"Bumpkin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and out of the lips of a red-haired bumpkin," muttered the King, also staring at the unconscious Cromwell, who was engaged on his writing and either feigned deafness or did not hear. "Thomas Bolle, I said that you were no fool, although some may have thought you so, is there ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... bumpkin the great offer heard: Poor Hodge, who suffered by a broad black beard, That seemed a shoe-brush stuck beneath his nose With cheerfulness the eighteen-pence he paid, And proudly to himself, in whispers, said, "This rascal stole the ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... been attracted from her residence at Bushey by the announcement of an amateur Richard. "Years afterwards," records Mathews, "when we met in Drury Lane green-room, I was relating, amongst other theatrical anecdotes, the bumpkin's call from the gallery in commiseration of the trouble I had in killing Richard, when she shook me from my feet almost by starting up, clasping her hands, and in her fervent, soul-stirring, warm-hearted tones, exclaiming: 'Was ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... demimonde. peasant, countryman, boor, carle^, churl; villain, villein; terrae filius [Lat.], son of the land; serf, kern^, tyke, tike, chuff^, ryot^, fellah; longshoreman; swain, clown, hind; clod, clodhopper; hobnail, yokel, bog-trotter, bumpkin; plowman, plowboy^; rustic, hayseed [Slang], lunkhead [U.S.], chaw-bacon [Slang], tiller of the soil; hewers of wood and drawers of water, groundling^; gaffer, loon, put, cub, Tony Lumpkin^, looby^, rube [U.S.], lout, underling; gamin; rough; pot- wallopper^, slubberdegullion^; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... hands does not appear; but in 1710 another patient, James Napper, was certified to be "a legal inhabitant of our parish of Alfold in the county of Surrey aforesaid and is supposed to have the disease commonly called the Evil." Perhaps not one of the four had much more than the country bumpkin's natural desire to see the King and be able to talk about it afterwards; perhaps they coveted the little gold tokens which royal physicking hung round the sufferer's neck. Not all those who were touched for the Evil were languishing with a fell disease. Charles II ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... measure self-banished from Arctura's company. A furious jealousy began to master him. He scorned to give place to it because of the insult to himself if he allowed a true ground for it. But it gradually gained power. This country bumpkin, this cow-herd, this man of spelling-books and grammars, to come between his cousin and him! Of course he was not so silly as imagine for a moment she cared for him!—that she would disgrace herself by falling in ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... less, six millions a-year—her son, all the while, being in a thriving way as a general merchant in the capital of the parish, and with clear profits from his business of L300 per annum, yet suffering the mother that bore him, and suckled him, and washed his childish hands, and combed the bumpkin's hair, and gave him Epsoms in a cup when her dear Johnny-raw had the belly-ache, to go down, step by step, as surely and as obviously as one is seen going down a stair with a feeble hold of the banisters, and stumbling every foot-fall down that other flight ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... half or two-thirds of a codfish, the monkey's head usually adorned with a handful of oakum or horse-hair. When this kind of thing was first exhibited by the lamented P. T. Barnum, it is just possible that some bumpkin really believed it to be a mermaid, but the invention has become so common of late that it is found in the curio-shops of every town, and as an eye-catching device is often put into show-cases by some merchant who deals in anything rather than mermaids. Trite and ridiculous as this patchwork appears, ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... young dark-browed man who had entered his sanctuary with much the same air as a village bumpkin assumes when he is about to be shown the three-card trick on a race-course. Balsamo did not even ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... jokes go with cheap people; but when you are with those of subtle insight, who make close mental distinctions, you should muzzle your mood, if perchance you are a bumpkin. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... gentlemen lounging arm in arm along the streets in their huge curled wigs, gorgeous waistcoats reaching sometimes to the knees, gold embroidered coats, with huge cuffs turned back almost to the elbows, and scarfs of every hue of the rainbow supporting their swords, he felt himself a mere boor and bumpkin, and wondered much whether Master Cale would ever be able to turn him out a fine gentleman, fit to associate with those he saw in ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... a few lines of verse. He pretends that he was out walking on the highroad, and met a countryman who wanted to know what o'clock it was, and whether he was on the right way to the town or village he was making for. The writer saw at once that he was a simple bumpkin; and, when he heard that he had lost his way, he turned up his nose at the poor fellow, and ordered him to be off at ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... character of TILBURY, the comic Squire.) And you, Sir, what in the name of fifty thousand jackasses, do you mean by standing there grinning from ear to ear like a buck nigger? But I'll not stand it any longer, Sir, not for a moment. D'ye hear, you miserable turnip-faced bumpkin, d'ye hear?" (Carried away by histrionic enthusiasm, SPINKS brings his fist down violently on the precise spot where a table ought to be, but is not, standing. As a natural result, he hits himself with much force on his leg. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... that you dismiss the hated minister, whom they abhor, simply because he is a Catholic and not a Reformer, and because he is named Schwarzenberg and not Rochow or Quitzow, nor blessed with some country bumpkin's title." ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... When the bumpkin got to the housekeeper's room, he found Peter de Groodt, and several other true believers, ready to receive him. Here he indemnified himself for the restraint he had suffered in the study, and opened a budget ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... kept,—not to speak of the miller's boy, who was already watching me. No matter where you are in the country, however solitary you may think yourself, you are certain to be the focus of the two eyes of a country bumpkin; a laborer rests on his hoe, a vine-dresser straightens his bent back, a little goat-girl, or shepherdess, or milkmaid climbs a willow ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... hidden in some dog-kennel of the heart, grumbling there in the darkness, but is never quite extinct, until the dissenting party have gained power and scope enough to treat the world generously. For my part, I should have taken it as far less an insult to be styled "fellow," "clown," or "bumpkin." To either of these appellations my rustic garb (it was a linen blouse, with checked shirt and striped pantaloons, a chip hat on my head, and a rough hickory stick in my hand) very fairly entitled me. As the case stood, ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... hours old. Look there! that chap strutting round the corner. He wears a beaver hat and swallow-tailed coat, girdled with a sailor-belt and sheath-knife. Here comes another with a sou'-wester and a bombazine cloak. No town-bred dandy will compare with a country-bred one — I mean a downright bumpkin dandy —a fellow that, in the dog-days, will mow his two acres in buckskin gloves for fear of tanning his hands. Now when a country dandy like this takes it into his head to make a distinguished reputation, and joins the great whale-fishery, you should see the comical things ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... to do?" retorted the bumpkin. "A proper spiteful twoad such as he—why, he'll rumple all the color and booty out o' her wings, and sting her till her blood ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... buffoon, jester, merry-andrew, zany, harlequin, droll, punch, mime, farceur, scaramouch, grimacier jackpudding; boor, lout, gawk, gawky, lubber, put, bumpkin, churl, carl, tike; rustic, hind, clodhopper, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... thinks he never knew a handsomer female." He goes to and fro, snuffing the candles, and now and then holding one to the face of a favorite figure. Ever and anon, hearing steps upon the staircase, he goes to admit a new visitor. The visitors,—a half-bumpkin, half country-squire-like man, who has something of a knowing air, and yet looks and listens with a good deal of simplicity and faith, smiling between whiles; a mechanic of the town; several decent-looking girls and women, who eye ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... in, with one swift comprehensive glance, as the driver reined up his tired horses before the door. A temper; a quick temper, a temper easily provoked, but a kindly woman nevertheless. No country bumpkin, but a shrewd, capable business woman, with two light blue eyes fixed stolidly on the main chance; a woman, moreover, blessed with a sense of humour; else why those deep lines stretching from nose to chin; that radiating nest ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... his own gelding for the Captain's mount. Hind struck a bargain at once, and as they jogged along the road he persuaded the farmer to set his newly-purchased horse at the tallest hedge, the broadest ditch. The bumpkin failed, as Hind knew he would fail; and, begging the loan for an instant of his ancient steed, Hind not only showed what horsemanship could accomplish, but straightway rode off with the better horse and twenty pounds in his pocket. So marvellously did his reputation grow, that it became ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... no more with his cane, but his insults were the same, if not worse. With time I became hardened, I no longer heeded anything; I was an ignoramus, a camel, a bumpkin, an idiot, a loggerhead—I was everything! It must further be understood that I alone was favored with these pretty names. He had no relatives; there had been a nephew, but he had died of consumption. As to friends, those who came now and then to flatter him and ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... with baser motives and tendencies. We met a train of cars with a regiment or two just starting for the South, and apparently in high spirits. Everywhere some insignia of soldiership were to be seen,— bright buttons, a red stripe down the trousers, a military cap, and sometimes a round-shouldered bumpkin in the entire uniform. They require a great deal to give them the aspect of soldiers; indeed, it seems as if they needed to have a good deal taken away and added, like the rough clay of a sculptor as it grows to ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... made a signal for assistance, and it being ascertained that she had lost her dinghy and bumpkin by a sea which struck her while crossing a tide-race, it was judged necessary to run for the nearest place where the damage could be repaired. We consequently anchored under Number 2 of the Percy Isles, to leeward of its south-west point, in 10 fathoms, mud, between ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... savage expostulation. "The fact is, I'm all here—head, hands, legs, and all the rest of it, but it happens I'm invisible. It's a confounded nuisance, but I am. That's no reason why I should be poked to pieces by every stupid bumpkin in ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... with a list to starboard enough to slide him out of his seat. I lent a hand, of course, and soon had the wheel in the road again. It was quite dark, and I fancy that the fellow thought that I was a bumpkin, for we did not exchange five words. As he drove off he shoved this into my hand. It is the merest chance that I did not chuck it away, for, feeling that it was a crumpled piece of paper, I imagined that it must be a tradesman's advertisement ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and there was something in the lines of his thin, determined lips that gave one confidence. I saw that he did not reciprocate this feeling. Indeed, I think he rather despised me for a thick-headed country bumpkin. ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... Harrowden, nine miles off, at both of which places there were excellent bowling-greens and beautiful grounds. In these rides, of course, he was well attended and watched, but still not so strictly but that a packet could sometimes be conveyed to him by a seeming country- bumpkin on a bridge, or a letter in cipher entrusted to a sure hand. Always through the night at Holmby a light was kept burning in the King's chamber, in the form of a wax-cake and wick inside a large silver basin on a low table by the bed, on which also were ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... storm did not last long, but for about four hours it blew furiously. It was not yet at its height, and the ship was still carrying her close reefed maintopsail with reefed main trysail and fore topmast staysail, when a sharper lurch than usual threw a sudden strain upon the bumpkin to which the weather main brace was led, and in a moment it had snapped in two. The mainyard no longer supported by the brace, and pressed by the whole power of the straining topsail, flew forward ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... that after New-England schools and three years in college he should write such a hand and have no definite knowledge of book-keeping! "What have I learned, I'd like to know?" he muttered. Then to go and lose his way like a country bumpkin! and he gnawed his ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... Bull the bumpkin disposed of, my lord drew leisurely back from the foeman's landing-place, at the head of a body of serious Englishmen; teaching them to be manageable as chess-pieces, ready as bow-strings to let fly. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... The bumpkin dodged with a laugh and disappeared in the crowd and dust, cuffing, pushing, scuffling, hugging, and kissing ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... him to know how far was it to London, but he shook his head and said that he was a stranger. The fellow jeered and named him bumpkin, but the rest said nothing, and looked on him as they passed, and two at the end doffed their caps. They were about two hundred, and one rode in front with a banner borne before him; but it was a still hot day, and Master Richard ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson
... are good. This truth to prove Around the world I need not move; I do it by the nearest Pumpkin. "This fruit so large, on vine so small," Surveying once, exclaim'd a bumpkin— "What could He mean who made us all? He's left this Pumpkin out of place. If I had order'd in the case, Upon that oak it should have hung—— A noble fruit as ever swung To grace a tree so firm ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... capable of apprehending criticisms without full explanation appended, that he is doing so. Rather would I ask such a reader to suppose that before him there stands a man of incomparably inferior enlightenment and schooling—a rude country bumpkin whose life, throughout, has been passed in retirement—a bumpkin to whom it is necessary to explain each circumstance in detail, while never forgetting to be as simple of speech as though he were a child, and at every step there were a danger of employing terms beyond his understanding. ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... to have nice, ladylike manners," she said on another occasion, when Laura, summoned to the drawingroom to see a visitor, had in Mother's eyes disgraced them both. "Now, you've no more idea how to behave than a country bumpkin. You sit there, like a stock or a stone, as if you didn't know how to open your ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... Man's office—one whom he may consider a great man, a president perhaps of a big industry or of a railroad, or a senator—and shortly afterwards, Strong Man's own son comes into the room. Would he like to see his son abashed, awkward, spasmodically jerky, like the poor bumpkin who came the other day to ask about removing the ashes, or worse yet, bold and boisterous or cheeky; or would he like that boy of his to come forward with an entire lack of self-consciousness, and as his father introduces him as "My Son!" have him put out his hand in frank and easy and yet ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... brother in the Church, a man of parts, and a great gamester, who, having a deep knowledge of the world, had taken the name of Fabris, and the younger brother had to assume it likewise. Soon afterwards he bought an estate with the title of count, became a Venetian nobleman, and his origin as a country bumpkin was forgotten. If he had kept his name of Tognolo it would have injured him, for he could not have pronounced it without reminding his hearers of what is called, by the most contemptible of prejudices, low extraction, and the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... kind to amuse himself at the expense of a little country bumpkin, but he would do well to ascertain if his flattery would go down before administering it next time," I said sarcastically, and I heard him calling to me as I abruptly went off to shut ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... beds in the morning like the voice of conscience. Why must we pass examinations? Not that we may know the language of the people, for it is matter of daily observation, that of all the mysteries which perplex the humble mind of the country bumpkin in this land, causing him to scratch his— well, not his head—there is none which he gives up as hopeless sooner than the strange sounds addressed to him by the young saheb who has just passed his higher standard. He joins his palms in loyal ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... He recalled the first arrival of honest but blundering Zeph Dallas at Stanley Junction, a raw country bumpkin. Even then the incipient detective fever had been manifested by the crude farmer boy. From the confident, self-assured tone in which Zeph now spoke, the young railroader was forced to believe that he had struck something tangible at last ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... excursion on the road delayed it until after nine. However, this did not disconcert Isaac Masters. He hurried out to the front of the station, where the row of herdics greeted him savagely. Carrying his father's old carpet-bag, he looked from his faded hat to his broad toes the ideal country bumpkin; yet his head was not turned by the rumbling of the pavements, the whiz of the electrics, the blaze of the arc lights, nor by the hectic inhalations that seem to comprehend all the human restlessness of a city just before ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... a bumpkin's grin, (A weakly intellect denoting) He'd rather not invest it in A company of ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... bulls! See to his salutation, as he passes any of his neighbors—hear it. Does he touch his hat, and bow his head, and look down, as the great man goes by in his carriage? No! he leaves that to the cowed bumpkin of the south. He looks his rich-neighbor full in the face, with a fearless, but respectful gaze, and bolts from his manly breast a hearty, "Good day to ye, sir!" To his other neighbor, his equal in worldly matters, he extends his broad hand, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... soldier on his face: whether asleep, or in a fit of contemplation, it was impossible to decide. In the midst of the floor stood an officer, as he seemed by his embroidered shoulder-belt and scarf round his waist, otherwise very plainly attired, who was engaged in drilling a stout bumpkin, lately enlisted, to the manual, as it was then used. The motions and words of command were twenty at the very least; and until they were regularly brought to an end, the corporal did not permit Wildrake either to ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... me for a country bumpkin instead of a great politician, and were inclined to make much of my excess of simplicity. Motioning my companion that it was time to be going, I expressed the great delight their company had afforded me, and took my leave, promising to pay them another visit ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... repair the roof of Mr. Peters's church. In ordinary times the congregation could have advanced the seventy-five dollars necessary to keep the rain from trickling through the roof and leaking in a steady stream upon the pew of Mrs. Bumpkin, a lady too useful in knitting sweaters for the heathen in South Africa to be ignored. But in that year of grace, 1897, there had been so many demands made upon everybody, from the Saint William's Hospital for Trolley Victims, from the Mistletoe Inn, a club for ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... worse; the boat, under a close-reefed mizen on the bumpkin stepped as a foremast, was steered with an oar by the second master. When they had arrived within about two miles of the island, the wind shifted to a very severe squall, accompanied with lightning, thunder, and a heavy hail-storm. Mr. Larcom, the gunner, now took the place ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... hard to shake off. Release from duty was imperative, and as England was now calling for recruits, the War Office summoned Brock, an alluring sample of a soldier, to whom was assigned the task of licking the fighting country bumpkin—the raw material—into shape. This he did, first in England, then in Guernsey and Jersey. A vision of our hero, glorious in his uniform, was in itself sufficient to ensnare the senses of any country yokel. It ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... Indian village bumpkin has a natural aversion to town life. Peculiarities in his dialect, dress, and manners make him the laughing-stock of the clever Cockney townsman. His simplicity and ignorance of the world cause him to be easily victimised ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker
... planet Venus, that social star of evening and morning, might say,—"How absurd!" What a figure he cuts there, sitting in solitary state upon his glass tripod,—in the middle of a crowd of excited fellow-beings, hurried to and fro by their passions and sympathies,—like an awkward country-bumpkin caught in the midst of a gay crowd of polkers and waltzers at a ball,—or an oyster bedded on a rock, with silver fishes playing rapid games of hide and seek, love and hate, in the clear briny depths above and beneath! If the angels ever look out ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... bumpkin suspect me? In order to avert suspicion, I will confide everything to the friendly air."—Relates his past life and future plans, at the top of his lungs, and ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various
... story was told me by Mr. Crabb Robinson,[681] who was long connected with the Times, and intimately acquainted with Mr. W***.[682] When W*** was an undergraduate at Cambridge, taking a walk, he came to a stile, on which sat a bumpkin who did not make way for him: the gown in that day looked down on the town. "Why do you not make way for a gentleman?"—"Eh?"—"Yes, why do you not move? You deserve a good hiding, and you shall get it if you don't take care!" The bumpkin raised ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan |
