Juan, an imp incarnate from his cradle. He did not remain long. To the unspeakable relief of the neighborhood for miles around, he had vanished as suddenly as he had come, and for ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... knave. Once, we confess, beneath the patriot's cloak,[23] From the crack'd bag the dropping guinea spoke, And jingling down the back-stairs, told the crew, 'Old Cato is as great a rogue as you.' Blest paper-credit! last and best supply! That lends corruption lighter wings to fly! 40 Gold imp'd by thee, can compass hardest things, Can pocket states, can fetch or carry kings; A single leaf shall waft an army o'er, Or ship off senates[24] to a distant shore; A leaf, like Sibyl's, scatter to and fro Our fates and fortunes, as the winds shall blow: Pregnant ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... his elder about, you may guess there were heart-burnings. Add to this that it kept these good citizens chafing to note how often (and indeed regularly) advancement passed them over to light on some young gentleman of family or 'imp,' as they growled, 'from ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... mirth! Adieu to genial DICKENS, gentle HOOD! Hail to the peddling pessimistic brood Whose "nimini-pimimi" mouths, too small by half To stretch themselves to a Homeric laugh, Mince, in a mirror, to the "Paphian Mimp!" MOMUS is dead, and e'en that tricksy imp Preposterous Puck hath too much native grit To take the taste of OSRICK turned a wit. Humour baccilophil, microbic merriment, Might suit him better. He will try the experiment. His mirth's a smirk and not a paroxysm; "Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism" ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, February 4, 1893 • Various
... his head. Tormenting whispers of "'Fraid cat! 'Fraid cat!" carried to where he stood, and some imp of mischief began ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... degrees, And then he'd drink with them, and slap his knees For very mirth, and say 'twas some mistake. Judas carried the bag, sirs, for Christ's sake, And was a thief; and such a thief was he; His master got but sorry share, pardie. To give due laud unto this Satan's imp, He was a thief, a Sumner, and ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... "You pretty imp; what is to pay now? Here Beulah has been sitting, nobody knows how long, in that frigid zone you call your music room. What are you rigged out in all that ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... Pepys, Evelyn, Clarendon, &c. Imp. 8vo. Illustrated by Twenty-one Beautiful Portraits, comprising the whole of the celebrated suite of Paintings by Sir Peter Lely, preserved at Hampton Court and the Windsor Gallery, extra cloth, richly gilt back ...
— Notes and Queries, 1850.12.21 - A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, - Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. • Various
... matter—The said imp makes me say, in page 84, standing on the bowsprit, that "the spray from the stern was flashing over me, as it roared through the waste of sparkling and hissing waters." Now, I don't dispute the roaring of sterns—in season. ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... explanations, and wisely compensated them for the bruises they had received in his fall. Then giving no more thought to Madame de Belle-Ile, who sat awaiting him eagerly, he returned gloomily to his hotel, reflecting on the carelessness which had delivered him into the hands of an indefatigable imp of mischief. The upshot of his reflection was a resolve to press his wooing to an immediate conclusion. The next day and the day after, therefore, he redoubled his lamentations that the smallness of his means prevented him from going, as his natural honesty dictated, ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... in the head of the canoe, just under the shark's mouth? A grinning little imp of an image; a ring in its nose; cowrie shells jingling at its ears; with an abominable leer, like that of Silenus reeling on his ass. It was taking its ease; cosily smoking a pipe; its bowl, a duodecimo edition of the face of the smoker. This image ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... appointed Curator of Autographs at the Bibliothque Impriale at Paris, with VRAIN LUCAS as his secretary. This gives ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... ha fijado en l creyendo descubrir, bajo el tizne, un rostro conocido.) Aguarde un momento, buen amigo. (Len se detiene, rgido, parado 950 en firme. Cesreo le contempla fijamente. Len, impvido, afronta su mirada.) ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... passages in his works, 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 ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... peer into the gloom. Then, suddenly, that black curtain was rent by jagged spurts of red and yellow flame. Dazed for an instant, her heart throbbing wildly to the sharp reports of the rifles, she shrank cowering back, her fascinated gaze fixed on those imp-like figures leaping forward from rock to rock. Almost with the flash and sound Hampton sprang hastily back and gathered her in ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... of talon or fang this imp of the alleys is worse: His speech is a poisonous slang—his phrases ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... to coercion, that had made pioneers and martyrs of Mary Rhein's ancestors, was let loose too soon: it made an imp of her. She darted silently like an insect from under Calista's hand, seized the inkstand, and threw it with all her might at the beautiful white gown. The ink poured out, dripping from fold to fold, and the stand thudded on the sheet and scattered the last drops. Mary ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... the glass; she, however, spent many hours each clay in following the miserable experiences of her unfortunate child. Sometimes indeed it seemed to her as if a little happiness were mixed with the misery of his existence, and it also struck her that her little imp of a George was gradually growing to be a tall, distinguished-looking man with a noble forehead and flashing eyes, whereas Wendelin, despite his beauty and his grey lock, had become fat and red in the face, and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... his primer to follow the hangman's lumbering cart up Tyburn Hill, and, still a mere imp of mischief, he would run the weary way from Kensington to Shoe Lane on the distant chance of a cock-fight. He was present, so he would relate in after years, when Sir Thomas Jermin's man put his famous trick upon the pit. With a hundred pounds in his pocket and under his arm a dunghill cock, ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... is't meet that Ceres reign, And quiver-bearing Dian till the plain? 10 Who'll set the fair-tressed Sun in battle-ray While Mars doth take the Aonian harp to play? Great are thy kingdoms, over-strong and large, Ambitious imp, why seek'st thou further charge? Are all things thine? the Muses' Tempe thine? Then scarce can Phoebus say, "This harp is mine." When[131] in this work's first verse I trod aloft, Love slaked my muse, and made ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... robber, who lived at the mouth of the Nile. He was the son of an imp and fairy. When any one of his limbs was lopped off, he had the power of restoring it; and when his head was cut off, he could take it up and replace it. When Astolpho encountered this magician, he was informed that his life lay in one particular hair; so instead of seeking ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... the nature of a prize for a gutter imp of eleven does a pocketless young woman attired for the serious business of a school treat carry upon her person? She laughed in pretty embarrassment. "If I gave you something quite useless, what would you ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... well known. The Buzzard, too, as her inkhued shape loomed up, came in for a buzz of admiration. Malvoise, in a leathern jacket of black, with black leggings, gauntlets and goggles, instantly set to work on a final inspection, looking like some species of sable imp as he dodged in and out among the ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... 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 with ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... the blacksmith had put his iron in the fire, and again stood blowing the bellows, when his attention was caught by the gestures of the little red-eyed imp, Tommy, who was making rapid signs to him, touching his forehead with one finger, nodding mysteriously, and pointing at Clare with the thumb of his other hand, held close to his side. He sought to indicate thus that his companion was an innocent, whom nobody must mind. ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... bright stars to see its shape, and I beheld a creature with large ears standing out from the sides and top of its head, a spear-shaped appendage on the tip of its nose, while a pair of glittering black eyes and a grinning mouth gave it the appearance of a little imp. Presently it expanded its large wings and floated towards my head. I could stand this no longer, and singing out, dealt it a blow with my palm which sent it flying away. The cry awoke my companions, who jumped out of their hammocks, wondering what ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... What the little imp, who managed this puppet-show on Argemone's brain-stage, may have intended to symbolise thereby, and whence he stole his actors and stage-properties, and whether he got up the interlude for his own private fun, or for that of a choir of ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... "You lie, imp of a Jew!" shouted Taras, beside himself. "You lie, dog! I will kill you, Satan! Get away from here! if not, death awaits you!" So saying, Taras drew ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... harness, driven along the sandy road. There were a gentleman and a young lad on the front seat, and on the back seat a handsome pale lady with a little girl beside her. Behind, on the rack with the trunk, was a colored boy, an imp out of a story-book. John was told that the black boy was a slave, and that the carriage was from Baltimore. Here was a chance for a romance. Slavery, beauty, wealth, haughtiness, especially on the part of the slender boy ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... held him at arm's length while she applied a sounding box. "Go 'way f'om yer, honey," she said. "Rindy ain' mah'ed. He's des' an accident. Shet yo' mouth, you imp er darkness, fo' I ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... cried the priest in an angry voice; "I'll warm your ears, you imp!" Then turning to Emma, "He's Boudet the carpenter's son; his parents are well off, and let him do just as he pleases. Yet he could learn quickly if he would, for he is very sharp. And so sometimes for a joke I call him Riboudet (like the road one takes to go to Maromme) and ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... and that being pressed to go and visit the rector, he absolutely refused, saying he was a wicked old Pharisee, inside whose doors he would never set his foot. The doctor wrote me a letter, warning me against the deplorable errors of this young imp of perdition, as he called him; and I could see that there was no love lost between them. But it appeared that, if not agreeable to the gentry of the country, young Bullingdon had a huge popularity among the common people. There was a regular crowd weeping round the gate when his coach took its departure. ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... horse to the Devil, at a time when an old Devil and his son overheard him. The son wanted to lay claim to it, but his father warned him that it was no use, for such people did not mean what they said, and did not keep their word. Nevertheless, the imp went to unharness it, and the peasant in terror invoked the Trinity, when the imp ran away, and his ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... Ditmore were close chums, living, when at home, in the western part of New York State. Jack was slightly the older of the two and was of rather a serious turn of mind. Pepper was full of fun, and on that account was frequently called "The Imp." ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... she, "that pretty imp has been here. Quite right. She's a clever child. Let her stir up something, and they may quiet it ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... of Europe, Mr. Gladstone was the most malevolent imp of mischief that ever ruined any one country, and I am heartily grieved that that country should have ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... 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
... shouted at Mrs. Fogg. "Why don't you tend to it and put it to sleep? Hush, you little imp, or I'll spank you!" ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... rivets up,' and keeping the echoes awake with their ceaseless, and, to unaccustomed ears, painful din. The rivet-boys, alike alarmed and amused us, as they leaped from gallery to gallery with fearless agility, brandishing their red-hot bolts, and replying in imp-like screechings to the hoarse commands of their seniors. The decks were filled with carpenters, the cabins with joiners, the rigging with painters, and all with seeming bluster and confusion: only seeming, however, for on ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... mischief, though," he said. "Now tell me about Oran, and our dear General Chanzy, and that devil's own 'Legion,' and the Hell's Selected 2d Zouaves! Do you remember that day at Damas when Chanzy visited the Emir Abd-el-Kader at Doummar, and the fifteen Spahis of the escort, and that little imp of the Legion who was caught roaming around ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... mischief was not often put before into so small a body. Fancy the child's upsetting the water jugs till he is drenched (which charms him), pulling the brooms to pieces, and having serious designs upon cutting up his frocks with a pair of scissors. He laughs like an imp when he can succeed in doing anything wrong. Now, see what you get, in return for your kindness of 'liking to hear about' him! Almost I have the grace to be ashamed a little. Just before I had your ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... 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 ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... infant,' she retorted, tapping her nose again, screwing up her face, and twinkling her eyes like an imp of supernatural intelligence. 'Never YOU mind! You'd like to know whether I stop her hair from falling off, or dye it, or touch up her complexion, or improve her eyebrows, wouldn't you? And so you shall, my darling—when I tell you! ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... 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 to ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... it, I'll 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 know where the ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... his Worship. "Sly; so sly!" (Again he drooped his dexter eye) "I've read you thro'; I've marked you well. You're cunning as an imp from Hell . . . Nay, keep your temper; for I can Withal admire ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... of men, are acquired for the community and civil society, so that 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: ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... is this Duchess of Richmond, who will by all means be his wife! This much, however, is certain, he is a traitor who deceives both, because to both he has made the same confession of love. And there again is that imp, chance, which compels me to be the confidant of both these women. But I will be well on my guard against executing both my commissions to this sorcerer. Let him at any rate become the husband of the princess; ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... believe that," laughed Miss Warren, who evidently believed in tonic treatment and counter-irritants. "He would much prefer sultry New York and an imp from the printing-rooms." ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... or table, cross-legged, or in some other uneasy posture, to which if she submits not, she is then bound with cords. There she is watched and kept without meat or sleep for the space of four-and-twenty hours; for (they say) that within that time they shall see her imp come and suck. A little hole is likewise made in the door for the imp to come in at; and lest it should come in some less discernible shape, they that watch are taught to be ever and anon sweeping ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... 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 ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... "You little imp, I thought it was an earthquake," cried Charley as he hurled a shoe at the little darky, who ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... Milly had landed just before them. Immediately after Archie and Eddie were swept in amid the foam, and Junkie himself—who, like his brothers, could swim like a cork—came careering in on the top of a wave, like a very water-imp! With all the energy of his nature he turned, the moment his feet touched ground, to lend a hand to his friend Tonal', who was ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... into your study a little imp of darkness,—of intellectual darkness, we mean,—whose efforts to imitate the gentle interference of fatigue are as grotesque as they are vexatious, and who does not succeed in deceiving, however readily one may sometimes fall in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... office boy—an imp of the devil he is; but he is sharp and clever as a needle; and then he ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... look stunning, Hal," was her jovial uncle's warm greeting. "Who'd ever have thought, to see the ugly little imp of a small child you were, that you would grow up into a fashionable, striking woman? I congratulate you. When's the happy ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... Irish Melodies, as originally arranged for Two, Three, or Four Voices, printed with the Words. Imp. 8vo. 15s. cloth; or ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... one Ertinent, and they have no respect for anyone or anything. If strangers pass through the valley the Imps jeer at them and make horrid faces and call names, and often they push travelers out of the path or throw stones at them. Whenever Imp Olite or Imp Udent or Imp Ertinent comes here to bother us, I and my family run into the house and lock all the doors and windows, and we dare not venture out again until the Imps have ...
— Little Wizard Stories of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... chippie, he does not usually find a perch in plain sight, from which to rehearse his song, but keeps himself well hidden in the bushes or trees, darting into a hiding place as soon as he thinks himself discovered. The shy little imp prefers to put a screen of foliage or twigs between himself and the observer. Might his motto be, "Little birds should be heard and not seen"? I had quite a time making sure of him, but, as a pleasant compensation, when his identity was once settled, I could not well have mistaken ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... that pie. What denominations have you in that quarter, commodore? So I told him, general, that we had Baptists, and Quakers, and Universalists, and Episcopalians, and Presbyterians, old-lights, new- lights, and blue-lights; and Methodists——. 'Stop,' said the Devil, 'that's enough; you imp, be nimble with that horse.—Let me see, commodore, what, part of the country did you say you came from?' I told him the name more distinctly ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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 there that might be Poison too. Were I a drowzy Judge, ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... such execrations in Cree as were possible to that innocent tongue. The hands of the woman at the cabin door were a miracle of grime and scrofula. Her sluttish locks, together with two children, hung around her; one of the latter chewing a muddy carrot up into the leaves, an ungainly little imp; the other was a girl of singularly beautiful features and of perfect form, her large luminous eyes of richest brown reflecting the sunlight from their depths like mirrors—a little angel clad in dirt. Why other wild things should be delicately clean, the birds, the fishes ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... insane asylum, you imp!" exclaimed the old man; then, turning to Herbert, he continued: "Yes, lad; I will do as I say; and as for the poor but ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... Editor with an air of conviction. "I don't suppose there's another imp like you in all Trinidad County. Well, next time don't scratch outside there like a gopher, ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... One little impertinent imp ventured upon that question on his own account. The clever beast was torn back and strangled instantaneously by his experienced elders, but not before Evan's pride had answered him. Exalted by Love, he could dread to abase himself and strip off his glittering ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... heaven to talk sophistry with the cardinal Virtues, the nine Muses, and the seven deadly sins, all present in human shape, and not unlike one another. To enliven which weary stuff in rattled the Prince of the power of the air, and an imp that kept molesting him and buffeting him with a bladder, at each thwack of which the crowd were in ecstasies. When the Vices had uttered good store of obscenity and the Virtues twaddle, the celestials, including the nine Muses went gingerly back to heaven one by one; for there ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... egg-shell only is employed, sometimes two—a dozen—or an indefinite number. At seaside places, like Normandy and the Channel Islands, egg-shells are sometimes replaced by shells of shell-fish.[82] In all the stories the end is the same, namely, to excite the curiosity and wonder of the imp to such a pitch that he gives expression to it in language akin to that of the North German or the Danish tale just quoted. The measure of age given in his exclamation is usually that of the trees in the forest, or indeed the forest itself. In ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... 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. ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... may do For a Witch, my GRANDOLPH, but scarce for you, And the Petrel-part, played early and late, Must spoil a man for a Pilot of State. The knowing Nautilus sets her sails In a way to weather the roughest gales; But an egg for bark, with an imp for crew, To navigate Politics' boundless blue, Looks crank and queer; Drifting comes dear— It may pay for a day, but scarce for a year. A Puck-like sprite it may please to see "All things befall preposterously." But pure ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 12, 1890 • Various
... death, for father and mother were both away—father always is away, it seems to me, when any of this household gets sick. But Susan was cool as a fish and knew just what to do, and by morning Jims was all right. That child is a cross between a duck and an imp. He's a year and four months old, trots about everywhere, and says quite a few words. He has the cutest little way of calling me "Willa-will." It always brings back that dreadful, ridiculous, delightful night when Ken came to say good-bye, ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... waters gushed through the narrow crevices roaring seaward. But the Devil had one sorrow. All his children born before the catastrophe were crabbed, unregenerate, stiff-tailed fiends. After that event every new-born imp wore a flaccid, invertebrate, despondent tail—the very last insignium of ignobility. So runs the legend of The Dalles—a ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... attending to your own. You are beholden to any lad in the school who will do your sums, and write your exercises for you, and then you take upon yourself to ridicule us if we cannot pronounce our well learnt lessons to your fancy! You saucy imp, who don't know what labour and good conduct are, and who have nothing to boast of, but the powers which a monkey possesses to a greater extent than yourself!" Fancy Joachim's rage! He, the admired wit! the ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty
... and laffin a fiendish grin, he sung out in axcents wild: "Get me a Gatlin Gun, and lode it down to the mussle with thirty-leven charges of dannymite, and let me get a shot, at that incorragerbel imp of Haydes, ...
— The Bad Boy At Home - And His Experiences In Trying To Become An Editor - 1885 • Walter T. Gray
... Caesars, which Vopiscus says Tacitus wrote, must have been the "History," ten copies of which the Emperor Tacitus ordered to be placed every year in the public libraries among the national archives. (Tac. Imp. x.) Orosius, the Spanish ecclesiastic, who flourished at the commencement of the fifth century, has several references to Tacitus in his famous work, Hormesta. This great proficient in knowledge of the Scriptures and disciple of St. Augustin quotes the fifth book of the History thrice ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... a grimy sweep Was creeping down the street, When Quartern Loaf, the biker's boy, Below he chanced to meet: "Sweep!" sneered the baker: and the sweep Gave Puff a sooty flout; But Puff-crumb did not deal in soot, So turned his face about; Nor did he care to soundly drub The imp of dirty flues: "Go change your clothes!" said he, "and then "I'll thrash you when you choose! "It will not do for me to fight "With such a sooty elf; "My jacket's white, 'twould soon be ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... came to the bronco. The animal, without turning its head, knew that someone was coming up behind. Many a time a cowboy had tried to fool the savage horse that way, and leap into the saddle without being seen. But Imp, as the bronco was named, ...
— The Curlytops at Uncle Frank's Ranch • Howard R. Garis
... the very imp of mischief seemed to get into old Mr. Possum's head. Yes, Sir, it certainly did seem that way. And when you see Mischief trotting along the Lone Little Path, if you look sharp enough, you'll see Trouble following at his heels like a shadow. ...
— Mother West Wind 'Why' Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... shook her head dumbly and Arthur grinned at her not unkindly. Missy liked Arthur Simpson. He wore a big blue-denim apron and had red hair and freckles—not a romantic figure by any means; but there was a mischievous imp in his eye and a rollicking lilt in his voice that made you like him, anyway. Missy wished he hadn't been a witness to her predicament. Not that she felt at all sentimental toward Arthur. Arthur "went with" Genevieve Hicks, a girl whom Missy privately deemed frivolous and light-minded. ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... be sure, as they called the house of that imp of Satan, the Baroness. I was the wash-lady there, for it's not Mrs Conner the landlady as is above spakin' of the days when she wasn't as high in the world as she is now; and many is the cheerin' cup ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... should just think so,' cried McIntosh, rubbing his head with his handkerchief. 'Fancy an imp of Beelzebub like yon in the bowels o' the earth. Losh! but it macks my bluid rin cauld when I think o' ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... down his pen and pretended to glare at him. "You young rascal, what do you mean by bothering me like that? Act like that, you young imp, and you'll never grow up to be ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... nose-bag, and the oils of the country will not be exhausted then. Among the varied street-cries of Bombay, the "I- scream" man, the tala-chavee-walla, the botlee-walla, the vendors of greasy sweetmeats and bawlee-sugah, the legion of borahs, and that abominable little imp who issues from the newspaper offices, and walks the streets, yelling "Telleecram! tellee-c-r-a-a-m!" among them all there is one voice so penetrating, and so awakening where it penetrates, that—that I cannot find a fitting conclusion to this sentence. Who of ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... it is," said the Irishman doubtfully. "I dunno, though—if 'twas that black imp of a Billy he'd as well be doing that as propping up the ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... Trade stocks the manger, and there is the pail Full set by the imp Illegality! That fierce fiery Pegasus thus to regale, When he's danger and death from hot head to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various
... that fringed its side, where, by the fragrant breezes lull'd, As in a cradle-bed I lay, and all my woes were still'd. But changes will come over us, and now a stranger I Among the glades of Cluaran[38] must imp my wings and fly; Yet gratitude forbid complaint, although in foreign grove, Since welcome to my haunt I come, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... herself; "I'll never make fun of Dudu any more—never. He must be a fairy, or how else could he have got up from the terrace on to the window-sill all in a minute? And I don't think a raven fairy would be nice at all; he'd be a sort of an imp, I expect. I wouldn't mind now if Houpet was a fairy, he's so gentle and loving; but Dudu would be a sort of ogre fairy, he's so black and solemn. Oh dear, how he startled me! How did he get up there? I'm very glad I don't ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... assumed, the name of his half-brothers; and to detail his Asian wanderings would be tedious and unprofitable. But at the end of each four months would come to him a certain messenger from Glyndwyr, supposed by Richard to be the imp Orvendile, who notoriously ran every day around the world upon the Welshman's business. It was in the Isle of Taprobane, where the pismires are as great as hounds, and mine and store the gold of which the inhabitants afterward rob them through a ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... shell and rattle of musketry and yell of officer; the slow rush through the long grass, and the climb up the hill. And always, he was tramping, tramping, tramping through long, green, thick grass. Sometimes a kaleidoscope series of pictures would go jumbling through his brain, as though some imp were unrolling the scroll of his brain backward, forward, and sidewise; a whirling cloud of sand, a driving sheet of visible bullets; a hose-pipe that shot streams of melted steel; a forest of smokestacks; the flash of trailing phosphorescent foam; a clear sky, full ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... eyes had taken in everything, down to the neat rag-carpet on the floor, the girl bethought her of her trunk. She might as well unpack it. Her head could not ache worse, whatever she did; and now that that little imp Curiosity was once awake, he prompted her to wonder what the trunk contained. None of the dresses she had been wearing, she was sure of that; for they were all hanging safely in her wardrobe at home. What surprise had mamma ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... in his small way, played a part in the Probationer's life, such as occasionally scrubbing porches or borrowing a half dollar or being suspected of stealing the eggs from the henhouse. But that Johnny Fraser had been a wicked, smiling imp, much given ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... thou notice how that young imp of a page flouted thee, when thou did'st civilly inquire the hour of the day? Thou wert welcome as a wet Sunday to his new feather. I doubt whether I myself will continue to ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... it spelled so? Imperial begins with an i and so does imp, and, accordin' to what I learned when I went to school, ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... you hear. You know Betty doesn't care what she says. Her reply to that was peculiarly Bettyish. She sighed and cast down her eyes,—the little imp! 'The course of true love never does run smooth,' she said; 'perhaps Ann has discovered the truth of that old saying in some new connection.' She didn't mean to be a cat, she was only trying to create a romantic interest in your affairs, doing as she would be done by. The effect ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... laughed, some imp of willfulness seizing me, "I'm not married. What mockery to say that I am married simply because I must write madam before my name! I am not married, and I shall talk to ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... seven years agone, a noble earl found shelter here from the outlaws, from whom he was delivered by the self sacrifice of a woman, and the guidance of her son, an imp of some ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... duetye, whiche we all beare (orat the least yf we reuerence lernynge or regarde the honor of oure Countrye, sholde beare) to suche a singuler ornamente of oure tonge, as the woorkes of Chaucer are: Yet since there is nothinge so fullye perfected, by anye one, whereine some imp{er}fect{i}one maye not bee founde, (for as the prouerbe is Bernardus, or as others have Alanus, non videt omnia,) you must be contented to gyve me leave in discharge of the duetye and love whiche I beare to Chaucer, ...
— Animaduersions uppon the annotacions and corrections of some imperfections of impressiones of Chaucer's workes - 1865 edition • Francis Thynne
... regarded as having neither eyes nor ears, what mischief have ye to answer for; what a long reckoning of tender speeches, of soft looks, of pressed hands, lies at your door! What an incentive to flirtation is the wily imp who turns ever and anon from his careless gambols to throw his laughter-loving eyes upon you, calling up the mantling blush to both your cheeks! He seems to chronicle the hours of your dalliance, making your secrets ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... is 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
... Man Isle of Man pound (IMP), also known as the Manx pound note: the British pound is also legal tender, but change is ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... toys so funnily bestuck, Light as the singing bird that wings the air— (The door! the door! he'll tumble down the stair!) Thou darling of thy sire! (Why, Jane, he'll set his pinafore a-fire!) Thou imp of mirth and joy! In Love's dear chain so strong and bright a link, Thou idol of thy parents—(Drat the boy! There goes ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... power the bosom warm; This baffled hope might tame thy manhood's rage, And disappointment of her sting disarm. But why should foresight thy fond heart alarm? Perish the lore that deadens young desire! Pursue, poor imp, the imaginary charm, Indulge gay hope, and fancy's pleasing fire: Fancy and hope too soon shall of ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... de Jeanne d'Arc, d'apres les documents nouvellement publies (avec des cartes d'itineraire).' Paris, Firmin-Didot (imp. a Mesnil), ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... in the exact image of the Americans," explained the peasant vendor, offering a pale blue imp, with a long, red tongue and a phenomenal ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... directly to the pen, and gazed benevolently at the calf. The little imp was blacker, if possible, than its mother. There was that same peculiar look also in its eyes. 'You're all hers!' I joyfully cried, 'you are your mother's own child!' I seized hold of the neck-rope. I opened the pen-door and I went out through that door quicker than a vagrant cat ever got ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... write her name and make her mark on a slip of parchment with her own blood. Sometimes on this occasion also the witch uses the ceremony of putting one hand to the sole of her foot and the other to the crown of her head. On departing he delivers to her an imp or familiar. The familiar, in shape of a cat, a mole, miller-fly, or some other insect or animal, at stated times of the day sucks her blood through teats in different parts of her body.[47] If, however, the proper vulgar witch is an old woman, the younger and fairer of the sex were ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... unimportant confusion. We have already seen the forms Nabulione, Nabulion, Napoleone, Napoleon. Contemporary documents give also the form Napoloeone, and his marriage certificate uses Napolione. On the Vendome Column stands Napolio. Imp., which might be read either Napolioni Imperatori or Napolio Imperatori. In either case we have indications of a new form, Napolion or Napolius. The latter, which was more probably intended, would seem to be an attempt to recall Neopolus, a recognized ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... "You outrageous imp! Not another word from you. I will not have you in this place another minute! Go to Mr. Gaston and draw your pay and leave, and never let me ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... the gang were busied here and there, bulking grotesquely as they moved about the fire, seeming disheveled demons of the pit. Like some master imp torturing a pigmy over the flames, old Ben York was kneeling close beside the blaze, holding to the coals a hickory stick, which served as spit for the roasting of a squirrel. The brilliance shone full on the frowsy gray whiskers, and, above them, the blinking, rheumy eyes, so intent on the ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... dropped anchor, the promenade-deck was full of lively, chattering people, all arrayed in white, and all eager for the first glimpse of the strange land. Dozens of naked native boys were swimming about the steamer, causing general merriment by their dexterity in diving for coins. One saucy brown imp who had just come up with a silver piece in his mouth, caught sight of the Englishman in the crowd above, and with a shrewdness born of experience called out: "Hi there, English Johnny! Me no 'Merican boy; me Johnny Bull boy. ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... the same, you young imp, if you'd had the chance," answered the pie-vender, with more truth than gratitude. "Clear out, the whole on ye. I've had trouble ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... (ditto). Solanum Ditto (ditto). Solanum Annabom (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. ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... neck with one arm, its naked body half extant from the coarse blanket which, drawn round her shoulders, is secured at her bosom by a skewer. Though tender of age, it looks wicked and sly, like a veritable imp of Roma. Huge rings of false gold dangle from wide slits in the lobes of her ears; her nether garments are rags, and her feet are cased in hempen sandals. Such is the wandering Gitana, such is the witch- wife of Multan, who has come to spae the fortune of the Sevillian ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... eye caught Jessie's, and found an imp of mischief dancing there. She was enjoying the predicament in which he found himself. Out of the tail of that same eye he discovered that two more flat-footed squaws were headed ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... Eustacie, and, with a sudden, unexpected struggle, started into a sitting posture; but a derisive voice, that well he knew, cried, 'Ha, the deadly sin of pride! Monsieur thinks his painted face pleases the ladies. To the depths with him—' and therewith one imp pulled him backwards again, while others danced a war-dance round him, pointing their forks at him; and the prime tormentor, whom he perfectly recognized, not only leapt over him, but spurned at his face with a cloven foot, giving a blow, not of gay ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his big boss. The scout among the celestials looked like a chubby cherub what with his dimpled cheeks and curly black hair, but he'd proved to be the trickiest imp south of the pearly gates. Knowing that Raphael had cajoled the little imp into revealing something of the improvements in Hades, Nick suspected treachery by one of ...
— Satan and the Comrades • Ralph Bennitt
... again. Then she arose from her chair and went once more to the closet in the wall. This time she took from it a little sack woven of black goat's hair. "When you have found your luck again, put it into this little bag," said she; "once in it, no evil imp will be able to get out again so long as you keep the strings ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... ever find a trace of all that again? I might seek for a hundred years and not strike that path again! I might have become an artist, at life or art itself, who cares! And you have made me a beggar, a machine, that reels off its uniform sing-song day after day! You have cheated me out of my life, you imp!... Give it back to me! (He stands before her, breathing heavily, struggling ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... 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 signalled ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... good during serious illness, and Tommy had been very patient while at his worst; but once on the road to recovery, the natural imp in him revived and flourished, making the road a ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... tolerate because he had blasphemed enough for every one in his wild youth. In short, he never quarrelled, because, being seneschal, people gave up to him instantly. It is true that he at that time beheld all his desires accomplished, the which would render even an imp of Satan calm and tranquil from his horns to his heels. And besides this he possessed a castle all jagged at the corners, and shaped and pointed like a Spanish doublet, situated upon a bank from which it was reflected in the Loire. In the rooms were royal tapestries, furniture, Saracen ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... of the hills we found a water-hole, but the cattle had been there first, and the sheep wouldn't look at it. At the camp last night there was another hole, but some imp had deviled the herd an' they lay alongside the water, dyin' of thirst, but they wouldn't drink. We pushed 'em in an' they swam around; we half-drowned some of 'em, but ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... must be cleared away, and Augean stables must be cleansed. He is now at issue with the whole Catholic regime, and the whole Catholic world abuse him. They call him a glutton, a wine-bibber, an adulterer, a scoffer, an atheist, an imp of Satan; and he calls the Pope the scarlet mother of abominations, Antichrist, Babylon. That age is prodigal in offensive epithets; kings and prelates and doctors alike use hard words. They are like angry children and women and pugilists; their vocabulary of abuse ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... from Natchez to take her home. This morning he, Annie, and Reeney, the black handmaiden, posted off. Out of seven of us only H., myself, and Aunt Judy are left. The absence of Reeney will not be the one least noted. She was as precious an imp as any Topsy ever was. Her tricks were endless and her innocence of them amazing. When sent out to bring in eggs she would take them from nests where hens were hatching, and embryo chickens would be served up at breakfast, while Reeney stood by grinning ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... labourer devoted his horse to the Devil, at a time when an old Devil and his son overheard him. The son wanted to lay claim to it, but his father warned him that it was no use, for such people did not mean what they said, and did not keep their word. Nevertheless, the imp went to unharness it, and the peasant in terror invoked the Trinity, when the imp ran away, and his ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... seemed to thicken, and Elizabeth was questioned till she broke down sobbing once more, after declaring that Bob was the mischievousest young imp as ever lived, but she was very fond of him; and if it hadn't been for his wicked old tipsy mother, who was no better than a thief, there weren't a dearer, more lovable ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... But do you know what he has done to her? He has silenced her exquisite voice forever. He has ruthlessly destroyed that which a million like him could not create. That poor girl will never sing again. She was the sole support of her family. This imp here has taken the bread out of their mouths—they will starve. You owe it to her to make a deed of gift whereby you will endow her with the amount she was earning when your son's dagger pierced her poor throat and silenced her voice; that ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... Some years ago were hobblin' An elderly ghost of easy ways, And an influential goblin. The ghost was a sombre spectral shape, A fine old five-act fogy, The goblin imp, a lithe young ape, A fine ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... told her all about you— How I bringed you up—poor Joe! (Lackin' women folks to do it) Sich a imp you was, you know— Till you got that awful tumble, Jist as I had broke yer in (Hard work, too), to earn your livin' Blackin' boots for ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... such hunger to come into his eye that she caught her breath. The imp of perversity made her ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... "You young imp!" Jimmie swooped down upon him and hugged him so hard Sunny squirmed uneasily. "You bet I was scared! I thought every minute you'd tumble off. And now do you want to ride up to the barn with me, or have you ...
— Sunny Boy in the Country • Ramy Allison White
... anchor for which his father had shown so marked a preference. It consists of the arms granted to Paulus in 1571 by the Emperor Maximilian II. (in which the Aldine anchor occupies a subordinate place) surrounded by a border of heavy ornament with the addition: Ex privilegio Maximiliani II. Imp. Caes. Aug. When his father's death had made him the head of the press he continued for some years to employ the same device. For the Livy of 1592, much inferior to the present edition, and of interest only as showing the decline into which the ...
— Catalogue of the William Loring Andrews Collection of Early Books in the Library of Yale University • Anonymous
... ever here did reign, Edward named Fourth as first in praise I name; Not for his fair outside, nor well-lined brain, Although less gifts imp feathers oft on Fame: Nor that he could, young-wise, wise-valiant, frame His sire's revenge, join'd with a kingdom's gain, And, gain'd by Mars, could yet mad Mars so tame, That Balance weigh'd what Sword did late obtain: Nor that he made ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... sentenced him to death, and if Richard had not interposed, Henry would not have lived to depose his benefactor. "How true is the saying," cried poor Richard in his agony, "that we have no greater enemy than the man whom we save from the gallows!"—See Creton's MS. Bibl. Imp. ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt
... long, elfin, sneering, solemn, as of a truculent demon, saddish for his trade, an ashamed, but unrepentant rascal. He had two immense erect ears, and in his boisterous position had suffered a loss of hair, wearing nothing save an impudent scalp-lock. A very grotesque personage. Was he the guardian imp, the legendary Eft of Katahdin, scoffing already at us as verdant, and warning that he would make us unhappy, if we essayed to appear in demon realms and on ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... was to be accompanied by a diversion of that merry imp of incongruity always with him—as Shakespeare's most stately heroes are attended by a comic servant. He married Miss Mary Todd, of Kentucky, at Springfield, at the age of thirty-three. It was the first wedding performed with all the ceremonial of the ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... from golf, with the smug smile of one who has played a good round, on his face. His buggy boy, Cornelius Twombly, a black imp of twelve, who carried a razor in his hip pocket, wore also the smug look of one who has caddied to victory, and won certain nickels and dimes from another caddie upon the main and minor ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... Madness and misconception! Any one of the subjects—not the whole. Oh, blessed star of early morning, what do you think I am made of, that I should, on the part of any man, prefer such a pig-headed, calf-eyed, donkey-eared, imp-hoofed request! ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... do," was the charm that lured us on board the "Balaklava," and now "nothing to do," was with us like the Bottle-Imp, an incubus, still crying out: "You may yet exchange me for a smaller coin, if such there be!" "Nothing to do," is an imposture. Something to do is the very life of life, the beginning and end of being. "Picton," said I, "one thing we must ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... not suppose," he went on, "that genius is a beneficent little imp, or genie, lodged in the brain of the fortunate or unfortunate, who is all-powerful, and always at hand to give strength, emit a flash of light, or pour inspiration into the faculties, nor does it consist in anything that answers to that idea. But there ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... feel his flesh creeping! It gave him an ugly, startled sensation. It was like some imp of Satan to drop into his ear the suggestion that princes, ere this, had been known to have two wives— one of them unofficial. He could have struck himself in the face for the iniquity of the suggestion; he flushed from the indecency of it; but so have sinners ever flushed ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... pause. The Chevalier, nothing if not quick to take in a situation, began to yawn like a sleep-ridden mortal. Gracefully he made his excuses and went, with as little mind to sleep as to go and drown himself. The imp Curiosity kept the Chevalier wide awake, and with airy fingers plucked away the cotton wool from ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... the rest." "Impossible!" cried Michael; "Surely there is some mistake. What is the name of this abominable print?" With a grave look, Raphael replied: "No, Michael, there is no mistake. The name of this imp of blasphemy is—I hesitate to say ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote
... did not understand a word of English—and directly she had come to an end of her Narrative, she sent the Tumbling Urchin to inquire whether the Physician had come home, the part of the House she occupied being quite separate and distinct from his. The smutty little Imp comes back bringing word that Hamet would wait upon her presently; and anon, after discreetly tapping at the door, he came in, a grave, Reverend Man, in a flowing Robe of Sad-coloured Taffety, and with a long White Beard and Green Turban; for he ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... read. She knows as much As average sixth-form boys; But not the greatest sage could touch The high, aggressive joys That imp her wing, like bird of prey, When in ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... 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 ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... and pehabe yourself, or I'll rap you again mid me vist. It iz te shicken ab te wing, und te owl ab te wing, und te imp ab te wing, und te head-teuffel ab te wing. Te angel ab not te wing, and I am te ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... Corilla: "This is a charming theme which the good Cardinal Albani has thrown into the urn for me. I found it directly by the small pin which, according to his promise, he inserted in the paper. This cardinal is an agreeable imp, and I must give him a kiss for his complaisance. Besides, the Tasso rhyme will here ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... is always amusing and audacious, though we cannot say that we entirely approve of the names he gives to his stories. Bootle's Baby was a masterpiece, but Houp-la was a terrible title, and That Imp is not much better. The book, however, is undoubtedly clever, and the Imp in question is not a Nyctalops nor a specimen for a travelling museum, but a very pretty girl who, because an officer has kissed her without any serious ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... to question the calling of my house, Hervey Malling?" she cried; "since when comes it that you've the right to raise your voice against my guests? An' by what right d'ye dare to accuse an innocent man? Answer me, you imp of Evil," she demanded. But she gave him no time to speak, and went on, her voice rising to a piercing crescendo. "Spare your wicked tongue, which should be forked by reason of the lies as has fallen from it. Oh, that you should be able to call me 'mother.' I'd rather ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... The king's a 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 ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... of the Thana district, formerly an important town known to the Portuguese, and called, after them, under the name of Saint John. (See Imp. Gaz. of India, vol. iii. ...
— Les Parsis • D. Menant
... dreams—for nothing could 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 ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... trying to extricate the wounded from among the dead. They heard a woman's voice and saw a woman's face. They did not wonder at her presence, for there was nothing left in the world for them to wonder at. Had an imp from hell or an angel from heaven appeared, or a shower of diamonds fallen from the sky, they would not have been surprised. Their duty was clear; there was work of their kind to do, endless work. Units of the broken machine, ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... lay, Or I my love let slip out of mine entire heart, So deep reposed in my breast is she for her desart! For many blessed gifts, O happy, happy land! Where Mars and Pallas strive to make their glory most to stand! Yet, land, more is thy bliss that, in this cruel age, A Venus' imp thou hast brought forth, so steadfast and so sage. Among the Muses Nine a tenth if Jove would make, And to the Graces Three a fourth, her would Apollo take. Let some for honour hunt, and hoard the massy gold: With her so I may live and die, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... are the Arch-imp and the Tenant of the Pool of Hell! We would remain so, even if every stone in Louvain and in Malines were replaced by its equivalent in gold. That rage can be overcome only after the race, praised by Schiller's fiery breath, sees its neighbors close at hand and draws advantage ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... end, a shrewd conjecture went abroad that he was none other than some malicious imp of darkness let loose upon their frolics, to disquiet and perplex their commemoration of the Blessed Nativity. Yet was it an unusual occurrence upon Yule night, when these disturbers were supposed to be prevented from walking the earth, being confined for a space ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... and the charcoal for cooking, 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 traveling bag; but Aho, more sedate and dignified, ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... yes, like a shot, if he's a normal boy. And if the uncle's away, it will be nobody's business even if they see the marabout's son having a ride behind me on my horse, as he might with his own father. Trust me to lure the imp on with us afterward, step by step, in a dream of happiness. I was always a born lurer—except when I wanted a thing ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... said the boy, giving the imp the name he had richly earned by repeated flagellations. "Never you mind. I am not ashamed to show my naked hide, you know. But it is against orders in these seas to go overboard, unless with a sail underfoot; so I sha'n't run the risk of being tatooed by the boatswain's mate, like ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various
... lost!" said Wilhelmina, shaking her head. "This comes of adopting other people's brats. Had he been a worthless, spoilt imp of my own, I should have been more successful. I stayed in Vienna all the winter. I advertised him in the papers. I had placards, offering a large reward for his discovery, pasted on the walls of the principal streets; ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... that we had Baptists, and Quakers, and Universalists, and Episcopalians, and Presbyterians, old-lights, new- lights, and blue-lights; and Methodists——. 'Stop,' said the Devil, 'that's enough; you imp, be nimble with that horse.—Let me see, commodore, what, part of the country did you say you came from?' I told him the name ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... the legal two years' interval between the aedileship and praetorship—in reality he was aedile in 675, probably praetor in 677, consul in 680. That the case of Pompeius was a totally different one is obvious; but even as to Pompeius, it is on several occasions expressly stated (Cicero, de Imp. Pomp, ax, 62; Appian, iii. 88) that the senate released him from the laws as to age. That this should have been done with Pompeius, who had solicited the consulship as a commander-in-chief crowned with victory and a triumphator, at the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Socialist as she might have said imp of darkness. However, the young man seemed unaware of her bitter taunt. He leaned the hand which did not hold the cards against a pilaster in the vestibule-side, and ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... she retorted, tapping her nose again, screwing up her face, and twinkling her eyes like an imp of supernatural intelligence. 'Never YOU mind! You'd like to know whether I stop her hair from falling off, or dye it, or touch up her complexion, or improve her eyebrows, wouldn't you? And so you shall, my darling—when ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... repose, which, I am afraid, will entirely give way before the railroad demon, for I understand that it is soon to be connected by the Oxford, Worcester, and Wolverhampton line with all parts of the kingdom. Just think of that black little screeching imp rushing through these fields which have inspired so many fancies; how every thing poetical will fly before it! Think of such sweet snatches as these set to the tune of ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... suddenly, that black curtain was rent by jagged spurts of red and yellow flame. Dazed for an instant, her heart throbbing wildly to the sharp reports of the rifles, she shrank cowering back, her fascinated gaze fixed on those imp-like figures leaping forward from rock to rock. Almost with the flash and sound Hampton sprang hastily back and ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... said then, with a harsh laugh, "it's a deuced ingenious lie, this of yours. I suppose you and that imp of mischief, Gwen, hatched it up between you? I saw she had got her thinking-cap on yesterday. I am not considered good enough for her lady mother. But, mark you, I'm going to have her for all that! It isn't good for man to live ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... marched him not back from the pulpit to gaol. There were but five ministers in Virginia, and there were a many more sick to visit and dead to bury. Master Bucke, still feeble in body, tarried up river discussing with Thorpe the latter's darling project of converting every imp of an Indian this side the South Sea, and Jeremy slipped into his old place. There had been some talk of a public ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... sake, if dem ain't some oh de old missis' spoons; dat good-fo'-nothin' brack imp must a' snuck one ebbery time I takes him to visit de lady. Oh! he kotch it fo' dis, ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... make us once affeard: Ne let th'unpleasant quyre of frogs still 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 Goodfellow. C.] ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
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