"Maddening" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Jericho fell and childhood in its innocence, ambitious manhood, fiery youth, despairing maidens and loving mothers, were swept by maddening flames and glittering swords into the oblivion called death, from whose silent gloom no smile or tear, no laughter or wail, ever yet has come, then Rahab and all that she had was saved. She had asked it, and schemed for it, and of course ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley
... W. Keyse, below his breath. His face was radiant as he read. Her spelling was a bit off, it was impossible to deny. But—Cripps!—to be called a brave man by the owner of the maddening blue eyes, and that great thick golden pigtail. The ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Meanwhile (and especially on festa-days) the bells of the churches ring incessantly; not in peals, or any known form of sound, but in a horrible, irregular, jerking, dingle, dingle, dingle: with a sudden stop at every fifteenth dingle or so, which is maddening. This performance is usually achieved by a boy up in the steeple, who takes hold of the clapper, or a little rope attached to it, and tries to dingle louder than every other boy similarly employed. The ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... "'Far from the maddening crowd,'" quoted Belle as they swung down the quiet river road. "But do be careful, Bess," she urged. "I know you understand as much about the car as I do, but I always feel that I ought to have a life preserver on when any mere girl—including myself—is at the helm ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... can only suppose that Sir John meant to be kind, that in some sense he did not consider me an altogether unworthy alliance; but that I should ever have my wooing done for me—the idea is maddening! A man could not take a surer road to ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... that a more maddening letter could not have been written. Its civility seemed to him to be disagreeable suavity; its failure to particularize the points he made to be a disgraceful evasion; and the liberty it took in generalizing his case to be ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... sound was solemnising, then it was saddening. After a time it became exasperating, and then maddening. He tried to sleep, but he only tossed. He tried to meditate, but he only wandered—not "in dreams", however. He tried to laugh, but the laugh degenerated into a growl. Then he sighed, and the sigh ended in a groan. ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... with a rather sharper eye, when we came sneaking in the back way after such exercises. For a busy man, father had a habit, that was positively maddening, of happening upon a boy at the wrong time. We used to think we had ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... these exclamations, I felt my spirit maddening within me. I cared not what I said; I felt no fear for the consequences. At first, after I had spoken, a cloud came over Manco's brow; but it quickly cleared away, and he regarded me with ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... showed for his feelings was maddening, and for the first time in his life he became a prey to jealousy in its worst form. It was quite clear to him that the girl had become desperately enamoured of the skipper, and he racked his brain in a wild effort ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... aside as carelessly as if he were a fly should there be nothing to him worth hating. But the maddening part of it to us is that the irresistible man is worth saving, only he will not be saved. He thinks he is perfect as he is. If he could get our point of view and let some woman take a hand at him, she might efface his irresistibleness and ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... changed his plans for her, and for his nerve he had reaped a harvest such as he, Peterman, had never reaped. He had held this beautiful creature in his arms, this innocent, red-haired child, whom he, Peterman, had marked down for his own. For how long? And she was all unconscious. Oh, it was maddening, infuriating. And— ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... Volnay. 'That smell is maddening. How did you men come in for such a treasure trove ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... their time, have tried to point out a shorter, quicker path. The workers have refused to listen to them. On the other hand, they have declined the way of compromise, of fusions, and of alliances, that have also promised a quicker and a shorter road to power. With the most maddening patience they have declined to take any other path than their own—thus infuriating not only the terrorists in their own ranks but those Greeks from the other side who came to them bearing gifts. Nothing seems to disturb them or to block their path. ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... followed the direction indicated by the muzzle of the weapon. Then Tad's face flushed hot all over. There, back to a tree, a rope twisted twice about his body sat Ned Rector, defiance in face and eyes. Ned was looking straight at his captor. The situation was strained. To Tad, it was maddening. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers • Frank Gee Patchin
... not notice the change that had taken place in her aspect. Was it not enjoyment enough to whirl through the maddening mazes of the dance, into still deeper entanglements in the mysterious web that now had immeshed the saloons, borne irresistibly along the rapid torrent of music, through crowds swept in eddying circles by fresh gusts of sound, like leaves blown about by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... is young because he must play." Play is a constant factor in all grades of animal life. The swarming insects, the playful kitten, the frisking lambs, the racing colt, the darting swallows, the maddening aggregation of blackbirds—these are but illustrations of the common impulse of all the animal world to play. Wherever freedom and happiness reside, there play is found; wherever play is lacking, there the curse has fallen and sadness and oppression reign. ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... intuitively associate distinctive feelings with different orders of rhythmical sounds, but that varied emotions are awakened by them. Some rhythms inspire calmness, some sublime and stately courage, some energy and aggressive force, some stir the spirit to the most daring deeds, some, as in our maddening Tarantulas, produce a restless excitement through the whole nervous system, some excite mere joyousness, some whisper love through every fibre of the heart, and some lead us in their holy calm and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... a glorious bird of paradise. The wanton display of a maddening curve of slender ankle, through the slash of the clinging gown imparted just the needed allurement to stamp her as a Vestal of the temple of Madness. The cunning simplicity of the draping over her shoulders—luminous with the iridiscent gleam of ivory skin beneath, accentuated by the voluptuous ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... that most lives reflected hers in that their questioning was never answered. The fortunate, then, were the incurious and the hearts undisturbed by a maddening thrill. She said aloud, "The ones who never heard music." Pleydon was without a sign that she had spoken. Her emotions were very delicate, very fragile, and enormously difficult to perceive. They were like plants in stony ground. Where had she heard that—out of the Bible? ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... with scorpions.' He takes a base pleasure, shocking to the French ambassador, in sneering at the memory of Queen Elizabeth; a perverse delight in honouring every rascal whom she had punished. Tyrone must come to England to be received into favour, maddening the soul of honest Sir John Harrington. Essex is christened 'my martyr,' apparently for having plotted treason against Elizabeth with Tyrone. Raleigh is received with a pun—'By my soul, I have heard rawly of thee, mon'; and ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... quick flutter of the blue vein on his fair temples, and as the musical mastering voice so well remembered and once so fondly loved stole tenderly through the dark, lonely, dreary recesses of her desolate, aching heart, it waked for one instant a wild, maddening temptation, an intense longing to lift her arms, clasp them around his neck, lean forward upon his ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the horrid din, the desperate struggle, the maddening ferocity, the frantic desperation, the confusion and self-abandonment of war. Dutchman and Swede commingled, tugged, panted, and blowed. The heavens were darkened with a tempest of missives. Bang! went the guns; whack! went the broadswords; thump! went the cudgels; crash! went the musket-stocks; ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... "Oh! maddening sight," sobbed Nick; "I see myself staggering from the ale-house and reeling into what should be a home, where gaunt starvation stalks the floor; where the hearth is fireless, and where a starving family die ...
— Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches • George P. Goff
... him hard. He was suffering the torments of Tantalus. The castle was full of young men of the kind to whom he most resorted, easy marks every one; and here he was, simply through Jimmy, careened like a disabled battleship. It was maddening. "Make him go. You invited him here. He doesn't expect to stop indefinitely, I suppose? If you left, he'd have to, too. What you must do is to go back to London to-morrow. You can easily make some excuse. He'll have to go ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... Murmurs arose and cries and shouts with the intention of maddening the tiger and ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous
... the monarch wept and wailed, And maddening grief his heart assailed, The sun had sought his resting-place, And night was closing round apace. But yet the moon-crowned night could bring No comfort to the wretched king. As still he mourned with burning sighs And fixed his gaze upon the skies: "O Night whom starry fires ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... play an extraordinary and most exciting melody that almost drew me out of the window; it seemed to have no particular form, no beginning or middle or end; it went soaring higher and higher, like the song of a lark, with never a pause for breath, to the time of a maddening jig—a tarantella, perhaps—always on the strain and stress, always getting nearer and nearer to some shrill climax of ecstasy quite high up and away, beyond the scope of earthly music; while the persistent drone kept buzzing of the earth and the impossibility ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... feet to the ground.] Oh, you're maddening, Nicko! You are; you're maddening. Last night it was Stewie Heneage you chose to be jealous of, simply because you'd heard him sounding my praises at Catani's! You almost broke the window of the car, you ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... to say, me dyurr, that ye can't hearr 'em now? Kape your tongue silent and listen!" A good, full brogue permits speech that would offend in colourless Saxon; and Mrs. Tapping made no protest, but listened. Sure enough the rousing, maddening "Fire, fire, fire, fire, fire!" was on its way at speed somewhere close at hand. It grew and lessened and died. And Mrs. Riley was triumphant. "That's a larrudge fire, shure!" said she, transposing her impression ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... longed for freedom, on and on, with craving for the open sky, for solitude, for green silence, beyond these maddening walls. This heedful silken coming and going, these Sunday voices, this reiterant yelp of a single peevish bell—would they never cease? And above all, betwixt dread and an almost physical greed, he hungered for night. He sat down ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... to Florian to see how prosaically these women dealt with his unusual misadventure. Here was a miracle occurring virtually before their eyes, and these women accepted it with maddening tranquillity as an affair for which they were not responsible. Florian began to reflect that elderly persons were always more ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... artist himself, Bertram's face showed drawn lines and his eyes sombre shadows, but his words and manner carried a stolid indifference that to Billy was at once heartbreaking and maddening. ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... realization of the great fight he was making for her—for her, and the aged, feeble grandfather waiting patiently out there. He loved her, this master among men, and she sighed contentedly. For the moment the maddening anxiety that brought her here was forgotten; there was only the ineffable sweetness of seeing him again. She extended her hands to him impulsively, ...
— The Diamond Master • Jacques Futrelle
... try severely the strength of the firmest virtue. Indeed, our inclination has always been to regard with an indulgence, which to some rigid moralists appears excessive, those faults into which gentle and noble spirits are sometimes hurried by the excitement of conflict, by the maddening influence of sympathy, and by ill-regulated zeal for ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the monotony to be as maddening as ever. There were times when she rebelled passionately against the solitude of the place. There were moments to her when it seemed that her mind couldn't stand ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... that 's enough, for love is vanity, Selfish in its beginning as its end, Except where 't is a mere insanity, A maddening spirit which would strive to blend Itself with beauty's frail inanity, On which the passion's self seems to depend: And hence some heathenish philosophers Make love the main spring ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... the sentiment is very exquisite, and the truth of the natural fact very perfect as observation, and the book is full of such writing. But oh, dear! the confusion of plot is so maddening you have a delirious feeling that everybody is getting engaged to his half-sister or widowed stepmother, and keep turning back to make sure! But the dramatism is very good and leads ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... and shook his head, lion-like, and braced his strong shoulders, and swam on grimly. A few moments of silent, breathless fighting, the wind screeching, like Bedlam loose, the foam driving and hissing, the lightning blazing, incessant, maddening. ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... count of the days, but he knew that he was far into the autumn, that in truth winter must have come in his own and distant north. That thought at times was almost maddening. Doubtless the snow was already falling on the peaks that had seen so many gallant exploits by his comrades and himself, and on George and Champlain, the lakes so beautiful and majestic under any aspect. Those were the regions he loved. When would he see them again? But such ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... him still more, if there had been any more to give. And now to be betrayed, forsaken, despised, to sink lower and lower, until at last I must become the object of your pity! To have fallen so low, that you should dare come and offer me to give up Jacques for my benefit! Ah, that is maddening! And I should let the vengeance I hold in my hands slip from me at your bidding! I should be stupid enough, blind enough, to allow myself to be touched by your hypocritical tears! I should secure your happiness by the sacrifice of my reputation! No, ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... boyhood. He had never condescended to study his own son, and the method of training he had adopted with him was in some respects very pernicious. His system hardened, instead of softening, and prejudiced Ben against what was right, maddening him with a sense of injustice, and so preventing his being influenced towards good. Of course, all this did not justify Ben in running away from home. The thought of his mother ought to have been sufficient to have ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... A little maddening smile twisted the corners of her mouth, and Joanna remembered that now Arthur was dead and there was no hope of Ellen going back to him she ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... behind him, gave him great pain; and since his ankles were also fastened and the end of the rope drawn taut and attached to that binding his wrists, he was rendered absolutely helpless. For one of his fiery temperament this physical impotence was maddening, and because his own handkerchief had been tied tightly around his head so as to secure between his teeth a wooden stopper of considerable size which possessed an unpleasant chemical taste and smell, even speech ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... from this delirious passion? She is not worthy of the sacrifice I would make for her. No—she has deceived me—surely she has deceived me. Why not break my promise, plighted though it be in words of fervid love? Why not flee from the spot, and endeavour to escape the torture that is maddening both my heart ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... groaning, confusion and clamor,—one long, deafening din. A bewildering, maddening mob of reckless, terrified human beings rush hither and thither, unseeingly and distractedly. Will she go? Yes! No! Yes! Then comes the screeching, the scrunching, the straining, and then—a final snap! Back we go, sheering helplessly, swayed to and fro ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... selfish considerations, and regard her prospects and her safety alone. The thought of her going out to the villa in utter ignorance of this new and terrific truth was intolerable. Yet what could he do? Nothing; and the fact of his own utter helplessness was maddening at such a time as this. He watched through the window, scanning all the passers-by with feverish anxiety, which was so manifest that at length Obed noticed it, and, supposing that he was meditating some new plan of escape nearer the city, sternly reprimanded ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... maddening sort o' time for me," said Tom Randolph. "It makes me itch to get up on ma hind legs ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... called upon; reeling off a steady eleven knots, hour after hour, upon a taut bowline; the smother of froth under her bows boiling up at times to the level of her lee cat-head, and her foresail wet with spray to the height of its reef-band. It was grand sailing, exhilarating as a draught of wine, maddening in the feeling of recklessness that it begot; but, all the same, I did not believe that we were doing more than perhaps just holding our own with the Virginia; it was not under such conditions as those that we were ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... not quite sure that Bob would consent to dine in the modest little home, but under the circumstances idleness was maddening, so she fell to work. It seemed very odd, when she thought of it, for the bride of a millionaire to prepare a meal with her own hands, but anything was preferable to dining out, in her present frame of mind. This ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... principal streets, eyeing the passers-by with a cool, easy indifference, but never losing a chance of business. In Algeria this race is generally thought to present a picture of arrogance, knavery and rank cowardice not equaled on the face of the globe. An English traveler saw an Arab, after maddening himself with opium and absinthe, run a-mok among the shopkeepers who lined the principal street of Algiers. Selecting the Hebrews, he drove before him a throng of twenty, dressed in all the colors of the rainbow, who allowed themselves to be knocked down with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... want of all that could nourish or sustain them—the furious ravenings of famine, which he himself felt—and the black, hopeless, impenetrable future—all crowded, upon his heart, swept through his frantic imagination, and produced those maddening but unconscious impulses, under the influence of which great crimes are frequently committed, almost before their perpetrator is aware of his ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... buttocks convulsively, and seemed to wish to force my whole body into her wildly excited cunt. With such vigour was the action carried on that the grand crisis soon arrived, most rapturous to both, and almost maddening to Miss Frankland. The heavings of her body and gaspings for breath were quite hysterical, while, with one of those real vice-like pressures, I felt as if she were nipping my prick in two. It was ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... best not to ask.... My dearest daughter, I would bear it all over again for your sake. But it is maddening work, it goes to the head at last. It makes one feel as if something was giving way there,' he said, touching his ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... It was maddening to think of the unhappy Professor still fretting away hour after hour in the uncongenial form of a mule, waiting impatiently for the relief that never came. If it lingered much longer, he might actually starve, unless his family thought ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... her being held there in the auction-room by a show attendant—Tara, the queen of Wolfhound mothers, the daughter of innumerable generations of Wolfhound queens, the noblest living dam of her noble race—was maddening to the man who had bred and reared her, seen her through her puppy's ills, and bred from her the most famous hounds of the day. The groom said Mrs. Forsyth was in the tea-room, and there the Master sought her, with anger and anxiety ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... rose at us in wild delight—but I, in my horror and concern, knew nothing but that here was I, a poor fool in motley, and there, at some few paces from me, radiant as a star in the firmament, was the adorable being under whose maddening rays I had fallen, as struck by the sun. I gave one short cry, and fell on my knees. "Pardon, pardon, queen of my soul!" I began, when Il Nanno, beside himself with mortification, sprang at me like a wild beast and gripped my throat. Had not the contessa and Truffaldino pulled him off me, I should ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... forgotten about the balcony; I am quite sure he had forgotten everything but the vision before him. He was living in the world that never was; the sound of flutes was wafted on the breeze from fairyland. Pulsing bosom and sheen of sun-kissed shoulders.... Ah! maddening modesty and virtue, how inconsistent are thy ways! No wonder so many forget about ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... up, determined not to let vain regrets torment him. He shut out from his mind those pure images of home, the presence of which was maddening to him. Having stepped so deep into guilt, he would not, he could not, turn back. For Frank carried even into his vices that steadiness of resolution which distinguishes such natures from those of the Jack Winch stamp, ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... Fear is a maddening maze Of paths that wind on without exit or end, From nowhere to nowhere lead all of its ways, And shadows with shadows in more shadows blend. Each guide-post is lettered, 'This way to Despair,' And the River of Death in the darkness flows near, But there ...
— Poems of Purpose • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... had, time after time. I would start off a series of circumstances that should have had a grave alterative effect, and it would look for awhile as if a long-range change was going to be affected—and then it would straighten itself out again, with no important change occurring. It was maddening. We worked for five years trying to make even a small alteration—and brought back our data—" He pointed to the papers on the floor. "There are the calculations, applied on the Equation. Meaningless. We accomplished nothing. And the Dictator is ...
— Infinite Intruder • Alan Edward Nourse
... that I am relating, but a reality that happened to myself, and which it would be impossible to exaggerate. Never shall I forget the last tremendous wave that came down upon me, impelled by a maddening gust which whirled tearing along through the wild air, and scooping its deep passage through the waters. In vain was the jib-sheet let fly; in vain did I luff into the wind. I could not quit the helm, and therefore was unable to lower the sail which ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... into the fire!" This should have been my chosen motto from the beginning. The performance of the maddening feat indicated in the proverb has been the principal business of my life. I am always finding myself in the frying-pan, and always flopping out into the fire. My father's interference saved me from the dreadful old creature ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... ruler turn from tragedy to comedy. For tragedy, there was the look my queen lavished upon Solon when she heard his sentence; a look of blushing merriment, with a maddening dash of pity in it,—he was to suffer because ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... conversation is a terrible strain if one is not in the mood for it. Its proper setting is the gay, glittering ball-room at some frivolous court. To a man who has just got the bird at a music-hall, and who is trying to induce another man to confess that the thing was his doing, it is little short of maddening. ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... untrue and impossible as many of them were, made him wince, not knowing indeed how cunning was the invention behind them; and many times when she was more maddening than usual, Herrick schooled himself to patience by reminding himself of the drastic punishments which had apparently ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... confusion were at their worst when Grant reached the field and it seemed almost hopeless to check the panic and prevent the destruction of his entire army. But in the midst of the maddening turmoil and wild scenes of disaster he kept his head and, dashing from one end of the line to the other, ordered regiments into position with a force and energy that compelled obedience. There was no time to formulate any plan of battle. Each officer had to do whatever ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... very charming, very maddening, and I feel my blood rising to my head and heart. The tray in my hands begins to sway. She notices it and reached out for the whip which is lying ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... cruelly round the legs of the bully. The man gave a yell of rage and pain. He lunged forward to close with Roberts, and met a driving left that caught him between the eyes and flung him back. Before he could recover the Ranger had him by the collar at arm's length and the torture of the whip was maddening him. He cursed, struggled, raved, threatened, begged for mercy. He tried to fling himself to the ground. He wept tears of agony. But there was no escape from the deadly blacksnake that was cutting ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... facing new conditions. This is a thing for women to take in hand, practically, as they are taking in hand other work. It must be done absolutely without prejudice. There is no time to lecture or condemn or even deplore. There is only time to try to heal wounds and quiet maddening pain and ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... ships they shall join the sacred strand of the goddess, Artemis golden-sword-girded, and thee, wave-washed Kynosura, Urged by a maddening hope, 44 having given rich Athens to plunder, Then shall Justice divine quell Riot, of Insolence first-born, 45 Longing to overthrow all things 46 and terribly panting for bloodhshed: Brass shall encounter with brass, and Ares the sea shall empurple, Tinging its ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... not understand what the men said, but he did feel that there was something different here. The smell of man and iron was there, but not of that maddening kind, and he missed the pungent odor that even yet brought back the dark days ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Thompson Seton
... of wit and sarcasm fall harmless to the ground. In fact, he is perfectly proof against any intellectual weapons forged by human skill or wielded by mortal arm, and he awaits and receives every attack with a stolid and insulting indifference which must be maddening to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... the time when I first stepped upon these grounds the red man still grasped the sceptre which has since been wrenched from his hand. They saw the throne of their fathers beginning to totter. Their realm had attracted the cupidity of a race of strangers, and with maddening despair, they grasped their falling power; and daily grew more desperate as they became more endangered. I among the rest had now a view of this exuberant west, this great valley of the Hesperides; and I determined to assist in extirpating the ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... touch the harp again, And sing another idle lay, To cool a maddening, burning brain, And drive the midnight fiend away. Music, own sister to the soul. Bids roses bloom on cheeks all pale; And sweet her joys and sorrows roll ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... hour he gave him to light, horned and crowned with serpents. Wherefore should Thebes, sacred scene of the miracle, be one blossom of revellers, clad in motley and waving the thyrsus, the whole land maddening with the dance. The Chorus think of the first origin of such noisy joys, when the wild ones of Crete beat their cymbals round the sunless caverns where the infant Jove was hidden, and these rites of Rhoea soon mingled for the frantic Satyrs with the third year's dances ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... and Mr. Muller had fallen into the habit of reading to her while she did so. But to-day the Reformatory rose before her a prison, the gates of which were about to close on her. The heap of stockings, the touch of the darning cotton, the sound of Mr. Muller's droning voice, were maddening to her: every moment she made a tangle in her thread, looking down at Maria under the Bourbon rose, and the attentive face bent over her. Where should she go? What should she do? Had the world nothing in it for her but ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... the murderer, to cast about for the motive of the crime. Motive, motive! How desperately he had sought for another, turning his back upon that grim thought, that Marlowe—obsessed by passion like himself, and privy perhaps to maddening truths about the wife's unhappiness—had taken a leaf, the guiltiest, from the book of Bothwell. But in all his investigations at the time, in all his broodings on the matter afterwards, he had been able to discover ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... was hastening by the arras, her quick eye, however, recognized the King's long plume behind it; and she halted in her course. She was alert with a thousand maddening thoughts crowding her brain, all ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... hand, but take it.' The diabolical character of determined and premeditated vindictiveness thus given to an otherwise unaccountable outrage upon his victim, goes far to take away the feeling of pity which we should otherwise have felt for the murderer, regarding him as under the maddening influences of disappointed love and temporary passion. Perhaps, however, the most fatally conclusive evidence against Mr. Manners lies in the time that elapsed between his leaving the hall and being found in the ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... with arms akimbo, his booted legs braggartly straddled and his freckled face primed with an intolerant grin at our recent efforts. My Lady had come over with him. Raw-boned, angular, cloddish but as strong as a mule, he towered over her in a maddening atmosphere ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... the only topic of conversation. Each had his say, his prediction. It became maddening. Towards evening the chill of melting snow would deceive many into the belief that a cold ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... provoke. Such doings had to be promptly stopped. In the part of the town which he occupied was a monastery with a number of friars in it. The religious orders, he well knew, were the chief instigators of the policy which was maddening the world. He sent two of these friars with the provost-marshal to the spot where the boy had been struck, promptly hanged them, and then despatched another to tell the Governor that he would hang two more every day at the same place till ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... and lift his powerless arm; then returned again to the consciousness of his condition, clasped either the rosary or the crucifix, and turned his soul to fervent prayer; then, again, the strange wild cries without confounded themselves into one maddening noise on his feverish ear, or, in the confusion of his weakened faculties, he would, as it were, believe himself to be his brother dying on the field of Navaretta, and scarce be able to rouse himself to a ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... girl, consider," says Mr. Browne, mildly. "If it had been anyone else's hand! I could then accuse the moonbeams of a secondary offense, and say that their influence alone, which we all know has a maddening effect, had driven him to so bold a deed. But not madness itself could inspire me with a longing to ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... looked upon the wine when it was red, and found in its dregs the sting of the adder. He had participated in the maddening excitement of the gaming-table, from which remorse and horror pursued him with scorpion lash. He had entered the "chambers of death"—though avenging demons guarded its threshold. Poor, tempted Louis! poor, ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... been passed by us in the dark. It now struck me, that the water spoken of by the natives at Yeerkumban-kauwe might be situated among these sand-hills, and that we were going away from instead of approaching it. The bare idea of such a possibility was almost maddening, and as the dreadful thought flashed across my mind I stood for a moment undecided and irresolute as to what I ought to do. We were now many miles past these hills, and if we went back to examine them for water, and ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... stumbled in with the crush, to hold his breath in vain effort to make himself smaller, gaze in cross-eyed embarrassment at the abundant and nobly undisguised back of the lady of distinction in front of him, and stand on tiptoes to spare those of the man behind him; while the cage descended with maddening deliberation. ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... correspondence, orders, minutes, circulars, maps, signals, lists, schedules, summaries and all sorts. The tables are stacked with papers; the floor is littered with papers; papers fly through the air. Two type-writers click with maddening insistence in one corner. A signaller buzzes tenaciously at the telephone, talking in a strange language apparently to himself, as he never seems to be connected with anyone else. A stream of miscellaneous persons—quarter-masters, chaplains, generals, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 13, 1917 • Various
... through Music Halls Sheer maddening rapture shed, Now hangs as mute on willow-walls As though that Boom were dead. So dims the pride of former days, So fame's fine thrill is o'er, And throngs who once yelled high with praise, Now ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 11, 1892 • Various
... tree shall spring from the roots of the old, And many a blossom its leaves shall unfold, Cheering, gladdening, With joy maddening,— For its boughs shall be ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... roaring of guns from the flanks, answered by the iron howitzers from the battery of the parallel, the heavy roll, and horrid explosion of the powder-barrels, the whizzing flight of the blazing splinters, the loud exhortations of the officers, and the continual clatter of the muskets, made a maddening din. Now a multitude bounded up the great breach, as if driven by a whirlwind, but across the top glittered a range of sword-blades, sharp-pointed, keen-edged on both sides, and firmly fixed in ponderous ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... were still continued; and at length, in one of them, a man of Argos wounded him, by throwing a javelin with so much force that the point of it passed through his breast-plate and entered his side. The wound was not dangerous, but it had the effect of maddening Pyrrhus against the man who had inflicted it, and he turned upon him with great fury, as if he were intending to annihilate him at a blow. He would very probably have killed the Greek, had it not been that just at that moment the mother of the man, by a very singular coincidence, ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... and elevates the spirit. One cannot help fancying that angels may have been resting on the mountain tops during the night, the air is so sweet and the earth so still. Nor, when it wakes, does it wake to the maddening cares of Europe. The beauty of a patriarchal repose still lingers about its existence in spite of its degradation. Notwithstanding all they have suffered during the European development, the manners of the Asiatic races ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... make a search for him. Warmly as the sun beat down, Jack felt a chill that turned his blood to ice-water run over him at the thought. Left to drift on the broad Atlantic with a serpent for a companion and without a weapon with which to defend himself. The thought was maddening and he resolutely put ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... ye? 'Tis without eyes ye think me!" The policeman was resentful, and so, to tell the truth, was I. The whole maddening affair seemed bent on turning to farce at every angle; the doctor, as a final straw, had just offered sotto voce to ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... reached the yacht he was so weak he could scarcely stand. It was a long while before he could stop his nose from bleeding, and his eye stung with a pain that was maddening. ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield
... a dance, wild, insensate, furious, delirious, paroxysmatical. No Orphic festivals on Mount Cithaeron ever raged more wildly. No Bacchic revels on Mount Parnassus were ever more corybantic. Diana, demented by the maddening example, joined in the orgie, howling and barking frantically in her turn, and wildly jumping as high as the ceiling of the Projectile. Then came new accessions to the infernal din. Wings suddenly began to flutter, cocks ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... whom, when victory glances, The bloody laurels on the brow he bindeth! Whom, after rapid, maddening dances, In clasping maiden-arms he findeth! O would that I, before that spirit-power, Ravished and rapt from ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... former years exaggerated and resolves to be moderate; wants to make others feel as she feels; finds that the only cure for disenchantment with life is devotion to work; fears her face is wearing an anxious look instead of the confident expression which was its chief charm. "Impossible" is a hideous, maddening word; to think of dying like a dog as most people do and leaving nothing behind is a granite wall against which she every instant dashes her head. If she loved a man, every expression of admiration for anything, or anybody else in her presence would be a profanation. Now ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... with the world, in a sense, at her feet was maddening. The Doctor paced the floor roaring like an angry lion. "It may not do any good, but I've got to tell her what I think ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... the further end of the town—strident noises brought from the West to break the drowsy murmur of the Orient, but not a sight nor a sound which could give him a clew as to the whereabouts of Linke or Countess Marishka. The inaction was maddening. In his belt the American revolver hung its futile weight. Had it not been for Linke, he might have had a chance at least to follow the instructions of the note of the Hotel Europa to some conclusion whether for good ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... traveler, who has read about the illicit stills till his imagination dwells upon the indulgence of his vitiated tastes in the mountains of North Carolina, is doomed to disappointment. If he wants to make himself an exception to the sober people whose cooking will make him long for the maddening bowl, he must bring his poison with him. We had found no bread since we left Virginia; we had seen cornmeal and water, slack-baked; we had seen potatoes fried in grease, and bacon incrusted with salt (all thirst-provokers), but nothing to drink stronger than buttermilk. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... in the sail-bath. Church parade at ten; great cleaning and brushing up for it. Short service, read by the Major, and two hymns. Then a long lazy lie on deck with Williams, learning Dutch from a distracting grammar by a pompous old pedant. Pronunciation maddening, and the explanations made it worse. Long afternoon, too, doing the same. No exercising; just water, feed, and a little grooming at 4.30, then work over for the day. Kept the ship lively combing my roan's mane; thought he would jump into the engine-room. By ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... with such an insensate, insatiable mob of wretches as these; as a novelist would say, we flung ourselves into our saddles as fast as we could, and fairly gave our enemies the slip, through the speed of our horses, they running after us like a pack of yelping curs, in maddening bray. The natives ran well for a long distance, nearly three miles, but the pace told on them at last and we completely distanced them. Had we been unsuccessful in finding water in this region and then met these demons, it is more than probable we should never have ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... path. In clouds blindly whirling, In rings madly swirling, Full of crazy wrath, So furious and fast they fly They blur the earth and blot the sky In wild, white mirk. They fill the air with frozen wings And tiny, angry, icy stings; They blind the eyes, and choke the breath, They dance a maddening dance of death Around their work, Sweeping the cover from the hill, Heaping the hollows deeper still, Effacing every line and mark, And swarming, storming in the dark Through the long night; Until, at dawn, the wind lies ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke
... "It is maddening!" I cried. "Can nothing be done, Gatton? Is there no possible line of inquiry hitherto neglected which might lead to the discovery of the truth? For whatever your own ideas may be, personally I am certain ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... or hast thou never even looked into a mirror? Dost thou imagine me less than a man, bidding me forget that she is a woman who stands before me, as thou dost, smiling, and bewildering my soul with her maddening loveliness, and the absolute perfection of her body and her soul, showing the hungry man food, and forbidding him to eat, and the thirsty man water, and requiring him to think of it as something it is ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... could not resist following the crowd to the door where he stood and watched his would-be captors silently mount; listened to the Sheriff give the word, which was immediately followed by the sound of horses grunting as they sprang forward into the darkness in a desperate effort to escape the maddening pain of the descending quirts and cruel spurs. It was a scene to set the blood racing through the veins, viewed in any light; and not until the yells of the men had grown indistinct, and all that could be heard was the ever-decreasing ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... said Julia Crosby, and again her tantalizing laugh rang out, "you are entirely too hasty in your supposition. As it happens, I have the best right in the world to bring my team to the gym. this afternoon. So, little folks," looking from one sophomore to another in a way that was fairly maddening, "run away ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... sealed, a few hours later, by the skipper's behavior. It was this way with the skipper. He felt shame for having kept the girl in the harbor against her prayers, and for the lies he had told her and the destruction of the letters; but he was neither humble nor contrite. Shame was a bitter and maddening emotion for one of his nature. He brooded over this shame, and over that aroused by the girl's scorn, until his finer feelings toward her were burned out and blown abroad like ashes. His infatuation lost its fine, ennobling element ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... his arm another little caress and they proceeded immediately to the dining room, where the string orchestra and the small talk of two hundred and fifty guests strove vainly for the ascendency in one maddening cacophony. It was nearly eight o'clock before Elkan and Yetta arose from the table and repaired to the veranda whose rockers were filled ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... spectacle, being covered with gore; but a glance at the dead beast revealed the cause. The arrow had passed into the mouth, transfixing the large arteries and the base of the brain, and the blood was still deluging the ice in a crimson tide, from which the hot vapors and sickening odor rose, maddening the remaining "hoods" ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... all came to her with a rush; but the words ran together and swam in a maddening blur—the roar from the street below, dull with distance; the hum of the big building, with its faint concussions of closing doors; the air from the open window, not like the sweet prairie air of to-day, but heavy, smoky, typical breath of the town, ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... Queen—who may delude a lover?—foreknew his devices, and at once caught the presaging stir. Safety's self was fear; to her likewise had evil Rumour borne the maddening news that they equip the fleet and prepare [300-334]for passage. Helpless at heart, she reels aflame with rage throughout the city, even as the startled Thyiad in her frenzied triennial orgies, when the holy vessels move forth and the cry of Bacchus re-echoes, and Cithaeron calls her with nightlong ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... follow up the victory at Manassas, it was worse than a barren one, having only exasperated the enemy, and stimulated the Abolitionists to renewed efforts. I suppose these critics would have us forbear to injure the invader, for fear of maddening him. They are making this war; we must make it terrible. With them war is a new thing, and they will not cease from it till the novelty wears off, and all their fighting men are sated with blood and bullets. It must run ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... the shufflings of remorse, above the stiflings of regret, above the plea of a maddening love, was the voice of revenge speaking loudly in his soul. That man, his instrument, now his master, Paul Lowther, must be brought down, and his time-serving sponsor with him. But how? There was but one way—by denouncing himself. Yes, that was the sole outlet for his outraged and baffled ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... and he came very near to being disgusted with his queen who could do no wrong. 'Just when I thought I had made some headway, she goes off chasing butterflies. It's too maddening!' ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... pursued their game, each selecting an animal. They separated at once, Jack going one way galloping after his beast, while Sam went in the other direction. Jack soon got a shot at his game, but the bullet only tore a large hole in the fleshy shoulder of the bull and buried itself in the neck, maddening the animal to such a degree that he turned at once and ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... the bodies are being found and buried as fast as possible. The necessity for speedy burial is becoming manifest, and the stench is sickening. A number of bodies have been found with a bullet hole in them, showing conclusively that in their maddening fright suicide ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... Roughsedge. For the first time she must perforce recognize what hitherto she had preferred not to see: what now she was determined not to know. The young soldier, on his side, was stifled by his own emotions—wrath—contempt—pity; and by a maddening desire to wrap this pale stricken creature in his arms, and so protect her from an abominable world. But something told him—to his despair—that she had been in Marsham's arms; had given her heart irrevocably; and that, ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... fasces of the people or purple of kings sway not, not maddening discord among treacherous brethren, nor the Dacians swarming down from the leagued Danube, not the Roman State, or ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... wall. The prospect was alluring. The pool, the trickling rivulets, the mossy banks, the dense shadows: it was maddening to ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... king and his friends was maddening, and events were quickly brought to a crisis. In spite of earnest opposition retaliatory acts were passed through Parliament in April, 1774. One of these was the Port Bill, for shutting up the port of Boston and stopping its trade until the people should be starved and frightened into paying for ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... too soon realized. No sooner had he departed than the rioters were supplied by some of those mysterious agents who were actively employed throughout the whole of these transactions, with wine, brandy, and other incitements to inflame their already maddening fury. Led on by Verhoef and one Van Bankhem, a sheriff of The Hague, they assailed the prison door with axes and sledge-hammers, threatening to kill all the inmates if it were not instantly opened. Terrified, or corrupted, ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... and Carnaby would either have laid aside his activities for ever or be within hope of recovery, and while Deringham dare not ask himself just then whether he desired the death of his kinsman, the suspense was maddening. If the flame of vitality that was flickering so feebly went out Carnaby would be his daughter's, and the burden which almost crushed him lifted. If it burned on there was at the best a long struggle with adversity before him, and at ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... Violin prepared with it at a concert he had to give at the house of the Duke of Riario. There was a great deal of fashionable company at this concert, and the heat of the room melted this famous varnish, which was really a preparation of asafoetida. The smell which it exuded was so maddening that an ordinary man would have stopped and excused himself; but Ole Bull merely closed his eyes, turned his face away, and played with an energy which became more frenzied the more intolerable the stink became. He enjoyed an overwhelming ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... little murmur of astonishment, resentment even, when it was found that just a bare, bald marriage had been perpetrated in the old town. Green Valley did not resent the scandal of the occurrence. It was the absence of details that was so maddening. But gradually these began to trickle from doorstep to doorstep and by nightfall Green Valley was crowding out of its front gates with little wedding gifts under ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... hostile intruder! Before him lay the huge unknown city where human life pulsated with large, full heart-throbs, where a breathless, weird intensity, a cold, fierce passion seemed to be hurrying everything onward in a maddening whirl, where a gentle, warm-blooded enthusiast like himself had no place and could expect naught but a speedy destruction. A strange, unconquerable dread took possession of him, as if he had been caught in a swift, strong whirlpool, from which he vainly struggled ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... would give all I have just to see those great violet eyes laugh at me again; to hear that mocking laugh from her maddening lips. God, will she ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... refuge—seek it only in the grave. Love may die, and hatred slumber, and their memory will decay, As the water'd garden recks not of the drought of yesterday; But the dream of power once broken, what shall give repose again? What shall charm the serpent-furies coil'd around the maddening brain? What kind draught can nature offer strong enough to lull their sting? Better to be born a peasant than to live an exiled king! Oh, these years of bitter anguish!—What is life to such as me, With my very heart as palsied as a wasted cripple's knee! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... in the whole wide world that you cannot lose by flight—and that's memory. You can think just as hard in Japan or the South Sea Islands as you can on Fifth Avenue in New York, and sometimes the farther away you get the more maddening your thoughts become. It isn't travel you want, David. It's blood—red blood. And for putting blood into you, and courage, and joy of just living and breathing, there's nothing on the face of the ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... musical season was at its height when he arrived, but his first letters home were chiefly occupied with descriptions of the city itself, and how it had affected him. 'It is fearful! it is maddening!' he writes to Fanny three days after he had settled into his Great Portland Street lodgings.[30] 'London is the grandest and most complicated monster on the face of the earth.... Things roll and carry me along as in a vortex. Not in the last six months at Berlin have I seen so many contrasts ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... a bustle behind and tightly swathed hips, under the most brilliant light, women and maidens, whose chief virtue has always been modesty, exhibit themselves in the midst of strange men, who are also clad in improperly tight-fitting garments; and to the sound of maddening music, they embrace and whirl. Old women, often as naked as the young ones, sit and look on, and eat and drink savory things; old men do the same. It is not to be wondered at that this should take place at night, when all the common people are asleep, so that no one ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... and Jasper went out together into the old grounds in the old way, and the sweet, yet sorrowful, week—so maddening to poor Hollyhock, so joyous to Jasper—was forgotten in the spirit of reunion. Oh, it was perfect for the Flower Girl to be with her precious Precious Stone again, and she even loved his dear Scots ways so much that she told him of her little adventure ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... ever-growing mob of terror stricken people who had escaped this massacre. Some of the girls seemed quite paralysed with fear; others were apparently temporarily bereft and kept on shrieking with a persistency that was maddening. A young French sailor who did not look more than seventeen, and was splashed all over with blood from having fallen in one of the worst places, kept striking them two and three at a time, and cursing them in fluent Breton, ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... up as I am, old man," Joe answered for her. "Talk about the language! I don't hanker after learning it, but I've got to, some time. If they would just let me be a sort of deaf-mute doctor I'd be much obliged. The work is fairly maddening. You know, it was a question of closing up this hospital or putting me in as a green hand. Of course there are the nurses, and a couple of students. But I'm glad they put me in; only, look at the job! Never a day without new patients. A steady stream at the ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... As she paced up and down, her whole face was distorted with the torture within. She flung herself into a seat and tried to still the ceaseless, gnawing, maddening pain. In vain! She could neither sit still, nor think, nor deaden her torment. And when at last she threw herself face downward on her bed it was only to sleep the spent sleep of utter exhaustion. But she was "pluck" to the backbone. Next ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... the thought of leaving her had been dreadful before, now the pressure of his arm upon her pliant waist, the delicious sensation of her weight, made it maddening, and thrilled him with all sorts of reckless impulses. Still clasping her, he whispered hoarsely, "I love you, I love you," as if that mighty word left nothing further needed as excuse or explanation ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... insupportable here; big spotted fellows, with a greed for blood, and a specially poisonous bite, taking the place at daylight of the retiring nocturnal host. The Chinese attendant is not careful, and lets mosquitoes into my net, and even one means a sleepless night. They are maddening. ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... perhaps, that the one person about whom the thoughts of the men composing the rescuing party centred was the gentle, bright, and pretty Brenda. To think of her falling into the hands of the merciless Apaches was almost maddening. ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... of his maddening order, That none in the country may trade With the tribes on our side of the border, Who is not a benedict staid; In spite of a clause, far the sorest, That none past his twentieth year, And single, shall enter the forest On any ...
— Fleurs de lys and other poems • Arthur Weir
... sun's choosing! Pearl of the Orient seas! our forfeited Garden of Eden! Joyous I yield up for thee my sad life, and were it far brighter, Young, rose-strewn, for thee and thy happiness still would I give it. Far afield, in the din and rush of maddening battle, Others have laid down their lives, nor wavered nor paused in the giving. What matters way or place—the cyprus, the lily, the laurel, Gibbet or open field, the sword or inglorious torture, When 'tis the hearth and the country that ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... always glad to see you, Harry—and you look so well. It has been nearly three years, hasn't it?" Her calmness was maddening; she spoke as if she was reciting a part in which she had ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... The confusion was maddening out there upon that deserted No Man's Land. To the dug-out openings, pointing away from it, noises had been partially tempered; certainly the acrid smoke was less down in the quadrangle, and she had therefore not ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... good! But he is quite a Michelet; the general views, and such a piece of character painting, excellent; but his method sheer lunacy. You can see him take up the block which he had just rejected, and make of it the corner-stone: a maddening way to deal with authorities; and the result so little like history that one almost blames oneself for wasting time. But the time is not wasted; the conspectus is always good, and the blur that remains on the mind ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... inexplicable thing, and I have persuaded her that if anybody on earth can solve the mystery of it, avert the new and appalling danger of it, it is you! Oh, say that you will take the case, say that you will solve it, say that you will save little Lord Chepstow and put an end to this maddening mystery!" ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... of an hour or twenty minutes, so stupefied that he no longer thought of anything. But suddenly, as he was passing a small house, where the window was half open, the smell of the soup and boiled meat stopped him suddenly, and hunger, fierce, devouring, maddening hunger, seized him and almost drove him against the walls of the ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... missionary and most of the men had leaped into the flatboat and crouched low, where all seemed huddled together in inextricable confusion. The two were toiling at the sweeps, and the craft worked away from the shore with maddening tardiness. To some of the terrified inmates it did not seem to move ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... she had been innocent once. She was clean and good—really and truly the candid child that she had never ceased to seem to be—when that sliming, crawling reptile first got his coils about her. As he thought of the maddening reality, his imagination made pictures that printed themselves, deep and indelible, on the soft recording surfaces of his brain. Henceforth, so long as blood pumped, nerves worked, and cells and fibers held to their shape, he ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... away, afraid he might decide to choke the animal after all. A culture of twenty worlds was the same as already destroyed, and he was held in a maddening quagmire of helplessness by a crafty alcoholic and a dog with the mind of ...
— —And Devious the Line of Duty • Tom Godwin
... Hilton Fenley shrilly. His utterance was nearly hysterical. Farrow's judicial calm appeared to stir him to frenzy. He clamored for action, for zealous scouting, and this orderly investigation by mere words was absolutely maddening. ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... in her turn fell ill. She came back one day from her lessons, shivering, wet, and fevered. Inflammation of the lungs set in; from the first her case was serious, and soon—the doctor told me—hopeless. My despair was maddening. Then I thought only of soothing her last moments. The family she loved so well, of which she was so proud, I would bring to her deathbed. Without letting her know, I first wrote to her sister at Saint-Germain, and I went off at once myself to her uncle, ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet |
