"Fool's paradise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his (the Frenchman's) wife:—' Comment, Monsieur,—sans y etre oblige!' When I say this, however, I mean it only of the executive part of writing; for the imagining, the shadowing out of the future work is, I own, a delicious fool's paradise."] ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... but my neighbourhood as well, was left in peace; even on our walks abroad we were guarded and prepared for; and, like great persons visiting a hospital, saw only the fair side. For the matter of a week we were thus suffered to go out and in and live in a fool's paradise, supposing the king to have kept his word, the tapu to be revived and the island ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... before she saw that some appalling struggle for the possession of the little creature must have taken place, and that it had been going on during those months when life was apparently so peaceful and she had been living in her fool's paradise. It was not till he had lost the fight that Thor had come to her in the snow-bound woods with the twitter of birds and the deep music of the tree-tops accompanying those half-truths she had been eager to believe. ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... under the spell of her presence, back among the tricksters and assassins, the traps and ambushes of Wall Street, I believed again; believed firmly the promptings of the devil that possessed me. "She would have given you a brief fool's paradise," said that devil. "Then what a hideous awakening!" And I cursed the day when New York's insidious snobbishness had tempted my vanity into starting me on ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... two weeks' happiness, two weeks in my fool's paradise, and then—the end came! He had gone over to New York for a day. Some important business had arisen and he was obliged to go. He said good-bye." She paused again, struggling for composure. "It was good-bye—good-bye for ever. ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... what he read in her new gaze; that the natural woman who had sloughed off the burdens of an unhappy past was disposed to love him. But of course he could not really resist so sweet a suggestion. Let him tell himself all he liked that he was living in a fool's paradise; that when recollection returned, as it must in the end, she would think no more of him; nevertheless, when she looked at him like that, he could not help being happy. The journey took on a thousand new delights for him; such delights as his solitary youth ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... acts with no more consciousness or volition than the deftly contrived machine that picks up raw material at one end, and turns out some finished product at the other? Clearly, for strong and resolute men and women, an Eden would be but a fool's paradise. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... that people know about what is going on," Mr. Sinclair retorted. "That company is no hoax, mark my word. It means business of a most serious nature, and it is getting to work, too. Don't you live in a fool's paradise, boy. If you do, there will be a rude awakening, and sooner ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... if vague knowledge that "God is Love." She believed she understood the truth about religion at last; and Nature smiled very sweetly at her and shared in the delight of the time. So she walked dreaming on toward the invisible door of her fool's paradise, and never guessed how near it was or what Nature would look ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... that there have been moments when the influence of her—beauty, I can't call it—prettiness, joined to the power of my mother's irresistible address, have almost lapped me in elysium—a fool's paradise. But, thank Heaven and Miss Walsingham! I unlapped myself; and though the sweet airs took my fancy, they never ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... pleasure in the discovery of him which he could ask no one to share—that it was to him as a lump of dynamite under his wife's lounge, of which no one knew but himself, and which he could at any instant explode. It was sweet to know what he could do! to be aware, and alone aware, of the fool's paradise in which my lady and her brood lived! And already, through his own precipitation, his ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... vindictively flicked off the head of a dandelion with her parasol. "They awake to find they have been living in a Fool's Paradise—a little upholstered corner with stained glass windows and rose-coloured light. They find that suddenly they are expected to place in the centre of their life everything that up to that moment they have scarcely been allowed even to know about; ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... this cherished offspring on whose rearing I had lavished all I possessed of dollars, of ideals, of generous hopes and high expectations—whose growth I had literally watered with my sweat—was an imp of darkness. My fool's paradise I had planted with all manner of fair flowers and lordly trees, and in my folly believed that those who had been my friends were forever after assured of pleasant places, lovely perfumes, and grateful shade; but like the Grecian in the ancient fable, I found ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... he heard in way polite, - "Come, Master Nottage, see us play to night," At first 'twas folly, nonsense, idle stuff, But seen for nothing it grew well enough; And better now—now best, and every night, In this fool's paradise he drank delight; And as he felt the bliss, he wish'd to know Whence all this rapture and these joys could flow; For if the seeing could such pleasure bring, What must the feeling?—feeling like a king? In vain his wife, his ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... would change and guide. When he has discovered that relation, he has come to himself: has discovered his real use and planning part in the general world of men; has come to the full command and satisfying employment of his faculties. Otherwise he is doomed to live for ever in a fool's paradise, and can be said to have come to himself only on the supposition that he is ...
— When a Man Comes to Himself • Woodrow Wilson
... One reason why so many persons are really shocked and pained by the avowal of heretical opinions is the very fact that such avowal is uncommon. If unbelievers and doubters were more courageous, believers would be less timorous. It is because they live in an enervating fool's paradise of seeming assent and conformity, that the breath of an honest and outspoken word strikes so eager and nipping on their sensibilities. If they were not encouraged to suppose that all the world is of their ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... of the above despatches the Peninsular and the Insular authorities were living in a fool's paradise with respect to Philippine affairs. Had it been officially admitted that those reforms which the clerical party so persistently opposed, but which the home legislators were willing to concede, had been granted to the ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... wouldn't disappoint me. The girl would have been worth while, but adding you, Payne, you glimpsing a dream of a fool's paradise, will be glorious!" ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... him nothing whereon to feed the love he had for her, that love did not diminish as the days passed. It took a deeper and firmer hold upon him until he lived in a veritable Fool's Paradise, giving no thought of the morrow, saving that it would be spent with her, and forgetting even the task which had brought him to the district. The outside world did not obtrude itself upon him, till the doctor declared ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... "Written in pursuance of a foolish plan I forget, or have no wish to remember; the world was never to guess that such an opera, such a comedy, such a speech proceeded from the same notable person.... Only this crab remains of the shapely Tree of Life in my fool's Paradise." It was in conformity with this plan that he not only issued "Pauline" anonymously, but enjoined secrecy upon those to whom he communicated the ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... but I felt sure of myself and in helping you I found an interest in life. Lately, almost unconsciously, I've felt the change in you—the new meaning. I wanted to make sure and then be guided, since others had entered this—this fool's paradise of mine. You are very beautiful—the most beautiful woman, I think, that I have ever seen—and I know now that you ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... owners. They attended bull-fights and horseraces; forgot all the purposes of their expedition; squandered away freely the property that did not belong to them; and, in a word, revelled in a perfect fool's paradise. ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... mass of political writings—pamphlets, prophecies, military and economic treatises, romances of German conquest, and the like—naturally many of them of the crudest sort, was poured forth and eagerly accepted by the public, and a veritable Fool's Paradise of German suprernacy arose. It is only in this way, by noting the long-preceding ignorance of the German citizen in the matter of politics, his absolute former non-interference in public affairs, and the dazed state of his mind when he suddenly found himself on ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... love me?" he exclaimed angrily. "Why could you not have said so at the first; why have you let me live in a fool's paradise?" ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... certain satirical smile, intensely irritating to his sister's temper (which she called her nerves), and which it was rather fortunate she did not see. He was perfectly alive to the omnivorous quality of his sister's vanity, and perfectly aware that it had on many occasions led her into a fool's paradise, whence she had been ejected into the waste regions of disappointment and bitterness of spirit. He had been quite willing that she should try the experiment upon Douglas Dale, to which that gentleman ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... knew my doom. Farewell to all my glorious visions! I could have hurled back into the face of the laughing sun, my hate, and called him deceiver and traitor; for had he not, with other causes conspired to smile me, five minutes ago, into a fool's paradise? ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... the picking out of the man and the woman, this world would suit me pretty well." She resented being called into other society than that of her idle thoughts, and sat silent through supper, trying to keep the thread of her fancies from breaking. But she was not allowed to go back undisturbed to her fool's paradise. ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... shall enlarge the horizon of your being, to the limits of the universe; to the boundaries of time and space; that shall lift you up into a new plane far beyond, outside all mean and miserable care for self. Why stand shrinking there? Give up the fool's paradise of 'This is I'; 'This is mine.' It is the great reality you are asked to grasp. Leap forward without fear. You shall find yourself in the ambrosial waters of Nirvana and sport with the Arhats who have conquered ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... willing that your children should squander it, as they were doing. It has only been a curse to me; it could only be a curse to them; but I thought you were happy in seeing it feed selfishness and vanity. You think me bitter and hard. Well, I should have left you in your fool's paradise, but that I saw to-night, when you came here, that your eyes had been opened like mine. You, the possessor of my wealth, my treasure, could not buy your children's loving care and company with your millions, any more than I could keep mine in my poverty. You ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... reveled in what would have been a fool's paradise to most young men in similar circumstances,—but which really was not such to him, dreaming those dreams of youth, the realization of which would have been impossible to nine hundred and ninety-nine in a thousand ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... be degraded as a curse, but honored as that salt of the earth which keeps life sweet, and gives its savor to duty. To be of good family should mean being a child of the one Father of us all; and good birth, the being born into God's world, and not into a fool's paradise of man's invention. But even had this moral leaven been wanting, had the popular impulse been merely one of patriotism, we should have been well content to claim as the result of democracy that for the first time in the history of the world it had mustered ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... gradually into a half-contemptuous and half-affectionate tolerance. He began to think that he would find satisfaction in standing by and letting events work themselves out; he would let this poor fellow enjoy his fool's paradise as long as might be. No doubt, the luxury of secretively enjoying the situation had a great deal to do with this generosity of his, but the fact remains that, for some reason, he was passing from ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... upon the United States and would begin by destroying the Panama Canal. To-day is April 27, 1921. I don't say these things are going to happen within three days but, Mr. Langston, as purely as the sun shines on that ocean, we Americans are living in a fool's paradise. We are drunk with prosperity. We are deaf and blind to the truth which is known to other nations, known to our enemies, known to the ablest officers in our army ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... not better for him to know the truth than to live in a fool's paradise—to take to his heart a murderess—to live befooled and die deceived? My heart rose in hot indignation against the woman who had blighted his life, who would bring home to him such shame and anguish as must tear his heart and drive ...
— The Tragedy of the Chain Pier - Everyday Life Library No. 3 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... her? No; so long as she was sure of herself, what were opinions to her? The one thing in life to which she clung now was Katherine's affection and esteem; for her she would sacrifice much, but she would not flatter her into a fool's paradise of trust and wedded love with De Burgh by concealing anything, neither would she counsel her against the desperate experiment, should she be inclined to risk it. He might be a very different man to ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... distraught. "I do not know whether I am saying what is true or only what I imagine to be true. I know nothing but this. I was mesmerised. I have been so for two years. But for that I would have been happy in your love—for I was a woman before this hideous influence benumbed me. They told me it was only a fool's paradise that I missed. But I only know that I have missed it. Missed it—and the darkness of death ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... and was allowed to sit up in bed, he realized, with a shock, what a fool's paradise he was living in. A few more days and he must go back to that dark, damp room in Chestnut Street. He must find work—and work, however menial, for which he had the strength. Eleanor would return to New York, and he would probably ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... they are done for," says Madam, laughing now herself. "And I only hope that handsome boy Ronayne isn't laying up sorrow for himself and living in a fool's paradise. Indeed, Olga, pretty as you are, I'll be very angry with you if I hear you have been playing fast ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... have learned," he continues presently, in a low voice, that, by a great effort, he succeeds in making calm and steady, "I cannot again unlearn! I would not if I could!—I have no desire to live in a fool's paradise! I tried hard this morning—God knows what constraint I had to put upon myself—to induce you to tell me of your own accord—to volunteer it—but you would not—you were resolutely silent. Why were you? Why were you?" (breaking off with an uncontrollable emotion). "I should not have ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... rather a hard choice," said the young man, with a short laugh, turning toward the door. "According to you there's very little difference—a fool's paradise or a fool's hell! Well, it's one or the other for me, and I'll toss up for it to-night: heads, I lose; tails, the devil wins. Anyway, I'm sick of this, and I'm ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... account, and if you have joys which shrivel up at the touch of this thought, then the sooner you get rid of such joys the better. If your gladness depends upon your forcibly shutting your eyes to what is inevitably certain to come about, do you not think that you are living in a fool's paradise that you had better get out of as soon as possible? There is the fact. Will you be a wise and brave man and front it, and settle how you are going to deal with it, or will you let it hang there on your horizon, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... the situation, three alternatives present themselves: (1) Maintenance of the status quo with its dull round of persecution and degradation on one hand, and the soul-destroying life in the Fool's Paradise of Reform Judaism on the other; (2) Amalgamation with the surrounding peoples—a grim race-suicide; (3) Re-establishment of a national center where, perhaps not the entire people, but a ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... independent of control, being left a widow with some little property, and threw no obstacles in my way. We were married there, in that little village, and for a few weeks I lived in a fool's paradise. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... death in the line, but three or four miles behind it one grows accustomed, so to speak, to live in a fool's paradise. We went round to see our casualties, and I found two of my platoon, bandaged in the leg and arm, sitting in a group of their pals, who were congratulating them on having got "soft Blighty ones." The Company Quartermaster-Sergeant showed me a helmet, which was ...
— Attack - An Infantry Subaltern's Impression of July 1st, 1916 • Edward G. D. Liveing
... homage given to beauty, youth, and grace—for never to any one else shall I seem to possess these charms. He was fond and proud of me—it is what no man besides will ever be.—But where am I wandering, and what am I saying, and above all, feeling? Whether is it better, I ask, to be a slave in a fool's paradise at Marseilles—fevered with delusive bliss one hour—suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the next—or to be a village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy mountain nook in the healthy heart ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... fool! she thought herself in wondrous price With God, as if in Paradise she were; But, were she not in a fool's paradise, She might have seen more reason to despair, And, therefore, as that wretch hew'd out his cell Under the bowels, in the heart of hell! So she, above the moon, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... to come, and it was perhaps better that it should have come so soon. At any rate there was no use in letting her thoughts wander back to that shattered fool's paradise of theirs. Only, as she sat there and reckoned up the days till Strefford arrived, what else in the world was there ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... and the Vlachs, Despot of the Greeks, in that we would consider neither of them to be an empire; and that therefore, in celebrating their glories, with pointed reference to their Macedonian glories, the Serbs and the Bulgars are living in a fool's paradise. No doubt a great many persons dwelt in this Macedonia of Simeon and Du[vs]an without being aware of the fact, for those who called themselves Bulgars or Serbs appear to have been chiefly the warriors, the nobles and the priests; a large part of the people ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... not the only inhabitants of this fool's paradise. The local Government began planning extensive works: railways were laid out in every direction, bridges planned across rivers, which proved the despair of engineers; whilst a tunnel, the wonder of the Southern Hemisphere, ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... in that event. Of course no one can dispute the usefulness of sailors at any time and under any circumstances; but if that is the only reason for asking the Government to pay owners part of the cost of manning their ships, then they are living in a fool's paradise, and are much too credulous about public philanthropy, and very unobservant and illogical too if they imagine that national interests are entirely centred in the industry they happen to be engaged in. It would be just as reasonable for Armstrong's or Vickers' to request a subsidy ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... issued from the Punch office in 1898. Besides the title-piece, a satire of some length upon the mediaevalism of the pre-Raphaelites, the book contains shorter pieces—"Flirts in Hades," "Poor Pussy's Nightmare," "The Fool's Paradise, or Love and Life," "A Lost Illusion," "Vers Nonsensiques," "L'Onglay a Parry," "Two Thrones," "A Love-Agony," "A Simple Story," "A Ballad of Blunders" (after Swinburne's "Ballad of Burdens"), and then a story in prose, "The Rise and Fall of the Jack Spratts: A tale ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... problem which Horatio set himself to solve. Your adventurer is, of all manner of men, the most sanguine. Sir Walter Raleigh sees visions of gold and glory where grave statesman see only a fool's paradise of dreams and fancies. To the hopeful mind of the Captain these fourteen unrecorded years of Susan Meynell's ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... plainly as I saw it. He has heard of your visits to the villa since your return, and has kept a close account of them, and made his own deductions, depend upon it. And some day, while you and pretty Miss Charlotte are enjoying your fool's paradise, he will pounce upon you just as puss pounces ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... the cold-blooded mercenary game he had played, but the memory of it returned with his first words. Passionately she wished that she might never have learned the truth! He would have played the game to the last round, he would have been kind at least, and she might have lived on in her fool's paradise. Then a wave of contempt swept over her for her ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... of the ghastly imaginings of Mr. Froude were true, in what a fool's paradise had the wisest and best amongst us been living, moving, and having our being! Up to the date of the suggestion by him as above of the alleged facts and possibilities of West Indian life, we had ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... over against the end of the lake; and enjoy a rasher of bacon and eggs with as much gusto as if we were in the midst of a palace of fresco. Ornamental eating has become with us a species of gaudy, ostentatious vulgarity; and a dining-room a sort of fool's paradise. I never think of the little simple meal at St. Peter's now, ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... behind them for the Golden Age. Nowadays we trumpet the glory of our British empire; yet at intervals our confidence in its fortunes is shaken by some sharp panic; the decline and fall of England is predicted. It is, indeed, perilous to be overconfident, to live in a fool's paradise, for some of us have seen in our lifetime the sudden catastrophes that have overtaken great empires. But history may comfort us when we read how often the downfall of England has been predicted, how we have been on the brink of shooting ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... prevents them from speaking in its entirety. And their tact is unerring. We could not stand women speaking the truth. We could not bear it. It would cause infinite misery and bring about most awful disturbances in this rather mediocre, but still idealistic fool's paradise in which each of us lives his own little life—the unit in the great sum of existence. And they know it. They are merciful. This generalisation does not apply exactly to Mrs Fyne's outburst of sincerity in a matter in which neither my affections ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... with which she had given herself up to the belief that on the morrow her memory was to be wiped clean of the sad past, alternately terrified him and momentarily seduced him to share the same fool's paradise of fancy. And it is needless to say that the thought of receiving his wife to his arms as fresh and virgin in heart and memory as when her girlish beauty first entranced him, was very sweet ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... mind all gone, the happiness which he had flattered himself the night before he knew so well how to enjoy, seemed now but a fool's paradise in which he had been living. A hundred times this poor gentleman bit his lip, drew down his torvous brows, and stamped his foot, and cursed himself bitterly, or called his lady bitch. He could not forgive himself neither, that he had not thought of the ...
— Lady Into Fox • David Garnett
... take the Management of it upon myself. I am glad to have an Opportunity put into my Hand of shewing you my Respect. I do not promise you in Words, but I will in Reality perform whatsoever is to be expected from a real Friend, and one that heartily wishes you well. I won't bring you into a Fool's Paradise. I'll do that which shall give you Occasion to say you trusted the Affair to ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... the fool's paradise, the statesman's scheme, The air-built castle, and the golden dream. The maid's romantic wish, the chemist's flame, And poet's vision of eternal fame. Dunciad, Bk. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... Una! It is the fool's paradise," he told her coolly. "They will not wonder. They know too well that there is no ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... the press, and he felt a cool shudder run down his spine. Rachael, reading those letters! It was unthinkable! She and the world would think him a fool! It came to him suddenly that she and the world would be right. He was a fool, and it was a fool's paradise in which he had been wandering: to take his wife and home and sons for granted, and to spend all his leisure at the feet of a calculating little girl ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... same day to his brother Melius, one can see in what fool's paradise Dr. Reitz and his colleagues ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot
... poet lives in a world apart from the vulgar, the most lenient apprehension of him is that his is a sort of fool's paradise. One of the most curious features in the relation of literature to life is this, that while poetry, the production of the poet, is as necessary to universal man as the atmosphere, and as acceptable, the poet ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... in a Fool's Paradise," he thought, "but still a Paradise. She doesn't care for me any more than she cares for Jo. I wonder does he know it, or is she deceiving him? I fear so, for he ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... weak and it was easy, in his childish condition, to become despondent. He went over the whole situation and felt more and more sure that his hopes had been false ones and that he had builded a fool's paradise. After all, he remembered, she had given him no promise; she had found him ill and delirious and had brought him there. She had been kind and thoughtful and gracious, but that she would be to anyone, it was her nature. And he had been content, weak as he was, to have ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... her shoulders, and obviously without the least suspicion that Melbury had called upon any other errand than timber. Felice was, indeed, the only woman in the parish who had not heard the rumor of her own weaknesses; she was at this moment living in a fool's paradise in respect of that rumor, though not in respect of the weaknesses themselves, which, if the truth be told, caused ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... Gregory XVI. ended on the 1st June of 1846. In spite of the care taken by those around him to keep the aged pontiff in a fool's paradise with regard to the real state of his dominions, a copy of The Late Events in Romagna fell into his hands, and considerably disturbed his peace of mind. He sent two prelates to look into the condition of the congested provinces, ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... lanin' gathered up close agin the back of the big stone above there, wid a continted grin on the ould gob of him that 'ud frighten you wid the villiny was in it." Whereupon the two young men went to dislodge him from his fool's paradise, and the three ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... beginning,—she was able to start with the premise that a woman was a fool for crying about any man. Coming down to concrete facts, she found herself supplied with even less comforting excuses. If she had been living of late in a little fool's paradise, why, she had made it for herself. She could not accuse him of having any other part in it than that of merely being there. If she went back a month, or three months, or almost a year, she saw herself either taking the ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... misty idea that something was wrong, but she knew very little, and had been forbidden to say anything to Geoff about the little she did know. So that of the whole household Geoff was the only one who knew nothing, and went on living in his Fool's Paradise of having all his wants supplied, yet grumbling that he had nothing! He was in a particularly tiresome mood—perhaps, in spite of themselves, it was impossible for his sisters to bear with him as patiently as usual; perhaps the sight of his mother's ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... illegally, very much more rapidly than it is breeding, with extermination for the most of it close in sight. This statement is not open to argument; for millions of men know that it is literally true. We are living in a fool's paradise. ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... hanging perfectly together—except that curious falling out of a day. And then again Elinor's brain swam round and round. Had he been two days at the cottage instead of one, as he said? Was it there that the mistake lay? Had she been in such a fool's paradise having him there, that she had not marked the passage of time—had it all been one hour of happiness flying like the wind? A blush, partly of sweet shame to think that this was possible, that she might have been such a happy fool as to ignore ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... looked down upon her with a bitter smile. "So you've had your fool's paradise? Well, once I had mine, though 'twas not your kind. 'Tis a pretty country, Audrey, but it's not long before they turn you out." She laughed somewhat drearily, then in a moment turned shrew again. "He never knew what people were saying?" ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... indolent afternoons in sleepy reading and sleepier dreaming, which was only less agreeable than the social triumphs of which she dreamed. And yet she often found herself weary of nothing, and wished she had some one exactly to her taste to keep her company and talk to her about little things in that "fool's paradise of laziness" where, it is said, Satan is entertainer in chief. Once in a while, on his brief home-stays, Mr. Early illuminated her ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... and here, ten feet away, his rival felt the knife turn in his heart. To-morrow—to-morrow's old trick of legerdemain! there the knife, here the smiling face, and for the cloud of sycophants mere change of venue. It was a land of air-castles and rainbow gold, a fool's paradise and the garden where grew most thickly the apples of Sodom. In it were caged all greed, all extravagance, all jealousies; hopes, fears, passions that may be born of and destroy the soul of man; and within it also flamed splendid ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... Delande was completely at her ease, for well the artful renegade knew how to circle around the dangerous subject nearest his heart—the secret history of Nadine Johnstone's mother. He had dropped easily into the wooing and confidential intimacy which lulled Justine Delande into a fool's paradise of happy content. ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... have loved (as the world would say) "too well"—who have tried to build up for themselves homes in this world; forgetting that they were strangers and pilgrims in it; and so, when the floods came, and swept away that small fool's paradise of theirs, repined, and were astonished, as though some strange ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... sage business, and perhaps the best example that America has produced of the pure type of philosopher, says, "Kant is the only modern thinker who in point of originality is worthy to be ranked with Plato and Aristotle." Like Emerson, Kant regarded traveling as a fool's paradise; only Emerson had to travel much before he found it out, while Kant gained the truth by staying at home. Once a lady took him for a carriage ride, and on learning from the footman that they were seven miles from home he was so displeased that he refused to utter a single ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... that rose garden which methought was like to prove their fool's paradise, and Yvonne and I were left alone. Then she also rose, but as she was on the point ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... spirited use of proverbial wisdom. The Land of Cokaygne is an amusing little poem of some two hundred lines, belonging to the class of fabliaux, short humorous tales or satirical pieces in verse. It describes a lubber-land, or fool's paradise, where the geese fly down all roasted on the spit, bringing garlic in the bills for their dressing, and where there is a nunnery upon a river of sweet milk, and an abbey of white monks and gray, whose walls, like the hall of little King Pepin, are "of ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... about him only cared to seek their own profit. His youth may excuse him, but for his servants there could be no excuse." The news of the league between the powers came to startle Charles out of this fool's paradise. On the 8th of April, the Count of Caiazzo was suddenly recalled to Milan, and when Charles asked Lodovico to send him Messer Galeazzo instead, the duke replied curtly that he had need of him at home. By degrees the king began to realize the ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... "A fool's paradise, boy; a paradise that turns to dust and ashes." Sir Beverley's voice quivered suddenly. He withdrew his hand to fumble in an inner pocket. In a moment he stretched it forth again with a key ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... Malcolm Herrick reviewed this portion of his life, he owned to himself that during the five weeks that followed the Templeton Bean-feast he had lived in a fool's paradise—in a state of beatitude that was as unsubstantial and fleeting as the sunset clouds that piled themselves ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... seemed turning to greyness, exulting in the blow she had struck against a society which had despised her and cast her out. Exultation had coloured her days. Now suddenly, unexpectedly, she knew she had been living in a fool's paradise, into which Nigel had led her. And this knowledge fell, like a great shadow, over all the days in Egypt behind her, blotting out their sunshine, their ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... obfuscation (which is sophistication at second-hand) of the American mind. The non-imaginative person is nowhere so much at home as in a voluntary exile; and this may be why it was sometime said that travel is the fool's paradise. For such a person to realize anything the terms are that he shall go abroad, either into an alien scene or into a period of the past; then he can begin to have some pleasure. He must first of all get away from himself, and he is not to be blamed for that; any one else would wish to ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... chief knew exactly where to meet us, then assuredly the Dons must be aware of our route also. However, 'tis hard to make victors cautious. We had a hearty contempt for the Spaniards in Panama, and did not give them credit for pluck enough to follow us. So we journeyed along in a fool's paradise, surrounded by admiring Indians, and so laden with booty and presents that we could only move ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... tell him. He would have to tell him that the girl he was probably dreaming of in some fool's paradise of memory and hope was now only a little mound of dust in an Oriental cemetery. That a shaft of temporary wood already marked the grave of Aimee Marie Dejane, daughter of Tewfick Pasha and wife ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... conduct has been of a piece from the beginning. In the midst of her closest and falsest endearments, she has always (with one or two exceptions) disclaimed the natural inference to be drawn from them, and made a verbal reservation, by which she might lead me on in a Fool's Paradise, and make me the tool of her levity, her avarice, and her love of intrigue as long as she liked, and dismiss me whenever it suited her. This, you see, she has done, because my intentions grew serious, ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... this is the true continuation of your friendship; but I see that I must disappoint your expectations. You seem to expect from me some effort of resistance; but why should I resist? I have not much to gain; and now that I have read this paper, and the last of a fool's paradise is shattered, it would be hyperbolical to speak of loss in the same breath with Otto of Gruenewald. I have no party, no policy; no pride, nor anything to be proud of. For what benefit or principle under Heaven ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "Bonaparte," two small bones placed apart from each other; "An American Fool's Cap," a sheet of fools-cap paper; "Tainted Money," a penny flattened and mutilated until it is spoiled; "A Longfellow Souvenir," a section of bamboo; "A Pair of Ancient Pincers," two dried crawfish or lobster claws; "A Fool's Paradise," a pair of dice; "Sacred White Rabbit," ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... of the System; Some Sigh for the big Fool's Paradise to come. Ah, take the Cash, and let the Profits go, Nor heed the Rumble of a ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells
... a fairy prince in disguise—such a pretty disguise—and straightway led the fool into Paradise. Indeed, they were so happy together, the fool and the dog, that, though no work came along, nothing mattered. You see, it was a fool's paradise. That was natural. The result was that one day the fool lifted up his eyes, and there was a great big finger-post, pointing the way they were going. And it said WAY OUT. The dog couldn't read, so it didn't worry him; but the fool ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... I know all about that sweet innocence that fancies to ignore anything is to obliterate it; but it's a fool's paradise, after all, Kate. We are in the world, and we must accept it as it ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... that a 'fool's paradise' is liable to be turned into a hell of disappointment; and that we pay the penalty of building happiness on false foundations. This is true in a great measure; but it is absolutely without truth as regards our belief in prayer, for ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... she pursued, "that his or her daughter must be kept pure-minded, and therefore must grow up in a fool's paradise. I have no less liking for purity, but I understand it in rather a different sense; certain examples of the common purity that I have met with didn't entirely recommend themselves to me. Then again, ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... was walking in some fool's paradise or other. There were roses in it like these. Well, another blue day is dawning, Ursula, and has to be lived through somehow. Will you help me to get up now?' But, though she tried after this to talk as usual, I could see the old restlessness was on her. A sort of feverish reaction ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... who had set down his suitcase and taken possession of both the proffered hands, there wasn't the slightest doubt that he was in the seventh heaven of bliss wherever that may be. Next door to Fool's Paradise, Max Hempel ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... the blessing (forsooth!) of meeting, and billing and cooing every day, the two young people, your parents, went on in a fool's paradise, little heeding the world round about them, and all its tattling and meddling. Rinaldo was as brave a warrior as ever slew Turk, but you know he loved dangling in Armida's garden. Pray, my Lady Armida, what did you mean by flinging your spells ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in arduous service as well as in careless ease. A world in which there were no labours to be accomplished, no burdens to be borne, no storms to be endured, would be a world without true joy, honest pleasure, or noble aspiration. It would be a fool's paradise. ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... withdraw without giving the reason, and it was a more intimate subject than he cared to discuss with her. Whether he was in love with her or not was a question he deliberately refused to face. If the present were destroyed there was no future to take its place, and he purposed to live in his Fool's Paradise as long as he could. It was an excellent substitute ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... that—he will put off the ordeal as long as possible. My beautiful Madge, for your sake I am steeping myself in infamy! It is not the first time a man has sold himself to the devil for a woman. Yet why should I feel any scruples? It would have been far worse to let them go on living in their fool's paradise." ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... Fall the Kaiser of Germany would have everything to say about it. How will you like it when you have to pass over most of your profits to him and his War Lords? Here we are planning and scheming and all the time we're living in a Fool's Paradise, with the enemy at our door! We are marrying and giving in marriage, while the floods are pouring in upon us! Yes, go farming to-morrow if you like! It'll only be for a few months anyway. The ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... is you who have made the little country village my paradise. O Marian, tell me that it has not been a fool's paradise! My darling, I love you with all my heart and soul, with an honest man's first and only love. Promise that you will ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon |
