"Madness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his senses, and if roughly handled, might commit some extravagance. Though I was exceedingly ruffled, I could not help laughing at the mad cameriere's palming himself upon R—y, as a sensible fellow, and transferring the charge of madness upon his master, who seemed to be much more knave than fool. While Mr. R— went to mass, I desired the cameriere to bid his master bring the bill, and to tell him that if it was not reasonable, I would carry him before the commandant. In the mean time I armed myself with my sword ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... if taken young, and is very playful, but Jerdon, in repeating the assertion that tame foxes sooner or later go mad, says he has known one or two instances where they have done so; but McMaster throws doubt on this, and puts the supposed madness down to excitement at the amorous season. He gives an interesting account of a pair kept by a friend, which lived on amicable terms with his greyhounds. The owner writes: "I sometimes took them on to the parade ground, and slipped a couple ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... would be ruinous to both sides. The material objects at stake, such as the control of the Turkish Empire and the African continent, are not worth more than an insignificant fraction of the war-bill. We are witnessing the suicide of a social order, and our descendants will marvel at our madness, as we marvel at the senseless wars of ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... desk, and then rushed out, without a cent in his pocket, to throw himself into the canal. But when he reached the bank, and saw the foul, black water, he was frightened. For hours and hours he walked up and down, asking God in his madness for courage. ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... you have forgiven every thing," he said, encircling her all the time with his arms. "You forgive my madness, my abominable jealousy?" ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... blasphemies. No bible was there with its consolations for the sick of heart. Faint and fevered, scarred and smarting from the effects of her cruel punishment, she lay upon her pallet of moss—dreading the coming of her relentless persecutor,—who, in the madness of one of his periodical fits of drunkenness, was now swearing and cursing through ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... him, and, as a spear lodged in his trunk, he turned with almost a shriek of pain and dashed into the grove again. Close at his heels bounded the hundred men, yelling like demons and forgetting all danger in the madness of the chase. Right through the grove the great beast crashed and then half turned as he came to the open slope beyond. Running beside him was a daring youth trying in vain to pierce him in the belly with his flint-headed spear, and, as the mammoth came for the moment to a half ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... lost my self-command. My heart leapt up at the sight of you, and, fool that I was, I permitted you to see this; but base no hopes on my weakness. I said to you, Let us be friends. It was a mere act of madness. We can never be friends, and had better, therefore, treat each other as strangers. Do you forget that lying tongues at Bevron accused me of being your mistress? Do you think that this falsehood has ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... re-echoed the sheikh, "it might cost us many lives. A few men, leading spare camels with water-bags, might get through in safety, but it would be madness to attempt it with a big caravan. By the Prophet's beard, I did not like the prospect of this present march, though I knew there was water and food in plenty at Suleiman's Well. What, then, would happen if we found every well on the eastern ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... told; but better wisdom guided him, to his subsequent content. He had not played a scurvy trick on his son for his own personal advantage. Indeed, when his meetings were all over, he was thankful for the disappearance of Luzanne. At heart he was not all bad. A madness had been on him. He, therefore, slept heavily from midnight till morning on the eve of the election, and began the day with the smile of one who abides the result ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... madness, Ashton took up the hammer and crept around back of Blake's head. He straightened on his knees, and peered down at the calm, powerful face ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... "No political madness could be greater than to put the legislative machinery of an integral and essential portion of the Empire into the hands of men who are largely or mainly disaffected with that Empire, and who, in times of difficulty, danger and disaster ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... coronets? This morning they all rose from their couches peers of Parliament, individual pillars of the realm, indispensable parties to every law that could pass. Tomorrow they will be nobody—men of straw—terrae filii. What madness has persuaded them to part with their birthright, and to cashier themselves and their children forever into mere titular lords? As to the commoners at the bar, their case was different: they had no life ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... unclothed and brown; of vegetation burned up and extinguished; of villages depopulated and in ruins; of temples unroofed and perishing; of reservoirs broken down and dry, this stranger should ask, "what has thus laid waste this beautiful and opulent land; what monstrous madness has ravaged with wide-spread war; what desolating foreign foe; what civil discords; what disputed succession; what religious zeal; what fabled monster has stalked abroad, and, with malice and mortal enmity ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... deities of crime abhorred; The Marius to come. A voice proclaimed Mysterious, 'Hold! the fates permit thee not That neck to sever. Many a death he owes To time's predestined laws ere his shall come; Cease from thy madness. If ye seek revenge For all the blood shed by your slaughtered tribes to Let this man, Cimbrians, live out all his days.' Not as their darling did the gods protect The man of blood, but for his ruthless hand Fit to prepare that sacrifice of gore Which fate demanded. By the sea's despite ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... that the phrenologists call "inhabitiveness" is very prominent; he is not naturally migratory—"content to bear the ills he has, than fly to those he knows not of." Hence there appeared reason, if not entire "method in his madness." ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... the Count vehemently: 'let me perish first! But forgive my violence! the thought of losing you is madness. You cannot be ignorant of Montoni's character, you may be ignorant of his schemes—nay, you must be so, or you would not hesitate between my love ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... fact of God permitting such a thing as possession, there is no more real difficulty than is involved in His permitting such a thing as madness. The symptoms of possession seem generally to have resembled mania, and ascribing certain sorts of mania to evil spirits is only assigning one cause rather than another to a disease of whose nature we ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... huge tracks, running side by side, silent evidence of a dreadful journey in which terror or madness had urged to impossible results, was profoundly moving. It shocked him in the secret depths of his soul. It was the most horrible thing his eyes had ever looked upon. He began to follow them mechanically, absentmindedly almost, ever peering over his shoulder to see if he, too, were ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... consequences, there is nothing left out of which sectional parties can be organized. When the people of the North shall all be rallied under one banner, and the whole South marshalled under another banner, and each section excited to frenzy and madness by hostility to the institutions of the other, then the patriot may well tremble for the perpetuity of the Union. Withdraw the slavery question from the political arena and remove it to the States and Territories, each to decide for itself, and ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... here the awful judgment of an ever-righteous God, "who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity," fell upon this stone-hearted and perfidious woman; for no sooner was the injured husband captured by her wicked contriving, than she also was suddenly seized with madness, and exhibited an awful and awakening instance of God's power to punish the evil doer. This dreadful circumstance had some effect upon the hearts of the ungodly hunters who had eagerly grasped their prey; but, in a relenting moment, they ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... to pieces at any moment? I had heard of such things being made of paper and hollow rushes which quickly became saturated and lost all buoyancy. And I could not swim a stroke. And I was alone, floating, apparently, in the midst of a grey primordial vastness. I confess that a madness seized me, that I shrieked aloud as the women had shrieked, and beat the water with ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... creature!" he said. "If I had been young enough not to understand the position in which her madness placed me, or base enough to profit by it, what a pretty little preface to a great folly she was about to commit this evening! Well! this attack of morality will perhaps count in my ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... story the lady told her of her husband's madness must be true, when he reproached her for shutting him out of his own house; and remembering how he had protested all dinner-time that he was not her husband, and had never been in Ephesus till that day, she had no doubt that he was mad; she therefore paid the jailor ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... shall hear all. You remember that in my last letter—written, alas! in my beloved garden, which I may never see more—I spoke with a certain restraint, even an approach to mystery. It was thus. At first, when that woman proposed to take me to the convent, I was a creature distracted. The fire of madness burned in my veins, and I could think of nothing save death or revenge. But with time came reflection; came wisdom, Marguerite, and inflexible resolve. To those she loves, Margarita Montfort is wax, silk, down, anything the most soft ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... good?" asked Mrs. Marshall, yawning, and reaching out of bed to kiss Sylvia sleepily. She laughed a little at their faces. "Oh, music is a madness! To spend a cheerful evening listening to death-music, and then come back looking like Moses before the ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... their victims. They are of three kinds—one adjoining the place of trial, where the prisoners destined to immediate execution were kept. I could not descend into them, because the day on which I visited it was festa. Another under the leads of the palace, where the sufferers were roasted to death or madness by the ardours of an Italian sun: and others called the Pozzi—or wells, deep underneath, and communicating with those on the roof by secret passages—where the prisoners were confined sometimes half-up to their middles in stinking ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... hitherto had seemed congealed in its source, rushed with impetuosity down its wonted channels, and the blue veins through which the little rivulet of life had gently flowed, now became dark and turbid as the mountain stream. Her eyes shot the lurid flashes of madness; a wild laugh broke the harmony of the purest voice; and a malignant curl usurped the place where ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... existence. He confided the matter to his favorite minister; but Wolsey was thunderstruck at the disclosure, and remained with him four hours on his knees, to dissuade him from a step which he justly regarded as madness. Here Wolsey appears as an honest man and a true friend; but royal infatuation knows neither wisdom, justice, nor humanity. Wolsey, as a man of the world, here made a blunder, and departed from the policy he had hitherto pursued—that of flattering the ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... her vanity and her love, that she might one day be Mrs. Weir of Hermiston; swift, also, to recognise in his stumbling or throttled utterance the death-knell of these expectations, and constant, poor girl! in her large-minded madness, to go on and to reck nothing of the future. But these unfinished references, these blinks in which his heart spoke, and his memory and reason rose up to silence it before the words were well uttered, gave her unqualifiable agony. She was raised up and dashed down again bleeding. The recurrence ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was only what might have been expected. Strong in our love for and trust in each other, we went to a neighboring village, and, going to a little country parsonage, were married, without one thought of the madness, the folly of what we were doing. We found the minister and his family seated outside the house under a sort of arbor of flowering shrubs, and I remember it was her wish that the ceremony be performed there. Never can I forget her as she stood there, her hand ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... poverty and an awakened conscience. My mind was distracted. Holding up my hands to heaven, I vowed vengeance, and cursed and swore in such a manner that people on the road turned and looked at me, and thought me mad. I was mad; but it was the madness of passion that burned in my brain, and the stings of conscience that pierced my heart. I paused several times in my pursuit. I was told by one traveller that the woman I sought was not a mile from me, that she was sitting by the road-side drinking ardent spirits alone, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... parted the weather-sheet, and the tremendous boom was now flying from side to side, completely sweeping the entire after part of the deck. The poor fellow whom Queequeg had handled so roughly, was swept overboard; all hands were in a panic; and to attempt snatching at the boom to stay it, seemed madness. It flew from right to left, and back again, almost in one ticking of a watch, and every instant seemed on the point of snapping into splinters. Nothing was done, and nothing seemed capable of being done; those on deck rushed towards the bows, and stood eyeing the boom ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... is madness," said the sage of old; And 'tis with nations as it is with man, Their storms of passion scatter ills untold— Thus 'tis, and has been, since the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... 'Lear.' There must have been a first conception greater even than his accomplishment. Did he look from his windows at a winter tempest and see miserable old men and women running hard for shelter? Did a flash of lightning bare his soul to the misery, the betrayal and the madness of the world? His supreme moment was not when he flung the completed manuscript aside, or when he heard the actors mouth his lines, but in the flash and throb of creation—in the moment when he knew that he had the power in him to write 'Lear.' What we read ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... been akin to snow-madness, for I remember that Thomas who never attempted a line of poetry before, nor since, led off with the ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... it be amiss to remark, that as a lively imagination very often degenerates into madness or folly, and bears it a great resemblance in its operations; so they influence the judgment after the same manner, and produce belief from the very same principles. When the imagination, from any extraordinary ferment of the blood and spirits, acquires such ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... rags, and that is why his head was always bent as if incessantly looking on the ground. When he went about shaking his head, and minus a walking-stick in his hand, and a bag on his back—the signs of his profession— he seemed to be thinking almost to madness, and, at such times, Kuvalda spoke thus, pointing to ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... before, arms and legs, with a mercenary soldier between each pair, fore and aft. All this was repeated and repeated, till the dull monotony of tyranny began to wear through the long Teutonic patience to the under-quick of Wendish madness. ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... off his haversack, and was about to leap when Dick yelled: 'No, no, Chippy! It's mere madness to jump into the race. This ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... following morning by the roaring of the wind, for another poorga had swooped down during the night, which kept us prisoners here for the three following days. It was madness to think of starting in such weather, and there was nothing for it but to wait for a lull, alternately smoking, sleeping, and cursing Mikouline, the cause of the delay. Fortunately the hut was weather-proof, and but for perpetual anxiety I could almost have enjoyed the rest and warmth out of reach ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... have said, a gray day. But the fires of a century's sunsets flamed and flashed in that library! Ruby, sapphire, diamond, emerald, pearl—how they glowed and glimmered! How they shone and sparkled! For the moment there fell upon me that madness that jewels bring upon women, a sort of wild delight in their hard, bright beauty, an ecstasy, an intoxication. I poured them from one hand to the other, I held the greatest to my cheek. The loveliness of them went to my head. "I ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... appearing and turning everything upside down. In the past it didn't so much matter; but our modern machine is too delicate. A few more knocks like the Great War, another Luther or two, and the whole concern will go to pieces. In future, the men of reason must see that the madness of the world's maniacs is canalised into proper channels, is made to do useful work, like a mountain torrent ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... the spot where it was known the girl was buried. They were like starving wolves tearing at the carcass of an animal. They yelled encouragement and fought through the chaos—and still the stranger whipped them into madness with ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... or three Months, sometimes two or three dayes. Now their Friends reckoning it to proceed from the Devil, do go to him and promise him a reward if he will cure them. Sometimes they are cured, and sometimes die. The People do impute this madness to some breach of promise that the Party affected had made to the Devil, or else for eating some fruit or Betel-leaves dedicated to him: For they do dedicate some fruit-trees to the Devil; and this they do, ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... off duty and the men could mutiny at their ease; but this plan had for the moment been frustrated. The military view might have carried the day, but for the determination shown by Candido dos Reis, who pointed out that it would be madness to give the Government time to order the ships out of the Tagus. Finally, he turned to the military group, saying, "If you will not go out, I will go out alone with the sailors. I shall have the honor of getting myself shot by my comrades of the army." His insistence carried ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... to demand in this way, in the present situation of our affairs I should think it madness not to grant it. Whatever they may demand, our manufacturers, unless the leading and principal men among them are properly dealt with beforehand, will probably oppose it. That they may be so dealt with I know from experience, and that it may be done at little expense ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... not—I must not—I cannot—I dare not,—at least not at present. When the present stress is over. I may feel better. The fact is, at present I am scarcely fit to take care of my parish, and it would be madness to take upon myself any new [177] burden. See there a fine fellow I should be to have charge of the "Examiner," who have written present three times in as many lines! However, I am writing now in ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... dearly to see it going forward. And love, considered as a spectacle, must have attractions for many who are not of the confraternity. The sentimental old maid is a commonplace of the novelists; and he must be rather a poor sort of human being, to be sure, who can look on at this pretty madness without indulgence and sympathy. For nature commends itself to people with a most insinuating art; the busiest is now and again arrested by a great sunset; and you may be as pacific or as cold-blooded ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to get assistance from France. Mr. O'Connor and Lord Edward FitzGerald proceeded thither for that purpose; but their mission was not productive of any great result. The people were goaded to madness by the cruelties which were committed on them every day; and it was in vain that persons above all suspicion of countenancing either rebels or Papists, protested against these enormities in the name of ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... thick and fast, the wind driving it in eddying clouds, and amid it could be seen at times the white caps of the increasing surges as they broke on the edge of the floe. It was evident that it would be madness to attempt to leave their present position; yet all stood silent a moment, as if unwilling to be the first to confess the ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... soothed and yielded, and so won her back to reason. As a man, I ought to possess a cooler and more rationally balanced mind. She is a being of feeling and impulse,—loving, ardent, proud, sensitive and strong-willed. Knowing this, it was madness in me to chafe instead of soothing her; to oppose, when gentle concession would have torn from her eyes an illusive veil. Oh that I could learn wisdom in time! I was in no ignorance as to her peculiar character. I knew her faults and her weaknesses, ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... whispered something in her ear about the baby, and the madness of risking a bad cold. Whatever was the exact import of his communication, it had the effect of producing immediate obedience to his wishes, and Flora reluctantly quitted the social group, and ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... man's belief, that we are all mad on one subject or another. If this be so, every race is mad on some point, for have we not often heard that what is true of the individual is true of the race? Anglo-Saxon madness is book morality. Madness has been defined as a lack of consequence in ideas, and can anything be less consequent than—we need look no further back than Ibsen? The great genius who died in May last was decried by the English people ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... army, well appointed in every arm, was advancing upon the Torgau under the command of General Traubenberg. This officer was to be joined on his route by ten thousand Bashkirs, and pretty nearly the 5 same amount of Kirghises—both hereditary enemies of the Kalmucks—both exasperated to a point of madness by the bloody trophies which Oubacha and Momotbacha had, in late years, won from such of their compatriots as served under the Sultan. The Czarina's yoke these wild 10 nations bore with submissive patience, ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... regretted that I should leave so promising a field of research as that which offered itself within the limits of New South Wales, and in which they considered I had laboured with some success during the last two years. Others considered the undertaking exceedingly dangerous, and even the conception of it madness on my part; and the consequence of a blind enthusiasm, nourished either by a deep devotion to science, or by an unreasonable craving for fame: whilst others did not feel themselves justified in ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... sand some glittering particles were found, and the whole settlement was in a state of excitement. Fourteen weeks of the precious springtime, which ought to have been given to plowing and planting, were consumed in this stupid nonsense. Even the Indians ridiculed the madness of the men who, for imaginary grains of gold, were wasting their chances for a ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... city, which it would be no great matter to take, if any one would press the siege, and the general is leading us to fight with Mithridates in the wilds of the Tibareni and Chaldaeans."[367] Now, if Lucullus had supposed that these notions would have led the soldiers to such madness as they afterwards showed he would not have overlooked or neglected these matters, nor have apologised instead to those men who were blaming his tardiness for thus lingering in the neighbourhood of insignificant villages for a long time, and allowing Mithridates to increase ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... the moonlight, her searching, unseeing eyes meeting and dwelling upon his own, the look of disappointment and defeat crossing her sweetly serious countenance, wrought upon him begetting a dangerous madness in his blood. That it was dangerous and a madness, and therefore promptly to be mastered and ejected, he would not permit himself an instant's doubt. Yet it very shrewdly plagued him, daring even to advance specious ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... made clear by my father, who, sending for me one day into his chamber, let me into a secret which was as little wished for as expected. He began with the surprising effects of youth and beauty, and the madness of letting go those advantages they might procure us till it was too late, when we might wish in vain to bring them back again. I stood amazed at this beginning; he saw my confusion, and bid me sit down and attend to what he was going to tell me, which was of ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... moreover, can perform the process without taking on airs which rouse his victim to madness, because he assumes a position not only of grammatical, but, as we have said, of social superiority. He says plainly enough, no matter how polite or scientific he may try to seem, "I was better born and bred than you, and acquired these correct ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... reposed on any base of fact, if, indeed, by some abhorrent miracle, he should discard his age, death were my only refuge from that most unnatural, that most ungodly union. If, on the other hand, these dreams were merely lunatic, the madness of a life waxed suddenly acute, my pity would become a load almost as heavy to bear as my revolt against the marriage. So passed the night, in alternations of rebellion and despair, of hate and pity; and with the next morning I was only to comprehend more fully my enslaved ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... demeanour and language, he rapidly dropped into childish helplessness, and finally into a deep uncontrollable slumber. This was a state of things which, at first, threatened more danger than his open madness; but then it was the horse's turn to show his quality. He saw that a responsibility devolved upon him, and he was quite equal to the occasion. He seemed to know his way as well without as with his master. We guessed this; and, taking the reins from ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... they, and much more mobile. Wherefore, seeing how prone we are thereto by nature, and considering also our gentleness and tenderness, how soothing and consolatory they are to the men with whom we consort, and that thus this madness of wrath is fraught with grievous annoy and peril; therefore, that with stouter heart we may defend ourselves against it, I purpose by my story to shew you, how the loves of three young men, and as many ladies, as I said before, were by ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... hand, Beauregard's defenders replied that the army was so reduced by the terrible struggle of twelve hours—and more by straggling after the rich spoils of the captured camp—as to render further advance madness. And in addition to this, it was claimed that he relied on the information of a most trusty scout—none other than Colonel John Morgan—that Buell's advance could not possibly reach the river within twenty-four hours. Of course, in that event, ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... in command of fifteen ships only, out of all his former force. The rest of the fleet went through a period of hysterical madness. In some ships it lasted for minutes only. In others it went on for half an hour or more. Then they hung overhead, but did not ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... and was introduced into the tomb. So strong was this conviction that the belief has lived on through two changes of religion until the present day. The double still haunts the statues with which he was associated in the past. As in former times, he yet strikes with madness or death any who dare to disturb is repose; and one can only be protected from him by breaking, at the moment of discovery, the perfect statues which the vault contains. The double is weakened or killed by the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... reinforcements, arms, provisions and munitions of war that had been so liberally promised, had failed to reach them, and weakened as they were by such wholesale desertions to the rear, it was deemed by old soldiers to be nothing but madness to remain where they were, as they would be wholly unable with such a small force to make even a decent show of a fight, should they happen to be attacked, and it was at once determined to give up the intended invasion, leave Canada, and head ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... had no thought ever to let you know. I was the King's man-at-arms, as I am now;" and he burst into a harsh laugh. "Here's madness! The King's man-at-arms dumps him down in the King's chair! I had a thought to live to you, if you understand, as a man writes a poem to his mistress, to make my life the poem, an unsigned poem that you would never read, and yet unsigned, unread, would make its creator glad and ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... we know to have some noble impulses. How eagerly, yet sorrowingly we watch his movements! The dice rattle, they are thrown, and again thrown; thousands after thousands he wins and lays aside; and at last, in the madness of the game, stakes the whole sum, with his house, estate, all on the hazard of one cast. With beating heart we listen to the rattling of the dice, and with strained gaze watch the blow. The box is lifted—all is lost. Now we ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... and I believe it was a dispensation of Providence that those arrogant officers of the guard, who thought it was only necessary to show themselves in order to drive away the French, and who went so far in their madness as to whet their swords on the doorsteps of the house of our ambassadors, should now be duly humiliated and chastised. For the guards of Potsdam and Berlin are among the captured of the corps of the Prince von Hohenlohe, and they will soon arrive in Berlin. A royal prince also, the brother ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... thought was madness, and, little as we had met, I counted her already a dear friend; but my protestations seemed only to make her ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... parrot-scream; she could not talk. It was one of her black days when the world was turned to madness. Abdullah retired from the vain attempt to get some sense from her with ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... rising sun, when I was startled by the words, "Thank God," faintly uttered behind me. Suddenly she had awoke from her torpor, and with a heart overflowing I went to her bedside. Her eyes were full of madness! She spoke; but the brain ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... is it prompts the roving mania—is it love Of wild adventure fanciful, unique, and odd? Is it to be in fashion, and to others prove One's social standing, that impels the madness of The tramp abroad? ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... and besides, during the night it would have been folly to venture beyond the walls. We arrived, therefore, at the exit of the passage without meeting with any obstacle. But at the last moment I was seized with a fit of madness. I threw down my torch, and leaned ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... pursuit on horseback was impossible. Knowing that it would have been equally fruitless to continue the chase on foot, they returned to the point where Van Dyk and Considine had entered the jungle, fully expecting to find them there, as it would have been madness, they thought, for two unsupported men to follow up the flying band. To their surprise ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... the wife at him, and even the mother at her little child; as if, in every creature that God has made, they suspected a witch, or dreaded an accuser. Never, never again, whether in this or any other shape, may Universal Madness ...
— Main Street - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... clamour from my lips, sending crinkles of cold through my inmost blood. For with the words which I read were all mixed up visions of crawling hearses, wails, and lugubrious crapes, and piercing shrieks of madness in strange earthy vaults, and all the mournfulness of the black Vale of Death, and the tragedy of corruption. Twice during the ghostly hours of that night the absolute and undeniable certainty that ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... Surely, surely, No: The fear of the punishment would make thee forbear; yea, would make thee tremble, even then when thy lusts were powerfull, to think what a punishment thou wast sure to sustain, so soon as the pleasure was over. But Oh! the folly, the madness, the desperate madness that is in the hearts of Mr. Badmans friends, who in despite of the threatnings of an holy and sin revenging God, and of the outcries and warnings of all good men; yea, that will in despite of the groans and torments ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... Lydia. She had already suggested that madness was the real reason of the seclusion of the tenants at the Warren. Cashel saw the glance, and intercepted it by turning to her and saying, with ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... Lord! what madness rules in brainsick men When, for so slight and frivolous a cause, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... drama!—oh, be sure It shall not be forgot! With its Phantom chased for evermore By a crowd that seize it not, Through a circle that ever returneth in To the self-same spot; And much of Madness, and more of Sin And Horror, the soul ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... But always to throw, without distinction, the blame of all disorders upon the sovereign would introduce a fatal error in politics, and serve as a perpetual apology for treason and rebellion: as if the turbulence of the great, and madness of the people, were not, equally with the tyranny of princes, evils incident to human society, and no less carefully to be guarded ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... top of the bank, now, and the man, still holding her in his arms, stood upon a mat of jungle grass beneath a great tree. Slowly he lowered her to her feet. The madness of desire still gripped him; but now there was another force at work combating the evil ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... preparations to date, asserted that it was universally agreed no restoration of the Union was possible and answered British fears by declaring it was impossible to believe that even the American madness could contemplate a servile insurrection. The friendly Spectator also discussed the matter and repeatedly. It was a mistaken idea, said this journal, that there could be no enfranchisement without a slave rising, but should this occur, "the right of the slave to regain his freedom, even if ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... withdrawal of the Bill was remarkable. A delirium of triumph appeared to have seized the entire country, and more particularly the populations of the large cities; but singularly true was Lord Castlereagh's prophecy, that in six months the King would be the most popular person in his dominions. The madness of the multitude necessarily brought about a reaction. "When the struggle was over and the victory gained," observes an historian of these events, "the King and his Ministers defeated, and the Queen secured in her rank and fortune, they began to reflect ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... instant, then made a rush at me; I fired, but missed. I had a vision of a poised decanter; a second later, the missile caught me in the chest and hurled me back against the wall. As I fell I dropped my weapon, and they were upon me. I thought it was all over; but as they surged round, in the madness of drink and anger, I, looking through their ranks, saw the door open and a crowd of men rush in. Who was at their head? Thank God! it was the colonel, and his voice rose high ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... hereabout; for our coast was dangerous, a menace to vessels, and not innocent, besides, of smugglers and worse. Perhaps the poverty of his later years was at the root of his delusion; perhaps his madness would have taken this form anyhow. However he had fallen into the fat man's hands, this was the secret of the latter's power. While I pondered gloomily, the sitting (so to call it) came to an end. Perhaps my unwelcome appearance somewhat contracted it. My grandfather ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... trembling no longer, but steady—firm as a rock. She must find Guy. Wherever he was, she must find him. That money—her own sacred charge—must be returned before she faced Burke again. Guy was mad. She must save him from his madness. This fight for Guy's soul—she had seen it coming. She realized it as a hand to hand fight with Kieff. But she would win. She was bound to win. So she told herself. No power of evil could possibly triumph ultimately, and she knew that deep in his inmost heart Guy acknowledged this. ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... madness!" he exclaimed, angrily. "There are spies everywhere. Your brother and I were overheard talking together at this very place. I may be ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... which she had learned that he was staying at the Grand Babylon on his own account, as a wealthy visitor. She thought it bizarre, but she certainly had not taken it for a sign of lunacy. And yet it had been a sign of madness. And the worst of harmless lunacy was that it might develop at any moment into ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... For as the Laplander grew frenzied, and foamed at the mouth, so it has been with all false prophets from the beginning. Even the blind heathen called prophesying mania, or the wisdom of madness. The secret of producing this madness was known to them; sometimes it was by the use of roots or aromatic herbs, or by exhalations, as in the case of the Pythoness, whose incoherent utterances were written by the priests of Apollo, for when the fit was over, all remembrance of ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... feeling his way and found things not at all to his liking. To attempt, alone and with an empty pocket, to drive a favorite monarch from the throne, seemed the act of madness. But the ambitious youth had dreamed his dream of royal state and had no fancy for returning to a humble ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... she laid her hand on the hilt of a dagger passed through her girdle. At the same time she suddenly threw back her veil, and displayed features in which all the signs of rage and madness could be traced. No longer having a doubt as to the person I had to deal with, my first movement was to rise and stand on my guard; but this first feeling overcome, I repented the thought of a struggle with the unhappy woman, and determined on employing a method ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... of Anahuac—"by the waters"—was built, still remains; but the picturesque lake which beautified it, traversed by causeways and covered with floating gardens laden with trees and flowers, has disappeared. Though the conquered natives, roused at last to a spirit of madness by the unequaled cruelty and extortion of the victors, rose in a body and expelled them from their capital, still the ruthless valor of Cortez and his followers, aided by artful alliance with disaffected native tribes, together ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... (1601-1680), gives an account, in his "Musurgia," of the cure of this madness by certain airs, by which the patient is stimulated to dance violently. The perspiration thus produced was said to effect a cure. In his "Phonurgia nova" (1673) Kircher actually gives the notes of the tune by which one ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... of neutrality were maintained, and a mitigated Episcopacy only seemed to be insisted on, it was far from the intention of the ministry always to preserve like regard to the Presbyterians. The madness of the Fifth Monarchy men afforded them a pretence for departing from it. Venner, a desperate enthusiast, who had often conspired against Cromwell, having, by his zealous lectures inflamed his own imagination and that of his followers, issued forth at their head into the streets of London. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... admiration, and declares that any nation might be proud to claim their genius. Longfellow and Lowell, Emerson and Motley, to whom we could add almost all the well-known thinkers of the country, men after his own heart in most things, belong to this 'ignorant' or 'false' sect. Is it their one madness? That is a strange madness which besets our greatest men and women; a marvelous anomaly surely. Yet there must be something sympathetic in abolitionism to Mr. Trollope, for he prefers Boston, the centre of this ignorance, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... fierce and monstrous gladness Spread through the multitudinous streets, fast flying Upon the wings of fear:—From his dull madness The starveling waked, and died in joy: the dying, Among the corpses in stark agony lying, Just heard the happy tidings, and in hope Closed their faint eyes: from house to house replying With loud acclaim ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... with his bare feet to quicken her pace. But Frank bade him stop. Despite the man's optimism he could not believe it wise to allow tiny tots like that to play with such a huge, clumsy animal. He was sure that their mother would be horrified if she knew it. He loved children, and felt that it was madness to allow these babies to ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... the madness of Mrs. Smithers, however, for she had once seen the departed Mr. Judson going out to the orchard with a tin box under his arm and her own spade but partially concealed under his long overcoat. When he came back, he was smiling, which was so unusual that she forgot all about ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... for what he did at a fixed rate; and that by his being bewitched by a passion for gaming, whereby he lost vast sums of money; and even what he got in his state of servitude by day, he commonly lost at night: nor could he ever be cured of this cursed madness. Those of his works, therefore, which he did in this unhappy part of his life may easily be conceived to be in a different style to what he did before, which in some things, that is, in the airs of his heads (in ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... Wherefore this madness? What will these gentlemen think? They will say, and rightly, that you have no education, and that our family has not known how to bring you up. Now, ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... could she confide it? How stab the father's heart so cruelly! To tell him that Berta had lost her reason would be to kill him. The good man watched over his daughter with the eyes of love, but love itself made him blind and he did not perceive her madness. ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... nation of singularities. I doubt not that it is true, he has hidden the truth from you. True or false, I care not. They are mad. For this I care not. My faith, I have not married an Englishman. Why, then, should I care for the madness of this nation ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... force their way through the loose bed of the torrent no longer, and came to a stop, he poked it into their bodies, beat it on their heads, screwed it round and round in their nostrils, got them on a yard or two, in the madness of intense pain; repeated all these persuasions, with increased intensity of purpose, when they stopped again; got them on, once more; forced and goaded them to an abrupter point of the descent; and when their writhing and smarting, and the weight behind them, bore ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... is close upon you when the madness of the season Having howled itself to silence, like a Minnesota 'clone, Will at last be superseded by the still, small voice of reason, When the whelpage of your folly ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... no reply. He was placed in a very disagreeable and painful position. He knew that it was madness to send a boat off while the squall was impending. Mr. Hamblin was wrathy. The long billows were black and smooth, and the sails hung idly on the gaffs. There was no danger then, and the learned gentleman had been so fortunate as never to see ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... and thus I used to speak to myself; goaded almost to madness at one moment, and at the next reconciling myself to my ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... upon them, and making the Sign of the Cross with his Hand at them, he said, Be gone, ye cursed Fiends to a Place that's fitter for you. You have Work enough to do among Mortals, your Madness has no Power over me, that am now lifted in the Roll of Immortality. The Words were no sooner out of his Mouth, says the Franciscan, but these filthy Birds took their Flight, but left such a Stink behind them, that a House ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... Boer aspirations meant, or the progress already achieved in the direction of their realisation. But this ignorance made the demands of the ultimatum seem the more insolent. To Mr. Balfour it was as though President Krueger had gone mad. But madness or insolence, the effect was the same. With the mass of the nation all hesitation, all balancing of arguments, were at an end. The one thing that was perceived was that any further attempt to treat with a people so minded would be an admission to the world that British supremacy had disappeared ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... back the estate into the mire. I even took the liberty to plead with him; and when he still opposed me with a shake of the head and a bitter dogged smile, my zeal quite carried me beyond my place. "This is midsummer madness," cried I; "and I for one will be no ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Sisters meddling for? Do they find me in their way? I'm flattered! I wish I was. Well!—is drunkenness the worst thing in the world?" she asked herself deliberately. "Of course, if it goes beyond a certain point it is like madness—you must keep out of its way, for your own sake. But papa used to say there were many things a great deal worse. So there are!—meanness, and shuffling with truth for the sake of your soul. As for the other ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... whole thing seems to me to be so mad, that I partly trusted that she would see the madness of it. I am not sure whether you know anything of my nephew George?" ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... de Chateauroux persisted, "yet it is a madness too powerful and sweet to be withstood. Listen, Victoria,"—and he waved his hand toward the palace, whence music, softened by the distance, came from the lighted windows,—"do you not remember? They used to play that air ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... to which they may bring their talents;[2] but how the Miltons, Tavistocks, Althorps, and all who have a great stake in the country can run the same course is more than I can conceive or comprehend. Party is indeed, as Swift says, 'the madness of many,' when carried to its present pitch. In the meantime the Conservative party are as usual committing blunders, which will be fatal to them. Lord Harrowby was to have moved yesterday or the day before, in the House of Lords, a resolution pledging ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... extricate him from his dangerous dilemma, and thus relieved his breast of a mountain of anxiety and distress. But the laugh with which he greeted his approach found no response from Nathan himself, who, having looked with amazement upon Edith and Telie, as if marvelling what madness had brought females at that hour into that wild desert, turned at last to the soldier, ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... But granted that Timea gets it, what would be the result? She would be a rich lady, who would not cast a look at you from her height; and you would remain a miserable supercargo, in whom it would be madness even to dream of her. Now, however, things are the other way—you will be a rich man and she a poor girl. Is not that exactly what you desired of fate? Well, that is what has happened. Did you put that log in the way of the ship which stove her in? Do you mean badly ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... you told us that Hamlet was one of your favourite parts? Is it not the fact that the chief character in the play drives his fiancee to madness and suicide by his cruelty, slays her father and brother, together with his own step-father, and procures the death of two ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... dispassionate reader almost incredible that the English people, who shed his father's blood, who rallied round the Parliament, and were fulsome in their praises of the Protector, should thus suddenly change; but, allowing for "the madness of the people," we look for strength and consistency to the men of learning and letters. We feel sure that he who sang his eulogy of Cromwell dead, can have now no lyric burst for the returning Stuart. ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... but she could not forgive his having seen her in so humiliating a position, and she flung him a look that was full of hatred, feeling in her heart the birth of an unutterable desire for vengeance. With death beside her, the sense of impotence almost strangled her. A whirlwind of passion and madness rose in her head; the blood which boiled in her veins made everything about her seem like a conflagration. Instead of killing herself, she seized the sword and thrust it though the marquis. But the weapon slipped between his arm and side; he caught her by the ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... have been upset, and has gone down in the squall," said Mynheer Barentz. "I thought as much, carrying such a press of sail. There never was a ship that could carry more than the Vrow Katerina. It was madness on the part of the captain of that vessel; but I suppose he wished to keep up with us. Heh, ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... ivories and we all held our breath as we read his four-three. A mad joy flamed in Andrew's face and he turned his cup with a steady wrist—and rolled threes. We none of us looked at Brown, a man who had led another man in whose veins ran a madness, where in his ran ice, on to his ruin. We followed Andrew to the street to see him ride away in a gray drizzle to a gambled home—and a ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... chair than he fell asleep and dreamed. It is not improbable. The power of dreams is great on children's minds, as all of you may know. But in the face of these developments I can hardly bring myself to accept this theory. There is too much method in the child's madness. It looks more like the outcome of some desperate move on the part of this defence to win the game which they have seen slipping from their control. It looks like a deep-laid plan to rob my aged ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... death and destruction in its course, while the infantry from the Third corps poured into the faces of the desperate foe a terrible hail storm of bullets which almost decimated the heavy column. With the desperation of madness, the rebels rushed against this terrible fire, almost reaching the muzzles of the guns, only to be hurled back again by the fearful tornado in front. The Third corps seemed hardly able to hold its position, but ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... consequently so far as he is master of himself (in his senses) and therefore in a healthy condition of mind. But great crimes are paroxysms, the very sight of which makes the man of healthy mind shudder. The question would therefore be something like this: whether a man in a fit of madness can have more physical strength than if he is in his senses; and we may admit this without on that account ascribing to him more strength of mind, if by mind we understand the vital principle of man in the free use of his powers. For since those crimes have their ground merely in the power ...
— The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics • Immanuel Kant
... that meant. The word was used literally; the condemned one was cut off from all communication by having his sensory nerves surgically severed. Madness followed quickly; psychosomatic death followed eventually, as the brain, cut off from any outside stimuli except those which could not be eliminated without death following instantly, finally became incapable of keeping the body alive. ...
— The Highest Treason • Randall Garrett
... and when he sought to know its meaning, the Prophet Daniel was inspired to tell him that it portended his removal from the kingly office for the space of seven years, in consequence of a curious and very unusual kind of madness. This malady, which is not unknown to physicians, has been termed "Lycanthropy." It consists in the belief that one is not a man but a beast, in the disuse of language, the rejection of all ordinary human food, and sometimes ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... allege for our excuse? To live and not know why is unnatural. To reject the causes for which we live, under the influence of a foolish longing for a respite of some few days, during which we are to live in the world, while separated from God—I know not how to name such infatuation and madness! ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... sword with bloudy trembling hand Did brandish round, when straight at her command Hatreds, and strifes appear'd, murder and rage The horrid ruine of the new-borne age, Shee drew along; Tumultuous madness, all The slaughter'd peoples unjust funerall: Each famous kingdome, inexhausted towne In a large streame of bloud by her, o're-throwne. Next followed Her, the plaints, and direfull grones Of sighing parents, rob'd of their little ones, Whole tydes of teares, ...
— The Odes of Casimire, Translated by G. Hils • Mathias Casimire Sarbiewski
... adventure: she suddenly waxed wroth with exceeding wrath, her face flushed red as fire, her eyeballs started out from their sockets and she foamed at the mouth with ungovernable fury. Seeing her in this mood I was terrified and my sense and reason fled by reason of my affright; but presently in the madness of her passion she took up a tasse of water which stood beside her and dipping her fingers in the contents muttered some words which I could not understand; then sprinkling some drops over me, cried, Accursed that thou ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... injured. I remember a quick and clever little girl aged five and a half years who was urged on by her governess to work which she delighted in, till at length the signs of over-taxed brain showed themselves in frequent extreme irritability, and occasional attacks of causeless fury amounting almost to madness. It was fully a year during which almost all mental work was suspended, while the child was sent to have complete change under most judicious management in the country, before her mind quite recovered ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... tongue and sober lip No words of folly pass, Nor, are they found to taste and sip The madness of the glass. ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould
... political arena has been that of a shameless and lawless gamester. He succeeded at the time, but the hour of retribution approaches, and he will be obliged to disgorge his winnings, to throw aside his false dice, and to end his days in some retirement where he may curse his madness at his leisure; for repentance is a virtue with which his heart is likely to ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... with Savile? What, the face was masked? I had the heart to see, sir! Face of flesh, But heart of stone—of smooth cold frightful stone! Ay, call them! Shall I call for you? The Scots Goaded to madness? Or the English—Pym— Shall I call Pym, your subject? Oh, you think I'll leave them in the dark about it all? They shall not know ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with man's voice forbad the madness of the prophet." As Balaam was rebuked by the dumb ass, so these false teachers in their madness for worldly honor, gain and wisdom are rebuked by the humble ignorant Christians, whom they consider ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... a scene were presented on any stage in the world the effect of it would be visible instantaneously on the audience; that had they seen it as I saw it, they would have laughed themselves to hysteria and madness. Finally the Sultan recovered himself, great tears rolling down his cheeks, and his features quivering with laughter, then he slowly uttered the word "kali,"—hot, strong, quick, or ardent medicine. He required no more, but the other ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... disposed to consider the baron subject to fits of temporary derangement; but I was wise enough to do nothing more than nod my head in answer to this appeal, leaving my questioner to interpret the action as he in his madness might ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... there must be at least a cord of wood in that bench. Whittling's rather slow work, it's true, but in a place like this it'll be an occupation, and that's something. Prisoners go mad unless they have something to do; and so, just to save myself from madness, I mean to go in for fuel—unless you can think of something else ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... so!" answered the Queen hastily; "but it is madness, and must not be repeated. Go—but go not far from hence; and meantime let no one ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... manner, in which there was none of the madness that had marked him at our first meeting, but a strange air of authority, unlike anything I had associated with him before, I signed ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... lovers, we got into the habit of thinking together in a common reverie. His intuitions had already acquired that acuteness which must surely characterize the intellectual perceptiveness of great poets and often bring them to the verge of madness. ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... it madness to keep their words, and there's them that don't, Hurry Harry. You may be one of the first, but I'm one of the last. No red-skin breathing shall have it in his power to say that a Mingo minds his word more ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... Is madness contagious? Or is it that, while the sane can exercise but a very limited power over the insane, there is no limit to the influence which the insane can gain over one another? Living in a world of their own, where delusions pass for palpable facts, where the logical ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... back, with all the effortless grace of youth—a light heart, an easy conscience. He deliberately left his place and walked back to meet her. She waved her hand gayly. There was color in her cheeks now, and her eyes laughed into his. The shadows were gone. He felt that this was madness, and yet he said what he had come ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Gods; and, How may I rest satisfied with the Divine Administration; and, How may I become free? For he is free for whom all things come to pass according to his will, and whom none can hinder. What then, is freedom madness? God forbid. For madness and ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... absurdities supposed in maintaining the contrary opinion; because it is certain, that princes have it in their power to keep a majority on their side, by any tolerable administration; till provoked by continual oppressions, no man indeed can then answer where the madness of the people ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... one—consisted in overlooking the beneficial effect of that very superstition, then so pernicious, in a prior age of the world, when violence was universal, crime prevalent alike in high and low places, and government impotent to check either the tyranny of the great or the madness of the people. Then it was that superstition was the greatest blessing which Providence, in mercy, could bestow on mankind; for it effected what the wisdom of the learned or the efforts of the active were alike unable to effect; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... with it, "the little stars high up at the zenith twinkle like silver bees. Those that sit on the edge of the horizon are huge and golden, like desert watch-fires. Oh, do you know, Lord Ernest, if quite a dull, uninteresting man, or—or one that it would be madness even to think of—proposed to me on such a night, I should have to say yes. It would seem so prosaic and such a waste, of moonlight, not to. Wouldn't you feel like that if ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... retorted. "Prying or not, I didn't want it. Staring eyes, condoling words, and mockery in their hearts! 'He got what he deserved for his madness,' they'd ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... Treves were amazed at what they considered his madness; but they gave him no hindrance, nor did they molest him in any way. Indeed, in no long time the fame of his penance was noised abroad, and multitudes came, as they had come at Ancyra, to see with their own eyes what ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton |
