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More "Idiotic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thrust out of proportion, magnified beyond nature. Sam Weller never speaks without his anecdote, Uriah is always "'umble," Barkis is always "willin'," Mark Tapley is always "jolly," Dombey is always solemn, and Toots is invariably idiotic. It is no doubt natural that Barnaby's Raven should always want tea, whatever happens, for the poor bird has but a limited vocabulary. But one does not see why articulate and sane persons like Captain Cuttle, Pecksniff, and Micawber ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... a tremor. Hitherto he had acted the role of a sane and sensible gentleman of middle age, master of himself and of the situation. The entrance of K. D. B. had evidently reduced him to a semi-idiotic condition. He enlarged himself; he eased his neck in his collar with a rotary movement of head and shoulders. He frowned terribly at trifling objects in corners of the room. He cleared his throat till the glassware jingled. He pulled at his mustache. ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... waiting for the arrival of the elephants, with their yellow flags floating from the howdahs, announcing, as did the flags of Lord Macartney's Mission to Peking, "Tribute from the English to the Emperor of China," and I suppose that there are governments idiotic enough to thus pander to Chinese arrogance. No doubt what has given rise to the report is the knowledge that the Government of India is bound, under the Convention of 1886, to send, every ten years, a complimentary ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... at this from a newspaper standpoint, you know. You must remember it is not you who will decide the matter, but a jury of your very stupid fellow-countrymen. Now, you can never tell what a jury will do, except that it will do something idiotic. Therefore, it seems to me that the very first step to be taken is to find out who the guilty party is. Don't you see the ...
— From Whose Bourne • Robert Barr
... Appointed to ascertain the number of the deaf and dumb, blind, idiotic and insane within ...
— Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population • George B. Louis Arner
... designed to stimulate the thirst for more symmetrical features. Denton caught the reflection of himself and his new friend, enormously twisted and broadened. His own face was puffed, one-sided, and blood-stained; a grin of idiotic and insincere amiability distorted its latitude. A wisp of hair occluded one eye. The trick of the mirror presented the swart man as a gross expansion of lip and nostril. They were linked by shaking hands. Then abruptly ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... guess the impression made on Meir by Schmul's humble and at the same time grave, warning. He continually kept his hand on little Lejbele's head, and looked into the beautiful fine-featured face of the pale, sick, idiotic and trembling child, where he saw the personification of that portion of Israel, which, devoured by misery and disease, nevertheless believed blindly and worshipped humbly, ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... pardon—I cannot imagine what I was thinking of," he said, making the most idiotic excuse current in ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... anxiety. All the time that the army was operating on the Atbara it drew its supplies from the fort at the confluence. Between this and the camp, convoys, protected only by a handful of Camel Corps, passed once in every four days. Only the idiotic apathy of the Dervishes allowed the communications to remain uninterrupted. Mahmud was strong in cavalry. It will be evident to anyone who looks at the map how easily a force might have moved along the left bank ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... I'd left you for someone else I should have been afraid to tell you? That I should have written an idiotic note like that? . . . How dared you wire to Penelope? It was abominable ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... agree with me, I'm sure, Mr Lorton,"—she repeated again, after a pause, as I was so bewildered by her flank attack that I could not get out a word at first. I declare to you, I only sat looking at her in hopeless dismay, powerless—idiotic, in fact! ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... soon as I can go," Cherry added, feverishly, "I shall join Martin. I suppose Alix would think it was perfectly idiotic for me to go now, just when the whole thing can be closed up so quickly, and Martin, too—" her voice trailed away vaguely. She fell silent, her eyes absent and full of pain. Suddenly they widened, as if some pang had suddenly shaken her into consciousness again. "Well, ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... old novels, who, according to the authors, were prepared to trample down all good manners in the pursuit of utilitarian knowledge. The fact is, I begin to think that you have so muddled your head with mathematics, and with grubbing into those idiotic old books about political economy (he he!), that you scarcely know how to behave. Really, it is about time for you to take to some open-air work, so that you may clear away the ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... so idiotic. She detests him because he's just got a divorce. Of course she's had more expedience than I ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... must acknowledge the responsibility that rest upon them, and meet it with that true courage which directs them aright. The lack of knowledge does not imply lack of ability to think and to reason. All men, unless of idiotic, impaired, or diseased minds, are possessed of the faculty of reason, and should use it for the purpose for which it was given— to supply needed helps to our temporal existence. From thought comes ability, and from ability system, courage, attention, ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... her not being so idiotic as to hate Boilers,' he returns with angry emphasis; 'though I cannot answer for her views about Things; really not understanding what ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... upon people at this time there are various contemporary accounts. To Thelwall, in November, 1796, he sent the following description of himself: "... my face, unless when animated by immediate eloquence, expresses great sloth, and great, indeed almost idiotic good-nature. 'Tis a mere carcass of a face; fat, flabby, and expressive chiefly of inexpression. Yet I am told that my eyes, eyebrows, and forehead are physiognomically good; but of this the deponent knoweth not. As to my shape, 'tis a good shape enough ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... to meet him and slid to a halt with his saucer feet scattering gravel and the idiotic grin on his face. "I mair your retter and you owe me ...
— —And Devious the Line of Duty • Tom Godwin
... stopped in his progress toward the stairs, and now stared round-eyed at the music-room doorway, his absurd little nostrils sniffing the air. Then, deliberately, Simon Cameron walked to the doorway and sat down there, his huge furry tail curled around round him, staring with idiotic intentness at ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... wretched Nupton who must have made—must be going to make—some idiotic mistake.... Look here, Soames! you know me better than to suppose that I.... After all, the name "Max Beerbohm" is not at all an uncommon one, and there must be several Enoch Soameses running around—or rather, "Enoch Soames" is a name ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... before dark, and darkness will be upon us in a couple of hours. I can continue my soliloquising as I canter through the bush; there will be no one to disturb me or ridicule me, unless, indeed, the bird named the laughing jackass should make the woods echo with his idiotic chuckle, or the parrots should scream their ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... of the head—a distinct idea of a personality. The bird's proceedings suggested extreme sentimentality combined with that sort of weak determination which is often the most persistent. Such weak determination is a very common attribute of persons who are partially idiotic. Father Murchison was moved to think of these poor creatures who will often, so strangely and unreasonably, attach themselves with persistence to those who love them least. Like many priests, he had had some experience of them, for the amorous idiot is peculiarly sensitive to the attraction of preachers. ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... soul; to churn up from the typewriter some lyric that will rock with blue seas and frantic hearts; he finds himself allaying the frenzy with some jovial sneer at Henry Ford or a yell about the High Cost of Living. Poor soul, he is like one condemned to harangue the vast, idiotic world through a keyhole, whence his anguish issues thin and faint. Yet who will say that all his labour is wholly vain? Perhaps some day the government will crown a Colyumist Laureate, some majestic sage with ancient patient blue eyes and a snowy beard nobly stained ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... count of yours!" said the princess malevolently. "He is a hypocrite, a rascal who has himself roused the people to riot. Didn't he write in those idiotic broadsheets that anyone, 'whoever it might be, should be dragged to the lockup by his hair'? (How silly!) 'And honor and glory to whoever captures him,' he says. This is what his cajolery has brought us to! Barbara Ivanovna told me the mob near killed her because ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... ascertain the direction in which she was bound. She had taken her ticket. That might be safely inferred, for she was in the waiting-room with her porter and her bags, ready to pass out upon the platform as soon as the doors were opened. (Everyone knows that the idiotic and uncomfortable practice still prevails in Switzerland of shutting passengers off from the train ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... within themselves. The offspring of drunkards are not only weakly and sickly, and die early, especially of diseases of the brain, but, as Dahl, Morel, Howe, Beach, and others have shown, they are frequently born idiotic, or show early signs of insanity. Under the influence of alcohol, the individual constitution of the drinker becomes lowered and depraved, and, according to the law of inheritance, is transmitted through ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various
... handed round amidst reverent "ahs" and "ohs," or what sounded like them. This letter was also passed round and examined lengthwise, sidewise, and upside down. They shrieked with satirical laughter when I pressed some fragile ferns in my blotting-book. The natives think it quite idiotic in us to attach any value to withered leaves. My inkstand with its double-spring lids has been a great amusement. Each one opened both, and shut them again, and a chorus of "maikai, maikai," (good) ran round the circle. They seem so simple and good that at last I have trusted ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... you," shouted Nolan furiously. "Well, Eve, it is a good thing you have one friend to give you really decent advice. Of all idiotic ideas. Buy fine clothes and marry a millionaire. Save it to pay for potatoes when you get a husband that can't support you. Travel to Europe and marry some ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... owed much of his celebrity to being so; he might have felt that he was rather at the top of fashion than of fame. Fashion soon changes, thought I eagerly to myself; a time will come, and that speedily, when he will be no longer in the fashion; when this idiotic admirer of his, who is still grinning at my side, shall have ceased to mould his style on Byron's; and this aristocracy, squirearchy, and what not, who now send their empty carriages to pay respect to the fashionable corpse, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... the bridge, and nothing was left but a few ties, the rails and the stringers. A half witted boy, who lived in Dunraven, had been fishing that day like "Simple Simon," and came tramping up to the office, telling Miss Marsh, in an idiotic way, that Peach Creek bridge had washed out. Just then she heard me "OS" the flyer and her office was the next one to mine. As the flyer did not stop at Dunraven, the baggageman and helper went home at six o'clock and she was absolutely alone save ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... tender opal tints which presage a fair noontide. Before six o'clock the children had all besieged Bessie's door, with noisy tappings and louder congratulations. At seven, they were all seated at breakfast, the table strewn with birthday gifts, mostly of that useless and semi-idiotic character peculiar to such tributes-ormolu inkstands, holding a thimbleful of ink—penholders warranted to break before they have been used three times—purses with impossible ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... pig- stye yielded a profit, so did a cow, and there were a few pounds reaped annually from a row of beehives, for the deceased Marriner, though not very enlightened generally, had learned, and taught his son the "depriving" system, and repudiated the idiotic old plan of stifling the stock to get the honey. All these methods of making both ends meet at the end of the year were not only innocent but praiseworthy; but the Marriners had the reputation of making less honourable profits, and that was why Lord Woodruff was so anxious to get rid of them. The ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... left me to automatically, mechanically, go through with the necessities of life. I have not become idiotic. I live in a tremendous and profound solitude, such a solitude as would frighten many people greatly. But my beautiful pastime had accustomed me to solitude and also to something of this nothingness—a brief nothingness was a necessary part of the beautiful pastime: so I have no fears ...
— The Prodigal Returns • Lilian Staveley
... vex him. And he asks such odd questions, which I don't see the meaning of at first, like traps. He often tells me he never asks any questions, but he does, indirect ones, all the time. I'm getting afraid of being alone with him. Sometimes I think if I stay much longer at Barford I'm so idiotic he'll get it out of me. Has he asked you any ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... laugh in the fur cloak he had picked up. He had known that it would end in some such way. Of course; it had been idiotic to expect anything else. He listened smilingly for what ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... Manet they admire? No, Bouguereau and Lefevre. What was most admired at the International Exhibition?—The Dirty Boy. And if the medal of honour had been decided by a plebiscite, the dirty boy would have had an overwhelming majority. What is the literature of the people? The idiotic stories of the Petit Journal. Don't talk of Shakespeare, Moliere, and the masters; they are accepted on the authority of the centuries. If the people could understand Hamlet, the people would not read the ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... to entertain the high-born Lady Ygerne Bellaire at dinner," he said in mock deference. "Her request is my command. Shall I voice my second idiotic thought?" ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... of the narrative is simply splendid in absurdity. Hesitating references to refrangibility and the angle of incidence would have been sheerly idiotic under the supposed circumstances; and in the Newtonian reflector (which has only two specula or mirrors) there is no refrangibility to be corrected; apart from which, 'correcting refrangibility' has no more meaning than 'restoring the ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... time towards me, and then indicated himself, requesting in this idiotic jargon to ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... beastly prig) at the psychological moment of their first serious quarrel, instead of threatening and laughing like a drunken man and reeling back into the room, had reeled forward and gone into the matter quietly, the entirely virtuous, if idiotic, Rafella would not have flown into the practised arms of that unscrupulous barrister, Kennard, who, as everybody knew, had left a mournful trail of dishonoured wives all over India, his legal knowledge presumably saving him at once from the inconvenience ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various
... Idiotic! But there was the old expression on her face, limpid, dovelike. And that something of the divine about her dancing smote Fiorsen through all the sheer imbecility of her posturings. Across and across she flitted, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... along with them!' she cried. 'He does not take his servants when he goes a-hunting: a child could read the truth. No, no; the plan is idiotic; it must be Ratafia's. But hear me. You know the Prince ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... shoulder. "No one doubts that, my boy. You're true gold. But it's sheer foolishness to go on in the same old way that's proved a failure a hundred times. In heaven's name, now that we've hauled her out of that infernal groove, don't let idiotic sentimentality spoil everything! Don't shy at the consequences! ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... "don't muddle my brains any more with your idiotic reasonings! Take him along, and give me ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... behaved itself quite normally and he showed no disposition to leave his chair. He was chiefly concerned with wondering whether she had recognized him, whether she even remembered him at all, and, if she did, what she thought of him for the idiotic way in which he had acted. Oh, he had been sincere enough at the moment, but, looked at calmly with the austere eyes of twenty-eight, his behavior on that occasion had been something—well, fierce! He groaned at the thought of ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... bit more manly than the cigaret or cigar. Some slang phrases, like "you're not in it" or "you're off your trolley" and others, may do in familiar conversation with friends, but "bunches of cold" or "cuts no ice" etc., are simply idiotic. When you write return me again the postal card that I may see what words I misspelled. It still keeps very mild here, but is snowing this morning. Nip and I have had some fine skating —like a mirror for over a mile here in front: but the ice is getting thin. I do not know when I will ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... parlour, Gowing was retailing his idiotic joke about the odd sock, and Carrie was roaring with laughter. I suppose I am losing my sense of humour. I spoke my mind pretty freely about Padge. Gowing said he had met him only once before that ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... excepting barnyard fowls, the horse is the most idiotic of all animals, and, pound for pound, even the miserable hen is his intellectual superior. Indeed, if horses had brains no better than those of hens, but proportionately larger, they would not be drawing wagons, and carrying men upon their backs, but would be lecturing to women's clubs, and ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... are you going to stand there asking idiotic questions?" broke in Mrs. Forest with a furious glance at her son. "Can't you see, I'm ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... three days longer. What is the use of making a fuss? It is idiotic of Pixie not to tell what she was doing in Mademoiselle's room, and I can't go about lecturing the whole school because she chooses to be obstinate! I am going to invite her to stay with me in the holidays, and will give her a good time to make up for all this. What's the good of worrying? ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Hendricks' eyes were starting out of his head, and I have no doubt I looked as idiotic ...
— The God in the Box • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... that an idiotic ambition had alone impelled Camille to leave Vernon. He wished to find a post in some important administration. He blushed with delight when he fancied he saw himself in the middle of a large office, with lustring elbow sleeves, and ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... be among those to remain. The excitement was too much for his nerves. As his name was pronounced, he sank down on the deck without uttering a word. Captain Power kindly raised him up. An almost idiotic expression had come over the young officer's countenance, and he scarcely seemed aware of what ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... simply this," observed Tish: "We have surrounded ourselves with a thousand and one things we do not need and would be better without—houses, foolish clothing, electric light, idiotic servants—Hannah, get away from that door!—rich foods, furniture and crowds of people. We've developed and cared for our bodies instead of our souls. What we want is to get out into the woods and think; to forget those pampered bodies of ours and to let ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... on," he ordered. "I don't want you catching cold from idiotic carelessness, and I won't have you going sick on my hands. For the first and last time I'll admit that I don't enjoy driving you like a cursed galley-slave. But I'll do it, and do a thorough job of it, if you force ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... was one of the nicest of the many Australian horses I rode, during my sojourns in India, between the years 1885 and 1891. He was thoroughbred and was the winner of several races on the flat and across country. In those days, the idiotic custom of docking horses had not ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... should be allowed to pass without conception taking place. A child begotten in an intoxicated or depraved condition of a parent may be depraved itself in the same way, and is apt to be feeble-minded or idiotic. ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith
... country to persons who propose to become citizens of this country, and we can well afford to insist upon adequate scrutiny of the character of those who are thus proposed for future citizenship. There should be an increase in the stringency of the laws to keep out insane, idiotic, epileptic, and pauper immigrants. But this is by no means enough. Not merely the Anarchist, but every man of Anarchistic tendencies, all violent and disorderly people, all people of bad character, the incompetent, the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... alibi. Very well. Are we now to leap to the other end of the scale, and to credit him with such utter stupidity as to place hanging evidence where it could not fail to be discovered by the most idiotic policeman? Preserve your balance, Knox. Theories are wild horses. They run away with us. I know that of old, for which very reason I always avoid speculation until I have a solid foundation of fact upon ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... on at all at present I'm only talking. Come into my house instantly, and we'll drink vermouth. Vermouth always makes me brilliant unless it makes me idiotic, but we'll ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... was her thought. Had we not shared it for forty years? And the moment of its consummation had come at last. So I, too, affected not to recognize my enemy, and, putting on an idiotic senility, I, too, crawled in the dust toward the litter whining for ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... that for the free exercise of her great talent she is driven to such as this! For song must have audience, however unfit! There was Orpheus with his! Genius was always eccentric! If he could but be her protection against that political father, that Puritan mother, and that idiotic brother of hers, and put an end to this sort of thing before it came to be ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... in Freeland. With us no separate interest is antagonistic to or not in perfect harmony with the common interest. Producers, for example, who in Freeland conceive the idea of increasing their gains by laying an impost upon imports, must be idiotic. For, to compel the consumers to pay more for their manufactures would not help them, since the influx of labour would at once bring down their gains again to the average level. On the other hand, to make it more difficult for other ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... care who she is—would accept you if you asked her to marry you!" she said hotly. "It would be perfectly idiotic to refuse such a rich man, even if he were Methusaleh himself. There's nothing wrong or dishonest in taking the chance of having plenty of money, if ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... as they sat brooding together, in deep silence, by the light of a feeble candle. The mother rocked a while in her easy-chair. The daughter, hands clasped in her lap, sat watching the candlelight in almost idiotic vacancy of gaze. At length she stood up and spoke—slowly, deliberately, and apparently in as calm a mood as she had ever ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... With no consideration for the manner in which Edwin had been shut away from the better class of society and the proper helps that are usually thrown about the young, they at once gave him a low and degraded place in their estimation and pronounced him dull, stupid, and idiotic. All commands were given in a harsh tone and in such a manner that ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... with Conway, the young student who presided over the outer office, Kendrick was conscious that the office boy and the stenographers behind him were enjoying the mild sensation which his black eye inspired. Even Conway was grinning like an idiotic cat from Cheshire. The two had known each other, somewhat casually, at ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... note. Three, however, remained to keep a watch on myself, and one of these, I regretted to observe, was the jovially-inclined Dietrich. It can be imagined that our irritation with Mr. P. was great for having so foolishly mentioned names and places, and still more with the idiotic bird, the real origin of a very unpleasant two days. I reflected that, if these were the tricks carrier-pigeons were wont to play, I greatly preferred the old nigger ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... no such thing. Yesterday I told a lady that I was enraged that a servant should presume to have a heart, and the woman took it seriously and began to argue with me. To think of living in a town where one person could be so idiotic! Such a town ought to be ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... course of his inquiries. "I'm afraid he won't be particularly impressed by the politeness of a London crowd," he thought; "but at least they'll convince him that I am not exactly a prominent citizen. Then he'll give up this idiotic match of his—I don't know, though. He's such a pig-headed old fool that he may stick to it all the same. I may find myself encumbered with a Jinneeyeh bride several centuries my senior before I know where I am. No, I forget; there's the jealous Jarjarees ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... from earth to provide them with a weapon to destroy earth; kidnapping Sheilah to seduce him; the idea of even expecting him to be able to produce such a weapon—it was all idiotic. ...
— High Dragon Bump • Don Thompson
... (Piteously.) Oh, don't make fun of me! Pip, you know what I mean. When you are reading one of those things about Cavalry, by that idiotic Prince—why doesn't he be a Prince ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... flushing hotly. Of all the absolutely idiotic things in the world, this standing hand in hand with Harry Underwood, in a formal pact of friendship or forgiveness or whatever he imagined the hand-clasp signified, was the most ridiculous. He was quick enough to fathom my distaste, ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... look of idiotic complacency in a Turkish bath," said the other, "it is the more noticeable from the fact that you are wearing ...
— When William Came • Saki
... apparently all at ease. Nina was stammering and blushing a trifle more than usual, but Royal's presence would account for that. Ward burst into a stream of idiotic conversation; Harriet found herself sauntering ahead of the young Carters, discussing ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... story as in actual life. Such dramatic propriety, however, was by no means [27] in Merimee's way. "What I must have is the hand that fired the shot," she had sung, "the eye that guided it; aye! and the mind moreover—the mind, which had conceived the deed!" And now, it is in idiotic terror, a fugitive from Orso's vengeance, that the last ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... story related to me by the idiotic Edward Hines simply resolved itself into an idle adventure on the part of the mysterious woman, which she had been forced to terminate (somewhat ferociously, I admit) by the uncouth ardor of this rustic swain I seemed ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... he could not even acquire the power of speech. For him there was neither clouds nor sunshine, day nor night, summer nor winter. He had no employment, no amusement, no food for thought, absolutely nothing to mark the passage of the weary hours. The mind became paralyzed and almost idiotic by such enormous woe. Such was his doom for twenty-four years. He was born in 1740, and assassinated under the reign of Catharine II., in 1764. The father of Ivan remained in prison eleven years longer ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... some recollection of marching to and fro among the side-alleys of the Bois de Boulogne, which at that time was really a woody park, and not a pleasure-garden—of lying under a tree, and listening to the birds overhead, and indulging myself in some idiotic romance about love, and solitude, and Madame de Marignan—of wandering into a restaurant somewhere about seven o'clock, and sitting down to a dinner for which I had no appetite—of going back, sometime during the evening, to the Rue Castellane, and walking to and fro ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... replied Miss Ramsbotham's bosom friend, sipping tea and breathing indignation. "To something idiotic and incongruous that will make her life a ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... the parchment skin of extreme old age. She carried a wooden figurehead under her bowsprit, the face and bust of a woman on whom an ancient woodcarver had bestowed his notion of a beatific smile; the result was an idiotic simper. The glorious gilding had been worn off, the wood was gray and cracked. The Polly's galley was entirely hidden under a deckload of shingles and laths in bunches; the after-house was broad and loomed high above the rail in contrast to the mere cubbies which were provided ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... might have been. The critic cannot forgive the author for this disrespect to him. This isn't a rose, says the critic, taking up a pansy and rending it; it is not at all like a rose, and the author is either a pretentious idiot or an idiotic pretender. What business, indeed, has the author to send the critic a bunch of sweet-peas, when he knows that a cabbage would be ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... were at their sports and merry-makings, and brooded over strange things. Caves and woods were his dearest haunts; and there he talked on and on with beasts and birds, with trees and rocks—of course not one rational word, but mere idiotic stuff, to make one laugh to death. He continued, however, always moody and serious, in spite of the utmost pains that the squirrel, the monkey, the parrot, and the bullfinch could take to divert him, and set him in the right way. The goose told stories, ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... to see (knowing what we know of him now) that Caspian had decided at first sight to go for the girl, who has grown astonishingly pretty and attractive. I'm here to block his game. That's why I took on this idiotic job with Madam Shuster. It's enough to make a Libyan lion laugh! But I saw no other way of keeping near, to do the watchdog act—not being a gentleman or a millionaire like Caspian, able to live at ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... known hitherto was now always with him. He lay alone in the camp-bedstead sweating and funking. The events of the day made him seem safe, but he felt that he would not be really safe for ages and ages. Throughout the night he was going over the list of his idiotic mistakes, upbraiding himself, cursing himself for a hundred acts of brainless folly. The plan had been sound enough: it was the accomplishment of the plan that had been ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... insolence of it was so unmistakable that there was no possibility of excusing Liputin on the ground of stupidity. Besides, Liputin was by no means stupid. The intention was obvious, to me, anyway; they seemed in a hurry to create disorder. Some lines in these idiotic verses, for instance the last, were such that no stupidity could have let them pass. Liputin himself seemed to feel that he had undertaken too much; when he had achieved his exploit he was so overcome by his own impudence that he did not even leave the platform ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the syphilitic wards, where, in the awful contemplation of their daily, piecemeal decay, the silent victims were stretched all day upon their cots; among the idiotic and the crazed; into the apartments of the aged poor, seeing, let us hope, blessed visions of life beyond these shambles; and drinking in, as we walked, the solemn but needful lesson of our own possibilities and the mutations of ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... will, excepting that it was rather inconsistent with the tendency to make fussy and needless alterations which the testator had actually shown. On the other hand, if he had not noticed the inverted position of the photograph he must have been nearly blind or quite idiotic; for the photograph was over two feet long and the characters large enough to be read easily by a person of ordinary eyesight at a distance of forty or fifty feet. Now he obviously was not in a state of dementia, ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... trinkets, something that would "suit my wife." Judging from the unconsidered trifles that he brought home, he must have credited the poor little soul with criminally extravagant tastes. The tables and shelves about her couch were heaped with idiotic lumber, on which Mrs. Nevill Tyson looked ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... and defending his country on the frontier. It might be that France of the plebiscite, while giving itself over to the Emperor, had not desired war; he himself, only a week previously, had declared it to be a culpable and idiotic measure. There were long discussions concerning the right of a German prince to occupy the throne of Spain; as the question gradually became more and more intricate and muddled it seemed as if everyone must be wrong, no one right; so that it was impossible to tell from which ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... of all compensation for natural defects and deformities, is that which comes in the form of a peculiar love. The mother of a poor, misshapen, idiotic boy, will, though she have half a score of bright and beautiful children besides, entertain for him a peculiar affection. He may not be able, in his feeble-mindedness, to appreciate it, but her heart brims with tenderness for him. The delicate morsel is reserved for him; ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... be done," he said with idiotic cheerfulness; "as George Herbert says: 'Who sweeps an Admiral's garden in Cornwall as for Thy laws makes that and the action fine.' And now," he added, suddenly slinging the broom away, "Let's go and ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... door, you are forced to sit, not in a room with some human grace and comfort or furniture and decoration, but in a stalled pound with a lot of other children, beaten if you talk, beaten if you move, beaten if you cannot prove by answering idiotic questions that even when you escaped from the pound and from the eye of your gaoler, you were still agonizing over his detestable sham books instead of daring to live. And your childish hatred of your gaoler and ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... every tyro in anatomy, was contested in the days of Gall and Spurzheim, and had to be enforced by public dissection in an Edinburgh amphitheatre. With the same unreasoning stolidity the doctrine of the multiplicity of organs in the brain was shunned, evaded, or denied, though it would seem idiotic for any physiologist to assume such a position (by suppressing his own common sense) when the aim of all modern investigations of the brain is to discover different functions in ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... Bantam, ducking his poll. "Noa!" he repeated in a lower note; and then, while a sombre grin betokening idiotic enjoyment of his profound casuistical quibble ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... decency, then sit in your hovel! If you haven't anything to wear, then don't have any fancies! You write verses, you wish to educate yourself—and you go about looking like a factory hand! Does education consist in this, in singing idiotic songs? You idiot! [Through his teeth and looking askance at MITYA] Fool! [Is silent] Don't you dare to show yourself in that suit up-stairs. Listen, I tell you! [To RAZLYULYAYEV] And you too! Your father, to all appearances, rakes up money ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... of unseen glory; and yet they hesitate, and dally with the call, and mean, some time, to have such an inheritance deeded to them, but not now! Remember, I am not responsible for this. Were I writing fiction I should hesitate to set down such idiotic folly, expecting you to call it unnatural or absurdly overdrawn; but I do solemnly declare to you that this is fact. Account for the folly of their behavior as best ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... were torn and disordered; his cravat was missing, he wore no overcoat, and he was bareheaded. He looked very pale, and his teeth were chattering. His eyes stared vacantly, and his features had an almost idiotic expression. "Pascal, what has happened to ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... silly saying having come into her mind. She could see them lying there, with their white faces to the night. Surely she might have thought of some remark less idiotic to make to herself, at such ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... air of happy disengagement; I told him with emphasis that I was done for, that my name would be ringing in the police news next day and that I was quite sure by the inspector's face that he knew exactly what had happened; that all this came from Peter's infernal temper, idiotic jealousy and complete want of self-control. Agitated and eloquent, I was good for another ten minutes' abuse; but he interrupted me by saying, in his ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... crossed her path a gruesomely ugly hearse, with glass sides and cheap imitation ostrich plumes drawn by gorged ravens of horses with egregiously long tails, and driven by an undertaker's assistant, who, with a natural gaiety of soul, displayed an idiotic solemnity by dragging down the corners of the mouth. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
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