"Idiotical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mistaken. It was at once better and worse than that. But let's begin at the beginning. My father was a fairly wealthy man—but a dreamer. He made his money by a clever invention and lost it by an investment little short of idiotic. Like many unpractical men he had rather fancied himself as a man of business and the disillusion killed him. He—shot himself. My mother, my sister and myself were left, with nothing save a small sum in the bank and the deed of the modest house we lived in. Adela was twenty-one ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... the hospital, the infirmary, or the insane asylum, enters the bonds of wedlock with never a thought of the consequences; with never a care as to whether he will wreck his own life and happiness or that of the innocent girl he is deceiving; with never a heed of the ill-starred, diseased, puny or idiotic progeny his act may bring into being, a burden to the community, a curse to himself and a constant reminder of the parent's foolhardiness—ay, ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... look of idiotic complacency in a Turkish bath," said the other, "it is the more noticeable from the fact that you are wearing ...
— When William Came • Saki
... wish to spy upon the girl he had promised to marry. However, in my case, there need be no such scruples. I found the house and asked for Miss Montague. As I mounted the stairs to the drawing-room floor, I heard a sound of voices—the murmur of laughter; idiotic guffaws, suppressed giggles, the masculine and feminine varieties ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... report it to the governor, who, in his idiotic love for monarchy, would adjudge her responsible for a deed committed ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... to go up to his house this very day and beg his pardon, and then wipe out that idiotic charge you ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... my father and his friends, thenceforward for a considerable time, though detesting slavery, held all abolitionists and anti-slavery men in contempt,—as unpatriotic because they had defeated Henry Clay, and as idiotic because they had brought on the annexation of Texas and thereby the supremacy ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... B'ars." But it is vain to attempt to analyze the fun of Artemus Ward. Why did he make some people laugh till they cried, while others were all untouched? His secret probably was almost entirely one of manner, a trick of almost idiotic naivete, like that of Lord Dundreary, covering real shrewdness. He had his rustic chaff, his Puritan profanity; his manner was the essence of his mirth. It was one of the ultimate constituents of the ludicrous, beyond which ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... a Christmas horn; Contrary Mary, with a string of bells for bracelets, and carrying shells; Little Tommy Tucker, with a sheet of music; Jack and Jill, carrying a pail; Simple Simon, finger in mouth, looking as idiotic as possible; Polly Flinders, in a torn dress, sprinkled with ashes. The children march and countermarch to music around Mother Goose and Father Christmas, bowing as they pass them. When Mother Goose claps her hands the children group themselves on her side of platform, not in a stiff ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg
... consulted; they pronounced her physically well, and thought that time would restore her wonted animation; but month after month she grew more dull and silent, until her father feared she would become idiotic, and grew hopeless and unhappy about her. For a week before the receipt of the note from Clarence, she had been particularly apathetic and indifferent, but it seemed to rouse her into life again. She started up after reading it, and rushed wildly ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... an idiotic time. On the evening of the 11th of June, the day before yesterday, we set off from Irkutsk, in the fond hope of catching the Baikal steamer, which leaves at four o'clock in the morning. From Irkutsk to Baikal there are only three stations. ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... to a half ruinous cottage, the only habitation they had seen for miles, where he closely questioned an old woman whom he found there as to the way before them. Little satisfied with her directions, he presently stopped an idiotic looking fellow, with a huge head, whom they met driving some milch goats toward the hovel, and questioned him. The goatherd stood staring at the party with open mouth, and gave little heed to him. But, at length, being pressed for an answer, he gave one ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... Bantam, ducking his poll. "Noa!" he repeated in a lower note; and then, while a sombre grin betokening idiotic enjoyment of his profound casuistical ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... you've got nothing to worry about. You're as fine, strapping a specimen of a healthy human being as I've ever seen.' And that was that." Parks laughed bitterly. "I guess I was supposed to be happy with the verdict, and instead I was ready to knock him down. It was idiotic, it defied ...
— Circus • Alan Edward Nourse
... my last I explained to you how restive I had been getting at home, and how my idiotic mistake had annoyed my father and had made my position here very uncomfortable. Then I mentioned, I think, that I had received a letter from Christie & Howden, the lawyers. Well, I brushed up my Sunday hat, and my mother stood on a chair and ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... No rest for the overwrought brain! What a pity that our women, Instead of decking themselves out for hours before a life-sized mirror, and when arrayed like peacocks amble into drawing-rooms or conservatories to listen for so many hours to the idiotic, half-formed expressions of the semi-monkeys who answer to the fashionable appellation of dudes, should not give themselves some fit employment. Oh, dear me! thank Heaven I'm not a society woman, and still better, that none of my family can lay ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... doubt I am, Madam. As a matter of fact, I am not clever at discussing public questions, because, as an English gentleman, I was not brought up to use my brains. But occasionally, after a number of remarks which are perhaps sometimes rather idiotic, I get certain convictions. Thanks to you, I have now got a conviction that this woman question is not a question of lovely and accomplished females, but of dowdies. The average Englishwoman is a dowdy and never has half a chance of becoming anything else. She hasnt any charm; and she has no ...
— Press Cuttings • George Bernard Shaw
... on earth do you think we'd want stories for! Do you think we've nothing better to do than to print your idiotic ravings? Have you any idea, you idiot, of the expense we're put to in setting up our fifty pages of illustrated advertising? Look here," I continued, seizing a bundle of proof illustrations that lay in front of me, "do you see this charming ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... profundity, Mainwaring, and think of it ever being bullied and overawed by a long veranda-load of gaping, patronizing tourists, and the idiotic flirting females of their species. Think of a lot of over-dressed creatures flouting those severe outlines and deep-toned distances with frippery and garishness. You know how you have been lulled ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... torn it!" Tai-yue remonstrated laughingly. "But wait and I'll ask him about it! so come along all of you, and I vouch I'll make him abandon that idiotic frame of mind and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... acknowledged few peers but this was to her, unfamiliar country. She was moreover pitting her skill against one who was her equal if not her superior, and who knew every trail and by-way hereabouts. He was a youth with a vacuous, almost idiotic face, whom she had that same day encountered. He had left her sight, but had never been too remote to follow or gauge her course and what he learned he relayed to others. In due time he had known without going further just where she must bring up—for he knew the condition of that stream—and ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... wretched Nupton who must have made—must be going to make—some idiotic mistake.... Look here, Soames! you know me better than to suppose that I.... After all, the name "Max Beerbohm" is not at all an uncommon one, and there must be several Enoch Soameses running around—or rather, "Enoch Soames" is a name that might occur ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... me that this is illogical—idiotic, in fact. Suppose you had this granite-hearted, bloody-jawed maniac of Russia loose in your house, chasing the helpless women and little children—your own. What would you do with him, supposing you had a shotgun? Well, he is loose in your house-Russia. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Cerizet. "La Peyrade was telling me only yesterday, by way of explaining Thuillier's idiotic simplicity, that he had believed a most ridiculous bit of humbug. The 'honest bourgeois' is persuaded that the seizure was instigated by Monsieur Olivier Vinet, substitute to the procureur-general. The young man aspired for a moment to the hand of Mademoiselle Colleville, and the ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... frantic, and tried to read; but there was nothing visible upon the whirling page except "Punch! punch in the presence of the passenjare." By sunrise I was out of my mind, and everybody marveled and was distressed at the idiotic burden of my ravings—"Punch! oh, punch! punch in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... down this yer grade, at just this time, and sittin' right on that stone, in just your attitude, was a man about your build and years. I pulled up to let him in, when, darn my skin! if he ever moved, but sorter looked at me without speakin'. I called to him, and he never answered, 'cept with that idiotic stare. I then let him have my opinion of him, in mighty strong English, and drove off, leavin' him there. The next morning, when I came by on the up-trip, darn my skin! if he wasn't thar, but lyin' all of a heap on the boulder. ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... and obey gestures when they have no knowledge whatever of words. It is also found that semi-idiotic children who cannot be taught more than the merest rudiments of speech, can receive a considerable amount of information through signs, and can express themselves by them. Sufferers from aphasia continue to use appropriate gestures after their words have become uncontrollable. It is further ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... lots of things, but please remember that Sig Brazier was my husband, quite as much, if not more than Belle's, that he committed—that he died under our roof, and simply because the divorce laws of this country are idiotic is no reason why I should abdicate my rights as a wife—at least his last wife. If Belle attempts her grand airs or begins to lord it over me I'll ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... and triumphant when she carried off a stake of eight annas. Shafto would have enjoyed these matches, and this contest of wits and luck, had Ma Chit been elsewhere, instead of leaning on his chair, looking over his hand, laughing, throwing quick glances, and making idiotic remarks. Once he had been not a little startled to find her tiny brown fingers inserted between his collar and his neck! He shook them off impatiently; he hated such practical jokes, and said so in no ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... moment by his stupidity, which you call his kindness, by his dullness, which you call his confidence, and then, above all, because he is my husband, instead of you! I feel him between us, although he does not interfere with us much. And then?... and then?... No, it is, after all, too idiotic of him not to guess anything! I wish he would at any rate be a little jealous. There are moments when I feel inclined to say to him: 'Do you not see, you stupid creature, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... she looked full at Fraulein and met the brown eyes. She met them until they turned away and Fraulein broke into smiling generalities. Conversation was released all round the table. Emphatic undertones reached her from the English side. "Fool"... "simply idiotic." ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... life is made easy to him, and as a matter of course avoids those in which the fare is poorest and the work most arduous. The honest seeker after work knows nothing of these things and the whole iniquitous and idiotic system is at once a direct bribe to the inveterate work-shirker and a scourge to the honest and industrious poor. I published the result of my own researches into it in the columns of Mayfair now nearly ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... her fears proved groundless. Masterman himself opened the door for her as she went up the steps. "Saw you coming," he explained. "Just got out from town. Ena's been telling me the most distressing thing—the most damnably theatrical, idiotic thing. Perhaps you've ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... occurred to me that the poor man would take such an idiotic remark seriously, so we neither of us looked at him until we had examined every door and window to find if haply one had been left unlocked. Nor did we notice that we were doing all the work until ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... Tolstoi. For instance, when I asked him if he had patented his liquid city invention, he said he did not wish to make a profit from his discovery, but intended it for the good of humanity at large. Imagine such an idiotic idea ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... pointing out to them a broom, that it had formerly been a novice who neglected to sweep out the Council room, hence was reborn as a broom,(!) therefore the wisest of all the world's sages stands accused of idiotic superstition. Why not try and understand the true meaning of the figurative statement before criticising? Is or is not that which is called magnetic effluvia a something, a stuff or a substance, invisible ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... upper part of an old lady's body was projected out of a window upstairs. She tossed her arms above her white cap, scolding in a cracked voice. The gardener remained glued to the tree, his toothless mouth open in idiotic astonishment, and a little farther up the path the pretty girl, as if spellbound to a small grass plot, ran a few steps this way and that, wringing her hands and muttering crazily. She did not rush between the combatants: the onslaughts of Lieut. Feraud were so fierce that her heart failed her. ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... the brick wall, too stunned to join in my companions' stampede, I yet did not lose my senses. Neither did I cry out or whimper. Children have gone into convulsions and become idiotic for less cause. I was phenomenally healthy, and, as I have said, no coward. Before the hindmost deserter gained the draw-bars my reason was on the return path. I had the signal advantage above my comrades of not believing in ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... like, for instance, those which give its pretty name to the Street of the Four Fountains and which consist of two extremely plain Virtues and two very dull old Rivers, diagonally dozing at each other over their urns in niches of the four converging edifices. They are not quite so idiotic under their disproportionate foliage as the conventional Egyptian lions of the Fountain of Moses, with manes like the wigs of so many lord chancellors, and with thin streams of water drooling from the tubes between their lips. But these ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... out the underpinning of the bridge, and nothing was left but a few ties, the rails and the stringers. A half witted boy, who lived in Dunraven, had been fishing that day like "Simple Simon," and came tramping up to the office, telling Miss Marsh, in an idiotic way, that Peach Creek bridge had washed out. Just then she heard me "OS" the flyer and her office was the next one to mine. As the flyer did not stop at Dunraven, the baggageman and helper went home at six o'clock and she was absolutely alone save for this half witted boy. The section ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... the youth of twenty-one would do well to follow me. I did not do all these things. Far from it! I wish I had. I only say that if I were twenty-one, as I now see life, I would do as I have here suggested. But perhaps I would not. I might go about barking my shins and burning my fingers, making idiotic experiments in the endeavour to prove that I was an exception to all the rules, and knew a little more than all the ancients. So let not the young man be discouraged if he has committed follies; for ...
— 21 • Frank Crane
... laughs at him or good Mrs. Bobus, as they have their dinner at one o'clock. But who will not jeer at Sir Thomas on a melting day, and Lady Bobus, at Margate, eating shrimps in a donkey-chaise? Yes, knighthood is absurd: and chivalry an idiotic superstition: and Sir Walter Manny was a zany: and Nelson, with his flaming stars and cordons, splendent upon a day of battle, was a madman: and Murat, with his crosses and orders, at the head of his squadrons charging victorious, was only a crazy mountebank, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... repeated, with a titter between scorn and hysterics. "His mind, indeed! Henri, is this an idiotic pleasantry, or are you mad? His mind! And what of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I couldn't bear to hear you say that your life was slavery. Your life is merely idiotic. Slaves were sturdy, magnificent people who understood massage, and you look as if a powder puff could blast you ...
— Clair de Lune - A Play in Two Acts and Six Scenes • Michael Strange
... and defending his country on the frontier. It might be that France of the plebiscite, while giving itself over to the Emperor, had not desired war; he himself, only a week previously, had declared it to be a culpable and idiotic measure. There were long discussions concerning the right of a German prince to occupy the throne of Spain; as the question gradually became more and more intricate and muddled it seemed as if everyone must be wrong, no one right; so that it was impossible to tell from ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... satisfactorily than he realized, even though he was still running off page after page of repetitious exercise, leavened now and then by a page of idiotic sentences the letters of which were restricted to the center of the typewriter keyboard. The practice, even the hunt-and-peck relaxation from discipline, exercised the small muscles. ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... got into a silly place where it began to look as though we'd get our heads knocked off, Sengoun and I. I'm really quite serious, Princess. If it hadn't been for Miss Dumont—" he shrugged; "—and that is twice she has saved my idiotic head for ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... Craig's grandson. His firstborn, Tom, was wild, and went to sea—the old story—leaving wife and unborn child for his father to look to. Six years had gone—the seventh began at New Year's; the boy was born, burnt, saved alive, and not idiotic; its mother had died; Adam's life was outrunning the child's, and he would soon have to leave it to go on by itself; but his faith in his son's ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... devil's delight at Headquarters, and the chief was out for blood. He was determined to arrest somebody, and I suggested Ramsey, but he got purple in the face and told me he'd instructed your people to bag Froelich. I thought this quite idiotic, but it relieved the chief's feelings, and it was too late to do anything sensible. We knew the ship she took; of course, she was much too clever to sail under the English flag. Naturally we wirelessed, but they won't dare touch her. After that ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... they can use to solve the problems for themselves or to digest the things written by Anatole France and others. But how do you suppose that I, for instance, could a few years ago have relished Anatole France? Wouldn't you think it idiotic for anyone to have given me such books, at that time, with any expectation of my appreciating their refined and ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... surprising if the Chan Santa Cruz sentinels had seen that idiotic Jake, and followed him in order to learn where we were hiding," he said when Neal asked why they had left the ravine during the hottest portion of the day. "If the Indians should besiege us here, it would ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... emperor was thus filling all the courts of Europe with his clamor against Count Neuperg, declaring that he had exceeded his powers and that he deserved to be hung, he at the same time, with almost idiotic fatuity, sent the same Count Neuperg back to the Turkish camp to settle some items which yet required adjustment. This proved, to every mind, the insincerity of Charles. The Russians, thus forsaken by Austria, also made peace with the Turks. They consented ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... movements, and his plans. And all this while the country, the people, is kept officially ignorant of its honor, of its fate. All publicity and communication is suppressed—not to inform thereby the enemy of our movements. How idiotic, how silly! As if the march and the movements of an army of one hundred thousand men could be kept secret from a vigilant and desperate enemy, and the enemy wanted to read the papers ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... at least one beggar in ambush: to say nothing of the tombs and secluded altars. From every one of these lurking-places, such crowds of phantom-looking men and women, leading other men and women with twisted limbs, or chattering jaws, or paralytic gestures, or idiotic heads, or some other sad infirmity, came hobbling out to beg, that if the ruined frescoes in the cathedral above, had been suddenly animated, and had retired to this lower church, they could hardly have made a greater confusion, or exhibited a ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... suddenly round the corner of the implement shed. For the moment they stood disconcerted, while the agitated hen clucked alarm at her offspring. The pig, squealing in a high treble, was standing with snout twitching and front feet apart, a picture of idiotic confusion. Perhaps the hen, with the superior feminine knowledge of her age, understood something of the situation, and appreciated the young porker's inability. Anyway, she took the initiative in aggression, ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... abroad was legally pressable, it laid it down as a logical sequence that no man, whatever his vocation or station in life, was lawfully exempt; that exemption was in consequence an official indulgence and not a right; and that apart from such indulgence every man, unless idiotic, blind, lame, maimed or otherwise physically unfit, was not only liable to be pressed, but could be legally pressed for the king's service at sea. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 7. 300—Law Officers' Opinions, 1778-83, No. 26; and Admiralty Records 1. 581—Admiral ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... he had read it. "Perhaps now you will admit the justice of my plaint that you did not make a simple purchase of my liberty, as I counselled you, instead of entering into this idiotic compact with ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... wrath, and strode nearer, grinding his teeth. Gibbie looked up, knew him, and starting to his feet, turned to the hill. Angus, levelling his gun, shouted to him to stop, but Gibbie only ran the harder, nor once looked round. Idiotic with rage, Angus fired. One of his barrels was loaded with shot, the other with ball: meaning to use the shot barrel, he pulled the wrong trigger, and liberated the bullet. It went through the calf of Gibbie's right leg, and he fell. It had, however, passed between two muscles without injuring ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... quite finished talking idiotic nonsense to that little beast," interrupted Hereward sarcastically, "you'll perhaps kindly oblige me by mentioning whether you're ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... bounding to meet him and slid to a halt with his saucer feet scattering gravel and the idiotic grin on his face. "I mair your retter and you ...
— —And Devious the Line of Duty • Tom Godwin
... I could have painted her into my picture, with the thin, ruddy sunshine flecking her dress; wished that I had not cut such an idiotic figure. I stared until her filmy summer hat, which was the last bit of her to disappear, had vanished. Then, discovering that I still held the horrid remains of a sausage-sandwich in my hand, I threw it into the underbrush with unnecessary force, and, ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... Was I sure that I wanted her—for life? No use! I wanted her now, no matter what price that future might demand. An awkward silence fell between us—awkward to me, at least—and I, her guide and mentor, became banal, apologetic, confused. I made some idiotic remark about being together in ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... tell him of my purchase. I now heard that I should have waited for his reply before concluding it. A man does not buy tracts of land like that, I was severely told. And as I was so very young and (he implied it) idiotic, he had intervened to stop the sale, pending inquiries and the discharge of certain formalities which were legally required. If the seller went into the court and had the transfer registered and a proper deed of sale made out, ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... him—how could life ever be fine for a man who let the prizes, the treasures, slip from his fingers, without an attempt to clutch them? It was so now that he saw the whole of the affair—blame of Marie Ivanovna there was none, only of his own weakness, his imbecile, idiotic weakness. In that last conversation with her why could he not have said that he refused to let her go, held to her, dominated her, as a strong man would have done? No, without a word, except a cry of impotent childish rage, he had submitted.... So, all his life it had been—so, ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... months here to know that he would have to do it this way. Four months of ridiculous masquerade—made idiotic by the incredible fact that everyone took him for exactly what he pretended to be, and never challenged him—not even Terry Fisher, who drunk or sober always challenged everything and everybody! But the four months had told on his nerves, in his reactions, in the hollows under his quick brown ...
— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse
... appropriations having been exhausted, viz: Expenses of the Presidential election; expenses of the General Assembly, trustees of benevolent institutions, care of state-house, gas for state-house, expenses of legislative committees, binding for the State, and the new idiotic asylum. ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... the narrative is simply splendid in absurdity. Hesitating references to refrangibility and the angle of incidence would have been sheerly idiotic under the supposed circumstances; and in the Newtonian reflector (which has only two specula or mirrors) there is no refrangibility to be corrected; apart from which, 'correcting refrangibility' has no more meaning than ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... increased. For this reason it is better that the first year of married life should be allowed to pass without conception taking place. A child begotten in an intoxicated or depraved condition of a parent may be depraved itself in the same way, and is apt to be feeble-minded or idiotic. ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith
... depression which had settled on us seemed more noticeable, during our short leave-taking, than the fleeting good-humour of the last few days. My friends were well aware of the terrible and utterly forlorn condition in which I found myself. I had been idiotic enough to count on the proceeds from the Leipzig concert to provide at least the needs of the moment, and I was, in the first place, put into the awkward position of being unable to pay my landlord punctually (the house rent at Biebrich being now due). But I was ready to stake ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... dine at "The Fried Cat," and so resolved to take his dinner in the gorgeous cafe of The Lorne. While he was waiting for the proper moment to descend thither, he could not get the shoe question out of his mind. Surely, the boot-boy could not have been so idiotic as to have left that ancient, broken-down pair at Littimer's threshold! And yet it was possible. Crombie felt another flush of humility upon his cheeks. Then he wandered off into reverie upon the ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... instructive to think of the 'sea-green incorruptible' and his idiotic 'Feast of the Supreme Being' on that beautiful clay of Pentecost, in the charming rural commune of St.-Quentin, the peace and happiness of which was for a time so cruelly broken up by his atrocities and follies a hundred years ago. The fine old church, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... to be found. For whatever reason—and he puzzled himself to think of a satisfactory one— his foot-gear was undoubtedly missing, and there was an end of the matter. The curious happening vexed him considerably. It seemed such an idiotic trick to play; and the more he thought about the matter the more convinced he became that this joke, or whatever it was intended to be, had a deeper significance than he had ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... you tell me if this is a new parlour game, or are these actual troopers who are a little more idiotic than the average?' ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... knows I am not in my senses when I do that!" he exclaimed. "Well, I must walk about till I find her....Seize her, why didn't she know better than bring me into this disgrace!" he roared out. "She wasn't queer if I was. 'Tis like Susan to show such idiotic simplicity. Meek—that meekness has done me more harm than ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... the boy did not see, or did not mind the savage glance with which Mr Jones favoured him. The glance was, however, exchanged quickly for an idiotic smile, ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... Had he been overflowing with wealth, he would have slipped from a creditor, and duped a friend; there was a pitiful and debasing weakness in his nature, which made him regard the lowest meanness as the subtlest wit. His mind too was not only degraded, but broken by his habits of life; a strange, idiotic folly, that made him love laughing at his own littleness, ran through his character. Houseman was young; he might amend; but Clarke had grey hairs and dim eyes; was old in constitution, if not years; and every thing in ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... her. "And as for you, ungrateful girl—perfidious, yes, and insolent one—you deserve to be denounced to the world. Oh, we understand those retreats. What more alluring to the man who pursues than the woman who flees? What more inflaming than the pose of white, idiotic innocence? You did not know. You did not understand—" fiercely, in a mincing voice, she mimicked a supposed exculpation. "You are so young, so ignorant of life—so immer kindlich! Ah!" she laughed, half strangled, "until the man seizes you ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... more on that subject, grandpa; I can answer that question for you, or any other inquirer. All intelligent animals, whether they go upon two feet or four, or upon wings or fins, have reason just in proportion to their intelligence. And all idiotic animals, whether they go upon two feet or four, or wings or fins, lack reason just in proportion to their idiocy. Lor'! why I have seen human creatures at the Idiot Asylum with less intellect than cats. And I have seen some horses with more intelligence than some legislators. You can't ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... identa. idiom : idiomo, idiotismo. idiotic : idiota. idle : senokupa. idol : idolo. illegitimate : nelauxlegxa, bastarda, illuminate : ilumini. illusion : iluzio. illustrate : ilustri. image : figuro, bildo. imagine : imagi, revi. imbibe : ensorbi. imbue : penetri, inspiri. imitate : imiti. immediately : tuj. imminent ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... given us some interesting adolescents. Miss Dingwall in "Sketches by Boz," "very sentimental and romantic"; the tempery young Nickleby, who, at nineteen, thrashed Squeers; Barnaby Rudge, idiotic and very muscular; Joe Willet, persistently treated as a boy till he ran away to join the army and married Dolly Varden, perhaps the most exuberant, good-humored, and beautiful girl in all the Dickens gallery; Martin Chuzzlewit, who also ran away, as ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... afflicted with what the mother called "jerky spells;" up to this time the boy seemed listless, did not care to sit up, and seemed from some cause to be in more or less pain, with his eyes turned to the left. The parents dreaded that the child, their only one, would turn out idiotic. The spasmodic spells alluded to were of a tetanic nature, the body being thrown backward; his head and eyes continued to be turned to the left, and nothing could attract the child's attention. The boy cried night and day, but he ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... these things than is any one else at the present time. However, I will compromise with you. We can learn much in a month if you will really try, instead of wasting time in fuming around the ship and indulging in these idiotic tantrums. If you will buckle down and really study the problems confronting us for thirty days, we will set out at the end of that ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... she assented. "I'm perfectly certain all this cocksure Johnny-head-in-air business, 'sail to-day and see you again at tea tomorrow, so it's not worth while saying good-by'—you know the style?—is fatuous and idiotic. It is not bluff, because the English officer-man doesn't bluff. He hasn't the brains, to begin with, and then he is a very sound sort of an animal. He doesn't need to hide his fright for the simple reason that he's not frightened. ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... round a large pond on his bicycle. He did look odd! in a thick striped jersey, and the tightest knickerbockers; almost as low as a "scorcher." He jumped off and made a most polite bow, and explained he was doing it for exercise. But I do think that an idiotic reason—don't you, Mamma? It would be just as much exercise on a road. However, he assured me that, like that, he knew exactly how many miles he went on the flat before breakfast, so I ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... idiotic actions, on the basis of an inflated and dishonest report of the battle which was sent to the empress, Nassau received a valuable estate, the military order of St. George, and authority to hoist the flag of rear-admiral; other officers were also substantially rewarded; ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood
... Madame Caravan, who had suddenly grown thoughtful, was thinking of all the probable consequences of the event, while her husband made bread pellets, which he put on the table-cloth, and looked at with a fixed, idiotic stare. As he was devoured by thirst, he was continually raising his glass full of wine to his lips, and the consequence was that his mind, which had been upset by the shock and grief, seemed to become vague, and his ideas danced about ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... waste spots, and find that a troublesome, quarrelsome race of Ana, especially if under the administration of Koom-Posh or Glek-Nas, resents our vicinity, and picks a quarrel with us; then, of course, as menacing our welfare, we destroy it: there is no coming to terms of peace with a race so idiotic that it is always changing the form of government which represents it. Koom-Posh," said the child, emphatically, "is bad enough, still it has brains, though at the back of its head, and is not without a heart; but in Glek-Nas the brain and heart of the creatures disappear, and ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the candles, I could see her staring eyes, framed by lids that looked as if they had been scalded, so red were they; her idiotic and contracted mouth, trembling with despair, and her whole pitiful face, which was drenched ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... after it was found to be a mistake, hundreds and thousands of the old physicians clung to it, carried around with them, in one pocket, a bottle of jalap, and in the other a rusty lancet, sorry that they couldn't find some patient idiotic enough to allow the experiment to ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... planted one dainty foot on the first stepping-stone, another on the next, and so on to the fourth; and if she had been a boy she would have cleared them all. But holding her skirts instead of keeping her arms to balance herself, and wearing idiotic shoes, her heels slipped on the fifth stone, which was rather slimy, and she fell into the middle of the current with a ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... finding her way, so that, if she strayed a hundred yards from her feeding-place, she was completely lost, and would then obstinately try to proceed in a wrong direction. I have received other and similar accounts of Polish fowls appearing stupid or half-idiotic.[430] ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... of a Paris studio, would put the letters half-read, in his pocket, and would immediately forget all about them. After all, he couldn't interfere with Barty; he was the man at the helm, and mustn't be talked to. Also it was idiotic to keep a dog and bark yourself. Proverbial philosophy is a recognised sedative; Larry gave himself a dose or two, and straightway forgot Cousin Dick, forgot Ireland, forgot even that gratifying nomination of himself as Nationalist candidate ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... last, long last, to end my fretting, And now you know how your devoted bard Faced for your sake the risk of fine or getting An unaccustomed dose of labour (hard); Harbour no more that idiotic notion That love to-day is unromantic, flat; Gave Lancelot such a proof of his devotion, Did ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various
... Society; it dresses quite as well, in some ways better than, it did. Society eats as much, judging from the size and number of new restaurants; its patronises as usual the silliest plays in London, and buys in larger quantities than ever the idiotic novels provided for it. Have you ever been to a bazaar in aid of Our Dumb Friends' League? Well, you see Society there, I can tell you; it is not dumb. And the conversation sounds no less vapid and no less brilliant than ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... and whistling between his teeth. He was in disgrace with every one, for by that time it was light enough to see three reporters with cameras across the street waiting for enough sun to snap the house, and everybody knew that it was Max and his idiotic wager that had done it. He had made two or three conciliatory remarks, but no one would speak to him. His antics were so queer, however, that we were all watching him, and when he had felt over the rug with his hands, and raised the edges, ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... fair cross examiner; how long do you intend remaining so quietly here, the bond slave of this idiotic old man? And what will you do when ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... was too deeply confused by his son's action to hear the words. He felt a strange, most idiotic impulse to hug his son; to place himself well out of danger, he moved back to the ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... child, having just been off on some errand, had got both feet wet, and now had her stockings off, holding them close to the coals to dry them. The boy seemed to be overgrown for his age, and half idiotic. He sat at one corner of the stove, his back to the visitors, and his legs stretched out under the hearth. His big coat collar was turned up around his neck, and his chin sunk down, so that his face could not be seen. His long, straight hair covered his ears and the sides of his face. ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... possessed with a passionate desire to learn the game of ping-pong. When all the world was playing table-tennis eight or ten years ago, King viewed the game with disgust. He thought it utterly childish, uninteresting, and admirably illustrative of all the idiotic qualities that go to make up a fad. But for the last six months, King said, he frequently wakes at night and sits up in bed and yearns with all his soul for a ping-pong set. He was, of course, ashamed to speak to others about it. But if ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... idiotic smile had thrown Hugh's thoughts into what seemed hopeless confusion, but a small incident almost immediately brought order and relief. The gymnasium cat was wandering around the rear of the gymnasium. It attracted the attention ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... Dan," she said. "I have never knowingly done you any wrong in thought, or word, or deed; all you have said to me to-day has been ridiculously wrong-headed; but never mind. Stop crying, do, and don't let us have any more idiotic jealousy. Why, it was Lady Galbraith who sent me the flowers and fruit, with a kind message of apology because she has not been able to call. Why ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... No amount of counting on fingers, or marking on paper, or interrogative arching of eyebrows, or repetition of "Chao-choo-foo li" sheds a glimmer of light on the mind of the most intelligent-looking shopkeeper in Quang-shi concerning my wants. Yet, withal, he courteously bears with my, to him, idiotic pantomime and barbarous pronunciation, and repeats parrot-like after me "Chao-choo-foo li; Chao-choo-foo li" with sundry beaming smiles ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... the appointed course, there is a good deal of hearty recognition—shouting, questioning, tossing up of arms, and expressions of goodwill—among friends. Several men hailed and saluted Fox as his smack, the Cormorant, went by, but he took no notice except with an idiotic wink of ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... listening intensely. Unconsciously she had drawn her lower lip altogether between her teeth, and I well remember what a deathlike and idiotic look the contortion gave her. My terror lest she should discover me amounted to positive agony. She rolled her eyes stealthily from corner to corner of the room, and listened with her neck ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... lights; I racked him with a picture of Eleanor, so deeply hurt, so mortified, that in her recklessness and despair she would probably throw herself away on the first man that offered! This was his chance, I told him; the one chance of his life; he was letting a piece of idiotic pride wreck the probable happiness of years. He agreed with me with moans and weeps. He had the candor of a child and the torrential sentiment of a German musician. Three hundred and four dollars and seventy-five ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... your father, and have even contracted since you came to Arnaye more or less tolerance for you,—which emboldens you, my friend, to keep me out of a comfortable bed at this hour of the night with an idiotic discourse of moonlight and dissatisfied shrubbery! As it happens, I am not a lank wench in her first country dance. Remember that, Raoul de Frison, and praise the good God who gave me at birth a very placable disposition! ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... a while, and he tore up the incline, breathing deep and hard; down into a shallow valley, leaping gorse bushes, crashing through whortle and meadowsweet, stumbling over peat-cuttings and the workings of forgotten tin-mines. An idiotic popular tune raced through his brain. He found himself trying to frame the words, but they broke into incoherent prayers, still to ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... other Italian attributions in these basement galleries. There is the usual crew of Anonimos, and a lot of those fantastic painters who are nicknamed by critics without a sense of humour as "The Master of the Fiery Hencoop," "The Master of the Eccentric Omelet," or some such idiotic title. ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... know that that bottle of red ink was a cheap, theatrical trick of a mountebank, a creature who is the laughing-stock of the press and the public, in his idiotic attempts to draw sensational notoriety upon himself. But I do know that this effort has failed! You have dared to plant this outrageous, puerile trap to attempt to ensnare me! You have dared to strike blindly, in your mad ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... I've gotten!" he remarked as he rose. In the gate sat Bakahenzie. Birnier was conscious of an idiotic impulse to rush forward to greet him as an old and long lost friend. But remembering the dignity of his godhood he remained in the tent doorway, bidding ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... me. You might have had scruples. And I was obliged to do it. After talking about the things which really matter, I couldn't dance with that vulgar little man again—or with those jealous boys. They had an idiotic quarrel, actual quarrel, down in the garden. It displeased me. I told them so, and left them, and came here to find you—because of the fountain and the sort of home-sickness it ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... accomplish the pardon and restoration of the erring mother?" General Darrington had struck his cane violently on the floor, and exclaimed: "Don't talk such infernal nonsense! Did you ever hear of my pardoning a wrong against my family name and honor? Does any man live, idiotic enough to consider me so soft-hearted? No, no. On the contrary, I was harsh to the girl; so harsh that she turned upon me, savage as a strong cub defending a crippled helpless dam. They know now that the last card has been played, and the game ended; for I gave her distinctly to understand ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... said the Templar, 'by urging the difference of our creeds; within our secret conclaves we hold these nursery tales in derision. Think not we long remain blind to the idiotic folly of our founders, who forswore every delight of life for the pleasures of dying martyrs by hunger, by thirst, and by pestilence, and by the swords of savages, while they vainly strove to defend a barren ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... to pretend not to understand him, and to walk solemnly through the water underneath and all round his branch. It made him furious, and sent him chirring upstream to find another place to fish, where there were no idiotic bear-cubs who did not know any better than to walk about ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson
... and leave me alone," she shouted in shrill falsetto. "You have got yourself up to look like my Joe—and that idiotic grin on your homely face is just like my Joe, but no city sharper can fool me, and if you don't go right along I'll call for ...
— The Mintage • Elbert Hubbard
... sure as thunder!" he exclaimed suddenly. "Those iron hoops are what did it." He rubbed his hand vexedly. "I knew better than that, too. I don't see why I didn't think about those hoops. Of all the idiotic, fool—" ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... a new species, sir," said the Doctor indignantly; "and if I do employ the hunters to collect for me, I see no inconsistency in that. But I consider this fly-fishing mania just of a piece with your IDIOTIC, I repeat it, IDIOTIC institution of fox-hunting. Why, if you laid baits poisoned with NUX VOMICA about the haunts of those animals, you would get rid of ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... push it out of the way with an impatient foot. She knew her power over him to a nicety, and she knew of his secret desire for "situations," because her instinct was never at fault; but she felt nothing more than contempt, slightly charged with pity towards him. Hartley was a good-natured, idiotic man, and Hartley had principles; Clarice Wilder had none herself, though she felt that they were definite factors in any game, but she also believed that principles were things that could be got over, or got at, by any woman who knew enough ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie |
