"Dotard" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... theatre at Paris his "Medecin malgre lui," his "Etourdi," his "L'Avare," and his "Scapin." Milan offered a pimp in the Brighella; Florence an ape of fashion in Gelsomino. These and other pantomimic characters, and some ludicrous ones, as the Tartaglia, a spectacled dotard, a stammerer, and usually in a passion, had been gradually introduced by the inventive powers of an actor of genius, to call forth ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... keep him with us here a prisoner?" suggested an old buck; only to be cried down loudly as a doddering dotard, whose ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... darkened for a moment. "What! dearest," said he, "can you be affected by the foolish fears of yon dotard? How do we know as yet, whether this improbable story have any foundation in truth. At all events, it is evidently exaggerated. Perhaps an invasion of the poultry-yard, in which some hungry fox was the real offender, may be the true origin ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... permitted except among heathens. I fear the theatre carries down that ancient tradition and worship, as masons have carried their secret signs and rites from temple to temple. When the libertine hero carries off the beauty in the play, and the dotard is laughed to scorn for having the young wife: in the ballad, when the poet bid his mistress to gather roses while she may, and warns her that old Time is still a-flying: in the ballet, when honest ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... abdication of Charles, and proceeded to the election of Ferdinand. That Emperor was crowned in March, and immediately despatched a legation to the Pope to apprize him of the fact. Nothing was less expected than any opposition on the part of the pontiff. The querulous dotard, however, who then sat in St. Peter's chair, hated Charles and all his race. He accordingly denied the validity of the whole transaction, without sanction previously obtained from the Pope, to whom all crowns belonged. Ferdinand, after listening, through his envoys, to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... stounds,* *tested at various Basons and lavers, ere that men them buy, seasons Spoones, stooles, and all such husbandry, And so be pots, and clothes, and array,* *raiment But folk of wives make none assay, Till they be wedded, — olde dotard shrew! — And then, say'st thou, we will our vices shew. Thou say'st also, that it displeaseth me, But if * that thou wilt praise my beauty, *unless And but* thou pore alway upon my face, *unless And call me faire dame in every place; And but* thou make a feast ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... Turkey, an unhealthy bird, scarcely possessing fat enough to cook himself; but, being rather doubtful of his own culinary efficiency, had consented to receive a French cook into the family: and, fearing there might yet be a deficiency, the ever-credulous old dotard was making good-natured overtures to one Joseph of Hapsburg,—never trustworthy, and always known to act as circumstances changed interests,—who said there was no knowing what time he would be ready to turn his attention to such purposes. Joseph, however, was never in his life so willing ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... N. veteran, old man, seer, patriarch, graybeard; grandfather, grandsire; grandam; gaffer, gammer; crone; pantaloon; sexagenarian, octogenarian, nonagenarian, centenarian; old stager; dotard &c. 501. preadamite[obs3], Methuselah, Nestor, old Parr; elders; forefathers &c. (paternity) 166. Phr. "superfluous lags the veteran ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... "Dotard!" exclaimed the prince, as in blind rage he struck him in the mouth with his clenched fist. "Keep thy advice for dogs, ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... paid the visit simply and solely to find food for themselves. The Chinese were the first to leave the duck-yard; and the other fowls soon followed them. The witty little duck said of the Portuguese that the old lady was becoming a ducky dotard. At this the other ducks laughed and cackled aloud. "Ducky dotard," they whispered; "that's too witty!" and then they repeated the former joke about Portulak, and declared that it was vastly amusing. And ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... dotage, he began to study that book called the Bible; and it seems, that in order to credit its fabulous nonsense, we must believe that the knowledge of mankind will be so increased that we shall be able to travel at the rate of fifty miles an hour. The poor dotard!' exclaimed the philosophic infidel Voltaire, in the self-complacency of his pity. But who is the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 193, July 9, 1853 • Various
... you, and I tell you still: Lay steady siege to a rich dotard's will; Nor, should a fish or two gnaw round the bait, And 'scape the hook, lose heart and give up straight. A suit at law comes on: suppose you find One party's old and childless, never mind Though law with him's a weapon to oppress An upright neighbour, take ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... not take my word for it, But let a dotard's clatterjaw destroy you? You ken my worth: yet, if you care for Jim, You'll trust his oath. If he denies the bairn, Then, you'll believe? You'd surely never doubt Your husband's word, and on your wedding-day? Small wonder you'd be duberous of mine. But Jim's not my sort; he's an honest ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... cried, as he strode across the terrace, and caught Lord Brudenel roughly by the shoulder, "are you not content to go to your grave without killing another woman? Oh, you dotard miser!—you haberdasher!—haven't I offered you money, an isn't money the only thing you are now capable of caring for? Give the ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... of the wine, however, came the consoling reflection that Iris as a scullery-maid might not tickle the fancy of the dotard who had undertaken to provide fifty thousand pounds for the new partnership. And she had promised—that was everything. His lack of diplomacy was obvious even to himself, but he had won where a man of finer ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... only declined to have anything to say to her husband's mother, she carried her disapproval to the extent of refusing point blank to appear at Court. So furious was the Regent at this slight that "the dotard with corrupted eye and withered heart," as Byron calls him, had her portrait removed from the Palace Gallery of Beauties, ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... What did you expect? I suppose the man who sent you here thought, because you were an engaging young woman and I an old dotard, I would gabble to you the results of a life's work. Oh, no, no, no; but I am not an old dotard. I have ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... rushes at his Grandfather] What are you up to, you old fool? Spilling such fine stuff! Oh, you old dotard! [Pushes him away and holds tumbler under tap] You've ...
— The First Distiller • Leo Tolstoy
... stay, and set her on to teaze the Dotard: wou'd I could teaze him to Death, that my Mistress might be rid ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... said to the Baron du Chimay,—"an honest gentleman who had knowledge," says Fleuranges, "of things to come, and who, before the battle, had announced to Gaston that he would gain it, but he would be in danger of being left there if God did not do him grace,—Well, Sir Dotard, am I left there, as you said? Here I am still.' 'Sir, it is not all over yet,' answered Chimay; whereupon there arrived an archer, who came and said to the duke, 'My lord, yonder be two thousand Spaniards, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... were to die, who would maintain your wife and daughter? The widow of a Marshal gets at least six thousand francs pension, doesn't she? Well, then, I wish to marry to secure bread for your wife and daughter—old dotard!" ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... A dotard I had rather seeme, and dull, Sooner my faults may please make me a gull, Than to be wise, and ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... my gray head, Thou hand of God! How comes my son to me! My son, my only glory, here I languish, And tremble to behold thee! Shall I see Thy deadly wounded body, I that should Be wept by thee? I, miserable, alone, Dragged thee to this; blind dotard I, that fain Had made earth fair to thee, I digged thy grave. If only thou amidst thy warriors' songs Hadst fallen on some day of victory, Or had I closed upon thy royal bed Thine eyes amidst the sobs and reverent grief ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... wielded the powers of the state, may be reduced to obscurity and impotence by a word—a word of puerile passion, kindled perhaps by a silly intrigue. A great ruler is displaced at the caprice of a dotard. When Count Laski entered the presence of the king, he was in reality the governor of Poland; Europe acknowledged him amongst the controllers and directors of human affairs; his country expected many signal improvements at ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... the subject of this tale, (the Merchant's,) while we are struck by the uncommon ease and readiness of the verse, the suitableness of the expression, and the spirit and happiness of the whole." While Dr Warton, sensibly remarking, "that the character of a fond old dotard, betrayed into disgrace by an unsuitable match, is supported in a lively manner," refrains from making himself ridiculous by mealy-mouthed moralities which on such a subject every person of sense and honesty must despise. Mr Horne keeps foolishly carping at Pope, or "Mr Pope," as he sometimes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... ending in ard, are derived from verbs or adjectives, and denote character or habit; as, "Drunk, drunkard; dote, dotard." ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... opportunity of displaying his powers before so distinguished an auditor. When the discourse was finished, they asked Hannibal what he thought of it. "I have heard," said he, in reply, "many old dotards in the course of my life, but this is, verily, the greatest dotard of them all." ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... even a woman's revenge cannot make you treat me as a woman! Clasfempta! you bear, I believe, outside, the fame of a wise and a firm man; but in these little hands you have been as weak a fool as the veriest dotard might ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... such credit at Antwerp, Louvain, and Liege! A dish of spinach, indeed!' And by this time the fury of the insulted painter had increased to such a degree, that he seized David by the arm, and shaking him violently, added: 'Do you know, you old dotard, that my character has been long established? I have a red horse at Mechlin, a stag at Namur, and a Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle, that no one has ever ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... her in default of repayment of a sum of money borrowed in a time of need. She enlists Bartolo as adviser, and he agrees to lay the matter before the Count. Somewhat early, but naturally enough in the case of the conceited dotard, he gloats over his vengeance, which seems as good as accomplished, and celebrates his triumph in an air ("La vendetta!"). As she is about to leave the room, Marcellina meets Susanna, and the two make a forced effort to conceal their mutual hatred ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... this old fellow here?" cried Edward Randolph, fiercely. "On, Sir Edmund! Bid the soldiers forward, and give the dotard the same choice that you give all his countrymen—to stand aside or be ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... Foster—you mistake her utterly. To me she is bound by all the ties which can secure her to one who has been the means of gratifying both her love and ambition. Who was it that took the obscure Amy Robsart, the daughter of an impoverished and dotard knight—the destined bride of a moonstruck, moping enthusiast, like Edmund Tressilian, from her lowly fates, and held out to her in prospect the brightest fortune in England, or perchance in Europe? Why, man, it was I—as I have often told thee—that found opportunity for ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... got before: Gyas blasphem'd the gods, devoutly swore, Cried out for anger, and his hair he tore. Mindless of others' lives (so high was grown His rising rage) and careless of his own, The trembling dotard to the deck he drew; Then hoisted up, and overboard he threw: This done, he seiz'd the helm; his fellows cheer'd, Turn'd short upon the shelfs, and ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... great tragedy that Dickens wrote. It is like the tragedy of Hamlet. The others are not tragedies because they deal almost with dead men. The tragedy of old Dorrit is merely the sad spectacle of a dotard dragged about Europe in his last childhood. The tragedy of Steerforth is only that of one who dies suddenly; the tragedy of old Dombey only that of one who was dead all the time. But Rick is a real tragedy, for he is still alive when ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... you old dotard," cried the Countess, rounding then on him with a suddenness that made him seem to shrink into his shell. "The law! Is a silly wench to run us into danger of losing what is ours? He shall marry her. If you will not force her, then I'll coerce her;" and with that ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... am!" he thought within himself, as he paced the stone floor of his prison-house; "the destiny of the accursed is mine! Ah! fool—dotard that I was to exchange the honors of old age for the vicissitudes of a renewed existence! Had nature taken her course, I should probably now be sleeping in a quiet grave—and my soul might be in the regions ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... there are many with a superficial knowledge of the Scriptures and with no knowledge of science who would fain arrogate to themselves the power of decreeing upon all questions of nature. As St. Jerome writes: "The talking old woman, the dotard, the garrulous sophist, all venture upon, lacerate, teach, before they have learnt. Others, induced by pride, dive into hard words, and philosophate among women touching the Holy Scriptures. Others (oh, shameful!) learn of women what ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... a death-dealing terror. It has become a blubbering fish. And the author of its crimes is no diabolical triton, but a semi-imbecile old dotard, round whom his evil—but terrified—brood have clustered; they fawning on him in terror, he fondling them in shaky, decrepit fondness. Note the flaccid paunch, the withered top, and the foolish, hysterical face. How the full-dress cocked hat ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... Dee, our English "Faust," as he is not inaptly called, has both been misrepresented and misunderstood. An enthusiast he undoubtedly was, but not the drivelling dotard that some of his biographers imagine. A man of profound learning, distinguished for attainments far beyond the general range of his contemporaries, he, like Faustus, and the wisest of human kind, had found out how little he knew; had perceived that the great ocean of truth yet lay unexplored ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... too absurd to be entertained; or, again, as a sort of contemptuous acquittal of one, who after all has not wit enough to be wicked. But this is not at all what Mr. Kingsley proposes to himself in the antithesis which he suggests to his readers. Though he speaks of me as an utter dotard and fanatic, yet all along, from the beginning of his pamphlet to the end, he insinuates, he proves from my writings, and at length in his last pages he openly pronounces, that after all he was right at first, in thinking me a ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... preach to the coward, thou death- telling seer! Or, if gory Culloden so dreadful appear, Draw, dotard, around thy old wavering sight This mantle, to cover the ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... old man, seer, patriarch, graybeard; grandfather, grandsire; grandam; gaffer, gammer; crone; pantaloon; sexagenarian, octogenarian, nonagenarian, centenarian; old stager; dotard &c 501. preadamite^, Methuselah, Nestor, old Parr; elders; forefathers &c (paternity) 166. Phr. superfluous lags the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Trampling on freedom, left the alternative 175 Of slavery, or of death. Even from that day, When, on the guilty Capet, I pronounced The doom of injured France, has faction reared Her hated head amongst us. Roland preach'd Of mercy—the uxorious dotard Roland, 180 The woman-govern'd Roland durst aspire To govern France; and Petion talk'd of virtue, And Vergniaud's eloquence, like the honeyed tongue Of some soft Syren wooed us to destruction. We triumphed over these. On the same scaffold 185 Where the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... husband would doubtless open his arms to receive you. A few imploring words, a tear or so, and the poor, weak dupe would be melted. This is how you argued; but you were wrong. I have been foolish. I have abandoned myself to the dream of a dotard; but the dream is past. The awakening has been rude, but it has been efficacious. ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... of it is, we elderly people are absurd to one another; we don't, at the bottom of our hearts, believe we're like that, when we meet. I suppose that arrogant old ass of a Triscoe looks upon me as a grinning dotard." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... bad? If, however, she escape all these early influences of depravation; if her idleness, and solitude and precocious knowledge leave her unvitiated, if, when she goes into society, it is by marriage with a man who is neither a dotard nor a fortune-seeker, and who remains constant and does not tempt her, by neglect, to forbode offense and to inflict anticipative reprisals—yet her purity goes uncredited, as her guilt would go unpunished; ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... Sa Luia, I love thee! And even if thou canst not love me, yet shall I save thee from wedding this old dotard. Aye, I shall save thee from him as I saved thee from the boiling serf of Falema'a when thy mother, who was a great lady, cried out to ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke
... cheat—dost dare to say that to my face? Why, I'm as hale and hearty as ever a man in the house. Dost think there's no life and vigor in this arm, thou drivelling old dotard?" ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... esteem it a mere accident that of a group of depreciatory and contemptuous words ending in 'ard', at least one half should have dropped out of use; I refer to that group of which 'dotard', 'laggard', 'braggard', now spelt 'braggart', 'sluggard', 'buzzard', 'bastard', 'wizard', may be taken as surviving specimens; 'blinkard' (Homilies), 'dizzard' (Burton), 'dullard' (Udal), 'musard' (Chaucer), 'trichard' (Political Songs), ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... grows ripe, and a certain dotard Is pitched, no parcel that needs invoicing, 250 To the worse side of the Mont Saint Gothard, We shall begin by way of rejoicing; None of that shooting the sky (blank cartridge), Nor a civic guard, all plumes and lacquer, Hunting Radetzky's soul like ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... never write another. They are the most puling, petrifying, stupidly platonic compositions. I detest the Petrarch so much, that I would not be the man even to have obtained his Laura, which the metaphysical, whining dotard never could. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... has fled: his bars, his bolts, His withered sentinel, duenna sage! And all whereat the generous soul revolts, Which the stern dotard deemed he could encage, Have passed to darkness with the vanished age. Who late so free as Spanish girls were seen (Ere War uprose in his volcanic rage), With braided tresses bounding o'er the green, While on the gay dance shone ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... of weakness come when Austria is bankrupt—when an Emperor of Russia is a dotard or a child, when provinces of Russia become disaffected, or an army mutinies; or again, when France and Austria seriously fall out?... You see I am dosing you with some of my most pungent stuff, in proof that I trust your ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... has fled: his bars, his bolts, His withered Centinel,[96] Duenna sage! And all whereat the generous soul revolts,[df] Which the stern dotard deemed he could encage, Have passed to darkness with the vanished age. Who late so free as Spanish girls were seen, (Ere War uprose in his volcanic rage,) With braided tresses bounding o'er the green, While on the gay dance shone ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... setting a proper example of neatness and decorum to her blooming daughter. Considerations of duty and responsibility apart, the change might have taken its rise in feelings of the purest and most disinterested charity. The gentleman next door had been vilified by Nicholas; rudely stigmatised as a dotard and an idiot; and for these attacks upon his understanding, Mrs Nickleby was, in some sort, accountable. She might have felt that it was the act of a good Christian to show by all means in her power, that the abused gentleman was neither the one nor the other. And what better means ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... friends and kinsfolk Boltay and Teresa say, if she refused a fine, manly, noble-hearted youth, and, for the sake of money and splendour, accepted the hand of a dotard she did ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... said the lady, somewhat scornfully—"to seat a bigoted dotard on the throne of England! That is what they come to consult about. Are they not some of those whom I saw yesterday morning from the window? that dark Sir George Barkley, who used to walk through the halls of St. Germain's, ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... a question! Why do we all pretend?—all!—every human being from the child to the dotard! Simply because we dare not face the truth! For example, consider the sun! It is a furnace with flames five thousand miles high, but we 'pretend' it is our beautiful orb of day! We must pretend! If we didn't we should ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... offered," replied she, "to such accusations as these? Witness the last—because I was not so craven as the Christians, I am accused of sorcery. The old dotard! but I will expose him. Tell me, if one knows that sorcery is used, and conceals or allows it, is he not ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... starving?—Tschut! You needn't answer. Your eyes show it. I might have seen for myself this morning, if I had not been in a temper with the chorus, and my mind absorbed in other matters. Be still now, here is the miller—the dotard!" ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... "Your dotard king couldn't rule without Zaspar Makann, and Makann couldn't rule without me, and neither can you," he said. "Shoot this gang of turncoats, and I'll rule Marduk for you." He looked at Trask again. "Who are you?" he demanded. ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... "Why, you poor old dotard, there's no oil in these specimens. You can smell 'em yourself if you want to," he said. But there was something in his manner of the lady who ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne
... another in Macedon? There was an Allen some hundred years ago—and a Ben Allen now alive in India. What rubbish was this? ("Shame" cries of "put him out"). Where was the connection, he asked. Some old dotard or dodderer, they were told, said so. The doddering in the case was not confined to that individual. Here Mr. Pickwick rose, and, with much heat, told the intruder to sit down. He would not hear ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... but once more young! That I might strike thee to the earth For this audacious lie, thou feeble dotard. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... old dotard smoke, Sweetly snoring in his cloak; Who is he? 'Tis humdrum Wynne, Half encompassed by his kin: There observe the tribe of Bingham, For he never fails to bring 'em; While he sleeps the whole debate, They submissive round him wait; Yet would gladly ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... prays; Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know, That life protracted is protracted woe. Time hovers o'er, impatient to destroy, And shuts up all the passages of joy; In vain their gifts the bounteous seasons pour, The fruit autumnal, and the vernal flow'r; With listless eyes the dotard views the store, He views, and wonders that they please no more; Now pall the tasteless meats, and joyless wines, And luxury with sighs her slave resigns. Approach, ye minstrels, try the soothing strain, [bb]Diffuse the tuneful lenitives of pain: No sounds, alas! would touch th' impervious ear, ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... away, old dotard!" the disappointed young sailor muttered to himself, while he reluctantly obeyed the signal; "you are in as great a hurry to get out of your danger as you were ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Bargeton is an old dotard. The indigestion will carry him off before long, no doubt," Lucien said, as he made an end, "and then I will look down on these proud people; I will marry Mme. de Bargeton. I read to-night in her eyes a love as great as mine for her. Yes, she felt all that I felt; she ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... a real ship, you old dotard!" said the skipper gruffly and looking angrily at him. "Of course it was," he added, while our new acquaintance looked at us, unable, naturally, to understand the mystical allusion; but Captain Applegarth soon turned his roving ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... Nurredin orders him to begin his shaving he relates the fate of his six brothers, who all died before him and always of love. At last Nurredin's patience giving way, he calls his servants in to throw the old dotard out of doors. But Abul drives them all back and Nurredin tries to pacify him with ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... of the old usurer in the Fortunes of Nigel. It was so intense a passion that it supplied the place of talents, that it inspired even fatuity with cunning. "Have no money dealings with my father," says Marth to Lord Glenvarloch; "for, dotard as he is, he will make an ass of you." It was as dangerous to have any political connection with Newcastle as to buy and sell with old Trapbois. He was greedy after power with a greediness all his own. He was jealous of all his colleagues, and even of his own ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... "Alas! dotard," interrupted Kai Lung impatiently, "it would be well if I spent my few remaining hours in kowtowing to the Powers whom I shall shortly meet. An aged and unsightly hag! Know you not, O venerable bat, that the smooth perfection of the one you ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... man! never fleer and jest at me: I speak not like a dotard nor a fool, As, under privilege of age, to brag What I have done being young, or what would do, Were I not old. Know, Claudio, to thy head, Thou hast so wrong'd mine innocent child and me That I am forc'd to lay my reverence by, And, with ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... remains the fourth reason, which more than anything else appears to torment men of my age and keep them in a flutter—THE NEARNESS OF DEATH, which, it must be allowed, cannot be far from an old man. But what a poor dotard must he be who has not learnt in the course of so long a life that death is not a thing to be feared? Death, that is either to be totally disregarded, if it entirely extinguishes the soul, or is even to be desired, if it brings him where he is to exist forever. A third ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... this prating dotard," said Front-de Boeuf, "lock him up in the chapel, to tell his beads till the broil be over. It will be a new thing to the saints in Torquilstone to hear aves and paters; they have not been so honoured, I trow, since they were cut ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... and making violent efforts to free himself.) What the plague has got hold of you? What have you to do with me, you dotard? Why pick on me? Why are you grabbing me? Don't beat me! (Succeeds ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... remarkable experiences, all within his own soul, during his sojourn, of a few days only, on the present occasion, under Madame de Warens's hospitable roof. These experiences, the autobiographer, old enough to call himself "old dotard," has, nevertheless, not grown wise enough to be ashamed to be very detailed and psychological in recounting. It was a case of precocious love at first sight. One could afford to laugh at it as ridiculous, but that it had a sequel full of sin and of sorrow. Jean Jacques was ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... it?" said Vautrin, holding the letter up to the light. "A banknote? No." He peered into the envelope. "A receipted account!" he cried. "My word! 'tis a gallant old dotard. Off with you, old chap," he said, bringing down a hand on Christophe's head, and spinning the man round like a thimble; "you will have a ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... habitable. It is not to be imagined how many noble seats and dwellings in this nation of ours, (to all appearance well situated,) are for all that unhealthful, by reason of some grove, or hedge-rows of antiquated dotard trees; nay, sometimes a single tuft only, (especially the falling autumnal leaves neglected to be taken away) filling the air with musty and noxious exhalations; which being ventilated, by glades cut through them, for passage of the stagnant vapours, have been cur'd of this evil, ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... rules of woman's cant, And forge a tale, and swear you read it, Such as, save woman, none would credit Win o'er her confidante and pages By gold, for this a golden age is; And should it be her wayward fate, To be encumbered with a mate, A dull, old dotard should he be, That dulness claims ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... Were I in your case, that should not disturb me. Is not the jealous dotard twice your age? Such incidents shou'd more confirm my empire. Nay, my offence shou'd be his accusation, Nor wou'd I rest until he shou'd acknowledge The fault was his, not mine; so, rouse ...
— The Female Gamester • Gorges Edmond Howard
... and was now trying to undo his own work. What confidence could be placed in a man who did not know his own mind any better than that? Then there were Hamilton and Madison, mere boys; and Franklin, an old dotard, a man in his second childhood. And as to Washington, he was doubtless a good soldier, but what did he know about politics? So said the more moderate of the malcontents, hesitating for the moment to speak disrespectfully of such a man; but presently their zeal got the better of them, and in a ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... chins, like those of girls; bald pates and Merovingian locks; smooth brows and wrinkles: forms erect and stooping; an eye that squinted; one king was deaf; by his side, another that was halt; and not far off, a dotard. They were old and young, tall and short, handsome and ugly, fat and ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... have echoed o'er the arsenal, Keeping due time with every hammer's clink, As a good jest to jolly artisans; Or making chorus to the creaking oar, In the vile tune of every galley-slave, Who, as he sung the merry stave, exulted He was not a shamed dotard ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... hardly any that do not bow before me. We have already punished almost all our dupes of Versailles; assuredly they have nothing with which to reproach me. I simply exercise against them the law of retaliation, treating them as they would have treated me in the council of the Queen-mother. The old dotard Bassompierre shall be doomed for perpetual imprisonment, and so shall the assassin Marechal de Vitry, for that was the punishment they voted me. As for Marillac, who counselled death, I reserve death for him at the first false step he makes, and ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... invisible, and placed himself in a corner of the room. He soon perceived the father and mother of the bride; and coming behind the mother's chair, whispered in her ear, "If you marry your daughter to that old dotard, before eight days are over you shall certainly die." The woman, frightened to hear such a terrible sentence pronounced upon her, and yet not know from whence it came, gave a loud shriek and dropped upon the floor. Her husband asked what ailed her: she cried that she was a dead woman if the marriage ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... my life was at noon, a love never known in its morn, and to feel that that love's sole return was the pity vouchsafed to the nightfall of my age. No; if she pitied, but did not love me, when, eighteen years ago, we parted under yonder beech-tree, I should be a dotard to dream that woman's pity mellows into love as our locks become grey, and Youth turns our vows into ridicule. It is not pride that speaks here; it is rather humility, Dick. But we must not now talk of old age and bygones. Youth and marriage-bells, Dick! Know that, I ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... reft of skill, Who thinks with love to fix a woman's will: Who ev'ry Sunday morn, to please her sight, Knots up his neck-cloth gay, and hosen white: Who for her pleasure keeps his pockets bare, And half his wages spends on pedlar's ware; When every niggard clown, or dotard old, Who hides in secret nooks his oft told gold, Whose field or orchard tempts with all her pride, At little cost may win her for his bride; Whilst all the meed her silly lover gains Is but the neighbours' jeering for his pains. On Sunday last when Susan's ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... man's childish fancy, which would have touched a heart less hard than hers, aroused only her deepest ire—not because he had counted out the hairs, but because there had not been more to count. Jumping to her feet in her wrath, she exclaimed, "Fool that I was, to have withheld one, when the old dotard would have paid for it so richly. But it cannot now be helped," she continued, and resuming her seat, she read the letter through, exploding, but once more, and that at the point where Uncle Nat had spoken of returning asking if there was one who ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... stream of life scarce trembling through the vein, More than half kill'd by honest truths which fell, Through thy own fault, from men who wish'd thee well— Canst thou, e'en thus, thy thoughts to vengeance give, And, dead to all things else, to malice live? 430 Hence, dotard, to thy closet; shut thee in; By deep repentance wash away thy sin; From haunts of men to shame and sorrow fly, And, on the verge of death, learn how to die! Vain exhortation! wash the Ethiop white, Discharge the leopard's spots, turn day to night, Control the course of Nature, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... Thus puberty, youth, manhood, and old age, become under Shakespeare's hand, the lover, the soldier, the justice, and the lean and flipper'd pantaloon; while the natural qualities of the infant, the boy, and the dotard, afford sufficient ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... not he his child above all earthly things! As traders love the merchandize from which their profit springs: Old age came by, with tott'ring step, and, for the sordid gold With which the dotard urged his suit, the maiden's peace was sold And thus (for oh! her sire's stern heart was steel'd against her pray'r) The hand he ne'er had gain'd from love, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various
... house of the broker an old wrinkled fellow that gesticulated to her in a frenzy. She snatched her veil down and drew in her head in anger at him, calling to her maids, 'What is yonder hideous old dotard?' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was detected—ha-ha! Sua cuique voluptas— in a liaison with a young person who resided with my uncle's wife as a companion. Whereupon my lady used her influence with the demd old dotard, and I was cut off with a shilling. However, he gave me a saloon passage to Melbourne, with an order on his agent in that city for 500. My lady's father also gave me letters of introduction to some friends in Sydney—business people. ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... the hostile intention of his officer, collared him, and pitched him overboard. "Aha! The duck has a mind to drink. ... Over with you!—There is room for two now!" he shouted. "Quick, major! throw your little woman over, and come! Never mind that old dotard! he will drop ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac
... unnoticed among the wrangling of pedants and partisans. Brunswick, himself a man of great intelligence though of little resolution, saw the true quality of the men who surrounded him. "Ruechel," he cried, "is a tin trumpet, Moellendorf a dotard, Kalkreuth a cunning trickster. The generals of division are a set of stupid journeymen. Are these the people with whom one can make war on Napoleon? No. The best service that I could render to the King would be to persuade him to keep the peace." [132] It was ultimately ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... with a chuckle). Make thyself easy, old dotard! thou wilt never more press thy darling to thy bosom—there is a gulf between thee and him impassable as heaven is from hell. He was torn from thy arms before even thou couldst have dreamed it possible to decree the separation. Why, what a sorry bungler should I be had I not skill enough ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... veteran, patriarch, Nestor, elder, oldster, Methuselah, dotard; gaffer, crone, geezer; centenarian, octogenarian, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... sake of one's country? Isnard, repentant of that search on which river-bank Paris stood, declares himself ready to demit. Ready also is Te-Deum Fauchet; old Dusaulx of the Bastille, 'vieux radoteur, old dotard,' as Marat calls him, is still readier. On the contrary, Lanjuinais the Breton declares that there is one man who never will demit voluntarily; but will protest to the uttermost, while a voice is left him. And he accordingly goes on protesting; ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... lights up the faces of the horrified spectators with his glare. A father fond of unworthy children, and leading a life of self-denial for their sake, as may probably and pathetically be, is not enough; there must be an imbecile, trembling dotard, willing to promote even the liaisons of his daughters to give them happiness and to teach the sublimity of the paternal instinct. The hero cannot sufficiently be a selfish young fellow, with alternating ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... rests in enjoyment. The man who had some virtue whilst he was struggling for a crown, often becomes a voluptuous tyrant when it graces his brow; and, when the lover is not lost in the husband, the dotard a prey to childish caprices, and fond jealousies, neglects the serious duties of life, and the caresses which should excite confidence in his children are lavished on the ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... they were cowed by the majestic presence, the guard stood still and the drum was silenced. Andros spurred forward, but even he made a pause when he saw the staff levelled at his breast. "Forward!" he blustered. "Trample the dotard into the street. How dare you ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... Thou dotard, hateful to the gods, dost thou guard [these possessions], for fear of wanting thyself: to the end that thy son, or even the freedman thy heir, should guzzle it all up? For how little will each day deduct from your capital, if you begin to pour better oil upon your greens ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... enough; but worse than this Were the attentions of our ancient hero, Whose frequent vow, and frequenter caress, Unwelcome were for any one to hear, who Had charms for better pleasure than a kiss From feeble dotard ten degrees from zero. So, as one does when circumstances harass one, Hy-son began ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 27, 1841 • Various
... ownership! Ye trees, that may to-morrow fall To feed the insatiate Prodigal! Lawns, houses, chattels, groves, and fields, All that the fertile valley shields; Wages of folly—baits of crime,— Of life's uneasy game the stake, Playthings that keep the eyes awake Of drowsy, dotard Time; O care! O guilt!—O vales and plains, Here, 'mid his own unvexed domains, A Genius dwells, that can subdue At once all memory of You,— Most potent when mists veil the sky, Mists that distort and magnify; While the hoarse rushes, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... bald hill with a dull world under, The dreary world of the Commonplace, I have stood when the whole world seemed a blunder Of dotard Time, in an aimless race. With worry about me and want before me - Yet deep in my soul was a rapture spring That made me cry to the grey sky o'er me: 'Oh, I know this ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... shipping. A punctilious regard for the safety of the crews of overhauled merchantmen won admiration even from the seamen of the destroyed vessels. Humiliation and reproach seemed to haunt the white-bearded dotard, whose hands had sought in vain to wrest the trident ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... is here," said the empress, "for his presence will prove to Calzabigi that he is not a pensioned dotard. And what thinks my daughter of the opera?" asked Maria Theresa ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... dotard! what star ruled his birth, That brought him such a Star? blind Fortune still Bestows her gifts on such as cannot use them: How long shall I live, ere I be so happy To have a wife of ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... young Paolo was the happy lad, A youth of dreaming eye yet dauntless foot, Who all Francesca's wealth of loving had; One brave to scale a wall and steal the fruit, Nor fear because some dotard owned the root; Yea! one who wore his love like sword on thigh And kept not all his valour for his lute; One who could dare as well as sing and sigh. Ah! then were hearts to love, but ...
— English Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... and thunder in thy wonted strain, And brand me coward, thou whose hands can slay Such Trojan hosts, whose trophies grace the plain. What worth can do, and manhood can essay, We twain may venture. Sooth, not far away Need foes be sought; around the walls they throng. March we to meet them! Dotard, why delay? Still dwells thy War-God in a windy tongue, And flying feet, and knees all ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... woes, and loss Of all his people, in the twentieth year, Unknown to all, he should regain his home, And my prediction shall be now fulfill'd. Him, then, Eurymachus thus answer'd rough The son of Polybus. Hence to thy house, Thou hoary dotard! there, prophetic, teach 240 Thy children to escape woes else to come. Birds num'rous flutter in the beams of day, Not all predictive. Death, far hence remote Hath found Ulysses, and I would to heav'n That, where he died, thyself ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... calculation, with conclusion that my report of the tourney with young Orchan reached my Lord's hand, and I now am patting myself on the back, happy to believe it had something to do with my Lord's decision. The imposition deserved to have its head blown off. Orchan is a dotard. His son's ears are still impaired. In the fall the ground caught him crown first. He will never ride again. The pretension is over.... I rode from the Princess' house directly to Blacherne. The Grand Council was in session: yet the Prefect of the Palace admitted ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... failed before, but for that suspicious dotard Bayley," grumbled Verney. "Your lordship bade me see that all ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... the aged man; Who thinks, when old, to act as he began; But, if the sage a yielding dotard seems, His work is done by those the wife esteems; Complaints are never heard; no thrilling fears; And ev'ry one around ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... own hands, and speak to the seal-cutter; for certain am I that, not only would Suddhoo disbelieve me, but this step would end in the poisoning of Janoo, who is bound hand and foot by her debt to the bunnia. Suddhoo is an old dotard; and whenever we meet mumbles my idiotic joke that the Sirkar rather patronizes the Black Art than otherwise. His son is well now; but Suddhoo is completely under the influence of the seal-cutter, by whose advice he regulates the affairs of his life. Janoo watches daily ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... he kissed me on the cheek and set off for school as fast as his legs could carry him. Oh, Love, omnivorous Love, that sparest neither the dotard leaning on his staff nor the boy with pantaloons buttoning on his jacket—omnipotent Love, that, after parents and teachers have failed, in one instant can make Billy try to ...
— A Brace Of Boys - 1867, From "Little Brother" • Fitz Hugh Ludlow
... could not. Aminadab was my name. That old dotard, my grandfather, had borne it before me. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... Duke demanded, angrily. "Am I to have the gaiety of my guests spoiled because of this old dotard? Take him to prison." The attendants rushed in and seized Monterone, while he turned again upon the dwarf and cursed him roundly. Not only did the dwarf shrink back, the whole company became affrighted, while the old man was silenced at last by the guards, and Rigoletto ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... Achilles must die by coward Paris's arrow, in some mysterious, confused, pitiful fashion; and stately Hecuba must rail herself into a very dog, and bark for ever shamefully around lonely Cynossema. Young David ends as a dotard—Solomon as worse. Glorious Alexander must die, half of fever, half of drunkenness, as the fool dieth. Charles the Fifth, having thrown all away but his follies, ends in a convent, a superstitious imbecile; Napoleon squabbles to the last with ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... of wandering peasants in Asia, which stilled the gabbling clamor of a wild mob at Jerusalem,—who will doubt the tone in which Paul spoke to Nero! The boy quailed for the moment before the man! The gilded dotard shrunk back from the home truths of the new, young, vigorous faith: the ruler of a hundred legions was nothing before ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... then on earth. On the contrary, we blush to admit it, Methuselah was held in very trifling esteem by his frivolous fellow-citizens, who habitually referred to him as an "old 'wayback," "a barnacle," an "old fogy," a "mossback," or a "garrulous dotard," and with singular irreverence they took delight in twitting him upon his senility and in pestering him with divers new-fangled notions altogether distasteful, not to say shocking, to a gentleman of ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... will be thought to be so. Lyndhurst asked me last night what could be done. He said, 'The Duke ought now to retire from public life, and not expose himself to any appearance of an enfeebled understanding. Above all things to be deprecated is, that he should ever become a dotard like Marlborough, or a driveller like Swift.' 'How,' he said, 'would Aberdeen do?' He owned that nobody could replace the Duke or keep the party in order, and he said that the consequence would be it would break up, that 'there are ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... very high in his estimation. All this brandishing of a crocodile for a standard, and setting a dotard in ambush, and getting rid of slops, and taking good money in exchange, struck him not as Science but something far superior, Strategy. And he boasted in his cups and before a mixed company how "me and my General we are a biting of ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... was simply impossible to think of anything better in the confusion, and as they offered to take charge of her, I consented. Yes, it was foolish, but I did not suppose that they would let her go off in a cab with that old dotard and ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... struck Luther so forcibly that he pronounced the works of this Father to be "such stuff as dreams are made of, and that of the most pernicious kind." In imitation of his parent, an obscure Frenchman, Caussee, has not hesitated to call this Dionysius, the Apostle of an illustrious nation, "an old dotard." Ignatius has given grievous offence to the Centuriators of Magdeburg, as also to Calvin, so that these men, the offscouring of mankind, have noted in his works "unsightly blemishes and tasteless prosings." In their judgment, Irenaeus ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... in troubled waters, and drink the cup of contention, or she would not now think of mingling her affairs with those of America. It would be like a foolish dotard taking to his arms the bride that despises him, or who has placed on his head the ensigns of her disgust. It is kissing the hand that boxes his ears, and proposing to renew the exchange. The thought is as servile as the war is wicked, and shows the last scene ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... quiet room Dreams of a fiercer dust, a deadlier fume: The wireless crackles him, "Complete success"; "Next time," he smiles, "in half a minute less!" To this the climbing brain has won at last— A nation's life gone like a shrivelled scroll— And thus To-Day outstrips the dotard Past! I envy not that ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... lake, the skies Fade into the faery day; Come and sing before our king, Heed not Time, the dotard grey; Time has given his crown to heaven— Ah, how ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... emotions. "The day before yesterday," she thought, "this woman appeared to me to be deranged: she is a lunatic; I wish that Abel were here, he could tell me what happened at dinner between him and this dotard, and we should laugh over it together. Perhaps nothing happened at all. The Princess Gulof should be confined. They do very wrong to let maniacs like that go at large. It is dangerous; the bells of Cormeilles ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... a senile old dotard! Good Lord, I know colonial law; I've been skating on the edge of it on more planets than you're years old. And I never thought of that; why, of course it would. Where are you now, with the Company, by ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... are one of those gentlemen who scatter their money broadcast. Tell that to somebody else, my friend! All men in our days calculate like money-lenders. There are only a few fools who ruin themselves now, some conceited youngsters, and occasionally an amorous old dotard. Well, you are a very calm, very grave, and very serious fellow, but above all, a very ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... of that fane; and many a father, Worn out with toil and slavery, implored The poor man's God to sweep it from the earth, And spare his children the detested task Of piling stone on stone, and poisoning The choicest days of life, To soothe a dotard's vanity. There an inhuman and uncultured race Howl'd hideous praises to their demon—God; They rushed to war, tore from the mother's womb The unborn child—old age and infancy Promiscuous perished; their victorious arms Left not a soul to breathe. Oh! they were fiends, And what was he who ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... his rusty scythe may whet, The unmowed grass is glowing yet Beneath the sheltering snow, my boys; And if the crazy dotard ask, Is love worn out? Is life a task? We'll bravely answer No! my boys, ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... anticipated; and it seemed probable enough that Peak, exerting all the force of his character and aided by circumstances, might before long convert this advantage to a means of ascendency over the less self-reliant nature. But here was no instance of a dotard becoming the easy prey of a scientific Tartufe. Martin's intellect had suffered no decay. His hale features and dignified bearing expressed the mind which was ripened by sixty years of pleasurable activity, and which was learning to regard with steadier ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... that is what you are, monsieur!" she said, coming up to him and impudently snapping her fingers under his nose. "Such a fool this white-headed old dotard of a count, to think that he can take me in with a silly yarn about going to visit a nephew and bringing him back here to stay. Monsieur, you are a police spy. Well, good luck to you. Get what the Mauravanian king ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... of feminine beauty thought her eyes and eyebrows too light,[182] but, as an Italian, he may have been biassed in favour of brunettes, and even he wound up by calling Mary "a Paradise". She was eighteen at the time; her marriage with a dotard like Louis had shocked public opinion;[183] and if, as was hinted, the gaieties in which his youthful bride involved him, hastened the French King's end, there was some poetic justice in the retribution. ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... the sign of the Hen and Chickens, with the cordials, and a few biscuits on a salver—when, lo! an old bald-pated, oily-faced, red-nosed Cameronian ranter, whom by your elegant negligee capering you have fairly danced out of his dotard senses, comes pawing up to you like Polito's polar bear, drops on his knees, and before you can avert your nose from a love-speech, embalmed in the fumes of tobacco and purl, the hoary villain has beslobbered your lily-white ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... other, that the Bishop's life had been attempted by poison. It was not to be wondered at in the least, since Grosteste had coolly declared the reigning Pope Innocent to be an exact counterpart of Anti-Christ (for which the head of the Church rewarded him by terming him a wicked old dotard), and his attachment to monachism in general was never allowed to stand in the way of the sternest rebuke to disorderly monks in particular. He also presumed to object to his clergy having constant recourse to Jewish money-lenders, ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... Colonel Monfort! You talk like a dotard of eighty; you, a superb-looking man yet, younger than I am, no doubt; young enough to marry again, if the fancy took you, ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... comfortless old age, you will remember that you had one disinterested friend, whose heart you wounded to the quick. The hour of recollection will come—and you will not be satisfied to act the part of a boy, till you fall into that of a dotard. I know that your mind, your heart, and your principles of action, are all superior to your present conduct. You do, you must, respect me—and you will be ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... and girls of the citizen class would not hesitate for a moment to refuse an honorable, good-looking man of their own class, in order to go to the altar with the oldest, ugliest and stupidest dotard among the aristocracy. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... inconsequent dotard had employed a telephone to summon his car to transport him to the links, and had denied even a glance of acknowledgment at the wonder floating above him. Much like that is growing Newbern. There was gasping aplenty when Winona ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... which of us telleth the truth." Masrur said, "Come, let us go, that I may do to this ill-omened old woman evil deeds[FN76] and deal her a sound drubbing for her lying." And the duenna answered him, "O dotard, is thy wit like unto my wit? Indeed, thy wit is as the hen's wit." Masrur was incensed at her words and would have laid violent hands on her, but the Lady Zubaydah pushed him away from her and said to him, "Her truth-speaking will presently be distinguished from thy truth-speaking and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... ballad-maker; a tapster; a drunkard; a rectified young man; a young nouice's new yonger wife; a common fidler; a broker; a iouiall good fellow; a humourist; a malepart yong upstart; a scold; a good wife, and a selfe-conceited parcell-witty old dotard. ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... which will not let our looks repose, 40 But turn to gaze again, and find anew Some charm that well rewards another view. These are not lessened, these are still as bright, Albeit too dazzling for a dotard's sight; And those must wait till ev'ry charm is gone, To please the paltry heart that pleases none;— That dull cold sensualist, whose sickly eye In envious dimness passed thy portrait by; Who racked his little spirit to combine Its hate of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... me all at once, This was the place! those two hills on the right, Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight; While, to the left, a tall scalped mountain ... Dunce, Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce, After a life spent training for ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... any more, Jurgen, the while he brings about old happenings over and over, and changes the name of what is ancient, in order to persuade himself he has a new plaything. There is really no more tedious and wearing old dotard anywhere, I can assure you. But Atlantis is only the western province of Cocaigne. Now do you look ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... for thy treachery, Inconstant dotard, timorous old ass, That shakes with cowardice, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... She holds despotic sway. Her wont has been to show the narrow way Wherein must tread the world, the bright, the brave, From infancy to dotard's gloomy grave. ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... You see, my father is stubborn and stupid—an old dotard as hard as a block of wood. I'll tell him straight out, "Do what you will, I can't live away from St. Petersburg." Really, why should I waste my life among peasants? Our times make different demands on us. My soul ...
— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol
... "Ancient dotard!" smiled the other. "You babble like the poor, doddering imbecile you appear—my name ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... caught sight of no one else, but of a very aged bonze, of unkempt appearance, cooking his rice. When Y-ts'un perceived that he paid no notice, he went up to him and asked him one or two questions, but as the old priest was dull of hearing and a dotard, and as he had lost his teeth, and his tongue was blunt, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... storm? ... this darkness is but a conjurer's trick to scare women, and Khosrul's followers can so play with the strings of electricity that ye are duped into accepting the witch-glamour as Heaven's own cloud-flame! By the gods! If Al-Kyris falls, as yon dotard pronounceth, her ruins shall bury but few heroes! O superstitious and degraded souls! ... I would ye were even as I ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... intercept the murderous conflicts of Barnet, Towcester, Tewkesbury, St. Albans! How happy for Spain, had no modern line of French coxcombs (not succeeding by any claim of blood, but under the arbitrary testament of a paralytic dotard) interfered to tamper with the old Castilian rules, so that no man knew whether the Spanish custom or the French innovation really governed. The Salic law or the interested abrogation of that law were the governing principle in strict constitutional practice. To this point had the French ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... Christian dotard will keep a vigil until midnight, which the girl will most probably attend. I wished to tell you this at your palace, but I heard there that you had gone to Aricia, and would return by way of the basilica; so I posted myself to ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... forefront of battle Hadst thou but known me as Uriah! Bah! Why, what a brainless dullard have I been, To see this pretty puff-ball of a preacher Wax large before mine eyes in righteous husk— And think him whole within—when but a touch, But one, had aired his rottenness! Oh! dotard that I am! blind, deaf and stupid! It takes a miracle to make me see What lay before me open. He did take Her part; ever professed himself her friend; And at her trial fell in trance. What more? He is the man! He is the man! Now ends our game ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... mistress." Oaths were not unfashionable in his day. "Since the world has been world, this crime was never greater. There were once pillories for these swearers; but now this crime is so common, that the child of five years can swear; and even the old dotard of eighty, who has only two teeth remaining, can ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... zeal, believing it was Bouvard's own case, and calling him an old dotard, even though ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... with a senile chuckle, "that he was wrong. His answer was beyond my meaning—he muttered something about 'mutton and capa sauce.' I was engaged," continued the dotard, with a feeble grin, "as a capa for seventy years certain, with an annual benefit once in four years, with a salary of forty-two thousand a year—which in those days seemed to me to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 25, 1891 • Various |
