"Dotard" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bow before me. We have already punished almost all our dupes of Versailles; assuredly they have nothing with which to reproach me. I simply exercise against them the law of retaliation, treating them as they would have treated me in the council of the Queen-mother. The old dotard Bassompierre shall be doomed for perpetual imprisonment, and so shall the assassin Marechal de Vitry, for that was the punishment they voted me. As for Marillac, who counselled death, I reserve death for him at the first ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... heart less hard than hers, aroused only her deepest ire—not because he had counted out the hairs, but because there had not been more to count. Jumping to her feet in her wrath, she exclaimed, "Fool that I was, to have withheld one, when the old dotard would have paid for it so richly. But it cannot now be helped," she continued, and resuming her seat, she read the letter through, exploding, but once more, and that at the point where Uncle Nat had spoken ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... reason thence: I am not old, and yet, alas! I doat; I have not lost my sight, and yet am blind; No bondman, yet have lost my liberty; No natural fool, and yet I want my wit. What am I, then? let me define myself: A dotard young, a blind man that can see, A witty fool, a ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... struck by the uncommon ease and readiness of the verse, the suitableness of the expression, and the spirit and happiness of the whole." While Dr Warton, sensibly remarking, "that the character of a fond old dotard, betrayed into disgrace by an unsuitable match, is supported in a lively manner," refrains from making himself ridiculous by mealy-mouthed moralities which on such a subject every person of sense and honesty must ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... abdication of Charles, and proceeded to the election of Ferdinand. That Emperor was crowned in March, and immediately despatched a legation to the Pope to apprize him of the fact. Nothing was less expected than any opposition on the part of the pontiff. The querulous dotard, however, who then sat in St. Peter's chair, hated Charles and all his race. He accordingly denied the validity of the whole transaction, without sanction previously obtained from the Pope, to whom all crowns belonged. Ferdinand, after listening, through his envoys, to much ridiculous ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... bonze, of unkempt appearance, cooking his rice. When Y-ts'un perceived that he paid no notice, he went up to him and asked him one or two questions, but as the old priest was dull of hearing and a dotard, and as he had lost his teeth, and his tongue was blunt, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Thanks to you, sir, And the old ducal dotard, who combined The worthy voices which ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... opposite, and Bhanavar beheld in the house of the broker an old wrinkled fellow that gesticulated to her in a frenzy. She snatched her veil down and drew in her head in anger at him, calling to her maids, 'What is yonder hideous old dotard?' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... refuse! What did you expect? I suppose the man who sent you here thought, because you were an engaging young woman and I an old dotard, I would gabble to you the results of a life's work. Oh, no, no, no; but I am not an old dotard. I have many years to ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... so unprepossessing a likeness, but we must submit with a good grace to that which is out of our power to remedy. But I dare say the rascally groom is not after all so perfect a resemblance of your devoted admirer as the besotted gardener would make us believe; how could the old dotard distinguish objects so well, at the distance he confesses, and at night? It would seem more probable, by his prowling abroad at such an hour, that a free potation of wine had so far acted upon his senses, that he saw the marvellous ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... is a cord you cannot break unless I choose to loose it, Noma. I command you to be faithful to me and to return to me, and these commands you must obey. Hearken: you taunted me just now, saying that I sat like a dotard in the sun and advanced you nothing. Well, I will advance you, for both our sakes, but mostly for your own, since you desire it, and it must be done through the Prince Hafela. I cannot leave this kraal, for day and night I am watched, ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... answer. Your eyes show it. I might have seen for myself this morning, if I had not been in a temper with the chorus, and my mind absorbed in other matters. Be still now, here is the miller—the dotard!" ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... ballad-maker; a tapster; a drunkard; a rectified young man; a young nouice's new yonger wife; a common fidler; a broker; a iouiall good fellow; a humourist; a malepart yong upstart; a scold; a good wife, and a selfe-conceited parcell-witty old dotard. ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... full terror of her vocabulary. She called him a barbarian, a mountain goat,—a Tengu,—better mated to a fox spirit or a she-demon than to a decent girl like her young mistress. She denounced her erstwhile beloved master as a blind old dotard, and the idolized Ume, she declared a weak and yielding idiot. Tatsu's attempts at retort were swept away with a hiss. For a while he raged like a flame upon the doorstep, but he was no match for his vigorous opponent. It was something to realize his own defeat. Gasping, he turned to the ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... this was bad enough; but worse than this Were the attentions of our ancient hero, Whose frequent vow, and frequenter caress, Unwelcome were for any one to hear, who Had charms for better pleasure than a kiss From feeble dotard ten degrees from zero. So, as one does when circumstances harass one, Hy-son began to draw up ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 27, 1841 • Various
... dreams are made of, and that of the most pernicious kind." In imitation of his parent, an obscure Frenchman, Caussee, has not hesitated to call this Dionysius, the Apostle of an illustrious nation, "an old dotard." Ignatius has given grievous offence to the Centuriators of Magdeburg, as also to Calvin, so that these men, the offscouring of mankind, have noted in his works "unsightly blemishes and tasteless prosings." In their judgment, Irenaeus has brought out "a fanatical production": ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... a fysh than a man, not mearly by reason of hys madnesse for the gracelesse practice of water-dabbling, but eke for hys passion for swimming in barley wine, ale, malmsey and other infuriatyng liquours. What manner of companye doth this dotard keepe on his fyshing pastimes, God wot! Lo he is wonte to come home at some grievous houre of ye nyghte, bearing but a smalle catche but plentyful aroma of drinke, and ofttimes alsoe hys rybalde freinds do accompany hym. Nothing will serve but they must arouse our kytchen-maide and ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... talked too much already. I ask you to remember your oath, for I have told you this so that you will not bring ridicule upon me by a womanish appeal to my own men, who would but laugh at you in any case and think me a dotard in allowing women overmuch to say in the camp. Get you back to your women, for we move camp instantly. Even if I were to relent, as you term it, the time is past, for Wilhelm is either dangling from the walls of Castle Schonburg or he is pardoned, ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... grandee?" he asked himself. "A man hired at a few pounds a year and fed at the Maxfield table, in order to help the heir to a little quite unnecessary knowledge of the ancient classics and modern sciences. What was the old dotard,"—the old dotard, by the way, was Captain Oliphant's private manner of referring to the lamented "dear one," whose name so often trembled on his lips in public,—"what was the old dotard thinking about? At any rate, I should like to know a little more ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... got before: Gyas blasphem'd the gods, devoutly swore, Cried out for anger, and his hair he tore. Mindless of others' lives (so high was grown His rising rage) and careless of his own, The trembling dotard to the deck he drew; Then hoisted up, and overboard he threw: This done, he seiz'd the helm; his fellows cheer'd, Turn'd short upon the shelfs, ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... truth, they had paid the visit simply and solely to find food for themselves. The Chinese were the first to leave the duck-yard; and the other fowls soon followed them. The witty little duck said of the Portuguese that the old lady was becoming a ducky dotard. At this the other ducks laughed and cackled aloud. "Ducky dotard," they whispered; "that's too witty!" and then they repeated the former joke about Portulak, and declared that it was vastly amusing. And then they ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... you, and I tell you still: Lay steady siege to a rich dotard's will; Nor, should a fish or two gnaw round the bait, And 'scape the hook, lose heart and give up straight. A suit at law comes on: suppose you find One party's old and childless, never mind Though law with him's a weapon to oppress An upright neighbour, take his part no less: ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... girl's heels is a most unedifying spectacle—giving occasion, and reasonably, to the enemy to blaspheme—bad for her in numberless ways; and, if he's any remnant of self-respect left in him, is anything better than a fatuous dotard, damnably bad for him as well. Do ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... heard of a river in Monmouth and another in Macedon? There was an Allen some hundred years ago—and a Ben Allen now alive in India. What rubbish was this? ("Shame" cries of "put him out"). Where was the connection, he asked. Some old dotard or dodderer, they were told, said so. The doddering in the case was not confined to that individual. Here Mr. Pickwick rose, and, with much heat, told the intruder to sit down. He would not hear him; he ought to be ashamed of himself. "Would ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... possessing fat enough to cook himself; but, being rather doubtful of his own culinary efficiency, had consented to receive a French cook into the family: and, fearing there might yet be a deficiency, the ever-credulous old dotard was making good-natured overtures to one Joseph of Hapsburg,—never trustworthy, and always known to act as circumstances changed interests,—who said there was no knowing what time he would be ready to turn his attention to such purposes. Joseph, however, ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... determined to marry and wive, For better or worse With his elderly nurse - Which the poor little boy didn't live to contrive: His hearth didn't thrive - No longer alive, He died an enfeebled old dotard at five! ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... answered Mr. Sam, wagging a finger at him, "tolerated many things I do not propose to tolerate. He suffered this old dotard to annoy the public, though long past work. I am not surprised to learn that he suffered you ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... from that old dotard as soon as you can," whispered the Hetman of Jitomir to me. "The party of Trente et Quarante will begin soon. You shall see. You shall see. We go it even harder than at ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... plummet sounded. The gliding ball does not swing round in its groove faster than the old man's soul fares towards the darkness; and yet he clenches his jaw and engages in the most trivial of pursuits as if he had an eternity before him. The youth and the dotard have alike succeeded in passing out of themselves, and their very souls will not return to the body until the delirious spell has ceased to act. All men alike seem to have, more or less, this craving for oblivion. Long ago I remember seeing a ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... Dee, our English "Faust," as he is not inaptly called, has both been misrepresented and misunderstood. An enthusiast he undoubtedly was, but not the drivelling dotard that some of his biographers imagine. A man of profound learning, distinguished for attainments far beyond the general range of his contemporaries, he, like Faustus, and the wisest of human kind, had found out how little he knew; had perceived that the great ocean of truth yet lay unexplored before ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... it, Ann. I am no more that schoolboy now than I am the dotard of ninety I shall grow into if I live long enough. It is over: let me ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... of the wine, however, came the consoling reflection that Iris as a scullery-maid might not tickle the fancy of the dotard who had undertaken to provide fifty thousand pounds for the new partnership. And she had promised—that was everything. His lack of diplomacy was obvious even to himself, but he had won where a ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... night what could be done. He said, 'The Duke ought now to retire from public life, and not expose himself to any appearance of an enfeebled understanding. Above all things to be deprecated is, that he should ever become a dotard like Marlborough, or a driveller like Swift.' 'How,' he said, 'would Aberdeen do?' He owned that nobody could replace the Duke or keep the party in order, and he said that the consequence would be it would break up, that 'there are many who would be glad ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... was by him assigned My guide, and twice in doubtful fight his arm Protected me: once on the heights of Calpe, Once on the plain, when courtly jealousies Tore from the bravest and the best his due, And gave the dotard and the coward command: Then came Roderigo forth—the front of war Grew darker—him, equal in chivalry, Julian alone could with ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... for the aged man; Who thinks, when old, to act as he began; But, if the sage a yielding dotard seems, His work is done by those the wife esteems; Complaints are never heard; no thrilling fears; And ev'ry one ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... full of good taste and spirit, but that it showed some want of study and practice on the author's part; otherwise I had been extremely touched to think that those young fingers should have thus embroidered an old man's rough sketch of fancy, and given form so brilliantly to the dreams of a dotard like myself. ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... knows everything. When Nurredin orders him to begin his shaving he relates the fate of his six brothers, who all died before him and always of love. At last Nurredin's patience giving way, he calls his servants in to throw the old dotard out of doors. But Abul drives them all back and Nurredin tries to pacify him with ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... "Alas! dotard," interrupted Kai Lung impatiently, "it would be well if I spent my few remaining hours in kowtowing to the Powers whom I shall shortly meet. An aged and unsightly hag! Know you not, O venerable bat, that the smooth perfection of the one you serve would shine dazzling ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... am indebted for all I am. But for the angelic face of the queen the calamity of the accursed year 1807 would have driven me to despair and death: and but for Scharnhorst I should never have been appointed general-in-chief. Why, they all considered me a bombastic old dotard of big words and small deeds; but Scharnhorst defended me before the king and the emperor, and what I am now I am through him, because he, the noblest of men, believed in me. And I will not give the lie to his faith, I will still ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... the coward, thou death- telling seer! Or, if gory Culloden so dreadful appear, Draw, dotard, around thy old wavering sight This mantle, to ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... I am!" he thought within himself, as he paced the stone floor of his prison-house; "the destiny of the accursed is mine! Ah! fool—dotard that I was to exchange the honors of old age for the vicissitudes of a renewed existence! Had nature taken her course, I should probably now be sleeping in a quiet grave—and my soul might be in the regions of the blessed. But the tempter came, and dazzled me with prospects of endless happiness—and ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... the lady, somewhat scornfully—"to seat a bigoted dotard on the throne of England! That is what they come to consult about. Are they not some of those whom I saw yesterday morning from the window? that dark Sir George Barkley, who used to walk through the halls of St. Germain's, in gloomy silence, till the profane courtiers called ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... Caroline had no more valiant champion. She not only declined to have anything to say to her husband's mother, she carried her disapproval to the extent of refusing point blank to appear at Court. So furious was the Regent at this slight that "the dotard with corrupted eye and withered heart," as Byron calls him, had her portrait removed from the Palace Gallery of Beauties, and returned ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... hand onto my hed and said, in a mournful tone of vois, "Mr. Ward, your mind is failin. Your intellect totters! You are only about sixty years of age, yet you will soon be a drivelin dotard, and hav no control ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne
... said to himself, "what business had I there? Nevertheless, on reflection, I have lost nothing. My reception by this old dotard has taken away for ever my wish to go back there: and who knows what might have happened, if I had had free admission to that house, if I had met a friendly face and a kindly welcome? Oh, fool! I have found all that in the sweet look of his adorable ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... compared with mine! I might have been a common soldier, a day-laborer, a factory operative, a mechanic, instead of a missionary. If my faculties had been left to run riot or to waste as those of so many young men, I should now have been used up, a dotard, as many of my school-fellows are. I am respected by the natives, their kind expressions often make me ashamed, and they are sincere. So much deference and favor manifested without any effort on my part to secure it comes ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... they were cowed by the majestic presence, the guard stood still and the drum was silenced. Andros spurred forward, but even he made a pause when he saw the staff levelled at his breast. "Forward!" he blustered. "Trample the dotard into the street. How dare you stop the ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... low, menacing tones. "Dotard! do you talk of vengeance? You do not understand the meaning of that word. Wait till you see what ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... question! Why do we all pretend?—all!—every human being from the child to the dotard! Simply because we dare not face the truth! For example, consider the sun! It is a furnace with flames five thousand miles high, but we 'pretend' it is our beautiful orb of day! We must pretend! If we didn't we should ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... During his travels it had befallen him to meet various types of men—some of them, it may be, types which you and I have never encountered; but even to Chichikov this particular species was new. In the old man's face there was nothing very special—it was much like the wizened face of many another dotard, save that the chin was so greatly projected that whenever he spoke he was forced to wipe it with a handkerchief to avoid dribbling, and that his small eyes were not yet grown dull, but twinkled under their overhanging brows like the eyes of mice when, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... stick of tobacco obtained from his friends, the planters. Toward afternoon, he strolled back to their abode; where he tarried till the next morning, smoking and snoozing, and, at times, prating about the hapless fortunes of the House of Tonoi. But like any other easy-going old dotard, he seemed for the most part perfectly content ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... the inconsequent dotard had employed a telephone to summon his car to transport him to the links, and had denied even a glance of acknowledgment at the wonder floating above him. Much like that is growing Newbern. There was gasping aplenty when Winona Penniman ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... the Duke demanded, angrily. "Am I to have the gaiety of my guests spoiled because of this old dotard? Take him to prison." The attendants rushed in and seized Monterone, while he turned again upon the dwarf and cursed him roundly. Not only did the dwarf shrink back, the whole company became affrighted, while the old man was ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... death of Chaucer (A.D. 1400), had we been able to intercept the murderous conflicts of Barnet, Towcester, Tewkesbury, St. Albans! How happy for Spain, had no modern line of French coxcombs (not succeeding by any claim of blood, but under the arbitrary testament of a paralytic dotard) interfered to tamper with the old Castilian rules, so that no man knew whether the Spanish custom or the French innovation really governed. The Salic law or the interested abrogation of that law were the governing principle in strict constitutional practice. To this point had ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... Most needed. Men who seek for Fate abroad 140 Are not so near his heart as they who dare Frankly to face her where she faces them, On their own threshold, where their souls are strong To grapple with and throw her; as I once, Being yet a boy, did cast this puny king, Who now has grown so dotard as to deem That he can wrestle with an angry realm, And throw the brawned Antaeus of men's rights. No, Hampden! they have half-way conquered Fate Who go half-way to meet her,—as will I. 150 Freedom hath yet a work for me to do; So speaks that inward voice which never yet Spake falsely, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... again, as a sort of contemptuous acquittal of one, who after all has not wit enough to be wicked. But this is not at all what Mr. Kingsley proposes to himself in the antithesis which he suggests to his readers. Though he speaks of me as an utter dotard and fanatic, yet all along, from the beginning of his pamphlet to the end, he insinuates, he proves from my writings, and at length in his last pages he openly pronounces, that after all he was right at first, in thinking me a ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... rancher promised to do this, but his tone was that of a broken and distraught dotard. All the landmarks of his life seemed suddenly shifted. All the standards of his life hitherto orderly and fixed were now confused and whirling, and Cavanagh, understanding something of his plight, pitied him ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... sighing, and fainting like a lovesick swain, it would be better to set to work to think out some plan for rescuing your Marianna. You just wait and see, Antonio, how finely we'll circumvent the old dotard; in such like emprises, the wildest extravagance hardly seems to me wild enough. I'll set about it at once, and learn what I can about the old man, and about his usual habits of life. But you must not be seen in this affair, Antonio. ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... boys at play, And had his nuts as well as they, A grave Athenian, passing by, Cast on the sage a scornful eye, As on a dotard quite bereaved: Which, when the moralist perceived, (Rather himself a wit profess'd Than the poor subject of a jest) Into the public way he flung A bow that he had just unstrung: "There solve, thou conjurer," he cries, "The problem, ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... us here a prisoner?" suggested an old buck; only to be cried down loudly as a doddering dotard, whose ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... it?" said Vautrin, holding the letter up to the light. "A banknote? No." He peered into the envelope. "A receipted account!" he cried. "My word! 'tis a gallant old dotard. Off with you, old chap," he said, bringing down a hand on Christophe's head, and spinning the man round like a thimble; "you will have ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... I saw in the feeble lamplight with the accursed wretch that crosses my path everywhere, the dastard, drivelling dotard of Arpinum; thou that despite thine oath, didst lead him to detect the man, thou hadst sworn to obey, and follow! Thou! it is thou, then, that houndest mine enemies upon my track! By the great Gods, I know not whether most to marvel at the sublime, unrivalled folly, which could ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... better than birth. Moreover, it is no shame to overthrow old age, which of its own weight sinks and totters to its fall. It shall be enough for my father to have borne the sceptre for so long; let the dotard's power fall to thee; if it elude thee, it will pass to another. Whatsoever rests on old age is near its fall. Think that his reign has been long enough, and be it thine, though late in the day, to be first. ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... on the cheek and set off for school as fast as his legs could carry him. O Love, omnivorous Love, that sparest neither the dotard leaning on his staff nor the boy with pantaloons buttoning on his jacket,—omnipotent Love, that, after parents and teachers have failed, in one instant can make Billy try to ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... she went off and left him; for he was not lustful, nor an agreeable bedfellow to spend the night with. Now a woman delights in being wantonly treated. But you are an old dotard. For (to Phidippides) consider, O youth, all that attaches to modesty, and of how many pleasures you are about to be deprived—of women, of games at cottabus, of dainties, of drinking-bouts, of giggling. And yet, what is life worth to you if you be deprived ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... that their motives should be misinterpreted by what they considered deliberate falsehood and misrepresentation; and the Lindsays could not look in silence upon the property which they thought ought to be theirs, transferred to the possession of strangers, who had wheedled a dotard to make a will in their favor. Such, however, in thousands of instances, are the consequences ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Paris his "Medecin malgre lui," his "Etourdi," his "L'Avare," and his "Scapin." Milan offered a pimp in the Brighella; Florence an ape of fashion in Gelsomino. These and other pantomimic characters, and some ludicrous ones, as the Tartaglia, a spectacled dotard, a stammerer, and usually in a passion, had been gradually introduced by the inventive powers of an actor of genius, to call forth his own ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... his child above all earthly things! As traders love the merchandize from which their profit springs: Old age came by, with tott'ring step, and, for the sordid gold With which the dotard urged his suit, the maiden's peace was sold And thus (for oh! her sire's stern heart was steel'd against her pray'r) The hand he ne'er had gain'd from love, he won from ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various
... abyss of error, blacker than the darkness that may be felt, thou seed of Babylon, child of the building of the tower of Chalane, whereby the world was confounded, foolish and pitiable dotard, whose sins out-weigh the iniquity of the five cities that were destroyed by fire and brimstone. Why wouldest thou mock at the preaching of salvation, whereby darkness hath been made light, the wanderers have ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... then on earth. On the contrary, we blush to admit it, Methuselah was held in very trifling esteem by his frivolous fellow-citizens, who habitually referred to him as an "old 'wayback," "a barnacle," an "old fogy," a "mossback," or a "garrulous dotard," and with singular irreverence they took delight in twitting him upon his senility and in pestering him with divers new-fangled notions altogether distasteful, not to say shocking, to a ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... hill with a dull world under, The dreary world of the Commonplace, I have stood when the whole world seemed a blunder Of dotard Time, in an aimless race. With worry about me and want before me - Yet deep in my soul was a rapture spring That made me cry to the grey sky o'er me: 'Oh, I know this life ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... and respected the old Duc de Marny, a feeble old man now, almost a dotard whose hitherto spotless blason, the young Vicomte, his son, was doing ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... that he lights up the faces of the horrified spectators with his glare. A father fond of unworthy children, and leading a life of self-denial for their sake, as may probably and pathetically be, is not enough; there must be an imbecile, trembling dotard, willing to promote even the liaisons of his daughters to give them happiness and to teach the sublimity of the paternal instinct. The hero cannot sufficiently be a selfish young fellow, with alternating impulses of greed and generosity; he must superfluously intend a career of iniquitous ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... years ago, as an exercise—and I will never write another. They are the most puling, petrifying, stupidly platonic compositions. I detest the Petrarch so much, that I would not be the man even to have obtained his Laura, which the metaphysical, whining dotard never could. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... strictly the one and only great tragedy that Dickens wrote. It is like the tragedy of Hamlet. The others are not tragedies because they deal almost with dead men. The tragedy of old Dorrit is merely the sad spectacle of a dotard dragged about Europe in his last childhood. The tragedy of Steerforth is only that of one who dies suddenly; the tragedy of old Dombey only that of one who was dead all the time. But Rick is a real tragedy, for he is still alive when the ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... on reading the letter. "What meaneth this old dotard, surd and absurd, thus to control our actions? Did not our innate generosity restrain us, I would confound him, and make him a prodigy to ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... to himself; "that was the year the dotard Schenk got his overthrow at the fight of Rain on Sare from the Moslem. Some composition was made by them, and old Wolfgang was not unlikely to have been the go-between. So! Say on, young knight," he added, "let us to the matter in hand. How rose the strife that kept back two troops from our—from ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... how much of youth there is still left in me. But——" He paused. His angry eyes had alighted upon the Count, who stood waiting by the door, and the whole expression of his countenance changed. "You are right, Ferrabraccio, I grow old indeed—a dotard. Take you ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... longer a death-dealing terror. It has become a blubbering fish. And the author of its crimes is no diabolical triton, but a semi-imbecile old dotard, round whom his evil—but terrified—brood have clustered; they fawning on him in terror, he fondling them in shaky, decrepit fondness. Note the flaccid paunch, the withered top, and the foolish, hysterical face. How the full-dress ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... "Away with this prating dotard," said Front-de Boeuf, "lock him up in the chapel, to tell his beads till the broil be over. It will be a new thing to the saints in Torquilstone to hear aves and paters; they have not been so honoured, I trow, since they were ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... rankling tooth Of treason; and oppression, giant form, Trampling on freedom, left the alternative Of slavery, or of death. Even from that day, When, on the guilty Capet, I pronounced The doom of injured France, has faction rear'd Her hated head amongst us. Roland preach'd Of mercy—the uxorious, dotard Roland, The woman-govern'd Roland durst aspire To govern France; and Petion talk'd of virtue, And Vergniaud's eloquence, like the honey'd tongue Of some soft Syren wooed us to destruction. We triumph'd over ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... man! Thou turnest a dotard, and in the great knowledge thou possessest of other things, hast forgotten the knowledge best worth knowing—-that of the beautiful part of the creation. Think of the impression likely to be made by a gallant neither ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... poor old dotard, there's no oil in these specimens. You can smell 'em yourself if you want to," he said. But there was something in his manner of the lady ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne
... is law. She holds despotic sway. Her wont has been to show the narrow way Wherein must tread the world, the bright, the brave, From infancy to dotard's ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... there are many with a superficial knowledge of the Scriptures and with no knowledge of science who would fain arrogate to themselves the power of decreeing upon all questions of nature. As St. Jerome writes: "The talking old woman, the dotard, the garrulous sophist, all venture upon, lacerate, teach, before they have learnt. Others, induced by pride, dive into hard words, and philosophate among women touching the Holy Scriptures. Others (oh, shameful!) learn of women what ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... in troubled waters, and drink the cup of contention, or she would not now think of mingling her affairs with those of America. It would be like a foolish dotard taking to his arms the bride that despises him, or who has placed on his head the ensigns of her disgust. It is kissing the hand that boxes his ears, and proposing to renew the exchange. The thought is as servile as the war ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... of silver gray, and enameled chins, like those of girls; bald pates and Merovingian locks; smooth brows and wrinkles: forms erect and stooping; an eye that squinted; one king was deaf; by his side, another that was halt; and not far off, a dotard. They were old and young, tall and short, handsome and ugly, fat ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... with zeal, believing it was Bouvard's own case, and calling him an old dotard, even though ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... strain, And brand me coward, thou whose hands can slay Such Trojan hosts, whose trophies grace the plain. What worth can do, and manhood can essay, We twain may venture. Sooth, not far away Need foes be sought; around the walls they throng. March we to meet them! Dotard, why delay? Still dwells thy War-God in a windy tongue, And flying feet, and knees ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... when passing forever from my sister's room. The worm was at my heart; and, I may say, the worm that could not die. Man is doubtless one by some subtle nexus, some system of links, that we cannot perceive, extending from the new-born infant to the superannuated dotard; but, as regards many affections and passions incident to his nature at different stages, he is not one, but an intermitting creature, ending and beginning anew: the unity of man, in this respect, is coextensive only with the particular stage to which the passion belongs. ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... turned away with a sniff of disgust. "People of a certain class," said he half-audibly, "can see nothing but as it affects themselves. Of his duty this old dotard thinks nothing at all, nor of the scandal of his continuing to draw public pay: yet, mark you, how keenly he scents ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... may whet, The unmowed grass is glowing yet Beneath the sheltering snow, my boys; And if the crazy dotard ask, Is love worn out? Is life a task? We'll bravely answer No! my boys, We ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... it. What nice girl could bear Thy gouty body and old dotard smile? Yet unto thee did my lost love repair— O Venus! a wild beast were ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... made him to show me the use of platts, and to understand the lines, and how to find how lands bear, &c., to my great content. Then came Mr. Barrow, storekeeper of Chatham, who tells me many things, how basely Sir W. Batten has carried himself to him, and in all things else like a passionate dotard, to the King's great wrong. God mend all, for I am sure we are but in an ill condition in the Navy, however the King is served in other places. Home to supper, to cards, and ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... has depicted balancing herself upon a tee-totum on the southern window of the Parliament House of Edinburgh, is a mere idol,—a Diana of Ephesus,—whom her votaries worship, either because her shrine brings great gain to the craftsmen, or out of an ignorant and dotard superstition, which induces them to prefer the old Scottish Mumpsimus to the modern English Sumpsimus. Now, this is not fair construction in our friends, whose intentions in our behalf, we allow, are excellent, but ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... Of slavery, or of death. Even from that day, When, on the guilty Capet, I pronounced The doom of injured France, has faction reared Her hated head amongst us. Roland preach'd Of mercy—the uxorious dotard Roland, 180 The woman-govern'd Roland durst aspire To govern France; and Petion talk'd of virtue, And Vergniaud's eloquence, like the honeyed tongue Of some soft Syren wooed us to destruction. We triumphed over these. On the same scaffold 185 Where the last Louis pour'd ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... your Brother, and get ye out of doors, and seek your Fortune. Stand still becalm'd, and let an aged Dotard, a hair-brain'd Puppy, and a Bookish Boy, that never knew a Blade above a Pen-knife, and how to cut his meat in Characters, cross my design, and take thine own Wench from thee, in mine own house too? ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... The Bechnanas imagine that none who eat of the kidneys of the ox will have any offspring; on this account, no one, except the aged, will taste-them. Hence the contemptuous term of "kidney-eaters," synonymous with dotard. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various
... not. But I did not do it. I was not Prime Minister then. It was that old dotard, that played-out old humbug Lubin. He was Prime Minister ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... Charron[2]) Otho a warrior, Cromwell a buffoon? A perjured prince[3] a leaden saint revere, A godless regent[4] tremble at a star? 90 The throne a bigot keep, a genius quit, Faithless through piety, and duped through wit? Europe a woman, child, or dotard rule, And just her ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... he had lost the power of doing it; and he ended darkly and shamefully, a dotard worshipping idols of wood and stone, among his heathen queens. And thus, as in David the height of chivalry fell to the deepest baseness; so in Solomon the height of wisdom fell to the ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... thou dotard!" The wondrous phantom cried— "'Tis several centuries ago Since that poor stripling died. He would not use my nostrums— See, shaveling, here they are! These put to flight all human ills, These conquer death—unfailing pills, And I'm ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... Countess of Exeter might have pleaded this circumstance in extenuation of some of her follies. It was undoubtedly an argument employed by her admirers, who, in endeavouring to shake her fidelity to her lord, told her it was an infamy that she should be sacrificed to such an old dotard as he. Whether these arguments prevailed in more cases than one we shall not inquire too nicely; but, if court-scandal may be relied on, they did—Buckingham and De Gondomar being both reputed to ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... to scare women, and Khosrul's followers can so play with the strings of electricity that ye are duped into accepting the witch-glamour as Heaven's own cloud-flame! By the gods! If Al-Kyris falls, as yon dotard pronounceth, her ruins shall bury but few heroes! O superstitious and degraded souls! ... I would ye were even as I am—a man ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Sternly the damsel views her; quits the threads Unfinish'd; scarce her hand from force restrains: And rage in all her features flushing fierce, Thus to the goddess, well-disguis'd, she speaks:— "Weak dotard, spent with too great gift of years, "Curst with too long existence, hence, begone! "Such admonition to thy daughters give, "If daughters hast thou; or thy sons have wives: "Enough for me my inbred wisdom serves. "Hope not, that ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... Thou dotard, hateful to the gods, dost thou guard [these possessions], for fear of wanting thyself: to the end that thy son, or even the freedman thy heir, should guzzle it all up? For how little will each day deduct ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... slips and shuffles when he means to walk, And lisps and gabbles if he tries to talk; Feeling he's none—he could as soon destroy The earth itself, as aught it holds enjoy; A nurse attends him to lay straight his limbs, Present his gruel, and respect his whims: Now shall this dotard from our hero hold His lands and lordships? Shall he hide his gold! That which he cannot use, and dare not show, And will not give—why longer should he owe? Yet, t'would be murder should we snap the locks, And take the thing he worships from the box; So let him dote and dream: but, till he ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... dotard! Good Lord, I know colonial law; I've been skating on the edge of it on more planets than you're years old. And I never thought of that; why, of course it would. Where are you now, with the Company, ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... of battle Hadst thou but known me as Uriah! Bah! Why, what a brainless dullard have I been, To see this pretty puff-ball of a preacher Wax large before mine eyes in righteous husk— And think him whole within—when but a touch, But one, had aired his rottenness! Oh! dotard that I am! blind, deaf and stupid! It takes a miracle to make me see What lay before me open. He did take Her part; ever professed himself her friend; And at her trial fell in trance. What more? He is the man! He is the man! Now ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... you have dealt with me as a child; so untaught yet by that last lesson, that even a woman's revenge cannot make you treat me as a woman! Clasfempta! you bear, I believe, outside, the fame of a wise and a firm man; but in these little hands you have been as weak a fool as the veriest dotard might ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... a carline at Bergthorsknoll, whose name was Saevuna. She was wise in many things, and foresighted; but she was then very old, and Njal's sons called her an old dotard, when she talked so much, but still some things which she said came to pass. It fell one day that she took a cudgel in her hand, and went up above the house to a stack of vetches. She beat the stack of vetches ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... father; Worn out with toil and slavery, implored The poor man's God to sweep it from the earth, And spare his children the detested task 145 Of piling stone on stone, and poisoning The choicest days of life, To soothe a dotard's vanity. There an inhuman and uncultured race Howled hideous praises to their Demon-God; 150 They rushed to war, tore from the mother's womb The unborn child,—old age and infancy Promiscuous perished; their victorious arms Left not ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... has fled: his bars, his bolts, His withered sentinel, duenna sage! And all whereat the generous soul revolts, Which the stern dotard deemed he could encage, Have passed to darkness with the vanished age. Who late so free as Spanish girls were seen (Ere War uprose in his volcanic rage), With braided tresses bounding o'er the green, While on the gay ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron |
