"Witless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... swathe better there than any where else," they reply. "Witless now is Njal," says Hallgerda, "though he knows how to give ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... shall wash out his old cheat In blood, and thou, woman, by new deceit Of him redeem thy first. For thus God saith, Traitress, thou shalt betray thy thief to death." He ceased, and she by misery made wild And witless, shook, and like a little child Gazed piteous, and asked, "What must I do?" He answered, "Hold him by thee, falsely true, Until the King stand armed within the house Ready to take his blood-price. Even thus, By shame alone shalt thou redeem thy shame." And now she claspt his knee and cried ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... F. Kennan broke the deadlock by going directly to Roosevelt and persuading him to accept the Berlin zoning agreement, which Mr. Krock calls a "war-breeding monstrosity," and a "witless travesty on statecraft ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... Shall I to woman be a friend? I deal with man, and when I can Reclaim with interest all I lend. Who but a witless gambler plays For farthing stakes these golden days? No, woman—woman—woman— Must only play the game ...
— Twenty • Stella Benson
... extensive ground, Gilet lived very comfortably, although without a personal income. And that is why Max with certain inherited qualities and defects rashly went to live with his supposed natural father, Jean-Jacques Rouget, a rich and witless old bachelor who was under the thumb of a superb servant-mistress, Flore Brazier, known as La Rabouilleuse. After 1816 Gilet lorded it over the household; the handsome chap had won the heart of Mlle. Brazier. Surrounded by a sort of ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... them, they grow weak; yea are above all men the most unable to stand up, to abide the shock and trial, that for their profession is coming upon them. Wherefore, by and by they are offended; to wit, with their own profession, and call themselves an hundred fools, for being so heedless, so witless, and unwary, to mind God's holy things in such a time and day. (Matt. 4:16, 17; Luke 8:13) Then they bethink with themselves, how to make an honourable retreat, which they suppose they usually do, by ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... that I have "skilfully conveyed a false impression" by giving certain German figures in hundredweights and English figures in tons. Surely he had the wit to see that I was merely transcribing figures without stopping to translate them; and it is difficult to imagine he could think I was so witless as to adopt a silly sleight-of-hand trick such as that of which he accuses me, a trick which would not deceive a child in the lowest standard of a ...
— Are we Ruined by the Germans? • Harold Cox
... strong; But happier Orpheus stood unbound, And shamed it with a sweeter song. His mode be mine. Of Heav'n I ask, May I, with heart-persuading might, Pursue the Poet's sacred task Of superseding faith by sight, Till ev'n the witless Gadarene, Preferring Christ to swine, shall know That life is sweetest when it's clean. To prouder folly let me show Earth by divine light made divine; And let the saints, who hear my word, Say, 'Lo, the clouds begin to shine About the coming of ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... At this witless, sweet impudence the Canadian looked very sheepish—for a beaver; and all the other people laughed; but the noble historical shades of Basil's thought vanished in wounded dignity beyond recall, and left him feeling rather ashamed,—for he had ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... But for all its dirt and dullness it has a spot on the map and a meaning in the dull souls of its inhabitants, and here, within half an hour's train travel of the Lord Mayor's Mansion and the golden vaults of the Bank of England, transpired on the sweltering night of which I write, one of the most witless and appalling tragedies of the present war. Forever memorable in the hitherto colorless calendar of Walthamstow will be this tragedy in ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... the largest houses had amplest accommodations, and that the rich could best afford to be bounteous? If in all these spacious mansions there was no little nook for him, if out of their luxuries not a blanket or crust could be spared, what could he hope from the poor? You see, he was not altogether witless, if he was a—Fessenden's. Another proof: At whatever house he applied, he never committed the vulgarity of a detour to the back-entrance, but advanced straight, with bold and confident port, to the front-door. The reason of which was ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Witless little Picklepip Manned again his mental ship And veered her with a sudden shift. Painted to the lady's thought How he ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... companions giggled at this witless behavior; but some, who felt it somewhat uncanny and whom the unhappy girl's bitter cry had struck painfully, drew apart and had already organized some new amusement, when a neat little woman appeared on the scene, clapping her plump ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... generous, undistinguishing love. Only he always forgot what he was going to do. He was much more sensitive than Maria, more shy and reluctant. But his shyness, his sensitiveness only made him more aimless and awkward, a tiresome clown, slack and uncontrolled, witless. All day long his mother shouted and shrilled and scolded at him, or hit him angrily. He did not mind, he came up like a cork, warm and roguish and curiously appealing. She loved him with a fierce protective love, grounded on pain. ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... for him a Persian wife, no, three or four wives—although I have heard the custom of these witless Greeks is to be content with only one. There is no surer way to ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... who approaches them. In Humphrey Prideaux's letters there is not a trace of any such feeling. He does his business, but it is hack-work. In this he differs from the modern student, but in his caustic description of the rude and witless society of the place he is modern enough. In his letters to his friend, John Ellis, of the State Paper Office, it is plain that Prideaux wants to get preferment. His taste and his ambition alike made him detest the heavy, beer-drinking doctors, the fast "All Souls gentlemen," ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... how I love thee best, And all my thoughts of thee shall be confess'd And none withheld, not e'en the witless one Which late I harbor'd when the mounting sun Burst from a cloud,—the moon a mile away, As if in hiding from the lord of day,— As if, at times, the moon were like thyself, And fear'd the semblance ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... without house or home, and went away wandering through the country no one knew where. Some said she had cast herself into the sea and was drowned; but others, I mind, declared they had seen her after that as wild and witless as ever. Hers was a hard fate whatever it might have been, for her husband hadn't a friend in the world, no more had she; and when she went mad there was no one to ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... Ere mated with his being. Conscious then Of his high theme alone, he smiled again Straight back upon himself in many a hue And tint, and light and shade, which slowly grew Enfeatured of a fair girl's face, as when First time she smiles for love's sake with no fear. So wrought he, witless that behind him leant A woman, with old features, dim and sear, And glamoured eyes that felt the brimming tear, And with a voice, like some sad instrument, That sighing said, "I'm dead there; ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... years appeared so weak and witless, possessed in reality that fine quality of brain and heart which is so often a prey to the temptation of intoxicants. He was now working out all the theory of the new life in a mind that would not flinch before, or shirk the gleams ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... Sits old and chill On sidings shaven clean, And counts his clustering Dead daisies on a string With witless laughter.... ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... the old nurse it had seemed wise that the witless one should go to her bed, instead of into that gay scene at the barn. Luna had decided otherwise. Commonly so drowsy and willing to sleep anywhere and anyhow, she was this night wide awake. Nothing could ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... have a film over the eyes, have a glimmering &c n.; wonder whether; not know what to make of &c (unintelligibility) 519; not pretend to take upon, not take upon one self to say. Adj. ignorant; nescient; unknowing, unaware, unacquainted, unapprised, unapprized^, unwitting, unweeting^, unconscious; witless, weetless^; a stranger to; unconversant^. uninformed, uncultivated, unversed, uninstructed, untaught, uninitiated, untutored, unschooled, misguided, unenlightened; Philistine; behind the age. shallow, superficial, green, rude, empty, half-learned, illiterate; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... I am learned, Madam," said Hugh modestly. "I am younger even than you, methinks, and far more witless. But I have heard them say that have been deep skilled, as methinks, in the ministeries [mysteries] of God, that wherein it is said that 'He mai save withouten ende,' it scarce ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... not embark upon this adventure joyously. He could not help weighing the chances. He understood that in this day and age he was a fortunate man. He had a great deal to lose. But he felt that he must go. He was not, however, filled with the witless idea that service with the Expeditionary Force was to be an adventure of some few months, a brief period involving some hardships and sharp fighting, but with an Allied Army hammering at the gates of Berlin as a grand finale. The slaughter ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... who fearless snatched at bliss so high, Witless! and yet to be of slight esteem And little worth is sometimes well, no dream Of high unrest, no awful afterglow Affrights us simple ones when that we die. Vain flickering lamps soon quenched—we but go From this brief day, this short transition, ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... Muses together with sweet voice in antiphonal chant replying, sing of the imperishable gifts of the Gods, and the sufferings of men, all that they endure from the hands of the undying Gods, lives witless and helpless, men unavailing to find remede for death or buckler against old age. Then the fair-tressed Graces and boon Hours, and Harmonia, and Hebe, and Aphrodite, daughter of Zeus, dance, holding each by the wrist ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... looks such a simple, witless creature that the man on guard on the landing has not thought to pry while she has been with us, and has allowed the door to be shut. He cannot then see in, as the grated opening has been closed, out of regard to Madame's sex. So this morning I got Brigitte's consent to my plan, ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... bird to this rough steep Your kind's first seed did bear; The breeze had better been asleep, The bird caught in a snare: [4] For you and your green twigs decoy 45 The little witless shepherd-boy To come and slumber in your bower; And, trust me, on some sultry noon, Both you and he, Heaven knows how soon! Will perish in ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... shalt not be craven or witless, if indeed thou hast a drop of thy father's blood and a portion of his spirit; such an one was he to fulfil both word and work. Nor, if this be so, shall thy voyage be vain or unfulfilled. But if thou ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... the just rarely permitted himself to jest, and when he did his humour was as like unto humour as water is like unto wine. Still, when a monarch jests, if you are wise, if you have a favour to sue, or a position at Court to seek or to maintain, you smile, for all that the ineptitude of his witless wit ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... but political prisoners who had fought in Monmouth's Rebellion. Pitied by the planters, despised even by the negro slaves, this small colony held itself aloof, starved, and married none but members of their own colony. They are now mere shadows of men, with puny bodies and witless minds, living in brush or wooden hovels and eating nothing but a little ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... house. Kenneth was gone; he had left in the dead of night, and seemingly in haste and suddenness, since on the previous evening there had been no talk of his departing. Her father was abed with a wound that made him feverish. Their grooms were all sick, and wandered in a dazed and witless fashion about the castle, their faces deadly pale and their eyes lustreless. In the hall she had found a chaotic disorder upon descending, and one of the panels of the wainscot she saw was ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... to come. To her drew Hoder near, and spake, and said:— "Mother, a child of bale thou bar'st in me! For, first, thou barest me with blinded eyes, Sightless and helpless, wandering weak in Heaven; And, after that, of ignorant witless mind Thou barest me, and unforeseeing soul; That I alone must take the branch from Lok, The foe, the accuser, whom, though Gods, we hate, And cast it at the dear-loved Balder's breast At whom the Gods in sport their ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... he said. "A witless one am I, and the folly of my desire has been my undoing. Take away from me the accursed Golden Touch, and faithfully and well ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... mused, as he noticed this brilliant and singular decoration, "an emblem of the fraternity, I suppose, meaning ... what? Salvation and Immortality? Alas, they are poor, witless builders on shifting sand if they place any hope or reliance on those two empty words, signifying nothing! Do they, can they honestly believe in God, I wonder? or are they only acting the usual worn-out comedy ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Windgate Joseph Windsor Stephen Wing Jacob Wingman Samuel Winn Jacob Winnemore Seth Winslow Charles Winter George Winter Joseph Winters David Wire John Wise Thomas Witham John Witherley Solomon Witherton William Withpane William Witless Robert Wittington W. Wittle John Woesin Henry Woist Henry Wolf John Wolf Simon de Wolf Stephen de Wolf Champion Wood Charles Wood (3) Daniel Wood (4) Edward Wood (2) George Wood Jabez Wood John Wood Jonathan Wood Joseph Wood (2) ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... hours later. In spite of the vindictive urgings of the Hollander newspaper, the Volksstem, few could believe that the death sentence would be carried out and most people recognized that the ebullitions of that organ expressed the feelings of only a few rabid and witless individuals among the Hollanders themselves and were viewed with disgust by the great majority of them. At the same time the scene in court had been such as to show that the Government party—the officials and Boers ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... scarcity of the supernatural. Mr. Sludge is not so much to blame: the people at length push the thing so far that he is obliged to cheat in self-defence. And when a man tasks his wits successfully, if it be only to mislead the witless, he has a sense of satisfaction in the effort akin to that of the rhetorician ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... "Witless thou waxest," said Siggeir, "nor heedest the wise man's saying; 'Slay thou the wolf by the house-door, lest he slay thee in the wood.' Yet since I am the overcomer, and my days henceforth shall be good, I will quell them with no death-pains; let the young men ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... received the appropriate cognomen of hell), to hasten, with what force he could collect, to his relief. It happened to be Midsummer-day, when a great fair was held at Chester, the humours of which, it should seem, the worthy constable, witless of his lord's peril, was then enjoying. He immediately got together, in the words of my authority, "a great, lawless mob of fiddlers, players, cobblers, and such like," and marched towards the earl. The Welsh, although ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 405, December 19, 1829 • Various
... that they are no more educational than so many firemen's parades or displays of sky-rockets, and that all they actually offer to the public in return for the taxes wasted upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a visit to a penitentiary, or even to Congress or a state legislature in session, is informing, stimulating ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... passed quietly enough. Word of his defiance of Whitburn had gotten around among the faculty—Whitburn might have his secretary scared witless in his office, but not gossipless outside it—though it hadn't seemed to have leaked down to the students yet. Handley, the Latin professor, managed to waylay him in a hallway, a ...
— The Edge of the Knife • Henry Beam Piper
... hated like the devil to let her work that way, but ... you knew I was scared witless every ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... betimes, and, with his wife, witnessed the play from the large stage boxes of the second tier, two thrown into one, and profusely draped with the national flag. The acts and scenes of the piece—one of those singularly witless compositions which have at the least the merit of giving entire relief to an audience engaged in mental action or business excitements and cares during the day, as it makes not the slightest call on either the moral, emotional, esthetic or spiritual nature—a ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... virtue by the base Hucksters of sophistry, the priest and friar,— Gilt claws of tyrant brutes,—who lie for hire, Preaching that God delights in this disgrace. Look well, ye brainless folk! Do fathers hold Their children slaves to serfs? Do sheep obey The witless ram? Why make a beast your king? If there are no archangels, let your fold Be governed by the sense of all: why stray From men ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
... you will?" returned his wife. "Once a witless fool, always a witless fool!" and giving free rein to her vexation and ill-temper she continued to upbraid her husband until his anger also was stirred, and he had wellnigh made a second bid and ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... from the galleys were introduced—Robert Macaire, the clever rogue above mentioned, and Bertrand, the stupid rogue, his friend, accomplice, butt, and scapegoat, on all occasions of danger. It is needless to describe the play—a witless performance enough, of which the joke was Macaire's exaggerated style of conversation, a farrago of all sorts of high-flown sentiments such as the French love to indulge in—contrasted with his actions, which were philosophically unscrupulous, and his appearance, which was most ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Jeanie to the tryste, He danc'd wi' Jeanie on the down; And, lang ere witless Jeanie wist, Her heart was tint, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... function at the scowl of power, And seeks the rustic cot to stretch his limbs In homely freedom. I fulfil a doom. We who are topmost on this heap of life Are nearer to heaven's hand than you below; And so are used, as ready instruments, To work its purposes. Let envy hide Her witless forehead at a prince's name, And fix her hopes upon a clown's content. You, happy lowly, know not what it is To groan beneath the crowned yoke of state, And bear the goadings of the sceptre. Ah! Fate drives us onward in a narrow way, Despite ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... with that indefinable interjection of displeasure which defies all spelling. "You talk like the witless creature that you are. Didn't I tell the lad, two years ago, Michaelmas was, that the day he could pay off the mortgage on the farm, he should have you and the farm too? And eight hundred and fifty florins oughtn't to frighten a man as has got the right spirit ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... the precept about the right hand and the left, and showed some ostentation in his charities. When a poor ruined fellow at his elbow saw him win at a throw L200, and murmured 'How happy that would make me!' Nash tossed the money to him, and said, 'Go and be happy then.' Probably the witless beau did not see the delicate satire implied in his speech. It was only the triumph of a gamester. On other occasions he collected subscriptions for poor curates, and so forth, in the same spirit, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... Fantast says to her husband, Mr. Oldwit, who loves to tell of his early meetings with Ben Jonson and other literary heroes of a bygone day, "While all the Beau Monde, as my daughter says, are with us in the drawing-room, you have none but ill-bred, witless drunkards with you in your smoking-room." As Mr. Oldwit himself, in another scene of the same play, says to his friends, "We'll into my smoking-room and sport about a brimmer," there was probably some excuse for his wife's remark. These country smoking-rooms were known ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... at him steadily. He was far from being dizzied in his brain. Since the blow received at the hands of Beth had not sufficed to make him utterly witless, then nothing drinkable could ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... is better always to aim high than to take the risk of shooting too low. It is too often the practice to spell out everything in words of one syllable so that the more witless files in the organization will be able to understand it. When that is done, it insults the intelligence of the keenest men, and nothing is added to their progress. The target should be the intellect of the upper 25 or 30 percent. When they are stimulated and informed, they will bring ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... conjunction of smartened attire and doleful countenance that an affair of the heart was forward. And 'twas true; 'twas safely to be predicted, indeed, in season and out, of the fool of our harbor: for what with his own witless conjectures and the reports of his mates, made in unkind banter, his leisure was forever employed in the unhappy business: so that never a strange maid came near but he would go shyly forth upon his quest, persuaded of a grateful ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... always pay the price, usually a vexatious one. Bores stopped him on the street to repeat ancient and witless stories. Invented anecdotes, some of them exasperating ones, went the rounds of the press. Impostors in distant localities personated him, or claimed to be near relatives, and obtained favors, sometimes money, in his name. Trivial letters, seeking ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... shades of grey and pale green, and with the glister of wine-tinted, ribbon-like leaves, and the air is alert with rich and spicy odour, there is ample apology ever ready for the season and the direct results thereof. The trees are manifestly over-exerting themselves, in a witless competition with others which may never boast of painted, scented fruit. There is not a sufficient audience of aesthetics to tolerate the change of which ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... last hope, but in one instant's scrutiny she saw that this had vanished, too. Some terrible thought had sobered and engrossed him. Now he was eyeing her like a witless thing, his features drawn, his eyes burning. The moment was ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... his injury relate. The back, insulting o'er the belly's need, Says, Thou thyself, I others' eyes must feed. The maw, the guts, all inward parts complain The back's great pride, and their own secret pain. Ye witless gallants, I beshrew your hearts, That sets such discord 'twixt agreeing parts, Which never can be set at onement more, Until the maw's wide mouth be ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... effect of these words, more unexpected than any other words could have been, was first and chiefly to convince him that he was dealing with a witless person. Leaving him again, the speaker had hurried on in front, making his way still toward the wood. When Trenholme came up with him the wanderer had evidently found the place where he had been before, for there was the irregular circular track of his former wandering upon the snow. ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... cuts me to the heart to hear his very name. Would that it might be as thou sayest!—but 'tis an idle dream. Peace be unto his ashes! And may the gods at least preserve unto us his son, Telemachus, who lately departed on a witless errand, led thereto, as I think, by some malign deity who hates the house of Odysseus. But no more of this! Tell me rather of thyself, who and whence thou art, and how thou camest ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... whole affair is a noisy paroxysm of nonsense, unreasonable excitement, witless mischief, and ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... the faster, If I have touched it with my charming-wands. And yet,—the wonder any woman knows Thou dost deny the proud Soul that has fed Among the lilies of the White Eros.— Ere I go down among the witless Dead Give, give the secret, for my bliss or rue, Lest lack of that should craze ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor
... difference an' my defeat, I'm witless enough to keep goin' on to school, whereas I should have returned homeward an' cast myse'f upon my parents as a sacred trust. Of course, when I'm in school I don't go impartin' my troubles to the other chil'en; I emyoolates the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... did you say my lip was sweet, And made the scarlet pale? And why did I, young witless maid! ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... Certain a townsman mine I'd lief see thrown from thy gangway Hurled head over heels precipitous whelmed in the quagmire, Where the lake and the boglands are most rotten and stinking, 10 Deepest and lividest lie, the swallow of hollow voracious. Witless surely the wight whose sense is less than of boy-babe Two-year-old and a-sleep on trembling forearm of father. He though wedded to girl in greenest bloom of her youth-tide, (Bride-wife daintier bred than ever was ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... household—envied for her past while delivered defenceless to the tender mercies of people without any fineness either of feeling or mind, unable to understand her misery, grossly curious, mistaking her manner for disdain, her silent shrinking for pride. The wife of the "odious person" was witless and fatuously conceited. Of the two girls of the house one was pious and the other a romp; both were coarse-minded—if they may be credited with any mind at all. The rather numerous men of the family were dense and grumpy, or dense and ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... third of the book, but are replete with padding, pointless babble and occasional puerile inaccuracies. They are largely attempts to explain and to moralize upon Yorick's emotions,—averbose, childish, witless commentary. The Wortregister contains fourteen pages in double columns of explanations, in general differing very little from the kind of information given in the notes. The Allgemeine Litteratur Zeitung[30] devotes a long review ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... of the party remained to be ferried over last; so, if I had not come to terms, I would have been, as I always was in crossing rivers which we could not swim, completely in the power of the enemy. It was but rarely we could get a head man so witless as to cross a river with us, and remain on the opposite bank in a convenient position to be seized as a hostage in case of ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... like desire, and if an equal flame Move one and the other sex, who warmly press To that soft end of love (their goal the same) Which to the witless crowd seems rank excess; Say why shall woman — merit scathe or blame, Though lovers, one or more, she may caress; While man to sin with whom he will is free, And meets with praise, not ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... "witless of the size, the sum, The value in proportion of all things, Or whether it be little or ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... of his picture to lose any, even of the smallest parts or most trivial hues which bear a part in the great impression made by the reality. The difference between the drawing of the architect and artist[13] ought never to be, as it now commonly is, the difference between lifeless formality and witless license; it ought to be between giving the mere lines and measures of a building, and giving those lines and measures with the impression and soul of it besides. All artists should be ashamed of themselves when they find ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... discontent, Within her eyelids sate the swelling tear, Not poured forth, though sprung from sad lament, And with this craft a thousand souls well near In snares of foolish ruth and love she hent, And kept as slaves, by which we fitly prove That witless ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... Glare, which did go To mass in jest, catch'd, was fain to disburse The hundred marks, which is the statute's curse, Before he 'scap'd; so't pleas'd my Destiny (Guilty of my sin of going) to think me As prone to all ill, and of good as forget- Ful, as proud, lustful, and as much in debt, As vain, as witless, and as false as they Which dwell in court, for once going that way, Therefore I suffer'd this: Towards me did run A thing more strange than on Nile's slime the sun E'er bred, or all which into Noah's ...
— English Satires • Various
... taken firsts at Oxford devote their intolerable leisure to preparing an edition from which everything resembling an idea shall be excluded. We might then shut up our Marlowes and our Beaumonts and resume our reading of the bard, and the witless foists would confer happiness on many, and crown themselves with truly immortal bays. See the fellows! their fingers catch at scanty wisps of hair, the lamps are burning, the long pens are poised, and idea after idea is hurled ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... Sobbing, frightened almost witless, he had been floundering forward for over an hour, and had made circle after circle without knowing, when, by chance, he set foot in ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... towards her niece. It was a kindly face, but infinitely sad and lined with more cares than fall to the lot of most women of her age. The ingratitude of sons, the death of daughters, the poor troubled husband, old and witless in the King Charles ground-floor suite, weeping for his lost eyesight or sitting smiling mirthlessly over his violin, had marked her. But in spite of all she had kept the ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... we fed, Like witless fools, with fostering bread, Have impiously come to this— They've stolen the Acropolis, With bolts and bars our orders ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... his family history. Beyond him Pickle goes on springs, cracking jokes like a little internal combustion engine. And David, now very tanned and wide awake, finishes our four. Without looking, we know the voice of each of our neighbors behind or in front, even so far as the witless stutterer some squads ahead, or the flat-voiced constant querist somewhere behind. But now when he raises his song his neighbors ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... before). Ha! (making an entry in his note-book). And they laugh at a witless joke! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 16, 1892 • Various
... witless azzy!" blurted Hodge. "If a 's so great a man amongst the lords and earlses, a 'd na come back to Stratford. An' I say a 's ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... yon fause stream that, near the sea, Hides mony an elf and plum, And rives wi' fearful din the stanes, A witless knicht ...
— The Book of Old English Ballads • George Wharton Edwards
... caution needful, save from sin?) And those two Truths, each gazing upon each, Embraced like sisters, thenceforth one. For her No arduous thing was Faith, ere yet she heard In heart believing: and, as when a babe Marks some bright shape, if near or far, it knows not, And stretches forth a witless hand to clasp Phantom or form, even so with wild surmise And guesses erring first, and questions apt, She chased the flying light, and round it closed At last, and found it substance. "This is He." Then cried she, "This, whom every maid should love, Conqueror self-sacrificed of sin and ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... clutch hold of the stair railings to prevent himself from falling. As for his health, he had abominable headaches and dizziness. All on a sudden he was seized with acute pains in his arms and legs; he turned pale; was obliged to sit down, and remained on a chair witless for hours; indeed, after one such attack, his arm remained paralyzed for the whole day. He took to his bed several times; he rolled himself up and hid himself under the sheet, breathing hard and ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... how many of Doctor Holmes's trenchant sayings have become a heritage in our households, detached often from their original kinship, and seeming like the rightful property of every one who utters them. It is an amusing, barefaced, witless sort of robbery, yet surely not without its compensations; for it must be a pleasant thing to reflect in old age that the general murkiness of life has been lit up here and there by sparks struck from one's youthful ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... threescore; Cure them of tours, hussar and highland dresses; Tell them that youth once gone returns no more, That hired huzzas redeem no land's distresses; Tell them Sir William Curtis[559] is a bore, Too dull even for the dullest of excesses— The witless Falstaff of a hoary Hal, A fool whose bells have ceased to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... dialogue. And on this wall-less platform which looked much like a primitive stage, a singular action was unrolling itself in the smoky glimmer of a two-cent lamp. The Third Assistant was not there at all; but Isidro was the Third Assistant. And the pupil was not Isidro, but the witless old man who was one of the many sharers of the abode. In the voice of the Third Assistant, Isidro was hurling out the tremendous questions; and, as the old gentleman, who represented Isidro, opened his mouth only to drule ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... did not know the secret of Mimer's well, how the hoary old giant was far more wise than anyone who had not quaffed of the magic water. It is true that in the assemblies of the Vanir Hoenir gave excellent counsel. But this was because Mimer whispered in Hoenir's ear all the wisdom that he uttered. Witless Hoenir was quite helpless without his aid, and did not know what to do or say. Whenever Mimer was absent he would look nervous and frightened, and if folk questioned him he ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... leafless, treeless, without bud or flower, herd or herdsman, church or cottage, to the shadowed horizon, looming dark as the twilight deepened, was in sympathy with the gloom which had come upon me as Martin Hall ceased to speak. I had thought the man a fool and witless, flighty in purpose and shallow in thought, and yet he seemed to speak of great mysteries—and of death. In one moment the jester's cloak fell from him, and I saw the mail beneath. He had made a great impression upon me, but I concealed it from him, and replied jauntily ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... only then that the other perceived the slip he had made, as did his sister, and the two joined in the Captain's mirth; while Master Bob also lent his help, although witless of what the general merriment was about, the deep ho-ho-ho! of his father being even more contagious than the catching laugh of his ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... whose beautifully fluted rims are of regular and uniform height, and all are equally filled with clear, still water. A great number of these basins are said to have been destroyed by an ax in the hands of a poor witless creature for the gratification of a burst of temper, and a magnificent stalagmitic column, too heavy for one man to lift, lay detached and broken, in proof that his body did not share the feebleness of ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... St. Catherine," observed his visiter, stepping through the casement, "I wish I could break all marriages as easily; and as to the motive, your honour, I did not like to wait quietly, and see a pistol-ball walk towards my witless pate, to convince, by its effects thereupon, the unbelieving world that Robin Hays had brains. As to the domestics, the doors were locked, and they, I do believe, (craving your pardon, sir,) too drunk to open them. As to the wall, it's somewhat straight and slippery; but what signifies a wall ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... at the lunar orb again as if in irrational appeal—a moon calf bleating to his mother the moon. But the face of Luna seemed as witless as his own; there is no help in nature against the supernatural; and he looked again at the tall marble figure that might have been ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... for Greeks, So on their dumb immensity he wreaks His vengeance, driving in the press with shout Of "Aias! Aias!" hurtling, carving out A way with mighty swordstroke, cut and thrust, And makes a shambles in his witless lust; And in the midst, bloodshot, with blank wild eyes Stands frothing at the lips, and after lies All reeking in his madman's battlefield, And sleeps nightlong. But with the dawn's revealed The pity of his folly; then he sees Himself ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... long and as yellow as a lawyer's parchment; and having longed to quit home any time these three years past, he found himself envying Athelstane, because, forsooth, he was going to Rotherwood: which symptoms of discontent being observed by the witless Wamba, caused that absurd madman to bring his rebeck over his shoulder from his back, ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to the cold-blooded statement. The shock of it produced a beating in the head, and a sickness. And I felt foolish, as though I might do something lunatic, like giving a witless shout, or running amok with a table-knife. I touched Doe, and whispered: "I'm going to get out of this. The old fool doesn't know what ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... the pool outside—cannot you hear them, Jac Hallen?" Impatience came to his voice; in truth, I must have been staring at him witless. "Maidens out there, Jac Hallen, who are seeking handsome youths like yourself for escort. Must I speak plainly? You ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... wring his hands, as do Those witless men who dare To try to rear the changeling Hope In the cave of black Despair: He only looked upon the sun, And drank ...
— The Ballad of Reading Gaol • Oscar Wilde
... of connecting various threads of action in one plot, disregarding chronology, and hazarding an ethical solution of motives which mere fidelity to fact hardly warrants. He shows us Vittoria married to Camillo, a low-born and witless fool, whose only merit consists in being nephew to the Cardinal Monticelso, afterwards Pope Paul IV.[9] Paulo Giordano Ursini, Duke of Brachiano, loves Vittoria, and she suggests to him that, for the furtherance of their amours, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... railways, let me merely remark here that we have always insisted upon one uniform gauge and everything we buy fits into and develops our existing railway system. Nothing is more indicative of the wambling sort of parent and a coterie of witless, worthless uncles than a heap of railway toys of different gauges and natures in the children's playroom. And so, having told you of the material we have, let me now tell you of one or two games (out of the innumerable many) that we have played. ...
— Floor Games; a companion volume to "Little Wars" • H. G. Wells
... Of gorse upon the moor-top caught his eye: And that gold glow held all his heart's desire, As, like a witless, flame-bewildered fly, He blundered towards the league-wide yellow blaze, And tumbled headlong on the spikes of bloom; And rising, bruised and bleeding and adaze, Struggled through clutching spines; the dense, sweet fume Of nutty, acrid scent like poison stealing Through his ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... with pennoned spear, To prance upon a bold destrere: I will not have black Care prevail Upon my long-eared charger's tail, For lo, I am a witless fool, And laugh at Grief and ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... distant future they were vague, though rosy. He would make the ten miles to Brig Tickle in less than three hours, and from there turn a point or two westward from the coast and strike across country to the head of Witless Bay. He had a cousin in Witless Bay and could afford to rest in that cousin's house for a few hours. There he would hire a team of dogs and make the next stage in quick time. Dennis Nolan, who would not discover the theft of the diamonds until after ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... greeted his wife smilingly, but Doray broke out into bitter weeping and two guards had difficulty in preventing her from embracing her husband. Antonio, the son of Capitana Tinay, appeared crying like a baby, which only added to the lamentations of his family. The witless Andong broke out into tears at sight of his mother-in-law, the cause of his misfortune. Albino, the quondam theological student, was also bound, as were Capitana Maria's twins. All three were grave and serious. The last to come out was Ibarra, unbound, but ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... midmost of the city-walls AEneas doth she lead, And shows him the Sidonian wealth, the city's guarded ways; And now she falls to speech, and now amidst a word she stays. Then at the dying of the day the feast she dights again, And, witless, once again will hear the tale of Ilium's pain; And once more hangeth on the lips that tell the tale aloud. But after they were gone their ways, and the dusk moon did shroud 80 Her light in turn, and setting stars bade all to sleep away, Lone ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... Goddess shalt thou know When to thine heart the brazen spear shall pierce Sped by my might. Patroclus' death I avenged On Hector, and Antilochus on thee Will I avenge. No weakling's friend thou hast slain! But why like witless children stand we here Babbling our parents' fame and our own deeds? Now is the hour ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus |
