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More "Sinister" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stern and criticising eye. He also looks upon life as a picture, but to catch its beauties, its lights,—not its defects and shadows. On the former he loves to dwell. He has a wonderful knack at shutting his eyes to the sinister side of anything. Never beat a more kindly heart than his; alive to the sorrows, but not to the faults, of his friends, but doubly alive to their virtues and goodness. Indeed, people seemed to grow more good with one so unselfish ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... were always lawyers in these subterranean affairs—"shyster" was a word she had heard applied to them—and this man looked the part. His thin face, clear-cut profile, and skin which showed dark where he shaved, were all, in her judgment, signs of the sinister. Even his clothes, from his patent leather shoes with spats to his dark blue necktie with a pearl in it, were those which an actor would wear in pictures ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... Meynell galloped home over the lonely road, the bland and winning smile which had played over his face all the evening contracted into a moody and sinister expression. The thin lips became compressed, and his arched brows extended into a hard dark line over his eyes. He was planning evil, and had no witness; at such times his features seemed to take this peculiar appearance as their natural cast; yet it was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... who have endeavored to do something to alleviate the condition of the thousands of contrabands, who are many without clothes, employment, or the slightest idea of what they are to do. It would be hard to imagine any thing more harmless or more perfectly free from any thing like sinister or selfish motives than have been the conduct and motives of the noble women who have assumed this mission. Florence Nightingale undertook nothing nobler; and the world will some day recognize the deserts of those who strove against every obstacle to relieve the sufferings ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... wanted to give her pleasure. But somehow Elizabeth had fallen into the habit ever since she left the prairies of comparing all men with George Trescott Benedict; and this man, although he dressed well, and was every bit as handsome, did not compare well. There was a sinister, selfish glitter in his eyes that made Elizabeth think of the serpent on the plain just before she shot it. ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... the Little Playmate was old Hanne. She was brought in by a cowled monk of dark and sinister appearance—in fact, as my heart leaped to observe, I saw that she was accompanied by Friar Laurence—he who had taught me my learning in the old days, and who even then had watched the Little Playmate with no ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... rushing wind, whose damp breath smelt of rain; and presently the mountain-rim was veiled in brown and ruddy and purple earth-haze. A bow in the eastern sky strongly suggested, in the apparent absence of a shower, refraction by dust—if such thing be possible. We were disappointed, by the sinister wind, in our hopes of collecting a bottle of rain-water for the photographer; nor did the storm, though it had all the diffused violence of a wintry gale, materially alter the weather. The next two nights were brisk and cool, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... had never known nor heard of such a man. The stranger had evidently sat within hearing distance of the girl and her schoolmate, and listening to their merry chatter all the way from Boston to Springfield, had given him the clue to names and localities that enabled him to play his sinister game. Only the faithfulness of the wise conductor saved her from possibilities too painful to be recorded ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... go fishing with Doctor Prance," said Miss Birdseye, with a serenity which showed that she was far from measuring the sinister quality of the ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... case, fortunately, the Capugi's visit had no sinister motive. The fact was now divulged that Lady Hester had been given a manuscript, said to have been copied by a monk from the records of a Frank monastery in Syria, which disclosed the hiding-places of immense hoards of money buried in certain ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... the first she had ever met. She was as eccentric as Isabel had always supposed; and hitherto, whenever the girl had heard people described as eccentric, she had thought of them as offensive or alarming. The term had always suggested to her something grotesque and even sinister. But her aunt made it a matter of high but easy irony, or comedy, and led her to ask herself if the common tone, which was all she had known, had ever been as interesting. No one certainly had on ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... "turned" by a well-known authoress. Its sinister appearance is accounted for by the fact that at the time of "turning" the cup, she was arranging mentally a murder plot for the ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent
... railing, elevating his eyes above his chest, and enabling him to peer through the open-work of the cage. Thus the two deadly enemies faced each other. The rajah's stern face paled at sight of the hideous, shapeless thing which met his gaze; but he soon recovered, and the old hard, cruel, sinister look returned. Neranya's black hair and beard had grown long, and they added to the natural ferocity of his aspect. His eyes blazed upon the rajah with a terrible light, his lips parted, and he gasped for breath; his face was ashen with rage and despair, and his thin, ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... three companions, and it was he who had spoken. Two of the men—one of them had a most villainous countenance—Calvert had never seen before, but the third one he discovered, to his intense surprise, was Bertrand—Bertrand, whose honest lackey's face now wore a curious and sinister look of power and importance. So, it was in the society of such that Monsieur de St. Aulaire now talked and ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... went on chatting of this and other things, and Joe examined the luminary of night from an entirely novel point of view, the heavens became covered with heavy clouds to the northward, and the lowering masses assumed a most sinister and threatening look. Quite a smart breeze, found about three hundred feet from the earth, drove the balloon toward the north-northeast; and above it the blue vault was clear; but the ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... agreeable reveries I passed the first hour of the journey; when, to my unfeigned relief, on reaching Antrim my fellow-traveller quitted the carriage. No doubt his object was a sinister one, and when I saw him speak to the constable at the station, I had no doubt in my own mind that my liberty was not worth five minutes' purchase. But even so, anything seemed better than his basilisk eye in the ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... and dashed against it, as if to try its force; as far as one could see, its waves lifted themselves and crowded together, like the muscles upon a chest; over the flank of the waves passed flashes with sinister smiles; the mast groaned, and the trees bent shivering, like a nerveless crowd before the wrath of a fearful beast. Then all was hushed; the sun had burst forth, the waves were smoothed, you now see only a laughing expanse; spun out over this polished back a thousand ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... a condition that irritated him almost beyond control. He had absolutely no grounds for interference. He could only glower angrily and in silence at a meeting he could not prevent. Conjecture might run riot as to the causes which had given this sinister bend to an idyl, but perforce he ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... observe that M. de Chateaubriand was ignorant of the fatal event. However, on his return home he said to his friends that he had remarked a singular change in the appearance of the First Consul, and that there was a sort of sinister expression in his countenance. Bonaparte saw his new minister amidst the crowd who attended the audience, and several times seemed inclined to step forward to speak to him, but as often turned away, and did not approach him the whole morning. A few hours after, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... gayly with my pious guide and his hopeful companion, no sinister accident impeding our journey. I was in the happiest circumstances both of mind and body that I ever recollect having experienced; young, full of health and security, placing unbounded confidence in myself and others; in that short but charming moment of human life, whose expansive energy carries, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... pessimism by the wet splash of a new ball. At your side is the ninth green, with its sinuous undulations which have so often wrecked the returning traveller in sight of home. And at various points within your line of vision are the third tee, the sixth tee, and the sinister bunkers about the eighth green—none of them lacking in food for ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... another man in the country who was so able to persuade others of the scientific, financial, commercial soundness of his projects. If, more than any one else, he could make a scheme appeal, it was not that it was in any sinister sense a scheme, but because his tact and his address were pleasing, his reputation firmly grounded for honesty and common-sense as well as for thorough scientific knowledge, so that his enthusiasm was contagious. His enemies might call him a lobbyist, ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... Greek tragedy which has come down to our time, the Orestes of Aeschylus, represents the victory of the new gods of light over the old maternal powers. Orestes has sinned against the old law, for in order to avenge his father's death, he has slain his mother. The sun-god Apollo and the sinister Erinnys, the upholders of the old maternal right, are waging war over the justifiableness of the deed. To the Erinnys, matricide is the foulest of all crimes, for man is more nearly related to the mother than to the father. But Apollo had commanded the deed, so that ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... pretence or another; and among them Aelius Sejanus, whose fall was attended with the ruin of many others. He had advanced this minister to the highest pitch of grandeur, not so much from any real regard for him, as that by his base and sinister contrivances he might ruin the children of Germanicus, and thereby secure the succession to ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... loves,—the acquisition of Cuba. In that case, we should deplore his language, and be inclined to doubt also the sincerity of his just denunciations of Walker's infamous schemes of piracy and brigandage. Until events, however, have developed the signs of a sinister policy of this sort, we must bestow an earnest plaudit upon his decided rebuke of the filibusters, coupling that praise with a wish that the "vigilance" of his subordinates may hereafter prove of a more wide-awake and energetic kind than ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... high (36), though it has since fallen to the level of ten years ago. But the death-rate has risen concomitantly (to over 24 per 1000), and has continued to rise notwithstanding the slight decline in the birth-rate. We see here a tendency to the sinister combination of a falling birth-rate with a rising death-rate.[107] It is obvious that such a tendency, if continued, will furnish a serious problem to Japanese social reformers, and at the same time make it impossible for Western alarmists to regard the rise of Japan as a ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... by the reddish gold wavelets of the "branch." In the eastern sky the florid face of a hunter's moon looked down, from the level line of a leaden cloud, which striped the star emblazoned shield of night, like a bar sinister; and the white lustre of her rays was dimmed to a lurid dulness ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... recognise that man and all that is best in man—his aspirations, ideas, virtues, and practical and abstract justice and goodness—are just as much the product of the cosmic process and part of the Cosmos as the most sinister results of ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... man's manner, and the queer mystery of it all sent a cold sensation through the King's blood; he felt now that he was up against something dangerous and sinister. ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... honourable augmentations to his armorial ensign: viz. "A chief, undulated, argent—thereon, waves of the sea; from which, a palm-tree issuant, between a disabled ship on the dexter, and a ruinous battery on the sinister; all proper." And, for his crest, "On a naval crown, or; the chelengk, or plume of triumph, presented to him by the Grand Signior, as a mark of his high esteem, and of his sense of the gallant conduct of the ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... satisfied that there will be no fireworks. It will do no harm to send the boy. It will placate the Left and please the Clerics—it will also consolidate our reputation for liberality and largeness of mind. Also the young man will either be killed or fall a victim to the sinister influences of that corruption which, alas, has so entered into the vitals ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... arrogant, but he is still 'a lad with the bloom of a lass.' A shade of aspiring melancholy marks a portrait done in France, just before the expedition to Scotland. Le Toque's fine portrait of the Prince in armour (1748) shows a manly and martial but rather sinister countenance. A plaster bust, done from a life mask, if not from Le Moine's bust in marble (1750), was thought the best likeness by Dr. King. This bust was openly sold in Red Lion Square, and, when Charles visited Dr. King in September 1750, the Doctor's ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... A restless cow, changing her pasture, sent them flying to cover. A startled rabbit dashed across the road, and the boys flung themselves face downward in a gully in a twinkling. The night made odd, sounds, each one of sinister import to the fugitives. The wind sprang up and made noises that caused their hearts to jump into their throats half ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... that huge settle kept guard. As these thoughts crossed my mind, I instinctively glanced again toward the fireplace for what I almost refused to believe lay outstretched at my feet. When nothing more appeared there than that old seat of sinister memory, I experienced a thrill which poorly prepared me for the cry which I now heard raised ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... time in getting to the mill district, and a longer time still in finding Cardew Way. At an all-night pharmacy he learned which was the house, and his determined movements took on a sort of uncertainty. It was very late. Ellen had waited for him for some time. If Lily were in that sinister darkened house across the street, the family had probably retired. And for the first time, too, he began to doubt if Doyle would let him see her. Lily herself might even refuse ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... express-packets plowing the seven seas, the smoking trains piercing the bowels of the mountains and connecting cities vibrant with hordes of business men, the telegraph wires setting the world aquiver with their incessant reports, the whole sinister glittering faery of gain and industry and dominion, seemed to tread and soar and sound and blare and swell with just such rhythm, such grandeur, such intoxication. Mountains that had been sealed thousands ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... kind of a duel. His hair dishevelled, his eyes gleaming, he was in a deadly scuffle. In the sketches was the landscape of heavy blue, as if seen through powder-smoke, and all the skies burned red. There was in these notes a sinister quality of hopelessness, eloquent of a defeat, as if the scene represented the last hour on a field of disastrous battle. Hawker seemed attacking with this picture something fair and beautiful of his own life, a possession of his mind, and he did it fiercely, mercilessly, ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... sensible one, and we started, I going on foot nearly the whole way; and at five o'clock we halted at a wretched inn, but we saw no signs of the sinister trio. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the day before, his mission, the ambuscade, his imprisonment, all flashed back to him, and he sprang to his feet. His comrade, who had been dozing in the corner, jumped up also at the first movement, with his hand on his knife, and a sinister glance directed towards ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Moses was ready to afford them. Methusaleh's spirits and confidence rose tremendously at such appearances. One after the other was silently pronounced "the real Lord Downy." Then came two or three sinister visages—faces half muffled up, with educated features, small cunning eyes, and perhaps green spectacles—conspirators every one—villains who had evidently conspired to reduce Mr Moses's balance at ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... multitude at last emerged into the light of day. Savage and fierce were the outcries which blended in sinister discord with the rattling of the chains they dragged after them. Even the most fearless among the Hebrews shrank in horror as they beheld the throng of hapless sufferers in the full radiance of the sunlight; for the dazzled, reddened eyes of the unfortunate sufferers,—many ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... should not conceive him as sagacious, ascetical, playing off his appetites against each other, turning the wing of public respectable immorality instead of riding it directly down, or advancing toward his end through a thousand sinister compromises and considerations. The one man might be wily, might be adroit, might be wise, might be respectable, might be gloriously useful; it is the other man ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... no sinister motive in this romantic enterprise of Mrs. Arnold," the testimony proceeds. "I have understood that her sympathies were British but, if so, she had been discreet enough in camp to keep them to herself. Whatever they may have been, I felt ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... curved upward on either side of us, and old gabled houses peeped out from amid the thick green foliage, but behind the peaceful and sunlit countryside there rose ever, dark against the evening sky, the long, gloomy curve of the moor, broken by the jagged and sinister hills. ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... one challenged. He drew a drink from the well with its loud-rattling chain and clumsy, water-sodden bucket, but no one called. At the door of the house he whistled, stamped, pounded, and at last flung it open with all the noise he could make. Still his hungry ears fed on nothing but sinister echoes, the barren husks of his own clamour. There was no curt voice of a man, no quick, questioning tread of a woman. There were dead white ashes on the hearth, and the silence was grimly kept by the dumb ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... explained. Six casts of the clay model had been made before the original was broken up. One of these Morse had kept for himself, four had been given to various institutions, and one to his friend Charles Bulfinch, who succeeded Latrobe as the architect of the Capitol. A sinister fate seemed to pursue these little effigies, for his own, and the four he had presented to different institutions, were all destroyed in one way and another. After tracing each one of these five to its untimely end, he came to the conclusion that this ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... judicial devastation, that was to extirpate all signs and memories of Mediaeval and Semitic Rome, and restore and renovate the inheritance of the true offspring of the she-wolf. The very aspect of the place itself was sinister. Whether it were the dulness of the dark sky, or the frown of Madre Natura herself, but the old Seven Hills seemed to look askance. The haughty capitol, impatient of its chapels, sighed once more for triumphs; and the proud ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... inscribed with sacred rhyme, Whose antique characters did well denote The Sibyl's hand of the Cumaean grot: The mad divineress had plainly writ, 490 A time should come (but many ages yet), In which, sinister destinies ordain, A dame should drown with all her feather'd train, And seas from thence be call'd the Chelidonian main. At this, some shook for fear, the more devout Arose, and bless'd themselves ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... have a large following among artists and art lovers; for, as has been pointed out, an appreciation of it is a sure sign of a subtle artistic temperament. There is something not quite good, something almost sinister, about it—at least, in its more complex forms, though in its simple form, as we find it in outdoor nature, it is innocent enough; and, indeed, is it not used in colloquial metaphor as an adjective for innocence ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... alone on the rostrum, a heroic figure pitted, as it were, against all the sinister forces that bore from within, one valiant United ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... of fact Pancrazio had never been rakish or debauched, but mountain-moral, timid. So that the queer, half-sinister drop of his eyelids was curious, and the strange, wicked yellow flare that came into his eyes was almost frightening. There was in the man a sort of sulphur-yellow flame of passion which would light up in his battered body and give him an almost ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... only by a feeble snore that issued now and then from the adjoining bedroom, Basilio heard light footfalls on the stairs, footfalls that soon crossed the hallway and approached the room where he was. Raising his head, he saw the door open and to his great surprise appeared the sinister figure of the jeweler Simoun, who since the scene in San Diego had not come to visit either himself ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... when he had said that, a silence that seemed to Randall's strained mind to have become suddenly tense, sinister. The great triple-bodied creature before them considered them again, its eyes moving over them, and when it again spoke the hissing words ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... later Lady Margaret stood with Ralph on the terrace outside the hut. Her eyes plunged into the awful abyss at their feet, swept along the moonlit valley thousands and thousands of feet below them, and fastened themselves upon the sinister crags of the Lyskamm and the stupendous dome of Mont Blanc. A lump came into ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 5th, 1914 • Various
... why it was, but even then it struck me that there was something dashed odd—almost sinister, if you know what I mean—about young Bingo's manner. The old egg had the air of one who ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... be alone at sea, or to be deep somewhere in the bosom of the earth. He could not understand this side of his auntie's individuality. But there was no delivery from Mrs Hamps. The only person who could possibly have delivered them seemed to enjoy the sinister thraldom. Mr Clayhanger listened with appreciative and admiring nods; he appeared to be quite sincere. And Edwin could not understand his father either. "How simple father must be!" he thought vaguely. Whereas ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... the dominant note was one of generous and enthusiastic sympathy with the young rancher and his wife, who had come so lately among them and who had been made the unfortunate victim of a sinister and threatening foe, hitherto, it is true, regarded with indifference or with friendly pity but lately assuming an ominous importance. There was underneath the gay hilarity of the gathering an undertone of apprehension until ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... countenance, undoubtedly caused him to be selected by the ancients as the emblem of wisdom. The moderns have practically renounced this idea, which had no foundation in the real character of the bird, who possesses only the sly and sinister traits that mark the feline race. A very different train of associations and a new series of picturesque images are now suggested by the figure of the Owl, who has been portrayed more correctly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... to be reasons for Yussuf's suspicions, the men having a peculiarly evil aspect. A perfectly honest man sometimes belies his looks, but when a dozen or so of individuals mounted upon shabby Turkish ponies, all well-armed, and wearing an eager sinister look upon their countenances, are seen together, if they are suspected of being a dishonest lot, there is every excuse for those who ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... companion much as a groom might contemplate an exceptionally fine horse. He was the first to see Lydia; and his expression as he did so plainly showed that he regarded her as a most unwelcome intruder. The statue-man, following his sinister look, saw her too, but with different feelings; for his lips parted, his color rose, and he stared at her with undisguised admiration and wonder. Lydia's first impulse was to turn and fly; her next, to apologize ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... The road was so obstructed with carts that it was impossible to get by in a carriage. Prince Andrew took a horse and a Cossack from a Cossack commander, and hungry and weary, making his way past the baggage wagons, rode in search of the commander in chief and of his own luggage. Very sinister reports of the position of the army reached him as he went along, and the appearance of the troops in their ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... shown "the burdens and abominations" of prostitution, in "simple, fine, and deathlessly-caustic images"; has shown that "all the horror is in just this—that there is no horror..." For it is as a pitiless reflection of a "singular," sinister ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... the city to which we journeyed, night had fallen. There was something sinister about our entry; we were veiled in fog, and crept through the gate and beneath the ramparts with extinguished head lights. Scarcely any one was abroad. Those whom we passed, loomed out of the mist in silence, ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... freezing cold and its terrible shadows, when the high mountains covered with black forests rose menacingly before me, the endless steppes, all lying between me and my country and all that was dear to me.... Then came the terrible sadness ... which, in the depths of your heart, suddenly lifts up its sinister head, and in the terrible silence among the shadows murmurs these words: 'This is the end of you ... the very end ... you will remain in ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... accepted the invitation, and the sinister-looking man, picking her up, carefully descended the ladder to his small boat, and rowed away to ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... softening down her refusal. But when he came at length to the words Priscilla had spoken, Words so tender and cruel: "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?" Up leaped the Captain of Plymouth, and stamped on the floor, till his armor Clanged on the wall, where it hung, with a sound of sinister omen. All his pent-up wrath burst forth in a sudden explosion, Even as a hand-grenade, that scatters destruction around it. Wildly he shouted, and loud: "John Alden! you have betrayed me! Me, Miles Standish, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... political sagacity liable to impeachment by the extent to which he had been thus deceived by the French court. "So far from being reprehensible that I did not suspect such a crime," he said, "I should rather be chargeable with malignity had I been capable of so sinister a suspicion. 'Tis not an ordinary thing to conceal such enormous deliberations under the plausible ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... was a sinister tone in this ejaculation that gave a shock to my momentary complacency. But we are so made that an anticipated evil affects us less than an immediate one; and remembering that weeks must yet elapse, during which he or John Poindexter or even myself might die, I said nothing, and ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... the ideal democracy which underlies our institutions may achieve, it will not be the survival of conditions such as these, but the fruition of their betterment. Recognition of the sinister elements involved determines the modern type of library work with children. That work rests upon a knowledge of the background which has been pictured, upon the use of methods that shall reach sanely and effectively the contributing causes, upon correlation of ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... lynx." 62 "He caught sight of a beaver swimming down the pond." 72 "'Or even maybe a bear.'" 90 "He drowns jest at the place where he come in." 96 "Hunted through the silent and pallid aisles of the forest." 102 "A sinister, dark, slow-moving beast." 106 "He sprang with a huge bound that landed him, claws open, squarely on the wolverene's hind quarters." 110 "It was not until the moon appeared ... that Jabe began to call." 142 "Something gleamed silver ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... thousand warriors of Pavia, a new people, under the same appellation of Goths, was insensibly formed in the camp of Totila. He sincerely accomplished the articles of capitulation, without seeking or accepting any sinister advantage from ambiguous expressions or unforeseen events: the garrison of Naples had stipulated that they should be transported by sea; the obstinacy of the winds prevented their voyage, but they were generously supplied with horses, provisions, and a safe-conduct to ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... Voltaire; calling on everybody (or everybody but Friedrich himself, who is easily sated with that kind of thing) to admire. In the world are many opinions about Friedrich. In Austria, for instance, what an opinion; sinister, gloomy in the extreme: or in England, which derives from Austria,—only with additional dimness, and with gloomy new provocations of its own before long! Many opinions about Friedrich, all dim enough: but this, that he is a very demon for fighting, and the stoutest King walking ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... reach it by the lane where mandrakes are to be found. How is it that I did not meet you before? By what sinister destiny, living so near you, have I lived without seeing you? But what do I say, lived? Is it to live without knowing you? Are you shut up in ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... humanity. The old-fashioned black walnut bedstead in which the sick man lay seemed to have a thousand voices of experiences. A great piece was broken off one corner of the footboard. The wound in the wood looked sinister. Directly opposite the bed stood the black walnut bureau, with its swung glass. The glass was cracked diagonally, and reflected the bed and its occupant with an air of experience. Gordon went directly to his patient. ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... in hers. She read in them something cruel and sinister. It was as if he were walking over the ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... was sure to hand them over to the tender mercies of his brother, who had all his faults, and some, in addition, of his own, without any of his merits. There was but one hope, and that turned out a mere aurora borealis, connected with the Duke of Monmouth, who, through his extraction by a bend sinister from Charles, as well as through his popular manners, Protestant principles, and gracious exterior, had become such a favourite with the people, that strong efforts were made to exclude the Duke of York, and to ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... picturesque figure and rode a very good horse. He wore a big slouch hat, from under which a number of fair curls hung nearly to his waist. His beard was fair, his eyes blue, and his complexion ruddy. There was nothing sinister in his expression, and his manner was respectful and frank. He was dressed in a hunter's buckskin suit ornamented with beads, and wore a pair of exceptionally big brass spurs. His saddle was very highly ornamented. What was unusual was the number of weapons he carried. Besides ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... even now of its original pomp are discernible in the faint glittering of the gilding, and the exquisite symmetry of its execution. The bearings appeared to me as—party per pall,—dexter division.—Sapphire a cross gules ensigned with fleur de lis between six martlets topaz.—Sinister—quarterly sapphire and ruby, first and third, three fleur de lis; topaz, second and fourth, three lions passant gardant of the same, supported by two angels, and surmounted by a coronet; the whole resting on an angel ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... quite at home, and in humor to enjoy their self-appointed stay of two weeks. Despite her restless eye and sinister smile, she could be affable; and although, at first, I felt an indescribable misgiving in her presence, it wore away, and I often amused Johnnie while she ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... these lords had in the laws of their country, and how they came by it, so as to enable them to decide the properties of their fellow-subjects in the last resort? Whether they were always so free from avarice, partialities, or want, that a bribe, or some other sinister view, could have no place among them? Whether those holy lords I spoke of were always promoted to that rank upon account of their knowledge in religious matters, and the sanctity of their lives; had never been compliers with the times, while they ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... of clashes developing finally into a series of riots of a grave nature. Innocent Negroes, attacked at first for purposes of sport and later for sinister designs, were often badly beaten in the streets or even cut with knives. The offenders were not punished and if the Negroes defended themselves they were usually severely penalized. In 1819 three white women stoned a woman of ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... experienced river men as pilots, with picked crews, and protected by the big guns at Fort Gray, 600 men, with two pieces of light artillery, in thirteen boats, in the grim darkness of the morning of the 13th—a sinister coincidence—drew up in silence on the wharf. They comprised the first detachment of 850 regulars and 300 militia, the advance attacking party—"the flower of Wadsworth's army"—embarked to "carry the Heights of Queenston and appal ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... In the place where the breach was opened by his cannon he ordered the placing of a marble panel bearing his arms; and there it is to be seen to this day: Dexter, the sable bars of the House of Lenzol; Sinister, the Borgia bull in chief, and the lilies of France; and, superimposed, an ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... of the Anathematisms; one against Andrew of Samosata, and other Oriental prelates, who through mistake were offended at them; and the other, against Theodoret of Cyr. And lastly, An Apologetic for them to the emperor Theodosius, to remove some sinister suspicions which his enemies had endeavored to give that prince against his ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... companion-way to tell him, with the pride of a discoverer, that France was broad in sight, and the sun was shining on it. "Oh!" exclaimed my mother, looking up from her, pale discomfortableness on a sofa, with that radiant smile of hers, and addressing poor Miss Shepard, who was still further under the sinister influence of those historic alpine fluctuations which have upset so many. "Oh, Ada, Julian says the sun is shining on France!" Ada never stirred. She was the most amiable and philosophic of young ladies; but ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... Those sinister little squares of red paper with the Chinese characters, one of which had been found in Thornton Lyne's pocket? The explanation of their presence in Thornton Lyne's desk was simple. He had been a globetrotter and had collected ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... nightmare; but a sane corrective to the ostrich policy of those who had sown the evil seed and were trying to say of the fruit—'It is not.' Letters from Dyan, and spasmodic devouring of newspapers, kept him alive to the sinister activities of the larger world outside. News from Bombay grew steadily more disquieting:—strikes and riots, fomented by agitators, who lied shamelessly about the nature of the new Bills—; hostile crowds and insults to Englishwomen. Dyan more than hinted ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... showery, with occasional drenching plumps. We were soaked to the skin, then partially dried in the sun, then soaked once more. But there were some calm intervals, and one notably, when we were skirting the forest of Mormal, a sinister name to the ear, but a place most gratifying to sight and smell. It looked solemn along the riverside, drooping its boughs into the water, and piling them up aloft into a wall of leaves. What is a forest but a city of nature's own, full of hardy and innocuous living things, where there ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at Clem's arm and drew him back into the hall. For the moment terror overcame her—terror of something sinister within—of their grandfather sitting there like Giant Pope in the story, waiting to catch them. She hurried Clem along to the kitchen-passage, which opened out of the hall at right angles to the ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... veranda, one was immediately swallowed in the chaos of hurtling drift, the darkness sinister and menacing. The ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... securely bind the hands of Phil and Dick firmly behind their backs, and this operation was at once so effectually performed that anything in the nature of escape by simply breaking away and running for one's life was rendered impossible, quite apart from the sinister and significant order to shoot which had been given to the soldiers. A quarter of an hour later the entire party were on the move, and the two Englishmen had the mortification of finding themselves marched back along the road by which they ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... acknowledge him in your presence, and therefore virtually in the presence of His Holiness. I thus help to remove the stigma I myself set on his name. Plainly speaking, Monsignor, we men have no right whatever to launch human beings into the world with the 'bar sinister' branded upon them. We have no right, if we follow Christ, to do anything that may injure or cause trouble to any other creature. We have no right to be hasty in our judgment, ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... Manchester. But Constance conjectured that Gerald Scales was dead—or Sophia would never have returned so soon. Then the doctor suggested that on the contrary Gerald Scales might be out of danger. And all then pictured to themselves this troubling Gerald Scales, this dark and sinister husband that had caused such a ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... humility, this holding of ourselves lightly and yet ready for an infinity of unmerited triumphs, this secret is so simple that every one has supposed that it must be something quite sinister and mysterious. Humility is so practical a virtue that men think it must be a vice. Humility is so successful that it is mistaken for pride. It is mistaken for it all the more easily because it generally goes with a certain simple love of splendour which amounts to vanity. Humility ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... extraordinary vessel. But the science of our new life must be to forget or to remember. We must live in the past or forego the past. For Pan and his likes I conceive that it will largely resolve itself into a question of temperature—of temperature and of appetite. That orb is of a sinister appearance, but to do it justice it looks heated. My sister had a passion for coldness; she would never permit me to lend her any of my warmth. I cannot say that it is chilly here ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse
... formed, he voted publicly or secretly? Most of the followers of Bentham advocated secrecy. Since men acted in accordance with their ideas of pleasure and pain, and since landlords and employers were able, in spite of any laws against intimidation, to bring 'sinister' motives to bear upon voters whose votes were known, the advisability of secret voting seemed to follow as a corollary from utilitarianism. John Stuart Mill, however, whose whole philosophical life consisted of a slowly developing revolt of feeling against the utilitarian ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... and the common interests and the deep sympathy—it is screaming! Almost worth the price I pay, for the sake of the rattling good joke! And by this grave! Great heavens, how humourous is destiny!" He leant his arms on the tomb-stone and laughed on softly, his big form shaking, his strange sinister face appearing over the stone, irradiated with merriment. In the dusk, among the graves, the grinning face looked like that of some mocking demon, some gargoyle come to life, to cast a spell ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... started down the trail. A heavy wind was blowing, and the night air was cold and penetrating. In a few minutes we met a half-breed Mexican, who, accosting us at once, urged us to go no further. His manner was somewhat sinister and disagreeable. He warned us that, if we attempted to make the descent in the darkness, we would at least lame our animals. He asserted that our comrades were fully three leagues ahead when he had met them, and that we would never overtake them. He also hinted darkly as to other ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... tragedian stood enframed upon her desk. Any one may possess the portrait of a tragedian without exciting suspicion or comment. (This was a sinister reflection which she cherished.) In the presence of others she expressed admiration for his exalted gifts, as she handed the photograph around and dwelt upon the fidelity of the likeness. When alone she sometimes picked it up and ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... wot I'd work my 'ead orf to please any gentleman that is a gentleman; and when you've eaten one of my dinners, sir, you won't want nobody else to cook and do for you no more." And though Ted had pointed out to her the sinister ambiguity of this formula, she had ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... Serpent is a sinister birth of time, The likeness of the light 'twould fain take on, But 'tis engendered from the poisonous slime Of hate, and greed, and darkness. Though it don Apollo's guise, 'tis but Apollyon. To shackle, poison, palsy is its aim. Venom and violence never ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 13, 1890 • Various
... the table at him. She could hardly believe that this old friend with whom she had gone through the perils of the night and with whom she was now about to feast was the sinister figure that had cast a shadow on her childhood. He looked positively incapable of pulling a little girl's hair—as ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... they could be forged. Besides, were there not many American radicals, soldiers of fortune, here assisting in the attempt to overthrow their rule. He should go to prison at once, and "To-morrow!" There was something so sinister about the way they said that "to-morrow" that it sent the cold chills racing down ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... is inhabited by Polish Jews, and a filthy, greasy, nauseating set they are, both men and women. The men wear two or three long, oily, tight curls in front of their ears. Their noses are hooked like a parrot's. Their countenances are sinister, and I believe they have not washed since the Flood. The women, when they marry, shave their heads. Then they either wear huge wigs, which they use to wipe their hands on without the ceremony of ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... coast. They still, however, kept their course to the northward; though greatly delayed by cross winds, and by the frequent interruptions occasioned by the necessity of searching for food on shore, and constantly struggling with a series of the most sinister events. At length, about the end of January, 1742, having made three unsuccessful attempts to double a head-land, which they supposed to be that called Cape Tres Montes by the Spaniards, and finding the difficulty insurmountable, they unanimously resolved to return ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... writers boldly asserted that all the disorders of the world originated with the devil and his sinister companions, because they were stirred with the unholy desire to obtain associates in their miseries. It was impossible to fix a limit to the number of these malevolent spirits constantly provoking diseases and infirmities upon men. They were alleged to surround mankind so densely that ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... blew now hot and dry, now cool and damp. By about ten o'clock a large part of the sky was lined with heavy clouds, shading from ashen-grey into iron-colour and perfect black; at times this sooty mass, seeking an outlet upon the earth, burst asunder, revealing a sinister light through the crevices. Then again the clouds lowered themselves and drowned the tops of the forest trees in mists. But a hot wind soon drove them upwards again and tore strips off them, so that they ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... in number, and warlike in their nature. They fight not, because they have been managed with wisdom and humanity. There is no corruption among the accredited officials; there is no sinister dealing towards them by the government." We do not charge our officials with corruption, neither do we believe that their administration has been feeble;—on the whole our attitude towards the Indian people has been fair; our policy has revealed ordinary ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... butts—from the soft-hearted and, at the time, unpardonably hirsute Colonel Sibthorpe, to Sir R. Temple and Mr. McNeill, Mr. Newdegate, Mr. Roebuck, Edwin James, ex-Q.C. (who was disbarred for corruption and set up in New York, joining, as Punch put it, the "bar sinister"), Madame Rachel (the "beautiful for ever" enameller, who had not yet been convicted), Colonel North, Sir Francis Baring, Cox of Finsbury, Wiscount Williams of Lambeth, the Duke of Buccleuch, Lord ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... the sword, and what wrinkles the reader may imagine. In default of portraits, that is all I have been able to piece together, and perhaps even the baldness should be taken as a figure of his destitution. A sinister dog, in all likelihood, but with a look in his eye, and the loose flexile mouth that goes with wit and an overweening sensual temperament. Certainly the sorriest figure ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... which they were dancing; not, however, with the air of an equal, but that of a superior, come to grace with her presence the festival of her dependants. The old man and woman attended, with looks as sinister as hers were lovely, like two of the worst winter months waiting upon ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... Mediterranean. Dark of complexion, short and broad, some of them wore earrings, and, without exception, they carried dirks and now and then both pistols and dirks in their belts. He sought among them for the face of one who might be a friend, but found none. They were all hardened and sinister, and he believed that at the best they were smugglers, ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... another class of peripatetic philosophers—half pedler, half mendicant—who were in the habit of visiting us. One we recollect, a lame, unshaven, sinister-eyed, unwholesome fellow, with his basket of old newspapers and pamphlets, and his tattered blue umbrella, serving rather as a walking staff than as a protection from the rain. He told us on one occasion, in answer to our inquiring into the cause of his ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... on another ground, and deny that he gives us any solution at all. Thus, for instance, Mr. Darwin builds a most ingenious argument on the tendency of the young of the horse, ass, zebra, and quagga, to bear on their shoulders and on their legs certain barred stripes. Up these bars (bars sinister, as we think, as to any true descent of existing animals from their fancied prototype) he mounts through his "thousands and thousands of generations," to the existence of his "common parent, otherwise perhaps very differently ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... temper, Mulcahy was usually disliked by those with whom he came in contact. But he attracted me very strongly. Aged, I should say, about forty five yellow-bearded, exceedingly handsome, strong, and tall there was, nevertheless, a suggestion of something sinister about him. To me he unbent ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... generally, and the name of Pius IX was branded with censure, not by laymen only, but by some bishops and high ecclesiastics. Monsignor Viale, nuncio at Vienna, and Monsignor Sacconi, nuncio at Munich, were assiduous and eager in detailing the sinister reports touching Rome and the Pope, and colored them in such a way as to create an apprehension of schism, the most serious one that could rise for a pope—and that pope, too, Pius IX. He had before this ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... the candor of real remorse, was by no means yet aware how very bad it was. For six months coming, partly as existing facts better disclosed themselves, as France, Saxony and others showed what spirit they were of; partly as new sinister events and facts arrived one after the other,—his outlook continued to darken and darken, till it had become very dark indeed. There is perennially the great comfort, immense if you can manage it, of making front against misfortune; of looking it frankly in the face, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... wisdom, lieutenant," he answered, smiling at her enthusiasm. "We don't know how long this siege is going to last. If it should set in to snow, we may be here several days before the relief-party reaches us." But, though he spoke cheerfully, he was aware of sinister possibilities in the situation. "Several weeks" would have been nearer his ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... barked Gourlay, in lordly and pursuing scorn, and the fellow leapt where he walked as the cry went through him. To break a man's spirit so, take that from him which he will never recover while he lives, send him slinking away animo castrato—for that is what it comes to—is a sinister outrage of the world. It is as bad as the rape of a woman, and ranks with the sin against the Holy Ghost—derives from it, indeed. Yet it was this outrage that Gourlay meant to work upon his son. He would work him down and down, this son of his, till he was less than a man, a frightened, ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... that our poor little craft must go to the bottom; it seemed like a chip on the ocean contending against the powers of the Almighty. It seemed as if, agreeably to Indian fable, Ishkwondameka himself was raising a tempest mountain high for some sinister purposes of his own. But, owing to the skill of the old lake mariner, we eventually triumphed. He never faltered in the darkest exigency. For a day and night he struggled against the elements, and finally entered the straits at Fort Gratiot, ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... disorganized in a great measure by the length and 20 severity of the march, made it probable that, with a little time for negotiation, a more conciliatory tone would have been assumed. But, unhappily for all parties, sinister events occurred in the meantime such as effectually put an end to every hope of ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... glance, and perceived behind the projecting carved lattice-work of one of the windows a dark, wrinkled face and two gleaming eyes which, even at that distance, had, or appeared to have, a somewhat sinister expression. ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... half-sinister, ironical way, for between him and Captain Halby's Riders of the Plains there was no good feeling. More than once he had come into conflict with them, more than once had they laid their hands on him—and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... master remained unmoved. The sinister look in the eyes, the doggedness of the face did not change. He stared at them; then he shouted in frenzy: 'You lie! You want my money! Everybody wants it! Everybody loves it! There isn't an honest man in the world! All are thieves! ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... the same colour as the hair, carefully trimmed, added to the grand and masculine beauty of the countenance, in which the only blemish was the peculiarity of one eyebrow being somewhat higher than the other [226], which gave something more sinister to his frown, something more arch to his smile. For, quick of impulse, the Poet-Titan smiled ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to take no interest in him, which was perhaps worse. As for the Empress, there was little concealment in respect to her extreme unpopularity. Rasputin I never heard mentioned by a Russian in Russia; but one knew all about that sinister figure ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... To look into them was like coming suddenly through dusky woods to a lonely mountain tarn, lying fathomless and icy beneath a moonlit sky. Gregory was aware, as if newly and more strongly than before, of how ambiguous was her beauty, how sinister ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... the reforms which it witnessed were destined to make it, no reign ever commenced with more sinister omens than that at which we have now arrived. The new King had not been on the throne a month, when a conspiracy was discovered, surpassing in its treasonable atrocity any that had been heard of in the kingdom since the days of the Gunpowder ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... I should give up in despair. Remember us in your prayers, that we grow not weary in well-doing. It is hard to work for years with pure motives, and all the time be looked on by most of those to whom our lives are devoted, as having some sinister object in view. Disinterested labor—benevolence—is so out of their line of thought, that many look upon us as having some ulterior object in view. But He who died for us, and whom we ought to copy, did more for us than we can do for any one else. He endured the contradiction of sinners. May ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... 1521] Wolsey himself, biassed perhaps by his ambition for the tiara, labored to suppress the heresy. Most important of all, Sir Thomas More was promptly and decisively alienated. {283} It was More, according to Henry VIII, who "by subtle, sinister slights unnaturally procured and provoked him" to write against the heretic. His Defence of the Seven Sacraments, in reply to the Babylonian Captivity, though an extremely poor work, was greeted, on its appearance, ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... to make up, and it was touching that in a dinnerless state her moral passion should have burned so clear. She partook largely as a refuge from depression, and yet the opportunity to partake was just a mark of the sinister symptoms that depressed her. The affair was in short a combat, in which the baser element triumphed, between her refusal to be bought off and her consent to be clothed and fed. It was not at any rate to be gainsaid that there was comfort for her in the developments of France; comfort ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... treasure went about with her head on her shoulders, as if it had been temporarily placed in her keeping, and were something she was not at all used to taking care of. More than once Mrs. Elmore had to warn her against sinister accidents. "Remember, Lily," she said, "that if anything did happen, NOTHING could be done to save you!" In spite of himself Elmore shared these anxieties, and in the depths of his wonted studies he found himself pursued and harassed by vague apprehensions, ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... although he strained his ears to hear something further. To him that canoe speeding through the night, and the words he had overheard, had a sinister meaning. That it was Seth Lupin to whom reference had been made, there could be no doubt. So the villain was still lurking around. What were the plans he was looking after? Had they anything to do with Jean? He believed they had, and the thought caused him to give the canoe a ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... pains to prove it purely an act of religious persecution having no concern with politics. Those who adopt the latter point of view insist that the affair was long premeditated, that it had its source in something concerted some seven years earlier between Catherine of Medicis and the sinister Duke of Alva. And they would seem to suggest that Henry of Navarre, the nominal head of the Protestant party, was brought to Paris to wed Marguerite de Valois merely so that by this means the Protestant nobles of the kingdom, coming to the capital for the wedding, ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... the new Caliph, after morning prayers, had assumed his seat on the Imperial divan, he commanded Giafer to be brought before him. Then, with a sinister smile, he demanded of the prisoner, "Where is the most illustrious Caliph Haroun Alraschid? Say, Giafer, what hast thou done ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... speech a sinister smile overspreads his pale features, and a quick light, as evil as it is piercing, comes into his eyes. But Sir Adrian sees nothing of this. He is looking at his home, as it stands grand and majestic in the red light of the dying sun. He is looking, too, at the old tower, and at the upper portion ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... was blamed. Ugly names were flung at him before he was old enough to know their dark and sinister meaning. He was forbidden to go to the big house of his father before he knew why he was not allowed to go. He was excluded from the games of those more fortunately born than he, when he could no more understand why he was excluded than he could keep back the bitter tears of childish disappointment. ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... cloisters, echoing shadows leered at them. The wall of the V. A green rose dark and sinister. At last breathless among the tombstones by the Abbey they slipped on their boots, turned up coat collars and drew their caps over ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... at the neck of the point and a moment later a body of men came into view. As they clambered over the barricade, Charley counted them. They were twelve in number, one of them an Indian, his face disfigured by a long scar that gave to it a sinister, malignant expression. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... round the sunlit fields and up at the clear sky. But their thoughts are not of the beauties of the peaceful landscape. The words of the General are the key to all their thoughts. For them the promise of spring is a grim and a sinister thing; to them the springy green turf carpet on the fields means ground fit to bear the weight of teams and guns, dry enough to give firm foothold to the ranks of infantry charging across the death-trap of the neutral ground, where clogging, wet, ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... day was showery, with occasional drenching plumps. We were soaked to the skin, then partially dried in the sun, then soaked once more. But there were some calm intervals, and one notably, when we were skirting the forest of Mormal, a sinister name to the ear, but a place most gratifying to sight and smell. It looked solemn along the river-side, drooping its boughs into the water, and piling them up aloft into a wall of leaves. What is a forest but a city of nature's own, full of hardy and innocuous living ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... side of his face, from temple to chin, was drawn and fastened a black cloth; the unharmed cheek was bloodless and shrunken, the lip twisted. Only the eyes, dark, sinister, and splendid, were as they had been. "I dig not my graves deep enough," he said. "Is she behind you there in ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... had in the laws of their country, and how they came by it, so as to enable them to decide the properties of their fellow-subjects in the last resort? Whether they were always so free from avarice, partialities, or want, that a bribe or some other sinister view could have no place among them? Whether those holy lords I spoke of were always promoted to that rank upon account of their knowledge in religious matters and the sanctity of their lives; had never been ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... silence. He was completely cut off. Even the lights of the house were hidden from him. He had turned about so many times that he did not even know in which direction it lay. Coupled with the effect of what had happened in the house, the influence of this tortuous garden was sinister and unnerving. In the lightning flashes, now more vivid and frequent, he tried in vain to determine his position. He wandered about, trying path after path, doubling back on his own tracks—only to find himself more ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... of relief, lowered his weapon and looked questioningly at his brother. The shadow of the log cabin was upon him, making more sinister his uncouth attire, and his lean vindictive face under the huge Mexican hat. Gledware, not daring to move, kept his eyes fixed on that deep gloom out of which at any moment might spurt forth the red flash of death. From within the cabin came loud ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... sinister-looking old pair of cut-throats in the parish," returned Austin. "I should be sorry to meet them on a lonely road on a dark night, I know that. But really, auntie, I do wish you'd think better of all this. We're quite happy alone; what ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... appearance, combined with a sort of human expression in his countenance, undoubtedly caused him to be selected by the ancients as the emblem of wisdom. The moderns have practically renounced this idea, which had no foundation in the real character of the bird, who possesses only the sly and sinister traits that mark the feline race. A very different train of associations and a new series of picturesque images are now suggested by the figure of the Owl, who has been portrayed more correctly by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... trenches this limitless porridge of mud. Cr-r-r-ump! go the crumps searching out a battery. But oh the woods—the poor scarecrow woods. I was in a famous wood that looked positively devilish in its sinister nakedness. And it's September, too, when woods are so often at their loveliest. Not a leaf—not one single leaf; and, instead of undergrowth, just tossed earth, fuses, a boot, a coat, some wire, and above-ground ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... on the rostrum, a heroic figure pitted, as it were, against all the sinister forces that bore from within, ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... very exquisitely fashioned to imitate reality. Its prevailing darkness had prevented the truth from appearing, and yet, perfect though it was in lustre and pigment, the false thing had given to Pendean's expression a quality that never failed to disturb Peter. It was not sinister, yet he remembered no such cast of countenance within ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... It was the sinister iteration by which he was stricken, rather than the news itself. The latter only stunned. His hand in his father's, he went up the walk and into the house. There were women inside, women who moved with an effect of bustling stillness, the same ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... Republic. Excitement was carried to such a point that in many places the people complained that they were not permitted to arm against the French. The Austrian generals industriously circulated the most sinister reports respecting the armies of the Sombre-et-Meuse and the Rhine, and the position of the French troops in the Tyrol. These impostures, printed in bulletins, were well calculated to instigate the Italians, and especially the Venetians, to rise in mass to exterminate ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... In all its great shadow there was no sign of light save from a single window, and no sound came from it. To me there was something awful in its size and its silence, which corresponded so well with its sinister name. My companion pressed on eagerly, and I followed him along the ill-kept path which led to ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the Austrian calculations respecting a separate peace. But Austria could not possibly hope to deceive free Russia or the Allies and lure them into concluding a premature peace if the reign of terrorism and absolutism still prevailed in the Dual Monarchy. For this reason Tisza, with his sinister reputation, was forced to go, and the Reichsrat was convened. Austria based her plans on the ignorance of some Allied politicians who really believed in the "new orientation" of the Vienna Government because of the Bohemian names (not sympathies) of Clam-Martinic ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... has never satisfied me, and there is more ferocity than sadness in the countenance, which would serve quite as well for one of the Erinney hunting Orestes, even in the adytum at Delphi. The face is more sinister than sorrowful." ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... terrible than these. And the padding footsteps that followed, hurrying when she hurried and slackening when she went more slowly, and stopping dead when she paused and looked round, conveyed to her a haunting sense of something sinister, and at the same time greedy and guileful, that ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... What do ye think o' that, ey?" said the sportsman—levelling his gun, throwing back his head, closing his sinister ocular, and stretching out his legs after the manner of the Colossus of Rhodes—"Don't ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... musical possibilities. He saw, in orchestral terms, the sodden revelry in that staid house—with its endless cellars of Burgundy. He saw the tight-drawn terror in the girl's room where she lay in bed. He saw the room lighted fitfully by the play of searchlights over the city; the sinister entrance from a little balcony through the French widow, of the officer in uniform, his shadow flung ahead of him by the beam of the searchlight. He saw the man, blood—as well as wine—drunk, garrulous and fanatic ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... the man. "I never seen a dog yet that was worth that money, did you?" And dog and persecutor disappeared together within a sinister-looking basement door. ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... An awful and sinister smile gleamed on the countenances of her unearthly audience, and seemed to glide visibly from underneath ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... of that sunrise! It was terrific; it was sickening; my senses swam. Sunlit billows smooth and sinister, without a crest, without a sound; miles and miles of them as I rose; an oily grave among them as I fell. Hill after hill of horror, valley after valley of despair! The face of the waters in petty but eternal unrest; and now the sun must shine to set it smiling, to show me its ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... in his eye and a something sinister in the tone as he said it; but the words were hearty, and Colonel John made no demur. And Darby, entering at that moment with a pair of lights in tall candlesticks—which were silver, but might have been copper—caused a welcome interruption. ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... desire this hideous war or wish that we should be drawn into it; and we are vaguely conscious that we are fighting their cause, as they will some day see it, as well as our own. They are themselves in the grip of the same sinister power that has now at last stretched its ugly talons out and drawn blood from us. The whole world is at war because the whole world is in the grip of that power and is trying out the great battle which shall determine whether ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... most of the day in a chak dive, juggling plans. Toys, innocent and sinister. Spies, messengers. Toys which killed horribly. Toys which could be controlled, perhaps, by the pliant mind of a child, and every child hates its ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... Acquasparta nor Casale, whence Of those, who come to meddle with the text, One stretches and another cramps its rule. Bonaventura's life in me behold, From Bagnororegio, one, who in discharge Of my great offices still laid aside All sinister aim. Illuminato here, And Agostino join me: two they were, Among the first of those barefooted meek ones, Who sought God's friendship in the cord: with them Hugues of Saint Victor, Pietro Mangiadore, And he of Spain ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... issued. When you look at it, however long it may be since you were afraid of phantoms, you feel a confused reawakening dread. Such were the subjects of all his pictures—the tortures of the accursed, spectres, fiery chasms, dragons, uncanny birds, loathsome monsters, diabolical kitchens, sinister landscapes. One of these frightful pictures was found in the cell where Philip II. died; others are scattered throughout Spain and Italy. Who was this chimerical painter? How did he live? What strange mania tormented him? No one knows; he ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... curious and frightened at once, six beautiful animals came towards him. He was one of their kind, so they came close; the scent of the wilderness was already on him, and they shrank away. Surely some sinister genius had directed Alcatraz to the one most valuable point of attack on all the ranch, for these were the six brood mares for whose purchase Marianne Jordan had cleaned out her bank account. The stallion ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... as he looked at her. What sinister change came over her when her will was crossed? She seemed to grow inaccessible, implacable—her eyes were like the eyes of ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... never once speaks of the prisoners. Hamilton, it is true, does say "The prisoners were ordered to be let out of irons," but another account, ascribed to Lieutenant Corner, second lieutenant of the Pandora, throws a sinister light on this part of the narrative. "Three of the Bounty's people, Coleman, Norman, and M'Intosh, were now let out of irons, and sent to work at the pumps. The others offered their assistance, and begged to be allowed a chance of saving their lives; ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... wrong, and true and false, at will Could turn and change, employ'd his fruitless pain To reconcile the fierce, contending train: But, ever as he toil'd, the raging pest Of pride, as knowledge grew, with equal speed increased. Then Epicurus, of sinister fame, Rebellious to the lord of nature, came; Who studied to deprive the soaring soul Of her bright world of hope beyond the pole; A mole-ey'd race their hapless guide pursued, And blindly still the vain assault renew'd. Dark Metrodorus next sustain'd the cause, With ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... with a black cross. Very disconcerting, that black cross! It is different not only in colour, but in shape, from the other crosses. Sinister! You need not to be told that the body of a German lies beneath it. The whole devilishness of the Prussian ideal is expressed in that black cross. Then, as the road curves, you see more black crosses, many black crosses, very many. No flags, ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... happy or miserable. All these important ideas were at once evoked in the mind of Maulear by the last sentence Signora Rovero had uttered. It was this hidden and sombre apparition which arose between Maulear and her he loved, the sinister aspect of which was reflected in a manner by the expression ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... which would shake, she called out to the dog; and then there was a sudden silence which was almost more sinister. She had laid her hand on the Airedale's collar at the sound of his first bark; but feeling really nervous now, she was just about to let him go when there was a half-apologetic cough from the bushes behind her, and a voice she ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... "Yeah?" Tim's tone was sinister. "Say, Cap, gimme the room next that guy. And if ye hear anybody yowlin' before mornin' don't git worried. ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... environments. Wilson was the one man amongst us who profited most from our sojourn here. In spite of bad light and almost frozen fingers he managed to make an astonishing collection of sketches, portraying the autumn scenes near this corner of Ross Isle. How sinister and relentless the western mountains looked, how cold and unforgiving the foothills, and how ashy gray the sullen icefoots that girt ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... in the plaza. Occasionally the taciturn Indian unbent when sitting by the great bonfire in the open at night, and told wild tales of savage life before the padres came. Roldan admired his splendid supple body and fearless manhood, but the Indian was too sinister to inspire affection. Adan was loudly bored. Roldan's ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... the supposed gambols of the two men with keen, but impersonal, interest. But here at last was something he could understand. Instinct teaches practically every dog the sinister nature of a thrown object. The man on the ground had hurled something at the man whom the collie had begun to love. That meant warfare. To the canine mind it ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... N. sinistrality[obs3]; left, left hand, a gauche; sinister, nearside[obs3], larboard, port. Adj. left-handed; sinister; sinistral, sinistrorsal[obs3], sinistrorse[obs3], sinistrous[obs3]; Pref. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... and they moved on, the girl still clinging to him and sobbing at intervals. Before a dark three-story and basement building, with a decidedly sinister aspect, she stopped and indicated ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... contemplated any war of aggression against any of our neighbors, and therefore we never raised an army adequate to such sinister purposes. During the last thirty years the two great political parties in the State have been responsible for the policy of this country at home and abroad. For about the same period we have each been governing this country. For about fifteen years neither ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... activity about Morris's. In the summer it impressed you with its look of cheapness. In the winter, squatted by the cold water amidst its huddle of unpainted outhouses, at the end of a stretch of desolate beach, the fancy gave Morris's a touch of the sinister. ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... The sinister aspect of things never appealed to Frank, and he was vastly amused at the idea of the pauper Mercury, and had begun to turn the subject over, seeing how he could use it for a queer story for the Pilgrim. But time soon grew horribly long, and to kill it he volunteered to act as ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... of the volunteer dealers, and after haunting the Chevaliers' stables for several weeks, my friend found that not money alone was needed to buy a horse. The affair began to wear a sinister aspect. He had an uneasy fear that in several cases he had refused the very horse he wanted with the aplomb he had acquired in dismissing undesirable beasts. The fact was he knew less about horses than when he began to buy, while he had indefinitely enlarged his idle knowledge of men, of ...
— Buying a Horse • William Dean Howells
... Fleur-de-Marie to Paris; he returned home, to send an express to the farm at Bouqueval. The moment he entered the Rue de Plumet, he saw a postchaise stop before the door of the hotel; it was Murphy, who had just returned from Normandy. The squire had gone there, as we have stated, to unmask the sinister projects of the step-mother of Madame d'Harville, and ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... 1833. He had no authority, and was not backed by any force. He was aptly nicknamed "a man-of-war without guns." He presented the local chiefs with a national flag. Stars and stripes appeared in the design which the chiefs selected, thanks, says tradition, to the sinister suggestion of a Yankee whaling-skipper. H.M.S. Alligator signalised the hoisting of the ensign with a salute of twenty-one guns. After this impressive solemnity, Mr. Busby lived at the bay for six years. ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... cunning, than either, despises and dupes them all. At a moment when the Convention had fallen into increased contempt, and when the public affairs could no longer be conducted by fabricators of reports and framers of decrees, the talents of this sinister politician became necessary; yet he enjoys neither the confidence of his colleagues nor that of the people—the vanity and duplicity of his conduct disgust and alarm the first, while his reputation of partizan of the ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... Administration an inestimable opportunity for the noblest exhibition of unwavering firmness, justice, and self-denial. Should there be presented an example of perfect singleness of purpose, with no room for suspicion of sinister objects, or personal ambitions and enmities; should the Administration in all its departments, devote itself exclusively to the sacred work of preserving the nation, regardless of all consequences to individuals or parties, then would the approbation of a grateful people be ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... me further. A few weeks ago the prince summoned me, and I saw on his sinister face and in his flashing eyes that he must have received some unwelcome tidings. He did not make me wait long for the confirmation of my conjectures. With a sharp, cutting voice he asked me what kind of a nephew of mine that was whom I was educating at my palace in Vendee. ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... said what was upon my Spirit for your sake, when, for the satisfaction of such as (through its effect upon your soule) this Addresse of mine may possibly come to, I have religiously declared, that the Person who writ it, had no unworthy or sinister design of his owne to gratifie, much lesse any other party whatever; as being neither Courtier, Souldier, or Church-man, but a plain Country Gentleman, engag'd on neither side, who, has had leisure, (through ...
— An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661) • John Evelyn
... sculls in the water, one of which was six inches longer than the other, made a desperate effort, and got his craft fairly afloat. Now, Michael O'Hearn was not left-handed, and, as usually happens with such men, the inequality between the two limbs was quite marked. By a sinister accident, too, it happened that the longest oar got into the strongest hand, and there it would have staid to the end of time; before Mike would think of changing it, on that account. Joel, alone, sat with his face towards the head of the lake, and he alone could see the ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... the Rabbi, theretofore open and friendly, became lowering and sinister, and he cleared his throat with a growl instead of ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... in this form it ultimately became the supreme central power. It was not until after the revolt of Lyons that the Committee, exchanging Danton's influence for that of Robespierre, adopted the principle of Terror which has made the memory of their rule one of the most sinister in history. Their authority steadily increased. The members divided among themselves the great branches of government. One directed the army, another the navy, another foreign affairs; the signature of three members practically gave to any measure the force ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... in my madness, to seek out the source Of the redolent river—directed By some supernatural, sinister force To a forest, dark, ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... forget the "pride, pomp, and circumstance" of greatness, and to be that only which he is himself. He desires at length to be sure, that he receives no adulation, that he is accosted with no insincerity, and that the individual to whose society he has thought proper to withdraw, has no by-ends, no sinister purposes in all his thoughts. What he seeks for, is a true friend, a being who sincerely loves, one who is attached to him, not for the accidents that attend him, but for what most strictly belongs to him, and of which he cannot be divested. ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... think she found any sinister interpretation in his words, but I did, and if ever I wanted to protest it was then, but my voice seemed to ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... had refused all offerings of money, and her whole visit had evidently been made under an overflow of the most grateful feelings for the attentions shown to her child. We acquitted her, therefore, of sinister intentions; and with our feelings of jealousy, feelings in which we had been educated, towards everything that tended to superstition, we soon agreed to think her some gentle maniac or sad enthusiast, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... the genial ship captain. But today he was silent and abstracted. Those who knew him could see that he hearkened close to every syllable, and seemed to ponder and try it in balances. It would have been hard to say what look there was, cold, attentive, and sinister, as of a man maturing plans, which still brooded over the unconscious guest; it was here, it was there, it was nowhere; it was now so little that Herrick chid himself for an idle fancy; and anon it was so gross and palpable that you could say every hair on ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... there is also that same sinister canal which leads from the Marne to the Rhine, the Rhine to the Marne. The name has a wicked sound in these days—Rhine-Marne; and at Vitry-le-Francois of all places. The men from over the Rhine destroyed as much as they ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... cases, like the one now before the court, there is felt an assurance of the impotence of such a pretension; still, the fullest conviction of that result can impart to it no claim to forbearance, nor dispense with the duty of antipathy and disgust at its sinister aspect, whenever it may be seen to scowl upon the justice, the order, the tranquillity, and fraternal feeling, which are the surest, nay, the only means, of promoting or preserving the happiness and prosperity of the ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard
... divinity? If the word is at best a confusion and at worst a war-whoop, should we not try to dispense with it, to avoid it, to find a substitute which should more accurately, if less truculently, express our idea? Is it wise or kind to seek to impose on the future an endless struggle with its sinister ambiguities? ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... virtually ignored by the other two, yet linked with them in a sort of casual camaraderie that was somehow established when she accepted the cocktail. Out of all that followed, no incident remained for her so sinister and at the same time so paradoxically trivial and absurd as this chance gathering ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... at the drive gates of a good-sized house standing well back from the road. It looked black and sinister in the dusk, and I couldn't help feeling, you know, like one of those Johnnies you read about in stories who are lured to lonely houses for rummy purposes and hear a shriek just as they get there. Elizabeth knew me well enough to know that a specially good golf course was a safe ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... if they had attempted to force an entrance would have been excommunicated, for until the suppression no woman's foot was allowed across this threshold. The tower was built as a protection against bandits, and the grated windows which give it a sinister look to-day lighted the cells of refractory brothers, placed here to catch the eye of novices as they entered the outer portal and serve as a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... she now saw, was hatless, leered up at her, and something in his sinister eyes made the girl quail. She had been so quiet that he apparently was not prepared for any sudden movement. Her right hand, hanging down at her side, had grasped the short riding whip, and, with a swiftness ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... came in the first crowd was Mr Monckton, who, had he been equally unconscious of sinister views, would in following his own inclination, have been as early in his attendance as Mr Morrice; but who, to obviate all suspicious remarks, conformed to the fashionable tardiness of ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... went on at intervals, low and sullenly, and their suspicions became a certainty. The sinister gentleman in cinder gray roused himself. "Is there a constable here?" he asked, in thick tones. "If so, ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... gaping multitude. Party was to be totally done away, with all its evil works. Corruption was to be cast down from Court, as Ate was from heaven. Power was thenceforward to be the chosen residence of public spirit; and no one was to be supposed under any sinister influence, except those who had the misfortune to be in disgrace at Court, which was to stand in lieu of all vices and all corruptions. A scheme of perfection to be realised in a Monarchy, far beyond the visionary Republic of Plato. The whole ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... "until Francis is shipped off to America or landed safely in a madhouse. One seems to me about as likely as another. I wonder whether he was drunk to-night, or insane? Drunk, I think: insanity"—with a sinister smile—"would be too great a stroke of ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... could be done. Blizzard and snow, snow and blizzard, sudden lulls and fierce returns. During the lulls we could see on the far horizon to the north-east bergs of all shapes and sizes driving along before the gale, and the sinister appearance of the swift-moving masses made us thankful indeed that, instead of battling with the storm amid the ice, we were required only to face the drift from the glaciers and the inland heights. The gusts might throw us off our feet, but at least ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... our history, the last of whom, Edmund, Earl of Suffolk, lost his head for treason when I was young, and the castle passed to the De la Poles with her. But some offshoots of the old Wingfield stock lingered in the neighbourhood, perchance there was a bar sinister on their coat of arms, I know not and do not care to know; at the least my fathers and I are of this blood. My grandfather was a shrewd man, more of a yeoman than a squire, though his birth was gentle. He it was who bought this place with the lands round it, and gathered ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... But its sinister, defiant, menacing quality was lost on Ranny. He said to himself: "She's rattled, poor girl; and she's worried. That's why ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... towards Guise's gentlemen. De Noyard, grave and reserved, stood a little apart from the others. For an instant, a look of profound displeasure, a deeply sinister look, interrupted ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... waiting for them, wrapped to his chin in a crimson poncho, and smoking a cigarette. He was a dark-faced, somewhat sinister-looking fellow, and he gave ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... old man you are!" cried Betty, involuntarily, shrinking from the sinister face that grinned malevolently into hers. "You have no right to ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... through the crowd, breaking in many places into ostentatious guffaws. To those who knew the underside of those meetings, the mild request appeared so ineffectual as to be merely ridiculous. The honorable chairman, on the stage, hid a sinister smile behind ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... under discussion, examples for which could easily be provided from the domestic animals, were put side by side with later passages in the book, such, for instance, as statements of fact as to the behaviour of severed nerves under irritation. A sinister inference was drawn from this combination, and published as fact without further verification. Of this he remarks emphatically in his address on "Elementary Instruction in Physiology," 1877 ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... reckless, the most prodigal, the most criminal, were readily drawn into the circle of Catiline's associates; in such a circle those who were not already utterly depraved very soon became so under the sinister and seductive influence of their leader. This man, who in the pursuit of his own vices had done his own son to death, did not hesitate to encourage his pupils in every species of crime; and with such allies, and the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... the arm. "Well, come along, my pretty lady! This'll make a stir, this will! The White Moll!" He led her to the electric-light switch, turned off the light, and, with his grasp tight upon her, made for the front door. He chuckled in a sinister manner. "Say, you're a prize, you are! And pretty clever, too, aren't you? I wasn't looking for a woman to pull this. The White Moll! ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... well, and went on until he reached the Champs des Alouettes. Then, with a sigh of satisfaction, he halted before a large, three-storied house, standing on a piece of ground surrounded by a mouldering wooden fence. The aspect of the house had something sinister and gloomy about it, and for a moment Tantaine paused as if he could not make up his mind to enter it; but at last he did so. The interior was as dingy and dilapidated as the outside. There were two rooms on the ground floor, ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... the traitors in our midst—the sinister cabal of pinko liberals and moderate conservatives ...
— Telempathy • Vance Simonds
... remembered seeing present at the great table on the dais, besides the usual red-faced generals and whiskered admirals, simpering statesmen, and his dearly loved friend, Michael Rossiter—representing Science,—a more sinister face. This was the well-known philanthropist and race-horse breeder, Sir George Crofts, Bart., M.P. for a Norfolk borough. Their eyes met, curiously interlocked for a moment. Sir George wondered to himself where the dooce he had seen that, type of face before, those grey eyes with the ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... black moustache and snapping black eyes. He carried a cane. I always associated canes with villains. Whereupon I arose, groped for the matches, lighted the gas, and gazing at myself in the mirror was a little reassured to find nothing sinister in my countenance.... ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... not so much to the satisfaction of his defenders as of his accusers. However, he has become reconciled to myself and Milo. Drusus has had notice of prosecution by Lucretius. The 3rd of July is the day fixed for challenging his jurors. About Procilius[603] there are sinister rumours—but you know what the courts are. Hirrus is on good terms with Domitius.[604] The senatorial decree which the present consuls have carried about the provinces—"whoever henceforth, etc."—does not seem to me likely ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... he thus meditated, from out the dazzle as of mirage, a single figure grew into force and distinctness of outline, a figure which from his childhood had appealed to him with an attraction at once sinister and heroic—that, namely, of a certain soldier and ex-Indian official, his kinsman, to pay a politic tribute of respect to whom was the object of his ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... arrived and took their seats around us. We shook hands, and for some minutes there was a dead silence. Then the Rajah asked what we wanted; to which Mr. Ross replied by endeavouring to make them understand who we were, and why we had come, and that we had no sinister intentions whatever; and that we had not brought a letter from the "Anak Agong," merely because we had thought it quite unnecessary. A long conversation in the Bali language then took place, and questions ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... when Don Felipe Belvidero laid his father's body upon the table. He kissed the sinister brow and the gray hair; then ...
— The Elixir of Life • Honore de Balzac
... met old Marguerite on her way to Lucille's apartments. He signed to her to follow him, and entered a chamber there. She perceived the unmistakable traces of angry excitement in his face—always sinister in an old man, but in one so powerful, and about whom she had heard so many dark rumors, full of vague terrors. As soon as he had closed the door, he ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... variable humour changed again. With a low groan of misery, she threw herself back in the cab. Lost in her own dark thoughts, as careless of the woman whom she had bent to her iron will as if no such person sat by her side, she preserved a sinister silence, until they reached the house where Miss Lockwood lodged. In an instant, she roused herself to action. She opened the door of the cab, and closed it again on Mrs. Ferrari, before the driver could ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... think we all three feared Franz Polter. There was always something sinister about him, that had nothing to do ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings
... be used, the bands, instead of being straight, will cross the spectrum diagonally, the direction of the diagonal (dexter or sinister) being determined by the position of the thicker end of the wedge. If two similar wedges be used with their thickest ends together, they will act as a wedge whose angle and whose thickness is double of the first. If they be placed in the reverse position they will act as a flat plate, ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... for ornamentation: a suit of armour, a gloomy candlestick of prodigious stature, and a thin Italian cabinet surmounted by an urn whose unexposed contents might readily have suggested something more sinister than the dust of antiquity. The door to the library was open. Fitful red shadows flashed dully from the fireplace across the room, creeping out into the hall and then darting back again as if afraid to venture. The waning sunlight struggled through a curtained window at the top of the stairs. ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... enough for two, and never that to walk upon, so far as anybody had ever noticed. Such an old fellow would outline himself against the yellow loneliness, like a lump of pessimistic philosopher impaled on the end of his own hobbling crutch. Tarpons and sharks and sword-fish, monstrous, sinister, moved slothfully in the viscid waters. From scrubby growth on the banks a hundred or a hundred thousand crows had much ado with rebuking the invaders ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... of Lincoln's Cabinet for the purpose of embodying certain forces that were antagonistic to the President. This was a dramatic necessity, and I chose rather to invent a character for the purpose than to invest any single known personage with sinister qualities about which ...
— Abraham Lincoln • John Drinkwater
... of Pisidia, (Acroas. i. 112—125, p. 5,) who states the opinions, acquits the pusillanimous counsellors of any sinister views. Would he have excused the proud ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... allowed him such abundant time; I thought he might have had an apoplectic fit. I looked through the key-hole; but the door opening into an odd corner of the room, the key-hole prospect was but a crooked and sinister one. I could only see part of the foot-board of the bed and a line of the wall, but nothing more. I was surprised to behold resting against the wall the wooden shaft of Queequeg's harpoon, which the landlady the evening previous had taken from him, before ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... attended all of Nimrod's undertakings produced a sinister effect. Men no longer trusted in God, but rather in their own prowess and ability,[84] an attitude to which Nimrod tried to convert the whole world.[85] Therefore people said, "Since the creation of the world there has been none like Nimrod, a mighty hunter of men and beasts, ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... the sinister remark of Helm had completely unmanned him before his men fell. Now it rushed upon him that if he would escape the wrath of the maddened creoles and the vengeance of Alice's lover, he must quickly throw himself upon the mercy of Clark. It was his only hope. He chafed ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... silence when he had said that, a silence that seemed to Randall's strained mind to have become suddenly tense, sinister. The great triple-bodied creature before them considered them again, its eyes moving over them, and when it again spoke the hissing ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... saw sinister things afoot in the Pentagon. Senator Herman E. Talmadge of Georgia thought he recognized a return to the military districting of Reconstruction days, and Congressman F. Edward Hebert of Louisiana warned that "everybody should be prepared for ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... likeness of a science, and allies itself with the state. Heresy becomes a crime. The ruler helps the priests to raise a tax for their own comfort, while they repay him by suppressing all seditious opinions. Thus is formed an unholy alliance between the authorities of 'natural religion' and the 'sinister interests of the earth.' The alliance is so complete that it is even more efficient than if it had been openly proclaimed. 'Prostration and plunder of the community is indeed the common end of both' (priests and rulers). ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... be repaired. Bombs have torn holes in the fort roofs, and all that winter the rain leaks in as through a sieve. The soldier volunteers grumble and mope and sicken. And these are not the least of Paul Mascarene's troubles. French priests minister to the Acadian farmers outside the fort, to the sinister Indians ever lying in ambush, to the French bushrovers under young St. Castin across Fundy Bay on St. John River. Not for love or money can Mascarene buy provisions from the Acadians. Not by threats can he compel them to help mend the breaches in the palisades. ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
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