"Simpleton" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fellow giant, have found outlet and expression in speech. All the life he knew was the dull round of the village, all the speech he knew was the talk of the cottage, that failed and collapsed at the bare outline of his least gigantic need. He knew nothing of money, this monstrous simpleton, nothing of trade, nothing of the complex pretences upon which the social fabric of the little folks was built. He needed, he needed—Whatever he needed, he never ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... If carried into a camp of barbarous savages, it was not likely that he would. He would be seized and held captive to a dead certainty. But surely he would not be such a simpleton, as to allow the maherry to transport him into ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... "Simpleton," was Juno's comment, while Bell's was: "I rather like the child," as she continued to smooth the golden curls and wound them around her finger, wondering if Katy had a taste for metaphysics, that being the last branch of science which ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... "she bought a new shirt waist. When she wore it Mrs. Nobbs asked her where she got it. Like a simpleton, she told the whole story, so pleased to have earned the money, and never dreaming but that it was her own! What did they do but make her give up the seven dollars she had left! They did let her keep the waist—she needed it badly enough." Miss Castlevaine ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... favour of his company a little while this morning (our head). I have been writing all the above gibberish while aunt has been looking after her family—now she is out of the room—now she is in—& takes up my pen in my absence to observe, I am a little simpleton for informing my mamma, that it is a great while since I was prais'd because she will conclude that it is a great while since I deserv'd to be prais'd. I will henceforth try to observe their praise & yours too. I mean deserve. ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow
... the guesser wins one; if wrong, he loses one. The boy to whom I allude won all the marbles of the school. Of course, he had some principle of guessing; and this lay in mere observation and admeasurement of the astuteness of his opponents. For example, an arrant simpleton is his opponent, and, holding up his closed hand, asks, 'Are they even or odd?' Our school-boy replies, 'Odd,' and loses; but upon the second trial he wins, for he then says to himself: 'The simpleton had them even upon the first trial, and his amount of cunning ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... simpleton," answered the duke. "With your idle nonsense yesterday about escaping, you worried me so that I dreamed that I was trying to escape and broke my neck ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... said this, he looked pityingly at his little companion, wondering how she happened to be so silly as to suppose a ship ever went "tip-side up." But he was mistaken if he considered Dotty a simpleton. The child had never gone to school. Her parents believed there would be time enough yet for her to learn a great many things; and her ignorance had never distressed them half so much as her faults ...
— Dotty Dimple Out West • Sophie May
... the caller rose and followed her. He told himself he was a simpleton to have left the cheery supper room and the certain presence of the man he wished to see for an hour of solitary ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... goodies were stuffed into thy already crowded valise! It wasn't for nothing that her communications have been so frequent, and contained such tender inquiries after thy health, and such pathetic injunctions to be careful of thyself!" You must be a simpleton, man, to imagine that a benevolent disposition prompted so many manifestations all of a sudden, when the past was so different. "But why not?" thought he, as his charitable heart sought for a better motive in the woman than selfishness. "Isn't there such a thing as an ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... such simpleton as Claus; no, not he. Oh no, he would not take all that trouble for two poor pocketfuls of money. He would have a bagful; no, he would have two bagfuls. So he slung two meal sacks over his shoulder, and off he started for the hill back ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... occasionally brought out, passes justly among the ephemeral productions for a classical work that has gained the crown of immortality. We must, however, see it acted by Brunet, whose face is almost a mask, and who is nearly as inexhaustible in the part of the simpleton as Puncinello is ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... creature!" hissed the bride of Carl Walraven. "It is all her crafty scheming to attract the attention of that hoary-headed simpleton, Sir Roger Trajenna. If you are in love with her, Guy (and how you can is a mystery to me), why ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... which I am familiar is the "Arabian Nights" anecdote of "The Simpleton and the Sharper" (Burton's translation, v : 83). This story is practically identical with ours, except that the Filipino version lacks the additional final comical touch of the Arabian. The owner of the ass, ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... and life since that manly resolution which he took last week of being no longer a Minister of this country. Let what would happen, he has given a conge to his friends to do what they will, and it shall not be looked upon as desertion. That is undoubtedly the most capital simpleton that ever the caprice of fortune placed in the high offices which he filled, and for so long ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... "Fair? Simpleton! it's this way every day, only worse, because this is early morning, and there's only a few about yet;" and Mrs. Murphy's eyes ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... shoulders. "If I did not know you for a credulous simpleton," said she, "I should take you for an abandoned villain. You thought me fool enough to believe that you were bringing up your daughter as a governess when she was on the stage all the time. I don't want to tell ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... he will not believe me, this fripon who declares that no one could tell by my appearance whether I was a rascal or not, this dull-eyed simpleton, who will not see the royal mark upon my brow, which my courtiers see so plainly written there? No, no, my friend, that is not the way. We have undertaken to travel as ordinary men—we must now see how common men get through the world. It is ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... Mr. Bagges. "Have biled! And what if it has 'biled,' or boiled, as I desire you will say in future? What is that to the purpose? Water may be frozen, you simpleton, notwithstanding it has boiled. Was it boiling, sir, eh? when you took it off the fire? That ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... walked deliberately up to Grace and Miriam. "I'm sorry for everything," she said huskily. "I've been a ridiculous simpleton, and I don't deserve to have friends. Will you forgive me, girls? I'd like to start ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... still D'ye contradict me? Did I ever wish For any thing in all my life, but you In that same thing oppos'd me, Sostrata? Yet now if I should ask wherein I'm wrong, Or wherefore I act thus, you do not know. Why then d'ye contradict me, simpleton? ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... slammed it behind him and left you to think and stew and weep in a silence accented and made more wretched by a yellow electricbulb and the stink of corrosivesublimate? Back to the cityroom, you dabbling booby, you precious simpleton, addlepated dunce, and be thankful my boundless generosity permits you to draw a weekly paycheck at all and doesnt condemn you to labor forever unrewarded in the subterranean vaults where the ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... "The Eternal Simpleton, you mean. In that swamp of pettiness, idiocy, and materialism, a man of your nature could not long abide. Religion—it has not yet responded to your need. And without faith your sins lose their savour. The arts—you don't know them ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... eyes towards me. I was somewhat astonished and asked the proprietor of the baths, without appearing to be much concerned, the name of this gentleman. I laughed to myself a little at this reader of rhymes; he seemed behind the age, for a man. This person, I thought, must be a simpleton. Well, aunt, I am now infatuated about this stranger. Just fancy, his name is Sully Prudhomme! I went back and sat down beside him again so as to get a good look at him. His face has an expression of calmness and of penetration. Somebody came to look ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... you give such way to your Passion? How could you imagine I should be such a Simpleton, as to upbraid thee with being thy Mother's own Daughter! When I advised you not to be guilty of Folly, I meant no more than that you should take care to be well paid before-hand, and not trust to Promises, which a Man seldom keeps, after he hath ...
— An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews • Conny Keyber
... to remove the simpleton; and Colin was also directed to retire, until he should be sent ...
— The Broken Cup - 1891 • Johann Heinrich Daniel Zschokke
... derangement of the functions of these organs, like dyspnoea, mental weakness, in some more or less indifference, a disregard of their surroundings; in short, all those symptoms of what was called at that time "Russian simpleton." ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... utter fool," pondered the Doctor, as he went. Two friends had been kept long apart by the fear of each, lest he should seem to be setting up claims based on the past. It required a simpleton to ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... machinery. Among other things he sought to produce a model of perpetual motion. He was sure he could do it, and he set to work with a resolution worthy of a nobler enterprise. When one attempt failed, he tried again, and yet again, until his friends and neighbors called him a "simpleton," and openly rebuked him for his folly. His mother began to think he never would learn any craft by which he could gain a livelihood, and she was really discouraged. He was not vicious nor indolent. He had energy and perseverance, ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... Ranters. That night I cared little though the King had signed away the liberties of our religion and his realm; I spared no more than a passing wonder for the attempt to which conscience run mad had urged Phineas Tate, and in which he in his turn had involved my simpleton of a servant. Let them all plot and plan; the issue lay in God's hand, above my knowledge and beyond my power. My task was enough, and more than enough, for my weakness; to it I turned, with no fixed design and no lively ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... observed my amazement, for he went on. "Yea, a happy child art thou; for so are all babes, maids or boys, who come into the world after their father's death." As I gazed into his face, no less astonished than before, he laid the gold knob of his cane against his nose and said: "Remember, little simpleton, the good God would not be what he is, would not be a man of honor—God forgive the words—if he did not take a babe whom He had robbed of its father before it had seen the light or had one proof of his love under His own ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... heart positively bleeds for you. What is the matter with your hand, that you talk of being a life-long prisoner to your room? Pray send for Paget or Erichsen, and have yourself put right at once. No doubt that local simpleton is making a mess of your case. Perhaps while he is dabbing with lint and lotions the real remedy is the knife. I am sure amputation would be less melancholy than the despondent state of feeling which you are now suffering. If ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... there never was a more liquorish one than her ladyship. Can't you pretend that the despair of possessing her niece, from her being promised to Blifil, has made you turn your thoughts towards her? As to my cousin Sophia, I can't imagine her to be such a simpleton as to have the least scruple on such an account, or to conceive any harm in punishing one of these haggs for the many mischiefs they bring upon families by their tragi-comic passions; for which I think it is a pity they are not punishable by law. I had no such scruple myself; and yet ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... questionings; what they hoped for was unconscious betrayal by some slip of the tongue. As for young Breslin, Pringle had long since sized him up for what the Major knew him to be—a good-hearted, right-meaning simpleton. In the indifferent-seeming Anastacio, Pringle recognized ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... let a little too much amazement escape through my surprise, for he answered with a deprecating laugh: "Yes—she's an awful simpleton, you know, Mrs. Stroud. Her only idea was to have him done by a fashionable painter—ah, poor Stroud! She thought it the surest way of proclaiming his greatness—of forcing it on a purblind public. And at the moment I was ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... the Roman Commonwealth. But Bracciolini puts before us nothing like this;—only incongruous, unimaginable and un-Romanlike personages,—people who gibber at us, as idiots in their asylums, as that unfortunate simpleton, the Emperor Claudius;—murderous criminals who glower and scowl upon us, as those two monsters of iniquity, Tiberius and Nero;—pimps and parasites beyond number, who so plague us with their perpetual presence, ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... has already told you that you are a simpleton, and I am quite of his opinion. D'Artagnan, you are a great man; and when you occupy Monsieur de Treville's place, I will come and ask your influence to ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... this coffee house; 'tis here you see Legal the profound, Philidor the subtle, Mayot the solid; here you see the most astounding moves, and listen to the sorriest talk, for if a man be at once a wit and a great chess player, like Legal, he may also be a great chess player and a sad simpleton, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... about, understood men, and knew how to turn them to his own advantage. He was cautious, and at the same time enterprising, like a fox; though he was as fond of gossip as an old woman, he never let out his own affairs, while he made everyone else talk freely of theirs. He did not affect to be a simpleton, though, as so many crafty men of his sort do; indeed it would have been difficult for him to take any one in, in that way; I have never seen a sharper, keener pair of eyes than his tiny cunning little 'peepers,' as they call them in Orel. They were never simply looking ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... not separate himself forever from his wife is a veritable simpleton. If a wife and husband think themselves fit for that union of friendship which exists between men, it is odious in the husband to make his wife feel his superiority ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... "Why, what a simpleton you must be! There is but one subject for a novel—historical, philosophical, fashionable, antiquarian, or whatever it calls itself. The whole story, after all, is about a young man and a young woman—he all that is noble, and she all that is good. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... the corpse; and finally the bull broke for the river and jumped in, and when they fished Uncle Laxart out he was nearly drowned, and his face looked like a pudding with raisins in it. And then he turned around, this old simpleton, and looked a long time in a dazed way at Joan where she had her face in a cushion, dying, apparently, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... refusing his offer. A simpleton. The child of caprice, whom no time could render steadfast except in folly; into whom no counsel or example could instil an atom of common sense. He supposed my man was equally obstinate and stupid; but he would soon see of what stuff he was made. He would hurry ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... pennant, like innocent market-people, and I'll risk a Flemish gelding against a Virginia nag, that they inquire if the captain has no need of vegetables for his soup! Ah! ha-ha-ha! That Ludlow is a simpleton, niece of mine, and he is not yet fit to deal with men of mature years. You'll think better of his qualities, one day, and bid him be ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... these and similar daily occurrences among slaveholders, copied verbatim from their own accounts of them in their own papers and all this we fully credit; no man is simpleton enough to cry out 'Oh, I can't believe that slaveholders do such things;'—and yet when we turn to the treatment which these men mete out to their slaves, and show that they are in the habitual practice of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... to the room, and tried to converse with her sister, she observed that Fanny shrank from her approach and that she had been weeping. In a very ironical tone Julia said, "What now is the matter? I declare, Fan, I believe you are a perfect little simpleton. I wouldn't be such a cry baby, anyway; and make so much fuss about one ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... to such faults, however, as similar to those that stain his own self, he does not refer to them even remotely, for the sake of the advantage he reaps from them. He regards the person that does him good as a simpleton whom he has cleverly deceived. He is filled with regret for having at any time made any gift of wealth even unto a benefactor. Know him for a malevolent and wicked person who quietly and alone takes comestibles and drinks and other kinds of food that ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... simpleton! That daughter of hers will turn her head. I beg of you, Guilleroy, prevent your wife ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... "Oh, you simpleton!" said Lingard, pityingly. "'Pon my word," he muttered to himself, "I don't believe the fellow knew. Well! well! Steady now. Pull yourself together. What's wrong there. She is ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... "Why," continued the provoking simpleton, looking as if he had to reveal unpleasant tidings, and drawing back as he spoke, "the bearer is in the train of some herald or pursuivant, come from o'er sea to our court, about exchange of prisoners and the like. This man has a message ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... tall being with a beaver in his hand rose to meet me, looking so big and handsome and generally imposing that I could not recover myself for several minutes, and mentally wailed for my combs, feeling like an untidy simpleton. ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... seeing his wife barren, consulted the physicians upon the case; who told him, that if the empress would drink wine she might be fruitful. But he told them, like a simpleton as he was, That he had rather his wife should be barren and sober, than be fruitful and drink wine. And the empress, being informed of the wise answer of the imperial ninny-hammer, her husband, said full as wisely, That if she ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... their drawers and boxes, and took out all their fine clothes, and dressed themselves at the glass, and skipped about as if they were eager to begin dancing. But the youngest said, 'I don't know how it is, while you are so happy I feel very uneasy; I am sure some mischance will befall us.' 'You simpleton,' said the eldest, 'you are always afraid; have you forgotten how many kings' sons have already watched in vain? And as for this soldier, even if I had not given him his sleeping draught, he ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... Roger, "it was a bad time. The war contradicted and denied everything I had ever lived for. Oh, I can't tell you how I felt about it. I can't even express it to myself. Sometimes I used to feel as I think that truly noble simpleton Henry Ford may have felt when he organized his peace voyage—that I would do anything, however stupid, to stop it all. In a world where everyone was so wise and cynical and cruel, it was admirable to find a man so utterly simple and hopeful ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... story is this: whenever a simpleton puts on airs and plays the master, there are always other simpletons ...
— The Nursery, No. 103, July, 1875. Vol. XVIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... not relics or indulgences, but jewels and gold, the favour of being familiar with the best of these pampered cats who lived under the protection of the lords of the Council; the poor Touranian, all simpleton and innocent as he was, treasured up under his mattress the money given him by the good archbishop for writings and copying—hoping one day to have enough just to see a cardinal's lady-love, and trusting to God for the rest. He was hairless from top to toe and resembled ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... the old master's brother—they were hoisting sacks of meal. The windlass squeaked horribly, and in between the squeaking one could hear Master Jorgen Kofod, in a high falsetto, disputing with his son. "You're a noodle, a pitiful simpleton—whatever will become of you? Do you think we've nothing more to do than to go running out to prayer-meetings on a working day? Perhaps that will get us our daily bread? Now you just stay here, or, God's mercy, I'll break every bone in your body!" Then the wife chimed in, and then of a sudden ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... unanswered and had stared like a simpleton at the bits of white foam which had dripped from the ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... was feeling very drowsy, and had almost dropped asleep, when Ned gave me a push with his foot. He was a great tease, and he delighted in getting me to make a simpleton of myself. I tried to keep my eyes on the fire, but I could not, and just had to ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... The big simpleton drew a pink coloured, badly frayed newspaper out of his pocket. It was The Matrimonial Times, a monthly sheet printed in Seattle and intended for the lonely, lovesick and forlorn of both sexes; a sort of ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... Hans Wurst. Luther assured him, in reply, that he had never given this name to a single man, whether friend or foe; but now applied it to the Duke, because he found it meant a stupid blockhead who wished to be thought clever and all the time spoke and acted like a simpleton. But he was not content with calling him a blockhead; he represented him as a profligate man, who, while libelling the princes and pretending to be the champion of God's ordinances, himself practised open adultery, committed acts ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... "Simpleton! simpleton! but thou valuest them justly. Now attend. If ever thou shouldst hear, at Oxford or London, the verses I am about to repeat, prithee do not communicate them to that fiery spirit Mat Atterend. ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... Armande had taken the chevalier's arm, and walked away so as to leave the three women free to discuss wedlock. Madame du Bousquier was then enlightened on the various deceptions of her marriage; and as she was still the same simpleton she had always been, she amused her advisers by ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... washing Eugenia was too indignant to reply, but when it came to the mopping, she lifted up her hands in astonishment, calling him "a fool and a simpleton." ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... other day," said Ellen, laughing very heartily—"and she told me to hush up and not be a fool; and I told her I really wanted to know, and she said she wouldn't make herself a simpleton if she was in my place; so I thought I might as ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... baby nurse to mind ye, Patricia O'Connell; and I'm not sure but ye need a perambulator as well." She gave a tired little stretch to her body and rubbed her eyes. "I feel as if this was all a silly play and I was cast for the part of an Irish simpleton; a low-comedy burlesque—that ye'd swear never happened in real life outside of ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... the character of a simpleton to be a bore. A man of sense sees at once whether he is welcome or tiresome; he knows to withdraw the moment that precedes that in which he would be in the ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... Athenians made preparations to join their forces with them; Demosthenes ruled supreme in the popular assembly, and wrote letters to the Persian officers who commanded under the king in Asia, inciting them to make war upon the Macedonian, calling him child and simpleton. But as soon as Alexander had settled matters in his own country, and came in person with his army into Boeotia, down fell the courage of the Athenians, and Demosthenes was hushed; the Thebans, deserted by them, fought by themselves, and lost their city. After which, the people of Athens, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... "You're not such a simpleton as you look," he said. "You're right. They'll pay you more for him in the capital than I could. Ride on. They may pass you over Long Bridge or they may not. That part of ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... was no simpleton—she saw immediately that her son must have gone through much suffering and strain. What was the matter? It tore her heart, but she knew him too well to say anything to him ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... dragged in the gutter, and, striking his corpse, they exclaim, "He's a scurvy wretch (galeux) and a monster who has betrayed us; the nation demands his head to exhibit to the public," and the man who was kicked is asked to cut it off.—This man, an unemployed cook, a simpleton who "went to the Bastille to see what was going on," thinks that as it is the general opinion, the act is patriotic, and even believes that he "deserves a medal for destroying a monster." Taking a saber ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... with the belief that the way beyond this bridge up to Hartledon was private, and he might be taken up for trespassing if he attempted to follow it; so he went off that way to watch the front. If the fellow hasn't a writ in his pocket, or something worse, call me a simpleton. You are all right, sir, as long as he takes you ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... mile behind, throwing, as he passed, a wistful glance between the silver poplars. A pink dress had fluttered for an instant beyond the Doric columns, and he had wondered idly if it meant Virginia, and if she were still the pretty little simpleton of six months ago. At the thought of her he threw back his head and whistled gayly into the threatening sky, so gayly that a bluebird flying across the road hovered round him in the air. The joy of living possessed him at the moment, a mere physical delight ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... Sage it pleased Traverse her woman's curtain and poor shield, For new example of a world diseased; Showing her shrineless, not a temple, bare; A curtain ripped to tatters by the blast; Yet she most surely to this man stood fair: He worshipped like the young enthusiast, Named simpleton or poet. Did he read Right through, and with the voice she held reserved Amid her ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... easily to be hoodwinked, but bade his men take the supposed spy to the sergeant's house at Hofwa, where four men were set over him as guards. The pretended simpleton seemed well-enough pleased, eating and drinking freely, talking cheerfully of country affairs with his guards, and spending his money freely, so that the sergeant grew to like the ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... of two men, Nathaniel and Demas, encountering a pretender to miracles, a Simon Magus of the scriptures. Nathaniel is guileless, sweet-hearted and of strong moral sense, but in worldly matters rather a simpleton. Demas is a sharp man, who gets on well in the world, quick of eye and shrewd of wit, hard-headed and not to be imposed upon by his fellows; but destitute of any high religious aspirations or deep moral ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... attire, and took her place in the maternal drawing-room, amongst the sisters of the enraptured lover. Alas! enraptured no more! The rustic beauty, where could it have flown? The belle of the village was transformed into a very awkward young lady. Goddess!—She was a simpleton. Become a throne!—She could not sit upon a chair. The charm was broken. The application we need hardly make. There may be certain uncultivated men of genius on whom it is possible to practise a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... is a poor fellow, a mealy-mouthed simpleton who the minute I say anything opens his jaws like a fly-catcher. He insists that he comes of a great family, but who knows anything about these gringoes? . . . All of us, dead with hunger when we reach America, claim to be ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... listened to such a preposterous proposition? No! Thank fortune I'm not a simpleton! I saw through the pretty scheme in a second. It's a vast iron speculation!—millions upon millions in it! But fool as I am I told him he could have half the iron property for thirty thousand—and if I only had him back ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... Gellatly? I was thinking over that question of yours, "What did I think?"[13] But, my dear Susie, you might as well ask Gibbie Gellatly what he thought. What does it matter what any of us think? We are but simpletons, the best of us, and I am a very inconsistent and wayward simpleton. I know how to roast eggs, in the ashes, perhaps—but for the next world! Why don't you ask your squirrel what he thinks too? The great point—the one for all of us—is, not to take false words in our mouths, and to crack our ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... simpleton you are!" exclaimed Belle; and her remarks were often much stronger than Rosabel ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... divinities; where so few people are content with their lot, where the corner grocer is prouder of his epaulette than the Grand Conde of his Marshal's baton, where agitation without object or resources is perpetual, where, from the floor-scrubber to the dramatist, from the academician to the simpleton who gets muddled over the evening newspaper, from the witty courtier down to his philosophic lackey, each one revises Montesquieu with the self-sufficiency of a child which, because it is learning to read, deems itself ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... are a simpleton," Lousteau remarked drily. "Three years ago Finot was walking on the uppers of his boots, dining for eighteen sous at Tabar's, and knocking off a tradesman's prospectus (when he could get it) for ten francs. His clothes hung together by some miracle as mysterious as the Immaculate ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... a difficult meeting, and a severe test to any friendship but that of the most sterling sort. In the turmoil of her distraction Charlotte had the consolation of knowing that if her act of justice to Somerset at such a moment were the act of a simpleton, it was the only course open to honesty. But Paula's cheerful serenity in some measure laid her own troubles to rest, till they were reawakened by a rumour—which got wind some weeks later, and quite drowned all other surprises—of the true relation ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... abhorred. He means a man who is not simply weak and incapable, but a moral leper; a man who, if not a knave, has everything bad about him except knavery; nay, rather, has together with every other worst vice, a spice of knavery to boot. His simpleton is one who has become such, in judgment for his having once been a knave. His simpleton is not a born fool, but a self-made idiot, one who has drugged and abused himself into a shameless depravity; one, who, without any misgiving or remorse, is guilty of drivelling superstition, of reckless ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... like to know how the weavers are getting on with my cloth," said the Emperor to himself, after some little time had elapsed; he was, however, rather embarrassed when he remembered that a simpleton, or one unfit for his office, would be unable to see the manufacture. "To be sure," he thought, "he had nothing to risk in his own person; but yet he would prefer sending somebody else to bring ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... 'Don't be a simpleton, Mrs. Turpin. The blackguard is found in every rank of life. Now, suppose you go to him as soon as he gets up, and quietly give him notice. You've no idea how much better you would ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... that succeeded the exclamation could not have been more piteously expressive had the loss been the Egyptian's own. Next moment her laugh might have been heard in the street below; and she said "Oh, oh, my pretty simpleton! The half-fledged birds nested in the ear of the great bust out on the Memphian sands know nearly as ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... and said, "Eteoneus, son of Boethous, you never used to be a fool, but now you talk like a simpleton. Take their horses out, of course, and show the strangers in that they may have supper; you and I have staid often enough at other people's houses before we got back here, where heaven grant that we ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... the snowball gathers size as it rolls; and I am what I am for the same reason that the wind scatter the sands of the desert—a man full of books and tangent inconsequence of ideas, without sense; a simpleton who knows a painting but does not know men; a garrulous, philosophizing, blind, old simpleton, whose pompous incompetency has betrayed a trust! Through me, men and women came here to settle and make a home! Through me they ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... extremely pretty, and as silly as she is pretty. This Ideot has a very good Ear, and a most agreeable Shape; but the Folly of the Thing is such, that it Smiles so impertinently, and affects to please so sillily, that while she Dances you see the Simpleton from Head to Foot. For you must know (as Trivial as this Art is thought to be) no one ever was a good Dancer, that had not a good Understanding. If this be a Truth, I shall leave the Reader to judge from that Maxim, what Esteem they ought to have for such Impertinents as fly, hop, caper, tumble, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... false pride had roused his indignation, and who can listen calmly to any comment on a stain on his birth? But the appeal of this miserable father's daughter had gone to his heart. He pitied the fatuous simpleton whom, with a turn of his hand, he could reduce to beggary, and who had evidently been far more deeply hurt by his words than Pontius had been by what he had overheard, and so he followed the kindly impulse of a noble nature ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... 'do not be a simpleton. Take the money, and do not pretend to more honesty than the ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... say this was a very odd dream. And yet, (for I am a strange dreamer,) it is not altogether improbable that something like it may happen; as the pretty simpleton has the weakness to confide in Dorcas, whom ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... put it off too long, supposing I had the conscience to transfer my liabilities to some simpleton who might not draw half a dozen of the dividends of which I have drawn scores. Besides, the thing is impossible, as I am telling you. Between you and me, the ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... accent, spoke English correctly. The Queen's chief study was divinity, and she had rather weakened her faith than enlightened it. She was at least not orthodox; and her confidante, Lady Sundon, an absurd and pompous simpleton, swayed her countenance towards the less-believing clergy. The Queen, however, was so sincere at her death, that when Archbishop Potter was to administer the sacrament to her, she declined taking it, very ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... business prying into a girl's fancies. I'm simply telling you Phil Lambert is the man that ought to marry her, and if he doesn't get on to the job almighty quick that pop-eyed simpleton over there will be prancing down the aisle to Lohengrin with Carlotta before Christmas, and the jig will be up. You tell him what I say. And study the thing a bit yourself while you are here, Tony. See if you can get to the ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... lived far off, and she has not been able to go to church for weeks and years. But what I long after is to tell me what means all this—yonder sea, and all the stars up above. And they will call me a simpleton for marking such as these, and only want me to heed how to shoot an arrow, or give a stroke hard enough to hurt another. Do such rude doings alone, fit for a bull or a ram as meseems, go to the making of a knight, ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... man who had three sons. Johnny, the youngest, was always looked upon as the simpleton of the family, and had very little ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... And you had used your cruel persuasion upon me ... you did not stop using it—no—you did not stop! My little sisters and brothers and my mother's needs—they were the things you moved me by ... and you said my husband would never come back—never; and you taunted me, and said what a simpleton I was to expect him! ... And at last I believed you and gave way! ... And then he came back! Now he is gone. Gone a second time, and I have lost him now for ever ... and he will not love me the littlest bit ever any more—only hate me! ... O yes, I have lost him now—again because of—you!" ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... the Plot. The ancient story of the merciless Jew is told in the Gesta Romanorum, and re-told, with delicate grace, by Giovanni Fiorentino, a fourteenth-century Italian writer, in his Il Pecorone (the simpleton), a collection of novels, or, as we should call them, short stories. The story of the three caskets is also told in the Gesta Romanorum. Other incidents in the play are taken from other sources, possibly from other plays. It is thought by some ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... that with a wave of his hand. "Oh, I think she'll give it, dear simpleton!" He looked at Glenfernie now with genial affection. "Well, on the whole, and balancing one thing against another, I think that I want you to ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... Tangle-foot? W-w—" his great loose lips trembled with unformed words as he gazed his eager inquiry from one to another. Under normal circumstances it would have remained contemptuously unanswered, but in these days in Tanglefoot Cove a man, though a simpleton, was yet a man, ...
— The Raid Of The Guerilla - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... now! Kate, you are the greatest simpleton that ever came to London, I think. I do believe you would go and ask this, as though you were afraid your tongue was not your own. Talk to her if you like, only don't grumble any more about me talking to my ...
— Kate's Ordeal • Emma Leslie |
