"Simpleton" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... furiously assailed her, and taking away her sickle, cut off her hands, her ears, and her nose. The afflicted woman shouted but as she was dumb she could not make herself understood and only howled, and then the simpleton cut her up, saying: "Let them come and they will see what I do with the devils!" (p. 18, Novena de San Vicente). To believe that God permitted a similar infamy is a gross insult to God. True, the ...
— The Legacy of Ignorantism • T.H. Pardo de Tavera
... "I'm a first-class simpleton," she decided. "Dorothy was right; always right. I'm a rattle-brain; and they think I am drowned. That is more reasonable, and more charitable, than to think I ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... macedoine of orientalities just discussed. It is not, of course, Perrault, and it is not the best Madame D'Aulnoy. But you are never "put out" by it; the hero, if rather a hero of Scott in the uniform propriety of his conduct, or of Virgil in his success, is not like Waverley, partly a simpleton, nor like Aeneas, wholly a cad. One likes the Princess Zibeline both before she had a heart and afterwards; it can be very agreeable to know a nice girl in both states. Perhaps it was not quite cricket of the ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... is not done, You have not learnt it half; You'll grow a downright simpleton, And make the ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... father would give me sixpence; but I know he wont, for he never goes to church, and cares nothing about the heathen, and as for mother, she would call me a simpleton if I was to ask her. I am determined I wont go to school next Sunday if I can't take something, it looks so mean; I will say I am ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... scandal than the other), "yes, she is thought very pretty; but I think her very like a fricandeau,—white, soft, and insipid. She is always in tears," added the good-natured Cornuel, "after her prayers, both at morning and evening. I asked why; and she answered, pretty simpleton, that she was always forced to pray to be made good, and she feared Heaven would take her at her word! However, she has many worshippers, and they call ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 waiting in an ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... being asked what pleasure he could have in the company of a pretty woman who was a loquacious simpleton, replied, "I love to see ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... mean to say she knows French?" queried the Tarasconian simpleton, with the disappointed mien of one who had believed thoroughly in ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... and a simpleton is always together, and when the simpleton is RICH, one knows pretty well ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... know anything at all about it!" cried Barbican, with a joyous laugh. "Ha, ha, ha! The first eastern shore Marylander or any other simpleton you meet in Baltimore, knows as much about the Moon as I do! Why we're going there, I can't tell! What we're going to do when we get there, can't tell either! Ardan knows all about it! He can tell! He's taking ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... I meant only kindness! I sowed good seed, and reap thistles and brambles! My charity-cake turns out miserable dough! But how could I possibly foresee that the child would be such a simpleton? What right has she to be so unnecessarily interested in my brother, who is old enough to have been her father? It is unnatural, absurd, and altogether unpardonable in Salome to be guilty of such presumptuous nonsense; and, ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... because he had sold his horse for a good price, or because the animal had died. But he went through street after street still carrying the saddle on his head, never pausing to look around or to speak to anybody, and at last the people began to wonder. Some said he was a simpleton, some said he was a saddle-maker advertising his wares, and some said he was a tramp who ought to be arrested and ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... tales. I went one Sunday morning with my hostess, who knew them well and engaged their most garrulous confidence. I don't mean that they told her all their secrets, but they told her a good many; if the French peasant is a simpleton, he is a very shrewd simpleton. At any rate, of a Sunday morning in August, when he is stopping at home from work, and he has put on his best jacket and trowsers, and is loafing at the door of his neighbor's cabin, he is a very charming person. The peasantry in the region I ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... you. I got up in London amongst a lot of people who seemed to look at things so differently, and there were distractions, and I'm afraid that I forgot some of my promises. But I have never forgotten you. Why do you take the part of that miserable creature over there? He is just a young simpleton, who, because he was half drunk, dared to accuse us of cheating. We were obliged to keep him shut up until he took it back. Leave him to us. He shall come to no harm. I give you my word, and I will ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... himself, slipping into a chair and stretching out his legs, "and it will only remain for Michael Phelan to turn up or to fail to turn up and the mystery of the escape is explained. Poor Phelan, he must be a terrific simpleton, and I suppose ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... in the chest. You can cajole money out of him by one kind of work in order to gain leisure in which to force him to accept later on something that he would prefer to refuse. You can use a thousand devices on the excellent simpleton.... And in the process you may degrade yourself to a mere popularity-hunter! Of course you may; as you may become a drunkard through drinking a glass of beer. Only, if you have anything to say worth saying, ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... kings came from all sides to their wedding, and offered themselves as god-parents to the first-born of the new race that was to be. But, to the grief of his parents, the child, when he arrived, proved to be a simpleton; and no second child ever came to repair the ...
— The Field of Clover • Laurence Housman
... messenger nor hear from me aught." Quoth I, "Harkye maid, is he an Arab or an Ajam?"; and quoth she, "Out on thee! He is of the Princes of Bassorah." "Is he old or young?" asked I; and she looked at me laughingly and answered, "Thou art certainly a simpleton! He is like the moon on the night of its full, smooth checked and beardless, nor is there any defect in him except his aversion to me." Then I put the question, "What is his name?" and she replied, "What wilt thou do ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... boys,—especially my dear Dick Bolton; but really, I need to go home and undo certain things that I left badly done. You don't half know me, Flossy Shipley. When I came here I was a regular goose. If you had known what a simpleton I was, and how hateful I had been about some things at home, you would never have ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... am about you, you find yourself hating everybody that comes near them. You get notions that every man is conspiring to tell the girl what a perfect fool you are, that they're worrying to boost you right out with her. You hate her, because you think she thinks you are a simpleton, and can't see your good points, which are so obvious to yourself. You hate yourself, you hate life, you hate the sunlight and the trees, and your food, and—and everything. And you wouldn't have things different, or stop making ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... in society a mere simpleton. His blunders would not come in amiss among the stories of Hierocles. But these men attained literary eminence in spite of their weaknesses. Boswell attained it by reason of his weaknesses. If he had not been a great fool, he would never have ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... devil is, not the smallest! They lived far enough apart; were the entirest strangers; nay, in so wide a universe, there was even, unconsciously, by commerce, some mutual helpfulness between them. How then? Simpleton! their governors had fallen out; and instead of shooting one another, had the cunning to make these poor ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... enclosed the whole of the savings from his salary. 'Master Jordan shook his head at this passage, and cried out, deeply moved, yet as though vexed, while a tear of motherly tenderness stole down Martha's cheek: "No! no! by no means! What is the fool thinking of? He'll want the money himself—a simpleton. Let him wait till he comes to the master-piece. What pleases me most in the story, is his contentment and his humility. He is not ashamed of his old silver watch yet. It is not everybody that could act so. There must be strong legs ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... knows as much as this girl knows could help seeing at a glance that she's got a pigeon to pluck, as the French say, and of course she means to pluck it. You can't blame her for that, being what she is; but for heaven's sake let her pluck it in her own way. Don't be a simpleton. Angels shouldn't rush in where fools would fear to tread—and you are an angel, Rash, though I suppose I'm the only one in ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... used slightingly, and 'simpleton' more slightingly still? The 'simple' is one properly of a single fold; [Footnote: [Latin simplicem; for Lat. sim-, sin- Greek [Greek: ha] in [Greek: ha-pax], see Brugmann, Grundriss, Section 238, Curtius, Greek ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... 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 ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... nor articulated in very definite language; and, I am bound to admit, is in no way of the nature of pure reason. Indeed, it is for the most part ejaculatory, and such that the veriest infant and simpleton, and I fear even animals (which is a dreadful admission), can follow its meaning. For to that unceasing question Why? the tiny voice within us answers with imperturbable irrelevance, "I want," "I do," "I think," and occasionally "I love." Very ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... the darkness of night, or the trustfulness inspired by a little extra worship of Bacchus, he should happen to take a Papal, Spanish, Roumanian, or other coin that is unpopular, he puts it on one side for the first simpleton or stranger who may have dealings with him. Thus, without intending it, I came to possess a very interesting numismatical collection, which I most unconscientiously, but with little success, tried ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... 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 ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... honor the people can give him, yet the remembers so tenderly the old home and its associations. That's his great secret of success—he's so human—with faults like other men, but they only make him all the more beloved. He is so tolerant of all. When that poor simpleton stuffed the ballot-box—out somewhere in the Blue Mountains, a really clever piece of work too, wonderfully well done—with the false bottom—I don't see how they ever discovered it—but it is hard to deceive ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... obscene remarks and insolent abuse, reproached him with the misfortune of his mutilated person. "Look you," said {the Eunuch}, "this is the only point as to which I am effectually staggered, forasmuch as I want the evidences of integrity. But why, simpleton, do you charge me with the faults of fortune? That {alone} is really disgraceful to a man, which he has ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... temptation I looked not again but paced rapidly for the clean atmosphere of the rough-and-honest bull train. As a companion, better for me Mr. Jenks. When my wrath cooled I felt that I might have acted the cad but I had not acted the simpleton. ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... to put it so, it was kindness and generosity and universal compassion that ruined him; but it would be nearer the truth to call him a fool and a simpleton and a blunderer; he did not realize that his proteges were carrion crows and wolves; vultures were feeding on his unfortunate liver, and he took them for friends and good comrades, showing a fine appetite just to please him. So they gnawed his bones perfectly clean, sucked out ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... love-scrawl and some tobacco; I suppose she knew your passions all ended in smoke! Rafle! Here is a little money come for you from France; it has not been stolen, so it will have no spice for you! Racoleur! Here is a love-billet from some simpleton, with a knife as a souvenir; sharpen it on the Arbicos. Poupard, Loup-terrible, Jean Pagnote, Pince-Maille, Louis Magot, Jules Goupil—here! There are your letters, your papers, your commissions. ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... dumb; Isoult, at least, never got speech of her. Vincent, who was treated by Maulfry as if he had been a mechanism, was a very simple machine. If Maulfry had been less summary with him she might have prevented the inevitable; but like all people with brains she thought a simpleton was an ass, and kicks your only speech with such. Vincent and Isoult, therefore, became friends as the days went on. Maulfry's cagebirds drew their heads together, and in Vincent's case, at any rate, it was not long before the ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... serious objection has been made to the want of refinement and elegance in two principal characters. We never feel this objection, indeed, while we are reading the book; but at other times we have something like a lurking suspicion that Jones was but an awkward fellow, and Sophia a pretty simpleton. I do not know how to account for this effect, unless it is that Fielding's constantly assuring us of the beauty of his hero, and the good sense of his heroine, at last produces a distrust of both. The story of Tom Jones is allowed to be unrivalled: and it is this circumstance, together with ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... "What a simpleton you must still think me! How easy you must think it is to impose upon me! Perhaps you think me so credulous, or so much in the habit of confiding in you, that no such thing as ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... had the effect of reducing considerably the sum she derived from the charity of the ward, and effectually preventing the consummation of any very formidable debauch with her favourite viands. But the poor simpleton was as merry as she was innocent and harmless; and all unsuspicious of the latent grudge which had lessened her gratuity, tripped hastily off, to enjoy at ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... understanding, and retreated, while Rachel returned to find Bessie sitting upright, anxiously watching, and she was at once drawn down to sit beside her on the bench, to listen to the excited whisper. "The miserable simpleton! Rachel, Alick was right. I thought, I little thought he would forget how things stand now, but he got back to the old strain, as if—I shall make Lord Keith go to Scotland any way now. I was so thankful to see you and Alick." She proceeded with the agitated vehemence ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... has no trills and runs and ripples at all! And he can't even repeat his song ten times a minute, as I give mine. He has to wait at least half an hour before he cries 'Cuckoo! cuckoo!' again. And no one but a simpleton would ever attempt to awaken a hard-working ...
— The Tale of Rusty Wren • Arthur Scott Bailey
... was calculated to be of service to him. She then went away, and presently returned with the schoolmaster, followed by all the children under his care; she then, showing the schoolmaster a book, inquired if it would answer for her son. The schoolmaster called her a simpleton for asking such a question, and said that he knew the book well, and there was not its equal in the world (no hay otro en el mundo). He instantly purchased five copies for his pupils, regretting that he had no more money, "for if I had," said ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... can't tell where, and generally returns licking his chops, which makes us afraid that he is a thief; but nobody finds him out, because he is the cleverest dog that ever lived!' The child ran on in this way about the great beast by the fireplace, till I was obliged to stop her; while that simpleton Nanina stood by, laughing and encouraging her. I asked them a few more questions, which produced some strange answers. They did not seem to know of any relations of theirs in the world. The neighbors in the house had helped them, after their father ran ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... I shall pay you out yet," quoth Molly, tugging at her black mane. "So our lovers are to come after us, is that it? Do you know, Madeleine," she went on, calming down, "I almost regret now that I would not listen to young Lord Dereham, simpleton though he be. He looked such a dreadful little fright that I only laughed at him.... I should have laughed at him all my life. But it would perhaps have been better than this dependence on Tanty, with her sudden whims and scampers and whisking of us away into the wilderness. ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... simpleton, Corny!" exclaimed one of the men, as he came up to the palisades of the fence. "Didn't I tell you not to ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... pleathe, I thaw him kith Thuthanna Peathe!" With frown to make a statue thrill, The master thundered, "Hither, Will!" Like wretch o'ertaken in his track With stolen chattels on his back, Will hung his head in fear and shame, And to the awful presence came,— A great, green, bashful simpleton, The butt of all good-natured fun, With smile suppressed, and birch upraised The threatener faltered, "I'm amazed That you, my biggest pupil, should Be guilty of an act so rude— Before the whole set school to boot— ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... punished by torture and death. Augustine Nicholas relates that a poor peasant who had been accused of sorcery was put to the torture to compel a confession. After enduring a few gentle agonies the suffering simpleton admitted his guilt, but naively asked his tormentors if it were not possible to be a sorcerer without ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... you simpleton!" cried Danglars, grasping him by the arm, "or I will not answer even for your own safety. Who can tell whether Dantes be innocent or guilty? The vessel did touch at Elba, where he quitted it, and passed a whole day in the island. Now, should any letters or other documents of a compromising character ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... wife had been a sister to the Earl of Derby, who lived at the time of which I am now writing. The earl had a son, James, who was heir to the title and to the estates of his father. The son was a dissipated, rustic clown—almost a simpleton. He had the vulgarity of a stable boy and the vices of a courtier. His associates were chosen from the ranks of gamesters, ruffians, and tavern maids. Still, he was a scion of one of the greatest families of ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... calf and vellum I will show you, to be bullied by the proprietor, of a "Wood and Bache," and a shelf of peppered sheepskin reprints by Philadelphia Editors. Besides, many of the profession and I know a little something of each other, and you don't think I am such a simpleton as to lose their good opinion by saying what the better heads among them would condemn as unfair and untrue? Now mark how the great plague came on the generation of drugging doctors, and in what ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... with your own countrymen, which would now make that pardon so popular, if it were known that the representative of your name were debased by your daughter's alliance with an English adventurer,—a clerk in a public office. Oh, sage in theory, why are you such a simpleton in action?" ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... pauper journey from his native solitudes into the thick of such a scene, it was no wonder that the zeal of superstition totally subsided amid the astounding truths he witnessed. In fact, the bewildered simpleton now regarded his dream as the merest chimera. Hastily escaping from the thoroughfare, he sought out some wretched place of repose suited to his wretched condition, and there mooned himself asleep, in self-accusations at the thought of poor Nance at home, and in utter ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... be Patty Simpleton! When I make forced or perfunctory speeches, you'll know it! Don't you think so, ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... "Poor simpleton that you are!" was the reply. "Look fairly at the facts. There is every appearance that we shall gain his money. The Piedmontese, such as he is, are honest enough, but are by nature absurdly suspicious. He commands the cavalry. Well, you are a man who cannot rule your tongue, and it is ten to one ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... ask, you simpleton?" Florence indeed was having a happy time of it at Clavering rectory. When Fanny called her a simpleton, she threw her arms round ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... she had not been there, and on the Monday I went to London and saw the mother, who was in great distress, for she had had a letter much like mine, only more unsatisfactory, throwing out absurd hints about grandeur and prosperity—poor deluded simpleton!' ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... men are incapable of gauging power of intellect and fineness of character. But the veriest blockhead and simpleton who ever lounged in a doorway or lisped in Pall Mall can tell a fine woman when he sees her, and is probably able to find pleasure and hope in the spectacle. It is these blockheads and simpletons who thus set the mode. They fix the standard of fashionable female education. Education, or the astounding ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... This fear proceeds from the fact that he is so tall and slim that if he should get a cant it might be fatal to him. I did not think America could furnish such a specimen of the negro race... nor did I ever see such a simpleton. It is impossible to teach him anything and... he can hardly tell ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... kindliness which his office of physician permitted him to add to the friend. The doctor took all his advantage; he did not take more; and not Faith herself could see that there was any warmer feeling behind his pleasant and pleased eye and smile. But it is true Faith was a simpleton. She did not see that his pleasantness covered keen scrutiny. The scrutiny ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... Rivers is next door to a simpleton: he is not half-baked," retorted Mr. Hamlyn, his own temper getting up: "if I may judge by what I've seen of him in ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... this analysis any further. From the runner who falls to the simpleton who is hoaxed, from a state of being hoaxed to one of absentmindedness, from absentmindedness to wild enthusiasm, from wild enthusiasm to various distortions of character and will, we have followed the line of progress along which the comic becomes more and ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... He was such a delicious simpleton. So long as he could regard me as someone on the other side of the grave, he could reveal to me the intimacies of his emotional life; but as soon as he realized his confidant in the flesh, embarrassment and confusion overwhelmed him. And, ostrich ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... already far too much of that hero of opera which he was destined to become, a sulky, stagy creature, in theatrical poses and a black-plumed hat, who cannot even play the easy and perennially attractive part of desdichado so as to keep our compassion. Lucy is a simpleton so utter and complete that it is difficult even to be sorry for her, especially as Ravenswood would have made a detestable husband. The mother is meant to be and is a repulsive virago, and the father a time-serving and almost vulgar intriguer. Moreover—and all ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... blunt—he's as sly as a mink. He praises the older sister at the younger's expense, when it's the younger one that he's so everlastingly stuck on that he can't behave like a gentleman to any man to whom she shows the slightest preference." We heard a coming step, but I talked on: "Sense! poor simpleton! he knows he hasn't got"—the door opened and Harry stepped partly in, but I only raised my voice,—"hasn't got as much brains in his whole head as there is ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... 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 is the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... your life a burden to you, if I were! I'd learn you to ill-use a woman! I'd give it you, you white-livered dotipole [cowardly simpleton] of a Pharisee! Never since ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... but choice garden. These heavenly blessings had seemed mere than enough for nearly five years, during which the good sister and I had kept house together, leading a life of tranquil happy days. Friends and books and flowers! It was, we said, a good world, and I, simpleton,—pretty and dainty as Margaret was,—deemed it would go on forever. But, alas! one day came a Faust into our garden,—a good Faust, with no friend Mephistopheles,—and took Margaret from me. It is but a month since they were married, and the rice ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... 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, intelligence ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... metre for serious subjects, and to adapt it only to what is meant to be burlesque, humorous, or satiric. The example above does not confirm this opinion, yet the rule, as a general one, may still be just. Ballad verse may in some degree imitate the language of a simpleton, and become popular by clownishness, more than by ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... you two possessed. Walking on ahead, I prepared for what I knew must come, filling the empty wallet with very small stones picked up along the road. That wallet went into the stream. It is surprising how prone human nature is to jump at conclusions. Why should any of you think that I am simpleton enough to throw away good money? Dear, dear, what a world this ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... a peasant and his wife who had three daughters. The two elder girls were cunning and selfish; the youngest was simple and open-hearted, and on that account came to be called, first by her sisters and afterward by her father and mother, "Little Simpleton." Little Simpleton was pushed about, had to fetch everything that was wanted, and was always kept at work; but she was ever ready to do what she was told, and never uttered a word of complaint. She ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... 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 you what my views are as to choosing a profession—I ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... to do a foolish thing for me, I should be a simpleton to prevent her," said Armand to himself. "She has a liking for me beyond a doubt; and as for the world, she cannot despise it more than I do. So, now for the ball if ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... leaping into the boat, he saw the man at whose house he had procured the fire, staring like a simpleton at him. ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... recovering his lost vivacity. "Are we in the land of dreams? Do you take the Chevalier de Croustillac for a simpleton? Do you think I am one of those weak-minded creatures who believe in the devil? I am not a goose, and I also ask twenty-four hours in which to demolish all ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... that was not musical, and thought of the other dancers. "Doubtless," he mused, "she has told this beau of hers that she has left the baby with the 'looney' Man on the Beach. Perhaps I may be offered a permanent engagement as a harmless simpleton accustomed to the care of children. Mothers may cry for me. The doctor is at Eureka. Of course, he will be there to see his untranslated goddess, and condole with her over the imbecility of the Man on the Beach." Once he carelessly asked Joe who the ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... he could not think of giving her absolution. The lady was at a loss whether to be indignant at his impudence or to laugh outright at his folly. She however assumed a becoming gravity and sang-froid, and told him that he was very much mistaken if he thought he had got hold of a simpleton or a bigot in her; that she had sent for him merely with the idea of conforming to the national worship, and not with the most remote persuasion of the necessity or efficacy of his or any other priest's absolution; she added: "Your conduct has ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... little. It was not the first time that she had been called a simpleton, or some kindred name, by the out-spoken Miss Fanny; for this young lady prided herself on not being afraid to speak plainly, and tell people just what she ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... remember! That simpleton at Willoughby Pastures." If his wife had dropped the pillow-sham, and sunk into a chair beside the bed, fixing him with eyes of speechless reproach; if she had done anything dramatic, or said anything tragic, no matter how unjust or exaggerated, Sewell could ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... Raven, "up to Pine Grove. You've got an hour, you little simpleton. What did you ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... pat my foot," answered Kitty; and in fact the charming simpleton on shore, having perfected her attitude, was tapping the ground nervously with the toe of ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... the large class of stories about simpletons, so dear to the public in all parts of the world. In the Skazkas a simpleton is known as a durak, a word which admits of a variety of explanations. Sometimes it means an idiot, sometimes a fool in the sense of a jester. In the stories of village life its signification is generally that of a "ninny;" in the "fairy stories" ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... fact, there was on Scott's part no trade whatever in the case. If a publisher chose to secure in advance what he anticipated would be a profitable commodity, that was mainly the publisher's affair, and the poet would have been a simpleton not to close with the offer if he liked it. Scott admirably disposes of Byron as follows ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... moment, and then answered, "The Roman Pontiff." "If it be he," said I, "I can have nothing to do with him; I will serve no one who is an enemy of Christ." Thereupon he drew near to me, and told me not to talk so much like a simpleton; that as for Christ, it was probable that no such person ever existed, but that if He ever did, He was the greatest impostor the world ever saw. How long he continued in this way I know not, for I now considered that an evil spirit was before me, and shrank within myself, shivering in every limb; ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Do you take me for a simpleton? for one of Moliere's uncles?... Enough of playing a farce. You do not take me in, my good fellow. I told you yesterday that you were cleverer than I; you did not see then that I was joking? Your mask ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... 'from its wildness, should be another of those dreams that have so broken my rest of late. In mercy to me! Pho! The old simpleton has ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... in love a simpleton, When to escape myself I seek and shift, Lady, I of my heart the humble gift Vow unto thee. In trials many a one, True, brave, I've found it, firm to things begun; By gracious, prudent, worthy thoughts uplift. When roars ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... you aware of what I tell you? To slight money on some occasions is sometimes the surest gain. What! —were you afraid, you greatest simpleton alive, if you had parted with ever so little[38] of your right, and had humored the young man, that he would not repay you ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... have made a simpleton of your aunt Hervey yesterday: she came down from you, pleading in your favour. But when she was asked, What concession she had brought you to? she looked about her, and knew not what to answer. So your ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... brimming with crystal drops which slipped—as a child's tears slip—down her cheeks. She clasped her hands in exquisite appeal. He stood for a moment quite still, his mind fled far away and he forgot where he was. And because of this the little simpleton's shallow discretion ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... "Ay—plotting, simpleton. I said plotting. I mind me 'tis not the first time I have seen them so mysterious together. It began on the day that first Mr. Caryll set foot at Stretton House. There's a deal of mystery about that man—too ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... Third, 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 ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... does 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 ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... play," said I, "in real life the man who declares his love in words is a simpleton; 'tis with deeds the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... answered, "it wouldn't do me no good. I am too old for that. Now, get out of the way there—do, you simpleton," she added, turning to the idiot; "just let me pass—don't you see I am ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... folly; and still less, I assure you, for that piece of perfumed and yellow-complexioned politeness, her husband. It was pride, sir, pride that ruined me. They went to Cox's Hotel, in Jermyn Street; and I, simpleton as I was, went with them,—for that was before I rode in Madam ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... almost without an exception,—rats that nibble at the honest bread and cheese of the community, and grow fat by their petty pilferings,—yet often gave them what they asked, and privately owned myself a simpleton. There is a decorum which restrains you (unless you happen to be a police-constable) from breaking through a crust of plausible respectability, even when you are certain that there ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... pencil which his grandfather gave him that the girl said she had found her pencil in her desk, and saved him from the despair of a self-convicted criminal. After that his father tried to teach him the need of using his reason as well as his conscience concerning himself, and not to be a little simpleton. But he was always in an anguish to restore things to their owners, like the good boys in the story-books, and he suffered pangs of the keenest remorse for the part he once took in the disposition of a piece of treasure-trove. This was a brown-paper ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... the grim phantom of poverty forever. And it was this desire which inspired him with the same plan that M. Fortunat had formed. "Why shouldn't I inform Wilkie?" he said to himself. "If I present him with a fortune, the simpleton ought certainly to give me some reward." But to carry this plan into execution it would be necessary to brave Madame d'Argeles's anger; and that was attended by no little danger. If he knew something about her, she on her side knew everything connected with his past life. ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... gracious, pardonable thing, because in its essentials are youth and zeal and all high, white-hot qualities whose roots strike not in the base earth. Any sage, nay, any simpleton, seeing Maxine upon the balcony, could have told her what a fool she was; but who would have told it without a pause, without a sigh for the divinity ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... care, about society and fashionable position. I kept saying to you that I envied you your tastes, and let you see that I considered myself your real inferior in my determination to attract attention and oblige society to notice us. I was guileless and simpleton enough to tell you of my progress—things I would have blushed to tell another woman like myself—because I considered you the embodiment of high aims and spiritual ideas, as far superior to mine as the poetic star is superior to the garish electric light. I thought it might amuse you to listen ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... walked up to the hotel. The former had possessed himself of sufficient evidence to convict Captain Chinks of smuggling, and also of intense stupidity in employing a simpleton like Ben Chinks in such a dangerous business, though rogues and villains almost always leave ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... simpleton Gatien has, I suppose, related to you a speech I made simply to make him confess that he adored you," said Etienne. "Your silence, during dinner the day before yesterday and throughout the evening, was enough to betray one of those indiscretions which we never commit in Paris.—What ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... King, with a bluff Westphalian 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 few persons being in the room. When the prelate retired, the courtiers in the ante-room ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... get out of such society I retired early to bed. As I left the room the diminutive Scotch individual was describing to the old simpleton, who on the ground of the other's being a "member," was listening to him with extreme attention, how he was labouring under an access of bile owing to his having left his licorice somewhere or other. I passed a quiet night, and in ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... perfect felicity is not so common, that the heaven-blessed man who possesses it, should be simpleton enough ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... and 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 ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... the son grew up a dashin' fine young man; and if he wasn't the best av scamers, he was nearly as good a mason as the father himself, and was quiet and honest, only a terrible simpleton, and what the English gentleman that used to come to see your honor called spooney; though what a man had to do with a spoon, myself doesn't see. But the father racked his brains constantly to find out some way to make him knowin'; ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... taught me my Pater and Credo, but we have 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
... Missouri line was held by powerful European States which it would be madness to offend, and as the country south of that line was held by feeble States which it would be easy to conquer, no Northern or Western statesman could vote for such a measure without proving himself a rogue or a simpleton. Hence all measures of "compromise" necessarily failed during the last days of the administration ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... was afraid of irritating him. But the poor girl's dumb eloquence irritated him more than anything else would have done, and he caught himself murmuring more than once that it was a grievous pity his only child was a simpleton. His murmurs, however, were inaudible; and for a while he said nothing to any one. He would have liked to know exactly how often young Townsend came; but he had determined to ask no questions of the girl herself—to say nothing ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... thought the young man was a simpleton, and that he, himself, was most wise and fortunate; but the former, nothing daunted by this opinion, which he was not unconscious that the latter entertained of him, immediately hired a set of laborers, and set them to work in the field trenching, as earnestly ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... who had three sons, the youngest of whom was called the Simpleton. He was laughed at and despised and neglected on all occasions. Now it happened one day that the eldest son wanted to go into the forest, to hew wood, and his Mother gave him a beautiful cake and a bottle of wine to take with him, so that he might not suffer from hunger or thirst. When ...
— The Golden Goose Book • L. Leslie Brooke
... "Don't be a simpleton, child, and bind yourself with your eyes bandaged," he abruptly and laconically said to her one day. "When Verner's Pride falls in, then marry ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... fact, that these persons, who are generally women, frequently make large sums of money out of the credulity of their fellow creatures. Every mail brings them letters from persons in various parts of the country. These letters are generally answered, and the contents have disgusted more than one simpleton. The information furnished is such as any casual acquaintance could give, and just as trustworthy as the reports of the "reliable gentleman just from the front," used to prove during the late war. The city custom of these impostors is ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... deadened with narcotics, rendered independent of all such things by a little skilful rubbing alone. Perhaps you object that these remedies are "very simple." Well, that would be no great harm; but if they are so simple, you are surely a simpleton if you let your poor nerves be killed with morphia, while such obvious remedies are at hand. ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... What about Tilly Marsden? It is dreadful to think of her wandering about this great city entirely alone—and she such a simpleton. Of course, it's hopeless to try to find her. Papa ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... those people pitiable enough who let their hearts break their sleep and interfere with their appetites," replied Diana. "I have got over my disappointment already; and Clarice will be a simpleton if she do not." ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... Savoie's gentlemen, who asked me if M. de Martigues's wound could be cured. I told him no, that it was incurable: and off he went to tell M. le Due de Savoie. I bethought myself they would send physicians and surgeons to dress M. de Martigues; and I argued within myself if I ought to play the simpleton, and not let myself be known for a surgeon, lest they should keep me to dress their wounded, and in the end I should be found to be the King's surgeon, and they would make me pay a big ransom. On the other hand, I feared, if I did not show I was a surgeon and had dressed ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... 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 ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... reports, etc. And if I could, I would gladly specify all the various printed sources to which I am indebted. But my memory is not equal to such a feat. I can only say that I rarely write a novel without milking about two hundred heterogeneous cows into my pail, and that "A Simpleton" is no exception to my general method; that method is the true method, and the best, and if on that method I do not write prime novels, it is the fault of the man, and not of ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... which his carriage lacked, he persuaded me that one horse was enough—at the price of two. To save time I yielded, deducting twenty-five cents only from the sum agreed on, lest I should appear too easily cheated. That sense of being ridiculed as an inexperienced simpleton, when I had merely paid my interlocutor the compliment of trusting him, never ceased to be a pain ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... 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)
... king who had three sons, two of whom were clever and shrewd, but the third did not talk much, was simple and was merely called the Simpleton. When the king grew old and feeble and expected his end, he did not know which one of his sons should inherit the kingdom after him. So he said to them, "Go forth, and whoever brings me the finest carpet shall be king after ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... rendered themselves especially remarkable by their bashfulness, and I was neither much better nor much worse than my neighbours in that respect; but I was so taken aback when I entered the tent and my eyes met those of its occupant, that I could only bow somewhat awkwardly, blushing like a simpleton the while. ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... Eton, yet he behaved like a lunatic about this very thing. Poor chap, he reads like anything, and I suppose he'd been overdoing it, for he actually asked me to choose between Mrs. Lascelles and himself! What could a fellow do but let the poor old simpleton go? They seem to think you can't be pals with a woman without wanting to make love to her. Such utter rot! I confess I lose my hair with them; but that doesn't excuse me in the least ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... favorite puss! It wasn't for nothing that so many 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 ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... among strangers, but he seldom chose to be so in his own house. All this made the advent of Phoebe appear to him like a sudden revelation out of a different world. He was an Oxford man, with the best of education, but he was a simpleton all the same. He thought he saw in her an evidence of what life was like in those intellectual professional circles which a man may hope to get into only in London. It was not the world of fashion he was aware, but he thought in his simplicity that it was the still ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... clergyman; "he is a simpleton—a fool only, and will not be condemned to eternal ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... withstand the sensual temptations with which the evil-minded sorcerer has surrounded himself in his magical castle. An oracle, that had spoken from a vision, which one day shone about the talisman, had said that this deliverer fool, an innocent simpleton, pity ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... with good-natured, placid, simple, and tearful stubbornness, "if you could but enter into my feelings and see the matter from beginning to end as I see it!" To confess the truth, I have since felt that I was hard-hearted to the poor simpleton, and that there was more weight in his remonstrance than I chose to be sensible of, at the time; for, like many men who have been in the habit of making playthings or tools of their imagination and sensibility, I was too rigidly tenacious of what was ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... penitentiary's like? Did you ever hear the clang of a celldoor as the turnkey 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 old ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... handkerchief, advanced towards them. I own that my heart was beating tolerably quickly all the time, but I tried to look as brave as a lion. When they saw that I had laid aside my weapon, for which I had reason to suspect they thought me a great simpleton, their own courage returned, and then rushing forward, I was soon surrounded by their motley band, each man amusing himself, very much to his satisfaction though very little to mine, by thrusting the point of his ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... street-arab; but his own impression was that his wild and ferocious appearance acted as a living rebuke to young men of weaker natures. If I had to express a blunt opinion, I should say he was a dreadful simpleton. Every man likes to be attractive in some way in the springtime and hey-day of life; when the blood flushes the veins gaily and the brain is sensitive to joy, then a man glories in looking well. Why blame him? The young officer likes to show himself with his troop in ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... like, to such good purpose that they never lost a train, or a bag, or themselves. Truly, an excellent young man. Thorpe noted with especial satisfaction his fine, kindly big-brother attitude toward his sister Julia—and it was impossible for him to avoid the conviction that Louisa was a simpleton not to appreciate such children. They did not often allude to their mother; when they did, it was in language the terms of which seemed more affectionate than the tone—and Thorpe said often to himself that he did not blame them. It was not so much that they had outgrown their ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... Aprano was a woman of a great sense and judgment, but she had a son named Vardiello, who was the greatest booby and simpleton in the whole country round about. Nevertheless, as a mother's eyes are bewitched and see what does not exist, she doted upon him so much, that she was for ever caressing and fondling him as if he were the handsomest creature ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... but compassionately. 'The little simpleton!' he thought to himself. 'If half of what they say of Lady Montbarry is true, Mrs. Ferrari and her trap have but a poor prospect before them. I ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... these two, at least, could expect no direct information from their persistent 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
... eyes dropped to the floor, and a faint colour suffused her cheek. I could not understand her meaning; nor did I for a long time. Dejah Thoris was wont to say that in some things I was a veritable simpleton, and I guess that she ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... boy a simpleton, and expected one of such answers as inconvenient questions in natural history receive ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... by his dictation, these official words, everyone of which was an imposition. Excited by all I had just witnessed, it was difficult for me to refrain from making the observation; but his constant reply was, "My dear fellow, you are a simpleton: you do not understand this business." And he observed, when signing the bulletin, that he would yet fill the world with admiration, ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... even a bigger simpleton than I took you to be," answered Emlyn angrily, as she rose and stretched herself, for her limbs were cramped. "The oath, pshaw! By now he is absolved from it as given under fear. Did you not hear me whisper to you to ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... administering small doses keep a man chained to his bed for two months when you can cure him with quinine in a week. You have none of those characteristics which in the eyes of the average American make an aristocrat. From the American point of view you are a simpleton, because you are always ready to sacrifice yourself for every poor dog that strays your way. You ought to return to a land where, thank the Lord, the aristocracy of the spirit, the aristocracy of ideas is still a match for that ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... not be killed in the coming struggle. The coming struggle with the Xenophon was nothing compared to his present struggle. Fernando still loved Morgianna. Five years had only added to the intensity of his love; but he had once made a simpleton of himself, and he determined not to do so again. Thus two hungry souls, thirsting for each other's love, acted the cold part of casual acquaintances. Could the veil have been lifted, could the barriers have been broken down, what misery might have been spared! but it is ever thus. Humanity ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... you could notice it much, I guess. It's a simpleton's job up in the conning tower to-day. All he has to do is to shift the wheel a little to port, or to starboard, just so as to keep the proper interval from the 'Dad' boat. Besides, I've been up there on relief, for an hour while you slept, and Hal came down and sat ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... darling,' said Fanny, 'that's just as it may happen. Here he is again. Look at him. O, you simpleton!' ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... the simpleton really think that everybody has read all he has written? Does he really believe that everybody remembers all of his, writer's, words he may happen to have read? At one of those famous dinners of ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... used to do. Then he always held open the gates of the different fields they passed through, shutting them after her, instead of making her do it. He even stopped throwing stones at a wounded bird in a field when he saw it distressed her, though he laughed at her for being such a simpleton as to care for a half-dead bird. This recalled to his mind a circumstance that had happened at school, when he and some of his schoolfellows had gone for a walk into the country one half-holiday; and he began to relate how they had caught a pigeon ...
— Carry's Rose - or, the Magic of Kindness. A Tale for the Young • Mrs. George Cupples
... whose impatience exposes their ill-breeding. A polite man, however deeply interested in the subject on which he is conversing, catches at the slightest hint to have done: a look is a sufficient intimation, and if a pretty simpleton, who sits near him, seems distraite, he puts an end to his remarks, to the great regret of the reasonable part of the company, who perhaps might have gained more improvement by the continuance of such a conversation, than a week's reading would have yielded them; for it is such company ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... the man in black. "Salamanders resemble women, or, to speak precisely, nymphs, and they are perfectly beautiful! But I feel myself rather a simpleton to ask you if you're able to see this one. One has to be a philosopher to see a Salamander, and I do not think philosophers could be ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... not rouged, were naturally red; her eyebrows, though not pencilled, were yet blue black; her face resembled a silver basin, and her eyes, juicy plums. She was sparing in her words, chary in her talk, so much so that people said that she posed as a simpleton. She was quiet in the acquittal of her duties and scrupulous as to the proper season for everything. "I practise simplicity," she would ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... to their love of bright colors. And although he had filled two graveyards with ruined husbands, and was preparing a third for the great number of wives whose constancy he had crushed out with the high price of his laces, no one was simpleton enough to blame him. No matter how many sins of extravagant men he might have to answer for, the purchase of seven pews in Grace Church, and the good will of Brown, would secure his redemption. Stewart was a hero whose deeds should be recorded ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... rather to the class of simpleton-stories; and in the following, from the Rev. J. Hinton Knowles' Folk Tales of Kashmir (Truebner: 1888), we have a variant of the well-known tale of the twelve men of Gotham who went one day to fish, and, before returning home, ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... are growing old and oblivious of the strategy you indulged in when throwing your toils around your devoted admirer, whom I, ultimately had the honor of calling my father. Your pet vagrant, Edna, is no simpleton; she can take care of her own interests, and, accept my word for it, intends to do so. She is only practising a little harmless coquetry—toying with her victim, as fish circle round and round the bait which they fully intend to swallow. Were she Aphaea herself, I should say Gordon's success ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... may be sure of that, you simpleton!" muttered Maitre Quennebert in his corner. "If you only knew what a mere novice you are at that game compared with the chevalier! If you only knew whom you had ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... examination, and all thought of the Civil Service. If I invented reasons for this, you would not believe them, and you would think ill of me. The best way is to tell you the plain truth, and run the risk of being thought a simpleton, or something worse. I have been in great trouble, have gone through a bad time. Some weeks ago there came to stay here a girl of eighteen or nineteen, the daughter of Dr. Lowndes Derwent (whose name perhaps you know). She is very beautiful, and ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... 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 ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... agreeably a tedious period of waiting!...' If I should yield to your desire, within a few weeks, as soon as your boat was ready, the hero of my love, the knight of my dreams, would betake himself to the sea, saying as a parting salute: 'Adieu, simpleton!'" ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... this Karl 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
... death she did not survive, though she had been for ever quarrelling with him. The son of Andrei, Piotr, Fedor's grandfather, did not take after his father; he was a typical landowner of the steppes, rather a simpleton, loud-voiced, but slow to move, coarse but not ill-natured, hospitable and very fond of coursing with dogs. He was over thirty when he inherited from his father a property of two thousand serfs in capital condition; but he had soon dissipated it, and ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... 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 friends, as ...
— Kate's Ordeal • Emma Leslie
... overturned the cream. "No great loss," said Etty, seeing that I was chagrined. "As easy made up as a lovers' quarrel," said Aunt Tabitha. Silly old woman! No, silly young fellow! Flora has revenged herself on me as she meant to do, for defying her power. She has turned my head; made me act like a simpleton. But "Richard's himself again," and wiser than ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... 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
... least, and who can not even grasp the concept of causation, we may say the same thing about the weak-minded, the untalented, etc. Kant says, rightly, that inasmuch as fools are commonly puffed-up and deserve to be degraded, the word foolishness must be applied to a "swell-headed'' simpleton, and not to a good and honest simpleton. But Kant is not here distinguishing between foolishness and simplicity, but between pretentiousness and kindly honesty, thus indicating the former as the necessary attribute of foolishness. Another mode of distinction is to observe that forgetfulness ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... at the town. And if we must be honest, we were in passable good humour. To tell the truth, as Gloversville began its daily tasks in that clear lusty air and in a white dazzling sunshine, we believed, simpleton that we were, that we were on the road toward making our fortune. Now, we will have to be brief in explanation of the reason why we felt so, for it is a matter not easy to discuss with the requisite delicacy. ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley |
