"Thick-headed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... trust me for that. But, if you remember, when you had finished telling me about it, you added that I was not to take the story in earnest, for that you were not really in love with a country girl, but were only jesting; and I was dull and thick-headed enough to believe you. But so fate decreed, and there is no help ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... "You poor, blundering, meddling, thick-headed fool," said Zurich unpleasantly; "can't you see what you've done? You've locked up our best chance to lay a finger on that mine. Now I'll have to get your Cousin Stanley out of jail; ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... entered the house she was henceforth to manage. I also thought it necessary to get a maid for her, and a particularly suitable person was recommended me by Mme. Herold. I had also engaged a man-servant as soon as I arrived, and although he was rather a thick-headed Swiss from Valais, who had at one time belonged to the Pope's bodyguard, he soon became quite devoted to me. In addition to these two servants there was my wife's former cook, whom she had taken with her from Zurich, and by whom she was accompanied when at last I was able to go and ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... the boy—"of all the miserable, shortsighted, thick-headed, addle-pated duffers and asses we are the worst! We took pains to find a way into a fiendish maze of tunnels, pits, and caverns, occupied by vampires and enveloped in darkness, in search of a thing that ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... assented. "Then I didn't know what to do, for a minute. The porter was a pretty thick-headed darky, but he was lion-hearted; and his idea was to lay hold of a burglar wherever he could find him. There were plenty of burglars in the aisle there, or people that were afraid of burglars, and they seemed to think the porter had a good idea. They had hold of one another already, and now began ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... simply couldn't make a pal of him. He was fairly good at police work, but a proper cad, in my opinion. Always swanking about the palatial residence he'd left behind in the Old Country. He called it ''is 'ome' at that. Typical specimen of the middle-class snob. Followed Taylor. Thick-headed, serious-minded sort of fool. Had great veneration for 'his juty.' No real knowledge of the Criminal Code, and minus common sense, yet begad! the silly beggar tried to be more regimental that the blooming Force is itself. I systematically ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... as a tortoise, and more thick-headed than a rhinoceros,' returned his obliging client with an ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... a bad influence. They provoke worldly men into using light conversation concerning sacred subjects. Thick-headed commentators upon the Bible, and stupid preachers and teachers, work more damage to religion than sensible, cool-brained clergymen can fight away again, toil as they may. It is not good judgment to fit a crown of life upon a city ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of this, you thick-headed villain," said the squire, throwing his boots at Andy's head; whereupon Andy retreated, and, like all stupid people, thought himself a ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... larger part of chapter eight of Scott's Ivanhoe. The hero of the novel is a Saxon knight, Wilfred of Ivanhoe, son of Cedric. Ivanhoe is in love with his father's ward, Rowena, but Cedric wishes her to marry a thick-headed Saxon thane, or lord, called Athelstane. According to Scott, the period was one of unrest. England had come into the possession of the Normans, and the native Saxons hated their new masters. Richard was ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... I see now. You ain't a candidate for the grammar school, after all. You want to see Mrs. Twiddler. Maria, come down here a minute. There's a thick-headed immigrant here wants ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... piece of work the city editor treated him as though it was unnecessary for him to give any praise or commendation. When Brennan disappointed him, which was seldom, P. Q. would berate him with the same caustic fervor that lashed a stupid, thick-headed reporter to a point of self-abnegation that gave him thoughts of suicide as the only way out ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... sick now to dress up for parties, but I know a thing or two that the rest don't know. Wouldn't Alice be hopping! She always thinks she's wise to everything, and to have a thick-headed boy-person know a whacking secret that they'd all be excited about would make her mad enough to burst. She thinks she can read my ingrown soul too—but I rather think I have my own interior thoughts that Miss Alice doesn't tumble to. For instance, ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... the lawyer understood his instructions, that his impression was the exact opposite to the one intended. It was a delicate matter, and Vandenesse, in spite of himself, began to put the thick-headed notary right. The discussion which followed took up a certain amount ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... it's a-coming, my friends—the corporations and the syndicates will read the handwriting on the wall; don't you be afraid of that. If they should be a little grain thick-headed and sort o' blind at first, as old King Belshazzar was, it may be that the sovereign State will have to give 'em an object-lesson—lawfully, always lawfully, you understand. But when they see, through the medium of such an object-lesson ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... finished with a studied insult, after the manner of the editor-kind, whose assurance that the function of the universe is only fulfilled when they have published the fact makes them behave as would Jove with a thick-headed immortal. "These Balkan atrocities will never cease," I said, dropping ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... "Very true, O Queen! Horribly true! But I am, you know, a positive genius in that respect. So I'm going to pretend I'm an Englishman—of the worthy, thick-headed, bulldog breed. (I am sure you admire it; you wouldn't be an Englishwoman if you didn't). And you are my devoted and adorable wife. You needn't look shocked. It's all for the sake of that chap's morals. Do you think I can ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... house right after dawn," he was saying, "because that's the time when most men are so thick-headed with sleep that—" ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... invoices that I don't understand; but I suppose it must be because I am so thick-headed," I ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... guttural tones a thick-headed Dutchman, who had manifested towards me particular dislike, "in one or TWO days more, at farthest, we shall help to carry him ashore in a wooden box." And a pleasant smile for a moment lighted up his ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... enjoy the play anyway," observed William. "She's a good girl, but she's a little thick-headed. ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... of these thick-headed tribes can be all swelled up with pride when they have little to ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... of food and wines are fixed by the local German commandant. Everything is done for you—more, of course, than one would wish—the gifted young captain-conductor speaks English one minute, French or Italian the next, gets you up in the morning, to bed at night, past countless sentries and thick-headed guards demanding an Ausweis, contrives never to cease looking as if he had stepped from a band-box, and presently pops you into your hotel in Berlin with the curious feeling of never ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... pleaded against himself, he knew that the two men of whom he was speaking were thick-headed dolts who were always tipsy on Saturday nights, and who came to church perhaps ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... poor thick-headed thing, I'm not teasing you. I wouldn't do that. You must go and learn it again. Don't you be discouraged, Tom, you'll manage it—and if you do, I'll give you something ever so nice. There, now, that's a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... opera girl or a countess! And yet my mistress is the very best mistress that ever I see!" Oh this was poor, and showed a pitiful ambition in the man that did it! I will swear, my lord, that the nobleman who could thus have been betrayed, must have been a thick-headed fellow, and fit for no one public office, not even for that of turnspit ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... you what it is," he said, the third time he came over, which was well within a week—for nothing breeds impatience faster than retirement from work—"you are so thick-headed in your farmhouse ways, sometimes I am worn out with you. I do not expect to be thought of any higher because I have left off working for myself; and Deborah is satisfied to be called 'Debby,' and walks no prouder than if she had got to clean her own steps daily. You can ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... be so thick-headed," rousing herself, and staring sleepily at the rain-washed window and the crackling fire. She sang a little hymn to herself, that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... looked at me so sorry, so grieved like, that I came out of my tantrum, and kissed the place. I've kissed it ever so many times since then, and Arthur knows I'm sorry. I ain't a fit wife for him. I don't blame him for wanting you. I can't see the WRONG, but it's because I'm so thick-headed, I suppose! I wish I wasn't!" And fixing her gaze upon the window opposite, Nina seemed to be living over the past, and trying to arrange the events of her life ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... I don't believe I should feel about her as I do if I wasn't going to meet her. Look here, Joan, you've as good as told me—and if you hadn't, I'd be pretty thick-headed not to have put two and two together—that the Luke of her letters is Sir Luke Tallant, our new Governor. Well, if she was staying with him in London, and his wife is a friend of hers, why shouldn't she come and stay ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... must depend upon those fellow-creatures who form his society. Probably the rule that obtains of men and women holds good of children also: the less brain power the more happiness. Intellect—especially a growing intellect—will give a child lightning flashes of joy denied to his more thick-headed brother; but much sorrow must also result from his extra intelligence. If he rises higher, he will sink far lower, too. The placid, ordinary youth thinks less, and digests his food better, and has a pleasanter time, on the whole. A sensitive ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... confused, one loses the thread of the investigation. Yet, as far as our judicial customs go, I agree with you fully. Where, for instance, is there a man under suspicion of some kind or other, were it even the most thick-headed moujik, who does not know that the magistrate will commence by putting all sorts of out-of-the-way questions to take him off the scent (if I may be allowed to use your happy simile), and that then ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... only to the discharged invalided pensioners of the army. On a late Queen's birthday review on the Green, the boys and girls were in ecstasies at seeing the "old fogies" dressed out in new suits. It is very often spoken derisively to a thick-headed stupid person, but which cannot determine ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... rejoiced to see a body of visitors, Mr Gregsbury looked as uncomfortable as might be; but perhaps this was occasioned by senatorial gravity, and a statesmanlike habit of keeping his feelings under control. He was a tough, burly, thick-headed gentleman, with a loud voice, a pompous manner, a tolerable command of sentences with no meaning in them, and, in short, every requisite for a very good ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... were the first to appreciate it; but soon it attracted the attention of the scientific world to such a degree that the frivolous populace of Paris had even a well-known song with the burden, "Des infiniment petits." Neither were opponents wanting. Wrong-headed men and thick-headed men are unfortunately too numerous in all times and places. One Nieuwentiit, a dweller in intellectual fogbanks, who had distinguished himself by proving the existence of the Deity in one of his works, made about this time what he doubtless considered a second discovery. He found a flaw in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... crime;—deceit, theft, violence, even ruthless vengeance upon a cruel parent, are constantly practised by the characters which they hold up to favor. Such humor as they have, too, is of the coarsest kind, and is expressed chiefly in rude practical jokes, or the bloody overreaching of the poor thick-headed Trolls, who are the butts of the stories and the victims of their heroes. There is good ethnological and mythological reason why the Trolls should be butts and victims, it is true; but that is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... he spoke. "Why, it's as easy as winking, sir," he said; "but some chaps are thick-headed, you know—in fact they have no heads at all, they've just got turnips stuck on top of their shoulders. I fair pity the young officers sometimes when they are trying to knock these chaps into shape. But they are doing it fine; and fellows who came a few weeks ago, slack ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... "you have made yourself a notorious person in this country by dint of incessant bullying and bribing and corruption of every sort. You may possess all the powers you claim. Your only mistake seems to be that you are too thick-headed to know when you are overmatched. I have been a diplomatist all my life," Mr. Sabin said, rising slowly to his feet, and with a sudden intent look upon his face, "and if I were to be outwitted by such a novice as you I should deserve ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... right to the edge of the bank an' layin' down lest some fool who didn't know the manners of our war take a pot shot at me, I called out, 'Bill Brayton, you thick-headed rebel, are you ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... he cried, as they entered, "come here, lass, and mount guard. I've almost broke my heart in trying to convince that thick-headed goose that he can't set the table properly. Take it off my hands, like a good girl.—Charley, my boy, you'll be pleased to hear that your old friend Redfeather ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... deeply was the maddening fact that these Swiss, who were made the ministers of vengeance, were part of that accursed, detested, hated, shunned, despised, abhorred, loathed, execrated, contemptible, stupid, thick-headed, brutal, gross, cruel, bestial, demoniacal, fiendish, and utterly abominable race—I Tedeschi —whose very name, when hissed from an Italian month, expresses unutterable scorn ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... atomic processes, due to the shortage of the radium series metals. It was bulky and heavy compared to the atomic disintegrators, but it was much more economical and very dependable. Dependable—provided some thick-headed stock clerk at a terrestrial supply station did not check in empty hydrogen cylinders instead of full ones. Forepaugh's unwonted curses brought a smile to the stupid, good-natured face of his servant, Gunga—he who had been banished for life from his native Mars for his impiety ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... strenuousness and clear rapidity for its excellence, hardness and insolence for its defect.' The Germanic (Anglo-Saxon and 'Danish') element explains, then, why uneducated Englishmen of all times have been thick-headed, unpleasantly self-assertive, and unimaginative, but sturdy fighters; and the Norman strain why upper-class Englishmen have been self-contained, inclined to snobbishness, but vigorously aggressive and persevering, ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... seized by Mr. Beckendorff. The truth was, that gentleman had a particular wish to see Vivian out of his house. In allowing the Prince of Little Lilliput to be attended during the interview by a friend, Beckendorff had prepared himself for the reception of some brawny Jagd Junker, or some thick-headed chamberlain, who he reckoned would act rather as an incumbrance than an aid to his opponent. It was with great mortification therefore, that he found him accompanied by a shrewd, experienced, wary, and educated Englishman. A man like Beckendorff soon discovered that Vivian ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... how the land lies, is it? I'm a thick-headed clod, or I would have suspected something of that sort when Mary pulled me down so sharply as I was cursing you at the front door." Then, with a slight touch of patronage in ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... interest in the thing at all that I had no patience to go on with my cross-questioning. I don't think she's good enough for John, I must confess; but he is easily imposed on by young ladies—as indeed, for that matter, are the rest of his great thick-headed sex. When breakfast was over and Cousin Amelia went off as usual to practise her music for an hour or two, I thought I might steal away for a visit to my favourites in the stable; indeed I saw John at the front door in ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... had read Nature's voucher instead of Napoleon's, and being thus deceived, would ever snarl at the Colonel of Dragoons. Maximilian of course knew better. What looked like toadying was only profound deference for himself. The royal favorite could discriminate. He could also be the thick-headed, intolerable martinet. The sandy lashes bristled as the American inquired a second time if he were to ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... sombre suit of leaden gray, somewhat relieved by the blackish shade of the wings and tail, with their silvery or frosted lustre. He is certainly not an attractive bird, either in dress or in form, for he appears very "thick-headed" and lumpish, as if he scarcely knew enough to seek shelter in a time of storm; but, of course, a bird that contrives to coax a livelihood out of such unpromising surroundings must possess a fine degree of intelligence, ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... you for a thick-headed mule,' he says, 'this war ain't any more than just started! Do you mean to tell me you're going to play ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... once," said Meldon, "and don't try to be sarcastic. Nothing is less becoming to you. Your proper part in life is that of the sober, well-intentioned, somewhat thick-headed, bachelor uncle. You do that excellently; but the moment you try to be clever you give ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... and the country suddenly placed in a state of siege. One morning M. Milsand came to them in anxious haste, and insisted on their starting that very day. An order, he said, had been issued that no native should leave the country, and it only needed some unusually thick-headed Maire for Mr. Browning to be arrested as a runaway Frenchman or a Prussian spy. The usual passenger boats from Calais and Boulogne no longer ran; but there was, he believed, a chance of their finding one at Havre. They acted on this warning, ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... said, who sometimes came to drink his coffee with them; and, as he had said one day that he had fought in '48, no one felt the least constraint in his presence. He spoke but little, and seemed rather thick-headed. As the gentlemen passed him on their way to the private room they grasped his hand in silence across the glasses and bottles. By his side on the crimson leather seat behind the counter there was ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... trying all the time to be dishonest under the shadow of what is called diplomacy. That is what brought the war about. It was never the will of the people. It was the Hohenzollerns and the Romanoffs, the firebrands of the French Cabinet, and your own clumsy, thick-headed efforts to get the best of everybody and yet keep your Nonconformist conscience. The people did not make this war, but it is the people who are going to ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... no notion; and as for sending a boy to Paris, it was sending him, they thought to certain ruin. Such sagacity will give a sufficient idea of the old-world manners and customs of this society, suffering from thick-headed Royalism, infected with bigotry rather than zeal, all stagnating together, motionless as their town founded upon a rock. Yet Angouleme enjoyed a great reputation in the provinces round about for its educational advantages, and ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... I was the first man at the table, and two families came in and were waited on before the Senegambian would look at me, and after an hour and thirty minutes I got a chance to order some roast beef and baked potatoes, but the perspiring, thick-headed pirate brought me some boiled mutton and potatoes that looked as though they had been put in a wash-tub and mashed by treading on them barefooted. I paid twenty-five cents for a lemonade made of water and vinegar, with a piece ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... she made the poorest marriage of anybody that I have ever had to do with, though I have always understood that he was not a bad sort, beyond being as thick-headed as his brother the squire or an officer of dragoons. He get on at the bar! I dare say not. And he was no quicker-witted or longer-sighted in Australia. You must have heard me say how grieved I was once when I came ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... Lady Keith, "how after living among a parcel of thick-headed, and thicker-tongued Yankees, she could come out and speak pure English in a clear voice; it ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... sad and stern in its expression, and when Marian asked, "Papa, is it so bad as the papers say?" he replied: "God only knows how bad it is. For a large part of our army it is as bad as it can be. The most terrible feature of it all to me is that thick-headed, blundering men are holding in their irresolute hands the destinies of just such brave young fellows as Mr. Lane here. It is not so dreadful for a man to die if his death furthers a cause which he believes to be sacred, but to die from the sheer ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... subject. "This fellow Creede wears a heavy belt of gold. Blicky never makes a mistake. Creede's partner left on yesterday's stage for Bannack. He'll be gone a few days. Creede is a hard worker-one of the hardest. Sometimes he goes to sleep at his supper. He's not the drinking kind. He's slow, thick-headed. The best time for this job will be early in the evening—just as soon as his lights are out. Locate the tent. It stands at the head of a little wash and there's a bleached pine-tree right by the tent. To-morrow night as soon as it gets dark crawl up this wash—be careful—wait till the right ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... the talk I jest wasted on you, it signifies that you're too thick-headed, Buddy, to waste any more on. I can learn you to spell if you wanta ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... rate, that's well, Falfani," said Lord Blackadder, with a sigh of satisfaction. "But what of your friend Tiler? Thick-headed dolt, unable ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... name for the typical genus of Pachycephalinae, founded in 1826 by Vigors and Horsfield. It is an extensive group of thick-headed shrikes, containing about fifty species, ranging in the Indian and Australian region, but not in New Zealand. The type is P. gutturalis, Lath., of Australia. ('Century.') They are singing-birds, and are called Thickheads (q.v.), and often Thrushes (q.v.). The name is from the Greek pachus, ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... his sisters were now doing all they could for him, by calling him "poor Richard," been nothing better than a thick-headed, unfeeling, unprofitable Dick Musgrove, who had never done anything to entitle himself to more than the abbreviation of his name, living ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... again, so absent-minded had been his last glance at the watch. "Nine-fifteen. Why didn't I telephone to Rogers and ask him to find out which way they were coming? Sometimes I'm mighty thick-headed." ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... had to intrust the firing of that gun to a bungling, thick-headed, stupid idiot of a fellow, who don't know muzzle from vent; and the wonder is that he didn't blow one of his ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... with a puzzled air. "A battalion of thick-headed niggers with some slight knowledge of civilized drill, and, perhaps, a few stockades blown ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... some weeks in London and then went to Germany. He was accompanied by Tom Thumb, and they went by the way of Paris, Strasburg, and Baden-Baden. At the frontier they had a terrible time with the thick-headed customs-inspector. This was at Kehl, near Strasburg. "I knew," said Barnum in telling the story, "that I had no baggage which was rightfully subject to duty, as I had nothing but my necessary clothing, and the package of ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... noon the owner of Juniper, the stolen horse, accompanied by the thick-headed young farm hand from whom the animal had been taken, appeared at the jail in answer to the sheriff's request for his presence. These visitors were at once taken to Rod's cell, where the young prisoner greatly refreshed ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... she, and, as it happened, she was right. Imagine any one thinking Alice Paul needed to be 'under observation!' The thick-headed idiots!" ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... 'an' I'm undher ordhers to be polite with citizens I stop,' he says; 'but, if ye don't duck up that road in half a minyit, ye poy-faced, red-eyed, lop-eared, thick-headed ol' bosthoon,' he says, 'I'll take ye be th' scruff iv th' neck an' thrun ye into th' ga-as-house tank,' he says, 'if I'm coort-martialed f'r ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... first person, he loathed himself as a thick-headed ass for talking to Betty as he had done; as well put a burr under one's saddle and then feel surprise because the horse bucks. He passed on to the others with equal precision. Captain Lorrimer was as dirty as a greaser; ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... director, is exceedingly short, thick-headed (in appearance), and, like many of the English, thick-tongued. While I was looking at the instruments, Mrs. Airy came into the equatorial house, bringing Mr. Adams, the rival of Leverrier, [Footnote: See Chapter VII.]—another short man, but bright-looking, with dark hair and eyes, and again ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... Asiatic. The tapir, like the condor, for an unknown reason, is not found north of 8 deg. N., though it wanders as far south as 40 deg.. We met but one species of peccari, the white-lipped (D. labiatus). It is much larger than the "Mexican hog," and, too thick-headed to understand danger, is a formidable antagonist. The raposa is seen only on the Middle Amazon, and very rarely there. It has a long tapering muzzle, small ears, bushy tail, and grayish hair. It takes to the water, for the one we saw at Tabatinga was caught ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... catch some warning roar of the breakers, that he felt so intimately persuaded must be getting nearer and nearer at each instant. As midnight approached, came the thought of Hillson's taking his place, drowsy and thick-headed as he knew he must be at that hour. At length Mark actually fancied he heard the dreaded sounds; the warning, however, was not ahead, but well on his starboard beam. This he thought an ample justification for departing from his instructions, and he instantly issued an order to put the ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... "My dear Lucius, you are a thick-headed, old-fashioned, superstitious Roman, whom I, in my superior wisdom, utterly despise," he would have produced about the same ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... showing there is scarcely a fault in it. The mere settings—the fishing and prawn-catching; the scenery of port and cliff; the "interiors"; the final sailing of the great ship—are perfect. The minor characters—the good-tempered, thick-headed bourgeois husband and father; the wife and mother, with her bland acceptance of the transferred wages of shame, and (after discovery only) her breaking down with the banal blasphemy of "marriage before God" and the rest of it; the younger ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... Lady Keith, "how after living among a parcel of thick-headed and thicker tongued Yankees she could come out and speak pure English in a clear voice; it ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... Of course there are prettier, and Mrs. Winscombe has more air; but none has Caroline's charming manner. Of course, you have noticed it. Even a thick-headed brother couldn't miss that. We have plans for you, too. And it's no good your looking glum; we'll ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... you bring such trouble upon yourself? It's that P'in Erh, who has led you on to it! But I'll settle accounts with her! You've all along been a thick-headed fool; but now that you've burdened yourself with all this, you've become ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... did, and stood her ground. Her father was just enough in liquor to be a little thick-headed ...
— The Carpenter's Daughter • Anna Bartlett Warner
... Bulgaria cannot engage to intervene without a formal treaty, a policy, it believes, that says but one thing, namely: "You Russians tricked us Bulgarians once; you shall not trick us again." This attitude of Bulgaria shows, the Novoye Vremya thinks, "how thick-headed and insensate its people are." The Birjevaja Viedomosti, a standpat Russian daily of Petrograd, on May 23 warned Serbia that, whereas the war began in her behalf and on her account rivers of blood are flowing, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... a man of sense ought to be able to regulate a private establishment at least as well as a board of thick-headed guardians ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... King's Arms meekly, and before I knew what I was doing I had been presented to three or four solid-thighed, thick-headed, stout-legginged farmers as "Our Lottie's intended." They laughed, and came near to shaking my hand off. I felt that if I backed out after that, I never could show my face in Eden ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... keeping wet cloths on Allan's head, she hurried in. Looking at the mark, which was now swollen, and feeling all round it, Mrs Simmins declared there was no fracture of the skull and that the blow had only stunned him. 'Well for him that he is a thick-headed Scotchman or he would have been killed,' she remarked. Taking a fleam from her pocket, she lanced the lump and let it bleed freely. 'If bruised blood is left to get into the system, there will be a fever, in which many a man has died.' Allan fell asleep and when he woke it was ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... eighty-three?' Answered he: 'Shame on you to write such a letter! Haven't you been in my house, and seen what an honourable Jew I am? Shame on you! To such men as you one can't do a favour. Do you think there are a sea of Kazelias in the world? You are all thick-headed. You can't read a letter. I only took fifty-four roubles on the luggage; I had to recoup myself because I lost money through sending you to London. I calculated my loss, and only took what was due to me.' I showed the letter to Grunbach, and he ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... Freeda Sayer," I said, leaning down to press the intercommute. Freeda is a thick-ankled, thick-headed telepath. But stupid or not, she is telepathic, and is an acid test in ...
— Tinker's Dam • Joseph Tinker
... before him in an indecisive attitude.... "You're really a fool," she said, turning away. "I thought you were clever, but you're simply thick-headed!..." ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... trustees. All I get is just the business, and I'm to carry the John Burnit Store on from its present blue-ribbon standing to still more dazzling heights, I suppose. Well, I'd like to do it. The governor deserves it. But, you see, I'm so beastly thick-headed. Now, Agnes, you have perfectly stunning judgment and all that, so if you would just——" and he came to an ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... Englishman, named Harris, of whom I shall have more to say hereafter. Then, came two or three Americans, who had been the common run of European and South American voyages, and one who had been in a "spouter," and, of course, had all the whaling stories to himself. Last of all, was a broad-backed, thick-headed boy from Cape Cod, who had been in mackerel schooners, and was making his first voyage in a square-rigged vessel. He was born in Hingham, and of course was called "Bucketmaker." The other watch was composed of about the same number. A tall, fine-looking Frenchman, with coal-black ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... you, you must slay him, so as you get it back. If it fall into the hands of an enemy, you and I, ay and your master, and all that belongs to you will perish. Ah, the folly of the man to trust such a missive to this thick-headed blunderer! What time lost, what labour wasted, what peril run, what ruin on our ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... number of the four-wheeler was 872, it was not a difficult matter to begin the inquiry. But to secure any real information—that was different. The driver, a respectable albeit somewhat thick-headed Irishman, could offer only vague recollections of his business for the night of November 16th. He had been lucky enough to secure several fares, but there had been nothing in the appearance of any of his passengers to attract his attention. ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... "Time, you thick-headed fool! I'll time you by hanging you to your own front door. There has been time for me to send my men out into the country; time for a farmer to come in with a cartload of produce, and be robbed here under your very nose! Maledictions on you, you sit here, well fed, ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... an' some has heads; an' with a head on my shoulders same as I had at your age, I'd be Prime Minister an' Lord Mayor of Lunnon rolled into one, by crum!" He reached across for Captain Branscome's sextant, and held it between his shaking hands. "He can do it; hundreds o' men—thick-headed men in the ord'nary way—can do it; take a vessel out o' Falmouth here, as you might say, and hold her 'crost the Atlantic, as you might put it; whip her along for thirty days, we'll say; an' then, 'To-morrow, if the wind holds, an' about six in the mornin',' ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... men are ugly, most men are conceited, and all men are thick-headed, and you're a man. Think of what a wife she'd ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... the good of it, and I'm not farming for my health," he continued. "It's just a beautiful wilderness, and what has a man brains given him for, unless it's to turn the wilderness into cheese and butter. It has broken one man's heart, and my thick-headed neighbors said a swamp it would remain forever, but a stranger with ideas came along, and I ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... cloth covering the basket, and looking within it.] I'd best have gone myself. Of all the thick-headed men I ever did see, you're the thickest. Upon my ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... ours are finer. Still, I should like to have them up in the nest, for they keep one warm. I am very curious to know what the ducks were so startled about; not about us, certainly, although I did say 'peep' to you pretty loudly. The thick-headed roses ought to know why, but they know nothing at all; they only look at themselves and smell. I am heartily tired of ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... of this, you thick-headed villain!" said the squire, throwing his boots at Andy's head, along with some very neat curses. Andy retreated, and thought himself a ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... very thick-headed, and hardly knew the meaning of these long words, bat he did not like Mrs. Bullen, and he resented her talking to him, a servant, in ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... appointed lady of honour to Madame du Maine, and M. de Montchevreuil gentleman of the chamber. This last had been one of the friends of Madame de Maintenon when she was Madame Scarron. Montchevreuil was a very honest man, modest, brave, but thick-headed. His wife was a tall creature, meagre, and yellow, who laughed sillily, and showed long and ugly teeth; who was extremely devout, of a compassed mien, and who only wanted a broomstick to be a perfect witch. Without possessing any wit, she had so captivated Madame de Maintenon, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... she had never seemed more glorious than she did now, sitting with her children about her, almost unmoved by the excitement. For Mrs. Wehle had come to take everything as from the Heavenly Father. She had even received honest but thick-headed Gottlieb in this spirit, when he had fallen to her by the Moravian lot, a husband chosen for her by the Lord, whose will was ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... dast say that to Zeke Higgins' teeth. Mebby, he hain't so thick through as you-all, and he hain't so thick-headed, nuther. An' he hain't no runt, as ye'd find quick 'nuf, if so be's ye dast stand up to him, man to man, 'stid o' with a gun from the laurel. He's a man—what you-all hain't. He hain't the kind to layway from the bushes, ner to be a-stealin' ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... And I was so thick-headed I didn't understand. But it really was a peaceful day. After Nils' chest went aft, we might have been a comfortable family ship so little were we troubled by the afterguard. Lynch, of course, kept his watch busy while it was on deck, but he didn't haze; and Fitzgibbon all but forgot he had ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... to us of those blunders which are supposed to be most conclusive as to this aspect of Goldsmith's character, would certainly stare. "Good heavens," he would cry, "did men ever live who were so thick-headed as not to see the humour of this or that 'blunder'; or were they so beset with the notion that Goldsmith was only a fool, that they must needs be blind?" Take one well-known instance. He goes to France with Mrs. Horneck ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... twelve lessons, for I have not enough money." This is a noble proceeding! She then gave me three louis-d'or, adding, "I hope you are satisfied; if not, I beg you will say so." M. le Duc can have no sense of honor, or probably thinks that I am only a young man and a thick-headed German, (for this is the way in which the French always speak of us,) and that I shall be quite contented. The thick-headed German, however, was very far from being contented, so he declined receiving the sum offered. The Duke intended to pay me for ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... to Babington House for the two days previous to his Cambridge career was in itself most indiscreet. The angry father would not take upon himself to forbid it, but was worked up by it to perilous jealousy. He did not scruple to declare aloud that old Humphrey Babington was a thick-headed fool; nor did Humphrey Babington, who, with his ten or twelve thousand a-year, was considerably involved, scruple to say that he hated such cheese-paring ways. John Caldigate felt more distaste to the cheese-paring ways than he did to ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... Water Sunlight on the Sea "Ten Paces Off" The Fields of Coleraine The Last Leap "The Old Leaven" The Rhyme of Joyous Garde The Roll of the Kettledrum; or, The Lay of the Last Charger The Romance of Britomarte The Sick Stockrider The Song of the Surf The Swimmer The Three Friends Thick-headed Thoughts Thora's Song To a Proud Beauty To My Sister "Two Exhortations" Unshriven Visions in the Smoke Whisperings in Wattle-Boughs Wolf and Hound Wormwood and Nightshade Ye Wearie Wayfarer, hys Ballad Zu ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... chap for a friend," said Dudley, a little crossly; "he's twice as old as you are, to begin with, and he's an awfully stupid, thick-headed fellow." ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre
... to be agreeable to a lady who was next me. She was a Christian Scientist, and wore glasses. She endeavored to convert me, but I was abnormally thick-headed that day, and had to have things explained over and over, so she gave ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... Gurkhas,—a Havildar and three men; short, sturdy hill folk of the Mongol type, with the spirits of schoolboys and the grit of heroes. The fifth was a Pathan from Desmond's regiment, told off to act as orderly and surveyor; a man of immovable gravity, who shared but two qualities with the thick-headed, stout-hearted little soldiers from Nepal:—courage of the first order, and devotion to the British officer, for whom any one of them would have laid down his life, if need be; not as a matter of sentiment or heroism, but simply as a matter of course. The Gurkhas ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... staring out of the window as the train moved away from the station. "Henri, you're a wizard, a conjuror, a most mysterious and clever individual. 'Pon my word, I looked at you as you boarded the train, and if I'd been a German official, one of these thick-headed, beer-drinking tubs of fellows, always on the look-out for aliens and enemies, I'd have failed ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... sneer shows wisdom, That a gibe outvalues a reason, That slang, such as thieves delight in, Is fit for the lips of the gentle, And rather a grace than a blemish, Thick-headed public! ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... grunted. "That cayuse will keep on until something hits him—hits him hard. I reckon I begin to smell a mouse, and I think Mrs. Gray does, too. Hope she didn't hear me shooting back there. But none of that outfit is so sleepy or thick-headed that they don't see or hear pretty much everything that's going on ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... peers! A lot of thick-headed country tradesmen, prejudiced against me from the start because I'd sometimes kicked up a row in their town! They weren't my peers any more than they ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... "Now look here, you—you thick-headed beast," replied the Rat, really angry, "this must stop. Not another word, but scrape—scrape and scratch and dig and hunt round, especially on the sides of the hummocks, if you want to sleep dry and warm to-night, for it's our ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... winter of his life would be shortened by what had happened. Unfortunately, the accident threatened to have evil consequences in another quarter. Immediately after it occurred, one Matthews, a busy, thick-headed lout of a butcher, rode furiously off to Elm Park with the news. Mrs Arbuthnot, who daily looked to be confined, was walking with her husband upon the lawn in front of the house, when the great burly blockhead rode up, and blurted out ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... were thick-headed, John Chitling," remarked the fish dealer, with contempt, "but I never believed you were such a plum fool as not to know a tramp ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... queer compound a woman is! It won't do for you to go West. You will set the prairies on fire. There, there, now don't be afraid. If you think I can say anything to my nephew—the thick-headed blunderbuss—which will prevent his getting down on his knees to ask for what he'll never deserve, you don't know the Dimmerly blood. Trust to the wisdom of my gray hairs ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... was thick-headed, but he was open to persuasion. Eyes hard as diamonds bored into his, searched him, dominated him. The barrel of the revolver did not waver a hair-breadth. His fingers opened and the blackjack dropped from ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... from his father nor from his mother did he derive that perpetual unrest and that frantic fondness for revolt which blazed out in the poet when he was still a boy. His father, Mr. Timothy Shelley, was a very usual, thick-headed, unromantic English squire. His mother—a woman of much beauty, but of no exceptional traits—was the daughter of another squire, and at the time of her marriage was simply one of ten thousand fresh-faced, pleasant-spoken English country girls. ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... take one, and in the meantime, upon a nice question of law, the surmises of a thick-headed attorney and of an ingenious apoth—I beg pardon, physician—are sufficient warrant for telling my niece and ward, in my presence, that ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... Society, you know! No end of a President! And hasn't even got gumption enough to keep his father's practice together! Stupid ass! Well, I let him have it, and straight! He's no worse than the rest. They've got no brains in this district. And they're so narrow—narrow isn't the word! Thick-headed's the word. Stupid! Mean!... Mean!... What did it matter to them? I kept to all their rules. There was a real solicitor on the premises, and there'd soon have been another, if I'd had time. No concern of theirs how the money was divided between ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... feet. It's too gloomsome now to make any thin' out o' them. So let's you an' me come back here by ourselves, at the earliest o' daybreak, afore the people git about. Then we kin gie them tracks a thorrer scrutination. If they don't prove to be Dick Darke's, ye may call Sime Woodley a thick-headed woodchuck." ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... want to stay around here you got to cut out firing stones at that colt. You'll never get 'im tame that way—you thick-headed fool!" ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... you mean perfectly well," replied the pert woman in authority; "we of the court are not thick-headed, as you of the country may be, so I will explain fully to your——" she tittered rudely and loudly; but Robin's pride was nettled, and he heeded it not; "to your——but I wouldn't laugh, if I could help it. Barbara wished to know how the attendants were dressed ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... forgot about Maurice, said Mr Dedalus. Here, Maurice! Come here, you thick-headed ruffian! Do you know I'm going to send you to a college where they'll teach you to spell c.a.t. cat. And I'll buy you a nice little penny handkerchief to keep your nose dry. Won't that be ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... fat-tailed sheep or cowries. Doesn't it appear to you almost incredible, almost infamous that we—you and I, mother—should have done this thing? The price we offered seemed sufficient to some of her people—not to all, I have learned that past forgetting to-day, thanks to Lord Fallowfeild's thick-headed, blundering veracity. But, thank heaven, she had more heart, more sensibility, more self-respect, more decency, than we allowed for. She plucked up spirit enough to refuse to be bought and sold like ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... inhabitants of what might be a rich and fertile land to play at governing themselves, to ape the forms of real republics, and mix them with such childish clauses as come into their infantile minds. The chief newspaper of the republic resembles a high-school periodical, concocted by particularly thick-headed students without faculty assistance or editing. A history of their childish governmental activities would fill volumes. In 1910 all the copper one-centavo coins were called in and crudely changed to two-centavo ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... faithful, frank and wise; Kewashawkonce, the guide, a man of push and a genuine wag; Kawaybawgo, a huge hunter, whose old long shot-gun has banged over almost every acre of these wilds; Metagooe, a sleepy, thick-headed fellow; and Waisonbekton, young and active, always ready for work or burden and constantly alert for new and interesting ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... me. You appear to have given me credit for singularly little intelligence, which argues, if I may be allowed to say so, a want of acuteness upon your own part. Indeed, with the single exception of my thick-headed compatriot, the British dragoon, I have never met anyone who was less competent to ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Helen severely. "With all his thick-headed cleverness, he had yet insight enough to know that you would be taken with that creature. Probably he knew already how your letter had impressed her and that she was curious about you. And so he reckoned to play on your temperament, ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... "What a thick-headed man this is!" she said, pleasantly. "Must I put it more plainly still? Engage in what your English prudery calls a 'flirtation,' with some woman here—the lower in degree the better, or the Princess might ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... round to breakfast to-morrow and we will settle the terms, and you can commence your duties at once. And now let us light our pipes and finish our yarns as though agitated clients and thick-headed solicitors ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... now, after what I have done with the scissors. That hair ought to have been cut close off first thing, so as to afford a place for decent bandages, and I feel quite astounded to see how kindly Nature has treated you. It must have been an awful blow, my boy, and if you hadn't been of the stupid, thick-headed breed, you would have suffered from a comminuted fracture of the skull. ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn |
