"Foolery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... without trouble or loss of self-respect? Social ambition could get little hold of him; let parvenus give balls half in doors, half out, and light two thousand lamps, and waste their substance battling and manoeuvring for fashionable distinction; he had nothing to gain by such foolery, nothing to lose by modest living; he was the twenty-ninth Baron of Beaurepaire. So wise, so proud, so little vain, so strong in health and wealth and honor, one would have said nothing less than an earthquake could shake this gentleman and his house. Yet both were shaken, ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... proverbial expression, which was also possibly the refrain of some song. Aeschylus means to say that all Euripides' phrases are cast in the same mould, and that his style is so poor and insipid that one can adapt to it any foolery one wishes; as for the phrase he adds to every one of the phrases his rival recites, he chooses it to insinuate that the work of Euripides is labour lost, and that he would have done just as well not to meddle with tragedy. The joke is mediocre ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... antithesis of the scientific attitude. Formal logic excited Shakespeare's disdain even more conspicuously. In the mouths of his professional fools he places many reductions to absurdity of what he calls the "simple syllogism." He invests the term "chop-logic" with the significance of foolery in excelsis.[26] Again, metaphysics, in any formal sense, were clearly not of Shakespeare's world. On one occasion he wrote of the topic round ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... parents were simple peasants, honest enough, but people of the soil and nothing else. If I am Count and Field-Marshal and Viceroy, I owe it all to the good heart of your Empress and mine, whose humble servant I am. Take it away, and let me hear no more of such foolery." ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... or rather foolery, of the English for foreign customs, dresses, and languages, is not an affair of to-day, or yesterday—it is of very ancient date, and was very properly exposed nearly three centuries ago by one Andrew Borde, who, under the picture of a 'Naked man, with a pair of ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... was at times inexhaustible in praise of Mozart, although he cared nothing for his piano works and he makes a severe criticism on Don Giovanni. "In this opera Mozart still retained the complete Italian cut and style. Moreover, the sacred art should never be degraded to the foolery of so scandalous a subject. The Zauberfloete will ever remain his greatest work, for in this he showed himself the true German composer." Of Cherubini's Requiem he said, "as regards his conception of it, my ideas are in perfect accord ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... returning from Ostia, I find the official news, that the Viceroy Ranieri has capitulated at Verona; that Italy is free, independent, and one. I trust this will prove no April foolery. It seems too good, too ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... make his spoon or spoil his horn, and let us judge afterwards concerning the result. The famous blackened page and the empty pages (all omitted in this new edition) are part of Sterne's method. They may seem to us trick-work and foolery; but, if we consider, they link on to his notion that writing is but a name for conversation; they are included in his demand that in writing a book a man should be allowed to "go cluttering away like ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... scarcely able to contain himself, "the fist that you see in my pocket here is pulling the trigger of a revolver and I have a jolly good mind to send a bullet in between your onion chawing teeth, so I should advise you not to try any of your tom-foolery on me. On this occasion I have not come to pay your master a visit but for other reasons. Speak the truth, sirrah! Is your master at home or is ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... did not again touch Mrs. Smiley's hand. Immediately thereafter the sound of soft drumming came from the piano at a point entirely out of reach of the psychic, and at my request the drummer kept time to my whistling. After some minutes of this foolery "the force" left the piano abruptly, as if with a leap, and dropped to the middle of the table. A light, fumbling noise followed, and I called out: "Is every hand ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... stars!— If this thing lasts, I simply shall go mad! [Laughs, and rolls on the ground.] O Lord! to think my pretty lady puss Had tricks like this, and we ne'er know of it! I tell you, Lanciotto, you and I Must have a patent for our foolery! "She smiled; he kissed her full upon the mouth!"— There's the beginning; where's the end of it? O poesy! debauch thee only once, And thou'rt the greatest wanton in the world! O cousin Lanciotto—ho, ho, ho! [Laughing.] Can a man die of laughter? ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... no appearance of fancie in him, vnlesse it be a fancy that he hath to strange disguises, as to bee a Dutchman to day, a Frenchman to morrow: vnlesse hee haue a fancy to this foolery, as it appeares hee hath, hee is no foole for fancy, as you would haue it ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... must help him on and give him a start; then think how cheaply he had got Storborg, and saying straight out what he would give for it! When his father thought it was going wrong somehow with the business, and naught but foolery, she took him up. "How can you stand there and say such things!" Ay, she reproved him for using such words about his son; Isak was forgetting his place, it seemed, ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... bear what one has not. I suspect that when the Arab Patriarch wished that his 'enemy had written a book,' he did not anticipate his own name on the title-page. I feel quite as much bored with this foolery as it deserves, and more than I should be if I ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... childhood and then believed, he regarded now as built upon facts distorted, overlaid by imagination, and quickened by superstition. Even the strange summons at the threshold, that he himself had vainly answered, was, after the first shock of surprise, rationally explained by him as malicious foolery on the part of some clever trickster, who withheld ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... such foolery. I am wayward and gray of thought today. My soul is filled with the clash and dust of life. I hate the eternal blazoning of fierce woes and acid joys upon the orchestral canvas. Why must the music of a composer be played? Why ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... been doing that which was unlawful, and that I was a party to her plans. And so I could not sleep for a long time; not, indeed, until the light of morning began to stream through the cottage window, and then I felt to laugh at it all. Betsey's signs and Betsey's words were so much foolery, while the conversation about the buried treasure was no more true than the stories which were believed in superstitious days. Besides, thoughts of Naomi drove away all else, although everything came back to me afterward. When my fears went, however, sleep came to my eyes, and I did ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... Bess the matron, taking up the bundle and examining it. "Ye'n sweltered yoursen, I reckon, running that fool's race. An' here, they'n gi'en you lots o' good grogram and flannel, as should ha' been gi'en by good rights to them as had the sense to keep away from such foolery. Ye might spare me a bit o' this grogram to make clothes for the lad—ye war ne'er ill-natured, Bess; I ne'er ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... locoed sheep-herders!" he greeted spitefully, "if yuh think yuh can saw off on your foolery and hold this herd, I'll go and get something to eat. When I come to this outfit t' work, I naturally s'posed yuh was cow-punchers. Yuh ain't. Yuh couldn't hold a bunch uh sick lambs inside a high ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... author, whose bewitching style, Life's tedious minutes can beguile, Makes us, with him, forget uneasy care, And not remember what we are. Who by a charm, which no one can withstand, Enchanting poison can command, Can make us share his pleasing foolery, And from dull ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... out, knives going, and what not. Well, now I tell you, I never seen good come o' goodness yet. Him as strikes first is my fancy; dead men don't bite; them's my views—amen, so be it. And now, you look here," he added, suddenly changing his tone, "we've had about enough of this foolery. The tide's made good enough by now. You just take my orders, Cap'n Hawkins, and we'll sail slap in and be ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a rush, striving to convince myself that it is all real and rational, and not some glimpse of fairyland. This I cannot succeed in doing, and it is better so. I much prefer to believe that all this pomp, and vanity, and show, and mumbo-jumbo foolery has come from fairyland, than to believe it the performance of sane and sensible people who have mastered matter and solved the secrets of ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... sake, Dan!" he exclaimed, when, he and the captain were alone, "isn't there EVER going to be any let-up to this tom-foolery? Are these women ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... into the girl?" said Arundel, tired of this foolery. "I prithee no more, sweet Prudence, but conduct me at once to Eveline. Consider how long it is since I ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... swine! Out of the sanctuary, ye accursed peddlers! Touch no longer the altar with your desecrating hands. What have ye to do with the alms of our fathers, which were given for the poor and the Church, and you spend for splendor, pomp, and foolery, while the children suffer for bread? See you not that the wind of Freedom[2] is blowing? On two men not much depends. Know that there are many Luthers, many Huttens here. Should either of us be destroyed, still greater is the danger that awaits you; for then, with those battling for freedom, the ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... extravagant. The whole thing goes to bright music, like a comic opera of Gilbert and Sullivan. There is life and movement; but it is a scenic and burlesque life. There is wit, criticism, and caricature;, but it does not cut deep, and it is neither hot nor fierce. There is some pleasant tom-foolery; but at a comic opera we enjoy this graceful nonsense. We see in every page the trace of a powerful mind; but it is a mind laughing at its own creatures, at itself, at us. Lothair would be a work of art, if it were explicitly presented ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... dinosaur and I have patched up a truce, because it seems, after all, that I had mistaken his identity and he was a pleosaur. But"—he did not take the pains to parry her interruption with more foolery, and proceeded as if she had not spoken—"it has never been out of my mind that your father gave me a glance at our first meeting which asked the question that has kept recurring to me: Where had he and I seen each ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... a delightful book, witty, epigrammatic, flavorsome ... recalls Frank Stockton's bewitching foolery ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... Should the king summon a number of cannons to take their trial in Westminster-Hall for blowing down some city, which cannon had been fired by his secret orders, would not every one who knew the affair both despise, and in their judgment condemn, such a foolery? But how does judging men for doing that which He has before determined they should do, reflect upon the wisdom and goodness of the Almighty? It is said of Nero, that he secretly ordered Rome to be set on fire, and then laid the blame upon the Christians, and ordered them to be persecuted ...
— A Solemn Caution Against the Ten Horns of Calvinism • Thomas Taylor
... checkmating his King, who was at Oxford in winter quarters, and having neither the power nor opportunity to meddle with the details of an execution. The incident, in a word, is worth as much and as little as the abominable story of the subsequent pact with Lucifer or the foolery of the mystic marriage. ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... you,' she said, 'neither of you was to trouble me to-night: you have paid no regard to my wish for quiet! It is time the foolery should end! I am weary of it. A woman cannot marry a double man—or half a man either—without at least being able to tell which is which of ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... waiting in the dark to see what he would do. His palms touched the pressed grasses where she had been, but he did not say a word. He would not give her that satisfaction; and he told himself grimly that he had his opinion of a girl who would waste time in foolery, out here in the cold—with a ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... you," he said. "I heard him tell Miss Deerhurst that it was no use for anyone to try to be such an out-and-out gentleman as his uncle, for they couldn't do it, and he had rather be like you than anyone else. I don't care for gentlemen, and all that foolery, as you know. I wish I could leave him to my old mate, Eli Potter; but you are true and honest, Fulk Torwood, and I think not so far ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... singing on the beach yet that I couldn't 'ave sung into a cocked hat. And we both know how to put on the toff a bit. Eh? Well, that's my ideer. Me and you, Grubb, with a refined song and a breakdown. Like we was doing for foolery yestiday. That was what put it into my 'ead. Easy make up a programme—easy. Six choice items, and one or two for encores and patter. I'm all ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... Dan could not apply his philosophy to himself. "It's the dead finish," he said dejectedly; "never struck anything like it before. Twice over too," he added. "First tinware and now this foolery "; and he kicked savagely at the offending tin, sending a shower of raisins dancing out into ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... and Anthony laughed, too, with a strange sob in his throat at the gallant foolery, which, after all, was as much to the point as a deal that ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... the sin of carnal indulgences unsanctioned by the priest and his empty ceremonies. Fools! NATURE, and her laws, and her promptings, and her desires, spurn the trammels of form and custom, and reign triumphant over the hollow mummery of the parson and his pious foolery. ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... preposterous suggestion about selling wheat," he admitted. "If you think, however, that you can alter our entire business principles by a piece of foolery like this, you are making the mistake of ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... nature, man,—so great, though so little,—so dear, though incomplete. Returning to Rome, I find the news pronounced official, that the viceroy Ranieri has capitulated at Verona; that Italy is free, independent, and one. I trust this will prove no April-foolery, no premature news; it seems too good, too speedy a realization of hope, to have come on earth, and can only be answered in the words of the proclamation made yesterday by ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... gone, Caesar said to Grannie, "Cut out the bridesmaids and the wedding-cakes and the fiddles and the foolery, and let the ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... would not put such foolery in the girl's head," said Mrs Harrington impatiently. "There be ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... to strange disguises; as to be a Dutchman to-day; a Frenchman to-morrow; [or in the shape of two countries at once, as, a German from the waist downward, all slops; and a Spaniard from the hip upward, no doublet:] Unless he have a fancy to this foolery, as it appears he hath, he is no fool for fancy, as you would have it ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... cities, and their stiddy growth and size, And brag about yer County-seats, and business enterprise, And railroads, and factories, and all sich foolery— But the little Town o' Tailholt is ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... call in Father Galuchet, and have the old man administered and take the sacrament. It was all the same to me, you may suppose; but I said I thought Adams was the fellow to consult. He was jawing away about watered copra and a sight of foolery. ‘Look here,’ I said, ‘you’re pretty sick. Would you like to see Galoshes?’ He sat right up on his elbow. ‘Get the priest,’ says he, ‘get the priest; don’t let me die here like a dog!’ He spoke kind of fierce and eager, but sensible enough. There was nothing to say against ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to anger him too much; what fine foolery is this in a woman, to use those men most forwardly they love most? If I should lose him thus, I were rightly served. I hope he's not so much himself, to take it to th'heart: how now? will ...
— The Scornful Lady • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... possibility have the slightest notion what such things were; but not the less did he, as if he knew all about them, wonder how the deluded fisher folk could sit and listen. The more tired he grew, the more angry he got with the parson who had sent him there with his foolery: and the more convinced that the men who prayed and preached were as honest as they were silly; and that the thing to die of itself had only to be let alone. He heard the Amen of the benediction with a sigh of relief, and rose at ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... when men take the right course to escape his hellish snares? This, therefore, is the reason why the truly humbled is opposed, while the presumptuous goes on by wind and tide. The truly humble, Satan hates; but he laughs to see the foolery of the other. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... have declared to you By what means we escaped away; Now we bid our cares adieu, Though the King did lose the day. To him I was true, And that he well knew; 'Tis God that must his comfort be, Else all our policy Had been but foolery, For the King no longer waits ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... character would be Touch-me-not. I believe there's a flower called that—noli me tangere—or some such name. Well, that's Vicky Van. She'd laugh and jest with you, and then if you said anything by way of a personal compliment or flirtatious foolery, she was off and away from your side, like a thistle-down in a summer breeze. She was a witch, a madcap, but she had her own way in everything, and her friends ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... young man whose occupation he was now wondering at. "What can the fellow be about? These six months past I have never come by his shop without seeing him just as steadily at work as now. It would be a flight beyond his usual foolery to seek for the perpetual motion; and yet I know enough of my old business to be certain that what he is now so busy with is no part of the ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... name in the market, 'tis harder to dispose of than falling stock; and your young lords of manors and commanders of cruisers have stomachs like usurers; no per centage will satisfy them; it must be all, or nothing! There was no such foolery in the days of thy worthy father! The honest trafficker brought his cutter into port, with as innocent a look as a mill-boat. We had our discourses on the qualities of his wares, when here was his price, and there was my gold. Odd or even! It was all a chance which had the best ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... "Don't talk foolery," said the first voice in impatient tones, and to Archy it was unmistakable. He had heard both voices before. "What ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... partly that these toys are lighter than may become a divine, and partly more biting than may beseem the modesty of a Christian, and consequently exclaim that I resemble the ancient comedy, or another Lucian, and snarl at everything. But I would have them whom the lightness or foolery of the argument may offend to consider that mine is not the first of this kind, but the same thing that has been often practiced even by great authors: when Homer, so many ages since, did the like with the battle of frogs ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... Joseph Conrad, ask H.G. Wells, ask Murray Gilchrist, ask George Moore, ask Eden Phillpotts, ask "Q," ask Henry James. Lo! I say to all facile gabblers about the "art of the short story," as the late "C.-B." said to Mr. Balfour: "Enough of this foolery!" It is of a piece with the notion that a fine sonnet is more difficult than a ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... rhymes and the lays Of poets laureate: Whose verse did decorate, And their lines 'lustrate Both prince and potentate. These from their graves See asses and knaves, Base idiot slaves, With boastings and braves Offer to upfly To the heavens high, With vain foolery And rude ribaldry. Some of them write Of beastly delight, Suffering their lines To flatter these times With pandarism base, And lust do uncase From the placket to the pap: God send them ill-hap! Some like quaint pedants, Good wit's true recreants, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... of steps forward. Crookhorn found herself obliged to follow, but she laid her head back and struggled. Then the billy goat gathered all his force, set his horns high in the air, and tugged at the band. He would show her that he was not to be kept back by any such foolery! ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud
... Dr. Scott Dalgleish, 25 Mayfield Terrace, asking me to put my name down to the Ballantyne Memorial Committee. I have sent him a pretty sharp answer in favour of cutting down the memorial and giving more to the widow and children. If there is to be any foolery in the way of statues or other trash, please send them a guinea; but if they are going to take my advice and put up a simple tablet with a few heartfelt words, and really devote the bulk of the subscriptions ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was played upon the intervening space. The party of the priest prevailed; the King's men were dragged in a body into the opposite temple; and the tabus were maintained. None employed in this momentous foolery were informed of its significance; the King's misgivings were studiously concealed; but there is little doubt he continued to cherish them in secret. At his death, he had another memorable word, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... another circumstance, of which he informed me, that to him and as it afterward proved to me was of a much more serious nature. They had not been altogether so inattentive as I had imagined. Amid their monkey tricks and common place foolery, their hearts had been burning with jealousy of each other. Neither men nor women were satisfied with their parts. I had three male and two female characters of great importance in the play, but rising in gradation. Of the first of these all ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... believe thee, 'twere some honesty, And for thy penitence would not laugh at thee (As sure they will) and beat thee for thy poverty: If they would allow thy foolery, ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... moment of doubt as to how he should deal with this foolery. If he were quite sure it was just Joyce's nonsense—but perhaps she had gone ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... and suffered them to be as kind to each other as they pleased. At last, turning quickly round, while the maiden, suspecting what was coming, and pretending to be abashed, ran behind her mother, he said, 'To end this foolery, what say you to marrying my daughter? She is well brought up, and is the most industrious girl in the village. She will flap more wall with her tail in a day than any maiden in the nation; she will gnaw down a larger tree betwixt the rising of the sun and the coming of the shadows ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... "Oh, just foolery." The tone invited—at least it did not discourage—further inquiry. Mr. Gardner was bored. Amateurs who "occasionally write" were the bane of him who, having a signature of his own in the leading local ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... degeneration into the realm of pure foolery. It is a patent declaration: "This is only a play; laugh and we are content." Once more we venture to point a parallel on the modern stage, in the vaudeville comedian who interlards his dancing with comments such as: "I hate to do this, but it's the ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... with greyhounds and birding-pieces, who would elude the statutes against gunnes, to be called to account "for the shallow-brain'd idlenesse of their ridiculous foolery." ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 181, April 16, 1853 • Various
... all; and was now hovering about, a good deal, in Germany and other countries; pretending to be a new light of Heaven, and not a bog-meteor of phosphorated hydrogen, conspicuous in the murk of things. Bog-meteor, foolish putrescent will-o'-wisp, his Majesty promptly defined it to be: Tom-foolery and KINDERSPIEL, what else? Whereupon ingenious Buckeburg, who was himself a Mason, man of forty by this time, and had high things in him of the Quixotic type, ventured on defence; and was so respectful, eloquent, dexterous, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... her husband, with a strange mixture of satisfaction and anger in his hard tones. "I have been expecting some such foolery as this for some time, and I am not blinded to the motive behind it. What do you care about those devils of Indian savages? What does Horace Spotswood care about them? Just as little! Enough, and too much, of my money has gone already to the prolonging of their ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... on the Wartburg should appear as soon as possible with an illustration. Wolff can also arrange that, and in case it were necessary, why, in Heaven's name, the sketch can be paid for. The State of Weimar will not be ruined by it. Pereat Philistia and its powerless foolery!!! ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... foolery! I told you I believed I'd seen some one spying around the mine, and after I'd left you I didn't feel so sure that I'd cleared him out. I woke those fools up," his glance at the dead matched his curse at them, "and said ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... right, you dirty cur," said his mother. "I ran off like a fool when I heerd of your good fortune, and see the condition that baggage left me in—my teeth knocked in and my eye knocked out, and all for your foolery, because you couldn't keep what ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... that's happened so far is through our not having the sense to keep quiet—worrying them with guns and such foolery. And losing our heads, and rushing off in crowds to where there wasn't any more safety than where we were. They don't want to bother us yet. They're making their things—making all the things they ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... "'No foolery, Werbrust,' said du Tillet. 'You know the holders of his paper. Now, look here. There is business in it. Shares in this new concern of ours have gone up twenty per cent already; they will go up to five-and-twenty by the end of the quarter; you know why. They are going ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... which—like the other points I have mentioned—has been known and taught long ages ago. Says that humorous old sage, Lao-tze, whom I have already quoted: "By non-action there is nothing that cannot be done." At first this sounds like mere foolery or worse; but afterwards thinking on it one sees there is a meaning hidden. There is a secret by which Nature and the powers of the universal life will do all for you. The Bhagavat Gita also says, "He who ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... this foolery, You found out what I am when you were a boy. None of this hysterical excitement. ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... not get away before," she said as she fell in beside him. "The old man was working with his foolery and it was impossible to get him to go to bed. Once or twice I yawned, but he took ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... this foolery?' he asked, pointing to Psmith's gloves and hat. 'Suppose Mr Bickersdyke had come round and seen them, ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... on with this foolery. Out of the question. Find some girl make you a good wife. Your aunt Mary's been meeting some people name of Bassington-Bassington, related Kent Bassington-Bassingtons... eldest daughter charming ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... toping wretch—and she is a too incongruous mixture, with her Edinburgh lingo and her Whitehall arrogance. Besides, the whole notion of a mock ghost was vulgarised by Wilmot's foolery, who ought to have been born a saltimbanque, and spent his life in a fair. No, I have ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... and what do you think that I must think of him? Will you not admit that for a vulgar, impudent brute, he is about as bad as even England can supply?" Of course Lord George had nothing to say in answer to this. "He is going on with this tom-foolery, I believe?" ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... foolery," said the Yorkshireman roughly. "I know that you've come up from Colonel Boundary and I know what you've come for. You want to buy my mill, eh? Well, I'll make it worth your while not to buy my mill. You can ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... laugh at the strange foolery of both master and man, except the innkeeper, whose mind was still sore at the loss of his wine-skins. The priest and the barber first busied themselves in getting Don Quixote, now quite worn out with his adventure, safely into bed, and then went to administer the best consolation ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... Agnes Stone! Thou art right well be-called Stone; for there is no more wit nor no more quickness in thee than in a pebble. Lack-a-daisy! but this were never good land sithence preaching came therein,—idle foolery that it is!—good for nought but to set folk by the ears, and learn young maids for to gad about a-showing of their fine raiment, and a-gossiping one with another, whilst all the work to be wrought in the house falleth on their betters. Bodykins o' me! canst not hear mass once ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt
... place to folly beside itself, it has unconsciously assumed the part of the ridiculous; but, alas! a heavy and cheerless ridicule. [Footnote: "Since the little wit that fools have was silenced, the little foolery that wise men have makes a greater show."—As You Like It. Act i., sc. 2.] It would be easy to make a collection of the excellent sallies and biting sarcasms which have been preserved of celebrated court fools. It is well known that they frequently told ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... their bodies, start aside from the rules of virtue, has left it upon record, that Pericles, when he was sick, showed one of his friends that came to visit him, an amulet or charm that the women had hung about his neck; as much as to say, that he was very sick indeed when he would admit of such a foolery ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... persist in denouncing the penny wisdom and pound foolery of the Academicals in foisting off upon the public such ancient and fish-like articles that have long ceased to be bon ton and in the fashion, since it is undeniable that many are over fifty years, and some several centuries behind ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... this faculty well developed, and use it to great advantage, though, as a rule they keep very quiet about it, from fear of creating unfavorable comment from their fellow-physicians and from the general public who "do not believe in such tom-foolery." ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... What a cursed foolery is a dream! The host was actually sitting there vis-a-vis with the lawyer, at the other end of the long table; for Mistress Boris had so laid the places. And as the magistrate's place remained empty, host and guest sat ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... continued Brother Pierce, "jest because we kept to the old paths, an' seek for salvation in the good old way. Everybody can shout 'Amen!' as loud and as long as the Spirit moves him, with us. Some one was sayin' you thought we ought to have a choir and an organ. No, sirree! No such tom-foolery for us! You'll only stir up feelin' agin yourself by hintin' at such things. And then, too, our folks don't take no stock in all that pack o' nonsense about science, such as tellin' the age of the earth by crackin' up stones. I've b'en in the quarry line all my life, an' ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... silent and bewildered, for of all this foolery I could understand nothing, and while I stood thus Montezuma clapped his hands and women entered bearing beautiful clothing with them, and a wreath of flowers. The clothing they put upon my body and the wreath of flowers on my head, worshipping me the while and saying, 'Tezcat who died ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... insane," he cried, "but I'll have no more of it. I have endured this foolery long ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... into such a state over a piece of foolery!... Give it me! I shall take it away. You ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... hand and led—dusky closets beyond the common use. It is in such places—your finger on your lips and your feet a-tiptoe on the stairs—that you will hide away from baser uses the stowage of moonlight stuff and such other gaseous and delightful foolery as may lie in ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... Mr Turnbull in his department as much as I could, but he grumbled very much. "I can't bear all this nonsense, all this finery and foolery. Everything comes up cold, everything is out of reach. The table's so long, and so covered with uneatables, that my wife is hardly within hail and, by jingo, with her the servants are masters. Not with me, at all events; ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... not comprehend the behaviour of his mistress, I cannot say; certain it is, he went home well contented with the success he imagined he had gained towards winning her heart. But, in reality, she was disgusted with his foolery, and ceased paying any more visits to her female friend, in order to avoid the sight ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 375, June 13, 1829 • Various
... this foolery, M. Chauvelin," she broke in, with sudden impatient vehemence, "pray leave your protestations of friendship and courtesy alone, there is no one here to hear them. I pray you proceed with what ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... wings And from their fledgling pinions seek to get A fluttering assistance. Thus, to think That in those days some man apportioned round To things their names, and that from him men learned Their first nomenclature, is foolery. For why could he mark everything by words And utter the various sounds of tongue, what time The rest may be supposed powerless To do the same? And, if the rest had not Already one with other used words, Whence was implanted in the teacher, then, Fore-knowledge ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... supposable. The fact that phenomena can be counterfeited is no reason for concluding they do not exist. In experiments with magnetism and hypnotic suggestion, many delusions beset the experimenters, and there is more or less intentional foolery on the part of the subjects. Thus have I seen, at the prison-hospital of Salpetriere and elsewhere, young women outrageously deceiving the most serious investigators, who did not in the least suspect such insincerity. At market fairs there may ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... other self! Aid me by burrowing in a hole like a rat! What foolery wilt say next? No, no, Friedel, strike by my side, and I will strike with thee; pray by my side, and I will pray with thee; but if thou takest none of the strokes, then will I none of ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... for she well knew he was up to some sort of foolery. "My attempts so far, though ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... illustrated editions, had given useful hints how to address the large masses of the people. If he looked upon the world, as it then was, as a ship of fools, and represented every weakness, vice, and wickedness under the milder color of foolery, the people who read his poems singled out some of his fools, and called them knaves. The great work of Sebastian Brant was his "Narrenschiff." It was first published in 1497, at Basle, and the first edition, though on account of its wood-cuts it could not have been ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... o' them fine lady airs out here!" she declared rudely. "We-all ain't got time fer no sech foolery. You needn't be afraid to go back with Joe. He takes care of the women at the fort. He'll look after you fine. You'll mebbe kin hire a horse to ride, an' strop yer baggage on. Yer trunk ye ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... young dogs, he throws gravity aside, and plays the boy as much as any of them; but he is ashamed to do so in our company, and seems to say, "Ha' done with your nonsense, youngsters; what will the laird and that other gentleman think of me if I give way to such foolery?" A little volume might almost be made on Sir Walter Scott and his dogs. Wilkie, Allan, and especially Sir Edwin Landseer, have handed down to us the portraits of many of them. His works, and biography by Lockhart, and the writings of his many visitors, would afford ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... sir,' said Chalks, 'must approve his mettle by undergoing something in the nature of an initiatory ordeal. We may now drop foolery, and converse like intelligent human beings. You were asking ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... introduced into England about the year 1652 Did trouble me very much to be at charge to no purpose Difference there will be between my father and mother about it Eat of the best cold meats that ever I eat on in all my life Foolery to take too much notice of such things Frogs and many insects do often fall from the sky, ready formed I could not forbear to love her exceedingly I had the opportunity of kissing Mrs. Rebecca very ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Diary of Samuel Pepys • David Widger
... Berengaria, "and be assured all will be better than you think. Rise, dear Edith. I am sorry I have played my foolery with a knight in whom you take such deep interest. Nay, wring not thy hands; I will believe thou carest not for him—believe anything rather than see thee look so wretchedly miserable. I tell thee I will take the blame on myself with King Richard in behalf of thy fair Northern ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... a pair of gloves," said her father, "that they get a good percentage of it down at the mission school. He is just the subject for a cunning priest, because he sincerely believes in their foolery. He belongs to a tribe now nearly extinct, I imagine—the martyrs, who in old-fashioned times died ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... spent in this public-house as wasted. I never in my life heard a word of real fun, or real sense, excepting from men who were merely casual visitors. The person whose mind is satisfied by the parlour dullness of that nightly foolery only becomes animated when he is indecent. In tracing the natural history of a public-house I have found the respectable dullards the most revolting of ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... this foolery would have gone on I know not, but just as the ceremony was being performed of investing the conqueror knight with the silken scarf a loud cracking was heard under the platform. Mr. Mumbles looked red, Mrs. Mumbles looked pale, the company stood aghast, the music ceased, the uproar was quelled, ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... himself with rage. "I could beat you with pleasure for acting so witlessly, but that, alas! would not pay for what you have lost for me this day. A hundred and five guilders of my precious money have I been made to pay for your foolery, besides losing my Tokay wine, my field of wheat, and all my fine young turkeys! at least a ...
— Funny Big Socks - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... departed genius. At the same time, they have their use, where they do not create their ridicule. On the Continent, life is idle; and the idlers are more harmlessly employed going to those pageants, than in the gin-shop. The finery and the foolery together also attract strangers, the idlers of other towns; it makes money, it makes conversation, it makes amusement, and it kills time. Can it have better recommendations to ninety-nine hundredths ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... goes to-morrow—perhaps to get killed," he added. "A lad like a schoolboy. A young thing. Because of the political foolery that we priests and teachers have suffered in the place of the Kingdom of God, because we have allowed the religion of Europe to become a lie; because no man spoke the word of God. You see—when I see that—see those two, those children of one-and-twenty, ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... have been present, otherwise than as a fleshless ghost;—in which capacity I thought I had a glimpse of him looking over the shoulder of a particolored clown, in a carriage full of London Cockneys driving towards the Capitol. This good-humored foolery will go on for several days to come, ending always with the celebrated Horse-race, of horses without riders. The long street is cleared in the centre by troops, and half a dozen quadrupeds, ornamented like Grimaldi in a London pantomime, scamper away, with the mob closing ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... hateful thing: Tush! none but minstrels like of sonneting. But are you not asham'd? nay, are you not, All three of you, to be thus much o'ershot? You found his mote; the king your mote did see; But I a beam do find in each of three. O! what a scene of foolery have I seen, Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow, and of teen; O me! with what strict patience have I sat, To see a king transformed to a gnat; To see great Hercules whipping a gig, And profound Solomon to tune a jig, ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... as Tibby—was enough to stop the foolery. The barrier of sex, though decreasing among the civilized, is still high, and higher on the side of women. Helen could tell her sister all, and her cousin much about Paul; she told her brother nothing. It was not prudishness, ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... 'Badly hurt', the telegram says. 'Will wire again in a few hours'. I suppose it's the same old story: an explosive and a panic. Somebody probably tried to stir a fire with a stick of frozen dynamite, or some such foolery as that." The scorn in the words came from the effort at self-mastery. Then the professor rose and looked about him vaguely for his hat. When he had found it, "Come along," he bade Brenton shortly. "We've got to get it over, even if it ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... me, with an old sleepy lady drawing her mouth down whatever you do, and a young fellow—' She stopped. She could not even tell a bird about Reddin. She danced among the shut daisies, wild as a fairy, and when the sun rose her shadow mocked her with delicate foolery. In her hand, and in that of the shadow, bobbed the little black ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... from the undiscerning critics who persisted in seeing in their nonsense a hidden meaning, a cynical, political, or other intent, veiled under the apparent foolery. Lear takes occasion to deny this in the preface to one of his books, and asserts not only that his rhymes and pictures have no symbolical meaning, but that he "took more care than might be supposed to make the subjects ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... could, the Servians, the Bulgarians, the Greeks, the Italians, the Austrians. Why, they can't even shoot! It's just the balance of power and all that foolery keeps this country a roadless wilderness. Good God, how I tire of it! These men who swagger and stink, their brawling dogs, their greasy priests and dervishes, the down-at-heel soldiers, the bribery and robbery, the ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... have been thinking of putting some of my own—yet I don't think I shall. We're going away for the winter. Sibyl wants to give up the house, and I think she's right. For people like us, it's mere foolery to worry with a house and a lot of servants. We're neither of us cut out for that kind of thing. Sibyl hates housekeeping. Well, you can't expect a woman like her to manage a pack of thieving, lying, lazy servants. The housekeeper ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... warm commendation of Richard Baxter; and it may be supposed to have had an important effect in producing the more disastrous delusion which followed three years after. The Goodwin children soon got well: in other words, they were tired of their atrocious foolery; and the death of their victim gave them a pretense for a return ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... the Sibyl. Those other frowsy charlatans, those clownish jugglers, mole-catchers, ratkillers, who throw spells over beasts, who sell secrets which they have not, defiled these times with the stench of a dismal black smoke, of fear and foolery. Satan grows enormous, gets multiplied without end. 'Tis a poor triumph, however, for him. He grows dull and sick at heart. Still the people keep flowing towards him, bent on having no other God than he. Himself only is ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... but foolery; but it is such a kind of gain-giving,[66] as would, perhaps, trouble ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... asked him where he had received it? He told me at a goldsmith's 14 days since: He did not remember his name. I asked why he should remove his own money? His answer was, He did remove it for two or three days, till this foolery was over. When I saw I could get nothing further from him, I discoursed with him touching the remainder of the money and the jewels. Says he, Sir Thomas, do not trouble yourself, you will lose the jewels and the rest of the money by this course; ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... about half, and Isoult much less. John, being a little wiser, was called upon for a translation. "Hang me if I know what the fellow is a-writing about!" testily cried Dr Thorpe. "Jack, do thou put this foolery into ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... enough to bury you in. Half you will get for the land you will spend in moving to Missouri, and the other half you will eat and drink and wear out, and no foot of land will be bought. Now, I feel it is my duty to have no hand in such a piece of foolery. I feel that it is so even on your own account, and particularly on mother's account. The eastern forty acres I intend to keep for mother while she lives; if you will not cultivate it, it will rent ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... Woman's Rights Convention, a failure. Could I see it made up of women whose dress would indicate their translation from cowardice to courage; from slavery to freedom; from the kingdom of fancy and fashion and foolery to the kingdom of reason and righteousness, then would I hope for the elevation of woman, aye, and of man too, as perhaps I have never yet hoped. What should be the parts and particulars of such dress, I am incapable of saying. Whilst the "Bloomer dress" is unspeakably ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... be looking forward to that life of dull foolery," thought she, as the mossy bastions of Besancon drifted from her horizon—she was journeying up alone, Janet staying on with one of the Saint Berthe women as chaperone. "It is foolery and it is dull. I don't see how grown-up people endure it, unless they've never known any better. Yet I seem ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... sufficiently complex in color, passion and character to furnish material for an exciting spectacular representation. The tragic element is strong, but supported and shaded by the company of roysterers, a jester, whose foolery is a compound of bluff of that period and bluff of modern politics and athletics. The jester, the black company and the penitents, together with the roysterers, form now the foreground, now the background, of action, which in itself is never without ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... not always plainly dressed, but takes airs of quality, and rises above her original condition, so as to attire herself gracefully in magnificent apparel. In her manners she mingles elegance with foolery, force with delicacy and grandeur, or even haughtiness with plainness and modesty. If, sometimes, to please the people, she gives a loose to farce, it is only the gay folly of a moment, from which ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... King's foolery roused the spirit of mischief in the two girls, and faster and faster flew the drops of water from one to another of ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... was not even enough liquor on the Ella to revive poor Burns. He spent his days devising, with bits of wire, a ring puzzle that he intended should make his fortune. And I believe he contrived, finally, a clever enough bit of foolery. He was anxious to talk, and complained bitterly of loneliness, using every excuse to hold Tom, the cook, when he carried him his meals. He had asked for a Bible, too, and ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... you, it's absurd! And yet," the Riding Officer went on irritably, "if one could count on its being absurd, I wouldn't mind. But there's just a chance that, with all this foolery, Hymen and Pond are covering up a little game. Why have ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... you they wouldn't believe you; so what does it matter to me whether you blab or not? Talk sense, Blanco: theres no time for your foolery now; for youll be a dead man an hour after the Sheriff comes back. What possessed ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw
... was forced to come over to pay ten thousand pounds rent to his Landlady Cleveland. My Lord Angier, who bought of Sir George Carteret for eleven thousand pounds, the Vice-treasurership of Ireland, worth five thousand pounds a year, is, betwixt knavery and foolery, turned out. Dutchess of York and Prince Edgar, dead. None left but daughters. One Blud, outlawed for a plot to take Dublin Castle, and who seized on the Duke of Ormond here last year, and might have killed him, a most bold, and yet sober fellow, some months ago seized the crown ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... familiarly without any announcement. On the present occasion his step was more rapid than usual, his manner more than commonly excited, and the moment he had cast himself into a chair he burst into a long loud peal of laughter. "In the name of Heaven," he exclaimed, "what piece of foolery do you think my worthy father has concocted now? On my honour, I believe that he is mad, and only fear that he has transmitted a part of his madness to me. Think of everything that is ridiculous, Wilton, that you can conceive; let your ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... pages of the album, the famous album, said to be crammed with passionate declarations. Not a bit of it! Nothing but foolery ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... seem fully to answer the purpose, and he added, "Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun: it shines everywhere." This gave him relief. It acted more soothingly than his own anodyne drops; and, having thus recovered his equanimity, he determined to ascertain if the Armstrongs had ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... whirligig of time," as the true clown hath it, "brings in his revenges." I confess that I never saw the catastrophe of this character, while Bensley played it, without a kind of tragic interest. There was good foolery too. Few now remember Dodd. What an Aguecheek the stage lost in him! Lovegrove, who came nearest to the old actors, revived the character some few seasons ago, and made it sufficiently grotesque; but Dodd ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... as well be hanged, as tell the manner of it; it was mere foolery.—I saw Mark Antony offer him a crown; and, as I told you, he put it by once—but, for all that, to my thinking, he would fain have had it. Then he offered it to him again; then, he put it by again—but, to my thinking, he was ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... (1657), in which he elaborately dealt with the charge as both false and frivolous. In one passage he offers a qualified defense of such an act: "I cannot but bewail the exceeding rudeness of our times to suffer such foolery to be prosecuted as of some high and notorious crime. Suppose it were (as it is not) true, may not some eminent congregational brother be found guilty of the same act? Is it not much short of drinking an health naked on a signpost? May it not be as theologically defended as the husband's ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... send me to the Globe Theatre at this festive season of the year to witness the representation of a piece, called by the management, for some reason or other, "a faerie comedy." Now, I like a Burlesque, and I am fond of a Pantomime, but a mixture of blank verse and tom-foolery is rather too much for me, especially when that mixture is not redeemed by a plot of any interest. Nothing can be more absurd than the story (save the mark!) told in this particularly uninteresting play. It appears that a "Duke!" of Athens ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... sense of humour, and enjoyed nothing more than really elaborate foolery. Such as, for example, the celebrated case ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... come too near their calves, or driving off Drumsheugh's polled Angus bull with contumely when he was threatening Mrs. Macfadyen. If he met the bairns coming from school, the Glen rang with the foolery. When Willie Harley broke his leg, Carmichael brought his dog Jackie—I could tell things of that dog—and devised dramatic entertainments of such attraction that Jamie Soutar declared them no better than the theatre, and threatened Carmichael ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... His father was at Cambridge with my old man, and—isn't it rum?—he was a pupil of Praddy's!! He mucked his school and 'varsity career, thought next he'd like to be an architect or a scene painter. My dad recommended Praddy as a master. He worked in the Praed studio, but got the chuck over some foolery. Then as he couldn't face his poor old Governor, he enlisted in the Bechuanaland Border police, came out to South Africa and got let in for this show. The doctors and nurses give him about a month and he doesn't know it. He can't talk much owing to his jaw ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... is sometimes called we believe La Capital de Majeza; the proper translation of which we conceive to be the Head Quarters of Foolery, for nothing more absurd and contemptible than this Majeza ever came within the sphere of our contemplation. Nevertheless it constitutes the chief glory of the Sevillians. Every Sevillian, male or female, rich or poor, handsome ...
— A Supplementary Chapter to the Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... were assumed to have changed their functions: when the coordinates of time, the vertical, the horizontal and the lateral changed places and a man went east to go up and west to go "down" and ran his street-numbers in a fourth dimension. It was mathematical foolery, from one standpoint, but it led to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... one-legged, knock-kneed, gimcrack, purblind, rough-skinned, underfed, and perpetually irritated and grumpy intellect, or analytical curiosity rather (a diseased appetite), and let it swell till it eats up every other function? Away with such foolery. ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... go back," cried my brother. "For God's sake take all that tom-foolery from off your head. We shall be the laughing-stock of every village ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... Squeers. "If the young man comes to be a teacher here, let him understand, at once, that we don't want any foolery about the boys. They have the brimstone and treacle, partly because if they hadn't something or other in the way of medicine they 'd be always ailing and giving a world of trouble, and partly because it spoils their appetites and comes cheaper than ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... us all into an infernal mess with your foolery," he said sulkily, "and when you do, you needn't come to me to ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... foolery, you idiot," I muttered to Stephen, kicking him on the shins, "or you'll get our throats cut." Then, collecting myself ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... that keeping Christmas in the German sense was coming to be very general in England; but her shrewd, practical turn of mind induced her to hope that the English would never go "such lengths in foolery." At Hanover, she wrote, the tradespeople had been for many weeks in full employ, framing and mounting the embroideries of the ladies and girls of all classes; of all classes, for not a folly or extravagancy existed among the great ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... Uncle Steve's foolery, and said: "If they're weeping so you'd better take them some of my ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... basket; protests to my husband he is now here; and hath drawn him and the rest of their company from their sport, to make another experiment of his suspicion: but I am glad the 30 knight is not here; now he shall see his own foolery. ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... what the alternative is, what the voice of "deep calling unto deep" really utters, as the constellation of Hercules draws the solar world toward it through the abysmal night. No more ethical foolery; no more pragmatic insolence; no ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... "I'm glad your father didn't live to see you in all the glory of your gracelessness," he said. "Your father was a man, every inch of him. Do you get it? A man. I think he'd have whaled all this musical and artistic tom foolery out of you." ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... mass of long-winded ceremonial nothingnesses, and intricate Belleisle cobwebberies, we seize this one poor speck of human foolery in the native state, as almost the memorablest in that stupendous business. Stupendous indeed; with which all Germany has been in travail these sixteen months, on such terms! And in verity has got the thing called "German Kaiser" constituted, better or worse. Heavens, was a Nation ever ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... dogged, bitter stoicism till the end of the sixth day. Then his pride broke down, and he piteously entreated the prison doctor for a dose of opium. The doctor was quite willing to give it; but the Governor, hearing of the request, sharply forbade "any such foolery." ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... chuckle at the foolery of the moment. The general folds away the evening paper and rises ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... court,' in his words. But our Lord's continued silence appears to have somewhat awed him, and the dawning consciousness of his dignity is, perhaps, the reason for the high priest's casting aside all the foolery of false witnessing, and coming at last to the real point,— the Messianic claims ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... "What foolery is this? Are we in the midst of the Carnival, that a workman ventures upon such a ridiculous masquerade? Throw off your ugly bear's skin instantly or I will crisp your bristles for ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... the brother of the slain knight Wolfram: his foolery is but the disguise of his revenge, and thus he rails over the body of his brother: "Dead and gone! a scurvy burden to this ballad of life. There lies he, Siegfried—my brother, mark you—and I weep not, nor gnash the teeth, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... war could be like other wars," he said. "I did not dream it. I thought that we had grown wiser at last. It seemed to me like the dawn of a great clearing up. I thought the common sense of mankind would break out like a flame, an indignant flame, and consume all this obsolete foolery of empires and banners and militarism directly it made its attack upon human happiness. A score of things that I see now were preposterous, I thought must happen—naturally. I thought America would declare ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... This pace in foolery had been set at the Duke's House, but Nell out-did them, with her broad-brimmed hat as large as a cart-wheel and her quaint waist-belt; for was not her hat larger by half than that at the rival house and her ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... was an apotheosis of tom-foolery. General Harrison had lived the life, mainly, of a Western farmer, and for a time, doubtless, exercised amid his rude surroundings the primitive hospitality natural to sturdy Western pioneers. On these facts the changes were rung. ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... find it in the ancient poets and historians and dramatists and satirists. He loves a monologue that passes from mockery to regret, that gathers up by the way anecdote and history and essay and foolery, that is half a narrative of things seen and half an irresponsible imagination. He can describe a runaway horse with the farcical realism of the authors of Some Experiences of an Irish R.M., can parody a judge, can paint a portrait, and can steep a landscape in vision. Two recent critics ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... over too? Come, my little dear, pull off thy gloves, I say; and off she pulled my left glove herself, and spied my ring. O my dear God! said she, if the wench has not got a ring!—Well, this is a pretty piece of foolery, indeed! Dost know, my friend, that thou art miserably tricked? And so, poor innocent, thou hast made a fine exchange, hast thou not? Thy honesty for this bauble? And, I'll warrant, my little dear has topped her part, and paraded it like any ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... said Mr. Macdermott, simply and fervently. "At processions, you know. It's a great Catholic day—like August 15th—I forget why. Some Catholic foolery. The birthday of the Virgin Mary, I fancy. Anyhow we throw stones.... I wonder will ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... tell you, all those heads in the reek of the light, the foolery of those people enjoying life and profiting by peace! It was like a ballet at the theater or the make-believe of a magic lantern. There were—there were—there are a hundred thousand more of them," Volpatte ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse |
