"Idiotical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and said nothing, from which Mr Blurt concluded that she did not object. She withdrew her hand suddenly, however, and blushed. There was a slight noise at the door. It was Jiggs, who, with an idiotical stare, asked if it was not time to put up ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... not aware that I said we. We have nothing to spend upon any one, so far as I know. I said I—the only person in the house who earns any money or is likely to do so, if Reginald goes on in this idiotical way." ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... not," said the Templar, "by urging the difference of our creeds; within our secret conclaves we hold these nursery tales in derision. Think not we long remained blind to the idiotical folly of our founders, who forswore every delight of life for the pleasure of dying martyrs by hunger, by thirst, and by pestilence, and by the swords of savages, while they vainly strove to defend a barren desert, valuable ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... seem to care, now he had gained his end, whether the stories lasted out or not. He was nestling against Rosa's plump form with a look of satisfaction that was simply idiotic; and one arm had disappeared from view—was it round her waist? Rosa's natural blush seemed deeper than usual, her head inclined shyly—it must have been ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... of lawyers who, through the idiotic method of voting in use in modern democracies, are able practically to rule Great Britain, and who are powerful and ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... less than that of even the little wild Porto Santo rabbits. By the standard of the length of skull the capacity (see column 7) is only half of what it ought to have been! I kept this individual animal alive, and it was not unhealthy nor idiotic. This case of the Angora rabbit so much surprised me, that I repeated all the measurements and found them correct. I have also compared the capacity of the skull of the Angora with that of the wild rabbit by other standards, namely, by the length and weight of the body, and by the weight ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... arrived. Kenneth Traynor was a temperate man. Is it no wonder you excited wonder and talk? Then you were stupid under questioning and gave equivocal answers. Your explanation to Parker about the diamonds was more than unfortunate; it was idiotic. His suspicions were at once aroused. He may yet give us trouble before we have time to get rid of the stones. Finding the wife eluded you, you began to stay out late at night. You caroused, you drank hard, you gambled—all of which follies ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... a face moulder, and its lower front was a huge display of mirror, designed to stimulate the thirst for more symmetrical features. Denton caught the reflection of himself and his new friend, enormously twisted and broadened. His own face was puffed, one-sided, and blood-stained; a grin of idiotic and insincere amiability distorted its latitude. A wisp of hair occluded one eye. The trick of the mirror presented the swart man as a gross expansion of lip and nostril. They were linked by shaking hands. Then ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... anglers go about their harmless sport in stealthy silence like conspirators, or sit together in a boat, dumb, glum, and penitential, like naughty schoolboys on the bench of disgrace? 'Tis an Omorcan superstition; a rule without a reason; a venerable, idiotic fashion invented to repress lively spirits and put a ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... of the merlin hawk. There were pages in waiting, and dogs of curious and extinct breeds held in the leash. Perhaps these never existed except in the dreams of some old-fashioned artist; but my eye followed their strange shapes with a sort of half-idiotic wonder. ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... have not lost a gold-link bag?" I insisted, as if in idiotic endeavor to persuade her ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... idiotic. Of course she recognised them. I saw her eyes fall on the Reynolds the very moment she ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... I'll confess I'm disgusted. This has been the most idiotic thing I've ever done, and if you say the word we'll get out of here on the first train—freight or passenger. The Guggenslockers—pigs!" Mr. ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... of uncontrollable, hasty activity, rose high. Everywhere was violent advertisement, until his brain swam at the tumult of light and colour. And Babble Machines of a peculiarly rancid tone were abundant and filled the air with strenuous squealing and an idiotic slang. "Skin your eyes and slide," "Gewhoop, ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... seem irrelevant, but not if you read on. Every time one of these hens brings five-pence-halfpenny worth of egg into the world it makes a noise commensurate with this feat. But I contend that even if your cow laid an egg every time it moos (which it doesn't, so far as my survey reveals) its idiotic bellowing would still be out of all proportion to the achievement. Even milk at a shilling a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various
... the blessings of life and another to suffer all miseries throughout eternity? Why is one born with good tendencies and another with evil ones? Why is one man virtuous throughout his life and another bestial? Why is one born intelligent and another idiotic? If God out of His own will made all these inequalities, or, in other words, if God created one man to suffer and another to enjoy, then how partial and unjust must He be! He must be worse than a tyrant. How can we worship Him, how ...
— Reincarnation • Swami Abhedananda
... Jeff. "But of course my not seeing it doesn't count. I can't see the value of that idiotic old battered-up copper pail you cherish so tenderly, but that's because I lack the true, heaven-born artist's soul. Where are you going to put ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... lack of intellect as all the rest, and have done with it? The old idealistic republicans used to found democracy on the idea that all men were equally intelligent. Believe me, the sane and enduring democracy is founded on the fact that all men are equally idiotic. Why should we not choose out of them one as much as another. All that we want for Government is a man not criminal and insane, who can rapidly look over some petitions and sign some proclamations. To think what time was wasted in arguing ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... to the deck below. I followed like a fool, for in the row I had lost my weapons. As I recall it now, Sam shouted to me to come back. But there was some idiotic notion in my head that the Russian might run into the reception room with his fellows and get possession of ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... related to me by the idiotic Edward Hines simply resolved itself into an idle adventure on the part of the mysterious woman, which she had been forced to terminate (somewhat ferociously, I admit) by the uncouth ardor of this rustic ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... "Idiotic animal!" exclaimed Keraunus, "to give my medicine to the child," and he kicked off his new shoes to replace them with shabbier ones. "If you were younger I would have ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... every inch of their way, till they had achieved success as physicians, lawyers, writers. She spoke passionately, often with the absurd acerbity of her mother. "It's a crime for a young man like you to throw himself away on that idiotic Talmud of yours," she said, pacing up and down ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... Fried Cat," and so resolved to take his dinner in the gorgeous cafe of The Lorne. While he was waiting for the proper moment to descend thither, he could not get the shoe question out of his mind. Surely, the boot-boy could not have been so idiotic as to have left that ancient, broken-down pair at Littimer's threshold! And yet it was possible. Crombie felt another flush of humility upon his cheeks. Then he wandered off into reverie upon the multifarious errands ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... look of idiotic complacency in a Turkish bath," said the other, "it is the more noticeable from the fact that you ...
— When William Came • Saki
... which has hitherto played its game in respect to the future of mankind—a game in which neither the hand, nor even a "finger of God" has participated!—he who divines the fate that is hidden under the idiotic unwariness and blind confidence of "modern ideas," and still more under the whole of Christo-European morality—suffers from an anguish with which no other is to be compared. He sees at a glance all that could still BE MADE OUT OF MAN through a favourable accumulation and augmentation ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... nights after this unpleasant experience the mad fellow "took off" down wind. This idiotic method of leaving the ground resulted in his being barely able to rise above the roofs of the near-by village and brought him into direct contact with the church spire. The spire being of solid construction withstood the impact; the aeroplane did not. So Killem and his companions, ...
— Night Bombing with the Bedouins • Robert Henry Reece
... restoration of the erring mother?" General Darrington had struck his cane violently on the floor, and exclaimed: "Don't talk such infernal nonsense! Did you ever hear of my pardoning a wrong against my family name and honor? Does any man live, idiotic enough to consider me so soft-hearted? No, no. On the contrary, I was harsh to the girl; so harsh that she turned upon me, savage as a strong cub defending a crippled helpless dam. They know now that the last card has been played, and the game ended; for I gave her distinctly to understand ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... statues erected to the memories of philanthropists, but I never yet have seen one erected to a miser; many to generous-hearted, noble-hearted men, but never yet to one whose whole life was that of a sharp bargain-driver, and who clung with a sort of semi-idiotic grasp to all that came thus into his temporary possession. I have seen many erected to statesmen,—statesmen,—but never one to mere politicians; many to true orators, but never to mere demagogues; many to ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... season, when I long to sit alone, In some clean and quiet garret, I can really call my own; Where no Christmas Cards can reach me with their idiotic rhymes— Where I never hear of HARRIS, and his splendid Pantomimes. Where the turkey and the goose would feel distinctly out of place, Where no pallid pie of mincemeat, dares to look me in the face; Where I don't see ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various
... muddle my brains any more with your idiotic reasonings! Take him along, and give ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... had realised the idiotic conventionality of the last words her companion had disappeared and she was left alone. He had not gone back in the direction whence they had come, but had taken the deserted windward side of the ship, doubtless with the intention of ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... I have been along the hillside, wondering much at idiotic sheep, and raising partridges at every second step. One little plover is the object of my firm adherence. I pass his nest every day, and if you saw how he flies by me, and almost into my face, crying and flapping his wings, to direct my ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... wearily, "that a man of Camber's genius, having decided upon murder, must have arranged for an unassailable alibi. Very well. Are we now to leap to the other end of the scale, and to credit him with such utter stupidity as to place hanging evidence where it could not fail to be discovered by the most idiotic policeman? Preserve your balance, Knox. Theories are wild horses. They run away with us. I know that of old, for which very reason I always avoid speculation until I have a solid foundation of fact ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... do seek bed and board in this world; do find it more and more successfully; do get at length too intent on finding it, exclusively intent on that. They are then like diseased corpulent bodies fallen idiotic, which merely eat and sleep; ready for 'dissolution,' by a Henry the Eighth or some other. Jocelin's St. Edmundsbury is still far from this last dreadful state: but here too the reader will prepare himself to see an Ideal not sleeping in ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... wretched Nupton who must have made—must be going to make—some idiotic mistake.... Look here, Soames! you know me better than to suppose that I.... After all, the name "Max Beerbohm" is not at all an uncommon one, and there must be several Enoch Soameses running around—or rather, "Enoch Soames" is a name that might occur to any one writing a story. And ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... outflow of specie—in obedience to the universal superstition, which was destined to survive so many centuries, that gold and silver alone constituted wealth—while, at the same time, in deference to the idiotic principle of sumptuary legislation, it was vigorously opposing mulberry culture, silk manufactures, and other creations of luxury, which, in spite of the hostility of government sages, were destined from that time forward to become better mines of wealth for the kingdom than ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... "Soon to be issued by the Dorans (or Knopfs or Huebsches)," etc., etc. This is an echo of the old custom when there really were two or more Harpers. But as long as there is only one Doran, one Huebsch, one Knopf, it is simply idiotic. ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... kind any man wants to marry. She wouldn't have liked a real husband, either... poor, dear, thin-blooded old child! But she wanted a home just the same. Everybody does! And if she had been taught how to earn a decent living, if she hadn't been fooled out of her five senses by that idiotic cant about a man's doing everything for you, or else going without... why she'd be working now, a happy, useful woman, bringing up two or three adopted children in a decent home she'd made for ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... the utmost resentment the determination of the war to come to Leesville, in spite of all his labours to keep it out. Take the most preposterous thing you could imagine—the most idiotic thing on the face of the earth—take German spies! When Jimmie heard people talking about German spies, he laughed in their faces, he told them they were a bunch of fools, they belonged in the nursery; ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... laughed rudely. "You've never lived yet, dear. Look here, Vi. My father's one of the three richest men in South Africa; and all he's got will come to me some day. As it is he gives me an allowance bigger than those of all the other men in the regiment put together. I hate the Service and its idiotic discipline. I want to be free—to go where money ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... More idiotic rot—excuse the expression—I have never read in my life. What has civilization to do with Servia's murderous plotting against us? What with Russia's desire to shield her from the consequences of her aggressions and to demonstrate to the world that we are of no ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... you have her do?" he said—for he was a very tolerant and good-natured person. "Sit and look on at that idiotic ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... censorship of the press has been variously estimated. The Index was early dubbed sica destricta in omnes scriptores and Sarpi called it "the finest secret ever discovered for applying religion to the purpose of making men idiotic." Milton thundered against the censorship in England as "the greatest discouragement and affront that can be offered to learning and learned men." The evil of the system of Rome was, in his opinion, double, for, as he wrote in his ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... the solemn union between man and woman? In this sense, marriage is a sacrament. But sometimes, alas! it is almost a sacrilege. As for civil marriage, it is a formality. The importance given to it in our society is an idiotic thing which would have made the women of other times laugh. We owe this prejudice, like many others, to the bourgeois, to the mad performances of a lot of financiers which have been called the Revolution, and which seem admirable to those that have profited by it. Civil marriage is, in reality, ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... so mortified, that in her recklessness and despair she would probably throw herself away on the first man that offered! This was his chance, I told him; the one chance of his life; he was letting a piece of idiotic pride wreck the probable happiness of years. He agreed with me with moans and weeps. He had the candor of a child and the torrential sentiment of a German musician. Three hundred and four dollars and seventy-five ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... in the wet grass and her pasty little face will blink its dull eyes over a grave. Like a little clown in her curling cotton suit, her lumpy shoes, her idiotic hat, she will offer her tears to the pitiless silence of trees, wind, rain and ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... all—if indeed she had made a clean breast of it? Was it from love to him, or reviving honesty in herself? From neither, he said. Superstition alone was at the root of it. She had been to church, and the preaching of that honest idiotic enthusiast, Wingfold, had terrified her.—Alas! what refuge in her terror had ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... Carbuncle, and after some words with her, was taken up into Lucinda's room. There sat the unfortunate girl, in the chair from which she had not moved since the morning. There had come over her face a look of fixed but almost idiotic resolution; her mouth was compressed, and her eyes were glazed, and she sat twiddling her book before her with her fingers. She had eaten nothing since she had got up, and had long ceased to be violent when questioned by her aunt. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... realize this, it was only necessary to walk the streets, if that were possible, through those days of riot and conflagration, observe the materials gathered into the vast, moving multitudes, and scrutinize the faces of those of whom they were composed,—deformed, idiotic, drunken, imbecile, poverty-stricken; seamed with every line which wretchedness could draw or vicious habits and associations delve. To walk these streets and look upon these faces was like a fearful witnessing in perspective of the last day, when the secrets of ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... My disordered condition ran away with me; I was inspired with the craziest notions, which I followed blindly as they came to me. I couldn't help it, no matter how much I told myself that I was playing the fool. I made the most idiotic grimaces behind the lady's back, and coughed frantically as I passed her by. Walking on in this manner—very slowly, and always a few steps in advance—I felt her eyes on my back, and involuntarily put down my head with ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... already know, we and our assistants happen to be in better position to study these things than is any one else at the present time. However, I will compromise with you. We can learn much in a month if you will really try, instead of wasting time in fuming around the ship and indulging in these idiotic tantrums. If you will buckle down and really study the problems confronting us for thirty days, we will set out at the end of that ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... aggressively, "do you know she's heard about that idiotic trip of mine to town that night? Fairfax told everybody, and somebody's wife told Mrs. Butler. It got me in a ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... taken on so hazy an aspect? Why did Handlon grin in that idiotic manner? And the Professor ... he was getting farther and farther away ... that perfecto ... or was it an El Cabbajo? What was the old archfiend doing to him anyhow?... Why was he laughing and leering at them so horribly?... Confound it all ... that cigar ... where ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... then I saw you talking to that idiotic fellow in a high collar, and I thought, 'Oh, everything be damned!' So I chummed up to the pock-marked chap. He was glad enough to have me! ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... two asses who were offering the incense of flattery to each other by turns, and heard one say, 'My Lord, do you not think that man, that perfect animal, is both unjust and stupid? He profanes our august name by calling every one of his own kind an ass who is ignorant, or dull, or idiotic; and he calls our laughter and our discourse by the term "braying." It is very amusing that these human people ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... positive forfeiture of the throne (la decheance), and the nomination of a council of regency. "Your king," he said, "is an idiot, or a criminal. It would be a horrid spectacle to present to the world, if, having the option of declaring a king criminal or idiotic, you did not prefer the ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... education made him famous. In connection with her and other pupils he began the process of teaching the deaf to use articulate speech, and all who have followed him in this work have but extended and perfected his methods. While teaching the blind and deaf, Dr. Howe found those who were idiotic; and he began to study this class of persons about 1840, and to devise methods for their education. As a member of the Massachusetts legislature in 1846, he secured the appointment of a commission to investigate the condition of the idiotic; and for this commission he wrote ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... a tower of ivory, the elect, who, in samite robes, traverses moody gardens. Really, I shudder at the idea of ever living again in yonder stewpot of humanity, with all its bad smells. To struggle with the fools for their idiotic prizes is beyond me. The ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... which I don't see the meaning of at first, like traps. He often tells me he never asks any questions, but he does, indirect ones, all the time. I'm getting afraid of being alone with him. Sometimes I think if I stay much longer at Barford I'm so idiotic he'll get it out of me. Has he asked you ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... stupid, or idiotic a midshipman, if he but orders a sailor to perform even the most absurd action, that man is not only bound to render instant and unanswering obedience, but he would refuse at his peril. And if, having obeyed, he should then complain to the Captain, and the ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... years. Spain is a constant source of annoyance, and the sooner we get her off the continent the better—and before Great Britain sends her. We need the Mississippi for navigation and must possess the territories that are the key to it. How idiotic, therefore, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... a thousand times," he exclaimed reddening violently. "Please don't think that I was laughing at anything to do with you. The fact is that last idiotic speech of mine reminded me of something that happened day before yesterday. I've been sick, and I met a friend on the street who said, 'I'm glad you're better;' and I answered, 'I'm glad that you're glad that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... blame me? I looked down at her—I'm a good deal taller than she is—and for a minute I wanted to get down in front of her among the gear-shifts and put my head in her lap. But of course I didn't do anything so idiotic as that. I just laughed and said: "Not you,"—and put out my hand and squeezed hers—she'd left off her motoring gloves. And she squeezed back, and looked up at me with those black eyes of hers—and that was all there was of it, and we were off again on details, with no ...
— The Whistling Mother • Grace S. Richmond
... headed the line had struck up a song, and were shouting at the top of their voices with a haggard joviality, a potpourri by Desaugiers, then famous, called The Vestal; the trees shivered mournfully; in the cross-lanes, countenances of bourgeois listened in an idiotic delight to these ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... with your neighbour at table, and the rope is a fragile packet of tinselled paper, which breaks with a report like a pistol. You open your half of the packet, and discover some doggerel verse which you read aloud, and also a perfectly idiotic coloured cap, which you put on your head to the end of looking foolish. And this ceremony is continued until the whole table is surrounded by preposterous headgear, and doggerel verse is lying by every plate. ...
— The Feast of St. Friend • Arnold Bennett
... had Lawrence with us!" exclaimed Hadad excitedly at last. "A little, little man—hardly any larger than Mrs. Ticknor—but a David against Goliath! And would you believe it?—there is an idiotic rumour that Lawrence has returned and is hiding in Damascus! The French are really disturbed about it. They have cabled their Foreign Office and received an official denial of the rumour; but official denials carry no weight nowadays. Out of ten Frenchmen in Syria, five believe that ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... idiotic chatter, Mr. Ferrers, and listen to me with whatever little power of concentration you may possess. Your conduct, sir, has been wholly unfitting an officer and a gentleman. If I did my full duty I'd order you in arrest at once, and have you ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... ex-officer of the Imperial army) fawned on my officialship, and threw himself in rapport with my gentlemanship—how his haggard, handsome wife leered at me over his shoulder—how the open-hearted asses of fencers, in weary alternation, confidentially told me fragmentary and idiotic yarns—how they shook hands with me till I was tired, and wept over me till I was disgusted—how they irrelevantly and profusely apologised for anything they might have said, and abjectly besought me, if I felt anyway nasty, to take ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... he; "though she made an idiotic marriage, and leads a life which might spoil the temper of an archangel. She was my nurse when I was a youngster, Cole, and we never meet without a yarn." Which seemed natural enough; still I failed to perceive why they ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... make fun of me! Pip, you know what I mean. When you are reading one of those things about Cavalry, by that idiotic Prince—why doesn't he be a Prince instead ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... devil people can like such misshapen, idiotic-looking, selfish, useless brutes; and, by George, it smells like a polecat—curse it! but some people have deuced queer fancies in more matters than one. The brute! on my soul, I'd like ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... path, yelling like hounds on a scent, while she stood perfectly erect and motionless, facing them. There were five of them, hulking youths all inflamed by drink if not actually tipsy, and they came around her with shouts of idiotic laughter and incoherent joking, evidently taking her for a ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... (heatedly). Yes, I have—and I wish I'd kept out of this infernal tomfoolery. Why the mischief don't they leave a man in peace and quietness on a hot afternoon like this? Here am I, routed out of a comfortable seat to go and drive a confounded White Rabbit, Sir! Idiotic, I call it! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 10, 1892 • Various
... perfectly idiotic today," she declared. "Of course she is here; anyone with eyes can see she is. She is—ahem—visiting me and she is attending the Misses Cabot's school. There! Now, Mr. Smith understands, I hope. And dinner is ready. Don't any of you say another word until we are at the table. ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... shoe-leather. A grand example to our pessimistic, socialistic friends and cheap demagogues of the sterling worth and noble, chivalric character of a "society man of wealth." He is a living type of "Bel a faire peur," without the idiotic sentimentality of that maudlin hero, and ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... of the Presidential election; expenses of the General Assembly, trustees of benevolent institutions, care of state-house, gas for state-house, expenses of legislative committees, binding for the State, and the new idiotic asylum. ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... stood facing the bows, shot out his right as if jabbing at me with the stick, a foot short of my shoulder. The action was, as a stroke, so idiotic that, although it might so easily have meant death to me, I turned half-about to where the stick pointed, as the ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... mine," he said; "you work for an ideal, and you get something out of it for yourself. Ideals, incidentally, that are not profitable are idiotic." With that he blew the smoke of his Havana cigar through ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... in Freeland. With us no separate interest is antagonistic to or not in perfect harmony with the common interest. Producers, for example, who in Freeland conceive the idea of increasing their gains by laying an impost upon imports, must be idiotic. For, to compel the consumers to pay more for their manufactures would not help them, since the influx of labour would at once bring down their gains again to the average level. On the other hand, to make it more ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... last I explained to you how restive I had been getting at home, and how my idiotic mistake had annoyed my father and had made my position here very uncomfortable. Then I mentioned, I think, that I had received a letter from Christie & Howden, the lawyers. Well, I brushed up my Sunday ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... mind with fearful solemnity, were they created for this end,—created to fail? Can we for a single moment believe that a Father of infinite justice and mercy ever created one individual among his children, an accountable being, neither insane nor idiotic, and yet so imperfect that he must fail? Surely it were blasphemy to hold such an act possible. Infinitely various are the works of his hand in the forms of humanity, as in every other department of the universe, but even so manifold are the varieties ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... poems which stirred their own tenderness or filial piety, and carry them to make their first acquaintance with great men, great works, or solemn crises through the medium of some miscellaneous burlesque which, with its idiotic puns and farcical attitudes, will remain among their primary associations, and reduce them throughout their time of studious preparation for life to the moral imbecility of an inward giggle at what might have stimulated their high emulation or ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... events at the De Commarin mansion had caused a great stir in society. A thousand stories were circulated, talked over, corrected, and added to by the ill-natured and malicious,—some abominably absurd, others simply idiotic. Twenty people, very noble and still more proud, had not been above sending their most intelligent servants to pay a little visit among the count's retainers, for the sole purpose of learning something positive. As it was, nobody knew anything; and yet ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... usually too well justified by the facts," she replied seriously. "But only the most idiotic and ignorant of gossips could possibly say that of you. Every one who is any one knows that the Kyneston coronet does ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... accident? What if I were taken ill? Suppose someone put in at night and cut my throat for the sake of plunder? Who would help me? Who would know of my position? Might I not die any one of a hundred deaths without the fact being known for weeks, perhaps months? What did this idiotic idea of mine amount to after all? Where was the pleasure? Would it not be better to be home in dear old Barton with my ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... can go," Cherry added, feverishly, "I shall join Martin. I suppose Alix would think it was perfectly idiotic for me to go now, just when the whole thing can be closed up so quickly, and Martin, too—" her voice trailed away vaguely. She fell silent, her eyes absent and full of pain. Suddenly they widened, as if some pang had suddenly shaken her into consciousness again. "Well, I'll go back," she began ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... befriended Alexius were impaled, broken on the wheel and otherwise lingeringly done to death. All this was done to terrorize the reactionaries and isolate the tsarevich. In April 1718 fresh confessions were extorted from Alexius, now utterly broken and half idiotic with fright. Yet even now there were no actual facts to go upon. Alexius' "evil designs'' were still in foro conscientiae, and had not been, perhaps never would be, translated into practice. The worst that could be brought against him was that ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the page from her hand in shame and despair when he saw her actually contemplating the idiotic symbol of his most ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... idiotic question," he said, as she paused before his desk, "but did you get anything at all out of my lecture except my bit of facetious advice to young ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... a gulping laugh in the fur cloak he had picked up. He had known that it would end in some such way. Of course; it had been idiotic to expect anything else. He listened smilingly for what else ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... it was an idiotic question, but it slipped from his tongue before he could catch it. Esme turned her head and looked at him wonderingly. He knew that in the sunlight her eyes were as mistily blue as early meadow violets, but here they looked ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... scowling at Port Nichay's park trees beyond the garden wall. It seemed idiotic to feel scared when she couldn't even tell whether there was anything to be scared about! And, aside from that, another unreasonable feeling kept growing stronger by the minute now. This was to the effect that she should be doing ...
— Novice • James H. Schmitz
... Gilmore; "and stop it, both of you. Mr Syme will be here directly, and we don't want him to hear us squabbling over such a piece of idiotic nonsense." ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... should be allowed to pass without conception taking place. A child begotten in an intoxicated or depraved condition of a parent may be depraved itself in the same way, and is apt to be feeble-minded or idiotic. ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith
... she repeated, with a titter between scorn and hysterics. "His mind, indeed! Henri, is this an idiotic pleasantry, or are you mad? His mind! And what ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Kaspar Hauser, a boy, apparently idiotic, who appeared, as if from the clouds, in Nuremberg (1828), divided Germany into hostile parties, and caused legal proceedings as late as 1883. Whence this lad came, and what his previous adventures ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... Harry, "if you are not going to treat him as you would treat De Lacy and that idiotic Sims, I won't bring him!" And with that he flung out ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... self-conscious for the first time in the twins' knowledge of her, "I suppose you know it was I who suggested that idiotic little stocking stunt. It was awfully hateful of me, and so I bought you some real silk stockings with my own spending money, and here they are, and you needn't thank me for I never could be fond of myself again until ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... l'evolutionisme de Hegel-Hartmann, au nom des principes de Schopenhauer"). What a writer! Like a cuttle-fish in water, every movement produces a cloud of ink which shrouds his thought in darkness. And what a doctrine! A thoroughgoing pessimism, which regards the world as absurd, "absolutely idiotic," and reproaches Hartmann for having allowed the evolution of the universe some little remains of logic, while, on the contrary, this evolution is eminently contradictory, and there is no reason anywhere except in the poor brain of the ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a high degree of success in the instruction of idiotic and imbecile children, and in 1846 published a treatise on the treatment of idiocy, which will, for years to come, be the manual of every ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... equality is not synonymous with identity, as seems to be the impression among the many; a misconception which we regret to say is shared by the judge on the bench with the workingman on the construction gang, and the idiotic observation that "if women expect to vote they must expect to stand up in the street-car," is not, alas! confined to the lout, but is quite often voiced by the ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... to you as idiotic as it did to me, but you will get the explanation at the end of the chapter, as I did—on the drive home—the two hours of which were entirely taken up in laughing at the mistakes of the good ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... frowned, and looked at the thing, as if he had just come along to make a general inspection of the stones in that neighbourhood, and found this one particularly stupid. He criticized it; ay, it was a round-faced, idiotic stone, no getting hold of it any way—he was almost inclined to say it was deformed. Blasting? The thing wasn't worth a charge of powder. And was he to give it up, was he to consider the possibility of being ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... where the iron entered into it long ago,—you might trace not merely the enduring remembrance, but the enduring results, of the incapacity and dishonesty of teachers, the heartlessness of companions, and the idiotic folly and cruelty of parents. No, it will not do to tell us that past sufferings have ceased to exist, while their remembrance continues so vivid, and their results so great. You are not done with the bitter frosts of last winter, though it be summer now, if your blighted evergreens remain as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... that profundity, Mainwaring, and think of it ever being bullied and overawed by a long veranda-load of gaping, patronizing tourists, and the idiotic flirting females of their species. Think of a lot of over-dressed creatures flouting those severe outlines and deep-toned distances with frippery and garishness. You know how you have been lulled to sleep by ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... guffaw, and emptied his water-jug over the intruder; and yet if he could have seen the new boy at that moment, he would have seen that pretty little face—only meant as yet for the smiles of childhood—white with an almost idiotic terror, and he would have caught a staring and meaningless look in the glassy eyes which were naturally so bright and blue. But he really did not know—being merely an overgrown stupid fellow—the mischief he was doing, and the absolute horrible torment ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... for all that I couldn't make myself greatly interested in the bold bad Marquis DE SARCEY in those anxious two years before "the Terror," with his insufferable pride, his incredible elegance, his fantastic ideas of love and his idiotic marriage, the negotiations for which, with the resulting complications, take up so large a space in a lengthy book. It gives one the impression of being written not "according to plan" but out of a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 24, 1917 • Various
... was that since the Church continued to exist, it probably served some necessary purpose in human economy, though he could himself no more understand the good of it than he could comprehend the use of human existence in any shape. Since men and women were here, idiotic and purposeless as they might be, they had what they chose to call a right to amuse themselves in their own way, and if this way made some happy without hurting others, Strong was ready enough to help. He was as willing to help ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... The mad, idiotic fools. Resisting the police. An armed attack on the police. If they killed any of them——. Great God, was there ever such a pack of fools and madmen? It was no longer simple contraband. It was no longer playing up a ridiculous ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... easily run away from them; but what would become of the poor old woman? she would certainly be caught. Hastily determining, therefore, on what was best to be done, I walked right up to them with unsteady gait and idiotic look, and said: "Sirs, if I am a thief kill me, but you have no right ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... children born of such relationship have just as good a standing as those born in wedlock. The Indian sees no sense in punishing an innocent child for what it is in no way responsible for. He frankly argues that only a silly fool of a white man or woman would do so cruel and idiotic a thing. ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... the storm had somewhat abated. "I know that sort of talk as well as my old shoe. Haven't I listened to it for hours? For goodness' sake, quit it. It doesn't wash. Let us come to the point at once without all this idiotic brag and gassing. You wrote me a letter shouting danger and ruin. What did it mean? Anything real, or merely a melodramatic blowing off of steam? Tell me. Let us have it out and have finished with it. What do ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... have friends?" she went on. "I never heard of anything so idiotic." Giving him, however, no chance to take her up on this, she made a quick transition. "Mother didn't come because she wants me now, as she says, more ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... scarcely better informed than I as to the latest modes. We will drive in the park, use our eyes on the avenue, and visit several fashionable establishments first. Then I wish to find a dressmaker who is not an idiotic slave of fashion, and who can modify the prevailing styles by taste and appreciation of the person for whom she works. The one whom I employ must make dresses for me and under my direction, and not dresses in the ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... grease, so darned and spotted and discolored, in short, the painters' ideal of the material of abject poverty was far surpassed by this scene; while the expression on those faces, greedy, anxious, doltish, idiotic, savage, showed the everlasting advantage which nature possesses over art by its comparison with the immortal compositions of those princes of color. There were old women with necks like turkeys, and hairless, scarlet eyelids, ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... depression which had settled on us seemed more noticeable, during our short leave-taking, than the fleeting good-humour of the last few days. My friends were well aware of the terrible and utterly forlorn condition in which I found myself. I had been idiotic enough to count on the proceeds from the Leipzig concert to provide at least the needs of the moment, and I was, in the first place, put into the awkward position of being unable to pay my landlord punctually (the house rent at Biebrich being now due). But ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... man, of whom I had a great dread, and I noticed this child, in consequence of his pale and melancholy countenance, and apparently miserable condition. I observed that no one took any notice of him; and that he was allowed to wander about the great straggling workhouse, among the insane, the idiotic, and the imbecile, without the slightest attention being paid to his going and coming; in short, he lived the wretched life of ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... powers at any cost. Brush up your history, Mr. Narkom, and give your memory a fillip. Eight-and-thirty years ago Queen Karma of Mauravania had an English consort and bore him two daughters, and one son. You will perhaps recall the mad rebellion, the idiotic rising which disgraced that reign. That was the time for England to have spoken. But the peace party had it by the throat; they, with their mawkish cry for peace—peace at any price!—drowned the voices of men and heroes, ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... idiotic delight began to creep over Hummil's face. 'I think,' he whispered,—'I think I'm going off now. Gad! it's positively heavenly! Spurstow, you must give me that case to keep; you—' The voice ceased as the head ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... for the establishment of an impudent system of German espionage; to use our territory as a base of conspiracy and treacherous hostilities against countries with which we were at peace; and to lose no opportunity of mobilizing the privileges granted by "these idiotic Yankees" (quotation from the military attache of the Imperial German Embassy at Washington)—including, of course, the diplomatic privilege—to make America unconsciously help in playing the game of ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke
... "but you will in a few minutes. When we have finished with you, you'll want an iceberg. I'm getting tired of this idiotic talk about not having written my own works. There's one thing about Nero's music that I've never said, because I haven't wanted to hurt his feelings, but since he has chosen to cast aspersions upon my honesty I haven't any hesitation in saying ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... the more idiotic sort launch into dog-carts and raiment of English cut, and here in Buffalo they play polo at four in the afternoon. I saw three youths come down to the polo-ground faultlessly attired for the game ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... put his sharpened knife into his belt and plunged into the dense undergrowth. The snaky, moist lianas made progress next to impossible. They clung around our legs like live things, and I damned the Professor's idiotic craving for notoriety as we waded through the clammy creepers in search of the trail made by the party. The prickly rope-like vines seemed to be in league with the devil who was leading the aged scientist and his daughters into dangers that made my brain dizzy as I attempted ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... local paper, written by 'Our Musical Man,' that 'Miss Fregelius then relieved the proceedings with a comic interlude on the violin, which was much appreciated by the audience.' It was that, I confess it—yes, the idiotic remark of 'Our Musical Man,' which made me determine if it was in any way possible that I would shake the dust of this village off my feet. Then, so far as my father is concerned, the stipend is wretched ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... as on the right. Those who would save and bless the world can accomplish far more by making safe channels than by building embankments, since almost as many are ruined by undue and unwise repression as by equally unwise and idiotic indulgence. ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... beg your pardon, it's the clocks I haven't got to pay for! And don't mean to—if I can help it. Idiotic thing to go and put clocks on ...
— Dolly Reforming Herself - A Comedy in Four Acts • Henry Arthur Jones
... saying that you were at her house and wanted your costume sent over. I thought you were helping her, in your usual idiotic 'helping hand' way, and I sent the dress ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... straight before him, sat down alone when the others were at their sports and merry-makings, and brooded over strange things. Caves and woods were his dearest haunts; and there he talked on and on with beasts and birds, with trees and rocks—of course not one rational word, but mere idiotic stuff, to make one laugh to death. He continued, however, always moody and serious, in spite of the utmost pains that the squirrel, the monkey, the parrot, and the bullfinch could take to divert him, and set him ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... His chief reliance is on the "fatal mistakes" made since the last election by the other party. There never was a year in which the party in power and the party out of power did not make bad mistakes—mistakes which, unlike eggs and fish, seem always worst when freshest. If idiotic errors of policy were always fatal, no party would ever win an election and there would be a hope of better government under the benign sway of the ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... a gruesomely ugly hearse, with glass sides and cheap imitation ostrich plumes drawn by gorged ravens of horses with egregiously long tails, and driven by an undertaker's assistant, who, with a natural gaiety of soul, displayed an idiotic solemnity by dragging down the corners of the mouth. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... worth seeing, but I think what this gentleman has just told us is no less curious. You can always find—at Strasburg, Cologne, or Milan—churches or cathedrals to equal the chapel of Brou; but where will you find an administration idiotic enough to destroy such a masterpiece, and a mayor clever enough to turn it into a barn? A thousand thanks, ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... cantaloupe to the order, and a cereal with cream. The mysterious girl hidden in his stateroom was no longer an adventuress, sponging on his idiotic generosity: she was an exquisite, almost a sacred, charge. As he ate his breakfast in the dining-car he saw a man he knew sitting directly opposite him at the next table. Their eyes encountered. Roger felt that the other had been ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... are? That's a good idea. Why they are—syllabubs are—they are only babies, idiotic children; that's a good idea, that's good. [Bumps head ...
— Our American Cousin • Tom Taylor
... traces of remembered harmonies: very different from the strange, weird improvisations of every day. One would fancy that the mere attempt to bring this mysterious genius within him in bodily presence before the outer world woke, too, the idiotic nature to utter its reproachful, unable cry. Nor is this the only bar by which poor Tom's soul is put in mind of its foul bestial prison. After any too prolonged effort, such as those I have alluded ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... you had a brother," returned Lettice; "and I never dreamt you'd do such an idiotic thing as rush at him like that. ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... I forget it, that I don't think I am deceitful by nature. You see, it changes a fellow a lot to get all tangled up in his feelings over a girl that doesn't seem to care a rap for you. He does things that are positively idiotic At any rate, I did. And I could sympathize some with Barney MacTague; only, his girl had a crooked nose and no eyebrows to speak of, so he hadn't the excuse that I had. Take a girl with ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... for a clever person, you're rather stupid. It would be simply idiotic to tell him what is sure to annoy him, when the thing's done and he can't ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver |
