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Demon   /dˈimən/   Listen
Demon

noun
1.
An evil supernatural being.  Synonyms: daemon, daimon, devil, fiend.
2.
A cruel wicked and inhuman person.  Synonyms: devil, fiend, monster, ogre.
3.
Someone extremely diligent or skillful.  "She's a demon at math"



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"Demon" Quotes from Famous Books



... have disgraced her by robbing her from her lawful husband. So Death stepped in and gave her to me—forever!" and he raised his eyes to the solemn starlit sky. "Yes, nothing can ever come between us now; no demon tears her white soul from me; she died innocent of evil, and she is mine—mine in every pulse of her being, as we ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli

... we read: "What is this world? A wager between Christ and the Demon. Thousands of years ago he challenged God, and when the great game began, they played with great loose rocks from the hills, at quoits, and if any one is unwilling to believe this, let him go to Mount Leberon and see the ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer

... she was not a demon in any way, she made him the bearer of a letter from her to the people in the town. The negotiations between the army and the burghers lasted five days; the town refusing to admit the King, and the King ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower

... intercourse indulged in and allowed to both sexes before marriage," we see that what at first seemed a virtue is really a mark of lower degradation. Some of the oldest legislators, like Zoroaster and Solon, already recognized the truth that it was far better to sacrifice a few women to the demon of immorality than to expose them all to contamination. The wild tribes of India in general have not yet arrived at that point of view. In their indifference to chastity they rank with the lowest savages, and usually there is a great deal of promiscuous ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... rage which would have been frightful to see on the face of a weaker man, but on his, with all the power and determination of his strong character behind it, it was appalling. It made them feel that they were held helpless by a powerful demon who would destroy and kill any who might stand in his way. Pushing everyone aside in a manner that was entirely foreign to him, he sprang to the wheel and taking it rang for full speed ahead. He swung the ship around ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney

... shortly expected to receive from the son of a neighbouring architect, who was then a minor. In this blissful frame of mind, our fair hostess scarcely knew when the trumpet of general R—— sounded. Her soul was in harmony with all the world, and it was not in the power of the demon of discord, nor even of this annoying brazen tube, to disturb her. Madame P—— well deserved to be blessed with such equanimity, and if she liked it, with such a lover, for she was a ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr

... Breitmann ish on, Und der Breitmann is on, Und mit him de Uhlans Are ploonderin gone. De demon of fengeance His wings o'er em vave, Mit deir fingers like hooks, Und mit maws like ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland

... us asunder, darted, with the yell of a demon, the huge bulk of the spotted leopardess. She leaped through the mirror as through an open window, and settled at once into a low, ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald

... for twelve months of a year; then let him take them up, and burn them in a furnace, and let him strew the ashes at the parting of the roads. And during these twelve months let him only drink out of a brass tube, lest he see the phantom form of the demon, and he be endangered. This was done by Abba, the son of Martha—he is Abba, the son of Manjumi. His mother made ...
— Hebrew Literature

... lazily, dragging his saddle by its horn. He saddled the trembling animal warily, then swung lightly to the seat. The broncho stood for an instant motionless, then humped itself from the earth, an incarnate demon of action. As a pitcher, a weaver, a sunfisher, this roan had no equal. Its ill-shaped nose and wicked red eyes were enough to give one bad dreams. But the lean-flanked young miner appeared clamped to the saddle. Lithe and sinuous as a panther, he rode with a perfect ease ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine

... stood in the shadow, looking into it. There was a tangle of undergrowth, and a heavy grove of palms. It was all dark as you looked in. Behind was the shrine of the demon steeds, the god and his wife who ride out at night to chase evil spirits away. Near by was an old tree, also in shade, with an idol under it. It was all in shadow, and full of shadowy ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael

... small pieces, and threw them in. He next despatched the woman, and mutilated her body in the same savage manner, having first committed the most horrible barbarity on her person; (the recital of which curdled my blood; and yet our Christianized (?) Algonquins laughed heartily on hearing it!) The demon in human form, with the yet reeking tomahawk raised over the heads of his wife and children, made them swear that they would never divulge the horrid deed; but they did disclose it; and it was from the wife the tale of horror was elicited. The object of the Ottawas was not revenge. ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean

... The black demon of ungovernable temper leaped brutally from Carl's eyes. Leaning forward he caught the girl's hands in a vicious grip that hurt her cruelly though for all her swift color she ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... been there yet, pawn your wives and children and the Oskolki [Translator's Note: Oskolki, (i.e., "Chips," "Bits") the paper of which Leikin was editor.] and go. I have never in my life seen anything like it. It is not a road, but unbroken poetry, a wonderful, fantastic story written by the Demon ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... the result of the combat, it was outweighed by the terror which he inspired in the simple, superstitious minds of his foeman. To them this white warrior, who consorted with the great apes and the fierce baboons, who growled and snarled and snapped like a beast, was not human. He was a demon of the forest—a fearsome god of evil whom they had offended, and who had come out of his lair deep in the jungle to punish them. And because of this belief there were many who offered but little defense, feeling as they did ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... was not long before the pleasure of the king's men was broken, for a wicked demon began to work mischief against them. This cruel spirit was called Grendel, and he dwelt on the moors and among the fens. One night he came to Heorot when the noble guests lay at rest after the feast, and seizing thirty thanes as they slept, set off on his homeward journey, ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various

... to be in the commercial line, as the nomoli is the presiding deity of crops and commerce. If the good services of the god are required on the farm a small shrine is erected there for it and a great big hamper and a bundle of rods placed in front of it. The demon is then addressed in some such manner as this: "I wish you to protect this farm from injury. Make the crop prosper more than everybody's else, and, to do this, every day you must steal from other people's farms and fill this hamper to the full. If you do this I shall ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... strides out of the preceding darkness, have revealed its later miracles, and have presented its terrible powers to the despotism which was seeking to crush all Christendom beneath its feet, the possible result might have been most tragical to humanity. While there are few inventions in morals, the demon Intellect is ever at his work, knowing no fatigue and scorning contentment in his restless demands upon the infinite Unknown. Yet moral truth remains unchanged, gradually through the ages extending its influence, and it is only by conformity to its simple and, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... ceased to be healthy in its tone as the old zeal was: for now the fierce demon Mammon was making his voice heard ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel

... enviable state of oblivion, than some internal sting of irritation as rapidly dispersed the whole fickle fabric of sleep; and as if the momentary trance—this fugitive beguilement of my wo—had been conceded by a demon's subtle malice only with the purpose of barbing the pang, by thus forcing it into a stronger relief through the insidious peace preceding it. It is a well-known and most familiar experience to all the sons and daughters of affliction, that under no circumstances ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... one and only Jock Lumsden. Regularly once a week at morning stables he turned the whole troop out to water, while he and "Dinkum" swept the entire garage out—a sure sign that the previous night had been pay night. He always was a hard worker, but a perfect demon for work the morning after the night before. A squadron leader was showing a man how to use a pick, cutting trenches in the sandstone at Sherika. Up strolled Jock—hands deep in his pockets. "Here, Sergeant-major—this man hasn't the foggiest notion ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie

... The demon of bitterness had entered into little Fyne. He amazed me as though he had changed his skin from white to black. It was quite as wonderful. And he kept it ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad

... work) should fall upon the poor Suridgees, who accordingly lifted up their voices, and burst upon the dreadful stillness of the forest with shrieks and dismal howls. These precautions were kept up incessantly, and were followed by the most complete success, for not one demon ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... passed. He arose, darting an anxious glance through the low casement. The moon was riding on the top of a huge mountain of clouds towards the north-west. As he gazed they came rapidly athwart the heavens, like the wings of some terrible demon visibly unfolding. On a sudden the door of his chamber flew open. He started forward to meet the intruder, but there was no footstep—no sound save the hurrying gusts that foreran the approaching tempest. Soon like a mighty deluge ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... indifferent. After that, the temptation was always coming, and it got stronger and stronger. I was ashamed, and I hated what I did; but almost while the thought was passing through my mind that I would never do it again, I did it. It seemed as if there was a demon in me always making me rush to do what I longed not to do. And I thought all the more that God was cruel; for if He had not sent me that dreadful trial, so much worse than other women have to bear, I should not have done wrong in that way. I suppose it is wicked to think so ... I feel ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... upon my imprudence. The countenance of Melchior, when he left me, was that of a demon. Something told me to prepare for death; and I was not wrong. The next day Melchior came not, nor the next; my provisions were all gone. I had nothing but a little wine and water left. The idea struck me, that I was to die of starvation. Was there no means of escape? None; I had no weapon, ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat

... a man of substance, yet he slept on the threshing-floor, so that his presence might act as a check upon profligacy. In the midst of his sleep, Boaz was startled to find some one next to him. At first he thought it was a demon. Ruth calmed his disquietude (58) with these words: "Thou art the head of the court, thy ancestors were princes, thou art thyself an honorable man, and a kinsman of my dead husband. As for me, who am in the flower of my years, since I left the home ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... horror?" that lady indignantly enquired, "and to this raving old demon who has filled your dreadful little mind with her wickedness? Have you been a hideous little hypocrite all these years that I've slaved to make you love me ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James

... Perryville, Mrs. McMeens' husband lost his life from excessive exertions while in attention to the sick and wounded. Being deprived of her natural protector, she returned to her home in Sandusky, which was made desolate by an additional sacrifice to the demon of secession. While at home, not content to sit idle in her mourning for her husband, she was busily occupied in aiding the Sanitary Commission in obtaining supplies, of which she so well knew the ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... short—and then I laughed at myself and have cared nothing about the whole concern ever since. In truth...I do not think that I am in the proper sense of the word ambitious. I have an enormous longing after the highest and best in all shapes—a longing which haunts me and is the demon which ever impels me to work, and will let me have no rest unless I am doing his behests. The honours of men I value so far as they are evidences of power, but with the cynical mistrust of their judgment and my own worthiness, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley

... Open my eyes! Ever since I was born a demon held them closed. Let me see the skies of whose splendor they tell me. I am unhappy, Isis! He whom I love, he who loves me, I have not looked upon his countenance! I am ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux

... sluiced the windows without rest. Round turrets and gables the wind raved and moaned like a famished wild thing denied its kill. Occasionally a venturesome gust with the spirit of a minor demon would find its way down the chimney to the drawing-room fire and send sparks in volleys against the screen, with thin puffs of wood smoke that lingered in the air like ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... did. I had only to call to mind the vision of my dear little mistress as I saw her last, pale and scared in the squalid attic in the Quai Necker, with her bright eyes turned on mine, with her hand on my arm, and her voice, "Come back early, Barry," to make a demon of me, as with my cutlass in my teeth I sprang on to the enemy's rigging, and dashed for ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed

... lady-friend of mine, a miserable invalid, was so possessed with faith in this wooden demon that, after resisting repeated entreaties on her part to witness some of its performances, I at length, at her earnest request, saw her operate upon it. The writing was almost unintelligible, and undoubtedly produced ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... ponderous fist. As she saw he was about to make the rush, her first impulse was to open the door and run for safety, for well she knew, from a terrible experience, that when he was aroused he had the ferocity of a brute with the temper of a demon. But as she was about to do so she saw he did not heed the cradle which lay in his way. The danger of her child caused the mother to be heedless of her own, and, with the wild cry, "Look out for the babe, Tom!" she sprang forward ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter

... embrace that she nearly choked her. "I never thought of that possibility before. Yes—yes; he had money in his little purse. I have no doubt that, on missing me, he returned by the road we had travelled to his native place. That demon won't haunt my dreams again. But here comes the coffee, and Miss Turner's delicious cakes and home-made bread and butter. I hope you are fond of coffee, my dear? I detest tea;—it is a sort of nervous, maudlin, ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... wretches who were "after him," holding him responsible for the short-comings of all their debtors. The burdens he thus supposedly assumed won him a reputation as a kind-hearted soul, and such confidence was the wily old demon able to instill in his victims that when mortgages were foreclosed on homes or fields, many of the ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... weed, and wrapping the laconic note prettily round one of his scented matches, lighted it, and the note flamed pale in the daylight, and dropped still blazing, at the root of the old tree he stood by, and sent up a little curl of blue smoke—an incense to the demon of the wood—and turned in a minute more into a black film, overrun by a hundred creeping sparkles; and having completed his mysterious incremation, he, with his yellow eyes, made a stolen glance around, and lighting his cigar, glided gracefully up the steep road, under the solemn canopy of ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... came into the thing at all, and continued in their usual course; but these were the dregs, sure to be found everywhere, and the main body of the Hydriot potters kept their word so staunchly, that the demon of intoxication among them was slain by those Samson windows, as Harold had never slain it during ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge

... soft-spoken fellow, but a very demon in a fight, picked up his rifle and waved his hand to his wife and little girl and trotted in the opposite direction, calling back over ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter

... menacing in his rage. In the jumping light of the flames the face was that of a demon, a countenance twisted and tortured by the impotent lust ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine

... British officer, I am credibly informed, is a demon when roused, (putting his legs up on garden seat) I have never been roused. You don't like my ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero

... form—human;—was it human? It stood on the broad way and looked around, beheld me and approached. It came within a few yards of me, and at the sight and presence of it an indescribable awe and tremor seized me, rooting my feet to the ground. It reminded me of symbolical images of Genius or Demon that are seen on Etruscan vases or limned on the walls of Eastern sepulchres—images that borrow the outlines of man, and are yet of another race. It was tall, not gigantic, but tall as the tallest man below the ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... the men to lie flat upon the ground. At sunrise, the Turks, taking advantage of this situation, fell suddenly upon the army, which became demoralized and scattered, but the knight commander Priamo, a demon of war, insensible alike to either cold or fire, vigorous, aggressive and untiring, restrained the advance with a handful of his caballeros. Spaniards and Germans rallied. Pursued by the besiegers the Turks had to fall back to the very walls of Algiers, ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... sharp needles into every pore. That curst breath that withers flowers and burns them like fire; that pain at once physical and mental, which invades both soul and body, penetrates to the depths of thought, and paralyzes mind as well as blood! Cold—the sinister demon who grazes the universe with his damp wing, and breathes pestilence on bewildered nations! Cold, tarnishing everything, unrolling its gray and nebulous veil over the sky's rich tints, the waters' reflections, the hearts of flowers, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various

... are the streets of a city we pace while the carriage is changing, As is a chamber filled-in with harmonious, exquisite pictures, Even so beautiful Earth; and could we eliminate only This vile hungering impulse, this demon within us of craving, Life were beatitude, living a perfect ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various

... power—as beings "interested in human affairs and able to see and hear from the highest of the heavens what took place on earth." Mr. Colenso himself dwells upon the Maori faith in dreams, omens, and charms, and on the universal dread felt for kehuas or ghosts, and atuas or demon spirits. Moreover, the code of observances aforesaid was no mere secular law. It was the celebrated system of tapu (taboo), and was not only one of the most extraordinary and vigorous sets of ordinances ever devised by barbarous ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... He flings his withered hands on high With a bitter, breaking cry:— "Leave me, leave me, leave me, leave me, Ye three wild fiends! If I lay me down in slumber, Then I lay me down in wrath; If I stir not in dark dreaming, Then I wither in my path; If I hear sweet voices singing, 'Tis a demon's lullaby: And, in 'hideous storm and terror,' Wake but ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume II. • Walter de la Mare

... Head down, nose almost touching the ground, the mad animal plunged into it. Her rider barely had time to lie down in his saddle and cling to her neck. His thoughts were in a sort of mental whirlpool and he hardly realized what had happened, when, the next moment, the frenzied demon under him plunged out on to ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum

... amounted to much above one million of roubles. For money she procured impunity for crime, and brought upon innocence the punishment merited by guilt. The scaffolds of Russia were bleeding, and the roads to Siberia crowded with the victims of the avarice of this female demon, who often promised what she was unable to perform, and, to silence complaint, added cruelty to fraud, and, after pocketing the bribe, resorted to the executioner to remove those whom she had duped. The shocking ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... Siva, the demon god of the Hindus, and it is therefore appropriate that its swamps and jungles should abound with poisonous reptiles and insects. The largest of the several temples is 130 feet square and from 32 to 58 feet high, an ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... it was only curiosity that urged him on. Max hoped so from the bottom of his boyish heart. He did not have any desire to find a savage denizen of the wilds fastened on his back, clawing and tearing with the fury of a demon, while he himself would be almost helpless to ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie

... of you. She'll have her heels through before you know where you are. She's a demon to kick, ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair

... people came to make a closer acquaintance with the Desert, so dangerous to enter, so difficult, as Mahmood subsequently found, to cross, they discovered, that over and above the plain prosaic danger, this Waste of Sand laid, like a very demon, goblin snares for the unwary traveller's destruction, in the form of its Mirage. Ignorant of "optical phenomena," they gazed at this strange illusion, these phantom trees and water, these mocking semblances of cities that vanished as you reached them, with astonishment, and even awe. ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown

... trunk sufficed to prostrate with a shattered skull and neck the terrible "forest demon," as the negroes call the gorilla. The King, however, for greater certainty or through inborn fury, pinned the gorilla with his tusks to the ground and afterwards did not cease to wreak his vengeance upon it until Stas, disquieted by the roar and ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... from a tree self-corrupted, which only could produce such fruits: the demon hierarchy of the French philosophers, who had long denied the being of that pure and Almighty God, and who, in the arrogance of their own deified reason, and while in utter subjection to the wildest desires of their passions, published their profane and polluted creed amongst all orders of the ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... father turns up, of course, and the story ends with everybody happy, except the wicked bo'sun and his confederates, who have gone to Davy Jones' Locker on account of their devotion to the Demon Drink. ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... relief. The shaft had glanced off the armor of innocence without making the faintest dent. She rushed into the house. She did not dare trust herself with her cousin. What might the demon within her ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... of this military temple a statue of Mars sleeping had been placed, and from the pillars and roof were suspended the trophies of Denain, Fontenoy, and the campaign of Italy, which would still have decorated that edifice had not the demon of conquest possessed Bonaparte. Two Invalides, each said to be a hundred years old, stood beside the Minister of War; and the bust of the emancipator of America was placed under the trophy composed of the flags of Aboukir. In a word, recourse was had to every sort ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... very skilfully indeed if he escapes being called a coxcomb. If a man speaks of death—tells you that the idea of it continually haunts him, that he has the most insatiable curiosity as to death and dying, that his thought mines in churchyards like a "demon-mole"—no one is specially offended, and that this is a dull fellow is the hardest thing likely to be said of him. Only, the egotism that overcrows you is offensive, that exalts trifles and takes pleasure in them, ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith

... all comparison, the strangest looking place I ever beheld. As fast as half a dozen trees were cut down, a factory was raised up; stumps still contest the ground with pillars, and porticos are seen to struggle with rocks. It looks as if the demon of machinery, having invaded the peaceful realms of nature, had fixed on Lockport as the battle-ground on which they should strive for mastery. The fiend insists that the streams should go one way, though the gentle ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope

... private life, and gave the death-blow to fraternal strife, with the vigor of his earlier years, in a series of senatorial efforts which in themselves would bring immortality by challenging comparison with the efforts of any statesman in any age. He exorcised the demon which possessed the body politic, and gave peace to a distracted land. Alas! the achievement cost him his life. He sank day by day to the tomb his pale but noble brow bound with a triple wreath, put ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... zeal he dives into the bowels of the earth; he toils midst poisonous minerals, and deadly salts—the sublime discovery of gunpowder blazes upon the world; and finally, the dreadful art of fighting by proclamation seems to endow the demon of war with ubiquity ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... about foreigners distributing poisonous pills were gotten up, and such was the seriousness of the crisis that two German missionaries had to flee for their lives, one having his mission premises utterly destroyed. A people whose credulity is most amazingly developed by feeding on fairy tales and demon adventures from their childhood, are prepared to believe anything about the "ocean barbarians" whose name is never spoken without mingled fear ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg

... tortured soul in fierce revolt. She rolled in mad delirium through the streets, yelled the blasphemies in the shuddering ears of Ballybay, fought the police who came to arrest her, developed, in short, into a raging demon. Her face became bloated, her expression horrible to witness. One day, as she passed through the streets in one of these frenzies, she met Mat Blake. She shivered in every limb, and a pang, as ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various

... this conversation, and with night the storm which had been threatening for the last half-hour. The thunder growled in the distance; but it was apparently not heard by the jeweller, Caderousse, or La Carconte, absorbed as they were all three with the demon of gain. I myself felt; a strange kind of fascination at the sight of all this gold and all these bank-notes; it seemed to me that I was in a dream, and, as it always happens in a dream, I felt myself riveted to the spot. Caderousse counted and again ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... unholy delights of earth sacrifice to it, in return it scatters amongst its adorers all the ills and sorrows that flow from the curse of Eden, making a libation to the infernal gods of the honor, the fortune, and the lives of men. The ghoul or fiend of modern society is the demon ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly

... kill me," said he to himself. "Save me, Zeus; save me, Apollo; save me, Hermes; save me, O God of the Christians! I will leave Rome, I will return to Mesembria, but save me from the hands of that demon!" ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... of his peers as to whom he should appoint his viceroy in Britain. Cerberus, first of all, offers the service of Tobacco; then Mammon speaks in praise of Gold and Apolyon tells what Pride can do; Asmodai, the demon of Lust, Belphegor. the demon of Sloth, and Satan, devil of Delusion, each pleads for his own pet sin; and after Beelzebub has spoken in favour of Thoughtlessness, Lucifer sums up, weighs their arguments, and finally announces ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... a little Ford; and as we were invited to lunch in the citadel of Verdun we could not wait. I felt sure the demon Puck had managed to be late on purpose, so that my Verdun day might be spoiled by anxiety for Brian. Thus he would kill two birds with one stone: show how little I gained by the enemy's absence, and punish me for not letting ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... serene impressions—service in the venerable Cathedral; the fluting of an anthem by a boy with a birdlike voice; some strong words from the pulpit, not on the dry bones of doctrine, nor the doings of a barbarous people led by a vengeful demon of perplexing attributes whom they worshipped as a deity, but on the conduct of life—a vital subject. Then, as they drove through the beautiful old city, there came impressions of grey and green; grey gateways, ancient buildings, ivy, and old trees, and, over all, sounding slow, calm, ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... rest whirled Seward Blair himself. The laugh of the fiend, for the moment, was in his mouth. An instant he stood—the oracle of the Demon—devil-possessed. Around whirled the frantic ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... explained that she had never been under any vows. To hear of her doings among the Australian women was a romance, often as there had been disappointment. "Paula is a born Sister," said Angela, "a much truer one than I have ever been, for there does not seem to be any demon of ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... It is the demon of discord armed with the power to do endless mischief, and intent alone on destroying whatever ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... for among other things it contained bacon and sugar, dainties altogether delectable to a bear's palate. But as luck would have it, the bundle so bitterly hurled struck the beast full on the snout, making him grunt with pain and fresh fury. From that moment he was a veritable demon of vengeance. Well enough he knew it was not the bundle, but the man who had thrown it, upon whom he must wipe out the affront. His hunger was all forgotten in ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... has ever seen! It is true that he wrote a life of the great Soldier Emperor, but that was the one piece of hackwork of his career. How could a Tory patriot, whose whole training had been to look upon Napoleon as a malignant Demon, do justice to such a theme? But the Europe of those days was full of material which he of all men could have drawn with a sympathetic hand. What would we not give for a portrait of one of Murat's light-cavalrymen, or of a Grenadier ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle

... toilette through illclosed curtains with poor papa's operaglasses: The wanton ate grass wildly. She rolled downhill at Rialto bridge to tempt me with her flow of animal spirits. She climbed their crooked tree and I... A saint couldn't resist it. The demon possessed me. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... excels in making us sad. Did he not show to our father Anthony a black child of such surpassing beauty that the very sight of it drew tears? With God's help, our father Anthony avoided the snares of the demon. I knew him when he lived amongst us; he was cheerful with his disciples, and never gave way to melancholy. But did you not come, my brother, to talk to me of a design you had formed in your mind? Let me know what it is—if, at least, this design ...
— Thais • Anatole France

... want and woe Played with his children, and the joy of youth Left their sweet faces no more to return. His Mary's face grew pale and paler still, Her eyes were dimmed with weeping, and her soul Went out through those blue portals. Mary died, And yet he wept not. At the demon's call He drowned his sorrow in the maddening bowl, And when they buried her from sight, he sank In drunken stupor by her new-made grave! His friend was gone—he never had another, And the world shrank from him, all save one, And he still plied the bowl with deadly drugs And bade him ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard

... walking through the palace. It is, like all palaces, too fine and dreary to describe. Miles of drawing-rooms and boudoirs, with an infinity of tapestry and gilt chairs, all the apartments haunted by the demon of ennui. All idea of comfort is sacrificed to costly glitter and flimsy magnificence. Some fine paintings were pining in exile on the desolate walls. They looked homesick for the Museum, where they could be ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay

... above (A. 6), in the sinner, we are bound, out of charity, to love his nature, but to hate his sin. But the name of demon is given to designate a nature deformed by sin, wherefore demons should not be loved out of charity. Without however laying stress on the word, the question as to whether the spirits called demons ought to be loved out of charity, must be answered in accordance ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... shall ever know greater happiness than was mine in the weeks following Grace Draper's first visit to our Marvin home. Many times I looked back to that night when I had lain sobbing on my bed, fighting the demon of jealousy and gasped in amazement at ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison

... tempestuous night; the stars shut in With shrouds of fog; an inky, jet-black blot The firmament; and where the moon has been An hour agone seems like the darkest spot. The weird wind—furious at its demon game— Rattles one's fancy ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... fine-looking officer to Calhoun, who, well in front, was fighting like a demon. Even in that hell of battle Calhoun knew the officer. It was Mark Crawford, the captain whose horse he had captured in Tennessee, and whom he afterwards took prisoner at Cave City. But the captain was wearing the shoulder-straps of ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn

... to the Battlefield and Mount Harry, but to explore the lower portion of the town a return must be made to High Street. At the corner of Bull Lane, marked by a memorial tablet and with a queer carved demon upon its front is Tom Paine's house. Note the unusual milestone on a house front opposite Keere Street, down which turning is presently passed (on the left) Southover House (1572), a good example of Elizabethan architecture. ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes

... love with Sonetchka when I saw her at her sister's. My second passion for her had long since come to an end, but I became enamoured of her this third time through Lubotshka sending me a copy-book in which Sonetchka had copied some extracts from Lermontoff's The Demon, with certain of the more subtly amorous passages underlined in red ink and marked with pressed flowers. Remembering how Woloda had been wont to kiss his inamorata's purse last year, I essayed to do the same thing now; and really, when alone in my room in the evenings ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy

... on her way to Temple Street did she stop short, resolved to get the money of some other person—the grocer, Mr. Sneed, or even of a pawnbroker; but as often she rebuked the pride that tormented her like a demon, and went forward again. She stood some time at Mrs. Gordon's door before she had the resolution to ring ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic

... fling into the grate. But she daren't say a word to Miss Amory. No more dare none of us. When a visitor comes in, she smiles and languishes, you'd think that butter wouldn't melt in her mouth: and the minute he is gone, very likely, she flares up like a little demon, and says things fit to send you wild. If Mr. Arthur comes, it's 'Do let's sing that there delightful Song!' or, 'Come and write me them pooty verses in this halbum!' and very likely she's been a-rilin' her mother, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... impelled by a strong impulse, he took pains to ascertain what progress he made from year to year. But Hiram could not, with all his penetration, fathom a nature like that of Joel. It was always a puzzle to him. For it was not given to a man, who had all his life harbored the wicked Demon Absorption, to understand the excellency and happiness ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... and the more recent ones of Thomas Rawlinson,[35] Bridges,[36] and Collins,[37] yet he seemed resolved to brave and to baffle it; but, like his predecessors, he was suddenly crushed within the gripe of the demon, and fell one of the most splendid of his victims. Even the unrivalled medical skill of Mead[38] could save neither his friend nor himself. The Doctor survived his Lordship about twelve years; dying of the complaint called the BIBLIOMANIA! He left behind an illustrious ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... no name, then, that they never mentioned it, and that he spoke in a demon's voice? His doses I had proved, and was resolved to take no more of them, and I pushed away the phial, whose cold glass nose was thrust obtrusively against my own—pushed it away with all my strength, fast ebbing away as this was, even as I made ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield

... of rain, and heard, not far away, the measured beating of breakers as they charged at the foot of our cliff, when the wind, plucking the latch from my grasp, slammed the lattice and went yelling around the corner of the house like a jocular demon. I began to dress, thinking, as I had often thought before, that the place had a kind of fantastic kinship with the sea; every timber in it seemed to strain and creak to the repeated onsets of the storm, like those of any ship. The ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... themselves; advised them that they must prepare for the new responsibilities they coveted; and that they would better learn to command, by learning well how to serve. She closed her grand and inspiring address with this sentence: "Oh! of all the names given to us to warn off the demon and invoke the angel, let us ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... of intoxication brutally struck and injured his wife, while she was holding in her arms a babe not eight days old. Shall we say that that man was morally sick, that he could not help becoming intoxicated, and therefore was not responsible for the havoc he wrought when the demon of drink had gained possession of him? Shall we say of the syndicate of traders who hunt the natives on the Congo like rabbits, massacre and mutilate them, that they are sick? A bad deed done with intention ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler

... my child.... Yes ... just so. 'Express divination'.... No, no. Ah! here we are, 'Tacit divination, ... even if it is openly protested that no commerce with the Demon is intended, is per se grave sin; but it can sometimes be excused from mortal sin, on account of simplicity or ignorance or a lack of certain faith.' You see, my child—" he set the book back in its place "—so far as it's not fraud it's diabolical. ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson

... 15th of June (Oh! fatal night!)," Kelly relates, "the demon of discord appeared in all his terrors in this hitherto undisturbed region of harmony. The curtain fell before twelve o'clock, just as Deshayes and Parisot were dancing a popular pas de deux. This was the signal for the sports to begin: a universal ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)

... has never slumbered," replied La Tour, "and my hatred to you will mingle with the last throb of my existence. Like an evil demon, you have followed me through life; you blighted the hopes of my youth,—the interests and ambition of my manhood have been thwarted by your machinations, and I have now no reason to look for mercy at your hands; still I defy your malice, and I bid ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney

... Edward Confessor's staller, was cast upon the pavement of the Church by a demon's hand for his insolent pride in presence of the relics (of ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley

... go in, and the lad put on his turban of darkness and slipped in after her, but the Princess did not know that because he was invisible. She closed the door tight and sighed three times, and then a great black demon stood before her, and he was terrible to look upon, he was so huge ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle

... from the escort, and then the rush of galloping hoofs. Away they flew, the roadside poplars dancing past at either window, the horses thundering along with their stomachs to the earth, and that demon driver still waving those horrible red hands in the moonlight and screaming out to the maddened steeds. Sometimes the carriage jolted one way, sometimes another, swaying furiously, and running on two side wheels as though it must every instant ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the money, and that his two little children were absolutely suffering for want of clothing, and that morning he held a debate with the better part of himself, but the better part had become weak, and the demon of appetite carried ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... mills had been lately renewed or built. They were all gutted and demolished. Everything movable was swept away like bits of paper. Lanes, hundreds of yards in length, were cleared among the palm-trees by the whirling wind, which seemed to perform a demon-dance of revelry among them. In some cases it snapped trees off close to the ground. In others it seemed to swoop down from above, lick up a patch of trees bodily and carry them clean away, leaving the surrounding ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne

... passed through the window, so quick were their movements, that Pomponio became aware he was discovered. Looking up, he dropped the file, snatched up the lantern and hurled it against the wall, shivering it into pieces. Just as the light went out the men seized him. Pomponio fought like a demon, and was fast getting loose from their clutches, when Juan shouted to the men outside to come to their aid; but too late. As they clambered through the window, and sought to lay hold of him, which was not the work of a moment in the darkness, the neophyte broke from his ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter

... The word Juruparis means 'demon,' and it is supposed that its mysteries date back to some pre-historic Indian tradition, as various tribes inhabiting the vast forests round the Amazon district practise weird ceremonies in honour ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... as a barrister, and attended Blackstone's lectures, with the result that he was deeply impressed by the fallacies of the legal theories there expounded, and soon afterward vowed eternal war against the Demon of Chicane. He struggled against narrow means and obscurity until he made the acquaintance of Lord Shelburne, through whom he became acquainted with other leading statesmen, and with Miss Caroline Fox, to whom he made a futile proposal of marriage some years later. At Bowood ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... spinning, like the industrious wife described in the Proverbs. The evil passions of Sextus were aroused by the beauty of his cousin's wife, and he soon found an excuse to return to the home of Collatinus. He was hospitably entertained by Lucretia, who did not suspect the demon that he was, and one night he entered her apartment and with vile threats overcame her. In her terrible distress, Lucretia sent immediately for her father, Lucretius, and her husband, Collatinus. They came, each bringing a friend, Brutus being the companion of the outraged ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman

... examined it critically. The incandescent end of the bar radiated a blinding white light when it was gently withdrawn, and illuminated the man's head, making his beardless face look, against its dark background, like the smudged countenance of some cynical demon glowing with a fire from within. The end of the bar which he held must have been very hot to an ordinary mortal, as everyone in the shop knew, all of them, at their initiation to the country club, having been handed a black piece of iron from Sandy's hand, which he held unflinchingly, ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr

... demon, the devil, the devourer and destroyer, that you are so fond of talking about: what, in such a position, do you do with that element of my nature? Ou le fourrez-vous?" she cried as with ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... unfitted him for his duties. If he could not take care of his own affairs, much less could he manage the affairs of another. He had become a confirmed sot, had sacrificed everything, and given himself up to the demon of the cup. He became a ragged, filthy drunkard; and as such, friends who had formerly honored him refused to recognize him, or to permit him to enter their counting-rooms. Just before the opening of our story, he had been arrested ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic

... one place the member of the family supposed to be the priest of the god was noted for cannibalism. At times he would cry out furiously and order those about him to be off and get him some of his "sacred food." He professed to be doctor as well as demon. A great chief when ill was once taken to him, and the doctor's bill for a cure was the erection of a mound of stones, on the top of which a house was to be built. The bill was paid by the retinue ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner

... convocation. Before him sunk scholiast and schools. In his presence the doctors all must stand uncapped: the seraphic, the subtle, and the singular; the illuminated, the angelic, and the irrefragable to him, were tyros all. Our censor in private, and in public our familiar: like a malignant demon, no respect, no place, no human barriers could exclude him. On no side could the offended eye turn, and not find him there. Disgraced by his company, counteracted by his arrogance, insulted by his sarcasms; obliged to accept the first of favours, life, at his hands; his apparent ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... and contented himself with baptising the children and very old people who took no more wives. Except on this one point, however, they got on excellently together. Indeed, never since Chaka broke upon them like a destroying demon had these poor folk been so happy. The missionary imported ploughs and taught them to improve their agriculture, so that ere long this rich, virgin soil brought forth abundantly. Their few cattle multiplied also in an amazing fashion, as ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard

... did realise it all the demon took possession of his heart. He seized Julian by the collar, wrenched the whip out of his hand, and raised the silver knob at the end of the handle. What fearful hurt Julian might have received from so heavy a weapon in so powerful a ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... he told them of his ancient victories over man; how he chafed at the gathering invasions of his realm; and how joyously he gloated of some great convulsion* in the northern States, which, rapt into moody reveries in those solitary woods, the fierce demon broodingly foresaw. All these fain would I narrate, but they are not of the Rhine, and my story will not brook the delay. While thus conversing with the fiend, noon had crept on, and the sky had become ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... enemies, nor was he guilty of any sacrilege with regard to any of their temples; but it was on this account, that he swore certain new oaths [26] and that he affirmed either in earnest, or, as some say, only in jest, that a certain demon used to make signs to him [what he should not do]. For these reasons he was condemned to drink poison, and kill himself. His accuser also complained that he corrupted the young men, by inducing them to despise the political settlement and laws of their city: ...
— Against Apion • Flavius Josephus

... ken The knowledge that should not be there; Who charms Mr. Stead with the pen, Of the Prince of the Powers of the Air; Who makes Physiologists stare - Is he ghost, is he demon, or elf, Who fashions the dream of the fair? It is just ...
— New Collected Rhymes • Andrew Lang

... view of "Nature" has been akin to that which long reigned with reference to disease. This used to be considered as a distinct entity apart from the processes of life, of which it is one of the manifestations. It was a kind of demon to be attacked with things of odious taste and smell; to be fumigated out of the system as the evil spirit was driven from the bridal-chamber in the story of Tobit. The Doctor of earlier days, even as I can remember him, used to exorcise ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... blue, or something of the sort. He can row and run and fight and play football, and all that kind of thing. Very quiet-spoken sort of chap—rather pretends to be a simple sort of Johnny, don't you know, but he's a regular demon, I believe. Got into a row at a music-hall one night, and threw the chucker-out in among a lot of valuable pot plants, and irretrievably ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson

... looked at Ganelon darkly. "Thou art a very demon," he said. "What rage possesseth thee? And if I give command of the rear to Roland, who, then, shall lead ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... lover; he was my sternest mentor. He came to the house during your absence; not for the pleasure of seeing me, for he took no pleasure in my society; he came to arrange with me the programme of my departure; an angel of purity or a demon of malice might have been present at our interviews, and seen nothing to grieve the first ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... away from them (occupied, as she so often was when there were no persons present in the formal status of guests, in making minute readjustments of pillows and things as a sort of standing protest against the demon of disorder), and having noted this fact ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster

... glass. Yes, something portentous had indeed happened! Instead of the whole dark flight of thousands of airships for which the soldiers had been looking, there came, athwart the sky, like a great black bird, a single Demon. ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... which has had great effect on modern history. The Aquitanian House was as little distinguished for the practice of the moral virtues as were the lines of Anjou and Normandy. One of the Countesses of Anjou was reported to be a demon, which probably meant only that her husband had caught a Tartar in marrying her; but the story was enough to satisfy the credulous people of those times, who, very naturally, considering their conduct, believed that the Devil was constant in his attention to their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... long way. My father was given to greed. He sold himself and my sister's happiness and mine for money. You think your father is a slave, Dennie, because he has a craving for whisky. Less than half a dozen times a year the demon inside ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter

... to come with us, Blythey," Roy said. His voice was friendly, kindly, albeit he was himself disturbed and fearful. For neither of the boys knew what this pathetic, demon-haunted creature ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... transmission. There is not a policeman in sight. Theoretically, the motor-'bus is free to whiz onward in its flight to the paradise of Shoreditch, but in practice it is paralysed by dread. A man in brass buttons and a stylish cap leaps down from it, and the blackened demon who sits on its neck also leaps down from it, and they move gingerly towards the puppy. A little while ago the motor-bus might have overturned a human cyclist or so, and proceeded nonchalant on its way. But now even a puppy requires a post-mortem: such is ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett

... through the window of her room over the houses of Frankfort. At last her sleepy eyes opened wide; an infernal beauty irradiated her face. For one moment, she stood—a demon in human form. The next, she suddenly changed into a timid woman, shaken in every limb by the cold ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins

... his own? He braced himself as firmly as he could, placing his feet apart, and digging his nails into the inequalities of the rock until the blood gushed from them. The water surged up upon him, and he felt it tugging like some murderous demon at his legs, but he held on bravely until the pressure decreased. Looking below the saw the wave sinking down the face of the cliff. Another wave overtook it and welled it up again, and then from the depths of the green waters Ezra saw a long white arm shoot up, and grasp ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... speech at all; up rose the demon, pride, in her soul, instigating her to a sharp retort, and vindictive anger; but she thought of Bethlehem, and ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey

... I believe that our hopes would have been justified by the result, had some demon of mischief not put it into the head of Taylor—who had the management of the case—that it would be a good thing to get Miss ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell

... lawsuits, which he muddled with all the skill of a rascally attorney. Experienced in bankruptcy, he undertook the management of failures, contriving to make dishonesty appear in the light of unfortunate virtue. When this demon was not occupied with poison, his hands were busy with every social iniquity; he could only live and breathe ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... newsvendors and bonnetless girls for the 'bus that will not come! Is it real? It seems like a dream, those nightmare dreams in which you know that you must run, and do run, and yet cannot lift the legs that are heavy as lead, with the demon behind pursuing, the demon of Drive-on. Move, or cease to be—pass out of Time or be stirring quickly; if you stand you must suffer even here on the pavement, splashed with greasy mud, shoved by coarse ruffianism, however ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies

... Anna, why redden? I would not, fair maiden, My tongue could pronounce what might tend to betray; The traitor, the demon, That could deceive woman, His soul's all unfit for the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... must have noticed the demon of agility that seems to enter into an inanimate object when it is dropped, and the apparently intelligent malice with which it discovers, and rolls into, the most inaccessible places. Here was a case ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman

... made that of Suzanne almost a forgotten affair, Mademoiselle was not less agitated; she was filled with a variety of novel emotions. Looking about her salon, dining-room, and boudoir, cruel apprehensions took possession of her. A species of demon showed her with a sneer her old-fashioned luxury. The handsome things she had admired from her youth up she suddenly suspected of age and absurdity. In short, she felt that fear which takes possession of nearly all authors when they read over a work they have hitherto thought proof ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac

... individual worshipped, where would be the worship of the crowd? Still less could a vague creator of masses, that knew nothing of individuals, being himself not individual, be worthy to be called God! Demon be might be—never God! But if God were a person, an individual, and so loved the individual!—ah, then indeed!—Barbara believed that such a God lived all about and in us! Mr. Wingfold said he was too great to prove, too near ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald

... sake of peace and quiet Denis had retired earlier on this same afternoon to his bedroom. He wanted to work, but the hour was a drowsy one, and lunch, so recently eaten, weighed heavily on body and mind. The meridian demon was upon him; he was possessed by that bored and hopeless post-prandial melancholy which the coenobites of old knew and feared under the name of "accidie." He felt, like Ernest Dowson, "a little weary." He was in the mood to write something rather exquisite and gentle and quietist in tone; ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley

... hunt up some explanation of its unexpected appearance. Their ideas on the subject are interesting, if idiotic. One of our Arabs (we are excavating in the Fayum, you know), solemnly assured me yesterday that the hot wind had been caused by an Efreet, a sort of Arabian Nights' demon, who has arrived ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer

... part man, part demon, part brute, each being drawn somewhat out of itself by combination with the others, and the union of all preventing him from being either; for which cause language has no generic term that fits him. Yet this strange, uncouth, but life-like confusion ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... to reply to Sancho Panza, but he was prevented by a cart crossing the road full of the most diverse and strange personages and figures that could be imagined. He who led the mules and acted as carter was a hideous demon; the cart was open to the sky, without a tilt or cane roof, and the first figure that presented itself to Don Quixote's eyes was that of Death itself with a human face; next to it was an angel with large painted wings, and at one side an emperor, with a crown, to ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra



Words linked to "Demon" :   succubus, succuba, dybbuk, incubus, dibbuk, doer, actor, evil spirit, worker, unpleasant person, disagreeable person



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