"Daft" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the Esmeralda mines. He had been paying heavy assessments on his holdings there; and, with a knowledge of mining gained at Unionville, he felt that his personal attention at Aurora might be important. As a matter of fact, he was by this time fairly daft on the subject of mines and mining, with the rest of the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... they say or do, but the joy of the father over the wee Emily was beyond anything I ever saw. To see the great bearded man taking the hour-old infant in his arms, kissing it over and over again, and speaking to it in the most daft-like language, and calling on every one to admire its beauty! No doubt the bairn had as much beauty as a thing of that age can have, but I don't think any of the men he showed it to admired it much. I know Powell, for one, when he came with his master's compliments to inquire for Mrs. Phillips, ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... grand tresor, I wish that I could take you flying with me this evening. You'd be daft about it! Lots of it's a rotten bore, of course, but there's something in me that doesn't live at all when I'm on this too, too solid earth. Something that lies there, crouched and dormant, waiting until I've climbed up into the seat, and buckled ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... might be two. I'm no reckoner of time, that keeps its own score like an innkeeper, without my help. Lawks! how he did gallop off, working those long spurs he wore right into the ribs of the horse. And little wonder, poor man, and he daft, not being able to speak, but only to bleat sheeplike, and fallen upon by robbers on the king's roads, and in broad daylight. But Billy cut him loose and caught his horse and set him on it, and got this piece for his good charity. Lawks! but he was glad to be gone. ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... doctors wi ther craft, Nor yet misen wi' scythe or shaft, E'er made as monny deead or daft, As Gin an Rum, An if aw've warn'd fowk, then they've ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... now only left for him to do a decent amount of urging, and then acquiesce with dignified melancholy and go off laughing in his sleeve. What is he thinking of to stand there gazing at her downcast face as if he were daft? ...
— Potts's Painless Cure - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... to the doctor he gangs daft wi' pain, An' gets a gude sweerin' an' syne some cocaine. The fire was ta'en oot then, to Sandy's great glee, An' he spent the neist week wi' a ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie
... the one to do it," she answered grimly. "And what's Penelope doing?" she continued, turning to Nan. "She's more sense than the rest of ye put together, for all she's so daft about music." ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... the mon was a bit daft," said Sandy, "when he said tae Janie, 'Mind ye sing the lessons I gie ye, ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... "she always had that combination of something homely and sensible, and something utterly wild and daft. But I never thought she'd do anything. She hadn't much ambition then, and she was too fond of trifles. She must care about the theatre a great deal more than she used to. Perhaps she has me to thank for something, after all. Sometimes a little jolt like that does one good. She was a daft, generous ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... head again, and looked at her in silence. Elsie began to think he was a little daft. Presently he replied, "You maun sit on it, if ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... he with a lilac dove This Corsair desperate and daft? Behold the conning tower above The big stern chasers pointing aft! This is not he that saved mankind With pards and pigs from tempests blind, But rather he that forged a flood, And not of water but of blood, And filled with worse ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 16, 1914 • Various
... such a burst of cheers and whistling and tossing of hats from every ship in the fleet that it seemed as if every officer and sailor in Sampson's squadron had suddenly gone daft. Like ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... business, not of the Church, but of the State.... Individual synods have passed prohibition resolutions. Individual pastors have gone entirely too far in this matter. They are fanatical on the subject. Some have almost gone daft over the liquor problem." (L. u. W. 1917, 465.) The Home Missionary, December, 1916, declared that what the Lutheran Church teaches in reference to the separation of Church and State is ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... Kitty. "Where are the men nowadays, grandma? Save for the redcoats, and I am not so daft over Sir Henry Clinton's gay officers as some—no doubt't is my Quaker blood—except for the officers, where are our gallants? Some of mine are up the Hudson beyond the neutral ground, others with the rebels ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... never anything else, sir. And yet he's a good seaman too, and however fu' he may be, he keeps some form o' reckoning, and never vera far oot either. He's an ambeequosity to me, sir, for if I took a tithe o' the amount I'd be clean daft." ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... this aboot Francie?' 'Ow naething, father, worth mentionin! The daft loon wud hae bed me promise to ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... the camp, where we found Arcoll at late breakfast. I had resolved to take him into my confidence, so I told him the full tale of my night's adventure. He was very severe with me, I remember, for my daft-like ride, but his severity relaxed before I had ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... Pedantic f. Quarrelsome f. Strouting f. Unmannerly f. Wood f. Captious and sophistical f. Greedy f. Soritic f. Senseless f. Catholoproton f. Godderlich f. Hoti and Dioti f. Obstinate f. Alphos and Catati f. Contradictory f. Pedagogical f. Daft f. Drunken f. Peevish f. Prodigal f. ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... too," says Alan, with a groan. "Ye shouldnae have given it me. I'm daft when I get ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "Daft is a little strong, Laura. But you know that I wouldn't touch this bill if it were not for the public good, and for the good of the colored race; much as I am interested in the heirs of this property, and would ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... at her boy. "Ask her, then, Jamie; ask her, and give her the chance. She's a daft creature, but bonny; and you love her, ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... this room," said the colonel. "I thought I was going daft. You're the first person who has heard it besides myself." He looked at Pinto. "A hell of a prospect, isn't it?" he said gloomily. "Let's talk about ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... "They'd be daft if they didn't," interrupted my aunt. "Of course you don't really mean it," continued ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... would not give her up to him with the good grace of a man, Mackenzie said, smiling and smiling like a daft musician, he would take her from both of them and ride away with her into the valleys of the world which she was so hungry in her young heart ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... to be a writer; there could be no doubt about that. Everybody had noticed it. The Vicar had said, "Johnny will never do any good at Polwollop, I fear"; and the farmer for whom John scared rooks had said, "Thiccy la-ad seems daft-like," and one after another of Mrs. Penquarto's friends had given similar testimony. And now here he was, at twenty-six, in the little bed-sitting-room in Bloomsbury, ready to write the great novel ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... class, our nomenclature is largely regional, and the directories even of our great manufacturing towns represent to a great extent the medieval population of the rural district around them. [Footnote: See Guppy, Homes of Family Names.] The names Daft and Turney, well known in Nottingham, appear in the county in the Hundred Rolls. Cheetham, the name of a place now absorbed in Manchester, is as a surname ten times more numerous there than in London, and the same is true of many characteristic ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... picturs too?" queried Uncle Terry, suddenly interested. "Telly's daft on doing that, an' is at it all the time she can git!" Then he added with a slight inflection of pride, "Mebbe ye noticed some o' ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... was a fact beyond disputing. Some said "it was the right thing," and more said "it was the foolish thing," and among the latter was Andrew's mother; though as yet she had said it very cautiously to Andrew, whom she regarded as "clean daft and ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... captain—"Many of these fellows get half daft, living so much alone in desolate places like Mull, and seeing nothing all their time but cloud and mountain and sea. He seems to know something ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... rubbish and cussing. The pore fule's daft wid the hate and the dust and the welt I give him. Shure it's the way I have to be ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... in an odd tone. "This is the strangest thing yet. It begins to look as if Mr. Adams was daft ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... about wiring or telegraphing or mailing. I have been doing that for nearly a week, until I am nearly gone daft. Of course I could get the regular fake, or barn-stormers or turkey companies—you know 'em—but none of 'em for me. I want companies I ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... never cut out for one another," he remarked at last. "It was a daft-like marriage." And then, with a most unusual gentleness of tone, "Puir bitch," said he, "puir bitch!" ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the soldier. "I'm going for my war bag." And before the steamboat had hove into sight he was back with his scanty bundle of baggage, behaving like one daft, talking and laughing and running here and there. Lee watched him closely, then went behind the bar and poured out a stiff glass of whiskey, which he made Burrell drink. To Gale ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... a friend, who was as mad about old books and first editions, as he; a stuffy, elderly thing, who had never seen Lord Mountstuart's treasures before. As both were perfectly daft on the subject, they must have kept me lying there an hour, while they fussed about from one glass-protected book-case to another, murmuring admiration of Caxtons, or discussing the value of a Mazarin Bible, with their noses in ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... hearty laugh he laughed, 'Just come wi' me, I beg.' MacFierce'un saw with pleasure daft A fifty-gallon keg. ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... burst out. "Do you know, Honora, I think marriage turns certain kinds of people, the redheads in particular, quite daft. This one is never done talking about her husband, her baby, her experience, her theory, her friends who are about to marry, or who want to marry, or who can't marry. She can't see two persons together without patching up a ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... renegade, and, with his stories made up of half-and-half, like Nathaniel Gow's toddy, is trying to throw cold water on the most certain, though most impalpable, phenomena of human nature. The bodies are daft. Heaven mend their wits! Before they had ventured to assert such things, I wish they had been where I have often been; or, in particular, where the Laird of Birkendelly was on St. Lawrence's Eve, in the year 1777, and sundry ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... Mr. Daft—No, sir; I will tell you why. It would, if no other element than the simple resistance of the arcs opposed the passage of a current; then a machine that would produce an inch arc in one light, if placed on a circuit of sixteen lamps ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 315, January 14, 1882 • Various
... what d'ye mean?" shouted Mr Macdougall, when he had recovered from the surprise which the unexpected order of the boatswain, so rapidly carried out, had caused. "Are ye gone clean daft?" ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... that our Mr. Mullen has accepted a call to larger fields?" he inquired, "an' that Judy Revercomb has gone clean daft because he's going ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... evening, the younger of Germinie's sisters took her to the Rue Saint-Martin, to the house of a repairer of cashmere shawls, with whom she lodged, and who, being almost daft on the subject of religion, was banner-bearer in a sisterhood of the Virgin. She made her lie beside her on a mattress on the floor, and having her there under her hand all night, she vented upon her all her long-standing, venomous jealousy, her bitter resentment at ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... said. "But when he starts in on those subjects, I find him difficult to follow." He looked soberly at Trigger. "There are times," he confessed, "when I suspect Professor Mantelish is somewhat daft. But probably he's just so brilliant that he keeps fading beyond ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... ones now," muttered the old Manxman. "One daft with strength, the other daft with weakness. But here's the end of the rotten line—all dripping, too. Mend it, eh? I think we had best have a new line altogether. I'll see ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... he lifted his hand, and they strained their ears. "I've done that by the hour since you left and the daft gold-diggers went up trail after you. The other fellas feel it, too. Don't know what we'd have done without Kaviak. Think we ought to ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... sporting reputation, he would assuredly have laid one or other of us by the heels, and either would have been tantamount to both. As I gave Raffles a headlong lead to the baize door, I glanced down the great well of stairs, and up came the daft yells ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... little sun! O my Father, don't kill me! I have but one child, Oh, have pity upon him! My poor boy is daft, Without wits the Lord made him, And sent him so into The world. He is crazy. Why, straight from the bath 390 He at once begins scratching; His drink he will try To pour into his laputs Instead of the jug. And of work he knows nothing; He laughs, and ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... it's wonderful, that man's face—I'd like to go to that town—" He felt perhaps that he was taking it all too seriously for he turned round and said laughing: "The boy's daft on lions—Robin, come and look at this ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... epilepsy, or, at the very least, hysterics, to be treated with cold water, the bellows, and an unmerciful beating between my shoulders,—I, who can but with much difficulty and many a retrogression make my way among the olden mazes of tenor, alto, treble, bass, and who stand "clean daft" in the resounding confusion of andante, soprano, falsetto, palmetto, pianissimo, akimbo, l'allegro, and il penseroso,—I was bidden to Camilla's concert, and, like a sheep to ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... said the placable monarch; "the world goes daft, I think— sed semel insanivimus omnes—thou art my old and faithful servant, that is the truth; and, were't any thing for thy own behoof, man, thou shouldst not ask twice. But, troth, Steenie loves me so dearly, that he cares not that any one should ask favours of me but himself.— Maxwell," (for ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... any other person, in any other circumstances whatever, equalled that which overcame the thin cheeks of the disconsolate seneschal when he beheld this accession of guests to the castle, and reflected that the dinner hour was fast approaching. "Is he daft?" he muttered to himself;—"is he clean daft a'thegither, to bring lords and leddies, and a host of folk behint them, and twal o'clock chappit?" Then approaching the Master, he craved pardon for having permitted the rest of his people to go out to see the hunt, ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... enthusiasm for scenery or geology. Anyhow, on he came, breakfastless, through the choking blast. I stopped and did my best to turn him back. "Now don't," I said, shouting to make myself heard in the storm, "now don't, Stickeen. What has got into your queer noddle now? You must be daft. This wild day has nothing for you. There is no game abroad, nothing but weather. Go back to camp and keep warm, get a good breakfast with your master, and be sensible for once. I can't carry you all day or feed you, and this ...
— Stickeen • John Muir
... hands and eyes went up in mad dismay. "You don't mean to tell me you've given up going because that man's ordered off? Child, child, you are simply bent on ruining yourself socially. I don't wonder people say you're daft about him." ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... it's this way, lassock: Ah've jist got to mak' ma' way in the warld. Wully is a kind brither, but the hoose is too fu' already. An' the bairns are aye merryin' here an merryin' there, an' yon daft Peter 'll be bringin' yon harum-scarum girl o' yours in ane o' thae days—not but that she's a guid honest lass, but ah dinna see whit he wants wi' an Eerish thing like yon; an' the land jist owerrun wi' guid Scotch lassies that ye ken a' aboot wha ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... cried Maimie, "and he is just daft about her. Must you go? I am so sorry. I wanted to talk about old times, the dear old days." The look in Maimie's eyes said much more ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... in 1862, or even in 1863, would have told us that we should see even what we see in these seats by which I stand—such a representation of interests acting together, would be accounted, as our Scotch friends say, 'half daft'; and whoever, in the Lower Provinces, about the same time, would have ventured to foretell the composition of their delegations which sat with us under this roof last October, would probably have been considered ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... mare. So he had purposely tried to avoid her? Why? She stole a sly glance at him. Why were not kings molded in this form? All the kings she had met had something the matter with them, crooked legs, weak eyes, bald, young, or old, and daft over gaming-tables and opera-dancers. And the one man among them all—at least she had been informed that the king of Jugendheit was all of a man—had politely declined. There was some chagrin in this for her, but no bitterness or rancor. In truth, she was more chagrined on her ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... Rin, young chentleman! Doon wi' ye! She'll be like a daft quey the noo. I can haud her ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... the people—Abe Lincoln! You have said it now. I would as soon think of Johnnie Kongapod! A leader of the people! Are you daft? When the prairies leap into corn-fields and the settlements into banks of gold, and men can travel a mile a minute, and clodhoppers become merchants and Congressers, and as rich as Spanish grandees, then Abraham Lincoln may become a leader of the people, but not till then! No, elder, you are no ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... which he had assumed. If he could sustain it, if he could baffle his captors, so that they were at a loss whether he was a man really daft or an agent with promises of help and arms to the disaffected tribes of Kordofan—then there was a chance that they might fear to dispose of him themselves and send him forward to Omdurman. But it was hard work. Inside the house the Emir and his counsellors were debating ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... took his stick, and went out, to the great astonishment of the others, who thought him daft. He presently came ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... she proved to be. For, when she came to luncheon next day, she told Mary Alice how she had always been "a bit daft about hair." "When I played with my dolls," she said, "I always cared much more for combing their hair and doing it up with mother's 'invisible' pins, than for dressing them. And it used to be the supreme reward for goodness when I could take down my mother's beautiful ...
— Everybody's Lonesome - A True Fairy Story • Clara E. Laughlin
... lunatic with whom it would be dangerous to quarrel, well, there's no harm in that; for how many would have done different, and where's the blame? Lords go mad like other people, for all their coronets; and fine times they appear to have in that condition. I said Lord Crossborough was either daft or had some deep game going; and, with that to keep me up, I drove straight to the lodge gates, and bawled for ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... soldier threw up his hands. "Trouble!" he cried. "Why I'm simply daft with it! Look at that!" He pointed to the farthest side of ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... revived in Dickson memories of his youth, and he was prepared to be friendly. But the ancient would have none of it. He inquired morosely what he was after, and, on being told remarked that he might have learned more sense. "It's a daft-like thing for an auld man like you to be traivellin' the roads. Ye maun be ill-off for a job." Questioned as to himself, he became, as the newspapers say, "reticent," and having reached his bing of stones, turned rudely to his duties. "Awa' hame wi' ye," were his parting ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... so many years, what did Pantagruel know? Gargantua was no bigot: he did not shut his eyes that he might not see, and he believed what his eyes told him. He saw that Pantagruel worked very hard and spent all his time at it, and yet he got no good by it. And what was worse, he was becoming daft, silly, dreamy, and besotted through it. So Pantagruel was taken away from his former masters and handed over to Ponocrates, a teacher of quite a different sort, who was bidden to take him to Paris to make a new creature of him and complete his ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... gazed strangely on each other and on Oisin, and the overseer asked, "Of what Finn dost thou speak, for there be many of that name in Erinn?" Oisin said, "Surely of Finn mac Cumhal mac Trenmor, captain of the Fianna of Erinn." Then the overseer said, "Thou art daft, old man, and thou hast made us daft to take thee for a youth as we did a while agone. But we at least have now our wits again, and we know that Finn son of Cumhal and all his generation have been dead these ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... but never proved successful. Indeed, the money came in but slowly from any of his writings and, aside from the critics, it was many a long day before he was appreciated by the people of his own city and country. They refused to believe that "that daft laddie Stevenson," who had so often shocked them by his eccentric ways and scorn of conventions, could do anything worth while. So by far his happiest times were spent out of Scotland, principally in London, where a membership in the Savile Club added to his enjoyment. Here ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... daft for gi'ein' pah-ties since ever I can mind,' Mr. Robinson put in, 'an' the Kaiser hissel' couldna stop her, Still, Macgreegor, she's an auld frien', an' it wud be a peety to offend her. Ye'll be mair at hame there nor ye was at yer Aunt Purdie's swell affair. Dod, Lizzie, ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... engagement to Bronson Perkins was announced, though everybody said they didn't see what use it was for folks to get engaged that couldn't ever get married. Mr. Perkins, Bronson's father, was daft, not enough to send him to the asylum, but so that he had to be watched all the time to keep him from doing himself a hurt. He had a horrid way, I remember, of lighting matches and holding them up to his bared arm until the smell of ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... singing like an angel—"an Orpheus; an Orpheus." What a picture! When reproved for wasting his health and time by the prosaic farmer, the poor fellow said: "Me and this quarry are lang acquant, and I've mair pleasure in pipin to thae daft cowts, than if the best leddies in the land were ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... Oh, ye ken, Jean, an Ennglishman and a lorrd, twa daft things thegither, he could na' miss the road. Coont ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... Like voice of lover pained by love in vain. Woe's me for lovers! Ah how many men * By nights and pine and passion low are lain! As though by stress of love they had been made * Morn-less and sleep-less by their pain and bane. When I went daft for him who conquered me * And pined for him who proved of proudest strain, My tears in streams down trickled and I cried * 'These long-linkt tears bind like an adamant-chain:' Grew concupiscence, severance long, and I * Lost Patience' hoards and grief waxed sovereign: If Justice bide in world ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... half-shut eyes. "She made those two who were here with her last summer seem like thirty cents beside her. Nice girls, too—fine girls—elegant dressers; I don't know what the matter was. Neither did they." He chuckled a little. "They couldn't believe their own eyes when they saw three of us going daft over a girl they wouldn't have staked a copper on in a free-for-all with themselves. They took it gamely, I'll say that for them. ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... has possessed the man! Oh, you do distress me so. How could you do such a thing, Limuel? I do believe you have gone daft. But you go right out there now and dig up them good-for-nothin' chickens and bring me that curtain. Go ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... present necessities. The din and bustle of the crowded wharf, would have been sufficient to "daze" the sober-minded country-woman, without the charge of little Will, and unnumbered bundles, and the two "daft laddies forby." On their part, Norman and Harry scorned the idea of being taken care of, and loaded with baskets and other movables, made their way through the crowd, in a manner that ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... care the whole winter through, and didn't go a fishing all that year. Ever after this, too, it seemed to folks as if the lad were a little bit daft. ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... after yesterday and last night. But I can't for the life of me see why you oppose it. He's really a tremendous catch, and it's no wonder Bobby's head is turned. We are all a bit daft over him since he ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... "It's surely daft the man is!" remarked Myra to the ceiling, before looking again into the bright eyes of her partner. "Pardon me, Don Carlos, but you are carrying your extravagant nonsense too far," ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... we couldn't make it out, and Sarah and me and the policeman all agreed that we was stark gone daft." ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... yet though he was not above thirteen, or fourteen at most, he did not cry out for help more than five or six times, but grippit at the mane with one hand, and at the back of the saddle with the other, till daft Robie, the hostler at the stables, claught hold of the beast by the head, and off they set. The young birkie had neither hat nor shoon, but he did not spare the stick; round and round they flew like mad. Ye would have thought their eyes would have loupen out; and ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... Royal, where they laughed at his scrooging bushy eyebrows, fierce black eyes and his deadly-in-earnest denunciation of all humbugs and imposters, he returned to the aforesaid van, let down the flaps, buttoned the daft and "feekle" world out, and himself in, and then retired some more and slept, as I have said, rolled in his blankets and overcoats on a bed of ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... in fact was coming on apace and climbing shadows crept round the grotesque masonry. Unheeding the lad's fear, I was strongly impelled to talk with the daft creature. It was an impulse born not wholly of idle curiosity. I felt ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... and the chevalier's prospective son-in-law, was alternately hugging the great beast-tamer and then shaking his hand and generally deporting himself like a respectable young man who had suddenly gone daft. ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... his hands an' well-nigh forgat all about Melsh Dick an' t' squirrel. Then all on a sudden he gat agate o' laughin', for when he saw t' mooin' i' t' watter he bethowt him o' a tale his mother had telled him o' soom daft fowks that had seen t' mooin i' t' watter an' thowt it were a cheese an' started to rake ...
— More Tales of the Ridings • Frederic Moorman
... Amaryllidis irae. And Meg, on her part, though she often called them "drunken ne'er-do-weels, and thoroughbred High-street blackguards," allowed no other person to speak ill of them in her hearing. "They were daft callants," she said, "and that was all—when the drink was in, the wit was out—ye could not put an auld head upon young shouthers—a young cowt will canter, be it up-hill or down—and what for no?" ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... commander, of whom I have my ain thoughts. I fear me, indeed, to say what I have found, and what I am suspecting, for ye hae reason to conclude that my head is full o' plots, and that broodin' ower treachery has made me daft." ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... Adj. insane, mad, lunatic, loony [Coll.]; crazy, crazed, aliene^, non compos mentis; not right, cracked, touched; bereft of reason; all possessed, unhinged, unsettled in one's mind; insensate, reasonless, beside oneself, demented, daft; phrenzied^, frenzied, frenetic; possessed, possessed with a devil; deranged, maddened, moonstruck; shatterpated^; mad-brained, scatter brained, shatter brained, crackbrained; touched, tetched [Coll.]; off one's head. [behavior suggesting insanity] maniacal; delirious, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... It's daft when chaps that sit i' Parliament Weant tak advice frae lads that talk farm-twang; If t' coontry goes to t' dogs, it's 'cause they've sent Ower mony city folk to mend ...
— Songs of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... of various kinds put on in varied modes. The most practicable of these is a system prepared by Daft. Most iron vessels are now constructed by every other plate lapping the edges of the one between. He proposes, instead of having the plates all the same width, to have one wide and one very narrow plate. This would leave a trough between the two wide plates of the depth of the thickness of the plates. ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... chaps that gets inside your heart no matter how tough't is. An' we was really fond of him, too,—so fond of him that we didn't do nothin' but jine in when his pa an' ma talked as if he was the only boy that ever was born, or ever would be—an' you know we must have been purty daft ter stood that, ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... taking it, both the ladies must have thought, with his quick orders about the luggage and his waiting cab. Mrs Kilbannon said so. "I'm sure," she told him, "we are better off with you than with Hugh. He was always a daft dependence ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... Humphrey now thought that his customer had indeed gone daft, and was beginning to repeat an old nursery ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... man must have been clean daft to have trusted himself to one of those savage beasts of the country," said Mr. Buchanan. "And he was no so young either—about sixty, I should say. It didna look even respectable, I remember, when we met him the other day, careering over the country ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... dare say it would be a couple of years after, when the whole business was quite forgotten, who should come trapesing along the road from Portsmouth but the daft lad who had gone away with the ship without waiting till he was dead to become a ghost. You never saw such a boy as that in all your life. He had a great rusty cutlass hanging to a string at his waist, and he was tattooed all over in fine colors, ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... in ill humor with the daft dealings of the world he lived in, Dickie Blue left the soggy road and sad drizzle of the night for the warm, yellow light of Peggy Lacey's kitchen, where pretty Peggy, alone in the housewifely operation, ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... room in the garret I've heard his futsteps comin' and gangin', comin' and gangin' doon one passage and up anither frae midnight till cockcraw. It was weary wark to lie listenin' tae his clatter and wonderin' whether he was clean daft, or whether maybe he'd lairnt pagan and idolatrous tricks oot in India, and that his conscience noo was like the worm which gnaweth and dieth not. I'd ha' speered frae him whether it wouldna ease him to speak wi' the holy Donald McSnaw, but it might ha' been ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... (do not know), my lord," she replied, "unless, Heaven save us! he takes you for the Lord of lords. I didna think the bairn was so heathenish and so daft (foolish). You maun forgie (must ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... the Angouleme aristocracy in 1821. He frequented the Bargeton receptions. An artist like his friend Bartas, he also was daft over drawing and would ruin every album in the department with his grotesque productions. He posed as Mme. de Bartas' lover, since Bartas paid court to Mme. de ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... pulpit aboard that they were taking down to Mazatlan for some chapel or other, and this here pulpit was lashed on deck aft. Well, Billy had been most kinds of a fool in his life, and among others a play-actor; called himself Gaston Maundeville, and was clean daft on his knowledge of Shakespeare and his own power of interpretin' the hidden meanin' of the lines. I ain't never going to forgit the day he gave us Portia's speech. We were just under the tropic, and the day was a scorcher. There was ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... than any writer. It is a ruinous process—for the poet. "He so well repays intelligent study." That is it, unfortunately. There are many, like the old Scotch lady who attempted to read Carlyle's French Revolution, who think they have become "daft" when they encounter a passage such ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... his son, The nimble-footed madcap, Prince of Wales, And his comrades, that daft the world aside ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... they were at the mouth of the harbor that something occurred which seemed likely to turn this fine setting out into ridicule. This was Daft Sandy (a half-witted old man to whom Robert MacNicol had been kind), who rowed his boat right across the course of the Mary of Argyle, and, as she came ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... a hare, poor fellow, And should be in chains," you say. I haven't a doubt of your statement, But who isn't mad, I pray? Why, the world is a great asylum, And people are all insane, Gone daft with pleasure or folly, Or crazed with passion ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... it, but it was never there, wee laddie, never there. There's men as says they've been there, but I could hardly believe them, though there's queer things past belief on the sea. There's a sea called Sargasso, and if I told you half the things about it, you'd think me daft. And there's the ghost of ships at sea, and that's past thinking. And there's the great serpent, that I've seen with ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... this single week Wad mak a daft-like diary, O! I drave my cart out owre a dike, My horses in a miry, O! I wear my stockings white an' blue, My love's sae fierce an' fiery, O! I drill the land that I should pleugh, An' pleugh the ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... that's it, Grah?—you've got bullets stowed away? Well, I must have them. It's a one-sided game in which you get the tricks; but here's the pipe, Idiot—my only pipe for your dribbling mouth—my last good comrade. Now show me the bullets. Take me to them, daft one, quick." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Jews. At last the floundering carrier bore The village paper to our door. Lo! broadening outward as we read, To warmer zones the horizon spread; In panoramic length unrolled We saw the marvels that it told. Before us passed the painted Creeks, And daft McGregor on his raids In Costa Rica's everglades. And up Taygetos winding slow Rode Ypsilanti's Mainote Greeks, A Turk's head at each saddle-bow Welcome to us its week-old news, Its corner for the rustic Muse, Its monthly gauge ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... sir. You must have seen—at least—no, you were not there; but those looking on must have seen me get ahead of him within view of the starting-point; soon after that I lost sight of him. The river winds, you know; and of course I thought he was coming on behind me. Very daft of me, not to divine that the boat had ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... "Bluff is daft on the subject of oysters, all right. He never seems to tire of eating them in season, and yet he says he never picked one up on the spot where it grew. He seems to be coming back, Frank!" exclaimed Jerry, who was working with ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... out of town he had been accosted by a big, bearded man who had yet a singularly childish look—who urged that he come to his cabin to minister to a sick friend. He knew the fellow for one that the village of Edom called "daft" or "queer," yet held to be harmless—to be rather amusing, indeed, since he could be provoked to deliver curious harangues upon the subject of revealed religion. He remembered now that the man's face had stared at him from far back in the church ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... kent by the cauld 'at the door maun be open. I cried oot quick to Hendry, but he was a soond sleeper, an' he didna hear me. Ay, I dinna ken hoo I did it, but I got ben to the room an' shook him up. I was near daft with fear when I saw Leeby wasna there either. Hendry couldna tak it in a' at aince, but sune he had his trousers on, an' he made me lie down on his bed. He said he wouldna move till I did it, or I wouldna hae dune it. ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... daft ef ye didn't stay away," remarked the Kentucky sheriff with a sharp and bellicose glance at his colleague from another state. "Virginny officers hain't got no power ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... came to beg alms; he was a neighbour of the girls and they called him Uncle Tarrillo, bantering him upon his frequent sprees. He was utterly daft and loved to talk upon the ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... of insensibility upon the bed. Two or three negro women were gathered around him, variously occupied with rubbing his hands, chafing his temples and wiping the oozing foam from his lips. At the foot of the bed stood poor daft Fanny, with disheveled hair and dilated eyes, chanting a grotesque monologue, and keeping time with a see-saw motion from side to side. The first thing Thurston did, was to take the hand of this poor crazed, but docile creature, and lead her ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... by knowing America, she could not possibly reverse this mental operation and be sure of the result. The ladies of Pettybaw House said that the occurrence was as Fifish as anything that ever happened in Fife. The kingdom of Fife is noted, it seems, for its "doocots [dovecotes] and its daft lairds," and to be eccentric and Fifish are one and the same thing. Thereupon Francesca told Mr. Macdonald a story she heard in Edinburgh, to the effect that when a certain committee or council was quarreling as to which of certain Fifeshire towns should be the seat ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... whereat an old Colonel of some Highland regiment gave us a "beautiful calling." His discourse was a masterpiece of fluent soldier talk and, as a Scot usually does when excited, he lapsed into the "twa-talk" of his native Hielans. I can remember his last words, which were to the effect that: "Ye daft Cany-deens think ye're awfu' brave but I tell ye the noo it's no bravery; it's sheer stupidity." Of course he was right, but we could not allow the small matter of a bullet or two to stand in the ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... never forget it. I thought, when the police ran down stairs and left me with him, that I was talking to Mr. Narkom. I think I nearly went daft with terror when I found out that it ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... guid man, ye daft fule!" exclaimed Rose Cameron, in a rage. "Wha else suld I bide wi'? And noo, ye'll speer nae mair questions anent my ain preevit life, for I'll nae answer any sic. A woman maunna gie testimony in open coort against her ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... of the boat, as he turned shoreward, "if a fellow is daft enough to sacrifice everything else for speed, on a long cruise like this, he must expect to put up with all sorts of trouble. But ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... whole respectable household gone daft about a couple of strange children;" he let the words drop very slowly. "Specially I was distressed to hear of one who rose betimes to milk a cow, so that the cream would have time to rise on the morning's milk by their ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... visitor once, who thought of entering into competition. "It's cutting off his nose to spite his face! Why is he so anxious to be the only carrier in Barbie that he carries stuff for next to noathing the moment another man tries to work the roads? It's a daft-like ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... pardonable pride. "Pretty Rachel is not for a daft chap like Luke Roy, that's a head and ears shorter nor other men. Be you, ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... in merry disdain. "Dicky Darrah never dares oppose Evvy—let alone his wife. Kate Darrah says it just serves Hal Willett right. It's no fault of hers that he's daft about Evvy, who's simply bent on giving him a lesson he richly deserves. When the Archers come ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... lower jaw dropped, her strong, body shook. She gazed at Ralph as one might look at an intimate friend gone suddenly daft. She had heard of people who lost their reason without warning. Was it possible that she was in ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... coffin, with closed hands upon his purple vestments. His face had not changed, and, as he never knew he was dying, it showed no pain or fear. It was Amory's dear old friend, his and the others'—for the church was full of people with daft, staring faces, the most exalted seeming ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... fine while before he will make one of his empty sacks stand upright. If he were not half daft he would have left off that job before he began it, and not have been an Irishman either. He will come to his wit's end before he sets the sack on its end. The old proverb, printed at the top, was made by a man who had burned his fingers with debtors, and it just means that ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... most amazingly. "I won't insult you by supposing that you have chosen such a time for joking," he said, dourly. "But if your third question surprised me, I must say that your fourth sounds simply daft." ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... pish! Vaudreuil the Governor is the great man, and Montcalm, aho! son of Mahomet! You shall see. Now they dance to Bigot's whistling; he will lock her safe enough to-morrow, 'less some one steps in to help her. Before to-night she never spoke of him before the world—but a poor daft thing, going about all sad and wild. She ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... was a man in a motor-cawr. He speired whae had ta'en my place that day, and I let on I thocht him daft. But he keepit on at me, and syne I said he maun be thinkin' o' my gude-brither frae the Cleuch that whiles lent me a haun'. He was a wersh-lookin' sowl, and I couldna understand the half o' his ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... was the only carrier on the road, and that the vicarage was five miles from the necessaries of life; 'it's a bad job, and I's not goin' to say it isn't. But ya jest look 'ere, mum, what's a man to du wi' a daft thingamy like that, as caan't teak a plain order, and spiles a poor man's business ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... chickens, 'n' gittin' ready fer yer pappy ter come!" And the placid old face fairly glowed with the remembrance. "'N' I mind me," she crooned on, "of th' time when ye fust begun ter talk; I was er whole week er-teachin' yer ter say two words; I didn't do much else. Melindy allowed that I'd gone clean daft; 'n' when Sat'day come, 'long erbout milkin'-time, I put on er pink caliker frock. I 'member it jest es well! it had little white specks on the pink; he bought it at Miggs's Crossroads, 'n' said I allers looked like er rose in it. I tuck ye ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... PODKHALYUZIN. Gone daft nothing, ma'am! But if you want to have a heart-to-heart talk, honor bright, ma'am; then here's the sort of thing it is, ma'am: at my house there's a certain Russian merchant I know, who is very much in love with Olimpiada ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... They informed Lot that they intended to destroy the place because of its sin, and told him to gather all his family together and leave at once. Lot spoke to his "sons-in-law, which married his daughters," but they appear to have thought him daft. Early in the morning "the angels hastened Lot" who still lingered. They laid hold of his hand, his wife's, and his two unmarried daughters', led them outside the city, and said, "Escape now for thy life; look not ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... Sewees would not trade a pelt— Saying, "We go to see The Great White Father in his own tepee— Heap, heap much rum!" And then they passed the pipe of peace, And puffed it, and looked glum. The traders thought the redskins must be daft; They saw the huge canoes, And, wondering at their use, Asked, "What will you do with these?" And the chief pointed east across the seas; And then the ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... about half daft. She was waving aloft a copy of the Times, and scarce could speak for excitement. But she managed to point to ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables |
